Shift (ChronoShift Trilogy)

by Zack Mason

  “Why don’t you pop into next year and see how ol’ Hugh actually turns out,” Ty suggested. “Then, we can settle this issue.”

  “Sounds good to me. Anyone watching?”

  “Nope.”

  Mark set his shifter to a couple of years in the future. Give the man more time to define himself.

  The café/restaurant was rustic, small, and quaint. A couple of men seated at a table drinking some coffee were the only patrons. The waitress/cook was an older woman in her fifties, her streaky, brown hair put up in a bonnet.

  “Can I hep’ you?”

  “Just coffee, ma’am, if that’s all right?”

  “Fine.”

  He sat and sipped from his cup. The other two men were heatedly discussing Northern reconstruction efforts and carpetbaggers. Mark was in 1867 and the civil war had ended two years ago.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen, don’t mean to bother you, but I’m looking for a Hugh Plageanet. Know anything about him?”

  “Yeah, we know plenty, son. Who’s askin’?”

  “Name’s Smith. It’s just a business matter.”

  “You ain’t got no northern accent. Whatcha you doin’ round here?”

  “I’m no Yank, just looking for Plageanet.”

  “Well, if’n you were one of them carpetbaggers, we’d have sent you right on to him. But seein’ as how you ain’t a Yank, I’d recommend you steer as clear of him as you can. He don’ live ‘round here no more anyhow.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with him?”

  “The man’s just plumb mean is all. When the war ended, he kilt as many of his slaves as he could rather than let ‘em go free. Mean ol’ turd. A few escaped, but he finished off most. Since, he’s taken to robbin’ banks and hangs with some thieving outfit out west. Last I heard, he'd kilt some folk south of Indian Territory.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I will steer clear after all. Thanks for the advice.”

  “No bother.”

  Mark finished his coffee and then left the café to shift back to Ty.

  ***

  “Okay, I’m in.”

  Ty smiled for the first time in hours. “Simple as that?”

  “Simple as that. Didn’t have to do much research either. First couple of guys I asked knew all about him. When the war ends, he kills all his slaves rather than set them free.”

  Ty cursed under his breath.

  “So, how to you want to do it?” Mark asked.

  “Wait here,” Ty ordered.

  Ty stood and walked over to the town’s general store. He was good at playing his role. He hung his head demurely and shuffled a bit, just like a fearful slave might do.

  Ty entered, hat in hand.

  “Can I hep’ ya, boy?” The man behind the counter was of average age, balding, and had a slight paunch. He removed his reading glasses to see Ty better.

  “Ma Massah, he wan’ sum dahnomite.”

  “Who’s ya master, boy? Ain’t never seen you before.”

  “Massah Plajnay, suh.”

  “All right. Now what was it you wanted again?”

  “Dah-no-mite.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Dynamite.”

  “Never heard of it. If this is some kind of joke, boy, I’ll...”

  “Ne’ermin’”

  Ty left quickly and crossed the square again.

  “Hey, Mark.”

  “That was quick.”

  “Yeah. When was dynamite invented? This guy hadn’t heard of it.”

  “Uh...not sure. You always see it in Western movies, so I’d guess 1880 would be a safe bet.”

  “All right. I’ll be right back.”

  Ty shifted out.

  ***

  Same clerk, now seventeen years older.

  “How many sticks does he want?”

  “Ten, if’n dat okay.”

  “Whoo-ee. What’s he want with all that dynamite, anyway?”

  “He’s gon’ blows up sum stumpy trunks he got o’er der.”

  “Stump blasting, huh. Well, all I’ve got at the moment is seven sticks. That’ll have to do for now. Tell him our next order don’t arrive till next week.”

  “Ah tell ‘im.”

  “Here, gonna need some blasting caps and fuse wire too.”

  Ty handed the man some gold and walked back out into the sun.

  ***

  Jacob Jennings showed up at the train depot right at 8:00 PM in a cart pulled by one horse. In the cart rode Jefferson and his family. They stepped up to the loading platform.

  “Your story checked out, Mr. Smith,” Jennings said, “Granted, I’ve got the feeling there’s quite a stink brewing back there. Best get Jefferson on this train before Hugh’s got a chance to catch up with him.”

  Jefferson Sr. and his wife looked very scared.

  “Will they be safe?”

  “Should be. I’ve freed them and given them notarized papers saying as much. This train will take them straight to the Mississippi. From there, they can take a steamboat north. I’ve given ‘em more than enough to cover the fares and to tide them over till they set some roots wherever they stop. I’m going to talk with the conductor, make sure he looks out for ‘em.”

  Jennings walked off toward the front of the train. The whistle wailed loudly. The train would be leaving soon.

  Ty looked longingly at his ancestors. They were completely unaware of his relationship to them. Holding his hat in hand, Jefferson never removed his gaze from the ground.

  “I’m gonna go for a short walk,” Mark said. “Ty, keep Jefferson company please.”

  Ty would want some time alone to speak with his great, great, great grandpa.

