July 18, 1986

10:44 a.m. CDT

Marty watched as a manatee swam its way past the front of the spaceship. They were apparently a lot closer to Florida than he'd first thought. It felt almost surreal that they were under the sea. True, the pollution dumped into the Gulf was obscuring his vision out the window, but what he could see was more amazing than any of the lame filmstrips his teachers had ever shown him on undersea life.

"So Dave," he asked the young time traveler, who was seated next to him on the spaceship floor, stroking the pukmarin, "What do you think you're going to do when you get back to 1978, if we can get you back?"

"First thing I'm going to do is hug my mom and dad, and then shake my brother's hand," David told him, "You know, before this all happened I hated him with a passion, but now I know how much he really cared for me deep down. You should have been there when I met him again for the first time. He showed more affection there than I've ever seen from him in eight years of normal time."

"So he's sixteen now, right?" Marty asked.

"Yep," David nodded, "It was shocking to see him older than me, you know."

"I can imagine," Marty said, glad that as the youngest in his own family, he'd never have to go through a similar experience. "Well, consider yourself lucky," he told David, "It could be more shocking. I almost had coronary went I got sent back to 1955 and saw my parents when I was their age. To find half the stuff they told me growing up wasn't true. Now THAT'S your real big shocker."

"1955," David mused, "My parents were about my age in 1955. Now I may be wrong, but the way they tell it, most of their lives growing up was surf and sand and long lazy days on the beach. If I could go back there, I'd have to see for myself whether that's accurate or not."

"Don't you believe them now that I've brought up my own conspiracies?"

"Well I'd believe them for the most part," David admitted, "They have usually been honest with me before." His expression darkened. "Not like that jerk Faraday. He tricked us. He said he knew the truth about what happened to me, but I can tell now he didn't know anything. He just wanted to experiment on me."

"Big surprise there," Doc snorted from nearby, where he was setting a few time circuits into place, "The day your pal Louis Faraday tells the truth about ANYTHING is the day Hell freezes over. What he's done with you is second behind only his handling of the whole Alpha Centuri affair as the most despicable example of scientific prevarication I've ever seen."

"What exactly happened with the whole Alpha Centuri affair, Doc?" Marty had been hooked on this apparent event ever since he'd heard it mentioned yesterday.

"Well basically if you know the Fantastic Four's origin story, you get the basic idea," Doc explained to him, "More specifically, in the early days of the Gemini project, NASA considered the prospect of reaching beyond the moon and heading to the stars, more specifically Alpha Centuri, our closest neighbor besides the sun itself. This project, which was approved due to massive blackmail on the part of Catledge, who even then had a significant stake in the organization, was pushed ahead far too aggressively for what it involved. Many of the components of the rocket system were wholly inadequate for the journey in mind, but Faraday as project director silenced the naysayers with threats of firing and disgrace. When the rocket was launched in absolute secrecy, the three men on board promptly ran into an above-average solar discharge from our native star as they tried to zoom beyond it. Everything on board was fried due to a completely inadequate shield, and when they had to abort and return to earth, they'd suffered horrific damage. Rather than accept that he'd made a grievous error to begin with, Faraday promptly quarantined them and put them through horrible experiments to see the effect's long-term effect. He made up so many ridiculous lies to the astronauts' families that he'd probably be in the Guinness book of records for most consecutive prevarications if anyone else knew about it. The men were promised they'd be out in three weeks at most, but they all were kept for almost three years. Only two of them made it out alive, and one was brain damaged for life. The other tried to tell the press about the abuses he'd suffered, but Catledge and Faraday conveniently had him run over by a tractor trailer before he could meet with anyone. In all, it was a dark time for science."

"Yeesh,' Marty grimaced, "These guys really mean business when the stakes are high, huh?"

"And then some," Doc agreed, "If only there was some way I could prove they did all that, we could put them away, but unfortunately all documentation of the Alpha Centuri project was destroyed years ago by the two of them as a precaution against such prosecution. If there's one thing Dale Catledge can do well, it's covering his tracks to erase his depravations from the world's sight."

Marty was silent for a moment as he let all this sink in. If all this was true, it didn't look good for them if they were caught. "So, how's it coming with the capacitor, Doc?" he asked, eager now to change the subject.

