Max ran up the back steps to her hotel, through two sets of doors and into the stairwell. Her heart raced.
The pilot had dropped her off at the outer edge of the parking lot before lifting away. Seen from the air, the devastation to the upper floors was total. The top of the building was ringed with thick black smoke stains; the windows a mix of open-air and broken glass. Interiors, thoroughly blackened or opened to the sky where the roof above collapsed.
Gutted.
The water damage to the lower floors was as extensive. Small black rivers broke into black waterfalls, splashed underfoot as she climbed. Old smoke tugged at the back of her throat.
She didn't have a lot of hope that photos survived, but she had to look. Wished she'd taken better precautions. Another emergency stash downstairs in a locker. Something. She was an idiot for clinging to her old analog instant film. If she used her phone to take safety pictures, she'd already be with Chloe. They could have trashed her phone, sure, but if she used a cloud backup, social media, anything, she'd still be back by now.
Some things might have greater utility in digital.
The exit to the top floor was safety-taped, locked tight.
Cute.
She shifted briefly into MTC, Chloe's new shorthand for the Max-Time Continuum. Kicked the door, striking it next to the lock. It sheared off its hinges, spun end over end down the hallway. Corners took chunks out of the blackened walls and floor, exposing lighter unburned insides. It stuck in the ceiling near the far side of the building.
Shut up, Chloe. I'm working on it.
She shuffled through the gap where the door to their suite used to be; where the fire concentrated and burned hottest. Even the furniture was down to bare stumps in sodden piles of ash. She didn't bother to poke around. Every room was visible through what remained the walls. Nothing survived. She dropped to her knees, slumped into the ashes. Tired. Dejected. Contemplating.
Long enough that fear crept in.
She left, headed back to the stairwell.
Up.
Maybe Chloe had something on her?
She didn't remember Chloe bringing anything besides a textbook and her cocoa. Didn't imagine Chloe's body would still be there. Hoped it wouldn't. But maybe they'd missed something of hers? Her phone, a wallet with a picture, something? Had to look.
Back to the rooftop. Late-afternoon sun. She made her way around the collapsed areas. Tables, chairs, umbrellas and outdoor heaters all tipped and scattered.
Probably from the firefighters.
Max made her way to where she'd been practicing that morning.
Which put Chloe right about there.
No body. No…stains, even.
Water must have carried everything away while it was still new.
A broken white mug rested near the hot tub.
She picked it up. Turned it in her hands.
Broken again.
Sorry, Chlo.
Trying to find my way back.
She was afraid to rewind. Only get one shot, and there was no guarantee she'd push through the moment she came out from under their drugs. To rewind far enough to pick something out of the path of the fire, she needed to get close to the moment they killed Chloe.
Danger was, even a failed rewind attempt would put the Russians back on the playing field of the living, and she didn't want the distraction. Conflicted about killing them again.
Other options?
Her parents' house wasn't going to work. If photos there survived the explosion, the most recent would be from the summer before. She hadn't even left for Arcadia.
Giant tangle of timeline-worms there.
She'd do it all again if that's what it took to get Chloe back, but she hoped for another way. But…they even took that option off the table. Why?
Other options exhausted, she sniffed, fished around her pocket, pulled out the card with Michael's number.
Michaels' phone rang. Seattle number. "Max?" He ducked into an SUV, shut the door.
"Hey John - hotel was a bust. I might take you up on your offer of a few surveillance stills if that's still on the table?"
He'd only just found out. Wasn't prepared. "Shit, Max, I'm so sorry."
The air went out of her voice. "What happened?"
Dammit. "Someone on our side - working for the Russians, or freaked out by the idea they were going to stop existing, we don't know - they…set off some code, triggered a purge around the time of the raid. Killed encryption keys, DOD wiped the live arrays, nuked the backups and cloud stuff too. Even triggered a remote-wipe of the drone storage. Mail servers, internal docs and reports up the chain. They got everything, Max."
