"Milk goes up! Milk goes down."
Max was finding this hella amusing.
"Milk goes up! Milk goes down."
And she still couldn't believe what she was seeing either.
For the past fifteen minutes - at least from her perspective - Max couldn't stop grooving on this trick: intentionally spilling a glass of chocolate milk across her desk, watching it make a huge mess, and then rewinding it back. Watching with rapt delight as the milk flowed back into the glass, which then righted itself onto its base.
"Milk goes up! Ha ha! Yeah. I'm going to win SO many bets with this! Somehow..."
It'd been a couple of days since Max dreamed she went back in time and saved Chloe's father. Only it wasn't a dream! She was sure of that now. For whatever reason, she somehow changed the present. Erased a horrible, stupid, unfair tragedy, and made life better for herself. And more importantly for her best friend, and for Joyce and...and MOST importantly for William, who would be so happy and proud if he knew how she'd managed to save him from death.
At first, she was scared to even THINK of trying to rewind time again. She was absolutely certain that tempting fate like that would be punished, by God or Reality, or whatever let her do what she did. That if she tried to see if she still had a power, things would go back to the way before; no William, and Chloe...
...there was nothing Max wouldn't do to make sure that her best friend was never sad like that. Ever again.
The past few days got a little weird though. First there was snow out of the blue, and how cool was that? But you know, global climate whatever, just like the news was talking about, right?
It was the nightmare she had that night that really left her shook up. The one where she helplessly watched as a massive tornado bore down on Arcadia Bay with the fury of an ancient demon awakening. It seemed so real. Not as real as when she went back in time and only THOUGHT she was dreaming.
But there weren't any nightmares when she woke up today.. If anything, she slept really well, determined to make the best of her Sunday as she could. Her homework was all done, and she didn't have anything planned with her parents. What to do?
Oh! She'd go see Chloe of course.
And maybe show her what's happened!
Huh.
Then again, maybe not.
Max had no idea what she'd say, or even how she'd prove it. As far as she could tell, she was the only person who could 'see' the unwinding action as it was happening. She'd tried to surprise her parents with it at breakfast this morning, intentionally spilling her milk, and then rewinding, to see if they would notice. But they just kept on eating breakfast like everything was normal.
Besides, if she did tell Chloe, what did she do next? NOT tell her about how she saved her Dad? She'd probably yell at her about it being a stupid joke and...and...
...she couldn't stand the thought of making Chloe unhappy. Even if it was for good reason, to explain something cool and neat and awesome.
Her cell phone beeped as a text came in. Reaching into her pocket, she fished the small device out, flipping it sideways and sliding the little keyboard out. A huge grin broke out on her face when she saw who it was.
che-burger: yo max. u there?
maxthemad: hey che! :) sup?
che-burger: no emoticons! also, why u no on facebook already? u set up ur account yet?
maxthemad: oh! shit. forgot. been a weird weekend. gonna do it soon, promise. but i wonder whats the point, i got myspace already, and we text.
che-burger: omg dude! you are so lame sometimes. but i totes forgive you :)
maxthemad: hey! no emotes :-b
che-burger: don't start something you can't finish max. Still, i love you and forgive you. srsly though, get on facebook, so I can friend you. everyone else is on it!
maxthemad: ha ha, finefine. u wanna come over and help me figure it out?
che-burger: yes! we will make your profile pimpin'. and then we will rule the facebook world.
maxthemad: ha ha! can't want to see. fine, see you soon.
che-burger: u bet. see yus
maxthemad: jaa neh!
che-burger: no kawaii! okay, maybe a little.
Max giggled and then ran out of her room to call down the stairs, "Hey Mom! Chloe is coming over. Do we have snacks and stuff?"
"I just made chocolate chip cookies. You can each have TWO. The rest are for after dinner. Why don't you ask Chloe if she'd like to stay for that. It's steak and potatoes."
"Oh awesome. Thanks!"
Max bounced back into her room and then flomped back onto her bed. She wasn't sure why, but lately, she was so happy to see Chloe. Even before the whole adventure in time, it seemed like...she didn't know. Just that being around her made things a lot more fun. It struck her as weird, they'd been friends since Max was four, and Chloe five, but something changed lately, at least in her mind.
