Back to the Future Part II (2 page)

He reached out to the dashboard and flicked a switch that Marty didn’t recognise. There was a sound iust outside the car. Marty leaned over the top of the door just enough to see that the wheels were rotating ninety degrees to flatten beneath the bottom of the car.

That meant the tyres were no longer touching the ground.

That meant they had to be flying!

Doc gunned the car into the sky.

Marty and Jennifer looked at each other.

Nobody would ever believe this.

The DeLorean rose higher, with all three of them inside too busy and excited to look where they had come from - behind them, where Biff Tannen was out of the house, the new matchbook he'd just had printed, 'Bill's Auto Detailing', held proudly in his hand. And not one of them, Doc, Marty, or Jennifer, turned back to see Biff, the matchbook forgotten in his hand, as he watched open-mouthed while the DeLorean soared upward into the sky, then disappeared into the future.

But even if they had noticed him, none of them could have seen Biff’s eyes narrow as he wondered how a DeLorean could fly. None of them could have heard him mutter, ‘What in the hell is going on here?’ And certainly none of them could have remotely imagined the dire consequences that were to arise out of Biff having witnessed their departure.

The first thing they saw were the lights. Big, bright lights, coming right for them, even though they were still flying.

There had been a triple flash of white light, followed by pouring rain. Marty realised they must be in the future. But all they could see was the rain, and those lights.

The glowing circles got larger still, and Marty could see they were attached to something even bigger, something that looked like nothing so much as a flying tractor-trailer. Whatever it was, it was 
bigger than big.
 And it was coming 
right toward them.

Both Marty and Jennifer screamed.

Doc jerked the wheel of the DeLorean to the right. The two vehicles missed each other by inches. The driver of the monster vehicle stuck his head out the window.

‘Stay in your own lane, maxhole!’

Own lane? Marty leaned forward, trying to get a better view of the rain-swept sky. Yeah, there were lane markers out there, small orange cones simply floating in the air.

‘What was that?’ Marty asked as soon as he managed to breathe.

‘Teamster,’ Doc replied.

‘But we’re flying!’ Marty objected.

‘Precisely!’ Doc swung the DeLorean over to the correct side of the lane markers.

A new voice shouted angrily at them:

‘DeLorean, vector twelve, this is air traffic control!’ The voice was coming from the middle of the dashboard. Marty realised it must be some sort of radio.

‘You’ve made unauthorised entry into commercial transport airspace,’ the angry voice went on. ‘Why the hell wasn’t your transponder on? Over!’

Doc grinned at Marty and Jennifer before he replied.

‘Roger. We’re experiencing minor technical transponder difficulty. We’re descending now for repair. Over and out!’

Marty admitted it; he was more than shaken up, and not just with that huge, flying truck. Commercial transport airspace? Transponder?

It was time for some answers.

‘What the hell’s going on, Doc?’ Marty demanded. ‘Where are we? When are we?’

Doc pointed at the time display as he eased the nose of the DeLorean downward.

Marty read the digital display:

‘OCTOBER 21 2015. 4:29 P.M.’

‘We’re descending toward Hill Valley, California,’ Doc repeated much too calmly, ‘on Wednesday October 21 2015.’

‘2015?’ Marty repeated. ‘You mean, we’re actually in the future?’

They were suddenly surrounded by flying passenger cars that didn't look all that different from the DeLorean. They must be down in the non-commercial air lanes now. The cars seemed to be 
going much too

East in all this rain, but then, Marty realised, there weren’t any roads to slip on any more, were there?

An old, beat-up heap with a noisy muffler zipped past them, its dented rear-end covered with bumper stickers:

I brake for
 birds!

Littering can kill!

This
 summer, 
do something a
 robot can’t do - 
pick grapes!

Littering could kill? Marty looked down from the window of the DeLorean. He guessed almost anything could kill if you dropped it from this height.

Marty had to face it. He was having a little trouble coming to grips with all this.

Sure, he had travelled through time before, but that had been into the past, where he’d met younger versions of his parents and other people from Hill Valley. Everybody remembered the past. It was just something you accepted as being there. But travelling to the future - he was someplace where stuff hadn’t even happened yet!

Jennifer turned from where she too had been gazing out the window. She looked at both Marty and Doc with that same, cautious expression Marty had seen when he announced he had been gone for a week and she had seen him the day before.

