By the time Adam stepped out of the next shop, he had learned something useful.
A soft face did not mean a soft negotiator.
The receptionist there had been a young woman who looked calm, polite, and harmless at first glance. Adam had assumed the same method from the previous shop would work again.
It had not.
Adam let out a breath as he walked.
'I misread her. That was my mistake.' Adam thought.
When he had tried the same trick, pushing the price, turning away, and forcing urgency, she had simply told him he was free to leave.
No panic.
No desperate counteroffer.
In the end, he had sold four rare items there for only twenty-five thousand dollars.
Less than he wanted.
Still money.
'Not every seller breaks the same way. Remember that.' Adam thought.
He checked the total in his bag again as he walked.
Almost one hundred thousand dollars now.
That number still felt absurd.
He had earned it in only a few hours.
Adam kept moving.
For the next three or four hours, he crossed the city from one side to the other, visiting pawn shop after pawn shop, never staying too long in one place. He sold a little here, a little there, adjusting his tone and face depending on the person in front of him.
Some stores were cautious.
Some were greedy.
Some tried to scare him.
Some tried to flatter him.
Adam watched, learned, and sold only enough each time to keep the pattern from becoming too obvious.
By the end of it, he had gathered two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
That made him stop for a moment.
Two hundred and fifty thousand.
It sounded ridiculous.
But the excitement lasted only a second.
'Enough to move next stage. Not enough to relax.' Adam thought.
If he spent the entire day draining every pawn shop in the city, people would start talking. The items he was selling were rare, but not so rare that one unknown young man should be carrying endless batches of them across town.
Too much attention would spread.
And once attention spread, names followed.
That meant the next priority was clear.
He needed a place to settle.
Last time, he had rented a place using John's money and John's guidance.
John had known the address before Adam even finished moving in.
Adam went still.
Then he reached into his bag and pulled out his phone.
A cheap flip phone.
But Adam did not trust simple things anymore.
Not after John.
He stared at the phone for seconds.
'Mom. Dad. Forgive me.' Adam thought.
His jaw tightened.
'If you call me after this, I won't answer. But staying reachable is riskier than silence.' Adam thought.
Then he bent the phone hard, snapped it, and dropped the broken pieces to the ground.
"Mom, Dad, forgive me," he said under his breath. "I'll come back to you soon."
He left the broken pieces behind and walked on.
This time, he chose a completely different route.
He avoided the cheaper lower districts that would have made him predictable. He also avoided the wealthier areas where every new tenant would be remembered. Instead, he headed toward a higher middle-class district and found a second-floor rental unit in a respectable building.
The place was not luxurious, but it was clean, private, and forgettable in the right way.
That mattered more.
The rules were annoying. The owner wanted a large advance payment because the lease favored longer stays.
Adam paid twenty thousand dollars up front and took the place for several years on paper, even though he had no intention of remaining that long.
Once inside, he set his things down and counted his money again.
Two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars remained.
A huge amount by his old standards.
Still too small.
'I could copy the money. I could. But that would be stupid.' Adam thought.
Copied cash carried risk. Duplicate serial numbers, attention. He needed to stay invisible, not rich in a way that begged to be examined.
And he still did not know when John would notice the pawn shop trail.
But he would notice.
Adam was certain of that.
His caution came from memory. Too many times in that ruined future, John had moved first and trapped him before he even understood where the trap had been placed.
Adam looked at the wall of the empty room.
'Am I overreacting?' Adam thought.
He turned his head sharply.
No.
What had happened to him was real.
What had happened to his parents was real.
This was not overreaction.
This was reaction.
Adam forced himself to breathe until the tightness in his chest eased.
Then he looked back at the money.
Two hundred thousand was a lot.
But not enough for the kind of backup he wanted.
He needed something bigger.
Faster.
'Then I have to take more risk.' Adam thought.
And as soon as the thought formed, another idea clicked into place. Throughout the day, while moving through pawn shops, he had noticed something better than antiques.
Gold.
Diamonds.
If he copied those, there would be no serial number to trap him.
There would still be limits, but the path was cleaner.
More profitable.
The idea settled.
Adam left the rental again After sometime and headed for a shop he knew about from the future, a place famous for changing appearances for the right price.
It was expensive.
That was exactly why he had never used it before.
This time, he walked in and said, "Make me look like an old man."
The staff stared at him.
Then Adam paid and added, "No questions."
That ended the conversation.
When they were finished, his black hair had been covered in white, his face had been aged, his eyes altered with lenses, and his clothes changed completely.
A short while later, he stood there in front of one of the famous jewelry shops in the city.