Chapter One

Tuesday, October 15, 1996
12:23 P.M.
Hill Valley, California

"Will you put it in the train, Pop?"

Doc stared at the lines of code on his son's computer screen, the symbols barely making sense to him.

Doc and his family had been in modern Hill Valley for about six months now. True to his promise, Doc had visited Marty repeatedly during the interim, even making it to Jennifer and Marty's wedding.

The Browns—Doc, 76, Clara, 40, Jules, 10, and Verne, 8—lived in a small, three bedroom ranch home in a middle class neighborhood near Lyon Estates called Gregory Terrace. At the moment, the time train was stashed in the Delgado Mine, about fifteen minutes from town.

Doc had hoped to use the train for historical research, as he thought of it, and had secured the train for that purpose. Its main feature was thumbprint locks, cleared for him and Clara.

Doc was surprised at how well his family had adapted to 1996—not to mention himself, as this was a foreign time to him too. Verne in particular had become incredibly interested in computers, to the point where he was designing his own from the ground up. Nonetheless, Doc was surprised when he approached his father with a program intended for the time machine.

"I think I just might, Verne," Doc said, "It certainly looks like it would work. I want to test this teleportation program before I install it in the train—tonight!"

Teleportation! The idea that the train could move through space as well as time tantalized Doc. Indeed, he had hoped that the DeLorean would have that capability. He had at first thought that it would be a requirement, since the Earth rotates, moves around the sun, and the sun moves around the core of the galaxy. But the gravity of the Earth overwhelms these forces, meaning that the DeLorean—and now the train—stayed rooted in one spot as it traveled through time. To teleport would require a more complex wormhole, one that required so many calculations that the time circuits couldn't perform the task.

"You can trust me, Pop!" Verne said.

Doc sighed and patted his son on the shoulder, "This isn't about not trusting you Verne. As a scientist, I have to test each device before I use it."

"Okay," Verne said.

Doc looked at the programming code again. "Let's call Marty."

***

Marty McFly was the night DJ for KVHV, the local radio station, hosting a weekend program called McFly on the Wall. However, his life had taken a strange and exciting new turn as of late: his wife, Jennifer, was pregnant.

Marty was worried as to whether or not he would be a good father, and these thoughts preoccupied him as he stopped by the mine on a deserted Tuesday night. To his surprise, Verne was there.

"Hi Marty!" Verne shouted.

"Hey, Verne," Marty said, pulling him into a hug and giving him a small noogie, "What are you doing here, huh? Isn't it late? What's going on, Doc?"

"Verne," Doc said, "Wrote a program for the time circuits."

"It's time programming," Verne corrected automatically.

"Of course," Doc said.

"You programmed?" Marty asked, only slightly surprised, "What's it do?"

"It's a spatial folding system," Doc said, "That allows the time train to move through locations in space."

"An actual teleporter?" Marty asked, "Cool. Is it ready?"

"Yep," Doc said, opening the door that sealed the mine. Steam poured out of the door, the hovering train barely visible through it.

"Jesus, Doc!" Marty shouted, "You had the thing on in there?!"

"I didn't want you to wait five minutes as it powered up," Doc said, boarding the train, "Stand clear!"

Marty pulled Verne aside as the train hovered out of the storage unit. Doc exited the train, holding a remote control.

"I'm going to take the train out to 88. It will jump one minute into the future and teleport, to there," Doc said, pointing at a point in the sky over the town of East Valley, several miles away. "Clara and Jules are waiting with a similar remote control, just in case. Assuming the programming works correctly, a space-time wormhole will be opened that allows transit as I've described. Ready?"

When Verne and Marty nodded, the train took to the air, arcing slowly in a wide loop over Hill Valley.

A minute later, Marty asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Doc said, "The train has to accelerate slowly, otherwise the boiler could explode."

"Since when?"

"It's only when the train's first started," Verne said.

A few minutes after that, Doc guided the train directly over them. It hit 88 when it was directly overhead, disappearing and leaving behind the familiar fire trails.

Doc looked at one of his watches, "Verne, teletemporal displacement occurred at 12:32 A.M. and fifteen seconds."

"Got it, Pop," he said, writing the time down in a notebook. A minute later, the train appeared over the house in Gregory Terrace.

"It works!" Doc shouted.

"I told you it would, Pop!" Verne shouted back.

"I didn't doubt you for a moment!" Doc said, hugging his son.

A cell phone on the top of Doc's car rang. With Doc and Verne celebrating, Marty pulled the antenna out and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Marty?" It was Clara, "Tell Emmett and Verne that the train looks fine from here. I'm going to send it back."

"Uh, check," Marty said, "Hey, Doc!" Marty handed over the phone.

Only minutes later, the train had landed in front of the trio once again.

"I'm going to test it on my own, now," Doc said, "Assuming it works again, I'm going to power the machine down."

"That's it?" Marty asked, "No trip to the future or anything?"

Doc thought for a moment, "I've been intending to check in on our future selves, to make sure everything's okay. The future changes every instant, and something could have changed since I last checked, about six months ago, now."

"Why not now?" Verne asked.

Doc sighed, "You and your brother are up very late, Verne. It can wait till tomorrow."

"Fine," Verne said, disappointed.

Doc tested the train and, with no problems detected, they hid it in the mine again. While they were shutting the train down, Doc whispered to Marty, "Also, if anything unfortunate has happened to my family, I don't want them to know unless absolutely necessary. There's no point in needlessly upsetting them. That's why I want to take this trip on my own."

"You're the Doc, Doc," Marty said.