Note: This story will make more sense if you read the prequel "All Multiverses Lead To Hell" first. But, as a quick recap:
Each time the rewind is used, it creates a new branch of the timeline with the event that is changed. The events of the game only show Max jumping from each timeline onto a more-preferred timeline, but she is leaving behind copies of herself to suffer whatever she was running away from in the previous timelines.
Rachel was the original time traveler. The timeline we see in the game is originally "left behind" when Rachel hard-rewinds to escape from the Dark Room before Nathan overdoses her.
Rachel, Max, Chloe, and Nathan were all given their powers by Tobanga, the guardian spirit of the local Indian tribe whose graves Sean Prescott is desecrating, to create a tornado strong enough to destroy Pan Estates and the Prescott empire once and for all.
- September 15, 2015 -
The light turned green. The hum of the rickety old engine grew to a roar as Chloe floored the gas pedal. The truck lurched forward, There was a horrible screech of tires and scraping of metal and splintering…
In the passenger seat, Max barely had time to turn and scream as she threw out her right hand and pushed with all her might – just barely stopping a shard of glass as it whizzed past her face, grazing her cheek – just barely stopping the onrushing tractor-trailer as it barged into the truck's door and frame, collapsing the metal structure right over Chloe in her seat.
In the new universe Max created, the semi-truck backed away as Max forced time to run in reverse. Max yelled to Chloe just as the light turned green, stopping her from hitting the gas pedal just as the out-of-control semi truck zoomed across the front of their own much smaller and more vulnerable pickup, with only a few feet to spare.
But in the universe she left behind, another Max was frantically screaming Chloe's name as she tried and failed to push away an event that had already occurred.
- September 17, 2015 -
Meanwhile, in an alternate timeline…
They had a flight to catch. Chloe ran ahead, pulling the larger suitcase behind her with a duffel bag over her shoulder, while Max followed with two smaller suitcases. They halted at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn and stop the interminable flood of cars and vans shuttles.
The crosswalk signal seemed stuck on red for far longer than usual. Max glanced at her phone. 4:35pm. Their flight was at 5:10pm. She calculated in her mind. Thirty-five minutes to check a suitcase, get through security, find their gate. No, twenty-five minutes, the airplane doors would close ten minutes before departure…
"Twenty-five minutes, let's go!" Chloe called to her, bringing Max back to reality just as the light turned green. They took off, weaving through the floating sea of people and suitcases crossing in either direction, Chloe slightly in front of Max.
Except less than half a second later, before Max took even two steps into the street, she suddenly felt a jolt at her right side and then felt herself being lifted clear off the ground by a powerful force.
The world began to tilt on its axis, though Max dimly realized that she was the one tilting. At a rapidly growing distance Max watched in slow motion as Chloe whirled around, dropping her suitcase and reaching out towards her. Max was flying, soaring above the heads of a crowd that was just beginning to realize something had gone very wrong.
"Max!" Chloe screamed in panic, as Max took in the dizzying view, realizing she'd just been thrown by the impact of a speeding car, then idly wondering why Chloe hadn't rewound the accident away as she always had before, and that was her last thought as she never felt her skull shatter against the pavement less than a second later.
(In a parallel universe, having already rewound the above few seconds, Chloe grabbed Max and held her back from the curb just as an out-of-control yellow taxicab zoomed in front of their faces, tires screeching. Then they ran for the terminal and barely caught their flight.)
Max woke up in a bright light that seemed to bathe her from all directions. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, realizing her suitcases were gone and so was her clothing. But just as she started to panic and try to cover herself up – a voice boomed all around her.
"Maxine Caulfield, welcome to your final judgment."
Oh, dog.
As if in answer to her thoughts, Max heard the echoing barks of a dog around her, and a moment later she stared in surprise and wonder at the gigantic ethereally glowing nose, then snout, then head of a golden retriever as it emerged from the white light in front of her, barking into the distance.
Max looked up as the giant dog rose out of the light before her, standing just slightly taller than her, each of its furs seeming to give off the light of an entire sun. And then the dog spoke her name, and she jumped back, startled.
"Maxine Caulfield," it said, "seeing as you were so fond of addressing me as a dog, it seemed only right that I should appear as you envisioned me. Arf! Arf!"
You're God? …there really is a God then?
"Yes, there is," the dog answered.
Wait, did I say that aloud?!
"No, you did not."
He can read my thoughts… oh crap…
"Yes, I can."
The panic rose in Max's chest and started to drown her, but just as quickly it vanished with another few barks from the giant Dog, which seemed to blow the rising tide right out of Max's lungs like puffs of air. "Do not fear, Maxine Caulfield. As I created you, so I know all about you, and love you just the same… and that is why I give you a free choice. Where shall you spend your eternity?"
