Near Light

by novalounge

This is a sequel to 'One Way Trip', so read that first. If 'Life is Strange' was their origin story, 'One Way Trip' was a re-awakening. An introduction to new friends, hidden enemies. Warnings for the future. Early power-ups for what lies ahead. 'Near Light' is the continued adventure of Max & Chloe, picking up where 'One Way Trip' left off. Pricefield, etc.

23. Confirmation bias

Chloe slammed through the door with a bang, plowed face-first into an enfolding blanket of freezing Moscow air. Pale goosebumps spread by script across her body. She left the pier and mid-lake restaurant behind as she crossed back into the park, mindful of the slippery asphalt underfoot.

The sun continued to claw its way up, hidden beyond the bare branches and thick, roiling clouds. The light that made it through to the once-slushy ground was a sickly yellow-grey, casting her surroundings in a low-contrast pallor without the distinction of hard shadows. Reminded her of old winter mornings between coastal storms, a whole other lifetime ago. The familiarity of that seasonal discomfort fit Chloe's mood. Better than the closed-in feeling she left inside.

Head down, lips pursed, eyes on her icy path, she pushed forward. Or would have, if her accelerating thoughts hadn't slowed her perception of the world to a crawl, leaving her curiously aware of a small bird hanging motionless in sharp detail ahead.

What would it think if it could see itself as she did?

What would she note of herself at that moment, from a similarly external point of view? Frozen mid-step, her casual 'night out' appearance out of place and out of season with her snowy surroundings. Only her eyes might have betrayed hints at the turmoil boiling below her surface.

Years ago, alcohol would have been her second-favorite coping go-to, a reflex to numb her mind and shut out her feelings. But that Chloe was a long time gone. She'd disabled the simulated effects of alcohol as soon as John's face hit the TV. That was their first sign that the LAPD's surprise declaration had gone global and viral in the space of hours - and that John was now a person of interest in the disappearance of Sam's old cover ID.

These days, she gained greater power and clarity by naming her feelings. At present, she counted off 'confused, disappointed, and unexpectedly furious' at discovering two years too late that their trusted friend and co-leader had summarily executed his old boss in the aftermath of the bad guys' failed Las Vegas operation. Worse that it took the morning news in Moscow to finally catalyze his reluctant admission.

But to Chloe, Sam's wife and kids were the long-suffering victims of John's act and the cause of some measure of her anger. It was impossible not to relate to yet another family losing their husband and father without warning.

That was the particular cruelty he inflicted - echoed in Julie's repeated police reports and her relentless attempts to find the person she loved, the pain of years without closure, without knowing if he was alive.

John knew Chloe's bio in detail from their original 'let's watch Max' op back in the day - including the results of Chloe's downward spiral in the aftermath of her father's death. He couldn't be ignorant of how his actions might leave Sam's kids. Didn't he spare them even a moment's thought after witnessing the kind of hole a missing father left in Chloe's family?

The more sensitive parts of her brain interpreted it as a personal invalidation, like none of what she went through mattered. At least, it hadn't mattered enough to prevent someone close to her from knowingly inflicting the same kind of defining childhood trauma on someone new. It hit like a slap to her face.

Hers was a critical, narrow, and one-sided view, but intensely felt and personal.

Sam, the real Sam, had been a duplicitous, amoral cog in a vast machine of death and power and wealth. The world was better without his secretive processes running in the background. But it wasn't even about the man or his identity shell. Sad thing was, if he'd been successful with his Vegas operation, he still wouldn't have made the top-10 list of mass-murderers. Of course, that plan was a false-flag to pin an act of nuclear terrorism on the usual non-state actors, justifying another wave of global division and wars and war spending - with the bonus in the moment of stealth-killing an increasingly troublesome Max.

But none of that was the fault of Sam's wife, Julie, or their children. And because of John's lack of thought, of fundamental human empathy, he'd condemned them to suffer on in Sam's place.

Chloe was aware of the contradictions playing inside her even now. Tangled up with memories of her father, her mother, both left somewhere far behind her. Memories of every poor choice she'd made along the way. Her doubts, regrets, making it harder to separate or tease the elements apart.

Sam deserved to be judged for his awful crimes, including the attempted nuclear murder of hundreds of thousands of living, breathing people. Of course.

Just - not by John. And not at the point of a gun as beginning and end.

We don't murder people. Why wasn't that obvious to everyone?

Despite her protestations, she sadly understood the open questions hanging in the air back in the restaurant. Would Sam have been judged fairly for his crimes?

John wasn't wrong - the powers that be would have crushed the attempt. And even if they'd allowed it to go forward, what irrefutable evidence could prosecutors present that would convict beyond doubt, without invoking talents, global conspiracies, or time travel? Extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence. With so much held back, it wouldn't have been enough for the same system that created and guided Sam to convict him of his crimes. She knew all of this.

And yet…and yet her current reaction wasn't about knowing, it was about feeling. It was about relating. Which wasn't something her many self-upgrades ever had an easy answer for.

The chibi self-reflection Chloe carried in her head slammed herself into walls, knocked over tables and chairs, and furiously chopped through makeshift training dummies with lightsaber blazing - raging at the table she'd just left, at Sam, and at history itself.

But she was way angrier at Michaels for all the important reasons. For what he'd done. For how he'd left Julie and her kids. For acting like there was no other way. For shutting her and Max out of the decision - and for keeping it to himself all these years. For giving their enemies more ammunition, more leverage, at precisely the wrong time. For not living up to the ideals she held as the shining core of their mission. For…not being the person she knew…or…thought him to be?

He was supposed to be an example.

We all were.

Maybe it was her failure, years ago. For going along with the idea that Michaels and his teams were the best seeds to help them in matters of action going forward, and not just a convenience of need; mercenaries in the right time and place, with the interview advantage of Max and Chloe's gratitude for their recent help.

She'd let herself believe that using former tools of their adversaries, familiar with their methods of operation, would give them an advantage. And it had in many ways, without a doubt. But had she been naive to dismiss that these soldiers, with their complications, had been targeted, recruited by the bad guys first?

Were soldiers the wrong tools altogether? Did their presence alone shape suggested courses of action and options for problem-solving away from more novel directions Max, Chloe, and friends might otherwise have found? Did it shape MCCP more like their adversaries?

Elephant-question; was their use of strategic and tactical operations groups a crutch, allowing MCCP - no, Max - to remain hidden in her comfortable shadows? Chloe wasn't the only one who'd pushed on that direction with Max, lamented the operational difficulties of influencing from behind the scenes, but…Max wasn't wrong about the knock-on effects either. It would up-end everything. For better and worse. That was a parallel thread and a giant-ass rabbit hole all its own Chloe didn't want to fall into.

John's teams may not have known about the high-level conspiracies or the scope or detail of the crimes committed elsewhere above their obfuscated pop-up company shells - but that wasn't the same thing as being innocent.

No…no, that was unfair of her. Some had taken lives in the course of military or agency service, or later as private contractors. Although most hadn't, despite years of training, service, and active operations. But each had their reasons for participation that went beyond 'following orders.' Same went for the majority of pawns they ran up against on the other side. There was usually a mission, a belief - to save lives, take down predators, and protect people unable or incapable of defending themselves. Some childhood influence that led them there. Most began as defenders - even if they'd been lied to along the way. And many on the other side remained the same. Another excellent reason for their ongoing default of non-lethal force.

That's not to suggest there weren't groups of straight-up sadistic, mechanistic, or otherwise murderous assholes active worldwide. No shortage there, and they were a tremendous problem at all levels of society.

And while some specific fields attracted and concentrated those who wanted to feel power or authority over others, there was still the question of numbers. Outside actual criminal organizations, most people tried to do what they felt was right, within the limits of their roles, doing their best. Some lost their way or were swept along through wrong-minded acceptance of the systems they found themselves in, unable to change norms, others, or themselves - while others weren't successful at living up to their best childhood ideals. But.

Did all of them deserve to die for it? Where was the line? Who drew it?

…what was it Max said - 'at the very least, everyone was someone's Rachel'?

A problematic, unfortunate means to an end, taking lives - when it was necessary. But the intentions of people on their teams, at least, were uniformly aligned in the right direction. The ones who enjoyed hurting others, the power-trip ex-jock-bros, the psychopaths, the ones in it for a paycheck or the rush - they didn't qualify for entry to MCCP. Sophie had been inside their heads. No one allowed to serve under their banner had those kinds of inclinations. And their culture would never support it.

That included John. So she thought. So why?!

Their gallows humor, the irreverence, the casual banter - it always hid the deeper shit they'd been through, and more often, the persistent after-effects. Coping mechanisms. They mostly carried their wounds privately. People they'd lost. Bad calls they might have made. Glimpses into the darker side of human nature - at how fragile people could be. How easily some found it to break others, and the raw, physical realities of widespread victimhood on Earth. That profoundly personal reset of expectations, understanding, and a casting off of illusions of safety previously taken for granted, at how 'civilized' we and those around us might be. How little truly separates the average person from violence. Wounds rarely examined, seldom shared.

Maybe there was something else real in that observation. Hints for how Max, against all expectations, could so naturally bond with an entire class of people she'd seem to have the least in common with.

Ignoring for the moment that feeling in Chloe's head - the part of her that looked to Max for backup on her obvious and correct position a few seconds of real-time ago. Glossing over the signs that were becoming harder to ignore - that Max harbored similarly deep wounds from her extended time in the world. Chloe thought she'd seen the worst of it herself, but could there be more, somewhere out of sight of Chloe, OtherChloe, and their lifetimes of shared memories with Max?

Another rabbit hole.

But Chloe knew their folks all felt the permanence, the seriousness, of taking a life. She'd spent too much downtime with them to believe otherwise. If she was honest, just because John didn't show it didn't mean he hadn't felt Sam's death. She knew better. Soldier bullshit was what it was. Even so.

Everyone makes mistakes.

And before they met Max, when there was no such thing as do-overs, when non-lethal wasn't always an option…well, that was then. Anyone might carry regrets over necessities decided under fire with too little information or time - I could forgive those.

But feelings or no, John didn't seem to regret Sam at all. 'I'd do it again,' was a definitive statement about calmly taking the life of an unarmed man in the home he shared with his family.

Dammit, John.

A revealing insight made stranger, amplified by the ambiguity she felt from everyone else around the tables moments ago. Most everyone else. Tracey had been on the same page as Chloe - the only voice present who didn't represent MCCP or work on their senior team. Ty would have gone a different way if their roles had been switched. Ariel wouldn't be capable of it directly, nor would Sophie. But they all seemed to 'understand,' like that made it any different.

'Understanding' gave John a pass for literally shooting an unarmed man in the head after socializing with his wife and kids. That's a sociopathic level of detachment. Or…an intense devotion to some other fucked up code.

It's not even about Sam, though.

It's about a family

It's about us.

And wasn't I just on fucking TV slamming assholes in positions of power for leading with force over example? That can't all be a lie - we're supposed to be better than the bad guys here. We have to be. Don't we?

For fuck's sake, Michaels.

Why double-down now?!

Maybe Chloe was naive to think they could reshape the vast, bloody future of a world with a supremely bloody history without ever crossing that narrow line themselves. Maybe she was the one being unreasonable.

But Chloe, Max, and by extension, MCCP had power. With a capital fucking 'OP.' Even that was inadequate to describe their level of superhero god-mode logarithmic scaling that demanded they take moral responsibility. With temporal event resets that allowed them nearly infinite lives, retries, and options. Options that gave them a choice for how to behave and who to be. That demanded the right choice. With zero room for exceptions or excuses. To not only choose a path of light over darkness - but to multiply that light for others - and to help them find it in themselves! That was supposed to be their north star - the goddamned center of their universe.

Max had said those words herself.

And Chloe believed in them.

That was the disconnecting fail she'd felt back there in the restaurant. The one where nearly everyone 'understood' John's actions. Like some shared lack of remorse for something so wrong.

