Free Induction Day: Book Two in the Butterman Travel Series by PK Hrezo

honcho when it comes to public opinion. More people follow and participate in their data collection than anywhere else. To put it bluntly, if you can make it with WNN, you can make it anywhere, with anyone.”
    “What are you suggesting?” Dad asks, making eye contact with Garth now.
    “The public needs to see Bianca in action, making good decisions. The world needs to see what she can do.”
    “As in, say, an official time traveler’s induction?” Dad glances at me.
    “What?” I say. “No, Dad, I don’t want this—”
    “Induction?” Garth asks.
    Mom jumps in while I stare at Dad, wishing telepathy was a reality.
    “Lola, the Induction is a family tradition. A coming of age within the ranks of Butterman time travelers.”
    My body cringes. If Mom spills all the details, everything I’ve worked for will be at the fingertips of the DOT. They have no business with our unregulated Induction Day time trips, as they’re not commercial travel.
    Dad raises a finger. “It’s no leisurely joyride. Years of preparation, plotting, and hard work are put in to ensure success.”
    What is he thinking? TMI, Dad! I widen my eyes at him in silent suggestion that he shut his mouth. Maybe the universal memory purge killed some of his brain cells. Why is he volunteering so much information?
    I feel Garth’s gaze on me and turn to catch the last of it before she shifts it onto my parents again. A zing of negativity rushes across my skin. She could be getting off on this—suckering my parents’ trust out from under me. I wish I knew how much she knows.
    “Mind if I check your credentials?” I ask her. “I don’t think we did that yet.”
    “Bianca!” Mom says, her face flushed from what she likes to refer to as extreme candor .
    “It’s all right.” Garth presses an unseen button on her blazer lapel and a holographic badge projects in the air. “It’s a warranted request.”
    I examine the data there. A brief flashback of a similar scenario from Bethel, New York blinks through my mind—that was when she time traveled from 2070 to 1969 in an effort to alter Butterman history. This badge states the current year, 2069, and her full name and rank. Legit in every way, which confirms she’s present-day Garth.
    “You’ll have to excuse our daughter,” Mom says. “She’s been a bit suspicious since all this started with the media.”
    “Not a problem at all.” Garth takes another dainty bite of tomato and lettuce. “About this Induction … where is it supposed to take place?”
    “She was hoping for the northern Atlantic Ocean in 1912, aboard the famed Olympic-class ocean liner Titanic ,” Dad says it casually, as if it made no difference at all that it exceeds the DOT regulation of 100 years.
    I can’t help but bury my face in my palms, rub my eyelids. This has to be a bad dream.
    “I see,” Garth says. “Isn’t that the one in the Smithsonian?”
    “Correct,” Dad says.
    My hand is at my forehead now, shielding my eyes. The memory of the White Star Line’s massive hull on display in Washington D.C. flashes through my head. It’s the final resting place for a chunk of Titanic , having finally reached the east coast of the U.S. some 110 years later. Dad took me to see it when I was fifteen, hoping it’d be enough to satisfy me, but all it did was stoke the flame even more. The way it loomed over our heads with so many secrets—I could almost hear the screams in the night; the groans of the ship’s rivets busting from the steel seams as the bow plunged into the depths, breaking the vessel in two.
    “I hear it took years to clean and restore.” Garth’s voice interrupts my thought, a hint of genuine interest to her tone.
    I pull my fingers down below my eyes, letting them linger over my nose and mouth while my elbow rests on the table top.
    “Bianca’s been preoccupied with visiting it since she was fourteen,” Mom says. “We do realize it’s outside the 100 year limit, but it wouldn’t be a