Growing Up
- He showed up from nowhere, and I became free to do anything I wished in my laboratory with Edna. Father left me alone to instruct Dean.
- You must be grateful for that, Doc.
- In fact, I had no chance to thank him. After his instruction with my father, Dean had simply vanished in the air, just like he appeared.
- You don't know what he became?
Doc shrugged his shoulders:
- No idea. Father has been mourning him like he was his second son… For months, I think.
- And… He stayed for long?
- Maybe four or five ye ars. He became an adult under my father's supervision.
- You mean Dean was a child?
- I've never been able to guess his real age, but sometimes, he didn't act like a young adult.
Doc looked around at his son's inventions and changed the subject, wondering:
- If I knew my son was that clever, I would have instructed him many more things…
- Gene was kinda… Secret, Doc. Untamed and carefree when we were just together, but I guess his mother has the same effect on him…
- Than my father had on me?
- Yes. When do you think he's gone?
Marty told Doc that his son just left him in 1986 and then jumped again in time… "To grow up", as he said after discovering his mother's guilt in the case of the speakeasy.
- Here and then… He wanted to know so much about the past…
- I think he've learned about too much. The last time I saw him, it was clear.
- So, you think he travelled to the future?
- After the first experiment we had to go through together, I don't know…
Marty remember Gene's enigmatic statement:
- "I'm making my way through the ages"…
- What?
- That's what he said when he has decided to come back here.
- So, you're entirely freely jumping between centuries…
- You think so?
Doc shook his head to confirm:
- He doesn't want to be found. He won't let us a chance to figure out when he is.
- You're right…
- We can't do anything else until he comes back here.
- So, you're just letting your son wandering alone in the space-time continuum?
- I know, it's terrible. Not only for him… But I have to be confident in his intelligence.
Marty whispered: he missed Gene. He had left since two weeks only, but he had a special relationship with him he couldn't suspect while they first met… In spite of Gene's stubbornness, disturbing acting or talking habits and childish reactions, Marty liked him… Merely for all this.
- You know my son… Probably better than me, I mean.
- I told you how I see him. I may be wrong…
A sudden green bolt of lightning flashed next to the empty platform in the laboratory.
Marty stood up, astonished:
- The Time Device!
- Gene! My son!
But the driver's door opened up on a young black-haired man they couldn't recognize:
- Good evening, father. Good evening, Marty.
- Who are you?
The young man raised an eyebrow:
- It's me, Gene… Oh! I almost forgot…
He looked at a peculiar watch on his wrist:
- You will know who I am… In twenty-two seconds.
In the given time, the young man's eyes turned from green to grey, red spots appeared on his face, and his hair was turning from black to red.
Marty and Doc couldn't believe what they had just seen:
- Bat?! What was that?
- I will explain you later, I am a bit... Tired. Nice to see you again, my friend.
- I'm pleased too. But tell me… You seem…
- Older? Yes. I am twenty-one, now.
- Please, Gene, tell us everything you've done those seven years!
Gene sat down in the first armchair he found and sighed:
- Well, I will tell you…
He looked at his Time Device: it seemed to have been through hurricanes.
- First, I did not actually know when to go. I have wandered between decades without doing anything. Then, I met a genomic surgery specialist.
- Genomic surgery?
Gene shook his head to confirm:
- In the twenty-first century, scientists will invent a tool able to rewrite human DNA. This process was unstable while I was in that century, but I volunteered my own body to run some more tests.
Marty smiled: becoming a guinea-pig for a dangerous scientific experiment… That looked so much like Gene…
- The test run has been a success, and they discovered I was able to stand several complete mutations.
- So, they gave you a stuff that controls these mutations?
Gene showed his wrist: under the watch, the skin was black:
- An implant.
- Does it hurt?
- Not anymore. The transplantation has been painfully, and it stopped hurting me four days later… Then, I learned how to control my metamorphoses. The watch is the interface with the implant.
- That's why you looked so different…
Gene confirmed:
- I was supposed to be someone else, somewhen else. I can not actually decide if I want to recover my original DNA or not: since I set another DNA, I keep it ten hours, and then, I come back to normal automatically… The watch allows me to set the DNA I want, and shows me a countdown before my replacement DNA becomes unstable and leaves the place to my authentic DNA.
- That stuff is amazing… And they gave it to you?
Gene shrugged his shoulders:
- Why not? I helped them to build this implant.
- Gene, you had intervened…
- Not exactly as you might think, father. The simple fact they tested it on me helped them.
- And then? What did you do?
- I used it to observe the twenty-one century. I merely became a member of its society.
