Author's Note: Well, I'm finally publishing something for this story again. I hope that you will all like it.
Disclaimer: Don't own the movies. As simple as that.
Chapter Six
Saturday, April 2, 1988
6:55 P.M.
Hill Valley, California
Doc sighed, as he looked down. Now this was the fourth reality that was not their home. Were they ever going to stop hopping? He'd hoped that, this time, they would be lucky and end up back at the dimension they started in. At least, this dimension fit into his scheme of getting closer every hop, which probably meant that the next reality should be their home. Still, he didn't want to take chances and hop into a completely unfamiliar world, which unfortunately meant he'd have to head down and see how much his local self knew about time travel and fixing things like this.
Well, at least this was the first reality in which Martin existed, Doc figured, as the young boy was out there in the garden, probably 'cause the other inventor was out in the lab and the boys were somewhere else and couldn't take care of their youngest brother. That was something positive: the kid hadn't had a universe in which he existed before, and in all honesty, Doc was glad to see him here. It meant that, even if Twin Pines-based, this reality hit close to home, and perhaps, other Doc had invented a similar invention. Maybe they'd even switched places, now, and they could somehow help each other get home by having left behind notes and tools as well as another time machine for fixing the DFSCUPCIF?
As nice that idea sounded, Doc had to write it off. After all, if he and his counterpart had travelled through worlds roughly at the same time that afternoon, Clara was looking far too relaxed for having missed her husband for almost seven hours. No, the other him was probably still around, as Doc knew Clara wouldn't take little Martin out in the garden if she'd thought her husband had been kidnapped – she'd be terrified of the little boy getting kidnapped himself. No, probably this world was not similar to his in that way, so that theory was off. Too bad. Well, maybe Other Doc – Emmett – could still help him.
The inventor stared at Marty, who seemed to have returned to a pretty calm state of mind. Doc found that almost worthy of a compliment – he was feeling pretty exhausted himself, and adrenalin was pumping through his veins. It was near six A.M. in their world, now, and the inventor knew he internally wanted nothing but his bed. But that couldn't be done, and he was not feeling like he should really take place in a guest room of his other self, not when he should be awake and working on the machine. Unless they would stop here hopping since Emmett would be able to fix the machine, Doc firmly told himself that he would not accept the offer of a bed to lie down and rest on, not when there was work to be done. He was not lazy, after all.
The inventor sighed, as he started to fly down the time machine. He wondered what his other self, Other Clara and the other boys would say of it. Was the bus even around in this reality? Somehow, Doc doubted it – he'd only conceived the idea a few months ago, and if something as far back as the mall's name was changed in this world, surely this had to be changed, too. Then again, Martin was still around, and Clara was, too. (Which was only logical – it was not very possible to have Martin without Clara).
"Marty?" he said, looking at the teenager who was leaning backwards and looking like he was half-asleep. "I'm gonna land, now. You better brace yourself – I know how annoyed you can get when I land and you're half-asleep.
"I ain't half-asleep" Marty protested.
"No, Marty, of course not" Doc said, smiling a bit sarcastically. "But anyway, I'm landing. So it's your choice – do you really want to be all shaken up when I hit the ground?"
Marty shook his head, and buckled up, and a few seconds later, the bus hit the ground behind the house, rode a few yards, and came to a halt a few feet behind the back door. "Well, if that ain't an indication we're here, nothing is" Marty said, grinning a little.
It was. As the dimensional travellers got out, Doc immediately found himself facing a thoroughly surprised Clara. "Emmett!" she called out, obviously mistaking the visitor for his local counterpart. "What's going on? Why do you have a flying bus? You only make the time machines fly! Is this a new machine I don't know about?"
The first two sentences had made Doc frown, and wonder if they were right in hoping that the local could fix their malfunctioning time machine, after all, but the next two were definitely making things clear that this world was familiar enough for Clara to know about time travel, and there was also the fact that the local had said 'machines' as a plural. "Everything's fine" he assured the other version of his wife. "Marty and I here are not the persons you probably think we are – we're from another dimension. If you're as unknowing to the term as my wife is, then I'll explain it: we're from a world that went one path, while your world went the other path. For instance, the mall is called Lone Pine Mall in our world, as Marty ran over one of the two pine trees Old Man Peabody bred, when he travelled back to 1955."
"How could he do that?" Clara wanted to know. "You didn't give him control over the machine that time in 1955, not even once. You've told me about that trip, though – November twelfth, 1955, right? You came there to stop Old Biff from giving a sports almanac to his younger self. That's the only time you or Marty or anyone in this family ever travelled to 1955, and you know it." Her eyes narrowed. "Do you?"
"No" Doc said. "That appears to be one of the differences between our worlds – no first original trip, while the others did happen. But why don't we get into your house, perhaps park the bus in the garage, and get all together, including the local Marty, before we will together attempt to find a conclusion to why exactly our universes are different, before the mere presence of Marty and I will confuse you even more, let alone my difficult story which apparently did not even happen here in the first place?"
"I – I suppose" Clara said, still somewhat baffled. She led the other world travellers inside the house, and walked through the familiar home. Doc looked around to see his friends being around like they were at home: Jules, at the normal age of eleven, and nine-year-old Verne. Finally, they arrived in front of the lab, which seemed to be pretty similar to the lab in their version of the world. Everything, except for the Twin Pines Mall sign, seemed to match up.
Clara then knocked on the door. "Emmett?" she asked, her voice a little insecure of everything.
"Yeah, Clara?" the familiar call came back. "What's the matter? Did Martin go complain about having to get outside in this weather?"
Clara had to push back a giggle. "No, it was something entirely different" she told her husband. "Something you'll only find out about when leaving the lab."
There was a deep sigh from inside. "Clara, don't play jokes with me – I'm busy on an experiment. Can't you tell me what is going on right away, or else come in?"
"No, Emmett, I'm sorry" his wife called back. "I'm afraid that when I'll tell you, you won't believe me, and when I and the… the persons that want to speak to you come in, you will faint onto your equipment."
