by George Gipe
Doc shook his head and grinned. “Unfortunately, no,” he replied. “I tried that in the beginning. That was a dream that just wouldn’t come true—to have this device run cheaply and simply. That may happen in the future, but for the moment, it requires something with a little more kick.”
“You mean, atomic power?” Marty guessed.
Nodding, Doc Brown pointed to a container with purple radioactivity signs painted on it.
“Plutonium? You mean this sucker’s nuclear?”
“Electrical, basically,” Doc Brown replied. “But I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity I need. The flux capacitor stores it, then discharges it all at once, like a gigantic bolt of lightning. It’s really quite efficient.”
“Hold the phone, Doc,” Marty said. “Plutonium’s illegal. Did you rip it off?”
“Of course. How else does an ordinary citizen latch onto plutonium?”
“You out and out stole it?”
“In a manner of speaking. That is, I had someone else steal it. No, that’s not quite accurate. Someone else who had already stolen it gave it to me.”
“Gave it to you?” Marty challenged. “You mean to tell me somebody just donated it?”
“What are you, a federal agent?” Doc Brown smiled. “Look, I don’t want you to know too much. It might be bad for you. All I can say is that someone had this plutonium and they gave it to me for another project. I deemed that project not only less important than mine but actually harmful to the future of society. So I killed two birds with one stone by switching the plutonium from their evil project to my progressive and kindly project.”
“You’re not screwing around with our space program, are you?”
“Nothing like that,” Doc replied sanctimoniously. “I consider the conquest of space a beneficial scheme. Perhaps scheme isn’t the best word, but rest assured I’m all for it. Now please don’t press me further. It’s for your own good that you should know no more details.”
“All right,” Marty murmured.
“Now, before we proceed further, we must protect you,” Doc said.
He strode to the step-van and removed a yellow radiation suit. “Put this on,” he said.
Marty locked the video camera and stepped into the suit. The night had become chilly and it felt good to add the extra layer of material. With the hood pulled up, he felt totally divorced from the rest of the world, like a deep-sea diver on the floor of the ocean.
Working slowly, Doc Brown took a four-inch cylinder from the step-van, handling it with great delicacy. Marty knew that within the capsule must be a plutonium rod, surrounded by water, the new source of power for the time vehicle. Inching the DeLorean closer to the truck so that the plutonium would not have to be moved far, Marty returned to the video camera and started it again as Doc Brown stepped to the rear of the car and placed the plutonium cylinder into the loading hopper. He then sealed the hopper shut and tossed back the hood of his radiation suit.
“It’s safe now,” he smiled. “Everything is lead-lined.”
Marty took off his own hood and waited for Doc Brown’s next instructions.
“Just be sure you get my send-off,” Doc Brown smiled. “It’d be a shame if everything came out on tape but that.”
“Where are you headed?”
“The future.”
“How far?”
“Whoops,” Brown muttered, snapping his fingers. “Almost forgot my luggage.”
He jogged back to the step-van, grabbed a suitcase and returned to the DeLorean. “Who knows if they’ll have cotton underwear in the future?” he said. “I’m allergic to all synthetics. It would be rather unpleasant to find myself in the future with a terrible rash.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Marty asked.
“My machine works,” Doc Brown retorted. “You just saw it, didn’t you?”
“I meant, are you sure the future’s safe? Suppose you run smack into the bomb? Or it’s a society of robots that take you prisoner. At least you know the past is safe. Nobody there has better equipment than you. But the future—”
Doc Brown smiled, touched by the young man’s interest in his safety. “What you say makes a lot of sense,” he admitted. “I gave it a lot of thought when I was considering where I should go first. But I’ve always dreamed of seeing the future a lot more than rehashing the past. I’d like to see where mankind’s headed, up or down. And besides,” he added with a sly chuckle, “if I head down the road a quarter century, I’ll be able to find out who won the next twenty-five World Series and Super Bowls. Won’t that be a nice piece of information to have for my old age?”
