Disclaimer: "Back to the Future" isn't mine and is owned by Universal Studios. "Snow Crash", the book with which this story is a crossover, isn't mine either, is owned by Neal Stephenson, and is one of the best science fiction books ever written. Go check it out.
Rated: PG-13 for some swearing, lack of sex. The only Slash in this story wears a top hat and plays guitar next to Axl Rose. (Really.)
This fic was written in collaboration with Kleenexwoman. The good bits are hers. All flames may be sent to me.
ALL TOMORROW'S MISTAKES
Hill Valley, 2015—last of the indie burbclaves. A real estate agent looking to land a sale in this MidCal burg might rhapsodize about the friendliness, the shared sense of community, but everyone knows that these are just code words for "your kids will get beaten up by people they go to school with instead of getting machine-gunned by faceless NarColombian drugrunners." Not that any real estate agent would try to pitch this town anyway. The only people who are allowed to buy a house within the boundaries of the Aitch Vee have grown up within its gated, demarcated, carbon-dated borders. Outsiders have to go through an exhaustive screening process involving the retelling and confirmation of long, tedious family anecdotes and the close inspection of family trees dating from the nth generation back—because, you see, Hill Valley is all about the history.
Y.T. digs this idea. She likes the little town square with its busted clocktower and revolving-era nostalgic theme café. It's a nice way to kill an hour after making a delivery, strolling around and thinking about the past and present meshing together, waves of events crashing together, pushing lives forward. Things growing and evolving from seeds planted at the beginning of time. Nice to know that there was something there to start it, that the world wasn't squirted out from a plastic injection mold five years ago.
But today Y.T. has no time to hang around eating Reaganburgers and ogling clocks. She's got a package pickup, urgent same-day delivery. Radikal Kourier Systems is known for their super-fast delivery, and while it's not exactly like CosaNostra Pizza delivery where over thirty minutes is grounds for a lawsuit and the delivery boy gets fragged, she's still got the rep to uphold.
She skates past the tract houses, past nuclear families radioactive with coziness, dodging gas-guzzler bimbo boxes, weaving in and out of traffic, her blue and orange RadiKS jumpsuit announcing to the world that this wasn't some scrawny thrasher teen, this was a Girl with a Job on a Mission. As she banks against the curbs, her smartwheels expand and retract and mutate to allow for the surfaces. Y.T. bought a hoverconvert for her plank last year for her sixteenth birthday, but she's an old-school skater at heart, likes to feel the pavement beneath her wheels. She only flips the switch when she's really got to fly.
Y.T. stops by the little pond in the middle of the town square and checks the smartpaper map she printed out. It's showing her a big YOU ARE HERE legend which is blinking red, indicating that her pickup has been designated for this point.
There's a tap on her shoulder and she spins around on her board. It's an old guy, really old, the type of geezer you don't see out in public anymore. He's leaning on a cane and wearing pants hiked up practically to his armpits.
Y.T. flips her board up under her arm. "Hey, 'sup?"
"You're the Kourier I ordered, aintcha?" Geezer asks.
Y.T. points to the "RadiKS: Getting Shit Where It's Supposed To Be" patch on her jumpsuit.
Geezer looks around suspiciously, then digs in his pocket and hands her a floppy red pamphlet. "This is what I need you to deliver."
Y.T. takes it and studies it. It's a sports almanac from fifteen years ago. Why anyone would want to send something like this to anyone else, Y.T. does not know. Maybe the guy's senile.
"I can't send this," Y.T. says. "You gotta put it in an envelope or a box or something. Company policy."
"Bullcrap," Geezer says.
"I'm serious, man," Y.T. says. "For addressing purposes and that shit."
"I've been in this discussion with you five times before and every single time you've agreed to take the delivery without an envelope," Geezer tells her.
"Dunno what you're on, man," Y.T. says. "I've never seen you before."
Geezer sighs. "Christ, these kids today." Y.T. senses that he's about to go off into a rant, so she zones out. It's not like she's going to refuse the delivery—Kouriers don't do that. She just wants a freaking envelope so she doesn't have to reroute the thing through central processing.
"Think, kid!" he says. "You've never seen me before. This is the first time that you've talked to me—again."
"Can we maybe play "Weird out Y.T." some other time when I'm not on the job?" Y.T. suggests.
"They trapped me in a goddamn time loop," Geezer says. "Thought it was a heart attack. I gotta make sure that sports almanac gets to the right person at the right time this time, and I gotta make sure that nobody gets in its way. Do you think you can do that?"