That was enough to make Emmett curious. The time travellers heard the local get up, and walk through the lab. Within a few moments, he was at the door, pressed his thumb to the plate, switched a key to the right, and opened the door. "Well, I'm here" he muttered. "What did you want to say – Great Scott, you're me!"
The last few words were uttered as Emmett finally noticed his other self and went pale. "Great Scott" he whispered. "I can't be seeing what I am seeing… this has to be an hallucination… you're me!"
"Not exactly" his other self corrected. "I am you, but from another dimension. I already explained things to your Clara. Are you familiar with the term?"
"In theory" Emmett admitted. "But I never thought I'd ever encounter one for real. The closest was when Marty and I visited that horrible world Biff Tannen was running. With his father being pushed into divorcing Marty's Mom, and living life as a bum, and Biff's Beer Casino on top of the Courthouse, and me committed…"
Doc raised an eyebrow. "Don't you mean Marty's father being shot, and Biff's Pleasure Paradise?" he asked, frowning. "The part about me being committed sounds familiar, but that's about it…"
"I've never heard about anything called 'Biff's Pleasure Paradise'" Emmett said. "I don't really see the pleasure in anything like it, to be honest. It sounds like a terrible place, but then again, Biff's Beer Casino was just as bad."
"Yeah, I suppose so" Doc said. "Emmett, whatever history went in your reality, we need your help. The time bus we're in has broken down on us, and we really need to fix it if we ever want to get home again. Marty and I both need your help if we ever want to get home again. I know it sounds farfetched, but you know I am you. You can see it. So, if you want to please another version of yourself, could you help us? You can at least take a look at the time machine and see if you have appropriate knowledge to fix it."
Emmett nodded. "I suppose I could" he muttered. "I suppose I should, too. Every feeling of decency inside me tells me I should at least try to help you. But before I do that, could you perhaps tell me what is going on? Your tale does sound interesting from what I've heard already, but I haven't heard enough to conclude things from yet."
"Point made" Doc nodded. "Why don't you telephone your Marty? Once you're done with that, we could maybe get all together, and then we'll tell the story. I'm sure that your Marty will be very interested, and maybe also more able to compare things better. After all, it was my Marty that went on the trip that your world apparently lacks – the trip back to 1955. It's safe to assume that said trip never happened here, so I'd like to hear the circumstances of why, and maybe Marty will be better in providing that information."
"That could be possible" Emmett said. "He should be practicing with the band right now. I suppose you know the Pinheads?"
"Yeah" Visiting Marty answered for the scientist. "Were they founded on March twenty-third, 1984?" Emmett nodded. "Good, at least that matches up."
"All right" Emmett said. "I'll call him – you two go into the living room and make yourself feel at home. Clara can serve you a cup of tea if you like. I don't know if you want any dinner, we've just had some, after all…"
"Not yet, thanks" Doc said. "It's almost six A.M. to us and we had dinner about four hours ago in the previous world, so we can last out without for a few hours. Don't bother, other me."
"Trust me, it won't be bothering" Emmett assured him. "I'm certain that Clara would be more than willing to prepare you some dinner while I'll go Marty, listen to your story and later have a look at the machine." He looked at Marty, who yawned. "You said it's near six A.M., now? On April third, I presume?" Doc nodded. "Have you two been awake all the time since the second?"
"I'm afraid, yes" Doc said. "We didn't really have any time or possibilities to sleep in the previous worlds. I didn't really want to, either. We'd only waste time… it's better that we hurry up and just spend brief periods in the other universes, so that we'll be enjoying our rest the more once we return home."
"You really should have a rest" Emmett urged. "I know how I myself can be in such situations. Honestly, I'd be more than willing to offer you a place to sleep. The house is not that big, and we do have a big family, but there should be at least one guest blanket, and I can ask Marty to bring over a spare one if he wants to drop by after the concert, which I'm certain of that he will. I know Marty, and if there's anything I can say about him, he's pretty curious about things like this… not that we ever encountered another me that was not from future or past before, but still, I can see him wanting to come over."
"Yeah, I suppose I would, too, hadn't I just been through this kind of experience" Visiting Marty admitted. "So, you're going to call him now?"
"Yes, I am" Emmett said, nodding. "You go to the living room. I'll be back soon." He then left to the hall, where, if the similarities between this house and the visiting inventor's they'd already seen were any indication, Emmett's phone was seated.
As the visitors then entered the living room, as Emmett had told them to, Marty couldn't help himself and let out a low whistle of amazement. "Whoa" he muttered. "Everything looks exactly the same! Down to the place the television stands and where Martin's box is and everything…"
"It certainly appears to be so" Doc nodded. "You know, Marty, I think this place is one of the first dimensions we've come across, with the exception of the first two of course, which was before we started hopping unintentionally, that might have the potentiality to help us out of this mess. I am holding up my hopes, at least."
"So am I" Marty muttered. "I can't wait to see Jennifer again. I just wanna go home, and this whole thing is already making me sick of dimension travelling. I don't hope that, once this is over – if this ever will be over – you'll force me to dimension travel soon again, Doc. Heck, I don't think I can face regular time travel soon afterwards. It'll certainly take me a month or two, to warm up to the concept again. Travelling through dimensions may seem cool, but it's a lot less fun when you suddenly can't go home anymore."
"I agree" Doc said. "But you shouldn't be so negative about ordinary time travel. It's not a bad concept. Anyway, I'm going to leave the DFSCUPCIF in the bus, so we'll just be able to do the normal things in the DeLorean or the train, as they are not modified for exploring more than just the ordinary four dimensions."
"If we ever get home" Marty added, a bit depressed.
"We will" Doc said, confidently. "Things might not look so positive now, but that will change and I know it. One day, we'll get home, and even if I'll have to hop through thousands of worlds and spend half a year on this, it'll be more than worth it if we do get home eventually. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything you want. I've believed that for so long I can't remember anymore when I started doing that, and I don't care. It's true, and that's what goes for me. Just be a little more optimistic, Marty, and everything will eventually turn out better than you could hope in your wildest dreams."
