When the timeless darkness abated and the pain crept in, Marty first became aware that he was lying on something soft. His head ached wickedly, especially at the back, despite the soft pillow that was under it. Marty shifted uncomfortably, groaning softly, feeling for the first time the light blanket that was covering him. Someone moved in the room, and a cool hand touched his cheek.
"Mom?" Marty murmured, his mouth dry. "Mom, is that you?"
"Shhhh, Marty," a soft, feminine voice answered. "You've been asleep for nearly five hours now."
The voice sounded a bit strange, unlike his mother, but it was hard to think through the pain in his head. That must by why she sounds different, Marty thought. "I had a nightmare," he groaned instead. "I dreamed I was trapped in the future, left behind. It was terrible...."
"Well, you're safe and sound now, back in the twenty-first century."
Marty opened his eyes for the first time. "Twenty-first century?" he gasped. A face bent down over him, one he did not recognize. It belonged to a young woman, perhaps in her 20's, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a slightly concerned smile on her face.
"How are you feeling, Marty?" she asked softly. "You gave your father and I quite a scare."
Everything rushed back to him. Marty gasped again when he realized he was in his future house. "Who are you?" he asked.
Concern filled the face hovering above him. "Oh, you poor dear," she murmured, feeling Marty's forehead with her hand. "You must've hit your head pretty hard." Marty brushed her hand away, sitting up. The room wavered, then straightened. He was on a couch, in what appeared to be some kind of office. Several gold compact discs hung on the wall, along with autographed color and black and white photographs. There was a guitar hanging on the wall, signed by someone in a silver ink--Marty couldn't make out the name.
A huge flat screen, hanging on the wall, took up the most space. It displayed what looked to Marty as an album cover--one for his own band. Then, suddenly, it changed to display a different cover. Marty tore his eyes away from it to see a desk piled high with papers and what looked like one of those "laptop" computers he had seen at the library. There was a window above the desk, which revealed a spectacular view of the ravine. Odd how the glass was so clear when Marty knew for a fact the other side was mirrored.
He looked back to the woman next to him. "Who are you?" he asked again.
The blond frowned. "Oh, Marty," she said softly, concerned. "I'm Lisa--your father's wife."
"My father's what?!" Marty cried, utterly shocked. "But you're so young!" Lisa sniffed softly. "I'll be 29 on my next birthday," she said, standing up. "I'm going to get your father. I think you need to see a doctor."
Marty threw back the coverlet that had been draped over him and stood quickly. His head throbbed even more painfully and the room spun briefly before rightening itself. "No!" he said sharply.
But Lisa was already leaning out of the doorway. "Marty!" she called. "Come here for a minute, please!"
"What is it, Lisa?" Marty heard himself call back--his voice a little gruffer from age, but still clearly recognizable. The sound of it seemed to lock eighteen-year-old Marty's feet to the carpet.
Lisa looked over at Marty, frowning. "Junior is acting a bit strange," she said as footsteps approached the room from down the hall. "I think perhaps he hit his head a bit too hard."
And then, suddenly, Marty McFly, age 48, was in the room. Marty stared at himself, unable not to. Old Marty was still the same height as his younger counterpart, hair streaked with grey. That was rather a relief to Marty--he'd always been a little scared about losing his hair, since his brother Dave was starting to already. Old Marty wore his hair a little longer than his younger counterpart, and a tattoo was visible on his upper arm. He wore a sleeveless black t-shirt and blue jeans.
Marty swallowed hard as he took all this in, in just a few seconds. Then he looked at himself in the face, in the eyes. He was powerless not to; it was as if there was a magnet there. Old Marty stared at him with a touch of concern through a face with additional lines on it than Marty knew he didn't have on his own face now. This older Marty didn't know he was looking at his past self. But Marty knew he was looking at his future self, and something in his brain couldn't handle that. It was not natural--it went against the laws of nature and science.
Unable to speak, unable to move, Marty finally did the only thing he could--he passed out.
By mid-afternoon, Doc Brown was ready to wring Marty's neck--if he even found the damned teenager. With Einstein's help, and several conversations with locals, Doc had managed to trace Marty's steps from the Cafe 80's, to the underground mall (and the clothes he had discarded in the men's room), to the library. There he met a librarian who recalled helping "Marty McFly's son" with looking up articles in the archives. As she showed him to the computer--which was currently out of order--Doc couldn't help feeling a bit wistful as he looked around at all the history of Hill Valley surrounding them. Would there be an answer to my future somewhere in this room? he wondered.
But there wasn't time for that now. Once the librarian told him that young Marty McFly had also requested a perusal through the phone book, Doc knew exactly what the kid's purpose was. He left the library in a haze of anger and frustration. Hasn't Marty ever heard of that rule to stay put in the same place if you're lost? Doc wondered as he scanned the street outside the library for a mode of transportation. Then again, Doc had returned to this time ten minutes after his departure. If Marty thought he wasn't coming back....
Doc stopped that train of thought immediately. Marty had snuck himself in the time machine when he knew he was not supposed to--Doc had ever right to be ticked with him.
When several minutes had passed and no taxi or bus happened by, Doc finally gave up and walked back to the town square. He returned to the DeLorean--which was untouched--then took off in the direction he remembered Eastwood Ravine was, and where Marty's future home would be. It didn't take Doc much effort to find it.
Not wanting to park before or near the house, though, Doc set the car on the ground a block away and jimmied open one of the abandon garages to hide the car in. The last thing they needed was another Biff Tannen observing them--though Doc knew if that was to occur again, the results would be quite different. He seriously doubted Biff--or any Tannen, for that matter--would have the intelligence to get through the DeLorean's locked doors, let alone the more sophisticated devices.
Rather than using the sidewalk, Doc and Einstein cut through the backyards of the homes. It wasn't like there was anyone to complain--most of the homes were abandon, and those that weren't didn't have anyone around them. Einstein's tail started to wag when they reached the McFly property--the only one with a huge fence surrounding it. Doc smiled at his pet--it looked like Marty had indeed come here. But was the trail still fresh or was it now cold?
Doc paused beside the wooden fence, thinking. If Marty had gone into his house, it was likely under the guise of his son. So Doc going up to the door would be an instant alert to those inside that something was amiss--especially if Doc was dead or missing in this time. That was out, unfortunately.
His next option, of peering through windows like he had when Jennifer had gotten trapped in the future McFly house of 2015, was quickly dashed. All the windows Doc could see were mirrored--he'd never be able to see what was inside....even if he was able to get over the ten foot fence.
Doc sighed and looked at Einstein. "Any ideas from you?"
The dog remained silent, looking up at Doc for the next course of action. "I guess not," he muttered. Doc followed the fence to the back yard, noting that it suddenly ended with the back yard. The erosion had started a claim on Marty's property. Carefully, holding onto the fence, Doc peered around the edge and examined the back of the house.
All the windows he could see were mirrored, as he suspected. From his vantage point, the house appeared dead, deserted. The property was quiet, too. It made Doc wonder if the future McFlys were even home now. Which gave him the start of an idea. If he telephoned the house and perhaps distracted those inside....
Before the thought could be finished, Doc heard a faint noise from the front of the house. He hurried around to that part of the property and saw the driveway gate slowly opening. Keeping out of sight, Doc watched as a car with tinted windows drove through the gates, then stopped just before pulling into the street. The passenger door opened and a young blond woman hopped out of the car and pulled the gate closed. Through the open car door, Doc saw an older Marty McFly behind the wheel.
"Excellent," Doc whispered.
"Do you think Junior will be all right?" the blond asked as she hurried back to the car. Doc's ears pricked up at this question.
"I think so--he probably just needs to sleep it off. He knows the number where he can reach us if that's not the case--and he knows how important this meeting is to us." If old Marty said anything more, it was cut off as the woman slammed the door. The car took off fast, driving away from Doc's point of perspective. Einstein glanced at it for a moment, his head cocked to one side, then looked back at the house and barked.
"Hmmmm," Doc muttered aloud. From the conversation he'd caught, it sounded like his Marty was in the house right now--and no one else was home. But judging from the conversation, all was not perfect--something had happened to "junior." He wondered if Marty had seen his other self and passed out from shock--that was definitely a possibility.
Eyeing the long drop down Eastwood Ravine, Doc managed to creep around the edge of the fence and into the back yard. He quickly distanced himself from the crumbling edge, heading for the house. Einstein managed to get around the edge of the fence as well and ran ahead of Doc as the scientist began a methodical examination of the windows and doors at the back of the house. Einstein started to bark before Doc had even reached the building, running ahead to round a corner of the building. Doc hurried after him, wondering what the dog had found.
Einstein was resting his paws on the wall under one of the many mirrored windows, wagging his tail. He looked over at his master and almost appeared to grin. Doc examined the window, suddenly noticing that it was open a crack. He tried to slide it open, and it moved freely. Doc looked down at his dog, smiling.
"Nice work," he said. "Wait here and let me know if anyone comes back."
Einstein barked softly, sitting down. Doc climbed through the window, entering through a bathroom. He nearly slipped on a puddle of water near the bathtub, catching his balance on the windowsill. Moving slowly, Doc paused in the doorway, peered around it, and found himself looking into an office or rec room. Empty. Doc passed through it slowly, straining his ears for any movement as he went. The house was utterly silent--like a tomb.
The inventor checked all the rooms on the first floor, found them empty, then moved to the second floor. He felt distinctly uneasy, as if he was trespassing, and worried that each time he stepped through a doorway an alarm would go off. There are probably security cameras set up, too, he realized, pausing outside a closed door near the head of the stairs. As soon as the thought occurred to him, Doc wished it hadn't. Every inch of him wanted out of the house now.
Taking a deep breath to stay calm, Doc pushed the door open before him a crack and looked inside. The room was dimly lit, the window tinted against the daylight outside. Doc scanned the contents of the room, which appeared to him as a guest room, and was about to leave when he noticed a figure on the bed. Doc cracked the door open wide enough to stick his head inside and squinted at the bed. Yes, it was definitely a human figure. And, now that he strained his ears, he could hear faint breathing in the room.
Trying not to think about the potential consequences of his actions, Doc stepped in the room and over to the bed, where he was finally able to tell that it was Marty lying there. Whether he was merely asleep or unconscious, Doc couldn't tell, and as he stared down at his friend, doubts began to creep in. What if this wasn't Marty, but his son of the future? That was always possible. The resemblance between Marty and his son at this age was extraordinary.
Doc paced once across the room before coming to a decision. He bent over the figure stretched out on the bed and gently shook him. "Marty?" he called in a low voice.
No response. If this was Marty and he had passed out from the shock of seeing his future self, Doc knew he could have quite a time of rousing him. Jennifer had been out for hours after she had passed out, following the sight of her future self. Granted, Jennifer was less experienced in matters like this than Marty, and the encounter had been an utter surprise. Still....
Doc sat down on the edge of the bed and shook him hard. "Marty. It's Doc. We need to get out of here now."
Marty's eyelids began to twitch. "Doc..." he murmured.
"Yes!" Doc lightly slapped his face. "Come on, open your eyes."
The voice was both familiar and comforting though, at first, Marty couldn't place it. But he didn't want to open his eyes--fragmented memories of seeing something bad, something he shouldn't've seen, nagged at him. What if it happened again?
"Marty, open your eyes."
Curiosity, however, proved more powerful than a vague unease. Marty opened his eyes slowly. Hovering beside him, he saw Doc Brown. At the sight of the scientist, he bolted upright, his head aching at the movement. "Doc!" he exclaimed, breaking into a wide grin. "Oh, man, I thought I'd never see you again!"
Doc frowned. "Yes," he said a bit curtly. "We can discuss this later. Right now we have to leave the property before someone who knows your future son sees you."
Marty looked around, trying to get his bearings. It looked like he was in someone's bedroom, but one with no distinguishing features to it. A guest bedroom? he wondered. Doc didn't give him much time to look around, though, grabbing his arm and pulling him off the bed. Marty swayed on his feet a moment, then followed the rapidly moving scientist down a flight of stairs, through a large room, then a bathroom window. Einstein met them outside, barking excitedly at the sight of Marty.
"Hey, Einstein! Did Doc bring you along?"
The dog barked in response, trotting to the eroded back yard. He slipped around the edge of the fence at the edge of the ravine. Doc edged around it as well but Marty, despite the blow to his head and the shock to his system, was able to climb up and over the tall fence, as he had done to enter the property.
Once they were past the high fence enclosing his property, Doc started to talk. "How in the name of Sir Isaac H. Newton did you get here, Marty?!" he asked, the question close to being shouted out. Marty swallowed hard at the sound--Doc was mad.
"I, uh, well, it depends on where you mean by 'here'," he said slowly. "If you're talking about that room I was in--I don't know. But if you're talking about this time period--"
"That's exactly what I am talking about," Doc said, a bit icily. He stopped walking down the sidewalk and turned to regard Marty with a look close to a glare. "What the hell were you thinking?! I've told you before that certain precautions were taken with both time machines to insure situations like this would cease to be!"
"I'm sorry, Doc," Marty said, the words ringing feeble even in his own ears. "I just wanted to make sure things turned out okay with me."
