"This is getting ridiculous, Doc! I feel like we're in some kind of demented loop!"
"Well, unless you've got a better idea as to how to go about things...."
Marty gritted his teeth, his hold on his temper tenacious at best. He took a moment to try and calm down, walking a few steps away from the phone booth where Doc was looking himself up. It was so damned repetitive to Marty -- arrive in a new place; see that it wasn't home; look up their names in the book; visit their counterparts; grill them; then leave, 'cause no one was able to help them.
He couldn't even remember how many times they'd done this already. Things were starting to seriously blur together, helped by the repetition of it all, stress, sleep deprivation, and the constant coming and going in the machine, to the same date and time of day. The only reason the musician had any concept of time anymore was that he hadn't bothered to reset his watch once since they had started the endless journey. It didn't help his mood that more than two full days had passed since they left for a "quick jump"; the longer they were away, the more screwed up and out of sync he was going to be.
"Why don't we just steal one of those books and bring it with us?" Marty said when he had calmed down enough to not snap the words out. "It'd change every time we went somewhere new, right?"
"Wrong," Doc said. "Remember the photograph that my other self gave me last year, of him getting the Nobel Prize? That's an event that is definitely not going to happen in my world -- not from creating fusion, anyhow -- and that photo hasn't altered at all."
"Well, then why did other pictures and stuff change when we've taken them with us?"
Doc answered without looking up. "They changed because they reflected time lines that changed -- time lines that were direct results of our misadventures. Not already established foreign dimensions. Anything we bring with us now, print or photograph, will not alter when we leave the dimension to reflect what is so in the new dimension. Even if I brought the discs for the TIPS, I have serious doubts that the system would help us with this process at all."
Marty thought that was lousy. He scowled and sat down on the curb nearby. There was no rain falling from the skies as there had been in almost every dimension they had visited, so far. Instead, the weather was clear and sunny, the temperature warm but not unseasonably so. The musician hardly noticed, though, too distracted by their neverending parade of problems. He still felt chilled, in spite of the sunshine, just thinking about the last couple of places they had visited -- especially the one with the female versions of himself and Doc. The memory alone of "Marti" and her creepy flirtatious smile still was enough to turn his stomach. All the more so because he thought she was really cute, at first, and that if he hadn't been married to Jennifer maybe he would've enjoyed flirting back and forth with her....
I am not gonna think about this now! Marty told himself, feeling the chills and dizziness come back with the memories. No way. That's one thing I hope I never have to relive or re-see again in my entire life!
Doc came out of the booth with two ripped pages clutched in hand. "Let's go," he said, heading back to the disguised train parked nearby. Marty got to his feet slowly, the events of the day beginning to catch up with him. If they'd stayed put in the reality where he and Jennifer were unhappily married with a son, it would've be about midnight or so by now. Stress had made the fourteen or so hours of sleep from the so-called night before feel more like four at this point. The musician couldn't resist a yawn as he followed Doc back into the cab.
"When are we going to take another break?" he asked.
"Soon," Doc said, the response sounding both automatic and vague. "I don't think we need one quite yet."
"Speak for yourself," Marty muttered under his breath, the words either ignored or unheard by his friend. He stepped over and tried to see what was on the cheap pages from the phone book. "Are we still women here?"
"No," the inventor said immediately. "Both of our full names are in the book, and they're as they should be. I don't recognize my address, though, or yours. It looks like you live in an apartment."
Doc passed him the page that bore his information. Marty's eyes found the proper listing, and he was relieved to see that he was married, again, to Jennifer. But Doc was right; the address that followed his name had a number in it -- 1232 S.W. Pine Road, #213 B -- and could only be an apartment or the like.
"At least I'm not living with my parents," he murmured, though he hadn't seen anything like that, yet. It was probably out there somewhere, but most people seemed to have gotten out by the time they were twenty-seven. Especially if they were married.
They rose back into the air, but five minutes after that were once more landing, as the local Doc's place seemed to be close by. It was a smallish house, older, on a large parcel of land. They were able to settle down in the slightly unkempt yard, between the home and the sidewalk. Lights were on inside.
"If this guy doesn't look like you, are we gonna leave again?" Marty asked as they prepared to exit the cab.
The inventor grimaced at the question. "We'll see how much he could help us," he said.
The musician wasn't about to lay bets on that any time soon; he seriously doubted that this world's Emmett had any hidden train time machine nearby -- maybe he never even had one. Nevertheless, they went up to the front door to see. This time, Doc had him do the knocking while he waited off to the side, out of immediate sight, similar to the way Marty had hidden when they visited the version of himself who was single and grief-stricken.
Marty had to pound on the door, hard, for a couple of times before it was finally answered. He was pleased to see the person who answered it looked just like Doc. And he was even more happy when the first words out of his mouth were, "Marty! I didn't expect to see you today. Is everything all right?"
The musician couldn't resist a little smile of relief, knowing that he was not walking around in a bra or with a different face in this dimension. "Not really," he said, honestly. "Listen, Doc, you might wanna sit down.... I've got something big to tell you."
The Emmett of this world blinked at the announcement. He looked, to Marty's cursory eye, like he had been through a rejuvenation at some point; Emmett didn't look as old or ragged as some of the versions of Doc that hadn't had that kind of treatment. Good. Maybe it meant there was a time machine, somewhere. "Did you and Jennifer have another fight?" he asked, rather wearily. "I've told you before, Marty, I can't keep refereeing between you two. You've got to work out your marriage without dragging me into it and--"
"No!" Marty said, more sharply than he intended, both out of the horror that his counterpart's life seemed to, once more, suck in some way, and out of the desire to not hear any more. "Listen -- did you ever make a time machine?"
Emmett's eyebrows drew together as he regarded Marty with the most confused of looks. "Marty, you know the answer to that," he said, his voice pitched low.
The musician gathered the answer was yes, since the local didn't seem completely baffled from the question. He hedged a moment, then decided to plunge in and tell the man the news. "I'm not the Marty McFly you're thinking of -- I'm from a different dimension and reality."
Skepticism immediately flooded the local inventor's face. "I know your life isn't going the way you'd like it to right now, but there's no need to make things up like that," Emmett said.
"He's not making anything up," Doc said, stepping into view.
Emmett jumped back at the sound of the voice and sight of the subsequent figure, so startled that he tripped over his own feet and sat down with a hard thud on the floor. He goggled at his counterpart, now standing beside Marty on the porch.
"This is impossible!" Emmett burst out from the ground, after a moment of stunned silence. "I destroyed the time machine ten years ago! Neither of you can be here, now!"
The verbal denials sounded strangely like the same sorts of things Marty had heard from Doc in 1955, the second time he had appeared in need of the scientist's help. "It doesn't matter if you'd never built a time machine at all," Doc said. "We're from a parallel dimension. An alternate reality. We came here in our own machine -- which is malfunctioning rather badly."
Emmett's eyes narrowed as he studied his counterpart from head to toe. After a moment he got back up to his feet, still clearly suspicious for reasons that Marty couldn't begin to fathom. Unless he was another deep denial case like that Doc who was a vet. "And this brings you here? How? Why?"
Doc lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "We don't know. That's actually a great deal of the problem."
Emmett frowned -- then, without warning, he reached out and grabbed Marty's right hand, lifting it up in the air before his dark eyes. The musician was so stunned that he simply allowed the local to examine his hand before it was let go once more. "No scars," Emmett muttered, sounding surprised. He looked at the visitors with a new glow in his eyes. "Why don't you both come in?"
"What did you mean with that?" Marty asked as he and Doc stepped inside the local's home. "'No scars' -- what's that about?"
Emmett didn't answer him immediately, waiting until he had led the guests into a rather cluttered living room before he said, "The Marty I know has scars on that hand, from the accident he was in ten years ago that broke his hand."
"Accident?" Marty repeated, his ears perking up. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that he already knew what Emmett was going to say.
"Yes. He got himself talked into a drag race while on the way to the lake with Jennifer during his senior year of high school. It was the last weekend of October in '85. I was still dismantling the DeLorean. He totaled his father's car and got pretty banged up, but no one was killed." Emmett sighed heavily. "The lawsuits, on the other hand...."
Marty frowned, noticing something weird about the details. "Why was I driving Dad's car? I had my own... right?"
Emmett shook his head once. "Nope. Not so far as I know, unless you were keeping it a deep, dark secret. You didn't get your own car until a few years later, I think. I helped you fix it up." He paused, studying the visitors as they stood rather awkwardly near the doorway of the room. "Should I telephone Marty?"
"Maybe later, if you feel it's necessary," Doc said. "You say that you dismantled the DeLorean? When did this happen?"
"The same weekend I created the blasted thing. I started taking the machine apart on Saturday night, October twenty-sixth, 1985, after Marty, Jennifer, and I came back from the future."
"And you didn't come home to an alternate reality?" Doc asked.
"No. I've only heard about such things in the theoretical sense. I've certainly never seen one in person, and I've never met anyone who claimed to be from one... until today, I suppose."
"So Biff never got his hands on the machine?" Marty asked, recalling that his friend had identical plans for dismantling the first DeLorean before that Tannen had thrown a huge monkey wrench into things.
Emmett looked at him blankly. "Who's Biff?"
"Biff Tannen. You know, the guy who bullied my dad until I accidentally changed things in '55. He's the one who stole the time machine from 2015 and screwed up the world as we knew it by making himself rich and powerful." Emmett continued to look baffled with Marty's words. "You know the Tannens... don't you?"
"I've never heard of that name in my life," Emmett said.
Marty looked at Doc, who was clearly intrigued by it all. "Do you have a phone book I could look at?" the latter asked.
"In the kitchen," Emmett said. "I can get it. Can I offer you two anything to eat or drink?"
They declined the offer. Marty's appetite had fled after that last reality, and it had only been about nine hours since the Clara of the stopover world had stuffed them full of food before they left. Emmett took only a moment to get the book, so quick in his errand that Marty and Doc were unable to discuss the bits of information that they had so far learned about this world and what it all might mean. Nevertheless, the musician had a hunch about the reasons behind the inventor's request, and they were confirmed a moment later, after Doc had found what he had been looking for -- or not, as the case was.
"There's not a Tannen in all of Hill County," he announced, closing the book and passing it back to Emmett. "It's as if they never existed -- or chose not to settle out here."
"Wow," Marty said, his mind reeling for a moment from the idea, which he had wished for countless times growing up, and during several trips through time. "Isn't that like paradise or something?"
"Or something," Doc said, his tone oddly flat. "You dismantled your DeLorean about ten years ago, then? You never tried to rebuild it?"
"No," Emmett said. "After that trip to the future -- and Marty's experience in '55 -- I thought that time travel was too dangerous to muck around in." He paused, his eyes growing distant with a memory none of them knew. "I thought I was helping Marty's future by having him help out his kids... but Jennifer wandering off and traumatizing herself was an unacceptable repercussion. We were fortunate nothing serious happened to end the world -- or her life."
"So if there's no Tannens, what trouble did my son get into in the future?" Marty asked, a little confused. "Biff's grandson was getting him to take the fall for something illegal, then."
Emmett looked at him with an odd, slanted smile. "It sounds quite similar to what I discovered -- your son was framed for media piracy, creating illegal copies of music and video from the Internet. It was clearly a set up -- he had apparently lost his laptop computer for a day, and a week later a tip had the cops confiscate it and find the illegal media. He was pretty bullied in high school and there were some rather tough individuals who weren't beyond setting him up for a little fun. Of course, if I'd known then what I know now, I wouldn't have bothered with such a scheme. Marty's future was miserable before his son was jailed, and I think it really came down to the car accident -- or, rather, his temper."
The musician swallowed hard, this sounding way too familiar in spite of the other changes.
"This Marty had that same problem," Doc said, causing the subject of the conversation to turn his head in surprise at the statement, stunned that the inventor was being so candid.
"Doc!"
The visiting inventor didn't appear to notice his friend's voice or scorn. "He did get over it, though... after another trip through time to 1885, and getting involved with another Tannen." Doc rubbed his chin, his eyes narrowing. "It almost sounds like our lives were actually made worse from a lack of Tannens. Interesting."
