The sky was a clear, deep blue upon the DeLorean's arrival, the sight welcome after the ugly green-grey shade of the 2020 sky in the terrible Tannen-controlled world. Doc quickly scanned the surrounding skies for the train, knowing that because they hadn't immediately followed the other time machine when it had left the last time, they might be miles away from it. Especially considering they had stopped elsewhere in between.
"Where's Doc B?" Marty asked, squinting through the windshield as the inventor slowed the car.
"Likely he came in at a different point than us, perhaps on the other side of town," Doc said, peering through the side and front windows without seeing a glimmer of the train.
There was a moment of silence, then Marty spoke again. "Do you think he has a legit reason for coming here?"
Doc looked at him oddly. "What do you mean?"
Marty shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. "Well, when Doc B was about to shoot me, he said something about not every place he's stopping at has a reason. He knows we're following him, Doc, and I think he's trying to set up a trap."
Doc thought about that a moment, then shrugged. "If he's trying to sabotage us with a destination, then he's partially out of luck. He won't have the time to set it up ahead of time to avoid harm himself. Unless he chose a place that would be destroyed shortly, like 1945 Hiroshima minutes before the atomic bomb detonation or 1909 Tunguska before the explosion, I find the idea of a trap to be a little difficult."
"I don't think he meant something like that, exactly," Marty said, "but he claimed that he'd set it up on purpose so that I one of us would find the train."
Doc looked at his friend skeptically. "I find that a bit difficult to believe," he said.
Marty shrugged with his good shoulder. "Whether he planned my finding it or not, his timing was shitty," he said. "I hope Clara and the kids aren't in trouble for that."
Doc did, too. He sighed to himself and shifted his eyes forward once more -- then spotted the train, up ahead and below them. "There he is," he announced, easing the accelerator down a touch. The DeLorean responded perfectly, jumping ahead immediately.
Marty sighed deeply as they grew closer to the other machine, pressing himself back a little in the seat. "Do you think he'll pull a gun on us, again?" he asked, uneasy.
Doc shrugged. "We'll be ready if he does," he said. "I don't intend to underestimate anything he does, now." He kept them above the train, hoping that keeping them in sight at that altitude would prevent them from being spotted so easily by Doc B. Below both machines was deserted and open countryside; in the distance, however, Doc thought he saw signs of civilization -- a few buildings and some smoke from fires -- settled beside a river or creek. The train headed in that direction, but began to descend perhaps a mile or two distant from it.
"I'd stake money that he's headed for there," Doc said, waving towards the buildings.
"Is that Tombstone, or wherever we are?"
"Tumbleweed. And yes, I would suspect so. There's not really anything else it could be, not if the view outside is any indication."
Marty frowned as he squinted at the buildings. "Doesn't look like much is even out there, period. No wonder the town went bust."
"You never know what little things could impact the future," Doc reminded him.
"Yeah, I guess.... Makes me wonder why Doc B even came here in the first place."
Doc wondered if Marty was implying that they had been led on another wild goose chase. "I think he has a solid reason for coming here," he said. "Call it a hunch, but I just doubt he's going to waste much time in visiting unnecessary time periods."
The train slowed, then stopped altogether to descend vertically behind a rock formation perhaps a mile or two away from the signs of civilization. Doc circled around once, spotted some rocks approximately half a mile from the buildings, on the other side, and headed in that direction.
"Aren't we supposed to follow Doc B?" Marty asked, confused as they drove away from the train.
"Yes and no -- the goal is to prevent him from altering history. We don't necessarily have to follow him to do that. I may be jumping ahead, but I'm quite certain that he means to do just that in this settlement of sorts."
"Even if it is jumping to a conclusion, so long as we spend as little time as possible near that creep, I'll be happy," Marty said.
Doc frowned faintly, a part of him annoyed by the negative way Marty referred to Doc B, particularly the part of him that was sympathetic to the mad scientist that could so easily have been him -- and was, in a sense. Marty won't understand how that can be possible, my feelings about him, the inventor thought as he guided the car to their goal. I don't think I'd be able to if the tables were turned. And it is my family that he's harming.... His hands tightened around the steering wheel at that thought.
Neither the scientist nor Marty spoke again until Doc had guided the DeLorean to its landing site, brought the car back to earth, and shut it off. As the engine ticked and cooled down, Marty finally voiced the question that Doc had been considering. "Now what?"
Now what, indeed?
Doc thought. "I suppose we leave the car and walk into town and then begin to search the area for Doc B or any sort of activity he may be drawn to," he said. "Do you think you can handle the hike?""Looks pretty flat -- I should be fine," Marty said.
A few minutes later they were walking towards the small town. It was a warm evening, the temperature still in the eighties and the sky flawless and clear. Doc kept a careful eye on Marty, but the teen kept up well and didn't utter one word of complaint. The sling he wore for his shoulder made Doc a tad uneasy, however, because it was essentially a sign to Doc B that something had changed between the time he had left and the time they had left Vienna.
"What do you think he did here?" Marty asked as they found the road into town and began walking off to the side of it.
"Hard to say. Historically-speaking, the gold rush was starting to hit around now. In fact, I'd wager that Tumbleweed came to be for that particular reason."
"God knows why they named the town that," Marty said. "Doesn't sound real optimistic if you ask me."
The town, Doc discovered as they entered it, was fairly quiet. The street contained more horses than people, the former tethered to hitching posts before the surprisingly new looking buildings. Yet the streets weren't entirely quiet; noise drifted out from a building that appeared to be the hub of the town.
"The saloon," Doc murmured, though no sign was immediately visible to tell him that the place was indeed that. "Doc B's probably headed there, if he hasn't gone already."
As they stood a bit before the building, listening to the voices from inside, the double doors burst open and a man staggered out from inside the bar. Almost immediately shotguns rang out, coming from behind him. Doc instinctively jumped aside, ducking for the protection in the alley between the saloon and general store, but Marty just stood rooted where he was, his eyes huge in his suddenly ashen face. Doc jumped back out, grabbed the teen by his good arm, and dragged him back with him. The entire maneuver took possibly five seconds. The shadow cast by the man who had run out of the saloon turned, fast, at the sound of the footsteps from the two time travelers. Doc ducked down low against the wall, into the shadows of the building, pulling Marty with him, and held his breath. After a moment he saw the shadow turn. The inventor leaned forward enough to see that it was Doc B who had left the saloon -- but which one?
The door burst open once more and gunshots echoed in the mostly empty streets. Footsteps began running rapidly away from the building. "If you come back in 'ere I'll kill ya!" a male voice threatened, clearly furious. "You 'ere me?"
Doc B didn't answer, his footsteps gradually fading into the distance. The man with the gun waited a moment, then headed back into the saloon. Doc let out a deep breath as the street once more grew quiet.
"That was close," he murmured. "I think we almost ran into the first Doc B."
Marty didn't answer immediately. Doc looked at him and saw his friend still wide eyed, leaning up against the wall for support, and visibly trembling. "Marty?" Doc asked softly, putting a hand on the teen's shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"Guns," Marty mumbled. "I can't deal with that now, Doc. I can't!" He hugged his arms tightly across his chest, as if cold. "I can't," he repeated, shaking his head hard.
"That's fine," Doc said, his voice low and calm. "I can understand that. You won't have to deal with them...."
"I will the rest of the time we have to follow Doc B." Marty looked at Doc suddenly, his eyes blazing. "I hate him, Doc. I really hate the guy. I know he's you, or you could've been him, or whatever, but dammit, I hate the bastard! I wish he'd die!"
Doc nodded. "I understand," he said, softly. "He almost killed you."
"But I feel bad about it," Marty said, his voice rising. Doc gestured for him to keep it lower and he obliged. "I actually feel bad about hating the bastard."
"Because he could've been me," Doc guessed, saying it as a statement, not a question.
Marty nodded once. "Yeah," he said softly, in a sigh. "Because of that. And that whole damned sports almanac hell was my fault, you know. I made Doc B, Doc."
"Oh, Marty...." But Doc didn't know what else to say. Footsteps shuffling in the direction of the saloon saved him from further thought. He crept to the corner of the building and peered around it, seeing the other Doc B striding their way. He didn't notice Doc, his eyes set dead center on the swinging doors. In his hand, hanging at his side, was a rifle of some kind.
"What is it?" Marty whispered.
Doc leaned back from the corner. "The second Doc B," he murmured as quietly as he could. "He has a rifle...."
If Marty had been pale before, he grew white at this news. "Oh, man," he murmured, leaning against the wall and hugging his chest again.
"Wait here," Doc said. "I'll see if I can handle this on my own."
Marty nodded once. "Thanks," he said, managing a faint, crooked smile.
Doc leaned forward again, just in time to see Doc B step through the swinging doors, into the saloon. The music and laughter and chitchat drifting out of the building faded. The scientist crept closer, over to one of the windows, and peered in through the bottom right corner.
A young man in his late teens or early twenties was standing up from what appeared to be a game of poker with four others. He was tall and a little round about the middle with straight, shaggy brown hair hanging down to his shoulders and into his dark eyes. He tilted the wide-brimmed hat on his head back for a look at the newcomer to the saloon. "Well, now, looks like we've got a man who don't understand the meanin' of fair an' just," he said. "You were told to get outta here, Brown."
Doc B took a step forward, in the direction of the young man. "Look who's talking," he said, a faint note of sarcasm in his voice. "I won that game, Poncho, and you cheated me out of my winnings."
Poncho looked annoyed with the accusation. "You didn't win anything, Brown. Pete saw you sneak the cards into your hand. That may be the way they play where you're from, but that ain't happenin' here."
Doc B, however, stood his ground. "Give me what I earned," he began softly, "or I'll shoot you."
Poncho frowned at this announcement, and the observing Doc felt his stomach twist, most unpleasantly. This young man -- closer to a kid, really -- had no clue what he was up against. The inventor began to creep toward the swinging doors, all but certain on what would happen next.
"You know who you're talkin' to?" Poncho asked, his tone matching the mad scientist's.
"A cheater," Doc B said flatly. "I don't take to people messing with me."
Doc reached the swinging doors just in time to see Doc B raise his rifle in Poncho's direction. The young man, however, was just as fast. Doc could hardly track the swift way he drew his gun from the tabletop and fired it in the mad scientist's direction. The bullet went wide, streaking into the wall and nearly toppling a painting hanging.
"You were saying 'bout me?" Poncho asked, his gun trained carefully on Doc B.
Doc B stared at the muzzle of the six-shooter, surprise the most prevalent expression on his face. The clicks of other guns being cocked in the room distracted him and he looked about to see a number of the gentlemen in the saloon aiming their firearms at him.
"I got friends in these parts, Brown," Poncho said flatly. "You're either the biggest idiot this side of the Mississippi or got a death wish to be comin' in 'ere like this. Now unless you wanna die, you'll leave. Now."
Doc B considered the words a moment, scowling. He turned and headed for the door. Doc ducked aside, quickly, moving as fast and as quietly as he could to the corner of the building. He made it there a second before Doc B strode through the door. Crouching low, close to the ground, Doc peered around the corner and saw Doc B pause in the doorway. He turned around, gave a long, angry look at those within, then stepped forward into the street.
Doc turned to Marty, who was watching him with wide eyes. "What happened?" Marty whispered.
Doc put a finger to his lips. It was too late, though. When the scientist turned back around, he saw Doc B standing several feet away, in the street, staring at them in the alley. His dark eyes were narrowed and the scowl on his face was etched deeply. It was Doc's first clear look at his other self, and he saw with faint surprise how much older this version of him appeared. Technically, he was physically older -- eighty, not pushing seventy-seven as Doc currently was -- and the inventor suspected that a lack of rejuvenations in the future, combined with a life considerably harsher than Doc had lived, contributed to his aging. Even so, Doc B showed little sign of being old or senile. His eyes flicker from Marty to his other self, one hand on his hip, his feet spread apart wide and his posture straight.
"Well," he said, his voice oddly flat. "Looks like neither of you can take a warning."
Doc glanced at Marty behind him. His friend's mouth twitched as he was clearly battling to hide the terror he felt. The inventor turned back to his counterpart. "You're making a mistake," he began.
"Am I?" Doc B asked. "I suppose you're right. I should just kill the both of you, now. You've become far too problematic for me."
"No," Doc said flatly. Behind him, Marty moaned softly. "That's not what I mean, D-- Emmett. This isn't your history; this isn't your world."
"I dare say," Doc B muttered.
Doc rushed ahead. "We've been to your world, Marty and I," he said. "I suspect your time machine malfunctioned and sent you to another, parallel, reality -- mine. And if you're trying to get home, you're going about it in entirely the wrong way!"
"Oh?" Doc B asked, his reply tinged with sarcasm. "Then tell me why I'm running into my past counterpart?"
"Because you likely entered my dimension during your first transit! That's why the future has changed, since then."
Doc B considered the words a moment, then shook his head with a cold smirk. "I know what I'm doing, Emmett," he said, his tone filled with bitterness and anger. He changed the subject, fast, before Doc could pursue his line of questions. "Looks like my aim wasn't so off with McFly, there. Why are you hanging out with a dead ass like him, anyway? Enlighten me."
Doc's mouth drew together in a thin line. "Maybe if you had friends like Marty you wouldn't be as bitter and angry as you are now," he snapped before he could stop himself.
Doc B's face was oddly blank. "You know nothing about me," he said flatly.
"I know more about you than you know about me or my life," Doc countered.
Doc B's lips curved upward in a taut smile. "Then you know nothing I do is my fault," he said.
"Bullshit!" Doc swore, suddenly very, very angry at this mirror image before him. "While I agree that you experienced a number of unprovoked punishments and harsh treatments, you don't have to let those dictate who you are now. You can move beyond it and move on."
"No," Doc B said, his tone both angry and sad. "You have no idea what I've lived through!"
Doc supposed he didn't; Doc B hadn't gone into painstaking detail in his journal. "Maybe not, but I do know that you're behaving beyond irresponsible right now and completely selfishly."
Doc B's face and mood darkened swiftly. He took a couple steps forward, toward Doc. The scientist didn't flinch, determined to stand firm against his warped twin. "All I want is my family!" he yelled, color flooding his face. "How is that so wrong? How is that so bad?"
"It's not -- but they're not your family, they're mine!" Doc said emphatically. "How would you feel if you were in my shoes?"
Doc B didn't address that. He raised his rifle, aiming it directing at the chest of his bothersome counterpart. "Looks like there can be only one Emmett Brown, now," Doc B hissed. "And--"
Whatever he was about to say would remain unknown. A whine of a ricocheting bullet cut through his speech, and the rifle jerked in his hand. Doc felt something grab him from behind and nearly screamed. He turned quickly, instead, and saw Marty gripping his arm with his right hand, his face bloodless and eyes huge.
Doc B, meanwhile, had turned his full attention to the direction of the gunshot, which had apparently come from his left, out of Doc's sight. "What the hell?" he demanded, enraged.