Doc rolled his eyes at Marty's apologies. "You are extremely fortunate that I installed closed circuit cameras in the lab. Had those not revealed your actions, I would have not returned here." Marty opened his mouth to say something, but Doc continued on, cutting him off before he had a chance to begin. "You turned up missing in 1987! Your family has been through hell the last several days--"
"Several days?" Marty repeated, shocked. "Days passed since I left?"
"It's a natural phenomenon," Doc replied, a bit sarcastically. "It was Tuesday before I finally discovered what had happened to you--with Einstein's help. You are tremendously lucky, Marty."
Marty didn't feel really lucky right then. An image of his parents, frantic with worry, suddenly filled his mind. He wondered if they had called the police, what Jennifer would be thinking, what he would have to face when he returned back home. His stomach twisted with a sick sensation of guilt and remorse.
"I'm sorry, Doc," he said softly, his voice coated with sincerity. "I didn't know any of this would happen."
Doc snorted softly. "You never think anything will happen," he said. "That's your problem. You fail to take into account potential consequences from your actions."
Marty felt worse and worse as Doc chewed him out. "Doc, listen, I'm really sorry, okay. I swear to God, this was an accident. I didn't know you'd take the DeLorean while I was in it."
"You shouldn't have been in the lab in the first place, let alone the DeLorean," Doc said quickly, shaking a finger at Marty. "And once you realized that you were in the time vehicle, you should have spoken up immediately. Getting out of the DeLorean should not have occurred under any circumstances. Great Scott, Marty, do you have any comprehension how--"
"All right!" Marty exploded, sick to death of the repetitive lecture. "I get the idea, okay! I said I was sorry--what do you want me to do, sign a contract in blood?!"
"That might be a start," Doc muttered, crossing his arms. He was silent, finally, for a full minute, staring at Marty through narrowed eyes.
"Look," Marty finally said, "can we get outta here, away from this house? I don't want my other self to see me, or vice versa," he added, remembering with a funny little lurch in his chest that disturbing encounter.
Doc gave a grudging nod, starting forward again. "The DeLorean is fairly well concealed in one of the abandon homes," he explained, heading down a long driveway. "But we're not leaving just yet."
"We--we're not?" Marty asked, shocked. "But, Doc, my family! They're already worried--"
"You're not thinking fourth dimensionally, Marty--again," Doc said with a weary sigh. "No matter how much time we spend here or in any other time period, we will return on Tuesday night."
"Tuesday night?" Marty echoed, confused. "Why not Sunday? Then my family won't have to go through all that hell."
"We cannot because it would cause a paradox," Doc explained, pulling up a squeaky garage door to reveal the DeLorean. "I only discovered of your actions upon viewing a security tape--and after Einstein discovered your wallet, pointing me in the right direction," he added. "If I prevented the event to occur, or you were to return immediately after your departure, you would not turn up missing and I would not have checked the security tapes, therefore I would not have returned here and found you."
"I see," Marty said, disappointed. His parents were going to kill him when he got home. "What are we going to tell people? That I was trapped in the future?"
"We'll work on that," Doc said, pulling out the keys to unlock the car. "But we're not going back home right now."
"Why not?" Marty asked, not seeing why they wouldn't be.
"Because there is a little...unfinished business that I need you to take care of."
As soon as Doc said those words, Marty was sure he had found out about his other illegal trip. "That's fine with me," he said, almost a little too eagerly. "I knew we'd have to do it anyway!"
Doc gave him a slightly puzzled look, then told him to get in the car. Einstein slipped to the space behind the seats first, then Doc and Marty got inside. Marty glanced for a moment at the space where the dog now lay as he closed his door, reflecting that he wouldn't be in this whole mess if he hadn't been so stupid as to hide in the DeLorean.
"I didn't know that you were aware of the situation," Doc said as he started the car. "Have you heard something I haven't? Perhaps while you were at your house?"
"Doc, I knew about it when I was in the library!" Marty said. "As soon as I started seeing those articles, I knew that it wasn't the way things were supposed to be."
Doc, pulling the car out of the garage, turned his head to regard Marty with a surprised look. "You saw articles about it?"
"Well, yeah," Marty said. "Why does that surprise you?"
"I didn't know the matter was so public," Doc mused. "So you know what caused this?"
Marty nodded. "Yeah, I know exactly when it happened. All we need to do is go back and I can fix it."
"When?"
"March 14, 1987."
The car, which had risen to the air, suddenly swerved, tossing Marty--who was not wearing his seat belt--right into the door. He winced at the impact, rubbing his sore arm as the DeLorean straightened out. "Jeez, Doc, watch it," he said, a little irritated. "You could warn me next time we're going to have turbulence!"
Doc was gripping the steering wheel hard, his knuckles white. He stared at Marty, his eyes wide. "What are you talking about?" he asked, his voice tight. "I could not have died on March 14, 1987!"
"Died?" Marty gasped, completely lost now. "No, I was talking about how I changed things so I made the record audition."
Doc's eyes grew even wider and he scowled, managing to look shocked and angry at the same time. "You did what?!" he shouted.
Marty shrank back in the seat, wishing they weren't stuck in a car flying above the ground in his conversation. "I--I took the DeLorean back to that morning and made sure my alarm went off, then I came back here and left the car to see if things changed. And you bet your ass they did--for worse," he added, a little bitter.
Doc stared at him, his eyes now narrowed. "What?" he asked again in a low, flat voice.
"Jen and I split!" Marty exclaimed, making a sweeping gesture through the air with one hand, as if to hammer the point home. "A few years ago! And now I'm married to some chick who hasn't even been born yet in '87! The Pinheads were a one hit wonder! I'm bankrupt, for Christ sakes, stuck playing state fairs and other shitty gigs! You were right, Doc--winning that audition would do more harm than good."
"I'm glad you trusted me, Marty," Doc said in a voice thick with sarcasm. Marty noticed it but did not comment, asking questions of his own now.
"Let's back up a minute, here," he said, holding up his hands. "You--you--" Marty had to swallow hard before he could utter the next words. "You died?"
Doc nodded grimly, turning his head back to the front of the car and starting it in motion again. "I believe so, yes. I accidentally came across Clara and Verne while searching for you here and listening to their conversation has raised some questions in my mind."
Marty raised his eyebrows as he stared at his friend in surprise. "You saw them? Now? Old?"
Doc smiled faintly. "Yes. They looked well. And I even saw Verne's daughter as well. My granddaughter. Emily."
"Wow," Marty said, trying to imagine the scene. "That must've been...weird."
"I was more disturbed by the turn the conversation took than anything else," Doc said. "Actually, I was pleased to find that all were still living. Jules, though--" Doc began, then stopped, frowning to himself. Marty waited for a continuation to that, but none came.
"What did you hear?" he prodded. But Doc took it entirely differently.
"Einstein had gotten into view and Verne and Clara saw him," he said. "Both grew quite pale and looked as if they'd seen a ghost. Verne mentioned the resemblance this dog had to Einstein, and Clara told him that was impossible because there were no more time machines...."
Doc recounted the brief conversation he had heard to Marty. Marty thought it wasn't much, and wondered if Doc wasn't being a little too paranoid--the "d" word hadn't been mentioned, after all--but figured the least he could do now was help his friend out.
"I believe we can do several things right now," Doc concluded. "First, we'll stop at the library and check the backissues of the Telegraph for mentions of my"--Doc gulped--"obituary. If I met a demise of any sort, I'm nearly certain there would be mention of it. If there is no mention, then we'll have to perhaps take more...furtive tactics."
"Why wouldn't there be a mention of it?" Marty asked.
Doc shrugged. "If it was a normal sort of death, I wouldn't know. But if I had a fatal accident out while traveling through time, it would surely be a family secret. In fact, if that is the case, even if there is an obituary in the paper, it might not be completely honest. Clara might have sent one in for an explanation on my disappearance."
Marty was silent for a moment as he took this all in. Something didn't seem right to him. "I don't get it, Doc," he said at length. "If you died, why didn't anyone go back to prevent it?"
Doc was silent for several minutes, so long that Marty was wondering if he hadn't heard the question. "I don't know," he finally said. "Perhaps they did try to prevent it and the mission failed. Perhaps my demise happened in such a way that undoing it would do more harm than good to the universe as a whole." He paused. "The fact that Jules was mentioned in working on his own time machine makes me wonder. Did the train and DeLorean become destroyed in this demise of mine? Is Jules planning to create a time machine and prevent my death years after it's in the past?"
All the questions and possibilities were beginning to give Marty a headache. He looked out the window at the sky surrounding the car, then promptly looked back to the interior, deciding he didn't need to see more of this future than necessary. "Let's think of this in a different way," he said. "We know whatever happened has left Clara, Jules, and Verne alive and well. So am I--alive, I mean, though I don't think my life's that well. So if it was a time travel problem, why would two time machines be taken down with it?"
Doc shrugged. "What if someone else got ahold of one of the machines. Remember Doc B?"
Marty shivered. "How could I forget him?" he muttered.
"Well, what if it's a situation like that? What if, while in pursuit of one of the stolen time machines, I was killed?"
Marty shivered again, at the last word. "Jeez, Doc, I wish you'd quit saying that. Doesn't it bug you to talk about your death?"
"It does," Doc said, a faintly hurt tone in his voice. "I'm only human, Marty--but this must be discussed and there is no nice way to speak about death."
Marty nodded. A new, disturbing, possibility occurred to him. "What if your death was from old age?" he asked. "I mean you'd be what--over 100 now?"
"A hundred and six, to be more precise," Doc said. "Give or take a year or so of potential aging in other times from traveling. But I don't think that the cause of my death would be natural causes. With a time machine at my disposal, I could easily get regular overhauls in the future."
"But at one point or another, your clock's gonna run out," Marty said, hating himself the entire time with his persistence of the matter.
"Certainly," Doc allowed. "But humans have lived without overhauls well into their one hundreds. Now if I was pushing 200, that might be more of a possibility."
Marty tried to imagine living to the age of 200 and shook his head. "Amazing," he commented. "So you don't think it's old age?"
"I doubt it," Doc said. "Illness is also nearly out of the question--unless I was trapped somewhere in the past without access to current medical technology."
Marty remembered his near-death brush with scarlet fever in 1885 and was suddenly very nervous. "That could happen," he said, serious.
Doc looked over at him for a moment, thoughtful. "Yes, it could," he said softly.
The library was reached a minute later. Doc parked in the lot, secured the car, then led Marty to the front doors. Marty was amazed when Doc led him to a slick computer terminal--one of those "laptop" things--that was on the main floor. The scientist gestured for Marty to have a seat before it, then leaned over his shoulder to point out various things on the screen.
"I'm going to have you utilize the Internet," he said, pointing to an icon of a rotating globe in the upper righthand corner of the screen. "The HVT has a web page there, and a searchable database that is much quicker and easier to access than that old clunker in the basement."
Marty's mouth dropped open at the unfamiliar terms the scientist was uttering. "The what?" he asked.
Doc was patient. "The Internet. It starts to catch on in popularity in the mid-1990's. It's a new form of media. It's a little hard to describe if you don't even have a comprehension of it, but it's not difficult to pick up." Doc pointed again to the globe icon. "Click on it."
"How?" Marty asked.
Doc pointed to a smooth, flat panel that was below the keys of the computer. "It's touch sensitive," he said. "Move the arrow over to the globe and press twice rapidly on the small panel under the first one."
Marty did as his friend said, bringing up a large window that filled the screen almost immediately. It was in full color, very well detailed, reading, "Welcome to the Hill Valley Library." Marty looked at Doc, waiting for another prompt. The inventor pointed to a box under the title that read, "Hill Valley Telegraph."
"Click on that," Doc said.
"Why don't you do it?" Marty asked. "You obviously know more about this than I do."
But Doc shook his head hard. "No. I don't want to risk a shock to my system by seeing an article written on my death. Better you break the news to me."
Marty thought, frowning as he clicked on the icon. The entire screen immediately changed. "Welcome to the Hill Valley Telegraph Homepage," it said at the top. There were a list of options under the main title. Marty went to the one that read, "Archives" without Doc telling him so. He was then greeted with a prompt to enter in a phrase or name for the computer to run a search. Marty typed in "Emmett Brown." Doc turned away at that point, his back to the screen, as Marty clicked on the "search" button beside the entered phrase.
A list of thirty-two "hits" appeared, the titles of each article highlighted blue and underlined. As Marty moved the arrow over them, the arrow changed to a white hand with it's index finger raised. They all appeared rather dry articles, dating back a while--to the 1880's.
There was a sentence or two announcing the marriage of schoolteacher Clara Clayton to blacksmith Emmett Brown on December 15, 1885. On January 4, 1887, there was a blurb about Jules Eratothenes Brown being born to the couple on January 2nd. Then on November 3, 1888, there was a similar announcement about a Verne Newton Brown, who had entered the world on October 29th.
There was a huge jump, then, in dates. The next one Marty found was dated August 24, 1920 and announced the birth of one Emmett Lathrop Brown on August 21st to a Robert and Sarah Brown. Fifteen years later, on September 5, 1935, the future Doc was featured in an article that prided his amazing accomplishment of graduating high school so young.
