Real World

Written by Anakin McFly

« Contents Page + Prologue
« Chapters 1.1–1.11

Chapter Twelve: Revisitation

Inside the Matrix
Two months earlier

The knocking on the door repeated itself a third time, more insistently than the last. A short moment passed as the knocker paused to listen, but no sound was heard coming from the apartment.

“Thomas?” an elderly woman’s voice called out. There was no reply, so she tried again. “Thomas, are you there?”

When only silence met her ears, the landlady dug into her pocket and withdrew a set of keys. Holding them out to the dim light to make out their labels, she chose one and stuck it into the lock of Neo’s apartment. The door creaked open, and Mrs. Thatch stepped into the blackness beyond.

Blinking as her failing eyes tried to get used to the dark, she fumbled for the light switch and flicked the lights on. The overhead lamp lighted up after some hesitation, for it had not been used in a while; the room’s owner had a certain penchant for living only by the light of his computer.

Better able to see now, Mrs. Thatch surveyed the mess in the apartment and wondered how anyone could live in such a cluttered place. A light covering of dust over everything gave rise to the inference that the place didn’t seem to have been touched in several days, but at the same time, it didn’t seem to have been deliberately abandoned either. The computer still on, equipment strewn all over the tables, old food packets in the dustbin, unwashed cutlery in the sink…

The room bore an eerie resemblance to one that Mrs. Thatch had read about in the newspapers some time ago – the room’s owner had spontaneously combusted, and no one knew she had died until several days later when they found her charred skeleton sitting in a remarkably unscathed chair.

"What would happen if you melted? You know, you never really hear this talked about much, but spontaneous combustion? It exists! ...People burn from within... sometimes they'll be in a wooden chair and the chair won't burn, but there'll be nothing left of the person. Except sometimes his teeth. Or the heart. No one speaks about this, but it’s for real."

Mrs. Thatch shuddered. She couldn’t remember where she had heard or read that – in a dream, perhaps? – but it had stuck in her mind ever since.

Apart from her, however, the apartment was devoid of humans, burnt to a crisp or otherwise.

What could have made him leave so suddenly like that? Without warning, just gone – disappeared. Thomas’ boss at Meta Cortechs, Mr. Rhineheart, had called her up demanding to know why he hadn’t been coming to work and if she knew anything regarding his whereabouts.

She didn’t.

A cockroach scuttled out from under the bed and disappeared into a dark corner.

It seemed unlikely that Thomas had run away – the state of the room implied that he had left with the intention of returning. And if he had been attacked and murdered while he was out, surely there’d be something on the news by now?

Shaking slightly at the thought of Thomas lying dead in some alley somewhere, Mrs. Thatch turned off the light and left the apartment.

And then, that night, her doorbell rang. When she answered the door, he was standing there.

Slowly, Mrs. Thatch’s mouth opened. “Thomas?”

Neo gave a wan smile. “Hi. I… just thought I’d say goodbye, Mrs. Thatch. I’m sorry for leaving so suddenly…”

The old woman was still stunned at his sudden reappearance. “But… where’d you go?”

“I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

Neo hesitated. “Maybe… maybe one day you’ll find out.”

A moment’s silence passed between the two of them, then he broke it.

“I’ll just go over to my apartment now… clear up some things… Yeah. I’ll come back later.”

Mrs. Thatch nodded, and Neo turned to leave, reaching into his pocket for his apartment key that had been recreated in the Construct. He went down the corridor as he had done so many times before, then arrived at his door and unlocked it.

Neo stepped inside and turned on a light.

He missed this place. It was a dingy old apartment with bad lighting, but he missed it all the same. In the past he’d never really thought too highly of his home, but now that he had left it, nostalgia had transformed his old apartment into something much better than what it really was.

This was where he’d spent each night in front of his computer searching for something called the Matrix; this was where he’d lived off an unhealthy amount of instant food and pizzas; this was where he’d once accidentally locked himself in his closet, because one day he’d come back from work feeling stressed and needing a nice, dark place to coop up in – it just so happened that that aforementioned nice, dark, place had a faulty lock. (He had yelled until Mrs. Thatch had heard and come to save him.)

Neo moved over to his computer and shook the mouse to bring it out of sleep mode. The screen flickered on to reveal the results of the last search he had done. Funny how it all seemed so irrelevant now. He closed the Internet windows and shut down the computer.

Around the table and shelves were all the CDs he’d accumulated over the years, several filled with illegal programmes that could land him in jail for a substantial amount of time if discovered. More stuff lay in his filing cabinet by the side and under his unmade bed.

Neo went to his bed and sat down on it. He ran his fingers over his blanket, his hand coming eventually to rest on the pillow. So many times he had woken up here to discover he was late for work… and just as many nights had he not slept here, having fallen asleep by his computer.

He got up, headed for his closet, and opened its doors. His clothes hung inside, never to be worn again. Neo pushed them aside and got into the closet, huddling into a sitting position on the closet floor.

