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.

24. Apsis

Max rechecked her lines. Made sure the thirty-meter-wide by ten-meter-high plane of frozen time expanded upward to thirty meters at the right moment to join with the negative-space tubular primitives she'd blind-carved earlier for the ventilation systems. Fuzzy green markers diffused inches into the semi-opaque green-tinted ices ahead of her. She walked it forward, changing edge dimensions to match the projected holo-template the engineers prepared for her. Like 3-D printing in reverse.

Situated kilometers below the heavily cratered surface of a geologically stable area of Enceladus' global ice sheet, the expanding complex was cut off from the surface of Saturn's tiny moon entirely. The deep-interior provided all the natural internal heat, chemistry, liquid water, and extreme isolation they required.

Sorry, 'lil guys. I'll try to drop you somewhere sunny.

Max plowed through the comparatively microbe-rich material, buffering holographically on the surface of the plane.

Once she finished carving, the engineers and constructors would come in to build the multi-floor skeleton over base isolators. Moonquakes weren't all that severe or frequent, but the forces could be enough to disrupt any delicate manufacturing or experiments.

The plans called for them to nano-foam the inside walls of ice for air-tightness, structural integrity, and complete bio-isolation. Then crews and their army of bots could pressurize everything before applying themselves to the walls, stairways, doorways, utilities, and airlocks to old and new spaces - as well as finishing the interiors appropriately for their intended uses.

The end would be nearly indistinguishable from other sections of the adjoining complex, or even their many office spaces on earth. Mixed-use, lab space, build space, work areas, living zones, and especially the bio-safe storage facilities. Enceladus's only distinguishing features would be its lower gravity and their soothing holo-scenery beyond the glass walls where exterior windows would typically be.

Max thought it interesting what people chose to put up, with some opting for the pale grey-green of stormy North Atlantic cliffs, while others sought the bright sun, sand, and blue skies of serene island or beach themes. A few cycled through wraparound undersea motifs or lush green jungle spaces, while others preferred the real-time views of the surface and skies of Enceladus itself, reassembled from field sensor data above their heads. That ambient sense of color, moving light, and 'place' was a need everyone seemed to share, herself included.

For Max's part, she was doing the heavy-lifting to create another real space in near-zero time. Building the volumes and connectors, transporting construction crews, and organized containers of materials to the staging areas - then doing the time-bubble thing she'd perfected in Equador with their recent space station construction. Inside crews would have a year of internal time to complete the work while a minute elapsed outside. Team members got extra pay and an option to bubble-spin-backward to erase the year spent inside, emerging from that final time-lock minutes older than when they went in. No bets on relationship outcomes this time, what with Chloe cooling her jets in the pokey.

Trailing from world to moon behind her was a hive-like cohort of movers, packing, transporting, and unpacking entire laboratories, warehouses, and workspaces in a never-ending cycle.

"We'll keep things just out of reach of local authorities," had been the understatement of the year, according to MCCP's COO, Jeremy.

They'd had genetic vaults and seed banks scattered around the system from the beginning, and they already used off-world facilities for the most objectively dangerous sample work they did.

But out of practical day-to-day convenience, they still occupied themselves with a lot on the ground back home that wasn't strictly 'legal' under the oversight laws of occupied regions, between MCCP branded offices, subsidiaries, and obfuscated shell companies. By nature of their mission and the secrecy surrounding it.

It wasn't zero-risk, working on earth, but had been a more convenient alternative to moving hundreds to thousands of people a day back, forth, and between the various off-world sites.

Despite having controls and protective environmental tolerances far more stringent than national regulators required for their own authorized labs, facilities, or workspaces, the improved safety protocols and practices weren't in any way quantifiable to outside regulators or related bodies that might cast a critical eye. Never mind their ultimate safety pin if something should go wrong - Max. And given new attention from those kinds of watchers, and the agendas propelling them, it was better safe than sorry when it came down to it. Short term chaos of shuttling people around by hand was a price to pay but seemed unavoidable.

Might have to rethink how we do this. Area-51 hangar-phone-loop says I'll eventually be able to hold a wormhole stable for decades, but I'm not there yet. Practice, I guess.

She moved the plane forward a few more inches, slowing. The motion-graphics projected into the center of the wall gave her a count-down of her distance and rate of movement. Reaching the end of the intended indoor volume, Max compressed the sheet's edges inward to about one-meter square. Shot it sideways a few kilometers through the frozen crust, then up toward the surface before expanding again, releasing the time compression, spitting the inverse volume of ice roughly onto the surface. Max's inner 4th-grader giggled at the visual notion of moons barfing like squeezed, fork-stabbed tomatoes.

Another half-hour of work and they could move on to Triton.

---

Paige leaned into the opening of her boss's old-world-luxurious office.

The frame, door, and wall panels were a show of rich, aged woods, surpassed only by the thick, heavy, finely carved ceiling beams crisscrossing and interlocking fifteen feet overhead. Dark, with the barest hint of red undertones where the lights caught just right. Matching bookshelves. Solid. The kind of tight-grained old-growth source woods that fine men of culture and wealth depleted from natural eastern forests midway through the 1800s. The woods all around them, green pines dominating the scenery through wire-infused ballistic windows, were far younger than most anything in the mansion.

Jacob Wallace stared intently at the triple-wide screen, cantilevered over his desk.

Paige thought he might have been watching the recording of his meeting with Max Caulfield. Again. There wasn't anything playing when she walked up, but he had that same expression he got when talking about her.

He still didn't seem to notice she was waiting.

She cleared her throat.

He glanced up. "Paige."

"Are you okay, sir?" She gave him a professional smile, warmth barely contained below the surface. As majordomo, she'd been with him since before his wife passed.

And despite spending far more time with one or the other of the au pairs, Jacob's 8-year-old daughter, Madison, had firmly imprinted on Paige years before, going so far as to claim for herself the honorary title of Minordomo. She'd sometimes follow Paige around the estate with a blank notebook, wearing one of her cute frilly dresses, looking for all the world like someone out of a Victorian fairy tale. It was endearing and bittersweet.

Jacob pushed away from his desk, leaning back in his oversized leather chair. Set his glasses on the folio and rubbed his eyes. "I apologize - I was…lost in thought. You have my attention."

She shrugged. "It's nothing. Well. There's something. But I wanted to see how you were doing first."

He paused as though deeply considering his words. "I'm fine - or should I say, I believe we'll be left to our own from this point on." He motioned her forward. "Come in. Close the door?"

Curious, she pushed the heavy door behind her, which sealed itself with a motor-assist and a 'shloop!' sound, similar to a refrigerator door closing. She took a seat opposite as he pushed the monitors and their arm off to one side. Beneath the old-world veneer, his office was built like a high-tech SCIF; an electronic cage closed to surveillance from the outside world, intended to preserve absolute privacy. Even the electrical outlets were connected through magnetic isolators to prevent signal piggy-backing or circuit-switching eavesdrop attacks. Wave canceling on the windows to thwart laser-based listening devices and other countermeasures their security advisors insisted on.

This sequence was the usual pattern over the past few years, when he was ready to bring her over the wall on some confidential new direction, or intrigue, or news update. She was usually second to know, after him.

Things weren't the same as they had been, though.

After his meeting with the Caulfield girl, he'd gracefully withdrawn his house from its chair position over the Americas. A dignified self-acknowledgment that he'd been unsuccessful at recruiting her while knowingly staking his anonymity in the attempt. A sacrifice that earned him respect among the other houses, Paige noted. But now that Caulfield knew of him, there was no way to assure he couldn't be a source of future leaks if she chose to torture him and travel backward to her past with any new information he might have access to.

His 'retirement' from the organization as a whole was the compromise on the barn-door assumption that anything he'd known to that point may have been unknowingly exposed in the missing half-day Caulfield referenced. An unknown pocket of time branching off from the known course of their meeting. Compartmentalization existed for a reason, and even his former position came with knowledge limits - to the Board, any loss had been measurable, but finite.

Privately, Paige felt disappointed that his stature and leadership within the organization had come to an end, but her relief tempered those feelings.

That the Board allowed him to live in the aftermath was a testament to the reputation of his father, the respect Jacob himself earned in his few short years of dedicated work, and the value of the information they gleaned from Caulfield during their conversation together.

An acknowledgment of the sacrifice he'd made, and perhaps a sign that cracks had formed in the Hierarchy's typically hard-lined approach to such things. Especially given the unprecedented content of Caulfield's disclosures, her shared intentions, and her offer of continued security to the families and their organizations worldwide - if they would only switch allegiances and walk away from any activities she judged harmful to people. That's how some interpreted her words, anyway. Any in-depth interrogation or soul-searching was hushed and secreted from open view.

Their house, Wallace's house, was thus isolated from the organization moving forward. But he was moving forward on its own.

That was the other development that made her happy, whatever the case in the outside world - Jacob seemed more in control of his daily life, less stressed, with the reduction in his duties. He continued to wear a suit and tie around the house on working days, of course, but he was home much of the time now, and he'd been spending more time with his children and other personal interests. He always made an effort, but with demands retreating to normal-person levels…well, she was happy to see him happy, and she was pleased to continue to watch over him and his family from her place on the sidelines.

They were removed from the organization, but that didn't mean they were removed from the world. Wallace's empire remained a traditional low-visibility old-money powerhouse unto itself, as most top families would be considered, independent of their affiliations upstream and sideways. He had his conventional family holdings, investments, and lines of business to check in on. Professional leaders managed much of it for him, another legacy of his father, but he had more time to check in with them of late. Nudging here, pushing there, pulling back somewhere else. Light touch at the wheel to keep things spinning, relying on the gyroscopic effects of angular momentum to keep the many independent financial vehicles upright.

She listened and took a few notes as he brought her up to speed on various everyday business happenings, social engagements, or upcoming visits that might impact life around the estate. Limited travel arrangements to supervise, but several new project plans to manage and bring to fruition. Enough to keep her busy and assure her that he remained visible and connected to the public side of his life, as private as it had always been. He needed to maintain the outward appearance that nothing in his dull, privileged life had changed.

Business talk concluded, their conversation inevitably turned to the drama of the group's current conflict with Caulfield, her partner, and their company of cohorts, which splashed across the daily news for anyone to see.

Nothing surprising in the scope or ferocity of the apparent takedown approach, and so far, it was kinder than it might have been. But Wallace openly repeated his belief that the board and his former associates were making a critical error in judgement. They engaged in a conflict where it wasn't necessary, at significant risk to themselves and their long-term goals.

"They've never been truly challenged, as individual people, as families, or as powers. They have no head for it," had been his final judgement. "The Board is intoxicated by their cocktail of hubris and ignorance. They acknowledge they can't eliminate her yet continue to believe they can defang her. Ruin her, remove her ability to gather or influence others, or project her vision ahead."

Paige nodded to the broken record.

He remained steadfastly concerned about the future history that would race into being after Caulfield had won - wondering at the eventual destination of such unguided, uncontrolled, ad hoc progress. So many pitfalls they lacked the machinery or will to prevent. But, he reasoned, if she really were from their far future, and if the state of her world, their future world, had gotten so far off course under the care of its current global shepherds, then perhaps she was the better guide for them after all. If the organization's real goals were as they had all understood them, they'd agree in time. But if it was as she suggested, if they were subverted, then her intervention might prove essential to their very survival.

He could see it - so why couldn't they?

He hadn't flattered her when he enthused at the wonders they might build together, back when he believed it to be an option. But was Caulfield prepared to make the hard choices, the difficult sacrifices of others, that would be necessary to force the recalcitrants at the edges into line with her vision? By going alone?

It had been difficult for Jacob to watch. Neither camp was his to lead or influence. His offered measure had been considered a long shot to the Board. Filled in the gap between decision and action along other fronts, so there was little harm. Despite his efforts, Caulfield refused, countered, and The Board went another way. He'd played out all the influence he could, ultimately failing to bridge the gaps between the groups and their interests.

Paige saw his frustration. How deeply he'd felt his failure - as would any diplomat whose efforts were ignored in a headlong rush to war.

He talked around a few things going on in the cable news, how bad it looked for MCCP and its leaders as things stood, what was probably yet to come, then repeated his firm conviction that she'd outmaneuver them all in the end regardless.

Paige didn't doubt him or question that belief. She experienced firsthand - Caulfield was terrifying. She was grateful that monster only moved her from Singapore to Times Square in NYC on the day of the meeting; some of their people ended up in locations with more hostile potential. There was no doubt Caulfield could have killed them all with less effort. Paige had looked her right in the eyes, a split second after the jump, but before she disappeared, and the pressure waves coming off her were otherworldly. That was the only word that lent the feeling justice. A force beyond nature. First and only time interacting with her. More than enough for me.

Unaware of Paige's internal shudder, Jacob continued, arguing in a loop with himself that the specifics of how or when or what were ultimately irrelevant. None of that was necessarily predictable, and none of it would make the least bit of difference to the outcome. Her victory was mechanical inevitability, to his way of thinking. And this conflict, a complete waste of everyone's energy that would bring only pain for all involved.

He then opened a new front, sharing that he wasn't the only head of house to see the truth.