"Marty," Doc said, breaking into the teen's readings. "Have you found anything yet?"
Marty shook his head, still fascinated at his findings. "Not yet," he said. "But you and Clara were good to get out of the past--you have marriage and birth announcements of your kids in here!"
Doc made a small sound of displeasure at the statement. "I know," he said. "Hopefully no one will want to research my life, however, and catch the fascinating similarities between that person and myself."
Marty looked back at the screen. After speeding through University education, Doc became a professor of physics in 1945 at the local university, at the age of 25. In the year 1948, there was a brief article about the death of Doc's parents--they had been killed in an automobile accident. Marty gasped softly at the news--he had never known. Doc had inherited everything and promptly moved into the mansion that had been his famliy's. Marty glanced up at his friend as he finished scanning the article.
"Doc," he said softly. "I didn't know how your parents died. I'm sorry."
Doc Brown shrugged, staring straight ahead, away from the computer. "It happened a long time ago and I wasn't very close to either parent," he said. "I've accepted the news and moved on with my life."
Marty stared at Doc for a long moment, searching for traces of old grief. But the scientist seemed honest--and Marty, knowing what he did know about Doc, knew that he wasn't one to conceal his emotions. "I'm sorry," he said again.
Doc nodded a bit, then lifted an arm to gesture to the computer. "Keep looking in the future."
Marty did so. There was an article from 1960 about Doc's mansion being destroyed in a fire--front page stuff, too. Then, in 1975, there was an article covering Doc's retirement from the university at the age of 55. 1983 gave him another front page story with the headline, "Emmett Brown Commended," regarding an honor bestowed on him from the years he had spent as a professor at the university.
In 1985, Doc's name appeared in another front page article regarding the Libyan terrorists, who were captured at the mall. One of them had fingered Doc as an accomplice, but there was no evidence to support it. Marty vaguely remembered when that had happened--Doc had gone to court a couple times to testify in November of '85.
There was a leap ahead, to the early 1990's, when Doc had actually created something that had worked, and could be shown to those in the present without risking the future or past. Marty averted his eyes quickly, mostly out of fear he would read something that he would later accidentally mention to Doc, and then mess things up.
Doc and Clara's names were mentioned in an article from 1991 about Jules--the fifteen-year-old had graduated high school early and had been accepted into the local university on a full scholarship. Marty couldn't help grinning at that--like father, like son. 1994 brought more invention news for Doc, regarding patents or something for his 1990 invention. Marty skipped it, then focused on the last couple titles that were in the first ten years of the new century. And on November 25, 2007, he had found it.
"Emmett Brown Missing, Presumed Dead."
Marty had to take a breath at the headline. "I found something," he said in a low voice.
There was a long pause from Doc. "What does it say?"
"Let me read it," Marty said. "The headline looks pretty scary, though."
Doc took in a deep breath, closing his eyes and bracing his hands on the table. Marty scanned the story quickly. It wasn't much.
Hill Valley--Local scientist, Dr. Emmett Brown, has been missing since November 8, according to a report filed by his family. Brown's wife, Clara, had little to report about her husband's absence. "He left on Thursday morning [November 8] on a trip to San Francisco, and was supposed to return on Sunday. But he never did," Clara said in a statement to the police. The Hill Valley Police Department are working on the case, but with the trail so cold now, they don't hold much hope--
The article cut off then. Marty read it again, then turned to Doc to report.
"Clara filed a missing persons report with the cops," he said. "On November 8, 2007, you left the house for a trip to San Francisco, and never came back."
"Is there any articles that follow it up?" Doc asked calmly.
Marty looked. "No, that's it," he said softly. "You were probably never found." Doc was frowning. "This is not right," he said after a pause. "There is certainly no way that Clara would allow weeks to go by before reporting me missing. No, Marty, I'm certain that my disappearance and my absence here is related to time travel." It was one hell of a good argument, Marty had to admit. From what he knew about women in general, especially women in love, they would worry if a guy was a few minutes late. Clara--future Clara or, from this perspective, past Clara--was covering up something.
"What do you think happened?" Marty asked.
"There is only one thing to find out," Doc said, with a reluctant nod to himself. "Ask my family."
Marty couldn't believe what Doc was doing. Not only had he suggested meeting his future family, but he had also looked them up, taken the DeLorean and driven it to the future Jules' house. Marty wasn't sure why Doc had picked his eldest son as the first to meet his long lost father, and Doc wasn't saying much on the matter.
"I don't get this," he finally spoke up, as Doc was attempting to both drive and read some directions he had scrawled on a scrap of paper in the library. "You've always said no one should know too much about their own future...and won't seeing Clara, Jules, and Verne now screw things up? Shock them badly in some way?"
Doc did not look at Marty as he replied, alternating between gazing out the windshield and looking at his directions. "My family is used to strange and unusual situations," he said. "And we won't be endangering my future--we'll be protecting it. If I know what is to come, then I can prevent it--just like I was able to prevent myself from being killed by those terrorists in '85."
Marty frowned as he tried to digest all this. It sounded okay, but there were still some weird wrinkles that he didn't quite get.... "But if you prevent your death, then how can you find out about it in the first place?"
"It's happened before," Doc said. "The tombstone is an excellent example of that. That was what convinced you to come back to 1885 for me. But Buford destroyed it in the fight you had with him and that should have caused some serious problems--but it didn't."
While Marty worked this out in his mind, Doc began a descent with the car and touched it down on a residential street. He stopped the car next to the curb and looked out the window at the house beside it. "That's where Jules lives," he said softly, shutting off the engine.
The house was two stories, built in a style that looked brand new to Marty's mid-80's perspective--but the overgrown lawn, the run-down appearance of the house made him realize it was rather old. Or at least the owner neglected the house.
The house was dark, save for a single light that came from an attic window. "This is Jules' house," Marty said aloud. "He's not married, is he?" he added, more statement than question.
"No," Doc said, his voice strangely sad. "He isn't."
Marty, hardly noticing the tone in his friend's voice, swept his eyes over the house from top to bottom again. "I thought so. Women don't exactly go for a weed-filled lawn and peeling house paint."
Doc let out a deep breath, rubbing his hands over the steering wheel. "Why don't you go up there first," he said, after a period of silence.
"Why me?" Marty asked.
"Because you can tell Jules about our presence here, warn him about me. The shock of coming face to face with me might be too great. After all, I know little about Jules now and how he acts and reacts."
Marty sighed, reaching for the doorlatch. "Fine. When will you come into the picture?"
"I'll give you a few minutes before I join you," Doc said.
Marty got out of the DeLorean and headed up the walkway slowly. Weeds grew from between cracks in the brick. The porchlight was off. Marty stood still for a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He knocked a couple times. Minutes passed without an answer. Marty turned to look at the DeLorean, at Doc waiting inside. The scientist made a gesture with his hands. Try again.
Marty squinted at the door, noticing for the first time a doorbell beside the door. He pressed it, hearing chimes echo from the inside. There was a long pause, then-- "Yes?"
The voice came from close by. Marty jumped, his heard pounding. He didn't see anyone around. Probably like that phone booth, he realized after a moment. "Um, yeah," Marty began, a little nervous and feeling foolish for speaking to someone he couldn't see. "Is this the house of Jules Brown?"
There was a long pause. "Who is calling, please?" the voice asked.
"Marty McFly."
There was a long, long silence. Then, from the other side of the door, there was a series of clicks. A moment later it opened and a man stood in a dimly lit foyer. The man was in his early 40's, tall and wiry, with dark brown hair clipped short and combed neatly. Wire-rimmed glasses were perched on his nose, behind which a pair of dark brown eyes stared down at Marty. There was a family resemblance there, but Marty was startled to realize that it wasn't Doc but Clara's side of the family who Jules appeared to take after--at least facially.
"You are Martin McFly's son," Jules said, his voice vaguely reminiscent of Doc's in sound.
Marty shook his head. "No--I'm Marty. From 1987."
Jules frowned, taking his glasses off and regarding Marty with a hard look. "Why are you here?" he asked after a spell.
Marty swallowed hard, wondering why he was so intimidated by someone so much younger than him. Except he isn't--not now, Marty thought. "Well, it's a long story. But, ah...someone wants to talk to you." Marty figured there was no other way to say it. "Your father."
He stepped aside and gestured to the DeLorean on the street. Doc had gotten out of the car and was standing beside the vehicle. At the sight of his son, so much older now, Doc managed a smile and lifted his hand in a wave.
Jules stared at Doc with wide eyes. His mouth dropped open, his glasses slipped from his fingers to the floor, and his body sagged against the doorjamb. Marty wondered if he was going to faint and stepped forward, ready to grab the man if he fell. Jules seemed to regain his balance after a minute, however, continuing to stare out to the street at his long lost father.
"Great Scott," Jules whispered.
Ten minutes later, Doc and Marty were seated in the kitchen of Jules' house. Jules remained standing--pacing, really--as he spoke to his father. Marty watched it all, drinking some Pepsi Perfect that Jules had offered from the refrigerator.
"I must admit this is a bit unexpected, Father," Jules said rapidly. "I suppose we all assumed that you would come to one of us sooner than this."
Doc nodded. "I didn't expect this to happen, either. If Marty hadn't snuck into the DeLorean, left it, and stayed behind--"
"I remember," Jules said, nodding as well. "But I'd no idea that you would stop by here in the course of that trip."
"I think it's a good thing we did," Doc said. "I saw your mother and Verne today--by accident--in a store downtown. I heard a bit about my disappearance, and Marty assisted me in discovering a newspaper article about it." Doc paused, eyeing his suddenly grown son. "It was quite obvious that there was a cover up. What really did occur?"
Jules bit his lower lip, plainly uneasy. "Well, it's a long story. And, to be perfectly honest, I don't know the entire tale. You might want to see Mother about that."
Doc looked uncomfortable at the mere idea. "Do you think it would be safe to do so?"
Jules paused in his pacing, considering the words. "I suppose it would. Let me videophone her with the news in the next room and see if she would meet us here." Jules left the kitchen quickly.
Marty set down his soda and turned to Doc as soon as his son had left the room. "Wow, Doc," he said softly. "Jules is a lot like you. Pacing, saying 'Great Scott'--jeez, his voice even sounds like yours!"
Doc waved away the comparisons. "Genetics, Marty."
But Marty didn't want to leave it at that. "What does he do now, anyway? Another mad scientist like you?"
The comment was made in jest, but Marty saw a brief flash of irritation on Doc's face. "He is a professor at the University, one in an area of science I suspect."
Marty nodded to himself. "Yeah, that makes sense," he said, recalling the newspaper articles he had seen. He yawned, leaning forward on the table and rubbing his forehead. A headache was beginning to set in, possibly as a side-effect to all the weird shocks he had had earlier in the day. "What time is it?"
Doc consulted one of his watches. "It's exactly 5:36PM."
Marty frowned, surprised. "Seems later than that."
"Time travel can commit such tricks," Doc said with a sigh. Marty picked up his drink again and finished it off, hearing Jules' muffled voice from another room as he spoke to Clara.
"I hope that my presence here doesn't hurt her in any way," Doc said suddenly. "I've been gone for ten years now." Doc stopped talking abruptly, his face paling. "What if she remarried?" he whispered.
Marty looked over sharply at Doc. "You've gotta be kidding," he said, pausing to finish off his drink. "Doc, Clara was--is--crazy about you. She'd never remarry, just like you wouldn't if something happened to her. You two were made for each other. Hell, you guys got together despite the fact you were both born in different times."
Doc didn't look comforted by Marty's words in the least. "Things change," he said softly. He swallowed hard before he could get the next words out. "She could have met--met someone else."
Marty shook his head hard. "No, I doubt it. There is only you, Doc. Would you marry someone else if you lost Clara?"
Doc didn't hesitate in the least with his reply. "Never!"
Marty spread his hands out, palms up. "There you go, then. I think you should worry about other things than that," he added. "Like what the hell happened to you and how it can be fixed."
Doc nodded at Marty's words. "Absolutely," he agreed.
Jules returned to the kitchen a moment later. "Mother is coming over immediately," he said. "She was most interested to hear about your appearance."
"Is she...all right?" Doc asked his son, a bit hesitantly.
"Mother? Oh, she's fine," Jules said. "Perfect health. She was surprised to hear about your return, but she took the news calmly." Jules paused, clearly a little puzzled. "She seemed not entirely surprised, actually."
Doc nodded at the news. "How long do you think it'll take her before she arrives?"
"Oh, I'd say no more than ten minutes. She is quite, as Verne says, hell on wheels."
Marty raised an eyebrow at that. Back in '87, as far as he knew, Doc was still trying to convince his wife the pleasures and conveniences of driving a car. That she would not only learn, but become an aggressive driver.... Marty had to grin. Meanwhile, Doc looked shocked by the news.
Jules changed the subject, looking directly at his father as he spoke. "While we wait for Mother's arrival, could I show you my lab?"
Marty looked at Doc, waiting for his answer. Doc nodded and stood up. "Sure."