The doors swung shut.

There was a click.

Neo swore.

Right, he thought, gritting his teeth in annoyance, all feelings of nostalgia temporarily washed away.

Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the doors. There is no lock… There is no lock…. Use the Force, Neo… There is no lock…

There was a satisfactory click, and Neo gratefully pushed the now unlocked doors open, trying to ignore the unwanted thoughts of how Yoda would be so proud of him. Neo climbed out of the closet and stood up, running a hand through his black hair. He gazed at his kitchen area – welcome sanctuary to many little homeless ants – and went to stand in the doorway of the bathroom in which he had suffered many a stomach-ache. His toothbrush and toothpaste still lay by the sink, along with various other bathroom accessories.

Neo entered and gave the toilet one last flush for old times’ sake. Then he went out, shutting the bathroom door behind him. He shouldn’t linger any longer, he thought, checking his watch. Time was precious.

Neo gave his apartment one last glance, bidding it a silent goodbye; then he left, never to return again. He walked back to Mrs. Thatch’s room and passed her the keys.

“Aren’t you taking anything with you?” she asked.

Neo shook his head. “No. I won’t need them where I’m going.”

“And you can’t tell me where that is?”

“I can’t.”

Mrs. Thatch sighed. “All right, then. Take care of yourself, Thomas.”

“I will.”

A while later, as she watched his retreating form disappear down the corridor, she suddenly had the feeling that she had to follow him… she had to know…

As quietly as she could, Mrs. Thatch hurried after Neo. She followed him as he left the building and turned the corner to the old telephone box standing there in the dark. He entered, to Mrs. Thatch’s puzzlement. Was he going to make a phoneca…

The phone started to ring.

Thomas picked it up and put it to his ear, and for one last second he looked out and saw the old landlady standing there.

Their eyes locked for a moment.

Then he vanished.

Chapter Thirteen: Strange Things Are Afoot in the Space-Time Continuum

15^th December 1985, Sunday
Hill Valley, California

Marty felt slightly better that morning. Nick had called him – from the phone outside the band room – to tell him that the school band’s concert had been postponed due to the band conductor being in hospital after an accident involving a car, a dog, and a fire hydrant, and so Nick would be coming after all. They still stood a chance, at least, and that was something, Marty thought, as he turned into the road leading to Doc’s garage.

Already things were becoming a routine for him. Go to school, leave school, drop by Doc’s garage to use the computer or do whatever else he wanted there, then either go home or go for another one of his many practices with the rest of his band. During the weekends, he just cut school out of that schedule.

His parents didn’t mind the teen’s constant visits to the garage much; Lorraine and his siblings were usually out of the house too, and George found it easier to write when there was no one else in the house to distract him. Speaking of George, Marty’s father had been acting a little… strange lately, especially towards the teen. It was almost as if he suspected something not quite normal was going on, Marty thought uneasily, then waved it aside. He couldn’t have… could he?

Marty tried to go through his memories of the new timeline and see if he could recall anything that might have happened that could have given George some clue that quite a few abnormal things were going on in Hill Valley, but those memories weren’t clear enough yet. His ones of the original timeline were already gradually fading at the same rate too, such that he was currently at that point where his past from both timelines seemed one big blur.

Marty’s parents might not have cared much about where he spent his time after school as long as he got home safely and in time for dinner, but Jennifer, on the other hand, was starting to mind a little. She knew that Marty was very concerned over the upcoming competition and didn’t mind that – it was only until the competition was over, after all – but she didn’t see why he had to spend so much time in the garage by himself. These few days, they only saw each other at school and sometimes for a little while after.

Jennifer was beginning to miss his company, but she still clung on to the hope that once the competition was over, they could continue on in their relationship and see each other as often as they did before. At least, she hoped that that was what would happen.

15^th December 1985, Sunday
Three years before Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
San Dimas, California

The twang of a seriously out-of-tune electric guitar string resonated around the Preston garage. As the sound died down, Bill Preston looked up from the instrument to his best friend. “What d’you think?”

Ted Logan tried to remember what the note had sounded like. “I think it’s a bit off, dude,” he concluded.

“Yeah. Me too.” Bill randomly chose a direction and turned the tuning key for the required string, then plucked it again.

The E-string was now perfectly pitched in D, and the teens grinned at each other. This sounded better. Sort of.

Aged fourteen as of December 1985, both were currently unofficial members of the Disaster Area band, but had long dreamed of starting up one of their own. There were just two main problems standing in their way. Firstly, they couldn’t play any instrument yet. Not that they hadn’t tried, and the battered condition of two of Lewis’ old guitars was evidence enough of that – the band leader had given the instruments to them as a return for their help backstage during the D.A.’s performances.

It was one of the two guitars that they were now trying to tune. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any idea what an in-tune guitar sounded like. Before this, they had always just strummed randomly on the strings and tried to make it sound good. It was only today that they had decided to actually learn how to play properly, but progress was slow.