He turned his head to his father:
- Without causing a single damage to the timeline. I became carefully with this matter of space-time continuum rewritings. I stayed about one year in that century, and have learned enough to know what science should be done for. I am talking about serious science…
- Serious science…?
- Science must serve humanity and take care of it… So, I realized I had to learn something else.
Gene took an old yellowed paper from his pocket and showed it to his audience:
- This comes from the sixteenth century. A royal act for the chase of Christians…
- It's a black period, Gene… But… You've been in France?
- I can program four-dimensional coordinates on my Time Device. I can be anywhen and anywhere I could have the inclination. And you are right, father: I lived about two months in this "black" period. That was enough to understand.
He put the act back in his pocket:
- The great problem of humanity, is when no rule makes men equal.
Marty raised his eyebrows, but Gene shook his head:
- I know what you are thinking, Marty. I am not my mother, I can assure you. But I was a lost child with no discipline, so yes, I have looked for a model.
- What kind of model?
Gene was trying hard to hide his thoughts: he knew Marty could hear them.
- I had to travel between the decades to find it. First, I thought about Hill Valley's Marshall… But while I arrived in 1885, I realized the Marshall was my mother's direct ancestor…
- Why is it a problem for you?
- I can not explain this in front of you, father… I took me days to figure out when I could find the model I was seeking.
He looked at his father a few seconds and confirmed an inner thought by shaking his head:
- I traveled in 1932. The only man who could intend to tame a child like me was my own grandfather.
- Your grandfather…?
Gene turned the dial of his watch, and his hair turned to blond, his eyes became blue and his skin get pale without a spot. Doc looked astonished:
- Dean Porter! It was you…?
Gene shook his head to confirm:
- I have submitted myself to the strict education Judge Brown wished he could submit you to. I found out he was the right model, because he could instruct me about Law. That was what I needed except for severe discipline.
- I have been unable to give you a correct education because you ignored my efforts to do so, and yet you've decided to ask your grandfather to tame you?
Gene sighed:
- I am sincerely sorry for my childish behavior, father. I could not realize what my stubbornness could cause in a long-term matter. I had the privilege to meet you as we were at the same age… I wanted to become a close friend of yours, in order to know you better than I did… But Law gives no time to friendship, and you were in your laboratory the whole day.
- It's true… Gene, I want to thank you for this.
Gene raised his eyebrows:
- For what, exactly, father?
- Your presence made your grandfather leaving me alone and free to dedicate my life to science. Things have been really much easier and faster thanks to you.
- Glad I could help you… And congratulations, father: I have seen you opening the first store.
- Why… Thanks, my son…
Gene smiled:
- You were right when you told things have been faster: you opened the first store only ten years after I have arrived in 1932, and in the timeline I am from, it took you about thirty years to do it…
- Great Scott! Thirty years?
- Yes. That was the reason you have always gave me to explain why I was born "so late".
- It's wrong, Gene…
Gene was thinking about the fact his father has been rewrote because of his presence in 1932.
- Gene, is that all you did?
- I think it is pretty much.
- And so, you came back here…
- Because I had grown up, as I wished…
- And what are you going to do, now?
Gene shrugged his shoulders:
- Do you really have to ask me, Marty?
- I think your father would like to know it too.
- Alright, then. I am decided to apply all I have learned to do serious science.
- And serve humanity, right?
- Correct. Well… I have approximately nine hours to go through with this DNA…
He left his armchair and started to work.
- What are you doing, now?
- I would appreciate that you were out, father…
- Okay, my son… I know you work better alone.
- Marty can stay.
Doc and Marty glanced at each other.
Marty didn't understand why Gene was making an exception for him.
- My friend, you should know you are like a part of me.
- I knew I felt this about you… But I didn't think it was mutual…
- Of course it is. Father…?
- Okay, my son… At least, your grandbrother will be pleased to see me…
- My what?
Doc didn't answer, leaving the laboratory. Marty raised an eyebrow:
- You don't remember your brother Clive Brown?
- Clive… Brother… I have a brother…
- You mean that in the timeline you're from, you didn't have a brother?
- No! I am an only child! Oh… I understand…
- What?
Gene turned his head, thinking:
- In the timeline I am from, it took ten years for my parents to open the first store… They had nothing else on mind in that decade. When the shop became successful, they started trying to conceive me… But in this timeline, it took them only three years, so they had all the time to think about having a first child together, who is actually not me…
- And then? That's great! You have a grandbrother, now!
Gene shook his head:
- But… I don not know him…
- You know, you've became a bit distant with him since you were twelve.
- Distant? Why?
- Your brother… "Stole" your girlfriend.
