Max hadn't thought of how to prove her powers, but the entity had. "Mmm... I can tell you every single thing you have in your pockets," Max heard herself saying before she could come up with any better ideas. (It was just as well, since it wasn't really her power, under the circumstances.)
"You have x-ray vision, dude?" Chloe joked. "I don't even know what's in my pockets. Let me see..." She reached into her pockets for a moment, checking what was in them. "Okay, Max, impress me!"
The entity didn't miss a beat. "You have a tube of glitter in there, right?" Max would've had to hold back a chuckle if the entity wasn't forcing her expression to remain a poker face. Oh my God, you don't know Chloe at all, do you?
"Nada. Enhhh!" Chloe mimed a buzzer sounding. "Wrong answer. Okay, Psychic Girl, let me show you what's actually in my pockets." She pulled two handfuls out of her pockets and dumped them on the table to reveal car keys, cigarettes, a parking ticket and a few coins of loose change. "That was beyond epic fail. You even made me want to believe you..."
Okay, Max thought to herself, you need to look at the items and rewind so Chloe believes you.
But the entity, in fact, forced Max to look everywhere but the table in front of her where Chloe's items were displayed.
"What now?" Chloe prompted, seeing no reaction by Max to her epic failure.
Silence.
Chloe tried to lighten the mood with a joke. "I bet you have a photographic memory… get it?"
Max wanted to smile, but the entity would not allow even that much movement of her face.
"So… now what?" Chloe continued to lean back in her seat casually with her arms taking up the space, but her voice betrayed her awkwardness as she waited.
Still the entity gave no hint of its plan and Max was powerless to speak or act, her tongue seemingly trapped in an invisible film of plastic.
"Don't stare too long!"
Silence.
"What now?"
Silence.
"I bet you have a photographic memory… get it?"
Silence.
"So… now what?"
Silence.
"Don't stare too long!"
Suddenly Max heard not her voice, but her inner thoughts in her head. Frame each item like it's a photo, Max. Startled, she tried to look around, but again unable to move, she soon realized the entity was taunting her again. Cut it out! she thought back at the entity. You do it, since you won't let me move!
"What now?" Chloe asked again.
The entity ignored both Max and Chloe. I need to seriously take note of Chloe's stuff here. Max recognized another foreign thought, impersonated in her voice. In her mind she glowered angrily at the "alien Max" who she could not eject.
"I bet you have a photographic memory… get it?" Chloe again joked, unaware of the two "Maxes" battling for control over her childhood friend.
"So… now what?"
Suddenly, as Max wondered how long this would continue, she felt the strange energy surge down her arm again as the entity pushed and rewound all of the last half hour or so.
"So, this is me telling you what's inside your pockets," Max said involuntarily as soon as the rewind stopped.
"Okay, Max!" Chloe nodded. "I'm hella ready."
Max wondered how the entity would know what was in Chloe's pockets when it hadn't even allowed Max to get a good look at the items herself. Max certainly didn't know, still.
As it turned out, neither did the entity. "I don't know…" Max's voice said, controlled by the entity, much to Chloe's disappointment.
"Do you have some kind of power or not? Okay, Psychic Girl, let me show you what's actually in my pockets." Chloe again emptied her pockets onto the table.
This time, the entity guided Max's eyes to actually look at Chloe's items. Max noted Chloe's car keys with a cute panda keychain, a mostly empty box of cigarettes, a few scattered coins and a yellow parking ticket. She again scrunched her face (or tried to) in annoyance when the entity once again made a self-congratulatory thought in Max's own inner voice. You got this, Max. Now rewind and blow Chloe's mind! Max fought to keep her own thoughts distinct from the entity. No, that wasn't me, she told herself as the entity surged energy down her right arm and again made everything go in reverse around her.
"Okay, so this is me telling you what's inside your pockets."
"Okay, Max! I'm hella ready."
"Your car keys!"
"Duh, way too easy! I need details! Describe my keychain."
"A cute robot panda keychain!"
"Not bad, Super Max! You do have that Irish luck, Caulfield. What else?"
"I'm pretty sure you have cigarettes on you."
"Yes, you know I'm a smoker. But how many cigarettes?"
Crap, Max thought, I didn't count them… six or seven maybe? But the entity confidently answered, "seven cigarettes." The entity was correct.
"A superpower that allows you to count cigarettes. Cool! Amazing! Something else in my pockets?"
"Some money."