Her ears perked. That was new information. She'd suspected they weren't alone, but if Jacob was saying it out loud, it must be a more mainstream reaction than she'd imagined.

Paige recalled his recent flurry of meetings and calls, coded appointments on his calendar. But Jacob finally shared the content of a few of his private interactions with select family leads since his day with Max.

Confirming for Paige that the Hierarchy was less a unified front than even she'd suspected in the wake of the meeting between Jacob and Caulfield.

Caulfield's questions, posed to him but recorded for all. Teasing their lack of agency, pushing them to think about who controls the architectures of secrecy and plans within their hierarchy. Casting doubts. She'd called their organization a tool that was going to murder the world over hundreds of years. When combined with her compelling vision for an alternative, along with her casual displays of unbridled power, her words 'unsettled' a great many houses.

While perhaps even inspiring the younger leaders of a few others who were less in debt to their various peers.

Still, no small number of houses saw advantage for themselves if the Board noticed them standing strong for loyalty, taking a harder line on Caulfield or other houses that might find excuses to withdraw or stray. It set up a quiet division. An inter-family cold war, fracturing the globe. Not that they were all that united on their own, to begin with.

Caulfield had explicitly stated that she'd chosen to allow them to exist. To many, hearing such a pronouncement from an adversary known to bend time left an unacceptable threat, a loaded gun pressed against the historical roots of their families. The trajectory of such damage could pass from their ancestors, through them, and on to their legacies and futures. How they reacted to that threat varied.

But the costs of compliance with her demands were so simple, so low risk - from a certain point of view. Stop. That was all. Cease and desist. Keep what you have. Do as you like. But stop taking orders you don't understand from people you don't know. Stop causing harm. Retire. Or - help us to help the people of the world.

Not helping governments, Jacob had noted. But the rabble.

Helping MCCP carried more risk from peers, of course. Her safety guarantees became a frantic topic of secretive analysis by houses that were predisposed to break ranks.

Not that Paige had to worry about herself. For his part, Jacob was taking his retirement seriously, consistently messaging to anyone who would listen that he was out to pasture. No sides for him to take. Switzerland. He judged his ongoing activities and that core position to be in compliance with the expectations of his peers left behind in the organization and sympathetically viewable by emerging rogue family elements. And to be in strict compliance with Max Caulfield's demands that families should assist them in preventing a deadly future, or stand down and get out of the way so they could do it for everyone.

That was the fortunate position that led him to pause over his words when Paige first walked in. He wasn't sharing for gossip's sake but as a sort of considerate reassurance to her that he'd managed to successfully navigate two violently opposing storms, passing safely between them into calm waters.

Paige couldn't help but keep her guard on their behalf, feeling instead that they were in the eye of an impossibly large hurricane, not somewhere beyond its edges as he envisioned. But she envied his hopeful illusions.

Finished with his pontifications, Jacob finally asked, "What was on your mind when you came in? I steamrolled our conversation."

She smiled. "I've become accustomed to it. But yes. I did have a reason for checking in. We're officially on our own, but there was a project that pre-dated that change, and I received word this morning that it reached a conclusion of sorts."

"What is it?"

"First, 'conclusion' may be a misleading term. I'll say it points to a mystery, not a closed resolution. But one of our data analysts noticed an anomaly a while back, and none of our other technical collaborators could make heads or tails. Not that it matters now, but—"

"Out with it."

Like so many times before, she began with a clear statement of fact. "MCCP's web site code - it changes inappropriately."

He stared at her blankly. "You know technology isn't my primary field," he shrugged. He was an adept enough user, just not a behind-the-scenes technical person. Paige was probably more acutely aware of Jacob's areas and limits of expertise than he was.

"Nor mine. So I made the analysts explain it in plain language we could both understand. Once they moved beyond their handwringing, they netted it out for me. On background, more than twenty separate intrusion teams from major houses and various nation-state agencies around the globe have been leaning against MCCP's tech infrastructure for years, with nothing but wiped servers, prank pizza orders, and wasted time to show for it. Amidst that, one of our data guys was playing around and took a few million cached copies of their public web site code, gathered from many houses over the past year. He ran the lot through a series of technical ML-bot-somethings, looking for any patterns. And two days ago, his project finished running."

Jacob led her. "And he found those…changes you mentioned?"

"Yes, and here is the problem he described. There weren't any constants to be found beyond the presentation layer - only changes."

He shrugged again. "…meaning?"

"Meaning no two copies of their web site code captured by anyone were ever identical." She was doing her best. Neither of them had been a CS major.

"What does that mean?" Jacob prompted again. It was familiar play.

"Good question."

He smiled at her. "Which is why I've asked it."

Rote. She stifled a chuckle. "Sorry, sir. They don't know exactly. They say it's as though each copy of the site was built and presented at the moment requested, using unique codework each time. Bespoke, for each new request, for every web site visitor."

"Again, not my field. Not yours. Why do they judge it's non-standard?"

Paige thought back to the notes she'd taken during their conversation that morning. Repeated parts from memory. "No one does this. Some sites don't ever change - the authors write the page, the code, and the finished web page sits there, static, forever. Like a typed document. Many others, often involving database sources or transaction processing - think banks, e-commerce, news sites, for example - are re-drawn on the fly from sections of standardized templates - one-off data, but presented in a framework built from layout instructions that stay the same. Only some parts of the information might change, or the ancillary code relating to tracking or advertising, malware injection, what have you. Even if that page didn't exist before it was requested. But MCCP's case is different. Visitors see the exact web site every time, looking at it online. Visually identical, without variations. But the code used to get there changes from visit to visit - with no clear functional purpose. They could use static code - it doesn't make sense to rewrite or vary it. Our tech analysts aren't certain how they're doing it at scale or why they'd bother."

Jacob looked confused but interested. Grappling. "Common web site instruction, as a language…it's flexible enough to do this?"

"Yes. There are multiple kinds of code libraries or languages that co-exist that make up the modern web, helping them with additional recombination options. But it's a lot of work to make it unique each time, and without changing the final product's browser presentation, well…"

"How long has this been going on?"

"Years, they say. Maybe from the beginning?"

Jacob pondered for a moment. No doubt covering some of the same ground she had. "They hire puzzle people. Is it a game or a test of some sort? To see if the smart ones are paying attention? Searching for their kind of savants or geniuses, that sort of thing?"

She shrugged, at the limits of her information. "Our analysts aren't comfortable with conjecture. They were this far already when they began their little AI experiment on the source code dataset, but the machine analysis didn't give them anything new. Which was also useful information. No patterns or hidden messages they could detect in the changes or in the progressions of changes based on outside patterns like the requester's location, time of day or year, prime sequences, the Fibonacci sequence, atomic clock responses, quantum RNG nonsense, or other potential change attributes. Nor could they think of any reason why anyone would go to all this trouble. And they couldn't emphasize enough - it is a lot of trouble to do something truly random in the first place, never mind something like this at scale."

Paige was curious as well. It didn't seem urgent, but it was another mystery.

After a moment, Wallace asked, "Would knowing the answer to this mystery change anything we're doing ourselves for ourselves, here and now?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm sharing it as a curiosity, in case you wanted to pursue further or to pass it along to someone."

"Interesting, but not actionable, then. Perhaps our analytic capabilities aren't advanced enough, or perhaps it's a herring. Either way, they're no longer the source of our concern, and in fact, pursuing this might work against us over the long hold. From one interested party or another. Thank you for sharing, Paige. But now that our staff is freed from old lines of inquiry, let's see about redirecting them to more productive activities to advance our present holdings, shall we? Efficiency. Efficacy. Expediency."

She rose from her chair, familiar with his closing signals. "Of course. Thank you for keeping me in the loop on the rest, Jacob, and I'll get going on these." She hefted her notebook full of project notes, opened the door, and took her leave.

---

John's phone whined for attention.

He was trapped in downtown LA, trying to make his way back to Santa Monica after a brief morning consultation with counsel. His 'interview' with the LAPD investigators wasn't until the following morning. Trained in interrogation techniques on both sides of the table, he wasn't concerned about Q&A with a few mid-tier detectives. He was more worried about getting home in time to sign for an expected delivery.

Knew I should have taken the bike.

Could've split lanes and been home already.

Confirmation he'd never stopped thinking of it as home, despite years of treating it like a second residence.

His truck was in the middle of a multi-lane pack of cars at a red light. It would be another three or four green light rotations before he'd get through the next intersection and into the back of the line for the next. At this rate, it would take him another hour to go the ten miles by side streets. Hopping on the 10 west might take longer this time of day - crapshoot.

He picked his phone from the center console. Appropriately, Signal, one of a handful of secure messengers accessible enough for civilian use and common enough not to be suspicious, had a red dot at the corner of the home screen icon. He opened the app to find a message from an unknown contact.

Strike one.

The origin number was too long for a proper mobile in the US or abroad, so he wasn't sure how it got through their system.

Clicking, the content was a few message bubbles long.

He glanced up; traffic light remained red. Read the message.

—

Sr. Michaels, I work in a group called Colectivo. we know you have no reason for trusting us because we are not known to you.

But if you are back to a free agent, a man in Diego de Al Tuna in Chile needs your help moving to safety in Las Vegas Nevada USA.

He took treatment for a wound with a mobile doctor for the first time. Blood samples were collected, analyzed and he is identified.

If you want to test us, please be fast. He has marks. You will be aware. You get the attention of your stakeholders and you run out of time.

We will pay for your time and expense. Our goal is to help that kind of person live free life.

Can you help us?

Can you help him?

Please respond with your fee and wire informations.

We can send coordinates and intelligence and instruction.

—

That's where it ended.

Diego de Al Tuna? Where the hell is that?

He glanced at his map app. Nothing.

Unless…unless they meant Diego de Almagro?

He laughed at the stupidity of it.

Almagro. Al Maguro. Al Tuna. Heh. Nice phonetic gap. Amateurs.

Machine translation…they went, what, Spanish to Japanese, then from Japanese back to English? John massaged his forehead. Thank god it's that straightforward. Was worried for a sec it'd be something suspicious. Lemmie just grab my red shirt, and…

Somewhere behind him, a horn honked into the wind.

---

Max rolled in bed, pulling the leading edge of the comforter over her like it was Chloe's arm.

Chloe wasn't home.

First bunch of nights apart in a while.

She tossed again.

Bedtime thoughts.

Like confidence flagging.

In the safety of their bedroom at night, she allowed herself the brief indulgence, to acknowledge the strain of everything. And then to try and shrug it off for a while. The world would go on even if she checked out. And if it didn't, she could always reboot.

This, lonely nighttime by herself, was the other end of the spectrum from her Tai Chi practice. That letting-go left her feeling centered, energized, and positive. But night-brain letting-go like this only left her feeling less confident. Having Chloe right there, touchable, was enough to break her out of it most nights. Something about ambient brain versus task brain or something. She'd forgotten already.

Eyes closed, her thoughts became Chloe. Rather, OtherChloe.

Who'd simply been 'Chloe' to her for lifetimes of her memories.

The distinction was important, but she wished it weren't. If only in the small, selfish windows of time she allowed herself to feel that way.

She tried to push the ball of thoughts away but stopped herself. Mindful of what Sophie and Hector had shown her. It was a focus for her know, undoing those knots tangled up inside her brain.

And just like being honest with Chloe was necessary for progress, so was being honest with herself about Chloe…and OtherChloe.

Other…no…just for a minute…let her be 'Chloe' again.

That's okay.

Right?

Max lost all visual detail in the dark room, focused as she was on the flickering string of lights - the life of the city. Lights running together. Apart from each other. Spread out along an endless line. Strung together in patterns only recognizable as streets and buildings when seen from another dimension, high above. Bright lights that seemed to touch each other in that string revealed themselves to be infinitely far apart.

She's still out there somewhere.

Somewhen.

Chloe.

Some…other time and place we'll never get back to.

She is, isn't she?

Her innermost selfish wishes rushed forward, but even naming her lost Chloe felt like unintended repudiation of their life now, and cruelty that only made her sad.

What good is this gonna do?

I don't know how to do this.

They hadn't given her a roadmap. Hector and Sophie. Was she supposed to remember something in particular or let her mind wander? Talk to her? Cry for her? Over the world she left? The world they'd rebuilt and lost? Or over the love she'd left behind? Or was she supposed to forget, to live for the one she'd come back to?

Right back to her present Chloe.

Still a baby.

Feeling all the guilt in the world for thinking of her that way.

Couldn't help it.

The beliefs she shared on Steve, trying to help Chloe feel better, weren't just pretty words. Chloe and OtherChloe weren't the same. And they shouldn't be compared. But. They were the same person once - right up til Max arrived in T-1, splitting them apart into whole new branches.

During childhood with her, growing up, that was the only safe-zone where Max didn't feel like she was betraying memories of one by thinking of the other. Last time they were as one.

Tonight was the first time she'd admitted that oddity to herself.

Made sense of her strong instinct for nostalgia in that direction.

A safe zone, right up until Max left for the first time. Family moved, but at the wrong time for Chloe.

Wouldn't be the last time Max let herself get pulled away. Or pulled herself away. Not by a long shot.