Jules led the two of them up two flights of stairs to an attic room. The walls of the attic were sloped and angled, whitewashed, a few skylights set in the roof. The floorspace of the room was as large as the entire second floor, which was quite large, indeed. The floor was wooden, several rugs thrown over the floorboards.
Everything, Marty noticed immediately, was very neat. It was a tremendous difference from Doc's lab in '87 and years past, where the only organization was one of projects being in generally the same area. There were many devices scattered around the room that were foreign to Marty's eyes, and he wondered if they were inventions of Jules. Then again, they could be typical products of 2017 that one could pick up at any local hardware store.
Jules led them both to a familiar-looking device on a table near a window that looked out the front of the house--the one place that light had emitted from when they had arrived. "Recognize this?" Jules asked his father, gently touching the electronic device.
A smile twitched at the corner's of Doc's mouth. "The flux capacitor," he said, nodding. "But how--"
"I am my father's son," Jules said softly. "You never let me see your notes and plans, and Mother had them burned a year after you vanished, as per your request....but I've been working on recreating your greatest discovery since college."
There was a silence as Doc examined Jules' handiwork. Marty, a little puzzled that Doc had never even shown his own children the details of the flux capacitor, watched as the inventor completed his examination. "Why are you building this?" he asked.
Jules looked a little bit uncomfortable at the question, averting his eyes away from his father although the two men could see, literally, eye-to-eye now. Marty suddenly felt incredibly short standing next to them. It was so weird to look up at Jules instead of down. "I am building this because I miss it," Jules said finally. "The time machines have been gone for nearly ten years now. Mother has had strong feelings on the matter and has never looked back once the machines were dismantled. I haven't been able to travel through time in years, and I very much miss it."
Doc nodded at the answer, a rueful look on his face. "I understand," he said. "Just so long as you know the risks and responsibilities that are involved with time travel."
Jules nodded hard. "Oh, I certainly do. Before the time machines were destroyed, I had my share of close scrapes with disaster."
From the look on Doc's face, Marty could tell he was dying to know what some of those close calls were. But he didn't ask, choosing a different question instead. "What do you plan to put the flux capacitor in?"
"I'm still working on that aspect," Jules said. "DeLoreans are far too expensive and rare now, and locomotives are all but extinct now. I certainly don't plan to break into a museum to steal either artifact!"
Doc nodded again at the answer. There was another pause in conversation, and Marty couldn't resist the urge to voice questions of his own. "What do you do, Jules?" he asked, causing both men to jump. They had been so wrapped up in talks of time machines that they had forgotten he was there. "For a living, I mean?"
Jules looked away from his father to Marty, clearing his throat. "I am a professor of physics at the University," he said. "Like Father, I am also a Dr. Brown."
Marty smiled at that. It seemed right, very right. Doc, after an initial expression of panic crossed his face--probably worrying about knowing too much about his son's future, Marty reflected--raised his eyebrows, a pleased smile slipping over his mouth.
"Do you enjoy your work?" he asked his son.
Jules shrugged. "When the students are open to learning, I enjoy it. There are worse jobs in the world. I'm taking a sabbatical next year and I hope to complete my time machine then."
The doorbell rang, putting an abrupt end to the conversation. Doc and Jules looked at each other, Marty once again forgotten. "It's Mother," he said.
No one moved. The chime came again, less than a minute after the first one had entirely died away. Jules suddenly turned and hurried for the door, running down the stairs that followed it. Doc went after him at a fast pace and Marty, curious to see what his old friend's wife would look like now, was right on his heels.
Clara had already stepped into the foyer by the time Marty arrived on the scene. Doc stopped so abruptly at the sight of her that Marty rammed right into him, unable to put on his breaks in time. Doc didn't even appear to hear Marty's muttered apology, staring at Clara. Marty slipped from behind the scientist to get a better look at her.
Clara's eyes were locked with Doc's. She wore a purple and white future-y outfit, a long skirt with a blouse that appeared to be made out of a special fabric that shifted shades every time she moved. Her dark, curly hair was pinned up, streaks of grey woven throughout. Her face had more lines in it, she looked a little thinner than Marty remembered, but she was unquestionablely Clara Brown, once-schoolteacher of a Hill Valley many years past.
"Emmett," she whispered, breaking the heavy silence that had descended over the room. "It is you."
Doc nodded. He took a step forward. "The me of 1987, anyhow," he said softly.
Clara smiled, the expression full of pain. She took a step forward herself, slowly and hesitantly. "Yes," she agreed, her voice shaking. Then, suddenly, she rushed towards her past husband, embracing him tightly. Doc rubbed her back as she held onto him, though he wore a very odd expression on his face. Finally, Clara pulled back and Marty saw her face was streaked with tears. He suddenly felt really uncomfortable in this place with these people, though he had known them for years. It's like I'm intruding on a family reunion, he thought. And, as weird as the circumstances were, this was a family reunion in many respects.
"You're going to change what happened, aren't you?" she said softly, looking at him as she wiped her eyes. "Please tell me that's why you're here now."
"It wasn't why I was originally, but it is now," Doc said, forcing a smile on his face. "Tell me everything you know."
"I'll tell you more than you want to know," she said, her face darkening. Clara looked at Jules. "Did you call your brother about this?"
"Not yet," Jules said. "Should I? I didn't think Verne knew any more about the matter than I did."
"It doesn't matter," Clara said. "He would be very upset if we didn't include him in this."
"Are you sure?" Jules asked. "He and Christina have their hands full tonight, what with the new infant--"
"Call," Clara said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Tell him to come here. Then I'll tell you everything I know and perhaps this night will never happen for any of us." She looked at Doc, then favored Marty with her gaze for the first time. "I pray you both can pull it off, for all our sakes," she said softly.
Verne arrived nearly a half hour after Jules had called him. Doc met him at the door, along with Clara and Jules, while Marty waited in the other room. Doc Brown had noticed Marty was looking increasingly uncomfortable around the reunited Brown family, being unusually quiet. Well, Doc supposed he would be doing the same if the situation was in reverse. As uncomfortable as Marty was probably feeling right now, it couldn't be helped. Doc needed him there to hear the story Clara promised to tell.
Verne's reaction was different from Jules' and Clara's when he saw his father; he stepped in the house, nodded greeting at his brother and mother, then turned to Doc and grinned.
"Hey, Dad," he said, giving him a hug. "Where've you been all these years?" Clara tsked her son, shaking her head. "This is your father as he was when you were nine," she said. "He's not your father as he would be now."
Verne shrugged, as if it was all the same to him. "He's still Dad, right? Why does it matter how old or young he is?"
Jules favored his brother with an uneasy look. Doc noticed, with a touch of amusement, that his youngest was an inch or two taller than his oldest. "Remember, Verne, to watch what you say," he said. "Father does not know of the events that occurred to our family after mid-March, 1987."
"I know, you told me earlier." Verne turned to his mother. "Can we get this started? I'd like to get home before the baby wakes up again."
Clara nodded, turning and walking back to the living room. Marty looked up as the family entered and took seats around the room, his eyes widening as he saw Verne for the first time. "Hey, Verne," he said. "Man, you look just like your dad!" Verne nodded as he sat down on the couch, as if he had heard it all before. "Hi Marty," he said. "Wow, this is a little weird, seeing you so young when I'm older than you now!"
Marty shrugged. "The fun of time travel," he said. "I hear you're a family man now."
Verne grinned, his face lighting up. "Yeah! I got married after college and Chrissy, my wife, and I had our first kid nearly five years ago. Emily. And then today we had our first son--"
"Verne!" Jules exclaimed, frowning at his brother. "The less we mention our personal lives to Father and Martin, the better. If one of them was to mention what they know about us to our younger selves, it could be disastrous!"
Verne looked wounded from his brother's warning. "I know that, Jules," he said. "I'm not telling them anything they couldn't find out if they looked it up in a newspaper."
Jules rolled his eyes, looking as if he wanted to say something more. Clara stood suddenly and looked at her eldest son.
"Jules, we should offer something to our guests," she said. "Would you help me out in the kitchen for a moment?"
Jules looked at his mother blankly for a second, then stood up. "Of course," he said. "Are there any special beverage or snacking requests?"
No one had any. Mother and son left the room, a door shutting behind them from down the hall. Doc looked at Verne, raising an eyebrow.
"Is there something here that the rest of us are not supposed to be in on?" he asked.
Verne shrugged, leaning back in the couch with a yawn. "You've got me. I probably know less about this whole situation than Jules does. Mom told us a bit of the story, enough to have us understand what happened and everything. But I think even she is a little lost on some of it."
Doc hated to ask the next question, but it had to be uttered. "Did my body ever turn up?"
Verne looked uncomfortable with the query. "Mom never said. And if it exists now, it hasn't been found yet."
Doc found himself even more unsettled with that answer than he would have been had Verne told him that a body had turned up.
"Why is this situation so mysterious?" Marty asked. "I mean, I just don't get it! Things aren't making sense. If the time machines were destroyed, then why hide what happened to Doc? If time travel wasn't involved, why hide it from the authorities? And why didn't you guys go back and try to save Doc from whatever fate he met?" Verne's face was grave as he looked at Marty, then his father. "Mom tried," he said softly. "But she wasn't able to."
Doc felt two conflicting emotions with that revelation--relief that someone had indeed tried something, and despair that the rescue attempt had failed. Good God, what will that mean for Marty and I? he wondered.
Clara returned to the room, Jules several paces behind her. She carried a tray containing cookies, mugs and an insulated silver thermos. "Sorry that took so long," she said, setting the tray on a glass coffee table between the two couches. "The coffee maker is an older model and can't heat the water as rapidly as the newer ones." Doc thought that even an older model had done it pretty fast--Jules and Clara had only been gone a couple minutes. "That's all right," he assured his wife. She poured him a cup of coffee, fixing it exactly the way he liked. Doc smiled at her as he took the mug from her hand. Clara managed a trembling one back. She took a seat in an armchair, perched on the edge of the cushions in a posture of obvious anxiety.
Marty finally broke the tense silence that was layered in the room. "What's the story, Clara?"
Clara looked at him, then at Doc. She gave the teen a strained smile. "Marty, would it be all right if I spoke with Emmett and the boys alone?"
A hurt expression traveled across Marty's face, but it was gone almost as soon as Doc caught it. He nodded and stood up. "Sure," he said evenly. "Where should I wait?"
Jules also rose. "I'll take you into the dining room," he said as he started out of the living room. "It shouldn't take too long...."
Jules' voice faded as he and Marty entered the kitchen and the door shut behind them. A minute later Jules appeared and closed the French doors that were currently open, effectively sealing the room off from the hallway and foyer.
Clara looked at Doc apologetically and spoke before he had the chance to. "I'm sorry we had to get you alone. But, well....some of what happened isn't Marty's fault. But if he heard the story, he might believe that the incident was caused by him--albeit indirectly."
Doc nodded slowly, not happy with the set up but deciding to trust his future wife's instincts. "All right. What is this story, then?"
Clara took a deep breath, then started to speak. "A week before Emmett disappeared, Marty called our house. He was on tour with his band and they were going to open for a well-known music group of the times. He invited us both down to San Francisco for that weekend and was going to put us in a nice hotel and give us grand treatment. You, Emmett--would it be your past self or future self?--decided to accept."
She paused, looking at Doc to see if he was listening to all of this. He was. "At the last minute, I had to decline the invitation. I was working at the time, a job that I will say no more about because of your feelings on not wanting to know about the future. Anyway, something came up and I had to stay here. You left without me, on Thursday, November 8th. You took the DeLorean, since you intended to achieve time travel once you had cleared the limits of civilization. You said you would call me when you reached your destination." Another long pause. Clara blinked, obviously pained by the memory. "But you never did."
Doc mulled this information over as Clara took a sip of her coffee. He could see now why Clara had warned him of Marty's reaction; knowing what he did about the teen, Marty would certainly blame himself for the dark turn that Doc's life had taken. "Go on," he said.
Clara closed her eyes for a moment. "I didn't want you, Emmett, to think I was being too...paranoid, I suppose, is the word. So I tried to stay calm, but Friday night Marty called me to say that you hadn't yet checked into the hotel. That was when I knew that something had happened. I called the boys," she said, looking at first Verne, then Jules. "They had not heard anything. Then I had Jules come over and help me set up the train to travel through time. I went alone and went back to the morning you left, concealing the time machine in the sky. I followed the car with binoculars." "Why did you go alone?" Doc asked, concerned with that bit of information. "Why didn't you take one of the boys with you?"
Clara shrugged. "If something bad happened, I didn't want them to be drawn into it as well. Verne had married recently, Jules was wrapped up in his work and studies." "Did you see anything of interest?" Doc asked.
Clara nodded slowly. "Two miles out of town, a man jumped out before your car. By this time, flying cars had not yet caught on in the mainstream. Only the very wealthy could afford hover conversions. Since the DeLorean was a fairly distinctive vehicle already, you were concerned about drawing undue attention to yourself by flying through the air. So you were on the roads. This man suddenly darted before you. I saw your car stop. You didn't hit him. This man then ran to your passenger side of
the car. I saw....I saw something in his hand. It was silver and it looked...." Clara faltered. She swallowed hard, then finished her sentence. "It looked like a gun." Doc leaned forward, feeling the color drain from his face. "Was it Doc B?" he asked softly. "Or another version of myself that turned bad?"