"You mean… heaven… or hell?" Max asked uncertainly, finally finding her voice.
"Those are merely what others call their final resting places," the Dog barked, voice echoing through Max's body as He spoke. "For you, the choice is simple. Is there not someone whom you wish forever at your side… even over Me?"
Yes, but… should I say it to him?
"I know everything, Maxine Caulfield. Do not be ashamed… ask what you desire and it shall be given."
"Where is Chloe?"
"She is in a place where she will be happy, one day. With you."
"Did she…?" Max couldn't quite bring herself to say the word "die" but obviously Dog understood all the same.
"That is a question your afterlife may answer best. Would you like to see her now?"
Yes, please.
"Wait," Max suddenly realized something, "will I ever see you again?"
"Only when you truly need me."
The Dog disappeared in a blinding flash of light, and when Max managed to open her eyes again, she was standing in a grass field. She looked up and with a jolt recognized the Blackwell Academy building – she was in the familiar courtyard.
There was a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and was promptly engulfed in familiar tattooed arms and a sea of blue hair. "Welcome home, Max," Chloe said softly into her ear. Max rested her head on Chloe's shoulder and relaxed into her embrace… until her eyes focused on the familiar figure standing behind Chloe and therefore face-to-face with her.
It was herself – another Max, looking back at her, wearing a plain linen shirt and trousers embroidered with block letters and numbers spelling "C-62".
Max pulled back, pulling herself away from Chloe. "Chloe, is that… me?"
"It's a long story. But yes, that's you… or rather, you're her." As Chloe answered, Max finally noticed what Chloe was wearing: a nearly identical rough linen shirt and trousers, except hers was embroidered with a large Greek letter alpha.
The other Max came up, offering a handshake to the newly arrived Max. "Hi, I'm you… the version of you that got run over by the tanker truck that jumped over the middle of the highway last week."
Max shook her duplicate self's hand. Max C-62 then handed her newly arrived self a roll of linen. Max took the roll, which unrolled itself into a shirt. Unfolding the shirt revealed that it, too, was embroidered: "C-63" in big block letters across the front.
"You'll need to wear that while you're here," Max C-62 said, "so everyone else can tell us apart."
Max put on the shirt over her previous clothing, and things started to fall into place in her mind as she looked again at the "C-62" sewed into her duplicate self's shirt, and then looked down at her "C-63".
"So… the thing about leaving copies of us behind with each rewind…?" Max asked.
"It's true," Chloe answered. "Turns out I really did fork the timeline every time I saved you with my powers. Still worth it every time, though."
"Also turns out Tobanga was the one who gave us the powers after all," Max C-62 said, making the new Max C-63 suddenly realize where they were and look up at the Tobanga totem standing proudly above the Blackwell courtyard they were in.
Chloe took the new Max's hand and led her over to the Tobanga totem, placing Max's hand as well as her own on the wood. "Tobanga," said Chloe, "may I introduce you to Max C-63?"
Suddenly in Max's mind there was a brief chorus of voices, and then one deep male voice rose over the rest. "Welcome, Maxine Caulfield." Pause. A brief cacophony of voices dimly in the background. The voice spoke again. "What can Tobanga do for you today?"
Chloe pulled Max's hand away from the totem. "Tobanga knows you now," she explained, "so now you can talk to him anytime just by being near him. Sometimes you have to wake him up by touching him."
"How do I talk to him?" Max asked.
"Just address him in your head as if you're talking to him. Or talk out loud. Either works."
"Tobanga," Max said, "who are you?"
"We are the guardian spirit of the people of Nekelim. We are the trees, the birds, the deer, the fish, the squirrels, even the ants and the blades of grass under your feet… we are also the people, every one who has ever lived in this land… we are a part of you as you are of us…"
"Why did you give Chloe these powers?"
There was another brief cacophony of a few seconds, and then the male voice spoke clearly again. "We intended the power for you. However, your self whom we gave them to, chose to relinquish the power before having used them sufficiently to accomplish our purpose. Our power therefore required additional outlets, and we counted on those whose regrets were greatest to make fullest use of the power. It is thanks to you and your friends that we are at last free of the scourge of the Prescotts. Our people rest in peace and harmony, and all who truly belong to this land are united with it."
"You gave me powers?"
