Traveller in Time

Chapter One

Part Three

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"All right," Marty said. "All right. Sit down. Trust me, you're going to want to."

David Brown lowered himself into one of the plastic chairs that lined the foyer.

"This is going to sound crazy," Marty said. "But bear with me here. Did you know your uncle well?"

David shrugged. "Well enough."

"You know about his inventions, then?"

"Sure. He had a lot of ideas about how things were supposed to work. Most of them didn't come across."

"Yeah. Well...one of them did."

"Which one."

Marty steeled himself. "Well...you're not going to believe this...but Doc Brown built a time machine."

"I see."

"You don't believe me?"

"I haven't decided yet, Mr. McFly. Keep talking."

"Call me Marty."

"Okay, Marty. So my uncle built a time machine."

Marty nodded. "Yeah. He built it out of a DeLorean. The same one the police found on the railroad tracks. He installed some kind of machine called a flux capacitor, fitted it out with a bunch of stuff. Look, I thought it was insane myself, but it works. Oh, believe me, it works."

"You used it." It was not a question.

"Several times. The first time was when Doc first showed it to me. The terrorists you were talking about showed up. Doc got shot, and I drove away, and...well...you see where this is going."

"You went back in time?"

"To 1955."

David put a hand to his head. "It all makes sense now."

"What does?"

The sallow young man turned to regard him. "When Biff told me about his encounter with Calvin Klein, I went looking through the archives, and found this." He took a folded-up piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to Marty.

Marty unfolded it. On it was a photocopied section of newspaper. The heading read: HILL VALLEY STUDENT ENTERTAINS AT PROM. The photo above the caption was instantly recognizable. There he was, guitar in hand, no doubt in the act of performing his interpretation of Johnny B. Goode in front of an auditorium full of dazed high school seniors.

"That was when I decided to come looking for you," David said. "This Calvin Klein, he doesn't just look a lot like you. He looks exactly like you."

"Yeah..."

"It's you, isn't it?"

Marty sighed. "Yeah. I went back in time and almost screwed things up. I had to make sure my mother and father fell in love. The song was...uh...sort of related to that."

"Then it's all true?"

Marty looked at the pale, bookish figure in front of him. "All of it."

"My uncle really did invent a time machine..."

"Did, and used it. We went to the future, too. THAT was weird..."

"But it got destroyed..."

"Yeah. It's the way Doc wanted it. He got stuck in the Old West, but built another one out of a train. He came back to tell me just after the train hit the DeLorean."

"Good Lord..."

"You mean 'Great Scott'."

"What?"

"Nothing." Marty stood up. "Look. I'm counting on you to keep this secret. The Doc and I worked really hard to keep it from becoming known, and...well...it didn't entirely work...but I hope you understand why we have to keep the secret. The machine's already fallen into the wrong hands- Biff's- once, and I don't even want to guess what some people would do if they had their own time machine, or knew one could be made.

David Brown nodded solemnly. "I understand."

"You promise to keep our secret?"

"I promise." David paused. "Does your wife know as well?"

"Jennifer? Yeah, she knows. She was involved, sort of. I'll get to that later. Look, hang around here, and meet me when the whole thing ends. We have a lot to talk about, and I have a few things to show you."

David nodded. He stood up. "Until then," he said, and walked away.

Marty sighed. "Doc's going to kill me..."