Real World
Written by Anakin McFly
« Contents Page + Prologue
« Chapters 1.1–1.11
« Chapters 1.12–1.16
- Joyride Through Time
- The Competition
- The One with the E-mail and the Cloaking Device
- The MJF Connection
- Out of Their World
Chapter Seventeen: Joyride Through Time
15th November 1895, Friday
Hill Valley, California
Unlike what Marty had feared, the trip was a short and uneventful one. Doc had come to get him in the DeLorean, and the rest of the Brown family were waiting to welcome him as the car landed. Jules and Verne hadn’t changed much since the last time he’d seen them – they were about three years older now, but other than that they looked mostly the same from what he remembered.
The two boys were instructed to show him around, so Marty followed them as Emmett and Clara left for their dinner.
He liked the house. It had a nice, cosy feel to it, and was way less cluttered than Doc’s garage used to be. Marty suspected that Clara had had a big part in that.
Verne was having fun being a tour guide, whereas Jules just walked silently behind, as if preoccupied with something.
“…and that’s Dad’s lab, you can’t go in there… and this is the secret room,” Verne concluded with a grin.
They were standing in front of a bookcase, with the door to the laboratory on their far left. Verne pushed aside the books, reached in and yanked a lever, and then pushed the books back as the bookcase slid smoothly aside to reveal a door behind. Verne opened it, and the three entered the L-shaped room as the place filled with a warm glow upon sensing their presence.
“This is where we keep all the stuff we don’t want people to see,” Verne explained. “And all the walls are soundproofed, too, so people can’t hear us when we’re watching TV.”
Marty gave a low whistle as he surveyed the room. To his left was a wooden table with a computer, scanner and printer on it; above were shelves filled with computer games, diskettes, CDs, and other computer equipment; wires left the monitor and went under the door next to it, which Marty supposed led to Doc’s lab. A large television set was located opposite and to the right of them, at the end of the longer arm of the ‘L’. In front of it were two video game controllers and a sofa set. The shelf on its right was stacked with movies: videotapes, VCDs, LDs, DVDs – Marty didn’t recognise most of the formats – as well as several videogames for the PlayStation 4 attached to the television.
“So… ah, what do you want to do tonight?” Marty asked, walking over to marvel at the state-of-the-art hi-fi set next to the movie shelf. He thought he saw the two boys exchange a significant look out of the corner of his eye, but it might have just been his imagination. He also thought he heard Jules mutter, “Something loud,” but that might have just been his imagination too.
“We could watch a movie,” Verne suggested, going over to the shelf as Marty followed him. The teen hadn’t heard of more than half the titles there, and he stared blankly, looking for something familiar… and his eyes fell on a set of six DVDs.
The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi…
“Hey… there are six Star Wars movies?” he asked in surprise. “I thought George Lucas stopped at three. I didn’t know there were going to be sequels.” Marty grinned. “Wait till my father finds out about this… he loves the trilogy.”
“They’re prequels, actually,” Verne replied. “Not sequels.”
“Oh. Are they good?”
“Yeah, though some people don’t think so ‘cause they say the prequels ruined Star Wars. But I like ‘em. Actually, I think they’re more good movies than good Star Wars movies… d’you wanna watch one?”
“Sure, I don’t mind,” Marty started, but then he caught sight of another movie – a videotape labelled with Verne’s childish scrawl.
The Matrix. Next to it were two VCDs labelled The Matrix: Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions respectively.
Marty stared. There was something about the trilogy that seemed strange… for some reason, he had the feeling that he should watch it, as though it would be important…
“Wait… what’s The Matrix?” Marty asked, pointing.
Verne grinned. “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is,” he quoted. “You have to see it for yourself. Wanna watch it? I taped it off the TV. It was on one of those weird extra channels… I got the sequels from the Internet yesterday and watched both in one go. Don’t tell Dad I’ve seen ‘em though. I think the sequels were rated R or something. There were naked people.” Verne grinned again.
Marty needed answers. He hadn’t thought that coming to 1895 to baby-sit Doc’s sons could have given him any of those answers, but he guessed that it was as good a place to start as any.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I want to watch it.”
“What is real?” Morpheus asked onscreen a while later.
That’s a good question, Marty found himself feverishly thinking. That’s a very good question.
Jules and Verne slipped out about halfway through the show to feed the toilet or use Einie or something; Marty hadn’t quite caught it, too engrossed in the film. About a minute later, Neo and Trinity were using a whole lot of guns to shoot up a whole lot of security guards on the screen. The sound was deafening.
When Marty heard what sounded a bit like three loud gunshots that seemingly came from outside, he marvelled at the excellent quality of Doc’s speaker system and dreamt of owning one that good in future.
#
They had taken the DeLorean. The reason was a simple logistics one: the last time departed for the DeLorean was in 1985, while that of the train was 1841 – not exactly a good place to get batteries. Neither Jules nor Verne wished to make two trips to ensure that the last time departed remained at the same date and didn’t arouse their parents suspicions, so they decided to set the destination time one hour earlier than that currently displayed on the DeLorean’s time circuits, which would take them to around five in the afternoon on a day in December 1985. That should give them plenty of time to get batteries, and perhaps even hang around a while.
It therefore came to pass that while Marty was watching The Matrix in their house, the two boys he was supposed to be looking after were hovering several metres above their home in a time travelling DeLorean bound for the year 1985.
