Chapter 1
2024
Marty McFly stepped into his garage Sunday afternoon. His eyes scanned over the parts of the Delorean scattered on the floor. Had managed to get the debris from Doc Brown's first time machine and secured it secretly in his garage.
He had lost contact with Doc and wasn't sure what became of his friend. Doc was missing somewhere in time. His face strained as he recalled the night before the mall and how he witnessed the attack by the terrorist that first trip through time. He feared Doc had enemies and what could have happened to him.
Marty's life did not turn out the way he planned despite the attempts to change things for the better. His son would not speak to him assuming he was crazy as Marty tried to explain how he traveled through time and changed things for the better. His daughter was too busy with her own husband and small children and didn't wish to have Marty telling tall tales to her children.
Marty found himself alone as Jennifer passed away of cancer a year prior. He was now alone and the thought of getting the Delorean going once more and finding Doc was all that drove the man to get out of bed every morning.
Ironically, his one friend was the granddaughter of the one man he never considered a friend, Biff Tannen. Jackie Tannen was the exact opposite of the her grandfather. She reminded Marty of Jennifer when she was a teenager but with Doc Brown's scientific smarts.
Marty turned as he heard her pull up the driveway on her bicycle. He looked out the garage doorway at the young woman wearing a purple cyclist helmet, jeans and denim jacket over a white blouse with brown boots and sporting a black canvas backpack. She rode to the garage door and dismounted the bike with a grin as she greeted her favorite employer. She removed the helmet and cheered, "Morning Mr. McFly." She leaned the bike against the side of the garage and looked upon Marty's much older face. He had not shaved and had a few days worth of beard. His hair was cut short and he looked about sixty years of age though he was in his fifties. Losing his wife aged him and it showed in his blue eyes.
He held out a arm in a half hug, "Hey Jackie!" he hugged her slightly. "How was your driver's test?"
She let out a heavy sigh. "I flunked." she miffed.
"How did you flunk?" he wondered.
"I didn't get enough practice in. Parallel parking is hard." she miffed. "It would have been nice if my parents would have let me drive once in a while."
"I'll take you out driving." he promised. "I got something to show you." he motioned towards the garage. He followed Jackie inside and waited for her response.
Jackie stepped inside the garage and found pieces of a car scattered about. "Um…it's a car….I think."
"Not just any car." Marty grinned. "This was Doc Brown's Delorean. The one he made into a time machine. I got it! I got the whole thing and you can help me put it back together."
Jackie paused and looked upon him. "You realize that no one believes you actually went through time, Mr. McFly."
He confessed, "I know! Once we get it back together, you will see."
She winced, "You mean we are going to put that thing together?" She motioned towards the mess to her side.
"We are!" he grinned. "You are good at science and with tools. If anyone can put Doc Brown's Delorean back together…It's you, Jackie. You can do anything if you put your mind to it."
She reminded him, "I just flunked my driver's licenses test."
"You will pass next time." he assured her.
She looked about and then came up with a proposal. "Okay! If I put this car back together then you will take me out driving so I can pass my test?"
"Deal!" he offered his hand to shake.
She shook his hand and gave a hard nod. "Deal!" she agreed. She then looked about and gave a heavy sigh. "This is going to take some time."
"You got more time than you think you have." he grinned. "It's a time machine."
"Yeah…" she winced not believing. She walked over the scattered pile of parts. It was obvious that Doc Brown had modified the car considerably. She found the remains of the box with the flux capacitor. She pointed, "What's this?"
Marty explained, "That is the flux capacitor and what makes time travel possible."
She cocked an eyebrow, "It would need to create a wormhole to make time travel possible."
"It can be put in any vehicle." Marty explained. "Doc even put one in a train."
She lifted the box and began to look at the parts. "I think I can put this back together. I will need a lathe to make some of it." she concluded.
"You got my whole garage and tool shed." he promised.
"In order to create a wormhole it will require electricity." she mentioned.
"One point twenty one gigawatts." Marty told her. "A bolt of lightening!"
"Or nuclear fusion." She pondered how Marty knew just how much power would be needed. "You would also have to be going at a high rate of speed to cross the wormhole's threshold." she figured.
"Eight-eight miles per hour." Marty agreed.