A sigh. "…of course they did." She sounded small, far away.
"I don't know what to say."
"It's been that kind of day. All over again."
Across the road, a pedestrian with a bloody head-bandage sat with a paramedic while uniformed officers asked him questions. Emergency service vehicles continued to arrive.
He checked the time on the dash. "If you can think of any photos you could use to get to Chloe, I mean anywhere in the world, Max, I'll fly you there myself."
Silence.
He hadn't heard her this down. Understood why, but her tone concerned him.
After a moment, she babbled out, "There might be one kid in a desert in China with a still of me on his mobile? Maybe. No name. No number. Vague idea of location. Assuming it's still there at all. Seems impossible. But that jump would only lose me three weeks. Shit. We made a lot of progress in that time. If we'd been more social and gone out, we could probably raid the video surveillance from surrounding restaurants and casinos, but we've been hermits since we got here. Everything delivered. Just a couple of trips to the desert. Fuck."
He didn't have an answer. "Don't lose hope yet, Max. We have our techs trying to bring these files back to life in ten different places. Unfortunately, they did a comprehensive job. But we might recover something. All we need is enough of a data-fragment for one image, right?" He didn't have much hope, but this wasn't the time.
"Yeah. Thanks, John. I'm gonna stay here for a while. Clear my head. Maybe I'll remember something I can use. Give me a call if anything happens? You have the number."
"I will Max. Again - I'm sorry. This one's on us, and we're all feeling it. A lot of us liked…like Chloe…we're trying everything."
"Thanks."
The line beeped. Wend dead.
Max slouched in a damaged plastic chair. Looked out to the city.
A moment of disquiet.
She absently turned the mug in her hands. A bit of brown residue remained, dried in a small pool inside.
She held this too. Her lips went right there.
The cut ceramic was rough in her hands.
We were right here. Last night. This morning.
That gap in time would have been a trivial gulf to contemplate yesterday but felt like an impossible barrier in her present.
Boxed in.
Max couldn't push down her worry any longer.
Worst case, I head to Seattle, get into my old school, find a yearbook in the Library, or with a former classmate. Use that to jump. Assuming these dudes haven't been that comprehensive. It would put me back two fucking years, minimum. Dammit. 16 again?
No Chloe.
Crap.
In order of preference, Michaels and his team finding at least one still-image would have been the best option. Put her landing somewhere recent. Next best case would have been China, rediscovering that village, and by sheer miracle locating one child who took one picture of a sleeping girl who awoke and left as soon as he snapped it. Hoping against hope he'd still have the phone and picture of her. Jumping through that a second time would land her three weeks back - leaving her to find Chloe in San Francisco again.
But that was a super long-shot. Any photos taken before that put the jump at least a couple years back. Which meant losing what had developed between her and Chloe. And an eventual redo of Arcadia's little disaster party along the way.
The last was a terrible option from a lot of directions.
But with what I know now, with whatever is happening with these powers - I might be able to intervene more directly. At least find a way to put authorities onto Jefferson and Prescott before they could murder Rachel Amber.
Could I shockwave the tornado apart? How would that work? Shit.
No…
As tangled and compressed and looped as her path through that time-frame became, and as tightly linked as Chloe's first death was with Max's powered origins, would jumping back into that nexus make things more tangled and worse? Or maybe even prevent her from ever getting powers at all?
But if Rachel and Chloe are both alive, it would be worth giving up these powers. I'd be normal again. Anonymous and uninteresting to all these people and their bullshit secret-wars.
She and Rachel and Chloe could have a chance to be friends. Live small, ordinary, delightful lives? Sounded like heaven, given present circumstances. There was no guarantee that she and Chloe would reconnect like this again, but—
Almost sunset. What would you do, Chloe? If our positions were reversed? What would you have me to do if there were no limits at all?
She knew in her heart Chloe would do almost anything to bring Rachel back. Even knowing she'd run off with Frank. It wouldn't matter to Chloe. Rachel would be alive in the world. And the world would be brighter for it.