"Drop it, Brown," a vaguely familiar voice ordered. It was the young man from inside the saloon, Poncho. "I done told you to get outta 'ere, and that included Tumbleweed."
Doc B scrunched his face up into a comically childish pout. "Doc, let's go!" Marty hissed, tugging hard at the inventor's arm. "He's distracted, let's get the hell outta here!"
The advice was quite sound, considering Doc B's murderous intentions towards him at the moment. Still, a part of the scientist was too curious to move just yet.
"What business have you with me now?" the mad scientist asked the still-unseen Poncho.
"What business do you got terrorizing the townsfolk? Drop your piece and get the hell out of Tumbleweed!" Seeing Doc B's hesitation, Poncho fired another round, this one striking the rifle and tearing it out of his grip. It landed several feet away. Doc couldn't help feeling rather impressed by the display, having been able to achieve such precision only after mounting a telescopic device on his 1885 rifle.
"Doc!" Marty urged, pulling harder.
The inventor finally decided that it might be best, after all, to get out while the getting was good. If Poncho was assuming that the people Doc B was speaking to were locals, so much the better. Leaving Doc B with his hands raised and a rather Tannenesque scowl on his face, his attention now on the gun trained upon him, Doc and Marty slipped out the back of the alley and hurried behind the town buildings and around fenced-off yards in the direction they had come. They ran, at first, the shadows of twilight creating welcome camouflage. Once they had left the town limits, however, and were what Doc felt was a safe distance from danger, he slowed to a walk. Marty, however, kept going. Doc opened his mouth to call out to him, but before he could start the first syllable of his name, the teen stumbled and fell to the ground.
Doc hurried to his side, his pace picking up when his friend didn't rise immediately. "Marty," he began, the rest of his words dying. Marty was kneeling on the dirt, rubbing his still-slung left arm. His eyes were screwed shut, and Doc thought it was out of pain until he saw his friend shivering, as if chilled, and his mouth trembling dangerously.
"This is too hard, Doc," Marty whispered, his voice coming out choked.
"I know," Doc sighed, sympathetic. "This situation is beyond stressful."
"It's not just that," Marty murmured, turning his face away from Doc's view. "It's the guns, and Doc B with guns...." He shivered, hard, his voice uneven as well. "I hate guns, Doc. They're creeping me out, now. They make me feel sick."
"You've got a good reason to feel that way, Marty," Doc said gently. "Frankly, I would be surprised if you weren't having a reaction to them. It's nothing to be embarrassed about."
Marty didn't say anything to that. "Can you... can I have a few minutes alone?" he asked softly, his voice cracking. "Please?"
Despite the pressing need to get away, Doc didn't hesitate. "Sure," he said. He left his friend's side and walked back, toward the town, stopping when he felt he was far enough away to give Marty the chance to collect himself without an audience. He watched the town for a few moments, seeing not an ounce of life stirring on the streets, then turned his eyes to the dazzling display of stars above. The sight reminded him of Clara, and of the astronomy hobby they still enjoyed together, causing a strange mix of fear, anger, and sadness within. While he might've felt sorry and almost sympathetic to Doc B for what life had dealt him, it didn't really dilute the anger he also felt toward his counterpart for selfishly stealing his family and holding them against their wills.
Several minutes later, man-made light streaked across the sky overhead. Doc tracked them with his eyes, jumping in spite of himself when the other time machine reached the critical speed and leapt to a new time. The sound of the beeper from his pocket came a second before the train had achieved its journey. Doc pulled it out and looked at the date displayed, then called to Marty, still sitting on the ground.
"Marty? I think we might want to move along, soon. It's not particularly safe to be out here, unarmed, now. There's a number of kinds of wildlife that could be rather dangerous."
Doc saw his friend's head bob once, then Marty got to his feet, slowly. Doc headed his way and when he reached the teen, he saw that, although his eyes were red, he looked a little calmer and wasn't shaking anymore.
"Where'd he go next?" Marty asked softly, nodding to the beeper as they continued their hike to the DeLorean.
"May 6, 1937, Seaside Heights, New Jersey, at seven P.M."
Marty frowned as he rubbed his eyes. "What's there?"
Doc squinted at the date, his mouth twisted to the left as he pondered the question. "The date and the state sound familiar to me," he said. "But I can't quite figure out why. I know I haven't heard of Seaside Heights before...."
"Were you ever out in New Jersey in 1937? You were... what, seventeen?"
"Sixteen -- a few months from turning seventeen," Doc said. "No, I was in Hill Valley, then." He tapped the beeper with his finger as he thought. "I think something happened that day, something historically important. Though damned if it's coming to me right now."
Marty sighed deeply. "When is this gonna be over, Doc? Really? I'm so sick of this damned chase...."
"Doc B appears to be moving closer to our present, so my guess is sooner rather than later," Doc said. "Then again, he could pull something unexpected and jump back a few hundred years to throw us off again -- particularly if he's wanting to set us up, as you've mentioned he told you."
"Oh, God, I hope not," Marty muttered. "Let's just get this thing over with already!"
Marty was starting to wonder why he had wanted to leave 2020 in the first place.
Oh, sure, he didn't want to stay there forever -- not by a million long shots -- and the place was disgusting, unhealthy, appalling, and depressing.... But dealing with Doc B once more and thrust into his twisted game of chase was just as bad. And, maybe, in some ways, worse.
Marty hadn't anticipated the way he felt when he heard the sound of gunshots. For one terrible moment, when that sound had first hit his ears, he thought he was going to faint. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He swore his heart stopped. The sound brought it all back. Doc B aiming the gun at him in the woods, him running away, the sound of shots, and the faint memory of feeling something hit him from behind in the shoulder... the bullet. When Doc B had appeared a few minutes later, brandishing a rifle at Doc, that terrible, paralyzing terror had come once more, and it was ten times worse seeing that twisted, yet familiar, face behind the weapon.
The exchange between the Docs was a blur in Marty's mind. As soon as the chance presented itself and Doc B swung the rifle away from them, he was able to move, and had to restrain himself from screaming at Doc to leave, right then, and forget about changing history -- they needed to get the hell away, right now! Somehow, he didn't, though, and somehow, he managed not to fall apart completely until they were out of town. He was glad Doc had left him alone for about ten minutes; he didn't particularly like the idea of breaking down into sobs in front of his best friend, which was essentially what happened ten seconds after the inventor had left his side. It had taken all of Marty's energy to calm down, and by the time Doc had called for him, he had things under control again, but felt utterly drained from it.
And not particularly up to dealing with seeing Doc B, especially Doc B armed, again.
They arrived in 1937 with the train in view, for once. And something else, something massive, darkening the western sky ahead.
"What the hell is that?" Marty asked, leaning forward and blinking a few times, not sure if he was seeing what he was. "A blimp?"
"A zeppelin, the Hindenburg," Doc breathed. "Great Scott, that's why this date was so familiar! This was the date of the Hindenburg disaster!"
"Really? So that's the Hindenburg?" Marty leaned even closer to the windshield for a better look, more curious now to see this piece of history that he had actually heard about. "Looks like Doc B is sorta tailing it."
Doc groaned softly. "I have a feeling this is going to get complicated quickly...."
"So what else is new?" Marty muttered, rolling his eyes. "Why, what do you think Doc B's planning to do?"
"Well, you know, they never discovered why the Hindenburg exploded."
Marty blinked at this piece of news. "Really? I thought it was from the helium...."
"Yes, but the question is: what caused the ignition of the gas in the first place? They never found a definitive answer and theories range from static electricity to a bomb." Doc's mouth tensed into a tight smile. "I suspect that Doc B might have the solution to that puzzle, however."
Marty frowned intensely as he tried to digest what Doc was saying. "You think he created the explosion?"
"Perhaps."
"But... I know that happened in our history! I remember learning about it, and my memories haven't changed."
"No. I wouldn't expect that they would. But its possible that Doc B's original counterpart was responsible for the disaster, either inadvertently or purposely. If so, it's quite likely that Doc B in the train is wanting to prevent it."
Marty paled at the implication of Doc's words -- or, rather, what he wasn't saying. "So we'll have to make sure it does? We have to make the Hindenburg blow up?"
The inventor winced. "I hope not," he said, sincerely. "But if it lands safely, that could cause a tremendous deviation of history. Without the disaster, those who died would live -- and you remember what happened with Jane Parker -- and perhaps those who lived might've died later. Due to the disaster, travel in zeppelins suddenly seemed dangerous and was promptly given up as a mainstream and widespread use of transportation. An accident like the Hindenburg could've eventually happened and killed people who weren't supposed to die in that manner."
Marty winced as the pieces clicked together in his head. "So, basically, history would get really screwed up," he summarized. "Great."
Doc cut his speed a little as he brought the car up higher, so it was suspended above the blimp and the trailing train. "This should provide us ample distance to observe and not interfere immediately," he said.
"Look, Doc, he knows we're after him by this point," Marty said, tired of the indirect methods. "Why don't we just get next to him now?"
"Too risky in multiple ways," Doc said. "He's armed and dangerous. And we don't want to prevent him from doing what he came here to do so that he'll have to go to greater lengths that could alter history even more."
Marty saw the points, but it was still incredibly frustrating. He squinted down at the train below, but the lighting was pretty crummy. The sky was overcast with dark, threatening-looking clouds, and if the wind and scattering of raindrops beginning to fall was any indication, a storm was coming. "Uh, Doc, do you think it's safe being up at this height?" he had to ask, catching a distant flash of lightning up ahead.
"Probably not," was the succinct reply. "But so long as Doc B's up here, we'll have to be as well."
"What time did this disaster happen, anyway?"
"If I remember correctly, the zeppelin was trying to land at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey -- which isn't too far from here -- a bit after seven in the evening. It had been delayed by the weather. It caught fire just above the ground and spread so quickly that many lost their lives, though more escaped."
"Cheery," Marty said. "If Doc B did cause this, wouldn't it be caught in tape? I know I saw film of this thing in class or something before...."
"Maybe; maybe not. If I remember correctly, the quality of the recording wasn't the most clear. And with the smoke from the flames, he would have an easy escape."
"Yeah -- but what about before the fire starts? Wouldn't people kind of notice a flying car around the blimp?"
"Zeppelin. Assuming it flies," Doc said. "We don't know for sure. When Doc B left his present, hover conversions weren't yet available. He made no mention in his journals about stopping into the future to get such a modification. And the one time we've actually seen the machine, it arrived on the ground -- not in the air. Which is considerably risky, frankly."
"I always got the impression that it flew for some reason," Marty admitted. He scratched his head thoughtfully as he looked back down at the train, riding close behind the tail of the blimp -- zeppelin -- then looked at the current time. "It's almost seven-fifteen now."
"And there's the airfield," Doc said, pointing up ahead. "We don't have much time now." He took the DeLorean down, closer to the train. "There are some binoculars in the glove box, Marty," he said. "Can you get them out and look into the windows of the train?"
Marty managed to do that fine with his one free hand, and spotted Doc B immediately in the window of the train's cab. The window, in fact, was cracked open a few inches and a smoldering cigarette was pinched between his fingers. As Marty watched, the mad scientist brought it into the cab, took a deep drag, and exhaled, blowing the smoke out into the cab. The teen made a face of disgust, sympathetic to Clara and the kids having to deal with that annoyance on top of everything else. "Did you know that Doc B smokes?" he asked. "He must do it a lot, too, since his breath really stunk with it when he cornered me on the ship."
"Really?" Doc asked. "Well, I guess that's not terribly surprising. Smoking was actually required in a lot of locations in his world, and if I was under the kind of stress he was, I might've picked up the habit, too."
"He's got the window open a little for his cigarette," Marty reported. "Do you think that's how he causes the disaster? With a lit butt?"
"If it was his original counterpart, that might be possible. But likely this Doc B will try to undo or prevent what his earlier self did. Do you see another one?"
"Another what? Time machine or Doc B? No to both. I can kinda see Clara's head, though."
The doomed airship had cut its speed considerably, prompting both time machines to do the same, and circled the field once. Oddly, Doc B hung back a bit, away from the ship, perhaps uneasy at being spotted by the people that Marty could see on the ground below, faces and eyes turned upward to watch the landing of the Hindenburg. The clouds, rain, and dusky lightly provided both machines some cover, though Marty was pretty positive that they wouldn't go unnoticed. Something nagged at him about that, but he couldn't quite bring it into focus.
Lightning flashed somewhere once more, startling Marty out of his concentration. He raised the binoculars once more to eyeball the train. In the last minute Doc B had closed the window and the lit cigarette had either been finished or dropped out of the train.
"It's going to be soon, I think," Doc said after a moment. "They're tossing the lines out to the ground, now."
Inexplicably, the train began to move forward, straight for the airship, picking up a bit of speed. Doc went after him quickly in the DeLorean. Marty frowned, uneasy with this, and lowered the binoculars from his eyes.
"Doc?" he began.
The train picked up more speed yet, on a dead collision course with the back of the zeppelin. "He's going to hit it himself!" the scientist gasped in horror, chasing after the train quickly, off to the side.
Marty finally got it. "No!" he shouted. "Doc, don't follow him!"
The train reached the proper speed and launched itself ahead into time, ten feet short of the back of the blimp. The noise of the beeper split the air. Perhaps due to the blast of air, or the trails of fire, or even the energy stirred up from the transit, Marty saw the flash of light at the back of the airship.
Doc, however, was distracted. He looked to the teen, frowning, the car still headed right for the zeppelin -- and the explosion that would follow too swiftly. Reacting instinctively, Marty reached over and yanked the wheel hard, back and to the right. The car moved immediately, banking hard and tossing both unprepared passengers halfway out of their seats.
"What the--" Doc began.
A loud boom from outside stopped the words, and the car was pushed back by a great gust of air. The DeLorean began a nauseating spin, tossing Marty hard into the padded passenger door in the process, but Doc had it under control in short order. When he managed to catch his breath, he shot a very confused look at Marty, still trying to regain his wits and slow his heart.
"What just happened?" he demanded. "Why did you grab the wheel? You could've killed us!"
"No, you could've killed us!" Marty retorted. "Doc, it was a trap! Doc B didn't come here to stop something -- he just tried to lure us right next to the ship when it blew! Jesus, we could be in that now!" He gestured to the frantically disintegrating and flaming zeppelin below them, now.
Doc stared at him a moment, driving them quickly away from the crash sight. "What made you think that?"
"Something you said," Marty admitted as he quickly found his seatbelt and strapped himself in. "About Doc B's DeLorean probably not having a way to fly. Why the hell would Doc B bring us here and now if his other self wasn't gonna be throwing grenades or matches or whatever at the back of the blimp? And why would he have been stupid enough to do that with an audience below them? And, then, why would Doc B just drive straight into the thing? It didn't make sense. This thing was famous enough, too, that he could've narrowed it down enough to know when to time his trap."