I'm glad she's still wanting to hang with me at all; now that she's in high school, and I'm still stuck in seventh grade. Man, when we both are in high school, that's going to absolutely ROCK! Although damn, if she gets into Blackwell next year, then...well, screw it Max, you're just going to have to make it there too.
Fifteen minutes later, Chloe came running in, out of breath, but clearly with a mouth full of cookie. She chewed, tried to swallow, and just mumbled out.
"Mmmygawd! M'x...M'x!" She worked enough down her throat and tried again. "Max! Get on your bike. Seriously, you need to check out what's happening on the beach! It's...it's really sad, but kind of cool too. But you should bring your camera!"
"Sure. Dunno what could be so exciting on the beach. It snow again?"
"Trust me. You'll get it when you see it."
With that, they ran out the door and towards their bikes.
There was a knock on the rear door of the van. Wright reached out and grabbed the handle, revealing Agent Meredith Reese. A young, slim, black haired male in his late twenties, both hands loaded with drinks and baked goods from the local coffee shop.
"Coffee's on. Here you ladies go. Hopefully the local chow is good, because there doesn't seem to be a Starbucks for miles. This close to Seattle, I can hardly believe it. Those guys must be slipping."
Wright grabbed her coffee, foregoing the offer of milk, but dumping several packets of sweetener into it before stirring. Taking a long pull, she murmured. "Nah. That's just Arcadia Bay. Creepy ass end of the state."
"Huh. Yeah? Sounds like you have a personal history with the place? Oh, and here's your hot chocolate, bosslady. And a scone. I'm sure it's not up to your exacting standards, but do take pity on us humble mortals." He smiled wide, before settling down in his own seat in the monitoring van, unpacking his bagel and latte.
Davies paused to blow on her drink. "While I will NEVER apologize for criticizing the quality of what you Americans think passes for a proper beverage this...is actually not bad. A little on the hot side, but made in the traditional Parisian manner. Color me surprised." She then canted her head over to the other woman and added, "And yes, seems Nicole here grew up not too far away. About an hour or so, correct?"
"Yeah. Stick out enough as a black woman in Oregon, even in a college town like Corvallis, but this place? DAMN it's lily white. My friends and I, we'd sometimes come down to the coast here 'cause it was a quiet place to go for the beach." She snorted and took another long drink from her coffee cup. "Ton of those rich-ass prep school kids from the local artsy high school...place's called Blackwell I think? Didn't make it pleasant for us."
Taking a large bite out of his bagel, Reese chewed slowly, an uncomfortable look on his face. "Oof. Yeah, sorry, didn't mean to bring up such lovely childhood memories for you."
Giving a casual roll of her shoulders, Wright mused, "No bad. No skin off my back. Truth of it is, there WERE some pretty okay people here. Decent diner here too, place called the Two Whales, makes an okay cup of coffee, much better waffles. But seriously, this is one of those towns that time and prosperity just forgot. There's the one or two rich families that own most of the place, and then everyone else is struggling to get by, once the fishing stopped being so good. That, and a bunch of the manufacturing jobs moved out after NAFTA blew through. Just always thought this place belonged in a Lovecraft novel. You know, kind of like Gloucester, up in Massachusetts? 'Cept that place is downright fucking charming by comparison."
"Weird though, that you grew up next door to this place. Given how rare an Emergence is. I mean...bosslady, you probably know the statistical likelihood of..."
"Incident 23." Davies and Wright intoned as one, cutting Reese off before he could finish.
"Yeah yeah, Jesus, I fucking swear, I'm going to push my nose to the damn grindstone and get to Deuteronomy clearance someday, just so I can get a look at this stupid Incident list." He then gave a sly grin, and glanced sideways. "Oooor you could tell me first, when YOU make it, Nikki? Don't worry, you can tell me, I'll make you forget you did, everyone walks away with a clear conscience."
Wright smacked him on the back of his head with the flat of her hand, and exclaimed, "Meredith, this is why no one invites you to parties! Because you're fucking creepy...and you have a girls name." She smiled around the rim of her coffee cup, laughing bemusedly.
"Oh! Come on! That's not true!"
"I'm afraid she's right. You absolutely have a girl's name." Davies' facial expression betrayed no emotion, although there was a smile that touched her eyes. She glanced sideways at the display, and whatever amusement she felt was quickly dashed.
