Chapter Text
Major David Madsen took the time to calm his breathing as he rode the Central Access elevator down. He tried not to think about the explosives lining the shaft roughly every thirty meters, as well as those on top of and below the car, designed to instantly shear through the cables.
The facility - codenamed Project Tugboat - was mostly above ground. Offices for the personnel lined the outer perimeter of the squat, ugly complex. Deeper in were numerous cells, separated by thick concrete walls, and labs dedicated to the study of the cell’s prisoners. None of them officially existed to the outside world anymore; God willing, none of them would ever see it again, either.
The part of the facility below ground was a different beast altogether. There were no offices or labs, and the “cells” were comfortable, well-appointed suites. There were seven, each at the end of a long, narrow corridor running from the Central Access room - essentially a conference room. Security teams for each of the inhabitants were specially trained and always on stand-by, and the halls were all laced with explosives as well.
Still, David knew every effort was made to keep the inhabitants happy and complacent.
After a thirty minute ride down, nearly three miles below the surface, David’s radio crackled just as the doors slid open and disclosed Central Access, with its dark red carpet, rich oak table and squashy office chairs, and projector with a screen against the wall. A young girl sat in one of the chairs.
David slowly unclipped his radio from his belt, never taking his eyes off the girl.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Major Madsen, be advised, M is in Central.”
David frowned. “Yes, I can see that. Stand by, over.”
“Standing by.”
David studied the girl, comparing her with what he knew from her file. She wore a white hoodie with a red deer logo and skinny jeans. She had unruly brown hair, grown longer than she liked without convenient access to a stylist. Her arms were folded over her chest and she had one leg crossed over the other, foot and knee bouncing. According to the file held under his arm, her name was Maxine Caulfield, and she preferred Max.
She looked to David like any other girl not quite out of the awkwardness of adolescence.
She could, according to the file, tear down the world, with or without meaning to. It should have been impossible for her to leave her suite and be here waiting for him. She’d caught him flat-footed.
He was suddenly glad he’d prepared by shaving off his mustache yesterday. Max didn’t like it.
“Hey, David,” Max said. “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but it’s pretty mediocre.” She nodded at the file he gripped, held in front of him like a shield. “What’s that?”
Before he could answer, Max was in front of him and had tugged the file out of his hands. He blinked, and she was on the other side of the room, pacing back and forth on the far side of the table while reading through her own file.
“It’s everything we know about you,” David said. He tried for an authoritative tone, but landed somewhere near petulant, he thought. Still, best to be honest. Max clearly had the upper hand. “And your… abilities.”
Max looked back up at him and stopped pacing. Her blue eyes pierced through him. “Hm,” she said. “So that’s what you’re here for. My… ‘abilities’.” She made air quotes around the last word, the file somehow already on the table.
“If you’ve read that, you know I don’t really have control over them anymore. Not completely. Hence the flickering around.”
“Yes,” David said. “We wanted to ask about that. You seem in control - or at least aware of it and able to take advantage.”
Max shrugged. “It’s like holding back a sneeze. You can do it for a while, try to blow it somewhere safe, but it has to come out some way or another.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But you don’t really care about that. What are you here to ask me for?”
“I assure you, we -”
“I’m sure the eggheads want to know, but it’s not why you’re here. So let’s skip the bullshit. What. Do. You. Want?” Each word was punctuated by a ‘flicker’ as Maxine grew closer without ever seeming to move. At the last word, she was in his face and glaring him down; the next moment, she was seated again, leaning back in the chair.
David carefully showed no reaction, although his heartrate had jumped in the last few seconds. Not even his hands trembled as he drew the USB storage stick out of his breast pocket and walked over to the projector and plugged it in. The machine hummed to life and lit up the screen opposite. He and Max both turned to see the words:
Operation: Arcadia B.A.E.s
Max laughed, and even David had to grin a little. The planners for this one had been having a little fun, he guessed. He pressed a button, and the projector went to the next image, an image of Arcadia Bay in Oregon. It was a peaceful looking small town. The most notable things about it were the prestigious Blackwell Academy, the real estate development just outside of town, and a diner that made truly excellent waffles.
“B.A.E. stands for Broken Altered Events. A B.A.E. - you know, I’m just going to say bae - refers to any non-standard deviation from the primary timeline - the timeline that would have resulted without your ability to manipulate time,” David said.
He pressed the projector button, and the image changed from a town nestled up to the water, to a devastated shoreline, the inland pockmarked with rubble and debris from destroyed buildings and torn up roads. Several whale carcasses had been thrown up from the sea and lay decomposing. The only structure still even partially intact was the lighthouse, on the cliffside overlooking the bay.
“These baes result in the inevitable destruction and death of nearly all inhabitants of Arcadia Bay on October eleventh, two thousand thirteen.”
“Through analyzing your accounts, and our own observations and research, we’ve been able to determine a cause.”
“I know,” Max said, interrupting him. “I’ve known since the last time I watched Chloe die in the bathroom. So why the fuck are we going over this again?!” Her voice had gradually grown louder, until Max was shouting at him. She stood up ramrod straight, hands clenched at her sides and her hair shadowing her eyes.
Despite her small size, David took a step back.