"That's my job," Y.T. says. "I just need an address, which means I need an envelope to write it down on. Okay?"
"It's not the address," Geezer says.
"Okay," Y.T. says. "No address. I can handle that."
Geezer leans in close and whispers, "It's the time."
"I'll get it there as fast as I can, okay?" Y.T. assures him.
Geezer rolls his eyes. "No, not how long it takes, the—" He shakes his head slowly. "Never mind, you'll see." He grips his cane and starts hobbling away.
"Hey, wait," Y.T. calls. "Who am I gonna deliver this thing to?"
"Last time I told you, it fucked everything up," Geezer says. "Maybe this time if you don't know, you'll get it to the right person."
Y.T. watches him limp away. Probably senile, she thinks. She stuffs the sports almanac into her pocket. If she hurries, she might be able to get back home before Mom does.
She takes out her magnetic harpoon. This is an indispensable tool for the serious skate rat, an electromagnet on the end of a microfiber rope attached to an old-fashioned reelrod plastic handle. Y.T. uses it to latch onto cars and hitch on behind them, getting a free ride for as long the car goes where she needs it to go. Picks a likely target, a silvery riced-out thing that looks like it was modeled after the Batmobile. It's a hover, which Y.T. doesn't like so much, but there isn't anything around that looks faster and Y.T. feels the need for speed.
She toes the button on the front right side of her skateboard and feels her stomach jump a little as the smartwheels retract and the hover attachment kicks in. Reels out the microfiber line, whirls it around a few times, building up speed, and plants the flat surface of the magnet onto the trunk with a solid whunk. The driver doesn't even seem to notice.
Y.T. grits her teeth as the car whooshes onto the airpath offramp. It must be going at least sixty by now, which is an acceptable speed. She tugs on the harpoon, planning to swoop down to the concrete.
The magnet won't let go.
Y.T. gives it a harder tug, not caring if she dents the metal. Even with all her strength, the magnet is stuck. This has never happened before. What's this thing made out of, solid steel?
The car is going faster and Y.T. is getting pissed. She doesn't want to let go of the harpoon, which is pretty expensive and is technically RadiKS property, but there doesn't seem to be any other option. She gives it one last tug.
And then there's some kind of shock wave that she's passing through and there's actually fire surrounding her and if this is some kind of new vehicle defense system then Y.T. is very impressed because she's going to black out…
When she comes to, the first thing she sees is a kid playing with her skateboard. Her skateboard. He's running his fingers over the surface and playing with the smartwheels, trying to pull out the tiny adjustable spokes. Y.T. has only a second to wonder why the built-in security systems didn't give him an electric shock before her territorial instincts kick in and she gets really pissed.
"Give me my fucking board," she says.
The kid sets it down and walks over to her, towering above her. Y.T. realizes that this is because she is lying on a couch.
"Are you okay?" he asks.
Y.T. looks around. She's in someone's house, and it looks like a really, really old house. A mansion, practically. The walls are dark, probably wood, and there's a ton of dust in the air.
Y.T. sneezes twice and sits up. "Can you tell me what the hell happened?"
The boy sits down next to her and tries to look straight into her eyes, but has to tilt his head up to avoid just staring at her boobs. Y.T. gets the feeling that he's trying to prepare her for some major mental shock.
"This is going to be hard for you to believe," he says, "but you're in the year 1985."
"Sure," Y.T. says. She wonders what the kid is trying to pull. Is this some kind of dumbass adolescent practical joke, a kidnapping scheme, a brainwashing cult? She gets up and peers out the window. The houses don't have any tech stuff on them, but she reminds herself that a lack of tech doesn't mean anything. She could just be in a technophobe neighborhood.
"I'm not kidding," the kid says. "See, the car you were hanging onto, that was our car. It's a time machine."
"And you are?"
"The Doc and I—my name is Marty, by the way. The Doc invented the time machine. This is his house. He thinks you got caught up in the flux field because of your magnet thing."
"Magnet thing—oh, you mean my harpoon. What'd you do with that?"
"The Doc's looking at it," Marty says. "He should be done soon. Um, do you want a Pepsi or some water or something?"
"You got Coke?"
"No."
"Then I could use some water," Y.T. says.
As soon as Marty leaves the room, Y.T. grabs her skateboard and goes to see if the window opens. It does, and she hops out. She's leaving the harpoon behind, but at this point she couldn't care less. It's way more important to get her ass out of this house, right now.