"Ohhhh no. I know THAT look... More bad news?"
"No. But not exactly good news either. The CFI level has stabilized as last but...it's not dropping either, like it should. No doubt, we're going to run into more curious and random phenomena, more alarming in appearance than an actual problem but...". She paused, tapping at another display on her console. "I'm going to need to run some more simulations. There are a few troubling looking interactions I've starting picking up in the long term meteorological predictions for the Northwest. On it's own, it doesn't seem like anything more than background noise, but once I plug the CFI data into it, I'm afraid we're not going to like what we see."
"Great. More reason to hope that Doctor Who-ever The Hell It Is gives us another ping soon. We had a bunch of them in a row while we were driving here, but it's gone quiet again."
"The fact that they've started using their abilities again at all is encouraging. And we've cut at least several days of work off, figuring out where it was we needed to go. Shall we place a small wager on how long it will be until we find them?"
"What? With you? The walking-talking supercomputer? Do you see sucker tattooed on my forehead, Cammie?". Nicole shook her head. "But you feel like heading to Chinook Winds once we wrap this job up, and I'm more than happy to listen to whatever advice you have about rolling dice or playing cards." She sighed heavily and then said, "Not that I think we'll have the time. Too bad. Would have been nice to drop in and say hi to my Momma while I was out here."
Davies continued to stare holes in her screen, and murmured, "Chin up. It's a school day. Something tells me we'll be quite busy, soon enough"
"The Magna Carta, Mr. Sonerson. Signed by King John at Runnymede in 1215."
Max had the sweetest smile on her face as she answered the question.
"Good job, Max! That's exactly right. I knew I could count on YOU to have done the reading. Everyone, you could learn from Ms. Caulfield's example."
Yes! It worked! It so fucking worked!
She glanced over to the blonde girl sitting a couple desks over from her. The one currently seething at her, shooting daggers with her glare.
In yo' face, Vicky! Woof woof woof! I am Ms. The Bomb!
To be honest though, Max was feeling a lot less so.
"So who can tell me what document first established the principle in England that even a king was subject to the law. No hands? Anyone? Alright, how about you, Max?"
Oh God. It was so embarrassing. She'd gotten so wrapped up in hanging out with Chloe, and checking out those whales - oh god, those poor whales. It was so sad! - that she absolutely forgot that she spaced on her history homework.
So much for thinking I did everything ahead of time.
She totally flubbed it. And of course, that stupid, smug little bitch Victoria Chase beat her to the punch.
"The Magna Carta, Mr. Sonerson. Signed by King John at Runnymede in 1215."
Max got so angry then. She didn't mean to do it, it just happened by instinct. She rewound time. Gave herself a second chance.
A chance she didn't hesitate to take.
Ha ha! She totally knows she was going to say the exact same thing, and I beat her to it.
Still, she couldn't shake the notion it was kind of a selfish, jerky thing to do.
Guess I'll have to balance it out somehow, right? I should find a way to use my power to do something nice for someone. Otherwise...who knows. Might get taken away.
"Whoa! Ding ding ding! Kids, we haf un weener!" Reese remarked with a playful tone. He then picked up the CB mike and thumbed the transmit button.
"Bill, Ted, Ruffus. This is Phonebooth. Please tell me you just saw what we did, over?"
"Bill here, yup, over."
"Ted reporting, roger that, over."
"Ruffus here. Affirmative, over."
"That's good. We don't HAVE it, not exactly, but I've got it narrowed down to somewhere in the northern side of town."
"Anything interesting up there?"
Wright immediately broke in. "I know for a fact that Blackwell's smack in that region. I mean, AB Junior High is too, but..."
Davies finished, "...chances are most likely we're looking at a high school student. And it DOES fall into the zone where our readings came from. Right then. Mere, give the order to move the vans into position around this Blackwell school. But remind them to please be SUBTLE about it."
"Oh yeah. Four black unmarked vans in a run down fishing village. I hate to break it to you, but I'm pretty sure we lost the element of surprise the moment we rolled in at dawn."
"Hmm. Doesn't matter. Now that we know it's Blackwell, we'll only need another good hit or two before we have a solid idea roughly which classroom. Then we've got the hard job of trying to weed out which individual child we're looking for."