Clara shrugged her slender shoulders. "I don't know. The man wore a long coat and a hat. I could tell that the figure was male, but that was all. I watched as the man opened the door and got inside the car. The DeLorean waited a moment, then started moving again. It went faster and faster and then....it disappeared. It achieved time travel. I waited in the train, scanning the area from the sky, waiting for you to reappear...but you didn't."
"Did you go after me?" Doc asked.
Clara shook her head. "How could I?"
"The beepers," Doc said immediately. "When either time machine hits 88, they should go off with a display of the temporal destination."
Clara's hand drifted up to her face. "I didn't know," she murmured softly, her eyes filling with tears. "And I wouldn't know where you had those hidden, Emmett. Your lab was organized in a system that I could never learn."
"Where are the beepers now?" Doc asked, knowing it was a long shot. Ten years was a long time--if the batteries had died, the information could be lost quite easily. "I....they're gone," Clara said. "You gave me instructions that should you never return from a temporal outing or if you died before I did, I should destroy all evidence of the time machines. I waited a year before I did anything, hoping you would come back. But if you could, you wouldn't have waited a year. You wouldn't have put me through that torture. So I had Jules help me dismantle the train and then....we set your lab on fire." Tears fell from Clara's eyes at the memory.
Doc felt sick at the idea of his lab burning down, at the thought of Clara going though the agony of waiting for her husband to return. "So all the evidence is gone now," he said slowly.
"Yes," Jules answered. "But it was upon your wishes. You told us many many times that if things weren't properly destroyed, someone could either access one of the time machines, or rebuild one with your blueprints."
Doc knew the truth in those words he had uttered, but it was still incredibly frustrating. He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Was that your only attempt in avoiding the situation?"
Jules spoke up again. "We couldn't avoid it, Father. Mother only discovered what had occurred after Martin called her. If she had prevented the incident from occurring, with you not leaving the house, it would have created a paradox. Mother would not have received that call and therefore could not have prevented the incident." Jules' knowledge in the subject was impressive, but not entirely unexpected, to Doc. "There has to be another way to repair this," he muttered.
Silence answered his statement. "Dad, if one of us knew what to do to fix this, we would," Verne finally said softly. "We know you can find a way out of this puzzle."
Doc smiled wanly at his son's confidence in him. "This is a delicate scenario," he said. "Jules is right--if your mother never heard about my absence from Marty, we'd have some serious problems."
"I'm so sorry, Emmett," Clara murmured. "I never thought to check those beepers. I had forgotten that they even existed--"
"Don't worry about it," Doc said quickly. "We'll figure something out." He stood up and started to pace. "We can't prevent the incident from occurring, but if I can discover where and when the DeLorean went after it left 2007, then perhaps we can arrive there first and stop things before they get too serious...."
"This man has a gun, Emmett," Clara reminded him gently. "If he was able to get into the DeLorean with you and force you to time travel, then he is plainly to be treated with caution."
"Oh, certainly," Doc agreed. "And we have new risks involved with that area. Because I was first drawn back here due to Marty's presence, we cannot have anything happen to him--or myself--or we'll have two very different, but nonetheless deadly, paradoxes on our hands. How can we have a future if either of us turn up missing or--or dead?"
Jules nodded at that. "You're right," he said. "I never thought about that particular angle before."
Doc stopped his pacing and checked one of his watches. 6:58PM. He looked back up at his future family. "You have my promise that Marty and I will find some way to alter the events of the past and our future," he told them. "I'm not sure what we'll do, exactly, but we'll come up with something." Doc sounded a lot more confident than he actually felt.
"Have you already gotten an idea?" Verne asked.
Doc shook his head, honest. "No. But I will." He looked at Jules. "Will you get Marty now?"
"You're--you're leaving already?" Clara asked, her eyes wide. "But why?" "I needed to hear what occurred in my future self's past," Doc said. "Now that I know, I don't dare stay here any longer."
"But why not?" Clara asked. Her voice carried a tone of pleading in it. "Why not stay the night, at least?"
Doc looked Clara directly in the eyes as he spoke. "I can't," he said softly. "It's too much of a risk. The fact that I've seen and spoken with you all is dangerous enough. The more time I spend with you, the more the stakes go up."
Clara sat rigidly, her hands clasping each other on her lap. "Yes," she whispered, her eyes bright as she blinked rapidly. "I understand that."
"I think we're fortunate that Father actually looked us up," Jules said. "There was a tremendous risk in that--and you recall his speeches about not knowing too much about the future."
"I'm sorry, Clara," Doc said, not unsympathetic to his wife's feelings. "Hopefully we'll be able to fix it so you'll never have to go through what you have in the past ten years."
Clara lowered her head. "Thank you," she murmured. "Jules, fetch Marty for your father."
Jules opened the doors and headed down the hall, returning with Marty--and Einstein, who had remained in the kitchen--in tow a minute later. Verne grinned at the sight of their old dog, kneeling down to pet him as Marty joined the scientist again, raising an eyebrow in silent query. Doc frowned slightly and shook his head, warning him not to ask questions now. Marty seemed to get the message. He shook Jules and Verne's hand and nodded to Clara.
"Nice seeing you guys again," he said sincerely. "Hope that everything turns out okay." Marty glanced at Doc. "I'll be outside with the DeLorean."
"All right," Doc said, nodding. "I'll be there in a minute."
Marty left the house with Doc's dog, heading for the time machine parked at the curb. Doc stepped out on the porch slowly. His family followed him. He paused to look at them all piled on the stoop.
"Thanks for all your help," he said softly.
"Thank you for coming back," Clara replied. She stepped forward and hugged her past husband, kissing him quickly on the cheek. "Please succeed."
"I will," Doc promised, meaning those words with everything he had. He didn't want to put his family through the last ten years just as much as he didn't want to die or be trapped somewhere away from his wife and sons for the rest of his life.
"Be careful, Father," Jules said seriously, as if Doc had never attempted anything remotely similar to what he was planning. "Don't take unneccesary risks. The space-time continuum is also in the balance."
"I know that, Jules," Doc said. He hugged his older son, who reacted stiffly with an embrace of his own. Finally, Doc turned to Verne. He smiled.
"Good luck with your new baby, Verne," he said. "I know you and your wife will be wonderful parents."
Verne smiled. "I leaned from the best, Dad. And, hopefully if you fix things, you can be there to help me out if I need it."
Doc blinked, touched by the words. "Well, I certainly hope so," he said softly. He hugged Verne, then quickly turned around and walked to the DeLorean where Marty waited. Doc unlocked the car, slipped behind the wheel of the DeLorean, pulled the door shut and, after inputting his security code, started the car. Marty got in the passenger seat and shut his own door. Doc pulled away from the curb and glanced at his family one last time, still on the porch and reflected in the rearview mirror, before turning a corner and losing sight of them.
Doc sighed deeply, suddenly feeling the pressure that was now resting on his shoulders. A man with a gun, he thought. What the hell could it be? Who the hell could it be?
"Doc?"
Doc looked over at his passenger. Marty was staring at him, waiting. "What happened?" he asked. "Or can't you tell me?"
The story could be told, Doc was sure, as long as a few key details were omitted. Realizing he might need a little time to think this thing through and explain it all to Marty, he pulled off the road suddenly, into the parking lot of a twenty-four hour restaurant. He stopped the car, then turned to his curious passenger.
"There isn't much to say at this point," Doc began. "On November 8th, I drove down to San Francisco for an...appointment. I never returned. Clara used the train to follow me from above--though heaven knows how she managed to pull that one off, unless I finally finished the holographic projectors.... Anyway, she saw me stopped by a man with a gun."
"A man with a gun," Marty repeated softly. "Doc B?"
Doc shrugged and shook his head at the same time. "Clara couldn't tell. Her description was merely 'a man with a gun.' He got into the DeLorean, the car hit 88, and vanished. I never returned. Clara believed I was either killed or stranded somewhere." Doc paused, thinking. "She never managed to locate me. A year after I left, both she and Jules destroyed my lab and the other time machine. It was one of my wishes."
"But I thought you had tracking devices in the time machines," Marty said. "Why didn't Clara look at one of the beepers?"
"It never occurred to her," Doc said. He rushed ahead before Marty could change the subject. "But the beepers are definitely an option for us. If no one thought to check them before destroying the lab and its contents, then we should be able to take them without any negative effects. Breaking into the lab will be a challenge, of course, and it will have to be done under extreme caution. Clara cannot know, of course. Once we discover the destination, perhaps we should arrive there a few minutes prior, in order to examine the surroundings."
Marty was quiet as he took this all in. "What about the man with the gun, Doc? Who do you think he is? And," he went on, "why would you stop driving if this guy put a gun to you? Why not put the pedal to the metal, or take to the air?"
Doc considered Marty's questions. "I suppose only my future self knows the answers to those. Perhaps he was caught off guard and never had time to activate an escape method."
Marty frowned. "What if we prevented you from driving out of town?"
"We can't," Doc said quickly. "The situation would create a hell of a paradox." Before Marty could fire off another question, Doc changed the subject briefly. "Why don't we brainstorm this further over a snack?"
Marty nodded at the suggestion. The two time travelers left Einstein guarding the DeLorean, with a promise of a steak when they returned.
The cafe was, like most 21st century eateries, fully automated by computers. A computer-generated woman displayed on a hovering television monitor showed them to a table. The place was hosting a medium-sized crowd, made up mostly of teens and older couples. Once seated in a corner booth, the television monitor that was build into the table took their orders via a touch activated menu displayed on the screen. Marty requested a hamburger, Doc a club sandwich and steak--the latter, of course, for Einstein.
Marty was all eyes as they waited a few minutes for their orders to be processed and prepared. Doc noticed his staring immediately. Though the restaurant wasn't terribly different from the 24-hour eateries of the mid-1980's, like Denny's or Shari's, the technology and decorum was.
The theme of this particular chain was a homey, country feeling--which contrasted with the slick technology built-in. Their booth seats were made from a fuzzy, soft substance, unlike the slick vinal booths of the past, and the table was fashioned from a hard, undentable material that resembled wood. Pictures of country roads and animals lined the walls. Each table was lit by what looked like an old country lantern. Yet the entire theme of the restaurant contradicted nicely with the built-in television monitors in the table, and the hovering host and hostesses.
"Wow," Marty said after a long pause. "Sure looks a lot different than the ones at home!"
Doc wanted to keep Marty's eyes from wandering around the restaurant, both to keep the teen from seeing too much and to keep his mind on the problem at hand. "We'll go back to November 2007 from here," Doc began. Their orders suddenly popped out of the wall, through a movable panel under the window. Marty goggled at that. Doc, sensing his thoughts wandering again, snapped his fingers before his friend's face to regain his attention.
"Remember," he said softly, leaning across the table, "this is normal now--passé, even. Don't stare so much at the typical 2017 lifestyles. You could attract suspicion."
Marty nodded once, his eyes focusing on Doc's face. "Right," he said. He picked up his burger and took a bite of it. "We're leaving from here?"
Doc took a taste of his own meal. Not bad. "Yes," he said after a moment. "We'll journey to my property in 2007, break into the lab, and take one of the beepers. Once we've established the destination, we'll take the DeLorean back--or perhaps forward, whenever the other time vehicle is."
"And we're going there earlier than the other time machine?" Marty asked. Doc nodded. "Perhaps only as early as five minutes." Doc paused to take another bite, chew, and swallow it. "We don't want to arrive too earlier or the other time machine won't enter the destination nearby."
"What do we do, then?"
"We follow the other DeLorean as discretely as possible."
Marty frowned. "No offense, Doc, but that doesn't sound like much of a plan."
Doc had to agree. "I know. But there are so many unknowns at this point, it's impossible to prepare any more. We'll have to play it by ear, unless the destination is a date that rings a bell for either of us."
Marty appeared thoughtful as he chewed on his hamburger. "This guy has weapons," he said finally. "Are we going to get any?"
Doc considered that question, recalling Marty's unease with guns. "I suppose we could pick up some non-fatal weapons," he said. "There are many of those on the market now, in the spirit of promoting safer defense tactics."
"You mean like the sleep inducer? Doc! How would we get close enough to use that thing?" Marty lowered his voice. "What if....well, what if by the time we hook up with the other machine you're--you're--"
"Shot?" Doc supplied, knowing very well what Marty was getting at. "Then we'll have to go back and think of a new way to do things. But until we know I am--am dead, we must assume I am not. I don't believe that this man shot me in the DeLorean, or Clara would have noticed it. I'm almost certain I made it to this new time alive. And if anything occurred after it....then I hope that we can catch it in time."
After a quick stop at a hardware store just outside of Hill Valley to purchase a couple non-fatal weapons--a term that Marty found a paradox in itself: How can you call a weapon 'non fatal'?--Doc set their destination time for the day of his disappearance, at shortly before 11PM.
"If we arrive in 2007 to do what we need to at this time and on this day, then the beepers should be fresh with the information and Clara will not yet be watching the lab very carefully for a sign of my return," Doc explained as he had programmed the time circuits with one hand and steered through the air with the other.