"How could my life be worse?" Emmett asked. "From what you've implied, it sounds as if this family caused nothing but trouble. Especially if they were into stealing time machines."
Marty, miffed at his friend for that rather not-so-nice nice statement to his counterpart -- never mind if it was true or not, it was kind of his business -- didn't hesitate in providing that answer. "That was how you met your wife," he said.
Emmett's eyes widened. "Wife?" he echoed. "I don't have a wife...."
"But I do," Doc said softly, shooting Marty a quick look of irritation that told him he hadn't appreciated his announcement. "I met Clara in 1885 when my DeLorean was struck by lightning -- accidentally -- and sent back there. When Biff stole my time machine in the future, he ended up giving himself an almanac from the future, and to retrieve it we had to go back to the date he gave it to himself in 1955 -- on November twelfth, no less."
The local saw the connections and cause and effect at once. If the news upset him, though, he didn't show it. In fact, he focused on something else entirely. "You actually told someone else about the time machine?" Emmett asked, sounding rather scandalized. "Someone in the past? How could you be so irresponsible?"
Doc looked both confused and irritated. "I didn't tell her immediately," he said. "It was a few days after I knew her."
"A few days?" Emmett was clearly horrified. "That's appalling!"
"Why? We were in love," Doc said, defensive. "It happened fast; I couldn't just leave her behind without an explanation, and I didn't want to take her with me without letting her know what she would be getting herself into."
"In love?" Emmett asked. "After a few days?" He looked scornfully at his counterpart. "Don't tell me you bought into that 'love at first sight' nonsense."
Marty almost smiled at hearing this, remembering his friend's old attitude with that matter before he met Clara. His lips started to curve up in amusement, but halted when Emmett immediately added, "Witnessing Marty and Jennifer's relationship makes me even more certain of this. Marty tried to argue for years in favor of such romantic notions, but I don't think he and Jennifer would have so many problems if it was indeed some cosmic event of 'love at first sight.'"
The musician bristled at both the insult to his own counterpart, and to Doc. "That means shit," he told Emmett flatly. "Maybe if the me here had learned how to stop being goaded into doing stupid things, his marriage would still be fine. My wife and I are doing great -- because I got over that stuff ten years ago." And because of at least two Tannens, he thought with a bit of a wince, hating to give credit for positive changes in his life to that family.
"Clara is a very special, unique woman," Doc said softly. "In every reality that we've seen, so far, I've either been married to her -- or I haven't been married at all. I sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that we were made for each other. But I will also admit a certain... skepticism myself about the idea of love at first sight -- until it happened to me."
Emmett's mouth puckered into a frown. "Well, I find it beyond difficult to see it like that."
Doc 's hand moved to his pocket and pulled out his wallet, opening it and riffling through the contents. "Look at this," he said, pulling out what was a small headshot of Clara, smiling. "Can you really deny that your feelings wouldn't change after meeting her?"
Emmett studied the picture through narrowed eyes. His expression softened -- a smidgen. "She's very attractive," he admitted. "But I still find this whole idea hard to swallow. Sorry," he added, handing the picture back.
Marty changed the subject, figuring this was something that was getting them absolutely nowhere in their mission. "Doc thought you might be able to help us," he said. "That's why we came here in the first place instead of going to my other self."
"What do you need my help with?" Emmett asked. Before Doc answered, the local shook his head quickly and tried again. "That wasn't what I meant: what could I possibly help you with? I don't have a time machine anymore; I've been using the DeLorean as a normal car since I dismantled the time circuits and mechanisms."
"Well, that answers that question," Marty muttered under his breath, looking at Doc. The inventor's face was hard to gauge.
"Did you want to have a look at it, regardless?" he asked his counterpart. "See if you can spot anything that's painfully obvious to you, but not us?"
The local considered it a moment, then shook his head. "No thanks. It'd be better not to open up that chapter of my life again. Time travel is far too risky to play with. I'd advise you to perhaps give it second thoughts, too, since it's clearly causing some big problems for you right now."
"It's also given me more than I could ever hope to have, with a wife and kids," Doc said, a bit edgy. "And it's taught Marty a lot of things that he needed to know to save his own future."
"You have kids?" Emmett asked, latching on the first statement with surprise. "At your age?"
"Four of them, aged nine months to nineteen years," Doc said dryly. "And I dare say my age hasn't made one bit of difference. You're the one who seems to have grown old and... stodgy. Afraid of taking risks. Why are you living here?"
Emmett drew himself up, defensive. "I saw no need to continue living in a former garage on a busy road surrounded by strip malls and fast food franchises," he said. "Not after achieving the dream.... And once achieved, why did I need to linger and keep the so-called 'trophy,' at the risk of ending the world as we know it? That's pure egotism."
The two inventors were kind of glaring at each other. Marty decided there wasn't a better time to leave. "Come on, Doc, let's go," he said, turning and heading for the door. "We don't need to waste any more time here."
Doc followed him, but he couldn't resist getting in one final dig to his counterpart. "Better to follow my dream all the way through, and beyond, learning constantly from it than getting scared at the first glimpse of the responsibility. I don't envy your life at all, Emmett."
The local scowled at the insult, and Marty wondered for a moment if the guy was going to chase after them to either tell himself off, or deck him, but they made it out of the house, across the lawn, and back in the time machine without any further remarks from Emmett. Doc was still simmering as he prepared for their inevitable departure, though.
"I never in an eon thought I'd say this, but I thank God that the Tannens moved to Hill Valley and maintained growing families," he half muttered, punching the switches and twisting the knobs harder than necessary. "I believe we just witnessed what a Biff-less and Buford-less world would create."
"Yeah," Marty agreed. "I always thought a place like this would be heaven. Sounds like my life here sucks, though -- again! Why can't I ever meet a me who is successful and happy?"
"You have," Doc said. "You're just focusing on the negative again, Marty. You need to learn how to be more optimistic."
The advice irritated Marty for no clear reason. Maybe it was just his current exhausted, frustrated, and cynical state of mind. "More like you are?" he asked, faintly sarcastic.
The scientist didn't catch his tone, or pretended not to notice. "You could simply do better not to look at the darker side of things," he said.
The time machine lunged up into the air, hard, nearly knocking the musician off his feet, a move that was probably venting some of Doc's frustrations at his counterpart. Marty caught his balance against the wall, leaning against it as they went up high enough to take off to the next place. The sharp reply on the tip of his tongue stayed in his mouth, mostly because even he knew it was neither the time nor the place to start something.
"Are we gonna stop in the next place so you can check out the computer stuff?" Marty asked as the train rushed forward. "Seems like we've hit enough places, now."
"I suppose that can't hurt," Doc said. "Not that we should get our hopes up unduly."
"Now who's the pessimistic one?" Marty muttered under his breath.
The sonic booms that came about from their next transit seemed to go on a lot longer than the musician was used to, with a kind of echoey sound to them. While Marty was still trying to figure that out, the floor seemed to drop a foot without warning. His mouth popped open in a gasp.
"What's wrong?" he yelled, his heart thudding against his ribs as the machine twisted to the right with a sharp, unforeseen turn. "Did something go wrong?"
The noise of the boom finally began to fade out. Doc's face was ashen as he gripped the controls, his eyes locked on the small porthole window in the front of the cab. "It's lightning," he said, his voice tense. "We've arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm!"
Doc's hands gripped the steering mechanism of the train tightly, his fingers aching from the tension coiled in them. He craned his neck over to the left, trying to see how far above the earth they were and what was below them. "Marty, is there a place to set the train down?"
The musician stepped over for a look. "Uh.... I think so. I can see the roofs of some houses, but they all look like they've got big backyards."
"Good." Fighting the wind, and his own fear at getting struck by a bolt, Doc took the train down in a descent that twisted and jumped enough to rattle everything not nailed down. Marty looked rather green by the time they touched ground, but the inventor was hardly aware of the turbulence. Their surroundings lit up as another bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, and the sound of thunder was so close that Doc knew the storm was almost right on top of them.
"Great Scott!" he breathed when the machine was safely on the earth again. He let out a deep breath and wiped his damp brow, leaning against the controls. "That was too close...."
"I thought you said the machine now had some kind of weather predicting thing in it," Marty asked, grimacing a little as he looked towards the window.
"No," Doc said softly, closing his eyes a moment as he tried to steady himself and slow his still-racing heart. "It has a weather detection system, yes, but it can't foresee the weather in another time period -- let alone another dimension. I didn't think we'd run into a storm, but the weather's varied enough in some of the worlds that I think it was pretty naive of me to not foresee a possibility like this...."
"We weren't hit, were we?" Marty asked, glancing away from the window and the sheets of rain that were coming down. The roar of it on the roof above was almost deafening.
"No," Doc said, certain about this beyond a shadow of a doubt. "We would know it -- definitely. Remember what that felt like?"
"I guess. It looks like we're hanging out in the backyard of someone, but I don't think there's anyone home. I can't see any lights on in the house."
"Good. We're still invisible, and the storm probably concealed any noise that might've been produced in our landing. We'll wait out the weather in here," he added before Marty could ask what they were going to do next. "I don't want to walk out in that mess, or leave the time machine behind here, and it's far too unsafe to take it back into the air until the lightning has passed, at least. And the visibility's a bit better."
"Yeah, I can barely see the house from here with all the rain. I'm surprised you were able to get us on the ground so fast and without crashing into something."
There was a note of admiration in Marty's voice, but Doc hardly noticed, too rattled from the surprise turn with the storm. "Thank God I did," he half muttered. "If the machine breaks, we're in big trouble."
Marty sighed, taking a step back from the window. "I'm starting to think that the best thing we could do might be to just toss this one out and start with something new."
"It wouldn't work that way," the scientist said, finally leaning back from the console. "If it was that simple, then we could've used some of the other working machines in other dimensions to take care of that problem. It has to do with the subatomic frequencies."
"Figures." Marty looked down at the floor. "Is your computer all right?"
Doc followed his friend's gaze to where the laptop was resting, wedged halfway under the boiler where it had likely slid during the moments of turbulence with their arrival. "Shit," the inventor swore, having completely forgotten about the device in all the excitement. He knelt down and gently pulled it out for a look, bracing himself for the worst. "And of course this has to happen now, when I've finally got a chance to look over what information this thing might've gathered...."
Marty came over and crouched down for his own look. The top of the laptop's casing had a very visible crack zigzagging across it. Doc was almost afraid to open it up. "You still might," the musician pointed out. "These things are probably made with the idea that they get dropped sometimes."
Doc hoped so. Nevertheless, he sat down on the floor before popping the lid and screen open. A headache began to pulse around his temples as he reached out to press one of the keys to bring the machine out of a sleep mode. If it didn't come back on....
But the computer did. The screen began to glow and a moment later the familiar icons and backdrop came up. "It looks like it still works," Doc said, so relieved he felt weak.
"Great," Marty said, taking his own seat on the floor, his back against one of the padded walls. He glanced up as another flash lit up the semi-darkened cab and outside world. Thunder rattled the windows three seconds later. "It looks like we're gonna be here a while."
Doc sighed as he brought up the comparison analysis program, feeling both curious and skeptical about what it had tracked. He wasn't expecting to find anything. Yet as the computer took the time to gather the readings it had on all the jumps, and the minutes stretched on, he found himself feeling fidgety and nervous.
It's the storm, he thought, looking up at the window and the very dark, very wet world beyond the glass. Anyone with the sort of experiences I've had would be jumpy from this weather, especially sitting in a structure that is about as conductive as a lightning rod....
The sound of another thunderclap made him jump in spite of himself. Marty, sitting a few feet away, hugging his knees to his chest, looked at him somewhat quizzically. "We're safe in here, right, on the ground?" he asked.
"Safer than we might be standing outside, but not as safe as we might be in a house," Doc said honestly, looking back at the glow of the computer screen -- the only thing throwing out any light in the cab at the moment. The program was displaying a message: "Preparing Comparison Chart and Report. Approximately 27 minutes remaining." "Looks like my counterpart was nothing if not thorough," he muttered. "This is gonna take a while...."
Marty yawned. "That's good, though, right? That it's detailed?"
"I suppose it certainly can't hurt."