She looked at him and blinked. Maybe he was telling the truth all along and wasn't crazy after all. Maybe, the Delorean really was a time machine. "That's right." she nodded a bit stunned.
"I am financing this little project. I'm putting my entire life savings. Whatever you need to make this Delorean and the flux capacitor whole, just let me know." he confided in her.
"You sure you want to do that?" she asked concerned.
He nodded, "I've never been more sure about anything in my life. You and I are going on an adventure of a life time. You can't just buy a ticket for this."
"You want me to rebuild Doc Brown's time machine and go through time." she assessed. It sounded insane to her. She shook her head, "I'm such a screw up. My parents basically ignore me. I have no friends. I'm the school nerd. I can't even pass my driver's test. I'm stuck riding a bicycle everywhere I go."
"When I was your age my folks ignored me. I got picked on by your family. Your grandpa had the hots for my mom. I rode a skateboard all over town. My best friend was Doc and my wife was the only bright spot in my life." he told her.
She made a face. "Grandpa Biff had the hots for your mom?"
He nodded.
She soured. "He's so weird."
Marty agreed, "True."
Six Weeks Later
Jackie had spent her summer working for Marty in the garage at restoring the car and flux capacitor. She managed to buy a second Delorean as the frame of Doc's car was completely destroyed. She focused mainly on rebuilding the flux capacitor and the support systems. She needed to upgrade the computer system and even added a few more features including navigation and stored a library of encyclopedias on memory sticks to access as Marty suggested a source of information that could be transported through time with them. She listened to his stories of his trips through time and asked many questions of which he had a sound answer. As the equipment came together and coupled with Marty's testimony she began to believe that perhaps it was all true after all.
She arrived for work Monday morning in the middle of a heat wave in summer. She wanted to get to work early before the temperatures rose. Marty was waiting for her as he had a surprise.
Marty stood in the doorway with a cup of coffee in hand wearing cut off jeans and a white t shirt. He just got out of the shower and was ready for the day. "Morning!" he cheered and raised his coffee cup in a toast. "How was your birthday, Jackie? How does it feel to be seventeen?"
"My birthday sucked." she remarked. "It feels like it did when I was sixteen."
"Didn't get anything good?" he asked amused.
She shook her head, "I got nothing at all. Not even a 'happy birthday'. They all forgot."
He blinked, "You whole family forgot your birthday?"
"As usual." she nodded. "They forget every year. I don't think they even know how old I am."
Marty handed her a birthday card he held in his hand. "I didn't forget. Happy Birthday, Jackie!"
She graciously took the card. "Thank you, Mr. McFly." she fawned. "Why couldn't you have been my dad? You are the coolest dad in town."
He reminded her. "Everyone thinks I'm crazy."
"I don't think you are crazy." she assured. She opened the card and read it. A smile crept across her face. "Thank you." She hugged him grateful.
"You're welcome, kid." he assured. There was no money, no gift cards nothing but a greeting and she was grateful for it. His own kids expected something when they were teens. They wanted gift cards and cash like most teenagers. But Jackie was different from teens and he found her work ethic and honesty refreshing. He also found she idolized the 1980's and would ask about what was life back in the day. "You can drop the 'Mr. McFly', Jackie and just call me by my first name. You're my friend."
"If you insist." she agreed.
He then declared, "And for your birthday I'm treating you to lunch and some ice cream."
She grinned. "Sounds good."
He asked, "What's your favorite ice cream?"
"Chocolate chip mint or butter pecan." she mentioned.
He paused for a moment and recalled his travels. "I don't know why you are obsessed with the 80's when your taste is the 50's."
She shrugged. "I want to get that flux capacitor laid out today." She then walked into the garage to start her day. "I have an idea for the power plant. Instead of using fusion, I can store the power in a battery and using a special traducer that I am designing myself, supply the stored energy to the flux capacitor at a specific time. I'm designing a special battery that will hold that much charge. The battery will be the frame of the car, like a Tesla."
"You mean you found a way to make it an EV?" he asked excited. "Like a Tesla?"
She shook her head. "I applied the EV aspect to the flux capacitor. That's electric. The gas is sill a gas engine."
Marty grinned, "Be cool to put it in the new cybertruck."
"You would need twice the battery capacity." she concluded. "Not a bad idea though. The stainless steal construction is the perfect conductor."
