July 18, 1986
8:31 a.m. CDT
"Are you sure it's working, Doc?" Marty asked him as his friend went about spraying the interior of the spacecraft with his polymer spray. He personally couldn't see any change.
"It's working Marty, trust me on that," Doc told him, "It's colorless and scentless, so it may not seem like it's bonding, but actually it is." His face grew somber. "I can only hope Clara and the boys weren't harmed by Catledge's intrusion," he said with bitterness toward his old enemy, "If any harm had come to them through him..."
"I wouldn't worry about it Doc; Clara's not going down without a fight," Marty reassured him. Doc nodded and turned off the spray gun. "All finished," he announced, "Barring unforeseen circumstances, this polymer shell will be dried in about a half hour and can offer reasonable protection form the rigors of the space-time continuum. Now we can turn our attention toward the more pressing matter of creating enough jigowatts."
"Jigowatts?" the alien asked him.
"A high-level standard of electricity, equal to about a million kilowatts," Doc explained to the extraterrestrial, "As I explained earlier to Marty, we'll need 5.78 jigowatts to successfully fulfill what I have in mind."
"5.78!? That's practically impossible Dr. Brown!" Wayne protested.
"I know it's hard, Wayne, but nothing is impossible," Doc told him, "All we have to do is look hard enough."
There was a buzzing sound as Newton examined Johnny-5's bullet wounds. "Is he OK?" Stephanie asked her fiancé with great concern.
"Yeah, he should be fine," Newton theorized, "Nothing vital was hit."
"I feel fit as a fiddle," the robot declared, zooming around in circles to prove his point.
"Okay, but I'd still recommend you take it easy for a little while," his creator told him, "Just to make sure."
"Navigator, I sense that we are being followed by alien craft," the alien announced to David.
"My name's David," the boy told him, "What should I call you?"
"I am a Trimaxian drone ship," the alien said, causing a lot of raised eyebrows in the spacecraft.
"I'll call you Max," David said after a brief shrugging.
"Max?" the alien asked.
"Trust me pal, that works a lot better," Marty said, patting the metallic creature on the "periscope." Then he grew serious. "So Max, you said we're being followed?"
"Affirmative," "Max" told him, "They are following us through the atmosphere at precisely five hundred miles per hour."
"A million bucks says they're Catledge's F-16s," Doc groaned, "With all the free and deadly technology K.O.N.D.O.R.'s sold to the military over the years, he's best buddies with practically the entire U.S. high command. We've got to get low and below their radar, or we'll be sitting ducks."
"How low is low enough?" Max asked the senior scientist.
"Look, just take us where they can't find us, OK?" David asked his otherworldly commander.
"Compliance," Max droned. The next thing Marty knew, they were hurtling downward toward the Gulf of Mexico. "Oh you've got to be kidding me!" he shouted. The alien wasn't, as they splashed under the water. "What do you think you're doing!?" David demanded to his extraterrestrial benefactor.
"This was the closest location that met your requirements," the alien told him.
In the back of the craft, Amy was getting unexpectedly hysterical at their predicament. "Air...suffocating...need air!" she was screeching, pounding on the door of the vessel, and looking desperate to get back above water. Wayne rushed over to him daughter and held her close. "It's OK honey, you're not going to die in here," he told her soothingly, although this had minimal effect on her condition.
"Is she OK?" a puzzled Marty asked Nick.
"She almost drowned last year, and she's been really nervous about going into the water ever since," Nick explained.
"The trauma effect," Doc mused from near the amplifier, "Strikes a good number of us after a particularly painful experience. A friend of mine from graduate school suffered a similar fate with heights."
"Uh, Max, I guess it is, this thing won't leak will it?" a concerned Wayne asked the alien.
"Negative," Max told him, "I don't leak, you all leak."
"Well, I guess that's a positive assessment," Wayne shrugged.
"I don't think any of us should worry," Doc said, punching some numbers into his calculator, "If my calculations are correct, we'll have a plentiful air supply in here for at least the next forty-five minutes, by which point the people after us will have completely lost our scent, for the time being, anyway."