The time ticked by slowly on the computer's display. Feeling restless still, Doc got to his feet to look out the window and better attempt to ascertain their surroundings. He had brought the train down into the large backyard of a home that was both completely unfamiliar and rather large. There were a few things that struck the scientist as rather odd, though. In spite of the size and obvious expense and newness of the house -- it looked as if it had been built some time in the last ten years -- the home was a bit run down. The yard was rather weedy and overgrown, too, a few large tree branches scattered across the lawn. He supposed it was possible that the branches had come down in the wild storm outside, and that the owners simply didn't care that much about their yard or the exterior of the home. But it gave him a strange feeling of foreboding, and he couldn't quite figure out why.
Maybe it was the darkness outside. That in itself wasn't anything to cause alarm, not with the thick clouds, the sheets of rain, and the early hour that the sun set in the late fall. But he couldn't spot any lights on in the home from where he stood, and he had the nagging impression that the streetlights -- which automatically came on when things got this dim outside -- weren't lit.
And you're really getting paranoid now, Doc thought, chiding himself for the nerves. The owners of this home might very well be out for the day, you can barely see around the house from this angle, let alone the street -- and even if there are people home, the storm might've knocked out all the power.
The inventor waited out most of the time that the computer was working by pacing back and forth in the cab, though it made him feel like a caged animal, as there was so very little space to move about in. He and Marty didn't speak; Doc couldn't think of anything to say, and he was too tired to bother with petty small talk. The sound of the rain on the roof, too, would make it necessary for them to raise their voices a bit to be heard by one another. That particular roaring sound made Doc feel more on edge, but Marty either didn't care or was able to shut it out; by the time the laptop finished its work, he had fallen asleep, his head propped back against the padded wall.
Doc dropped back down to the floor the moment the computer let out a soft ping, announcing the completion of its chore. It had successfully recovered the readings from the last five jumps. The inventor didn't hesitate to see what information it had collected and how it had been compared. He went through it slowly, meticulously, concentrating hard enough to shut out the sound of the rain and the claps of thunder that were still going on outdoors.
The flux capacitor appeared to be functioning fine. The structural distribution of the flux dispersal was as it should be. The operation of the time circuits was normal. In fact, everything looked right, and he was starting to feel that sickening hopeless and frustrated feeling again -- until he finally noticed something strange.
The program apparently had tracked the process of time travel in a step-by-step manner, highlighting what functions, mechanics, and power distribution was taking place in the machine each second of transit. This wasn't entirely surprising to Doc -- but he was surprised by the numbers that came up on at least half of the processes, and that the numbers seemed to have no rhyme or reason. It was visible on everything from a few microchips that held the information input for the time circuits, to the wires that ran out to the flux capacitor, to the flux capacitor itself.
Most areas of the machine were stable, but a staggering amount -- about a third -- of the functions varied by tenths of a point in power and function. For example, while the recent jump displayed a reading of 1.2133333 with the power allotted to the flux capacitor, the jump before that had a number of 1.2144444, and the one before that was 1.20999999. The dozens of wires that ran out from between the flux capacitor to the time circuits and other portions of the time machine also boasted wildly different numbers that didn't sync up with one another.
"What the hell?" Doc muttered, leaning closer to the screen, as if that might tell him more. He looked at the options offered by the program and decided to do a focal comparison on those discrepancies, telling the computer to go through, find all those strange quirks, and organize them for him on charts and in other informational formats. The computer informed him this process would take close to another half an hour.
The inventor bided the time by lying down on the hard floor and staring up at the darkened skylights above, working his brain over the problem so hard that it ached. Something was starting to emerge, and it bothered him that he couldn't bring it entirely to view.
It would only be natural to assume that in a normally functional time machine, all those numbers hold steady and sync up with one another. So I think this could be the problem that's plaguing us. But how did this happen? And why? And how can we fix it? Would we simply have to power down the machine for a day and recalibrate everything a step at a time? Great Scott, that could take weeks! Or will we have to replace all the parts that are malfunctioning?
Doc frowned, recalling Marty's earlier comment about getting a new machine to use. We can't do that because it would prevent things from being in sync with our dimension. That's why we couldn't replace things entirely the last time we were stuck in an alternate reality and had to--
The inventor suddenly froze, mid-breath, mid-thought. He ran his mind over the last part again, remembering his words to Marty. "If it was that simple, then we could've used some of the other working machines in other dimensions to take care of that problem. It has to do with the subatomic frequencies."
Subatomic frequencies. Almost microscopic, almost undetectable shifts in electromagnetic activity. It wasn't limited to merely the human body; biological forms simply showed symptoms early because it made such a tremendous difference in how they functioned. Not like inanimate objects. It would take very powerful, sensitive machines and computers to notice those things, and it really wouldn't make much of a difference in the function of the device or whatnot. Maybe never; maybe just not for a year....
Doc put a hand to his head, the realization trickling in faster and faster, now. When they had arrived in that alternate dimension a year and a half ago, most of the machine had been fried and shorted out from a bolt of lightning. They had remained in the reality for almost three weeks, patching things back together, trying to repair and use every salvageable part they could. Emmett had said something about a fear that too many new parts from his dimension might not allow Doc's machine to "lock in" on his home dimension when it came to leave, so it would be better to fix as much as they could. But a lot had still been borrowed from that world, from wires to the entire flux capacitor itself. In spite of the new parts, though, they had made it home.
But Doc had never thought to replace the borrowed parts from the alternate dimension. And he hadn't used the time machine once since then.
Until he and Marty had left to check out the new software.
"Great Scott!"
Doc bolted into a sitting position, stopping the computer with less than ten minutes to go. The laptop squawked at this untimely interruption, but the inventor was too driven, too horrified, too desperate to prove what he now felt was certain. Doc scrolled quickly through the various parts and wires and circuits that had been tracked during the transits and compared against one another. He groaned aloud when he saw his hypothesis was correct.
Every single part that had been borrowed from the alternate dimension in June 1994 to get home was showing huge discrepancies in function. Every single one of those parts was slowly deteriorating from the subatomic discrepancies that had probably worked away slowly for the last year and a half since the train had returned home from that alternate dimension! It was so obvious -- and so subtle.
"How could I have been so blatantly stupid!" Doc muttered, angry with himself for his complete lack of foresight in the matter. He should've replaced all the borrowed parts as soon as they had arrived home! But Clara had just found out she was pregnant, the inventor had decided to present some of his inventions to the world, and day-to-day life things had just started and hadn't stopped. He hadn't thought about that chore -- he should have, but he had assumed that the machine was fine if it had been able to make it home from the other world....
"No."
Doc jumped at the sound of the word, half moaned and murmured from somewhere very close by. He looked over to Marty, wondering if the musician had somehow picked up on what was going on, but his friend was still slumped back against the wall, his head now drooping forward, asleep. "No..." Marty mumbled again, adding something else that Doc couldn't quite catch. Talking in his sleep, nothing more.
The inventor turned his attention back to the laptop, studying the display with his head in his hands. He knew what was wrong, now. The only question -- the most important question -- was... how the hell could he fix it?!
* * *
Marty was back in the driver's seat of the DeLorean, his eyes locked in horror at the diesel train that was gunning straight for him. "No," he said aloud, his hands flying to his seatbelt that had been strapped across his lap. His hands worked at the buckle, trying to pop it open, but it remained frozen or jammed in place. The train before him let out a warning whistle, and the ground began to shake from the vibrations. "No, dammit!" he said, trying the doorlatch, now. That, too, remained jammed or locked. He was stuck; he was trapped.
The train continued to bear down on him. Marty reached up and tried to tug at the seatbelt itself, thinking that it might be able to give enough to allow him to slip out of it. It didn't. It remained snug against his clothes. He started to panic.
"Stop!" he yelled out, to the train, knowing even as he did so that it was a pretty pointless move. Marty's hands went back to the seatbelt latch and the door, working each with one hand to no avail. "Somebody... anybody! Help! Get me outta here! Get me--"
"Marty! Are you all right?"
Marty's eyes popped open at the sound of the voice and the rather jarring shake that his upper body was given. Doc's hands were gripping his shoulders, and his face was staring hard into his, clearly concerned. "Calm down," the inventor said, as the musician silently stared at him. "You were just having a nightmare."
Marty had to blink a few times, still left with the feeling that he was dreaming this situation. It didn't help that he was sitting on the floor of the cab of a train. The interior of the DeLorean was more vivid to him at that moment than his current physical surroundings. "Doc..." he murmured, his mouth dry.
The inventor nodded once. "You sounded upset, so I thought I would wake you. I didn't know you talked in your sleep."
Marty didn't, normally, though Jennifer had mentioned a couple of times hearing him mumble things while out. She thought it was amusing. It didn't happen often, usually just when he was under a lot of stress, and it was probably some strange form of his body coping with it. There was positively no doubt about his stress level, now; it had passed high days ago.
That stress, and the kind of disorienting confusion that came from waking up abruptly from a hyper vivid dream, was probably what caused Marty to blurt out what he did, then: "Dammit, Doc, why the hell didn't you tell me about wrecking the DeLorean with the train?"
The inventor blinked three times, his face expressionless. "What?" he finally asked, sounding thoroughly baffled.
Marty shook Doc's hands free of his shoulders, suddenly angry. "Why didn't you tell me what you were gonna do when the DeLorean came back from 1885? Jesus, did you want to kill me, too, while you were at it?"
"Marty!"
The words poured out of Marty's mouth, unbidden. "Why didn't you tell me you had planned that on purpose at all over the last ten years? Why did you keep that from me? How could you keep that from me?!"
Doc frowned. "Marty, calm down. We already went over this; you're overreacting on something that happened more than a decade ago -- and more than two, for me! You're reading far too much into this --"
"You're not the one who's having nightmares that you're stuck in the DeLorean as a train is coming at you!" Marty shot back, unpacified. He got to his feet, shaking a little. "I can't understand how you just never brought that up at all over the last ten years! I mean, you came back to give me that picture at the same place where the DeLorean was trashed. I thought then that was just some weird coincidence, but you knew what had happened! You knew I'd probably be there! You're lucky I wasn't in pieces or anything like that--"
"Marty!" Now Doc sounded angry. He stood and looked the musician in the eye, frowning. "I can't believe you'd ever think I'd be that callous. I had a lot on my mind the day we borrowed the locomotive, and I had every intention of letting you know about the plan when I was in the DeLorean with you. I didn't know that Clara was going to come after me, or that I would end up being left behind."
"But why didn't you tell me before then? When you were having me set up the time circuits?"
"I already explained -- I didn't want you to talk me out of the decision. Beyond that, I really don't know. Good Lord, Marty, let it go. What happened happened, and everything ended up fine."
"But I could've been killed!"
"But you weren't. This isn't really what's bothering you, is it?" Doc added, his tone softer, now.
"Yeah, it is," Marty snapped, irritated. "I just can't believe you didn't tell me... what else have you been keeping from me all these years? Would you even've bothered to move back to the future if you weren't scared of changing history? Did you check my future out and find out it's gonna suck and you're not breathing word, now?"
Doc rolled his eyes. "Marty, this is getting ridiculous! Calm down. I don't understand why this is so upsetting to you. It happened ten years ago!"
"You don't get it, Doc!" the musician said, scowling. "I was almost killed!"
"But you weren't."
Doc's calm and rational tone only served to irritate Marty even more. "What else have you been keeping from me all these years? What other things did you think weren't a big deal? Seriously, I'd like to know!"
"Nothing -- you're acting paranoid, now. I know you're exhausted and under a lot of stress -- and I am, too! -- but if you'd just sit still for a minute and calm down, you might feel--"
Marty turned around and headed for the door, struggling with the latch that to open it. Doc interrupted himself. "Where are you going?"
"Somewhere," Marty said cryptically. "Anywhere -- away from here!"
"Now, Marty...."
The musician turned around. "What, Doc? Look, you're not listening to me, and I'm sick of wasting my breath. I need to get out of this cab. No offense, but you're really pissing me off right now."
Doc's lips drew together tightly. "Fine, go for a walk. Hopefully that rain outside will cool your temper down a little!"