Max still struggled, though, with her sense of simultaneous recency and distance from their childhood, a product of her re-blending only years before. Like Chloe, her personality was a hybrid of two different times now. Or maybe, rejuvenated was a more positive way to think about it?

But Max never, ever wanted this Chloe to feel like she was less in comparison to OtherChloe. To feel like she wasn't ChloePrime in any way. So Max did everything she could to focus them forward. Together. And pushed that other most important person into her past.

She never wanted OtherChloe to feel left behind either, but she didn't always get what she wanted. Someone else engineered that. Made it happen. She figured, they figured here, someone or something out there pushed her from the multiverse mid-jump, shredded her consciousness, disrupted some portion of that connection, that intersection of Max in the here and now and whatever else she was beyond the veil.

At that moment she left Chloe behind forever, yet again, someone broke Max.

And there was no going back.

No getting back to her.

But impossibly, OtherChloe helped put her back together from somewhere beyond time itself. In so doing, she exposed a paradox of overlays inside Max. Multiplicity in her consciousness and memories, on a minuscule scale, that Max was still trying to reconcile. Often getting lost.

But also pointing out clues to the architecture of a whole self that she couldn't yet see. A whole that might not be possible to see from where she was, just like Hector had trouble visualizing those higher dimensional knots in her mind. Or how the lights of the Strip went from a line to a plane to a world when she'd elevated her mind's eye over the city. Just like she couldn't jump into the future beyond the worldline of her recalled experience. Or to a past or present her 4d-embedded self hadn't crawled to the long way already. The inconsistencies of FutureMax, the Leaver of Notes. The memories of changes that sometimes caught up with her when she passed their point of origin - but not others.

The limitations were an outline. Of something.

Her tiny splice error, her loop-overlay from the blend of old and new in 2013, was different from Chloe's sort of multiplicity, but it meant there were confusing layers in both of them.

And so Max bit her tongue. She didn't have answers. Didn't know how she was supposed to feel. Mostly stopped trying to force definitions or conclusions altogether. Marched forward instead, doing what she could. Processing action instead of feelings.

OtherChloe survived, and a whole other universe went on without Max after she jumped back from her exit point in T-0.

Back to a new split. A new Chloe. T-1.

Still her Chloe. But different now - more different than she'd ever been, through upgrades from another branch, gifted talent, changed circumstances, and all their timelines of shared memories.

Only now, the Chloe from this branch also carried the ghost of OtherChloe inside her. Memories, knowledge…everything, up to a point. Which was lovely and generous and so very confusing, and…easiest when Max didn't think about it, if she was ever going to be honest with herself.

That felt more and more like a cop-out, though. Truth was, she knew what was what, but she still didn't know how to think about it. How to feel. They were the same. They were not the same. She loved them both. She loved them as one.

It's not like she was missing an answer - there probably wasn't an answer. Or maybe everything was an answer. Not like she had anyone she could turn to who would understand. Except, perhaps, Chloe. Max resisted, but at some point, she'd have to, wouldn't she? That was the plan.

In the mean-time, maybe that ambiguity was okay? If so, that was something she had to accept. In herself. In Chloe. Perhaps that was it. The answer was the one she'd arrived at instinctively - that there was no answer. What they were, what they had, was unique and complicated and very simple and beautiful at the same time. Once she shifted her perspective to see it as parts of a whole. And perhaps the best thing she could do was to be thankful and accept it all without trying to put it in boxes.

To that end, Max found it less complicated if she talked to OtherChloe like she were right there in the room. Not quite a prayer wished across parallel branches, but…it was enough for her to say a few words in this world, at least. Vibrations, however quiet, still carried. Sounds. Intentions. Stilled in her darkness, Max finally whispered, "I wish…wherever you are…I hope you're not sad. I pray you're not alone. I promised you'd never be alone. I'm sorry forever for leaving, and I miss you!"

She wept quietly into her pillow, twin streams of tears embracing her skin, kissing her face. Nose all stuffy. But she allowed herself to do so.

Baby steps.

She hadn't been loud, but Emo jumped up anyway, concerned, tunneling, forcing his way under her arm, snuggling into her. Like he knew. Did the only thing he could.

What did we do to deserve kittens?

He'd still be there, snoring when she awoke the following morning.

---

Sophie wove her way through the small group of protesters across the street from the southern entrance to MCCP's sprawling HQ campus, doing her level-best 'casual pedestrian' impression.

It was a few days after Chloe had been detained - the official term for it now - and since Hector had been released. And Sophie, like Hector, like so many others, was at a loss for how to help. She found that to be a common enough sentiment inside, where people's exceptionally sharp minds, honed skills, and core disciplines mapped strongly against utterly unrelated problem sets.

A growing number of MCCP insiders wanted a way to fight back. To correct the records, engage in the ignorant public arguments about them, their founders, and their work. But what could they openly say?

Max and Chloe projected serious-minded attention to the situation at hand, while neither appeared outwardly frantic or overly bothered - which made them a rock for others.

Folks so inclined fought off private feelings of helplessness by continuing to do what they did before while keeping an eye on the news and trusting the legal, PR, and corporate experts to expert their way out of the messes created. But frustration, internal ranting, and biting tongues outside work were all real.

Increasingly, so were the inquiries. Most people who had regular interactions with outside partners or suppliers were fielding questions from their contacts, curious about what was going on, and how it might affect joint activities or relationships over the horizon. Again, what could they say? Employees could only rely on mutual standards of polite professionalism and vague assurances. That was the only deflection they had to work with.

Empty allegations and negative attention from outside didn't change their work or the realities on the ground. There were still species to preserve, diseases to prevent, impossible plans for inventions to somehow leapfrog into technical reality, and everyday people in trouble, every single day. Lists were endless.

Hector applied himself to ongoing ops, while Soph lent her talents in various connective ways. Neither of them would solve all of their current troubles, but everyone had a part to play. Hopefully, removing small frictions while keeping ongoing work ongoing with a positive attitude was enough to allow everyone to move at their best.

Soph alone had caught a slightly expanded glimpse from her time in Grant's mind. Things she shouldn't know. But she resolved herself to not think about them, lest she inadvertently or unconsciously nudged potential around.

She whispered, "excuse me," as she bumped into a thirty-something woman backing up from an ice chest full of beverages on the sidewalk.

A few sign-wavers took turns resting in bedraggled lawn chairs, while others lofted a variety of lo-fi hand-made signs at passing cars. Fewer than twenty people in total clustered together in an unfinished driveway entrance to an as-yet undeveloped multi-square-mile block of desert land.

MCCP owned the lots between the main campus and the freeway already, with plans to build a self-sufficient green-space into a 'public' park. And to place-hold the property for a few decades ahead, when they might want to expand their campus footprint, connecting above or below the roadway. Or, who knows, maybe they'd start over with a new arcology, four miles to a side, and towering miles into the sky? For now, though, it remained clean desert, fenced off with little fanfare.

Soph briefly scanned the group, finally relaying the 'all clear' to an ops observer across the street. She could have driven by as easily, but it was different walking among people, spending more time with their surface thoughts, and feeling any sentiments reflected by passing motorists. Feeling out that point of interaction between parties, the genesis of influence.

The protester's heads, like their signs, were full of 'MCCP bad,' in all sorts of ways, but mostly repeating the same unsourced claims broadcast and reprinted daily. These were folks predisposed to feel things quickly and deeply and to want to 'do something,' however small. More than a few focused on freedom for Alena. Others appeared to spring from a religious point of view, focusing on the 'no cults!' message - Sophie suspected that was more about competitive influence than individual criticism of cults per se. Several American flags waved in captive support of the remainder, decrying alleged fraud, unspecified 'anti-American activities,' perceived greed, irresponsibility, or safety threats to the public at large.

In a sans-eloquence font, anyway.

Soph laughed at herself, unsure whose mind she'd brushed in the past that might have gifted her a sense of insider typography humor.

Three people slightly away from the group appeared to have nothing to do with MCCP or current media fires, embracing the kitchen-sink approach to protests, bringing their unrelated issues to the anticipated media party. One railed against GMOs, while another stood firmly against elective abortions. Reflecting their opposite ends of an often non sequitur political spectrum, they camped on either side of the core group of protesters. The third and final nonconforming protester engaged in self-aware performance art against the act of protest itself, with his professionally printed sign reading simply 'Down with this sort of thing.' He'd borrowed the idea from recent forum posts, which pulled it from TV, and he was looking to score fake internet points with photo evidence that he'd executed IRL. Insult to injury, he'd specified Comic Sans when ordering the sign.

Eclectic bunch, but Sophie didn't detect any threats among them. Only two were paid protesters, while the rest were well-meaning, if misguided. A few insta-face groups and calls-to-action acted as organizing rallying cries for the leading detractors, but hashtags weren't trending or anything - least according to one of Jillian's team she'd passed in the lobby on her way down. Things could change, but it was a small, peaceful assembly along a public street for now.

She continued on foot toward the next intersection, nearly a mile away. Listened to songs and radio talk shows in passing cars through the ears of their occupants while getting a little exercise, and read a variety of mobile news sites through the eyes of others not driving. Little, if any, was helpful to them. Despite Chloe's efforts the prior week, the volume of counter-programming was relentless to the point of being nearly total. And the content repeating and self-referencing was compelling and consistent enough that if she'd just been a citizen out in the world somewhere with no inside information to the contrary, she might have believed all of it without a second troubling thought. Their angles, authorities, experts, and conclusions slotted neatly into existing narratives and preconceptions. Enough to make her wonder how many past scandals had the same sorts of origins.

On the bright side, only a few rare passengers bothered to pull out their phones to capture pics or video of the protesters, and most who did remained more amused than sympathetic.

---

Juliet, along with Ian's wayward young adults, had settled into a primitive routine by their second day together.

Each morning before dawn, new drones would arrive, low over the snow, carrying food, magazines, comics, or other things the household needed or requested (provided the items were light enough to transport between the drones).

Four people and a lazy feline, confined to a small, centuries-old house, would reluctantly wake. Then three out of the four would begin their day with a fight over the bathroom. Emily and Jason would go on to fight over breakfast, Mira and Em would fight over control of the TV, Jason and Mira would fight over access to the phone for screen and internet time…then all three would fight over the attentions of Ember the Cat…and then go away from each other to nap…only to continue bickering and poking at each other over dinner - by which time they were so worn out, they'd settle into a relaxed evening of random and often hilarious shit-talking and laughter while playing board games or sketching before the late-night lights-out.

In those few days, Juliet got a good feel for her noisy visitors.

Mira was oldest, taking on the role of responsible group leader out of vacuum necessity. So when Juliet was around, she happily deferred. Unless she felt Jason was paying Juliet too much attention. Which was cute to watch in a cringe sort of way, but Juliet still felt for her.

Jason was next oldest. He could be abrasive, funny, and awkwardly kind in the same sentence. He bickered with Mira constantly, defended Emily like he was her big brother, and generally tried to play older than he was when he thought Juliet was paying attention. She wasn't giving him any oxygen on that front.

Emily was the youngest but read as the oldest soul among the three. Inward facing, self-critical, cautious. But she could be situationally brave. Investigating unexpected noises and bumps in the old house with only a shoe for protection, for example. Jason and Mira were transparent and uncomplicated, but Juliet could never quite tell what Emily was thinking.

There were also mealtimes. Lots of eating. Lots of doing dishes for all of them. Jules did her best to keep them to a regular food schedule, as she had for herself. Something routine in all the strange.

And she'd play ref when the volume got out of control, or she reached her last nerve. But they responded to her respectfully, settling down each time.

They didn't seem overly bothered at being confined inside, as she had. She'd later discover why they treated it as something completely normal.

Having others in the house had been helpful for her, though. That sense of dread isolation and getting stuck in her head started to feel like a memory. Not a distant memory, but not the same front-and-center reliving of recent events, either. The distractions, the change of pace, came at a good time, helping her bring out a little more of her old self. It wasn't normal by any means but reminded her of another time and place. Another group of friends. With all those feels.

Over those days, they'd also compared notes. What Juliet heard raised tons of flags and questions in her proto-reporter brain. Like so much going on around her, she lacked an elevated perspective or enough pieces to put it together.

Mira and Jason casually shared their stories of growing up like they were just boring old stories - of course, arguing over every tiny detail. Painted her a picture of two children independently adopted at very young ages and raised in a supervised environment of controlled luxury.

Emily was the relative newcomer, having joined them a few years prior. When pressed for more background, Em shut down. Jason covered, explaining that she wasn't comfortable talking about her life before getting to the estate.

Juliet had her tender spots with the past, didn't push.

Back to the estate. Their prison slash home, where, in addition to their studies, they were expected to produce hand-drawn art their benefactor believed to be inspired by powers of 'psychic vision.'

That was the high-level takeaway.

'Eccentric' was the go-to euphemism people often used to describe the utter WTF behavior of insanely wealthy people. So…eccentric seemed to fit best there too.

The assignments by those they perceived to be 'not of the mansion staff' seemed relatively benign. One, two, or all three were occasionally told certain words or phrases, or shown other bits of information like people or places in photographs or video recordings, and asked to focus on some aspect of them - where they were, what they saw, where they'd be. Then they were given time to draw whatever they drew. Turned-in sketches, often cityscapes, landscapes, or some blend of geographies, were met with 'hmmms' and 'ahhs,' but little else in the way of meaningful feedback. That was the limited sum of their interactions with them.