What Jules had told Verne had been true: he could fly the DeLorean, only not so well. He had been watching his father closely each time he flew the vehicle, and knew fairly enough… just not enough to give them a smooth ride.
Verne yelped as the car bucked violently to the right.
“Sorry,” Jules said with a grimace of concentration, yanking the controls left, whereupon Verne grabbed hold of the door handle to prevent himself from landing on his brother. He was beginning to feel the first signs of major motion sickness, and was more than grateful when Jules finally got the car flying relatively straight and the familiar burst of electricity surrounded the car as they hit eighty-eight.
Arriving in the future, Jules inexpertly set the time vehicle down with a bump in the most abandoned-looking alley they could see in the area. The two boys got out shakily to their feet, Verne looking as though he were going to throw up at any moment.
“I don’t think we should just leave the DeLorean here,” Jules said, looking at the car.
“The store’s just across the road. You could stay here while I go get the batteries. I won’t take long.”
“Okay.” Jules took out some late 20th century money from his pocket and passed it to his brother. “Hurry up,” he said, leaning against the car to wait.
He didn’t have to wait long before Verne came rushing back, breathless. “The store’s closed! The owners are on vacation!”
“What? You mean we came all this way for nothing?”
Verne gave him an apologetic look. “Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t know it would be closed.”
Jules sighed. “So what now?”
“We could just go to next month or something when the store is open, then come back here so the last time departed stays the same when we get home.”
The elder boy mentally added up the times he would have to go through time. “That’s four trips.” He shook his head and got into the car. “You owe me big for this. Get in.”
Narrowly avoiding the alley wall, the DeLorean shot up like a bullet into the sky as Jules pushed the lever a bit too hard. Feeling nauseated, Verne gripped tightly onto his seat. Who needed a roller coaster when you had a brother who couldn’t fly a car properly?
“Sorry,” Jules panted, adjusting the hover controls to bring them lower down. Verne muttered something about how they had nearly burst through the stratosphere, but his brother ignored him and floored the accelerator.
Verne watched the speedometer for fear that he might throw up if he were to look out the window instead.
67, 69, 72, 76, 81, 87, 88…
There was a loud crackle of electricity as the DeLorean broke through the time barrier… and then, time seemed to stop.
Verne was suddenly aware of the silence, an utter, complete silence that you could almost hear. The bright blue electricity still enveloped the vehicle, but it made absolutely no sound as it jumped about the windscreen, completely obscuring the view of the two boys.
“Jules…” Verne began in a small voice, but he didn’t know what to say.
His brother was gripping onto the wheel as though his life depended on it, his breaths coming in short, fast bursts as the DeLorean hung frozen in space and time. Jules stepped several times on the accelerator to no effect at all. Panic started appearing in his blue eyes as he swung the steering wheel in all directions to no avail, and he checked the time circuits – they hadn’t changed – and checked the flux capacitor, still fluxing merrily away as if nothing had happened.
“Jules…” Verne began again. “What happened?”
No reply came.
“Jules… I’m scared.”
Jules swallowed. Beads of sweat formed on his brow, and he wiped them away with his sleeve. Getting into a half-sitting, half-standing position, he peered intently at the windscreen until the brightness of the electricity hurt his eyes and he had to close them.
It’s all my fault, he thought, sitting back down on his seat. I shouldn’t have let Verne talk me into this… why couldn’t he just wait for his stupid batteries…
“Jules…”
Jules hadn’t the heart to shut his brother up. Where were they? When were they? Where they even anywhere or anywhen at all? Maybe they were just trapped, trapped forever in the midst of the space-time continuum, where there would be no escape…
The first feelings of claustrophobia started creeping up on Jules. He glanced wildly at the car’s gull-wing door on his side, and wondered what would happen if he were to open it… would the car suddenly explode? Or would there just be a big black void out there that stretched out to infinity?
He’d have to find out sooner or later, Jules knew, but he didn’t dare to, at least not yet.
Before he had time to think any further on the subject, there was a violent jerk, as though they had been pushed, and the next thing they knew the DeLorean suddenly broke free of whatever had been holding it back. Coloured pinpoints of light rushed past the car, and before they knew it they found themselves hurtling out of a rainy night sky at eighty-eight miles per hour onto the ground below.
A bolt of lightning flashed dangerously close to them as Jules snapped out of his fears and struggled to maintain control of the vehicle. Somehow or other, they landed on a street, the DeLorean’s hastily put out tyres splashing into a puddle of water.
They seemed to be the only people out in the rain. The road was deserted save for the time machine, and on both sides, ominous looking four- or five-storied buildings loomed up before them. Another lightning bolt streaked across the heavens, followed shortly by a loud clap of thunder.
“Where are we?” Verne asked quietly.
Jules shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”
Something was coming towards them out of the darkness. Something big, big enough that they could hear its footsteps against the sound of the rain drumming out its constant rhythm on the ground.
A sudden cry pierced the air – not a human sound, or that of anything on this planet. It had a definite alien quality to it… and Verne shrank further back into his seat, his face pale. Beside him, Jules trembled, hands still on the wheel.
The something was getting closer. And then they saw the creature, illuminated for a moment by a brief flash of lightning.
Twice as tall as an ordinary human being, its thin, scaly body led up to two clawed hands and a serpentine neck topped with a crested head. Its eyes were staring straight at them… eyes that were sharp and intelligent, not that of your average dumb monster.