Out of breath from babbling, Marty closed his mouth and took a few shaky breaths. Doc stared at him a moment more, slowing the car. "Very insightful," he said after a moment. "Your guess was probably right."
Marty shivered in spite of it all. "This guy is so screwed up," he muttered. "Where'd he go next? Another day of a disaster?"
Doc pulled out the beeper and looked at the display. His face went white, the reaction making Marty feel faintly ill. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like their next destination, whatever or whenever it was.
"Spit it out, Doc," he suggested after a moment of silence. "Where is it? The Mt. St. Helens eruption? A World War II battlefield? A nuclear test site?"
"No," Doc said in an odd sort of tone. "Doc B's gone back to Hill Valley -- on November 12, 1955 at 9:30 P.M."
The date took a moment to sink in. When it did, Marty felt himself also pale. "That night," he breathed, stunned. "I wonder why--" He stopped abruptly as it hit him. "Oh my God, Doc -- do you think he's going to stop that almanac from being burned?"
"I do now," Doc said, tossing the beeper into his lap. "But not if we can help it. Hold on. It might be a bumpy transit."
But Marty had a feeling that air turbulence was going to be the least of their worries. He sank down in the seat, bracing himself for another trip to that oh-so-red letter date in their hometown's -- and their own -- past.
Their return to a night that both had lived through twice already gave Marty a very odd -- yet familiar -- sensation of deja vu. They came into the city over the currently undeveloped outskirts where someday Lyon Estates would be located. A short distance ahead, the teen could see the outline of the train, moving rapidly toward the more distant, faint lights that illuminated the "Live in the Home of Tomorrow... Today" billboard. Lightning flashed threateningly, and by the sound of the thunder it was close -- far too close, since the original DeLorean had been struck once before in this location and at this time.
"How did he know about the almanac?" Marty wondered aloud.
"I don't know," Doc said. "He knew that Biff had the sports almanac in his possession, which allowed him to build the kind of fortune he did. It's possible Doc B was able to trace the book being given to Biff as the definitive moment his world was born."
"How? Or should I say, when? If he knew this was the root of Hell Valley, why did he go to all those other places?"
Doc shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I'm not him. I know he wasn't aware of it when he left his own world. I suppose it's possible something Clara or the boys said to him could've tipped him off. Clara knew about the incident, as it was more or less responsible for me going back to 1885; Jules and Verne less so, though I had explained it to them a few times as an example of why time travel could be so dangerous. I can see a situation where Doc B mentioned the almanac, offhand, perhaps, and Clara then spoke about our involvement in the matter."
The train descended when it reached the billboard, carefully maneuvering to land behind it in the shadows and brush. Marty quickly shifted his gaze to the sky, scanning for the other DeLorean, the one from their almanac-prompted visit here. He didn't see it... yet.
"What if our other selves see us?" he asked. "They're gonna be here any minute."
Doc looked at him sharply, the DeLorean rocking in the wind from the approaching storm. "The potential consequences could be dire," he said. "If something prevents me from being struck by the bolt of lightning, for example, I won't go back to 1885, meet Clara, and have our kids. She'll die in the ravine. The train won't exist, and I'll destroy the machine back in 1985 and resign myself to a life alone and with Einstein for company."
"Oh, great, so no pressure there." Marty gripped the side of the seat as the DeLorean rode a particularly rough air pocket. "So what do we do if the other me accidentally sees the train?" he added, gesturing to the landed time machine. "Or your other you, since you'll be flying practically right over it?"
Doc sighed. "Let's just hope we were both -- will be both -- distracted enough with the sports almanac and the storm not to notice."
Marty frowned as he thought back to that night, several months ago, and what he had been thinking about and looking at during that point. In all honesty, he had to admit that he'd been so preoccupied with the need to destroy the sports almanac, and then the weather and Doc's unexpected departure, that he probably wouldn't have noticed if a spaceship had landed next to him -- or at least behind the billboard. "Yeah, maybe," he concurred. "Think we should hurry up and land, now? I think I see lights to the south from the other DeLorean."
Doc blinked, looking startled. "Oh, yes, quite so." He made a beeline for the ground, passing the train in a wide arc and bringing the car down behind one of the Lyon Estate entrance markers, the one farthest away from the train and billboard. Being closer to the train than he had been since he was shot, Marty couldn't help feeling distinctly uneasy. He could only hope that the darkness, the soon-to-come rain, and the marker itself would all work together to shield them from immediate view from Doc B... and the other Doc and Marty who would soon arrive on the scene.
The inventor looked at Marty as he shut off the car. "Are you ready?"
"No," Marty said honestly. "But let's just get this the hell over with."
Doc nodded to the marker next to them on their right. "We'll get out, then follow my lead. Above all, stay low, out of sight, and keep quiet! We don't want to draw undue attention to ourselves from our past selves."
Marty nodded. He followed the scientist out of the car, and into the two or three feet between the marker and the DeLorean, where the shadows were numerous -- until lightning flashed. They had hardly settled down and turned their eyes to the train when Marty saw the other DeLorean finally make an appearance, approaching, thank God, from the other side of the road, across the street.
"There's the DeLorean," he whispered, half to himself, feeling oddly nervous as the vehicle drew closer. The feeling intensified to full butterflies in his stomach at the sight of himself, months younger, hanging for dear life from the string of pennants, balanced precariously on the hoverboard. Goosebumps broke out all over his skin, one caused not by the rather cold, rapid wind whipping by.
"This is really weird," he murmured under his breath.
"Shhhh!" Doc warned softly, his eyes trained on the DeLorean above them. "Keep still, now. You don't want to call attention over here."
The flying DeLorean eased downward and Marty's younger self dropped to the ground. He pulled out his walkie-talkie from his leather jacket and shouted into it in the increasing wind. "Doc, is everything all right? Over."
The wind and increasingly loud rumbles of thunder made it impossible to hear the reply over the tinny speaker from where they crouched. Marty saw himself snatch the sports almanac from an inside pocket in the jacket and hold it up toward the DeLorean. "In my hand, Doc, I got it in my hand!" he yelled into the speaker.
There was a pause as the Doc in the DeLorean above said something, then Leather Jacket Marty called back, "Check!" and headed for the billboard, kicking an old pail into an upright position and then kneeling next to it to burn the almanac.
The Marty behind the marker was so fascinated by watching himself that he didn't even remember why they were there in the first place -- to stop Doc B -- until a shadow fell across the teen with the book. Marty gasped at the sight and took a step forward without thinking, Doc's hand stopping him. His younger self turned around at the shadowy movement, turning his head slowly, the eyes narrowed in suspicion. At the sight of Doc B, though, an expression of confusion -- not fear -- danced across his face.
"Doc?" he asked, blinking. "What are you doing here?"
"Relax, Marty," Doc B purred, his voice carefully neutral and calm. "I'm from the future, and I just need you to stop what you're about to do."
The younger Marty frowned, as did his slightly older counterpart in the shadows. "What the hell for? You told me that we gotta destroy it to put the timeline back."
"I did? I mean, of course I did. But I was wrong. This isn't going to solve the problem -- it's just going to create new ones."
The Marty with the almanac started to get to his feet, keeping a rather suspicious eye on Doc B. The mad scientist attempted a smile, but it was twisted, somehow, as if he had forgotten how to make the expression out of pleasure or kindness. "I got a bad feeling about this," he said, holding the almanac close. He lifted the walkie talkie up in his other hand and put the speaker to his mouth. "Doc? Listen, we've got a--"
Doc B pulled out a gun and aimed it at Marty. The teen was so shocked that he stumbled into silence. "I tried doing this the nice way," the mad scientist said, all traces of attempted kindness gone from his face. "You're just as stubborn as the other one, though. Give me the almanac, McFly. Now."
The younger Marty stared at Doc B, utterly shocked. Behind the marker, Marty started to sweat. If Doc B shot and killed his other self, he was toast, too; he couldn't be standing here if he had died months before. He was so preoccupied by that, he never noticed Doc slipping away from his side -- not until the inventor had stepped into the weak glow of the billboard lights.
"Take the gun off him, Emmett," he demanded of Doc B.
Doc B's mouth half twitched into a smile. He neither lowered the gun nor his gaze from a very baffled Marty. "Well, Emmett, looks like you made it out of New Jersey," he said. "A pity."
"Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?" Almanac Marty moaned, glancing between the pair of Docs.
Both of the Docs ignored him. "If you shoot him, you're endangering the very family you have locked up," Doc warned his counterpart.
"I fail to see how he ties in with them," Doc B said, waving the gun in Marty's direction.
Doc's eyes darted to Almanac Marty a moment, then back to his other self. "He saves your life later," the inventor said. "If not for Marty, you'll die days after you meet Clara, very far from home and help."
Doc B scowled. "You're bluffing," he said. "And if McFly had sense, he'd give me the almanac. It's not him I want."
Doc looked back to Marty. "Burn it, Marty!" he said fervently. "You'll need to burn it to set history back on it's correct course!"
Marty just stared at him. Doc B cocked the gun--
--and a dazzling flash of lightning lit up the night, snaking close over head and colliding with a tree branch on the other side of the street. The branch snapped off and fell to the ground, on a crash course with Doc B. The mad scientist darted quickly out of the way -- and was nearly knocked off his feet when Doc tackled him. "Get away, Marty!" he called out to the stupefied teen, watching the struggle several feet away from him with an intently confused expression on his face. Marty took a couple steps back, but he seemed fascinated with the Docs struggling in the middle of the street, grunting out curses and insults to one another. The Marty who was behind the marker was just as transfixed by the sight. The Docs were rolling about; the combination of shadows and lightning made it difficult to distinguish who was who, and who was getting the upper hand. He dared not breathe as he watched.
When the shot came, it was just as unexpected as the DeLorean being struck by lightning overhead. Both the Martys paled -- the one in the street likely more horrified by the sight of his friend vanishing in a flash of light than the pop of the gun. The other Marty, however, was much more concerned by the latter, and he was running forward, out into the street, before he could stop himself.
"Doc!" he cried in horror, his legs weak as he bee-lined for the now-still pair in the street. He was hardly aware of his other self gawking at him, too scared at what he might find.
One of the Docs stood, his back to Marty. The teen skidded to a stop a few feet short, his eyes wide, dizzy and gasping with fear. It seemed to take an eternity before the Doc rotated around -- and, at the sight of the face, Marty's breath caught in his throat.
"You're okay!" he gasped, rushing forward and throwing his unslung arm around him a tight, awkward hug of relief.
"It was an accident," Doc said softly, his voice carrying an odd note to it. Marty stepped back and looked at him a moment, then glanced down at the fallen Doc. A dark stain was spreading rapidly across the mad scientist's shirt, originating from a hole in his upper right chest. Doc B was still awake, however, and staring at that stain with an almost comical expression of surprise and shock.
"I've been shot," he said softly, the tone one of amazement. "Great Scott."
The familiar expression coming from the lips of that man gave Marty a very weird, chilled feeling. "Yeah," he couldn't help saying. "It doesn't feel so hot, now, does it?"
Doc looked at him disapprovingly -- then his eyes widened. "Great Scott, Marty, you let your other self see you?!"
Having all but forgotten about that, Marty turned and looked at himself. The other Marty was watching him and Doc, but his eyes were mostly locked on himself, his breathing rather uneven and his face paling more each second. Marty didn't experience anything out of the ordinary -- until he happened to look into the eyes of his other self. It was the weirdest feeling -- like looking into a mirror image that was three dimensional, and he felt, if he tried, he could almost read what was going through the other Marty's head. An odd sort of wooziness hit him almost immediately after he locked eyes with himself, one that swiftly did a tailspin into full dizziness when he didn't break eye contact.
The other Marty blinked once, then his eyes rolled back. The almanac slipped from his fingers, spilling open on the ground, the walkie-talkie clattering beside it. Almanac Marty joined the things he'd dropped a moment later, the quick hand of Doc saving him from striking his head on the pavement. Marty exhaled once, staggering a little to one side. After setting down the other Marty, Doc grabbed him swiftly by his left arm and gave him a hard shake. The pain from his wound shot through the odd numbness muddling his thoughts.
"Don't you faint on me now, too!" the scientist said firmly. Thunder rattled the air and a cold rain began to pour down. The touch of the water on Marty's skin brought him back to his senses almost immediately. He rubbed his face and his eyes with his right hand, the wooziness leaving as quickly as it had come.
"Are you okay?" Doc asked, watching him carefully. "Can you stay on your feet if I let go of you, now?"
Marty nodded. "Yeah," he murmured.
Doc released him. Marty rubbed his arm and shoulder as the inventor crouched next to Marty's other self. "Marty, get the almanac and destroy it where you did the first time!"
Marty knelt down and picked up the book, already throughly soaked from the pounding rain, then jogged over to the brief protection of the billboard's lamps to escape the sting of the raindrops. Keeping dry wasn't really the point; he was well on his way to being drenched. It wasn't until he got over there and found the bucket that he realized he was missing something rather critical. "I don't have any matches on me, Doc!"
"Where did you find them the first time?" Doc asked, slipping his hands under the other Marty's arms.
Marty had to think about that a moment. "They were in the pocket of my jeans!"
Doc searched the pockets of Almanac Marty's jeans first, found them on the second try, and tossed them to Marty. The teen tore one of them out of the matchbook with his teeth and, holding both the book of matches and the almanac with his left hand, struck it along the sandpaper strip. It took two tries before it caught, as the book was now damp from the rain. Marty touched it to the soaked pages and held his breath as the flame licked the paper. What if the paper's too wet to catch fire? he wondered nervously. The first time he'd done this, it hadn't started raining, yet.
The flame blackened the paper and the water already soaked into it sizzled from the heat. The match burned down to the tips of Marty's fingers. He dropped it, cursing under his breath.
"Somebody's coming this way," Doc warned. "I see headlights."
Marty turned around and realized whose they belonged to in a moment. "Oh shit, it's the Western Union guy," he groaned, pulling a new match free and striking it. The flame flared up and he touched it to the pages. This time it caught. Marty grabbed the sizzling, smoking book with his right hand and dropped it into the pail, then watched the matchbook change as the ripple effect began.
"Put that in your past self's hand," Doc said, interrupting Marty's contemplation of the changing logos. Marty looked up and saw the scientist had set the other Marty against the billboard and was running back into the street toward the prone form of Doc B. Marty hurried over to his counterpart and placed the matchbook in his hand, ignoring the chill that overtook him when they touched. Maybe it wasn't just him; Past Marty stirred as his future self folded his fingers around the book.
"I think he's gonna wake up," Marty hissed to Doc. The scientist nodded his acknowledgment, bending down to grasp his other self under the arms and quickly drag him out from the center of the road and away from the glare of the closing headlights, toward the space behind the billboard. Marty looked at him incredulously as he followed the double Docs.
"What are you doing?"
