by PK Hrezo
He didn’t give up. He let me in.
My chin lifts in his fingers and I find myself lost in his smoky-blue eyes.
“You’ll figure it out, Butterman,” he says. “You always do. And I’m not a complete waste of space, you know. Let me help you. We can figure it out together.”
“I don’t think you’re a waste.” I wipe my runny nose with the slippery latex sleeve of my buffersuit. “I …”
My gaze falls to the floor. Never good with intimacy like this. I need to work on it, and now’s as good of time as any. I focus on him again. “I need you.”
A smile plays at his lips, slow at first, then wide with so much life and hope that his entire face beams. “That was hard for you, wasn’t it?”
I slug his arm and it makes my head thrum. “Shut up.”
He chuckles. “You can order me around all you want after we get back to 2069.”
I could dwell on the fact that I just made myself vulnerable by admitting I need him, or I could simply blame it on the onset of delirium from frigid temperatures and Temporal Dislocation Syndrome. Once we get back to our own century, I’ll worry about which is which.
He helps me to my feet and into the pilot’s chair. I verify the time window, and it appears ripe for frequency manipulation. Once I find the right signal, I can reopen it. That’s the first part.
Tristan interrupts my thoughts. “Before we left, Garth said the DOT would only be watching if a burp occurs in the time string. Would damage to the time tunnel create a burp?”
I blink a few times, amazed I didn’t consider this sooner. “Titanic hit the berg before 1140pm, which means events were sped up. That alone should’ve initiated a burp, not that they could use surveillance on the time string this far back, but they’d know something changed. I don’t know if they can see the radiation feedback, but they’re watching the cosmic rifts for sure.” I take a deep breath. “Mom and Dad are probably freaking out. But I know my Dad, and I know he’ll leave Port Butterman open as long as possible.”
For a few seconds, I let myself toy with the idea that almost everything is stacked against us.
“So they know we’re in trouble. Could they send help?” Tristan asks.
“How? The time tunnel’s been destroyed, the time-port over the Atlantic inaccessible. They won’t know we never exited the time string.” I pause. “They have no idea we’re in the exact same spot as them in this very moment, only 157 years earlier.”
“I’m surprised Garth hasn’t shown up. We couldn’t get away from her in Manhattan or Bethel.”
I stare at him, traces of a dull ache flashing through my mind. “Suddenly I’ve got the worst feeling that she’s set us up for failure.”
Tristan’s brows furrow behind his blond shag. “She couldn’t have known all this would happen … could she? Not like before …”
My breath is short, and I fight to inhale deeply. I feel tossed in the middle of a bad TV rerun. Everything is obvious, yet nothing makes much sense. “What if she did? What if the DOT has known about my Induction Day all along, like they knew about Woodstock and Boris? What if they sent me here ‘cause they knew I’d fail?”
Tristan’s speechless.
Now that my brain is on a roll, I can’t stop it. “What if that’s why the media is there to begin with? What if it’s all Garth’s doing? I knew she couldn’t be trusted.” I pause, my hands trembling. “Holy hell, I’ve got that—”
“Gut feeling.”
Our gazes meet, realization washing over both our faces, and everything feels like it’s already happened before.
Finally I say, “This can’t be another CCL, though. One person’s life cannot be a perpetual Consistent Causal Loop.” I pause. “On the other hand, Garth’s actions in our normal time string could be.”
Tristan’s eyes light up. “Holy shit, Finn Capra mentioned her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time ‘cause she was all over the news with your press release, but what if the two of them are connected? What if that’s why he set me up?”
Bing! And there it is. Cryptogram assimilated and deciphered.
“Son of a bitch,” I say between my teeth. “It was all a total ruse. Garth playing nice, trying to help Butterman Travel, pretending the world needs to see me perform to prove my ability. She means for us to die out here.”
Tristan grips my shoulder. “Remember what Evan and Evangeline said back at Woodstock? About the government not being able to control our choices, but being able to influence them?”
A buzz of energy sails across my skin. My far distant relatives, Evan and Evangeline, are from the future, aware of the corruption within the DOT. It was they who clued me into Garth trying to divert us from Woodstock—from having contact with Boris Butterman and ensuring the CCL continues.
“That’s why she wanted this,” I say. “Garth wanted us to fail all along. She’s expecting us not to return, or come back as total flops in front of the media, in front of the world. Then the DOT can finally shut us down.”
“But won’t that look bad for them since they approved you?”
“Sure, but getting to shut us down has way more appeal. Setting us up for failure in front of the world is just the thing they need.”
“Do you think Garth knew this would happen, because she received word from the future?” he asks. “What did you call it before? Forecasting—”
“Forecasted destinies. Like predicting the weather. But the wind doesn’t obey history, and neither do people. Paths can always change, and timelines can always be rewritten by choices we make.”
“It’s so whacked out.” Tristan ponders the thought, rubbing his chin. “Would it have something to do with what Evan and Evangeline said about the DOT—how they lose their authority to Butterman Travel someday? But for Garth to actually risk our lives is—”
“Ruthless. She’s rewriting the timeline herself, no matter the cost. Remember what she said about her father and finishing his work? It has something to do with all this. I researched him, and most of it’s classified, but from what I could find out, Roland Garth was part of a special government project researching alternate time travel methods, mainly teleportation time travel.”