If that belief of what they had to be was just Chloe being naive, so be it. Even if it meant standing all on her own, being the unreasonable one, she'd cling to it and defend it with all the fierceness she could muster. It was a question of 'soul,' for lack of a better word.

They knew better!

And Chloe knew she was right to feel so very disappointed in everyone else.

You can't grow a strong, thriving tree from a sapling with a rotten core.

So why? Why is this even a question?

We. Don't. Murder. People. Ever.

We fucking can't.

Chloe unconsciously clenched her fists. In her accelerated state, the whipcrack of that small supersonic movement would take another perceptual minute to ripple across her skin and eventually reach her ears.

The sense delay reminded her of the years of other silences between her and Max that Chloe never pressed beyond. Falling into the rabbit hole. Of OtherChloe's memories and suspicions of sudden unexplained changes in Max. Of sometimes rapid relocations, hints of paths untaken, never discussed aloud. Of vacant stares when Max thought no one was looking. Of heartbreaking clues spread across the centuries.

And most recently, most viscerally, the rewind-cube deep-time-moon-bounced into this branch from Max's recent side-trip into alternate hellscapes - the one with more than five months of Chloe's own sequentially layered memories of the hundreds of retries and attempts that still failed to change more than a few days' worth of shitty bad-guys running amok.

Now that she'd had time to sit with those memories, internalize them, develop insights, she realized it was her first direct look into what it must be like behind the scenes for Max to get through her more 'complicated' timeline segments. The unrelenting work it took to change the future.

Chloe had done short rewind-cube retry sequences in her time since infiltrating Area-51 - when they first started using cubes like Chloe-POV-DVRs. But they'd mostly been everyday-type save events, far from the intensity of that nearly six-month grindfest in SadWorld.

Remembering how worn out, how tired Max looked with each fresh restart. Soldiering forward despite the pain of watching new deaths unfold with each new branch; new tortures inflicted on innocent bystanders out in the world, keeping her head up despite her deep frustrations with each ending timeline failure; somehow leading others, giving hope, while enduring, teetering at the very edge of desperation herself.

At no point in those layered realities did Chloe's instances have the slightest sense that this was Max's first time going through this kind of extreme process to rewrite her way out of a dire future. There was something resigned, practiced in how Max handled each new rewind restart.

Until now, until that hundred-plus cube rewind loop, Max had been the only soul burdened with the gut-wrenching memories and experiences of her entire continuous journey. Ironically, only to have this particular set of loops wiped from Max's recall in the end, as the sideways jump into that branch was her only personal lifeline sequence to carry forward to this one. She and Chloe had traded this time. But it wasn't always the case that Max forgot. More often, she'd simply have to power through, quietly carrying everything inside. Forever.

After feeling the collective weight of this pattern for half a year, Chloe's heart tore for Max. For what she must have been through many times over her extended lifetime.

Which fueled Chloe's anger that much more.

Fuck you, John!

Why the hell does Max have to suffer everything she goes through - work herself so hard, with every reset layering these kinds of scars around her heart - if we're just gonna pop people off in the end cause it's easier?! It's not fair to make her carry all that shit in her head if we're just gonna be a different set of bad guys murdering the original bad guys!

She stopped there. Considered letting go like so many times before, but her thoughts, perhaps more concretely grounded in the realities than any time before, tore ahead of her anyway, inevitable, crashing.

Why was Chloe the only one hung up on this? Why wasn't Max the first one back there calling out John? Especially after everything she's been through?!

That last straw. Max's 'non-response' moments ago that pushed Chloe outside. A silence that felt too much like complicity. Maybe Max was just being Max, innocently taking on all the blame for everyone she couldn't save, as though their deaths were her fault? Or perhaps she internalized guilt for the sins committed by anyone who worked with them.

While both were true on some level, part of Chloe knew better.

Even if it was a part she wasn't ready to hear.

Arguments in her head.

Back.

Forth.

Speeding up.

Finally bending, reversing course, and crystalizing into an unexpected and intensely uncomfortable question.

I saw that look on her face back there.

Max's expression was a grim partner to her silence about John. Mirrored, it spread across Chloe's inner-face as she unpacked the thought.

Is this…my fault? Have I failed Max?

No, really. Did I miss something? OtherChloe too - did we both…conveniently ignore how much hurt she carries? I mean, how could we know, but…how could we not? How…how many future / past / parallel choices might still haunt her? How many…regrettable necessities has she faced and carried forward with her? How many…lives she may have…had to…let end? Even the people she's saved…she had to watch some of them die first. Sometimes over and over. I know what this last branch felt like to me, but does she dissociate from that, like John, when she presses on in the final branch? Or…take comfort that the canon timeline saw them saved? How exactly does she deal?

And why don't I know the answer to this off the top of my head?

I…should goddamn-well know the answer to this!

How could I be so unobservant?

Or is she so practiced at hiding those parts of herself from me?

Which would be worse?

Maybe, yeah. No. It's clear Max has secrets buried in missed attempts in bad branches, things undone…of course…I mean…seeing myself in that last wrong-turn branch series helped me understand myself more positively on some levels, I think. But there was a lot of bad along the way. Maybe after so much time, she sees different things entirely. It has to pile on for her over the centuries, doesn't it? The consequences of failure? Sometimes, even glimpses of someone she doesn't want to be. I'm sure she's seen things too horrible to want to share - but has she also done things…wait…is that even possible? No. But maybe there are unpleasant actions she'd been forced to take to keep herself and OtherChloe safe in her last branch. But if that was the case…Max wasn't as far along in her development back then, maybe…she had fewer options…it would be understandable if things went sideways. I mean, that was hundreds of years ago for her, but…why don't I know every detail intimately? I should. I was practically there.

Chloe played it out, questioned, checking her memories, her borrowed memories from OtherChloe, and her assumptions. Growing more and more uncomfortable. Sensing more missing time between her and Max than she could account for. Or maybe she was paying serious attention to it for the first time?

Has she ever killed? Intentionally? When she had other options? Chloe dismissed it out of hand. No, that's not possible. Not for Max.

So why is she being passive like this with John all of a sudden?

Was it ennui, or…?

Even in the worst possible case - Chloe wouldn't blame Max for taking lives if there'd been no other way for them to survive. Like back in Seattle only years before. The morality of self-defense, and defense of others, was clear enough on that point, even though the PTSD that followed was real. And if even Max herself couldn't find another way, maybe there just wasn't another way.

But still. Chloe should know…everything. It was a disquieting gap.

We're supposed to be equal partners here.

But…she didn't volunteer, and…and I never pressed.

But it wasn't like Max was a killer. That dark-side path wasn't for Chloe's adorable and fluffy Max - everyone would be in a world of shit if that were true. Watching her power through over there, in that last branch, it was always about how to save everyone, but equally weighted, without hurting anyone either. Chloe knew - knew - better. She'd bet the future of the whole entire world on that one assertion.

But on reflection, Max had surely been cornered, forced to do things she wasn't proud of. It tore at Chloe that as much as she might try not to judge, as much as she might come to condemn Max's hypothetical mystery-actions on some level in her mind, her heart hurt beyond reason that Max would continue to bear all that weight, all this time, all by herself.

And even worse, that Chloe had let her.

That was the simmering takeaway left in the aftermath of that shared cube. The one Chloe'd been so excited to 'play with' on Max's return to the junkyard in the Bronx. Chloe had been so focused on the breakthrough loop data about the bad guys…but that was because she hadn't yet integrated any of those far-too-detailed memory loops she'd left for her future selves, over and over, adding weeks of fresh new trauma with each new pass.

But it didn't hit her until just now, that flash of resigned sadness in Max's expression.

I'm such an asshole.

That face Max made back there in the restaurant, it was only for a fraction of a second, but it was a look of someone deeply troubled.

Why did I assume she had it together?

How could I assume she had it all together?

Moments piling up like laundry between them. Chloe had always known she was missing something on some level. There were too many moments. Too many signs. Little things she said over the years. And yet…it was easier to trust that Max, the very oldest, the very wisest, and the very best of them, had to have it all buttoned-down and under control. Didn't she? If not Max, who?

Chloe relied on that hand-wave too much.

If she was honest, that bit of faith, that Max was in control, that Max would solve everything, was a big part of what gave Chloe the courage that the scale of change they were attempting to engineer with the world was even remotely possible. Even then, Chloe still had her moments and insecurities about her place in it.

Which linked her to her next uncomfortable line of thought.

Does Max see my faith in her as something she has to protect for my sake? Could that be a reason why? Have I made it worse for her by leaning so hard? Did I take her abilities for granted without understanding the cost to her spirit?

Obviously.

Even now, am I holding her to too high a standard of personal judgement and behavioral perfection along the way to a final timeline? Is it fair to expect she'd achieve perfect moral clarity at every turn when she can undo any mistake she might make? Do those mistakes count? For her? For reality? Does that standard deny growth, forgiveness, or the very notion of redemption? Did she give John a pass because nothing is ever permanent from her point of view?

That look she had was about something. Something specific.

Am I wrong to have these expectations?

We're only hu…wait…are we? Are we only human? Anymore?

But more to the point - am I a bad partner?

A momentary cold sweat at that thought. Simulated, not actual, given Chloe's acceleration. She jumped the thread anyway. Reached for another. Processing ever more quickly.

Or…did the role Max took for herself preclude the kind of openness Chloe expected? Preventing real partnership? But…even then, everyone needed someone they can open up to - Max could always turn to Chloe, the one person who would always have her back, always love her, no matter what. Couldn't she? Wouldn't she?

Would she?

Chloe's recent other-branch memories and emotions, passed through the cube from their five-month-plus detour into serial timeline butchery - would she willingly, voluntarily inflict the worst parts of that on Max, who didn't experience any of it directly in her lifeline of the here and now?

Of course not.

The cube data and mission dumps and everything made it to the core, where anyone inside could research or access it - and the stories were there, but the mission reports and records weren't the same as living through them. And Chloe hadn't said anything to Max about the worst she'd seen, instead feeling grateful she'd been spared the nightmares only Chloe knew this time around.

Chloe's accelerated processing, extrapolations, and puzzle-piecing had opened a few new perspectives she hadn't taken the time to consider before. Injecting contradictions of certainty and ambiguity in equal measure - all without answering any questions. Irritatingly, nothing facing her was black and white.

Despite the depth of absolutes involved.

Flailing.

Reaching.

Grasping.

No secrets. That was the promise they'd made. Or at least, that's the promise they'd made early in this loop. Although…it was made before Max fully returned to herself…and before Chloe had any inkling of the long life Max shared with OtherChloe. Or any hints of the big, terrifying, galaxy-class fuckery going on beyond the skies.

Chloe thought back to her mental shutdown at Site-6, when they first learned of The Device secured underground. Or unloading all of her doubts and fears on Max in Paris, or New York, or even over their recent weekend away on planet Steve.

It was all about me.

Never once did I ask if she was okay…or tell her not to worry…or promise that I'd be the one to make everything right in the end.

Each time, she waited for Max to tell her it would be alright. That they've got this. When there was no rational basis for that belief beyond 'SuperMax exists.' Which was, it should be said, a sensible enough basis for that belief.

But is it fair?

And each of these recent callouts for soothing reassurance from Max had been in the past couple of months alone. Did Chloe's constant reliance on her for foundational support prevent Max from doing the same? Keep her from turning, leaning on Chloe?

Too many unknowns alongside her assumptions.

Rapid parallel processing.

Threatening to spiral again.

Chloe forced herself out of the exploratory forks and recursive loops.

One at a time.

A single conclusion remained firm. The one in front of her.

Max should have been front and center on the No-Murder Train back there. No matter what.

So why?

None of the languages Chloe knew had a word for the storm of conflicting worries, positions, and emotions assailing her all at once.