"It's no use Marty, we'll need to get some nuclear elements in order for this to work," Doc shook his head, "Right now the biggest reaction I'd be able to get with the amplifier and all the junk we were able to obtain is 1.08 jigowatts, which would be reasonably enough in the DeLorean or train, but far short of our objectives here. And quite frankly I have no idea where we'd be able to get any of them."

"How about the Cuyahoga Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio, Dr. Brown?" Nick spoke up from the corner, "They've been shut down since that accident last month. They'd probably have spare plutonium or uranium around, perhaps even some stored neptunium if they were making some when they got aborted."

A familiar light blazed on in Doc's eyes. "Of course, why didn't I think of it sooner!" he exclaimed, "The Cuyahoga plant will be down until 2021 due to all sorts of factors, and by then it'll be of no further use to the nation's power supply! Therefore, the plutonium therein is perfect for our usage! Nicholas, you are a genius!"

He rushed over and gave the boy's hand a vigorous pumping. "Once we finish down here, we should make a direct path for Cleveland," he announced to everyone, "The answers lie..."

And then out of nowhere came Marner's voice. "Crosby, come in," he called out from seemingly thin air, "Crosby, I know you're there, pick up the radio."

"How'd he get the radio? "Stephanie asked puzzled.

"He couldn't have unless one of us dropped ours back at NASA," Doc pointed out. There was a rush to check pockets for walkie-talkies. As it was, Wayne's pocket came up empty. "Oops," he shrugged, "Must've fallen out when that RALF thing got away from me."

Doc gave his student a strained glance. Marner kept calling in for a response to his presence. "Should I answer him?" Newton asked the senior scientist.

"If you feel you should, but don't stay on the line too long," Doc advised.

Newton nodded and signed on. "Hi Howard, how's your day been going?" he asked his former boss.

"Oh just great," Marner said, reclining in his chair inside the NASA tracking room, "You and your friends just managed to ruin my whole morning and steal my pension, but yes, I'm fine."

"So then why have you decided to waste our time?" Newton inquired sternly, "We're not bringing David back, Howard. You and the people you're working for now aren't right for him."

"Crosby, I'm not the bad guy here," Marner said, "Dr. Catledge will kill everybody on board that ship if he gets a hold of you. Scroeder's more than willing to help him do it. I'm trying to give you a last chance to avoid tragedy. Go to Doak-Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee in two hours and surrender to us, and I'll do everything in my power to make sure Dr. Catledge treats you with civility."

"And you promise on that?" Newton posed.

"I swear with every ounce of my being that no harm will come to you or anyone on the ship, Crosby," Marner pledged.

"Well that's funny, because you also said the same thing at the Black Lion Inn before you and Scroeder double-crossed me there," the robotics expert told him, deep skepticism on his face.

"That was more Scroeder's fault than mine," Marner said in self-defense, "You can trust me on this, Crosby, I..."

Johnny-5 zipped over from the time circuits. "Howard Marner, you can take your fake offer and go straight to Hell, Sheol, Hades," he told off his former master.

"That's not funny, Number Five!" Marner shouted at the robot, "This is your last chance to avoid destruction, you know. If you don't take up my offer, you'll be disassembled by Scroeder's men and..."

Johnny-5 crushed the walkie-talkie as if it were Play-Doh. "Howard Marner, you need silence, quiet, shut up," he snorted, tossing the wrecked radio aside.

"So, what did he say?" Catledge inquired over the intercom back at NASA.

"No dice, Dr. Catledge," Marner shook his head, "They didn't take the bait. We're back to square one."

"Well then, we'll just have to break in your new models on them, shalln't we?" Catledge told him.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Dr. Catledge?" Marner asked, "My newer models haven't been given certification yet. And I'm not sure yet that we were able to successfully reprogram the older ones back to what they were supposed to do."

"Well there's never a better time to learn, now is there?" the top scientist said, glaring Marner down.

Back in the spaceship, Max drifted over toward David on the floor. "Navigator, it is time for the mind transference," he told him.

"Will this hurt? "David asked tentatively as the chair next to him sank into the floor and became a trench.

"You will feel nothing," Max reassured him.

"Well how many times have you done this?" David was still suspicious.