"Clearly I'm rich as fuck. How much do I have?"
Again Max was unwillingly impressed when the entity rattled off "86 cents!" and was correct, despite only glancing at the coins earlier.
"That's right, living large in Arcadia Bay! So, that was cool, show me more!"
"A parking ticket."
"You know me well. But, what is the exact time I was busted?"
"10:34 a.m."
"Booyah! Max can tell time!" Chloe then emptied her pockets, leaning back and staring in shock upon confirming that Max had described everything correctly.
"Amazeballs! I literally just got chills all over my neck." Chloe stared at her items, then at Max. "You have powers!"
The moment was interrupted by Joyce bringing food, and an annoyed order to "Take that crap off the table, Chloe."
"Sure, Mom." Chloe grabbed everything off the table just in time for Joyce to set a full-to-the-brim plate of food down in the cleared space.
Joyce turned to Max. "How's the food, Max?"
"Better than I remembered."
"Very good save." Joyce left the girls to eat.
"Man, I'm hungry like the wolf," Chloe said, indeed wolfing down her omelette, toast, sausage, potatoes and one sad little slice of bacon…
"Clearly."
"I am freaking out about what just happened. You have to show me more, something way cooler so I will believe you without any doubt!"
"I will predict the future." Max had been too busy to even think about it but now that the entity said it, she did have to admit this was exactly the best way to go, now.
"No way!"
Max then watched Joyce pass by again, waving to them, followed by one of the truck drivers accidentally dropping his coffee mug on the floor and creating a large black puddle under his seat – unfortunately for him, right in front of Joyce. "Did you break another cup?" Joyce scolded. "Really? No refill for you!" Suddenly everything made sense to Max, as she'd dimly heard that same trucker earlier asking for more beer and getting denied by Joyce… No wonder he complained about her giving him shit all the time… A few seconds later her attention was diverted by the police officer's radio going off, followed by sirens blaring outside as the officer's partner drove away in the police car parked outside. "…Where's my partner?" Max heard the officer say aloud to himself.
No sooner had Max realized that the police officer's partner had probably been in the car outside and left him behind, then there was a commotion from the booth next to the entrance as Justin and Trevor started to yell at each other – again, conveniently right in front of Joyce, who quickly broke up the fight.
And then, suddenly, the jukebox started playing a garbled mixture of tunes. Max and the entity both tried to turn her head around to look; but while Max was looking at the jukebox, the entity specifically drew her gaze to a cockroach crawling on the glass.
Meanwhile, Chloe looked at Max expectantly. "So, what are you waiting for?"
Just then, time froze and everything went gray around Max, a haze descending upon her as she felt the energy crawling up and down her arm, itching to leave through her hand.
I have no idea, Max wished she could reply. Whatever this alien is waiting for, I guess.
But after a few more seconds without any movement, Max let the energy out, watching everything rewind around her.
The entity resumed control and proceeded to predict all of the events to Chloe. Chloe watched, only mildly impressed… until she saw the cockroach crawl up onto the glass of jukebox.
"You predicted a cockroach on the jukebox!?" Chloe bowed down before Max. "I pledge allegiance to Max and the power for which she stands," she said, looking at Max with a new and unsettling light in her eyes… which fortunately the entity picked up on too.
"This isn't a toy, Chloe. I do have to be careful how I use it." Max knew Chloe wouldn't be so easily dissuaded, but was thankful the entity at least wasn't encouraging her recklessness.
"Screw that! Of course it's a toy! The best toy ever! You can bang anyone with no strings attached, rewind time, and boom, it's like it never happened!"
Max rolled her eyes, in sync with the entity, although on some level she was also glad Chloe was in a good enough mood to go there first. "Grow up."
"Maybe you made a move on me and I would never know!"
"Yes, that's what I did."
"You can rewind time, Max. That's fucking insane. We have to play!"
"I don't have time."
"You did not just say that." Just then, Chloe saw at the same time as Max felt, her nose start to bleed. Her hand went up to her nose immediately and came away with red on her fingers. "Uh..." Chloe looked concerned, "Check out your nose. Too much blow? Hey, are you okay?"
"Too much excitement. See what happens when we hook up again?"
"Then...let's go to one of my secret lairs and fully test your power. You need a sidekick to guide you."
"Okay, Girl Wonder... Show me the way to Chloe's Cave."
