Outside the window, a lone car passed the motel. Its headlights dragged long thin shadows of tree branches across the spotty ceiling. The sound made Max let out a little groan in unison with the engine's growl. She stretched her hand to find the glass of water she left on the floor by the bed. Empty.
She blinked several times, then rubbed her eyes — it hurt like they were full of sand. She rolled on her side to face Chloe — the girl fell asleep with one hand around Max, but it felt too hot after an hour of lying in bed, staring at the celling, trying to sleep, trying not to think, and still thinking about the same things over and over again, so she gently removed Chloe's hand from her body. Chloe was fast asleep — so close that Max could see her nostrils trembling as she inhaled the hot, damp air.
Max gently ran her fingers across Chloe's cheek.
"M-m? Wha?" — Chloe yawned, opened her eyes, then raised her hand to hold Max's palm and press it tight to her cheek. "What's up? What time is it?"
Too late, thought Max. From now on, the time will always be the same: too late.
"Do we have any more... Medicine?"
Chloe sighed. "Can't sleep?"
"M-hm." — Max tried really hard not to let this sound like a whimper. She failed.
"Never thought I would be the one to say this, but... Aren't you doing it too much?"
"Chloe, I..." — her voice trembled. — "I just... I wish I could..."
"Shhh. Hush." — Chloe pulled Max close to herself and whispered right into her ear: "Why did you do it?"
"For you" — sobbed Max.
"So I'm here. I'll always be here. We'll carry this weight together. You don't have to do it alone. You've saved your Gwen Stacy, Super-Max."
"Don't call me that. What kind of superhero ruins the city she's supposed to protect?"
"Hmmm... Superman totally did it. And Avengers have messed up half the planet. That's before they started a civil war. And, speaking of wars, Hulk..."
Despite her mood, Max chuckled.
"You're the best."
"Yeah."
"You know, I really got into the superhero gig. With all these nosebleeds and all, I didn't expect to get out of this alive. I hoped for a happy ending, but I was ready to save everyone with some last-moment heroic sacrifice. Maybe, overstrain my powers to make a miracle and fry my brain... I never thought I'd have to make a choice like this, with my life isn't even being on the table."
"You really need to get stoned. We both do. Wait a minute." — Chloe gently let go of Max and stood up. Slapping her bare feet on the dirty floor, she went to her coat, hanging next to the door. "Wait... Oh, shit."
"What?" — Max raised her head from the pillow.
"Looks like we're out of cake. My pocket got torn." — she put her palm through the hole in the fabric and wiggled her fingers. — "Just my luck".
"Wait..." — Max sat on the bed. — "What did you say?"
"My luck. It's always like that. I'm like the living deity of misfortune, god-emperor of losers, firing loser beams from my ass."
"You know what..." — Max said slowly, as she stood up and approached Chloe.
"Nope, no idea. But I like this voice much better!"
Max flicked the light switch and immediately closed her eyes with a wince. Narrowing her eyes, hurting from the bulb's dull light, Chloe looked at the single most important person in the world. Dirty, uncombed hair. Eyes with black circles under them and red swollen eyelids. But the eyes themselves, as Max opened them, red and teary, were alive with a wild spark.
"What's up? Have you come from the future again? Some more shit we need to take care of? Please don't tell me I got killed again, this is really getting old."
"Nope, this time I'm all present. I just thought..." — Max run through her own coat's pockets and took a handful of change. — "Remember how we shot the bottles?"
"Yeah. Good thing we've emptied the gun before Frank came. Otherwise, it was a horrible idea. Totally would do that again."
"You might have a chance." — Max took the glass and put it on the floor next to the door. Then she led Chloe back to the bed and handed her a nickel. — "Can you throw it at the door and make it bounce into the glass?"
"With you as my spotter, sky's the limit!" — Chloe took the coin, stretched the hand she held it with, and closed one eye. — "Guns ready! On your mark, captain!"
"Try a bit to the left."
Nickel flashed in the lamplight, knocked at the door and tinkled into the glass.
"Cool! Let's try again... Wait, a bit higher".
Another tinkle.
"Going great. Throw a bit harder." — tinkle! — "Higher again!" — tinkle! — "Take a bit lower" — tinkle! — "It works!"
