by PK Hrezo
Garth glances at me once, holds out her device and presses a button. “Does this mean you’re ready to give a statement?”
Shakily, I step toward her, my gaze never leaving hers. “Yeah. I’m ready. Here’s your statement: no matter what lengths you go to, I will always outsmart you, and Butterman Travel will always be around. So what if we have to rebuild our time-craft? Dad and I can do that with our eyes closed, because we’re skilled. We were born to be time travelers, not like you, who has to steal science from others and try to claim it for your own. Because that’s all your father was anyway—a thief. And you’ll never ever be anything more than a poser.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Garth’s chest heaves visibly beneath her indigo parka. She strides in so close to my face, we’re almost nose to nose. “If your lips ever mention my father again, it will only be with the utmost respect. Is that understood?”
I can see the tiny blood vessels in the whites of her eyes, the smudged mascara beneath her lower lashes. I crack a smile. “Right. I’ll be sure to adjust my tone next time I discuss his failures at time travel.”
Not that I think it’s cool to bash other people’s parents, but I’m over her charade. I know more than she could ever dream—about the future, about time travel, about what’s in store for her precious DOT.
Garth’s jaw is rigid. “Failures? Only failure I know of is the Butterman family integrity.” A brief ironic chuckle surfaces from her mouth. “And you call my father a thief? How dare you.”
Mom moves into my side. “Agent Garth, what’s this all about? We’ve done nothing offensive. We gave you what you wanted.”
I shrug Mom off. “She’s spewing BS, trying to turn this around on us, when it’s the DOT who wants the Butterman time travel science. That’s what it’s always been about. Our future accomplishments.”
I avoid mentioning Evangeline and Evan or that Butterman Travel supersedes the DOT one day. It’s too much information, even if Garth from the future already knows. My responsibility right now is to this timeline.
“Does this have anything to do with teleportation time travel?” Dad steps in toward Garth.
I make a face at him.
“She’ll have to know about it some time. The DOT will need answers—how you launched through a destroyed time tunnel. Giving full disclosure will be our best move.” He focuses on Garth. “My daughter should be commended, not cited. What she was able to do—it was a feat many seasoned time travelers would’ve failed to achieve. Using a teleportation technique that hasn’t even been perfected yet, to enter midway into a chute, is nothing short of—”
“Teleportation technique?” Garth asks.
“Yes, T-cube science, it’s called,” Dad says, raising his hands with excitement. “It’s quite remarkable. Time travel without a vessel. Matter of fact, I believe your father was experimenting with similar possibilities.”
Garth stares at him, then at me, her teeth grinding. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
A tremor passes through my head like a fuzzy wave. Holding the bridge of my nose, I stare at the metal grated floor to sharpen my focus. This is all too much. I need to lie down. It feels like all the time strings from past, present, future are converging, binding themselves into a tangled mess. I can’t keep any of it straight right now.
Question is, how much does Garth already know about T-cube? How much should she know? When Evangeline gave me the formula that day in Bethel, it was only meant for me—so I could rewrite the timeline and prevent Garth from knowing about Manhattan and all the violations. Unless … Garth from the future passed back the information like I originally suspected. How else would Germaine know about those bogus violations? All part of Garth’s scheme to scare me and make me fail.
I realize Dad’s jabbering some bit about preemptive discovery and Butterman innovations, and tune back in. “Dad, we shouldn’t say too—”
“It’s all right, Bee. Garth needs to understand how you were able to access the T-cube formula.” Dad nods at her, as if he can suggestively move her thoughts in the right direction. “It’s an exciting time that you’re a witness to, Agent Garth, you must recognize that. Science has never been something to monopolize—it can be shared, explored! We’re on the brink of discovery. A discovery your father gave his life to try and revolutionize.”
“No.” Garth grabs Dad’s arm with such a lightning-quick reflex, that without a thought I sling my arm over hers, our gazes burning into one another.
Her head tilts ever so slightly, her nostrils flaring. “You are on the brink of pillaging all that is sacred.”
Her tone is so mechanical.
Dad removes his arm from beneath us, leaving Garth and me in an awkward half embrace. Dropping my arm, I stare blankly at Garth’s eyes and find only cold indifference.
What is she talking about?
She closes the space between us, cautiously, like a snake preparing to strike. Instinctively, I back away. She’s taken this to a whole other level, and I’m as baffled as I am freaked.
“You think you managed to pull one over on me because you executed a Timeline Rewrite?” Garth says.
I bump into the time-craft behind me, scraping the back of my heel on the titanium tubing. She knows about the Rewrite.
My parents are frozen in shock. Tristan’s backed up against Mission Control, blank-faced.
Garth is focused only on me. “You think you deserve some kind of recognition? That your skills are beyond the government’s? Denial, that’s what you suffer from. Time to face the facts. All of you.” She lifts her head, looking at Mom and Dad, then back to me. “All Buttermans have ever been good for is breaking rules and stealing technology. You’d have been better off going down with Titanic.”
My head is shaking side to side but I’m not controlling it. Words have escaped me.