“Jules…” Verne whimpered, calling his brother’s name for the fourth time in five minutes. “Look…” He pointed at the time circuits. The display had changed, and the current time now read:
February 31, 1985
Jules just stared, uncomprehending, when something else on the car caught his eye and a sickening feeling filled him. The plutonium chamber read zero.
The creature was walking towards them, each careful but deliberate step echoing down the deserted street.
“Jules… let’s go…”
“We can’t,” Jules replied hoarsely.
“What?”
It was Jules’ turn now to point, and Verne’s eyes followed his brother’s finger to the meter which announced that the car wasn’t going anywhere soon, time-or-dimensional-travel-wise, until someone got out and filled up Mr. Fusion.
The creature was looking straight at them. Jules pressed his face against the car window, hastily sweeping his gaze around for anything they could use…
There was an open trashcan, barely four metres away from them. Jules made up his mind, and turned to his younger brother.
“Verne… I’m going out there, okay? I’ll fill up Mr. Fusion, then we can…”
Verne was still trembling. “What… what if that thing gets you?”
“I’ll be quick,” Jules replied. “It shouldn’t take more than a few seconds. There’s no other way…”
Verne nodded reluctantly. “’kay. Hurry.”
Jules closed his eyes for two seconds, mentally preparing himself for what he was going to do. He laid out his plan of action quickly in his mind and visualised himself carrying it out… go out, dash straight to the trashcan, grab as much trash as he could carry, run back, dump it into Mr. Fusion, then get back in the car and get out of there.
Jules opened the DeLorean’s gull wing doors and rushed out into the rain, Verne watching him nervously.
The creature halted. Its gaze centred on the running boy… then suddenly it hurtled down the street towards him with a speed that nothing with its body should have been able to manage.
“JULES!” Verne yelled.
The older Brown child barely had time to register his brother’s voice, when he felt himself swept off the ground by clawed hands. He screamed.
Seconds later, the sound of bullets ripped through the air towards the creature. It bellowed in pain, dropping the boy, and then it crashed down onto the wet road, dead. Jules landed on the trashcan, overturning it, and fell to the ground, dazed but still conscious.
Verne watched speechless through the open door as Jules’ rescuer walked towards the older boy and helped him up, then led him back towards the DeLorean.
“He your brother?” the stranger asked Verne.
The seven-year-old nodded numbly.
“You got to be more careful next time.” He paused. “My name’s Akner Jansilan. A cross-worlder.” The man smiled grimly. He looked around his late twenties, wearing plain earth-toned clothes of a sort that Verne couldn’t quite pinpoint the origin of. They could have been from any time, any world… The rifle that had saved Jules was of some unidentifiable make, and it lay slung around his neck. “Thing that nearly got your brother was a Gaminoran,” he said, using his head to indicate the fallen creature. “They get into the Otherlands now and then… So what brings you to the Nexus? You’re foreigners, I can tell.”
“The Nexus?” Jules asked.
Akner looked faintly surprised. “You’ve never heard of it? …Well, I suppose that since you’re not from around here… The Nexus. Gate to the Otherlands, portals to different worlds… It’s all woods out there. They go on forever. No one’s ever seen the end of it. People end up here when they try to enter a place outside of the space-time continuum: a date that doesn’t exist, coordinates that contradict each other… By right they shouldn’t play around with such things in the first place, but they never learn. So why did you come here?”
“It was an accident,” Verne said. “There was some kind of malfunction… I don’t know what happened.”
“Our father said something about rips in the space-time continuum,” Jules said. “Maybe we… slipped through one of those rips or something…”
Akner’s voice suddenly grew sterner. “Rips in the space-time continuum?” he echoed. “What caused them?”
The brothers looked at each other. “We… we’re not sure,” Jules said. “Our father thinks that he might have had some part to do with it when he invented this thing that could allow people to communicate over different time periods, but apparently the damage was more than he could have done on his own.”
Akner sighed and shook his head. “That’s always the problem,” he said in a somewhat weary tone. “Otherlanders messing around with things they do not understand… it’ll all come to no good. Well, that explains something at least. Rips in the space-time continuum… no wonder there’s been so many newcomers these past few years. It’s been getting worse. Some of us thought that perhaps it was just the thirteen o’ clock wind getting stronger, but it’s never happened before.”
“The thirteen o’ clock wind?” Verne asked.
Several years ago, an inhabitant of the Nexus had entered a variant of our universe and discovered a book series known as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Inspired by it, he then went on to start a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Nexus, to help explain things to newcomers who kept asking the same questions about the place. One of those questions usually concerned the thirteen o’ clock wind, and this is what the Guide has to say about it:
There are some very interesting things to be said about the thirteen o’ clock wind.
It is not to be confused with the one o’ clock wind, which is a very normal thing indeed. Instead, this phenomenon is created when the wind from the Nexus blows in. For those who do not know, there is a wind in the Nexus, fuelled by the vast amounts of untapped energy here. Those who are cross-worlders – people whose parent’s were from different dimensions – are able to partially manipulate this energy through sheer strength of mind.
When a person from a parallel universe feels the thirteen o’ clock wind, it means a portal to the Nexus has opened in that world, and it is through that portal that the wind blows. By some strange force, the person will immediately be drawn to the portal and get sucked in.
The portal will immediately close and the person will find himself or herself outside the space-time continuum.