The second reason that prevented them from starting up their own band was simply that they had yet to think up a most excellent band name.

Bill had found out that the six strings on the guitar were pitched in E, A, D, G, B and the second octave E respectively. They figured that this information would probably come in handy some time, though they didn’t quite know how.

“Okay,” Bill said. “The next string’s supposed to be ‘A’…”

Ted grabbed a sandwich off a plate on a nearby table and took a bite. Bill plucked the string. A perfectly-pitched ‘A’ sounded out. He frowned slightly.

“That does not sound good,” Ted agreed.

“I agree, Ted. I have never heard our guitars sound like that before.”

Bill fiddled with the tuning key, then tried again. A rather flat note came out.

Ted shrugged. “It’s getting closer.”

Bill twisted the key further, then plucked the string again. A very flat note came out, noticeable even to the two tone-deaf teens. They winced.

Bill sighed and put down the guitar. “Let’s face it, dude. We’re never going to be become a band.”

Ted nodded sadly. “Yeah. We don’t even have a good band name.”

“We don’t even have a bad band name either,” Bill added.

They gazed miserably into space.

“What about… untrained male equines?” Ted suggested suddenly.^[x]

“Shut up, Ted.”

Bill got himself a sandwich and munched on it.

Ted sighed and chucked the last bit of his sandwich into his mouth.

15^th December 1985, Sunday
Hill Valley, California

Marty entered the garage and turned on the computer as usual, then logged onto the Internet. Checking his e-mail to see if Doc had replied – he had – he found one other message sitting in his inbox. It was a mass e-mail notice that had been sent out to everyone on the Hill Valley Online website:

From - hvps@hillvalley-online.com
To - everyone@hillvalley-online.com
Subject: SAVE THE CLOCKTOWER!
As all of you should know by now, the Clocktower which overlooks the Hill Valley Courthouse Square is an invaluable piece of our cultural history.
49 years ago, however, on the night of November 12, 1955, this masterpiece of a building that had kept perfect time until then was struck by a bolt of lightning at precisely 10:04 p.m., during one of the greatest lightning storms ever to occur in our town.
As a result, the clock stopped, and the building is now in grave danger of being pulled down.
We at the Hill Valley Preservation Society hope to raise enough money to help persuade the government to leave the Clocktower alone, thus preserving an important piece of our history.
YOU can play a part too! Donate today and save the Clocktower!
Thank you.
- President of the Hill Valley Preservation Society 2004

They never give up, do they? Marty wondered with a faint smile, before deleting it and going on to his other new message.

From - julesvernefan@yahoo.com
To - futureboy85@hillvalley-online.com
Subject: RE: Help
Marty, I’m glad you asked me before going to check out the results yourself. I would very much like to help you but unfortunately I can't, and you know that. No one should know too much about his or her own future, no matter what the reason. And there’s no point in creating unnecessary paradoxes. Not all of them can be prevented easily, and some not at all.
I fear you know the possible consequences all too well. I hope you believe me when I say that I’m sorry. Just continue to practise hard and you might still stand a chance of winning. If not, you can always learn from it and try harder the next time. Good luck.
No, I haven’t heard of the website before. I’ll go and look at it when I have the time.
- Doc

Doc’s reply was disappointing, at most, but Marty knew that it was highly doubtful that he would have replied in any other way. And he supposed that most of what his friend said was true, too. It wasn’t worth risking the existence of life-as-they-knew-it over some minor band competition.

Had this all been happening more than a month ago, Marty would have probably just proceeded to look up the results anyway. But times had changed – literally or otherwise – and he knew better than to do so. Besides, he didn’t ever want to run the risk of stumbling again upon that particular website known as BTTF.com.

From – futureboy85@hillvalley-online.com
To -julesvernefan@yahoo.com
Subject: nil
Hi Doc,
I guess it doesn't matter anymore. It probably won't help much by knowing anyway. If we're doomed, we're doomed.
Sorry for bothering you.
- Marty

Marty shut down the computer, then left for J.J.’s house to practise for the competition. It had become the band’s most common meeting place, considering that the amplifier at Doc’s garage was not exactly in very good shape at the moment.

Nick was the last to arrive at J.J.’s house, due to having been held up by the school band’s practice. He passed his guitar over to Steve with explicit instructions to treat it carefully even though it was already falling apart, and then they spent the rest of the day in J.J.’s basement practising away, breaking only for lunchtime.

“Maybe we can distribute earmuffs during the performance,” Steve suggested when they had returned from lunch and were getting ready to play again. “You know, so we won’t sound so loud.”

“Yeah, and they can be fluffy and pink,” J.J. said. “Come on, the judges won’t fall for that. But fifty decibels…” The teen buried his head in his hands. “Marty, what’s our current volume?”

Marty looked at the small instrument Doc had invented for them the previous year. It had recorded the volume of their previous run through. “Uh, 70 dB,” he replied sheepishly. And that’s our softest, I think. We’re usually way over a hundred.”