Mom is at my side, her face in Garth’s. “Who do you think you are? Insulting my daughter, our family—”
“You know nothing.” Garth maintains the stare.
“Stolen?” Finally, my voice returns. “You’ve got your facts confused. Stolen what?”
“Denial and ignorance.” Garth makes a little scoff, then smiles with amusement. “Perhaps you don’t know as much as you think? Today is just full of surprises, isn’t it?”
Dad approaches. “I don’t understand.”
“That much is clear,” Garth says quickly. “I suppose your future relatives didn’t let you in on their secret—the dirty secret they can’t admit—the fact that they stole my father’s research in order to pass it off to you as Butterman science.”
“You’re lying.” The words fly out of my mouth.
Dad snorts. “Agent Garth, I don’t know where you got your information, but false accusations have no place—”
“False accusations are your area of expertise, not mine.” Garth’s gaze stays fixed on me. “I speak only truth.” She backs up a little, her expression smug with the realization she knows something we don’t. Her arms folded over her chest, she seems to be soaking in the moment. “You Buttermans think you’re so savvy, so ahead of the game, just like always. Never appreciating the fact the DOT is constantly stepping in to save your asses.”
I’m afraid to say anything—I want to keep her talking, now that she’s opening up.
“What you’re suggesting,” Mom says, “is unorthodox practice and we don’t take any part in it.”
Garth arches her brows briefly at Mom. “Don’t you, though? Really, Mrs. Butterman, you didn’t think we were ignorant of Bianca’s Rewrite, did you? Sure, she succeeded in altering the timeline and erasing her violations, as well as my present knowledge, but communication was made. She spoke with my future-self. Did you not think I’d have sent word somehow?”
“But you’re forgetting something,” I say. “Your future-self was superseded that day in Bethel. By future Buttermans of authority. They had a right to see to it the Butterman CCL continued—something you’ve always been trying to st
op. You’re afraid of us—the whole DOT is afraid of Butterman Travel ‘cause you know we clean out the corruption and change the future to ensure fair and equal time travel for anyone.”
Garth scoffs. “I suppose it would be easier for you to digest thinking of it that way. Or is that what your future relatives told you?
Filled your head with lies about some great time travel revolution initiated by the extraordinary Butterman family?”
I’m silent, tongue-tied.
“Well, let me clarify for you, the all-clever Miss Butterman. T-cube science was invented and discovered by my father, Roland Garth, who died in the line of duty. And this, all this mania with your Induction Day being broadcasted for the world to see, so you could prove how legitimate and reliable your agency is—was your chance to redeem yourselves, come clean and admit your violations. I gave you every opportunity to do so—with the WNN interview and Mr. Capra’s inquiry. You could’ve veered off course from the direction you were taking Butterman Travel.” She pauses. “But you made your choice.”
Dad holds out his open palms. “Agent Garth, please, we’re all tired and out of sorts. I think we should take a few steps back and collect ourselves. I don’t have an inkling as to what you’re talking about, but I do know that Bianca accepted an assignment that you insisted upon, against her better judgment. She’s proved she’s more than capable of handling herself out in the cosmos, regardless of what technique she used to get herself back where she belongs. Your reference to future Buttermans showing up in the past, in order to ensure Butterman Travel exists, was completely out of her or our control. We are not the government, nor are we privy to what takes place in the future. For all we know, it’s perfectly legal for travelers to deliver information to other time strings. We can’t be held accountable for events that take place in the future, by future time travelers.”
Garth flicks a brow. “Oh but you can, Mr. Butterman. You always have a choice, and your daughter is guilty of accepting information that will alter her current timeline, as well as the course of the future.”
“How can that be?” Dad asks. “She’d have no reason to suspect her own relatives of foul play. Do you even hear how ludicrous that sounds?”
“DOT regulation isn’t ludicrous. And Bianca should be well aware of that, regardless of who’s revealing information,” Garth says.
“Our future relatives intervened because you showed up somewhere you had no business being,” I remind her. “Or did your future-self not tell you that? Why should I be cited, when I had no reason not to believe time travelers from my own family? You’ve done nothing but trick us. And now you’re trying to convince us your father invented T-cube? He’s not even alive anymore, how could he possibly—”
“You understand so little.” Garth’s voice is strangely soft. Her body angles toward the door of the bay, where commotion is still pulsating from the other side, faint and divided by the heavy steel walls. “I have no memory of Bethel, because you stole that memory from me.”
I hesitate, entranced by the faraway look on her pale, narrow face.
She continues, “When you take it upon yourself to rewrite history, you steal people’s lives—their memories and ideas, hopes and dreams. Buttermans speak of their Induction Days like some great opportunity to make a difference … but what gives you the right? You assume it’s in the name of all that is good. But what right do you have to cheat death, or fate?”
“You’re missing the point,” I’m quick to say now, but my hands tremble with the idea she seems to know more about the Butterman family Inductions than I thought. “You agreed to my Induction destination, and I didn’t tamper with the timeline. We were caught in a magnetic storm over the Atlantic—we could’ve died.”