In the Nexus.[x]
“Some places get it more than others,” Akner added, after his explanation of what the thirteen o’ clock wind was. “The Kalibri plains, the Bermuda Triangle, the Ron Woodward High School’s janitor closet… but mostly there’s no known pattern to the TOC wind’s behaviour. You’ll be going now, I suppose?”
Jules and Verne looked at each other again.
“Yeah,” Jules said. “How… how do we get out of here?”
“Just set your destination for some place that does exist in the space-time continuum, and you should be fine. I can’t say for certain that it would work, but at worst, you’ll just end up back here. Good luck… where’re you going?”
“We need fuel,” Jules replied, digging into the trashcan and emerging with an armful of junk. He dumped them on the ground near the DeLorean, then began putting pieces of it into Mr. Fusion until there was enough. Done, he got into the time machine.
Akner watched Jules set the destination time and shut the door. Then he waved goodbye and walked off as the DeLorean’s hover circuits were activated, and the vehicle rose up into the air.
“Here goes nothing,” Jules muttered shakily under his breath. He hit the accelerator, they broke eighty-eight, and they left the Nexus.
The same coloured lights flashed by them. A huge jolt shook through the DeLorean, and then suddenly they saw their house down below, just as they had left it.
Hands still trembling slightly, Jules parked the time vehicle back in its original position; and then he just sat there, still.
From inside the house came the faint sounds of movie gunfire through the soundproofed walls.
“Are we back?” Verne asked.
Jules nodded slowly. “We’re back.”
Seconds of silence passed between the two boys.
“Sorry. About the batteries,” Verne said.
“It’s all right. We’d better get back in before Marty suspects something is up.”
“Okay.”
The brothers left the DeLorean and went back into the house and into the secret room, where Marty gave them no more than a quick glance before returning his attention to the movie again.
When Emmett and Clara came back that night, the two boys were already in bed and Marty was up, reading one of Verne’s comics and waiting for them.
“Did they give you any trouble?” Doc asked, shutting the door.
“No. We watched a movie, then they went to bed.”
“Really? That’s unusual,” Clara said, an amused look on her face. “They usually aren’t so well behaved.”
Marty shrugged. “Well, they were this time. Ah… I guess I’ll be going back now, huh? Thanks for letting me come over.”
Doc smiled. “Thanks for looking after the boys. I thought you could use the break.”
“Yeah,” the teen admitted. “I could.”
What is real? Morpheus had asked, and it was this that Marty wondered about as Doc took him home in the DeLorean.
Jules and Verne were wide-awake when their father came in.
“Did you take Marty home yet?” Verne asked in a strangely anxious voice.
“Yes.”
“In the train?”
“No, I used the DeLorean.”
The two boys exchanged a glance. “Oh.”
Their father looked at them suspiciously. “Why?”
“Nothing. I was just wonderin’.”
The look on Emmett’s face said that he didn’t believe that, but he didn’t know what else there was to believe.
“Maybe it was just a one-time accident,” Jules said in a whisper when Doc had left the room.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
#
17th December 1985, Tuesday
“This is the Construct,” Morpheus was saying. “It’s our loading program. We can load anything from clothing, to equipment, weapons, training simulations, anything we need.”
Marty blinked. “Right now we’re inside a computer program?”
“Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are gone. Your arms and head have changed. Your hair is gone. Your appearance is now what we call residual self-image. It is the mental projection of your digital self.”
Marty looked at himself.
He was a chicken.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!” he tried to yell, but all that came out were frantic squawks.
Morpheus smiled evilly. “We’re very glad to have you with us, Marty,” he continued. “The rest of my crew agree, too. We haven’t had a good meal in a long time, and we genuinely appreciate your presence at dinner tonight.”
Marty panicked. He was a chicken. Pathetically, he flapped his wings. The rest of the Nebuchadnezzar’s crew were suddenly surrounding him in a closing circle, all armed with large chopping knives and hungry looks on their faces.
Marty darted around in a frenzy as he dodged the knives suddenly coming down on him. He was going to die! He was going to be caught, and roasted, and chopped up to bits, and eaten…
“AAAAAAHHHH!”
Marty hit his bedroom floor with a loud thump, and the images of the Construct dissolved into the reality of his darkened room.
Hyperventilating, he looked wildly around as though Neo or Trinity might suddenly pop up with a chopping knife and have him for dinner; but nothing happened. Just another nightmare… I should be grateful, Marty thought. These days it wasn’t often that his nightmares turned out to be real nightmares.
The teen ran a quick check over himself. He was human. Human. Marty suddenly felt stupid for actually seeing the need to make sure.
Climbing back into his bed, Marty lay down and sighed.
That was the last time he was watching The Matrix before bedtime.
Chapter Eighteen: The Competition
18th December 1985, Wednesday
San Dimas, California
Bill and Ted sat on the steps of Bill’s house and gazed out at the road as they waited for Lewis to drive them to Hill Valley for the band competition.
“Hill Valley,” Bill mused. “That’s a strange name, dude. How can it be a hill and a valley at the same time?”
“Maybe it changes,” Ted said. “At night, when everyone’s asleep.”
“Dude, someone would notice if that happened.”
“Yeah, so that’s why they called it Hill Valley!” Ted concluded triumphantly. He grinned.
“It must be a most heinous town to live in, if the ground keeps changing,” Bill said thoughtfully.
“Yeah.”
They sat in silence for a while.