The bird ahead barely moved an inch in the time she'd been processing, questioning, attending to obvious connections long ignored.

She anticipated as much as heard the beginnings of a rough pressure wave behind joining the whipcrack of her earlier fist-squeeze. She corrected her internal clock to catch the creak of the door, the opening waves of Max's voice. The bird flitting away in a sudden flush of sound.

She'd followed right behind. As Chloe knew she would.

"Chloe?"

And it was into that hollow tangle Max followed, seconds later.

Chloe didn't look back but slowed her pace beyond the entrance to the short pier.

She didn't want to fight. And she especially didn't want to fight in public. She didn't even fully know where she stood, much less what the ground was or what else might be missing from her view of the background.

Or how much might be her fault.

Her instinct was to grab Max and hold her.

But. She had questions.

And wasn't sure which, if any, to ask.

They'd had many 'energetic disagreements' over their long histories together, from childhood through hundreds of years of alt-timelines, and now through to the present. It wasn't that they'd gotten better at them exactly, but there was a familiar structure, a language, shorthand, like so much else between them. Rooted in well-developed mutual respect, benefit of the doubt. Finding the right timing and listening between the lines as much as talking. They'd gotten there the hard way, over decades, centuries, with plenty of mistakes along the way.

"Chloe! Please. Wait up!"

Closing her eyes, she finally came to a stop, even as she wasn't in a 'ready' place yet. What do you do when all the time in the world still isn't enough…

Max mashed into her from behind, wrapping her arms around Chloe's midsection. Rested her head on Chloe's back in a soft, warm, full-body reverse hug. "I'm sorry," was all she said in the smallest of Max voices.

Chloe faltered. That's…you're…not fair.

It wasn't that she wanted to be angry at Max. Or even knew what she was mad about in total yet. It was just as possible she was irritated at herself. Guilty. She knew why she was pissed at John. And why she was sad at the gaps she sensed between herself and Max. But it wasn't like she wanted to embrace denial or hold on to whatever illusions might have passed between the two of them as assumed truth, either. But Chloe wasn't always in control of what she wanted, how she felt.

And…instinct said this, whatever it was, was probably more than they could gracefully get through on a lakeside path in the middle of Moscow with others waiting. Chloe found Max's hands with her own. A gentle gesture. Code. "I…don't think I can do this right now."

Max gripped tighter. Shook her head against Chloe's back as she whispered, "Me either."

"But…I just…"

Neither of them moved. The rumble of an early-morning delivery truck teased the edge of the park. The cold crept in. Chloe didn't fight it. Finally, "I need to understand what that was about. We should. But…"

"Does it have to be right now?" Max, persuading through tone alone. There was something…fear maybe?

Chloe shook her head, leaned back into Max. "Um. Just…first…tell me you're not some kinda secret thrill-kill mass-murder-bot on weekends or something?" Joking, if right to the heart of the matter.

"No," Max offered. "But…Chlo…I've held things back. From you. More than you probably suspect? And I've done things I…can't atone for. I've got way more regrets in my head and heart than I've let on…and—"

Chloe cut her off. "K." Closed her eyes. Feeling the worst sort of confirmation, while pointing so many fingers back at herself. A little mad at how dumb and how smart she'd become. Softening, she bit her lip, glanced over her shoulder, seeing only the rough fog of Max's breath whisping up behind her. "Mistakes…mean we're still human. And…regrets mean our compasses still point north…we can work with both. It's more assurance than I got from John. But it's enough from you for now."

After another moment of silence, "'kay."

"Doesn't have to be this instant, but it's gonna get awk the longer we leave it, you know?"

Max, quickening, sounding relieved, "I know. Couple days at most? Maybe once you're done with everything, after you come back from DC on Monday? We can take some time, go out somewhere, just us? No pressure."

Chloe let it go. "Okay. Let's pin it for now. Uh…why don't you…head back, get the kids back to the fort? I'm sure the mood's turned in there. And we need to figure out our next moves in light of all this John bullshit…can I text you for a pickup when I'm ready?"

"Course. You…gonna be alright?"

Chloe ran her hand through her hair, catching a knot. "Yeah. Just need time for a walk, clear my head a little. You know? Half-hour?"

"Yeah."

"Hey Max - with this Sam thing - should we—"

"Lemmie talk to John offline? Need to understand what happened, you know? Details? It's a long way back. More than two years. Those could be huge ripples, especially with how connected to their side Sam was. And I still don't know what we'd do with him if we go back and step in for the save."

Chloe shrugged. "Easiest thing might be to jump in right after, undo the physical but keep him out of play for a couple years. Let John think he's done his duty or whatever bullshit that was? Bounce Sam off the early days of moon construction or something in the meantime?" She laughed without much humor. "Just pretend he's a shitty meat-cube?"

Max slid further down Chloe's back. Like a soggy noodle. "Dunno. We'll figure something out. That wouldn't change anything for his family - I mean, he's an illusion as a person. They'll lose him no matter what happens after."

Chloe wasn't surprised that Max also cut straight to the heart. "Yeah. Truth being what it is and all. I…I know."

"Well, unless we save him from John, but let him keep playing the game for the other side - that's a lot to ask for a 'pretend good dad and husband.' And I don't even wanna think about how much damage that might do the timeline behind us if he kept going."

"Shit. No, of course…not…"

"Yeah."

With that, Max reluctantly let go, slipped away. "We'll figure it out, Chlo."

Chloe nodded, continued. Uncertain, but walking wherever the closed, circular path around the lake might take her.

---

John took another swig, returned his beer to the ledge. The condensation rings marked time in lazy, overlapping, evaporative splatters.

Beyond the sea, sunlight flashed through late winter storm clouds to the right of Catalina's dark sliver, suggesting another hour until it set.

The surfers offshore were hardy locals. The usual suited-up dots, bobbing among the swells, feeling every third or fourth wave to see if any would make for a good ride in. It was a classic view from the balcony of his old beach house, unchanged by the passage of years.

He'd only just made the few-hour drive back through the desert, but expected she might show.

"You didn't have to come all this way," he called over his shoulder. "Water in the fridge."

Behind him, a brief clatter, light sneaker-falls across the deck.

Max pulled up beside him, rested her elbows on the rough, weathered railing. Clear bottle of water clasped loosely in her hands, dangling. Her eyes, relaxed, caught and redirected the warm glow of the late afternoon light.

Neither spoke, content to let it be.

The only sounds were the cries of the drifting gulls looking for quick leftovers, the gentle cadence of breaking waves over sand, and the occasional migratory snippets of beachgoers walking or biking along the path below.

"Sorry," John finally managed, breaking their long silence.

In his peripheral vision, Max looked down at the railing for a sec, then back up. She stretched out her back. Nodded. In the end, she gave a half-hearted shrug but didn't reply.

He felt like he owed them both more of an explanation, but there wasn't a lot else he could say. He was used to Max's sense of quiet when thinking about things, but before it had the chance to grow uncomfortable for him, he added, "I…regret it led to this. I regret that it came back to bite everybody and made trouble for you guys, for everyone. Knowing…what I know now about how it turned out, I might have gone a different way back then."

"Are you asking?" Max whispered.

John balked, quickly shook his head. "No." He pushed himself up straight, palms on either side of his beer. "Too far. Who knows what kind of world you'd come back to." He smiled without feeling it, let out a long breath. "What's done is done, and it's better Sam's not working against us. It was my decision. So. Here's me, taking this one for the team. They're my consequences." He tried to laugh it off, lighten the mood, but it wasn't working on either of them.

Too much time in the same foxhole. And different ones.

Max dropped her head. Using the railing like a balance bar, she pulled her elbows to her sides, forearms on the rail, leaned over on tiptoes. "Yeah…that's uh…not only yours, you know." She glanced at him, then back to the beach.

The ocean breeze played with the spindly palm trees down the strand, each resonating in their own time.

"…yeah…sorry." He'd used those few hours on the road back from Vegas to settle his mind, reconcile the changes to his status over the last day - and the advice of their corporate counsel, plus the two-cents from Jeremy and Jillian. There were playbooks to work from, but the public side was only part of it.

There'd also been Tracey's nearly fearful final look before she closed the door behind her. He wasn't sure which hurt worse.

He changed the subject. "...you and Chloe? Everything okay?"

Max uncapped the bottle, took a sip. "Yeah... Well, I mean, we will be, I'm sure. She was pissed I didn't throw you under the bus in front of everyone, but…"

He glanced over, replayed her reaction, expressions in Moscow not 16 hours earlier. "But - there's more to that story."

She didn't move or acknowledge.

Guilty for sparking their disagreement, he continued in a lower voice. "You should have. Thrown me under. You still could - go back, edit, make it easier on yourself. I'd understand."

She put the cap back on. Glanced back at him, shaking her head. "I got no room. And…" Her smile held only a moment before fading with her exhale. Eyes back out to the horizon.

John half put it together before hitting the state line. He'd spent too many years troubleshooting investigations - active brain. He was leading her, but her words and body language felt like enough confirmation. His eyes rested on the dark sliver in the distance, trying in vain to make out early lights of Avalon below the notch. "Of course. I'm surprised none of us put it together, but…yeah, if we ever found Stirling in any timeline…after what he put you and Chloe through…"

Max gave a small start, quickly recovered. "S'pose I shouldn't be surprised you figured that on your own."

John casually hoisted his beer in Max's general direction before taking a drink. "Only just. RIP." He chuckled, thinking back to the conference call they'd had not too long after they'd all met, while half his team was in Germany spooling up for Sophie's rescue. "Right after Hector pulled you out of holding, even over that shitty sat-link, I heard it in your voice. After what they did to her. Knew that asshole was eventually gonna have a bad day. It was gloves-off for all of us after that. Right? Thought you were going to go full-on god-of-vengeance mode, shred the world right then and there. And I was worried Hector would hang up on me before I could talk you out of it."

Max nodded, her hair rebelling into disarray with the cross-breeze. She reached up, tucked behind her ear, skin golden in the light. "Yeah. That was crazy, wasn't it? Wasn't the first time I felt that kind of dark…rage, but…didn't know it then. Didn't have the memories that would make it make sense, you know? So it just…anyway. Hector was looking out for me. And feeling you out, trying to get you to see his point of view on the bigger picture with Talents, all at the same time."

"Yeah. I get it. We've talked about it since. He and I. I just…well…anyway. Fair to say, Stirling died the second he touched Chloe, right? Rest was just…universe catching up with him. Me - I don't see the problem." John considered self-editing, but friendship overrode his sense of diplomacy. "Hey, Max? If I can be indelicate, which we both know I can on the regular…how many times?"

"Huh?" Max, lost.

"Thinking what I'd do if it were me in your shoes. After what he did. Since you could. I mean, did you…erase him…just the one time, or…"

She caught up. "Ah." Took a deep breath, as though resigning herself to articulating something she knew she'd have to eventually, but would rather not. "I uh, I swore 10,000 deaths wouldn't be enough for what that fucker did to Chloe. But I, uh, well. Pushing…90, I was…I was already getting to the point where I couldn't feel it anymore. Just…nothing. Nothing that made me feel good, but maybe worse, nothing that made me want to stop? And Soph. You know…"

"Worried for your soul."

"Kindest answer. I wasn't so far gone I didn't hear her. Called it quits. Left him dead, but…I never went back." She wouldn't meet his eyes.

John nodded. After a delay, "Ever…think about one more time? Bringing him back all the way?" A hypothetical gut check John had asked himself many times.

Max flashed a hint of anger. "No. No way that man breathes the same air as Chloe again."

He smirked in dark sympathy. "Hear ya."

"What about you? We could still try to cache Sam somewhere for the duration, try to avoid disrupting the timeline—"

"No. My answer, when I asked myself, was always same as you. 'Not worth the risk,' as the polite answer. And it's not like all this, everything, is out in the open." He paused. "Nobody'd believe it unless we broke that wall. So. This was the only way justice would find him. Or maybe it's prevention, or whatever. Didn't like it, but had to be me. Had to be done. You understand, I think. Sounds like you'd lost your taste for it at the end, so…"

Max didn't respond.