Marty turned away from the inventor's angry gaze, slamming his palm hard on the switch to open the door. It popped open a moment later and he ran out into the deluge, ducking his head against the stinging raindrops. The weather had soaked him by the time he had reached the back of the strange home who's yard they were borrowing, but he kept going, anger and pride not allowing him to go back to the train just yet. He hadn't lied to Doc, either -- he needed out! If he had to stay in that cab one more minute, he was gonna go nuts!
Breathing hard, fighting the urge to physically hit something and vent his frustration that way, Marty cut through the side yard and circled around to the front of the house. He had absolutely no idea where to go, and so lost he was in his own thoughts that it wasn't until he went a few blocks before he noticed something weird.
There were no lights on in any of the homes, or out in the street, even though it was definitely dark enough to warrant it. That probably wasn't something too unusual, considering the dismal weather, but there was an awful lot of debris in the street -- tree branches, leaves, trash, that sort of thing. Taken with the problem of no power, Marty noticed a sinking feeling in his gut.
This is some weird alternate world, he reminded himself. Anything could've happened here, from people getting zapped up by aliens to a World War III.
He actually stopped mid-step, spooked almost badly enough to turn around and go back to the train. Almost. Marty squinted as he studied the immediate area, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the rain drops, trying to both figure out more clues about the world as well as where he actually was. The disorientation lasted until he reached the end of the street and found a sign: W. Fiesta Drive, which joined up with 292nd street. They were way on the other side of the town, in the area where most of the wealthy had homes.
Marty ran a hand through his hair, slicking it back out of his eyes, as he tried to figure out his next move. He had no idea if there was a gas station or 7-11 nearby, and didn't feel driven enough anymore to want to walk out in the rain until he found one. He sighed, realizing for the first time that he was completely soaked, and it was actually rather cold out....
So I'll just try one of the houses and see if anyone there can tell me what's going on.
Marty turned around and headed for the first house on the block -- a three story contemporary-looking place painted in a dark navy. A faded and tattered American flag dangled from a stick that jutted out from beside the garage, and a handpainted sign mounted under the flag told him that this house belonged to the Jennings. The musician took a moment to compose a quick cover story for his appearance and his reason for knocking on their door -- his car broke down and he needed to see a phone book to call a tow truck.
When he reached the porch, though, he didn't knock; curious to see if the home even had any power, her pressed the doorbell. When he could detect no chime -- no sound at all, really, except for the wind, the rain, and a low rumble of thunder in the distance -- he raised his hand to knock on the door... and froze when he noticed the dead and wilted Christmas wreath hanging on a hook. A chill ran down the length of his spine, different from the cold rain that was already trickling down his skin. A premonition of sorts assaulted his senses; somehow he had a feeling that this was more of a case than someone being extremely tardy with the removal of their holiday decorations.
Something is seriously wrong here....
Marty pressed on, though, curious to discover exactly what it was. It would save them time, if nothing else, since Doc probably wouldn't want to leave until he had an idea about the options here. So the musician knocked on the door. Hard. A couple of minutes passed with nary a sound or movement from within. Marty knocked again -- and then tried the doorknob. It turned freely, inviting him to come inside and see what there was to see.
"Shit," he murmured under his breath, the cold shivery feeling getting worse. He looked back over his shoulder, feeling like he was being watched or something. No one was around. Marty gave the door a slight push and it swung open.
"Hello?" he called out. His voice echoed back to him, then died away entirely. No one -- and nothing -- answered his call. He took a step in the house, noticing immediately a musty, sour smell in the house. The scent made him freeze, for reasons he wasn't entirely sure about. There was something about the scent that told him it was bad, though. That the best thing he might be able to do was to turn around and leave.
But what the hell was going on in this world? Marty pressed forward, breathing shallowly from both the tension and the desire to avoid the strange, creepy smell. He headed out of the entryway, down the hall that ran towards the back of the home, searching for a kitchen. Most people seemed to keep phone books and newspapers around there.
The hallway and rooms were gloomy and dim, with no electric lights to lead the way. Marty went slowly, pausing to listen every minute or so, feeling jumpy and nervous. Probably from trespassing into someone's private home. The main corridor reached a dead end, branching new ones to the left and the right. Marty could see what looked to be the kitchen at the end of the hall on the left -- the stove range and fridge, at any rate -- and turned in that direction.
He had only gone two steps before his foot struck something on the floor. Marty looked down, seeing what appeared to be a bundle of clothes or towels. He raised his foot to step over them -- and then saw the almost-but-not-quite skeletal human hand lying on the floor, sticking out of a sleeve.
It wasn't someone's laundry he had stumbled over -- it was someone. Long dead. Lying face down in the middle of the hall.
"AHHHHHHHHH!"
The scream was out of his mouth the moment the realization hit him. Marty spun around, nearly tripping over the rotting corpse in the hall all over again in his haste to escape. He burst outside seconds later, gasping and shaking and feeling sick to his stomach. Radiation poisoning! his mind screamed, hurtling towards full blown panic, now. I'll bet this is another version of a nuked world! We gotta get outta here!
Marty would've run all the way back to the train, full speed, if he hadn't tripped over the "Welcome" mat set on the porch of the Jennings' home. He landed hard on the cement, on his stomach, his breath whooshing out of his lungs.
The musician lay where he had fallen for a moment, stunned. His heart was thudding so hard and fast that it was actually shutting out the sound of the rain. It was only then, lying on his stomach on the hard, cold cement, that he saw the newspaper resting a few feet away, still bundled up from a delivery who knew how long ago. The musician reached out and grabbed it, glad that it had fallen under the eaves of the porch and therefore was sheltered from the elements. He sat up as he pulled off the rubber band and unfolded the slender periodical, anxious to see the headlines of the day.
EPIDEMIC OVERWHELMS HILL VALLEY; Hospitals , doctors overtaxed; 156 confirmed dead in last 24 hrs; 2500 in past week.
MAYOR ENCOURAGES CITIZENS TO REMAIN CALM, AVOID TRAVEL.
CREMATION NOW REQUIRED FOR EPIDEMIC VICTIMS.
CASUALTIES NUMBER 1.2 MILLION IN NEW YORK CITY; CDC promises vaccine is on the way.
The grim headlines were accompanied by an grimmer photograph of a hospital hallway filled with white-sheeted gurneys. "Jesus Christ," Marty whispered. His eyes went to the date on the masthead. Monday, December 5, 1994. Not quite a year ago.
The musician looked up towards the street, then back over his shoulder at the door that he had neglected to close on the way out. There wasn't enough money in the world to make him go back in there and check things out further. This newspaper told him everything he needed to know -- some horrible modern-day equivalent of the Black Plague had apparently swept through the country, possibly the world, about a year ago. The very fact that this Jennings had died in his or her home and had never been removed or discovered spoke strongly about that. It looked like a family home; where was the rest of the family? Probably dead in a different room, or maybe in one of the hospitals....
Marty shuddered, shifting his mind to the less gruesome details that added to the idea he was getting. The lack of power and the dirty streets. The relative stillness and quiet of everything. Not seeing one other person or animal since their arrival. And other little things that he had noticed on some subconscious level while on his walk.
He had to tell Doc; they had to get the hell outta this world before whatever germ or disease that wiped out all those people infected them.
Marty rolled the newspaper up as he stood, tucking it under one arm in the vain hope of keeping it as dry as possible, then set off at a run down the center of the road. His ribs and chest ached with the exertion after the hard fall he had taken on the porch, but he simply gritted his teeth and ignored it, as well as the rain stinging his face and his eyes. He took no care in trying to be subtle or quiet; who was around to notice him? By the time he reached the train, he ached all over from the fall and subsequent frantic jog, was soaked to the bone, and numb from cold. He didn't think he could feel much worse.
Although he had basically tried picking a fight with Doc earlier and lit into him rather unnecessarily, venting a frustration and anger that really was no fault of the inventor's per se, Marty didn't hesitate at all in his approach to the train. He had heavier things on his mind at that moment than sniping about something that had happened ten years ago.
Doc was still in the cab, bent over, fiddling with or looking at something behind the boiler and the time circuit display, when a frantic and dripping Marty returned. Doc's head snapped up at the sound of his arrival, then he looked back down at what he was doing.
"Get away from the circuits," he said flatly. "I don't want you causing more problems by soaking them with water."
Marty ignored his edgy tone. "Doc! We've gotta go right now!"
"Why? I'm still hearing thunder out there. It's not safe to fly, yet." Doc pulled his head back to look at the musician, frowning. He was still obviously irritated about the earlier incident. "I didn't expect to see you come back so soon. Did getting soaked out there calm you down at all?"
"No -- seeing this did." Marty held up the wet newspaper, the headlines still clear enough to be read in the dimly lit cab. The frown faded from the inventor's face as he scanned the dark letters on the paper. He looked grim by the time he finished it, but didn't say anything, looking back towards the boiler and time circuits.
The musician thought he was severely underestimating the news. "Doc! We gotta get the hell out of this place! I was out there and there's no one left! No one alive! This thing killed everyone, probably, or at least all Hill Valley, and God knows how contagious it is.... The longer we stay, the more likely we could get sick with this plague shit!"
"Not necessarily," the inventor said. "Diseases take time to incubate and infect, and if there's no one left alive to spread it, it shouldn't spread anymore. That's why the bubonic plague eventually stopped. Unless you came into direct contact with a disease carrier."
"Uh... well, I did. I tripped over someone, but I sure as hell didn't touch them anymore when I saw... that it was someone. I was outside in two seconds after that. And I'm positive it was someone who was sick with this thing."
Doc looked at him hard, an expression that was a strange cross of concern and disbelief. "You went into someone's home?"
Marty rolled his eyes at the pointless question. "Believe me, if I'd known that some Twentieth Century plague had wiped everyone out and there was a dead body inside, I would've definitely avoided it...."
Doc shook his head, sighed, and stepped towards the door, "I think--" he began, only to stop, suddenly, mid-sentence and mid-step. His eyes grew wide and vacant. Marty thought he saw something outside -- visions of plague-infested zombies danced through his head -- until the inventor pitched forward. His left foot was frozen in the air, poised for his step, and he seemed unable to put it down to catch himself.
It happened so fast and so unexpectedly that the musician was unable to do a thing. He watched numbly as Doc fell towards the still-open door, the side of his head clipping the frame of the doorway, landing hard on the metal floor of the train. His head snapped forward over the edge of the floor, outside, then he went limp all over.
It seemed, for a moment, that the entire world froze -- even the raindrops falling outside. Then Marty became aware of the sounds and sensations once more -- the roar of the rain on the roof, the cold wind gusting into the cabin, his completely sodden state, the ache of bruises on his own body, his thudding heart, and a fierce headache that had crept up on him sometime in the last half hour. There was also a cold fist of fear that gripped his heart and his lungs, making it hard to breathe.
Oh my God! I killed the Doc!
Gasping in horror at the idea, Marty dropped the newspaper and fell to his knees, next to his friend's side. "Doc?" he asked tentatively. When that provoked no response, Marty reached out and shook him by the shoulders. "Hey, Doc?"
Nothing. His hands trembling, now, Marty reached over and felt for a pulse in the inventor's neck. He couldn't find one immediately, and just when he was certain that the plague or some horrible stroke caused by all the grief he'd given his friend had killed him, he found it. The beat was strong and steady. Thank God.
"Doc? Come on, wake up," he begged, but there was still not the faintest of movements from his friend.
Realizing how soaked he, the inventor, and the inside of the machine was getting from the downpour outside, Marty grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him out of the doorway, into the cab, and closed the door against the elements. The musician then rolled his friend onto his back. He half expected to find him foaming at the mouth with his eyes wide open or something terrible like that, but eyes were closed and his face slack. He appeared to be simply asleep -- or unconscious. There was a faint bruise Marty could already see forming near the arch of the inventor's left eyebrow. Probably from clipping the metal frame of the doorway. But why had he even fallen in the first place?
What if it is that plague? Or what if he did have some kind of stroke or heart attack? Jesus, of all the places to get sick....
