CHAPTER TWO
The Clock That Went Backward
Saturday, October 26, 1985
1:22 AM
Emma jogged around to the passenger side of the DeLorean, bursting at the seams with eagerness to hear how she had just witnessed her dog travel through time. She lifted the door and dived into the seat next to her dad as Marty kneeled outside the driver's door, pointing the video camera at the dashboard.
"First," Emmett said, "you turn the time circuits on."
He pushed a lever down between the seats, and a green light came on under his wrist. Then, the red, green, and yellow displays on the big silver console lit up. The softly illuminated gauges gave a rich, warm sigh.
"This readout tells you where you're going, this one tells you where you are, this one tells you where you were," Emmett continued, pointing to each in turn. "You input your destination time on this keypad. Say you wanna the signing of the Declaration of Independence."
He punched in a series of numbers to the tune of a telephone keypad, hitting a button off to the side of it. A tiny white light above his finger came on, and the red line of the console displayed JUL 04 1776.
"Or witness the birth of Christ!" DEC 25 0000.
"Here's a red letter date in the history of science: November 5, 1955."
Emma and Marty looked up at him as he trailed off, repeating the date and laughing to himself. Marty leaned out from behind the camera, tilting his head at her in question, but she just shrugged, making a face in Doc's direction.
"What?" Marty asked him, lowering the camera. "I don't get it. What happened?"
"That was the day I invented time travel."
Emma shifted in her seat. Obviously those blueprints from eleven years ago were considerably older than she thought.
"I remember it vividly," Emmett said. "I was standing on the edge of my toilet, hanging a clock. The porcelain was wet. I slipped, hit my head off the edge of the sink, and when I came to, I had a revelation, a vision; a picture in my head! A picture of this," he said, turning and pointing at the flux capacitor. "This," – he smiled back at Emma, finally answering her question – "is what makes time travel possible – the flux capacitor."
"Why have I never heard any of this?" she asked. "Not even the story about you hitting your head? That's a good one."
"Em, doesn't he hit his head often enough that you don't need stories to get you through to the next incident?" Marty smiled. She bit her lip when her father looked over at her.
"He's got a point," Doc said, widening their grins. "Besides, there was a lot at stake with this one, and it needed kept close to the chest. But you've both helped with it through the years; you just never knew it. Marty, you made this case the flux capacitor is in," he said, tapping on the glass front of the metal fuse box, "and Emma drew up the early wiring schematics I'd later use for connecting the circuit grid."
Pride visibly swelled in Emma's chest. All her life, she had watched her father work painstakingly after success, vowing at the tender age of three to be "just like her daddy" and "be good at science" so that she could help him one day make his mark. Had she known that years of seemingly disjointed projects and research at her father's request were the basis for the success of this experiment, she might have paid a little more respect to quantum physics. But that was neither here nor there.
"It took almost thirty years and the entire family fortune to realize the vision of that day."
"You were working on this thing thirteen years before I was born?"
Emmett huffed, staring through the steering wheel at a distant memory. "My god," he whispered, looking over at Emma fondly. "Has it really been that long?"
Pink blossomed in her cheeks. "'Fraid so, old timer."
"Well, things have certainly changed around here," Doc said. He left the car, going off on a tangent about Peabody and his "crazy idea" of breeding pine trees.
Emma shook her head after him. "Said the pot to the kettle…"
Marty sniggered, hoisting the camera back up on his shoulder as he panned the interior of the car. Emma rolled out of the shot and the seat. She took a few steps away from the DeLorean, staring at it with a hand over her mouth. This was inexplicably unfathomable. Words truly did no justice. Every emotion known to man was exploding within her simultaneously, and she began to laugh again, shaking her head at the DeLorean. She walked backwards towards Marty, unable to take her eyes off the car for fear it would evaporate from existence.
"Does it run, like, on ordinary unleaded gasoline?"
"Unfortunately, no," she heard her father reply in the distance. "It requires something with a little more kick – plutonium!"
Emma found herself nodding at this simple, everyday explanation as she intently watched the water from the melting ice roll off the hood. Marty didn't seem to be so understanding; his voice rose.
"Are you telling me that this sucker is nuclear?!"
Emma turned around as Doc hurried over to them, Marty quickly sticking the camera back up in his face.
"No, no, no, no! This sucker's electrical," he explained adamantly, "but I needed a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity that I need."
Emma smiled over her shoulder at the time machine. "Oooh…" So that's why he needed plutonium. "Cool."
Marty rounded her. "Cool?! Doc, you don't just walk into a store and buy plutonium! Did – did you rip that off?"