John, thinking out loud, "But - cutting off their lifelines back there behind us…it's not…strictly speaking…it's not the right thing. Not the moral thing, is it? When we could still choose different?"

Max, softly, "No."

"And yet." John shrugged to himself.

"Yeah. And yet." Max shared a sad, grim smile without meeting his eyes. "I don't regret ending him, for all the reasons."

John nodded. "Same."

Max glanced up. "But…not everybody's gonna understand."

"Nope. Maybe that's for the best, though. Maybe not everyone should in the world we're trying to get to." He shrugged again, felt like at least they understood each other on some level. Left him slightly less alone.

Aware of the weight of so much seriousness, old habits, he switched gears again. "That takes me back, though. Fuckin' Hector, man. Gonna miss that asshole." He laughed.

Max snapped to face him. "Don't be like that, John. Don't act like you're never gonna see us again."

She looked legitimately upset. Which made him happy as much as sad.

But it wasn't so simple. He pushed back from the edge. "Better for everyone to stay on mission without distractions. We both know this 'leave of absence until I clear my name' crap is messaging. I can't prove innocence, which isn't a good look for MCCP. But…more important, I lost Chloe's trust over this. Rightly so, I guess."

Max slumped. "Well. I might be joining you there soon. I don't know if you remember, or ever knew, it's hard to keep track of who said what to whom in what branches, and what's final sometimes…but we have that rule, Chlo and me. No rewinding or undoing our arguments. The one thing where I only ever get one shot…uh…can I live in your doghouse if I fuck it up or it all goes to hell?"

He'd at least let her have the sofa. "Long as you need."

They both fell quiet again.

He struggled to pull together the things he should say; realized he'd probably said it all somewhere along the way. Let it go. Took another sip.

The sound of skateboard wheels on sandy concrete rose and fell in pitch. A bike rider passed below them, dinging its little horn. Waves crashed in the distance.

"I'm sorry too, John," Max whispered. "You know? We owe you. Big-time. We were so…lost. Back to the beginning, when they had Chloe, and everything went to shit. You were the first person to legit have our backs when you didn't have to. You even died twice, trying to help me when I was trapped in the UK. Sorry. You might have even been standing right here? But you're okay now. So, yay. And then, there's everything since. We wouldn't be where we are without you. This…this whole thing is fucked, and I don't know what to say, other than I'm such a fucking hypocrite for going along with it!"

He shrugged. "For what it's worth, it all went down, with Sam, between our gigs. After wrapping in Atlanta, but before we formalized my position with MCCP…if that makes any difference to anybody. I used old company cleaners, which…is probably how they knew in the first place. Then sat on it until it was useful to put me on radar with LAPD. Hindsight. But none of our other guys had anything to do—"

"I know," Max interrupted. "It's okay, John. I think we both know where…"

"Yeah. Yeah. Jillian was right, though. Worst possible time. Even if there's no way anyone behind the curtain can share all the proof without exposing themselves."

Max bent forward, resting her hands and chin on the rail in an unconsciously awkward pose. "Yeah. I'm not worried about that. I mean, if it were just the accusation, I'd fight you taking leave, even. But…"

John went on, spilling some of what had been on his mind on the way back to Santa Monica. Last confessional, maybe. "But it's not just an accusation. I thought, you know, I thought…as long as Julie and the kids were taken care of…the money he kept offshore…they'd be okay. If she only remembered his cover and didn't ever discover the real man. That would leave her with something. Who knew she'd keep looking for him, right?" He smirked at his profound failure of judgement. One he might not have repeated after his time with Tracey. "Anyone would, I guess…I don't know…in a way, I'm sure I told myself I was saving them from a psychopath who would have killed a city full of people. But…without knowing the truth about what happened, about what he was - how else could they feel?"

He might have caught another peripheral wince in Max's expression, but couldn't be sure.

He rambled on, "Not like they'd feel any better if they knew the truth, I guess. Fuck it. Is what it is. Nothing but bad choices. Uh. Yeah. So…anyway. Related - sure you heard, but I gave Jeremy my leave of absence before I took off. Jillian took an edit pass for the PR. If it helps you guys at all. Blah blah denying allegations, look forward to clearing my name, in the mean-time, I don't want this to reflect on or distract MCCP from important work, blah."

Max shrugged, acknowledging.

John straightened up, faced Max directly. "But I owe you and Chloe more than officialese on paper - and I feel like I have to tell you personally. One-on-one is how we got started. I uh, I also dropped my formal resignation letter with HR on the way out. They're holding it back until the timing is right, but…we know I can't come all the way home. You have to come in from the doghouse with Chloe. But I…uh…we both know—that's probably—"

Max crossed her arms, caught up in the sudden enthusiasm of a newly discovered loophole. "No, but John, that's the thing, right? She doesn't know it yet, but Chloe can't forgive me without forgiving you too. There's no real diff—"

John vigorously shook his head. "That's a problem. There has to be a difference between us, Max. We're not the same. Don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by voluntarily connecting those dots for Chloe, okay? Promise. She plays rational, but we both know that's not always true. It's gonna be a coin toss - and she could just as easily get hung up on me, complicating you guys making up for the same reason in the other direction. You're sorry - I'm not. Be clear. That's the real delta and has to be one she believes - even if you're not sorry for how you left Roland, I'm sure you're sorry for secrecy about it, or the path you were heading down, or whatever. I've met you. You internalize a lot of unfocused guilt - pick something, and feel that when you guys are taking things out. Look, I'll happily take the hit for being the bad guy with Chloe on Sam, but no one can afford you two being on opposing sides."

Max furrowed her brows. "It's not that dramatic—"

"Everything ripples, but not every ripple has to be a wave. They couldn't have intended this specifically, but They're trying to make these kinds of problems, pulling us apart, stirring the ocean with this LAPD move and who knows what else up their sleeves. I'll take myself out of this picture, let you and Chloe do what you need to do to get past whatever you need to get past it - quickly and completely. The longer we're fragmented and dealing with all this, the longer we're on our heels, and they have the initiative."

Max gave him an angry glance. "You're deciding things all on your own. Why do you have to be this way sometimes?"

"Decisive, stubborn, pragmatic streak. Probably." He smiled. "But I'm right. I think you know. Stay simple and focused. 'When the air is unclear, the best moves are forward.'"

Max looked away. He had the quote 100% wrong, but she understood. Didn't offer a counter.

Before he could say anything else, she cut him off with a surprise hug. "Sorry it went this way, John. I'll never condemn you for what you did. Obvious reasons. But I can't defend your actions…any more than I can defend any of my own."

He hugged back, feeling a general sense of 'last words of advice.' "Actions aren't the whole problem here, Max. It's how we feel about our actions after, I think - and especially how the important others around us will judge us for how they think we feel about our choices." John let out a long breath. "You're not a hypocrite. Truth is, sometimes somebody has to cowboy up and make the hard call, and if the blowback comes, it comes. And sometimes you gotta go a little way down a new path before you can find it's the wrong one and turn around. But it won't help the mission if everyone falls on their sword at once. Maybe that's your sacrifice to make - letting someone else make it for a change. Even if no one else accepts it or understands. We do. That's enough for me. So…thank you."

They separated.

Max turned, leaned back into the railing. "You've given this thought, huh? Not giving me a choice here. Jerkface." She balanced her smile with a healthy dose of side-eye. "Whatever. Not up to me. What do you think you're going to do next?"

"I don't know if it'll help or hurt his chances - but I put in a recommendation that Ty replaces me. I've known him since boot, he's squeaky, has everyone's respect, and he's been shadowing me over the last few months just...uh...in case anything ever happened, professional development, whatever. We all know he's the better man."

Max waved him off. "He's got the temp promotion. We haven't told him yet, so…maybe coming from you is okay? You guys have history…thought maybe you'd like to be the one to hand the torch? But call him by tonight, k?"

John felt a wave of relief that Ops would be in the best possible hands after his departure. "Yeah…will do. If it's okay. Should I hold off telling him it's permanent until after that news drops?"

Max nodded.

"OK. And…otherwise, uh…for me…you know, I was way overpaid, so I'll be fine. Meeting with lawyers downtown in the morning, we'll go from there and get through the LAPD interview thing. I'll keep you guys in the loop, but I'm sure it'll be fine. Past that, I've still got this beach house. I can sell my condo in Vegas if I ever need to. Maybe I'll grow my hair out, run a hundred yards that direction and get some more surfing in before I'm too old." He motioned toward the other surfers.

Max chuckled along with him.

He quieted again. It was probably obvious, but he had to say it out loud. "In all seriousness, Max - these last couple years have been something. I'm an okay word guy, but I don't have the words. What could possibly follow working with everybody? Knowing what we know about what you know? You know? Nothing else means much. So. I don't know. The hell am I supposed to do? Get drunk, surf, people-watch from the deck? How could I not spend the rest of my life doing anything I could to help people?"

Max looked skyward. Nodded in understanding. "Yeah. Well…Chlo would say that's cause we're a good bad influence."

He continued before Max could make promises that would be inconvenient for her to keep. "I'll figure something out. Have a few thoughts. One door opens, another closes, or whatever. I built the ops lead role in a way that I'd be replaceable. Was always a better field op than desk jockey anyway."

He knew it was the only path remaining.

Thankfully, Max understood. "Soooo…rogue agent?"

He laughed. "Shit-stirrer? Same thing, I guess. I don't know. This sucks, but I can't say it's unfair for Chloe to feel the way she does. Not like I'm uninvolved in how we got here. If my going distracts and deflects any of Chloe's disappointment away from you, though, that would more than make up. I'll do what I can to help where I can behind the scenes out there. You know me."

She squeezed his forearm.

"So…look, maybe I don't have the right to ask, but would you keep an eye on Trace? If you can? She made it clear she doesn't want to hear from me, and I don't want to feel all stalkery by keeping tabs…but…"

Max wilted. "Course."

John chuckled, but not in a good way. "Can't blame her either. It's impossible to fight that absolutist idealistic streak she got from her privileged, sheltered, civilian upbringing." He laughed at the obviousness of his unfair, over the top characterization. Walked it back, softening his tone. "…think I told you, but her whole family was coming out in two weeks."

Max cringed. "Womp, womp."

He fought a smile at the familiar charm of her reflexive sound effects. Another thing he'd grown accustomed to. "Was supposed to be the big posh meet-the-fancy-ass-parents sort of thing…but…turns out they get news in London too. And she may have editorialized a bit too much when they spoke this morning…"

"Ouch. Sorry, John. You don't think there's any coming back for you guys?"

"Seems like a gap too far." He shook his head. "She's going home to the UK for a couple weeks now instead. Think this is where our timelines split. My fault, but maybe it's for the best. First time she got to see that side of me. It was nice to feel those kinds of feelings for a while, though, you know? Different."

She didn't say anything. Finally, under her breath, "Well, don't act like she and I aren't already friendly with each other. So…you know. She'll be fine. You won't have to worry."

That was more than enough assurance, even if her delivery left him chagrined. Of course, Max would keep an eye on her. Like she did everyone.

He redirected one final time. "Hey - uh…as a final token of thank-you-for-your-service or whatever, since I'm gonna be all alone in the cold, do you mind if I keep a few toys?"

She gave him another side-eye. Rolled them. "You guys and your toys…um, internal med-bots are all yours. Cause…ew. I don't know what else you have in mind, but let's go with a blanket 'yes' anyway. See Ty, take whatever you need." Max stilled for a moment, locked eyes. "And I see this little thing you're doing, by the way. Don't you dare act like you and I aren't friends either, John Michaels."

