"How come?"

"Well, my feet are numb and if we want to see the movie tonight, we'd better leave soon. It won't work so well once Dad is home."

Verne saw the wisdom in that. Their father knew them all too well, but Marty might be more easily distracted. "All right," he agreed, standing up and following his brother into the house.

The building, he noticed immediately, was quiet. The kitchen had been cleaned and was empty. Jules paused long enough to kick off his snow covered boots before heading out of the room. Verne followed his example and then followed his elder sibling, keeping his damp coat, gloves, scarf, and hat on. If Marty had made a fire, or was going to, it would've been nicer to dry their stuff out there instead of on a hook near the back door.

Jules headed for the family room first. As they grew closer, Verne could hear the sound of the TV on. "We should make some hot cocoa, too," the younger boy said, half to himself. "Might be nice to get warm if--"

His words slammed to a halt, unfinished, as Jules stepped into the family room and abruptly spun around, his hand cutting through the air in a sharp gesture. Verne, mostly out of confusion, stopped talking. "What's wrong?" he asked when he had recovered.

Jules shushed him, stepping to the side a little. "Marty's asleep," he whispered, just as Verne caught sight of their older friend. Although he was sitting up on the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table, his eyes were closed and he was clearly oblivious to the world around him, not reacting to the sounds of the TV at all, or their whispered conversation. "This is the perfect time, then."

"Oh," Verne said softly. "Okay. So what do we do?"

Jules smiled, the dim light in the room from the fireplace and the flickering television screen making his expression look more menacing than it should. "Get your boots on and meet me at the back door," he said. "Just like we talked about."

Verne's eyes widened. "You mean go right now?"

Jules nodded, easing his way past Verne to get to his bedroom, just down the hall on the first floor. "I'll be there in a minute or so, once I get some stuff packed."

Verne went back to the kitchen and slipped his sneakers on, rather than his boots. His socks would get a little wet, but that matter wouldn't be much of a problem once they got to where they were going. Jules met him at the back door with a backpack slung over one shoulder, just as he had promised. As he and his brother went back outside, Verne almost felt like James Bond; there was something about this operation the two of them were undertaking that made him feel just like an action hero in the movies he liked.

The barn was reached a minute later, and Jules headed for the north side of the structure, which happened to be the side most visible from the back of the house. It couldn't be helped, however, for this was the part of the building that had exactly what Verne's brother needed to gain undetected entrance into the lab.

Jules set down his backpack on the snowy ground and knelt next to the metal electrical outlet that their father had installed, on the chance that he'd need to use electricity outside the building. In Verne's opinion, it was a kind of stupid idea; he'd never seen his dad need the outlet before, but their father had put a lot of strange things in the house and barn when the remodeling had taken place during the fall of 1985 and into the winter of '86. Some, like the railroad tracks in the cellar, had been explained early on. Others, like this plug outlet, still had no clear reason for being around.

Jules flicked open the metal coverings that protected the outlet from the elements and opened his backpack, in which he had brought a few small items from their house. Verne watched as he pulled out some odd-looking contraptions that looked vaguely familiar to him.

"What's that stuff?" he asked.

"Some of Dad's inventions that didn't quite work," Jules answered. "He gives me the rejects when I ask, and I like to collect the items to see if I can use some of the parts on my own ones."

"Okay..." Verne said. "So what are they doing out here, then?"

Jules smiled rather mischievously, the expression instantly transforming his normally serious face. Verne blinked at the sight, stunned to see how much the look made him seem more his age. He looked, Verne realized with a touch of amazement, normal -- like a normal almost-twelve-year-old who liked arcades, biking, and the occasional prank instead of one who favored baseball, science, and strange experiments.

"These two inventions have one thing in common, one fault which caused our father to discard them," Jules explained. "They both overloaded the power supply and triggered the circuit breakers. Therefore, by plugging both into the outlet at the same time and turning them on to full power, we should successfully overload the power supply for this portion of the building, if not the entire structure."

Verne seemed to recall a flaw with Jules' idea now, one he had neglected to bring up when his sibling had outlined the idea for him in their room. "Won't that get into the house, too?" he asked. "Remember when Dad did that a couple summers ago with that one thing? The holo-something projector?"

"Holographic projector," Jules corrected. "And yes, I remember. But I think this won't have the same effect. The reason that everything blew that summer was because it created a tremendous drain on the entire power supply for our household. The entire breaker box shorted out -- remember? This should just click over the breakers for the lab... I think."

"What if it doesn't?" Verne asked.

Jules frowned, looking a little irritated. "Don't be so pessimistic, Verne."