He had to laugh a bit to himself. "Man, I wish you met Doc, Jackie. You two working together would be awesome."
"I hope we find him." she replied.
Six Weeks Later
Summer had come to an end and Jackie dreaded going back to school. It was boring on an elementary level for the young woman. She was self taught and used the internet to gain access to text books not offered in school or even the local library. Marty had given her Doc Brown's notes and drawing that he had possession of to study and use to recreate the time machine. Jackie decided to ditch going to actual school and signed up for remote learning for her senior year and thus she could work on the time machine.
She showed up at Marty's garage much to his surprise the first day of school. She had the school's laptop with her in the backpack as she was going to squeeze in her schooling as she worked.
Marty asked, "Don't you have school?"
She nodded, "I signed up for remote learning my senior year. I can do it while I am working here over the computer."
He stood and blinked, "They still got remote school thing going?"
She grinned, "Yup! Greatest thing to happen to someone like me. I hate school. I hate going. I can work on my own this way."
Marty asked, "But don't you miss your friends from school?"
She balked, "I don't have any friends in school. You are my best friend, Marty. Everyone in school are dullards who only care about doing stupid shit, how they look and what gender they feel like being today."
"Wait!" Marty gasped a bit confused. "What gender they feel like being today?"
"Switching up your gender is all the rage." she told him. "Some even identify as cats, dogs, animals. Honestly, it's stupid."
He stood a bit beside himself. "Animals!"
She shrugged it off. "While my classmates are deciding what Tik Tok challenge to do and what piercing to get, I'm building an actual time machine. There really isn't anything I can communicate with them about. We're just not the same."
Marty stated, "If we get Doc's time machine to work and we got back to the 80's. I'll have you enroll in school so you can make friends who are not…that confused."
She laughed. "It would be so awesome to live in the 80's. It was such a neat decade. You guys rocked. You had all the good music. The neat movies. Movie theaters, malls, stores and styles."
Marty mentioned, "I kind of like the 50's when it came to styles."
"Gen X is the last of the feral generation. You had such freedom." she told him. "My generation is so lame. Everyone knows where you are at all times, teachers can text your parents, no freedom, malls suck and no one can afford gas or a car."
He gave a sigh. "I guess each generation has their own issues to deal with. How close are we on the Delorean?"
"After today we should be ready to start a test." she determined. "I figure an empty mall parking lot should be good."
Marty followed her inside the garage and to the work bench where she had the flux capacitor laid out to be installed in the car. "Twin pines is empty." he mentioned.
"You mean Lone Pine Mall?" she asked unsure.
He informed. "Originally, it was Twin Pines Mall. Then I changed that when I ran over one of the old man's pines." He laughed a bit to himself.
"Do you know anything about timeline, Marty?" she wondered.
He declared, "I know to not go back in time and accidentally break up your parents."
She paused and had to ask, "You did that?"
He confessed, "I did. I had to get them back together again or I would not have been born."
She suggested "Maybe we should write a handbook on time travel."
He cheered, "I did. I wrote a manuscript and my dad tried to help me get it published. That deal fell through though."
She asked, "Everything happened in Hill Valley, right? You never left town."
He nodded as he recalled. "Yup, never left town. Just visited town in different times."
She wondered, "Any idea of what happened to Doc Brown?"
"I never saw him against after he left in the train. He swung by for a visit, introduced me to his kids and left to go back to the future. Something changed. I went to 2015 when I was your age. When I was there I saw floating skateboards and more tech. We don't have what was there the first time. Doc had converted the train engine and the Delorean to levitate and fly. We lost it. There was no need for roads in the future." he informed. "Technology didn't go as far as it was supposed to go."
She proposed, "What if there is more than one time traveler, Marty? Maybe someone who stopped or slowed technology."
"I suppose that is possible." he agreed.
She smirked, "Then we cannot stay in town when we time travel. We need to get out of town and find who else has the technology. Time could be a weapon. The ultimate weapon."
"You are scaring me, Jackie." he stated alarmed.
"You just said you broke up your parents and nearly wiped yourself out." she reminded him. "You of all people should know it can be applied as a weapon."
"I know. It's just not something I want to think about." he confessed. He then countered, "But we can use it for good."
She agreed, "Counter measures."
"Counter measures." he agreed.