‘The future?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Marty, what do you mean? How can we be in the future?’

Marty tried to think of a good way to explain things. He decided there wasn’t a good one.

‘Oh, well,’ he tried anyway, ‘you see, this is actually a time machine.' He patted the dashboard.

Jennifer continued to stare at Marty. ‘Doc built a time machine out of a DeLorean?’

Marty grinned and shrugged.‘That’s Doc.’

‘I figure if you're gonna build a time machine in a car,’ Doc agreed cheerfully, ‘why not do it with some style!’

‘And this is the year - 2015?’ Jennifer pointed at the main digital time display.

‘October 21 2015,’ Doc repeated with a hint of pride at his accomplishment.

‘So, like, you weren't kidding? We can actually find out what happens to ourselves!’ Jennifer got this funny little smile.

‘Now, did you say we were married? And we’ve got kids?’

Her smile got larger, as if she liked the idea.

‘How many kids?’

She giggled.

‘Was it a big wedding?’

She was getting really excited now, looking all around Hill Valley as the car descended.

‘Where do we live? Are we happy?’

She turned back to Marty, her eyes almost too bright.

‘What about -’

Doc leaned over, holding a silver, penlight-sized device in front of Jennifer’s face. The penlight-thing strobed a blue light in Jennifer's eyes.

Jennifer slumped in her seat, sound asleep.

‘Doc!’ Marty objected. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Relax, Marty,’ Doc Brown reassured him. ‘It’s just a sleep-inducing alpha rhythm generator. She was asking too many questions. No one should know too much about their future.' Doc glanced at her again. Jennifer snored softly. ‘This way, when she wakes up, she'll think it was all a dream.’

All a dream? Marty still didn’t understand.

‘Jeez, Doc, then why bring her?’

‘I had to do something!’ Doc insisted. ‘She saw the time machine, and I couldn’t just leave her with that information.’ He gave Marty his best mad-scientist grin. ‘Don’t worry. She’s not essential to my plan.’

Marty looked doubtfully at the smiling Doc and the sleeping Jennifer. Still, he had to have some faith in his inventor friend. After all, this was the same man who got him safely out of the past and back to good old 1985 - even though Marty hadn’t stayed there.

‘Well,’ Marty replied slowly, ‘you’re the Doc.'

Doc Brown turned his attention to the controls as they began their final descent. They landed in an alley between two buildings, an alley that didn't look all that different from alleys in 1985.

Doc flipped off half a dozen switches.

‘First,’ he told Marty, ‘you’re gonna have to get out and change clothes.’

‘Doc!’ Marty pointed at the ongoing flood on the other side of the windshield. ‘It’s pouring rain!’

‘Oh, right.’

Doc glanced at his watch.

‘Wait three more seconds.’

The rain stopped. Doc’s head bobbed with satisfaction.

‘Right on the tick.’ He glanced wistfully up at the sky. ‘Too bad the post office isn’t as efficient as the weather service.’

Doc and Marty pushed open the DeLorean s gull-wing doors. Marty climbed out of the car. But when he turned back to Doc. it looked like the inventor was peeling off his face! ‘Excuse the disguise. Marty,’ Doc explained mid-peel, ‘but I was afraid you wouldn’t recognise me. I went to a rejuvenation clinic and got an allnatural overhaul. They took some wrinkles out, did a hair repair, changed the blood - added a good thirty or forty years to my life. They also replaced my spleen and colon.’ He pulled the last of the goop from his face and ran a hand though his tangled hair. The hair stayed tangled. ‘What do you think?’

Marty had trouble not staring at the new, improved Doc Brown. He didn’t look that different, really - but he did look better. Younger. Many of the wrinkles were gone, and there was more of a sparkle in his eyes.

‘You look good. Doc,’ Marty answered slowly. ‘Real good.’ Staring at his slightly dewrinkled friend, his surroundings had really begun to sink in. So this actually was 2015.

‘The future!’ It didn’t look all that different in the alley - Marty guessed that alleys were alleys - the trashcans were a little newer and nicer, maybe. Marty bet it would be really different, though, out on the street. He took a couple of steps away from the car. ‘Whoa, I gotta check this out!’