Marty was about to say something about there also being such a thing as too much optimism, just when Emmett entered. "I called Marty" he said. "He'll be here in fifteen minutes. I didn't explain too much about the situation to him, just the basics, but that was enough to get him interested. He's been a bit focused on his band and his family, lately, and has tried to make sure everything would turn out fine with his parents' future and his own."
Visiting Marty wondered why there should be anything wrong with his parents' future, as the George McFly he knew was a successful science fiction author who had just published his first book, but he decided to write it off as being nothing important and instead focused on other things. "So, are you going to take a look at the bus now?" he wanted to know. "We really do want to get home, and if you can't tell too much right away with the other me not being there yet and all, you should do something."
"Marty" Doc said, embarrassed. "That was not exactly what I would call 'polite'. We just walked in on our counterparts – or, actually, only on mine just yet – and you shouldn't rush things too much."
"I just wanna get home, Doc" Marty muttered, complaining. "Why don't you understand that?"
"I do understand that" Doc said. "I just try to approach things on a different way." He turned to his other self. "Sorry if you're bothered by my Marty's lack of a respectful attitude to you, he's not like this most of the time, you know…"
Emmett laughed. "It's nothing" he assured the visiting scientist. "But it does prove to me that the two of you are suffering from exhaustion. Why don't you lie down and rest for a while? It won't do you much harm, I can assure you."
"But it will take time" Doc said, as stubborn as he had been on that night he'd decided to tear up Marty's letter, November twelfth of '55 – had that even happened here? Probably not – and he shook his head. "You know how we feel when we have Clara away from us for only an hour, and it's not good. I don't want to have a continued sensation of that, thank you very much."
Emmett sighed. "You are feeling that by every minute you spend out of your home dimension, Clara is worrying about you" he said. It was a statement, not a suggestion, as both inventors knew what the other was talking about. "But you have to realize that, even with that feeling at the back of your head, you're tired enough to fall asleep right away. Trust me – I'm you, and I've been awake for twenty-four hours a number of times before, and it happened like that each time, so it will be similar with you unless you're so different from inside that it doesn't, which I don't think you are. But, anyway, when you're asleep, you won't notice that feeling anymore, and you can spend six to seven hours without it, and just relax, and take a look at the bus, and make you get home sooner. Doesn't that sound like an amazingly nice foresight to you? I know it would to me, if I was in such a similar situation as you are currently in."
"It does" Doc admitted. "A bit. But no more than a bit. I am a responsible scientist, and I am responsible for Marty and I both getting home. If my next counterpart still insists I'll go to sleep a bit and he has a bed around, I will sleep, but not right now." He looked at his other self. "And yeah, I'm firm about that. I know enough about sleeping patterns to know that if I want to, I can stay awake for some more time, and I'm determined to do just that!"
"All right, then" Emmett said, sighing. "As long as you will give in to my next counterpart. I'll tell your Marty, and tell him that he shouldn't let you refuse again. I know myself longer than today."
"That's okay" Doc said. "In fact, I would do the exact same. I know I should have some rest, but I'm not in the position to do that right now. I want to go home, and have some rest there, possibly even take the DeLorean or the train to go back to a day in which my mansion was empty, before we accidentally burned it down." He sighed. "Then again, seeing Copernicus again might be way too painful for me to take and to properly concentrate on sleeping."
"Yeah, I see what you mean" Emmett said, looking at Marty, who seemed to be resting in a couch and about to fall asleep. "Marty?" he asked, approaching the teenager. "It's five minutes prior to your other self's arrival, so you might want to open your eyes so you won't be too shocked when he arrives."
The teenager let out a groan. "Are we gonna sleep, Doc?" he asked, mistaking the local inventor for his visiting counterpart.
"It's Emmett, not Doc, however my counterpart from your dimension is standing right behind me" Emmett said. "And no, you aren't going to sleep here, but I managed to convince your other self that he should try to have some rest in the next reality where you can do that. Since you seem to be exhausted, I think I can trust you to stand up for your rights to have some sleep, can't I?"
"You definitely can" Marty said, nodding, as he got back to consciousness. "What time is it, by the way, in this dimension? We came into this world at six-forty in the evening if I remember things right…"
"You do" Doc confirmed. "It's actually seven-thirteen now, according to the clock over there. Local Marty should arrive within…" He frowned. "Two minutes, already. I hope, for your waking ability's sake, that he won't be late."
He wasn't. Just about two seconds after Doc finished that line, a black Toyota 4 by 4 truck raced up to the house and near-slipped to a halt as the driver pressed on the brakes, hard. Within moments, they could see Local Marty get out and run towards the door. Before Emmett could get there, the bell could be heard.
"I tried to get here as soon as possible" Local Marty said, as he walked into the living room. "The guys were a bit pissed off at me, since we were busy practicing, but I convinced them that there was some kind of a family emergency at your house." He chuckled. "Which was true, somewhat, as I think your other self might be the closest you have to yourself, which means it's definitely family." He then spotted Visiting Marty, staring at him with a kind of bored expression, did a double-take, and gasped. "Whoa, that's me?" he said. "Doesn't look too different from what I see in the mirror every day, actually. This is weirder than seeing a future or past self, or anything like it – even though I have no practice with that, of course."
Doc frowned. "You don't?" he asked. "What about when you travelled back to 1955 to get that almanac away from Biff?"
Local Marty shook his head, confused. "Nope, not then" he said. "We had just one me there, as we were going to the past, like on other time trips we took. We did have to avoid my folks, though, as they were dancing. Luckily, Biff didn't go to the dance, so that was one big worry less. Imagine what could've gone wrong if he did! If he tried to rape Mom, for instance, Dad definitely wouldn't have been able to get him away from her and my siblings and I might've never existed…"
Visiting Marty looked at him thoughtfully. "Your father didn't punch Biff out, then?" he asked, curiously.