Until recently, anyway. With the start of the new year, the number of visitors increased, and demands became more hurried and specific. It was all they could do to try to keep up, with everyday routines all but pushed aside.

So, it was perhaps a function of increased stress that their creations' content became ever more reactionary and esoteric, invoking a range of fictional archetypal inserts. Ordinary landscapes marred by unusual plants or a second moon, for example, or the presence of long-extinct or fantasy creatures. Those were more often than not self-edited directly into the waste bin, requiring the kids to start again in hopes their next picture would buy them a 'hmmm' or an 'ahh' from their visitors instead of visible frustration.

Em confessed that with the increased demands for output and the difficulty brought on by repeating nearly half her assignments, she took advantage, insisting that she needed 'smokes and booze' to do a better job. She'd intended her spur of the moment demand to buy her some space, create an excuse to slack off. But when her requests were met by the visitors, over the objections of the house staff, it left her little choice but to indulge and keep working. The alcohol was fun, even if it made her work even more silly or sloppy. And made her first few mornings-after highly regretful. But the nicotine had a buzzing but calming effect once she'd stopped coughing, keeping her going for hours on end without noticing the passing time.

Seemed the other kids were aware of what she was up to but didn't make a big deal.

According to Mira, when it came to their drawings, she was the only one who could see as she went. Em and Jason weren't especially conscious of what they were doing until they finished.

A claim that struck Juliet as highly improbable. How could anyone create art they weren't aware of until it was completed?

The act of drawing focused their thoughts, was how they described it to her. And those thoughts unconsciously guided their hands.

Sounded like nonsense.

Juliet was sure they were drawing from their imaginations, but they all claimed there was some different feeling when they drew for practice or pleasure versus on assignments they were given. They'd more often capture things or people or places they'd never seen in real life, as opposed to the everyday things they'd seen in books or on TV. It stood out to Mira and Jason at least, since they'd never left the mansion in the years they'd grown up there together.

Juliet was skeptical of some of the conclusions they shared but was interested in hearing about their lives from a human perspective. Maybe a pinch of anthro and psych. But by the end, she began to understand why Ian and his crew would take an interest in helping them.

She didn't have the sense they'd made anything up - their arguments and negotiations over the finer points of fact helped convince her of their sincerity. No contradictions among the three. At face value, it seemed as though they'd been taken in by an 'eccentric' caretaker who viewed them not as children to be raised for their own sake but as useful wards whose artistic products he interpreted for his gratification. Or for the curiosity of outsiders.

Despite their strange upbringing and relative isolation from peers, Mira and Jason passed as unexceptional. Something like the children of busy, wealthy parents who somehow managed to turn out okay. They'd been cared for, physically and emotionally, by nannies, private teachers, tutors, and staff - who read to them when they were small children, nourished their hearts, challenged and informed their minds, and exercised and fed their bodies.

Emily less so, given her recency and whatever else was going on in her head from before. But she'd become attached to Mira and Jason, along with a few of the staff.

The people who raised them cared about them, their welfare, and personal growth a great deal. Enough that through the stress of their travels, all three volunteered how much they'd missed certain people back 'home.'

It was unconventional, but Juliet had difficulty categorizing them as 'abused' in the classical sense. At least from her limited perspective. Hints in Emily's unspoken before-time notwithstanding. They'd received more care, attention, and privilege at their estate than some people she'd known, who were at best 'inconvenient' to their working parents. Or, at worst, actively unwanted and emotionally neglected.

Even if they also developed the sense that something about their situation had been wrong. Led by Emily, who apparently drew comparison from a different sort of life before.

As to why they'd run away - there was that growing feeling of curiosity and adventure, since they'd been confined to one plot of land, even with all its forests and open space. As well as that ill-defined 'something off.' For Mira and Jason, it had been that way for the sum of their conscious lives. For Emily, that was a big part of the problem.

They hadn't been kept ignorant of the world, but it had been presented as a dangerous place for talented children. Their natural attempts to explore beyond the bounds of the estate were met with harsh and immediate punishment in the months prior. They didn't wish to be treated like children anymore. And after, their movements were further constrained and controlled as a lasting consequence of their mild act of teenage defiance. It started to feel less like home and more like a prison. Less voluntary. Less warm.

What passed as paternal began to feel adversarial. The cameras less about their safety and more about their compliance. The security staff less about their protection and more about control. Again, due in part to Emily's long-term influence on their thinking. Or perhaps they were getting old enough to question things.

Either way, when the opportunity presented itself, in the form of blinking lights and unlocked doors, they all took the chance to go. Their great escape and open door to adventure, like in the stories they'd heard since they were young children. Returning 'home' afterward had been something Mira and Jason assumed without conversation; it was still home after all. For Emily, that notion brought more silence.

The intensity of the chase had been a surprise. How quickly and efficiently the mansion security staff hunted after they cleared the grounds. They'd barely managed to break contact that first day at the tree-line beyond town, with Jason lagging behind and nearly caught. When the drone crashed itself, that was when they knew they'd crossed a line. Wasn't just a game they could easily come home from. Leaving each of them more than a little lost in their quiet moments.

Might help explain why they fight like siblings, creating so much noise.

It was apparent to Juliet, if not yet them that they were glad to have each other.

When asked, they readily shared his name - their adoptive presence, the head of their house. Not a name Juliet had heard, but she didn't pretend she knew much of anything about the circles of wealth. She filed it away anyway. Reporter's instinct.

When it came Juliet's turn to share…in truth, they went back and forth over those days, but when her turns rolled around, she relayed the gist of her story. Starting from her walk to class and straight into a firefight and attempted abduction on the street. The similar guidance from an unseen helper in her most desperate moment, guiding her escape, and finally bringing her to the house they now shared. Drawing the similarities, giving context, while sparing them the most harrowing physical and emotional details in her retelling.

Revealing to them for the first time what she knew of The Collective, of Ian, as the group helping them behind the scenes. Her suspicions that Ian, at least, was from somewhere overseas.

Jason, Mira, and Emily stumble-shouted over each other at the revelation, wanted to text The Collective people pretty much immediately. They were equal parts gratitude, awe, and questions. But when Juliet first asked, she didn't get a response from him. Probably helping someone else, as seemed their habit.

Later, she backed into other parts of her story, the 'why' as she understood it. Going back to her internship, the content of her interview with Max, the hit-piece that came out under her name the same day Juliet was targeted, and a brief outline of what she'd picked up from the news since. Friday's global launch of the availability of fusion power on TV, the bigger picture of wealth and power that announcement likely put at risk…they had time to cover it.

Just because MCCP's troubles were related to Juliet's story didn't mean they had anything to do with Emily, Mira, or Jason. Which was why the three had been shocked to discover its connection to the mysterious building they'd independently drawn - the one they'd later see together on the news ahead of Chloe's interview. On a TV that turned itself on, volume blaring. Apparently, the work of Ian's crew - which meant he wanted them to see it. Mystery as to why. Maybe not so mysterious in hindsight.

Shock at their realization that Juliet knew that girl Chloe from the TV and had been inside the building they'd each drawn blindly. And she'd been the one to meet them at the house Ian brought them to.

They had so many questions. Juliet had a few of her own, mostly kept to herself.

She answered as best she could, but in the end, they admitted that things felt more connected than was immediately evident.

It was something Juliet couldn't explain - their attachment to the MCCP HQ building, if only through art. Saying they'd never seen it before drawing it didn't mean it was true, just that they believed it to be true. They could have run across it somewhere else - they hadn't been isolated from the world, had TVs, had internet access. Or they could have drawn a similar shape, filling in the rest, making false connections later.

But it was a huge coincidence. And to find that they'd each first drawn it around the same time, years prior, without knowing the others among them had. A timeframe coincident with the start of MCCP's growth. For each of them, it felt like something significant, although they couldn't articulate why.

The claim that they'd been raised to draw pictures informed by powers they couldn't explain only made it weirder. Not that Juliet believed that part to be anything more than the motivating belief of their benefactor. Still.

It was yet another uncomfortable, unexplainable series of nuggets vortexing back into the strange orbit of Max and Chloe.

Juliet's guilt for their present situation aside, there was still the fundamental change in them over the last two years. They were still at the center of giant piles of cash, unfolding world events, and a technical revolution on a global and historical scale they had no place in. She wanted to cheer them on for what they were attempting, help them somehow if she could, but that didn't mean she'd been able to make rational sense of any of it.

Lump in the Internet conspiracy theories, outlandish stories of the MCCP enthusiasts, and now these teenagers, rescued from strange circumstances and delivered to her hiding spot by the same hacker collective who somehow knew enough to save her in the middle of her almost abduction or murder - and she had to consider - was their story that they'd somehow envisioned the MCCP building on their own all that far-fetched?

But if true, what could it mean?

It rolled together like a seed in her shoe, challenging her.

She hadn't done much to deserve the coded message of friendship Chloe had broadcast the previous week. And she felt terrible that the news cycles were spinning hard against them yet again. And new legal troubles as well, with Chloe's arrest days earlier, and news statements that morning from both the IRS and SEC saying they were opening formal audits and investigations into Chloe, Max, and MCCP.

There was a lot hidden from her, but what she knew said the stakes were high, that what they were offering would save the world, and the world seemed intent on turning them away.

If it were all a hoax, as so many on TV had said, there would have been no reason to draft her fake byline, no reason to go after Juliet that morning, and no reason for her to stay in hiding.

She believed Max and Chloe truthfully and sincerely offered a new hope precisely because of what she'd been through at the hands of people trying to shut their efforts down. Interests aligned in the direction of someone extremely wealthy, powerful, and threatened by the inventions of the scientists working at their company.

Was it the same kind of extreme, eccentric wealth that might adopt and raise children in the hopes of profiting off of the content of their supposedly magical drawings?

It was all too loose and suspect.

Her drive to somehow help Max and Chloe hadn't diminished, but the same unanswered questions remained - who the fuck was she? What did she have to give? What could she do? She wasn't a secret agent or an action hero - even trying to get to her recordings at the Journal, assuming they were still there, might be an entirely suicidal act for someone like her.

A knock at the door had sent her into a near physical panic.

Yet she'd been so ready to leave the island the day before her three houseguests arrived. Without a plan. Without a clue. Instead, she'd stayed. She'd bugged-in and…what, exactly?

Their presence had been grounding for her, but it was also an anchor, preventing her from leaving. What would happen if she bailed out on them now? What would she do if she was to go, anyway? Never resolved that one. Didn't have a chance. Instinct said it wouldn't end well, but was risky action better than safe inaction with so much at stake? Undecided. She had a support structure for the moment and people who appeared to need supervision as well.

And so, she decided to share these thoughts with her new houseguests, to get them out of her head if nothing else. The teens seemed book-smart, but she wasn't expecting answers.

But when she got to the part about the thumb drive, Jason rolled his eyes like she was an imbecile, and Mira practically jumped up and down with excitement. Emily seemed more circumspect, as was her nature. But even she nodded her head like a post-it was taped to Juliet's face.

Maybe it was. Perhaps Juliet had been looking for outside permission.

They repeated that Juliet had to tell Ian about the drive. Ask for help. Like, not even joking, right now! So what if it was encrypted - they were a bunch of freakin' hackers!

Juliet protested that there was no way they could access it - she tried, and there were hardware-level locks, according to her tech-genius friend at Columbia, and she couldn't plug it into the phone to try to give them access anyway…no matching port for the big USB connector.

Mira insisted they make Ian send them a notebook. Problem solved.

It's not that Juliet had been reluctant. It's not that she hadn't considered. But with everything else she was dealing with in her head, it was more an afterthought, put off by simple barriers and objections.

Jason was certain the Collective peeps could unlock it. Based on exactly nothing but his confidence that it was so. Which was nearly infectious by itself. Ignorance intoxicated that way sometimes.

Juliet had tried, Alex tried, and it didn't even show up as an accessible drive, so what else was there to do?

Emily argued it didn't matter - that if Jason were right, then they'd all know what had been hidden away on it. Cause now they were dying of curiosity. It was given to her in secret, on purpose, from the heart of MCCP. The center of all this drama and mystery, and why wasn't Juliet dying of curiosity too? It was a huge adventure, and how had she kept it in her pocket this whole freakin' time!? If it could help her friends, Ian and his pals could help get it out where everyone would see it! That was their unanimous position.

In the end, Em sold it with a simple, "Duh."

I guess. Couldn't hurt to ask, right?

---

The unnamed probe, laser-propelled, high velocity, and smaller than a household toaster, shot past Neptune toward the outer edge of the solar system. Now only the second spacecraft to visit lonely, frozen Triton, its cameras and instruments trained intently on the orbiting moon. The probe's thin golden dish broadcast signals back toward Earth, nearly four and a half light-hours distant, barely peeking out from behind the noise of the sun.

Visually confirming, for a small group of scientists and their anonymous financiers, what confused Earthbound measures only recently suggested from afar.