“See? What’d I tell you? We’re doomed.”

Nick shrugged. “Maybe they typed the rules wrongly and it was 150 dB instead of 50.”

Marty sighed. “Nope. I checked with the music department. It’s 50. Apparently they wanted to ‘try something new’. Let’s just try to drop down to 60 today, okay? 70’s already an improvement. J.J., softer on the drums.”

The band took up their instruments and went back to their practice. It was past five in the evening when Marty finally left for home, and the skies were already darkening.

Passing by Doc’s garage, it was then that he saw it.

A ripple in the air, ever so slight… though it was not so much one as a sudden rippling burst of coloured light in the dark that disappeared as quickly and unexpectedly as it had come. It had been by the side of the building where the computer was located.

Marty didn’t know what to think of it, and in fact was not even sure if he hadn’t just imagined it. Shaking his head, he continued on home.

(Thanks to my brother for the name 'untrained male equines')

Chapter Fourteen: BTTF.COM — Your Ultimate Guide to the World of Back to the Future

16^th December 1985, Monday
Hill Valley, California

Marty had already got it down to an art. Flip up his skateboard, reach under the doormat, pull out the garage key, unlock the door and go in: all under five seconds. He shut the door, then went over to turn on the computer and go online. A new e-mail awaited him:

From - julesvernefan@yahoo.com
To - futureboy85@hillvalley-online.com
Subject: Are you free?
Marty,
Clara and I will be going out to dinner tomorrow night, and we were wondering if you would like to come over and look after the boys while we are away. I dare not run the risk of letting anyone else do so, what with the two time machines in the house, but if you can’t make it, we’ll try to come up with alternatives.
Reply soon.
- Doc

Marty read the e-mail with mixed emotions. He’d been longing to see his friend again, even if it was just for a while, and the last time he’d seen Jules and Verne seemed so long ago – though it would have been longer for them then for him, he realised. On the other hand, almost every single time he stepped into a time machine, bad things happened. Like last month, when Doc took him on what was supposed to be a simple trip to the future to save his son from a car accident and both of them ended up temporarily stranded in some alternate universe.^[1]

In fact, had there ever been a time when he had managed to accomplish what he intended to do by getting into one of Doc’s time machines? Marty mentally checked off his previous time travel trips in his head.

The first time, he had got into the DeLorean with the intention of using it as a normal car to drive away from the Libyan terrorists. Instead, he had accidentally knocked the time circuits on and got sent back in time to 1955, whereupon he managed to effectively erase himself from existence in the space of just a few hours. He had succeeded in rectifying the problem in the end, but it had taken him a whole week.

The second trip was when he was trying to get back to the future from 1955 – fine, so that one turned out okay. Third time: Doc popped up the morning after he’d got back, and chucked him into 2015 to save his ever errant future kids (he has to get them out of jail, he has to save them from car accidents, etc etc etc). They managed that, but of all things, Biff had to see them and take the DeLorean back to make himself rich and mutilate the timeline. But they didn’t know, of course, so they’d got into the returned time machine and attempted to return home. Didn’t work. They’d managed to get to 1985, fine, but in some nightmarish alternate timeline. Went back to 1955 again to stop Biff, succeeded, so that was two successes against three failures.

Next, they’d tried to get back home again, but the DeLorean with Doc in it got struck by lightning, and was zapped back into the Old West. Two against four. Marty went after him but in the end, Doc never followed him back; so much for his rescue mission. Two against five. And that most recent episode last month, which alone probably had examples of at least ten incidents in which they never ended up where they intended to be.

Marty grimaced. Times like this, he felt as though his life were some Steven Spielberg movie.

Maybe it is, he thought with a sudden chill of realisation, remembering BTTF.com. But there was no way he was going back to that site just to check if Mr. Spielberg had had any part in the movie. Things were creepy enough as it were…

Marty read through the e-mail again. He needed a break, that much was sure, what with the upcoming competition and the usual stresses of life; and what better way to get away from it all than a night spent babysitting Doc’s children?

Doubts about the safety of the short time trip he would have to make to Doc’s house rose again in his mind, but Marty pushed them back down. He was just going there for a few hours and then getting back home. It wasn’t as if Doc was asking him to go save the universe again… it’d just be a nice, quiet, uneventful night with the Brown kids…

From - futureboy85@hillvalley-online.com
To - julesvernefan@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Are you free?
Sure, I’ll come. When are you picking me up? I’ll be waiting outside the garage.
Just to check: the machines are safe, right? You haven’t been adding on any new gadgets or anything?
- Marty

Doc must have been online waiting for a reply, because his own came quickly.

From - julesvernefan@yahoo.com
To - futureboy85@hillvalley-online.com
Subject: Are you free?
Yes, they’re perfectly safe. I’ll come get you with the DeLorean at 6pm tomorrow your time.
- Doc

Mary smiled at the thought of being able to see his friend again so soon, but then his smile faded a little as he remembered the ripple thing he’d seen two days before. Things weren’t normal, that much he had an idea of. What exactly was going on, or if anything outside the normal time travel stuff was going on in the first place, he didn’t know. Perhaps the ripple was a side effect of the Internet travelling from 2004 to 1985 whenever he switched on the computer. Maybe. Maybe not.