To his horror, Doc turned on heel, waving his arms frantically for him to lower his voice. Marty felt his knees quiver as the scientist professed quickly to the camera that yes, of course he had, and he did so by giving bomb-happy Libyans a casing that housed a collection of nothing but junk pinball machine parts.
Pinball machine parts.
"Let's get you radiation suits! We must prepare to reload!"
Marty huffed in disbelief as Emma meandered up next to him, her eyes not nearly as wide as his.
"Well, I guess we know what the plutonium's for," she said, doing a terrible job of hiding her smile. Marty stared at her.
"Whoa, hang on!" He grabbed her wrist when she went to dart for the truck and pulled her into his side, whispering fretfully at her as they watched Doc rummage for his radiation helmet. "Your dad just told us that he ripped off plutonium that was going to be used in a bomb! Doesn't that seem a bit serious to you?"
"Well, there's no bomb…"
"Emma!"
"I know, I know!" she groaned, shutting her eyes momentarily. "I promise I'll yell at him later. Right now I want to know how he factored in the distance displacement of the Earth's rotation! Come on!"
Now Emma had him by the wrist, dragging him off as if to her favorite roller coaster. She was stuck in Super Excited Scientist mode like her dad, and there would be no hope in reeling her in now. He knew that Everyday Emma wasn't okay with this plutonium business, but as she had chosen to point out in her current state, at least there wasn't a bomb blowing something up somewhere. Instead, its destructive power was being used towards furthering man's understanding of its universe via time machine.
Was that even a real sentence?
A radiation suit was thrown in his face. Emma was already stepping into hers next to the truck and pulling it on skillfully.
"Maybe there are some kind of distance-computation circuits hardwired into the flux capacitor," he heard her murmuring. "Or under the time circuit console. But—no, it'd have to be connected to the flux capacitor somehow, if that's what makes it all possible…"
Marty sat down the camcorder, wriggling into his suit. "What are you going on about?"
"Think about it," she said, zipping her suit up and tying her hair back. "In that one minute of time Einstein skipped over, the Earth had moved over a thousand miles through space. He should be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Or getting sucked into a vacuum in outer space."
"What?"
"Dad! How did you account for the speed of the Earth's rotation and the angle of the axis tilt through orbit?" she shouted, situating her helmet between her shoulder blades.
"It has a lot to do with the Law of Cosines, gravitational pull, and the energy required to keep it in the atmosphere, but most of that has to do with the flux capacitor."
Emma nudged Marty with a knowing grin. "Told you."
"Helmets on!" Doc said, opening the case of plutonium. "We don't want to risk exposure!"
Emma smacked Marty's hood up over his head as she passed. "Helmets on, Marty."
He winced in surprise and steadied himself, looking through the plastic mask to see Doc and Emma staring at him expectantly in their strange headgear from over the plutonium. Marty picked up the video camera and dashed over to them, fixing it over his eye the best he could. He gave a thumbs up, and Doc slowly reached down, lifting a cylinder out of the case. Doc held up the clear cylinder, examining a menacing, bright red tube within it as he carried it to the back of the DeLorean.
Emma tried not to crowd her father; with as much energy as their adrenaline was radiating, having both of them in such close proximity of the plutonium at the same time would be enough to cause a nuclear reaction. Instead, she hunkered down next to Marty and the video camera as Emmett slowly turned the cylinder. As the cherry-red pod scraped and plummeted into the mouth of the plutonium chamber, Marty nearly sent the camcorder flying over his shoulder. Emma straightened from her hunch and looked over at him, narrowing her eyes.
Emmett capped the shaft, removing his helmet. "It's safe now. Everything's lead-lined."
He carried the empty shell back to the case and opened it with his foot. Emma threw her helmet back eagerly, oblivious to hitting Marty with it. Again, he juggled the camera, sending the back of Emma's head a glare.
"Don't lose those tapes now," Doc said, putting his helmet on top of the plutonium case. "We'll need a record. Oh! I almost forgot my luggage."
Emma stared at him. "Luggage?"
"Who knows if they've got cotton underwear in the future!"
"Can I come?" she begged, her hands balling into fists in front of her. She shook them vigorously, trying to quell the urge to bounce up and down again. "Pleeeease, can I come? Please? It's the weekend. I don't have school tomorrow."
"Emma, I can set these time circuits to bring me back the moment after I leave," Emmett said, watching his daughter's shoulders fall as she fixed him under a scornful pout. He sighed. "Perhaps I'll take you in the morning. This isn't the only time I'm going to be using the thing, you know. I'll go ahead now, check things out, see what's happening twenty-five years down the line –"
"Twenty-five years?"