Local Marty stepped back, startled. "Heck, no!" he exclaimed. "He couldn't have done it back then, and however he managed that in late October of '85, he was a wimp which was pushed around before. Too bad, and I told Doc – Emmett, now, I suppose – more than once that I'd want to go back and change that, but he says it would make too much alteration to history." From the tone of his voice – sarcastic – the visiting musician judged his counterpart was not really happy with that conclusion of his mentor. Understandable, the visitor figured, since if his Dad and Mom were still like they were before his first trip, he would've given anything to get a happier childhood.
"Well, you could tell him that didn't happen in our universe" Visiting Marty said, only then realizing what he'd let slip with that."
Local Marty frowned and gasped somewhat hopefully. "You mean, you did change your parents' past? You went to the fifties and had them get to be nicer and more successful and maybe even wealthier?"
The visitor nodded, noticing the look of envy that appeared on the local's face. "Yeah" he said. "Didn't do much good right away, though, since my future would've still not been okay if not for Doc helping me get over my problem with being called 'chicken'."
Local Marty frowned. "I never had a problem like that" he said. "Some people called me that, but I never reacted, not even once." He looked at Visiting Marty. "You mean you did react, and it had not so nice results?"
"Yeah" Visiting Marty said, then looked at Doc and Emmett, the latter of which had sat down, too. "Look, why don't you sit down, too, and we'll start from the beginning on?"
"A good idea" Emmett said, nodding, and motioning for Local Marty to take a seat. "So, who wants to start?"
"I will" Doc said. "I suppose you still got that demonstration on October twenty-sixth, 1985? Did you send Einstein one minute into the future, and did you tell Marty then you had invented a time machine? Did you demonstrate the time displays by tapping in November fifth, 1955, and some other dates? Did you then reload, and go tell about how you wanted to see the future, and then, the Libyans showed up and shot you?"
"Yeah to most of them, but no to the last" Emmett said. "You see, it went like this…"
Emmett told he had, back then, at the parking lot, looked up, as he had heard the barking of his dog, and went pale as he saw it was the Libyan terrorists he'd made a deal with previously. "Oh my God" he whispered. "They found me, I don't know how, but they found me." His heart suddenly tripled it's beating rate. "Run for it, Marty!"
"Who, who?" Marty called out, frantically.
Emmett looked at him as if he was stupid. "Who do you think, the Libyans!"
"Holy shit!" Marty called out, as the Libyans started heading over to the van. Emmett was about to suggest something like stopping them – he had a gun on him, after all – but one look at the weaponry his opponents had made him realize that wasn't a good idea. He grabbed the box of plutonium, and threw it to Marty. "Catch it and put it in the DeLorean!" he called out.
The teen nearly fell under the weight. "What do you want?" he asked, but Doc was heading into the van already, and came out with Einstein, whom he tossed over to Marty in the DeLorean. He was just about to follow, when the Libyans had reached them, and he found himself standing face to face with one of them, pointing a gun at his head.
For a second, Emmett thought that he would die. That second also lasted an incredible amount of relative time, too, making it even harder to bear. Then, it ended, as he grabbed his own gun and tried to fire. The thing jammed. Emmett, panicking, rose his hands above his head, throwing the gun away. He couldn't die, he couldn't die…
At that moment, Marty stuck his head out of the DeLorean, holding a bottle of plutonium. "If you move one more step, or even try to shoot with that gun, I'll throw this bottle against the van and kill you all!" he screamed, making sure the bottle was in sight and that the Libyans, who, according to him, most likely didn't speak English, understood him properly. He apparently didn't really want to kill them, but if he had to…
The Libyans exchanged glances, and then, they drove back a few yards, out of shooting range. Emmett quickly stepped into the DeLorean, as Marty moved back, and he shut the door as the shooting began again. Marty quickly put the plutonium bottle inside the box again, careful not to break it, closed it, and a fraction of a second after that, Emmett hit the gas, and they were on their way, racing through the parking lot, with the Libyans following them close behind.
As the speed increased and hit sixty-five and went past it, Doc noticed the time circuits were set to 1955. Suddenly getting a plan, he tapped in a new destination: October twenty-sixth, 2010, at six A.M.
Marty barely noticed, too distracted by viewing the road and the Libyans behind them. They soon hit seventy, then crept up to eighty. "Doc?" he asked. "What if we crash at this speed?"
Emmett looked at him in a mad way. "That's brilliant, Marty!" he exclaimed, excitedly.
"Us crashing is brilliant?" the teen asked in disbelief, rolling his eyes. "I know better ways to die."
"No, I didn't mean that" Emmett said, grinning. He looked out of the window and noticed that they were no longer on the Mall parking lot, anymore. He then looked at the Libyans approaching. "Hi ho silver" he whispered, concentrating on the soon-to-be plowed down old building that was rapidly approaching at the road. "Marty, hold on to your chair, tight!"
"What… do you…" Marty started, his face going pale.
Emmett ignored him. "Let's see if these bastards are as nutty as I think they are" he muttered, increasing the speed up to ninety, seeing the speedometer hitting eighty-five. He then took the DeLorean off the roads, through the fields and raced towards the building. Marty let out a shriek, and then, the time machine hit eighty-eight and vanished into the future, the Libyans hitting the building in a loud crash.
"Amazing" Doc of 1988 cut in. "So, you travelled to 2010?"
"Yeah, that's right" Emmett said, nodding. "Marty and I arrived in an empty spot. Once I stopped the car and explained what was going on and what I had done, he was pretty quick to adapt to the whole situation, and I drove him up to town. Together, we explored the fascinating future, and we had the DeLorean be hover-converted. That evening, I went to the library, and I left Marty behind in the hotel room we'd rented for the night. Luckily, he did not do anything to get himself into trouble, as he was way too tired from having been up for about two days. I found out the details about Marty's and his parents' future, but when I woke him up, I only told him about his son's fate."