"Didn't we already know it works? Like, with a gun? And, Max, are you sure you can use your power like that? What if you cause another calamity?"
Max looked at her, lips parted in a wide crazy grin.
"Ready for the big plot twist? I didn't do anything!"
"Come again?"
"I didn't rewind the time, just told you random stuff. You did it by yourself."
With a puzzled look, Chloe took another coin and flung it at the door. Tinkle!
"Just when I thought I understood some of the shit. Okay, Max Planck, I'm officially clueless. What did you do?"
"I told you, nothing at all! It was you! You controlled the coins, and the bullets too!"
"That... How? I have no superpowers!"
"How do you know?"
There was a brief silence. Then Chloe stood up and pulled her father's camera from Max's bag.
"Here. Make a selfie. If we're about to abuse some more superpowers, we'd better save the game before we do".
"Good thinking!" — Max took the camera, then put her hand around Chloe's neck and pointed the lens at them. — "Make a heroic face."
Chloe stuck out her tongue. The camera clicked, Max took the photo and shook it.
"All right. Am I looking all worried, saying something crazy yet? Let's wait a minute. If I don't turn into Future Max and tell you we've screwed up, then, as long as we have the photo, we'll know we're good."
"So your superpower is basically save scumming?"
"Yeah, exactly."
Several minutes passed, but nothing happened.
"Alrighty..." — Chloe picked up the coins. — "So what's my power, and how do I shot web?"
"I have no idea. I just... You know, all these crazy days we hardly had a moment to sit down and think things over. But I knew something was off with that stuff in the junkyard. Something beside Frank having Rachel's bracelet, and that ghostly doe, and you getting caught in the rails... Shit, looks like literally everything was off there!"
"You don't say. But it was about the part where we shot the bottles, right?"
"Yep. Something was wrong, I just couldn't put my finger on it. Then you lost the weed, and it clicked. Guess: how many times did I have to rewind time and correct you before you got the shots right?"
"Beats me. Dozens, probably? I wasn't awfully sober like now."
"Once. Exactly once, even for the trick shots!"
"And now you corrected me before I threw the coin... And it still worked. Wow. Just wow." — Chloe weighed the remaining change in her palm — "Ok. Heads. Like, all of them, heads!" — she tossed the coins on the floor.
Before the last nickel finished rolling across the floor, both girls were on their feet, looking at the coins.
"Heads. Heads. Heads again. More heads. Shit, that's... This one is heads, too. So, Rosenmax and Chloenstern..."
"...are alive and kicking ass!" — finished Max. — "Welcome to the supers club!"
Chloe straightened her back, walked across the tiny room and collapsed on the bed.
"Okay, but I still have no idea how to control it. Fuck, I don't even know what exactly my power is!"
"Telekinesis, maybe?"
"Huh..." — Chloe picked up a coin from the floor, put it on her palm and stared. — "Ughhh... Nope, not moving. Now... Tails! Tails! Tails!" — she flipped the coin three times, and each time it came up as told. She dropped the nickel back on the floor. — "Dear reality, would you pretty fucking please start making some sense? You know, before I punch you really hard?"
"Mayhaps, it's enhanced luck?"
"My superpower is luck? That's the black joke of the year. How many times did I die this week?"
"But you got me right in time to save you."
"Can't argue with that!" — Chloe chuckled. — "Anyway, what does it have to do with the lost weed?"
"Yes, about that... I guess I was kind of terrible for the last couple of days. Sorry."
"Max, that's the last thing you should be apologizing for."
"But you had to carry us both. I couldn't do much more than sleeping, crying or stoning".
Chloe giggled. "Also, fucking." Max gasped and slapped Chloe on the forehead, as the blue-haired girl burst into laughter. "Seriously, though, I'd be doing the same if I didn't have to drive. Hell, it's probably what I'm going to do as soon as we get to your parents in Seattle."
"But you hated to see me like this."
"Ok, I did. So what?"
"Didn't you think of throwing it away?"
"It came to my head, but I didn't... Oh, shit. Except I totally did. Like with those coins and bullets, right? Fuck you, superpower, why are you doing stuff without asking me first?" — She sighed. — "We'll get you some more."