"Then, under my supervision, I may allow you and Marty each a turn to come with me."
Emma smiled impishly. "Can I drive when it's my turn?"
Emmett's eyebrows deepened. What a loaded question.
Without breaking eye contact with Emma, he motioned for Marty to roll tape. His daughter shifted her weight to her other hip, settling next to Marty with a proud, gentle smile on him. The door's hydraulics hissed the hatch aloft. Emmett cleared his throat; it was suddenly thick with the indescribable happiness of achieving the impossible against all odds.
He did it. He invented time travel.
Well, maybe not "invented" time travel. He invented what made time travel possible.
With a nod, he rested his forearm on the driver's side hatch, trying to expel the nerves from his voice through a breathy exhale when he looked into the camera.
"I, Dr. Emmett Brown, am about to embark on a historic journey."
Wait.
Wait…
He started to laugh. "What am I thinking of? I almost forgot to bring some extra plutonium! How did I ever expect to get back?" he rambled. "One pellet, one trip? I must be out of my mind!"
Emma was about to tell him to hurry up and get one - the sooner he was gone, the sooner he would get back so she could go – when Einstein, sitting up in the window of the truck's cab, barked loudly.
"What is it, Einie?"
The dog looked forward without another sound. Emma looked from Einstein to her father in bewilderment. He looked past her and Marty, and an uneasiness prickled up her spine and over her scalp as his face became grave. He walked up to them unblinkingly, sliding the smooth rubber of his gloved hand along the edge of the stainless steel hatch. It dropped to his side slowly before he stopped.
"Oh my god, they found me. I don't know how, but they found me."
Emma shook her head in confusion. "I- What?"
"Run for it!"
"Who? Who?"
"Who do you think?! The Libyans!"
Super Excited Scientist Emma stripped a gear, swallowing hard. Doc's outburst sent her into a dreadful, vicious nose-dive as Everyday Emma recollected in an instant all that he'd said before about the plutonium, the Libyans, the bomb, the pinball machine parts.
"Oooooh noooo."
She spun around next to Marty, winded at the sight of a man appearing out of the top of a Volkswagon with a machine rifle.
"Holy shit!"
The blue bus gunned towards them, bullets raining around them. She and Marty each grabbed the other immediately, and they stumbled back against the DeLorean together, Emma's radiation helmet knocked over her head sideways. Hearing her father's muffled shouts, she ripped it off, seeing him beat a large pistol with his hand in frustration.
"Dad, over here!"
Another round of fire sent him in the opposite direction for cover – right to the Libyans.
The bus screeched to a stop, and Emmett, trembling, stood straight in the accusing headlights with his hands raised. Meeting the eyes of the man he had personally wronged in their dealings, his heart sank as the gun cocked. Behind him, Emma fought Marty to let go of the back of her radiation suit. Emmett threw his gun in a last-ditch effort to save his life, if only to be granted the mercy of being allowed to turn around and look at his daughter one last time.
Libyan Nationalists, however, tend not to be so merciful.
The man atop the Volkswagon gave a barbaric sneer, baring his gnashed teeth as his finger crashed down on the trigger unforgivingly. Emma's squirming stopped as she and Marty froze in wide-eyed horror. Emmett's body was thrown backwards, his wounded cries silenced when he landed in an unceremonious heap on the asphalt.
Emma suddenly scrambled forward on all fours, Marty having released his hold on her when he jumped up, screaming.
"Nooooo! Bastard!"
Before Emma could even get to her feet properly, the rifle had her and Marty in its sights.
Marty lunged for her wrist, dragging her to the front of the truck for cover as they unleashed another series of seemingly unending shots. He threw himself against the grill as the bullets bounced off the side of the truck with small, bright explosions.
"This way!"
He darted to the other side of the truck, ready to make a break across the parking lot when the Libyans flew around the corner, the headlights washing over him with finality. In the moment that he shut his eyes and choked back a whimper, he realized that Emma wasn't there for him to shield and bury his face into when the bullets ripped through him.
Click. Snap. Angry shaking.
Marty inched his eyes open in disbelief.
"Go, Marty! Run!"
Blood pulsing in his ears, Marty made a break back towards the DeLorean, pulling Emma to her feet as he blew passed the front of the van. Emma cried out as he shoved her into the DeLorean.
"What? Wh—oh, shit."