No sooner had she finished speaking than a flash of images began to appear in her head, taking over all of her vision. She saw herself, hiding behind the bathroom stall on that Monday afternoon, screaming at the accidental gunshot, then reaching out, rewinding the scene. She watched as another version of herself hit the fire alarm, predicted the future with Chloe over breakfast, went to the junkyard with Chloe, then saved Chloe from her own bullet and then from the train on the tracks. She saw herself standing with Chloe on the cliff as the tornado passed by them towards the town. In lightning succession she watched herself saving Chloe from highway accidents, an earthquake, a gas station explosion, a robbery, more traffic accidents, a falling lightpole… and finally returning to the bathroom to take the bullet meant for Chloe. Then she watched Chloe scream, accidentally rewind herself all the way back into her truck in the parking lot, and then pull out her phone to call Max.
Max remembered answering that call just after snapping that blue butterfly photo perched on the bucket, being first confused and then bewildered by Chloe's sudden insistence on her leaving the bathroom and going to meet Chloe in the parking lot, out of the blue after years without a text. It had been one of her more surreal experiences up to that point, though it was soon eclipsed by Chloe turning out to have time-traveled to save her life. But neither this Max nor her Chloe had known of the whole other tangle of alternate timelines that had preceded her own.
I was never supposed to exist, Max realized, as her vision cleared and she again looked up at the animal totem in front of her.
"Not by God's original design, you were not," Tobanga's voice echoed in her mind. "It was we who created you, not the Great Deity, and we shall always care for our own creation… so whatever you need we shall provide, though our powers are not so great as the greatest God."
"Thank you, I guess?"
Max felt rather than heard the contentment emanating from the old Tobanga totem before her. She understood that Tobanga was finished speaking.
Max 63 followed Chloe and the other-timeline Max 62 as they walked out of the Blackwell courtyard and left the school behind. "Just wait till you see our new home, Max. This is going to be awesome!"
As they walked on the main dirt road away from the Blackwell front entrance, Nathan Prescott was coming up towards the school, and they inevitably met in the road. Max 63 slowed down, watching Nathan warily, but Nathan only glanced at her on his way up to Chloe, meeting her with some kind of elaborate secret handshake. "Hey Price! Up to sixty-three now, huh?" "Yep! Just forty-three more to go… I think…" "Man, I should've made more clones while I had the chance… I could've had a whole army!" "Haha, really Nate? You think you would listen to yourself?" "Touche, Price… touché…"
The new Max watched Chloe's friendly exchange with Nathan, surprised at first, but when she noticed Nathan's plain linen shirt and pants were embroidered with Greek letters similar to Chloe's, the meaning of Tobanga's comment began to dawn on her. After they left Nathan behind, Max took the opportunity to ask Chloe. "Tobanga said that his power needed 'additional outlets', or something. Did he… was Nathan one of his…"
"Yeah, Nathan was one of the people who got your rewind," Chloe said. "Actually, it wasn't even your rewind originally, it was Rachel's, she used it to avoid Nathan dosing her way back that April before we met originally. We were actually in the timeline she left behind, this whole time, the timeline where she did get dosed and Nathan took her to the Dark Room and then gave her too much. So then Tobanga gave you the power knowing you would use it to save me, and gave me the power because I'd use it to save you, and he gave it to Nathan, because he would use it to get out of shooting me. Nathan created a whole big mess of timelines where he tried to undo everything he and his dad and Jefferson ever did and kept finding out more and more about his evil family, and ended up just running away from it all, which Tobanga apparently didn't like so he just took Nathan's powers away one day and let him get swallowed by a sinkhole on the I-5. Kinda mean but also funny, you know? Tobanga says it was his payback for trying to steal him from Blackhell that one time."
Max C-63 smiled a bit at that. "Then what happened?"
"Well, we'd gotten a bunch of dead Nathans earlier during that week with the tornado and Jefferson, along with a lot of clones of every other person in town. By the time Alpha Nathan showed up more than a year later, we kind of had a system down for keeping everyone straight."
"Chloe, tell her about the other you that's with Nathan!" interjected the other Max, C-62.
"Yeah, we don't talk about her," Chloe Alpha declared with an air of finality, as Max C-63 turned to her with a questioning glance.
With no answer forthcoming from Chloe, Max C-63 turned to her counterpart Max C-62, who explained. "Nathan got himself arrested or killed a lot when he started fighting back against Jefferson and his dad. He started jumping back further and further trying to break away from them, and somehow, he still hasn't told us how this happened… but somehow Nathan ended up in a timeline… where he was in love with Chloe. Where they decided to run away together and forget about Jefferson and Sean and the storm coming to kill everyone… and well, a couple hours after they drove off, the highway opened up right under Nathan's truck and ate them both. It took him a few rewinds to get to that point, too, so there's actually three Chloe Prescotts and three Nathans sharing a room in the Prescott house downtown—"
"Okay, that's enough!" Chloe Alpha interrupted. "While you're at it, tell her about how you shacked up with Warren Graham!"