That the only large, spherical moon in the solar system to orbit opposite its host planet's rotation - was no longer doing so. Further, it appeared Triton was no longer tidally locked to Neptune - and early data suggested it may no longer be trapped in its slowly decaying orbit. That final analysis would take more time to confirm through other means.

Such a base change, though, was defiance of known physical possibility.

Although the probability that every past measurement and recorded observation had been wrong in the same way was functionally zero. Triton was discovered back around 1850, and its movements since had been exceptionally well documented, modeled, and understood by astronomers and planetary scientists. Slightly bigger than Pluto, it was long known to have a retrograde orbit, long understood to have one side locked facing Neptune, and had been widely calculated to pass within Neptune's Roche limit in just over 3.5 billion years. That tiny, gravitationally captured world was destined to collide with Neptune's atmosphere or break up to form another wide ring system, similar to Saturn's.

Except, it changed.

Or, perhaps more worryingly for the informed observers among the group, it had been changed.

Which implied to the others that some unknown, undetected external 'force' had very recently operated on the Neptunian bodies in such a way as to cleanly reverse the course of a single moon, stabilize its orbit and set it to spinning. Without affecting anything else in the solar or planetary systems, and without ejecting or tearing Triton or other, smaller moons apart in the process.

Which was simply impossible in the eyes of everyone except those few who listened in to her entire conversation with Mr. Wallace. The many families and their agents behind the scenes who'd heard the recordings of Caulfield when she casually boasted she'd done that very thing, and challenged them to confirm it. Families, themselves only minor pieces of an overpowering machine of global control. Itself, only one of three.

In passing, the tiny probe helpfully imaged another 20% of Triton's surface, which Voyager 2 hadn't been able to see in 1989, to the delight of the scientists involved. Of additional scientific note, higher image resolutions showed a wealth of unexpected surface features and compositions, including several clearly defined geysers spewing nitrogen gas, methane, and dark organic dust nearly ten kilometers into space. The organic readings were new confirmation thanks to more advanced instrumentation. Leading only to further questions. While confirming Triton's continued status as one of the few geologically active moons in the solar system, alongside Jupiter's Europa and Io, and Saturn's Enceladus and Titan.

The new orbital data was unambiguous, leaving those few who had access bewildered - or relieved, or concerned at the implications it confirmed, depending. To the latter group, if that massive, faraway moon could be manipulated on such a scale by a person…well, perhaps 'miscalculation' was too shy a word for the series of actions being driven from elsewhere above their pay grade.

One more thing was real - they wouldn't be able to suppress the information. For the moment, Neptune led the sun, lost in the daylight between the bright star and Mercury. But that would quickly change as each passing month moved Earth further outward along its circuit around the solar system.

What had been an ultimately doomed orbital curiosity was about to become the single largest anomaly in all of science.

And for others, a warning landing far too late.

---

Ty checked his watch. 7:30 pm local, which translated to 4:30 the following morning in Belgium. He glanced back at his holo, where the remote field office had closed the connection, ending their brief. He'd wanted a live status update on the hedge fund dude op before checking out for the day. Not that 'checking out' was a real thing for the time being, but 'away from the office' would be if he had anything to say about it.

John had been happy to pull all-nighters, catching z's in his office or any random couch or sleep pod he could find, then bed-heading his way through his morning with coffee and a sugar snack to function.

Ty would much rather lose sleep in transit for the additional recharge benefits of home and his morning routine. Depth of sleep was more important than duration, in his view. Resting in his bed, waking early, taking personal cycles for morning chow and PT, only then heading into the office with his mind and body alert and organized made for a whole, balanced system.

John would have been content with the written report. But they had more than a few style differences. Michaels was professional, led from the front, but tended more toward casual and more toward 'wing it' in the day to day as a result.

Ty compensated for being new to the job the same way he compensated for anything - by taking on as much work as he needed to feel he was indeed competently prepared.

But the point role itself wasn't new to him. He'd passed between show-runner and participant at all different scales. High school ball, strong family dynamics, his military career, on through his contractor gigs. Teams were teams, but someone always had to take the lead, if only as an activity-organizing principal. He didn't have any ego tied up in the titles - and combat taught him first-hand that the core of leadership was personal responsibility and personal accountability for the team's safety and for the success of mission outcomes. He took both equally seriously.

It wasn't that Michaels didn't, but he was more comfortable relating to the team members under his command from alongside them. He was a more natural XO, a bridge between command and active duty.

Ty had thoughts about John's temporary leave but kept them to himself. Mostly to himself. One exception that couldn't be avoided. Instead, he'd try his best to fill the role for as long as needed. And there was still a lot he had to come up to speed on, globally.

His tendency to over-prepare went back to his childhood, as things often do. As one of only a handful of Black kids attending the private K-12 schools of his unremarkable Connecticut town. As an often daydreaming kid of high-achieving legal-partner parents. As a young enlisted man who preferred to fly under the radar while still doing his very best. At first, he'd developed the habit as a means to preempt skepticism, cut off questions, or quench the real or imaginary doubts of others. Then it was for competitive reasons. But later, with maturity, in-depth preparation was something he did for himself. To lend confidence that he'd done everything possible not to let the team down. Whatever team. And as a self-protective emotional buffer should things go off-plan, which tended to be the norm on a coin-toss basis.

Back to his request for a live brief.

He'd caught more than a few sideways skids early enough to recover by reading the individuals briefing him. It was as important as the information presented oftentimes. Signals he would have missed, relying on typed reports.

As to the recon of the man who pulled the first strings at the Journal that kicked off their current multi-front attack, local MCCP ops on the ground in Europe led the physical spycraft.

They'd placed an insider on the night cleaning service at his office as soon as Max elicited his identification from Tanner, the originating paper's EIC. Posing as rival fund executives, old-school handlers were in the process of turning a couple of mid-level executives in the financial organization who'd expressed job dissatisfaction through pseudonymous online accounts. They'd also arranged for a cute, young-printing barista with eight years of intelligence service to take the morning shift in the coffee shop in the lobby.

The ELINT folks working out of a silent subsidiary in Brussels cracked the IT infrastructure from inside, thanks to an 'abandoned' thumb drive dropped in the lobby with a tape label in feminine writing that promised 'nude selfies.' Timed to appear in the usual entry-path of a systems engineer, who rather helpfully plugged it into his admin PC. In an attempt to return it to the original owner, no doubt.

This was low-level stuff, of course. Chloe could have cracked through all of it without drama. Or Sophie or another telepath could have sat in their lobby for a few hours to pull every secret they could wish for. But with global operations at scale, local resources were more than capable of getting to the same place, relying on their skills, wits, and tradecraft. Division of labor was key to MCCP operations at all levels.

As for the man himself, they placed rotating watch teams, multiple groups managing tail handoffs in transit between private and public transportation. Plus the usual suite of counter-surveillance and surveillance tech; signal-jackers, on-person beacons, full-spectrum audio/visual capture, drone and micro-drone overwatch, metro video piggybacking, and so on. The target couldn't so much as move or breathe undetected.

And their scout-ants extended outward, investigating every person he came into contact with, people who came into contact with places he'd come into contact with - it went on.

Then there were the open and closed networks branching beyond their local IT environment. Electronic surveillance, more anti-countermeasure countermeasures. Watching communications, transactions, conversations, contacts. Watching accounts, drops, tracing to new ones, branching contacts of contacts. They also had the signatures of encrypted syndicate traffic, courtesy of Chloe, added to the pile. Not to mention cross-references with identities of actives in the cube data Max brought back from a much more violent branch.

Their resources weren't infinite. The tech helped with scale, but good analysis about what to pay attention to still fell to the realm of human judgement, intelligence, and intuition.

And for now, they were in 'sit on him and chase connections' mode. A few more days and they might be ready to escalate.

Satisfied for the moment, Ty closed his office door behind him for the night, heading for the elevators at center. Twenty feet away, a set of doors opened with a muted 'ding.'

Coincidentally, Soph was also heading home for the day. Held the doors while Ty closed the distance.

---

Chloe's new prison cell was nearly identical to her old one in Special Housing. Maybe a meter wider, since it was designed for two people instead of one. She still had the cell to herself, though, courtesy of various database rewrites that she totally had absolutely nothing to do with at all. Nope! Not Chloe. Must have been those crazy Russian internet hackers!

Around her, the same four walls and a duplicate of that same secure door with its wire-reinforced window. A closed metal slot at waist-height for putting on and taking off cuffs, food tray deliveries. More privacy and soundproofing than the traditional jails with steel bars on the hallway end of the cell.

Chloe transferred to genpop a few hours before. After role-call and lockdown, but before lights-out. She hadn't had a chance to meet any neighbors, but she knew them well enough.

She stretched out on the top bunk to kill time before bed, working a few different streams overhead. Holos filled the volume between her and the ceiling. She designed and crafted some new inventory management bots in one area to help accelerate the various off-world office moves. In another, she scanned through automated exception-hits surfaced by minions parsing light-field data over several major cities - while keeping another eye on their many offices and people around the world. In a third quadrant overhead, she stemmed out and remixed a few music tracks for her amusement, while she dedicated the largest visual space to pwning noobs in an online shooter. She was winning. It wasn't close.

After no-scope doming a kid across the map with a sniper-shot mid-leap, she shouted 'booyah!' through the area party link. Somewhere in the distance, an 8-year-old child cursed and ranted obscenities at her.

"Funny meeting you here."

A sudden voice from inside the room.

Chloe dropped the holos, sat up to greet her unexpected visitor. "A wild Max appears!"

Below, Max waved. "Hiiii. Am I interrupting?"

"Nah. Was gonna get booted soon anyway. How's stuff?"

"Stuff's okay. Sorry it took me so long."

"Hey! Come here." Chloe spun on the bunk, flopping her legs off the side, doubled forward for a kiss.

After Max obliged her, Chloe leaned back, hands behind her head, resting against the wall, slowly kicking her feet. "It's cool. Not like I don't still see you every day. So - what'd you bring me? Cupcakes?" She was seriously jonesing for a cupcake. Stuck her hand out in anticipation.

Max looked around for somewhere to sit that didn't require her to do pull-ups to get there. Ignored Chloe's outstretched hand.

Giving up on the promise of tasty vittles, Chloe made a small gesture, and several concrete blocks from the opposite wall extruded themselves into the cell, forming a flat, wide bench. Most of the cell had been converted into some form of smart matter. She tossed Max her pillow. Apologized for the lumpiness.

Max smiled, accepted the makeshift seat. "You know we gave our Cake Butler the night off, right?" Her eyes took in the cell. "What's the going currency in here anyway? Cigarettes, or?"

Chloe shook her head. "You'll be shocked to learn this is a no-smoking facility. Sadly, cupcake free too. We've got a few opposing gangs with unique barter systems, but the universals are mobile phones…uh…drugs, of course…and favors? Sexual…favors - if you're into that sort of thing? Are you…into that sort of thing? Anyway. It's about what you'd expect."

"I'm glad you're making new friends," Max laughed.

Chloe shrugged, projected forward to the next day, embellishing. "Meeting friends we didn't know we had. Plus, a few others who will probably try to kill me. And I'm sure there'll be a few stepping up, tryin' to claim the new girl. What? I'm hot, dude. Should be a fun morning tomorrow."

At that, Max left her seat, drifted up until she was mid-air, eye-level with Chloe on the top bunk. Locked eyes. "You're not allowed to be anyone's bitch, Chlo. I won't allow it."

Chloe kicked at her. "I'm a one-bitch-bitch. No worries." Laughed. "Like I wouldn't be queen bee anyway," she smiled, flirting.

Max settled back to ground level, glanced at the toilet-sink, the floor, the walls. In a far-too-serious voice, she asked, "Is it just me, or is this a shockingly clean jail cell?"

Chloe hopped down from the top bunk and fell backward into the lower to get closer to Max. "Two stars - wasn't as nice when I checked in. Called a few billion tiny minions to clean up, repair the plumbing, yatta. Got a little carried away and accidentally restored it to like-new. With…minor mods."

Max sidled in next to Chloe on the lower bunk. "Course you did."

In a sage voice, Chloe offered, "It's been said that correctional facilities were designed first and foremost as prisons for the mind."

Max rolled her eyes. "Uh - right. Were you even here before I popped in to say hi?"

"Ish? Local rest mode, you saw." Chloe shook her head. "Still working in the lab back home, and helping here and there with investigations across teams, doing the usual recon across our geos, blah."

Max looked to the door, yelled, "Mind-prison fail!"

Chloe leaned into Max. "Knowing I could walk out any time I want, it's hard to take seriously, tbh. Unlike my previous prison experience…"

"Right." Max stiffened almost imperceptibly. "Namibia."

That was a mixed experience for Chloe. Even then, she knew Max would get her if she couldn't find a way out on her own. She tried to take the edge off any guilt Max might still feel about that. "Yeah, well. Wasn't so bad. Even there, I knew there was a light at the end named Max. No way you'd leave me."

"You'd already escaped by the time I found you," Max reminded her proudly.

Chloe leaned into her. "Whatever. You were late."

Max climbed onto the bunk, nestled her head in Chloe's lap. "Sorry. And sorry I'm late again. Although - I'm surprised you haven't built a new door to outside over there."

