Chapter Text
Maxine Caulfield woke with a start, the dream of storms, so vivid a few seconds ago now started to fade. Her heart took a little longer to return to its normal rate as she stared out the window of the maglev train taking her to the founders day festivities. Kirsten and Fernandez were too interested in each other to have noticed her minor disquiet, not that she could blame them. After three years of dancing around the issue they had finally hooked up, so they were making up for lost time.
Max decided to stare out the window instead of watching the mildly nauseating display in front of her. The pre Advent houses, with their bolted on Advent technology, had given way to the newer buildings of New Seattle but despite the gleaming towers in the distance and Advents promises the train still passed through areas that could only be described as slums. Max quietly wondered if was another holdover from ‘the old days’, as The Speaker described them, as the violent ways that necessitated the huge peacekeeping presence on the streets. The number of troops and hardware seemed like overkill for the unveiling of a statue commemorating unification day even given the recent attack on the Gene Therapy Clinic in Paris.
Her thoughts were dragged back to the present by the announcement that their stop was coming up, so the three grabbed their stuff and shuffled their way to the doors, tapping this ID cards off as they left. Once out on the platform, they braced themselves cold spring air and moved down to the street passing a holographic advertisement for Advent Burger which switched to a peacekeeper message asking for information on wanted terrorists, showing mug shots and security footage of the people in question. As one popped up Fernandez grimaced, “By the Elders, what a horrendous pornstache.”
“Yeah it’s a crime against humanity,” Kirsten added. despite never having watched porn, Max giggled a bit, as the tv was full of comedies mocking the past. Whether it was corrupt politicians, shortsighted corporations, or even just the terrible fashions (who ever thought mullets were a good idea deserved ‘reeducation’), all were fair game for media to show how much better humanity was under Advent. Given that the amount of pre-Advent media was limited, and probably very tightly controlled on the net, she wondered how much was true.
Once down on the street, Max walked ahead of the couple, giving the impression she wanted to find a good spot to watch the unveiling, but really to get away from the incessant sweet nothings. She didn’t hold it against them, they were young and in love, but she also really didn’t want to watch it. As she made good time to the park, she grabbed a taco and started walking around looking for a good spot, not that the place was crowded with only a few people milling around the stage. As she wandered over she noticed something flutter around the flowers by the water feature.
Approaching slowly she saw it, a brilliant blue butterfly now resting on one of the regimented rows of flowers. Instinctively she reached down and brought up her camera, framing the butterfly against both the regimented rows of flowers and the water feature which was reflecting the city lights. After slowly breathing out she held her breath a moment and squeezed the button capturing the moment forevermore but as soon as she did the insect fluttered back into the air away from her.
At first, Max thought it was her shot that frightened off the butterfly, but as she zoned back into the world he heard her friends calling her from the park’s entrance. As she turned and waved to them she noticed a commotion was going on behind them as well, though she could quite see what. She found out as her friends sprang apart to let four oddly dressed people barrel through where they were. The two men were dressed in what appeared to be pre Advent military dress, tan camouflage with some kind of body armour, while the first woman wore body armour over her torso, she only had on some tiny shorts that accentuated her long legs. The final woman gave no impression of any form of military dress or decorum, wearing a sports bra under a leather bikers vest, crudely cut down trousers, and topped it off with a full sleeve tattoo on her right arm as well as a bright blue Mohawk. She looked like a ‘disruptive element’ even before you took into account the large gun she was carrying. That they were all carrying.
If this didn’t concern Max enough, the shouts in the Advent language would have. While no one actually knew what they were saying, the peacekeepers meaning was always clear. And in this case, they were commanding the runners to stop. They did not, instead, they began to split up, allowing Max to see that Kirsten and Fernandez holding hands as they watched the quartet run away from them. That was how she wanted to remember them, happy and together, not the broken mess on the floor they were a heartbeat later after the peacekeepers had opened fire.
She huddled behind a tree planter and used her phone as a periscope to watch for danger while keeping out of it. She glanced across the path and saw one of the dissidents, a slightly overweight Hispanic guy, reach for his belt and then pull his arm back to throw what she guessed was a grenade. She found out she was correct as it fell from his hand after his body was punctured by half a dozen blasts from the Peacekeepers’ rifles then exploded.
She must have lost consciousness after that because she didn’t remember how she got on the floor half a metre away. She scrambled as best she could into cover again and using her now cracked phone she kept an eye one the battle. The two sides traded fire with seemingly little effect until another squad of three Peacekeepers hit the insurgents flank.
The long-legged brunette tried to reposition, vaulting over a bench with her legs almost horizontal which reminder Max of the cheerleaders of old. After making it to the other side she dashed towards the cover of a piece of modern sculpture but was cut down by a hail of red fire from the Advent forces. What made it worse for Max was hearing her final words from the small two-way radio that had come off the Hispanic guy and landed next to her.