"Yeah. Sucks that it's Blackwell though."
"Oh? What do you mean by that, Nikki?"
"Just that I checked, and they don't have any surveillance cameras. No security footage we can ask for. ABJH, sure, they're a public school, so that goes without saying...federal grants and mandates. But Blackwell's private, and I know for a fact they've never bothered. You know, because there's never been any history of rich white kids going nuts and shooting places up."
"I do so love your dry social critique, dear. Be that as it may, we'll just have to roll up our sleeves and do a little old fashioned detective work."
Reese and Wright both glanced at Davies, then back to each other.
"Bet you she calls it in three minutes after we walk in the door."
"Hmmm. She's good...but I don't think she's that good. Five. No more than six. Fifty bucks, same as usual?"
Wright smirked. "Sure. Easiest fifty bucks you're ever gonna lose."
Max wandered down the noisy halls, still feeling pretty good about turning a dark moment into a small personal triumph. She scanned the halls, trying to keep an eye out for anything she could do to 'pay it forward'.
Look out, world. SuperMax is on patrol.
In the social Serengeti that was junior high, she knew it wouldn't take more than a minute to spot some sort of fucked up behavior. She wasn't disappointed when she spotted a lacrosse jock by the name of Tim Wells reach out and knock the books out of some other kids arms; the poor guy wasn't looking where he was going, fell right into the trap.
"Nice going, GAY-rham! Haha!"
A half-minute's rewind later, Max ran up ahead to warn him.
She leaned in and murmured to the other boy. "Hey. Warren, right? Watch out for Tim, okay, I just heard him say he was looking to fuck with the next person that walked by him, and he's right in your path."
The messy-haired, tow-headed boy glanced up from comic book he was reading, glanced over at the jock and his entourage, and then looked back to Max. "Oh! Oh shit! And I almost blundered right into that. Man, what a douche that guy always is. Yeah, I'll go the other way. Hey! Thanks...it's ah...you're Max, right?"
"Yup!"
"Thanks again. I won't forget what you did."
He favored her with a wide, goofy smile, as if noticing her for the first time, before heading off to his next class.
Still, Max couldn't let it end right then and there. She walked up to Tim, looking the larger boy straight in the eye.
" 'the fuck you want, ho?"
"Oh nothing. Just gonna kick you in the dick, is all."
And so she did, rearing back with her foot, and slamming it into his crotch, as hard as she could.
She didn't let it last though; instead, she soaked up his delicious howls of pain and agony, but stopped the flow of time and forced it to wind back before his sidekicks could grab her. She then continued on her way to class, hoping that somehow, in another universe, he still remembered that. And also remembered not to be an asshole.
Oh yes! I am mighty! Watch out, bullies. I am gonna make you all bow before me!
"Oo-rah! Yeah, that's one...and bang! Two together! We have you, kiddo! We so fucking have..."
"...no. No we don't, Mere."
Reese blinked. "Yeahbuhwah?"
"I'm saying it's not Blackwell. It's obvious from the data streaming back from the triangulation vans that it's not. I...I mean I ASSUMED that it had to be an older teenager, because it's always...shit! Black swan has struck again. I of all people should have known better!"
"Whoa. Hold up, Cam. You saying we're in the wrong place?"
"I'm absolutely sure of it now. Best as I can make out from the latest calculations, it's either the junior high or the police station right across from it. If we move the vans into position to encompass both places, we should be able to figure it out the next time we get a ping."
"Well isn't it obvious that it's the school?"
Davies smirked and finished off the dregs of her hot chocolate. "You feel like making assumptions again?"
"Alyssa?"
"Uh, what?"
"Just duck, okay."
"What?"
Junior high could be the worst sometimes. Today wasn't any different, as a few 'soccer-bro's' started tossing pieces of fruit between each other before randomly kicking them towards kids in the lunch room.
Still, Alyssa COULD be a little slow on the uptake, and it took Max a good three rewound tries to convince the pudgy girl to move her head out of the way before she got hit with a banana. This time, she took no chances, physically pushing the other girls head to the side. Then stopped.
Oh. Shit. I could do this, I could do this SO much better.
She smirked to herself, even as the piece of fruit went sailing by both of them.