He threw up his hands in surrender, laughing. "The exiled martyr thing isn't gonna play all the way, huh?"

"Pfft. No. Now stop it. Not getting rid of us that easy."

"Us?"

She punched his arm. "Give her some time? Remember - you're our number-one security threat now, so we gotta have eyes on you anyway - anyone gives you shit, we'll both be there like ninjas." She laughed.

"Fine. Then I'm going to do as I please. And you can get in touch if there's ever anything you want."

"Or just to say 'hi.'"

"Yeah. Or just to say 'hi.'"

He reached down for a closing hug. "So…see you around then?"

Max giggled, patting his back with a thump. "I'm always around."

---

Emily lifted her right foot as high as she could, crunched down, lifted the other out of its hole, repeating the process again and again. Her sneakers were already stiff and caked with snow, but despite the deep freeze, she was sweating under her 'liberated' thrift-store winter jacket with its furry hood. Another door that mysteriously opened for them as they'd passed it the night before.

Mira plodded alongside her, occasionally reaching out to trade balance, while Jason paced farther ahead of the girls. Following his footsteps just made it more work, so they blazed their trail to one side.

The boat ride over had been another episode in a long series of weird, all the way back to their original escape. A scruffy-looking stranger, texting the whole time, wordlessly piloted them from the dock at the edge of the trees to the east side of a river island. His path took them in a giant spiral, and along the way, they'd all gawked at what became the New York City skyline and Statue of Liberty. None of them had seen them in person before, for obvious reasons. But the landmarks confirmed where they'd been led. At one point, Mira shared her impression that the statue looked smaller in real life. Almost lonely out there by itself, torch raised. Otherwise, they hadn't talked much on the way over. Too windy. Too cold, too loud, huddled down in the back of the open section of the dirty old boat, near the engine and freezing spray.

Their stoic pilot eventually weaved them between a series of tall piers, landing at a ramp near a seeming orchard of bare trees between tremendous piles of composting leaves, branches, and clippings. Brown and rotten, rising steam hinted at the internal heat that kept the snow away.

Some construction was halted south and west of them, but their path lay north and a bit east, beyond the compost piles, and over the fields of untouched snow.

Jason had the paper towel with the blue ink map, hastily scrawled and handed to him at the last moment. Because he was the boy, apparently. Before they could object or ask any questions, the pilot backed the boat away with a gurgly wash, turned, sped back out to the river in a new direction.

Stranded ashore, they followed the map as best they could.

It wasn't long before they found their way through the first rows of houses to another beyond. They hadn't seen any people, and the unplowed streets and walks, unmarred by human footprints, hinted they might not. Still, once beyond the open fields, they moved from tree to shrub to wall, trying to stay out of sight. More out of tired, cautious habit than any real fear somebody would notice them.

Jason stopped ahead of them, shivering. Squatted down by a wide tree trunk, looked over the map.

"Is this the one?" Mira asked, looking for house numbers.

Jason pointed, confirming. "Yeah."

"We should—"

Before Mira could finish her statement, Jason left cover, tromped to up the path to the front door. Reluctantly, Mira followed.

Emily hesitated, trailed behind. Whispered the obvious, "We should be careful. We don't know why we're here. We don't know who's there. We don't know anything!"

Jason admonished, "If it were up to you, Em, we never would have gone out to meet the boat. I'm cold. I'm tired. I'm hungry. Fuck. This. I don't even care if it's just a big old game to mess with us anymore."

Mira, annoyed, cautious, tapped lightly at the door.

Jason body-pushed her lightly aside, pounded on the door overhand, rapid-fire with both fists.

Mira pulled at his arms, desperately trying to stop him.

Emily, suddenly afraid at the racket, leapt back to get out of sight of the door. Ended up losing her balance, fell sideways off the steps, and head-first into a hedge. "Gah!" Panicked, she kicked her legs in the air to regain control and try to right herself, only sliding deeper.

Mira ran to help, leaving Jason to continue his furious pounding.

"Open up! Hey! It's cold out here! We need food!"

Mira's 'Shhhhhhh!' was met with another dirty look.

"What, Mir? If there's a fire or heater or anything, I don't even care if I get taken back. I'm over this."

While they argued, Emily, still half upside down in a shrub, noticed an upstairs curtain moving aside, falling back into place.

"Guys! Guys! Someone's in there," she yelled.

But as had become more common, Mira and Jason were too busy fighting with each other to pay any attention to her.

---

Juliet cursed the toilet seat, which slowly warmed with her pirated body heat.

BANG!

She jolted upright in a panic at the sudden cascade of loud, rapid thuds at the front door of her borrowed sanctuary. A door no one had knocked on before.

What was it? Who was it? Had she been discovered? Was it her gun-toting pursuers? Or did island maintenance workers notice the lights or steam or something from the furnace? Or was it something to do with Max or Chloe, finally coming to find her for…reasons? …?!

The knocking subsided.

What should she do? Sunday morning. Ignore it and hope they leave? Peek and risk being caught? Answer it?

Huh? Why would I think Max would know where I am or send someone to get me? Was that—

She froze.

The pounding strikes started anew.

Her sleep-addled brain reacted only to the banging, sending her heart rate skyward. The daily drone delivery had already come that morning, leaving the basket with food, books, and her daily burner on the front step.

A text tone sounded on the phone, unfortunately out of reach in that same basket, now in the next room.

She quickly took care of business, raced to the phone, staying low. Text had to be Ian - or one of his dumb hacker friends. They'd tell her what to do. Get out. Run? Or?

She read the text.

Ian: Good news! Good friends! They arrive very soon! Much excite!

He'd closed the line with a party-horn emoji.

JW: WTAF?!

Her brain caught up, understood that she probably wasn't in a place of immediate 'danger,' but her body continued to react as though it were. Adrenaline, hands shaking, heart thumping out of control. Afraid to move.

Just like that day on the street outside her dorm.

She shook her head, angry at herself for being this way. It's just knocking. She doubted her perception that it had been as loud or as furious as it felt. Snuck over to the window to see if she could see whoever was outside.

Whatever she might have thought she expected, what she saw below wasn't that.

Looked like a couple of neighborhood teens out for a snow-day. One inexplicably upside down in a hedge, another one or two out of sight below the portico being all noisy.

Controlling her breathing, she eventually got her heart to back down from fight or flight. Neither was appropriate to her situation. She'd had time to kill, researched already. Knew what was going on - her overreaction to sudden stimulus. Knowing didn't prevent it, but it gave her hints for trying to regain control. Breathing. Counting. Enough to allow her to make sure she was dressed appropriately. Sufficient to head down the stairs without tripping.

Inches from the door, she reached out to the top latch. Hesitated. They might still walk away?

Shadows outside, yelling at one another, as the taller shadow again slammed on the door.

Juliet, startled, flinched. Hastily unlatched the door, opened it to make that damnable, thundering noise stop.

As the door opened, the boy knocking missed the door, nearly hit Juliet.

His eyes went wide, as did those of the girl standing next to him.

After an awkward moment, Juliet looked between them to the girl still stuck in the shrubs. "Um." Human instincts took over, and she brushed past them to help the struggling girl up.

At her back, "Hi?"

Juliet helped Shrub-Girl escape, get back on her feet. Couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen.

Wearing Chucks in the snow. Not good.

Juliet crossed her arms at the sudden chill, turned back to the other girl, maybe a year or two older than the first. All she could think to say was the only thing she could ask. "Ian sent you guys?"

The kids looked puzzled. 'Kids.' Like Juliet was so much older. Well, enough that she keenly felt the difference in their ages, anyway.

"Who?"

The boy was probably fifteen-ish. Maybe.

"Ian?"

Zero recognition on their faces.

Of course, they wouldn't know anything. That's just like him and The fucking Collective people to keep everyone in the dark - which mostly confirms these three are the ones he's talking about.

She again brushed between them, opened the door wider. "Come in. It's freezing, and I'm going to guess you guys want anyone to see you?"

That was all the invite they needed as they bolted inside.

They went straight for the furnace, stripped off threadbare gloves, and jostled together to warm their hands.

Watching them, Juliet felt an unexpected sort of 'big sister' mode coming on. She mentally catalogued what food they had in the house, how many rooms, the number of beds, and so on. Girls upstairs, boy on the sofa downstairs. Meant she should probably use a bedroom upstairs herself instead of the couch she'd been sleeping on. She should get cans of stew started. Had some bread, milk, cheese in the kitchen as well. It was nearly time to feed Ember The Cat anyway. There were extra clothes in the dressers in the upstairs bedrooms and a small hallway closet, but who knew if anything would fit anyone? I need to call them something. Wait. They probably have names. Of…of course they have names - wtf, Jules?

Fortunately, social situations were comfortable territory for her, if neglected of late. "I'm Juliet." Start simple.

"Thanks for helping me back there. I'm Emily. She's Mira. And that's Jason."

"Call me Romeo."

Mira punched him in the arm. "Ew. Gross. And you know that story didn't end well?"

Not even remotely the first time Jules had heard that one, so it didn't register.

---

Max absently stirred another sugar-cube into her coffee as the waitress continued to the next booth, steam trailing from the silver pot in hand. She felt a wave of deja vu coming; half nostalgic, half sad, half sleepy. Like some encroaching emotional manbearpig.

Autopilot mental noodling.

There were a dozen people in the diner, including the waitress and kitchen staff. Truckers, a few locals out for a Sunday evening meal, hanging out with friends. Jukebox was unplugged. The small-town dynamic was pure flashback.

The red booth seats were over-stuffed, over-polished, and squeaked at her when she scooted. A few worn or torn spots in the vinyl showed careful patching. On further examination, there were signs of DIY patches and fixes all over the diner.

Barely getting by, but someone cares for this place.

The wafting scents of meals blended, landed somewhere between eggs, burgers, and fries. With a hint of wall-splattered chocolate from the shake machine.

Outside, beyond the reflection, it was Nebraska dark. The light, persistent rain repainted smeared traffic signals and street lamps upside down in the roadway's sheen. Her face superimposed itself, catching hints of maudlin. Another late night at the office. Mood.

Max glanced again at the corner intersection, where the tracks crossed over the main drag.

It was the site of a devastating chemical accident in a town too tiny to absorb the blow. She checked her phone. Nearly half the local population would die in exactly 32 minutes. Those left behind would linger painfully for years. At least, according to the quick ops projections from the classified version of the hacked cargo manifest. Unmarked night trains.

Hard to say who had it better in the end.

Welp. Not all things that happen come to pass.

She could have somehow gotten a message to the engineer warning of danger, or called in a tow truck remotely from Vegas - either direction saving the train, the town, and the trip. But she'd been looking for something to do. Clear her head. Get outside. Mindful to live Sophie's advice to spend more time around everyday people out in the world.

Besides, she left the note for herself, not ops.

She carefully rested the spoon upside-down on the saucer, drawing out a bubble of coffee where they touched. Surface tension.

Surface tension. Speaking of Chloe, who was otherwise and elsewhere. Occupied, split into three, maybe more. One in the real, one in a Chloebot (as Max had affectionately if unimaginatively re-named her humanoid ROV), and another wandering around as a generated holo. Chloebot worked on the closing high-precision maneuverings of the cached multidimensional S-6 Device with a team down in the complicated glow of her personal lab. HoloChloe prepped with legal and public affairs in some conference room or another for her promised DC appearance the following morning. More messaging and Q&A practice. And her real self was all tuckered out, napping in a sleep-pod in the hangar at Area 51. Least she was before Max took off. Something about stress-testing whatever she was working on with Parker; some variation of the tech the bad guys tried to trap Max with on New Year's Eve, which Chloe later appropriated, repurposed into an anti-grav skateboard. Max had no idea what it had morphed into since. Supposed to be a surprise. She suspected Chloe was finally getting around to making rocket boots or something as childishly fun.