"Like I need one?"

Max gazed up at Chloe with a loving but serious expression. "I can see up your nose."

Chloe rolled her eyes covered Max's with both of her hands, pushing her away.

Max faux struggled to get free, giggling.

Chloe relented.

Max stuck her tongue out. "Tell me. How many ways out of here have you identified, and how long did it take you?"

"All of them," Chloe laughed. "And…say..tenth of a second? Who's counting."

Max nodded. "Figured you were into the millions at least. Speaking of your last prison experience, though…um…hey, you wanna get out of here, take a walk? We still…"

Chloe forced herself to sit up, reluctantly pulled out from under her comfortable lounging spot with Max. "Yeah. Right. Sure. Lead the way? I could stretch legs in the real for a while. And you smell nice. Maybe let's go somewhere prettier than this?"

Max stood beside her. Held out her hand.

Ignoring her, Chloe turned, grabbed the pillow off of the extruded stone bench, tossed it haphazardly under the blanket of the lower bunk. Threw the blanket back over it. Nudged it. Nudged it again.

The extruded blocks retreated soundlessly back into the wall, erasing any seams.

Chloe fluffed the pillow once more, trying to make it look like a person under the blanket. But it was only one pillow, insufficient for a proper prison-break bed mannequin.

She gave up with a shrug. "Meh. Whatevs." Held out her hand for Max to grab, continuing to ignore the hand Max held out for Chloe. Just to be a brat. "Let's."

---

Max took Chloe's hand, folded them from the cramped jail cell to the wide-open nighttime sands of Diamond Beach, southern coast of Iceland.

The temperature was well below freezing.

Max and Chloe each adjusted their internals for comfort.

The crunchy black sand underfoot, intermixed with dark, rounded rocks, blurred beneath dark waves as the moonlight splashed briefly around all the wet edges.

The rhythmic shusss of the water lulled.

Ocean-tumbled ice blocks, crystalline slabs, and frozen boulders as tall as chest height littered the length of the broad, flat beach, catching and reflecting that same moonlight. Others floated, blue-white icebergs in miniature, streaked in black, rising and falling among the waves breaking further out to sea.

Seals lounged together in small groups all around them, barely seeming to notice.

It was an otherworldly view. Nearly everything was pitch black, save for the namesake diamond-like ice blocks standing bright against the dark. From certain angles, anyway.

Miles to the west, down the coastline, a few tiny houses stood out, their feeble light barely breaking through the distance. To the east, across the entrance to the lagoon that set the glacier ice to sea, red lights marked the tops of the suspension bridge roadway and a string of tall power lines.

Auroras finger-painted a faint green line over the glacier to the north.

"Pretty enough?" Max asked, assuming that Chloe could see everything clear as day and in a billiondy different wavelengths Max would never perceive.

Chloe nodded in silence.

They walked hand in hand down the beach for a few minutes before Chloe intruded on the white noise of footfalls and waves. "Sooooo…"

Max picked up on her hint. Because 'silence' wasn't 'talking.' Stumbled over her intro. "Yeah. So. Look, I…uh…again, I'm so sorry for the other day. It just…the whole thing with John caught me off guard, you know? And I wasn't…I, uh…I know this is gonna sound like bullshit, but I've - I've been trying to find the right time to open up about a few things I've held back." Halting. Awk.

Chloe paced alongside her, squeezed Max's hand. Shorthand that she was giving her space to take her time, find her way, while attentively listening.

Max went on too quickly, "Soph knows…but…I know…I know it's probably not fair to you. But…by not only changing events, but by making it so certain things never happened from your perspective, and then, never telling you about them - I think I was trying to protect myself as much as you. Like it was a way to bury things I'd worked so hard to unwrite from the universe...and I know it's not fair of me to dump all of this on you now, but...well...Sophie, and Hector, both uh, helped me see that by keeping things from you and pushing them back from myself, I was only burying things and not processing them, which wasn't fair to you or…good for me, or… I know it's selfish of me to do this now, especially now, and especially after all this time. But - I need you to understand - I only ever wanted to make a good life for you...for us…for OtherChloe back in the day…and I think...I think I made a mistake in the way I handled it. I don't think it was right of me to hide things from you in the abstract, and I don't think it was good for my mental health to try to not deal all on my own - or without your help, if...that makes any sense?"

Chloe didn't respond; kept walking, crunching through the cold, coarse, black sand.

Max looked backward at that rapid waterfall of words in her head. "Yeah, probably sounds like riddles, huh? Fuck. I practiced this too, and it's already fallen apart."

Chloe glanced her way, serious, but lent another gentle squeeze of reassurance.

Max picked up her pace as she took a moment to gather her courage, re-order outlines in her head. She was quiet for a beat, then finally let it out. "Chlo, I've seen…and done…had to…do…some unkind, awful things. Worse than I ever thought possible, and worse than I've ever wanted you to find out about - I don't want you to see me like…"

Chloe didn't react or say anything. Just kept walking, her hand in Max's.

Max took in the enormity of the sky overhead. Felt for the warmth of Chloe's grip. He voice slowed, her tone more contemplative. "Decisions I couldn't undo, but couldn't get out of my head, either. Uh...I'm not...like I know that I was younger and didn't know what to do, but...well, I guess that wasn't always a hundred percent true either... I don't...know…" She pulled back. Tried to restart. Stopped again. How the fuck?

Chloe slowed their pace, pulled Max until they were side by side again. Gently she asked, "Maybe you could begin with John? And why you - why it seemed like you gave him a pass on Sam?"

Grateful for the lifeline, for the pointer, Max nodded. "Yeah. So, this one…part of it goes back to before - when they took you away to Namibia."

Haltingly at first, Max shared her memories of their experiences apart, as a way to work toward the missing branch from years before. With Max captured and drugged, Chloe captured and taken halfway around the world - while each was strapped down for hours, worlds apart, but together over a live video link, under the sadistic control of Roland Stirling. Memories erased from Chloe's lifeline.

Max finally let go of the idea she had to protect Chloe from everything that ever happened to them. Let go of the injustice of leaving her with an incomplete understanding of their lives together.

She cut to it. To her side of that day two years ago. To Chloe's missing time.

Max shared enough of the tension, the medical realities of the kinds of torture they put Chloe through, just enough for her to get the gist, without dwelling too deeply on the procedural specifics in a blow-by-blow hour-by-hour sort of way.

She couldn't do that to either of them.

Even that little was almost too much for her.

Max recognized the surface irony in continuing to hold back so much visceral detail when she was trying to open up to Chloe about everything she'd kept to herself, but the sickening weight of the physical torture wasn't the crux of the wedge she'd placed between them. Nor the knot she'd tied up inside herself.

Roland's sins, Nuria's sins, were the acts of control and violence committed against Chloe, and through her, against Max across her rewinds.

But Max's sin was secreting from her wife the pain inscribed on her soul by an experience no one else retained. Hiding an intense phantom trauma only she knew.

Where Max skimmed over unnecessary descriptions, she communicated their effects through her emotional journey through those unforgivable hours.

A retelling punctuated by unconscious gripping, squeezing Chloe's hand, tears flowing, freezing, voice alternately shaking, raging, or so quiet, the words were nearly lost behind the waves that carved their passing into the moonlit ice mounds glowing all around them. A rage that would have burned the entire world if she'd managed to set herself free back then. And a resigned sadness, an all-enclosing hopelessness that would have sunk her to the bottom of the darkest ocean by the time Roland ran out their 'program.' How easy it had been to give up and resign herself to medicated sleep.

Chloe's memories of those events were limited to the final timeline, with her view of the odd video conference they allowed them. Max's abrupt change of personality at the end. This was all new information for Chloe.

They were 20 minutes down the beach by the time Max finished with her retelling of the events of that day. And what came after, everything about it she'd kept buried inside in the time since.

After walking in silence for another few minutes, Chloe finally slowed, said, "Fuck."

Max looked over at her. Afraid, worried.

Chloe's voice conveyed her anger. But not at Max. "I knew something happened. God fucking dammit. I didn't push you for it. I fucking knew something changed back then, but I didn't know what, and I was so scared for you." Chloe stopped. Did a slow-motion crack the whip with Max until they were face to face. "But then I was in asshole jail for so long, and I guessed you were offline…but I had no idea any of it had been…that bad. For either of us." Chloe's eyes filled with sympathy, warmth, and concern. "Max...I'm so sorry-"

Max cut her off. "No, Chlo, it's okay, you didn't—"

"No, I know - let me finish." Chloe took Max's other hand. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that...I'm sorry I had to go through that, and I'm super fucking glad I don't remember cause holy fuck, how do you come back sane from that level of what-the-actual-fuck?! But…you know, mostly I'm sad you pretended like it never happened. Baby...I know you were trying to deal, and trying to protect me, and maybe even yourself...and I guess, after you came back to me, after your little magic show in Vegas...I thought that...I don't know, you were nearly the same, and yet so different and put together too…I guess I thought whatever it was, it was something you just kind of handled and...I mean...you...you, suddenly hundreds of years older and so much more mature…and you were driving all of us forward - it's my fault I didn't grill you on it. I think I was just glad to be out and to have you back and have you make sense again…and getting to know the new you, and then getting distracted by OtherChloe's presents and memory flood, and we couldn't get my arm holo to shut off, and then the surprise TK juice from Nuria kicking off…and…and? Huh…"

Chloe's expression changed like she tripped hard over something in plain view, and a realization clicked into place.

After a long pause…

"It...it was her. Nuria, wasn't it?"

Max looked up at Chloe. She hadn't mentioned that part. Resigned to let Chloe know the whole truth, she looked out to the line of floating icebergs and nodded.

---

Chloe cast her eyes down, closed them, replaying her time at the subterranean compound in the Namib desert. Times spent with her only friend there, Nuria. Her lifeline in her distress. The late nights they talked, the check-ins that weren't required, the sadness that seemed to live behind the older woman's eyes…their bonding together over lost parents.

And her parting 'gift' for Chloe. The mysterious injections that added something undeniably novel to Chloe's biology. Something experimental that, once integrated by her body, allowed her to exert remote control over objects and her environment. And that eventually allowed her to explore the boundaries of computational telekinetics, as the gifts from Nuria and OtherChloe matured together inside her to become something entirely unexpected and new.

Chloe's head was spinning.

Too many heartbreaking insights fell into place at once. On all sides. She looked out to sea. Flashed through Max's emotional retelling of moments ago. Chloe's extreme medical-grade torture, Max's soul-crushing pain, and eventual compliance - it was all…Nuria.

Her friend.

Even if she'd never done those things in this timeline, in her final reality, a part of her had to know what she'd done in another, if only by its absence. That was how it worked, wasn't it? Nuria had to be ready to follow Roland's orders. Even if she hoped she wouldn't have to. And that she didn't have to, well, that meant that she already had. Or some version of her had in some virtual timeline.

For Max, though, her raging, spitting, screaming through hours of Chloe's torture was its own kind of torture, and it hadn't ever been erased. It was live, real, and Max internalized every second of it alongside Chloe. For Max, it was unforgivable, she knew. Both timelines were linear for her, one after the other, and equally weighted in recollection.

But. For everyone who wasn't Max, there was only ever what happened. Only one timeline. One reality. That was the tragedy of loneliness exposed in Max's retelling. A curtain over existential dichotomies few would ever be aware of.

It explained a few things, in retrospect. Nuria had been a good person, troubled by doubts she'd never articulated about her virtual actions against Chloe in a phantom timeline. A timeline she must have known she'd gone through to arrive in one where nothing had been required of her at all. A timeline whose presence showed her she was a bad person. Because what good person would be capable of such things? And she must have carried out those acts if they were no longer required of her.

That had to fuck with her sense of self. But…she had been responsible for inflicting extreme physical and psychological harm on Chloe and Max in equal measure. For real. Her hands. Her training. Her will. Or at least, compliance. But…not here. Not in this final branch. But she had. But she didn't. But—

Where was the line between potential and actual? It was relative, wasn't it? Which was why they were able to use it as a tool of control over Max.

Nuria must have struggled with herself over it too. That conflict, it explained so much. In the end, she chose to care for Chloe to try to ease the metaphysical fog of confused inputs and conclusions. To try to recover some sense of being that person she knew she could no longer confidently claim to be.

Few people would ever face such a schism.

That was another twisted horror of Stirling's plan, the virtual corruption of a good doctor. No, that wasn't right either…Stirling was another product of a system of control, like Nuria. Like Sam. It all pointed uphill. Up. Had to. People had it in them to be any shade of grey, from dark to light, and they influenced each other and changed back and forth over time, showed different faces to those around them separated by mere moments and…and did that argument just shift responsibility away from anyone? Where did it end under that system of thought? No one would be responsible for anything. And that wasn't correct at all. People were responsible for themselves too. It was both. Influencer and influenced. Director and actor. People played both roles interchangeably because no one existed in isolation.

Someone still drove, though. The dark mirror of Max's butterfly wings. Chloe's anger, her motivation to find them, continued to grow. Not only for herself, but for Max.