"I don't think I'll need it any more. Hopefully, not for the reason I thought."
"Huh?"
"Let's go outside."
Chloe threw her coat over shoulders, shoved her feet into the boots, and unlocked the door. It opened to a half-empty parking lot, decorated with some shriveled trees. Max followed her as she was, barefoot, in her t-shirt and panties. She pointed at the sky.
"See? Just one moon."
"Yeah, that eclipse made me wonder, too. I'm no rocket scientist, but I'm pretty sure that shit went far beyond physics. Butterflies can trigger hurricanes, I got it, but you can't put a second moon to the sky even with a herd of buffalo." — She sighed. — "Or a single dumb girl."
"This too. But the thing I was thinking about..." — Max's voice quavered, and Chloe hurried to embrace her. — "It shouldn't have stopped with the tornado", whispered Max, barely controlling her sobs. — "If my power really screwed the universe's balance, it couldn't have ended with the Arcadia Bay. I realized it when we left the city. Disasters had to keep piling up, the whole planet should be coming apart right now."
"But it's not, Max! We're here, alive. No freaky blizzards, no new moons, birds fly happily and shit all over our heads, and life goes on!"
"But why? You know, I once read a science fiction story about a man who traveled to another dimension. He screwed everything just by being there, because he added his weight to the total mass of the universe. It affected all the other parameters, like Newton's constant and everything. And it ended with the Earth going from its orbit, not with the universe killing some random people and calling it even."
"So, either it's just a calm before the shitstorm, and the real apocalypse is still coming..." — said Chloe slowly — "...or the whole disaster had nothing to do with you. You're innocent."
"That night, on the hill... You said it was destiny. Like, you were fated to die."
"That was crazy talk." — Chloe shook her head. — "I don't really believe in destiny. I just didn't know what to think at the moment."
"It was worse than crazy! Remember, we thought it was my power that caused the storm. Butterfly effect and stuff. But we were going to send me back to the past to let you die, as if it could change anything! If the tornado happened because I screwed with time, then... Well, either I could go back and save you without rewinding time, just with the memories I had, or the travel through the photo also counts, and then the storm can't be prevented at all! Laws of physics aren't gods, they don't want human sacrifices! What were we thinking?"
"But it does look more like an act of destiny or some evil god than butterfly effect. The book I read said that chaos is small changes causing large and unpredictable effects. Like, if you moved that bucket a bit, it would end with a rain in Scotland instead of a tornado in Oregon. I bet there's no physical theory that says: behave yourself and let the universe have its prey, or it will throw a temper tantrum and kill a bunch of people." — Chloe raised her head to the single-mooned sky, than looked into Max's eyes. — "Shit, we've almost made me a human sacrifice to some imaginary motherfucker! That's the fruits of civilization for you!"
Max flinched, as if from pain, and pressed her head hard against Chloe's shoulder, whispering something barely audible.
"What?"
"It isn't... Imaginary." — there was a long pause before Max finished: "I didn't cause the tornado, but something did. Something wanted you dead. Something bigger than Nathan or Jefferson. And when it didn't get you... It punished the city."
Max shrieked as Chloe's fingers clasped on her body. Then she let Max go, made a sharp turn and slammed the door open.
"Let's pack our shit." — Chloe's voice ringed with anger. — "Forget Seattle. We're going back."
* * *
Max lowered her hand, and the blurry world around came back to normal. "Strike eight."
Chloe shook her head. "Weird. From my perspective it's always going to be strike eight, or eighteen, or eighty the first time we try, but you have actually seen every single rewind."
"I hope it won't ever come to eighty rewinds. That would mean we fucked up really bad. You know, let's make it a part of the code. If you hear double digits, assume the things are bad. Let's stop at eight, give it a rest and gather our thoughts."
"Fine. So what did we find out?"
"Wait..." — Max looked at her clock. — "Make Lamplight FM play something nice from their playlist, other than Metric or Amanda Palmer. Then turn it on."
Chloe closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, then puckered her lips and blowed.
"Puff! By the way, if you ever try to shoot me with a duckface, I'll be firing back. So, what do we have?" — she switched the radio on.
"And we'll return to our studio after the next song. Enjoy."