In other happenings around the farm, she and Chloe were taking a hands-off approach to Dr. Steven Hussein, the child psychologist Chloe met on the news show a few days ago. At least until he'd satisfied himself with his independent eval. He'd touched down at McCarran earlier that afternoon and was scheduled to spend some time away from MCCP with Alena and her dad over the following week. MCCP wasn't actually a cult, and he was the internationally recognized cult expert, so they expected he'd arrive at that conclusion in short order, with maybe a few lingering questions without obvious answers. Sophie would get line-of-sight with him early in the week to run her independent assessment of him as a person. If her conclusions jived with Chloe's research impressions, they'd fill in any gaps he might have with a proper introduction to MCCP, their mission, and outline a potential role in it for him.

As for other other happenings on the way to tomorrow, one of their jets was scheduled to depart LV after midnight en route to DC. Plan was, Max would wormhole Chloe and Hector, who was apparently tagging along for funsies, into the cabin before it pulled up to the private terminal in the early morning hours East Coast time. Reagan was closer to their destination, but TSA regs still required that even private jets share their passenger lists a day in advance, verify and screen them through the public airport checkpoints, and have an armed guard on board to protect the pilot. No such restrictions flying into Dulles. And no reason for them to physically ride on the plane overnight if they didn't have to. But expectations dictated that they at least exit one at their destination. Thus. Wormholes. Otherwise, it could get weird if media or anyone were in a place to notice.

Max caught her reflection again. Speaking of…

Things weren't exactly weird, but they weren't exactly normal since their "Friday Night Adventure in Moscow's Saturday Morning" event.

TL;DR: John was out. Ty was up. Internal comms framed the transition in a way that acknowledged the very public investigation into John, without giving so much information that teams would find themselves unwitting abettors to his actual crime.

Opinions among those inside who put the story together remained split, with more than a few feeling particularly unsympathetic toward the bad-guys. Especially after skimming the massive multi-timeline horror-show data-dump Max brought back from her recent dark-branch side-trip that showed the more aggressive faces of their enemies. And the core's searchable index of auto-repeat deaths of friends, family, strangers - and selves - contained within. She'd felt bad for subjecting them all to it; was a bit like intentionally inflicting a company-wide trauma. But the reminders to all about the seriousness of their opposition ran a close second in importance to the mission value of the multi-timeline data layers it contained.

As for Max and Chloe - they weren't ignoring each other or anything silly. Each had a million things to do on any typical day, and the past couple had tilted more toward that than quality bonding time was all. Although, there was some of that too, as they met up to share a couple of meals. No awk, just a known elephant. And a bit more seriousness than usual, given the various circumstances. Least, that's what Max told herself.

She scanned the street again. No truck yet.

With everything going on, she was thankful to find herself in an easy night for a change. Just waiting. A clear goal, no moral ambiguity, no spotlight, no complications. How it was supposed to be.

Coffee was good. But it always was in places like this. Like the Two Whales she practically grew up in, the diners that couldn't keep the locals coming in wouldn't weather the ups and downs of the roadside.

She raised her head, took in the crowd from her default spot at the far end.

Cute couple of kids down in the other direction…maybe a little older than she or Chloe had been a few years ago…obviously goofing around, texting each other over shared plates of bacon, eggs, and whipped cream covered waffles. Repeating patterns.

Between her and them, closer to the door, a stereotypical nuclear family of 4. Children were maybe 6 or 7 years old, politely finishing their meals in relative quiet.

Handful of long-haul truck drivers at the bar, hats on heads, watching muted news programs over the kitchen counter while clearing their plates of steaks and mashed and whatever else. Closed captioning was on. Their trucks were parked out back in the extended lot.

Then there was the grumpy 50-something cook back in the kitchen, pulling double duty with dishes between orders. Someone might have called in sick. Or maybe it was saving money on a slow night. Whatever. The 'grumpy' might have also been part of his schtick. No one seemed all that intimidated as he shouted another pickup.

And then there was the waitress, who would have looked at home in any diner anywhere on Earth at any point in history. Late 30's. Short, curly brown hair. Crisp, freshly soiled apron complete with requisite pad and pen. Worn-out name tag read 'Sally.' Patient smile. Smoker's laugh.

A few others in booths, eating solo or in pairs, just going about their quiet night. Seemed like most folks knew each other.

Her note said it would be an old matte-black pickup truck that started it all. Stopped on the tracks for some reason. According to the train version of the black box, the engineer didn't make an effort to brake until fifty feet from impact. Which was the same as a full-speed collision.

She sipped. Time yet.

Mind back to Chloe.

Hard to avoid, with Chloe's mug popping up on cable news every half hour. Max was still a little nervous about 'The Talk' to come. Glad for the delay, but also not. Anticipation was getting worse than a band-aid rip. She'd been ready to have it back on Planet Steve, but that didn't work out, what with Chloe in her own funk back then. 'Ready' being a relative term, of course. The version of Chloe in the last sideways bad-branch told her not to worry, that everything would be okay. That was hopeful. Ice got broken somehow over there. But the timing was secondary to initiative. That was the chewy center of worry Max held close. The setup. Voluntarily breaking these subjects hit different than being cornered into the same conversation. SideBranch went the former. This branch unfortunately went the latter. By appearances, anyway. It was complicated enough already. In the end, she was at a disadvantage with how things looked but ultimately trusted Chloe to sort it out. Mostly, Max was relieved to put a date to it, ice finally melting in this reality.

So…yeah. All we have to do now is get through it.

Not like they could cover everything in a compact one-off evening out on their own. Breaking the meta was enough of a goal. Disclosing that omissions and gaps in Chloe's understanding existed. Sharing some idea of the more generalized guilt Max felt for serial-abandoning Chloe again and again across timelines. Opening up about the emotional complications of persistence and identity and multiples and loving someone who needs her here, with another love lost beyond inaccessible world-line boundaries. The logical conflicts that prevented Max from mourning her loss of OtherChloe, while simultaneously preventing her from unburdening herself through Chloe, who was inexorably bound up in the cause and effect.

Peeling back some of the shiny to share the darker times Max had sequestered away in missing slices of the final timeline. Sharing the why of things. Examples to give them shape.

These conversations, this new level of openness, sharing not just events, but their lingering effects on Max, would need to roll out over months, maybe even years.

There were too many over too much time. Too many details. Neglected therapy for both of them, in a way. But the deceptions, from well-meaning to convenient, had to be brought to light. It was clear enough by now; secrets couldn't stand. Wasn't fair. Wasn't good for them. Wasn't healthy for Max.

Some of this would be beyond difficult for Chloe to hear, Max knew. But there wasn't another way.

Max still had conversational advantages without invoking timey-wimey ensorcellments - selective maturity, adept at reading people in general, and Chloe in specific, life experience, etc. But Chloe had some of the same. And these were difficult, physically visceral, and emotional subjects spanning centuries of deeply entangled events. Fortunately, Chloe had OtherChloe's memories of the final original timeline, so it would be more about filling in gaps or pointing out gaps Max had smoothed over for her. At least as a common starting place.

Navigating their chat wasn't ever going to be about manipulation - but the same information delivered in different ways or a different sequence, or with varying levels of detail, could lead Chloe to vastly different places, depending. Like Chloe talked about with her media interviews and prep. Or what she was going through getting ready for her congressional committee meeting. Any normal conversation with the average person, Max could abort, retry, fail until she got it right for everyone. But that was off the table with Chloe. So she had to do her best in one live shot. Just like everyone else.

But this change in openness, it was also for Max's benefit. She needed Chloe's help. The woman who was the love of her life, her best friend across universes, and the very best person she'd known in every timeline.

A selfish part of her had wanted this for a very, very long time. Another selfish part still wanted to protect Chloe from all the bad in the multiverse, and maybe in so doing, let Max pretend like she was still protecting herself.

Not sure how Chloe's gonna react to all the shit we have to cover, though. It's a lot of ground even for the meta, and I don't want to drag her down in the middle of all this - especially when she's got other stuff she's been struggling with herself. But that instinct is part of why I put it off last time, which unfortunately led us here. Frownyface.

Rule of Sophie. It's not good for us to travel down the road with secrets. And I've gotta untangle those inner knots. So. Yeah. Mature resolve. We'll get through it.

Just…not sure how she's gonna take the whole Roland thing when we get to that part. 'Specially after how she reacted with John. But hopefully, she'll understand, even if she doesn't understand.

That's the other line. Sharing enough so she understands me, without going into graphic details that I can't get out of my head and that she wouldn't want in hers. And without sugar-coating what I've done either. Honest, without minimizing or glorifying—

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of tires on wet road, that tell-tale hiss of wheel-spray. It stopped at the light. Taillights fading. Sure enough, once the traffic signal turned green, a truck pulled forward a few feet before stalling in a slow roll. Lights out. Driver tried to turn the engine over a few times, but nothing. An older man in denim and flannel got out, started to push, but was quickly dissuaded by the effort or the rain. Jacket pulled over his head in a makeshift umbrella, he made a run for the bar across the street.

Max assumed it was to call for help, rather than a drink. But, small town. 50-50 on cell service. 50-50 he was on his way to the bar in the first place. Never knew. Whatever the case, he probably didn't realize he was on the tracks.

She left a generous but not unreasonable tip for the waitress beneath the check. Made sure no one was looking, then folded from her booth to the far side of the truck outside.

Yep. Engine and passenger cab were both directly in the danger zone.

In the future her note came from, the front locomotives finally derailed halfway beyond the next cross-street, dragging the truck until it hit a metal power pole, managed to swing aside and under, lifting one set of train wheels off the wet rails. The rest of the cars chain-reacted, folded up behind. Momentum took over, spreading and launching the freight cars and their mix of chemicals into a tangled, deadly, reactive mess. Chemicals that would never have been transported together on the same train, with the proper oversight. More consequences of secrecy. The fatal effects of which expanded miles beyond the confines of the railway's path.

In Max's present present, avoiding it was as simple as spatially shifting the pickup one truck length backward to the safety of the stoplight. Least flashy way, but effective at removing one leg of the 'wrong place, wrong time' disaster diagram. Accidents were always so much easier to prevent after they'd happened.

Visually confirming the parking brake was on, she reached into her jacket pocket for the trio of road flares stowed in preparation. Ignited, she placed them behind the truck at an angle to indicate to other drivers that there was a vehicle obstructing the road. Safety first. And now, second.

Mission accomplished. Once again, leaving no one aware of her, or the circumstances that would have suddenly, violently ended or altered their lives forever.

Like all guardian angels of her imagination, Max, unseen, alone in the dark, silently vanished homeward for a celebratory chocolate milk and a short night of sleepy kitten snuggles.

---

Ty was nearly done with his predawn run when the call came.

"Chloe's flight crew got pulled at Dulles."

Short and to the point, setting the tone for his first day as the interim VP of Ops.

As the words dropped, a black SUV pulled around him, stopped a few feet ahead. Red brake lights blinded in the pitch dark of the residential neighborhood. The driver stayed put while their armed escort opened the rear door for Ty. His assigned chase drone took up station above the transport.

Loaded in, debriefed by holo, they drove a short distance through sleepy streets to a community soccer field nestled on the greenspace hollow of a shallow canyon, where a commuter helicopter waited to fly him to HQ.

---

Max was halfway around the world without her mobile. Morning tai chi on black sands along the southern coast of Iceland. Her time-split movements disrupting only the cliff-nesting shorebirds, playful seals, or perhaps the infrequent villager on horseback.

Not to say that they were infrequently villagers since they were always villagers while living in a village. Which most of them had for most of their lives, according to one horse rider she'd spoken with a few months ago. It could even be said that living in a village was the defining feature of being a villager - but only a few such had ever intruded onto the beach while Max was there, was her belabored inner-point.

She was only a short hike from the village in question - Vik, population 300. An hour's drive from the next nearest hamlet, and another five from the capital, Reykjavik. Four hours ahead of DC, seven from their desert HQ.