Marty nodded, leaning over to pick up the bag Doc had gotten with his purchases. He had made Marty stay in the car during the store run, explaining that he would be able to make his buys more rapidly; Marty thought Doc just wanted to keep him from seeing more of the future than he had already. "What's some of this stuff, anyway?" he had asked as Doc hurtled them towards 88.
"All in good time, Marty," Doc said without looking at him. "Now put that bag back down--you don't want to accidentally activate anything."
Having no idea what the stuff in the bag even was, Marty thought that was a most prudent suggestion. He set the bag back on the floor quickly, just as the DeLorean jumped through time in a brilliant flash of light. When the white spots from his eyes finally dissipated, Marty noticed the multiple "skyways" were gone. Below, the lights of Hill Valley had suddenly shrunk, though the city was much more sprawled out than Marty could remembering it being in 1987.
"Is your house in the same place, still?" Marty asked, realizing then that he had no idea if Doc was still at the same residence.
"It should be," Doc answered. "Clara never mentioned us moving, and with all the modifications of the buildings and the property, I can't imagine why we ever would."
Marty could see plenty of reasons why someone might move, but Doc had a good point. The farmhouse had privacy in the form of a mile of woods behind the house and lab. There was the specially designed cellar in the lab, which held the train. And Doc's other little modifications of the house that, while not dangerous for someone in the present to see, would be a bit of a pain--or even impossible--to tear down and rebuild.
Marty scanned the city lights below, which looked much brighter than he could recall from 1987. "Do you have any idea where we are?" he finally asked Doc, utterly disoriented.
"There," Doc said, pointing straight ahead. "There's the clock tower." He turned the car in a sharp left. "My house should be this way."
The DeLorean started a descent as it grew closer to residential streets that began to look familiar to Marty. After a moment, he spotted Doc's farmhouse, the lab, and the woods. From the overhead perspective, the buildings looked the same as he remembered.
Doc carefully landed the DeLorean behind the lab, in such a way that it would not be visible from the house. He got out without a word. Marty followed, wondering what new things Doc would have in his lab now. When he caught up with the scientist, Doc was standing at the door, staring at a flat metal plate next to the door. The door itself was new, Marty saw at once--it looked like it was made from a strong metal. There was no knob in it at all.
Doc glanced up at Marty when he joined him. "What's that?" Marty asked, pointing to the flat plate beside the door. "Is that like what you have in the lab now--I mean, in '87?"
Doc nodded slowly. "Yes." He frowned faintly. "I wonder if there is a recording device hooked up to the pad that will allow someone a glance at records showing who has been in and out of the lab?"
Marty shrugged. "So what? This is your place, after all."
"I suppose," Doc muttered. He pressed his thumb to the plate. There was a soft beep, then a computerized voice spoke. "Identity confirmed. Welcome, Dr. Brown." The door suddenly slid aside with a soft whoosh of air. Marty jumped, startled, as lights automatically came on in the lab. "Christ," he muttered as Doc stepped inside his lab. "Won't the lights attract attention?"
"I don't see there is any way we can disarm them," Doc replied. Marty slipped inside a second before the door whooshed shut. It automatically locked with a sharp click. "Jeez, this place is like a prison," he muttered. Doc didn't appear to hear him, busy with a futuristic-looking security keypad next to the door. Marty watched as the scientist pushed his thumb to another metallic plate set in the keypad. There was another soft beep.
"Please enter code," a computerized voice requested. Doc frowned faintly at that, then punched in a five digit number.
"Alarm off," the voice said. Doc gave a big sigh of relief.
"Looks like my future self never changed the code," he said, half to himself. "Fortunate for us."
Marty nodded impatiently. "Let's just get the beepers and get the hell outta here." Doc turned away from the security box. "Certainly," he agreed. "Perhaps it's even in the same location where I had them in 1987...." Doc started to open and close the drawers set in the worktables. Marty, though he knew he should probably help, couldn't resist staring around Doc's 2007 lab. It was set up closely like his one in '87, but this one appeared different in many respects.
For one thing, it was bigger. It looked like Doc had torn down one of the walls and added a good ten feet of room to the lab. It also appeared that he used the loft above for something. In '87, Marty knew Doc's only use of the loft was storage, mostly because it needed some "extensive work" before it could be used on a regular basis. It looked like Doc had finally gotten around to taking care of that "extensive work"; now, a set of stairs went up to the loft, which was now cheerfully illuminated. There was an empty space before the large double doors, where the DeLorean normally sat.
The lab itself was more cluttered than Marty remembered, and had a lot of new inventions that he didn't understand. He stared at it all, unable not to.
"Marty, stop gawking and help me out."
Marty jumped at the sound of Doc's voice, a little startled, then began to look through some of the shelves and drawers at the other end of the lab.
"Do the beepers look like beepers, still?" he asked, wondering if he'd see one of them and not even know it. "What if you changed 'em to something we wouldn't recognize?"
Doc didn't look up as he shut one drawer and opened another. "I don't know," he said. "I suppose it's possible. But the beepers I was using weren't from the 1980's--I bought them later in the future. They also took a bit of doing to modify, so I doubt I'd toss 'em away and start new."
Doc's theory, as it turned out, was correct. Less than a minute after speaking, the scientist suddenly let out a cry. "Ah! Here they are!"
Marty slammed his drawer shut and joined Doc as his friend examined one of the beepers, then pocketed it. "Let's go."
Marty blinked, not believing what he had heard. "Let's go?" he echoed. "Doc, what does it say?"
"We can discuss it in the car," Doc said. "It's risky every minute we're here." Marty had to agree with that--and, he had to admit, he didn't feel entirely comfortable in this building. The lab looked so recently lived in, as if it was holding it's breath for the return of the future Doc. But unless they fixed this, that return would never happen.
"They burned this place to the ground a year from now?" Marty asked as Doc reprogrammed the alarm system.
"Yes, that's what Clara said," Doc replied, distracted. "But it won't happen this time. We'll make sure of that."
He stepped away from the security box, over to the door. "Open," he said aloud. The door slid open. Doc hurried out, Marty close on his heels. The door slid closed, and a moment later the lights went out. The lab was dark, silent. Marty stared at it for a moment before joining Doc at the DeLorean. The scientist was already inside the car, programming the destination time.
"Where to?" Marty asked, getting in the passenger seat and pulling the door shut. "November 8, 2007, at 5:30PM in San Francisco," Doc said.
Marty frowned, confused. "But that's earlier today! Why then and there?"
"As I mentioned earlier, I had business in San Francisco, and likely intended for my destination to be there and then to cut down on travel time and wear and tear on the DeLorean," Doc explained. "If this man held a gun to me, I probably didn't have time to change that destination time before the DeLorean reached 88."
"Oh." Marty paused, thinking. "Does that mean once we get there, we'll have to leave again?"
"We won't know until we get there," Doc said. He started the DeLorean and lifted it into the sky, driving swiftly away from his future residence. "Brace yourself for temporal displacement."
Marty nodded, holding onto the door handle with one hand as they rushed up to 88.
Two minutes after entering the not-so-distant past or the oh-so-distant future--depending on how one viewed it--Doc Brown spotted the DeLorean several miles from the city limits San Francisco. It was moving slowly, weaving a bit from side to side over the brightly glowing center lane line. Mentally cursing the fact that he didn't yet have any concealing device for the time machine, Doc was forced to stay high in the air and rely on Marty peering through a pair of binoculars that he had purchased in 2017 to report what was going on.
"I don't see much," Marty admitted. "It's too dark outside, and the lights aren't that bright in the DeLorean. I can see a couple shadows, nothing else."
"But what can you see?" Doc asked, knowing this was a crucial question. "A few shadows--that's about it."
Doc finally set the DeLorean on autopilot, then took the binoculars from Marty to look himself. Even with the highest magnification, he was able to see little else than what Marty had already said. He sighed as he lowered the binoculars. "Damn. This doesn't tell me anything!"
"Let's get closer, Doc," Marty said. "We're so high up, it's no wonder we can't see anything."
"I don't want to risk being spotted," Doc said, shaking his head.
"But it's dark out. Can't you just kill all the lights this thing has? And anyway," Marty went on, "don't they have flying cars now?"
"I can't turn off all the lights," Doc admitted. "A great deal of the lights are automatic, like the ones in the cab and on the bottom of the car. As for flying cars, they were starting to show up now, but they're not commonplace yet." Doc paused. "I suppose we could fly closer to the DeLorean and still be safe."
Doc handed the binoculars back to Marty, turned the autopilot off, then began to take the car closer to the ground and the other DeLorean. "See anything now?" he asked Marty when they were as close as Doc was going to risk trailing in the air behind the other DeLorean, twenty feet behind the car and twenty feet in the air.
"Yeah," Marty said immediately. "I can kinda see the guy in the passenger seat. He's wearing a hat--a cowboy hat, I think. And a trenchcoat. No facial hair. He's got a gun in his hand and is waving it around. It looks like he's talking--I can see his mouth moving."
Doc frowned. "That description tells me little to nothing," he said. "Do you recognize the man?"
"No, but I can't see that much of his face. I can't even tell how old he is."
"I don't want to get any closer," Doc said. "It could be very bad if my future self spots the DeLorean--or the passenger in the car believes he is being followed."
"But if your future self sees you, wouldn't he already know about it since you're his past?"
"Possibly. But time travel sometimes has strange loopholes. It's too much of a risk to take if this is one of them. Anyway, if the other man spotted us, the life of my future self could be in danger."
Marty took the binoculars away from his eyes for a moment to look at Doc. "I think the DeLorean is picking up speed."
Doc noticed it as well. He kept his own speed steady, watching as the DeLorean below picked up a burst of acceleration. A minute later it vanished in a dazzling flash of blue-white light, trails of fire running in its wake.
The beeper went off with a loud and shrill sound.
Doc snatched it up from the dashboard of the car, slamming the hovering DeLorean to a harsh stop. Marty's arms shot up to brace himself against the dashboard and avoid being thrown out of his seat and into the window. "What's it say, Doc?" he asked when he had apparently caught his breath.
"November 8, 1877, 5:36PM, Hill Valley, California."
"What? What the hell is there?"
"I don't know. The year is puzzling to me, though I can wager guesses about the rest of the destination time."
Marty frowned. "The old west again," he muttered. "But this was before you lived there....right?"
"Correct," Doc said. He paused, thoughtful. "I don't believe I've ever seen Hill Valley prior to January 1, 1885." He gave Marty a sidelong glance. "Have you?"
Marty shook his head. "No. Why would I need to?"
"Just wondering. I know you've taken trips I'm not aware of."
Marty frowned again, then opened his mouth to say something. Doc, his eyes focused on the space through the windshield, spoke again before Marty had the chance. "Will you set the time circuits for the date November 8, 1877, 5:37PM, Hill Valley?" "Okay." Marty punched in the request. When he had completed the task, Doc sped up to 88. They reappeared over an unpopulated area, dusk settling in. The darkness and desolation made the other DeLorean all too visible up ahead, on the ground. Doc sighed softly, realizing that there was no way in hell they could hide from the other vehicle now. It was impossible.
"I can't see anything, now," Marty said, peering through the binoculars. "It's too dark."
Doc took one hand off the steering wheel to flick a switch on the side of the binoculars. "That should help," he said.
Marty took another look through the device. He gasped. "Christ! Everything's all green and bright! How'd you do that?"
"Night vision," Doc explained. "It's a standard feature included in binoculars of the future."
Marty nodded once, leaning forward, close to the window. "Can you swing closer to the other DeLorean? I can't see in the windows at all."
Doc obliged with reluctance. He pulled the DeLorean nearly parallel to the one on the ground, which was slowing down.
"I can see the guy a little better," Marty said after a minute. "It looks like he's in his thirties or so. He's dressed kinda like....kinda like a cowboy! He's holding the gun, aiming it at your future self. But I can't see your future self at all from here." Doc frowned, his brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of Marty's description. "Very odd," he commented.
Marty leaned back, lowering the binoculars. "I think they're stopping."
They were, indeed. Doc didn't plan to do the same. He accelerated sharply, flying over to a large rock formation some distance from the now-parked DeLorean. There, he landed the car and told Marty to get out.
"Why are we all the way over here?" Marty wanted to know as they exited the time machine.
"If this individual who has hijacked the time machine has a gun, then it is imperative for us to avoid a confrontation with him," Doc said rapidly. "If I was to be shot, for example, and killed, then how would I live until 2007 and be in this situation in the first place. It would be a very large paradox."
"Right," Marty sighed. He handed Doc the binoculars. "Here, why don't you take a look. Maybe you'd recognize this guy more than me."
Doc accepted the device without protest. He brought them up to his eyes, earning himself a view that made him feel as if he was standing five feet away from the situation. The magnification qualities of the binoculars were quite excellent. Doc Brown of 2007 was standing outside the car, the man with the gun aiming his weapon at the scientist. Doc squinted at the mystery man's face. He didn't recognize it at all. There was a small sigh of relief at the realization that it wasn't another Doc B--an evil version of Doc Brown himself from an alternate reality. But that relief lasted only a instant, replaced immediately by a deeply uneasy and curious sensation. Who the hell is that guy and how does he know me?