Max was inclined to agree.
Just like Chloe would do anything to protect Max.
Just as Max would do anything for Chloe.
It was a line of thought. Something that made the lousy jump options sound like they might be worthwhile. But it was loaded with mega-risk too. So much could change so quickly, and nothing was guaranteed. The farther back she went, the bigger the ripples forward became.
But if saving Rachel too is a possible thing, shouldn't I at least try?
Or would her attempt open the door to something like OtherChloe, suffering through a prolonged end of life - something she couldn't see, some universal cruelty, with the possibility that Max would be stranded without her powers, unable to undo it or help?
Shit. That would be as bad as this. Maybe worse.
It also meant possibly condemning Chloe to an average lifespan, assuming all else went well. Herself too. Which…would guarantee that the horrible future fragments she remembered would still come to pass. So many people, suffering. No chance to prevent the horror shows from taking place. Only next time, there wouldn't be a Chloe to help bring things back into balance after - if they weren't able to help prevent some of it. Would others step in? Where did the greater good lie? What was even possible?
The past was, after all, only one direction.
The future was always the obvious other, and was in many ways the more important one. Max couldn't shake that gut feeling - that her only job, her only job, might be to get Chloe to the future in one piece, where she seemed to have a meaningful destiny to fulfill.
Shit.
Sun was down.
Night on the strip cast nearly as much light, concentrated in a narrow band at the horizon.
Max's mind wandered loose across the mine-fields of what-ifs. Tracing and retracing old ground. Cycling feelings and fears as though they were new information. Which was never healthy for her. She was unmoored. Off balance.
This is why every Chloe needs a Max, and every Max needs a Chloe. Doesn't matter what I think for now. We don't have to decide right this instant. Why did I have to be dependent on fucking photographs in the first place? Stupid way for a goddamned universe-class superpower to work anyway. Who designed this shit?!
Let's see where Michaels and his crew are. I really hope he's got good news. I'm about to lose my shit here.
Max. Any luck?
Michaels. No joy. Plan C, D or E?
Max. Shit. China is prolly 2 much of a long-shot. everything else puts me back years
Michaels. :(
Max. No emoji!
Max. Sorry. old Chloe joke.
Michaels. I got it. We read your texts. :D
Max. :(
She put her phone away.
Rudderless.
Shit. Chloe - I don't know what to do now.
If I go back that far, years, anything could happen. And once I jump, I can't ever come back here. I leave you here like this. You died on a roof in November of 2013. The end. And we die along with you. All of this, unfinished. All of us…over. Everything we had is gone forever like it never existed. I can't bear that. I might as well have left you dead in that bathroom. Fuck. I never wanted this.
I don't fucking want this!
I don't want to lose you.
I can't…I can't fucking lose you.
Not after everything. Not ever.
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!
Max was near her break point, and she knew it. Alone. Boxed in. By people she didn't realize existed twelve hours before.
They fucked us. Bad.
Didn't see a way out. Didn't have a way to make it right.
Because she was careless.
I fucked us.
Because she took it all for granted.
It's my fault, Chloe.
Because she thought she was good enough, and they were protected, and that nothing like this could happen.
Arrogant.
And now Chloe's permanently dead in this section of time.
And if I jump back that far, I'm not only losing years. I'm losing her. us. gone.
Everything we were, are, everything we've become. I just…I can't. I'd rather lose myself.
I'm stuck - I can't move either way.
What do I do?
Chloe? If you can hear me, please?
What do I do?
"FUCK!"
Her tears came as the mug sailed over the edge of the railing, shattering in the parking lot below.
She finally understood that Chloe - this Chloe, her Chloe - was lost forever. They weren't interchangeable. They only had a couple of months, but those months were her entire existence as far as she was concerned. Being with her, the two of them together, was her whole universe.
She was all that mattered.
We…were all that mattered.