"He can't be seen by anyone here," Doc explained as quietly as he could, dropping Doc B rather ungracefully to the ground between the train and the billboard. The inventor looked down at the mad scientist and met the eyes still open and blinking. "No noise," he warned. "If you do anything to draw attention here, you'll drastically alter history -- particularly my own."
Doc B nodded, grimacing as he pushed himself up to a sitting position, propped back against the billboard, and looked at his freely bleeding wound. Marty couldn't look at the sight -- it brought back too many still-vivid and too-recent memories -- and instead shifted his eyes to the back of the billboard. He discovered a small knothole next to him in the wood, approximately two feet off the ground, just as he heard the sedan stop.
Curious and eager for a distraction, Marty crouched down and put his eye to it. He saw the door of the sedan open and the trenchcoat-clad Western Union guy step outside. Marty watched the man as he took a long look around, his gaze finally coming to rest on the billboard. A funny look came over Western Union's face, then, and he stepped toward the painted advertisement. The messenger stopped before the other Marty, just out of the knothole's line of sight, and looked down at him with concern. "Are you all right, son?"
The other Marty moaned. "What happened?" Marty heard himself say, sounding groggy and dazed.
The man frowned and stared hard at Marty's slightly younger self. "By any chance, are you Marty McFly?"
There was a pause. Marty saw his other self get slowly to his feet and give the man a long look. "Yeah," he said finally.
The man reached into his trenchcoat. "I've got something for you," he said, sounding slightly sinister. The other Marty scrambled back, a look of fear flashing across his still-pale face, bumping his back against the billboard. "A letter," the man finished, holding out the folder to Marty.
"A letter for me?" Marty asked, once he had recovered his shock, taking the folder. "That's impossible! Who the hell are you?"
"Western Union," the man said, smiling. "Actually, a bunch of us at the office were kinda hoping maybe you could shed some light on the subject. You see, we've had that envelope in our possession for the past seventy years."
He paused as the other Marty took the aged letter from the folder and looked at it. The man stepped closer to the billboard, for the shelter of the lamps as he continued. "It was given to us with the explicit instructions that it be delivered to a young man with your description, answering to the name of Marty, at this exact location, at this exact minute, on November twelfth, 1955. We had a little bet going as to whether this 'Marty' would actually be here. Looks like I lost." The man chuckled as he searched his pockets for a pen.
"Did you say seventy years?" the other Marty asked in disbelief.
"Yeah, seventy years, two months, uh... twelve days to be exact." Western Union passed him a pen. "Here, sign on line six, please," he added, handing him a clipboard. "Here you are."
Marty watched himself sign the paper and then tear open the letter. Younger Marty's eyes widened as he looked the aged paper over. "It's from the Doc?!" he cried, his voice full of amazement -- and a note of puzzlement. Marty realized, only then, that he hadn't witnessed the DeLorean struck by lightning up above. Is that going to cause a paradox? he worried, licking his lips nervously.
Marty watched his other self mutter aloud the first few lines of the letter, then exclaim: "1885?! September 1885!" He was off and running. Western Union grabbed his arm as he darted by.
"Hey, kid, you all right? You need any help?"
"There's only one man who can help me now," Marty said, pulling away and running down the middle of the road, towards town.
Western Union stood there and watched him run away, looking terribly puzzled. "Hey, can't you even tell me what this is all about?"
Marty's other self did not look back.
"No?" the man said, sounding disappointed. He sighed heavily, then headed back to his car and got inside. A moment later the sedan drove away, the lights vanishing in the heavy rain.
Once the Western Union man had left, Marty looked to Doc, who was looking down at Doc B, troubled. The mad scientist seemed to be gravely wounded. Blood soaked the entire front of his shirt, and his face was as white as porcelain. Doc knelt down to his eye level.
"You're in bad shape," he said bluntly.
"I know," Doc B murmured, touching his messy chest tentatively with his hand. He coughed once, hard, and a fine spray of blood came with the air. Marty put a hand to his mouth, feeling sick from the sight of the gore, but he couldn't look away. There was something that held him riveted to the spot, no matter how ill it made him feel. "You got nice aim."
"It was an accident," Doc said immediately. "I don't believe in using guns to achieve what I want."
"You might if you'd lived my life," Doc B said, still defensive. He winced and took in a slow, deep breath. "I never thought I'd kill myself."
Doc winced at the dark humor, clearly troubled. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't want to kill you, you know. In spite of it all."
"I would've killed you," Doc B said honestly. He coughed again and more blood came up through his mouth. Marty swallowed hard, fighting the urge to gag at the sight. "This is painful...."
"There might be something in one of the first aid kits--" Doc began. His other self silenced him with a quick gesture with his hand.
"No. I've had worse." Doc B raised the hand he'd touched to his chest and looked at the thick coating of blood coating his palm. "I just wanted to be happy," he said softly, the words close to a whisper.
Doc leaned closer to his other self. "I know," he said softly, his tone tender. "I know that."
The Docs stared at one another a long moment, neither saying a word. Marty was unnerved by the sight, especially since one of them was mortally wounded. At long last, Doc B broke the look with a mighty wince, turning his head to spit out more blood.
"Take care of my family," he mumbled thickly, turning back to Doc. "Make sure they've a good future... fix what I didn't."
"That's what I've been doing," Doc said evenly, not contradicting the mad scientist's statement about his ownership of Clara and the kids.
Doc B gave a rather disturbing, crooked, close lipped smile, wearing a grotesque lipstick of blood. "Now there's just one," he whispered. "I wish it was me." And, with a half sigh, Doc B grew very still. Marty stared at him, confused, but when his chest neither rose nor fell again and his eyes remained open and unblinking, he understood.
Doc reached out and touched his fingers to Doc B's neck. "He's gone," he said after a moment.
Marty nodded once. "Right," he said -- and hurried away. He made it to the back of the train before he couldn't take it anymore and started to shake, hard, his legs unable to fully support him without help. Marty hung onto the edge of the train, trying as hard as he could to stop the shaking, but the same images kept replaying through his head: Doc B, looking too much like Doc for comfort and who, frankly, was Doc, in a sense, coughing up blood; the red stains soaking the front of the mad scientist's shirt and the hole in his chest when the gun had first gone off; the way his eyes had just sort of stared off into space, never closed, even as he stopped breathing. Everything -- the images, the stress, the tension -- was crashing down on him at once. And all he could do was shake.
"Oh, God," Marty moaned out through chattering teeth. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!"
He wasn't sure how long he had half stood, half slumped against the train, just trembling, before Doc came after him "It's over, Marty," he said gently, from behind.
The teen turned around to face him. "Is it?" he whispered, shivering hard as the wind gusted by. It was only then he realized how thoroughly soaked he was, as if he had jumped into a pool and not stood in pouring rain. "What if things are still screwed up when we go home?"
"Then we'll deal with it," Doc said calmly -- too calmly in Marty's eyes.
"How come you're so unrattled?" he had to ask. "You just saw yourself die!"
"I saw Doc B die," Doc corrected softly. "Not me. And I suppose I've had more experiences dealing with my own mortality than you have. But just because I'm not shaking or crying doesn't mean I'm not upset. I can do that later. Right now, there's my family to consider. I don't know how much they saw of Doc B's demise. I hope to God Clara had the presence of mind to keep the boys away from the window...."
Marty took a deep breath, trying to force his body to stop shaking and shivering. He succeeded in banishing only the largest tremors; there was still a tremble in his voice and to his hands. "Yeah," he agreed. "We should probably go in there, now, and let 'em out. And go home." The last part was almost a plea.
Doc nodded. They walked beside the train, to the door, where a large industrial strength padlock sealed the door closed. Marty looked up, at the window, but found that he couldn't see anything; the glass had fogged up. "Do you really think they saw what happened?" he asked.
"I hope not," Doc said. He looked at the lock a moment, then turned and went back to Doc B's body, still slumped up against the billboard. Marty didn't watch as Doc riffled through the pockets of the leather coat his counterpart was still wearing, searching for the keys, which he found in short order.
"What are we going to do with him?" Marty asked softly when Doc joined him at the padlock. "Are we going to leave him here?"
Doc glanced up from his examination of the ring of keys, his expression faintly scandalized. "Absolutely not! It would tremendously impact history!"
Marty's eyes darted quickly to the form of Doc B. "Then what are you gonna do with the... with the... the, you know...."
"Body?" Doc finished. "I'll think of something." He found the appropriate key and slipped it into the lock. Lit by a burst of lightning, Marty saw his hands shaking slightly as he did so. The lock clicked open and Doc quickly removed it and tossed it aside, into the mud. He hesitated before opening the door, however.
"You'd better come with me," he said. "Just so they'll know I'm not him, trying to trick them."
"Sure," Marty agreed, though the idea made him feel faintly uncomfortable. Doc opened the door, stepping back to allow the stairs to swing out and down, then mounted them into the train in just two steps. Marty hurried after him, just as anxious to get out of the cold, torrential downpour as he was to avoid being left alone outside with Doc B's bloody body.
Inside the train, he saw Clara, Jules, and Verne huddled together on the floor, at the foot of the bench, eyes huge in their pale faces. As one, they turned their heads and eyes to a dripping Doc as he entered. Clara's mouth shook for a moment at the sight of him.
"Oh my God, Emmett," she gasped. "Are you all right?"
Marty didn't get what she meant -- until he saw the crimson stains smeared on Doc's hands and the front of his shirt from his dealings with Doc B. The scientist understood her question immediately.
"It's not mine," he assured her, then paused. "Well, not technically...."
Clara seemed to understand. "Is it over, now?" she asked softly.
Doc nodded once. "Yes," he said. "For the most part." Then he crossed the cab to them in one long stride, knelt down, and threw his arms around his family, clutching them tightly. He held them a long moment before finally letting go and leaning back, though reluctantly. "Let me get you out of those things," he said in a rather unsteady voice, gesturing to the hand and ankle cuffs.
"Emmett, what happened?" Clara asked as her husband fumbled through the keys in search of the proper one.
"Just now, or over the last day or so?" he asked.
"Everything, I suppose," Clara answered. She shifted her eyes away from her husband to regard Marty for the first time. "Did he hurt you?"
It took Marty a moment to realize that she was particularly focused on the sling he still wore -- for all the good it was currently doing. His shoulder throbbed deeply, the pain a constant and increasing ache. "Yeah," he said flatly. "He shot me in the shoulder a couple days ago, I think, but Doc fixed me up."
Clara turned her eyes back to Doc as he was unlocking the cuffs from Jules' wrists and ankles. "Did he shoot Marty the night he tried to help us escape?"
Doc nodded, slipping the cuffs off his oldest son and batting them aside. Jules was staring at him with an odd sort of numbness to his face and eyes. Marty saw a bruise on the boy's left cheek, likely acquired when Doc B had struck him back in '86 at the house, and found himself wishing that the bastard had died a more painful, lingering death. Verne, who looked even more haunted and shell-shocked than Jules, boasted a few visible bruises of his own, mostly on his bare arms, and what looked to be a split lip. Clara, Marty observed, had her own share of bruising and reddish marks about her neck, but she looked remarkably well otherwise, physically. There was a haunted look in her eyes, though, that the boys also shared, and he had a feeling that there was a lot of damage that had been done that didn't leave physical marks.
Although he was seeing the same things Marty was -- and maybe more than Marty, being closer -- Doc did not react in a way the teen would've expected, or would have done himself. If he found his wife and kids in the same shape Doc's were, he would've been raging to rip the creep who'd done it to them from limb to limb -- or at least ready to go out and give his dead body a few good kicks, for all the good that would do. Doc, however, said nothing and did nothing, at least not that Marty could see. He merely unlocked the cuffs on his family's wrists and ankles, gently removed them, then threw them aside, out of the way.
Jules allowed him to remove the devices without a word or a flinch. Verne, however, immediately reacted when Doc turned to him with the keys, pulling back as far away as he could until he was pressed flat against the wall. Marty thought he looked almost like a trapped animal, struggling to get away from a hunter.
Clara intervened immediately. "It's your father, honey," she soothed. "Not the other one. He just wants to free you, and then you can move and walk around again."
Verne whimpered, his blue eyes wide with fright. Doc spoke softly to his youngest, kneeling before him. "It's me, Verne," he assured. "Would the other one be uncuffing all of you?" He glanced at Marty over his shoulder. "Would Marty be with me?"
Verne shook his head stubbornly, still not convinced. Clara spoke again. "Verne, honey, this is your father. The other man who looked like your father is gone." She looked to her husband for confirmation. "Right, Emmett?"
"He won't be hurting any of you again, ever," Doc promised. "And I'm not that thing, Verne, I swear to you. I would never, ever do the kinds of things he did to you or the rest of the family. Marty and I have been chasing him since he left, doing anything we could to get you back whole and unharmed."
Marty nodded at the words. "Yeah, Verne," he said. "No way would I be with that creep. And your dad's right -- he's not gonna be able to hurt you anymore, ever."
Verne frowned, still not looking entirely convinced or comfortable. He turned to his mother. "I want Marty to take them off me," he told her.
Doc looked at the teen. "Would you?" he asked.
"Sure." Doc handed Marty the keys as he came over and knelt before Verne. The blond boy watched him carefully as he unlocked the cuffs from his wrists and ankles.
"He really is your father," Marty said softly, the drumming rain on the roof making his words nearly inaudible.
Verne shrugged, rubbing the raw, red marks the handcuffs had left on his wrists. Marty backed away and returned the keys to Doc. When the inventor reached out to touch his son, perhaps to get a look at the marks on his wrists, Verne pushed him back so hard and violently that the scientist nearly lost his balance and fell to the floor.
"All right," he said softly as Verne scowled at him, holding his hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender. "I'll let you be, Verne. But I swear to you that I'm not the other one."
Verne shrugged. Jules crept over to his brother's side, perhaps to keep him company or comfort him, as Clara finally took her turn in being freed from the cuffs. Once they were off, she rubbed her wrists a few times, then wrapped her arms around Doc and hugged him fiercely, resting her head against his very wet shoulder. Doc closed his eyes and stroked her hair, her back, touched her face, moving as if he was scared this was a dream, merely a fantasy.
"When he came into the house, I didn't know he wasn't you," Clara murmured. "I wouldn't've ever let him in otherwise."
"It's not your fault, Clara," Doc whispered. "It's not at all."
Clara finally, reluctantly, let him go, her eyes bright with unfallen tears as she looked at him, her hands tightly clasping his. "What now?" she asked softly.
"We go home," Doc said. "And we'll try to make sense of the madness."
Marty cleared his throat, more uncomfortable than ever at witnessing what he felt was kind of a personal moment for Doc and Clara. "What about the... you know what out there?" he asked when Doc turned to look at him.
Doc glanced back to Clara. "I'll be right back," he promised her. "We need to take care of something before we go -- and the other time machine is out there, too."
Clara looked almost frightened, but allowed her hands to fall free of her husband's. "Hurry back," she said, the words almost a plea.
