End of the Future, Part 16

26 Years of Adventures

Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I am doing wrong (to correct it).

Special Author Note: For this one occasion, please do not read the Author Notes until you have finished the chapter!

Hill Valley
Blacksmith Shop
1872

Emmet Braun stirred in his bed. The last dregs of sleep dissipating with the early morning light. It was the same dream he had been having since he could remember.

Darkness.

Darkness and pain.

Darkness, pain and two voices.

The first one asking on a level tone, almost indifferent. "Trust me." She said, though he could barely understand the words because of the pain. It felt as if he had been shot in the chest. Even for a dream, it was excruciatingly painful.

The second voice answered angrily, "T-T-Trust you?"

The first one added another word, he wasn't sure, but it sounded like "Bitch."

Then he woke up completely.

He shook his head, and sniffed at the crisp morning air. He heard clockwork noises, and laid down on the bed. Breakfast would be ready in a few minutes more. There was no hurry to start the day.

Appreciatively, he listened to the sounds made by the clunky contraption that occupied a large volume of his shop. Each night, just before going to bed, he loaded it with eggs, slices of bread, water, coffee, honey, bacon, and coal, wound up a few springs, loaded the coal and matches in specific places, set the time in the clock, and knew his breakfast would be cooked by the time he had dressed himself.

"Emmet! Emmet!" A frantic voice called from the shop door. Doc recognized the silhouette that occupied the whole threshold.

"Mayor Johnson! What can I do for you?" Doc asked, wiping his hands on a clean cloth, before shaking the hand of the rotund little man.

"I just got this telegram!" He shook a yellow sheet of paper. "A very important traveler is coming! He and his valet and companion will arrive in the train in a few hours. They have some kind of gadget they need repaired and asked for a very competent blacksmith who knows about steam machines! I thought of you immediately!" The Mayor looked at the breakfast machine with amused approval. He had been invited to try it once. Once had been enough.

"Of course, Mayor. Count on me." Emmet paused, "Say, who is the traveler?"

"It's that British chap, Emmet! The one who bet he could circumnavigate the world in just 80 days! Phileas Fogg!" (1)

Emmet smiled like if all his birthday gifts had been updated, upgraded, sent again, and multiplied!

"Marty!" He shouted towards the bedroom, "We have special work to do! Get the tools and the spares!"

"Wha..?" Marty asked, scratching his head and blinking the sleep off his eyes, "what's going on?"

"We have a visitor in the next train, he needs help to repair some kind of device!"

In the train, the travelers rested. They hoped to repair the balloon. Taking the train had been an emergency measure, as their best bet to stay on schedule would be to fly over the mountains. But to do that, they needed to replace several pieces of the burner mechanism, patch several holes in the balloon, and gather enough sand for ballast, to be sure they could go high in a hurry.

Little they imagine that the party of three would grow to five after an Indian attack.

And that in the end, they would arrive back to London two full days early, thanks to their new friends' resourcefulness.

Brown Manor
London
1898

Emmet Brown looked out the windows of his house.

Ever since he and Marty had accompanied Phileas Fogg in the last leg of his journey, the two of them had had a lot of adventures.

Probably the most memorable was their meeting with the fabled Captain Nemo (2) just three years after settling in London. Having the chance to examine the fabled Nautilus itself, even in its decrepit state after being mangled in the Maelstorm, had been the opportunity of a lifetime!

Unfortunately, being at the other side of the world, he had missed the events related to a genius engineer called Robur (3), Doc would have loved to chat with the man, maybe a few words of encouragement could have been enough to stop him from going insane.

Doc shook his head. He had enjoyed his adventures, the amazing voyages, speaking with geniuses and regular people from all over the world. Though he still wasn't sure the cannon built in Florida had really been enough to send a projectile to the Moon, much less one with several people inside, or if it was just a tall tale. (4)

But now, after a long a varied life, he was tired. Not his mind, just his body. After all, 71 years was quite an advanced age. (5)

He sat on a very comfortable couch at his London house. Built with the money his inventions earned. He even sponsored several promising inventors, like that chemist, Griffin (6), with his interesting theories about color and perception; or the one who wanted to study time itself, the one he never could remember the name of… (7) he had lost contact with him after the man married. Doc had met his wife one time; a beautiful woman, indeed, very smart and forward thinking (8).