Marty shivered at the thoughts. "Doc?" he called again, lightly smacking the inventor's cheeks with his hand. That earned him no reaction whatsoever. The musician bit his lower lip, frustrated and scared. The back of his throat burned, and he knew that he was perilously close to crying -- and if that happened, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop or calm down anytime soon. He was hanging on by a thread as it was. He had to think; there had to be something he could do!
The first aid kit; maybe there's something in there....
Marty crawled over towards the small silver case at the back of the cab, under the seat. His heart sank as he opened it up, though. Because it was from the future, there were a ton of things in it that he had absolutely and positively no idea what they did or were supposed to do. There were instructions on the inside of the lid, slipped behind a transparent folder, and he pounced on that immediately. The water that was still dripping from his skin, hair, and clothes immediately soaked the page transparent, but Marty hardly noticed, trying to find the future equivalent of something like a cold compress or smelling salts.
He was still looking when he heard a rather weak groan from the inventor. The directions fluttered from Marty's hands as he turned around to tend to his friend. "Doc! Are you there? Wake up!"
Another groan. Doc's eyes were still closed, but he was grimacing. Encouraged, Marty lightly tapped his cheek again with his hand. "Doc? C'mon, open your eyes."
The inventor's eyes squeezed shut even more, then managed to crack open. "Marty..." Doc muttered around a moan. "What... what happened?"
"I don't know! You were gonna step outside, I think, and then you suddenly froze and just hit the deck. You hit your forehead when you fell; does it hurt?"
"My whole head hurts...." Doc blinked a couple of times, reaching up to his brow. He winced as his fingers found the point of impact. "How long was I out?"
"Between five and ten minutes, I think. I couldn't wake you up and I was trying to see if the kit had anything in it...." Marty tried to smile, but he didn't quite make it. His hands were still shaking from the scare. "I thought you'd stroked out or something. Shit...."
Doc sighed. "No, I'm fine. Except for this headache." He started to rise, propping himself up on his elbows for a moment before continuing to sit up all the way. His complexion was rather pale. "I think I just had an episode."
"An episode? An episode of wha--oh!" Marty looked at him with alarm. "Oh my God! Are you sure?"
"Unless I fainted.... Did I?" The inventor glanced sidelong at Marty, holding one hand to his head.
"No, I don't think so -- you just kinda... froze." Marty remembered the way it played out, then nodded to himself. "Yeah, I guess you probably did have one of those reactions. So does this mean that we're in real trouble, now? That we can't postpone this stuff anymore?"
"I don't know," Doc said. "Perhaps prolonged travel in different dimensions causes an eventual and inevitable breakdown to the system. Or maybe it was simply my exhaustion and stress level; you got to sleep for about an hour here, and I did not. But," he added, his tone lightening a little, "I believe I have figured out why the machine is having this problem."
"Really?" Marty asked, skeptical. "How?"
"The computer." Doc waved a hand in the direction of the device, resting on the floor a foot away. "The program that one of my other selves gave me. I noticed some very odd but consistent discrepancies...." He winced again, rubbing his head gently.
"What kind of things?" Marty prodded, both hopeful and pessimistic. Something told him this news wasn't going to be great.
The scientist took a deep breath and let it out in a gush of a sigh. "To be perfectly simple... every part that we replaced on the train when we were stuck in the alternate reality last year is out of sync with our dimension. They have been and are deteriorating just as the human nervous system does when it is out of its home world. Because of this deterioration, a multitude of wires and circuits and even the flux capacitor are not functioning as they should -- but they're also not malfunctioning consistently. Thus, this result."
Marty chewed on the words while Doc attempted to climb back to his feet, using some of the boiler tubes and gauges as handholds. "Why didn't this happen when we tried to get home from that one alternate reality?" he finally asked when he was sure he got the gist of it.
"The parts weren't malfunctioning, then," Doc said, groaning under his breath as he leaned against the time circuits. Marty was too preoccupied with trying to understand what the hell was going on to think of telling him that maybe he should still stay off his feet for a few more minutes. "The replacement parts were essentially designed to be a Band-Aid to our problem -- not a permanent solution. I should have replaced everything we 'borrowed,' but I didn't; I forgot." The inventor took another breath and sighed heavily. "I assumed that because we got home safely, the problem was solved. I can't believe I overlooked that...."
Marty got to his own feet slowly, trying to keep up with the rather complicated explanation that Doc was feeding him. "So there's a way you can fix this... right?"
Doc massaged his forehead with the heel of one of his hands as he managed to let go of the equipment at the front and stand on his own. "Maybe," he said.
"Maybe." Marty was aghast. "What do you mean maybe?"
Doc turned slowly to look at him. "Logic would suggest that if broken parts could be entirely replaced in an alternate reality, and still allow us to return home safely to our dimension, one time, the same can happen again. If that's the case, then all we really need to do is find a version of myself with the time, skills, knowledge, and equipment to help us with replacing the diseased areas of the train. However, it is also possible that this slow deterioration, coupled with our prolonged stay in worlds that are foreign to us, might have broken things beyond repair with the machine. If that's the case then we're--"
"--Stuck doing this forever and ever?!" Marty cried, moaning the words out. "Oh shit, Doc, no...."
The inventor blinked a couple of times, staring coolly at his friend. "No. Don't interrupt, Marty. What I was going to say was, if that's the case, then we're going to have to find a way to build a device that can move between dimensions on purpose, and be able to control our travels in it. It can be done -- my counterpart in that world last year had to do just that with another one of his... our... counterparts -- but I don't think it will be very simple or easy. This is actually a very big reason for why I don't want to attempt any repairs before we find another me with the right knowledge and a working time machine -- it will certainly take longer than thirty-odd hours, and if I'm already showing early symptoms after being in this world for only about two hours...."
Marty got the message loud and clear. "We'll have to keep resetting our systems," he said. "God, I hope that things can get fixed sooner than later, then...."
"Me too," Doc said, most sincerely. His eyes drifted down to the soggy newspaper that the musician had dropped during his friend's spell. "I suppose there is no need to linger here any longer. Especially if there is the possibility of infectious deadly disease."
"We might already be doomed enough with that," Marty muttered, his eyes darting to the current time display. They had been in this world almost two hours. "I don't think you should drive now, Doc."
"Probably not," the inventor agreed easily. "Why don't you take care of that... in a few minutes. I'll tell you everything you need to do. I need to prep the machine first and save all the data I collected on the computer."
Marty let him work at the tasks, hanging back a few feet in the desire to stay out of the way -- especially since he was still so sodden from the weather outside. Now that the huge excitement was past, the full force of his physical state hit him. He shivered a little, trying to cover it up, feeling like a world class jerk, now, for going at Doc's throat earlier. His drenched clothes merely reminded him of his folly; that was, after all, the reason he had stormed outside into the rain.
After a bit of squirming, Marty finally said it: "Sorry about earlier, Doc."
The inventor didn't answer immediately, and Marty wondered if he even heard his softly uttered apology. "I don't understand why that matter bothers you so much, Marty," he finally said, tapping a few keys on the computer. "I did what I thought was best at the time, and I never intended to conceal the plans from you... not once we were in the DeLorean together."
Marty sighed. "I guess," he murmured. "It just... bugged me that you didn't bother ever telling me. Like you were trying to hide it or something."
"No," Doc said. "I simply forgot, and the subject never came up enough to remind me. And it seemed quite irrelevant by the time I saw you again. You were obviously whole and unharmed at the train tracks, and I was in a hurry. I didn't like the idea of bringing the train out into a new time in broad daylight like that."
"Maybe if I wasn't having dreams of reliving that moment...."
Doc glanced up from the computer. "I'm sorry about that, but your bad dreams aren't really in my control. Likely it's stress; perhaps it won't be so bad now that we know part of our problem."
The musician pursed his lips, silently disagreeing with that. He didn't feel much better at all; beyond having some idea of what was going haywire, nothing about their situation had changed.
"I'm not the enemy in any of this," Doc went on, looking back to the laptop. "I'm doing as much as I can realistically be expected to do to solve the problem. We're in this thing together, and we're going to have to stay on peaceful terms if we want to get home safely, I think."
"So what are you saying?" Marty asked, his remorse having faded enough for him to feel a bit impatient over what his friend was rambling about. "That I shouldn't bite your head off? I said I was sorry about that...."
"Actually, I'm saying that due to both of our high-strung, exhausted, and stressed states -- and not to mention the close quarters of this train -- a reaction like yours was probably inevitable. And it could very well happen again. But we've got to get along if we want to get home; you've got to hold your temper in check with me, Marty. If you need to get away for a while and go for a walk, I'm perfectly fine with that." Doc gave his friend a quick glance, perhaps to gauge how he was taking this blunt assessment. "Even if you are probably completely miserable right now from doing just that. I'll turn up the heat in here, and maybe we can find a change of clothes for you in the next reality."
"The next reality," Marty muttered, echoing Doc's words. "The problem won't go away on it's own, will it?"
"No, it won't," Doc said bluntly. "But knowing what was going wrong was half the battle. It's just a matter of time, now, I think, before we'll make some serious and definite progress."
Doc may have believed that success was inevitable, but it took a long time before they hit anything remotely resembling a jackpot. After what Marty had come to think of as the "plague world," there were a number of strange situations and places that the travelers found themselves witnessing.
First, there was a world where, ironically, the DeLorean had not been destroyed on the train tracks. Marty had almost thought this was some sort of cosmic joke aimed at him when he found out, and even Doc had looked faintly amused by the news. The change, though, had done nothing to better the world. In this place, Clara and Doc had never met because the DeLorean had never had a ruptured fuel line. After their uneventful return to the future, the local inventor had taken the machine apart by hand -- much like the Emmett in the Tannen-free world, and the world where Marty's counterpart had used the sports almanac. Because he had avoided the run-in with Buford Tannen, though, the local Marty had gotten into the car accident and was on the road to the miserable future of 2015. Their story to the local inventor was met with a great deal of sympathy and interest, but in the end he had to tell them that they might as well move on; he had put time travel behind him to focus on hover technology, which was something that could benefit the entire world -- and didn't have the horrible potential side effect of ending All Life As We Know It.
Their next stop took them to another place without a time machine -- it had apparently been destroyed in an accident when Marty had returned from 1955 and had plowed it into the former movie theater. While the musician had done the exact same thing at home, in this reality the local Marty had turned the wheel in the hopes of avoiding the building, and the car had gone into a spin and struck the theater rear-first. The collision had ripped off or destroyed the sensitive circuitboards, wires, and the fuel chamber that were all mounted on the back of the car. Marty, though, had walked away from it without a scratch on him. Doc had survived the terrorist shooting fine, but without a machine to check out the future he never saw an inkling of Marty's fate, and thus the local version of the musician had once more gotten into a car accident and destroyed any hopes of a music career.
Then there was the reality that Marty wished fervently had never been. Not because it foretold death, destruction, or auto accidents, but because of what he was doing for a living. Singing. At weddings. The only thing possibly worse than that, in Marty's mind, was being a one hit wonder band forced to play state and county fairs, still trying to rock on the power of one hit song. The thing that blew his mind was that his other self -- who happened to be visiting the local Emmett when the visitors had dropped by -- seemed perfectly happy with his line of work. Unlike the visiting musician, though, this Marty McFly seemed to enjoy performing more than songwriting. They didn't stay more than a couple of hours in this world, because once more the local Emmett didn't have anything to help them out; he had destroyed his time machine after returning home from an uneventful trip to the future.
They saw a reality where Doc was still a professor, and was still trying to build a time machine; a reality where Marty's other self had discovered a love of writing and film instead of music and was trying to write screenplays; a reality where Marty was named "Calvin" after the nice young man who helped Lorraine and George McFly get together; a reality where Doc had been killed when his mansion had burned down; a reality where Marty had erased himself from existence in '55; a reality where Doc had never moved back to the present after being left behind in the past. And on. The only thing those worlds all seemed to have in common was that there was no working time machine still around. It had never been created at all, in a couple of cases, but in most it had been around about ten years ago, then destroyed by accident or on purpose.
