The Future

Marty left the allay and went out to the street. It was absolutely amazing. The town he knew since he was born, his hometown. It looked so different in this time. It was his town, but yet it wasn´t. The streets were still wet from the rain. Only that little detail made it feel real and not just an illusion. As strange as this future world might be, it was still exposed to weather, just like always. Marty could feel the cool and wet wind on his skin.

He crossed the street and noticed a mark on it that said: No Landing. Wow, he thought. Even though he´d been sitting in a flying car mere minutes ago, he still couldn´t believe it. In the sky over the line of buildings he saw the tracks of floating buoys and now and then a car passing by very fast. Almost like airplanes.

People walked by. They were wearing cloths even much crazier than the ones he wore. This was heavy, but in an exciting way.

Marty spotted a shop that read Texaco. But a high tech-Texaco. A car was up there just as he looked. It got filled up by a robot arm, moving on its own. Weird. It reminded Marty of T and what he´d told them about the machines in the future. Suddenly he felt shivers down his spine.

His eyes jumped around to a building across the street from what used to be a very special café. It was a green building covered by a promenade. And it had black windows.

Yes, Marty thought and started to move. He barely noticed the car that landed, just then, right in front of the café.

He crossed the street and looked for an entrance to that building. Beneath the promenades there were black walls, each of them marked with a big red X, like somebody would want to say clearly: Stay away stranger. This is our territory. And man, it worked. Marty felt a need to turn around when he saw that. I hope you know, what you´re doing, Doc.

Well, somewhere here, there had to be a door.

"Hey, McFly!" someone shouted behind him.

Marty halted. The voice was familiar. The situation, too. He turned around and saw a group of teenagers. Bullies. Their leader was a big showy guy with a neck like an ox. He wore a helmet on his head, and somehow this thing made him look like a human rocket. But his face was the real reason for Marty´s frown.

He looked almost like young Biff from 1955. But it couldn´t be him. Could it?

The group approached him. Now Marty realized a difference between Biff´s group from ´55 and this one. Whoever that guy was, he also had a girl in his group of peers. Though she didn´t seemed to be very ladylike. In fact she looked as brutal as her friends.

"I thought I told you to meet me in the café?" the big guy said.

Marty was confused. "Me?" he asked.

"Of course, McFly." he shouted back.

Marty was not sure what to say. Obviously they knew him – or his son. He´d better pretend.

"Oh, uhm." he said. "Hey, sorry guys, I completely forgot. Listen, uhm. I´ll just take care of something and then I´ll join you later, right?"

"Wait, McFly. Not so fast." the guy hold him back. Marty cursed in silence. He should be inside of that damn building already. When Doc came after him, he would wonder what took him so long.

„Look. We can do this right here." the guy said. He looked at Marty like he would expect him to say something special. The problem was, Marty had no idea what to say. Slowly the guy lost his impatience. "Now?" he asked.

Marty just shrugged. "Give me a tip." he asked.

The guy glanced at his friends in disbelieve. When he faced Marty again he looked even more impatient then before. Then he decided to give him one more chance and asked firmly: "Have you made a decision about tonight´s opportunity?"

"Tonight´s opportunity?"

"Yeah, don´t you hear right?" the guy yelled that it hurt in Marty´s ear. His voice was really unnaturally high. "The deal tonight!" he repeated his question.

"What deal?"

"Hey Griff, the limb´s trying to shit you." one of the peers said grinning.

Marty got grabbed instantly and pulled in, too fast to react. "Are you trying to shit me, McFly?" Griff shouted at him angry.

"What? No." Marty felt that Griff released him a little, but not much. "Look, this seems to be some important thing and … nothing we should rush into so … maybe we should discuss this later." he tried again to get away from them. What kind of company was his future son used to? "I´ve got something to do." he said and wanted to turn around.

Griff wouldn´t let him go.

"Later?" he repeated as if he´d never heard that word before. "You will give me an answer right now. What´s it going to be, McFly? Are you in or out?"

Marty looked at him with rising disgust. If this was about what he guessed, he didn´t like the idea of his son to be involved in it. So he said: "Well in that case, when the choice is so thin, I guess I´m better out." He managed it to get the hand of the puzzled Griff off his jacket. "Okay? Bye." he said and turned around.

"What´s wrong, McFly?" Griff shouted after him. "Chicken?"

His legs stopped moving all on their own. Slowly he turned around to face the guy again. Now he really was angry.