“I had a totally bodacious dream last night, dude,” Ted said. “I was riding up a mountain on a motorcycle with the headlights off, and then I crashed into the mountain.”
“No way!”
“Yes way.”
“Bogus.”
“Yeah. It was totally heinous.”
A van pulled up and Lewis hopped out. “Are you two ready?” he shouted. “We’re running late!”
Bill and Ted looked up.
“Come on!” Lewis yelled. “Move it.”
Bill and Ted grabbed their bags and ran over to the van, where they piled in at the back.
Lewis got into the driver’s seat. “All right,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “Hill Valley, here we come. We’ll be there in six hours; five hours if we go fast, four hours if we go really fast.” He floored the accelerator, and the van speeded off.
#
“One bottle of beer on the wall, one bottle of beer… you take one down, you pass it around, no more bottles of beer on the wall.”
In the driver’s seat, Lewis let out a small sigh of relief, which was shared with most of the other Disaster Area members. After long last, the song was finally over.
But Bill and Ted weren’t done yet. After sitting in silence for a grand total of ten seconds, Bill remembered something.
“Do you know that the British version has green bottles instead?” he asked.
Ted perked up. “Really?”
A sudden sense of great foreboding washed over Lewis.
“Yeah, and the bottles don’t get passed around, they just fall off the wall.”
Ted grinned. “Excellent!”
Sitting next to them, the thought ‘I bet those British people hear our version and think Americans are always getting drunk’ floated aimlessly around Eric the keyboardist’s head. Next to him, Ashley and Ivan were engaged in their 111th tic-tac-toe game.
“…So it’s just ‘a hundred green bottles, hanging on the wall’,” Bill started singing. Upfront, Lewis grimaced. “A hundred green bottles, hanging on the wall, and if one green bottle were to accidentally fall, there’ll be ninety-nine green bottles, hanging on the wall.”
Ted joined in at the next verse, and the duo’s not-completely-in-tune voices filled the van once again. Eric groaned and buried his face in his hands.
“Are we there yet?” Ivan called out.
#
“I don’t see any hills,” Ted observed some time after the van turned into Hill Valley. “Or valleys,” he added, and then sighed. “Bill, I think that we have been most egregiously deceived.”
Upfront, Lewis shook his head. He pulled into the driveway of the rented house, then yelled at the others to get out and unload. He hopped out of the van, dropped the keys, swore, picked them up, dropped them again, swore again, and picked them up again. Having spent several hours cooped up in the driver’s seat of the van listening to badly-sung songs about bottles had had adverse effects on his temper and motor skills.
The two culprits in question now gazed thoughtfully at the house before them.
“It looks inhabitable,” Bill decided.
“Yeah,” Ted agreed, and then Ivan shoved a snare drum at him and told him to get moving.
Not long after, Bill and Ted found themselves shut out of the garage, wherein Disaster Area had just started their first practice in Hill Valley.
“What do they expect us to do out here?” Bill asked.
Ted shrugged and nudged a rock about with his shoe. Then an idea struck him, and his face lit up.
“A hundred green bottles, hanging on the wall,” he started. “A hundred green bottles, hanging on the-“
The garage back door flew open and an irate Lewis stuck his head out. “Haven’t you two had enough of that song?” he yelled. “Shut up, okay? Go far away, and shut up, and stop being an insult to music!”
The door slammed shut.
Ted blinked. “But I wasn’t insulting-“
Bill pulled at his friend’s sleeve. “Let’s get out of here, dude. I don’t think we’re wanted.”
They wandered around the house, then went down the driveway and wandered around the street. Eventually, their wanders took them to the Hill Valley town square, where they looked up in appreciation at the clock tower above the court house.
“That is one outstanding clock,” Bill said.
“Yeah,” Ted said. “I wonder why it’s not moving.”
His question was answered a second later when a middle-aged woman eagerly shoved a donation can into their faces and nearly took Ted’s eye out.
“Save the Clocktower!” she exclaimed with a little too much enthusiasm, rattling the can with vigour and possibly murderous intent. “Thirty years ago, lightning struck that clock tower, and it hasn’t run since!” she recited for the umpteenth time, excited at finally getting to see two newcomers who didn’t avoid her like everyone else did. “We at the Hill Valley Preservation Society...”
“How would giving money help to save that clock, dude?” Ted asked Bill in a whisper. “It’s been wrecked for thirty years.”
“Perhaps they intend to purchase a new one,” Bill said, somewhat doubtfully.
“But that won’t be saving it,” Ted replied. “If they were going to get a new one, she would have said, ‘Replace the Clocktower’.”
“Good observation, Ted.”
They looked thoughtfully at the donation can.
The clock tower woman was not used to this. Most of the time, people just threw in a coin or two into the donation can to get her to leave.
“Oh, forget it,” she muttered, and left to terrorise some other poor unsuspecting individuals.
The two teens stared after her, confused. They soon gave up trying to figure her out, and settled for trudging despondently around the Hill Valley pond and musing about their lack of future as was represented by their inability to play guitar.
#
19th December 1985, Thursday
Hill Valley, California
“Okay,” Marty said, the tension evident in his voice as he paced around the other three members of his band. “This is it. We’ve practised hard, so let’s just try not to lose too badly today.”
“What happened to ‘If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything’?” J.J. asked. “Oh, and the earmuff thing didn’t work. I tried distributing some to the judges just now but they didn’t fall for it.”
