Title: The Chronic Argonauts
Author: Kharmia Attradie
Rating: PG-13 for mild swearing.
Chapter: 2- "I Enjoy Existing!"
Date Chapter Started/Finished: 24Dec2009
Word Count: 1,710 not counting opening and closing notes
Disclaimer: I didn't put one last time O.o; So, don't own, don't sue,
Summary: Slight A.U. (The DeLorean did not get smooshed by the train, and Doc took it back with him) Two teenagers find a beaten up old DeLorean in their dad's garage, and drag a friend along for the ride. We join Doc's youngest, Minnie and Emmett Jr., and Marty Jr. as they have some fun with the time line. But, there is always the risk of unmaking the universe. Now children, why don't we play with the fabric of time?
Opening A/N: Okay, new edited chapter out, expect at least one more edit out today, as we have family over and I'm trying to avoid them. ~.~
"Who're the other thirteen?"
"Excuse me?" Emmett asked the clerk behind the counter, who had asked the question.
"Your shirt, it says 'Class of '16'. I was just wondering who the other thirteen were, don't see a shirt like that every day, after all."
"Oh.. er…" Emmett stumbled over his words, he was not prepared for that question.
"We from a very select private school in northern California, we're just stopping in Hill Valley on our way south. Bus driver's tired of driving, you know. Small student to teacher ratio, it's a school trademark." Minnie however was a bit more apt at the art of lying.
"Oh, right…"
Minnie smiled in a cheesy sweet sort of way before ushering the two boys to the racks to pick out their clothes.
"Emmett, that's worse than what you changed out of!" Minnie exclaimed at seeing the hideous orange arm warmers and tank top. "Besides, I think those arm things are for girls…"
"Really? I rather like them."
"Well, if you wear them, we don't have to worry about them figuring out we're from the future. They'll think you're a damn alien. Nanu-nanu!" She snipped at him, in a smart-aleck sort of way.
"Nan-what?" Emmett asked, looking at her as if she were the alien.
"Nevermind, just go change. Into something normal." She pinched the bridge of her nose, knowing he was just messing with her for the hell of it. Realizing she left her comment too open she quickly added, "For this time period and planet!" Knowing if she hadn't said that, Emmett would have walked out in the clothes he was originally wearing, or some bizarre outfit claiming that it was normal attire for some alien race.
"You know me too well, Minnie."
"Yeah, that happens when you spend your enti- Jr.! Fix your pants!" Minnie groaned as Jr. stepped out of his dressing room in a black shirt sporting the name of a band that he had probably never heard of, a denim jacket, red-lined white Nikes… and a pair of Levi's… worn inside out.
"What?" he said, looking at himself in the full length mirror, trying to determine what was wrong with his pants.
"People in 1985 don't wear their jeans inside out, you uberdork. I don't even see why they do at home, it's an ugly fashion"
"Oh… Riiiight." He answered airily before going back into the dressing room. Minnie touched her temples lightly, normally she wasn't as high-strung or snippy, and she was starting to get a headache. It wasn't her intention to be so short with her two friends.
"So, Em, how'd you know what the car did?."
Emmett stepped out of his dressing room, dressed in his original clothes, holding his new clothes: a brown polo, a pair of Levi 505's, and a pair of black Adidas, in his arms, and responded "Dad told me the story."
"..And the story is…?"
Emmett blinked and sat down in the chair beside Minnie's. "He had said something about using it out at the mall, tomorrow actually, and I remember pointing out the fact that he did it at 1:21 a.m."
"Which is significant… because…?" Minnie urged him, she hated it when he trailed off and expected everyone to know what he meant.
"Oh, the flux capacitor needs 1.21 gigawatts of power work, and I just thought it was kinda funny that the first time the car was used was at 1:21 AM…Did you know it used to run on plutonium before it had the Mr. Fusion?" He finished, smiling absent-mindedly at her.
"Sure. Right." Minnie said, sensing that that was all she was going to get from him, and not really believing the story, Emmett was known for making up strange things. "Jr. You ready, yet?"
"Yeah." His nasal voice echoed from the cubicle just before he stepped out holding his new clothes over his arm.
"Good, let's go then." She said, standing and grabbed the bag next to the chair she had been sitting in. She then led them to the front of the store, towards the register, to pay, but she stopped a moment and looked behind her at the dressing rooms.
"What's up, Min?" Jr. inquired.
"Nothing, just thought I heard someone talking."
"I can't believe you made us change in an alley, Minnie!" Jr. whined at Minnie, who looked slightly offended.
"I only said it would look weird if we used a public bathroom, Emmett suggested the damn alley. Whine at him, not me."
"The alley way was my idea?" Emmett asked, sounding truly confused and surprised. Minnie and Jr. looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
"When we get home, Em, remind me to ask dad if you were ever dropped on your head. Or abducted."
"Huh?"
"Nevermind."
