Author's Note: New chapter. Hope it's liked. It is actually about the early morning hour on November 1st, and, after this, the story will make a gap to later in the month, when something unexpected will happen. Please review. And suggest.

Chapter Seven

Friday, November 1, 1985
04:55 AM
Hill Valley, California

"Great Scott!"

Doc frowned slightly at a shocked Marty One using his phrase as they hit a small rock, then decided to ignore it. It didn't matter, anyway – the police cars behind him was what mattered. Sighing, he twisted the car they were in to the left side, wondering how it was again that these officers were chasing them in the first place through the fields that was supposed to be the Hilldale housing development, according to what Marty Two told him about the world that he came from.

It had been only a small accident, but an obvious one. Doc recounted what Marty Two had told him, in those first few minutes after leaving their hide-out, about his mission. He'd managed to get the papers back in just a few minutes, still being careful around the officers outside, but in the way outside, he'd tripped over a small ball that had once belonged to Doc's dog, Einstein. Marty had dropped to meet the ground surface at real close range, and once he got up, he knew that it was a matter of running – the police had heard him already. Marty then had stolen a car that wasn't being used, and made his way back to their hide-out, told them to 'go with me now or you'll be shot at' and then they'd left, which was now already twenty minutes ago. Doc wondered if the police officers would ever give up. Probably not – they didn't want to make Biff angry, and Doc knew Biff would be if the police would fail to do their job. Sighing again, he took a swing to the right.

"We can't go on with this just forever" Marty Two told the others. Doc and Marty One rolled their eyes. "Yeah, right" his counterpart finally replied, sarcastically, "what do you suggest? That we should really be stopping and turning ourselves in to the great Biff Tannen?" He snorted at his other self, rolling his eyes. If there was one thing he didn't want to do, it was that.

"Of course not, silly" Marty Two responded. "I just meant that there's gotta be some way to get out of here. We don't want to be chased by those officers all during the night! We're supposed to go and fetch your time machine, Doc!"

"Yeah, of course we are!" Doc shouted back, a little irritated. "But I just don't know-" He then looked in front of him. "Great Scott" he whispered. "This is it!"

In front of them was the Clayton Ravine Bridge. However it had previously been in one piece, in 1976 BiffCo had bought the bridge and modified it to become an ordinary bridge in stead of a train rails track, and for it to go up and down, so that people had to pay five dollars for it to go down again and to be able to cross – another part of Biff's corrupt activities, Doc thought. Right now, the bridge was slowly starting to go open. Staring at the police behind him, he hit the gas, hard.

Marty Two frowned. "Uh, Doc, aren't we going straight for that-"

Doc grinned at him, in a crazy wide-eyed look that would make someone who didn't know the inventor shiver in terror. "We are" he simply said, shrugging, turning his attention back at the road, and at the slowly rising bridge that was nearing closer to them. "Brace yourselves for a sudden displacement in ground level!"

"What do you-" Marty One started, not having looked forward in the past few minutes, closing his eyes from tiredness, but then it happened.

The shiny vehicle roared up, onto the bridge. The Marty's felt themselves being plummeted backwards into their seats as Doc raced the car up the opening bridge, and then over the increasing hole. Marty Two gasped, mouth wide opened, as they literally flew over the bushes and rocks down in the ravine that had once caused Miss Clara Clayton's life to end. "Whoa" he whispered, unable to believe what the inventor was doing… maybe Doc really was crazy somehow. "Heavy…"

"There's that word again, heavy" Doc smirked, as they landed with a loud bump back on the ground, and raced away from the bridge. Marty Two shot him a nasty look, then turned around and was relieved to see the police standing still on the other end of the bridge, shouting furiously at the engineer to re-close the bridge over the ravine. "Ha!" Marty One smirked. "Just what they deserve!"

"Have to agree with you on that" Marty Two smirked to his counterpart. "Well, that's sort of logically – after all, you are me, and I am you." Looking around, he added: "So, Doc, where're we headed now?"

