Everytime Max had come close to discovering the horrific truth Jake had implanted Max with a set of false memories to keep him busy and killed him at the end of the loop if he had discovered the truth. On one such loop Max had escaped the authorities by hiding inside a time vortex like presently where he couldn't be located as the chrono vortex exists outside conventional spacetime and ever since then he had been trying to contact his younger self. The older Max also reveals that The Great War is a hoax created by Jake to hinder others from ever discovering his past life. Since he couldn't risk himself meeting his younger self in person as it would result in disastrous consequences nor could he participate in the events directly, he had been leaving clues at the crime scenes such as the musical notes, the lyrics of the song and finally the name of the song to make his younger-self-aware of the entire lofty conspiracy. The older Max also divulges that it was him who had visited Abner to guide him and solve the mystery of Lucile's death, mixing the nanites in his tea cup and save his younger self at the church from the hands of the mercenaries. Since the gun is DNA activated, he had no problem using it and intentionally slaughtered the mercenaries so as to keep Max isolated and contact him surreptitiously. Since Max had been reliving the same day over and over, he had been suffering from the multiple déjà vu and his fond memories shared with Gwendoline came flooding back to him in bits and pieces in his fever dreams. The older Max proposes that in order to terminate the time loop he has two difficult choices to make- first he must travel back in time and prevent his younger self from ever meeting Gwendoline in the first place so that none of the past events ever take place or alternatively kill Gwendoline himself as her existence is the nexus point of the entire events in all timelines. Faced with such an impossible task Max retorts to his older self that in his entire life Gwendoline was the one true person who brought him peace so he cannot make the first choice which leads him to opt for the second choice but he can't bear to do it himself. Max instructs his older self to do it for him but not before meeting Gwendoline for one last time before losing her forever.