A little rewinding. A little observation. Abra kadabra, one two three, annnd...
"Hey Alyssa."
"Uh, what?"
Max reached out, timed it perfectly, so that she snatcehd the flying banana out of the air, just barely an inch or two from Alyssa's face.
"Look out. Assholes ahoy in the lunch room today. Want a banana?"
Alyssa's eyes bugged out in disbelief. "Wha-? H-holy shit! Max, that was amazing! How the hell did you do that? And thanks, God! That would have hurt." She glanced over at the banana and then shook her head. "No thanks, never eat the fruit from the cafeteria. Trust me."
"Yeah well, we gotta stick together in this hellhole, okay?" Max slowly rose up, ignoring the awed looks on the faces of the kids surrounding her at the table, as she got ready to head to her next class.
"Just do me a favor and pay it forward sometime soon, right?"
"What? Oh, oh right. Yeah. You bet, Max. That was awesome!"
Turning so that the huge, dopey grin couldn't be seen on her face, she quickly dashed off to math class.
Oh man oh man oh man! So cool! Maybe this could be my job, or something.
"Yup. That's the school alright. ASSUME-ing it's a kid." Reese said, teasingly accentuating the word, "the little zit factory's someone on the first floor. South side of the building. Hold on, uh...I'm pulling up the plans from the town hall."
Wright and Davies stared at the same display, the same frown on their faces.
"So this is the end of the line, right?"
"Afraid so. The background radiation effect makes it nearly impossible to narrow it down any further. We'll need to see who's in those classrooms, and then round the children up. Find an excuse to scan each and every one of the individually. The alternative, and what I'd usually prefer, is to wait until the end of the day, and see where the trail of breadcrumbs leads us, once we have fifteen to thirty suspects. But the more I'm looking at my weather simulations, the better I think it is that we get our Emergent out of Arcadia Bay before another day or two passes."
"That bad, huh?"
"Not at the moment. I'd prefer we kept it that way."
Reese piped up, "Ooookay. The readings are centered on one large classroom. Normally, I'd point out that we're out of our jurisdiction in terms of trying to hack into the video feed, but since Martinet slapped the big ol' Omega-Green label on it, it's not such a deal now. I mean, it's not as sexy as Omega-Black, but..."
"No need to be so jolly about it, Reese."
He paused for a moment, then nodded, looking apologetic. "Fair enough. It's easy to complain about getting around 'Constitutional messiness' when you're not on the pointy end of the state's blade. Anyhow, this'll be easy. There's an NSA backdoor built into most public school surveillance systems. I'll just knock on it..." Reese paused for a few seconds as he taped away on his keyboard, before continuing, "...et voila! Weeee...has video."
Davies patched it through to the largest of the color monitors, standing up as best as she could in the cramped van, then tapped her lips in concentration as she studied the children and their teacher.
"Oh I know that fucking look. You best be having my fifty dollars ready, Reese."
"What? C'mon, she hasn't even STARTED yet. It's gonna take her a lot longer than three minutes to figure..."
"Her." Davies spoke, with crisp confidence. "That one. I'm certain of it." She then reached down, fiddling with the controls until a separate window emerged, with a blown-up close up of Max Caulfield's smiling face.
"Hello, sweetness. You're all smiles. Far more than a thirteen year old schoolgirl should be. Can I guess why? Did you figure out the secrets of the universe? One moment, you're plain Jane, and the next, you're the baroness of the block? Queen of the universe?"
Under her breath, she murmured, "Good lord. She's so young..."
A/N: And we're back to Corentin IV's steady, professional hand editing this chapter. Much love and thanks to her for taking the time out from a busy weekend to look it over! I'm going to try my hand again editing solo on Chapter 4, which I imagine should be out sometime on Friday or Saturday. I just finished up the first draft of chapter 5 today, and I have 6-8 (possibly 9) in various states of completion. In a week or so, I imagine we'll hit a slowdown while I get all that polished.
OH BTW! After far too many months away, Cory has finally added a new chapter to her incredible Sinchi: Downfall saga, so if you like Mass Effect (or just good, gritty, noir drama in general) check it out NAO! :)
Thanks, as well, to all you lovely folks reviewing. It is the grist that fuels my creative mill! Or something...