But always worlds away from everything else.

With its gorgeous chunks of sea-polished glacier ice, Diamond Beach was another two hours east along the Ring Road by car. But this time of year, Max preferred Reynisfjara for its relative privacy, and its contrasts of verdant cliffs and mountains, coarse black sands, and violent foaming seas.

For all the wind and relentless crashing, it was a peaceful place.

Another early morning afternoon. Hazards of persistent time manipulation and instantaneous personal travel - Max was never sure exactly when she should be. Maybe that was part of the reason she found herself so ready to nap at the drop of a hat.

A sheet of white foam raced up the sand toward her, bubbles popping into transparency everywhere but the leading edges before stalling, sinking, vanishing into the sand. Only the thin cusps of edge-foam remained to mark the rhythms and reach of successive waves.

Transitioning to personal arts that most closely resembled Qigong, Max flowed internally, motionless as the earth moved on around her.

It was cliché, but in that zone, her sense of the world was as vast as everything and everywhere that ever was, and as small as a single fleeting footprint in the sand. It was a time where she could set everything aside and just…be.

She often changed up her practice destinations, depending on season, mood, or whimsey. When being anywhere in the world was as easy as changing background wallpaper, why not? So many beautiful, emotionally restful spots. She'd developed a few favorites over the years, though. Diamond Beach and Reynisfjara were two of a handful she found herself returning to regularly. She meant to take Chloe on a tour of them all someday.

If only she'd forget what she knows and let me teach her from scratch!

Fresh salt spray tickled her face. The seas roiled in the early afternoon light. With no meaningful landmass separating Iceland from Antarctica, waves had the entire length of the Atlantic to build their strength. The rip currents were said to be particularly nasty along this stretch of coastline. Every so often, a rogue crossover would break, crashing against dark basalt piles, tumbling small rocks around the surf and sand, chasing even higher up the beach toward her.

She wouldn't typically begin for another hour, but after her early start dropping Chloe and Hector off on their plane in DC, it didn't make much sense to go back and try to sleep. Without creating a nice fluffy time bubble, anyway. Which was, she admitted, an appealing afterthought. But. She was up. And she still needed to fold them home from their return flight in a few hours.

Life of a time-space bus driver.

So it wasn't until another half-hour passed that Max headed back. By which time, the situations in play had further degraded.

---

Ariel noticed something was wrong on the way to her floor, latte and half a crumble muffin in hand.

The lobby, the hallways, the elevator. A sense of hurry. An organized buzz that was sharper than expected. En route to her console in the virtual center of her work pod, she glanced at the holos ringing the floor. Aside from the usual displays focusing on their progress against the targets of their global trafficking mission, a few showed details of an unrelated topic.

Staffers nodded her way, eyes raised, looking to her as a potential source of updated intel.

She shrugged, disappointing them. "What's up?"

Dave, partially obscured behind a holo, leaned back, hands behind his head, filled her in. "Price and Navarro were just arrested heading into their congressional briefing in DC."

Ari had halfway set down her belongings, dropped her coat. Taking her seat, puzzled, she asked, "Wait - what? Who? Why? Is he okay?"

Dave continued, ignoring her slip. "Feds. It's confused, but an online air-quote 'leak' posted as they were nabbed said something about keeping assorted congressional leaders safe from impending terroristic threat. Here, eyes on screen 3. I'll give you a replay."

---

Sophie squeezed the sleep from her eyes. I can't find her - she's blocking, or very, very far away from us.

Ty grumbled. We need a better system for this.

Sophie gave him her best version of an encouraging mental hug. Everything will be okay. Max would already be here if arriving now would have improved this situation.

Fair enough, he relented. Point stands, though.

She'd been awakened a few minutes earlier by pulsing at her wrist and flashing bedroom lights. Ty pushed her out of slumber with his emergency code, looking for an assist locating Max, who wasn't answering her mobile. Pings put the device in their residence at the top of MCCP HQ, but no signs.

Soph flipped on lights, migrated, nestled into the old sedimentary piles of blankets on her living room couch. The TV replayed Chloe's highly-orchestrated perp-walk down the grand marble steps of some old government building or another. Wrists handcuffed, her head ducked by hand, guided into a waiting US Marshall's vehicle, lights, escorts flashing. DC police officers in black military-style assault and riot-gear manned regular stations behind hastily assembled metal barricades, keeping the shouting wall of cameras and boom mics just out of reach.

While the media focused on Chloe, Sophie managed to catch a glimpse of Hector off in the background of one shot, similarly handcuffed, led away from the cameras by another group in different uniforms.

The breaking, looping footage was only ten minutes old.

If not with Max, give me a moment to connect with Chloe and Hector instead.

---

Max opened the door of the portable plastic restroom anchored near the edge of the empty parking lot, up a short, weedy embankment from the black sand beach. She went through, stepping out of the open lavatory door into the back of Chloe's jet, which was parked away from the terminal in Washington, DC.

Max's playful version of 'doors to other places.' Less like spherical wormholes or Vankin-style full-body-folds, and more like…well…Narnia-portals. Controlling the differential warping geometries of the apertures while opening and closing physical doors in sync on either side was a little more work than simple personal teleportation or folding, but not by much. She was getting the hang of doing it seamlessly without shredding the doors one side or the other quite so much, meaning fewer rewinds. Side benefit of nailing this method was it might prevent any stray cameras or observers from actively witnessing her vanish into or out of thin air, which meant Chloe could ease up on the constant edit-chase of local surveillance nets.

Naaaaaaap!

Nap.

She yawned wide.

Chloe and Hector weren't supposed to be back for another two hours, depending on traffic, so Max's self-congratulatory plan of post-relaxed brilliance was to zonk out in the back of the aircraft until they woke her up to fold them home. Leaving the pilot and crew of the newly empty plane to return home the slow way. Appearances and all.

So, Max was surprised to find all exterior doors opened, the pilot and crew missing, and every cabinet and compartment door open, their contents in various states of disarray, or strewn about the seats and floor. She ducked, peeked out a window to find the tarmac littered with dark SUVs, forensic techs in bunny suits, and various government and law enforcement vehicles parked at odd angles alongside the plane.

"What the crap?" She went for her phone, but the upper-arm pocket of her technical outerwear was unzipped and empty. Headmath said she'd forgotten it in the bathroom at home - not surprising given her late finish and early start.

It was then she felt the mild jostling of people ascending the steps near the front hatch. The shadows were nearly inside when she solo-trust-fell backward into a waiting wormhole, popping out horizontally just above her bed. She landed below with a floof as her wormhole collapsed. Lamented her missed nap for a split second before rolling out, retrieving her phone from the bathroom counter. Lock screen was a wall of missed calls and texts.

"Shit."

She folded to John's office, remembered it wasn't his - but Ty wasn't there either. She asked the walls in general, "Where's Ty?" He'd be near center.

A holo wireframe with metadata projected into the space of the hallway, while speakers above responded, "Tyrell Williams is currently in A-wing, Floor 7, Section 103."

Ops pop-up? I think? Hmmm.

Max folded directly.

A few folks looked up from their displays at her arrival. Someone close got Ty's attention, gestured Maxward.

Wall-sized holos with looping video, timelines, location tracks, and live news ringed the section. From the breadcrumbs, Max pieced together the outlines of what happened before she reached Ty. If she was right, that meant the remaining execs sequestered elsewhere, directing the armies of lawyers and related machinery that could be quickly activated and brought to bear.

"Sorry - didn't have my phone." She shrugged, moving past it.

"Sophie asks if you'd let her in," he replied, handing off a signed tablet to a teammate.

"Right." Max grabbed a free chair, synchronized completely with linear time, halting the background micro-jumps she used to keep herself free from outside influence, monitoring, or interference. She immediately connected with Soph, who was connected with Ty and Hector. Hey guys - I leave you alone for an hour…the hell happened?

Hector gave her a jaunty mental wave in his mental handcuffs, replayed a version of the rundown from his perspective, minus his usual five-second overlay.

Max had folded Hector and Chloe into the plane as it taxied in, before jumping on her way to Iceland. They had a driver waiting at the private ramp to take them to the House office building in DC, where the committee hearing was to be held. As suggested by congressional staffers the night before, they arrived early, went through two security screening checkpoints, and were directed up one level into a fancy waiting area that looked like the aftermath of a wood and marble carving convention. Where they'd be called into the hearing room around the appointed time.

After waiting by themselves, cracking quiet jokes for ten or fifteen minutes, they were suddenly swarmed by kitted-up agency types, searched, handcuffed, and finally paraded outside before the rapidly assembled crowd of media and into waiting vehicles. Chloe had seen them coming through the local surveillance net, while Hector had his usual 5-second warning, but there wasn't a lot they could do without looking like they were pre-reacting or trying to do something obviously evasive. Seemed more prudent to simply go with it.

Someone planned the grab, Max mused in their heads.

Ty gestured toward one of the screens in the ops room, where various congressional committee members were already on the news commenting on the arrests. Media started gathering outside right after they went in. But not everyone was in on it - early signs are the House Committee on Science, Space and Tech were kept in the dark - and they're pissed at being part of the sting by the sound of it. Harkenberry isn't the only lawmaker asking agency heads for an accounting. And other committee members are throwing around words like 'prevented from testifying' in their on-air interviews, so…

Max scrunched her nose. That's gonna get interesting. Weird timing though - it'll look like parts of the US government are openly suppressing world-saving tech - or going for cheap retribution for exposing the senator last week. IDK. Seems dumb of Them to go that way, knowing how it'll seem to everyone. Unless that's their big master plan?

Hector laughed, Dumb seems to be the rule when it comes to dealing with us. But…maybe right hand's not talking to left, as usual?

Sophie aimed her attention toward Hector. You're charitable this morning.

I had a tasty breakfast, he shrugged.

Max looked around the room, mirroring her look around Sophie's head. Wait - guys, where's Chloe?

She dropped before you arrived. They were taking her inside a federal building for processing, and she wanted a minute to crack their systems open on her way in. Ty guided Max's attention to another screen in the real, where a rapid flood of internal messages, documentation, and so on scrolled by at breakneck speed. Going by internal agency docs, they're making their run at her under a laundry list of natsec bullshit, with leeway air-cover from Patriot Act anti-terror regs.

Max rolled her eyes. Yeah - that's super dumb. We've got provisional security clearances, for one - and Chloe's gone super-high-profile since Friday - uh…just changed literally everything in the world with fusion, exposed a child-rapist senator on live TV; and other stuff, I mean…like who's gonna believe she's suddenly a terrorist?

Dumb or not, I'm apparently not a threat, Hector chimed in cheerfully.

Soph, semi-amused at his joke, interjected with rolled eyes, Hector's been handed off to ICE.

Wait - immigration? Why?! Wait. You…you gotta be fucking kidding me. Max facepalmed.

Hector gave a mental shrug and a smile. Technically, they're not wrong? Mexican national, no visa, no residency. Not like Soph and I were traveling the world with real docs all those years. Outside that commercial hop back from Japan, I haven't crossed borders without a private jet or wormhole assist since we met.

Max rolled her eyes. FFS, dude. You know legal would have backed into the paperwork for you, right?

Sheepish, Hector apologized. Sorry. My bad. Never seemed all that urgent. Racing toward a borderless future. Yeah. That worked out. Heh.

Sophie whistled quietly in their heads, her projected avatar looking the other way.

Max threw her a glowing question mark. Shut it down. You too? Canadian. Right. Max put her hands on her hips, Okay Soph - you're not going anywhere they can see you 'til this is all over!

Ty looked away, as if to suppress a chuckle.

Soph twirled back and forth, shared her own sheepish grin. Understood. Besides, I'm not anxious to revisit my prior experience in involuntary captivity.