"Of course," Doc promised. He kissed her, looking her in the eye a long moment when he broke away. "I love you, Clara."
"I love you, Emmett," she said, an odd sort of emphasis on the word you.
Doc led Marty outside, back into the torrential downpour. "I've figured out a way we can deal with Doc B," he said as they walked toward the body.
Marty wasn't sure he wanted to know. "Dare I ask what it is?"
"One of us will take the DeLorean back to the site of the Tunguska Blast in Siberia shortly before it occurs on June 30, 1909."
"The what?" Marty had to interrupt.
"Tunguska Blast. On that date, a bit after seven in the morning, a massive explosion flattened miles of countryside and left a pretty substantial crater. Many believe that a meteor exploded shortly above the earth there. If we take Doc B there to the site of impact shortly before it's to occur, the blast and heat should all but disintegrate the body and make it impossible for an identity to be determined or a cause of death discovered."
Marty frowned and looked at Doc quizzically. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Couldn't that alter history in some big way?"
"I strongly doubt it, in this case. The body should be essentially vaporized."
"So, who's gonna get to do this?" Marty asked, having a sinking feeling that he already knew the answer.
Doc glanced at the train for a moment, then looked back to Marty. The teen didn't like that look. "You want me to," he said.
Doc nodded. "I know I may be better for it, but I don't want to leave my family now -- and I think Clara might kill me if I do. I'll set it up so you come in right over the site, and all you'll need to do is get Doc B out of the car and leave." The inventor waited a moment, and when Marty didn't say anything, he added, "I'll wrap Doc B in something so you won't have to see the body. I know it's upsetting to you."
Marty shuddered at the thought of driving a corpse around, but he sucked it up and nodded slowly. "Okay, fine, I'll do it."
Doc smiled faintly, patting him on the arm. "Thanks, Marty. After you take the DeLorean back and dispose of Doc B, you can return to our present. Which would be June 30, 1986 at, say, 2:30 A.M. I'll arrive with the train fifteen minutes earlier, so by the time you return we should all be in the house -- if things are as they should be."
"They'd better be," Marty said darkly. He sighed heavily. "What are you gonna put him in?"
"There should be a suitable blanket in the DeLorean's trunk. Do you want to get it? It's in the trunk."
Since he didn't feel like standing out in the stormy darkness next to Doc B, Marty accepted the task and the car keys from Doc. He ran to the other time machine, popped the trunk open at the front of the car, found the largest blanket he could, then ran back to Doc, who had moved Doc B onto his back on the ground and closed the eerily staring eyes.
"Here," Marty said, passing him the blanket and trying to avoid looking at the body at their feet.
"Thanks." Doc looked at his counterpart, his expression unreadable. "Let's get this over with," he muttered under his breath. "You don't have to help if you don't want to, Marty."
Marty squirmed a moment, torn between assisting his friend and his own squeamishness. Loyalty finally won out, though. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Why don't you spread the blanket out on the ground next to him? I think it'll be easiest to roll him onto it."
"You sure? It's gonna get all muddy...."
"It can't be avoided."
Marty shrugged and did as the inventor requested and stepped aside, watching as Doc, grunting, pulled his other self onto it.
"Help me roll him up in this," the scientist requested once he'd gotten Doc B onto the blanket, glancing over his shoulder at Marty. The teen swallowed hard, unnerved by the body, but stepped forward to help. Luckily, he didn't have to touch the corpse; Doc just had him hold the blanket down as he rolled Doc B up in it.
"I'll get this in the DeLorean for you," he offered once the body had been fully wrapped up. "But I'm gonna need you to help me with one end, if that's all right."
"Sure," Marty answered numbly, kneeling down and slipping his good arm under what would be the feet of the corpse. Though Doc had the other end supported, it was a heavy bundle; much heavier than Marty remembered Doc weighing when he was unconscious. The two of them shuffled slowly toward the DeLorean, pausing to adjust their grips on the soggy bundle more than once. Doc opened the door on the passenger side and Marty helped him set the roll inside, in the passenger seat.
"Drive the time machine on the road in a hover mode," Doc said, pointing towards the street with one hand as he wiped a rain plastered strand of hair out of his eye with the other. "I don't want you to risk getting struck by lightning high in the air."
"What about coming into the past?" Marty asked, pushing a handful of his own dripping hair out of his eyes. "Won't that be a little dangerous so close to the ground?"
"Take it up high, then, just before you hit eighty-eight," Doc said, thunder nearly drowning out his words. He shut the passenger door and walked around to the other side of the car, Marty close behind.
"All right, I think that's it," he finally said. "Just go back and get rid of the body in the area you come into."
"Okay," Marty said. He eased his left arm out of the sling and managed to slip the device off and toss it behind the seats in the DeLorean, not wanting or able to drive with just one hand free. The move flared up the dull pain in his shoulder enough to wring out a groan from him as he tentatively moved his arm. Doc heard it and looked at him sympathetically.
"When we get back, you can get a hot shower and take some of the painkillers," he said. "That should help."
"Hopefully," Marty muttered. "But what am I gonna say to my parents about this?"
"Don't worry about it, now. It might be better if you stay the night at our place, anyway."
"Whatever." He looked into the open door. "Did you want to put in the destination time?"
Doc snapped his fingers. "Of course," he said, slipping past the teen into the car. Marty heard the familiar beeps as a new time and place were put in, then Doc got out again. "It's all set," he assured him. "Remember, once you're done, you'll want to come back at two-thirty A.M. on June 30, 1986."
"Okay." Marty slipped into the car behind the wheel, unable to avoid stiffening at the sight of the blanket-wrapped bundle in the seat next to him.
Doc leaned into the doorway, his eyes flicking toward the passenger seat before returning to Marty's face. "Good luck. I'll see you in the future."
"Right." Marty shut the door and was about to start the car when Doc knocked on the window. He raised the door again. "Yeah?"
Doc pointed to the blanket. "I know you're not comfortable with this task, but remember, Marty, it's just a body. Doc B won't be able to hurt you, now."
"I know that, Doc," Marty said evenly. But I still don't like being around it, he added in his head. "I just don't really like to spend my time messing around with corpses. Let me just get this over with, okay?"
Doc nodded and shut the door. Marty started the car, switched on the headlights and windshield wipers, and drove carefully onto the road. As the car jostled onto the smooth pavement, the blanket roll slid to the side and bumped Marty on the shoulder. At the contact, he nearly went through the roof, letting out a yelp and twisting the wheel sharply to the left. The DeLorean shot off the road, into an empty field. Marty slammed on the brakes, hard. The car skidded in the mud, then came to a stop.
Marty sat there for a moment, panting hard through his open mouth, eye wide, as the concealed head of Doc B rested on his shoulder. The sound of the rain drumming on the roof filled the space of the entire car until Marty thought it would drive him mad.
"Ahhhhhh!" he finally had to yell just to break the monotonous sound, shoving Doc B hard against the other side of the car with his elbow. He reached for the radio dial, twisting it on and jacking up the volume as loud as he could bear. Static blared from the speakers, and Marty gave the dial a good twist, locking in on a station playing something like Perry Como. He didn't care, though. It was something to drown out the sound of the rain, and made him feel a smidge better.
Marty switched on the flying circuits and drove onto the road again, accelerating hard. At eighty, he pulled the wheel back and rocketed up to the sky, gaining a good altitude in the seconds it took before he hit eighty-eight and vaulted him back to June 30, 1909 at six A.M. in Tunguska, Siberia.
He exploded into a world glowing with the light of dawn, over what seemed to be endless, rural woods. Marty braked quickly, recalling Doc's instructions, then stared down at the drop beneath him. No way was he going to be able to take the DeLorean down into the trees. Which left one option.
"Oh, God, this is sick," he muttered, his eyes darting nervously to the blanket-wrapped bundle. But it wasn't like Doc B was going to be feeling anything.... He put the car in neutral, then leaned across the time circuit switch and gearshift to reach over and open the passenger door. Marty stretched his right arm out as far as he could, scooting closer to the goal, his knees pushed firmly against the control switch. His back ached from the stretch, his left shoulder screaming in pain from the strain. Marty ignored it, grunting as his fingers brushed against the door latch. He struggled to grab the latch and open the door. Marty touched it, got a hold of it... then lost his balance and fell across the lap of the rolled-up corpse.
Marty screamed in terror, unable to stop himself, moving faster than he thought possible. He jerked away, to the side, bumping his head against the glove box, and fumbled around to regain hold on the door latch. Finally, his hand came into contact with the goal and he popped open the door. Cold air gusted into the car, chilling him to the bone in his soaked and terrified state. Marty managed to climb back into his seat without touching Doc B, then leaned back against the closed driver's side door and used his legs to shove the blanket as hard as he could towards the open door. The top portion exited first, gravity and weight pulling the rest of the bundle of Doc B out of the car.
The DeLorean rocked from the loss of the weight, tossing Marty against the steering wheel, his left arm and shoulder taking the majority of the impact. He nearly passed out from the pain, his eyes filling with uncontrolled tears. A thick moan escaped him as he hugged his arm hard against his chest, leaning forward and willing the pain to dissipate. Perhaps it was good, though; it created enough of a distraction that he wasn't drawn to watch the bundle fall to the trees from the car. Once the pain had peaked and began to fade a little, he managed to straighten himself behind the wheel again and drive away from the site, using mostly his right hand for that maneuver.
Marty drove until he found a spot to land, the wind gusting through the open passenger door more noisily than the static on the radio. He wasn't sure how to go about closing the door otherwise and figured that trying to do so a couple hundred feet in the air, or leaving the door open altogether while jumping home, would be very bad ideas. He moved as quickly as he could, despite the ache of his entire left arm and shoulder, unsure of when this meteor or whatever it was was supposed to strike, but knowing he didn't want to stick around and check it out.
Once that had been done, Marty got back inside and set the time circuits as per Doc's instructions, for June 30, 1986, at 2:30 A.M. in Hill Valley. That done, he took to the air again, settled back, and accelerated, waiting for the car to climb through the miles.
Marty was up to seventy when he heard a beeping sound coming out of the dashboard. He jumped, his heart promptly racing. His eyes scanned the controls, and then he saw it: the fuel light was glowing a threatening red, the needle on empty. How could I not've noticed that? he wondered just as the engine sputtered, threatening to stall. Marty sucked in a deep breath -- he was totally on empty and out of gas!
"Not now, please," he pleaded, laying on the accelerator with all he had. The engine caught again and the speedometer jumped to seventy-five... eighty... then sputtered again.
"Come on," he said hitting the steering wheel, his face twisting in frustration and fear. "Don't do this to me, please!"
But it was no use. The car was out of gas. It hung suspended in the air, a couple thousand feet up... then started to drop.
The decent gave Marty an idea. Still moving at close to eighty, he shifted into neutral and aimed right for the ground. He had no idea if the hover conversion operated on gas, but even if it didn't....
The car zoomed towards the ground, like an airplane piloted by a kamikaze. Marty's gaze swung between the ground rushing towards him and the digital speedometer. It was up to eighty-three....eighty-five....eight-six.... The ground looked five hundred feet away. The speed was eighty-seven. The ground was two hundred feet away.
"Please," Marty whispered, his eyes wide with fear. His fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.
The speed clicked over to eighty-eight. There was a flash of light, the usual sonic booms, then darkness surrounded him. Though terribly disoriented, Marty pulled the wheel up toward him as hard as he could, his arms aching with the effort, jamming his foot on the brake at the same time. The DeLorean jerked and bounced, the entire car groaning in protest, buckling as if it would rip in two. Then, suddenly, the turbulence stopped.
Marty, not using his seatbelt, was thrown nearly out of his seat, his head striking the ceiling with enough force to bring stars and more tears to his eyes. He lay half sprawled over the time circuit switch for a moment, stunned, then sat up and looked outside. The hover conversion did not operate on gasoline, apparently. He was hovering less then one foot above the ground....before the open double doors of Doc's lab, no less. Had he continued his downward plunge, he would have crashed right into his friend's building.
Marty sat there for a moment in a state of shock, contemporary rock music now pouring from the speakers. Jesus Christ, that was close! he realized, shaking. Doc would've killed me if I crashed the DeLorean into his lab!
Then, suddenly, Marty started to laugh. It struck him, then, how comical the thought was and he just started laughing at the hilarity of it all. Yeah, Doc would've killed me if the crash hadn't done it first, he added silently to himself. He laughed so hard tears once more filled his eyes and rolled down his already damp cheeks. The laughter poured out of him so long that his stomach ached from it and he felt like he would throw up again.
When the hysteria finally passed a few minutes later, Marty quite calmly turned off the radio, got out of the DeLorean, and pushed it into the empty lab. Doc and his family, presumably, had gone into the house. He kept the hover conversion on, making his job considerably easier. Once it was parked in its proper place, he turned off the flying circuits, took the keys out of the ignition, turned the lights off in the lab, then shut the double doors and strolled towards the still-illuminated farmhouse. He felt drained now, wobbly on his feet from all the excitement and stress of the last few hours. His shoulder, frankly, was killing him and his head was aching from striking it on the ceiling of the car. All he honestly wanted now was that hot shower and the painkillers Doc had promised, then some kind of bed or couch on which to crash.
But Marty had the feeling that the night wasn't over for him, not quite yet.
Doc and his family had arrived back in their present a little earlier than the scientist had originally told Marty, at two A.M. rather than 2:25. This gave him a half hour before his friend was expected in which to inspect the train, making sure that Doc B hadn't attempted any kind of sabotage or damage to it, store it away again, and then attend to his family and his own needs. Despite the state of his family, particularly the unusual silence of Jules and Verne, Clara had all but insisted he get into the shower and change clothes before beginning his tale about who, exactly, was the man who had borne such an incredible physical resemblance to her husband. Feeling thoroughly soaked and bedraggled, Doc hadn't fought her too hard on the matter, and by the time he returned downstairs, feeling marginally more human again, he found his wife in the kitchen preparing tea and chocolate chip cookies for a late night snack.
"The boys wanted them," she explained, catching Doc's raised eyebrow as he found her spooning cookie dough onto a sheet. "It isn't healthy, yes, but after everything they've been through, I don't have the heart to deny them."
Doc nodded, looking critically at Clara as he slipped his hands on her shoulders, his touch gentle. "Why don't you change?" he asked, noticing she still wore the checkered lavender sundress she had put on that morning, seemingly days ago, now.
"Later," Clara said, dropping another spoonful of dough onto the cookie sheet. "I want to take a long, hot bath before I turn in, tonight, and not be rushed."
"Where're the boys?"
"I sent them upstairs to change and clean up. I'm worried about them, Emmett," she added, tilting her head enough to see his face. "They're so dreadfully subdued, and they endured terrible treatment at the hands of Non-Emmett."
"Non-Emmett?" Doc asked with a faint smile.
"What I called him." Clara's voice still carried dread at the mention of Doc B.
