notes to reviewers:

taigo: thanks. yeah, poor good ol' Einie

staticrhubarb: good. Einie'll survive, though he still gets left at home.
the cliffhanger is so you review and read the next chapter :D
and I did it again!

fireinu: yep, I'll definitely uppate soon. (sorry, I couldn't resist)

and with those unceremonious words, I bring you... the chapter

Chapter 3

8:15 pm
Saturday, May 13, 1894
Hill Valley, California

"Jules, did you put that last food box in the train?" Emmett called from the house.

"Yes Dad, it's in the back."

"Is it secure?"

"I put one of those straps around it, tight."

"That will be fine. I think we have everything we could need, even if we were stranded for a couple of weeks."

"Emmett, do you know where Verne is?" Clara called from some other part of the house.

"No, I don't."

"He's in his room, packing," Jules yelled helpfully. He began to run back to the house so he wouldn't need to shout.

"Packing what?" called his father at the exact moment Jules ran through the back door.

"Dinosaur books, and his sketchpad," Jules answered.

"Oh, you're inside now," Emmett said, a little startled. "He wants to draw the dinosaurs he sees?"

"Yes, he does. We can't bring anything back with us, except pictures. And you know how he likes to draw," Jules added.

His father nodded. "He certainly does. He may well be an artist some day. Run along and get your brother - nicely - and I'll see if your mother needs anything else done before we leave."

Jules nodded and walked smartly in the direction of Verne's bedroom.

Emmett found his wife in the kitchen, wiping down the cabinets. "Nearly ready to leave?" he asked her.

"Yes, as soon as I finish cleaning. I don't want to come home to a messy kitchen."

"It's a good thing you haven't made me tidy my workroom. We wouldn't be leaving for another week."

Clara laughed as she squeezed the last drops of water out of her sponge. "I'm ready to go now Emmett, but are you certain this trip is a good idea?"

"Hmm. Every time trip has inherent risks, and this is no exception. However, we are taking as many precautions as we can. We have plenty of emergency food, tools and spare parts in case of damage to the time machine, and remember that we could easily fly around for a couple of hours without putting ourselves in any danger."

"If you say so, dear. It does seem safe enough, but I still have a feeling that something might go wrong."

"Don't worry about that: Murphy's Law says that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. We can't stop it, but we can be prepared. And now that we are prepared, let's go and warm up the time machine. We can run a final check of the additions to the time circuits while we wait for the boys to finish getting their things together."

He slipped his hand around Clara's and walked her out the back door. "Remember to shut the door properly," he called back to the boys, "so Einie can't get out while we are gone, however short that time may be."

"Yes Dad. We shall be out in a minute," Jules answered.

The temporally-displaced scientist and his equally anomalous wife stepped into their special creation: the vehicle that was a curious mixture of technology and styles from three different centuries. Emmett powered up various parts of the circuitry, making sure all the readouts gave tolerable values. Everything checked out, so he stepped out to open the barn doors. When the doors were fully open, he double-checked all the catches and locks that held doors and hatches on the side of the train securely shut. As he returned to the cab, his sons ran into the barn with their bags.

"Quickly, boys. Climb in and secure your bags," their father instructed.

Jules and Verne did so, and sat down. Activating the hover systems, Emmett floated the train out of the barn and took to the sky.

"We left the door open," Jules pointed out.

"Don't worry: we'll be back in a couple of minutes," his father answered. "But on the other hand, we need to return the train to its proper shed by the railway line. Never mind that now: we'll sort it out when we return. Does sixty-six million years ago sound reasonable?"

The boys nodded their agreement.

Emmett tapped in a date. "I've chosen a date in summer. Hopefully the seasons are still aligned after such a long stretch of time." He pulled on the train's controls, causing it to gain altitude rapidly. "We don't want to be too low, as there could be mountains here in the past. Brace yourselves for temporal displacement."

Everyone held tight as the train reached a speed of eighty-eight miles-per-hour and vanished amid a multitude of blue flashes. What happened next was hard to explain. The time travellers felt a sensation of suddenly losing speed, as if hitting something, and then of rushing backward in the opposite direction. However, the movement they felt did not seem to be in any particular direction.

The time displays flickered and began to change rapidly. The destination time rapidly shrank. Eventually, the change slowed and the display settled on a number. With a rush of sound and light, the train burst back into the timeline. The whole process felt like it had taken no time at all. Totally unfamiliar views flashed by the windows.

The four passengers stared at one another dumbly for a moment, startled. A popping sound, accompanied by the smell of burnt circuitry, snapped them out of their stupor. Emmett put the troubled vehicle into a fast decent, hoping nothing was critically damaged. The time circuits flickered off completely, and the sound of beeps and buzzers was heard.