Minnie led the way back to the DeLorean, where they all dumped their old clothes.
"All electronics too. Can't risk someone seeing them." Minnie said as she began removing various gadgets and gizmos from the belt she still wore over her new clothes. From the group came: two MP3 players, three cell phones, a BlackBerry, a Nintendo DSA(1), a PSP2 (2), three holo-watches, and a small black digital camera.
"That everything?" Minnie asked, double checking her belt over again to make sure she had removed all of her post 1985 stuff.
"Shouldn't we keep the phones, in case we get separated?" Jr. asked, checking his pockets.
Surprisingly it was Emmett that answered. "They wouldn't work, no service providers or towers to send the signal."
Jr. looked uncertainly at Emmett, and then at Minnie for confirmation, who just blinked, and looked at her brother and said, "Yeah, what he said."
Emmett raised an eyebrow at the other two, not sure why they were staring at him. "What?"
"Nothing, Em, nothing at all. Anyway, the mall sounds like a good place to wander, the chances of running into anyone we know are slim, oh and try not to, say … kill any butterflies, or something." Minnie said, pulling down the door and starting down the opposite direction they had come from.
"What? You know I don't understand half the things she says…" Jr. muttered to Emmett as they followed her down the sidewalk.
"You might have a clue if you hadn't slept through every history class you've ever taken." She snipped back. Of course, none of their history classes had ever covered most of her obscure vintage pop culture references, but it was fun to hassle Jr. about sleeping in class, and she rather liked the clueless expression on both of their faces when she popped off with a seemingly random comment. She reached down to her, now light, belt an pulled up her pocket watch and checked the time.
"It can't be nine P.M..." She thought for a moment. "Oh right. We came in at a different time… We came in at… seven-twenty-ish-a.m. Em, what time did you kidnap us?"
"About eight?" he said, not paying attention to her particular word choice.
"Alright, then it's eight-twenty-ish…" she mumbled, twisting the knob on top of her watch until she hit the right time.
"You two wanna-" Minnie started…
"Woah…." But was interrupted by Jr. who was watching someone very familiar roll by on a skateboard, holding onto the back of a Jeep. Emmett turned to see what Jr. was looking at, and started in surprise, "Hey, was that…."
Minnie blinked and shook her head a little. "I think it was… Weird… C'mon, we've gotta go."
"Jesus, I really do look like my dad did at this age."
"I'm pretty sure there was something grammatically wrong in that sentence…" Minnie said, looking over at Jr., who simply shrugged as he watched his younger-father's form glide around a corner as he let go of the Jeep.
"C'mon, we can't risk actually running into him, or anyone else. Who knows who's wandering around that we know."
"You know, Min, the mall's a ways out, why didn't we bring the car?" Jr. inquired.
"Because Emmett drives like a maniac, and we can't risk getting pulled over and having someone see his driver's license. AND you and I don't have one anyway. AND it's hardly working as it is, we can't risk it dying again."
Emmett, who had not been paying attention, reached for his back pocket and said, "What's wrong with my license?" He frowned as he slipped his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and found no wallet.
"Did I put my wallet with the electronics?"
"Not that I recall." Minnie answered, an impending sense of doom starting to stir in the back of her mind. "Did you get it off your 'nightstand' this morning?"
"Yeah… Cause I remember putting my cam-card in it, and putting it in my pocket… And I don't remember it being there when we paid for the clothes… 'Cause I was gonna pay, but then I remembered that you had the old paper money stuff and when I reached back, it wasn't there then either."
Jr. and Minnie stared at him for a moment before Jr. spoke up, "You done?"
"Yeah… Maybe it fell out in the dressing room?"
Minnie groaned, and said, "Well, c'mon, we'd better go get it before someone else does."
Back in the clothing store a man with dark tanned skin and black hair stepped out of another cubicle, across the narrow hall from the others. He had seen the boy drop the wallet, but he had also heard the name Emmett and the word plutonium. He and his associates had been looking for that damned scientist for three days, upon discovering that the bombs he had given them were full of old machine parts.
He stepped into the cubicle the taller of the two boys had been in, and picked up the odd looking wallet, prying the magnetic strips apart, he looked through it until he came upon the ID
Emmett Lanthrop Brown, Jr.
Glancing at the name was enough for the man, he put the ID back in the wallet and slipped it into his coat pocket. Smirking, he thought back on the conversation he had overheard. Dad had been used, they must have meant Brown Sr. The mall, Twin Pines was the only mall in the area. Tomorrow morning. 1:21 AM.
It looked like they had found the scientist that had ripped of their plutonium. He quickly left the store, heading for his van, intent on revenge.
Closing A/N: Well, what'd you think. I didn't like this chapter… Just so you know…
(1)- If we have the Nintendo DS in 2007, I figure by 2015 they would at least have the Nitendo DS Advanced, hence the A.
(2)- See above, only with PSP.