Marty was correct in his statement earlier--the man was dressed as an old west cowboy. In fact, he would blend right in with the others of their current time period. The man was speaking, his mouth moving, but with the vast distance that separated them, Doc couldn't hear even a whisper of conversation. Reluctantly, Doc shifted his eyes to his older self, bracing himself for the sight. The other Doc stood a few feet away from the man with the gun, close to the DeLorean, his hands raised in the air. To his surprise, the 97-year-old scientist hardly looked his age. In fact, Doc realised with a mixture of surprise and pleasure, he looked almost younger than his 76-year-old counterpart viewing the scene.
Future overhauls are wonderful things,he thought with a faint smile. But all the overhauls in the world wouldn't be able to save Future Doc if that man shot him now.
"What do you see?" Marty asked from behind.
"The man and myself are out of the DeLorean. He's aiming a gun at me and speaking. I don't recognize him at all."
"Does your future self?"
Doc arched an eyebrow at the question. He hadn't thought of that before. He glanced again at his future self's face, searching for signs of recognition or puzzlement. But the other Doc's face was expressionless as he stared at his kidnapper. "I don't know," he said finally.
Marty sighed heavily, sitting down in the driver's seat, his legs hanging out of the car. "Why don't we get closer?"
"Too risky," Doc said immediately. "Have patience, Marty."
The man with the gun was now waving it around wildly. As it was aimed up in the sky, he pulled the trigger. Several seconds later, the sound met Doc's ears, echoing like a deadly thunder around them. Marty jumped.
"Oh my God, did he shoot you?" he cried.
"No, that was aimed in the air." Doc's voice came out calm, but inside he was starting to feel more and more anxious.
Future Doc nodded slowly as the gunshot died away, saying something and slowly backing away from the car. Past Doc got a glimpse of his eyes--they were wide, flecks of fear shining there. The man with the gun edged closer to the DeLorean, holding the gun steady at Doc. Then, in a blur of motion, he whipped the gun over to the open doorway of the car and fired. The bullet shattered the flux capacitor in a flash of brilliant, blinding light.
"That bastard!" Doc hissed through clenched teeth, a powerful wave of anger hitting him at the sight of his greatest invention being brutally murdered.
"What? What happened?! Did he shoot you?"
Doc hardly heard Marty's query, his attention focused on the distant scene. The man with the gun was walking slowly towards the aged scientist, who's face had suddenly gone white. The man said something. Future Doc shook his head. The man seemed to repeat what he had stated earlier, shoving the gun in his chest. Past Doc swallowed hard.
Finally, Future Doc turned around until his back was to the man. The man smiled tightly for a moment. He said something. Then, the man drew his hand back and slammed the gun into the back of Future Doc's skull. Doc crumpled to the ground as his past counterpart gasped. The man smiled, then turned and headed for the cab of the DeLorean. Faint tendrils of smoke were still drifting from the busted flux capacitor.
The man paused short of the door, turning and heading to the back of the car. He shoved the gun in his pocket, then grabbed handfuls of the wires and devices on the rear of the DeLorean, yanking them out. Then, as Doc watched in a state best described as frozen shock, the man got in the car, closed the door, and began to drive away. "Doc, what's going on?" Marty asked, sounding frustrated.
Doc lowered the binoculars and turned to address his friend. "The man shot the flux capacitor, apparently knocked my future self unconscious with the gun, then ripped some of the time travel gear off the back of the car and drove the vehicle away." Marty looked confused. "What? Why'd he mess with the time machine like that?"
"Your guess is as good as mine." Doc turned and stepped towards the open car door. "I want to make sure my future self is all right, then we'll take him back to 2007 to ensure that he will not be trapped here. It's too risky, also, for their to be two of us here. Once that's completed, we'll return here and go after that bastard who crippled the time machine."
Marty stared at Doc, his mouth hanging open. "What?"
Doc tilted his head to one side, asking silently for Marty to move out of his seat. The teen got the message, standing up and slowly circling around to the passenger side. "What are we going to do, again?" he asked as he got in.
Doc shut his door and started the car. "We're going to ensure that my future is safe, then we're going to make sure the past will be as well," he said simply.
The future version of Doc Brown appeared to be all right--or so his past version proclaimed after a brief exam.
"Looks like he'll just have one nasty headache when he wakes up," Doc said to Marty as they dragged the older man to the DeLorean. "I was rather lucky, I believe."
Marty managed a tight smile as they maneuvered Future Doc into the passenger seat. "What are you going to do to him? Drop him off on your porch?"
Doc actually appeared to consider the suggestion seriously. "Perhaps," he said. "Wait right here--I'll be back in a minute."
Marty nodded, shutting the passenger door and stepping away from the car as Doc got inside, lifted off, and rushed up to 88. The minute before his return seemed endless in Marty's opinion--waiting always seemed to distort the passage of time unnaturally--but when Doc returned, his future self was gone.
"What did you do?" Marty asked as soon as Doc had opened up the door for him from the inside.
"I left him on the porch," Doc said. "If I recall doing what I've just done, I should know how and why I ended up where I did."
Marty just nodded, feeling more and more confused the longer Doc spoke. "What's up next?" he asked, shutting the door.
Doc grinned without humor as he brought the car up again. "We find that man and confront him."
"With the gun?" Marty asked, doubtful. "I thought that was a no-no?"
"Yes, I suppose," Doc allowed. "If we can use some of the non-harmful weapons that I picked up in the future on him, however, before we get close....." He left the sentence unfinished, then sighed. "I wish I could speak to my future self about him, but it's far too dangerous and out of the question."
"How are you going to bring that other DeLorean back if the flux capacitor is busted?"
"I've got a few ideas--we can stay here a couple days while I repair it, or we can hide the DeLorean somewhere and leave directions on it's location to my future self."
"Wouldn't that one be a little dangerous?"
Doc made a non-commential sound, then changed the subject. "There he is."
Marty leaned over, close to the window, and looked outside. He could see the other DeLorean below, bouncing violently on the uneven terrain. Marty winced a little, recalling suddenly his own experience with that as he ran away from the Indians of 1885 and ended up ripping a hole in the gas tank.
"That can't be good for the car," he commented.
"I don't think preserving the condition of the time machine is his biggest concern," Doc said grimly. He brought the car closer to the other time machine. "I believe he is heading in the direction of Hill Valley."
Marty glanced up through the windshield, squinting at the dark horizon. He didn't see any signs of life out there. "How far away do you think it is?"
"I'd say no more than two or three miles from the center of town--but I'm sure Hill Valley is extremely small at this point in time."
Marty nodded. "Did we already change future history when you took your future self back?"
"We should have," Doc said. "Originally, I would wager that my other self could not locate the remains of the DeLorean--or, if he did, it was irreparable. In any case, he became stranded in the past--unless, of course, we look at it in a darker angle, that being the man in the DeLorean tracked him down and killed him."
Marty swallowed hard. "I hope this guy isn't like Doc B," he said.
"That was a different case entirely," Doc said quickly. "I'm going to allow a distance to form between us and will need you to keep an eye on him through the binoculars."
Marty nodded again and picked up the gadget. He watched the car for a few minutes as Doc both fell back and drew higher in the air.
The other DeLorean finally stopped--in a cave. Marty thought for a moment that this was the same cave where he stashed the DeLorean on his first visit to 1885, then he remembered that that particular cave was a good twenty miles from town.
"He just went in a cave," Marty reported.
Doc grunted. "All right," he said, stopping the car in the air. "We'll wait until he leaves the cave, then touch the DeLorean down. I want to inspect the damage he did. Then we'll follow him."
Marty frowned faintly. "Doc, maybe we should just leave this DeLorean somewhere. If we keep having to bring it with us, there's no way we could get close enough to this guy without him noticing."
"I know," Doc admitted. "I hesitate committing such an act, however. If we left it out here and someone stumbled across it--"
"So sent it an hour in the future or something," Marty said reasonably.
"That would be almost worse--then we would be trapped here for a certain amount of time, or we would have to be back here before the time machine returned. If it returned before we were here, it could be discovered." Doc sighed. "I wish I had a holographic projection system available--"
"He's leaving," Marty interrupted, watching as their mysterious man walked out of the cave. "He's going to the left of the cave."
"East," Doc said. "That would make sense, if he intends to reach Hill Valley." Doc took the binoculars from Marty after the teen had lowered them. "His intentions are obviously malignant," he said after a moment. "If he took the DeLorean and myself at gunpoint, then he can't be on a mission as simple as seeing Hill Valley in its early days."
"I wonder how he knew it was a time machine," Marty murmured. Doc either did not hear him or had no answer.
Doc kept the DeLorean in the sky until the man had put a half mile between them. Then he landed the car beside the cave, parking the DeLorean with its headlights facing the opening to flood the space with light. Doc got out of the car, cautioning Marty to wait inside while he made certain things were safe. Marty complied unhappily. Doc had no such instructions for Einstein, however, who was allowed to follow his master in the cave.
Marty watched through the windshield as Doc approached the DeLorean in the back of the cave. The other time machine was faintly visible in the glow of the headlights, parked way at the back. Doc went back to the other DeLorean, then waved Marty forward. Marty got out of the car to join him.
"How do things look?" Marty asked when he reached his friend. Doc was studying the car with a frown.
"I've not yet inspected the inside, but without the flux capacitor in operation, things appear bad," Doc said.
"So go inside and check it."
Doc shook his head slowly. "No, I don't believe that would be the wisest course of a ction. My future self could have added things to the time vehicle that I shouldn't see."
"Fine," Marty said, seeing an easy solution to this problem. "I'll look and let you know what's there."
Doc didn't object to Marty's suggestion, though he didn't approve of it either. Marty pushed his way past the scientist, opened the door to the DeLorean, and looked inside. He let out a low whistle. "Wow."
"I don't want to know!" Doc insisted firmly.
Marty rolled his eyes. "Doc, I was just going to say that there was glass everywhere in the car. Sheesh."
"Oh. Well, what's the condition of the flux capacitor?"
Marty leaned over to study the thing, noting the faint smell of burned electrical wires in the air. The metal casing of the delicate instrument of time travel was blackened, the glass that protected it shattered and spread over the inside of the car. The Y-shaped piece of the flux capacitor itself was completely broken, the tubing twisted and blackened. This particular flux capacitor had fluxed its last.
"Not good," he told Doc, leaning back out of the car. "I don't think you could fix this if you were in the future, let alone the past."
Doc sighed heavily. "I suspect there is more harm to find as well," he said, walking around slowly to the back of the car. Marty glanced in the car again, noticing something dark and wet on the steering wheel. He leaned in close, then tentatively touched it with his finger and brought it up, into the lights from the past DeLorean. Dark red. Blood, no question.
Cut himself on the glass, probably, Marty realized. Serves him right! By the looks of thing, it wasn't a little papercut, either. The blood was smeared all over the steering wheel and gearshift, but there wasn't enough to drip. The cut was deep enough to bleed profusely, but not deep enough that it had sliced an artery.
"Doc, I found something in here," Marty called out to the scientist, leaning out of the car and wiping the blood off on his jeans. "The guy was cut by some of the glass and there's some blood in here."
Doc came around to the front of the car, interested. "Oh?" he said. "How much did he bleed?"
"I dunno--I think he got cut on his hands, since the stuff is all over the steering wheel, but it's not dripping."
Doc glanced in the car for a moment, then quickly looked away. "Interesting." He paused, then changed the subject. "I think the best course of action at this point would be to hide this DeLorean somewhere so my future self can retrieve it in 2007. It's completely out of commission to travel through time at this point and to spend the time fixing it would be far too time consuming--not to mention dangerous. I dare not work on the DeLorean and risk accidental exposure to a future modification that I will make."
"So where do you think it'd be safe for the next a hundred and ten years?" Marty asked skeptically.
"More than one hundred and ten--it would be at least one hundred and thirty," Doc corrected. "I'll think about that as we go after this hijacker and compare contemporary and future maps of Hill Valley before selecting the proper site."
"What about this DeLorean?"
Doc was plainly trying to figure that out by the expression on his face. "I suppose if we want to be safe about this, I'll send it ahead into time five hours."
"Five hours? Why that long?"
"I think we should have a good idea by that point on the goings on. Though, I hate to break it to you, Marty, but we could be here a couple days, at least. Once we track down this man and confront him, there is still the matter of the other DeLorean to be readied for a long and hopefully undisturbed storage. We not only have to locate a proper storage space, we have to prepare the time machine to be dormant for a very long time."
Marty frowned, more than a little frustrated at this sudden turn of events. "Oh, well," he muttered. "I guess it'll give me more time to figure out what to say to my parents about this."
"Exactly," Doc said.
"Don't forget, though, we have to go back to March 14th so I can make sure my alarm doesn't go off," Marty said, suddenly remembering that little detail himself. It seemed like a million years ago when he'd climbed in that DeLorean with the intention of adjusting his future by doctoring his past. "Otherwise I'm locked into that future from hell I saw."