"All right, forty-five minutes, but then we go back up, okay!?" Amy pleaded the alien.
"Agreed," Max told her, "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to prepare for the mind transference."
He zipped over to the wall next to the amplifier and fidgeted with some circuits, apparently through telekinesis of some kind. As he did so; the wall became transparent, revealing several strange and bizarre creatures behind it. "So Max, are these the other subjects you've been studying over the last eight years?" Marty asked him, enchanted by the sight of genuine "E.T.s"
"Affirmative," Max told him as he worked on his circuits, "I've acquired them from all reaches of the known universe. When I'm finished with them, I'll return them to the exact place and time I picked them up."
"You don't experiment heavily on them or anything like that, do you?" Stephanie asked with great concern brewing in her eyes for Max's subjects, "Because let me just say here and now that I've never approved of laboratory testing on animals. It's cruel and unusual punishment to them."
"Negative, "Max told her, "I cause no physical or emotional harm to any subjects I obtain. When I drop them off, it is as if I have never even met them."
"This is heavy," Marty breathed as he eyed some of the creatures over closer, "Do you remember any of these guys, Dave?"
"Not really," David admitted as he looked them over. "What's this one?" he asked, examining one that looked like a miniature combination of a giraffe with a lion's head.
"That is a from the garflant from Saar Patralis," Max explained, "Once he bites on to something, he never lets go."
"How about this?"
"That's a phoneasaurus from the Pixar Elliptic," Max said, gesturing at a jarred thing that looked like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors.
Marty's attention was taken by what looked like a moving gray glob. "That looks like a big...big...well, a small piece of oatmeal," he commented.
"I wouldn't get too close," Max told him, "It has a cold. Be careful!"
One of the other creatures had bitten onto David's NASA cap and was now devouring it. "That could have been your head, David," Max warned him.
Marty asided to Doc, "I got the latent irony in that, did you Doc?"
"Of course," Doc told him, "Everyone on board this ship hates NASA, including these fellows."
"So what's in here?" Amy had recovered enough from her hydrophobia to gaze into a large hole below the other creatures. She screamed again as a giant eyeball popped out of it. "Don't worry, it's harmless," Max reassured her.
"Oh sure, easy for you to say!" she told him.
"What's this?" David's attention was now set on what looked like an orange bat-like creature perched near the top of the display section.
"That's a pukmarin from Nepuka Minor," Max said, "It's not dangerous."
"How many of these creatures are exactly dangerous? "Wayne asked. He'd been slowly putting his hands toward the display, apparently wanting to pet some of the creatures.
"None of these," Max said, "I keep all dangerous subjects quarantined away from the non-violent ones.
"Good pukmarin," David said, stroking the creature, "What's he saying?" he asked, amused by the creature apparent communication skills.
"He is angry that I will not take him home," Max explained, "I haven't told him that his world was destroyed by a comet after I took him."
"Whoa, that's heavy," Marty whistled, "Although I guess it could have been worse. The Empire could have turned the Death Star on it and..."
"The Rebellion destroyed the Death Star, remember? "David pointed out to him.
"Yeah, but Vader built...another one," it was only then that Marty realized that David had been taken out of his time before The Empire Strikes Back had been released, and that, if returned to his proper time, wouldn't live to see Return of the Jedi if what Wayne had seen was correct.
"So there will be a sequel!" David's eyes lit up, "Tell me, does Luke get to kill Vader face to face? He deserves it for killing his father. Does he?"
"Um, well, uh, I'd think you'd be best off watching it yourself to learn it; it's kind of hard to explain," Marty said quickly. The surprise Lucas had given audiences in Empire was best seen for the first time by one's own self. He turned to their host. "So, Max, while we're on the subject of other worlds, what are things like on Phaelon?" he asked it.
Phaelon is a supreme planet," Max said, gushing with what probably passed for pride, "It has tall encbidas and is inhabited by many goolicranks and humberyinks."
"OOOOOOOOOkay," Marty said slowly. He knew he'd bitten off more than he could chew.
