Shift (ChronoShift Trilogy) (16 page)

Luckily, he was alone.  Once he recovered, which took several minutes, he staggered to his feet and exited into the hall.

Still alone.  Blessing after blessing.

He made his way downstairs, through the kitchen, and out through the rear service entrance, unopposed and unnoticed.  Mission accomplished.

He walked all the way to the street, cravat in hand, and shifted forward to 2012 where he’d left his vehicle.

Oooooh.  What in the world had he been thinking?

An hour passed before he was able to stand after the attack of dry heaves which overcame him.  He should have walked around for a couple of hours back in 1926 before shifting again.  Of course, the shift sickness would be terrible after so many times.

His shifter's face glowed red.  In other words, inoperative for 24 hours.

Oh well.  At least the task was done.

***

9:33 AM, June 10
^th
, 2012, Boston, Massachusetts

This time, Mark and Hardy’s pre-planned rendezvous point was a park bench in downtown Boston.

Mark had studied the life of Randolph Vinson before he’d begun his latest mission.  He’d wanted to know everything he could about his target.  He’d been surprised to learn that, unlike Herbert Walker, Randolph Vinson had not been a kind philanthropist, just your run-of-the-mill greedy aristocrat clawing his way to the top of Boston’s high society in the 1920's.  His holdings had taken a dip in the crash of ‘29, but nothing crippling.  He’d gone on to even better investments, but nothing remarkable.  He’d died an alcoholic at the mild age of 58.

Before meeting with Hardy this morning, Mark had taken the time to re-research Vinson’s life
now
sans cravat
, but Mark couldn’t see anything significantly different about it.  A few of the names of the companies with which Vinson was associated changed, but nothing more.  He still drank himself to an early death and left a good bit of money to his heirs.

However, it was interesting to see that a single piece of clothing could somehow affect someone’s life enough to impact which businesses they invested in.  How that worked itself out, Mark had no idea.  The complexities involved in calculating such factors were beyond him.

So far, the day was cool and breezy, unusually so for June, even in Massachusetts.  The sky overhead glowed a rich, vibrant blue and was filled with large puffy clouds that stretched from horizon to horizon.  His dad would have called it a travelin’ sky.  A travelin’ sky was the kind of sky you could only find in summer, one whose colors and depth made you want to keep going over the next hill just to see what was there.  You always felt restless under a sky like that, like you couldn’t feel at home till you knew what lay beyond.

“So....you wanna know what the whole cravat thing was about?”  Hardy asked.

“Figured if I asked, I’d probably just get another one of those shrugs.”

Hardy chuckled.

“Forget about it,” Mark said.

“I’ll try to pick another gesture to demonstrate non-committal.”  He grinned and Mark couldn’t help but chuckle too.

“Nah, I like you Phillips.   Well, I guess I do anyway.  You seem like a decent guy.  I just can’t stand being left in the dark.  Not knowing tends to get under my skin.”

“All right.  Let’s enlighten you a bit.  Randolph Vinson was a very vain man, I don’t know if you caught that from watching him or not....”

“Yeah, I definitely got that impression from his room.”

“....and he was fanatical about climbing Boston’s social ladder.  The night you were there, he had invited many prominent businessmen to dinner along with their wives, of course with the intent of impressing them.  Many a momentous business deal has been made during social events such as that.  Probably more than in actual boardrooms.

“Anyway, Randolph made it a habit to never let himself be seen by his guests until dinner was served.  Once all his guests were seated in the dining hall with food on their plates, he would make his dramatic entrance, right on time, and take his seat at the head of the table.  Some might call that immaturity, others a flair for the dramatic.

“That particular evening, Vinson had specifically invited Sir William Hirsch of England as an honored guest.  His intent was to sufficiently impress Mr. Hirsch and perhaps enter into one or more business ventures with the wealthy British knight.  In unaltered history, he did just that, and the pair became strong business partners.

“However, your cravat-stealing changed everything.  Because of your intervention, Mr. Vinson could not find that crucial piece of attire, and he was not about to go greet his guests inappropriately dressed.  He went ballistic tearing apart his suite and turning his closet upside down looking for it.  Since he knew he’d left it on his bed, he was all the more determined to keep looking.

“In the meantime, his guests waited obediently, yet uncomfortably, around his dining room table while their food grew cold.  After 30 minutes, he finally gave up and descended to greet everyone without his blessed French cravat.  By then, he’d waited too long to pick a new outfit.

“The long-short of it is this: Sir Hirsch was not overly impressed, in fact, he developed a negative idea about Vinson, and the two never became business partners.  That in itself did not affect either man much, but it did others associated with them.

“Raymond Jones was one of Vinson’s good friends, a good-hearted man without the same naked ambition Vinson displayed.  He owned an architectural firm in Boston which helped develop many different civil engineering projects.

“In the unaltered history, through Vinson, Raymond Jones met Sir Hirsch, and later on down the road, Hirsch asked Jones to hire his nephew as a project supervisor, which he did.  Unbeknownst to good-hearted Jones, Hirsch’s nephew was corrupt, and on at least one major project, he skimmed a large amount of funds off the top by scrimping on materials.

“That nephew of Hirsch's supervised the construction of a certain apartment building and shorted materials from the project to line his own pockets a little more.  Two years later, its roof collapsed in the middle of the night, killing 7 tenants.  All the blame landed on Raymond Jones and his firm, though it was Hirsch’s nephew who did it.  Jones was ruined socially and financially.  He eventually committed suicide.  His son grew up to be an alcoholic, regularly beating his wife and kids.  Jones’ other children grew up to similar fates and lived in different states of poverty throughout New Jersey.