Marty nodded. “Well, be sure to look me up when you get there and I’ll fill you in on the details of what’s been happening,” he said.
“Indeed I will.”
Clearing his throat, Doc once again assumed a more serious attitude as he addressed the camera.
“I, Dr. Emmett Brown,” he began, “am about to embark on a historic journey—”
Einstein started barking furiously.
Brown halted in mid-phrase. What was it—a mall security guard, a cat, or something worse?
He heard the sound of the engine before he saw the lights. Then a sudden turn of the vehicle threw the lights directly at them, the twin glares rising and falling as the car fairly leaped over the speed bumps leading into the mall nearly a half mile down the road. It could have been joyriding teenagers, but something in the vehicle’s headlong desperation and purpose told Doc Brown that the worst had happened.
Marty stopped working the camera, looked out of the viewfinder at Doc Brown. The man’s face was ashen, his mouth open; his breath came in shallow gasps. Indeed, he exhibited every symptom of shock except a tendency to faint and that might be imminent. Locking the camera, Marty came around to the front, prepared to help Doc Brown any way he could.
“What is it?” he whispered.
Doc seemed not to hear him. His piercing eyes continued to follow the progress of the vehicle moving generally in their direction. A slight sideways turn revealed presently that it wasn’t an ordinary car or even a police cruiser. Square except for the long sloping hood, it was an ominous van, dark in color, with windows that seemed to have been blacked either by painting or the installation of dark curtains.
“You’re right, Einie…” Doc Brown finally said, stroking his dog’s head. “It’s them.”
“Who?” Marty asked.
Doc Brown seemed not to have heard him. “They found me,” he muttered. “I don’t know how, but they found me.”
● Chapter Four ●
Shortly after three o’clock on the afternoon of October 26, 1985, the swarthy man who was known only as Sam received the coded message from his superior officer. As he read it, his anger grew, until his dark moody eyes flashed vengefully.
“We’ve been taken in,” he said simply to the four men and one young woman who sat in the dingy motel room, awaiting instructions.
As he spoke, he slammed back the bolt of his AK 47 submachine gun, put the weapon on the table next to him and began searching in his brief case.
“We’re always being taken in,” said the young woman.
“We’re not ruthless enough. If the world knew we killed those who oppose us instead of negotiating and weaseling, we’d be unstoppable. Instead, we’re looked upon as clowns with guns.”
Sam had heard it before. His own career as an international terrorist dated back nearly thirty years and there had always been one member of the organization who wanted nothing but more killing. Sometimes it was the youngest member, anxious to show the others how tough he was; now, it was Uranda, a twenty-five-year-old ex-fashion model from Damascus who got her kicks by pumping bullets into other people’s bodies.
“Don’t worry,” Sam rasped. “We won’t be weasels tonight. There’ll be only one dead body, but it will be very very dead by the time we’re through.”
He pulled the pages from his briefcase. The
folder showed a color head shot of Doc Brown along with a ten-page, single-spaced resume of his past activities and habits, a map of his home and work area. Sam had received the folder a week before, when it appeared that Brown might not be as reliable as the organization hoped. Confirmation of Doc Brown’s duplicity came that morning, followed by the decision to eliminate him.
Sam put the color photo on the coffee table and indicated that the others should study it.
“What’s he done?” Uranda asked. “Not that it matters. He looks Jewish.”
“We hired him to build a nuclear bomb.”
The young woman’s eyes glistened with excitement.
“We stole plutonium and gave it to him. He delayed as long as possible and gave us the weapon only when we threatened him.”
“Well?” another of the group asked.
“The bomb was nothing but a casing filled with used pinball-machine parts,” Sam said.
Uranda rolled her eyes back, but a moment later, a look of happy anticipation engaged her features.
“We’ll kill him tonight,” Sam continued. “Headquarters has decided it’s not worth it to bring him in for questioning. You two tail him for the rest of the day. Chances are he’ll end up at the garage he uses for an office or at Twin Pines Mall. He’s been spending a lot of time there recently, usually late at night.”