There were also a few worlds they came across that had apparently evolved entirely differently, in ways beyond the greater Hill Valley area. The World Without Microchips was one, which was sort of like a futuristic version of the 1940's to Marty's eye. Naturally, this location would be of no help to them, and once Doc figured out what had happened, he left without even bothering to try and find himself. Then there was a really strange reality that looked like it was still stuck in the 1890's; Marty thought the time circuits were now acting flakey until Doc checked them over -- and when they left and were back in a twisted 1995, it became a moot point. There was also the world where the U.S. was still a British colony, having lost the Revolutionary War, and one where America had apparently never been discovered.
Marty soon got the mind-numbing feeling that he was channel surfing for a show that never seemed to be on. Doc, for his part, was trying to keep their stays in the alternate worlds increasingly short. Not knowing how much time they could linger before the side effects was most of the motivator, but another part of it was that the inventor was clearly getting more frustrated and impatient to find someone who could help them with the problem -- especially now that they knew what was going wrong.
After one particular brief layover in a world where Doc had simply never been born, the scientist had finally had it. Marty hardly paid attention when they went back up into the air for yet another transit -- but he definitely sat up straighter when Doc merely slowed down after their next arrival and then picked up speed for another jump.
"Doc!" he said when this happened not once but twice in a row. "What the hell?"
The inventor didn't bother to turn around and look at the musician. He glanced casually out of the window to his left. "I'm speeding this process up a bit," he said. "I don't see the point in stopping when my home below is clearly not inhabited. This should save us a little bit of time."
"I thought you said we should explore every place, to make sure we weren't skipping over the one place that had the answer? And, Doc, remember last year? Remember the you in that dimension we got waylaid in? He didn't live in your house on Elmdale Lane -- and he helped us out a lot!"
Doc's head bobbed once in a nod. "Perhaps so," he agreed. "But I'm too tired to check out every reality in depth anymore. Do you really want to be stuck doing this for the next week? Or year?"
Marty backed off immediately, far too exhausted to argue against it. He was getting more than a little tired of this game. "Carry on," he said, leaning back into the seat.
Doc's new modus operande definitely saved them some time, but there was more than one world that had the restored farmhouse and barn the way that the inventor was used to seeing. When they did touch down in those places, though, they found not answers but excuses. There was no time machine because Jules and Verne had taken off in it once for a joyride, and freaked out the local Emmett and Clara. There was no time machine because Emmett saw no point in holding onto one after his family had successfully moved out of the past. There was no time machine because it had been destroyed during a severe earthquake in 1994.
With each negative answer to that oh-so-important question, Doc's jaw tightened, his posture grew more tense, and he spoke less and in more clipped sentences. Marty, for his part, simply felt more exhausted. They hadn't stopped to catch their breath since the forced layover in the plague world, not even to eat; the snacks that an alternate Clara had given them were consumed on the fly. By the musician's vague count, they had been up more than forty-five hours since their night's sleep in the Marty-and-Jennifer-as-teen-parents world. It felt like twice that.
He was so drop dead tired, in fact, that at some point during Doc's back-to-back-to-back jumps in the machine, he started to nod off where he sat on the bench, his exhaustion great enough that the turbulence and sonic booms were simply not enough to bother him anymore. His awareness came in brief snatches and snippets for what might've been five minutes or an hour -- until they hit the ground with a jarring halt. Marty jumped at the sensation, nearly falling out of his seat, blinking at Doc as he tried to bring his mind back to the present.
"What is it?" he muttered.
The inventor heaved a deep, weary sigh before turning around to face the musician. "Another possibility," he said, glancing for a second through the window. "If you want to stay in here, I suppose I can understand that."
Marty was tempted -- especially since it was once again raining outside. But if he waited in the cab, he knew the only thing he would do or want to do was sleep. Although he was definitely wiped enough to consider -- for a moment -- curling up on the cold, hard metal floor, it wasn't his first choice. The bench, too, wasn't much better. Might as well keep moving and hope that maybe, just maybe, this might be a place to settle down for a while... or at least for a night.
"I'll come," he said, getting to his feet rather stiffly, reaching up to rub a kink out of his neck. "You think we could maybe stay here for a night, even if it doesn't have anything for us? I feel like I might pass out if I don't get to sleep soon."
"Maybe," Doc said, clearly distracted.
Marty frowned faintly at the answer, both annoyed and concerned for his friend. The phrase "one track mind" was one that seemed to be coined especially for the inventor. When Doc had his mind set on something, he didn't give in or let go, no matter how long it took him to get to the bottom of the problem. Marty recognized that obsessiveness showing its ugly head right now. In spite of a blow to the head from one of the earliest symptoms of the incompatibility problem, Doc wasn't slowing down at all. And he had to be just as tired as Marty was, if not more.
"You know, Doc, rest might keep both of us from spacing out from the incompatibility stuff," the musician couldn't resist mentioning as the inventor opened the door and paused on the threshold of the streaming showers. Marty made a face at the weather as he took it in. Parts of him were still damp from the thorough soaking he got in the plague world. They never had found dry clothes for him. "You don't want to have one of those when you're flying the time machine, do you?"
"Of course not, Marty," the scientist said flatly, without an ounce of conviction in his voice. Marty had the clear impression that Doc had hardly heard a word of what he said, or really cared. "We can rest when another chance presents itself."
The musician rolled his eyes, finding that answer less than satisfactory. He had managed to deal with Doc without much of a problem since the blow up in Plague World, the memory of the moment he thought he was the cause of his friend's swoon still extremely vivid. But now it started to pale compared to the very real and vivid problems of inescapable exhaustion. If Doc wanted to move on after five minutes here, he was definitely going to have a few words to say about that!
Unless, of course, to stay a day would mean their death or something like that.
The visitors walked briskly through the rain to the back of the home, once more knocking on the back door to summon the owners. Marty leaned against the wall next to the door, resisting the urge to go over and sit in a comfortable-looking wicker chair nearby on the porch. There was no answer from Doc's first try, so the inventor knocked again. Another long minute passed.
"Maybe no one's home," Marty suggested. So far, they had pretty much caught Doc's counterparts at their houses. It stood to reason that there was always a world around where that wasn't so.
"Perhaps," Doc said, sounding faintly perturbed by the idea. He took a few steps away from the door, towards the side of the house where the separate garage was located for his and Clara's cars. Doc didn't reach the corner of the home before the door was finally flung open by a rather frazzled Emmett Brown of this world. He saw the musician first and immediately assumed him to be the person who had knocked.
"Marty! What are you doing at the back door? Did you think I was out in the lab?" He clucked his tongue and shook his head, clearing taking an assumption to that, perhaps because Marty's clothes were splashed with rain from the trip between the train and the house. "Clara had to run to the store last minute, so I'm keeping an eye on all the kids. Were you out here long?"
"Uh... a couple minutes," Marty said, wondering if he should alert the local to the presence of his counterpart a dozen feet away. The musician's eyes darted quickly in the latter's direction, but Doc's expression was unreadable.
"Sorry, I didn't hear you. I was upstairs changing Clay-- Great Scott!"
Emmett's gave a wheezing sort of gasp and clung to the door frame for a moment as his gaze followed Marty's and he caught sight of his other self for the first time. He recovered from his shock impeccably quick, turning his eyes back to the musician. His voice carried a trace of admonishment to it. "Marty! Did you use one of the time machines?"
"Oh, thank you, God," Marty muttered, raising his eyes heavenward as he spoke, immediately picking up the news that he and Doc had so desperately searched for. "Did you use one of the time machines?" This Emmett hadn't destroyed his greatest invention yet; what was even better, it sounded like he had more than one. Please, please, please let this be someone who can help us....
"No," Doc told his counterpart, some of the tension leaking from his face as he caught the same inference from the words that Marty had. "He didn't. It's a rather long and complicated story to tell; is there somewhere more comfortable to explain it than the porch?"
Emmett tilted his head to one side as he studied his other self, then shifted his eyes to Marty. He stared particularly hard into the musician's eyes, long enough to make Marty decidedly uncomfortable, before shifting his gaze back to his counterpart. "All right," he said. "Why don't you both come in."
They filed in through the back door. The kitchen looked pretty much as Marty was used to seeing Doc and Clara's-- just slightly messier, with what looked like toys and some cooking ingredients and supplies scattered about on counters and the table. The local inventor offered them chairs at the kitchen table, but Doc declined them. Marty was used to that by now; no use in making one's self comfortable when it was unclear if you were going to have to get up and run off again a few minutes later. The visitors remained standing near the door, Marty leaning back against the wall and crossing his fingers that this Emmett would have the answers they wanted.
"We're not past or future versions of yourself or Marty," Doc said immediately, once Emmett had made himself comfortable, leaning back against the edge of the table. "We're from an alternate reality. I can go into more details if you want, but right now I need to know this: Do you have a working time machine?"
Emmett frowned faintly, suspicious. "Yes," he said shortly.
"Is that machine -- or one of them, as you implied you had more than one a moment ago -- a locomotive that you modified in the nineteenth century?"
"Perhaps," Emmett said cryptically. "What's going on here? What is all of this? Why do you want to know these things?"
Doc rubbed the bruise on his forehead from the fall more than a day ago. "As I told you, we're both from an alternate reality. Alternate counterparts to you and the Marty McFly here. My time machine -- constructed from a locomotive about a hundred years ago -- is having some problems and has been sending us from world to world for about four or five days, now. I know what's wrong with it -- that's a long, long story in itself -- and I have a few ideas for how the problem can be repaired, but I would need your help, time, and access to your equipment. Maybe it's a lot to ask, springing it on you like this, but.... Well, you are a version of me. Think of it as helping yourself."
Emmett stared at his counterpart for a moment, then looked at Marty. He seemed to favor the musician with far more scrutiny than he had Doc, and it made him slightly uncomfortable, as well as confused. "If this is all true," the local said slowly, swinging his eyes back to Doc, "then where is your machine? I didn't see anything out back."
"It's concealed under a hologram," Doc said.
"An HIS?" Emmett half-murmured, almost to himself.
"Exactly," the visiting scientist said, nodding. "You made one, too, then?"
"Yes -- I considered it rather necessary to the security of the time machines." Emmett stepped away from the table and over to the closest window, squinting as he peered out into the rainy mess. "I can't see a thing out of the ordinary out there. Do you have it on an invisible mode?"
"Yep. It's parked near the barn. I figured it would stand a good chance of not getting walked into there."
"Mmmmm." Emmett looked away from the outside world and over to a clock set near the stove. "Clara should be home in about a half hour. I'd like to go out there and look at it, if you don't mind; I'll have Jules keep an eye on the other kids."
Marty wondered how old the kids were in this world, since Verne definitely didn't need a sitter or supervision where they were from. He figured he could find that out later. Doc stopped the local before he could leave the kitchen.
"Do you think you can help us? If not, we can leave right now. We've done it many, many, many times before, already."
Emmett paused to look at Doc. "I'll do everything that I can to help you," he said. "I just hope that it's enough to help you with your problem."
Doc sighed. "Me, too," he muttered.
Once he had left the kitchen to presumably locate his eldest for baby-sitting duties, Marty asked Doc the question that he'd been sitting on for the last couple of minutes. "Do you think we can stay here a while?" he asked, his tone almost a plea.
"We'll see, Marty," Doc said. "I'm just as eager for a break as you are -- but only if it can help us get home. Otherwise we're just wasting our time."
"You think getting sleep is wasting time? Doc, for someone so smart, you can be really dumb about this! How many times have you screwed something up 'cause you were so tired you could barely see straight? And don't give me any BS answer -- remember when we were working on the Aerovette? And you chewed me out for pushing myself too hard? You should listen to your own advice, especially since we're messing around in alternate realities. Was one spaceout not enough for you?"
Doc's lips tightened and Marty could tell the advice rankled him a little. His tone remained even, though, as he said, "I am aware of all of this, Marty. But I'm not doing anything right now that requires an overwhelming amount of mental concentration."
"Piloting a flying train isn't one of those?" Marty shook his head, irritated by Doc's unyielding stubbornness. "You've said yourself that if the machine crashes or really breaks down somewhere, we're pretty damned screwed. I say we stay here for at least a night, even if the you of this place can't do anything to help us out."