The punk and pornstache managed to take down one of the troopers before the red trooper got threw a grenade of his own, which stripped pornstache of his cover and the rest of the peacekeepers fired, sealing his fate. The punk let out a cry filled with rage and loss before going full auto, spraying a tight cone of fire at the Advent forces, downing a few of them and winging the rest. However, it was not enough, as some of the remaining troops kept up suppressing fire while the rest flanked her, taking her down but not out. The red one strode out to the wounded terrorist and after saying something Max didn’t catch shot the punk in the face.
It was only then that Max was noticed. Guns were pointed in her direction and orders barked. The two main ones were to put her hands up and emerge from her hiding place. Max instantly complied, hands shooting into the air as she unsteady got to her feet. Most of the peacekeepers relaxed but kept their guns on her, but Big Red spotted her phone and demanded she stop recording. Max stopped, puzzled, and looked up to see she had accidentally hit record and filmed the entire thing. The order was repeated, and Max lowered her hands to comply but was immediately ordered to raise her hands again.
Max froze, unsure which order took priority, and tried to speak but the contrary orders were barked with the unspoken ‘or else’ loud and clear. She looked at them hopelessly, trying to tell them using only facial expressions that she didn’t know what to do. Seconds passed like aeons as the guns pointed at her didn’t waver, staying locked on to her as she stayed as still as she could. Suddenly the tense stillness of the scene was disturbed by a jaunty tune emanated from her phone. This must have made one of the troops squeeze their trigger, as Max saw one of the guns glow with an ominous red light before the first of the bolts began its deadly journey towards her.
Max had no idea why she dropped her hand, to tell the trooper to stop, to ward off the blow, but as she did it was covered in a purplish glow and reality twisted. The bolt hung in the air and then reversed back into the gun, the troopers made unnatural jerky motions, lowering their guns then drifting off backwards. The battle restarted in reverse, and all the time the rewind speed up and all the while the ambient light got brighter until in a blinding flash she was back on the floor after the explosion.
A little dazed and hugely confused she stuck her head up to see the battle replaying itself. The unfruitful trade of fire, then the Advent reinforcements, Cheerleader trying to move and getting cut down. Her final words, head over the radio snapped Max out of her passive stupor, reaching out again, as she had done before she had been shot at, she felt the ‘twist’ happened again but a bit more controlled this time. She saw the Cheerleader fall up and the bolts fly out of her as she raced back to her starting location.
Swearing not to let that happen again, she grabbed the radio and spoke into it. “Cheerleader, there are three Advent soldiers coming in on your left.”
Max saw the insurgent she dubbed cheerleader, cock her head puzzled by the message or the stranger giving her information. It, however, had the desired effect, as she noticed them quicker than she had before and began her jump over the bench earlier. Unfortunately, history repeated itself and as soon as she was over she was stitched with fire. Rewinding again until just after she’d cleared the bench she shouted into the radio “Get down, NOW!”
The long-legged brunette dropped like she’d been shot, but the red bolts passed over her head leaving her unscathed. Max though dull thump in her head was worth it. Turning her attention to the whole battle now she noticed Big Red now a little more cautious, but still readying a grenade. The Punk shot at him, but too high and too the right, so after a quick reversal she said, “Punk, down and to the left.”
She obviously listened as her shots slammed right into his faceplate and he fell without a noise. Pornstache got winged by a stray shot after Cheerleader evened the numbers, but after she went back to warn him, using her nickname for him, the other two rebels burst out laughing. Things continued to go well for the three and Max only had to redo a lucky shot from the last Advent trooper which punched through Punk's skull.
Once the last of the Advent Forces fell the pounding in Max’s head had spilt out her nose in the form of a small but steady trickle of blood. The motley crew of ‘terrorists’ moved over to her and the remains of their brother in arms carefully, keeping to cover and watching for more Advent to come charging into the park. Pornstache was in the lead and came right up to her, his motions purposefully but obviously designed to make it look like he was in charge. “I don’t know who you are, missy, but I don’t appreciate you giving commands to my men.”
“Women.” Cheerleader said, kneeling beside the remains of her comrades. This checked Pornstache, his oncoming tirade replaced by a confused grunt. Cheerleader looked up and clarified, “we’re women, not men, in case you hadn’t noticed these.”
The slight colouring of his cheeks as she cupped her boobs indicated that he noticed, even if he turned away from the demonstration. She continued, “ Why are you busting her chops anyway? Things would have gone sideways without her, so chill.”
Max was glad that Cheerleader was on her side, and that no one mentioned her flush at the show, but still felt like her head was three sizes too small. The punk, who had been fiddling at the base of the statue, came on over and announced, “Charges are set, we’ve got… Max?”
Max managed to focus on the Punk long enough for a memory to flicker and said, “Chloe?” before the encroaching darkness claimed her. Not even the deafening sound of the explosion roused her.