“Does he carry any weapons?”
“A handgun at most. An old .45-caliber revolver. It may not even work.”
Now Marty watched as the black van hurtled toward them. His terror was complete, even though he had no idea who or what was heading their way. At that inopportune moment, something terribly perverse stirred in him—he was determined to know, if this was death unfolding, who was behind it.
“Who’s in that car?” he shouted.
Doc Brown had no time for an elaborate explanation. Marty’s hand gripped his sleeve so tightly he had to spin like a top to get away. As he did so, he yelled over his shoulder: “The Libyans I ripped off!”
Marty didn’t understand but he did know that, to date, few Libyans he had heard of had been involved in anything but dark and dangerous business. The effect was of someone yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Marty believed and acknowledged that there was trouble without further investigation. Hurling his body to one side, he looked for the nearest solid object that would provide cover. The only two choices were the step-van and the DeLorean.
Doc Brown was already heading for the step-van.
“Run for it, Marty!” he shouted. “I’ll draw their fire!”
Simultaneously, he hustled into the truck and appeared a moment later with a revolver. By this time, the side door of the black van had slid open and a swarthy character resembling Yasser Arafat leaned out. He threw up an AK 47 submachine gun and opened fire.
Marty had never been shot at before, although he had once been beaned during a baseball game. The effect was vaguely similar. He seemed to move in slow motion, a helpless figure in an echo chamber of harsh reverberating sound. The horizon with its familiar objects—utility poles, lights, department stores—seemed to have disappeared, leaving him trapped in a globe of black fluid. The only two sounds—gunfire and his breathing—competed, each grossly and metallically augmented by panic.
He saw Doc Brown point the revolver at the van and squeeze the trigger. No sound or flash of fire emerged, however, as bullets splattered all around Doc at his feet and into the side of the van. Finally, dropping the revolver, Doc began to sprint for the safety of the mall, fully five hundred yards away.
The van screeched to a halt, backed up and started after Brown. Doc was no more than fifty yards closer to the nearest mall building when the black van started after him in low gear.
“No!” Marty shouted. “Doc! Wait!”
Even as he screamed the words, Marty knew it was poor advice. Were these desperate Libyans actually going to show mercy if Doc Brown suddenly surrendered and begged for his life? It was unlikely at best, but something in Marty forced him to cry for the impossible.
For one long moment, he stood still, his eyes darting from side to side, desperately searching for something that could help his friend. Then, even as he looked, a new barrage of machine-gun fire and a scream told him there was no use. He turned back in time to see Doc Brown clutch his chest, bend over sharply and pitch forward on his face.
“You bastards!” Marty heard himself yell. The voice almost seemed to come from behind him, sweeping past like a cold wind and echoing across the vast empty lot.
The black van made a U-turn, heading back toward Marty. Doc lay still, his left ankle turned at a strange angle. There was no doubt in Marty’s mind that the man was dead.
He would be, too, if he didn’t do something. For a moment, he thought of heading for the step-van. It was big and slow and cumbersome, but at least he knew how to drive it. His mind, working quickly now, rejected that as a suicidal recourse. He would never get to the edge of the mall in that pokey truck. Better to die, if such was his fate, in a burst of glory, or at least in an unmoving vehicle that had a great deal of class.
Grabbing the video camera—in case he needed evidence concerning Doc’s death—Marty tossed it into the DeLorean, then leaped inside and lowered the gull-wing door. He looked around, dazed. Lights blinked on all around him, but the starting mechanism was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, as he hesitated, the black van roared up, passing to his right from a distance of no more than ten feet. Framed in the doorway was the dark Libyan with the machine gun. Marty thought he saw the ghost of a smile as he aimed the weapon at him and pulled the trigger.
No sound came. Marty, curled into the fetal position, blinked and looked out the window. The van was already twenty feet past and slowing down, the Libyan cursing and slamming his fist against the machine gun, which had obviously failed to fire. A tirade of angry gibberish, no doubt Libyan swear words, cascaded into the night.