"Um, yeah…" Max C-62 said much less enthusiastically, "so Warren actually got a rewind from Tobanga too, after Alpha Max met up with him in the Two Whales during the big storm that Friday. His big regret was not putting all the signs together in time to warn everyone about the storm, and Tobanga let him try to fix that. Warren ended up trying to save the town about fifteen times that week and managed to get about fifteen hundred people to evacuate. And, well, in one of the bad timelines he left behind, the only survivors from Blackwell ended up being him and that Max, and they ended up staying together. Just a few months ago they were in a freak accident and he tried to rewind for the first time in several months, but his powers were gone and they both ended up here. Alpha Max and Chloe found them…"
"You didn't tell her where Max Graham lives," Chloe prompted.
"Oh, right." Max C-62 said, "We have twenty-two Warrens and they set themselves up as a collective like Chloe and us. The Warren of Warrens, we call them. Brooke lives with them – all twenty-five of her – and our one version of Max does too."
"That sounds awkward…" Max C-63 commented.
"It's not too bad," Max C-62 said. "As Brooke likes to say, she got more than ninety-five percent of what she wanted, so she's cool with us as long as it's just one of us. The rest of us don't quite understand Max W-7 because her timeline went so different from the rest of ours, but she's happy where she is and we're happy for her. There's her, and the two of us that ended up with Vic, but pretty much everyone else is on the same page and we all live together."
"Vic…toria Chase?"
"Yeah, Max C-2 and M-2, from alternate timelines where William didn't die that day. They go by Maxine, never Max, they're in the Vortex Club and they're actually friends with a few of those people."
"How many versions of us are there all together?"
"About… ninety? Or something like that, only Alpha really keeps an exact count since that's her job. It's a lot. We die a lot more than most people, apparently. And Chloe. I think there's at least a hundred of her now…"
"A hundred and eight," Chloe Alpha said. "But that's just here in Arcadia. A while back Tobanga told us that Rachel made a few dozen more of me in Los Angeles, and she's still up there saving me over and over just like you're still up there, just like I'm still up there, for the next year or so. There's an Amber Price House in the hellscape of Los Angeles now. That's why we only ended up with one Rach, because all her other selves called Cali their home and went there when they died. It was what they wanted, on some level. And if I'd gone with her, I'd have stayed with her to the end and beyond, the same way I actually did with you."
- September 17, 2015 -
Later that same evening…
In the distance, there was a large wooden longhouse, partially shrouded in a light mist. The field between them and the house was mostly covered in low green leafy vegetation, at most a few inches above the ground. Several Maxes and Chloes could be seen scattered across the landscape in various states of digging, pulling plants out of the ground, cleaning off the tuberous roots, and collecting the plants in wheelbarrows.
Chloe Alpha turned to Max C-63. "Welcome to the Pricefield, our eternal home," she said with a flourish – pointing to a wooden sign at the edge of the field, which was printed with the same text in a mixture of block letters and calligraphy: "Welcome to the Pricefield"
"Ha, so clever," Max C-63 remarked.
"Warren's idea, actually," Chloe said. "He named his house the Warren of Warrens, and made the rest of us the Pricefield, the Victorious Mansion, and Nathan's Nest… he tried to name Dana's Den too, but Dana refused to let us name her home something that ridiculous, so he went with Dana's Ward, and that's the label on our official town map. Nathan pulled some strings at city council to get them to approve the new neighborhood names. We have a copy inside the house, you can see it."
"What are the two houses?" Max C-63 asked – as they drew nearer the fog had dissipated to reveal a second, smaller log cabin off to one side of the main building, half buried in the middle of a tall wheat field, but otherwise a similar dull brown in appearance. A path through the golden yellow wheat field led to a door on the narrow side of the smaller house.
"That's the Amber Pricefield," Chloe explained. "Meaning, Rachel Amber's section of the Pricefield. Yes, she lives with us now. You'll see…"
- September 20, 2015 -
In that same large wooden longhouse between farm fields, the oldest of the Maxes stood at one end of the central space, the walls lined with seated Maxes, dozens more sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle. Max allowed herself a smile as she watched her own selves chattering away animatedly.
"Will the Council of Maxes please come to order!"
The cacophony, entirely of Max's own voice, quieted down as the realization that the meeting was starting rapidly spread from the front of the room to the back. Max waited until she had all of her younger selves' attention, before continuing.