"What did you call me, Griff?" he asked.

"Chicken, McFly!" Griff yelled challenging and one of his friends pushed a button on his chest, creating a sound like a clucking chicken. Marty was too angry to notice that Griff hid his arm behind his back. He just walked in on him, to tell him:

"Nobody … calls me …" And in that moment Griff revealed a big red bat, pointing directly at his face.

" … chicken." Marty ended his sentence, much less confident.

Griff swung the bat and after that Marty only remembered to be running.

The group was after him immediately, cursing and shouting. On the other side of the street Marty spotted two little girls on scooters and reacted on instinct. Man that was familiar. Aside from the fact that he was on a board that floated instead of rolling, everything was just the same. Bullies that came after him, an him who tried to stay alive. He almost expected a grim looking T-1000 to show up an try to decapitate him.

Thanks god it didn´t. Things were already crazy enough.

In the end he wouldn´t have been able to tell the details to anyone. All he knew was that suddenly he was soaking wet, and Griff an his gang got arrested for smashing the windows of the town hall, causing a huge crowd to gather around the clock tower.

Holy shit, why could he never get through something like this without causing something like this?

He wiped away his wet hair. Damn. How was he supposed to go on like this?

On his jacket something started to beep, and when he found the button, a sudden wind came up from out of nowhere, blowing all around him like a hair dryer.

"Drying mode on." a voice said. "Jacket drying." After a minute or so it stopped. "Your jacket is now dry." the voice announced and damn, it was right. How cool was that?

He spotted the little girl, he had stopped to borrow her board.

"Hey, kid." he called her. "Hey, thanks." he presented her the board but the little one had already found a new toy. The huge thing Griff had lost on his somersault into the clock tower.

"Keep it." she said, totally satisfied with the course of events. "I got a Pit Bull now."

Marty watched the kids go, puzzled but mostly jealous. To be a little kid again, with no rules and no knowledge of the future. How great would that be.

"Marty!" Doc´s voice suddenly made him spin around. "What in the name of Sir Isaak H Newton happened here? Why are you not where I told you to be?"

"Oh, uhm, Doc, listen …" Marty started and looked over to the clock tower, where Griff and his gang just got arrested. "I was caught up." he said. "These guys showed up and all hell broke loose. I think they know my son. They thought I was him."

"Your son?"

"Yeah. I think they tried to get him into something illegal."

Doc frowned in a very strange way. As if he tried to avoid something. Just the way he shifted from foot to foot.

"Doc." Marty frowned. "Did you know about that?"

Doc didn´t answer. But he didn´t need to. It was written all over his face.

"Why didn´t you tell me?" Marty cried.

"Because we´re not here because of the social contacts of your son, Marty." Doc answered.

"I... I don´t get it." Marty didn´t even pay attention. "Why is my son hanging out with such guys?"

"He´s not hanging out with them, literally." Doc corrected him.

"What do you mean?"

"They … somehow force him to be part of their activities, for some reason." Doc explained. He obviously didn´t like the subject of the talk.

"You tell me that they push him around." Marty said it straight. "Does that mean my son is a limb?"

Doc stopped and faced him. "Marty. Just because he is your offspring doesn´t mean you can expect him to be exactly like you. His character is different, his interests are different. He will be as close to you and as distant as every other child in this world." He grabbed Marty´s shoulders and squeezed them for a moment. "Don´t worry." he said. "Now that the gang got jailed, your son will be safe. Now let´s go and finish the mission why we are here."

They walked over to the building Marty had been about to enter, before all this had happened.

"What´s that?" Doc asked him with a glance at the hoverboard.

"Oh, that´s … just a present from a little girl." Marty said. Doc raised a brow, but spared a comment. For a change.

They reached the black walls with the red X. "I already tried to find an entrance." Marty told him. "But I couldn´t find anything."

"It´s right here." Doc informed him and reached behind a frame that surrounded the black part of the wall. He pushed something there and Marty heard a click. A plate opened and a dial field appeared.

"How was I supposed to find that?" Marty asked while Doc dialed in the code he gave him earlier.

"Didn´t I tell you about that?" Doc asked.

"No, you didn´t."

"Oh, I´m sorry." Doc apologized. "I must have forgotten. Whatever. We´re in."

The door opened and they looked into an elevator. Marty followed Doc´s inviting gesture and the doors closed behind them. Outside the black wall closed itself again, covering the entrance and left no trace of the door the two time travelers had just passed.

For the world there never was a door.