“T-cube?”
“Exactly. They were trying to develop their own teleportation technology. Roland Garth was an advocate for government regulated time travel, believed private agencies should be done away with or operated in full by the DOT as subsidiaries. He’s the reason why time travel patents became impossible to obtain for newer agencies.”
The temperature inside the vessel is dropping noticeably. My legs rattle the floor beneath my seat.
I continue. “They must’ve dipped into the future timelines and discovered Butterman Travel’s success. Evangeline gave me the formula for T-cube. She wanted me to know it because she knew the DOT needed to be stopped. The more I think about it, the surer I am that a Butterman invented T-cube, and that’s the reason we become more powerful than the DOT. There’s no other explanation.”
“They’ll do anything to stop it. Bianca, this could get really dangerous.”
I know Tristan spoke but his words aren’t coherent to me while my epiphany is still unfurling. “They already know what the future holds for them—they know they lose their power to control time travel.”
Tristan shivers, drawing my attention. “What happened to Garth’s father?”
I check the power supply and kick up the heat a notch. “He was killed during a teleportation experiment. After that, the DOT slowed their development. Roland Garth was the scientist heading up the trials, and his death delayed everything. The government has knowledge of the future and they’re breaking their own rules to bring down Butterman Travel.”
My words sound absurd and evocative at the same time. I can’t be sure any of it’s true, but I’ve a gut feeling that’s begging me to believe.
“Like a new world order or something,” Tristan says. “Whoa.”
Out of the blue, my brain tremors
and I grab my head.
“You okay?” Tristan asks.
I brush my fingers over my forehead, applying pressure over my eyes, then the bridge of my nose.
“You’re in no condition to operate a time-craft.”
“We don’t have any other choice.” The tremor has passed, but dizziness takes its place. “I can’t let Garth control my destiny. If she beats me now, it’s the end of Butterman Travel. Everything I do counts.” I position my hands over the dashboard again, recalibrating the radio signal for application. “Why else would Evangeline and Evan shown up in Bethel? Future Buttermans are relying on me.”
“Maybe they’ll show up then.”
The idea offers a glimmer of hope that I could easily be seduced by. But I shake my head. “We can’t expect my future relatives to show up whenever there’s trouble. Like my mom says, it’s a false security, and we have to be accountable some time.”
“Good to see you have your determination back.” Tristan squeezes my shoulder.
Frowning, I re-examine the data on the dashboard’s holo-screen. “I’m not sure determination is enough. It won’t repair a damaged time tunnel.”
“You’re not gonna let that stop you, are you?”
I don’t know how to answer, or admit defeat.
“You’re smarter than Garth, you know that right?” Tristan says. “That’s why she’s on top of you all the time.”
I’d love to believe that’s true, but doubt has a way of slithering over my ego with its toxic sludge. Future Buttermans are depending on me. I wish I could know what’s expected of me. Why didn’t Evangeline say more back at Bethel? Forget the PFs. These time puzzles and mind games are way worse!
“Garth wants to continue her father’s work, which is to end private time travel,” I say out loud, in hopes of unknotting my thoughts. “It contradicts everything my family stands for. Ever since I was old enough to speak, my parents have taught me science is for everyone, and no one can monopolize it, not even the government. I’ve grown up with the hopes that time travel can someday be affordable for everyone, not just the upper class. The government prevents that with all their taxes and regulations. When Evangeline and Evan breeched the time string in 1969, it was about more than rescue—it was a sign that the possibility of fair and affordable time travel is a reality in the future.”
Tristan lightly kneads my shoulder. “When this happened back at Woodstock, the DOT used a—what did they call it—mirage thing to make the time-port appear closed, so it looked like you needed their help.”
“A GTD—Gravitational Time Dilation to fold space back on itself. What about it?”
“It wasn’t there the second time around. And neither were Evan and Evangeline, or Garth.”
I pause. Tristan’s analog recall must be confusing for him. “The timeline was altered. We skipped Manhattan and all the violations. It was a full Rewrite.”
“Isn’t that a violation, though?”
“Only if they know about it. I took an unlogged time trip to change our present course, using T-cube technology that hadn’t yet been invented. They wouldn’t have found out about that soon enough.”
“Couldn’t the future DOT investigate through their satellites?”
“Theoretically yes, if they can pinpoint exactly when and where something happened, like they must’ve done with Woodstock, but like you said, Woodstock was a CCL. I can’t imagine how long it took them to research it. But if the DOT doesn’t control future time travel, they may not have access to the same technology they do now.”
“Man, I need a drink.”
I shoot him a glare.
“Of water. Sheesh.”
“Oh. Well, drink. We both need to hydrate.” I return my gaze on the time-port pie graph. It’s on its final countdown to closure.
Tristan hands me a water pouch and rips open the tab from another one. “It’s so messed up, you know? The memories get all mixed up. Like meeting Boris Butterman two different times.”