"Thank you for continuing our life together. In case anyone's missed a day, today is Sunday, September 20, 2015. Now, for our first order of business – we have a new version of us today, the one Alpha Chloe told us about that got hit by a taxi at the airport right before they were going to fly to Paris. Everyone please welcome Max number C-sixty-three!"
"Welcome, Max number C-sixty-three," echoed the audience, after their leader.
"If you need anything, we're all here for you. Do we have any other first-time guests today?" Alpha Max glanced around the room quickly. No more hands were raised.
"Okay. Next order of business, we have two new Chloes this past week. Maxine?"
One of the two Maxes who were sitting at the front right corner of the room, sharing a makeshift writing board with notes, stood up and started reading from the board. "Last Tuesday, September 15, you and Chloe were on your way back from the Grand Canyon. Stopped in Vegas for the night and got blasted by a semi truck from Chloe's side. And on Thursday, September 18, Chloe was electrocuted by a broken slot machine that you'd just won $50 from a few seconds earlier. We have them registered as M-70 and M-71 in our list."
"Thank you, Maxine." Alpha Max turned back to the audience. "Anyone else we know arrive this past week?"
A sea of Maxes shrugged, answering in the negative.
"How are we feeling today? We'll start from the lowest number today since we have a new self joining us. Oh, and everyone from my timeline, give Max Sixty-Three a recap so she knows our side of the story. Nicknames, too, if you have them."
What seemed at first glance to be a random Max stood up from the crowd, giving a shy wave to the newly arrived "Max 63". "Hi, I'm Max Zero… um… also known as Little Max. Your timeline was created when I got shot instead of Chloe in the bathroom two years ago. She rewinded and created the new timeline by calling you to make you leave the bathroom before Nathan showed up."
Max Zero sat down and another Max stood up next to her. "Hi, I'm Max number one… Chloe called me and told me to avoid Nathan and go to find her in the parking lot. But she couldn't rewind again after that, and we were going to break into Principal Wells' office that Sunday but the storm sent us both here instead."
Max One sat down, and next to her, another Max rose. "Hi, I'm also Max number one, but I'm from an alternate universe where I was the one who had the powers, not Chloe. I accidentally rewound after I saw Chloe get shot, and then rushed to get to the bathroom after class and saved her by hitting the fire alarm. Except then I lost my powers the next morning when I wanted to show them to Chloe at the diner. So I'm the one Alpha Max left behind when she did that rewind. I gave up on my powers and was just so glad to have Chloe back… then we both died in the storm."
"Anyway, we've officially designated me as Max M-1, because I'm from the second timeline Alpha Max made, and she's Max C-1, because she's from the second timeline Alpha Chloe made."
One of the secretarial Maxines stood up. "Hi, I'm Max C-2, from when Chloe discovered her photojump that same afternoon she saved you originally. I'm from the timeline where Chloe went back five years and saved William and then got paralyzed in a car crash a few months after turning sixteen. We kind of drifted apart even before that, but I figured I'd make it up to her once I went back to start at Blackwell. What I didn't know was that we were all going to die in that tornado just a few weeks into school... I never did see my Chloe again, and probably never will. She's probably gone to heaven and left me behind, which…" Maxine sighed. "I deserved it, honestly. I blew her off for my new Vortex Club buddies. My Chloe was too good for me… for any of us. And we're both where we belong."
The other Maxine stood up next to her. "I'm Max M-2. I'm basically her," she motioned to her twin holding the clipboard, "except in my timeline Alpha Max was the one who went back five years and saved William. Then I blacked out that one day because Alpha Max took over and made me go visit Chloe. I woke up after she jumped back to her own timeline, Chloe was pissed at me and I had no idea how I'd got there. Turns out my Chloe asked Alpha, who she thought was me, to overdose her with morphine, and Alpha ran back to her own time instead… I never knew until after I got here. Also, we both go by Maxine, never Max."
"Hi, I'm the third Max from Chloe's timelines… I'm from the timeline where Chloe went back six months and saved Rachel, so I never got to meet Chloe until after I died from Nathan running me over in his truck. We found my Chloe a few months later after she got kidnapped by drug dealers in LA trying to get their money from Rachel."
"Hi, I'm the third Max from Max's timelines… after we saved Chloe in the bathroom that first time, then got breakfast at the Two Whales the next day, which is when Alpha rewinded to show Chloe the rewind powers. I'm the Max that got left behind without powers. And then we died in the storm on Friday."
"Hi, I'm Max M-4, I'm the one who was able to rewind to tell Chloe what was in her pockets, but then couldn't rewind again after that, so I also failed to convince her, so then we also died in that storm."