A bloody sheen glossed the fender she had been leaning against. Emma righted herself in the passenger seat, choking out painful sobs as the left shoulder of her white radiation suit grew a dark, shining circle. Another level of fear now added to his nightmare, Marty dropped into the driver's seat, hatch in hand. He looked back to call to Doc, to tell him they were coming and to hold on, but the work boots and radiation suit did not move in a weak plea for help; they remained lifeless on the cold ground, not yet marred by the red pool Marty knew must come in the aftermath of such mutilation.
"Marty."
The Libyans' bus finally lurched forward, and Marty slammed the door shut, turned the key, and hit the gas. Emma gasped as she back flew into the seat. The back of her upper arm seared, and she succumbed to tearful moans. The DeLorean ran over the edge of a divider, and she screamed as the painful jolt shot agony up her neck, through her back, and down her arm. She tried to brace herself against the seat with a stiff right arm as the car weaved furiously, bullets snapping off its body relentlessly.
"Marty!"
"Holy shit!"
"What?"
"They have a goddamned RPG!"
Emma gritted her teeth as she was thrown into the negative G-forces of a violent turn, the DeLorean banking sharply around the curve. Successfully managing not to roll the car, Marty's body slammed into the door, and he straightened the wheel.
"Let's see if these bastards can do ninety."
In a world where she wasn't preoccupied with debilitating pain, Emma would hysterically reprimand him for insulting terrorists that had a bazooka pointed at them, but Marty punched the pedal again, sending them speeding down a straightaway, back towards the van. Emma lolled her head upright with the little strength her neck had to support it, and she stayed her short pants at the distinct zaps and pops electrifying the outside of the car.
Her eyes caught the digital speedometer as it flicked over to 87.
"Marty, no!"
'Light' was too small, too ordinary a word. An astonishing, ethereal brightness blanked out everything around them. Marty winced, and in an instant, the world reappeared, and he was tearing through a field with a scarecrow bombarding the windshield, sliding off in time to reveal an old wooden barn. He hit the brakes desperately, but the wheels slipped against the grass, his radiation helmet fell over his face, and the DeLorean went barreling into the barn.
The crash may have been cushioned by a wall of hay bales, but it still threw Marty's chest into the steering wheel with considerable force, knocking the wind out of him. Overhead, part of the barn's roof collapsed, and he sat up slowly, nursing a sore neck. The world had finally stopped moving after all the running, swerving, and speeding, and a painful bout of dizziness finally caught up to him. He lowered his head back down to the steering wheel.
"Holy shit," he groaned inside his helmet. He turned his head towards the passenger seat, his breath fogging up the tiny plastic window.
"Em?" He reached out and weakly prodded her once. "Emma? Are you okay?"
She was motionless, her head planted firmly into the dashboard. The inky spot on her shoulder had grown, likely larger beneath the radiation suit. A generous swath of it was smeared on the back of her seat. He sat up and pushed his helmet back, terror-stricken.
"Not you, too, Em," he said, face twisting fearfully. "Come on."
He pulled her back against the seat, pushing two fingers into the side of her throat. Thankfully, a delicate, steady throb was there; she was only passed out from hitting her head. Relief rushed from his lungs, only to instill him with the realization that he was going to lose her if she continued bleeding much longer.
"I'll be right back."
Opening the door, Marty carefully stepped out into the middle of the carnage he had created, his helmet falling over his face. Before he had even taken a step, several screams ricocheted around him, and he fell over, knocking the radiation helmet back from his face. He slowly looked back at a couple of indifferent cows.
"What the hell?"
Marty hurried to his feet, going outside in an attempt to appease the people that had run off.
"Hello?"
Maybe they could tell him where he was, patch Emma up, and get them on their way again.
"Uh, excuse me."
They owned a barn. Homey, friendly farm types were humble and hospitable, if anything. They appreciated the importance of life's simplicities, a good day's hard work, and warm, homemade bread. "Green Acres style," he could Emma say with her lifelong love of old sitcoms.
All he had to do was smooth things over with an apology, promise to come help fix it after school for a few days – no hard feelings.
"Sorry about your barn —"
A deafening gunshot blew a hole in the door next to Marty.
Green Acres, my ass.
He tripped backwards through the door into the hay, scrambling to shut the door and get in the DeLorean as more bullets blasted through the thin, faded wood of the barn.
"Hang on," he said to his silent passenger.
He floored it, jutting his arm out across Emma so that she didn't hit the dashboard again. The DeLorean raced for the road, Marty swerving, spinning dirt, and mowing over a small pine tree as more thunderous booms echoes after him, gratefully no further passed their mailbox.
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