“However, since you changed things and Vinson never partnered with Hirsch, that means Raymond Jones
also
never met Hirsch, and so was never asked to hire Hirsch’s nephew at the firm.  Jones went on to become a successful and well-respected builder in the community.  There is no suicide, no alcoholism, no abuse, and no hopelessness.  Amazing what one little tie can do, huh?”

Mark sat dumbfounded.  “Yeah” was all he could manage to say.

“As long as it’s the
right
tie, that is.”

Mark considered the story, amazed at the effect of one small object on the lives of so many.  It was mind-boggling.  It made time feel like a giant minefield, and if you took the wrong step, it might blow up a few hundred lives here, or another thousand over there.

“Did anything else change?”

“Yes, actually.  Vinson was convinced his maid had done something with the cravat, and there were reports of a mysterious caterer who appeared and disappeared like a ghost, so Vinson fired everybody.”

“The maid became destitute, and because Vinson ruined her reputation with every notable family in the area, she was eventually forced to prostitute herself out to survive.  She overcame it though, not like Jones.”

“The catering company also had trouble getting jobs after Vinson started badmouthing them around town.  After a year, the owner had to close up shop.  That result was unexpected, but it was directly due to your posing as a caterer.”

“You mean, something happened which you guys
didn’t
predict?”

“Maybe.”

“Hallelujah!  I didn’t think that was possible!”

In spite of his exuberance at catching Hardy off guard, he felt terrible.  The original mess, with the collapsed building and the suicidal architect, had at least been the result of natural history.  This other was directly due to Mark’s intervention.

Natural History
.  Now there was a reinvented term if he had ever heard one.

As soon as he got a chance, he would have to make sure the maid and the owner of the catering company were taken care of financially so they wouldn’t face ruin.

12:08 PM, June 10
^th
, 2012, Boston, MA

The coolness of the morning evaporated as the day wore on.  The sun grew hot and beat down on them as they strolled through downtown Boston.  Every now and then, a slight breeze broke through and wafted up through the streets, barely cooling their skin in a tantalizing and unsatisfying way.

Businessmen and women in stifling suits traversed the streets in all directions as they hurried to squeeze in what they could before their hour break was up.  Mothers herded their children through crosswalks, and persistent street vendors pushed their wares on every single person who passed by.  It was lunch time.

The restaurant they chose was really nothing more than a small sidewalk café.  There was something quaint about relaxing at an outside table while the city passed you by.  The waitress took their orders and promised to have their food out shortly.

“Tell me, Phillips, how is it that in the Vinson case I altered history like a finger dragging through water, producing ripples whether I wanted to or not, yet every single effort I dreamed up to save my kids was to no avail?”

A homeless man came to a stop right in front of their table, struggling with his shopping cart full of useless junk.  A wheel had caught in a hole in the sidewalk.  He finally freed it and as he passed by, Phillips handed him a twenty dollar bill.

“I don’t know the answer to that, Mark, I’m sorry.”

“No shrug?”

“This isn’t something I know the answer to, but don’t want to reveal.   It’s really something I don’t know, plain and simple.”

“Then, how do you know where to send me for these missions?  How do you know I’m going to be able to make a change for the positive?”

“Should I shrug now?”

“Ha, ha.”

Mark waited, but Phillips wasn’t budging.

“Where do these watches come from, Phillips?”

“Call me Hardy.”

“All right.”

“We don’t know the answer to that.”

“What do you mean you don’t know....and what do you mean by
we
?  You keep saying we.  Who else knows about these things and how many of them are there?  Are you with the government or not?”

“Take it easy.  No, I’m not with the government, for the millionth time.  I’m going to take a pass on answering all your other questions for now.  Don’t worry, I promise you’ll find out in due time.  What I will tell you is that
we
is not a very big number.”

“But surely you know how these devices work?  I mean....I thought time travel was impossible.  Well, I should say, I was
sure
it was impossible — until I lived it.  I took Physics in college.  Aren’t you supposed to have to travel the speed of light to achieve time travel?  And isn’t it actually impossible to reach the speed of light without an infinite amount of energy?”

“We have our theories, but so far, we don’t really know for sure how the watches work, nor where they came from.”

“Amazing.”

“Yep.”

“I mean it’s amazing you’ve got no idea what you’re dealing with, but you keep using them.”

“Yep.  Same as you.”

“Touché.  Haven’t you had engineers take a look at them?”

“It’s a bit difficult to reverse engineer something you can’t remove from a person’s wrist.  Plus, there is no apparent way to open the device without damaging it.  We’d have to force or cut it open, and that could be disastrous.”

“Surely you could set up instruments around a person before they shift and take measurements of the magnetic fields or something.”

“We’ve done that.”

“And?”

“Later.”

If a grown man could pout, Mark was doing it right now.  While Hardy was a naturally likable person, Mark still grew more and more frustrated with each evasive answer.  Yet, he had no choice but to let his need to know go.  He was too green at this to put up a decent fight.  Understanding would have to wait.

They ate and paid their bill.  Then, Hardy asked Mark to follow him back to his office, which surprised him.  Mark hadn’t known Phillips had an office here in Boston.

The office was located in an older building that had once been a town home.  It looked to have been built sometime in the late 1800's.  They walked up several flights of stairs until they reached the third floor.

It was a large open space, bright and airy; large enough for three desks with plenty of room between them.  One desk was empty, clear of any sign of an occupant.  Another supported volumes of piles of papers and books, though all were neatly arranged, as if they’d just been straightened by someone with severe neurotic tendencies.