Back to the Future Part II

by CRAIG SHAW GARDNER

  Marty pressed the ‘talk button’ on his walkie-talkie.

  ‘Doc! You OK?’

  Doc’s voice replied through the ever increasing static:

  ‘That was a close one, Marty!’ Doc laughed ruefully. ‘I ALMOST BOUGHT THE FARM!’

  The DeLorean started to move overhead, as Doc turned the flying car around to begin his approach. Marty knew just what Doc was thinking - they had to get out of here before something serious happened!

  The DeLorean started towards Marty, swooping down out of the sky.

  Then a bolt of lightning, even bigger than the last one, streaked out of the sky to hit the DeLorean.

  There was a noise even louder than a sonic boom! Marty threw his hands in front of his face, temporarily blinded by the light.

  But when he uncovered his eyes and looked up again, the sky was empty. Oh, there were the heavy clouds and the lightning, but the DeLorean, flying toward him only a second ago, was gone!

  The pennant cord fluttered to the ground in front of Marty. The upper end of the cord was still burning, a minute ago, it had been hanging out of the DeLorean’s door. Was that all that was left of the time machine?

  No! Marty thought. That was silly. This was a time machine we were talking about here! A time machine didn't just disappear, did it? It had to be around some-place, didn’t it? Even if the car had somehow gotten zapped and pushed into the wrong time, all Doc had to do was reset the destination display and bring the DeLorean back, didn't he?

  Well, Marty added to himself, that should make sense. So where was Doc?

  He yelled into his walkie-talkie again:

  ‘Yo, Doc! Come in Doc!’

  There was no response.

  Marty tried again:

  'Hello, Doc, do you read me, over?’

  There was nothing on the walkie-talkie but static.

  ‘Doc, answer me, please!’

  He was answered instead by another blinding flash of lightning, followed by a great boom of thunder and pouring rain.

  This stuff was coming down hard! Marty had to find cover somewhere! He ducked quickly behind the Lyon’s Estate billboard. There was just enough of an awning overhead to leave a couple of feet dry back here.

  Somebody had also left a bicycle behind the billboard. It still had the price tag on the handlebars.

  That’s right! Doc had gotten around town on a bike, hadn’t he?

  Doc, Marty thought. What had happened to him?

  Marty stepped out from behind the billboard.

  ‘Doc!’ he yelled one more time, but his voice was lost in the storm.

  Through the rain, Marty saw a pair of headlights coining down the road from the direction of town.

  Maybe, Marty thought, he’d better get back out of sight - he didn’t want any more complications than he already had. He stepped behind the billboard again, and leaned the hoverboard against the sign, right next to the bike.

  The car stopped on the other side of the billboard. What was going on now? For a wild second, Marty was afraid that Biff had somehow gotten out of the manure! Marty peeked around the edge of the sign - no, the car was some kind of dark sedan. Marty didn’t recognise it.

  A man wearing a hat and trenchcoat stepped out of the car.

  ‘Hello?’ the guy with the trenchcoat yelled. ‘Anyone here?’

  Who was this guy? It was hard to tell in the darkness and the rain, but Marty could swear he’d never seen him before. And the trenchcoat and the hat - did that mean he came from the FBI or something?

  ‘Marty?’ the other guy yelled. ‘Marty McFly?’

  The guy knew his name? Marty stopped an urge to run the other way.

  ‘Marty McFly,’ the guy called over the storm, ‘if you’re here, please show yourself.’

  Still, this guy hadn’t threatened Marty or pulled out a gun or anything. Maybe, Marty thought, he should find out what was going on here.

  He stepped out from behind the billboard.

  The guy in the trenchcoat turned his head toward Marty he had seen him. The way the newcomer was standing in front of his car headlights though it was hard for Marty to get a real good look at the other guy’s face.

  ‘Is your name Marty McFly?' Trenchcoat demanded.

  Marty almost said it wasn’t. But he’d gone this far.

  He might as well finish this off and find out what was happening.

  ‘Yeah,’ he answered slowly.

  Trenchcoat looked Marty up and down.

  ‘Five foot four, brown hair - uh-huh -’ he said, mostly to himself, and then added in a louder voice:

  ‘Marty, I’ve got something for you.’

  He reached inside his trenchcoat. Marty took a step back. Did the guy have a gun after all?

  He pulled out a long thin envelope.

  ‘A letter,’ Trenchcoat announced.

  ‘A letter?’ Marty asked, taking a closer look at what the other held in his hand. It was an old, yellowed envelope, with a red wax seal holding it closed.

  The man reached back inside his trenchcoat again and pulled out a small clipboard.

  ‘You’ll have to sign for it first’ - he paused, reaching again inside his coat to search around in some inner pocket - ‘if I can find a pen.’

  Marty couldn’t believe this.

  ‘You’ve got a letter for me?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘That’s impossible! Who are you, anyway?’

  Trenchcoat stepped behind the billboard to get out of the rain.

