Sadly, I don't own Back to the Future.
Please let me know what you think.
Leapfrogging through Time.
As the Delorean arrived in the year 1938 - narrowly missing another car in the process, to which the driver let out an indignant blast with his car horn although Emmett could hardly blame them - Emmett truly wished he had come up with a more reliable way of time-travelling through time in the same manner as The Time Machine written by HG Wells.
But he remembered what he had found during the early years he had come up with the calculations as the early groundwork for the time machine.
Sure, it was possible; Emmett remembered spending a whole year coming up with the math but he discovered a flaw in the approach. According to his calculations, Emmett had discovered that the kind of wormhole that would produce the same kind of effect as time dilation that would allow time travellers using the Delorean to see the future unfold in the same way required far more power to produce. In other words, Emmett would have needed to design and build a nuclear reactor plant that would have exhausted so much plutonium he would have needed to steal more than one case to keep the reactor operational. It wasn't worth it in Emmett's mind, especially if he needed to conduct raids on nuclear facilities for their radioactive materials.
No, while he could wish that he could use his own time machine in the same way as HG Well's classic story, he knew it wasn't practical, especially if he didn't want to run the risk of an accident; at least with his own set up which allowed him to jump instantaneously through time, he would ensure the plutonium pellets were completely exhausted, and there wouldn't be any chance of contaminating history.
However, if things went the way he wanted he wouldn't need plutonium anymore.
Personally, Emmett doubted there would be any problems fitting the new Mr Fusion reactor unit to the existing reactor of the Delorean time machine beyond a few technical questions, and then there was the Hover conversion technology that Emmett had been so fascinated with he had decided to give the Delorean one. Discovering the second method of using the power of the atom was readily available in the future was a scientific miracle of epic proportions...and it was so compact! Emmett knew he had to get it since he could use anything to provide the deuterium needed to fuel the Mr Fusion reactor.
Emmett had read about antigravity technology in the past or machines which somehow cut off the force of gravity, in both fiction and theoretical science papers, but actually seeing hoverboards and cars that took the maglev concept and, in conjunction with superconductors that used Earth's magnetic fields, and could float and fly without jet engines was incredible.
As he got out of the Delorean, hand reaching automatically for the suitcase which contained the money he had collected for when he travelled through time, Emmett still found it hard to believe the things he saw in 2015.
When he had arrived in 2015, Emmett had been shocked when the Delorean garnered a huge amount of attention at a Car Expo - it amazed him people had been awed by the sight of a genuine custom Delorean - to say nothing of the advances in the future. After he had spent a bit of time exploring 2015, seeing the new technologies and the benefits behind them, Emmett had instantly made his plans to refit the Delorean with hover conversion technology and the Mr Fusion power plant. He had gotten a nice prize at the expo, but after he had completed his research into the costs behind the hover conversion and the installation of Mr Fusion into the Delorean, Emmett had realised he didn't have enough money to cover the costs.
Even when he had gone into the public library in Hill Valley, which still existed thankfully, and even had some new innovation which had appeared in the early 2000s called the internet, Emmett still wasn't certain how he was going to cover the costs for every new improvement to the time machine.
It had occurred to him to use the time machine to slip back into the past so he could buy some stocks and shares in companies that would work out to 2015.
No, he had decided against it. Emmett had once tried looking to investing a long time ago simply to have some kind of little nest egg for himself in the future, but he had discounted it because it was always full of red tape and backstabbing by corrupt stockbrokers who would be happy to steal money rather than invest it. To make things even worse there were so many tax issues, and as he took a look at the current state of the tax and stock world of 2015, Emmett found it more discouraging. Thanks to inflation United States Saving Bonds were money losers. But at the same time, Emmett learnt that he could use the Delorean to help him make some money after all.
While he discovered just how disappointedly labyrinthian the whole financial world was in 2015, which likely discouraged potential investors rather than actually inspire them, Emmett learnt it was better instead to buy a tangible product to sell at a later time. Gold, pieces of jewellery were perfect, but at the same time that wasn't the kind of thing Emmett wanted, and so with a bit more research, he discovered the highest-grossing tangible object people wanted the most were comic books, namely Action Comics 1.
After he discovered that, Emmett did some more research and he made a note down of the publication dates of the comic edition before he returned to the Delorean. Emmett made sure to time the arrival of his time machine back in 1938; he wanted to collect some of the editions of the original Action Comics without depriving children of the comic.
It didn't take long for Emmett to drive into the town square, and after taking an appreciative glance around the differences between this square and the versions he had known best from 1955 and 1985, and 2015, he walked over to a newspaper stand. As he approached Emmett smiled when he saw the brand new editions of Action Comics 1, showing the first edition of Superman in comics.
"Excuse me?" Emmett called, getting the newsstand dealer's attention. As he got closer Emmett saw the dealer was packing away the unsold editions of the comic. He was a tall man with a long face with his head covered by a cap, wearing a long brown leather jacket.
"Hi, can I help you?" The dealer asked.
"Yes, I know it's late, but I'd like to buy the last 10 editions you have," Emmett said quickly without preamble, wondering if he was pushing the other man's limits.
"The last 10?" The dealer repeated, shaking his head. "I haven't had such a large single order before."
"Yes, you see I have a lot of grandchildren, and they heard about this 'Superman' character, and they were fascinated by him," Emmett brought out his 1937 silver dollar.
The dealer took the silver dollar and looked at Emmett appreciatively. "Fascinated shouldn't be the word, that character sounds really exciting. Sure, have them."
"Thanks!" Emmett chuckled as he took the editions from the dealer.
"Bye, now," the dealer smiled and he got back to his own work.
Emmett took the comics back to the Delorean and checked them over; while he didn't believe they were faked in any manner, Emmett had never read the comic himself, given how he had never really been interested in them over the years. In any case, Emmett wanted to look at the comics and stare at the products which would help him renovate the Delorean. It was so hard for him to believe these comics would help, but that was what the internet said.
As Emmett strapped himself in and prepared the time machine for temporal displacement back to 2015, he spared a moment to wonder for a moment if he had the right to do this. He might not have constructed the time machine for financial gain even if it would be perfectly easy for him to make a quick buck, but after his concerns with the consequences of what Marty had done during his trip back to 1955, he was left really worried about what would happen if history was somehow changed.
He wasn't sure if he was creating a paradox - he couldn't see any way taking these editions of the first Superman comic back with him to 2015 would create one, and what he planned to do with them would be unlikely to attract too much attention; he had heard of adults who had kept the original Star Wars paraphernalia in their original packages to keep its value, so it would stand to reason someone handling the excellently preserved Action Comics he was going to give them would presume they had simply been kept in an environment where they wouldn't be damaged by the passing of time - but he was still uncertain.
Still, as long as he didn't do anything drastic which would change the future - taking a piece of future technology or knowledge back with him into the past, for instance for financial gain - anything he did in this area shouldn't really affect time.
With that reassurance in mind, Emmett inputted the destination time into the computer before he pushed the Delorean up to 88.