The inventor tugged at his wife's arm and she pivoted at the touch, facing him fully now with a wooden spoon in one hand. "What did he do to you?" he asked softly, leaning close.
Clara bit her lip a moment, closing her eyes, then spoke. "He hit us and smacked us a great deal," she murmured, as if ashamed. "Even the boys. He had terrible mood swings. The least little thing would set him off, especially if something wasn't going the way he had hoped."
Doc tightened his hands on Clara without thinking about it, furious with Doc B all over again. Clara winced from his grip, pulling back a little, and Doc immediately relaxed his hands. "Sorry," he said immediately.
"I know how you feel," she said softly. "I'm still quite angry at him for what he did to me and especially to the boys. I can only hope they're not permanently harmed from what they saw and went through."
"They're fairly adaptable kids," Doc said. "I suspect we've got some rough weeks ahead, but it will pass." He changed the subject slightly. "Doc B -- the other one -- didn't try to take any... improper measures with you, did he?"
Clara shook her head firmly. "No, he was too busy to take the time for that," she said. "And if he would've dared try, I would've made sure that he regretted the very thought for a long, long time."
"Thank God for that, then."
The sound of the back door opening distracted them both. Doc found himself tensing up immediately, but it was just Marty coming in. The teen was in about the same state Doc had been upon arrival -- thoroughly soaked -- with a rather pale face and a nervous twitch to his mouth. He managed a smile when he saw Doc, closing the door behind him.
"It's done," he said, his eyes darting quickly to Clara before returning this friend's face. "And just to let you know, the DeLorean is gonna need more gas before it can go anywhere." Marty laughed a little, the sound nervous.
"Thanks," Doc said. "It's not entirely over yet, though. We're going to need to find the DeLorean Doc B came here in and destroy it."
"That can wait until tomorrow," Clara said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Marty, I'm sure you're as miserable in those clothes as you look. The shower on the main floor is waiting, and I found some things you left over here a few weeks ago that you can wear afterwards."
"Thanks," Marty said, smiling faintly her. He glanced back to Doc. "Do you have anything I could take for my shoulder? It's killing me like crazy right now."
"The pills from the future should be in the downstairs bathroom -- I had them in one of my pockets and took them out before I sent the clothes down the laundry chute."
"Great."
"Just take two -- and when you come out we'll be in the parlor," Doc added. "I'm going to tell them about Doc B."
"And we'll have some snacks ready by then," Clara promised.
Marty had been gone only a few minutes when Jules and Verne came into the kitchen, having both donned their pajamas. "Are the cookies ready yet?" Verne asked his mother, all but ignoring Doc a couple feet away.
"I'm putting them in to cook, now," Clara said as she opened the oven door and gently swatted her youngest son's fingers away from the remaining dough in the bowl. "You should have them in your mouths in about twenty minutes."
Jules lingered near the doorway of the kitchen, his dark eyes trained on his father. For the first time since rescuing them, he spoke. "The other you is gone?" he asked softly.
The inventor nodded. "Yes. There was an accident and he.... well, he didn't make it."
"So you're saying that he's dead?" Jules asked.
Doc nodded. The boy smiled tightly, his expression dangerously close to a smirk. "Good!" he said firmly. "He deserved it! I hope you were the one that killed him."
"Jules!" Clara reprimanded immediately as she closed the oven, shooting her son a stern look.
"What?" the older boy asked. "And I'm not gonna repent or deny or lie about it! He was crazy and cruel to us and he hit you, Mother! How can you forgive him for that -- and the way he treated Verne and I? Even Einstein doesn't deserve that kind of treatment!"
"Jules," Doc said softly, "I can understand how you feel. But you don't know who he is, not entirely. Yes, he was a jerk and I cannot forgive him for the way he's treated you, Verne, and your mother. But his behavior wasn't entirely without reason."
The kitchen was silent for a moment, all eyes turned to him. "Don't tell me you sympathize with how he treated us?" Clara asked, aghast. "Emmett, no human should behave in that manner toward others!"
"I'm not," Doc assured her and their sons. "Absolutely not! But... well, why don't I explain it all in the parlor, once the cookies are done? It's a long story, and I think you'll be surprised."
Clara, Jules, and even Verne looked curious, but none of them asked any further questions then. While waiting for the batch to bake, Doc went into the parlor and over to the fireplace, occupying himself with the task of lighting a fire despite it being summertime and temperatures warm outside. The air conditioned house seemed far too chilled for him, though he suspected the source of his cold came not from external elements, but ones buried deeper and more difficult to escape.
I saw him die,
Doc thought as he pushed the screen aside on the hearth, recalling the terrible moment when Doc B had drawn his last breath. He knew that the gun going off had been an accident; there was no turmoil or questions in his mind about that. But there was a part of Doc that had been quite pleased by the "accident." He wasn't sure if that was because it solved a nagging problem that had bothered him from the moment he had seen the face of Doc B -- that being what to do with him when he was finally caught -- or because a deeply primitive side of him was satisfied at achieving a revenge of sorts.Yes, he had to admit to himself, he was still angry at what Doc B had done to his family, to Marty, and to innocents in history itself -- but the scientist couldn't quite shake a sensation of guilt, too, at his own feelings. Because....
He could've been me.
The phrase and idea whispered at him relentlessly, reminding him that had he and Marty failed to get back the sports almanac in time, his fate would be that of Doc B. Doc could hardly bear that. He wished that Doc B had come from a completely alien alternate reality, one that had no connection whatsoever to anything in his own life.Admit it, Emmett,
he thought. The reason you feel so guilty is because he came from a reality that you essentially created when Biff got his hands on the almanac.But was that so? If there were an infinite number of parallel and alternate realities in the universe, wouldn't it stand to reason that such a place had existed already, before Marty had bought the almanac and inadvertently set things in motion? And that Biff getting his hands on the almanac had shifted that universe's timeline into the one he considered the "real" one?
Doc rubbed his forehead with one hand as he picked up the box of matches next to the stack of wood with the other. It seemed the more he learned about time travel and the fourth dimension, the more he realized he didn't know and the more confused he became.
By the time Clara and the boys came in, a few minutes later, he had the fire going merrily, the screen back in place, and was pacing nervously. Jules carried a plate of cookies, while Clara bore a tray with the mugs and tea upon it. "Do you want to wait for Marty before you tell us what happened?" she asked as they sat down on the sofa.
Doc paused a moment, then shook his head. "He's heard this before," he said. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"
Three heads nodded. So Doc began, briefly relaying how Marty's gunshot wound had prompted him to skip ahead to the future to allow the teen a quicker recovery, then launching into what he had discovered about who Doc B was. There were no interruptions during his explanation. Even Marty, arriving in the room ten minutes into it, crept quietly over to sit in the armchair near the fire without a word.
When he finally concluded, sharing all that he had learned about Doc B, and what had happened to him in 1955, there was a brief silence. Clara was the one who broke it.
"I suppose I can see why you feel a bit defensive about him," she said softly. "It sounds like he went through hell, Emmett."
"No doubt," Doc agreed. "And that would've been my fate had Marty and I not retrieved the almanac from Biff."
Clara shuddered. "I still find it hard to forgive myself for mentioning that," she said softly. "When he spoke about a book that he claimed Biff had had in his possession, I asked if he meant the almanac before I really thought it through and... well, I couldn't lie, not with the guns and the boys." She sighed, the sound shaky. "I still find it difficult to see you behaving as he did."
"Yeah," Marty added, his feet up on the chair's matching ottoman and looking considerably more relaxed than he had upon first entering the house. Doc suspected the painkillers might've had something to do with that. "You wouldn't smack Clara around if she looked at you funny -- hell, you wouldn't do anything like that even if she pulled a knife on you!"
Jules, who had frowned intently through most of the explanation, finally opened his mouth. "Did you know it was possible for something like this to happen?" he asked. "For another you from another world to come here?"
"Not really," Doc admitted. "I mean, certainly, it's possible in a theoretical sense. But did I expect it? No."
"So it could happen again," Jules said. He sighed and moaned softly.
"It could," Doc said, not wanting to lie. "But the odds aren't terribly high. It was just some random bit of luck that brought Doc B here, and once I destroy his machine, that way of traveling will be gone with it."
"But not if someone makes another machine like that in another world," Jules said, understanding the situation far better than Doc would've liked.
The inventor knelt down before his oldest son and looked him straight in the eye. "The world is filled with the unknown and the what ifs, even for people who have access to time machines," he said. "There's little I can do to prevent such a thing from happening again, but at least we know that such an occurrence is possible. And knowing that, we can be more careful in the future."
"Such as not assuming you're you when you behave differently," Clara said. She sighed. "If only I hadn't opened that door...."
"There wasn't a way you could've known, then," Doc said, turning to his wife and patting her knee. "This wasn't your doing, Clara. It was a lot of bad luck, frankly."
"Thought you didn't believe in bad luck, Doc," Marty murmured.
"In this case, I don't know how else to explain it," the inventor admitted. He looked to Verne, sitting on the other side of Clara, his eyes locked onto the dancing flames in the fireplace and his knees drawn up on the couch. "Verne, do you have any questions about this?"
Verne glanced at his father quickly, then looked away, tilting his face toward the windows on his left instead. "Verne, your father asked you a question," Clara said, her voice carrying a trace of a warning in it.
"How do you know he's my father?" Verne asked the windows, the question directed to his mother.
"You know he is," Clara said.
"Maybe not," Verne said. "We never saw the Pod Person and maybe he's lying to us, waitin' 'til we're not expecting it, and then's gonna murder us in our sleep or something."
"That's ridiculous," Clara said immediately. "Verne, honey, that man is gone, now. He won't be back."
"But someone worse could," Jules said ominously. All eyes turned to him and he shrugged. "If this happened once, it could happen again. I'm still not convinced otherwise."
Doc sighed, running a hand through his hair. Clara, thankfully, changed the subject. "I'm afraid there's one thing I don't entirely understand," she admitted. "Why did he treat us so terribly when he thought we were his?"
Doc considered his words carefully before answering. "I don't think he thought you were his as much as he felt that you belonged to him, that some cosmic mistake had robbed him of the wife and children and a life he had wanted very badly. The other Emmett Brown shared the same history as I, until 1955, when things began to minutely deviate; he -- and I -- wanted that very thing for a very long time, but never dreamed that he -- or, I -- would be fortunate enough to get so lucky and actually have it happen."
Doc paused, looking intently at each member of his family for a moment. "I love you all very much and I'd never do anything to hurt you, especially in the way my alternate self did. But perhaps in Doc B's mind, he wanted to do just that because he knew that you didn't belong to him, not really. He wasn't me, ultimately. He didn't have the memories of our lives together, and you wouldn't treat him the same as you would me. I think he was jealous of me, of what I had. And, unfortunately, he took those feelings out on all of you. And I'm very sorry for that."
The crackle of the fire was the only sound for a moment as his family stared at him. "Emmett, his actions aren't you fault," Clara said. "You do know that, don't you?"
Doc hesitated. "Yes," he said.
Clara looked skeptical, but she didn't push the issue. After another moment of silence, she spoke again. "Perhaps we should all turn in now," she suggested. "It's quite late and the boys and I didn't rest too much... they're exhausted."
Verne immediately protested this, despite the dark circles under his eyes. "I don't wanna go to bed now," he said, frowning at his mother. "I'm not tired yet."
"I doubt that very much," Clara said. She stood, gathering up the half empty mugs of tea and placing them back on the tray. "Can one of you boys take the cookies back to the kitchen?" she asked, nodding to the now half empty plate.
Verne jumped to the task, perhaps in a ploy to delay his bedtime or to sneak another one into his mouth. He followed Clara through the kitchen door, leaving Doc, Marty, and Jules alone.
Or, Doc saw when he turned around to check on his rather quiet friend, just him and Jules; at some point in the last several minutes, Marty had fallen asleep, curled up in the chair on his side, his head on one of the armrests. Doc tugged a blanket off the back of the couch and, while covering his friend with it, Jules quietly stood and came over.
"I'm sorry for my earlier behavior," he said softly. "It's been very strange the last couple of days, and when... he first came here, we thought he was you. Verne and I saw you hitting Mother, and... that made me feel sick. Even after we found out that he wasn't you, it was still strange. Because he looked just like you, and my mind knew that he wasn't, but I kept feeling like he was you. And when you came to the train tonight, I thought it was a real terrible joke, and he was going to pretend he was you by being all nice to us."
Jules took a breath as Doc turned to give him his full attention. "But I think you're you again, now. I don't believe Verne is entirely convinced, but I'll work on him."
Doc smiled at his eldest son's speech. "Thank you, Jules."
Jules looked at him a moment, his face serious, then suddenly lunged forward and hugged him, tightly. Doc was struck, then, by how small he felt, how vulnerable he had been to harm in the hands of his other self. He hugged him back, just as tightly, and they stood there for a minute before Jules finally loosened his grip and stepped back, blinking quickly, his mouth trembling a little.
"I love you, Father," he said quietly.
"I love you, too, Jules. And don't worry about this happening again. Something similar could, yes, but I think knowing it could can enable all of us to handle it better."
Jules didn't look very comforted by the words. He half shrugged, then headed for the stairs just outside the room, in the foyer. Doc turned off the lamps, then joined Clara and Verne, still in the kitchen. He walked into the middle of a little argument.
"...care what you say, Verne, you're exhausted," Clara was saying as he entered as she slipped the leftover cookies into the cookie jar. "It's after three in the morning."
"So?" Verne countered, his arms folded across his chest and a pout on his face. "It doesn't feel that late to me."
"That's due to the time lag, likely," Doc interjected. "Your mother is right, though. It's long past bedtime."
Verne glared at him a moment, then looked back to Clara. "I'm not sleeping with the Pod here," he said.
"Pod?" Doc couldn't help asking, looking to Clara for clarification.
She sighed. "It's a long story," she said to him, then turned her attention back to her son. "Verne, your brother will be upstairs with you. There's nothing to be afraid of."
"Who says I'm afraid of anything?" Verne asked immediately, offended. "I don't wanna go to bed now, and why's that so hard to understand? I ain't tired!"
"Not tired," Clara corrected deftly. "Well, even if you aren't, I am. If you're still awake after lying down for an hour in bed, you may get up and watch television, if that suits you. But I'd like for you to lie down in your room for a bit, first."
Verne wasn't agreeable to the idea. "I don't want to."
Doc, who had a few arguments of his own to use against their son, decided it might be best if he kept his mouth shut and stayed out of it. Clara was doing quite well without him, anyway.
"There won't be anything else for you to do, honey. The television stations are all shut down at this hour of the night, your father and I are going to go to bed, and--"
"He's not my father," Verne interrupted. "Stop saying that!"
Clara sighed. "He is your father, Verne," she said. "And you've worn my patience through on that matter. Go to your room and go to bed before I do something we'll both regret. You don't want to be grounded, do you?"