Chloe excitedly got up and went over to the door to wait for Max, but the entity was in no hurry, slowly raising Max out of the booth and bringing her over to the truckers instead. At some point while Chloe was talking to her, the giant coffee spill under the trucker's stool had magically vanished.
"I think I'm ready for thirds," the trucker who'd broken his coffee cup on the floor said.
"But you're only on your first," the other trucker rejoined.
"My stomach plans ahead," replied the first trucker in a gravelly voice.
"Your stomach is stocking up for winter," the other said.
"Erm, hello?" the entity made Max say to the first trucker who'd spoken. To her surprise, he repeated their previous conversation as if he had absolutely no memory of it. "Pardonne-moi, but you're in my eyesight." "Oh, sorry," the entity said again, and the truck driver responded exactly the same. "That's okay, I just need to see my truck out there in the lot. Been a long night on the road and I have to make sure my baby is sleeping right." Weird, Max thought, filing it away as just one more of the strange happenings since the entity took over her life the day before.
The other trucker did remember Max, though, and refused to talk to her. "I said, over, and out!" he growled, and the entity moved on.
The entity moved on down the line, but everyone else in the diner said only the same things they'd said to Max before she had sat down almost an hour earlier.
The entity walked Max right past Chloe and towards the doors – and then, suddenly, the ground under Max's feet turned into a seamless invisible treadmill, just as it had earlier that morning at the Blackwell side gate. Max walked on and on yet remained unable to come into contact with the door to push it open.
Miraculously, Chloe didn't notice anything amiss, just as Warren hadn't noticed the same thing happening at Blackwell.
The entity gave up and turned Max back around to speak to Chloe. And at that moment…
"Okay Supergirl," Chloe said, simultaneously with Max's phone beginning to vibrate, "let's go to my secret place!" But Max's hands were already reaching into her bag, without her conscious control, and pulling out her phone. "Don't even answer." Chloe was getting antsy. "We have places to go and people to do... Come on, before Mom starts some more shit. Let's bail!"
Max could see Chloe bouncing on her toes anxious to escape, but when she saw who was calling, she knew she couldn't afford not to answer. "It's Kate Marsh, from Blackwell…"
Unfortunately, Chloe got upset just as Max feared. "Big whoop. You don't call me once in five years and now you're all over some beeatch you see every day at school? I see how you roll. So go ahead, chat up Kate Marsh from Blackwell. I've got other people to hang out with too."
To Max's relief, the entity allowed her to ignore Chloe and answer the phone. "Hey Kate, what's up?"
"Please, don't let your best friend get in the way," Chloe snipped, but Max tuned her out, hearing Kate sniffling on the other end of the phone. "You okay?" Max asked.
To Max's immense relief, the entity helped her to be sympathetic and encouraging to Kate instead of sabotaging her like it had so often done. Unfortunately, Max was dimly aware that Chloe had gotten in another argument with her mom in the background behind her.
"Thanks, Max," Chloe bit out sarcastically. "If you'd rather chill with Kate, please, go ahead."
"You are ridiculous. I'm chiling with you, okay?"
"For now. Let's rock."
Max was just about to say thank you for helping Kate to the entity in her head, when the entity suddenly threw up her hand and rewound. In a flash Max was standing in front of Chloe with the phone in her hand again…
…and then her thumb moved over and hung up the phone. Max began to panic. No, wait! Chloe was relieved, shouting "Later, Mom!" to Joyce and then ducking out into the entryway before Joyce could come up to say anything. Stop! Kate needs us! Max tried to reach for her phone again, but the entity forced her to turn to Joyce instead and say "Bye, Joyce" and then turn around, keeping her hands firmly clamped as she jerked, again trying to reach for the bag where her phone was.
"Freedom!" Chloe exulted, but Max was impassive, still fighting the entity as it faked concern on her behalf. "I feel bad about Kate," the entity said in Max's voice. No you don't, Max retorted angrily, though no sound would come out. "She'll survive you not taking that one call," Chloe said, but in her gut Max knew better. Kate is fragile right now. You don't understand… unfortunately Chloe could not read her mind, nor could anyone else. "Now follow me, young squire Max, so we can seriously tap your power and rule the world!" Chloe left the diner in a good mood. Max trailed behind, unwillingly forced by the entity, fighting to reach for her phone to call Kate the entire way.
The entity kept Max's hands firmly trapped in their invisible plastic molds as Max's legs were pushed, in sequence, towards Chloe's truck parked across the street. She got into the truck with Chloe and they sped off.