"Phaelon is the center of commerce and learning in the Ocrombian Galaxy," Max went on, "We sent research expeditions out once every five solar years. I was chosen as commander for this particular sojourn into your quadrant of space."
"Sounds like a nice place," Doc said, "But I think you should tone down the superiority over your background that I so noticeably detect you flaunting. Too many wars have been fought on this planet because one side thought itself superior to the other."
"There are no wars on Phaelon," Max explained to him, "We have reached a higher level of existence that transcends conflict."
"Oh sure," Doc commented sarcastically, "That's exactly what Lenin said when he did away with czardom." He checked some of the circuitry he was in the process of setting up alongside the amplifier. "Well, might as well keep working with this. We've still got a long way before we can hit pay dirt."
July 18, 1986
10:53 a.m.
"Still nothing on radar, Dr. Catledge" Gately announced glumly. The screen had been blank for the last half hour.
"I can see that from up here, you moron!" Catledge barked from his penthouse over the intercom.
"This is just great," Faraday grumbled, undoing his tie, "We've just lost the two most important discoveries of the twentieth century. It can't get much worse than this."
"The kid's parents are on the phone," one the scientists told him, holding up the receiver. Faraday groaned in disgust. "I just had to ask," he muttered, taking hold of it.
Up in Catledge's office, the phone rang again. "Yes?" he asked irritatedly into it.
"Dr. Catledge, it's Skiles," his head of security told him, "We've detained Brown's wife and kids as you requested and have done a thorough search of his residence. Sir, I think he's discovered a method of time travel himself."
"How can you be sure?" Catledge asked. This would be good news if Brown had.
"We uncovered several blueprints in his laboratory, and they were clearly for a vehicle meant to travel through time—a DeLorean to be precise," Skiles told him, "Plus, there's this big train in the barn that seems to operate under a lot of the systems shown in the blueprints. Shall I have them sent east for you A.S.A.P.?"
"Yes, hold the train but send everything else you've got there here," Catledge instructed him, "This might be one of the breakthroughs I've been looking for. Interrogate his family as to how much they know, and be brutal if you have to. And Skiles, now that I'm thinking of it, send over as much of the prototype armaments in my vaults that you can find. Plus the plutonium. And while I'm here, could you get several friends ready for action for me? I would like... Hold on a second." He hit the hold button as Faraday finished his call with David's family. "Faraday, while you're thinking over how to handle this, I would greatly appreciate it if you ordered an internal investigation," he told his pupil over the intercom, "Something tells me our friend Dr. Blue had assistance in getting in here."
"I suspected the same thing myself, Dr. Catledge," Scroeder said to his image on the screen.
"All right then, who was the last person here to see David before he vanished?" Faraday asked an associate.
"Uh, Carolyn MacAdams, she's an intern here," the man said, looking at a clipboard.
"Well bring her back here at once, I want a word with her," Faraday told him.
"Her shift ended about an hour ago," the man told him.
"Just find her," Faraday told him with great finality. He wiped his brow. "I'll keep a lid on this somehow," he said to no one in particular.
"And in the meantime, you can make sure the kid's family doesn't interfere," Catledge added over the intercom, "The last thing I need is them coming in here threatening to sue me for everything under the sun. Colonel Scroeder, go to their house and make sure it's secure. Green and his friends might bring him back there. Take Tannen with you; he might prove useful."
"Why?" Scroeder protested, "Dr. Catledge, he'll greatly hinder any operations I might take!"
"No I won't!" Biff told him, "I won't wreck anything, honest!"
"You have your orders, Colonel; take your men and move out," Catledge instructed Scroeder. Scroeder groaned and muttered, "All right Mr. Tannen, let's get moving."
"Great," Biff put his arm around the security man's shoulder as they left the tracking room, "You know I've always wanted to do something like this..."
Up in his penthouse, Catledge forced a small smile. "Well Haeckel, at least Tannen's out of our hair for a little while," he told his dog, patting its head, "Let him drive someone else clean up the wall for a little bit. In the meantime, we'll regroup our forces after our pal Dr. White." He took his phone off hold. As I was saying, Skiles, I'd like you to go to the Hill County Penitentiary and..."