- That is peculiar… It reminds me of… Off with this! So, I had a girlfriend?
Marty shrugged his shoulders:
- More or less… You might need me to explain the whole thing…
- Yes.
- It's simple: you've been friends for two years, and with some boosts from me, you were decided to tell her your feelings…
- But my brother had seduced her before I did it…
Marty shook his head to confirm.
- How is she?
- Just turn your back on me.
Gene did so and found an old picture of a young woman:
- By the Saints… I understand why I have been loving her… But… You told me I was twelve years old when I tried to do my big scene… She seems to be approximately seventeen on this picture…
Marty confirmed:
- She's older than you. At least, she was… And… Your brother married her.
- He did this?!
- I know it's hard…
- Nonsense, Marty, I am not the Gene his brother had hurt.
- So, what are you going to do?
Gene shrugged his shoulders:
- Working. You told my brother and I are distant since two years, so I will not fix it up.
- Why?
- Look at me, Marty! I am about seven years older than I was when I left this year two weeks ago! How could I just pop out of nowhere and recreate a healthy relationship with a brother I do not know from his age to his face?
Gene turned back.
- Eighteen.
- What?
- Clive. He's eighteen years old.
- And I am older than my grandbrother! Very fine!
- You wanted to grow up. You did it.
Gene didn't found the joke really funny:
- Thanks, but I wanted to grow up, not to grow old.
- Too late.
- Clive will not miss I am that older.
- Of course… But he's your father's son, he will know why.
- Correct…
- Clive…
The young black-haired man turned his head and shook it in disbelief:
- Gene…? Is that you?
- Yes, my brother…
- But… You left two weeks ago…
- Can I… Enter…?
Clive granted the access to his house:
- What do you want after those two years…?
- First, you have to understand who I am.
- Oookay… I'm used to your craziness… Just talk…
- I am a time traveler. I am from another timeline where you do not exist.
- Great… I have enough of you…
Gene stood up, looking his brother directly in the eyes: he was much taller, and that seemed to impress Clive, who gasped more or less discretely.
- I am not joking. I have spent seven years through the ages, and my only presence in 1932 made your own conception possible.
- Okay, okay… Let's tell you're not stuck in your whacky world again… What do you want?
- Ask you one thing: did you know what I felt for Sally?
Clive seemed relieved from a heavy weight:
- Why didn't you start from that point two years ago?
- I do not know. I am not the Gene you know… Not completely.
- Well. I wanted to tell you this, but you were too stubborn to listen to me: I had no idea you were in love with her, okay? And she wasn't, she married me because she loved me. Right?
- Right. It does not matter to me.
Clive raised an eyebrow:
- She was your first and only love!
- And she still is, I guess. But in the timeline I am from, I had never met her.
- Okay…
- I am making this easier for you to comprehend… Come with me.
- Where?
Clive followed his brother, and Marty patted his shoulder:
- Next to him, better ask: "When"?
- Huh?! Hey, wait!
- Wait what? My Time Device is only a few steps away.
- Your Time-what?
- Hey, bat… I told you he could understand, but he's not… Like you…
Gene looked at Marty: he was asking if Clive were a scientist.
- Not actually…
Gene raised an eyebrow: was his grandbrother at least as clever as he was?
- Neither…
Gene shook his head: his brother was stupid…
- I won't tell it that way, but…
Clive intervened:
- Hey, I don't hear you speaking, Gene… Are you a sort of mind reader, Marty?
- It would be too difficult to explain, Clive.
Gene leaded his brother to a desert place in the border of Hill Valley:
- Here it is…
- Wow… And you call it the Time Spice?
Gene grumbled:
- Time Device.
- Okay, I know I'm not a genius like you, but I know it's just the kind of flying cars mom and dad were solding when they had only one store.
- You stop your observations on what you can see. Let me show you more.
Gene came aboard.
He was waiting for Clive, but he was just standing up next to Marty.
- Psst! Gene wants you to come with him.
- How do you know that? He doesn't even speak…
- No questions.
Clive sat down on the passenger's seat, and Gene turned on the circuits.
- Wow… And what's this? "Four-dimensional coordinates"?
Gene shrugged his shoulders:
- The concept of the Time Machine belongs to our father. I have just added the possibility to travel directly to a specified space coordinate.
- Dad told me about this DeLorean… But this… You built it alone?
- Of course.
- Hey, what's happening to you hair?
Gene raised an eyebrow, and Marty gasped:
- Gene, your hair is turning white!
- White? I have not set my implant to rewrite my DNA for now…
- Rewrite your DNA?
- By the Saints… My implant is unstable…
Marty jumped into the Time Device.