"What happened?" Doc asked, curiously. "If this was some sort of a Twin Pines based 2010, based on Wimp George and Alcoholic Lorraine, I suppose that the exact circumstances I discovered were different. I discovered a Science-Fiction Writer George and Healthy Lorraine, as things had been in 1985. It was Marty who was different."
"That sounds different" Emmett said. "In the version of reality I discovered, George McFly was actually dying, Lorraine was in a retirement home for alcoholics, having divorced her husband in the late years of this Century, and Biff was still in relatively good health and pushing people around. Marty's future son, Marty Junior, had been pushed around by Griff Tannen and into a dare at school that would've gotten him kicked out and had his future ruined since he couldn't get a good job anymore because of a lack of education… no school wanted to teach him, after hearing what he had done. Marty Senior, lucky enough, was also okay, although I'll leave out the specifics here."
"Aww" Local Marty complained. "Can't you make an exception to your 'I'll say nothing about the future' rule for once, Doc? I wanna know what my future is like."
"I'm telling you it's fine" Emmett said, smiling knowingly. "Anyway, as I got back to the hotel room Marty and I were renting Marty was still sound asleep, and as I'd spent a lot of time sleeping before the time travel experiment, I decided to call Future Marty to make an appointment for that morning at six. Something I shouldn't have done, considering the time, but still, everything turned out fine. I visited him right on time, and talked to him for a while until I returned to the hotel room at nine. I then went to sleep a little more, and Marty used a computer for a while, and I had Einstein guard him so he couldn't look up his future."
"That was pretty childish of you" Local Marty complained.
"I suppose so, but I know what you can be like when it comes to discovering your future, Martin McFly" Emmett said, again smiling. "Anyway, I woke up at one P.M., ate lunch, and then we picked up the DeLorean and I picked up some newspapers – that was when I told Marty about what happened to his future kid, by the way. We discussed that for a while, and that evening at six P.M., I finally decided to leave Einie in some sort of kennel, and after dinner, we were headed twenty-five more years into the future, on October twenty-seventh 2035 at six A.M. again. There, I got a nice Fusion reactor and turned in the plutonium to the government. Unfortunately, filing for everything took us three days, so we weren't able to leave until the evening of the thirtieth."
"Let me guess" Doc said, remembering what he had done. "With Marty already there, your first stop must've been… October twenty-first, 2010? Was that when the thing with Marty Junior happened?"
"That's right" Emmett said, surprised. "How did you know? If you went to a different reality…"
"It was a different reality, and the year was 2015, but otherwise, there were remarkable similarities" Doc said. "While Marty Senior was in trouble for busting his hand in a Rolls Royce accident on the twenty-seventh of October '85, Junior was in trouble, too, and he was pushed into a robbery by the same Griff Tannen you saw. I suppose there must be something that is similar in all the universes… a self preservation effect for the space-time continuums, don't you think?"
"That might as well be possible" Emmett said, nodding. "Anyway, most things went according to plan, but once Marty had finished his mission with Griff, he bought a sports almanac with inside the scores from 1950 to 2000. I discovered it and threw it away, but as we were about to leave to go home again, finally, Biff Tannen came up to us and knocked us out with some branches. He was still quite strong, and he'd probably had taken care of himself medically by money he gained from bullying George McFly around. Anyway, he took the time machine back to the past, and when we tried to stop him, he had already vanished. Luckily, he reappeared about two minutes later, and we managed to overpower him. I then realized he didn't have the almanac on him anymore, and I checked the Last Time Departed, which was 1955 – November twelfth, at 6:38 P.M, just one week after I conceived of the flux capacitor, so I naturally was worried about Biff giving his younger self the info to build a time machine, or doing something to prevent me from building one… although I didn't know why, as Biff had a time machine on himself at that point. I did want a time which was something a little more specific, though, so I figured that maybe I could head back to sometime later to check with Biff. I figured that having Marty be mistaken for himself nor Calvin Klein would be fine, so I first thought of some place in the middle of the two time periods, 1970, but then, I decided 1975 would be nicer, to see if our meeting still happened. On November fifth, the day I treasured so much. We flew away from the Square and into 1975, wondering what kind of world we would find."
"I can only imagine what that was like, having seen Lone Pine Biff's world" Doc said, sighing. "And this Biff was a lot more confident than that."
"Yeah, he definitely was" Marty nodded. "We arrived over a Square with a Beer Paradise, which appeared to have been finished just recently. As I approached the building, I found Dad being a drunken bum on the streets, and Dave, only thirteen, was the same. Nine-year-old Linda was already a prostitute, and when I got in, I found my seven-year-old self being abused by Biff. I then approached him under the guise of one of his co-workers – honestly, not even my counterpart recognized me – and asked him where he got the almanac. He told me the circumstances – it had been that evening – and then, I left for Emmett, but not until Biff tried to shoot me. Emmett knocked him out with a gull wing door and we headed back to '55, at six in the evening."
"Most of it sounds familiar" Doc remarked. "We actually went to six A.M., but I still knocked out Biff with the gull-wing door. But what happened in 1955?"
"I luckily didn't have to chase Biff around town, since he stayed at home looking at the almanac" Marty said. "He did try to knock me out, though. Nearly succeeded, too. We had a tug-war over the almanac, and finally, I got it. Doc was close to me then – it was almost nine-thirty P.M. – and we flew over to Lyon Estates, where the storm was just starting. Unfortunately, Doc got struck by lightning. I cried about him being gone, but luckily, a Western Union guy showed up with a letter from 1885."
"Sounds familiar" Visiting Marty smirked. "Let me guess – you headed to find Doc from '55, who fainted at the sight of you?"
Local Marty frowned. "Nope, he didn't faint" he said. "I headed up to the Courthouse to watch the lightning strike, and after that, I headed up to Doc's mansion. There, things actually went like this…"
Marty felt weirded out, as he hoverboarded through the rain up to the Brown mansion. First of all, Doctor Emmett Lathrop Brown, his friend for his entire life, had vanished to the Old West. Second of all, he was in the past, which seemed very surreal after spending almost a week in the future, and third of all, he was about to confront a Doc who was unaware of the fact that time travel (and Marty himself) existed.