  ‘I’m from Western Union,’ he explained, still searching his pockets, ‘and actually, a bunch of us in the office were hoping you could shed some light on the subject.’

  He smiled at Marty. Actually, the guy didn’t look at all threatening, now that he was out of the headlights’ glare - just an average guy, really, around Marty’s father’s age.

  ‘You see,’ the guy from Western Union went on, ‘this envelope’s been in our company’s possession for seventy years. It was given to us with explicit instructions that it be delivered to a young man with your description answering to the name of Marty at this exact location and at this exact minute on November 12 1955.’

  The guy grinned as he pulled a pen from his pocket at last.

  ‘We had a bet going,’ he continued, ‘as to whether this “Marty” would actually be here.’ Trenchcoat sighed. ‘Looks like I lost.’

  Marty looked back at the letter in the guy’s hand. This was still pretty incredible.

  ‘Did you say - seventy years?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He handed Marty the clipboard and the pen. ‘Sign on line six, please.’

  Marty signed, and the other man handed him the letter.

  Marty broke open the seal.

  He pulled out the yellowed sheets and carefully unfolded them. It was quite a letter, handwritten, a good four pages long. Marty turned to the last page. There, at the bottom, was the signature:

  Your friend in time,

  ‘Doc’ Emmett L. Brown

  And - if there was any doubt that this really was written by Doc Brown, below that was that ridiculously stylised ‘E - L - B’ that Doc always liked to sign all his memos and notes with.

  ‘Doc!’ Marty said aloud.

  He turned to the beginning of the letter and started

  ‘Dear Marty:

  ‘If my calculations are correct, you will receive this letter immediately after you saw the DeLorean struck by lightning.'

  ‘First, let me assure you that I am alive and well. I have been living happily in the year 1885 for these past few months-’

  Marty stopped reading.

  ‘1885?’ he said aloud.

  The Western Union guy tried to lean over Marty’s shoulder to get a look at the letter. Marty turned around so the guy in the trenchcoat couldn’t see. After all, he remembered Doc’s rules about time travel. And rule one seemed to be: The fewer people who knew about it, the better!

  Marty skimmed the rest of the letter quickly, mutteri
ng to himself over the good parts: ‘Too many jigowatts..

  He turned the page.

  Time circuits shorted...’

  He reached the end of the letter again.

  ‘1885!’ he repeated to himself. Doc was stranded back in the Wild West. There had to be something Marty could do - and Marty realised just what it was!

  He stuffed Doc’s letter in his pocket and headed back for town.

  ‘Hey!’ the Western Union guy yelled behind him.

  ‘Can’t you even tell me what this is all about?’

  Marty kept on running.

  ‘No?’ The Western Union guy called in the most disappointed voice Marty had ever heard.

  Marty didn’t even look back.

  There was no time to lose!

  Marty could see it all before him.

  The clock tower read 10:04.

  The DeLorean, with its special super-conducting electrical pole added for the occasion, raced toward the electrical line.

  And lightning struck the clock tower!

  At the last possible second, after almost falling from a considerable height. Doc Brown connected the cables.

  The hook on the pole above the DeLorean hit the electrical line - and 1.21 jigowatts of electricity flooded into the flux capacitor -

  And the DeLorean vanished into the future, leaving only twin trails of fire where its wheels had been!

  Doc Brown - the 1955 version - went running down the street between the twin trails of fire, yelling at the top of his lungs.

  ‘Ya-Haaaaa!’

  Marty guessed this was as good a time as any.

  He stepped out of the shadow of the courthouse. He tapped Doc on the shoulder.

  Doc turned around, the smile on his face changing to a look of abject horror.

  ‘YAAAAAAAH!’Doc shrieked.

  ‘Calm, down. Doc!’ Marty urged. ‘It’s me, Marty!

  Doc shook his head wildly. ‘No! It can’t be you! I just sent you back to the future!’

  Somehow, Marty had to explain all of this to the scientist.

  ‘Right!’ Marty replied, trying to be as logical as possible. ‘You did send me back to the future. But I came back - back from the future!’

  ‘Great Scott!’ Doc replied. He staggered back, clutching his chest. He seemed to be having trouble breathing.

  ‘Doc!’ Marty called. What was going on?

  Doc’s eyes rolled up, and he fainted dead away.

  ‘Doc?’ Marty asked, but the scientist was out cold. The shock had been too much for him - one of those paradoxes that Doc Brown himself had told Marty about.

  But how could Doc help him, if even the scientist couldn’t face the truth about the future? And what if it was worse than Marty thought, and he couldn’t revive Doc? Then the scientist could never build the time machine, and Marty would never end up back in 1955 in the first place.

  That would be one of those real paradoxes, wouldn’t it - the kind that might put an end to the cosmos and all life as we know it?

  ‘Doc?’ Marty called, bending over his fallen friend. ‘Doc?’

  But Doc didn’t answer.

  TO BE CONCLUDED

  IN

  BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III!