The website BTTF.com kept nagging at him. It scared him, but at the same time invoked in him a curiosity to find out just what it was all about. His first visit hadn’t revealed much… but he didn’t dare return, didn’t dare to…

Did that mean that other people were right, and he was chicken after all?

Nobody called him chicken. Nobody.

Trying to push his growing fear aside, Marty firmly typed the site address into the address bar and hit the ‘enter’ key. The page opened to a black background with the words ‘www.bttf.com’ scrolling across it in bright letters. Marty moved the cursor over to ‘skip intro’ and clicked.

The main page loaded. With it came the words, the pictures, several way too familiar for Marty’s liking. They knew. They knew everything… His eyes moved unsteadily over the page. His name was there. The names of his family were there. And others, people he didn’t know…

There were certain things he was never meant to see. This website from goodness-knows-where fell under that category. But Marty held on, somehow, his heart beating faster and faster by the moment until he thought his chest would burst.

Two small voices were yelling in his head.

Get out. Get out.

It’s nothing. It’s fine. It’s just another website… just another…

Get out. Get out!

Marty’s cursor hovered over the link that said ‘Cast and Crew’, and a list of names appeared. He recognised none of them, and moved the cursor to click on the first one.

Get out!

The page loaded. Marty glanced at the picture and read a few lines, cold sweat dripping from his already wet forehead.

Get out. GET OUT!

It’s nothing… just a normal website…

GET OUT!

Who on earth is Michael-

GET OUT!

WHAT THE…

He got out.

Marty closed the window with one panicked click and just stared at the empty screen hyperventilating away, heart hammering so loudly he was sure the whole town could hear it. He hadn’t realised his left hand had been gripping the table, and released it, letting it slip limply off the table onto his lap.

Marty shut his eyes and took a shaky breath, trying to shut out from his mind all that he had seen. He was never going back there again. Never…

Calm down, McFly, just calm down…

Never going back…

Just a website…

Never…

Never.

Marty just sat there in silence for about five minutes with his eyes closed, drawing comfort from the stillness of the garage and the faint sounds of everyday life going on outside it. His breathing slowed to almost normal, and after a while he opened his eyes again.

Fine. Everything was fine. No strange ripples, nothing.

But it didn’t make a difference; he was leaving this place and going home, where he could at least pretend that everything was still normal and nothing had changed since the day Doc had installed the computer in the garage for his use.

Yeah, Marty thought. I should go home.

That evening after dinner, Marty sat on his bed plucking aimlessly at his guitar strings and thinking once more about the competition. His band still had to drop their volume by quite a bit if they didn’t want to be disqualified…

The random notes he was playing slowly formed into the opening of ‘Johnny B. Goode’. He hadn’t played that song for a while – the last time had been in 1955 at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance.

Turning up the volume of his small amplifier a little without thinking of the consequences, Marty got off his bed, replayed the opening notes, then launched energetically into the song without singing as he tried to make the music drown out everything else that had been worrying him so far.

Marty didn’t notice when his bedroom door opened a crack.

He didn’t notice when his father peeped in, a very strange expression on his face.

And he couldn’t have noticed how George McFly rushed back to his room, yanked out his 1955 Yearbook, and studied several photographs more closely than he had ever done before.

Marty just played on.

^[1] From my as-yet-incomplete Back to the Future fan fiction novella, ‘When Worlds Collide and Go Kaboom’, which at this rate will probably never get completed; if it does, I’ll probably change the title because it currently sounds, with a very good reason, like something a thirteen-year-old came up with.

Chapter Fifteen: Fragments of the Past

Onboard the Nebuchadnezzar

Until this day, Neo had never really bothered to find out what was in all those little boxes on the shelf in his room. Most looked rusty and grimy, much like the rest of the ship, and he’d never given much thought to them, simply pushing them aside whenever he needed the space for his few belongings.

But he decided that now was as good a time as any to find out what those boxes contained. Going over to the rusting metal shelf, he reached out and took down some of the boxes, then carried them over to his bed.

Neo sat down, placed the boxes on the floor, and picked up the topmost one. A layer of grime coated its once-white plastic surface, and he tried not to touch it any more than was necessary. Lifting its metal latch, Neo opened the box.

The first thing he noticed was the horrible stench that wafted out.

Then he saw the small skeleton inside, still with bits of rotting flesh hanging off the bones. Neo gave a small yell and dropped it in shock. The box met the floor with a dull clang, and a small piece of paper fluttered out. It was covered in miniscule writing, with a stain on its side which looked uncannily like blood.