He fell asleep in front of the chimney, only to wake up in the middle of the night. Marty, his heir, was shaking him urgently. He was a very respectable man now, very far from that naive young man of 15 years who had wandered into his forge, asking what each one of his machines did. Marty was 40 years old now, a widower and grandfather himself. His son and daughter lived in the countryside, far from the city. Marty preferred the big city, but visited them frequently.

"Doc! Doc! Wake up! We have to go away!" Marty urged.

"What? What's happening?"

"You haven't heard? The meteors? Doc, how long have you been in the lab? The government is evacuating the city!"

Doc woke up in a hurry, "What? Why?"

Marty hurried Doc to the carriage he had waiting, stopping only to load a chest on the roof of the vehicle, securing it with chains. "The martians, Doc! The meteors are full of Martians! They are destroying everything in their way, and they are coming to London!" (9)

"Martians! Great Scott!" Doc whispered.

After a frantic flight to the limits of the city, Marty stopped the carriage. The horizon glowed with a reddish light, and they could hear faint screams in the distance. "Damn!" Marty exclaimed. "They are here!" He managed to turn the carriage around. Not an easy feat, as the horses were mightily spooked by the noise, and the smell of burning flesh.

Marty snapped the reigns, and the carriage disappeared in the darkness.

One of the horses missteped, falling down in front of the carriage. The front wheels hit the animal with a horrible noise, and Marty lost control of the carriage. Both men fell down to the ground, rolling away. Doc crashed against a tree, he never knew what had be one of Marty.

As he laid on the ground, he looked up. He could barely move. With a titanic effort, he managed to look around. A rustling sound in the dark. "Oh, god…" he whispered, "Is that a wolf?"

The clouds parted, and the moonlight shone, pale and bright, on the forest. Doc heard somebody walking calmly towards him. Without any hurry. "Help." He croaked, "Please help us, good sir."

Whomever it was, they kept walking at the same pace.

Finally, the unknown person revealed herself.

It was a slender girl. In the pale moonlight, her skin seemed to have an ethereal, unearthly glow. Doc blinked repeatedly, trying to focus. She was strangely dressed. A white shirt, and socks, an indecently short blue skirt, white canvas shoes.

Doc couldn't move his head to look at her, his body was broken. Mercifully, there was no pain.

The girl knelt beside him. Doc's brow furrowed. His eyes must be playing tricks on him, he could swear that the girl had scarlet eyes and blue hair. Very short hair.

"Please, Miss. Help my friend…" He begged, "our carriage crashed… I don't know where he is… please help him… I'm… im done for… help him."

"Hello, Doctor Brown." The girl said, her voice soft and even, as of this was an everyday occurrence. "Did you have a good time? Will you come back with me?"

Gradually, he recognized the girl.

He remembered who she was.

He remembered who he was.

He realized where he was.

What had happened.

Gradually, the darkness became light.

The world disappeared around them.

He floated, weightless, in an ocean of orange liquid. After an awkward moment, he realized he could breathe easily.

In front of him, Rei Ayanami floated too.

"Miss Ayanami?" She nodded.

"Hello, Doctor Brown."

"What happened? Did I..?"

"Die. Yes. Heart attack. I had to turn your body into LCL, and follow you into Instrumentality. It was the only way to save your life. I studied your body image while you indulged in your perfect life." There was a small smile in her lips. "You are very unusual. Most people just relive a single moment, again and again. You lived a full life in Instrumentality. And it was almost completely based on fiction, the only real person in your personal paradise was Marty McFly."

Doc didn't know what to say, so he simply nodded. "What happens now?"

"You only have to will yourself back into the real world. I'll be there to guide your emergence in a new body. I myself with have a new body too. This new body will be fully human, independent from Lilith, but with some of our capabilities."

Doc rubbed his chin. "Won't there be any troubles, Miss Ayanami? I was led to believe this instrumentality was hard to escape from."

"Unlike everybody else, including Shinji, you entered Instrumentality well aware of what it was. Therefore, you know it's not real. Your mind is not attached to your ideal life over the real one. And you have me to guide you back."

"Thank you, Miss Ayanami."

"You are welcome, Doctor Brown. I must say I'm interested in the stories you based your paradise upon."

"I can let you borrow my books."

And with that, they disappeared from Instrumentality.

Tokyo-3 Bay

They found several wooden posts standing on the shore. A silver cross hung from a simple nail in one of them. Something told Doc that it was important.

Once on the sand, Rei spoke. "I suggest we take the chance to collect a few samples before meeting the others."