‘All in good time, Marty. We’re on a tight schedule here.’ Doc pulled a small silver satchel - sort of a gym bag of the future - from the back of the DeLorean. ‘Here’re your clothes.’

Marty looked back at the inventor. ‘So, Doc, like what about my future? I make it big, right?’ He paused a minute, trying to figure out what would be his most obvious future. ‘I'm - what - a rich rock star?’

Doc waved the question away with his free hand. ‘Please, Marty, no one should know too much about their own destiny.’

‘Sure, Doc. Right.’ That's right, Marty thought Doc Brown had mentioned this destiny business before - that was the whole reason Jennifer was snoozing in the car. ‘But am I rich?’

Doc sighed. ‘Damn. Maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Maybe I should just forget this whole thing and take you back home.'

Home? No way did he want to go home! Marty decided he’d better apologise.

‘Hey. I’m sorry. Doc. I'm just excited, that’s all. Everybody wants to know about their future.’

That’s what I’m afraid of.’ Doc sighed again. He held the gym-bag-of-the-future out to Marty.

After looking at the bag for a second, Marty pulled open the velcro seal.

‘All right,' Doc instructed, ‘take off your shirt, put on the jacket, the shoes, and the cap.’

Marty set the bag down on the rear end of the DeLorean. As Marty started to unbutton his shirt. Doc leaned into the car beneath the open gull-wing door. A moment later, he lifted the still-sleeping Jennifer out of the passenger seat, placing her gently in a broad doorway on the alley's side.

Marty paused in his unbuttoning.

‘You mean we’re just gonna leave her?’

‘It’s too risky to take her with me.’ Doc answered regretfully. ‘Don’t worry. She’ll be safe. She’s out of sight, and it’ll just be for a few minutes.’

Doc reached in his pocket and pulled out a plastic card with a pair of eyeholes, and the words POCKET BINOCULARS printed beneath. It looked like some cheap plastic toy, the kind of thing you find as a prize in a serial box. The way Doc handled it, though Marty suspected it was really a more compact, fully functional future model.

Doc ran to the far end of the alley and peered through his card.

Marty pulled off his white, striped shirt, leaving only the purple t-shirt he wore underneath. He pulled the jacket from the bag, but, as he pulled it on, was somewhat distressed to realise it was four sizes too big and baggy, with sleeves that hung down to his knees. How could Doc expect him to wear something like this?

Marty shook the sleeves. Was there some way to roll them up or something? His fingers brushed against a small patch near the right cuff - a patch that read UNI-SIZE FORM FIT.

The jacket instantly shrank to fit, sleeves stopping precisely at the wrist as the coat's sides tailored themselves to his rib-cage. After a moment’s shock, Marty decided that this was more like it!

So what else did he have to put on? Marty pulled out a pair of future sneakers from the bottom of the bag.

Doc apparently had seen what he was looking for. He tucked his binocular card in his pocket, he hurried back to the car.

Marty had slipped the shoes on his feet, but they were still loose, a lot like the jacket a moment ago, and he could see no way to tie them. Except there was a pad - like the one on his jacket - on the right sneaker. After a moment's hesitation, he pressed it softly.

The sneakers zip-laced themselves shut.

‘Power laces!' Marty cheered. 'All right!’

Marty pulled the cap from the bag. and stuffed his everyday shirt and shoes in its place. The hat looked more or less like a baseball cap, except for whatever shining fabric it was made of - a fabric that seemed to change colour every time the cap moved.

Doc stood by the car. He appeared to be waiting for Marty.

‘OK, Doc,’ Marty asked obligingly as he stuck the cap on his head. ‘So what’s the deal?’

Doc glanced at his watch, then pointed down to the far end of the alley. ‘In exactly two minutes, you go around the corner, into the 
Café 80's.’

‘Café
 80’s?’

‘It's one of those nostalgia places,' Doc explained, ‘but not done very well. Go in and order a Pepsi.’ Doc rummaged in his pocket, then pulled out a crumpled bill. ‘Here’s a fifty.’

Marty accepted the paper money. It looked more or less like the money Marty was used to - although Marty was a lot more used to handling tens and twenties than fifties. Doc was being awfully generous here. A fifty dollar bill for a Pepsi? Oh, well. He probably wanted to make sure Marty had some money left over in case of emergencies. Marty stuffed the fifty into the pocket of his jacket.