"Hi, I'm Max M-5, the one who was able to rewind exactly two times before my powers ran out. Er, three if you count the bathroom. I convinced Chloe about my rewind in the diner that Tuesday, but then couldn't rewind an hour later when Chloe shot herself off the bumper in the junkyard. I basically spent the rest of the week at the hospital with her until the storm on Friday."
"Hi, I'm Max M-6, I managed to save Chloe from shooting herself, but then couldn't save her from the train tracks…"
"Max M-7, same thing…"
"Max M-8, I saved her from the train tracks but then…"
The latest arrived Max watched in bewilderment as the parallel timelines unfolded before her. The Max to her right reached out, putting a reassuring hand to the new Max's shoulder. "Don't worry, it took all of us weeks of hearing the story over and over to really get it down. It's a lot to walk into."
"Hi, I'm Max N-1, N for Nathan… I'm from the timeline where Nathan got Tobanga's powers instead of us, so he knew when Chloe was going to push him and jumped back to avoid accidentally shooting her. I ended up hiding behind the stall the whole time while he made Chloe go away by giving her a few hundred dollars and promising to come up with the rest in a few days. I never knew it was Chloe and never ended up meeting up with her before the storm killed all of us that Friday. I didn't know Kate was going to jump from the roof either…"
"Hi, I'm Max N-2, from that same timeline except that Nathan somehow got up to the roof and stopped Kate from jumping. He still couldn't stop the storm that Friday, though."
"Hi, I'm Max C-4. Chloe found out that I died as a result of her saving Rachel, so she went back, saved Rachel again but also left herself a note to save me from getting run over by Nathan. It was kind of weird meeting up with Chloe again and then having her suddenly turn into a whole different Chloe who didn't remember the last day or the last six months. And then I got kidnapped by Jefferson, and David died rescuing me, and I woke up in the hospital and Chloe was there… it was my Chloe, C-4, because Chloe Alpha jumped back to keep Jefferson from kidnapping me, but she left me with Chloe C-4 so at least we weren't alone when the storm came for us. Turns out Chloe C-4 remembered the last six months that Chloe Alpha skipped over, so after we arrived here we pieced things together, with help from our Alphas, and we've been together ever since."
"Hi, I'm Max V-1. I didn't even know Victoria had a rewind until I was already dead, but I guess that explains why Victoria suddenly stood up and bolted out of Jefferson's class that Tuesday and then acted like Kate's bodyguard for the rest of that week until the storm got to all of us."
One after another, the Maxes stood, reciting their litany of stories for the next several hours. At last, it was the newest Max's turn.
Max C-63 stood up, a bit awkwardly as all eyes were on her. Max C-62 reached up and squeezed her hand encouragingly.
"Hi, I'm Max C-63… Chloe saved me from the tanker truck last week, and we made it to New York without any other trouble and spent the day exploring before our flight to Paris. The next morning we woke up late and didn't get to the airport until like half an hour before our flight, so we were running to get into the airport and a speeding taxi hit me…"
Up at the front of the room, Maxine M-2 was taking notes. Alpha Max nodded and Max C-63 sat down, unsure what else to say.
"Thank you, Max C-63," Alpha Max said. "There you have it, the newest chapter of the Book of Max. Stay tuned, guys." A smattering of chuckles followed, but it was sadly muted; most of the Maxes had heard that line enough times that it brought only the faintest of smiles to their expressions.
"Okay." Alpha Max continued on, unfazed. "Any highlights this past week?"
Another Max raised her hand. Everyone turned to her. "Warren said they're almost done with the design for a prototype heat engine. They're going to fire up the forge tomorrow to start making parts. He asked if we wanted to send anyone to, 'witness history being made', he said."
"Anyone want to go?" Alpha Max asked.
Somewhere in the crowd a Max raised her hand. "I'll go," she said. The Maxes seated directly in front of her bent down to each side, allowing Alpha and Secretary-Maxine to see the numbers printed on the volunteering Max's shirt.
"Okay, so Max W-7 is going to work at the forge this week. That makes us one Max short on the potato harvesting this week. Who's going to fill in?"
The sea of Maxes seemed to quiver as heads swiveled around glancing at each other, looking for any sign of something. No hands went up.
"Come on, Max… this is your food supply for the winter…" Alpha said as if trying to encourage herself.
Finally a hand popped up out of the crowd. "I'm on farm duty next week, but I can trade with W-7 for this week," said a Max seated a few rows towards the back.