“Maybe you should have.”
The words are so soft from Garth’s lips, I wonder if she really said them, or if I imagined it.
“Agent Garth, this has gone far enough,” Dad says.
Garth ignores him, her eyes meeting mine. “You have no right. These Inductions will be stopped.”
“You don’t have the power to do that,” I say. “We control the Butterman time travel science, not the government. You can only regulate commercial time travel.”
“For now.”
Dad pulls out his palm-com device and projects the holo-screen. “I’ll be speaking to your superiors.” He glances at Garth. “Inductions have always been a private affair. How we operate our personal time travel is none of the DOT’s business.”
“Everything you do within alternate timelines is the DOT’s business.” Garth purses her lips, as if tasting the words before she says them. Savoring them for one last second. “Why else do you think I showed up here? The DOT is well aware of your family tradition—in the future as well as the present.”
Dad’s brow furrows. “Bianca’s Induction Day was the first time we’ve ever publicly …”
“It’s not Bianca’s Induction Day we were worried about.” Garth laughs. “That was only a means to an end.”
Silence.
Each of us seems to be contemplating her words in our own way. Slowly and awkwardly, they bounce through my head, exaggerated and loud, like an alarm going off in the midst of a deep sleep. She’s insinuating it wasn’t my Induction at all, but it makes no sense. Who else could she possibly be referring to?
Absentmindedly, I slip my hand in my pocket and find the cool smooth metal of Quincy Bloomsdale’s pocket watch. I wrap my fingers around it, recalling the inscription.
The tides of time. The same words from Tristan’s song.
But how could Titanic be another CCL? Garth wanted me to die there, and if I died, so would the T-cube science Evangeline gave to me.
Evangeline. Holy hell.
“It was her Induction Day, wasn’t it?” My voice is scratchy. “That’s why she showed up. It wasn’t just to save the CCL. She came to give me the formula.”
“What?” Dad asks, clutching my arm. “Who?”
I search his green eyes. “Evangeline Butterman. At Woodstock in Bethel, New York. She was there to alter the timeline, change history. It was her Induction Day.”
Garth lets out a long sigh. “Sounds idealistic when you put it that way.” Her steely blue eyes glimmer. “Say it like the dirty truth it is and hang your head in shame.”
My head shakes slowly side to side, clarity spreading through every fiber of my being. “No shame. A new world order.”
“An attempt to initiate a revolution with science she stole from my father’s research and discovery.” Garth says in a bitter tone. “Government property.”
I swallow hard, glancing at Dad, whose face is wrought with confusion and doubt. “She told me she knew I wouldn’t let her down.”
Dad says nothing. Mom touches his arm, her eyes searching his face, but no words coming from her mouth.
I want to say more, but don’t. If Garth is right—if my revelation is right—then the fact Evangeline stole government science is not the real issue. What she did needed to be done to change the course of the timeline and rid the DOT of their power.
Dad’s voice interrupts my thought. “Where is the proof that any of this is true?”
Garth moves in to face Dad with her own pointed stare. “Where’s the proof that it’s not?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
On the office sofa, Tristan squeezes my hand and I lean into him.
“Just no more interviews, please,” I say to the room, aware Dad’s now listening from the on-screen intercom.
The celebration outside the Launchpad yesterday after our return was one thing, but the deluge of press releases ever since has been exhausting, and the single night’s sleep to slag off everything I’d been through prior was not nearly enough. My head is on repeat shuffle mode.
Tristan nuzzles my hair. “What’s there to worry about? You’ve been sublime, Butterman. Your ratings are still through the roof.”
My gaze lingers on the digital landscape across the office. It�
��s on the lunar surface setting and I find the grayish-brown pocked surface and infinite starry horizon especially comforting and quieting. It reminds me of those few hours of time tripping with Tristan in Manhattan—when we barely knew each other. And how now the entire excursion exists only in our memory, no one else’s.
“One final interview,” Dad says from the intercom, his image now visible in front of Essence in the Launchpad.
He’s already tinkering with her—a bit presumptuous since the DOT hasn’t approved us for an upgrade yet, but that’s Dad.
“Then we’ll take a nice long hiatus from the media, eh?” He’s not looking at me, he’s engaged in his work.
If I didn’t have another interview, I’d be out there helping him.
“And Bee,” he adds, “I think you better tell them everything about what happened on Titanic. Speak from the heart. People relate to that.”
I don’t answer. I won’t tell them everything, but I will tell them what they need to know. The question burning in my mind, though, is one Dad hasn’t decided we should discuss: do we change the course of the timeline like Evangeline initiated for her Induction Day, and claim T-cube science as our own?
“Garth is as much to blame as you are in the people’s eyes,” Dad continues. “Remember what Tristan’s agent said. Let them see you were
coerced and misadvised. The DOT will clean up their own mess. Any talks of a new world order is exactly what the government doesn’t want to get out. Agent Garth is eating her own words right about now.”
“Okay, Dad. Open and honest and not offensive to Garth or the DOT. Got it.” Quickly, I shut down his image before he continues.