Verne clearly was itching to continue his battle, but he wanted even less to be punished. Without saying a word, he left the kitchen, his footsteps heading the direction of the stairs. Clara looked at her husband, her face weary.
"What are we going to do about him?" she asked.
"Give it time," Doc said. "It's been a long couple of days. Maybe after some sleep, he'll feel better."
Clara sighed again and slipped her arms around Doc, resting her head on his shoulder. "Maybe we all will," she said. "Maybe we'll wake tomorrow and this will just be a terrible nightmare we had."
Knowing quite well that it wouldn't be that way, Doc said nothing, stroking her hair instead. They went upstairs together, more than ready to put an end to a day that had lasted far longer and brought far stranger tidings than any of them had imagined when waking that morning.
Although she was thoroughly exhausted, and knew that the excitement was finally over, Clara found sleep an impossible thing to achieve. She tried, but her mind refused to shut off, replaying everything she had seen and experienced in the last few days. Each position in the bed was uncomfortable; every shift seemed to bring discovery of a new bruise or bit of soreness brought about by Non-Emmett in that long, terrible adventure.
Her Emmett, she discovered quickly, seemed to be suffering from similar problems, if his tossing and turning was any indication. A half hour after they had finally turned the lights off in hopes of sleeping, she finally broke the quiet.
"Emmett?"
There was a moment's hesitation. "Yes?" she heard him finally ask.
"Do you really believe this won't happen again, as you told Jules?"
Another hesitation. "I didn't say it quite like that," Emmett said. "But I do believe the odds are low that such an occurrence will happen again to us."
"Why?" Clara asked, the question having nagged at her.
Emmett turned to face her. "I asked myself the same thing," he admitted. "I think it's inherently more difficult to create a manner of traveling through dimensions rather than traveling through time. My other self never intended to do that. His intention was always to create a time machine, not a dimensional machine. I'm certain that there was some kind of error that brought him into this dimension. I'll know more when I find his machine and take a look at it."
"Are you going to keep it?" Clara asked.
"Absolutely not," Emmett answered without hesitation. "Dimensional travel is far too dangerous for us to be messing around with. And in the wrong hands it can be a disaster, as it was with the other me."
Clara rolled over so that their faces were six inches apart. "What if something like that happens to you?" she asked. "What if you're out and there's an accident with the machine that's mechanical, not something you did to a timeline? Will you be able to return home?"
"One would hope. Had the other me accomplished what he'd set out to do, he would've turned this world into the one he came from. That's no guess -- that's a fact. But if it's a mechanical problem, I think that once it was corrected, I could go back home. I think the alternate DeLorean might hold an answer, but regardless, I think I might do a bit of research into that matter."
Clara nodded. "Are you okay, Emmett?" she had to ask.
"What do you mean? It's you and the boys who went through the real hell."
"Maybe so, in one sense. But please, don't blame yourself for this happening. I think you do, and I don't want you feeling that way. The more we let what he did bother us, the more he wins."
Emmett was quiet again. "You're right about that," he admitted. "I just can't shake the feeling, though, that I created him. I created that version of me. Or, rather, he didn't exist until Biff acquired the sports almanac. Marty, I suppose, was the one who started that chain of events, but I can't blame him. And, frankly, I'm glad that he did, or I would have never met you. I'd be living out the rest of my years alone as the local nutcase."
Clara frowned to herself as she tried to understand what her husband was saying. "So you believe that his world didn't exist until Biff got the almanac, then?"
Emmett nodded once, the shifting of shadows the only indication of the movement. Clara hurried to correct him of that potential misconception.
"You don't know that for sure," she said. "Please don't torment yourself with that, Emmett. It might be wrong."
"I know. There's so much about this business of parallel and alternate realities that I don't understand. But what if there is the matter that such worlds don't exist until a time traveler creates them?"
"This is still not your fault," Clara said immediately. "I don't believe there's any blame to be placed in this situation, except on the other you. And from what you've told me, he has paid for it. Not as much as perhaps the boys, Marty, myself, and you would like, but he has been punished."
"And he was unapologetic to the very end," Emmett murmured, troubled. "I half expected that, you know. That he would say he was sorry for what he did. But instead he just talked about how he wished he was me. I think he meant more that he wished I was the one dying, not him."
Clara reached out and touched her husband's arm, stroking it gently. "It's over, Emmett," she said softly. "As you told us -- he's gone."
"But not forgotten."
"No," Clara had to agree. "Certainly not forgotten. But in time, I think we might not think about him much. And that's the best thing we can do. Put this madness behind us and look to the future."
"You're right," Emmett said, and kissed her. "You're always right."
Clara smiled in the dark as she returned the kiss, feeling better now. It would take a while, but they would be all right, she felt. Even Verne, who seemed to be struggling the hardest with their terrible experience.
They wouldn't let him win.
* * *
Marty had been asleep little more than an hour before a sound punched through the deep silence of the house and pulled him, reluctantly, back to the land of the living. He wasn't sure what it was at first, but by the time he was blinking, dazed, and staring at the crimson embers of a dying fire, Marty had it figured out. Some kind of canned laughter, like that from sitcoms, coming from another part of the first floor.
Marty struggled to sit up, having somehow managed to curl up on his right side in the armchair in Doc's living room, while still keeping his feet up on the ottoman. His neck, he found, was killing him from the way he'd been lying on it, and despite the painkillers he'd taken right before his shower, his shoulder was back to throbbing dully. His entire body, frankly, was one big sore muscle.
"What time is it?" he murmured aloud, his eyes searching the dark of the room for a clock. He spotted one over the fireplace mantle a moment later, and saw that it was closing in on five in the morning. He'd been asleep less than two hours. It wasn't enough if his dazed, groggy state was any indication... but where the hell was that sound coming from?
Marty threw aside the blanket that someone had covered him with, a little warm between that and the fire. Luckily, the green and black button-down shirt and jeans Clara had found for him hadn't been left by him during the winter, but when he and Jennifer had visited Woodstock a couple weeks before. He pushed himself to his feet and shuffled in the direction of the sound, tracking it to the family room at the back of the house.
Verne was sitting on the couch cross-legged, his eyes and attention focused on the TV, which was playing, from what Marty could gather, a rerun of a Three Stooges episode. He stood in the doorway a moment, watching the kid watch the flickering black-and-white image, before speaking.
"Think you could turn that down a little?"
Verne jumped, dropping the remote in his hand to the floor. His head snapped over to look at Marty and he relaxed, a little. "What are you doing up?" he asked.
"The sound effects on that show could wake the dead at that volume; I could hear it at the other end of the house."
"Sorry." Verne bent down to grab the remote and turned the volume down. "I didn't think it'd bug you."
Marty shrugged, wincing a little at his left shoulder, and sat down on the other end of the couch from Verne. "What're you doing up? Do your parents normally let you watch TV this early?"
"Mom said I could," Verne said, his tone defensive. "And I'm not tired."
That was a lie, Marty saw at once. Verne was clearly exhausted, but even more clearly fighting against that. "Amazing," the teen said instead. "I'm wiped, personally."
"Then go back to sleep," Verne said, not in the mood. "I'm not bothering no one with watching this."
Marty studied him a moment. "You okay?" he asked lightly.
"I'm fine," Verne said, his eyes back on the screen.
"Well, if I was in your position, I wouldn't be." Verne glanced quickly over at Marty with the words. "I think I'd still be a little upset from what happened with Doc B -- the guy who wasn't your dad."
Verne didn't say anything about that, and Marty thought he was either being ignored or the boy didn't care -- but then Verne asked a question, hesitantly.
"What did it feel like to get shot, Marty? Was it like in the movies?"
Marty shuddered at the query but tried not to show how much it bothered him. "No," he said. "It hurt like crazy and I was scared outta my mind."
"Aren't you mad at the Pod for doing that to you?"
"Yeah, I am," Marty said honestly, picking up that "Pod" was what Verne was calling Doc B, for some reason. "But I think that's pretty normal, and the guy paid for what he did. I think he got off too easily, personally, but he died, Verne, and that's gotta be enough."
"I don't think he's dead," Verne said, lowering his voice as if about to confess a deep, dark secret. "I think he killed Dad and came back here."
"No way," Marty said immediately. "I saw the whole thing, Verne. I saw Doc B die, too. There's absolutely no way that he and your dad switched places. No way," he added once more for emphasis.
"But how do you know?" Verne asked, turning to face him completely, now, the TV show forgotten.
"Because I saw it happen," Marty said again. "And think of it this way, Verne: Your dad and Doc B weren't dressed alike at all. How plausible is it that they changed clothes mid-fight? It's not. The Emmett Brown upstairs is the same one who married your mom and had you and Jules. He's not an imposter. Can't you tell?"
There was something in Verne's expression that told Marty that the boy knew. "What's really wrong, Verne?" he said, sensing there was something the kid hadn't mentioned. "Are you afraid Doc B will come back? Did he do something to you that Jules or Clara don't know about?"
Verne shook his head at the guesses. "I'm mad at him," he finally said, his voice tense.
"Well, I am, too," Marty said. "And that's normal and okay."
Verne blinked, surprised. "You're mad at Dad?"
And then it clicked into place for the teen. "Oh," he realized aloud. "You're ticked at your dad, not Doc B!" At Verne's microscopic nod, Marty had to ask: "Why?"
"Because... because he let the Pod hurt us!" Verne burst out, the words tumbling close together, now. "Because he's supposed to protect us, he said he'd protect us when we moved to the future, and he didn't! The Pod came and Dad didn't stop him!" And, with that, Verne suddenly and unexpectedly burst into tears.
Marty stared at him a moment, feeling helpless, with no clue about what to do or say. Verne sobbed, trying to muffle the sound with his hands over his mouth and not succeeding too well. After watching him for a minute, Marty felt he had to say something, anything.
"Your dad isn't Superman, Verne," he said gently. "And I'm not trying to be mean about that. He's just human like we all are. He may have a time machine and be able to do some fantastic things, but he's not psychic and he's not a mind reader. There is no way in a million years he would've let Doc B take you guys if he had been home. It's crappy, crappy luck. But if you think that because Doc wasn't here when Doc B showed up that doesn't mean he cares about you or doesn't love you, then you're crazy!"
Verne choked back a sob and looked at the teen through red and watery eyes. Marty continued quietly.
"Doc called me as soon as he figured out what had happened, and he was really upset. As soon as he put things together, he went after you guys and tried to stop Doc B from doing what he was."
Verne hiccuped. "But how come he never.... never tried to rescue us?" he asked. "You did."
"Again, that was dumb luck," Marty admitted. "I got lost and just found the train. He didn't try to go after you guys because he didn't want to put you in danger. Doc B wanted to kill him, Verne. He didn't want to die on you guys, first off, and he didn't want to provoke Doc B into hurting you guys worse as a way to get back at Doc for trying something. It was super complicated. But, trust me, your dad was doing everything he could to get you guys back safely and away from the creep."
Verne digested the words, sniffling and wiping the tears away that were still oozing from his eyes. "Are you sure?" he finally asked, doubt in the question.
Marty nodded vigorously, though it made his neck -- still sore from the armchair -- ache worse. "Yes," he said. "And if you don't believe me, ask your dad himself. He went to hell and back -- real literally, too -- in order to save you guys from Doc B. I've known Doc for almost five years, now, and I know that you guys mean the world to him. He'd die if he lost any of you."
Verne considered the words once more, then he finally nodded once. "Okay," he said. "But you're sure he's not the Pod....?"
"Yes," Marty said. "And you know what's the simplest way for you to find out?"
Verne shook his head, his face damp from the tears, now beginning to dissipate.
"Ask him about something only he would know. Your dad, I mean."
"I never thought about that," Verne admitted after pondering the suggestion. "Thanks, Marty." He got up from the couch and handed him the remote. "I'm tired, now. You can watch whatever you want."
"Ah... thanks." Marty watched the boy leave the room, wiping at his cheeks, and waited until his footsteps had faded before clicking off the TV off setting down the remote on the coffee table before the couch. He lay down on the couch with a sigh, on his stomach, blinking at the now-blank TV screen, and thought about what Verne had said.
The kids,
Marty thought, shivering a little, drawing his knees up. God, I think I'd be totally flipped out if I'd went through this stuff at their age.He wondered what the next few weeks would bring for them, how they would deal with it, what they -- and Clara and Doc -- would say if anyone outside the family noticed the marks on them from Doc B's hands... and with these thoughts drifting through his head, Marty's eyes eventually closed. Sleep came once more, but it was a thin, unrestful sort, with half-formed nightmares about Doc B.
A fully dressed Doc finally shook him out of it, literally, around eight in the morning. "Your mother called," he said when Marty had raised his head in response to the gentle shaking.
Marty shielded his eyes from the bright sunlight slipping in through the gauzy curtains in the windows. "Am I in trouble?" was the only thing he could think of saying.
"I don't know. If you are, that's partially my fault for dragging you over here late last night and then forgetting to consider what your family might think if you didn't go home."
"Oh." Marty lay his head back down on the couch pillow, groggy in the extreme.
"Anyway, I told her that you were indeed at my place, having helped me with an emergency last night, and I apologized for not telling her this earlier. I also told her that you'd had a little accident."
That helped clear his head. Marty sat up. "Accident?"
"In order to explain your injury to her. I did a bit of research this morning, before she telephoned, and found that an injured rotator cuff can create similar symptoms of pain and tenderness that you'll probably be having for the next few weeks. I explained to your mother than you were fine, that we had iced the injury and you had fallen asleep over here during the process."
"Oh, great... I hope she doesn't drag me to the doctor, now."
"So do I. A doctor would have considerable questions for you once he got a look at your shoulder." Doc changed the subject. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like your help for a few hours, at least, in trying to track down Doc B's time machine. I'm fairly certain it's somewhere on the property, but since there are fifty acres to contend with...."
"Sure," Marty said. "As long as there's a breakfast in the deal."
"Clara's fixing one right now."
Marty followed Doc -- and the enticing smells -- to the kitchen where Clara was laying out a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls, toast, bacon, and hash browns on the table. Jules and Verne were nowhere to be seen, and for the first time, Marty realized the house was rather quiet. When he asked, Clara explained that the boys were still sleeping. Marty had to wonder why she was up -- frankly, both she and Doc still looked exhausted -- but, then again, he was, too. There was still stuff to do before any of them could entirely relax, he supposed.
The food made Marty feel better, though, and by the time he and Doc had finished eating, he felt his brain was finally working to some degree, again.
"I know it might sound stupid, but do you have anything like a metal detector to find the other machine?" he asked. "A time travel detector?"
Doc took the question seriously, however. "Unfortunately, no. We'll have to go about this the old fashioned way."
"Just be careful if you're hiking in the woods," Clara said. "A lot of that is still pretty wild and unexplored."
"I think they might be a little too thick to conceal a time machine, for the most part," Doc said. He got up from the table, kissed his wife on her forehead, then headed for the back door with Marty.