Sighing, he finally set his hoverboard next to the porch, and knocked on the door. If Emmett didn't open, he was going to be in serious trouble.
Luckily, though, his worries didn't come through. The scientist opened the door, and frowned. "Who are you?" he asked, without the faintest trace of recognition. "It's ten-fifteen. My dog and I were about to turn in for the night."
Marty looked down, and saw a dog close to the inventor who resembled Einstein a lot. Perhaps a relative? Who cared. "Doc" the teen insisted. "I'm from the future. I came here in a time machine that you invented. Now, I need your help to get me and your future self back to the year 1985."
Emmett looked at him like he was insane, then burst out in laughter. "That's a good one, kid!" he exclaimed. "1985! Tell me, who's president in that year?"
"Ronald Reagan" Marty said, confidently.
Emmett '55 now really couldn't keep his laughter behind. "Now that's a good joke!" he exclaimed. "Ronald Reagan – the actor – as president! Then Jane Wayman must be the first lady – and Jerry Lewis vice-president! What a nonsense! Think I believe that, kid?" He was about to slam the door shut, but Marty quickly stuck his right foot in the doorway.
"Wait a second, Doc" he pleaded. "You can't shut the door on me now! I'm telling the truth, you really have to believe me!"
"Sure I do, kid" Emmett said, getting bored. "Get out of here. It was a nice joke, but now I've got to go to bed and before that do some more calculations on my latest invention, one I came up with just a week ago. I don't have time for this…"
"Of course!" Marty exclaimed. "That invention! I know what it is! It's the flux capacitor, which is what makes time travel possible! You were standing on your toilet and you were hanging a clock, then you slipped and hit your head and came up with the idea for it!"
Emmett gasped. "How did you know that?" he asked. "Did you spy on me last Saturday?"
Marty shook his head. "You told me, Doc" he said, firmly. "You told me the whole story, back in 1985." As the scientist started to doubt his initial conclusion, Marty took out his wallet. "Look at this" he insisted, taking out a photograph. "My brother, my sister and I. Look at her sweatshirt Doc. Class of 1984?"
"You could've made a fake photograph" Emmett said. "Although it looks pretty real."
"Then look at this Doc" Marty insisted, getting out another photograph. "This is you and me in front of the Courthouse in 2010. Look at that guy on the picture – that's you all right. Look at the handwriting at the back? Tell me that ain't yours and I'll go away."
Emmett looked at the photograph, eyes growing wide, and at the back of the picture. "Doc Brown and Marty McFly, October twenty-sixth 2010" he read. He then stared at Marty. "You're from the future." Marty nodded, and noticed Emmett getting more excited with the moment. "It works!" he exclaimed. "I finally invented something that works!"
"It works all right" Marty muttered.
"Well, if your story is true, then I'm responsible to help you get home" Emmett concluded. He looked past Marty and onto his land. "Where's the time machine?"
Marty gulped uneasily. "You see, Doc, that is where the problems come in…"
At this point, Visiting Marty smiled. "Amazing" he whispered, sort of imitating Doc. "You mean that you actually had to tell Emmett about everything? I'd already first met him the week before, so I never had that kind of trouble."
"Yeah, I did have to do that" Local Marty said. "I told him about the time machine and about our adventures and about 1885. Doc read the letter to me, and that morning we picked up some things at a shop that was opened on Sundays. Monday morning, we blasted open the Delgado Mine and got out the DeLorean. I then discovered…"
"…Doc had been shot by Tannen" Visiting Marty finished. "You headed back to 1885 but ripped the fuel line 'cause you ran into some Indians. You spent the night with Seamus and Maggie McFly. Doc and you tried to have the DeLorean run on alternate fuels and finally decided pushing it up with a locomotive was the best, and when you were at the ravine you saved Clara Clayton's life?"
Local Marty nodded. "Did you all go to the town festival and Buford tried to shoot Doc? You prevented it but he… well, I guess he called you a chicken and challenged you for Monday morning at eight A.M.?"
"Yeah, that happened" Visiting Marty said. "What do you mean with 'I guess'?"
"It didn't happen that way in our world" Local Marty explained. "I ignored Buford mostly, and eventually, he gave up on me, with Seamus commenting how wise I was being by not being like his brother, Martin. Let's see, the rest should be the same… the next night, did you then find Doc telling you he was in love with Clara but you talked him out of staying behind, and he talked himself out of taking her with us? He then headed over to her, was dumped, and spent the night in the saloon with a glass of whiskey in hand? You woke up that morning, checked on Clara, and then arrived in town at seven-forty-five? You persuaded Doc to come along with you but he then drank from the whiskey and passed out at once?"
"Exactly!" Visiting Marty called out. "We really must be similar at this point… until now. In our world, Doc woke up from the wake-up juice Chester poured inside him, but not until Buford had shown up and I had realized that being called a chicken was not as important as surviving. I then tried to flee together but Doc was stopped and I had to go out to save him. I used the stove door trick from that Clint Eastwood movie… kind of borrowed it from Doc's bullet-proof vest thing… and knocked Buford in the face a few times before he fell into a manure wagon. I then looked at the photograph together with Doc and saw the tombstone fading in front of my eyes. I then heard the train whistle sound and Doc told me that we'd make it if we cut it off at Coyote Pass, and that worked."
"Exciting" Local Marty muttered. "When Doc woke up, we just narrowly caught up to the train in time, jumped on the back, put our masks on, and hijacked it… nothing concerning Buford Tannen, at least." He looked up. "Let's see… this should stay the same… did you then push up the DeLorean with Doc in the train and you inside the car, but did Clara come after you and did she confront you at fifty? Did Doc go back for her, but was he left hanging at a pipe when the red log blew at seventy-two, and Clara hung from her dress?"
"I'm afraid so" Doc answered for his friend, shuddering at the horrifying memory. That certainly hadn't been fun.