  ***

  There was no moon, so they had to work by starlight, which was not easy. They dared not even light a match, lest it give them away. Successfully wiring a detonation device is complicated enough, but it can be downright scary in pitch blackness.

  Mark and Ty lay in the long grass behind the Plageanet house. Thankfully, there were no hounds or other animals to give away their presence. About halfway between them and the main house was a rickety, unpainted outhouse.

  In the refuse pit beneath the outhouse, they’d stashed seven sticks of dynamite directly beneath the hole where a person would sit to use the facility. A wire ran inconspicuously (even more so in the dark) from those sticks of dynamite, up the hole, out through a crack in the back wall, and through the tall grass until it ended a hundred feet away at a detonation device in Ty’s hands. The wire would not be noticed by anybody in the outhouse, even when sitting down.

  “Here he comes.”

  “Shh....wait. I’m going to make sure it’s him.”

  Mark snuck off into the grass silently. He got as close as he dared to make the identification. After a minute he returned. The man had just entered the outhouse and was going about his business.

  “Well?”

  “It’s him all right,” Mark assured him. “Go ahead.”

  Ty hesitated for a long moment, weighing what he was about to do. Just when Mark thought he wasn’t going to, Ty plunged the contact down. Before two years had passed, Plageanet would kill over fifty men, women, and children. There was no forgetting that.

  A violent explosion rocked the night, shattering the peace that had reigned just a moment before and filling the yard with a burning, orange glow. Pieces of wood and other matter rained down with dull thuds all around.

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah. Let’s get back.” Ty hit his shifter and Mark followed.

  ***

  Back in 2012, Ty thanked Mark and asked him to meet him and Hardy at the office the next day.

  “So, what’d you and Jefferson talk about while you were alone?” Mark pried.

  Ty let out a slow smile.

  “I asked him what his father's name was.”

  “I suppose he told you.”

  “Not only that, he told me his grandpa's name too.”

  “What'd that be? Your fifth great grandpa
?”

  “Yeah. He also told me what tribe in Africa his ancestors had come from.”

  “That’s great, man.” Mark was sincerely happy for him. Ty was thrilled to uncover more of his family's roots.

  “Yeah, my fifth great-grandpa. Can you believe it? I was stuck. Didn’t know who Jefferson Sr.’s father was.”

  “I’ve never been that much into genealogy myself, but you really like it, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right. Well....see you tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

  ***

  The office was abandoned.

  The three desks were still in their places, but that was all. The rest of the office furniture was missing, the potted plants, the pictures from the walls, even the window blinds. A few scraps of paper lay strewn about the floor. The air felt stale, still, as if the room knew its inhabitants were not coming back.

  Mark moved to the first of the desks, the one that had been Ty’s. He checked every drawer, but they too were empty. Each of the other two desks were the same.

  Where had they gone? What was going on?

  Mark was too astonished to react. A million thoughts raced through his mind. Had this all been some kind of elaborate con game? If so, what was the con? He hadn’t given them any money.

  Worse, had they used him as a patsy, setting him up for some kind of fall? No, that didn’t really make any sense.

  Maybe something had happened to them. Maybe some government agency had caught on to what they were doing. Could they have been arrested? Was Mark next? Or were they themselves part of some covert government agency after all?

  They couldn't have been arrested. They would just shift out of custody to another time.

  Had he done something to offend them?

  Mark remembered the lonely shack in the woods. It had appeared empty at first, but in the end, he'd found a very intriguing watch which had changed his life forever. Maybe there was something like that here he’d missed.

  He searched the office frantically and left nothing unturned. He pulled each and every drawer fully out of its desk and flipped them over, looking underneath and on their backs for some hidden item. He ran his hand over the interior surfaces inside the desks where the drawers had been in case something had been taped up in there. He checked every nook and cranny of the bathroom and the closets. Under the sink, behind the toilet, he even disassembled the light fixtures.

  There was nothing to be found. Not even dust. The scraps of paper strewn about were of no importance. Most were blank, the rest were just a few old utility bills.

  Mark sat and waited. He waited until dark. He waited through most of the night. Why he was waiting, he wasn’t sure. Hardy always seemed to know when and where to find him if he so desired. By waiting, perhaps he subconsciously hoped to stave off the inevitable sense of loneliness assaulting the walls of his heart.

  They weren’t coming, he finally admitted to no one in particular. He felt like the office in which he sat.

  Abandoned.

  June 13th, 2012, Boston, MA

  He had no clue where to find them....nor when to find them for that matter. The only places Mark knew for sure they'd be were times where they’d met with him already, and he didn’t have the guts to meet his own alter ego yet. Who knew about possible time paradox problems and things like that.

  He didn’t think foul play was behind their disappearance. He considered shifting back a day or two to see if he could catch them before they abandoned their office, but, in the end, he decided to just drop it. If they want to disappear so bad, let ‘em.

  Besides, if their goal was to hide, it wouldn’t be hard. Time really was the fourth dimension.

  Imagine trying to find a certain person somewhere in the world without knowing their exact location. It would be an impossible task, of course, like finding a needle in a Mt. Everest-sized haystack. Yet, if you knew that same person's exact location within the three physical dimensions, you'd find them with no problem.

