Shift (ChronoShift Trilogy) (36 page)

Ty’s face lit as he suddenly grasped what Mark was saying.  “Well, you would remember things as they had been, since we always seem to remember the way things were before we change them, but all the financial statements in your filing cabinets would instantly be altered to reflect the financial history they represent.  Any change in the past would be virtually undetectable from documents or any other physical evidence.  Your memory is the
only thing
you can rely on to know if you’re supposed to have two dollars or two trillion dollars to your name.

“Exactly.  Theoretically, if I’d written last month’s balance on a napkin to compare with the statements later, what I’d written on the napkin would change as soon as the past changed.”

“So, why aren’t our memories affected this way?”

“I don’t know.”

They both fell quiet, processing this new set of mind-bending, time-travel hypotheses.  Ty finally broke the silence.

“What are you suggesting, Mark?  How can the past change by itself?”

“That’s just it.  It can’t.”  He paused, preparing him for the full weight of what he was about to say.  “The
only
way the past can change is if somebody with a shifter goes back and changes it.”

“You don’t think it was me, do you?”

“No.”

“Please tell me you don’t think it was Hardy.”

Mark grimaced.  “I guess it could have been, but no, I don’t think it was Hardy.”

“How could you know?  You two parted company pretty steamed.”

“I just know.  There are things which haven’t happened yet....I just know.”

Ty gave him an odd look, wondering what that cryptic remark had meant.

“Then, what?”

“Somebody must have a shifter besides the three of us.”

“How is that possible?”

“Same way we got ours?  Maybe they found it.  Who knows?  Maybe whoever has the other shifter is the same person who left these shifters for me to find.  There’s no telling.”

“You really think someone else has a shifter?”

“I don’t know.  It’s either that or my memory has gone completely to pot.”

“What if something we went back and changed happened to accidentally affect one of your past investments negatively?” Ty asked.

“Can you think of anything?”

“No...”

“I can’t either.”

“Then, how in the world will we figure it out?” Ty grumbled.  “Do you mind if I take a look?”  He motioned to the statements laying on Mark’s desk.  Mark nodded in assent.

Ty picked up one of the documents and studied it.

“Mark, this says $18 billion.”

“What?  Let me see that!”  Mark snatched the statement out of Ty’s hand, scanning it furiously.

“$18 billion,” he whispered. “Someone else has a shifter, all right, and they’re targeting us.”

***

It hadn’t taken Mark long to figure out which of his financial dealings had been attacked.  Logically, for his net worth to drop so dramatically, some change had to have been made early in his wealth building process.  Recent changes wouldn’t affect the overall balances that much.  It was like following a compass that was one degree off.   In short distances, the error wouldn’t affect your path significantly, but over a great distance, the difference would be huge.

Luckily, he remembered and was familiar with most of the early enterprises he’d entered into.  To lose more than 25% of his net worth in two fell swoops, Mark took a guess that a change would have to have taken place in his accounts prior to the 1980's.  So, he studied his financial summaries dating before then.  Most of the stocks he remembered purchasing were still on record. 

There it was
.   Absent from his real estate holdings were the properties he’d bought in Atlanta prior to 1970.  He’d purchased a number of what would one day be prime commercial real estate in two communities he knew would experience explosive growth after 1980, Buckhead and Midtown.  After 1984, he’d begun selling those properties at a tremendous profit.  Whether or not those sales had been the seed for 25% of his wealth, he didn’t know.  He couldn’t recall the original sales prices, or even how many there had been.

He was pretty sure that something else had been changed too though.   His accounts had first dropped to $21 billion, and then to $18 billion.  That seemed to indicate two changes to what he’d done, but for the life of him, he couldn’t find the other change.

With $18 billion in the bank, it wasn’t like their operation was going to start struggling any time soon, but if some mischievous person with a shifter could drop him by that much so easily, then the guy could take everything if Mark let it go unchecked.  They had to do something about this and fast.

He and Ty had arranged to meet later that afternoon, so Mark waited until he got back.

“Do you want me to go with you?”  Ty asked.

“Not yet.  I’m just going to do some preliminary investigation work.  It’ll be less conspicuous if I go alone.  Stick around, though, because as soon as I figure out who’s doing this, I’ll need your help.  If somebody’s got a shifter, they’ll shift out as soon as they see us.  We have to take them by surprise and pin their arms behind their back.”

Ty nodded.  “What'll we do with them then?”

“Not sure.  Bring ‘em back here and question them, I guess.”

***

All of those real estate dealings had been done through one real estate agency in Atlanta.  He’d bought up the properties between 1955 and 1970 and begun selling in 1984.  None of those sales were showing up now on his financials, and tax records from Fulton County were no longer in his files.

He’d personally sat in on some of those closings and knew he'd received copies of deeds, etc.  There was no doubt he’d purchased the properties.  The question was why Fulton County suddenly had no record of them.

Visiting his Atlanta real estate agency, they were quickly able to provide him with records showing that as far as they knew, he had in fact purchased the lots through them.  So, that part of history hadn’t changed.  Checking further into his own files, he’d found copies of the deeds he’d received after the closings.

Understanding dawned.  Someone in the County Clerk’s office had to have illegally altered the records of all his properties.

He went to the Fulton County Clerk's office and checked the deeds on file for the properties he could remember off the top of his head.  Of the three properties he could easily recall, two showed they were owned by an unfamiliar corporation at the time when he should have been the owner.  A third was registered to a different company, but further investigation revealed that both those corporations had the same parent company.  After that, he hit a wall.  The registered owner of the parent company was one John Smith.