Not yet recovered from the sudden unexpected sight of the skeleton, Neo just stared at the note. Then he realised that staring at it was not going to get him anywhere useful anytime soon, and his curiosity about what was written there finally overcame his unwillingness to have any more to do with that box or its contents. Reluctantly, Neo picked up the note, holding it gingerly between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand as he read the words scrawled on it:

Trevor, you were the best pet rat I could have ever wished for. I’m sorry for feeding you the leftovers of my meals, but I didn’t know that they would end up poisoning you. I guess that says something about the quality of the food here, though. If a rat can’t take it, there’s no knowing what it might do to a person in the long run.

I’ll miss you, Trevor.

Rest in peace.

- Lyman

What kind of idiot calls his rat ‘Trevor’? Neo wondered, gazing at the note. He turned back to the box with the rat’s halfway-decomposed carcass in it, used his shoe to nudge it closer, and dropped the note back in. Kicking the box shut, Neo placed it in a far corner of the shelf before going over to the small sink by the cabin’s door to give his hands a good wash.

He then regarded the remaining pile of boxes with considerably less enthusiasm than before, not that he had had much to begin with. The second box looked the same as the first from the outside – as did the other two beneath it – and Neo opened it with some trepidation, holding it as far away from himself as his hands would reach.

The box’s interior was green and fuzzy in a Yoda sort of way. It also stank, but it was a different kind of stink from the first box. While the latter had been the stench of death, this was the stench of life: the stench of undesirable little organisms growing in areas they ought not to.

Neo decided that it was no business of his if his room’s previous inhabitant had decided to try his hand at gardening, but then he saw the note in the box, taped to the inside of the cover and filled with the same tiny handwriting.

DAY ONE: Dumped the remains of my dinner in here. I was going to throw it down the toilet, but I thought that I might as well keep it and see what happens after a few days.
DAY TWO: Still looks the same.
DAY THREE: It’s kind of starting to stink a little now.
DAY FOUR: It’s turning yellowish brown, and several green spots have appeared here and there. And we eat this stuff. I’m going to show it to Morpheus if it gets any worse.
DAY FIVE: Bigger green spots. I showed it to Morpheus. He said that all food goes bad if you leave it in a box for several days. Git.
DAY SIX: I thought I saw something move, but maybe it was just my imagination.

Neo looked at the green fuzz that covered most of the inside of the box, and decided that any further reading of Lyman’s experimental report would only serve to put him off dinner. He shut the box with a grimace and placed it on top of Trevor’s remains.

Two more boxes remained on the floor from the few he’d taken off the shelf. Might as well get it over with…

The third box also had a strange smell, but one that had a familiar quality to it. The inside was smoothly coated with some reddish-brown substance, and Neo reached out a finger to touch it. It felt plastic-y. He prodded it, and it depressed under his touch.

Then the words on the note taped inside caught his eye:

‘Trevor, you have not died in vain. Your blood will remain here forever to remind me of you. – Lyman’

Neo hurriedly pulled his finger away and slammed the box shut. Rat blood. He supposed it could be worse, though… but whoever this Lyman fellow was, he sure had some serious issues, Neo thought, as he washed his finger in the sink, realising that if he kept on like this, sooner or later someone was going to complain about him using up the water supplies on the Neb.

One last box lay on the floor now. Neo had more than half a mind to put it back on the shelf without opening it, but his curiosity wouldn’t let him.

Why not? he asked it.

Because, his curiosity replied. OPEN IT. OPEN IT NOW.

Neo wasn’t one to argue with the voices in his head. Besides, he had gone through three boxes already… what was one more? Hesitantly, Neo picked up the box and opened it, expecting some other weird odour or other to emanate from its depths.

But all he found was something roughly rectangular-shaped wrapped in paper. And the box smelt completely fine.

Neo lifted out the object and unwrapped it. To his surprise, beneath the paper was an unexpectedly clean and sleek-looking matte black case inside. It seemed so out of place here, more like something that belonged inside the Matrix, not out of it…

Curious now, he pressed the silver button at the side and there was a soft click as the catch came undone.

Neo opened the case, and he stared.

Inside it lay the coolest pair of sunglasses he had ever laid his eyes upon.

It sat there, on top of what looked like a really cool piece of cloth, surrounded by the soft velvet interior of the case. It looked somewhat like the kind of sunglasses he and the others wore when jacked into the Matrix, but with two main differences: Firstly, it looked much, much cooler. And secondly… it was real.

Neo hadn’t the faintest idea how the sunglasses had got onto the ship. It took a good minute of gazing in awe at the really cool sunglasses before he thought of looking for a note, and he found one at the bottom of the box.