The memory of my teenage great, great grandfather is oddly fresh in my mind. I could never forget his long dark hair and green eyes, or that look of total shock when he realized we’d really traveled there from the future.
Tristan continues. “He was so giddy that second time when he realized his cosmic rift discovery was right on. Like a kid in a candy store, kept saying how he never once expected science to offer shortcuts, but how it made so much sense when he realized it.”
“Holy hell.” My fingers freeze over the dashboard’s holo-keys. “That’s it.”
“What’s it?”
“He’s right. Science can offer shortcuts. That’s exactly what we need.” I expand the launch status screen, which enables a separate hologram of our vessel.
“I don’t follow you.”
“I’ve read about it for years, but it’s totally unapproved by the DOT, so Dad’s never even considered letting us use it.” My fingers fly over the keyboard now, calculating numbers. “The Cosmic Shortcut Theory. If handled correctly, it allows the traveler to inject themselves into the middle of a time tunnel, but it’s never been attempted before.
That we know of, anyway.”
“You wanna try something that’s never been done before? Are you mad? How is something like that even possible?”
I let out a maniacal laugh, glancing once at Tristan, then back on-screen with a new found resolve sprouting through me. “T-cube science, that’s how.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“It won’t win me any points with the DOT,” I say, my hands nimbly calculating the necessary equation. “But it could get us the hell outta here, and right now, that’s all I care about.”
“What do you have to do?” Tristan watches over my left shoulder.
“If I can figure out a way for us to T-cube while inside Essence, we won’t have to explain why we left the time-craft in a different decade when we get back to 2069.”
Just the fact that I borrowed future technology that hasn’t yet been discovered.
I continue, “Problem is, her exterior. With a rip the size she has, the time tunnel could shred her.”
“Which is why you’re gonna patch it.”
I access the maintenance database and run a scan for repair alternatives and supplemental materials. “I have a bad feeling it’ll need more than just a simple patch up. Sorta like stitching a hole in a sock before you play tug-o-war with it. It won’t last. Essence should be nuked to refurbish the entire area surrounding the rip, or she’ll never sustain warp drive.”
“Can you do that from here?
My body heaves a sigh. “Truth is, I’ve never tried. The Launchpad is equipped for this type of maintenance, but here … if I could find some way to regenerate the properties ...” I trail off, going over the data on-screen again, scrutinizing for any nugget of possibility.
“It sucks she took such a beating.” Tristan’s looking over me now. “You need to keep her in a bubble so she stays in one piece.”
My fingers freeze over the holographic keys.
“What is it?” Tristan asks.
“Holy hell, that’s it. Tristan, you’re a genius.” I gawk at his blank face.
“I am?”
“A bubble. It’s so obvious I couldn’t even see it!” I return my focus on-screen, entering data.
“What, you’re generating a bubble?”
“If I can manipulate the atmosphere utilized by the cloaking device and enhance it just enough to withstand the time tunnel, it should give us our bubble. Like a protective membrane. But … I can’t be sure how long it’ll last.” My attention is still on-screen. “If I can energize our cellular properties for a full sixty seconds, that’ll give us just enough time to teleport into the part of the time tunnel that’s not damaged, and with a gravity lock on the home port, Butterman Mission Control will override our systems and pull us in.” I pause, look at Tristan. “I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s dangerous. The bubble could burst. We could be ripped—”
Tristan holds up a hand. “If anyone can do it, it’s you, Butterman.”
I smile, then return to my work on-screen. “This is so completely DOT unapproved. It’ll be a groundbreaking maneuver—one that confirms my knowledge of T-cube science, but we can deal with that once we’re in our own time string. That is, if it works.”
“It will.”
Tristan’s confidence in me gives me a little rush from my belly to my chest, but I ignore it. I continue crunching numbers and examining holographic diagrams. From my peripheral I catch him trembling in his buffersuit and I adjust the thermostat the tiniest bit higher. It can’t be for long. We need every ounce of power if I’m going to turn this attempt into success.
On that thought, I stop, turn to Tristan. For a second, there’s only the sound of the wind howling past the outside of the vessel. “I just wanna say, in case anything happens and I don’t get to later, thank you.”
His eyes twinkle with a strange light.
This could be the last time I ever speak to him, and my challenges with intimacy have no purpose in this moment.
I take a deep breath. “When you walked into my life a couple months ago, I had no idea what it’d mean. None of it made any sense.” Instinctively, my eyes lower. “I couldn’t save Titanic back there, and I may not be able to save us, but—”
“You’ve already saved me, Bianca Butterman.” Tristan kneels at my side, forcing my gaze on him. “Okay? I was on a one-way bullet train to nowhere when I met you. You gave me hope, and purpose …” He lets out a little laugh. “And irritated me just enough to make me prove I could be something again. Whatever happens, remember I came because I wanted to, because I needed to.”
He looks so sincere, my cheeks go hot. Impulsively, I run my fingers over his tangle of bangs. “Thank you, Tristan.”
* * *
“Standby to engage,” I say, leaning back in the pilot chair, my eyes fixed on-screen for the countdown. In the next five minutes I could be shattered to smithereens all over the cosmos. Or, I could be in the same place I am now 157 years later. Home.