Max breathed out. Energy still crackled in the air around her, but her posture relaxed. “Is it just to torture me?” She asked. “To see if I still feel guilty? For choosing Chloe over the Bay? Or for going back, after she begged me to, and saving it? Or just because, if I thought she’d take me, I’d still go back and choose her again in an instant?”
“Max,” David said, in his most calm voice. It wasn’t a great effort. “No one here wants to judge you.”
“Then what the fuck do you want? Tell me, or let me go back to my room.”
“We want to try and fix it.”
Max looked taken aback for the first time in their meeting. She slowly sat back down, and David felt safe enough to approach again and go to the next image of a small ship.
“Project Tugboat is dedicated to-”
“Project Tugboat?”
David sighed. “Yes. It’s named after the ships designed to move much larger ships into harbor. That’s our goal here: to use our relatively small resources to correct things like the storm. We ‘tug’ them in the right direction.”
Max thought about that. She smiled. “So you could say, you’re dedicated to tug jobs.”
David closed his eyes and counted to four. “That is not how I would phrase it.”
“Just giving tug jobs all over town, David.”
“All right,” he said. “Can we move on?”
Max nodded graciously.
David pointed to the next image as it appeared. Multi-colored lines intersected over the aerial map of Arcadia Bay before the storm, creating what looked like a child’s scribblings. Some were long and circuitous, while most were short and relatively simple.
“This is an overlay of all the ‘rewinds’ we’ve been able to verify made by you, Max Caulfield. You are the blue line. The others are the Maxes you overwrote or replaced, pushed “out” of their prior bodies and into the sleeping version of you in Mark Jefferson’s photography class at Blackwell Academy on October seventh.
“Each version goes on to witness a death at Blackwell, though not always the same one; regardless, this causes them to gain their ability to manipulate time. Why, we’re not sure. Inevitably, however, they use it. Some for personal gain, others with the best of intentions.
“And then the storm. Always October eleventh.”
Max nodded. “Because of all the time fuckery.”
“That’s what we thought,” David said, going to the next slide. “Until we noticed several parallel timelines in which the storm also occurred, despite minimal or no ‘rewinds’. We ultimately determined your powers are not the cause.”
“Then… what?” Max’s face was twisted in a mix of fear and hope, her brows drawn down and her mouth trembling.
David felt for her. She’d blamed herself for so long…
Don’t empathize, he sternly reminded himself. Feeling anything for the things down here is a quick way to a fate worse than death.
“Hence the acronym,” David said. The screen displayed the operation name again. “Or so I imagine. Some operator got clever. The cause is, in fact, not due to saving a life through time travel. The storm is caused by the sheer amount of repressed or unrequited feelings and lust from each of the Blackwell Academy girls for you, Max Caulfield.”
The room was totally silent for several long moments.
“I’m sorry, what?” Max said.
“I know it sounds bizarre,” David said. He held up his hands placatingly. “But each timeline still affects the others. And each Max appears to have her own… preferences. Or circumstances that dictate who becomes attracted to her.” He pressed the button and a list of names accompanied by photos from the Blackwell yearbook appeared.
“Chloe Price, Kate Marsh, Victoria Chase… all the others, each of these girls has feelings for Max Caulfield in one or more timelines. And she - you - typically remain oblivious.”
“I had no idea… don’t get smart, Dave,” Max said, when David opened his mouth.
He took a moment to collect himself and swallow the snarky comment. “By removing or replacing their affection for you, we believe the storm can be prevented. That’s what we’re offering. The chance to go back, and convince enough of these women to not lust after you that both Arcadia Bay and the catalytic corpse can survive.”
Max shot him a dark look at the last comment, but she seemed to think it over. Finally, she asked, “But if I replace another Max each time, won’t they go back to cause more problems?”
“They will go back, but if you are successful then the effects should spill over to the other timelines, as they do here. The result should be, after you’ve convinced them in one timeline, the girl will no longer be attracted to you in any other.”
“How, though? If I go back by photo, I can’t stay long, and I can’t leave wherever I start at. I don’t think I even have enough photos for each of them.” She waved her hand at the lengthy list.
“We’ve acquired a portfolio, working with the various Maxes, for each girl. And by using our technology, we believe we can send you back semi-permanently, for as long as is needed for each girl.
“There will be issues,” David went on, raising a fist and counting off on his fingers as he named them. “The first and foremost is the number of girls. These listed will all start off attracted to you, and it’s possible that through interference you may attract others. Try to limit your involvement in their lives. Second is, it can’t be a simple breakup. You’re not actually dating, but enough broken hearts brings us straight back to the storm.
“And finally, Mark Jefferson.”
“The less said, the better,” Max muttered.
“Yes.” David nodded. “But he’s a threat in every timeline. Fail to deal with him, and you’ll be making this much harder on yourself.”
“What about you? Can’t you help me out and give him an old-fashioned tug job straight to hell?"
“Please stop calling it that.”
Max only grinned.
“We can supply the means and debriefs to analyze your approach, and try again if anything goes wrong. But the project only exists here. You’re on your own once you go back.”
David watched Max think it over. All of the problems, the hangups, hopefully the ethics too. She gradually straightened from a hunched over posture with her chin in one hand to standing, resolve and determination evident in how she held herself.
“So will you do it?” David asked.
“Hella. Yes.”