Hi, whoever you are.
Last week when me and some others were on the surface, I found the remains of a sunglasses shop. Most of it had fallen in, but in the stockroom at the back were several boxes filled with cases of perfectly intact expensive sunglasses. So I took this one. I didn’t tell anybody because they might think it was stealing, but then I realised that maybe I shouldn’t have taken it after all, because what’s the point of owning a really cool pair of sunglasses if you can’t show it off to everybody? So I’m just leaving it in this box to look at now and then.
If you’re reading this, it probably means that I’m dead or something. So I guess the sunglasses are yours now, then, whoever you are.
I feel stupid. I bet no one’s going to read this and I feel like I’m just talking to myself.
- Lyman
P.S. If you’re Morpheus, I discovered that a mixture of saliva, urine, rust, seven-day-old food and salt makes a pretty good hair tonic. I tried it on myself, and it worked wonders. So if you ever decide that you don’t want to be bald any more, just tell me.
P.P.S. Though maybe that won’t be possible, because if you’re reading this, I’m probably dead.
P.P.P.S. Then again, you could always try it on your own.

Neo had no idea how to respond to the note, so he ignored it for the moment and went back to gaping at the really cool sunglasses. Carefully, he took it out, marvelling at the smoothly cut dark lenses, running a finger down the polished black handles… and then regretting it, because it left finger marks on its glossy surface.

Neo took out the really cool sunglasses cloth from the case, wiped away the marks his finger had made, then put the cloth back into the case before gently replacing the really cool sunglasses on top of it. He stared at it for a moment longer before shutting the lid.

Neo wrapped the case up again with the paper, and hesitated. He didn’t quite like the idea of putting the sunglasses back into the dirty box… Making up his mind, Neo turned around and placed the case sans paper into the wire rack above his bed instead, next to his clothes where he could take it out to look at whenever he wanted.

Neo then picked up the box on the floor, now empty save for Lyman’s note. He crushed the paper and dropped it into the box, then closed the lid and returned it to the shelf before sitting back down on his bed to think about his latest find.

Somehow, the sunglasses were a sign of hope for him. It was comforting to know that despite the seemingly dilapidated state of the world he lived in, there still remained remnants of a better life, somewhere out there. They might come in forms as minor as a pair of really cool sunglasses… but if those existed, what more was there out there, hidden beneath the ruins of the human cities? Fragments of life in the past… happier times, perhaps; souvenirs of the days when humankind was still in control.

Just a pair of sunglasses… It seemed an anachronism, here on the ship. It belonged to a different time: a time he used to know, or thought he knew. The sunglasses were the only real reminder of the life he’d known for so many years. They were something real that he could see and hold and touch and know was not just some artificial digital construction that would vanish the moment he jacked out...

Just a pair of sunglasses. A really cool pair, but just sunglasses all the same.

Neo shifted his gaze back to the shelf, where more boxes lay, unopened. He wondered what they might hold.

Maybe another time he’d go and see.

Chapter Sixteen: The Deal

15^th November 1895, Friday
Hill Valley, California

Emmett Brown paid a visit to BTTF.com as Marty had told him to, surfed around a little, and decided after a while that the website was possibly the most fascinating site that he had ever seen. Furthermore, according to the readout on the computer-like device that monitored the abnormal access to the Internet, the site wasn’t just coming from the future but also another reality or dimension altogether.

That was very fascinating.

Emmett was also especially intrigued by the fact that in that other world, he and Marty appeared to be part of a fictional movie along with practically everyone and everything else they knew personally.

That too was very fascinating.

The only problem was that if he could manage to access a website he shouldn’t have normally been able to, it could mean only one thing – something was going wrong.

And that wasn’t exactly a very fascinating thought.

Emmett would have thought it safer to just abandon the entire project before things got any worse, but he knew how much it meant to Marty… and him too, he supposed. The best thing he could do about the problem was to try and see what he could do to eliminate it without placing the entire system at risk.

Verne ran up to his brother that afternoon when school finished. “I changed my e-mail address,” he said.

Jules glared at him, then took a quick look around to make sure no one was listening. “Don’t talk about that here!” he hissed furiously under his breath. “You know what Dad says about this! “

Verne scowled and rolled his eyes, angry at being corrected. “It’s not like anyone here would know what e-mail is.”

“Precisely, you dolt! What if they wonder what we’re talking about? What if they suspect we’re doing something we’re not supposed to?”

The younger boy gave a theatrical sigh. “Come on, Jules, it’s just e-mail. I wasn’t even talking about time travel or anyth…”

“Shut up!” Jules interrupted, before he could say anything more. “Do you talk about all this in class too? If anyone ever learns anything about our family they’re not supposed to, it’ll be your fault!”

“Whatever,” Verne muttered under his breath. The two boys walked the rest of the way home in silence, with Verne occasionally kicking at the ground in annoyance. The number of passers-by dwindled as they got further from the town centre, and he decided it was okay to talk. “I changed my e-mail address to jules_is_a_stupid_idiot@hillvalley-online.com, in case you want to know. It’s longer than yours and it’s nicer too.”

Jules remained unfazed and shook his head slowly. “Verne, you cytoplasmic organelle. Thanks for the compliment. A double negative equals a positive, don’t you know that?” He appeared to think for a moment. “No, wait, you probably don’t. Anyway, I’ll have to return that favour one day.” Jules smirked at his brother, and made Verne very much want to hit him.