"The silver mine, of course" Doc replied, smiling. "That was my original plan, after all. Don't worry, it'll be in just four miles from here." Marty Two frowned, and sat back, checking the time in the car. 5:02… still at least an hour left for it to become light again. Sighing, he tried to get to sleep.

It took them about six minutes to reach the silver mine. As they arrived, Doc opened the gull-wing door from the inside, and walked up to the mine, checking if no one else had occupied it in the meantime. Marty One and Marty Two waited in the car. After a few minutes, they came back. "It's clear" Doc said, smiling. "We'll be fine in there. This silver mine hasn't been in business anymore for the past one hundred and four years… it was closed in 1881."

"Then why is it still there?" Marty One asked, curious. Having spent most of his life in Switzerland, he didn't know too much about the mine… or anything about Hill Valley's history, for that matter. The things he did know, were most about the Tannen family, from the Biff Tannen Museum. He actually felt disgusted by every second in the past, when he was small, that he'd considered Biff his father and Buford Tannen his great-great-grandpa. Luckily that hadn't been much seconds, as, however he wasn't even five yet when his Daddy got killed, he always had been really rebellious against Biff. Over the years, however, he'd learnt to accept Biff as his superior and stepfather. It still didn't feel all right, though…

"The mine was just never destroyed" Doc shrugged. "Maybe because they had still hope it would become useful one day. Which it is." He grinned. "In there is my DeLorean, soon to be time machine."

"This is heavy."

"It sure is."

Doc grinned. "Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet" he smiled. "You are going to be in for a surprise…"

About a few minutes later, Doc, Marty One and Marty Two had entered the mine and seen the DeLorean. All had become fascinated with it, Marty One the most, having never seen the time machine himself. And Marty Two had been really impressed when Doc had showed them around in the vehicle that was supposed to be a machine able to traverse the time barrier.

The place between the two seats was empty, as expected, since Marty Two had brought the not-really-finished flux capacitor along with him from the garage. According to Doc, they'd be able to finish it in a month, taking another month for the rest of the equipment. The time circuits were partly made, but they weren't attached yet, neither working. Marty Two could see a faint red, green and yellow tint in them, but further they were all a set of non-glowing 8's.

The plutonium chamber was there, partly finished, and so were most of the lights that flashed in the normal time machine. "Talk about déjà vu" Marty Two muttered, for no real reason. He got out of the car and saw the DeLorean looked from the outside just like it did originally. Doc-A had managed to do quite a good job before '83, Marty guessed, more than the Doc he knew had. However he had never seen Doc actually working on the time machine while knowing what it was, he could figure that, with Biff being so rich, Doc had tried harder to make his machine work so that he could go back in time and sort things out. Unfortunately, that hadn't worked… until now.

"Pretty impressive, huh?" Marty One nodded. "I can't believe Doc actually managed to do such a great job, to actually build a time machine like this. Where did you get the parts from, Doctor Brown?"

"It's Doc" the inventor corrected. "It feels weird not to be called 'Doc' by you, Marty." He smiled, as Marty One studied some of the microchips lying around, with help of one of the inventor's old rusty flashlights… which, somehow, still managed to work. "Now, and as for the parts, I collected them everywhere I could find them, especially in the early Eighties, when I knew I was A – running out of time to build my time machine and B – becoming a larger treat to Biff, or at least, that's what he thought, with each passing day. I don't have plutonium yet, though…"

"I don't mind how you're gonna get your hands on plutonium, Doc" Marty Two said, having finished inspecting the time machine, "as long as it ain't a certain Libyan terrorists group. They still give me the creeps, and it has been a few days since I last saw them. Any idea what happened to them in this 1985, Doc?"

"No" the inventor admitted. "In fact, the only thing I knew about them up until October 26th was that they were terrorists who'd shot me – nothing about their origin, circumstances in which they lived… I had no idea who they were. The thing I did know, though, was that they were somehow prevented in shooting me, since I was locked up in the asylum. I found it very strange, for sure."

"Yeah, right" Marty Two nodded. "So, we're going to start right now?"