A simple electronic beat filled the car. "Hey, these may be the final words we may ever get to say, so let's not worry about small regrets, it's too late for that anyway..."
"That's your idea of nice?"
"The nicest I can think of right now. So, where does it leave us?"
"If a radiostation has a fixed program, your power to manipulate chance can't affect it, but you can make the DJ sneeze or make his tongue slip. That gave you a really bad headache and nosebleed, though. Lamplight's DJ choses song at whim, so you can make her play Amanda Palmer or whatever this is instead of Metric, but only if they already have it in rotation, so no Nine Inch Nails for you. That means you can affect people's actions from the distance, but it's limited to stuff they were likely to do anyway."
"This gives me headache, too." — Chloe winced. — "Looks like I shouldn't mess with people and stick to the bullets. Do you mind rewinding and telling me all of this again?"
"Sure." — Max raised her hand, and reality around her blurred, rushing back, unwinding, undoing itself. She lowered her hand, and the blurry world around came back to normal. "Strike nine."
Chloe shook her head. "Weird. From my perspective it's always going to be strike nine, or nineteen, or ninety the first time we try, but you have actually seen every single rewind."
After the whole dialogue repeated, Chloe grinned. "No more experiments for now, then. What was on the radio before we started?"
"Metric."
"Good." — Chloe turned on the radio.
Synthetic music and cold sweet voice filled the car. "Then the storm was overhead, all the oceans boiled and rivers bled..."
Max coughed. "Are you sure you didn't do it?"
"No, I think not. Now that I control it, I have caught the feeling. It's strange. I wonder if your time travel feels anything like that..." — Chloe put a cigarette in her mouth, lit it and inhaled deeply. — "So, my power makes me a crackshot, a lottery cheater, master of coins and lord of deejays. Any more ideas? Something... we could weaponize?" — Chloe clasped the steering wheel as a grimace of anger distorted her face.
"Not yet. It's a shame the Big Cheat failed. Looks like we'll have to learn everything the hard way."
The Big Cheat was something they had tried last night, as they stopped in a greasy eatery by the road. After several experiments that involved fusing bulbs and tripping waitresses, Chloe invented a way to get all the information they need, and then some, with zero effort. She asked Max to take a selfie, and later, after they find out everything, just return to this moment and write it down. Indeed, after Max took the photo, her face changed, and she scribbled something in her notebook, but when she came back to normal, and they checked the message, it said: "Don't try this again. Like, EVER."
Chloe finished the cigarette and threw the butt out of the window. "Then here's our strategy: we make as much mayhem as possible. Once everything is up to chance, I'll bend the outcomes our way, and if it doesn't work, you rewind and tell me where we failed. Hell, even for superheroes we've got the ultimate cheat combo!"
"You bet." — Max leaned to rub her nose at Chloe's neck.
"So!" — Chloe grinned. "Corky and Violet are back on the road!"
"More like dorky and violent."
"Auch! That pun was so bad it actually hurt."
"I regret nothing. Alfred Hitchcock had a reason to call puns the highest form of literature!"
Their chatter withered and died as the ruins showed up ahead. At the place that used to be the city's entrance, there were bright orange tents — rescuers' field hospital. Helicopters, like vultures, flew in circles over the devastated bay. Woods that used to encircle the city now became a jumble of broken timber.
On a toppled tree by the road, leaning on massive roots, sat a little old man in grey uniform. A scurry of squirrels were playing at his feet. Chloe stopped the car. As the girls approached, the man didn't move a bit. His face was motionless, but the eyes were following them through cracked glasses.
"Hello again, moon children", said the janitor. "Welcome back to Arcadia Bay. There aren't many people here now. You must be proud."
"Samuel! You're alive!"
"No, cursed girl, I am not."
The janitor moved his shoulders, and his head fell on his chest, as if his neck was just a rag. Glasses dropped on the ground. Yet, pale lips kept moving.
"You did your job well, moon children. This city is dead. But if you wait, more people will come here for you to kill."
"What are you?" — demanded Chloe, as Max just stared, fingers pressed to her mouth to keep inside the approaching scream.
"People now call me Tobanga. It's not the name people before them used, but names do not matter. I am squirrels, and birds, and deer. I protect this land."