But Nuria…Nuria carried a deep sadness the whole time Chloe knew her. Chloe thought it was because of her parents and their slow cancerous decline. She was so full of sympathy for Chloe - but now, Max's story put that generosity of spirit, and her quiet withdrawals, in a new light.

But she was both, wasn't she? A good person and a bad person. Or perhaps, less simply, she carried out good and bad actions and was a conflicted person who became more aware of that than most people would - and she wrestled hard with those opposing, ego-breaking identities it implied.

Chloe's acceleration lasted a few minutes of inside time, but a fraction of a second out.

Max must have read something of the thoughts written on her face.

"I'm sorry, Chloe. I know she was important to you in the final pass…I didn't want…I wanted to leave you with something good from all that time apart."

Chloe pulled Max into a hug. "Even after what she did to both of us along the way? I don't know how you kept quiet. It's…shit's complicated, isn't it?"

Max pulled away to look up at Chloe. "You said she used to bring you apple tarts."

Like that explained everything.

Chloe kept hold of Max's hand. "Yeah. She did. And, it's like forks in the road. I can't explain what she did to us in that branch. Who that person was. The pieces fit, but they don't. She was still an important friend to me when I didn't have anyone else. I don't know what to think or how to reassemble it, Max. You know? I…don't think it takes away from my memories, my experience of her, but I don't know. I get where you were coming from."

Max didn't say anything. Held a similarly conflicted sense of things, probably.

Chloe zoomed out. Resumed their path down the beach. "Max, you know I don't want to judge you for any of the calls you've had to make. You know that. I'm glad that at least Hector and Sophie knew all this time, so you weren't totally alone in your own head. And I'm sad too that you didn't turn to me first. You don't have to do everything by yourself!"

Max leaned into Chloe, head on her shoulder. Her voice muffled, "You might wanna hold off on that sympathy. That's…that's not all there is. You'll understand why I didn't—"

Chloe let go of her hand, put her arm around Max. "I'm not an idiot. I know you and OtherChloe probably went through entire worlds of shit along T-0 that she wasn't aware of for similar reasons. Since she didn't have the memories, I don't either, but I can make a few educated guesses at when, at least. I've run models. Had to after last Friday. There were plenty of times you shut down, or…I don't know."

As they approached a rocky rise, Max guided them inland to the road, cutting toward the bridge that passed over the mouth of the bay. "Well. That's also true, but this is…um. Going back to John and why, and…after everything he did to you. Or made Nuria do to you, or whatever. But…I also found Roland. We…found—"

In one motion, Chloe stopped dead in her tracks, let go, spun to face Max. "Where? When? Where is that fucker?!" She was angrier at him than she'd ever been after learning what he'd done, what he'd inflicted on Max's psyche, how he'd pushed Nuria beyond her limits.

Max stopped alongside Chloe. Kicked loose a few rounded rocks sticking up from the sand. "Well, we - ops - found him back in early 2014. At least, where he'd been months before, which was—"

Chloe quick-scanned, blurted, "I don't have any reco—"

"I went back, Chlo."

But why don't we know about…oh.

Oh.

"You…you killed him? Before…we found him." Chloe finished the equation.

Max nodded, turned her back to Chloe, faced the sea.

That's why it was always a wild goose chase - we were never gonna find him. All this time, and he was already dead. Chloe turned away, stared north to the horizon, the glow of the auroras. Back to back. "Now I see. John kills Sam. You kill Roland. I mean…I'm not saying either of them should be alive, even. And…"

Chloe retread her worst-case concerns over the past few days. Replaying her 'we don't kill people' mantra again, except, it's Max this time after all. And after what she just told me…any court would call that a justifiable crime of passion…but…it's Max.

Leaving Chloe even further conflicted.

Without a clear way to resolve her feelings, she bounced around until eventually reaching a minor point of clarity. I'm not here to judge her - I'm here to listen. I'm here for Max's sake. So don't force yourself to reach any conclusions right now.

Chloe circled to get in front of Max. Back to listening. Face to face.

Max looked into her eyes, looked away. Hesitated. Finally, "It's worse than that. Uh. I…uh…I swore to him, while they made me watch…I swore I was going to kill him ten-thousand times over for what he did to you."

Chloe's heart stopped as her eyes went wide. "Max?!" A flash of panic at what might have—

Max shook her head at once, seeing where Chloe's head was going. "No - no. I um. Less than a hundred." She winced as she said it.

Chloe's eyes were still saucers, but she tried to ratchet down her emotions and regain neutrality. Pull back her base impulse to kick Max as hard as she could right in her ass. Repeatedly.

Max continued, "I know. I know. I…know." She met Chloe's eyes again. "Sometimes, it was so infuriating - like it would never be enough for what he'd done to you. Well, it was only ever once for him, of course. But…"

Chloe's mind raced ahead of real-time. Max, darling, what. the. fuck?! You stupid— She fought to pull herself back. Reminding herself this moment wasn't about resolutions.

Even at 1:1 speed, Chloe was sharp.

It's not about my forgiveness, is it? She made the right leaps ahead that matched her intentions. Max was still a good person. She'd said she had regrets. It's about giving her space to share things she's never willingly shared before. I can't shut her down now. She needs to get this out, and I need to know, cause holy fuck, what do we do about this?! And how do I keep this from ever happening again?!

Heart slowing, Chloe forced herself back into support mode.

Struggling to regain perspective, to lead with sympathy. Putting herself in Max's shoes. Finally, "But…you remember every time. And…you're still you inside, so that has the predictable effects."

Max nodded, talking to the sand, "Yeah. I'm sorry. I think…my anger for what he did to us, it never ever went away. Killing him over and over didn't make any of it stop. He told me everything, you know. After all that."

What followed burst from Max in a rapid-fire stream.

"Would you believe…he was an undercover talent from the fucking crazy faction? He did way more bad shit than the average bad guys out there while he was under…and everything he did to us was to try to break and corner me into becoming some kind of goddamn liberator hero symbol for the talents! It was all for nothing, what they did to you - he wasn't even one of them. He was just fucking insane! And you know, shouting at him, hurting him like that, it didn't cut the pain away. At first, I thought it felt like it helped me feel better, like a release or taking it out on him or something - I don't know. I wish I could say I wasn't in control of myself, but I was. Even if I hated myself at the same time. But I know that no matter what, I'll never forgive him. I can't. I don't even want to. Everything about him makes me want him dead. And I can't feel sorry for that. Not after what he did to you. Or…me." Her voice trailed at the end.

"Max." Chloe didn't know what to say. How to feel. Wait - he was on our side?! Wtf?! Pin it. Just pin it. Not the time.

"But...you know, Sophie, she was was really worried about me."

Chloe smiled a little at that. At least Max had Soph. Which made sense of Sophie's reaction to John's revelations and her nod to Max's response to everything. In hindsight. Of course, she knew about John, like she knew about Max. None of this would be a surprise to Sophie.

Max continued, "The only thing she said was, if I continued, it would change me."

Chloe reflected a moment on Sophie's burdens of silence. What it must be like to keep everyone's worst mistakes. How much work she must be doing behind the scenes to try to guide people with her trademark light touch. Knowing far better than most the specific degree to which human perfection would remain unattainable.

Max met Chloe's eyes again, standing straighter. "She said that good people could sometimes do bad things - but doing bad things when you can choose not to, that's what turns good people into bad ones."

Soph wasn't ambiguous, as Chloe had reactively assumed in Moscow - she'd been actively concerned. Heart in the right place, always trying to get Max to do the right thing. As she had with Chloe and with countless others over the years. Chloe failed to give her enough credit for that. Probably owed her an apology.

"I mean…It's so basic, but… Soph said I was too powerful to allow myself to go down that path." Max stuck her hands in her hoodie pockets. "She said if I didn't let it go – not forgive, just let him go – that...well...that I wouldn't like the person I was becoming. Which was already true and was wrapped up with the guilt over you and everything else. Even that asshole Roland said the same thing one time, missing every single fucking bit of irony."

Chloe let out the breath she'd been holding for she didn't know how long. Placed her hand on Max's shoulder. "Maybe he didn't, Max. Maybe…maybe from what you said, maybe he recognized the same thing. Personal experience, or whateverthefuck. But. Wow. I don't know what to say to any of this, Max. Honestly. You can prolly read that I'm fucking pissed. I really, really angry and disappointed. I'm sad. I'm worried…"

"Yeah. I know. I'm sorry, Chloe. I know I've let you down." She raised her hand to cover Chloe's. "I violated your trust, I went halfway darkside over—"

"Hey. Lemmie finish. Not everyone can be Obi-wan. I love you, Max. You know that. Always. Like I said, I don't know what to say here. I mean. After everything you've been through. Honestly, if our roles were reversed, if I had to watch someone hurt you like that, I don't know if I ever would have stopped."

"That's why I couldn't say anything about John, Chlo. I've already done so much worse."

Chloe glanced up. "I…well, 'understand' is the wrong word…"

"I know." Max pulled away from Chloe like she was creating more kinds of space between them.

Chloe was doing everything she could to be honest and supportive while holding back the intense, violent screaming inside her head. Holding back the part of her that wanted to smack Max senseless for venturing so far into dark territory. For putting her soul and their future and everyone on Earth at risk.

And yet. Chloe wasn't kidding. Roles reversed, she'd burn the whole fucking world to the ground. No hesitation. But Max - Max had to be better than that. Better than Chloe. Better than anyone on Earth. It was an extreme double-standard she'd arrived at, she knew. But after hearing that abomination of a story she just heard, it was just way too close of a save. Thanks to Soph.

Chloe would have forced the same kind of outcome in a less gentle way if she'd been aware. But Max didn't turn to Chloe for that kind of—

Max interrupted, "But…the thing…I think maybe I realized, thanks to Hector and Soph…is I need your help, Cho. As much as I want to protect you from all the bad in the world, I can't stand up to it on my own anymore."

Max's tone, her plea.

Chloe's anger melted away. At least temporarily. Support mode.

Max went on to explain the relationship between that moment together at the mercy of Roland and the hidden links to white-hot memories of similar trauma from other timelines. That wasn't the first time she'd seen Chloe…well…Max hadn't always been on time to protect her. And…over and over across centuries…over loops spanning decades, other people had done other things to Chloe that she'd never recover from. So many times, Max had left her, the entire timeline, in a terrible state to rewind or jump backward, try to pull a different future, a different outcome, forward.

Haltingly, Max shared a few more relevant memories. Things that explained or contributed in some way to more recent events, feelings, and reactions. Including the link to those women lying in chains and the men holding Chloe in Seattle only years before. And those captives, transported in shipping containers, and Max's flashback to collars, and how it was all wrapped up together. Amplifying until it was too much.

And how that contributed to the differences between this timeline and the last wrong turn. Her divergent reactions to saving the passengers of the cargo vessel out at sea - that moment's link back to Juliet's meeting and Max explaining what drives them, and how that connected to the branch-defining decision to escape and regroup, or to attack - rippling forward into the less patient final meeting with Wallace, pushing their enemies to a course of violence instead of one of reputation and red-tape attacks…

Enough that Chloe could see how things were connected - the lines that went from one erased timeline of events to another. Invisible threads, with Max at the center, pulling them from one universe of tangled possibilities and outcomes to the next.

And confirming the cumulative effects of serial experience that Max couldn't escape.

It was so similar to the models Chloe had run herself. It wasn't that she'd predicted the specifics, but the patterns, her conclusions, were dead-on.

Max let loose a flood.

Everything she'd done was to try to protect Chloe from any part of that. To keep things shiny for her. But it became a trap. Because the person she was most desperately trying to protect from the worst things that happened to them was the only person who could help her heal and move on. She needed Chloe's help to forgive herself from the extreme actions and events she'd had to go through, traversing between tragedy and shiny. She needed Chloe's help to forgive herself for leaving Chloe again and again and again. That trap extended to her feelings for OtherChloe, wrapped up in alternate timelines, alternate people, sometimes shared memories, unknown futures, and Chloe's own ongoing needs for reassurance from Max.

Max poured out her tangled heart, moving beyond the simple horrors of the timeline, explaining how the old events of those missing sections became her foundation, her motive to become more involved in the fate of their world, to never feel contentment with where she was. To always push herself beyond her capabilities. It wasn't just necessity through repetition, but awareness of her weakness afterward that drove her.

All this time, Chloe thought she and OtherChloe were the ones pushing Max, but that was just another thing Max let her believe.

It was all context for how they got to where they were.

And Stirling bullshit aside, Chloe could relate to a lot of it - she was always pushing herself for both their sake as well. As had OtherChloe, well beyond the point of Max's departure.

But the pattern was clear - each of them was pushing themselves alone. Dealing alone. Not totally, but on some very important issues. Chloe was better about roping in Max when she was uncertain about something, or everything, but she was also correct in her earlier assessment - that Max held back at least partially in reaction to Chloe's openness.

Which didn't feel great.

Slowing to normal speed, to Max speaking mid-sentence, "…and when we were back on Steve, and you started in on how you don't feel like you measure up, and…and I just couldn't bring myself to bring all of this up with you…I mean, missing otherChloe is also a weird, guilty theme in all of this, and I…I don't know. I didn't have anywhere to go with it. It all reinforced the obvious right answer. What you've said, what Sophie said, and what we all instinctively know - be good. But sometimes, when you're pushed and pushed and pushed, and there's no one else, and it's just so fucking hard to keep everything straight and all of this inside and not deal with it…and…that's been my mistake."