Doc checked his watch – it was five-thirty A.M. "We might as well" he nodded, slowly talking. "It's no use to delay it, Marty. We want to get out of… Hell Valley… as soon as possible, and the only way we can, is building my time machine, going back to '58 and get that stupid sports almanac!" His hands clenched into fists, as he glowed up with intense rage against Biff.

"Relax, Doc" Marty Two said, nervously. "All right – we're going to work, right? We'll finish the time machine. Don't be too mad… everything will be fine, we will finish the time machine, and take the almanac away from Biff." Correction – either I or my counterpart will. I've got a feeling that, if left alone with him, Doc will kill 21-year-old Biff. And that doesn't sound too good for that time-space-continuum thing.

"Yeah" Doc muttered, nodding. "We've gotta go to work. Sorry about shouting so loud earlier, Marty – it's just that I'm really furious on Biff for killing your father. He was my friend, you know. I guess he wasn't in the world you came from, but in here he was. We were pretty close… I even told him about you and the time machine, once. He was fascinated by the fact that 'Darth Vadar' wasn't real, and that his school friend, 'Calvin Klein', and his little boy at home were in fact one and the same person. We got to become friends, good friends, until the moment he was shot. I was closer to you in '55 than to George, but we were still good friends."

Marty Two smiled. "So, what was Dad like, in here? Sounds like he was really different from where I came from originally."

"Well, how about you tell me about the original 1985's George?" Doc suggested. "I can't really answer your question without knowing about him, after all. I didn't ever live through your version of 1985…"

"Dad was, in one word, a complete wimp" Marty Two started. "He couldn't say no to anybody, especially not to Biff, who eventually became his supervisor in the early Seventies, and bullied him to write his reports for him, 'cause the idiot was too lazy and stupid to do them himself." He winced. "I tried to help him – Dad, I mean – change his life for the better, to become confident, but he couldn't. On the evening before I left the Eighties, a man came up with his girl who was selling cookies, and he automatically assumed Dad would buy them. Too weak to give in, Dad even agreed." He shuddered in disgust. "Really, he couldn't say 'no'. It seemed like he forgot over the years what that word was like. I was most of the time at your place, trying to flee away from 'the man that was the biggest wimp on the block'. And Dave was the same, just like Dad, working at a hopeless job at Burger King." He winced at the reminder.

"Seems like your father was completely different than how he was here," Doc said, "or at least, up until the big punch that caused his life to completely alter, in that November month of 1955. I suppose you've read some entries in my notebook, and therefore got an idea what Confident George McFly is like?"

"Yeah" Marty Two admitted, nodding. "I saw your notes. I have to say that it did kinda surprise me. I mean, how can such an unimportant thing like a punch change Dad's life like that? It's amazing."

"Well, he did lie out his most important tormentor" Doc said, studying his old, yellowing blueprints from the 1950s, especially the one he'd drawn right that morning after he came up with the flux capacitor, a few hours before he'd first met Marty. "That might've changed his life a lot. George McFly was more confident after the punch because he knew that, if he could take Biff down, he could take anyone down. And with Lorraine encouraging him in that, and liking his science-fiction stories, he grew to be the confident author he was…" his voice trembled, "… when he got shot."

Marty Two sighed, heavily. "I can't believe it" he whispered, just staring up to the roof of the mine, which was looking like it was going to fall on them within seconds. "I can't believe Biff actually did that. I knew he was bad, but just to shoot Dad like that… kill him, murder him, and only to marry my Mom…"

"You know how the saying goes, Marty" Doc said. "Power corrupts – absolute power corrupts absolutely. Biff has absolute control over Hill Valley, by having so much money, so he went mad. He wanted everything he liked, no matter what he had to do for it to happen. And, unfortunately, that included Lorraine. And knowing she'd never divorce George on her own…"

Marty Two sighed. "I guess. I just wish that he was alive again."