“Start!” Marty yelled.
He looked at the array of switches and dials on the console with frightening bewilderment. What was the secret? A button? Something in the nature of a digital code? His eyes flew back and forth, trying to locate the solution to the mystery.
When he finally solved the problem, it was so simple he almost laughed. There on the steering column, just like any other ordinary unsophisticated car, was an ignition switch and a key.
“I’ll be damned!” Marty muttered.
As he spoke and reached for the key, he heard the squeal of tires that told him the black van was on its way back to him. Starting the DeLorean, Marty threw it into gear and floored it. The vehicle’s response was even more than he’d hoped for. It seemed to surge forward as if it had been kicked from the rear. For a moment, he could see the Libyan van as a black mass in the left side of his vision, then it receded so rapidly he wondered if its presence had not been a mirage generated by his own fear.
In fact, had the Libyan driver not turned the wrong way in making his U-turn, Marty would have been an easy target for the machine gunner. But rather than turn right, the driver had swerved left, causing them to come nearly abreast of the DeLorean with the open door facing away from Marty. By the time the mistake had been rectified, the DeLorean was already in high gear and on the verge of rapidly outdistancing its pursuer.
Marty glanced out the rear-view mirror just as the machine gunner took aim. Swerving wildly, Marty saw the bullets churn up holes in the asphalt to his left and rear, but he had no time to congratulate himself. Ahead was the end of the mall lot, which he was approaching at seventy-five miles an hour. His lights struck the metal guard rail, warning him that in less than two or three seconds he would plunge through the barrier and over a steep abutment. Behind him, the bouncing lights of the black van dogged his every movement.
Marty grabbed the wheel tighter, faked a left turn and, downshifting quickly, spun the car hard to the right. The tires shrieked, kicked gravel into the guard rail and onto the windshield, but held, completing the turn and a
llowing Marty to roar away from the skidding van. As he did so, he floored the car again, saw the speedometer rise from 50 to 75 in one swift, almost spastic motion. But the Libyan driver was no slouch, either. Despite having less power and maneuverability, he managed to turn around quickly and accelerate to the point where he was barely twenty yards behind the sleek DeLorean.
“O.K.,” Marty whispered. “From here on out, it’s nothing but speed.”
He glanced down at the speedometer as the DeLorean roared past Doc Brown’s immobile body. It read 80. As he passed the step-van, it read 85 and the Libyans showed no sign of quitting.
“All right, you bastards,” Marty hissed. “Let’s see if you can do ninety!”
Behind him, machine-gun fire crackled, several bullets landing ahead of him, causing the road to ignite and bits of asphalt to clatter against the hood. Distracted, Marty looked to his right too late. For a split second, he had the ability to turn right, race through the entrance portals and perhaps outrun the van on the highway. That split second was now past. Ahead was the opposite end of the parking lot, another guard rail, and, he now noted, less area in which to turn.
Should he make his move now? That would give the Libyans a better angle on him, but it would also allow him to make a run for the entrance.
As he puzzled his dilemma, Marty looked at the speedometer.
It read: 88.
Behind his head, gauges and indicators began to light up, lines of digits formed and disappeared on the dashboard, and something like a siren sounded. What had he done? Blown a fuse? Driven the engine past its limits? Touched something he should have left alone?
His eyes quickly scanned the dashboard for some clue to the mystery. As he did so, he was suddenly conscious of a large object rising ahead of him, an object that had not been in his line of sight a moment before. Jerking his head up, he saw not the guard rail and arc lamps of the Twin Pines shopping mall—but the face of a scarecrow!
“What the hell—”
As abruptly as it appeared, the scarecrow disappeared, its crude head smashing against the windshield and falling away in a spray of straw. Then another object loomed—a large square building. Simultaneously, the car began to rock and pitch as if it had abruptly turned off smooth roadway onto cobblestones or a plowed field.