Steve snorted. “That’s because they were fluffy and pink.”
“Yeah, well, that’s all the store had,” J.J. retorted. “All the other colours had been sold out. And sit down, Marty. You’re making me dizzy.”
Marty continued feeling stressed and walking in circles around them when two young teenagers entered into the area, eyes searching the floor for something. J.J. nudged Nick. “The Disaster Area lackeys are here,” he muttered.
Marty looked up at the newcomers. “Yeah? What d’you want?”
“Ivan said he dropped one of his drumsticks back here somewhere, and that he’d most appreciate it if we went to look for it,” Bill said.
Ted squatted down and picked up the wooden stick lying on the floor. “It’s here, dude,” he called out to his friend.
“Oh.” Bill smiled at Marty, then left with Ted.
Marty stared after them. There was something strangely familiar about Ted Logan, and not just because they had met before…
“Marty!” Nick yelled.
The seventeen-year-old blinked. “Huh?”
The newly-arrived stage crewmember rolled his eyes and repeated his message. “Get moving. It’s your turn.”
The last thing Marty heard before he stepped out onto the stage was Nick suggesting that they play so loud that the judges would go deaf and therefore not be able to hear them; and then they were up on stage, playing their hearts out and hoping to win.
#
They lost.
The Pinheads left the competition hall for the car park in considerably lower spirits than they had entered it with.
“We at least managed to drop our volume to 40 decibels,” Marty said as they walked. “Just thought I’d let you guys know.”
Disaster Area had made it into the semi-finals, along with several other bands – including one which had delivered a rendition of a slow alien love ballad entitled ‘Don’t Make Me Zap You With My Ray Gun’:
Don’t make me zap you with my ray gun
Because it’s really gonna hurt
This gun killed me a dozen humans
Although it may sound quite absurd
So why’d you leave me, little green one
With your antenna sleek and sure
And your eyes so square and purple
You broke my hearts right here and here.
“Marty!”
Marty turned to see Bill and Ted hanging around between the parked vehicles and waving at him.
“What’re you doing out here?” he asked them, walking over as the rest of his band went their separate ways.
“Lewis made us stay here,” Bill said.
“Yeah,” Ted agreed. “He told us to guard the van.” The teen brightened. “Did they make it to the next round?”
Marty nodded despondently.
“Excellent!”
“What’s it to you if they win?” Marty asked.
“When they win the new instruments, we get to keep their old ones,” Ted said happily.
“And then we can start our own band,” Bill continued for him. “Only we haven’t thought of a name yet.”
“And we can’t really play either,” Ted admitted. “Hey… can you teach us, dude?”
Marty sighed. “Not today, okay?”
The younger teens looked disappointed.
“Maybe another time,” Marty said.
“Did you lose?” Bill asked.
“Yeah,” Marty said.
“No way!”
“We offer our most sincere condolences, dude,” Ted said.
Marty gave a wan smile. “Thanks. Look, I gotta go now, okay? See you guys around.”
“Sure. Catcha later, Marty.”
Chapter Nineteen: The One with the E-mail and the Cloaking Device
20th November 1895, Wednesday
Hill Valley, California
Emmett Brown was busy reading the Back to the Future fan fiction novel by Mary Jean Holmes he had started on the day before. He knew that he shouldn’t be doing that, by right, but the stories were remarkably interesting, and he tried to lessen his guilt by trying to convince himself that the stories might prove useful in future. For all he knew, he and Marty might end up in a similar situation as in one of them, and it would be a great help if they had some idea of what might happen…
Emmett also couldn’t help noticing that in the fan fiction, he and his family had returned to the future; he wondered if perhaps that was some kind of sign to tell him what he should be doing. He knew the risks involved in doing so, but he was also just as fully aware of the risks involved in just staying where they were. The inventor sighed. Either way, a decision had to be made soon. He had already stayed ten years in the past, and with every day the danger of changing some important part of history increased.
He’d have to think about it.
Emmett logged on to his e-mail to find a rather disturbing – albeit interesting – e-mail that had apparently come from another dimension.
From - fangflux@hotmail.com
To - julesvernefan@yahoo.com
Subject: nilDear Doc, you sexy thing, leave Clara and I'll make you the happiest man alive!
- Flaming Trails[x]
‘Sexy thing’, huh? Staring at the message with a slight grin on his face as mixed emotions churned up inside him, Emmett was wondering how to reply to it… when Clara saved him the trouble by coming into the room, looking at the screen, looking at him, and yanking out the computer plug.
Emmett blinked as the e-mail message suddenly vanished from view. Turning, he noticed for the first time that his wife was there.
“Who was that?” Clara asked.
Grinning sheepishly, Emmett looked at her. “Ah… um. I’m not too sure, actually. I’ve never heard of her before. According to the signal of her e-mail, she seems to be from the future in another dimension… ”
Clara raised an eyebrow. “I see.”
“Yes… Uh, would you mind passing me the computer plug so I can put it back in the socket?”
#
Verne Brown stared open-mouthed at the space where, just seconds ago, the time train had been standing. Now, none of it was visible, unless you stared hard enough – whereupon you could make out the faint outline of the train.
“Wow!” the boy exclaimed in awe. His father emerged out of seeming thin air as he got out of the time train’s cabin and stood back to see the full effect of the futuristic cloaking device.
Emmett gave a tired grin. “Sure is something, isn’t it?”
“Yeah!”