"Once the time machine is completed, it'll be a piece of cake to grant that wish" Doc said, smiling. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine. We'll go back in time. And even if it might be dangerous to get the almanac away from Tannen, we can at least try to get even with Biff, somehow. I don't know how, but I'm sure… you will see your father again, alive. And if that is in 1985, or before 1973, well, we'll find that out on our own."

Marty One finished studying all of the microchips. "So," he said, glancing at the clock, which said five-forty, "before we go to work… how about explaining precisely how this whole thing is set up? I mean, how can Biff have become so rich, and Marty Two here not know about that? Seems rather strange and unusual to me."

"It is unusual" Doc said, grabbing some empty papers. "And, I guess that we could better go crowd together for that explanation. It's still dark in here, and going outside won't help a thing. The moon is pretty full, but BiffCo's toxic waste has ruined our sight. I'm afraid this flashlight is the only thing that can help us."

"It doesn't matter" Marty Two said, trying to reassure the inventor. "So, what are we going to do now? I mean, what are you gonna explain to us?"

"Well," Doc said, drawing a line, "it is like this." He looked at Marty One and Marty Two for a few seconds, then reached down to the paper. Through the flashlight, Marty One could merely see that Doc drew a 'Future' and a 'Past' at the opposite ends of the line. In the middle were two dates set: '1955' and '1985', 1955 being close to the 'Past' one. "As you can see, this is the timeline. The future is on the right end, and on the left end is the past. Of course, this is just an interpretation of the time, judged from the word 'timeline', so this isn't official." He paused to see if Marty Two and Marty One were still following him. They were, although with blank looks on their faces. Doc simply shrugged, and continued his 'lesson'.

"The first timeline is the timeline that Marty Two came from" he said. "In this timeline, everything went the way he remembered. On November 5th, 1955, I still came up with the flux capacitor, but everything from then on skewed off. George McFly and Lorraine Baines met when George fell out of a tree and right in front of the Baines' car. According to what I heard from Marty Two, One, Lorraine felt sorry for George, so she took him into the house, and cared for him. Although George was the total opposite that Lorraine stood for, being a complete wimp, he eventually won Lorraine's love. Once they were at the dance, they kissed, and that was when Lorraine realized she was going to spend the rest of her life with George… or so she told it to her children."

"Yeah, right" Marty One said. "Marty, um, Two, told me that before."

"Okay," Doc nodded, "but, for the sake of consistency, I'll re-tell the story, this time from my point of view, so that you can take it in all together." The others were silent as Doc raged on with his lecture. "As years passed, George never amounted to anything. In the Sixties, Marty Two and his siblings were born, but it was different, an unsuccessful marriage and family. In the early Seventies, George got to work for Biff, who wanted your father to write his reports. As the years passed, Marty Two and my counterpart met, in the mid-Seventies, and became good friends since Marty Two here wasn't having a good life at his home. I worked on my flux capacitor, and after years of hard work, and obviously years of hiding it for Marty Two as well, I finally finished and showed it off to Marty Two at the Lone Pine… no, Twin Pines Mall on October 26th, 1985. Everything was supposed to be quick, a show-off before I'd head towards my final destination, the future… but it didn't turn out to be."

"Oh yeah" Marty One said, nodding while smiling. "Marty, um, Two told me that. "He got shot at by Libyan terrorists, and escaped back to 1955? Then he messed up his parents' first meeting, and got them back together with your help?"

"Um, yeah, that's right" Doc nodded, nervously about the fact that Marty One appeared to know all that. He quickly drew a line between '1985' and 1955' as if connecting them, and then a line that skewed off a little from '1955' and then went horizontal again to become a second timeline running parallel to the other line, which Doc soon wiped away. "These are the two timelines" he explained. "Marty lived on the upper one, which I just wiped away – and he created the second one by going back in time." Pausing, he added. "So, anyway, that evening, while Marty got his parents together, I finished my work on the temporal physics-part of the story. So, when Marty was in the DeLorean, trying to get it started, I was actually up at the clock tower, trying to get the cables back together after they'd broken off a few minutes before. That was a really hard thing to do. Then, as I thought I'd gotten everything back together, I thought that the last cable went a little too easy, and I watched down. The ground-cable had unplugged."