Whoever “John Smith” was, he was the man Mark was after.  This Smith had a shifter and he must have bribed one of the employees of the County Clerk’s office to change the names on the deeds.  Must have been a pretty big bribe too.  Mark was sure altering official real estate records would carry a stiff penalty, and it was an easily detectable crime.

Research revealed a possible culprit.  A young man by the name of Jeffrey Wilson had worked in the Clerk’s office until 1971, and then abruptly quit.  Circumstantial evidence indicated that was the year the last change had been made to Mark’s property records.

If Mark was going to identify “John Smith”, he was going to have to stake out Jeffrey Wilson.

March 23
^rd
, 1971, Atlanta, GA

It was a nice spring day in late March and pear trees were blossoming throughout Atlanta, though a crisp breeze made the air a bit chillier than one would hope.

“Fill me in,” Ty said.

He sat next to Mark on a bench in a small park across the street from a sidewalk café in downtown Atlanta.

“That young man over there in the brown tweed jacket is Jeff Wilson.  He works at the Fulton County Clerk’s office.  I’m pretty sure our mysterious shifter is going to meet him here for lunch and give Wilson a envelope full of cash so Wilson will falsify the deed records to some of my properties, illegally putting them in the names of other corporations.  Later this afternoon, Wilson will deposit $100,000 into his checking account, which is a
lot
of money for a county clerk in 1971.  Two weeks from now, the young man will flee the country and live in Mexico for the rest of his life.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Just in case this Smith knows our faces, we’ll keep a low profile.  We'll wait until he shows up for the meeting, then follow, and try to catch him by surprise.”

“Do you think it’s smart for us to be sitting together on this bench?”

“Why not?  We’re far enough away.”

“Dude, a black man and a white man sitting together on a bench in Atlanta in 1971 ain’t keeping a low profile.”

“Ah....sorry.”

“I’ll shift back and get some beat up clothes.  I can hang out in that alley over there and pretend to be a bum.”

“All right.”

After a while, John Smith showed up as they'd hoped, but somehow he must have spotted Mark.  No sooner had he sat down than he glanced Mark's way and bolted, racing off down the street.  Instantly, Mark was on his feet in full pursuit.

Smith turned sharply down the alleyway where Ty had been waiting, but the speed at which everything happened caught Ty off guard, which allowed Smith to momentarily slip past him.

“Ty!” Mark yelled.  He was still too far away to do any good.

Ty recovered quickly and turned.  He would gain on Smith in a matter of seconds.  Suddenly, a short burst of static electricity crackled, and Smith disappeared before their eyes.

Mark arrived at Ty’s side, stopped and rested his hands on his knees in an attempt to catch his breath.  They exchanged looks.

“Looks like we were right,” Mark panted, “We’ve got another shifter on our hands.”

***

April 22
^nd
, 2013, Boston, MA

When they arrived back at ChronoShift headquarters, Mark rechecked his financial statements.  His net worth was back up to $22 Billion.  They hadn’t been successful in identifying Smith, but it appeared they had permanently messed up the fraudulent real estate records plan.  Jeff Wilson wouldn't flee to Mexico with a hundred grand in his pocket; he'd be a clerk for the rest of his life.

“So, how do we find this guy now?”  Ty asked.

“I’m still missing another $3 Billion.  That means he’s sabotaged me at least once more at some point in the past.”

Mark breathed in deep the aroma of fresh coffee filling their office suite.  Savannah had just made a fresh pot.  She was using a new brewing method she called Melitta, which was basically a manual pour over, but it certainly made a delicious cup of java.  He was going to need that coffee because he'd be up late tonight pouring over his various records and statements looking for something that might have been altered.

“Do have any idea where?”

“No.  I already tried to figure it out once, but I didn’t notice anything else amiss.  I’m going to have to go through my records with a fine toothed comb.  It’s lucky for us this guy’s acted more than once, or we wouldn’t know where to find him at all now. 
When
to find him, I mean.”

“Why is he targeting you, Mark?  Any idea?”  Ty rubbed his forehead vigorously with the heel of his hand as if trying to stimulate clearer thinking.

“No.  I really don’t.”

“Is he just trying to get our attention or is he trying to hurt us?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.  We’ll ask him when we find him.”

“All right.”  Ty stood.  “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?  Aren’t you going to help?”

“Nah.  First of all, I’m
hungry.  Second, you’re the only one who would be able to tell which investment is missing from your accounts.  I’ve got no idea what you did or didn’t do.”

“True.”

“You want me to bring you something?”

“Sure, get me a cheeseburger.”

Late that night, Mark finally found it.  It took a while to notice what was missing because it wasn’t just one thing.  It was a number of different stock purchases.  At first, it seemed like only a couple of stocks were missing from his portfolio.  Stocks he’d purchased in the 1960's.  The connection between them hadn’t been obvious right away.

Then, he remembered that he’d purchased both stocks from a firm called Hodges & Tomlin.  That little tidbit had brought to memory a few more stocks he remembered buying through the same firm at the same time.  None of those stocks showed up in his files either.  He’d probably bought a total of about 15 different stocks through Hodges & Tomlin, but nothing involving that firm showed up at all now.

He decided “Smith” must have bribed someone in the stock firm to forge documents like he had at the County Clerk’s office in Atlanta.  Doing some rough calculations, Mark guesstimated that those stock purchases and the profits from them had resulted in about $3 Billion over the last 40 years.  Thankfully, it appeared that was the extent of the damage Smith had wrought so far, but if they didn’t stop the man soon, Mark would be spending all his time fixing whatever Smith undid.