"I'm not being pessimistic, I just want to make sure this doesn't blow up in our faces -- and I mean that, too," Verne added, a new angle suddenly appearing to him. "You know Dad's failed inventions."

"I know," Jules said. "But if I remember right, these didn't blow up... exactly." He edged away a few inches, a move that didn't comfort Verne. The blond boy followed his brother's example, prudently putting more distance between himself and the electronic gizmos than his elder sibling.

"What did these used to be, anyway?" Verne couldn't help asking as Jules connected both of the plugs to the sockets.

"I'm not sure, but I think they were preliminary creations and drafts of the holographic projection system that Dad eventually perfected and built into the time machines," Jules said. "I know one of the early problems had to do with the power supply." He paused, a look of sudden unease sliding across his face. "Maybe you should stand farther away, Verne."

Verne didn't hesitate at all in backing away from the defective inventions. Jules stood, backed up a few steps himself, then leaned over to turn on the gadgets. Even with only the strange glow of the snow illuminating their surroundings, Verne could see his brother's face, scrunched up as if he was anticipating something to really blow up. Verne didn't feel very confident with Jules' assurance that neither invention would self-destruct.

Jules switched on the devices and scrambled backwards in a hurry, nearly slamming right into Verne, who was standing quite a respectable distance away. Verne watched the outlet and the gadgets, his hand hovering near his face and ready to cover it if something went wrong. He held his breath.

Nothing happened.

Verne turned to his brother next to him. "I thought you said this would blow out the power," he said.

Jules frowned. "It should... unless there's a short between the switch and power supply." He shrugged, then took a step forward. "It's possible--"

A high-pitched whining noise started then, right from the inventions. Jules halted in his tracks. The noise built steadily in pitch and volume until Verne had both his hands clasped tightly over his ears in an effort to shut it out. It muffled it, only slightly, and made him worry that Marty would be able to hear it from the house and wake up to discover their little project.

A brilliant flash of light spat out from the electrical outlets, followed by an equally-impressive shower of sparks. The inventions started to smoke. Jules took a step forward, decided it was a bad idea, then skipped back and nearly slipped on a patch of ice. Flames suddenly sparked out of both inventions. Verne gasped, his hands falling down to his sides.

"Jules!" he cried. His brother hesitated, then started to run to the fire. Verne followed, knowing the danger if the flames spread and started to burn the lab as well. Jules scooped up handfuls of snow and dumped them as fast as he could on the flames, creating an angry sizzling sound.

"Verne, unplug them!" he yelled.

"What if I get electrocuted?" Verne shot back immediately, not entirely trusting his brother on the matter.

"You shouldn't -- the plug cords are insulated. Just do it!"

Verne took a deep breath, reached down, and yanked both the cords out of the wall. He let them drop to the ground as if they were poisonous snakes, backing quickly away as Jules continued to drown the flaming inventions with snow.

After a couple minutes, the fires were snuffed out. Jules dropped one more large scoop of snow down on the pile, coughing faintly from the smoke, then knelt down to examine the blackened electronics.

"Well," he said after a moment of silence. "It could have been worse."

Verne rolled his eyes, having his own opinion of the matter. "I guess," he said. "Are those things all the way busted now?"

Jules nodded, standing up. "Yes, they're quite dead."

Verne ran around to the window set in the wall of the barn-lab, jumping up and down a few times to see inside the building. He couldn't see any lights on inside, though a glance at the house told him that structure was completely dark. Uh-oh, he thought. "Did it work?" he asked, still uncertain.

Jules joined him at the window and stood on his toes, able to raise his eyes just above the bottom of the window. "I believe so," he reported, pleased. "I can't see any of the security lights running that Dad usually has on all the time."

Verne glanced over at the house again, nervous. "Do you think Marty knows something's up? It looks like the power's out at the house, too."

Jules frowned. "It's possible. We should get inside now, or at least out of view of the house. If Marty looks outside and doesn't see anything unusual, I don't think he'll investigate further. He'll probably blame the blackout on the weather."

The suggestion sounded smart to Verne, but he continued to be concerned with something else. "What if he checks up on us?" he asked as Jules grabbed both blackened inventions by their cords and dragged them back to the treeline.

"Even if he does, we should be back fairly soon," Jules said as he tossed the devices into the trees and brush, branches snapping in their wake. "Don't worry."

Verne went over that for a moment in his head, then shrugged and followed his brother as he headed to the lab. Marty'd been up for a while and he could be a sound sleeper when he was really tired; even if he had heard the noise, he might've thought it wasn't anything to be concerned about or maybe that it had come from the TV. Anyway, they would be back in the house in no more than fifteen minutes, tops.