Doc stood on the sand. The primordial soup of LCL on his clothes was drying fast. An uncomfortable memory played out as the orange flakes fell from his clothes. He was back in his usual look, including a white lab overcoat. He shook the flakes with a sharp movement.

"Samples? Oh, yes, yes. LCL. He looked around. There was a supermarket close. After a few minutes, he had several hermetic containers. "Should I simply..?"

"No. I have to condense the LCL, and make sure the resulting gel contains a single, whole soul." Rei took a container, walked into the waves, and partially submerged the edge of the container. After 6 minutes, according to Doc's mental calculation (10), Rei raised the container, now almost full with orange goo, closed it, and handed it to Doc. He gave her another and she repeated the process.

Soon, they had several containers full of orange goo. Doc noticed Rei handled the last one with more care than the others.

Same Building the Katsuragi-Ikari-Soryu Apartment was located
First Floor, South Apartment 2
Earlier the Same Day

"What the hell?" Marty exclaimed, looking at the big splash of orange liquid, "Where…?" He interrupted himself. "Jennifer? Are you okay?"

"Ah…" she patted herself, "I think so…"

"I t/t/told you she was a kill/killer!"

"No, no. Wait." Marty paced around. "She asked us to trust her. Doc was dying, she… she did that, and both…" He was feeling nauseous. First time he had seen somebody die, though watching Doc being shot would figure in his nightmares for years to come, in the end Doc had survived more or less intact.

"And she c/c/called me a bit/bi/b/bitch!" Lisa protested.

"No." Jennifer noted. "She was looking at Marty."

"Let me think." Marty sat heavily on the couch. "Why would she call me a bitch? I haven't treated her badly, have I?"

"No, that's what bothers me." Jennifer commented. She heard the door slid open. "Damn!"

She stood up, and shouted, "Don't enter!" She ran to the short hall. Shinji was already inside, Asuka close behind him. "Wait. Something happened." Quickly, she explained the events. Both pilots paled, and agreed to stay in the hall.

A minute later, Asuka spoke, "In all the time I have known her, I never heard Wonder Girl swearing, not even when I swore at her."

Shinji nodded in agreement. "Neither have I."

"Are you sure she said 'bitch'?" Shinji asked.

Jennifer thought for a moment. "Could have been 'beach'. That makes any sense to you?"

The pilots exchanged a look. Asuka snapped her fingers. "Yes! When we came out from Instrumentality, we woke up at the beach. If she turned Doctor Brown and herself into LCL; they will return at the beach!"

Author's Notes:

(1) Phileas Fogg is the protagonist of, of course, Around the World in 80 Days, published in 1872. According to Jules Verne's novel, Fogg and his companions boarded the train at San Francisco, to cross the United States. Hill Valley could be one of the minor stops in the route; most probably to load coal, water, and sand (for traction in slopes).

(2) Captain Nemo was the antagonist in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, serialized in 1869 and 1870; at the end of that book, the Nautilus is apparently destroyed. However, in The Mysterious Island (1874), a group of castaways meets Captain Nemo.

(3) Robur, The Conqueror (1886). The protagonist is an engineer, who designs and build an advanced air ship, that is, contrary to then current technology, is heavier than air. It is described as a helicopter with multiple rotors. To establish a modern equivalent, it would be close to SHIELD's Helicarrier in the MCU.

(4) From the Earth to the Moon (1865). The novel deals with an incredibly accurate attempt to reach the Moon. Though it involved a gigantic "cannon" instead of a rocket, many of the other details were very close to the 1960s Saturn V rockets.

(5) Especially at the end of the XIX Century, in England, where even the wallpaper was a deathly risk, due to the amount of arsenic it contained, though the green color was quite vibrant.

(6) The Invisible Man (1897), by H.G. Wells. The villain protagonist's full name is not mentioned.

(7) The Time Machine (1895), the protagonist's name is not mentioned.

(8) One of many stories derivated from The Time Machine was the movie Time After Time (1979), in which H.G. Wells himself is the inventor of the Time Machine, and has to follow Jack the Ripper to the Future year of 1979. In a curious twist, Wells' love interest was played by no other than Mary Steenburgen, who played Clara Clayton in Back to the Future III!

(9) The War of the Worlds (1897).

(10) Doc's watches and clocks stayed behind at the apartment when Rei tanged him. At this point, he has his clothes and shoes, but anything more complex simply isn't recreated with the body.