They were a bit cramped in there, but Marty had guessed they didn't have much time to feel comfortable:
- Set the time circuits, bat!
- Yes… Yes… The time… Circuits…
Gene's DNA was erratically changing every second, like a chameleon ejected from Vancouver to Mexico at the speed of sound.
Clive was clearly lost in this story: he could just look at his brother.
- October, the twenty-fourth… 2190… Stockholm…
- That's when you get that implant?
- No, seven years later… In order not to give false informations… To the surgery team…
- Okay, I got the idea.
- Hey, we're not going in the future?
Gene started the engine:
- We are. It is a life or death matter…
- Life or death? Bat, are you telling…
- If my DNA keeps on mixing like this with the other DNAs I got on my implant, it could be catastrophic for me…
The Time Device disappeared with its three travelers in a green sudden flash…
- Stockholm… That's crazy, bat, you can even choose where you want to land…
- Congratulations later. The Genomic Surgery Department is a few steps away.
They ran. Clive realized they had left:
- Hey, wait for me!
- By the way, Gene, you're not afraid that someone could steal your Time Device?
- Oh yes, I nearly forgot…
Gene pushed a button on his shoulder, and the Time Device became an appletree.
- Wow, cool…
- When I became a real time traveler, I knew I will have to be discreet. And this device is not discreet enough in its actual form. I created a light-refracting cover and used the holographic technology to make it seem different than it is, with a large panel of forms.
- Holographic? You're using a technology from the future?
Gene shrugged his shoulders:
- I just had to travel when it has been launched on the public market. I did not want to influence researches in that domain… Oh! There we are!
- Big… I've never seen a building that tall…
- It will be established in 2045. It is written there.
He pushed the button on the interphone.
A voice came through the microphones:
- Who is it…?
- Elijah Frown.
- Mr. Frown? So pleased you're back…
- I am afraid I have no time… My implant became clearly unstable.
- Unstable? Let me see that…
A camera showed up from the top of the doors:
- Oh, indeed it is unstable… Who are the two other men?
- Here is my friend… Charles Hunter… And my brother.
- Okay, you can enter with your relatives, Mr. Frown…
The doors opened up.
- Come in!
A bunch of scientist welcomed Gene and started to examine his wrist:
- I can see four intermittent anomalies…
- I've spotted a time factor…
- That's peculiar… The implant has clearly encountered some interactions with a different technology.
- Different?
- I would say "incompatible"… If I had an idea of what this technology is…
One other scientist shrugged his shoulders:
- It appears to be an old technology. Approximately from the twentieth century…
- I've spotted it… Gosh, that's an out-of-date technology!
- Out-of-date… What do you mean…
Gene was still changing his DNA second after second. He seemed terribly sick.
- I would say it's a composed technology.
Another scientist shook his head:
- Components look like they're from the first decades of the 20th century, but the assembling way from the last two decades of the same century… And I'm not talking about the additional circuits mixed with the original technology. Some of them are unknown…
- Like it hasn't been invented yet?
- It's impossible…
Gene turned his head to Marty. He shook his head, meaning he had received the message:
"I see… Doc has never unveiled his Time Machine… They don't know this is possible…"
- Do you have an explanation, Mr. Frown?
- Can you do… Something… For me…
- We can extract the stranger particles and fix the implant in order to set your original DNA. Then, we'll extract the implant when your DNA will be stabilized.
Gene shook his head in a way that showed he was too weak to shake it quickly:
- Do it… Please…
- Professor Vrömblad, his DNA breaks down into its basic proteins!
- No time to waste! Set the extractor!
- What will happen… If you can not stop…
The scientist put a mask on his face, and Gene felt alsleep in one second.
The team worked along two hours, and then, the chief took Gene's wrist:
- Let's set the original DNA…
- I've isolated its sequence.
- Fine, proceed to DNA stabilization.
- Process currently running.
Gene's hair became red again, and he came back to normal in five minutes.
The chief gave his green signal to the team, and retired the watch.
- Extracting in progress… Fourteen per cent…
- DNA isolation working.
- Optimal DNA stabilization maintained.
- Extracting in progress… Twenty-five per cent…
- DNA isolation compromised. Processing to reinforcements.
The chief lifted his hand:
- Wait for optimal isolation.
- Extracting suspended.
Ten seconds later, the scientist focused on the isolation shook his head:
- Reinforcements working. Optimal DNA isolation working.
- Run the extracting process!
The scientist focused on the extraction raised his thumb:
- Extraction in progress… Thirty per cent…
- Optimal DNA stabilization maintained.
- DNA isolation working.
- I've picked up an anomaly on the implant.
- Wait for the anomaly identification!