And I let her down. I let us down.
Destroyed all of it.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so fucking sorry.
I'm sorry Chloe.
I don't want to say goodbye. I can't go.
I can't. Not like this.
I won't.
I just—
She broke.
Stars spinning overhead, her world became a flood of tears and convulsive sobs. City lights breaking through blurred vision, she doubled over the safety railing. Lost for Chloe. Sorry for herself. Sorry for the world. Sorry for everything. Sorry for reasons she didn't even know yet. She failed. Utterly. Never see her again. Not her.
I can't move
I can't stay
I can't even fucking breathe here.
Chloe…
please…
Her stomach cramped. Her face hurt. Her throat was ragged. Yelling into the night, coughing, choking in rage and sadness at the permanence of it. Her chair broke against the ground below.
Everything went out of her.
She collapsed to the roof.
The tear-blurred city shone sideways through the railing.
She was alone on the rooftop, near where Chloe died twelve hours before while trying to protect Max.
"Just one more take back. please?" she sobbed into the night.
"please?"
someone
anyone
help me?
…help us?
Michaels had two problems.
The first was trying to recover something, anything for Max to use. That was shaping up to be a failure. Everyone was scrambling, but nothing helpful yet.
The second was identifying the person responsible. Who on their team - their well vetted, highly paid, and highly motivated team, was responsible for this act of betrayal and operational sabotage. Who was working for the Russian extraction team?
They had better luck on that one.
Everything left a trail. Any digital act so comprehensive and widespread, as hastily executed, would leave a bright, shiny one. A trail that led back to their ops center in LA. Three desks over from where Michaels sat.
He was missing.
Samuel sent a team to his house. Mortensen. He had all the markings of a stand-up team player. Long contract history. No idea where his head went. Where his motivation came from. He was either an undisclosed idealist, bought and paid, or they had something on him.
Assuming it wasn't bullshit.
Reports from the LA field team made it sound like he was about to run, though, so it didn't look good. Samuel wasn't the kind to throw around words like 'arrest' or 'treason.' He'd request Miss Margaret have a go at Mortensen's brain to pull the details, then clear him off the books. Quiet sendoff to a black-site somewhere.
Didn't help Max, but she should know the cause. If she finds a way back on her own, she might give us his name? He fucked her and Chloe more directly than he did any of us, so she probably has an interest.
Michaels rode shotgun. The unmarked SUV drove down the strip en route to Nellis, where they'd catch a burner to LA Air Station. Nothing more he could do here.
Miss Margaret left hours before on a commercial flight.
As Michaels jotted a quick text to Max with the details on their turncoat, Ty smacked him in the arm, pointing over the steering wheel at the surrounding strip.
"No fucking way—"
Ty smiled. "Might be helpful. What do you think it is?"
John laughed, eyes back to his phone. "Christmas. Lotto. Happy fucking birthday, all at once."
He added two words and a hard return to the front of his text to Max, hit send.
Max was lost.
Paralyzed.
Out of tears.
Out of breath.
Out of hope.
Vibration. Phone.
On her side in the cold and dark, she slid it out of her pocket slowly, without conviction. It slipped from her hand, fell to the roof. Fumbling, she brought it close to her face. Lock screen. Text. From Michaels. Two words.
Eyes up
Max lowered the phone, refocused on the horizon.
Every animated digital sign, every enticing casino display, every flat or curved programmable surface of light on the strip and across the city were lit up, bright, static, unblinking.
Each held a picture of Max. Frozen in a run, looking over her shoulder, ice cream bowl in hand, eyes bright, laughing.
She shot upright.
Chloe?! How? When?
Her heart raced. "Oh my god I love you so much you beautiful fucking genius!"
She picked herself up, tears flowing freely. Joy this time.
A little hop.
Laughing, spinning on a rooftop where Chloe died.
Max was never alone.
"Yes!"
Not losing any more time, she focused on the nearest image. Jumped. Back to her.
…to us.