End of the Future, Part 27
The Horror of Hill Valley
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).
Personal Note: the chapter is a little short, I've been very busy with RL stuff, and my time and energy will be a bit limited for the near future.
Hill Valley, California, USA
Hill Valley High School
A week later
"So, we are here." Shinji said, with a mix of curiosity, eagerness and aprehensión in his soft voice as he examined the classes schedule.
"Yeah. I'm glad we are in the same class, buddy." Marty answered as he adjusted the straps of his backpack.
Next to him, hanging from Marty's arm, Jennifer smiled at the two former pilots. "Where's Asuka? I thought she would be here."
Rei piped in. "She's at Brown Enterprises. Helping with the LCL Research. She asked us to put her ad in the bulletin board." She patted her pocket. Asuka had typed a basic list of subjects she was willing to tutor students on, and it had been approved by Strickland.
"She doesn't need to come to high school, Jennifer. She will be working on her college degree. She already has the equivalent degree in Japan, but has to test officially for the USA degree. Meanwhile, she will be tutoring a few students. Apart from Rei and me."
"I have the knowledge." Rei noted, "But I'm lacking on critical thinking and context. I'm also lacking in social behavior. My attending here is to remedy that situation."
Marty nodded, passing an arm over Jennifer's shoulders. "We got your backs, guys. Anything you need help with, just tell us."
Brown Industries HQ
Workshop
A big mug of hot coffee rested on the work table. During their forced solitude, Asuka had gotten used to drinking her coffee black, and with an insane amount of sugar. Fresh milk, or even bottled milk was a luxury they could not afford after the first few weeks, and she despised the taste of powdered milk, so, black it was. She took a sip before getting to work.
"To begin with, I think we need to take accurate readings…" The teen genius started, holding a PKE Meter towards the gel container holding Ryoji Kaji's soul. The device lit up, and lights ran up and down the extensible arms.
"Our PKE Meters are accurate!" Dr. Spengler bristled. "We can measure ghostly activity to a hundredth of a volt!"
Asuka looked at him sideways, barely changing her stance. "Not what I mean, Spengler. Your instruments are very sensitive, and very precise. But, you guys said Rei's readings are out of the scale. That's what I meant. We need to know exactly how big her PKE presence is. And remember that as an avatar of Lilith, she has just a fraction of Lilith's own energy level. All we know right now is that she ranks higher than the scale you set on the original device."
Dr. Ray Stantz chuckled, "She's got you there, Egon." He pulled put a set of diagrams from a drawer and extended them over the table.
"Um, well… yes. I… I see. Good thinking, Miss Soryu." Egon admitted, with ill grace.
"Oh, don't be like that, Egon." Winston set down a note on his clipboard. "Take it as an opportunity to delve where man wasn't meant to tread."
Dr. Spengler's eyes took a glassy glint.
"Now you did it, Winston." Ray shook his head.
"Did what/t/t, Ra/Ray?" Lisa interrupted her analysis of the data extracted from Seth Brundle's computers.
"Not much, Lisa. He just put an unholy idea in Egon's brain." Ray shrugged. "It should yield some interesting results later on. That's how we miniaturized the proton packs. Our first prototype was the size of a car. Peter said we had to aspire lower. And Egon did exactly that. He began word associations until he struck pardirt. He basically took the idea of the original vacuum cleaner commercially available, which was the size of a truck, with a very long hose (1), and applied to the proton accelerators. When he came back from his fugue he had the list of changes we needed to make portable proton packs."
Egon and Asuka spent several hours analyzing the design of the PKE Meters, with Lisa's ocassional input, mainly snark.
Hill Valley, California, USA
Hill Valley High School
Twenty Minutes Later.
The classroom door opened brusquely, a hulking figure standing on the threshold with clear insolence. Marty leaned towards Shinji, and whispered, "That's Cliff Tannen, the guy I warned you and Rei about."
Shinji nodded, not wanting to attract attention. At least Rei was in another classroom.
The new arrival looked around the classroom, his eyes passed over Marty without much facial expression, examined Shinji for a moment before dismissing him. Finally, he looked at the back of the classroom, and recognizing three students, went there to sit with his minions. Their fists clashed briefly in greeting, and Cliff finally sat down, resting the sole of his shoe on the edge of the seat in front of him. A posture calculated to convey absolute disrespect.
Marty ground his teeth, Cliff looked almost exactly as his father back in 1955, the only real difference was in the clothes and hair. Ragged denim jacket, black pants and boots, leather wrists straps. Hair cut in a greasy mullet. Even his minions looked like Biff's gang with modern clothes!
And the attitude was the same too.
' Must be a family trait…' Marty thought.
To Marty's surprise, Cliff and his gang were relatively well-behaved all school day. Apparently they were under Strickland's close vigilance, and it was obvious it chafed.
When the bell rang, marking the end of the day, Marty and Shinji waited for Jennifer and Rei at the main door.
A big and loud blue truck stopped right at the front of the school, and a blond, stocky girl opened the driver's door. She wore a mishmash of clashing colors. Starting with a red jacket full of pins, a purple blouse with bright leopard print in clashing yellow, acid-washed jeans, and red boots with dangling chains. Her hair pulled up inside a cone covered with green glitter, though a good length still came out from the top. Her earrings were different, one round, the other triangular, evidently from different sets. And her make-up was so thick it was almost a parody of a mask. She chewed noisily on a piece of bubblegum, popping an ocassional globe as she walked to the group.