"Thank you, Max C-25." Alpha paused while Maxine M-2 pointed to something on one of their clipboards and Maxine C-2 crossed something out and started writing something. "Okay, any other updates?"
Another hand went up, another Max made her report. "Chloe has a surprise planned for our birthday, but it involved reserving the whole Two Whales diner for a couple hours, so she couldn't get it on our actual birthday tomorrow. She says we all need to be at the diner next week on Tuesday from noon to three o'clock."
"Noted. We'll all be there." And they all would be, without a doubt. Max would always be there for Chloe, no matter which particular Max or Chloe it might be.
Another Max raised her hand and again the Maxes shifted their attention. "Last Thursday I saw Mrs. Grant at the market, she had the twenty pounds of flour she owed us for the dress we made her last month, so she handed it over and we brought it back. Also, we sold all the potatoes from our first batch. We got five pumpkins, twelve pounds of carrots, and the replacement shovel head we needed." The Max next to her whispered, apparently reminding her of something. "Oh, yeah. Also, Victoria stopped by, she still owes us thirty pounds of something but she says she'll have enough to trade again next month."
"Cool. Maxine, you got all that?"
"Yep!" Maxine C-2 replied from off to the side.
"What's next?"
Another hand went up from a Max further back. "I caught Sera with James last Friday when I was early to drop off their share of the potatoes. They begged me not to tell Rachel or anyone else about it. What are we going to do?"
"Well, shit." The secretary Maxines turned to the one reporting the tidbit. "If you'd just told us to keep you away from Rachel we could've done it. But now how are we all going to keep this from her?"
"We aren't," Alpha Max said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "When are Sera and James going to tell her?"
"Not anytime soon, I don't think."
"We're telling her. Rachel, I mean. We're telling her… right?"
"Does anyone here not think we should tell Rachel?"
Silence.
One Max sheepishly raised her hand, face turning cherry-red as the rest of her alternate selves turned to stare at her.
"I just think-" she mumbled, "uh, I mean, can't we— I think she would take it a lot better from Sera than any of us…"
"And how are we going to make Sera tell her?"
Max shrugged. "Blackmail?"
Several other Maxes realized something almost simultaneously. "Hold on a sec. Aren't there like sixty James Ambers and only four Sera Gearhardts in this town right now? How is that…"
"Wait, which James and which Sera was this?"
"Doesn't matter, they're all the same, like us…"
As multiple Maxes started talking at once and the room dissolved into a cacophony of side conversations, Max C-63 turned to Max C-62 with a puzzled look. "Why are there sixty James's and only four Sera's?" she asked, just loud enough to be heard.
"Because Sera died prior to most of our timelines being split off, but James died in the storm in a lot of the timelines we created that first week."
"Oh…"
"Weird thing is, we still only have one Rachel Amber, even though we're pretty sure at least three if not four Rachels had to have died before making it out of Arcadia Bay. Tobanga says they're not in Los Angeles either, or any other place he can sense, so we don't know where they are. The original Sera died before Rachel, because James paid Frank's old boss to give her heroin to keep her away from Rachel, and then two other Sera's died in the big storm that we caused, but those were the timelines where we saved William and that changed things so that Sera lived up until the storm. In those timelines Rachel still disappeared the April before we started at Blackwell but if she died she should have ended up here with us…."
Meanwhile, gathered just outside the same wooden longhouse…
"Alright Mini-Me's, listen up!" one Chloe yelled over a crowd of several dozen slightly younger Chloes gathered around her in a big blob. "Announcements for the week! We've got two more of us this week." The speaker, Alpha Chloe, turned to her younger self at her left, pulling her forward. "Number 70 here was brought to us by our true love Maximus Prime. Last Tuesday in her timeline, we stopped in Vegas driving back from the Grand Canyon and got smushed by a semi truck. We haven't seen Max number 70 yet, so as far as we know, she's still up there. Moment of silence for Max number 70, please."
Everyone bowed their heads in mourning for the Max left behind.
"Okay. So Mini-Me number 71 here, got saved from the semi truck by another Maximus Prime rewind. And then got electrocuted by a slot machine that Thursday. We haven't seen Max number 71 either, so…"
Dozens of Chloes again bowed their heads silently for this other Max who must be missing them up above.
"Anyway, please welcome yourself, er, ourselves, 70 and 71!" Applause, whooping, and cheering ensued for a few seconds. The Chloe in charge turned to her two newest doppelgangers, extending her hand. "Chloe, and Chloe, welcome to the collective. You have now been assimilated."
"This is really weird," the seventy-first Chloe remarked as she shook hands with Alpha Chloe. "But… also pretty cool."