Visiting Marty patted his back, sympathetically. "It's all right, Doc" he muttered, then he focused on his counterpart. "Were you in the DeLorean lifted off the tracks and raced forwards with only the back wheels there? When you landed normally again, did you then find the hoverboard and threw it out to Emmett, who managed to catch it and save Clara just in time? Did they hover off, and then you discovered you were at eighty-four, closed the door and braced yourself as you travelled to the future? Once there, was the time machine destroyed by a train from the '80s?"
Local Marty nodded. "Yeah" he muttered. "I don't believe this. Did you then go home, saw everything was back to normal including Biff, and then you headed out with the truck to grab Jennifer? Did you then drive up to the traffic lights near the Hilldale housing development, and were you challenged by Needles to race, but when the light went to green, you drove forwards instead of backwards and saw a Rolls Royce coming out of a side road and did you realize at that point you could've hit it – you would have hit it, if you had accepted Needles' challenge?"
Visiting Marty nodded. "Yeah, and I suppose here comes at least one of the difference between our realities. In the world that I consider home, Jennifer then took out a fax she had from our trip to the future, and watched the writing on it – it said 'YOU'RE FIRED', as my other self had been that evening after the hoverboard chase – fade away into nothing. Since your Jennifer was not along on that trip to the future, she never had an experience like that?"
"Nope" Local Marty nodded. "I took her to a restaurant to grab a snack, didn't tell her anything, and then, we headed out to see the DeLorean wreckage, hoping that would convince her. I was just about to explain to her what had happened, when Emmett appeared out of nowhere with his brand new steam train time machine, Clara and his two sons. I explained to Jennifer that this was a time machine, which Emmett confirmed, and he gave me a parcel as souvenir – him and I standing in front of the Courthouse clock in 1885."
"Sounds similar" Visiting Marty said. "Only, in our world, I talked with Jennifer a lot about my adventures under dinner, and I took her out to see the wreck because I'd told her about the DeLorean being destroyed once I arrived back in the present. Doc's visit went as you told me. Did Emmett, too, head off after that parcel with the message that our future hadn't been written yet… no, wait, Doc only did say that after Jennifer gave him the fax from the future and asked him what it meant."
"Well, he did say something like that" Local Marty confirmed. "He said that after Jennifer asked what was going to be our future now, now that our son was all okay. He said pretty much the same you just told me, and then he flew off up to eighty-eight and vanished into the past."
"I can't believe it" Doc said, shaking his head. "Except for that first trip to 1955, which never took place here, and twisted versions of the trips to 2015, Biff's world and 1955, things turned out pretty similar here. I still got married to Clara, still got Jules and Verne, I still moved back home and got Martin… we're actually pretty close in the space-time continuums, I think, judging from what I've seen so far."
"Does that mean that our next trip could bring us home?" Visiting Marty asked, not wanting anything more desperate than that at the moment.
Doc's answer was neither a denial or a 'yes'. "Theoretically, that could have happened with every trip we took, and every trip we're going to take" he said. Seeing that Marty got a little depressed from that, he soon added: "However, it does mean that most likely, my local self might have the abilities to help us. Do you think you do, Emmett?"
"I can at least have a look" the local said. "I can't promise anything, of course, but I want to at least give it a shot. I know how I would feel if I was stranded between dimensions, and I don't want you to keep hopping because I didn't want to help you."
"Thanks" Doc said. "Then I suppose I'd better take you outside and show you the time bus." Emmett nodded, and Visiting Marty watched as the two inventors, busily conversing about their lives and their greatest invention, headed off to once more try a desperate attempt to repair whatever was going wrong with the time bus that caused it to refuse to get them home. Somehow, Visiting Marty was doubting they'd succeed. He sighed, and internally prepared himself for soon having to make another round of dimension travel, explanations, repair attempts, and finally the 'sorry, can't fix it' answer the locals always gave. He sighed again, deeply. Was he ever going to get home?
oooooooo
"Sorry, me, but you're not going home now."
Doc stared at Emmett, then at the clock, which said nine-thirty P.M., then back at his counterpart. "Really?" he asked. "I thought you'd work something out. You do look pretty similar to me at this."
"Sorry" the local apologized, again. "I know I'm pretty similar, I can see it, too, but I never even thought of building a time machine out of a bus. I spent my free time helping Marty out or setting up the business with Emmett Brown Enterprises again. I'm doing pretty well – the town figured I was weird when I let them know about my nine-year-long not publicly known wedding, and they thought Clara and the boys had to be crazy, too, if they were the sons and wife of a guy that lived separate from his wife for all that time. But, luckily, they soon warmed up to them, especially Clara and Verne, and later Martin – Jules was the last the town's kids befriended. Eventually, my family helped me decrease my small 'bad reputation' in town, instead of making it larger as Marty expected when I told him exactly what my plans were."
Doc smirked. "My Marty had that kind of reaction, too" he said. "He hates how bad some people in town treat me sometimes, and he didn't want that to stay that way. He tried to persuade me to try to get Clara and the boys into normal Hill Valley life some other way. He relaxed, eventually, but not really until I told him that I'd move back to early 1995 otherwise." He smirked. "The thought of not seeing me for almost ten years apparently did the trick. He did not want me to be back over five years after his wedding, four years after first getting success as a rock star – and, to be honest, that wouldn't have been too smart either. At that point, I'd seen… well, accidentally stumbled over information about myself in the future before, still alive in 2025, with Jules and Verne in their late forties and I knew better than to push his life forwards a decade. Who knew, after all, maybe I was supposed to do something between 1985 and 1995 that had in the original history been one of the things I saw in 2015? No man knows the future, after all."
"My thoughts exactly" Emmett said, nodding. "That was one of the major reasons I moved back to 1985 instead of 1995, besides the fact that it was my home era and that I missed teenaged Marty. And I have to say I'm glad to have made the decision I made."