"Protect?" — Chloe stepped forward, clenching her fists. — "With tornados? It was your job, there's no way Max could have caused it!"
"She couldn't, yes. But she could have prevented it. I told you, Max, you could save us all. Instead you doomed your people. As expected from a cursed child of the wicked moon."
"Wicked moon..." — Chloe looked up. — "You mean, the second moon in the sky? The one that caused the eclipse?"
"Yes, the one that showed itself on the night before the calamity. It has been here for a while. It came from beyond the stars to make the land's kids into monsters like you. I tried to protect the city. I sent the mad men against Rachel. But now the wicked moon has turned three of you. Kate and Chloe, I almost vanquished. Max, I couldn't. Her curse manifested too late. A clever move, wicked moon."
"You did what?" — Chloe rushed to the old man and grabbed him by the uniform. — "Rachel? And me, too? You brainwashed Nathan and Jefferson?"
Samuel's head looked up at Chloe with its dull eye. A little worm was wiggling in its corner.
"It wasn't hard. People are weak, their spirits are fragile, they do what their emotions command. It is sad, but it helps to make bad people do good things. Mark's lust. Nathan's frustration. David's jealousy. Victoria's pride. Max's vanity. I almost bent her into believing it's your destiny to die. But even the final vision didn't touch her cursed heart. I am so sorry."
"What the fuck are you talking about? Was it you who set this whole fucking town against me?" — She shook the limp body. — "If Max didn't trigger the tornado, and neither did you, whodunnit?"
She looked back at Max. The girl just shook her head — pale, pupils dilated, unable to speak.
Dead lips moved again. "It was you, Chloe. You hated this town so much you'd like to drop a bomb on it and turn it into glass. This whole town didn't have a child better fit for the curse than you. And as soon as the wicked moon gave you its wretched gift, you started building it up, butterfly by butterfly. A gush of wind, a splash of waves. An air current, a sea current. A fallen bird, a beached whale. It was your storm. Your revenge. You were so happy when it came."
Chloe staggered back, as the dead body collapsed on the ground.
"No... No, no! Max, it can't be true! I couldn't have done it, could I? Fuck!" — She hit the tree trunk with both fists. — "Fuck! Fuck! What do I do now? Max, what do I do?"
Max's pale fingers clasped Chloe's shoulders with a sudden strength.
"Don't you dare blame yourself. Don't you dare."
"But it was me! It all fits! And I was happy to see the storm, it's true! I am a monster..."
"Shut up!" — The echo of Max's shout rolled over the mountains. — "Chloe. Did you abandon me when we thought it was my storm? Did you call me a monster?"
"But it was different..."
"No, it wasn't! We agreed to carry that weight together. Don't you dare put it all on your own shoulders now."
There was a long silence before Chloe leaned to her, embraced her tightly and whispered: "Thank you."
After an even longer silence, both girls were sitting in the car, far from the dead man under the dead tree. Chloe was smoking, Max was inhaling her smoke and staring at the bright blue sky.
"It's the end of the line", said Chloe. "We were looking for the culprit, the evil guy, and it all was just a teenage girl throwing a fit. No villain. Except maybe some aliens on the double moon, but there's no way we can get to them. I was selfish, so I destroyed the world, and there's no way to fix it now."
"Chloe..." — Max coughed. — "Gimmie this."
She took the cigarette, inhaled the smoke and went into coughing again.
"It almost worked", she muttered. "If it was only about people's lives, I could have chosen differently. I mean, I actually did hesitate. But destiny... It's something we were taught to fight. Meekness was never a virtue in our books. No fate but what we make. That was our motto. To bend a knee to destiny would mean betraying ourselves. That was Tobanga's mistake."
"What if someone told you your destiny is to be with me forever? Would you screw it just to be a rebel?"
"I'd be with you despite destiny saying so. It's like when you're about to do something, and then parents tell you to do exactly that. Super annoying, but it's silly to drop that thing just to spite them." — Max sighed. — "Though I have already screwed it as bad as I could. What was I thinking, abandoning you like that?"
"Stop blaming yourself." — Chloe put her hand on Max's shoulder. — "I used to be mad at you, but not anymore."