Doc nodded, then suddenly froze. His face paled so quickly that Marty wondered if he was about to faint. "Great Scott!" he whispered. "I can't believe I neglected to remember that!"
"Well, I wouldn't have forgotten, you can count on that!" Marty said, puzzled from Doc's intense reaction. The scientist seemed to have hardly heard him, starting to pace rapidly in the doorway of the cave. Marty watched him for a moment, waiting, then finally couldn't take it anymore. "Doc! What's wrong?"
"There was something I neglected to tell you when I explained what had happened to my future self," Doc said slowly, glancing up from his intense scrutiny of the ground to look at Marty. "The reason Clara asked you to leave the room, well.....when I disappeared, I was on my way to a concert of yours that you had invited me to."
For a minute, Marty didn't quite understand what Doc was getting at. Why didn't Clara want me to hear that? It's not like I caused it to-- Marty blinked as he realized what Doc was getting at. "Oh my God," he whispered. "I caused it to happen!"
"No, you didn't!" Doc said immediately. "That was exactly why Clara--"
Marty didn't hear him, leaning against the side of the future car. "Oh, Jesus, Doc, I'm so sorry," he said as sincerely as he could. "This entire mess is my fault--again! Christ, I shouldn't even travel through time anymore. I'm a walking disaster. I--"
"Marty!" Doc's voice was sharp. Marty looked over at him hesitantly. The scientist was frowning at him. "It was not your fault. This could have occurred if I had been on my way to the grocery store."
"But if we change things, it doesn't have to happen!" Marty exclaimed, brightening at this realization. "Unless....unless my future will be like that anyway. Will it?"
"Not the last time I checked," Doc muttered. "There is a possibility, however, that altering your future back to the way it was will not make a bit of difference with mine. I never looked into my future before you changed things. This could have occurred already, under a different set of circumstances. We cannot rule that out, therefore going back to change the events on March 14, 1987 is not a sure thing. We need to follow through with this mission."
"But can't we try?" Marty asked. "It'd be a lot easier to just fix that then go after this guy."
Doc shook his head. "No. If it didn't work, where would we be? Right back here. We might as well finish our business here before attempting to repair your future."
Marty sighed. It was a good argument, but he couldn't get past the simplicity of the other idea. Killing two birds with one stone and all that. "I guess," he said slowly.
Doc started for their DeLorean. "I'm going to send this five hours into the future with Einstein inside," he said, opening the door and ushering his pet into the car. "If all goes well, we can meet it back here at exactly"--Doc checked his watch--"11:15PM, November 8th."
Before sending their DeLorean ahead, Doc Brown loaded a backpack up with some of their future gadgets, contemporary money, and a first-aid kit, then managed to find some long, nondescript coats for himself and Marty to wear over their future clothes that had been in the trunk. The wonder that was the clothing conversion camera was currently in Doc's lab of 1987, awaiting some repairs. The device had many bugs in it and would continually break down to the point of unreliability; one memorable time had stranded Doc and Clara on a trip to 1903 Hill Valley in Roman togas, rather than the Victorian ensembles requested. Knowing this about the invention, Doc had thrown a few dark brown and black trenchcoats in the trunk of the DeLorean for use in emergencies, and was quite pleased with his foresight. "We'll get some authentic clothes as soon as we get into town," Doc told Marty as he handed him one of the coats, wishing they were long enough to conceal their futuristic shoes. "This should suffice in the meantime."
Marty watched with a frown as Doc closed the DeLorean's door as the car came to life and prepared to leap ahead several hours. "Will Einstein be all right if we're late?" "Yes," Doc said without any hesitation, confident they would return on time. "He will also be able to deter any potential thieves, should they discover the time machine." Marty didn't look entirely satisfied with the answer, but shrugged and put on the coat. Doc sighed as they backed away from the time machine and watched it take to the air. "I wish we had hats in addition," he muttered wistfully.
The walk to Hill Valley was a dark and cold one. A stiff wind blew from the east, quickly chilling any exposed skin. Not wanting to risk any problems in town, Doc hadn't brought a flashlight. Yet in this time before electricity, the stars in the clear sky above provided more than enough illumination to see by.
"What do we do when we find this guy?" Marty asked as they finally reached the clump of buildings that made up the main street of early Hill Valley.
Doc scanned the raised sidewalks and the street before them, searching for their man. He sighed heavily, realizing suddenly the difficulty of their task. With the man dressed as the locals and the lack of lights outside, it would be close to impossible to locate him.
"Let's find him first," Doc said. "Surely there has to be a saloon or bar in town." "What about the Palace saloon?"
"That wasn't completed until 1884. Perhaps a primitive version of the Palace exists, however."
Marty stopped for a moment as they reached the center of the street. "Wow," he said. "This place sure changed in eight years!"
It had indeed--perhaps by doubling in size during the next several years. As Doc looked around, he realized that many of the buildings he now saw would be either rebuilt or added onto before 1885. He was able to pick out the general store, the bank, the jail and sheriff's office, the church, and the newspaper office. It was too dark to see much more save for the dark outlines and forms of other buildings that bordered the street. Doc did note, with a touch of amusement, that the barn that would later house his blacksmithing business was up. It had been abandon by the time Doc arrived in 1885.
"We don't have time to gawk, Marty," Doc reminded him as he managed to turn his own eyes away from the buildings. He headed for the raised sidewalks. "We must locate the social hangout of the Hill Valley now."
"That looks like it might be it," Marty said, pointing to a building next to the general store. He squinted at the wooden sign hanging over the door. "'Olde Palace Saloon.'"
"Interesting," Doc mused. "They must have rebuilt it."
"It looks pretty run down," Marty said as they approached the illuminated and populated building. "They probably had to tear it down."
Doc was inclined to agree, noting the aged and weathered wood and the cracked windowglass. There were ever what appeared to be bullet holes in the swinging doors.
"This isn't a hotel yet, either," Doc observed as he paused outside the saloon steps. He grabbed Marty by the arm, stopping the teen from stepping in the saloon. "We can't go in there."
Marty turned, confused. "Why not?"
Doc made a sweeping gesture from his head to his feet. "We aren't properly attired. We'll need to blend in if we want to find this man."
"Doc, the stores're all closed! What do you expect us to do?"
Doc thought a minute, then smiled grimly. He gestured for Marty to come closer, than leaned over to speak in his ear. "Here's what we'll do...."
Twenty minutes later, after breaking into the general store to "borrow," as Doc put it, some hats, authentic coats, and boots, the two time travelers returned to the town's saloon. Doc had assured Marty they would be wearing clothes to blend in, but Marty still felt a tad bit uneasy. If either of their coats came unbuttoned, the townspeople would be greeted with the strange sight of 2017 clothes. He still recalled quite vividly the townspeople's reaction to his western clothes from the 1950's--and these ones were much, much flashier!
It was a problem that could not be avoided, however; the store didn't have any slacks or shirts in stock. Doc had explained that was normal for these times, when most clothes out in the West were still handmade. "We were lucky to find what we did," he said to Marty as they were leaving the general store.
Their eventual entrance into the saloon created little attention. Though the bar was more empty and smaller than Marty remembered it being, there were still plenty of patrons with which to blend in with. A few saloon girls were scattered about, and a man played a cheery tune on a piano set in one end of the room.
Marty recognized only a few faces, and they brought a slight, amused smile to his face. There were the three grizzled old card players he had first met when entering the Palace in 1885, in search of Doc the blacksmith. Eight years prior to that September day, they looked a little younger. The bartender was also a familiar face to him, the same man who had helped--would help, Marty reminded himself--concoct some "wake-up juice" for Doc.
On the more negative angle of things, however, the many people cluttering the saloon would make their job of locating the man more difficult. Marty scanned the faces around, searching for that click of familiarity to hit. But none came.
"Which one is he?" Marty finally asked Doc, sotto voce. Doc looked around slowly, his eyes narrowed in concentration.
"I'm not certain, yet," he finally admitted. "I never got a good look at his face."
Marty frowned, though he expected such an answer. He sighed and shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat. Something nagged at the back of his brain as he made the move. Marty scowled faintly as he struggled to bring that little nagging thing fully into focus. He took his hands out of his pockets, pausing to rub his forehead. A faint, reddish stain under his left index fingernail caught his eye, and then he realized what he'd nearly had.
"Doc!" he hissed, grabbing the scientist's arm. "Then man we're looking for has cuts on his hands from the glass! Remember?"
Doc turned his head to regard Marty with raised eyebrows. "That's right," Doc muttered, sounding surprised. He turned back to the interior of the saloon, eyes focusing on the hands. Marty did the same, scanning for blood or bloodstains. It was a little hard, since the lighting was dim and all. But Doc elbowed him sharply a moment later.
"There he--"
"Can I get you boys anythin'?" the bartender asked suddenly, interrupting what Doc was about to say. Both time travelers jumped, Marty spinning around so quickly that his arm nearly knocked over a bottle of booze on the bartop. The bartender stopped his arm with a taut smile.
"We're fine, thank you," Doc answered for the both of them. The bartender frowned, looking a bit peeved.
"If'n you fellas're in here, then you should be havin' a drink. This ain't a social."
"All right," Doc agreed easily enough. "Give us two sarsaparillas."
The bartender obliged promptly, pulling out two bottles. Doc slid him some coins from his pocket. He passed one of the bottles to Marty, who examined it somewhat skeptically.
"You sure this stuff is safe to drink now?"
"Safer than the water or the liquor," Doc replied, pulling the cork from the bottle mouth.
"You were about to say something...." Marty began.
Doc set his bottle down hard without taking a drink and turned around. "Yes! That man--" He stopped, eyes widening. "He's gone!"
"What did he look like?" Marty asked immediately, searching the other faces in the saloon.
"I don't recall any details, precisely--I'd just spotted him when Chester came over to us. Dammit!" Doc slammed his fist down on the bar top. "We almost had him!"
"Maybe he's outside--I'll check," Marty said, not waiting for Doc to answer before hurrying across the floor, out the door. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness outside. When they did, he saw a figure walking down the street. Marty hardly hesitated; he took off down the street after the figure, subtlety be damned.
The object of his pursuit did not break into his own run. Hearing Marty's approaching footfalls, he merely stopped and turned around. Marty skidded to a halt at the shock of the reaction.
"Hello," the man said, nodding.
Marty recovered quickly from his surprise. "Who are you?" he asked immediately, noting the cuts lacing the man's hands as he titled his hat back. This was definitely the guy.
"I suppose the correct question would be, who are you?" the man said. He examined Marty from head to toe, then smiled. "Ah, never mind, I just placed it. You're Marty McFly, aren't you? Either that or his son, I'd wager."
The voice that spoke was soft and deep, the face that accompanied the voice no older than perhaps thirty five--though, Marty knew, if this guy was from the future his age could be much harder to grasp, what with all the overhauls possible. He was no taller than 5'10" and his build was wiry and athletic under all the old west garb. His hair was dark, cropped short in a military-style haircut and dark eyes peered out from under thick eyebrows. Five o' clock shadow dusted his angular jaw. As Marty watched, the man took a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, knocked one out, slipped it into his mouth and used a futuristic lighter to light it up.
"Who are you?" Marty asked again, irritated with his lack of answers. The man took a long drag on the cigarette, blowing the smoke out into his face. Marty stepped back, coughing. The man smiled again.
"What do you mean by that question? Is it my name you want, or why I am here?"
"Well, both would be nice," Marty said.
The man turned and continued to walk down the street. "I'll tell you what," the stranger said as Marty followed him. "I will tell you what information you want regarding me if you do the same with my questions when we are done."
"Fine," Marty said immediately. He glanced back, at the saloon. Doc was standing on the porch, watching them. Marty waved, only to have his arm immediately grabbed by the stranger and pulled down.
"Not him," the man said, his tone darkening. "He's not to be here. I will speak only to you."
Remembering the man's reaction with older Doc, Marty was only too happy to agree. "Okay," he said. He stopped and turned around. "I'll be back soon, Doc!" he shouted as loudly as he dare. Even in the celestial light, Marty could see the frown and unhappy expression on his friend's face.
"All right," Marty said, turning back to the man. "Who are you?"
"My name is Jordan Smith," the man said. "I suppose you'll think of the name as fake, it being so nondescript, but that is the name my mother gave me when I was born in 1975."
"1975," Marty repeated, quickly doing the math. "So you're seven years younger than me!"
"Not now," Jordan Smith said. He took another drag of his cigarette, exhaling slowly. "I graduated from the University in 1996 with a degree in journalism and music. Like you, I wanted to be a rock star. But I never achieved your fame." There was a note of envy in those words. "Instead, I became a reporter for the HVT. My specialty was stories involving music, such as concert and album reviews."
None of this was really making any sense to Marty, but he nodded regardless.
"I did a few stories on you, and I followed your career--most everyone in Hill Valley did. You were a sense of pride for us all, then amusement, then pity." Marty winced at the words, his face reddening. Jordan didn't appear to notice. "But I would occasionally do stories on other things, since, as you know, Hill Valley is not exactly the entertainment capital of northern California. When a young man named Jules Brown rose swiftly though the halls of education in Hill Valley and became a professor at the age of 2