"He was stuck, then?" Marty One asked, frowning.

"No" Doc answered. "I connected the 'air-cable' with the main plug-in, then I slid along the cable down to the ground. It was very hard, but fortunately I succeeded. I plugged the cables into each other just as the lightning hit the tower, went through the cables, and reached the DeLorean and, therefore, the flux capacitor inside it." He smiled proudly, thinking of that night. "So Marty got send back to the future. I danced from delight that it had actually happened, something I'd never thought in those last seconds, and then got home in my Packard."

"And, how goes the rest of the story?" Marty One asked, curiously. "What happened to make the future skew off from how it was originally?"

"George McFly married Lorraine Baines in the years that followed" Doc said. "Biff Tannen did something I'm not aware of, since no one here is from that timeline, but anyway, everything happened the way it did in the original timeline, except for the other version of me knowing he was going to meet Marty one day, and George and Lorraine being happier than before. On October 26th, 1985, the experiment was performed and that version of Marty, the one from the Lone Pine timeline… I'll call him 'Lone Pine Marty', here… went back to 1955, and Twin Pines Marty, that is Marty Two, reappeared in his year." He paused, staring at the others.

"From then on, what happened is pretty unclear to me. I think that, somewhen in history, after the year 2000, Biff Tannen found out about the time machine. Apparently, George had made him unhappy during his life, and he searched for revenge. He stole the time vehicle, bought or stole a sports almanac from a store, and headed back into time, to an unknown year and date before March 26th 1958. He gave his younger self the sports almanac, gave him some advice how to use it, and maybe to be careful around us, since he obviously still knew you and I in twenty-something, and then most likely departed the 1950s again to go back home. And so, this reality was created by Future Biff's doings, since Young Biff used the sports almanac successfully, to create the world, the reality, that we are living in today." He smirked as he saw the stunned looks on his companions. "Pretty heavy, huh?" he couldn't resist to say to Marty Two.

"Whoa" Marty Two muttered. "You don't know the half of it, Doc. So, Biff got the time machine in the future? You, the other you I mean, were still having it around in… two-thousand-something?"

"Apparently so" Doc said, thinking hard. "Then again, it might also have been caused by you and me from the 1980s going forward in time to some point after 2000. I was planning to go to the future in the video, after all, so this might as well be possible. Maybe Biff saw me arriving, found out what the time machine was, and decided to steal it? Then again, there's the matter of the almanac… how did he get it? How did he have it on him at that exact night that my counterpart arrived? Or maybe it happened when you and I came on another trip to the future. Maybe something had gone wrong, and I wanted you to fix it… and you bought the almanac?"

"No way, Doc" Marty One said, chuckling a little. "I'd never do that! Just the thought of that makes me feel sick. It's being like Biff, and that's certainly not a thing that I want to be. Forget it."

"The other you didn't know Rich Biff" Doc pointed out. "He might've done that, just from curiosity, or wanting to make sure that his future was going to be all right. If he discovered something amiss while he was there, that I had failed to tell him…" He started to ponder the ideas, thinking hard and pacing up and down the room. "Let's see… how could your alternate future have turned out. No doubt there was something important, that made my other self go back to 1985, or whenever he went, and get you. Maybe something about your future descendants, or something about you… your other self always wanted to do something with music. Maybe something screwed that up?"

"Could be" Marty Two nodded, a little uncertain. "But, as much as I'd love to discuss this any further… It's coming closer to six A.M. Can we go to work, now Friday has begun?" He felt anxious to finish the time machine, go back in time and get that almanac. He really hated Biff, for all the abuse the tyrant had done to his counterpart. "Praise yourself lucky that it wasn't you" he thought. "And finish the time machine, with Doc and Marty-A, so that it never can become me anymore."

"We can" Doc smiled. "But I figured that a small talk wouldn't hurt. Okay – let's go ahead. Let's just do it… we'll see the consequences one we use it." He paused, smiling faintly. "Let's finish that infernal time machine!"