  Unless, you didn’t know when to find them there. Time added a fourth dimension. You could know a person’s exact physical location, but if you had no idea when in history they were going to be there, you would be back to square one with the needle in a haystack problem.

  Add to that the ability to shift around instantaneously within time, and it became even more impossible to pin down a person’s location within the four dimensions.

  Mark was faced with a daunting question. One that he would have to answer now, it appeared, by himself:

  What should he do with the rest of his life?

  He was filthy rich. So rich, in fact, that it would be pointless to try and increase his wealth any further. It just wouldn't make any difference to him.

  Women? Kelly’s abandonment had left a sour taste in his mouth that hadn’t quite gone away yet.

  Travel the world? Skydiving? Climb the Himalayas, sail the Caribbean?

  None of those things felt worthwhile. He had this shifter for a reason. What that reason was, though, he had no idea. So far, Heaven had not opened up in a glorious display of angelic music and light to reveal its will to him. There had been no booming voice telling him what to do. He would have to figure it out on his own.

  So many people talked about changing the world, but now he was in a position to truly do it. Maybe more so than anyone else in history. He had unlimited financial resources and a powerful tool in the shifter. He wanted to help people, to make the world a better place, but where should he start? What to do?

  His life was an open slate, like a chalkboard that had been erased, the residue of previous smudges still marring its surface, but clean enough to be written on anew. It was time to pick the chalk back up.

  ***

  The Stanford Costume Company was a simple affair. The walls of the small front area were painted in warm shades of beige and accentuated by a few pieces of cherry wood furniture, namely a few chairs and bookcases. It had a sparse, but lively, homey feel.

  The moderate sized workroom was in the back, but all customers were attended in the front by whoever was sitting at the elegant cherry desk.

  “I'm sorry, who did you say you represent again?”

  The young lady squinted her eyes so quizzically, Mark thought the creases in her brow would undo her tightly wound bun. The bun and her thin-rimmed spectacles made her look like a mousy librarian, though she presumably was not one. Her eyes were a cool-water blue, and deep. Glossy pink lips were accentuated nicely by the light, creamy hues of her unblemished skin. Her honey-colored hair being pulled back and up revealed a slight and graceful neck. Her manner was soft and professional.

  “Historical Enterprises.”

  “....And what is it ‘Historical Enterprises’ does again?”

  “We have a number of interests, but at the moment we’re looking to create a variety of historically accurate costumes”

  “About how many costumes are you wanting? And from which era?”

  “Let’s say somewhere between one to two thousand, from all different eras.”

  She almost choked on the water she was sipping. The crease in her brow deepened in confusion. “I’m sorry....but did you just say one thousand to two thousand?”

  “Yes.” Mark couldn’t help but smile.

  “Eh....Okay....well, this is really my mother’s business. I’m just watching it for her today. She does all the sewing, I just do the research. We’re both kind of part-time.”

  “Okay.”

  “She only does this to keep busy since she retired, you know. I help out as I can, when I’m not in class or working. We typically make just a few costumes every now and then for local theater companies....or sometimes costume shops.”

  “Yes, I realize a lot would be involved. You’d definitely have to hire several seamstresses for an extended period of time.”

  “Uh....I’m not sure mom would want...uh....to go to that much effort. It’d be a lot for her.”

  “You�
��d probably have to help out full-time for a while too. A big, big part of the work would be research. I’ve come here because I believe your mother is the only one with the expertise in town to do this well. What’s your normal rate?

  “Anywhere from $250 to $750 per costume, depending on the detail involved.”

  “Well, these will be very detailed. I’ll give you a $400,000 deposit to get started, and I’ll pay you double your rate for each costume finished. I’ll also pay as you deliver to prevent any cash flow problems. I’m going to need numerous historically accurate costumes for every 25 year period in history since the year 1500. For each 25 year period, I’ll need distinct costumes representing a myriad of countries and cultures, from Mexico to Europe, for all different economic levels of society, both male and female.

  “Historical accuracy is very important,” Mark continued. “I can’t stress that enough. A person shouldn’t be able to tell these costumes from the real thing. I won’t need anything from Africa or Asia for the time being. Here’s my card. Any questions?”

  She gulped and slowly shook her head to say no.

  “And your name is?”

  “Savannah....Savannah Stanford.”

  “Nice to meet you, Savannah. I’m Mark. Mark Carpen.”

  ***

  The first coin specialist Mark sought out was more suspicious than Savannah Stanford of the Stanford Costume Company had been. Mark wanted to place an order with an antique coin dealer for accurately made historical coin molds, reflecting the coinage of various countries throughout the past 500 years. The first seller he initially approached was concerned that Mark was planning to counterfeit a bunch of antique coins and try to pass them off in the rare coin market as the real deal, so the man refused to do the work. Unable to allay the specialist's fears, Mark was forced to seek help elsewhere.

  If needed, once the costumes were ready, Mark could bypass the need for a coin dealer by taking gold bars back to the different historical eras and exchange them for real coins, but such a plan would be extremely labor intensive, not to mention time-consuming.