They stayed focused on their tasks, leaving their colleague working on the anomaly.
- Connection corrupted. Probably because of the extra parts.
- Is it relevant?
- It will no longer be when we'll have extracted the implant.
- Can we go on?
- We can. This anomaly doesn't endanger the extracting process.
The chief shook his head to the others:
- Let's run the process!
- Extracting in progress… Forty per cent…
- DNA stabilization compensated. Proceeding to recalculations.
- Can't we go faster?
- DNA isolation working. We can.
The chief confirmed:
- Faster.
- Extracting in progress… Forty-five… Fifty-five… Seventy-five… Ninety…
- DNA stabilization still compensated. I recommend we suspend the process.
- Okay, wait for optimal stabilization.
- Extracting process suspended.
The scientist recalculating the stabilization shook his head twenty seconds later:
- DNA stabilization back to normal. I recommend we run the process a bit slower.
- Go on.
- Extracting in progress… Ninety-two per cent…
- DNA isolation working.
- DNA stabilization maintained.
Gene's wrist moved: the black part of its skin was crawling.
- Extracting in progress… Ninety-seven per cent…
- DNA isolation working.
- DNA stabilization maintained. Prepare for clearing.
- Clearing process initialized.
- Extracting in progress… Ninety-nine per cent…
The black skin opened without bleeding, and a thin sheet of steel made its way out of the wrist.
- Implant extracted.
- Clearing in progress.
Two devices rose up from the table Gene was lying down on and wrapped his wrist.
- Clearing complete. Prepare for waking the subject.
The devices get down.
The chief put the mask on Gene's face again, and he opened his eyes:
- Huh... What happened?
- I gave you a general anesthetic. You worried to much.
- And… Is everything okay, now?
- The implant is out, and your original DNA is alone in your body. It will be fine.
- Why, thanks…
Gene stretched lazily and smiled to Marty:
- Pleased you are still there…
- So am I.
- That was close… Huh?!
The chief leaded Gene to the lavatory. They went back minutes later: Gene was shivering.
- Don't worry, Mr. Frown… This symptom will stop in two days…
Gene came to Marty without saying a thing.
"Okay, you've been vomiting… I won't say it."
- We can go home.
- Is it far away? I recommend you don't drive or come aboard any vehicle before two days.
- And if I do it?
- Prepare to be disturbed by the symptom longer and more often than expected.
Gene shrugged his shoulders:
- What wrong two days here could be… Goodbye, Professor Vrömblad…
- Goodbye?
- I am afraid we will not meet again. I live very far away from here.
- You've been a wonderful experiment subject, Mr. Frown… We'll miss you.
- And you all have been kind persecutors to me. I will miss you too.
Gene and Professor Vrömblad shook their hands, and the Professor put his hand on Gene's shoulder:
- That's odd, but I want to tell you something…
- Tell me…?
- You remind me of the great inventor who founded this Genomic Surgery Department.
- Oh… I think I know who you are talking about: Emmett Lathrop Brown?
- No, no, you're mistaken!
Gene opened bug eyes:
- Who?
He had already guessed, be he couldn't trust it as long as Vrömblad hadn't tell it.
- You know… His son… Gene Terence Brown.
- Gene Brown… It is not written on the…
- I know. Brown didn't like congratulations. He preferred living in the shadows of his achievements.
Marty smiled: that was totally Gene's kind of behavior.
- So, goodbye, Mr. Frown…
- Goodbye…
The time travelers get outside, and Gene looked at his wrist, then at the plate on the building:
- I am the G.S.D. founder… I will make this implant existing…
- Probably because you lived with it…
Gene shook his head:
- No. When I realized that equality was what humanity missed to be perfectly harmonized, I have looked for a way to combine science and Law for this purpose… And this came to me…
He took a sheet from his pocket and showed it to Marty:
- The DNA Converter. This is just a first draft, I was up to work on this when I was back in 1986.
- Gene, that's crazy…
Gene sighed, putting the drawing back in his pocket:
- I know. I never had access to the plans while I let Vrömblad using me as a guinea-pig… How could I imagine this… I wanted to create a mechanical chromosome crafter able to suppress any disease in human DNA, because that is what would make humans equal. If I knew I will succeed…
- What did I tell you? You're a pure genius.
- Oh, please, rat, don't congratulate me…
Marty patted Gene's shoulder: he was him again.
- I don't want to bother you… But are we going to stay in the future for two days?
- Gene needs it. And he knows this century, he will be our guide, nope…?
- Like I've been for you when we first met. Let's go, it will be fun!
Gene ran before his brother and Marty, ultimately pleased to be there with his friend…