Despite the power being out, there was no change in the condition of the security of the lab; all the doors and the windows were still locked. Jules paused when they had checked all of them, looking rather perturbed as he eyed the side of the building. Verne, deciding not to ask questions on what would come next, circled the barn a few times to recheck the secured windows and doors and work his mind on a solution to gain entrance. Presently, he saw something that sparked an idea, if nothing else.

Verne trotted over to where his brother was standing, still scowling in concentration. "Jules," he said, a shade too loudly. His sibling send him a stern look. Verne lowered his voice to continue. "I think I know how we can break in. Can we get a rope or somethin'?"

Jules blinked, his frown slow to fade. "Why?"

"Because." Verne decided it would be too much trouble to explain without some models. He grabbed his brother's arm and dragged him to the front of the barn. "See that?" he asked, pointing up at the slightly ajar hayloft door. Without waiting for Jules to acknowledge that he did indeed see it, Verne went on. "All we gotta do is get a rope, loop it around that beam-" His finger moved to the slab of wood jutting out from the large support beam of the roof. "--and then we can climb inside."

Jules frowned still. "I can't climb ropes," he said, a touch of challenge in those words.

"So?" Verne asked, still not seeing a problem. "I can, an' I'll just let you in the normal way."

Jules eyed the beam, where an old, rusted pulley still dangled from the end as a reminder from the times long ago, before they were even born, when the barn hadn't been used for science experiments. "It'll be highly difficult to get a rope airborne at that height and secured enough to support your weight," he said.

"Not with your arm and all," Verne insisted. "You didn't get that MVP award from Coach Sterling for nothin' last year. Where can we get some rope that long?"

The rope, as it turned out, was easily located in their mother's gardening shed, behind the carport where most of their garage-esque elements were stored, which included a lawnmower, gardening tools, hoses, and a hundred foot coil of rope that would more than suit their purposes.

Jules paused long enough before leaving to collect a small gardening rake with a wooden handle. He stopped Verne as he was about to head out of the shed with the rope coil draped over one shoulder. "I've got an idea," he said. When Verne waited for him to continue, Jules took one end of the rope, dangling several inches off the ground, and started to wrap it around the metal at the base of the tool, between the bottom of the handle and the prongs.

"What're you doing?" Verne asked.

"We need something weighted on this end," Jules explained, knotting the rope in some complicated way that Verne bet he picked up in one of his books or encyclopedias. "It'll allow the rope to travel higher and also allow us to lower this end to the ground in an easier manner. Then we can create a secure slip knot."

Verne grasped the idea that Jules was leading up to, though seeing the claw-like tool now tied at one end of the rope gave him a different brainstorm. "We could use it as a grappling hook, too," he said.

Jules looked at him witheringly. "It's not meant for that purpose, Verne," he said. "Stop believing everything you see on TV or in the movies."

The mention of films reminded Verne of their mission and of the time slowly ticking away. A glance at his watch caused him to take in a sharp breath. "Cripes, it's already way after eight! We gotta hurry!"

The boys returned to the lab and it took Jules only two tries to get it over the beam. He lowered the weighted end of the rope to the ground, had Verne hold onto his end, then let go to run to the weighted end. In minutes, he had rigged a loop that looked to Verne like a lasso. Jules ran the other end of the rope through it, then pulled the loop to the top, where it pressed firmly against the beam. After tugging the rope hard a few times, Jules seemed satisfied and allowed Verne to climb it.

The climb took him only a minute; he was one of the fastest rope climbers in his class at school and the only difference between the gym and here was the fact it was outdoors, at night, and there were no mats to protect you if you slipped. But Verne had never slipped, even now with snowflakes stinging his cheeks and wind numbing his bare fingers a little.

When he reached the two foot by two foot opening to the hayloft, Verne found things to be a little more difficult than he had first anticipated. He quickly saw why his father had never closed the shutter -- it was rusted open six inches and moved only if Verne pulled hard. A difficult task, at best, while dangling some 30 feet off the ground.

"Is something wrong?" Jules called in a whisper from the ground.

"It's rusted," Verne grunted, his arms and legs beginning to ache a little from supporting his weight so long. "Give me a few minutes."

"I've got an idea," Jules said. "Hold on, I'll be right back." He took off running across the snowy lawn, towards the gardening shed. Verne adjusted his grip and eyed the dark space into the hayloft, wondering if it would be possible in any way to wedge his foot in there and pull the door open that way.