Emmett returned before the visiting inventor could voice a reply to that. "Let's go," he said, walking for the back door already attired in a rain coat -- and with a couple of others draped over one arm that he handed to the visitors. Marty accepted it gratefully, not looking forward to another trip into the cold and damp outdoors without any sort of protection against the elements. Had he not felt so lousy, the memory of Doc's long ago assurance that he wouldn't need his jacket because he wouldn't get one raindrop on his clothes, during his little test jump in the machine, might've been faintly amusing.
"What exactly did you want to see?" Doc asked as he slipped into the borrowed coat. "Proof of our claimed identity? If you were hoping to actually see the problem with the train, I don't think you'll come away very satisfied. It's a rather subtle malfunction, detectable only by a sensitive and specific computer diagnostics program."
"I'd like to see the train, first off," Emmett said, opening the door. Wind gusted inside, bringing with it a few raindrops. "And then we can go into my lab and I'll show you what I have."
Doc seemed satisfied by that. The inventors left the house, Marty hesitating a moment before going after them. Even if he was now clad in a rather oversized raincoat, it didn't make his energy level any higher, or make him any more eager to exchange the warm, dry house for rain and wind. He didn't linger indoors, though, wanting to be around to put in his two cents if Doc decided that this Emmett wouldn't be of any help to them.
Emmett let out a faint gasp when Doc shut down the HIS to reveal the train in all of it's damp, broken glory. "Amazing!" he said, walking a few steps to examine the front of the time machine. "It looks almost identical to mine!"
"Great," Doc said, very sincerely. "Did you want to look at the way I have the system laid out in here?"
Marty sighed and rolled his eyes, not looking forward to what would undoubtedly be a long Q & A session between the scientists. "Is there any way I could wait in the lab for you guys while you poke around?" he asked, trying hard to keep the note of whining from his voice. "The weather really sucks out here and I think I've heard you give your other selves tours a million times now."
Emmett looked away from peering into the cab to regard Marty. "Sure," he said. "I'll let you in there. I don't imagine we'll linger out here very long ourselves."
Yeah, right, Marty thought, knowing his friend -- and just about every version of him -- would probably be too interested to notice things like weather and damp. He followed Emmett to the door of the lab, waited as the local inventor used his thumbprint to unlock the door, and then went gratefully into the warmer and drier lab.
"We shouldn't be too long -- honestly," Emmett assured him as Marty shed the wet coat and set it on the hook near the door. "It's pretty miserable out there and I'm not looking forward to spending much time out the rain."
"There's enough room to put the train in the cellar, even with the other one in there," Marty said, recalling that fact from one of the first worlds they had visited.
"Is there? Well, I imagine we'll move it there, then, soon. If it can be moved."
"That's not the problem," Marty said, a little testily.
Emmett gave him a sympathetic look, then went back outside to join his counterpart at the train.
Marty waited patiently for only a minute, then was unable to resist the opportunity of exploration. A couple of go-rounds in the main floor of the lab told him little, except that the second time machine here was clearly a DeLorean, and that this Emmett seemed to have many of the same ideas he was working on as Doc did. The musician guessed that was all good news. It seemed to get even better when he looked up and saw that this version of Emmett Brown had also had the time or inclination to build a study in the upstairs loft. He headed up the stairs, curious to see if the similarities would continue there.
The lights were out; Marty felt around on the wall where he was used to the switch being, found it, and clicked on a couple of the floor lamps that were the main sources of illumination for the upstairs room. His immediate impression was that the study was laid out approximately in the same way, with the same pieces of furniture scattered about. The musician took a couple of steps towards the couch, which had a variety of papers and other odds and ends strewn upon it, only to stop when he glanced over in the direction of Emmett's desk and noticed the photographs that were framed and mounted on the wall. A couple of them looked different, even from halfway across the room, and Marty went over to investigate further.
There were a few photographs that looked identical to ones that Marty had seen before -- specifically, ones of Jules and Verne as babies. But there were far more full color ones of the two oldest kids that began around the ages of four and two, respectively. And the wedding picture that had a rather prominent place in Doc's collection at home had changed. Emmett and Clara were shown standing before the church, smiling for the photographer and clad in their best attire, but now there was a third figure that stood at Doc's side.
It was him -- or, rather, the Marty McFly of this world.
The photograph was in Marty's hands a second later. "Jesus," he breathed, amazed. He studied the faces in the photograph, especially his own, searching for an explanation. Unlike Emmett and Clara, the local Marty was not smiling. He didn't look terribly enthused in general. Maybe he hadn't wanted his friend to marry. Or maybe....
...Maybe I got stuck back there, Marty realized, shuddering at the idea.
He set the photograph back on the wall where he had removed it and looked at the other ones, more critically now. Aside from the pictures of Jules and Verne as babies, and a family portrait that looked as if it had been taken when Verne was an infant, there were few photographs from the Nineteenth Century. And no more with Marty in them. Then he looked down at the desk and saw a small, framed sepia-toned picture, grainy with age, showing what appeared to be himself posed with the local Emmett, sitting in the doorway of the locomotive time machine. An inscription, with a date, was etched at the bottom of it: "Tues, December 2, 1890 -- it works!" Marty's counterpart was smiling in this photo, faintly, but the expression was muted compared to Emmett's wide grin.
"Oh, no," Marty murmured, horrified by what was implied by the two photos he had seen so far. He turned away from the desk and made his way over to one of the bookshelves, where he knew for a fact that Doc had some photo albums. That was an aspect that had also remained constant here; Marty found them without a struggle. After moving some boxes and clutter off the couch and to the floor, he sat down and opened the albums, eager and afraid to see what was in there.
He had apparently overshot the start date of the pictures; the handwriting under the color photographs on the first page of the first album he opened was "Jules' 8th Birthday Party." But the date was strange: January 6, 1990. Jules hadn't turned eight in 1990; he hadn't even turned eight in the Twentieth Century! Marty frowned, remembering the date on the picture that showed both him and Emmett with the train. "Tues, December 2, 1890 -- it works!" Doc's train didn't work until 1895, and he hadn't left the past until about a year later. If it worked five years sooner, though, and he moved his family to the future earlier, then....
"The kids would be younger," Marty muttered aloud, realizing now how this world was different. Emmett had finished the train sooner, and the local Marty had apparently been stuck in the old west. Maybe that made a difference in how fast the local inventor completed the time machine.
Marty would have to ask about that later. The musician closed the album, his interest waning now that he figured out part of the mystery. He moved the small stack of albums from his lap and onto the floor next to the couch. Once that was taken care of, Marty lay back on the cushions, too tired to go back downstairs and wait out the inventors' time in the train. He'd be able to hear them when they came in and then he'd go downstairs. Probably.
The sound of the rain drumming on the roof was rather soothing when one was indoors, out of the chill and damp. Marty rubbed his forehead, a headache having consistently plagued him for the last several hours, and let his hand drop down on his chest. He knew if he closed his eyes, he was toast, but when a couple of minutes went by and there was no sound from the lower levels of the barn, the urge to do just that got worse and worse, until blinking became dangerous. It had been so long since he had laid down anywhere....
You know, I don't care anymore -- I need to sleep... just for a few minutes, at least.
With that thought, Marty allowed his aching eyes a reprieve. If Doc wanted to yell at him for getting some rest later, so be it. He just didn't care anymore. Marty's sigh of relief turned into a yawn as he let himself finally relax and sink deeper into the cushions... and into the temporary oblivion of sweet sleep.
* * *
In spite of Emmett's claim that they wouldn't be too long, it was starting to get dark out by the time the two inventors wrapped up their conversation and tours around the foreign time machine. Doc was pleased that his counterpart here seemed competent and knowledgeable about most of the workings of the time machine. His experience in alternate dimensions was as lacking as most of the other Emmetts that Doc had encountered in his trip, though he did share visiting a Biff-twisted alternate 1985 as a result of the sports almanac incident. It was better than nothing.
"I can't promise that I can get you home," Emmett said, after Doc had shown him the gist of the problem with the laptop's help. The local frowned and rubbed his chin as he looked once more at the computer screen. "The situation still seems rather complex, to me, but I'll do whatever I can to help you fix it."
Doc smiled for the first time in hours -- or maybe days. "Thanks," he said quietly. "It might take a while, I'm afraid, and we'll probably need to use one of your time machines at least once a day in order to avoid the side effects of interdimensional travel."
"Of course," Emmett agreed readily. "That side effect sounds rather unpleasant, if you ask me; I never knew that this sort of travel was dangerous to one's health! You can use the DeLorean when you need to take care of that -- it'll be far easier getting that out of the lab than the train. And," he added suddenly, "we should probably move your train into the cellar with mine. It will make it far easier to work -- and be much drier, too."
Doc nodded once, having intended to suggest just that. "I don't think we need to take a jump until tomorrow evening, at least," he said. "Probably the best thing for Marty and I to do right now is to get some rest. It's been... a while."
Emmett looked at him dead in the face, his eyes not missing a thing. "I should say. I haven't seen my own face look like that since the last time I didn't sleep for a couple of days." He threw a look outside at the rain, then turned back to his counterpart. "Let's move your train inside, first. I don't know if it'll make the problem any worse to have it out in this weather all night, but I know I'll sleep better tonight if it's under lock and key."
"As will I," Doc said, most sincerely. He shut the laptop down and pulled up the hood of the borrowed coat, preparing to make the dash to the lab nearby. "How is your family going to react to this rather... bizarre news?" he couldn't help asking as he and Emmett left the cab of the train.
"In stride, I imagine," Emmett said. "Clara will probably have a few questions, but I don't think there will be any problems with her. As for the kids, Clayton won't bat an eye, but I suspect Emily might be a bit confused by it. Jules and Verne are probably old enough to understand the general concept, I think."
"How old are they all?" Doc asked, recalling the earlier implication that the younger kids needed watching.
Emmett gave him a slightly baffled look as he opened the door of the lab. "Clayton's just a baby -- he's nine months old. Emily will be eight in a few weeks, Verne just turned twelve, and Jules will be fourteen in January. Are your kids not the same ages?"
"Not the older two -- Jules will be twenty in January, and Verne just turned eighteen. That's an interesting discrepancy."
Emmett looked surprised by the news. "Is that normal?" he asked. "To have things be different in that way?"
"Oh, yes. I dare say it's more unusual to find so much the same. I can't even begin to tell you some of the weird deviations that we've seen.... Little would surprise me at this point, to be perfectly honest."
The local looked intrigued, but did not press the issue, for which Doc was grateful. He was too tired to answer any but the most pressing questions at the moment. There would be plenty of time, later, to go into detail. "Is this set up much differently from your lab at home?" Emmett asked as they entered the barn.
Doc swept the hood back and looked around the large room, his eyes running over the worktables, the equipment, the parked DeLorean near the large doors, and the multitude of devices and clutter. A small smile tugged at his lips once more. "It's very familiar," he said, stopping beside one of the tables to pick up a small circuitboard the size of his palm. "This is for your security system, isn't it?"
Surprise flooded the face of his counterpart. "Yes," he said. "Are you working on the same thing?"
"Essentially -- I'm refining the design a bit for mass marketing. Are you doing that, too?"
"Ah... no." Emmett frowned as Doc set the part down. "You're mass marketing your security system? How did that come about?"
"That's another long story," Doc said with a bit of a sigh. He looked around the room again, finally realizing something. "Wasn't Marty going to wait for us in here?"
"He was," Emmett confirmed. "It's possible he got sick of waiting and went to the house. He'd be much more comfortable in there."
Doc didn't question the suggestion; it sounded like something his friend would do, especially as cranky as he had been the last several hours... or days. He turned the subject back to the matter at hand. "Can you access your cellar the same way I can? Through a trap door and stairs in the floor?"
Emmett's response to the question was to roll back the rug over the door and pull up the wood to reveal the stairs. "Guests firsts," he said when Doc made no move to go down. "I'll show you my machine, quickly, and then we can move yours in, and tell my family about the houseguests we'll be having for the next week or two. And then you can finally get some rest."
The local Marty McFly pulled up in his truck before Doc's house, checking his watch as he cut the engine. He grimaced. Almost twenty minutes late. And he had left his place early, this time.