"Zero," Max admitted.

"That how will you know he won't feel anything?" Marty had to know, "What if you fry his brains or turn his skeleton into jelly or something like that?"

"I will not fry his brain or turn his skeleton to jelly," Max said emphatically, "Now lie down, Navigator."

David reluctantly did so. Max's retina grew greenish. Marty, who was expecting something grandiose, was surprised to see that all Max did was give David's body a quick scan over. "So that's it?" he asked, partially disappointed.

"That's it, Marty baby!" Max abruptly blurted out. Marty frowned. This seemed so out of character for the alien. Had something malfunctioned during the transference?

"Are you OK?" he asked Max.

"I'm fit as a fiddle, boyfriend!" the alien derided him. He started rattling off seemingly incohesive lines of dialogue that left everyone puzzled. "He's gone off his rocker," was all Marty could come up with.

"He's lost his mind," Wayne said, shocked.

"He's alive," Johnny-5 wheeled over and patted Max on the "neck." "Welcome to the club, brother," he told him.

"If this is life, gimme nine of them like a cat!" Max chortled. Marty thought he now sounded a lot like Pee-Wee Herman. "I think I got more than a star chart in here," he informed them all.

"Tell me about it," David laughed, "You sound like a geek."

"A geek!?" Max zoomed over and stared at him with his single eye, "Well mister smart guy, if you think you're so smart, we'll see about that."

The next thing Marty knew, they were rocketing up out of the Gulf at over a million miles an hour. "Not again!" he groaned, feeling like a pancake. They came to a stop in the exosphere again. "What do you think you're doing now!?" David had to ask Max.

"You think you're good, let's see you fly this thing!" Max told him. Then he shut down. Marty realized immediately what this had to mean—seconds before the spaceship went into a sickening nosedive. "Doc, is he serious about this!?" he screamed over to his friend, who was looking green at the gills as he threw himself over his equipment without answering. "Oh God, no...!" Marty whimpered to himself, diving to a curling position on the floor and covering his head.

"Come on Max, don't do this!" David pleaded to the silent alien, "You're just doing this because I called you a geek! I didn't mean it!"

"Come on you stupid piece of metal!" Marty rattled Max roughly, "If you kill us now, you'll wreck the continuum permanently!"

Max came to. "The continuum this, the continuum that!" he mocked Marty, "Everything's about time and space and..."

"One of these buttons has to start it!" David reasoned, looking over the myriad of buttons lining his seat, which had popped back up. He started pressing them all frantically. Marty joined in, hoping they'd find the right one in time. The earth was getting very big in the window. He reasoned they had about twenty-five seconds before impact.

Back in NASA, everyone else had noticed the spaceship's reemergence onto the radar as well. "Oh God, they're out of control!" Gately groaned, watching the ship plummet back to earth, "We didn't hit it, did we?"

"No," Faraday told him strongly. "Come on, pull out!" he pleaded it, seeing his fame and fortune evaporating with every mile his discovery fell to the ground.

"You're getting warmer!" Max taunted David and Marty as they continued pressing buttons, "Warmer, hot, boiling, scalding! Wait, cooling off, freezing, Arctic, subzero...!"

"WHO!?" Marty shouted, confused as to whom he was talking to.

"Wait, it's this one!" David pressed down on the button in question about five seconds from impact. Instantly two metallic things rose up on either side of the chair. David seized hold of them and swerved around just as they were about to hit a mountain. "That was close!" he breathed.

"Yeah," Wayne agreed. Then he fainted.

"You know, it's not so hard to fly this thing," David said as the color started coming back to his face.

"Daaaaa!" Max said sarcastically.

"The slightest movement," David put his hands on top of the disk-like objects that had risen out of the floor and jiggled them around, "And we go this way." The spaceship lurched to the side.

"Well, now that we know how to control it, why don't we head on over to Cleveland and get that plutonium to help get you back," Doc told him.

"Well if you know the way there, go right ahead," David told him, "Because I've never been to Cleveland or even Ohio in my life."

Doc pulled what looked like a white Moravian star out of his pocket. He pressed some kind of trigger on the top of it, and one of the points lit up red. "That way," he said, pointing to what Marty guessed was the northeast, "I'll help navigate—navigate for the navigator."