The inventor paused, and looked down at his son before continuing in a softer tone. “Verne…”
“Yeah?”
Emmett hesitated, not sure how to say what he wanted to. “You’re not very happy here, are you?” he started. “You’ve always liked the future better.”
The boy went uneasily silent, taken aback at the sudden change of subject.
Emmett sighed, and looked out the window from where he was standing. “I know I didn’t have the right to make you stay here, and I must admit that every day I still worry that … us merely being here could have serious consequences on the timeline. More than two years ago, I had an excuse to remain here, but after the completion of the time train… Maybe it might be better if…”
Verne couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You mean we’re going to move to the future?”
Emmett turned back to face him. “I know Marty wants me to, but he wouldn’t like me arriving ten years late either. The best time would probably be around late 1985 or early 1986, but it won’t be easy, coming up with a story that can sufficiently explain how I’ve managed to get married and have two kids aged seven and nine respectively in the space of just a few months...”
Doc smiled and tousled his son’s hair. “But I’ll think about it.”
Verne’s face broke into a grin. Things were suddenly looking a lot brighter.
Chapter Twenty: The MJF Connection
12th November 1998, Thursday
Christchurch, New Zealand
Whistling, Frank Bannister backed his newly acquired BMW car into the driveway of his house, parked it, then got out feeling rather pleased with himself. He walked over to its back, admiring the shiny new paintwork, and opened the trunk.
Frank poked the ghost sleeping inside, and it awoke with a start. “W… who are you?” the apparition asked.
“Hi, my name’s Frank Bannister. And… ah, I own this car now, so I just thought I should thank you for it. I’d never have made such a great bargain if Mr. Rainer hadn’t been convinced this car was haunted. So… good job on the ‘mysterious horning in the middle of the night’ and all that…”
The ghost climbed out and stood facing Frank. “You bought the car? Really? I’ll never have to see that old geezer again?”
“Yeah.”
The ghost broke into a grin. “Name’s Phil,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
Frank shut the trunk. “What were you doing in the car all along, anyway?”
“I used to stare at that car every day when I went by,” Phil said dreamily. “It was my dream to drive it one day, but I never had the cash… Then I died, and Mr. Rainer bought it.” A pained look appeared on Phil’s face. “You should have seen the way he treated this car! He slams the doors really hard, and likes to drive on muddy roads… I’ve been living in it ever since, trying to scare him into selling it…”
“You can still stay in there if you want,” Frank offered. “I won’t mind. Or you could stay in the house; there’re quite a lot of spare rooms…”
Phil cast a fond look at the vehicle. “I’ll stay in the car,” he said.
Frank nodded and started to walk up the gravel driveway back to his house.
“And can you let me drive it?” the ghost called out eagerly. “Now and then?”
Frank turned, walking backwards. “Yeah… just, uh, try not to scare too many people. I might get in trouble if someone sees my car driving itself around the place. And try to keep it in good shape,” he added as an afterthought, then stumbled as he nearly tripped over a rock. Frank winced, and turned back around.
“Oh, thank you!” Phil gushed. “Mr. Rainer always kept the car locked in his garage… I never got a chance to even give it a little drive…”
“Go ahead,” Frank said over his shoulder. “Have fun. I wouldn’t have gotten it if it weren’t for you.”
Ecstatic, Phil phased through the BMW’s front door and hopped into the driver’s seat. He drove off, whooping with joy, as Frank unlocked the door to his house.
Bob Alkies was on the computer, and looked up as he entered. “Hi, Frank.”
“Hi. Where’s Eddie?” Frank locked the door, then dumped the keys on the kitchen counter and went over to the sink to wash his hands.
“Upstairs, cleaning his sofa.”
“Again?” Frank opened the refrigerator and took out a ham sandwich.
“Yeah.” Bob hesitated. “Uh… and I think you might want to see this…”
Frank shut the door of the refrigerator. “Eddie cleaning his sofa?”
“No.” Bob pointed at the computer, and then started typing away on the keyboard. “This. It’s… strange.”
Frank took a bite out of his sandwich and walked over to the ghost. “Stranger than Eddie’s obsession with that Chesterfield sofa of his?” He glanced at the computer. “What?”
“I typed your name into a search engine just now, for fun, and it gave me some pretty strange results…”
Frank swallowed his mouthful of sandwich. “What d’you mean?”
Bob hit the ‘Enter’ key, and a list of results displayed on the screen. “See?”
“Yeah… but it’s not like my name’s that unusual or anyth…”
Bob clicked on one of the links, and Frank broke off in mid-sentence as he took in the first few words on the page. His blood suddenly ran cold. “What the h…”
“And that’s not the only one,” Bob interrupted. “The Internet is full of it. But they weren’t there when I did the same thing last month.”
“Is this some kind of joke…?”
“I don’t think so. If it is, it’s a mighty big one. Look at this.” Bob typed ‘imdb.com’ into the search bar and several identical links appeared… only that not all of them were completely identical. Some were slightly different shades of blue, differently indented, different word and line spacing…
Bob clicked on the fourth one. The main page of The Internet Movie Database loaded, and he typed ‘the frighteners’ into the search bar located at the top left hand corner of the page.
“What…” Frank started, but Bob stopped him.
“Wait.” He clicked on the link that appeared, and Frank’s mouth dropped open when the page loaded. Bob went over to ‘plot outline’ and clicked ‘more’, then let Frank read the contents of that page. “Want a seat?” Bob asked, getting off the chair.