"I am, too" Doc said. "Although I might've never built the bus in that situation, and I might've never ended up in this kind of trouble." He looked at his counterpart. "Aw, well. It could've been worse – at least we don't need plutonium to fuel our time machine anymore. I'll go call Marty – do you mind making a nice long check on the systems? I'd like to keep it a habit to check every time we depart. I don't want to even run the slightest risk to have missed something that might've caused us to end up home next time." He shivered as he merely thought of ruining his own chances to get him and Marty home… perhaps his only chance.
"I understand" Emmett said, softly. He turned on the readouts, and Doc heard him rattle off the information needed as he himself headed over to the house.
It was so easy, he thought, looking at it, to pretend that it was home, to just settle down and do like the kids in there were his, and the Clara in there was his wife, and not the wife of another counterpart of himself. But he couldn't – he knew that, if he did that, then his Clara and Jules, Verne and Martin would never see him again. He had a family to take care of, and he had responsibilities he wanted to take care off, no matter if it cost a million trips or more. And he knew Marty felt the same about Jennifer.
Doc just had to think about leaving his wife and children behind forever to make him shudder. Jules would probably feel emptier than ever and lonelier, having at least been able to sympathise with his old man about his love for science. He probably wouldn't be able to take the rest of his years in school that were needed for him to reach his beloved PhD in physics and quit for some weird job a long time before that. Verne would not have Marty nor his father around, and would not have a role model anymore in either of them, and he most likely wouldn't become an actor, but perhaps he'd even go live on the streets. Martin would barely know his father, having been just seventeen months old – not even completely, yet – and he would not have a happy life either. And Clara's fate was something the scientist didn't even want to think about. He shivered. No, the wisest decision was to go on and try to get home, eventually, or hit a reality with a him that could fix the machine.
The inventor entered the familiar house, tried hard to ignore everything around him, and instead headed straight for Marty, who was sitting on the bench, a bored expression in his face. "Come on" he said, simply. "We have to go."
Marty looked at him, his expression making obvious he knew what the inventor was going to say already. "He failed, didn't he?" the musician said, half-chuckling. "The other you's can't be very smart."
"Why don't you do it yourself, if you can better" Doc said. He wasn't really annoyed at Marty's behaviour, as he knew that his angry-seeming words and Marty's rudeness were caused by the same thing – exhaustion. He vowed to himself that even if his next self wouldn't have the abilities to help them, he should at least try to get some sleep, there, along with Marty – unless Next Doc didn't have a bed around, of course.
"Hey, you're the scientist" Marty said, defensively. "I was just wondering why fate seems to be against us today. No one is able to fix the time machine! Maybe it's really our destiny to keep hopping through other worlds this way." He made a disgusted sound, which made clear that he did not enjoy that possibility.
"Theoretically speaking, there's no such thing as 'destiny'" Doc said. "So we still have hopes to return home some time. Come on, Marty – let's try again."
Visiting Marty made an annoyed sound, waved a quick goodbye to his local self, and then followed Doc up to the bus. Emmett looked up as they arrived, and looked at Visiting Marty before directing his look at Doc.
"Sorry" he apologized. "I tried my best to fix the thing, but it seems not to want to listen to my reasoning – which is only logical, as it's a machine, but that still isn't nice. I even did an extra test to make sure everything's all right. It says yes, so I suppose that something big must really be off, if you are really hopping between so much worlds and still typed in the same codes."
"Oh, great" Marty groaned. "We've been through three dimensions now, looking for help, and the only conclusion that is drawn is that this ain't just a little glitch, but it's a big one. Thanks a lot, Emmett, for finding out something we already knew."
"Marty!" Emmett exclaimed. "That was not something nice to say."
"So what?" the teen argued back. "I'm tired." He headed towards his seat in the bus and resumed his position.
"I'm sorry" Doc then said, to Emmett. "He must be really exhausted. Normally he isn't like that, but it is eight-forty-two A.M. in our world, now. And if one hasn't slept for over twenty hours… I do have problems with staying awake, but not as much as Marty has. That is, of course, because I have more experience with all-nighters." He yawned. "Still, I'm pretty exhausted, as well."
The local nodded, understanding. "Maybe you shouldn't have turned down my offer to stay for the night" he said. "You two do look rough. My offer still stands, so if you want to turn around and have some rest after all, be my guest."
Doc refused, politely. "No, thanks" he said. "I'd prefer to do at least one more dimensional jump before sleeping. Thank you very much for the offer, though."
"My pleasure." Emmett stepped off the bus. "Well… I hope not 'see you', for once, since that would probably mean that you'll keep dimension hopping. I'd prefer 'farewell' in this situation."
"Goodbye" Doc compromised. Emmett grinned, and watched as the bus lifted up from the ground, and blasted off through the sky, accelerating rapidly.
Inside, Marty leaned forwards. "Where are we going, Doc?" he asked. "Or, better, when?"
"Let's try high noon again, and see if it helps better to stay awake" Doc said. "I'm more than willing to have some sleep in the next reality, but there's no need to do something that is not necessary. Destination Time: April 2, 1988, 12:44 P.M., Hill Valley, California."
"Why do you keep mentioning the location?" Marty asked, frowning. "And why do you have a display for it? It's not like you can actively control the place you go to."
Doc shrugged. "No, but that is the next addition I'm planning to add to the time machines, or at least to the train, as it will be more helpful by family trips than by short trips. I'm kind of tired of only having about a century and a half history to choose from, because in the early Nineteenth Century, Hill Valley didn't even exist… it was Spanish-speaking before the late 1840s, and belonged to Mexico. So, anyway, I added in the display because I know it will come in handy, once I finish this project."
Marty smiled. "All right" he said. "Let's just go now, okay?"
Doc understood his anxiety, and accelerated through the sky. Due to the emptiness and lack of airplanes or other flying objects – luckily they weren't in the Twenty-First Century now – it didn't take long for the highly modified bus to reach eighty-eight miles per hour. There was a brief, but intense flash of light, a few sonic booms, and within seconds, the time machine had moved on to the next dimension.