Before he could try such a dangerous maneuver, however, Jules ran back, holding a spray can in his hand. "I got some WD-40!" he called up. "It should loosen the hinges."

With no other way around it, Verne climbed down, rested his arms for a minute, then managed to wedge the spray can in one of the pockets of his winter coat. He returned to where he had been before, gooked the spray all over the visible hinges, then dropped the can to the ground and tried pulling the door again. It protested for a moment before starting to give, emitting a terrible, tortured metallic groan as it did so.

Verne managed to wrestle the door open enough to swing inside. He wrinkled his nose at the musty odor of the hayloft and started walking towards where he thought the way down was, pitch blackness surrounding him. When his mother had discovered she was going to have another baby, they'd made Jules move into their father's study on the first floor, turned his old room into the baby's room, and their father had moved his study stuff into the lab's hayloft with the intention of fixing it up to a new study. It had more space and it was quieter than his old one; however, with everything else in the last several months, he hadn't gotten much farther than stacking boxes and adding insulation to the walls. Verne realized that was pretty lucky for them; once he got things going up here, that door would've probably been sealed shut from the inside or turned into a window and ruin any possibility of allowing them lab access.

Verne grimaced as he walked into something hard, his left knee taking the brunt of the impact. He dropped to the floor and felt his way along the dusty boards, finally locating a trap door by touch and his vague memories of being up here before. The door in the floor lead to a ladder built up against the wall, which lead him to the main floor.

Verne let Jules in close to five minutes after entering the building -- dusty, a little bruised, but pleased with his accomplishment. "The power's totally out," he said by way of greeting.

Jules glanced around the room for a second, seemed to confirm Verne's statement, then smiled. "Good," he said, sounding pleased as he shut the door at his back. "Now we need to locate some flashlights and the keys to the DeLorean."

Verne frowned as he looked around the darkened room, Jules already opening some of the cabinets under the tables in search of the flashlights. "I don't see the DeLorean, Jules," he said after a moment. "Did Mom and Dad take it with them?"

"No -- the station wagon was gone from the carport, and why would they take the DeLorean out for something not time travel related?" Jules located a flashlight and passed it to Verne. "I think Dad must have the HIS running as an added security measure. If one can't see something, then they can't really steal it."

"Then how are we gonna get into it?" he asked, having only seen their father demonstrate his latest time machine modification a handful of times.

"I asked Dad the same question," Jules replied as he located another flashlight and closed the cabinet. "He told me he'd modified a small remote control to turn the device on and off from a distance. It's on the car keys."

"And where're those?"

"I'm not sure. We'll just have to look around."

It took ten minutes of crawling under tables, feeling around on shelves, and rummaging through drawers and stacks of papers before Jules located the keys -- hanging, in plain sight, on a hook on the wall with some other tools and the like. Verne was confused at the move since, last he knew, their father was actually taping the keys under some of the furniture, but Jules wasn't particularly shocked.

"It makes sense," he said once the keys were in hand. "With the HIS system now, the DeLorean can't be seen -- and so why would the keys need to be hidden?"

"I guess," Verne concurred as Jules found the appropriate button on the small thumb-sized remote with the keys, causing the DeLorean to suddenly appear in the room. "And I think he thinks that this place is pretty secure now."

"Which is good," Jules said. "If Dad is comfortable with that, then he shouldn't know of our trip -- and perhaps we can do this again sometime."

Verne thought about that for a moment, reviewing the last half hour in his head, and groaned faintly. "Man, this movie better be worth it," he said. "I don't know if I wanna go through all this every time we need to time travel."

The boys opened the double doors by hand, unable to use the remote control due to the power being out. They got in the car without trouble, Jules scoring the driver's seat while Verne was distracted loading Mr. Fusion. As Verne sulked over this, Jules managed to crack the numeric code to access the time circuits and use the engine.

Scooted as far forward as he could in an effort to both reach the pedals and see over the wheel and dash, Jules proceeded to stall the car repeatedly as he tried to get it out of the garage. Just when Verne, noticing that the present time was ticking increasingly fast towards the hour of nine, was about to give up on the whole idea, Jules managed to get the car moving more than a couple feet. Despite his frightening and inexperienced driving style -- they nearly skidded into their mother's garden as they passed it -- Jules managed to locate the right switch to activate the car's hover circuits... and several minutes later, they were heading towards the past.

When they arrived in a part of Hill Valley's past that they had never before seen, Jules realized at once that he had forgotten to activate one rather important detail before leaving -- the holographic system. He gasped softly as his eyes adjusted to the blazing sunlight outside when they reappeared over their property of the future.