"You can forgive me, maybe even I can forgive myself, but it won't undo your scars. I stabbed you in the back. There's no excuse to that, and I won't make up any. I've been torturing you, day after day, simply by not being there for you when you needed me the most."
"True... I might have weathered losing my father, but not both of you at once. And he, at least, had an excuse to abandon me... Nevermind. Once you're fucked there's no way to unfuck you."
Max gave her a blank stare. The cigarette in her fingers have burned to the filter, and ashes spilled on her shirt.
"I can do. Exactly this."
Chloe returned her the stare.
"Remember how I told you what happened when I tried to save your dad? I'm so sorry I couldn't change it. But I didn't even try to change the second worst thing you had to suffer. The one I caused in the first place!"
A faint, uncertain smile blossomed on Chloe's lips.
"So... What's the plan?"
"Give me your phone."
Max turned on the Internet, opened the browser and found Victoria's blog. She scrolled the page a bit lower. "Poor Victoria... She didn't deserve most of the shit we put her through. But if I don't mess up again, we'll get a second chance. Now I'm just grateful she took that stupid photo."
Chloe looked at the screen. "But it was just several days ago. I was already building up the hurricane. Even if you told me about my powers, I don't think I could stop it."
"I'll go deeper. That day I still had my album, so I'll use another photo — I know it's possible, I did it before. I'll go back to my early Seattle days and do the thing I can't believe I haven't done." — She looked in Chloe's eyes. — "I'll write you. And stay in touch. These lost years we spent apart... These years I owe you... I'll give them back to you."
Chloe's smile became wider.
"That might actually work! Don't forget to leave a cheat sheet for yourself. You know, with all the little stuff like the good teacher secretly being a maniac. Or the moon surprise."
"Except..." — Max's voice fell. — "The current you will be gone. Five years of your life will be rewritten. You'll become a different person."
"Max. Right now all I wish is to be someone else instead of me. These were shitty five years, and they turned me into a weapon of mass destruction. I'd trade them away in a heartbeat. Especially for the years I could spend with you."
"Then... I have to go. A strange thing to say, since we'll be back together in a moment." — Max forced a sad smile.
"Then don't turn it into a goodbye." — Chloe leaned to Max and pecked her lips with a brief dry kiss. — "Go for it, Super-Max. Go change the world."
* * *
When she came to, the first thing she felt was the rancid smell of smoke. Then sounds reached her — screams, footsteps, breaking glass. Finally, light came through.
"...hear me? Max, please!.."
She was lying on warm pavement, next to the diner, with Chloe holding her by the shoulders. The sunlit road was occupied by a crowd — both townsfolk and people from the academy, students and teachers. They were holding signs: "Prescotts to prison", "Save our city", "Say no to Pan Estates", "Stop police brutality". Some held large photos of a boy from the academy — Hayden Jones, Max remembered. She saw Frank picking up a smoke canister from the ground and throwing it back, to the other side of the road, where a line of policemen stood in full riot gear. Next to him, a girl in a plaid shirt was holding up a brightly burning purple flare. Brooke's drone was circling in the sky.
Max tried to speak, but her lips felt like they were glued together. She licked them, and discovered a piercing in her tongue. "W, wha..."
"That pig threw a flashbang at you! Fuck, I thought we were in America! Max, can you hear me? Does it hurt anywhere?"
"Max, are you alright? Can you stand?" — David stood over her, in his army uniform, complete with medals. His forehead was grazed, dripping with blood.
"Yes, I... Thank you, mister Madsen" — she took David's firm hand and rose on her legs.
"You shouldn't be here, girls. It's too dangerous."
"No, dad." — Chloe shook her blue hair. — "Everyone must be here, and you know it."
David frowned, then nodded. "All right, soldier. Max, is your camera intact?"
Max looked down. A professional digital camera was hanging from her neck. She turned it on and made several shots.
"I'm good."
"Then do your job. Let everyone see what's going on here. Chloe... You protect her, girl."
"Yessir." — Chloe nodded, then turned to Max. "Okay, Robert Capa, here are your everyday heroes. I wonder if Victoria and the principal are watching us right now on TV from their cozy double bed in Frisco."
"We'll take care of each other, mister Madsen" — said Max. — "Now and forever. Promise."