"Yo, dweebs!" She said loudly, speaking mostly from the right side of her mouth. "Have ya seen my useless lump of a brother?" Her eyes lingered a moment on Marty, before seemingly discarding him and settling on Shinji, with an speculative look in her eyes. "Ya new here?"
"Um… yes… Just transferred from Japan." The former pilot answered.
"Reaaaally? Interesting." A thoughtful expression appeared on the girl's face.
Right then, Cliff threw open the door, followed by his cohorts. Marty pulled Shinji out of the way.
"And speaking of the Devil." The girl said. "Yo, Cliff! What took ya so long?"
"Shaddap, Tiff (2)." The thug grumbled, "Strickland has it against me. Now, let's make like a drummer and go."
Tiff threw him the keys, and followed him back to the immaculately polished truck. She slowed her pace enough to stay at the end of the group, and before getting inside the vehicle, she shot a look at Shinji.
As the truck disappeared around the corner, Marty raised an eyebrow. "Shinji? Did you have a feeling of inescapable doom?"
"Yeah, ever since I got to Tokyo-3." The former pilot deadpanned.
Marty looked at his friend. "Not what I meant, buddy. You know Dad used to have problems with Biff; until he knocked him cold. His son is not much better, but haven't done much since Biff sent him to military school. Now he is back, and it seems he has a sister."
Shinji kept silent, but rolled his eyes. "Great…"
Jennifer and Rei appeared then. "Hey! You look like somebody ran over your pup or something. What happened?"
Marty shrugged, and passed an arm over Jennifer's shoulders. "Cliff is back, and he has a sister."
"Tiff? Oh, Boy…"
"Trouble?"
"Only if she fancies you. She doesn't take no for an answer. Things got so bad, Biff sent her to an all-girl school at Summerville."
Marty and Shinji exchanged a look.
"Know what, I think it will be better if we go to Paul's and practice a bit." (3)
"Ah, sure."
Hill Valley, California, USA
Paul's Home
Later on
"Sorry, guys. Mom has a fierce migraine. She is shut in her room, lights out and needs silence. We could just go to the basement and hang out, I guess." Paul said apologetically. His lanky frame and long blond hair reminded Shinji of Lt. Aoba. (4)
"Man, I was looking forward to practice." Marty shock his head. "Shinji here plays the cello, and I thought he would like to hear what we can do…"
"Eh," Lee drawled, his brown hair was a bit shorter than his friends. "We could do something else. I just got the new boxed set!" He checked his backpack, and extracted a cardboard box, with a unusual scene on the cover. Three people standing between a decrepit house and a cemetery, with a tentacle moving menacingly towards them. At the top, the title was "Call of Cthulhu" with a sub-header "Fantasy role-playing in the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft" (5).
Shinji looked intently at the cover. "Things are going to get nasty, right..?" He managed to not blush.
"Well, it is a horror game." Lee confirmed, "The scene is not actually in the game material, but sets the scene."
Marty tapped on the cover, "Who is this Lovecraft guy?"
Lee opened the box, showing a few booklets, and strangely shaped dice. "He was a weird fantasy writer back in the 1920s and 1930s. He wrote about cosmic monstruosities whose very presence could drive people to madness."
Bobby nodded, "Sounds rad, man. I'm in. How do you play?" The rest of the group decided it would be interesting to play at least once.
Lee spent a few minutes explaining the rules. "I'll help you create your characters, here's the list of possible occupations. Just remember that you should try for characters that could exists in the 1920s and that you are just regular humans, not superheroes. In short, you are squishy! You have to play smart, not strong."
In the end, Marty chose a hard-boiled private detective, Paul a reporter, Bobby a cop, and Shinji an accountant. The group had to investigate a haunted house. (6)
They spent a few hours trying to eliminate a ghost. Shinji couldn't help but think of what the Ghostbusters would have done in their place.
The game was a hit, and in the coming months, Lee would spend a lot of time homebrewing a campaign for the group.
No one could ever have guessed the wider effects that game would have.
Author's Notes:
(1) True, one of the first vacuum cleaner, Puffing Billy, was carried on a horse cart, and worked with a petrol motor. It was not sold, but rented. While the machine worked outside, an operator moved the end of the hose inside the house to clean the dust.
(2) After her non-canon existence was pointed to me by CaptainBardiel at AO3, I got curious about Tiff Tannen. The character was originally part of a deleted scene in BTTF, but wasn't mentioned by name. Afterwards, Tiffany Tannen was incorporated in the games based on the franchise. According to the card game, Tiff is the daughter of alternate Biff and Lorraine, so that version of her is Marty's half sister. With her being basically a blank slate, I think Tiff could have inherited Biff's stalker tendencies.
(3) The members of The Pinheads weren't named in the movie, though they later were named after their actors.
(4) I'm not sure who is who in The Pinheads line-up, so I'll just assign then the names in the same order of the picture in the BTTF Wikia, Paul in bass guitar, Lee in the drums, and Bobby at the keyboard. Marty plays the guitar, of course.
(5) The game exists, and it is really good. Easy to learn and very intuitive. It has been available since 1981, Lee has the second edition boxed set, released in 1983. I highly recommend the game, currently in its 7th Edition, though it is quite compatible with material written for older editions. I was a Keeper (Game Master) for several years, though my group got a nasty case of Real Life Interference, and haven't played for several years. The game is based on the horror stories written by Howard Phillip Lovecraft and his friends. Though he was not well known in life, his work resurged in anthologies during the 1970s, and got a major push thanks to the RPG. Lovecraft's influence is very clear in many movies, games, and stories.
(6) The group is playing The Haunted House, the adventure included in the starter box of the game. It is almost certainly the most played Call of Cthulhu adventure.