"I'll just blame the weather," he muttered aloud, though he doubted his friend would give him a very hard time over the matter. Doc knew him all too well -- better than his parents, now, really. He pulled the coat's hood over his head, grabbed the bag with a box of cake in it that he had bought at the supermarket on the way, and left his vehicle.
Marty ducked his head against the raindrops and ran straight for the house, not bothering to knock before he went inside. The foyer was uncharacteristically quiet and void of any kids. "Hello?" Marty called out, closing the door.
Emily ran out to meet him seconds later, her dark hair bouncing behind her. "Marty!" she said, throwing her arms around the bewildered guest's waist and giving him a tight hug.
"Whoa," he said, staggering back a couple of steps. "What's with the welcome?"
Emily looked up and grinned at him, showing off all her teeth. "I'm just glad t'see ya," she said. She took a step back and made a face as she looked down at her shirt and arms. "Ick -- you got me all wet!"
Marty smiled apologetically. "Sorry," he said. "You didn't give me enough time to take my coat off."
Emily made a face, then headed for the stairs, presumably to change her shirt. "Mom's in the kitchen an' Daddy's in the lab," she said as she went up the steps, answering the questions that Marty hadn't yet asked.
"Thanks," he called out after her. The musician headed to the kitchen at the back of the house, wanting to drop off the cake before he went out to see Doc. Just as Emily had said, Clara was in their, supervising a few pots on the range top. She looked up as he came in and smiled.
"Hello, Marty. How are you doing?"
"All right, I guess. I brought dessert," he added, setting down the water-flecked plastic bag containing the cake on the kitchen table. "Emmy said Doc was out in the lab?"
"Apparently so," Clara said, replacing the lid on a pot and turning away from the stove. "I haven't seen him all afternoon. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on the kids when I was at the store, but Jules said he asked him to watch the baby while he went out to work on something rather pressing. Were you intending to go out there and join him?"
"If that's okay, yeah."
Clara smiled again as she wiped her hands off on the apron tied around her waist. "If you weren't going, I'd ask you to," she admitted. "Will you let Emmett know that dinner will be on the table by six?"
"No problem."
Marty slipped his hood on again before opening the back door and stepping outside. He made a face at the weather as he left the warmth of the house. It had been raining almost a week straight, and the weathermen were not optimistic that it would let up anytime soon; it was actually supposed to turn even colder later that night and bring snow or sleet to Hill Valley and the surrounding areas.
Marty just couldn't wait. He sighed a little as he crossed the lawn for the barn, his mood matching the gloom of the dusk and damp surrounding him. It was the ultimate paradox for him that the people he felt closest to also happened to remind him the most about the unfortunate events of his life, and the things he had spent the last ten years trying desperately to forget.
Don't think about it, Marty told himself firmly, not wanting to spend the rest of the evening sulking. What had happened had happened; there was nothing he could do that would change things. If there had been, Doc would've helped him do it a long time ago. Doc, in fact, had done everything he really could to fix the situation, short of erasing it from ever happening.
"Time travel can't repair all human errors," the inventor had said to him, more than a decade ago. "Some things -- some unpleasant things -- need to happen to pave the way for change -- positive changes. You may not see this now, but I think you will, in the future."
At the time, Marty had been furious with that attitude and response, unable to understand why his best friend would let the hell he had to live through for five years go and happen. Now he was able to see things far more clearly -- but it didn't make him feel much better, really.
The door to the lab was locked, which was typical, but Doc had cleared him for entry into the barn a while back. Once the locks recognized his ID and popped open, Marty stepped inside. He took a moment to wipe the mud and water off his sneakers on the mat near the door, then threw back his hood and took a look around. The room appeared empty.
"Doc?" Marty called out, curiously.
There was no response. The local musician shrugged, then peeled his drenched raincoat off his body to hang on a hook near the door. As he wandered around the room, trying to figure out where his friend had gone, he noticed the lights on in the study, up in the hayloft. Marty headed over to the stairs, pausing at the bottom of them.
"Doc?" he called again, listening hard for a reaction.
Once again, the only sound he heard was the rain drumming on the roof above. Still, the musician figured that his friend had to be up there. Doc didn't typically have the lights on for no reason, and it was fully possible that the inventor was so completely engaged in something he hadn't heard Marty at all.
So he headed up the stairs, a nibble of worry chewing away at him as he went. What if the scientist was up there -- and something had happened to him? The guy was eighty-one, now, after all -- future rejuvenations notwithstanding. It was always possible that some medical problem -- or accident -- could strike, and then....
Marty swallowed hard as he reached the top of the stairs, his eyes darting nervously back and forth. His imagination was riled enough so that he half expected to find the inventor collapsed on the floor, under a pile of books, or victim of some unforeseen medical disaster. But the room appeared empty at first glance.
The musician sighed, relieved, then stopped when his eyes caught sight of a shoe hanging over the side of the couch. He blinked, starting to smile at his foolishness -- Doc had just fallen asleep up here, that was all -- when his eyes took in the rest of the prone figure on the couch.
For a moment, Marty froze at the sight of the familiar face -- then reacted completely on impulse.
"Holy shit!" he cried, taking a few quick steps back -- and then found air beneath the soles of his shoes. His hand shot out for the railing, but it was too late; Marty tumbled backwards down the stairs. It seemed to take an eternity and a half before he finally came to a rest, at the bottom.
Things were a little hazy for a minute or two; he had knocked the breath right out of his lungs, and a multitude of aches told him that he'd picked up a dozen or so nasty bruises in the fall. But he was alive and whole.
There were rapid footsteps from somewhere nearby and below, and then suddenly Doc was in the room. "Marty!" the inventor said, with a mixture of concern and scolding in his voice. "What in the name of Sir Isaac H. Newton happened?"
Marty couldn't answer the question for a moment, too stunned from the fall. And a second later he simply couldn't answer because another Doc appeared from right behind the first one. "Jesus!" he wheezed, wondering if he had hit his head during that fall and was now seeing double. "There's two of you!"
"Well, of course there's two of me!" the first Doc said, frowning. The second Doc put a hand on his arm and shook his head once.
"I think that's my Marty," he said softly, but not softly enough for the musician to miss it. "He was due to come over at five for dinner tonight -- I completely lost track of time." He stepped past Doc #1 and knelt down next to Marty's side, plainly concerned. "Are you okay? We could hear your fall all the way in the cellar."
Marty nodded once, his eyes wide, though he made no move to sit up from where he was sprawled awkwardly at the base of the stairs. "What the hell is goin' on, Doc?" he asked, spooked. "Why are there two of you... and two of me?!"
"You met the other Marty?" Emmett asked, sounding surprised. "Was he in the house?"
The musician shook his head, easing himself up on his elbows. He grimaced as he rested his weight on one arm, apparently touching one of the wicked bruises that would no doubt be mighty colorful tomorrow. "No -- he's up there, in the study. I swear, I almost fainted when I saw that."
The Doc who was still standing slipped past Marty and went up the stairs without a word. The musician turned his eyes to his friend, his mind half-frozen with confusion about the whole situation. "What's going on, Doc?" he asked again, softer.
The inventor smiled faintly and patted him on the shoulder. "We've had a little excitement here today," he said in a low voice. "It's nothing to be concerned over -- and I will explain everything to you very soon."
"But who are they?" Marty asked, glancing up the stairs, though he couldn't see either of the doubles from where he still lay. "Are they from the future? Or the past?"
"Neither," Emmett said. At the completely baffled look that crossed the younger man's face, the scientist smiled again. "I know you're confused, Marty -- and I'll admit that when I first met them, I was rather taken aback myself. And I'm sorry this gave you a scare -- I should've remembered you'd be stopping by soon."
The other Doc appeared at the head of the stairs and headed their way. Emmett looked up at the double. "How is your Marty doing?" he asked.
"Fine," Other Doc said. "He's sound asleep up there, on the couch. I rather envy him right now." Other Doc rubbed his forehead, and for the first time Marty noticed how exhausted and haggard he looked. Like he hadn't slept in a couple of days -- or had gone to hell and back.
What is going on? I don't get any of this at all!
Emmett stood. "I'd better show you to the house, so you can go to bed yourself," he said, rather apologetically. "There's no need for you to do anything more tonight, now that we've moved your train. And I'd better let the family know what's going on. Will you be all right out here alone for a few minutes, Marty?"
"I--I guess so." The musician finally sat up all the way, wincing from the now-present aches from the fall. "Are you coming back out here?"
"Once I get our guest settled, yes. And then I'll answer as many of the questions you have for me as I can."
Marty accepted the promise, watching his friend leave the lab with his double a moment later. He remained frozen where he was for a full minute after their departure, trying to let the last few minutes really sink in, then got to his feet. He glanced up in the direction of the study, once more, then mounted the stairs again. His trepidation was matched only by his curiosity. Nevertheless, he paused on the top step before continuing into the study for a closer look at the matter.
The couch was about ten feet away from the stairs. Marty covered the distance quietly, his eyes unable to resist blatantly staring at... himself.
"This is too heavy," he mumbled.
Other Marty lay on his back on the couch, one foot dangling over the edge, the other propped up on a small stack of folders that the inventor had probably set down some time before. The double's hands rested limply on his chest, which rose and fell gently with each breath. The awake Marty crept closer, emboldened a bit by the clear oblivion of the other. He stared first at the face of the double, tilted towards the back of the couch with his mouth hanging open. He was snoring softly. With his eyes, the local Marty traced the overly familiar features with a sort of uneasy fascination.
So that's what I look like when I'm completely out of it....
Marty edged closer to the couch, sitting down on the edge of an ottoman that came with the armchair nearby. He leaned forward unconsciously, resting his chin in his hand, still watching his snoozing double. The clothes, he noted with a weird kind of chill, were identical to his own, down to the shoes. It was both creepy and interesting. Marty dropped his gaze to his double's hands, studying them for a moment. And froze. His fingers slipped over his mouth as he exhaled, both pained and startled by the sight of the gold wedding band Other Marty wore.
"Oh, damn..." he murmured under his breath.
The sight of the ring caused a flood of memories to return. Memories he really didn't want to think about, and spent most of his life now trying to forget. Marty closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, fighting it.
Jennifer. Oh, God, Jennifer....
He still remembered the last time he had seen her -- Saturday, June 16, 1990. She had been at the mall, getting gear together to move to Boston for some newscasting gig. She hadn't seen him; he had avoided it, staring at her through the linen store window as she rang up a stack of items for her future. The pain hadn't dulled at all over five years since his return, and it still was sharp five years after his last sighting of her.
Why, dammit, do I always keep coming back to this?
There was a part of him that wanted to blame Doc, still. Doc had been the one to assure him of the success of pushing the DeLorean up to eighty-eight with a train. He had been the one to set everything up. But the inventor hadn't expected the time machine to derail at thirty-five miles an hour, right after the first log blew. The scientist had been in the train, still, at the time, and pulled the brakes immediately. But the damage had already been done to the time machine, with the engine catching the back bumper and dragging it along almost fifty feet.
It had been close for Marty, in the DeLorean at that time. The teen had been tossed out of the car in the turbulence and had struck his head; he hadn't regained consciousness for almost two days. Doc's pale, drawn face was the first thing he saw when he woke up, weak and disoriented. He didn't remember the accident then, or now.
The inventor hadn't told him the bad news immediately, of course. He simply said that there had been a bit of a "mishap" with his plan. The good news, Doc had mentioned offhand, was that Clara had caught up with him immediately after he had stopped the train. Aside from going into town to fetch the doctor, she had also apologized to the inventor for not believing his claims of being from the future from the night before. They were now officially "seeing each other." Doc's tone had grown lighter as he talked about this, even as his face remained grave with worry over his young friend. Marty, for his part, had been too groggy to really get a grip on everything. In retrospect, he should've savored that confusion. When understanding came, it was not kind.
A couple of days later, once it was clear Marty was out of any sort of danger, Doc broke the big news to him: when the time machine had gone off the train tracks, it had been damaged beyond contemporary repair. The inventor had launched into some scientific babble, which made the teen's still tender head ache, until Marty had finally broken in and asked him to get to the point.
"Well..." Doc had said, glancing down at the floor for a moment and bracing his fingers together, clearly uncomfort