Chloe watched as a hill of broken ice disappeared under the bridge, reappeared on the ocean side. "Max - can we stop trying to do this without each other? Please? By ourselves, we're strong. No doubt. I wish I were half as strong as you. But together, we could be stronger and…maybe even, like, happier, I think? I wanna cheer for you when you struggle. And I need to know when you're struggling before I can do that. And I'd push myself harder, smarter, knowing you were doing the same for me."

It was such a simple request.

Max deflated. "I agree. In principal. But it can be so ugly sometimes, Chlo. It's why…but…you're right. I can't…I can't do it like this anymore. So I'm sorry for the things you'll learn, I'm sorry for everything I can't protect you from. I've been trying to find a way. A time. But this has been the norm for me, for us, for literally centuries. I'm sorry. I failed. I can't give you a shiny-happy universe. I've tried so hard, but I'm falling apart, keeping so much of us from you. And with so many secrets, I couldn't begin to explain one thing without spilling about another, and that was the cycle. I'm sorry for everything. As hard as I've tried to keep it together, it just spirals out of control."

"I can listen," was all Chloe added.

So, Max continued, offering what felt more like a collection of disconnected events, confessions, out of any coherent sequence. Off script, now. She wasn't always explicit about what happened in forgotten timelines versus what happened behind the scenes in shared final ones - which underlined a giant point for Chloe - they were all the same for Max.

There wasn't ever a 'final timeline' for her. They were all equally real. Equally etched in her heart and mind. Some of them with hundreds of repeats. Only changing things for others.

Chloe's feelings about her own cube-memories from a simple half-year of looping through the other branch were minuscule in comparison. Understanding, confirming the depth of it broke Chloe's heart further. To carry so much forward, forever? Jesus.

And it made her all the more angry at Max for her little side-gig torturing Roland like a bug, over and over. Willingly building layer upon layer of new memories, all of murdering a man.

At the least, the theme shed new light on FutureMax's sometimes-efforts to perhaps curate her own present and presence in the timeline, choosing to jump back, leave notes, or maybe erase certain things out of her sight altogether. Which seemed both a mercy and a contradiction to the whole idea of transparency.

It was all too much to have any conclusions that weren't judgements. And not enough time to try to offer absolution, if Chloe was even the right person to do that. She couldn't easily accept or agree with some of what Max had said she'd done, but again, after everything she'd changed, seen, and been through…it was beyond any human reasoning.

Chloe had her knee-jerk reaction, her gut morality, but fuck.

But the conversation, this beginning, wasn't about how it made Chloe feel.

There'd be time. Time for Chloe to play back, to absorb. But each tearful retelling, each 'confession,' each heart-rending timeline was a piece of the puzzle that made up Max. Pieces Chloe hadn't even realized were missing, or if she had, she'd misjudged the scale by orders of magnitude.

---

Max felt, in the end, their talk was a little anticlimactic. For all her worries. After all her mental prep, psyching herself up, missed opportunities, Chloe seemed to take it all in stride somehow. Quiet, perhaps. Chloe wasn't simple to read, but she kept herself open to Max.

Max had always wanted to be the same way for Chloe. Whole problem was, that's where she fell short. And had for a very long time.

"Chlo, how are you doing? Say something? Anything? Are you…okay with all this, with me…?"

They were halfway across the span of the bridge when Chloe stopped.

She leaned her butt against the ocean-side guardrail, facing the bay, the glacier, and the northern lights beyond - which were changing colors and brightening by the second.

Max came to a stop in front of Chloe. She turned toward the sea, her face lit by the moon at Chloe's back.

Metaphors weren't lost.

Chloe didn't say a word. Instead, she reached with a lazy, floppy arm, pulled Max by her shoulder into a full-force tractor-beam hug. As their bodies collided with a thump, Chloe wrapped both arms tightly around Max, chins over shoulders. Max was completely off-balance, but Chloe supported her as she fell, leaned in.

Relaxed, comfortable, home.

But Chloe didn't show any signs of letting go.

Before Max could say anything, Chloe whispered, voice breaking, "It all must have been so hard."

Max felt her chest tighten. She squeezed Chloe, singling the end of the hug. "Chlo…"

She tried to pull away, but Chloe remained clamped to her like an octopus.

"Chlo?"

Shaking her head, Chloe added, "You've done so much."

Max tried again to disengage, back away. "Chloe, I'm okay. You don't—"

Chloe guided her hand up the length of Max's neck, fingers through her hair, palm cradling the back of her head. Shutting her up, pulling her closer. Unmoving. Unyielding.

Giving Max little room to do anything but accept Chloe's acceptance.

Chloe breathed into her ear, "You took on the world for us. And I can finally see how much it hurt you."

That felt like…like Chloe understood. Really understood.

It was all Max wanted.

But it wasn't all she needed.

Chloe understood better than Max.

Again, Max tried to pull away, but Chloe wasn't having it. It was like Chloe gave everything she had, poured all of her feelings into this one embrace, forcing Max to be comforted.

And then, unexpected, unbidden, tears spontaneously burst from Max's eyes. The moon went blurry. Her cheeks froze. She shuddered in Chloe's arms. Max stopped fighting and shrank into her best friend, her love, her goddamn superhero spaceship pirate captain robot jailbird.

Chloe. Her Chloe. Through every worry and doubt she must have had, past all the anger she must have felt, beyond every feeling of disappointment Chloe must have rightfully carried, this was her response to Max.

Asking nothing.

Giving everything.

A gift of a pure moment.

Of moonlight and auroras and a freezing bridge over one of her favorite beaches on Earth - and Chloe, warm and whole and full of love and compassion for Max, even after everything she'd done.

All those pieces of light Max carved from herself, every time she'd turned to a darker shade of humanity to survive, to protect Chloe…and every night since, haunted, however distantly, by the dead - the ghosts of a million timelines...the faces of people she couldn't save, and of human beings whose lives she'd ended herself…those strands, those knots of darkness, collided with Chloe of the here and now. Whole and stupid and brilliant and hers. Chloe, her only reason, driving everything she'd ever done.

Admitting her sins, fearing the worst. Only to find in the end, Chloe had tried to understand her. Setting aside everything else she must feel, Chloe had joined her in tears, voluntarily sharing some small measure of the pain Max had spent lifetimes enduring, suffering in lonely silence.

Max felt a warmth spread across her body, heart, and soul as she gratefully received the healing, the undying love, transmitted through Chloe's embrace.

---

Chloe held Max for as long as Max let her. Might have been ten minutes or an hour.

When they finally, reluctantly, let go, Max backed away but took hold of Chloe's hand. Together, they crossed to the other side of the bridge.

Once back on the beach, a few seals ar-ar'd at the passing duo.

Through her quiet contemplation, Chloe haltingly confided, "Don't take this the wrong way, because I'm…I can't even begin to imagine…I love you. That's…that's first. Number one. Always and forever, I love you. I can't describe how amazing, and thoughtful, and batshit crazy you've been, and I've always appreciated everything you've tried to do for me. And all that shit's next-level insane. No joke. It's unfair how much you've had to physically do and emotionally carry. I don't know how it is you're not a complete blubbering mess at all times. I'm grateful you trusted me enough to open up tonight. Please, don't ever stop. I don't think I'm okay, though. I'll be honest? I'm heartbroken at the long path you've walked. I wish I could be the one protecting you. I'm terrified of how things went with Roland - that you went so far - that that part of you exists. I'm still…absorbing. I don't…have any answers right now?"

Max put her free hand in her pocket. "I'm not asking for any, Cho. Not yet? I just. I wanted a reset between us. I want and need to be completely open with you. And I need you to listen, to yell at me, to give me all the hugs, the unsolicited advice, and the ass-kicking I need - all of it. Just be you. But please, help me? Help me untangle this giant mess I've made? Of everything?"

"Course." Chloe let go of her hand, put her arm around Max's waist, pulling them together as one. "I'm not gonna say I predicted any of this cause that's not true. I think…OtherChloe and I both…suspected that you've done way more to protect us than we were ever aware of. In general. That lines up." Chloe went on to explain how she'd run her own models, forking simulations, since Friday night in Moscow. Trying to fill the gaps in the timeline, and her knowledge, in her own way. Dates, changes, missing time. Backward and forward, grappling not only with Max but with their devolving situation with the powers that be in parallel. So it wasn't entirely unexpected that something shaped like that was out there in the background.

"Please understand - this is only scratching the surface, Chlo. I'm only giving you, like, an overview right now."

"I gathered as much. And we're not done talking. I'm here for you. Only you. I'll listen, I'll give you cuddles, I'll give you advice, or talk or argue things out til 4 in the morning, or whatever you need, whenever you need it. I'll always be yours, Max. But I'm also gonna speak my mind. I'll always tell the truth as I see it, and I will absofuckinglutely kick your ass to Mars without mercy if you ever get that far away from me again!"

Max quickly nodded. "That's what I want."

"Okay. You better mean that." Chloe put on a stern face. She meant it.

"I do, Chlo."

Leaving Chloe with the most disturbing aspect.

"So - Max. Roland Stirling. Dude. We're gonna have to deep-dive on that one at some point, cause-"

"I know. I know."

"Okay. So we're clear."

"Yep. Crystal. On everything." Max again nodded vigorously.

Chloe meant it. They weren't done. Not by a long shot. But Max was sincere, so she let it go for now.

They continued walking, maneuvering their way between ice and sea and seals.

They'd doubtless revisit a lot over the coming weeks, months, maybe even years. Max was still only giving her a highlight reel. Tonight was a signal, a change of direction, and a new beginning.

Leaving Chloe with a lot to process.

And a lot that still disturbed her.

She left a silent thought behind them, however. Thank you for everything you've done for our girl, Soph. I'll take it from here. Leave it to me.

---

James Andersen balanced on the bamboo ladder, inserted the other end of the eSATA cable into a connection port on the monolith that anchored the center of the temple's aery. A solid granite finger stood nearly ten feet tall and half as wide. Its surface sprayed with centimeter-high symbols, broken only by those incomprehensible openings of various shapes and sizes.

A few shapes among the many sheltered familiar connection points for modern technology. Others appeared more relevant for bygone decades, while most of those remaining were wholly unfamiliar to him. From context, he guessed these were to accommodate regional or non-standard devices that perhaps only briefly existed. Or, if he believed the teasing of his mentor, some yet to exist. Or perhaps more mysteriously, some which had never come to pass. Always followed by that same infuriating wink.

His daily routine consisted of waking with the others before the light. Strong black tea, a group breakfast of meats, vegetables, and rice, followed by meditations. Then, quiet hours dedicated to keeping the temple compound and grounds clean.

Every few days, in rotation, he'd join his assigned mentor and others to do the strangest possible thing - transcribing the letters carried up the mountain. Some were brought by pilgrims such as himself at the request of villagers below. Others found their way tied to birds. Still others were carried by his newfound peers as part of weekly descents with refuse and back up with fresh supplies.

They used old solar-connected Chinese laptops for the transcriptions. The languages and symbols written were as varied as the piles of manually etched external keyboards he had to hunt through before connecting to peck out the appropriate sequences. It was clear that the origins of the letters went far beyond the local area farmers and villagers. James was given fewer to recopy than the others, who were much quicker at their tasks. A fact that annoyed him for reasons he wouldn't bother to explain to himself.

On non-rotation days, while tending to his section of the grounds, he'd occasionally see other groups performing similar tasks, only with physical newspapers, magazines, and books of every language and description.

An act of service to faith, he assumed, or a mechanical rote intended to clear the mind of meaning or self.

It wasn't clear to him what madness propelled these specific practices or what analog the preceding generations of monks could have undertaken in the days before technology. Perhaps they read aloud to the rock? Sharing rumors and local gossip and stories? No one living had an answer.

Only once did he spy a lone monk feed old analog VHS tapes into a player, temporarily connected to RCA plugs at the rear base of the monolith. As with other 'inputs,' there was no screen, no interactivity, just the ritual of blind connection. As if they were dumping everything 'worldly' into the very planet itself to cleanse themselves of it.

He remained an outsider. A skeptical observer. And the cargo-cult nature of carving receptacles, of embedding ports into the surface of a rock, of praying data into the tallest extrusion of the mountain the temple was built upon, seemed as reasonable and scrutable as the practices of any other modern religion to him.

The days were long. The company quiet. But the ongoing rituals, the sameness of the practices, provided at least a potential antidote to his old life. That the monks didn't share their secrets with him, a new arrival, wasn't surprising. He would be in the 'repeat this movement' wax-on / wax-off stage for years to come. The process was always the actual training in movies and stories, so he gave himself over to it. Prepared to take the long way through his montage.

In that moment to moment, the familiar sweep of a straw broom, his meditations in the quiet of the mountaintop, he occasionally reclaimed that sense of 'existing without noticing himself.'

All trappings and packaging and rituals aside, if he could but grow that sense, retrieve the silence she'd shown him, he'd have found that which he'd come here seeking.