“You still haven’t returned my Game Boy,” he said instead.

“You still haven’t paid me two million dollars,” Jules replied matter-of-factly. “I told you I’d give your Game Boy back when I get your money. The deal still stands. No money, no Game Boy.”

“I saw the book,” Verne said desperately, in a last attempt to sway his brother.

It seemed to work, and Jules stopped in his tracks, turning slowly to face the younger boy. “What book?” His voice was cautious.

Verne stopped walking too. “The one you took from the future. The one ‘bout the history of Hill Valley from 1850 to 2000. I saw it in your room, so don’t think you can pretend you don’t know about it.”

Jules stared at him in indignation. “Who gave you permission to look through my things?”

“So you did take the book,” Verne stated triumphantly. “Wait till I tell Dad… you’re in for it now. You know what’s he’s like about stuff from the future.”

“For your information, Verne, I didn’t take it. It was in a dustbin, which meant that it was going to be thrown away, in case you don’t know. And I think I deserve the right to know what’s going to happen to this town, to this planet. Dad never tells us anything.” Jules scowled. “I’m old enough,” he added with an almost childish whine.

“You know he doesn’t tell us ‘cause he’s scared that we might accidentally let someone else learn things they’re not supposed to. Like if they’re supposed to die in war or something but because of something we tell them they do things different and don’t die.”

“You mean he’s scared that you will leak out something. You couldn’t even keep your big mouth shut about e-mail just now. People could have heard.” Jules kicked the ground in frustration, sending up dust clouds of sand around his feet. “It’s all your fault,” he muttered.

“Don’t change the subject. I’m still telling about the book. You’re not supposed to read things like that.”

“Look, I’ll let you read it too, okay?”

Verne shook his head. “I bet it’s all long and boring. I don’t want to read it.”

Jules’ heart sank. If Verne told their father about the book, he didn’t know if he would be able to bear the shame. His father had trusted him, especially, the older of the two, to follow all his strict rules whenever the family took one of their little trips through time… But he’d really wanted that book; he hadn’t been able to resist it when he saw it lying there abandoned in the trashcan, and besides he’d told himself to read no further than 1985, for if his family had only moved back to the future a few years ago instead of staying put in the nineteenth century, all that would have been common knowledge to him…

Verne was looking at him in an expectant sort of way.

“I’ll return your Game Boy,” Jules finally said with reluctance.

Verne grinned. “That’s more like it. Okay, I won’t tell.”

Jules hesitated. “They’re out of batteries, though. I played it a while that day, and it ran out, so you’ll just have to change them later.”

He continued walking on, but the grin had vanished from Verne’s face as the boy ran to catch up with him. “You used up the batteries?”

Jules nodded. “Sorry. But you’ve got more, right?”

Verne stared at him in disbelief.

Jules looked at him. “Right?”

The blonde boy shook his head slowly. “Those were the last two. I was saving them. I WAS SAVING THEM, JULES!” he suddenly yelled. “They were supposed to last me till my birthday!”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“I was only going to play it for five minutes a week, but now you’ve used them all up, and they’re not even yours!”

“Listen…”

“Dad said I could only get new batteries on my birthday, so I was saving them up, and you used them, and…”

“VERNE!” Jules grabbed his brother violently by his shoulders. “I’ll get you new ones, okay? I’ll get you new ones, so just shut up!”

Verne scowled. “You can’t get new ones. They’re only available in the future.”

Jules released his grip, suddenly regretting his wild promise. “Yes, I know. I’ll get you some when we go there next. On my own money.”

“I can’t wait so long. I want them now. I could be playing my Game Boy now, but I can’t and it’s all your fault… I’m telling Dad about the book.”

“What do you want, Verne?” Jules asked through gritted teeth. “I told you, I’m sorry, I really didn’t know those were the last batteries, and there’s nothing I can do about it, okay?”

Verne’s eyes lit up. “You could take one of the time machines. Mum and Dad are going out for dinner tonight, and Marty’s supposed to be looking after us, remember? We could go then, and get the batteries, and I won’t mention the book again. You said you knew how to operate the machines, so prove it.”

“I don’t think…”

“What’s the matter, Jules? Chicken?”

A reluctant grin appeared on the older boy’s face, then vanished as abruptly as it had come. “Sorry, that only works on Marty.”

“It’s only going to be a short trip, Jules! How long can it take to get batteries…?”

That was true, Jules supposed, but it wasn’t so much the trip that worried him as what his parents would do to them if they found out. And yet, it would be a lie to say that he had never before considered the possibility of taking one of the time machines on a joyride through time without his parents’ knowledge… tonight would be the perfect opportunity… Furthermore, if he were to do this, the incident might serve as very useful leverage in future whenever he needed Verne to do something he wanted.

“We’ll see,” Jules said, and closed the topic for the moment. They had arrived home, and the nine-year-old left for his room to study for school, but he couldn’t concentrate.

sideways from eternity