Anticipating Max's next thread, Ty did what he could to fill in holes. Legal's got all this with the retainer firms in DC, Boston, and New York. They're on it. No formal charges yet, and no one's saying much. Just rumors and leaks so far.

Yeah…course, answered Max. Hands-on red tape wrangling was better left to the lawyers and corporate exec team anyway. This new turn, while unexpected, was still in a brighter, more controllable place than the violent twists and turns her last major change-fork took. It felt like a branch to feel out before making any kind of firm decisions. Even so - Is there anything I can do?

Ty shook his real head. Not for ops - we're keeping tabs for now while everyone else goes to work on this. The Brussels op targeting Mister Hedge Fund guy who spun up the original Journal story on us is still a go. Chloe's legal defense wheels will take time to spin in the mean-time. Jillian's folks are watching the public side. I'm sure she'll find you when she's ready - might be some kind of statement to release. You're welcome to hang out—

Chloe interrupted out of nowhere, Hey fuckers! I'm back. Oh! Max - hey.

Max waved in their heads. Hey, Chlo. Sucks to be you. You ok? Need anything? Curtains? Cake? Pointy objects?

Chloe chuckled. I'm fine, just doing 'me' things. Uh, quick recon heads-up tho — there's some kinda major international shenanigans going on over the backchannels, and looks like some office raids might happen overseas in the next 24.

Invasive much? Going after people, or…? Max shook her head at a staffer holding up 'coffee run?' sticky-note with jotted sleepy-smiley-yawny face.

Chloe mirrored her movement. Punch-lists say fishing trips, but they're asking for any evidence of NBC stuff between the lines - nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, components, precursor materials, correspondence, accounting and business records, any other suspect research, blah. Plus, any weird tech they might find. Which. Yeah. There's a metric fuckton of all of that spread around. Um.

Max frowned. Dammit. We're working against WMDs, not developing them, but—

That's their door-kicker, but it's pretext to seize everything, take our sites offline, sort it out later, right? I'm also worried about how some countries might mess with our people on-site, you know? Local LE guys in each region aren't gonna know what they're looking at, and they're not going to be all that subtle about selection with shit like 'doomsday cult, unlicensed bioterror lab in your backyard' on their directives. So…

Max did a quick mental calculation. Executive decision time. Okay. Well, hopefully, this doesn't complicate things with our ongoing UN and Interpol ops, but…um, Chloe, would you shoot us a priority list of potentially awkward assets, and we'll start pulling things back home asap? Let's not leave them anything to grab if we can help it? And let's keep an extra eye on personnel treatment - if anyone out there gets handsy, I'll spin back, and we'll give them the day off in advance - agreed?

Yep. And I'm on it with the lists - gimme a sec. Uh - might rethink the destination, though - it's only a matter of time before they come after us at HQ. They've got lower bars overseas but feels like they'll ladder anything they find into probable cause here.

Yeah. Right. K. Shit. Cold storage it is - Ty, let's get the builders and movers warmed up for off-world. I'll need some time to expand a few bases. Max shrugged. Been a while since I've whittled out the insides of our friendly neighboring moons, I guess.

Ty typed out a few quick messages, fired them off. Yeah. Long underpants. BSL-4 gear. Check.

---

Chloe flopped into her bunk, shoulders against the grimy, steel-reinforced concrete wall. Opened her eyes.

She'd said all she needed to convey through Sophie's link an hour ago, leaving her with a bit of dead-time to herself in the real.

The small white isolation cell held a hanging steel bed and a lidless steel toilet with an integrated sink above its sealed tank. Both were heavily soiled. Those were the only highlights on her quick visual tour of the cramped room's contents. A high, narrow window let in fading natural light, while flickering green fluorescents in wire cages far overhead filled in the rest. Six feet by ten, if that. The fetid stench of years of prior occupants masked beneath alternating layers of bleach was foreground enough for her to shut down olfactory senses altogether.

Adding herself and her stuff to the meager contents of the room, she counted only a jumpsuit, underwear, slip-on shoes, and a small bag of toiletries specifically curated to dissuade casual weapon-craft.

Not the swankiest jail cell she'd been in, but not the worst either.

Before they'd left home to join the plane in DC, she'd calculated there was a minor possibility the bad guys would try to take advantage of her Hill visit, but she honestly didn't expect them to press in before the hearing. Although, in hindsight, it was as good a time as any, leaving them unarmed and in a controlled location that guaranteed they wouldn't be able to flee or resist easily.

The higher-ups among the bad guys who called this shot had to know there was a chance she'd play Max games, reboot, and not show up to the surprise-cop-swarm - but that would be a rude signal to the congress-critters who invited her, wouldn't it? Leaving it this way, at least they knew she tried to make the meeting, which might be helpful later.

She'd learned over the past week that this game was about trade-offs and optics.

As proof, the resulting public freak-out ramped even as she and Hector were driven away from the main stage.

Those same congressional committee members she was supposed to meet were apparently livid at the DOJ, FBI, and DHS. Gotta be something there we can leverage.

Meanwhile, the various wings of the Max, Chloe, and MCCP fan clubs, as well as the green tech, futurist, and conspiracy-minded corners of the net were each blowing up in anger, with some threatening to merge.

Media and social were all over the place and growing louder.

Facts nowhere. Outrage and memes everywhere. Someone published a wistful song about her arrest that was trending on one of the online music networks, with a ton of remixes and reshares already.

Stock markets around the world continued their volatile swings.

The spectacle in DC had been fuel for endless detractors as well; the kind who presumed the very theater of apprehension equaled guilt - validating the allegations and emerging lists of 'leaked' charges being considered. A signal from 'authority' was all they needed, confirming that all of MCCP's claims and positions had to be fraudulent - nothing more than a last desperate gasp of the death-cult-fraud meme.

'They wouldn't arrest her if she didn't do anything wrong.'

Some raised that phrase like a battle-cry. Or a flag.

But it didn't resonate with everyone. One out of every two times the statement was invoked in argument, it pushed the recipient reflexively to the opposite position, carrying them on a tide of social and cultural baggage into the 'Chloe probably didn't do anything wrong after all' camp.

To join others who saw her capture as another spiteful, cynical signal to other would-be whistleblowers. Or a natural consequence, deserved or undeserved, of giving a giant finger to the crony and authoritarian powers behind the status quo on any number of topics MCCP considered fair game for sudden global change.

One thing was universal - people were not happy.

Regardless of direction, worldview, or wing, everyone's agendas were seemingly validated by what they chose to see and hear, what they repeated inside their echo chambers, and how they argued and blocked and raged at the edges between filter bubbles. They pounced on each other, arguing on TV. Online. With signs and symbols in windows. Over beers in bars.

Messy.

From the New Year's Eve 'terror attack' to Alena and their other emergent media allegations and controversies, from the interviews to rebuttals, from the excited global reception of their full fusion release to allegations about John and the suspect timing of Chloe's staged arrest. With all the moves open to public scrutiny, and with radically increased public scrutiny in general, it would be harder for either team to step outside their expected roles and behaviors without that deviation itself becoming a news driver.

The wrinkle for both the good and bad guys driving the action was this pattern of departure from shadows - pushing movement, if not the sources of direction, to that same public stage. In a way, turning the world's population, the subject of the both sides' efforts, into gawking spectators and talking-point repeaters who had no articulable understanding that they were the stakes.

That was the escalation trend both sides were riding. Higher visibility narrowed options, forcing the traveling circus train onto predictable rails.

Meanwhile, multiplying and wildly swinging the pendulums of public perception and sentiment.

Despite the apparent wins from Chloe's interviews the prior week, the spirit of Jeremy's words rang in the back of her mind. Their choice of playing fields dictated the games, which worked more to benefit the institutions and power structures who lived in these systems from inception than it did for lonely old outsider MCCP.

Or for Chloe personally, given her surroundings.

She briefly conjured the glyph for opportunity and trap. Spun it away.

Once again extended her attention beyond her shell and onto her immediate surroundings.

Given the long history of people in custody getting 'suicided' before they could spill their guts on the powerful, or having their guts literally spilled while housed among convicts, she was sensitive to her environment and situation. Not fearful, for obvious reasons, but acutely sensitive to the potential danger they faced on multiple levels.

She rested, unmoving.

Couldn't help notice a small black beetle scuttle through the bars to freedom. A tacit reminder she was the one contained. Isolated.

Until another momentary fragment called for attention. Something caught by a camera located buildings away in another part of the prison. A heavily-indebted guard handed a misshapen envelope to a sizable female convict. Following the video trail backward to its packaging elsewhere on the massive prison complex revealed the envelope contained a makeshift toothbrush-spike and a note with Chloe's name on it. Chloe noted the transaction, spun off a short bit of research without breaking parallel trains of thought.

Switched her attention to yet another surface-thread.

She'd felt bad Hector got caught up in all this on-the-ground drama with her. If she'd thought about it, she should have come alone. Could still ask Max, but meh. Her flight crew was already out, and Hector would follow soon.

She'd been able to initiate a rapid transfer of custody within ICE. In the transfer delays, his captors would discover newly placed 'old documents' confirming his 'long-running' legal resident status. Not her favorite federal agency, with its well-documented shitty treatment of fellow human beings whose only crimes were crossing over imaginary lines - but it was easiest to manipulate in these circumstances given that narrow focus. They'd question him about Chloe as her 'temp security escort,' but with legal proceedings against him limited to easily debunk-able immigration violations, MCCP's legal teams would have him out with an official apology inside half a day. Hacks, money, and connections couldn't be discounted for smoothing his rapid path to freedom.

A freedom Chloe didn't necessarily require. Of course, she'd seized complete control of the local penitentiary's systems from the start, achieving detailed information awareness through their pervasive surveillance tools, as her own little birds chased behind. But she had no compelling reason to add fodder to their evolving 'evil Chloe' narrative with a jailbreak, however comical and online-legendary her execution of it might have been.

A few hours before, US Marshalls had taken her to their DC station for processing, eventually signing over custody to a privately owned for-profit prison in neighboring West Virginia. While responsible for detaining people facing criminal charges in federal courts, the US Marshall service didn't manage its own jails, relying instead on thousands of local, private, and federal facilities around the country. That came with pros and cons.

Heh.

Set in the green countryside beyond the reach of suburban NIMBYs, the sprawling penitentiary grounds split between three primary campuses. The first was a Federal Bureau of Prisons run high-security facility for violent male convicts. The second compound was a privately owned medium-security prison for men, while the third was a private minimum-security women's prison.

Proximity of the women's prison appeared to have been decided by corporate for opportunistic reasons - allowing the men's penitentiary to supply closely supervised heavy labor for prison manufacturing industries, while the women's prison supplied low-risk workers for menial and janitorial tasks across all three campuses. It was essentially located adjacent only to provide unpaid maid and clerical staff for the other detention and labor facilities.

Perverse incentives and structures like these existed throughout justice systems worldwide. Even if more physically brutal 'correctional' regimes remained pervasive elsewhere around the globe, it was another rabbit-hole to solve on the way to that better, more equitable future for everyone. Another set of wrongs they'd long had scribbled on their list.

For the moment, Chloe was held in the highest security Special Housing Unit of the minimum security women's prison while 'processing,' whatever that meant. Despite being in touch with lawyers electronically via Chloe-science, and conversationally through Sophie's link, she hadn't yet been questioned by any investigating authorities, nor granted any rights to legal counsel. At no point had she been read her Miranda rights. Technically, she hadn't been placed under arrest, rather, detained under some kind of bullshit hold that allowed them to park her semi-indefinitely in federal custody to 'forestall an immediate and grave threat to national security,' with nothing but a bench sign-off. She was working the trails backward from the signing judge, hoping to unmask the source.

That someone above the prison corporation marked her for a vigorous toothbrushing was less important than what the means they'd provided signaled about her future. That she'd find herself moved out of isolation in the next day or two. Where someone hoped she'd meet a bloody, toothbrushy end among the general population.

lol.