The air carried a faint chill to it at this early hour, though from the looks of it, it would be another scorcher. "Should we split up?" Marty asked as they surveyed the backyard from the back porch.
"I suppose," Doc said. "I'll check around the house if you want to look in the area of the lab and the woods immediately behind there."
Marty accepted that and walked slowly to the other building, squinting against the sunlight as he carefully scanned his surroundings. He walked around the once-barn, attuned to the slightest change in scenery -- but it wasn't until he was making his second circle, and feeling rather annoyed by not seeing anything unusual, when something shiny caught his attention from the corner of his eye. Marty turned to face it -- and the woods -- full on and spotted, parked on a path the approximate width of a car, a DeLorean-ish object covered by fallen branches and brush. He hurried over to it for a closer look and confirmed the identity; eerily enough, the license plate was the same as that on Doc's own DeLorean, a California plate boasting the vanity OUTATIME.
"Doc?" he shouted, turning his head toward the house. "I found it!"
The scientist had been out of Marty's sight, but apparently not out of his hearing range; he came running into view a moment later, as the teen cautiously stepped under the cover of the trees and eyeballed the car, afraid to touch anything.
"He wasn't too creative hiding this, was he?" Marty had to say when the inventor had reached his side. "By the way, where does this path go?"
"Out to the clearing where the train emerges," Doc said, distracted. He circled the car a couple of times, Marty scooting out of the way, before beginning to pull off the brush hastily implemented as camouflage for the car. As the DeLorean began to clearly emerge, Marty thought, offhand, that it wasn't too different in appearance from Doc's first DeLorean. It was missing Mr. Fusion, however, and had the old fuel device, one that accepted plutonium and not garbage, mounted on the back.
"See anything really different yet, Doc?" Marty asked once the scientist had cleared off the front portion of the car.
"No," Doc admitted. "But I suspect the problem won't be extremely obvious. I might not discover it for days, while I'm disassembling the machine."
"Oh. Well, if the flux capacitor has two prongs, then we've got the answer." The words were in the air before Marty could stop them.
Doc paused mid-pull at a stuck branch to look at him curiously. "What are you talking about?"
Marty thought about lying for a moment, then figured it might be better if Doc knew. What had happened in Woodstock hadn't been his fault, anyway. "Remember when you let Jen and I take the DeLorean to 1969 for my graduation? Well, when we tried to go home, we didn't get there -- we got into some random alternate reality. Jennifer had done something, accidentally, that stopped some of the circuits or whatever you used in the flux capacitor from being made by now, so they vanished, and that dumped us in this random place with a completely different history than ours, before 1969. The you who was there helped us out and gave us a temporary patch so we could fix the real problem back in '69, so I just saw no reason to tell you."
Doc's eyes grew wider and wider as Marty explained. When he had finished, the teen flinched back in anticipation. "Marty!" the inventor cried, throwing down the branch in his hands, hard. "How could you keep that from me?"
"Well, it didn't seem really importa--"
"Not important? Great Scott! That's an incredible discovery! And I trusted you, Marty!" Doc sounded hurt. "It doesn't matter if you cause it or don't, anything like that that happens on a trip should be reported to me!"
"I just didn't want you to worry, after the fact."
Doc let out an explosive sigh, turning around to look out at the trees a moment before he turned back to Marty. He was really angry, Marty realized with surprise. "I'm sorry, Doc," he said immediately. "I would've told you before if I thought it mattered, I swear!"
Doc closed his eyes and put a hand to his forehead, taking several deep breaths. At length, he nodded. "All right," he said, his voice softer now, opening his eyes. "All right, I believe you. I just wish... God, Marty, if I'd known that these sorts of things existed already, regardless...." He stopped, looking at Marty, then down at the DeLorean between them. "I've been worrying for days that we caused Doc B to exist, that we were the ones who created his reality during the almanac fiasco. But you saw an entirely unrelated reality with an entirely different history?"
Marty nodded. "Not a very nice one," he said. "The government had changed, kinda Orwellian or something. My parents had split up, my mom ran a burlesque house and I had a half brother who was the son of Biff Tannen." He shuddered at the memory. "You were all right there, but I was a major asshole."
"Incredible," Doc said. "Then this makes it all the more amazing that Doc B found us with his machine."
"Maybe it's some kind of temporal junction point in the universe," Marty said, mimicking Doc's explanation for another fantastic coincidence that had happened before.
"Don't get smart." Doc peered through the windshield, then shook his head. "The flux capacitor looks intact, from what I can see. I think I'll know more after I get a look inside."
They finished clearing the brush from the car, then Doc sent Marty to the lab to open the doors so that they could move the other DeLorean inside. The car started on the first try and drove easily. It was a close call getting inside, parked next to the other DeLorean, but it fit. Barely.
"Want any help?" Marty asked once it was parked.
"I can take it from here, if you want to go home," Doc said.
Marty didn't try to change his mind. "Okay. I'll drop by later, though, if that's all right."
"Fine," Doc said, already gathering together tools.
Marty stopped back in the Brown house to let Clara know what was going on, gathered up his wallet, keys, and the clothes and shoes that Clara had whisked off to the dryer sometime that morning, then headed out to his truck. It seemed like a million years ago since he had parked it next to the curb. The drive back to his house was uneventful, though Marty had to restrain himself from turning this way and that to get a look at his surroundings and make sure that nothing had changed from any of their trips. Thankfully, everything checked out the way he remembered it.
Marty had hoped that he might sneak into his house and to his room without anyone noticing his arrival, but that hope was dashed the moment he opened the front door and found his mother in the dining room, reading the morning newspaper and drinking coffee. That she was at home on a Monday morning didn't surprise him; his mother didn't work, spending a lot of her time volunteering or at the country club, and his father worked from the house, writing his books there. Lorraine looked up as Marty entered. "How is your shoulder?" she asked immediately. "And why didn't you call home last night to save me hours of worry?"
Marty winced inwardly at the questions. "Ah... sore. And calling just slipped my mind. Things got pretty heavy."
His mother set down the paper and stood, frowning faintly. "Do you realize the sorts of thoughts that went through my mind when I woke up this morning and realized you weren't home yet? I was afraid you got in some kind of accident!"
"I'm sorry, Mom," Marty said, his voice coming out rather meek.
Lorraine gave him a long look. The anger in her face faded considerably, but it wasn't gone completely. "Marty, I know you're eighteen now, but I still worry about you. Next time you decide to stay out all night, please call. Leave a message on the machine if no one answers. I'd just like to know where you are -- especially at night."
"All right, okay," Marty agreed, knowing that he couldn't promise for sure he would do it every time. It seemed like he mostly returned from traveling with Doc at night, and depending on how the trip had gone, or what had happened, he could come straight home or be delayed the entire night.
With that apparently now settled, his mother looked at him in concern. "Do you want to have a doctor take a look at your shoulder?" she asked.
"No, it'll be fine. Trust me. I'll just be sore for a couple weeks, that's it."
"Well... all right." She patted his uninjured shoulder, then turned to head back to the table and her newspaper. "Are you working today?" she asked, stopping Marty two steps into the hall.
"Ah, no, I actually got the day off," Marty said, then quickly headed for his bedroom at the end of the hall, anxious to escape further grilling. When he finally reached it, he shut the door behind him and leaned against it a moment, sighing deeply.
"Man, it'll be nice when I can move out," he muttered. He tossed his keys and clothes on his desk, then sat down on the edge of the bed, his eyes taking in the details of his bedroom in another effort to reassure himself that he was indeed home. When they passed over his guitar and amp, propped up under his window, he paused, then turned and swung his legs over the end of the bed in order to access his instrument.
In spite of Doc's earlier insistence that his hand would be back to functioning normally -- and he would not have to give up his dream or the band -- Marty still couldn't help being nagged by that. He picked up the guitar and set it on his lap, then raised his left hand and wiggled his fingers. They moved a little slower than he was used to, and wiggling them that much, like that, made his shoulder hurt a little, but it wasn't at all like the first day he had tried that, back in the hotel room.
"Good," Marty said under his breath. "Now let's see if they still work with this...." He slipped the guitar strap over his head -- it was awkward doing it with just his right hand, but he didn't dare raise his left arm to help, not yet -- tuned up carefully, then strummed a few chords. It sounded a little clumsy and rough around the edges, and the fingers on his left hand weren't as quick as they normally were, but he was sure that in a few weeks he would be back to his normal playing ability. Thank God.
He spent close to half an hour messing with his guitar, running through a couple of songs for practice and strumming out a few new ones that were slowly evolving. Finally, his left shoulder now killing him, Marty slipped his instrument off and set it down on the bed. He rubbed his shoulder absentmindedly as he lay back on the covers next to the guitar, his legs still dangling over the edge. He stared up at the ceiling, not thinking about the Doc B mess for the first time, his mind instead distracted by some of the new song ideas he had, potential lyrics and melodies he'd need to weave together. The time was past to worry about the effects from the trip.
But one lingering effect of the crazy travels still weighed heavily on him. Exhaustion. The few hours of broken sleep at Doc's place had made little, if any, dent in his energy level as a whole. He'd been running on adrenalin or terror for too long. Now that he was finally in his own room, safe and sound and far away from the fears of Doc B, Marty crashed hard. One moment he was composing some lyrics in his head; the next he was dreaming about it. He slept so deeply that he never heard the phone ring a few times, never knew his mother slipped into the room and checked on him, closing the curtains against the sunlight, and never felt her slip a blanket over him.
When he finally woke, from the sound of a lawnmower somewhere outside, it was late afternoon. His long nap had left him feeling almost like he had the flu, achy and disconnected, and, if it was possible, more tired than he had been before lying down. For a few moments, Marty lay where he had wakened, simply blinking his eyes, not entirely sure of where he really was. All the strange events recently made it hard to believe that he was really home. But as his mind finally woke up a little, he realized that this was no dream or wishful thinking on his part. He really was back home, finally.
When he had pulled himself together enough to sit up, Marty saw that it was a little after four in the afternoon, meaning he had spent most of the day asleep. He'd probably pay for that later that night, after his body recovered from the long nap, but he had Tuesday off from work as well and wasn't super concerned by it. It wasn't like he had much to do, especially with Jennifer out of town for the summer.
Marty made his first stop the shower, finding the water in his face was just the thing he needed to wake up. The bruises on his upper body, from the gunshot wound, were still quite colorful and painful looking, and he could only hope that his parents wouldn't see him shirtless until they'd gone away.
After he had changed and ventured out of his room, Marty found he had the house to himself, his parents missing without a note -- probably at the club playing tennis or something. He helped himself to a quick snack, then decided to fulfill his promise to Doc and pay him a visit to see what was the latest with the other DeLorean.
When he reached the Brown house, around five, a stop at the house directed him out to the lab, where Clara had said Doc had been most of the day. He found his friend encased in the other time machine's cab, wires, circuits, and car parts scattered all over the lab on the floor, the tables, the hood of the other DeLorean -- even on the lawn and the gravel driveway just outside of the double doors. Half of the car's rear deck was missing, and the driver's side door had been entirely removed and set aside.
"How's it going?" Marty said by way of announcing his arrival. Doc answered him without turning around or looking up from something he was trying to dismantle from behind the seats, apparently.
"Not bad," he said. "I've removed the critical parts, so this machine won't be running again, at least to travel through time. The VIN is the same as the first DeLorean I had, if you can believe that one. And I suppose it's not terribly surprising, under the circumstances."
"Did you figure out what made the machine come here, yet?" Marty asked, finding that to be his most burning question. He circled around to the back of the car and looked curiously at the open space now there. Doc glanced up to look at him through what would've been the back window, had it not been removed during the original modification to the DeLorean.
"I think so," he said. "One of the glass tubes in the flux capacitor was cracked down the middle, at the back, and missing a small piece about a millimeter big. I don't know how or when it happened, but I'd wager that it was there before Doc B left on his first trip. The damage had leaked out all the gas in the tube, which would've definitely affected temporal displacement."
"So why didn't he keep jumping to different worlds? Why'd he end up staying in ours?"
"Did you happen to try traveling to a new time before the flux capacitor was repaired?"
"No."
"Then we can't rule out the idea that perhaps the damage was enough to take Doc B to an alternate reality, but not enough to continue to propel him to different ones."
Marty chewed on that for a while as Doc finished what he was doing and climbed out of the car. "How come he ditched his machine here if he wasn't aware of that?"
"That was actually quite simple to figure out -- he was out of plutonium. I suspect he looked himself up in the hopes of 'borrowing' some more, found that things had changed in a big way and... well, decided to just get a new machine with his new family while he was at it. He hadn't much of a choice, anyway, since I don't have any plutonium anymore, either."
"Oh. So what're you gonna do with all the stuff?" he asked as the inventor dumped another thing to the floor.
"Save what I can and use it for spare parts," he said, running his fingers through his tangled white hair. "Especially with the DeLorean. The regular car parts can be expensive to replace, so that'll save me a little money."
"Are Jules and Verne dealing with this any better than last night?"
Doc smiled a little. "Yes," he said. "Verne is speaking to me again. I don't know what you said to him last night, exactly, but he mentioned you were very helpful to him about something that had been bothering him."
Marty shrugged. "He was pretty upset," he said. "I'm glad he's feeling better."
"Indeed." Doc glanced around at the mess scattered about his lab and sighed. "I have to admit, I am a little curious..." he said as he bent down and picked up something small and metallic to toss into a garbage can set up near the door.
"About what?" Marty asked.
"The experience of traveling between dimensions. I'm almost jealous of your experience. It would be very fascinating, I think."
"More like scary," Marty said. "If you were curious about it, why didn't you test out Doc B's machine?"
"Because it clearly wasn't working anymore in that manner."
"So then why don't you try to make something of your own that can do that?" Marty asked.
Doc shrugged. "It's a tempting thought," he admitted, "but I'm not sure if I'd like to meet other me's that could've been, had circumstances been different in the world or in my life. There are billions of possibilities that could be, you know. For every path in life not chosen, and from those other paths the other choices that were never made.... Any conceivable possibility could be what is the reality, somewhere. There could be a world where dinosaurs still live. Where humans never evolved and something else did, instead. Where we don't exist at all." Doc was beginning to ramble, his mind far away, now. "Maybe there's a world where you're famous, or I'm long dead, or Clara came back to 1985 with you and I when I told her about me. Maybe there's even a universe out there where our lives are a film and we're just characters in it."
"Yeah, right, I'd like to see that," Marty said, rolling his eyes. "I get the point, Doc. The possibilities are endless."
"Yes," Doc agreed. "But I think one Emmett Brown per world is enough, after this situation. Wouldn't you agree?"
Marty certainly did. "If you do ever want to make something that can let you see this sort of thing, though, let me know. It might be kind of interesting to meet Rock Star Marty."
Doc smiled. "Of course," he agreed. "Who knows what the future might bring?"
Marty shrugged again. "Just so long as it's not another Doc B, I'll be fine."