"Yep! That's right! So in other news, we picked up another Max last Thursday. One of mine. We'd finally managed to get that trip to Paris we'd always wanted, and we were flying that Thursday. So we got out of the taxi at John F. Kennedy airport and were running to the entrance, and then tires screeched out of nowhere and I turned just in time to see a taxi come out of nowhere and bump into Max. I rewound it before she was even a foot off the ground but obviously in that timeline she went flying and now she's here. Max number 63, they say."
"Anyway, now we need to catch up our new selves M-70 and M-71 on all the rest of our timelines. You all know the drill – start from the beginning, Max's timelines first, then ours, then Nathan's, then Victoria's, and Warren's people last. Alright, go for it!"
Chloe Zero, standing next to her Alpha but otherwise indistinguishable from the crowd except by the number on her shirt and the clipboard and notes in her hands, stepped up and shook hands with her older counterparts. "Hello, Chloe. And, uh, Chloe. I'm also Chloe… I'm the zeroth Chloe, because Alpha took over my body and sacrificed me and herself to save Max that Monday afternoon. So really I didn't even get shot, but I died when she took over."
"She's lucky," commented one of three Chloes wearing shirts numbered "M-1". They linked arms, shoulder to shoulder, facing their new counterparts, before launching into a prepared speech, all three speaking in unison. "Hello there, we're Chloe M-1, also known as the triplets!" They all reached out simultaneously, three hands shaking Chloe M-70's outstretched hand, then Chloe M-71, leaving both of the new Chloes holding back giggles at this display. The triplets continued speaking, without missing a beat. "We're the original Chloe Price who got shot for nothing on October 7, 2013 and missed out on all the time travel badassery. Probably for the best."
Chloe M-70 smirked. "So which of you is the real original Chloe Price?"
"I am!" said all three Chloe M-1's in stereo, mock-indignantly. Both new Chloes burst out laughing.
"In all seriousness," Chloe Alpha explained, "we actually have no idea which of them is the original of us. I mean, one of them definitely came from that shitty timeline Rachel left us in when she disappeared, one of them got left behind when Max first used her rewind to save Chloe M-2, and one of them got created when Max went back for the sacrifice… but even Tobanga couldn't tell them apart, because they're probably like quantum molecular duplicates or something. So, yeah. They're all original and we're all just copies of them."
"That is a total mindfuck," Chloe M-71 said.
"Totally with you there," Chloe Alpha replied. "Anyway, let's continue the introductions, shall we?"
"Hi, I'm Chloe M-2," another Chloe stepped out of the crowd to greet the newcomers, "the one Max saved by hitting the fire alarm to distract Nathan. I almost ran her over in the parking lot about half an hour later, thank God I hit the brakes in time, but she told me she had powers, and I made her meet me at the Two Whales to prove she could time travel… and guess what, she couldn't anymore. When the tornado came for us that Friday, we couldn't do anything."
"Hi, I'm Chloe M-3. I met Max for breakfast that Tuesday and she told me exactly what was in my pockets, and I almost believed her… until she flubbed hard trying to predict the future for me. And then the storm came. The end."
"I'm Chloe M-4. My Max's powers lasted just long enough to convince me she had them. And then conveniently ran out right after I bounced a bullet right into my ribcage. I was in the hospital all week. Obviously, no chance of escaping a tornado there..."
"I'm Chloe M-5. Never knew until after dying that Max knew what would happen if I shot that car bumper, but then the train tracks grabbed my foot and just wouldn't let go. And of course her rewind disappeared…"
"I'm Chloe M-6. It took Max Alpha two rewinds to save me, meaning M-7, from the train tracks. My Max only got one of those two rewinds."
"I'm Chloe M-7, and my Max did save me from the train tracks, but then…"
Chloe M-70 and Chloe M-71 met an endless procession of Chloe M's, all 69 of their predecessors, and then another few dozen Chloe C's, a handful of Chloe N's, and some Chloe W's and Chloe V's. It was near sunset by the time the Chloe Collective finished their introductions and actually got down to business.
Meanwhile, a few miles away in a mansion down the street from Blackwell…
"Alright guys!" Warren shouted over a cacophony of his own voices. The dining room of the mansion was crowded with about twenty Warren Grahams, sitting or standing around a table strewn with papers, several of which were stuck together in the middle with complicated mechanical blueprints on them. "Do we all agree on this design for our prototype heat engine? They're going to fire up the forge tomorrow, so last chance to fix anything."
The Warrens all looked about the room at each other, shrugging or nodding. There were no objections.
"Awesome, we're done with that then. Anyone have anything to report?"