Numbly, eyes still glued to the words of the screen, Frank sat down, ashen-faced. He put his sandwich down on the desk, then moved his hand over to the mouse and scrolled down a little.
How did they know…
“Welcome to the Twilight Zone, huh?” Bob said. “I thought you’d be interested. And if you feel you can take it, watch the trailer.”
Frank’s mind was spinning. He hit the ‘Backspace’ key, then scrolled down the main page for The Frighteners, feeling as though he were in some sort of trance.
‘Cast overview, first billed only:’
None of the actor’s names rang a bell. His cursor settled over the first name on the list, and he hesitated, looking over at Bob.
The ghost took the hint and left. “I’ll go see how Eddie’s progressing,” he said, heading up the staircase.
Taking a deep breath, Frank clicked on Michael J. Fox’s name.
The page loaded, and Frank felt his stomach do a lazy roll as he glanced at the actor’s photograph. Face paling, he quickly scrolled down, his breaths coming in short quick bursts.
Welcome to the Twilight Zone, huh? Okay then, Rod Serling, where are you?
Frank swallowed uneasily. Calm down, he told himself. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for all of this…
Yeah, what?
He scanned through the actor’s filmography. Some movies sounded vaguely familiar, but…
Back to the Future. Wait a sec… hadn’t Marty McFly been played by Eric Stoltz?
Frank clicked on the link. The page loaded, he scrolled down…
Cast overview, first billed only
Marty McFly --- Michael J. Fox
Dr. Emmett Brown --- Christopher Lloyd
Lorraine McFly --- Lea Thompson
George McFly --- Crispin Glover
Biff Tannen --- Thomas F. Wilson
-
-
-
I guess not. Now what?
Several seconds passed while Frank tried to collect his somewhat confused thoughts. He picked up his sandwich and took a bite, then brought up Yahoo.com and typed “marty mcfly” into the search bar.
Too many results. He tried again.
+”marty mcfly” – “back to the future”
Fewer results this time… Frank scrolled down when one link caught his eye.
Hill Valley Online
…Valley Online Directory User ID=13561 Name: Marty McFly E-mail Address: futureboy85@hillvalley-online.com Age …
http://www.hillvalley-online.com/mail/directory/~013561
Hill Valley? That town was supposed to be fictional…
He clicked on the link.
Name: MARTY McFLY E-mail Address: futureboy85@hillvalley-online.com Age: DISCLOSED Sex: M Address: DISCLOSED Interests: -
Okay… Frank thought, when the date on the top right-hand corner of the page caught his eye. ‘March 30, 2004.’
2004? Whatever Frank had expected, it wasn’t that. So this was a website from the future? Or at least one claiming to be from the future. The future… and another universe, it seemed, unless this entire site was just the creation of some die-hard Back to the Future fan with too much free time for his or her own good.
If that was the case, why set it in 2004, of all years? And why the secrecy – the only personal details were Marty’s name, sex and e-mail address. A fan would surely have filled in all the fields.
Frank had come looking for answers, but it seemed that all he was getting were more questions. He decided that there was only one way to solve it all; or at least part of it.
Pulling up a new Internet window, Frank accessed his own e-mail account and started a new message. His fingers rested on the keyboard as he wondered how to begin. What could he say? ‘Hi, are you really the guy from Back to the Future? Because you’re not supposed to exist, see, and I was just wondering who you were…’
Somehow, he didn’t think that would work. Frank clicked back to the Hill Valley Online window and read through Marty McFly’s short biography again, hoping for ideas…
The little smiley face icon next to the e-mail address suddenly lit up.
Marty McFly, whoever he was, had just come online.
Frank moved his cursor over the smiley face icon. The arrow cursor turned into a hand, and a message box rolled out: ‘Instant message futureboy85’. He clicked, and a new window opened and loaded. Now was his chance to find out just what was going on… Clicking on the chat bar, he typed.
Guest says: is this marty mcfly?
Several seconds passed with no activity. Then…
futureboy85 says: Yes. Who are you?
Guest says: frank bannister. i dont think you know me
Guest says: so youre a back to the future fan, huh?
Guest says: did your parents really name you marty mcfly, or is that just a nick?
Another long pause.
futureboy85 says: You’ve seen Back to the Future?
Guest says: yeah. i thought a lot of people have.
Guest says: it’s a classic. made eric stoltz famous.
There was a long pause again, and Frank drummed his fingers impatiently on the table. Either this Marty McFly was a really slow typist, or he was busy, or…
futureboy85 says: Eric Stoltz?
Okay, Frank thought. He seems surprised at the mention of Eric Stoltz’s name. So either he’s: 1) a fan of the version of the movie not starring Stoltz, or some strange parallel universe portal thing has somehow opened and 2) he’s the character played by Stoltz, or 3) he’s the character not played by Stoltz, or 4) some guy just having fun putting me on, or 5) someone else…
futureboy85 says: Eric Stoltz was in Back to the Future?
…Rule out ‘2’.
Guest says: yep. lead actor. played marty mcfly, but i thought you should know that.
Guest says: at least, he was the lead actor in the version i watched.
futureboy85 says: Version?
Guest says: thats the strange thing, see. until today, i thought there was only one version. but apparently i was wrong.
Frank took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now for the question…
Guest says: have you heard of anyone named michael j fox by any chance?
This time, the reply seemed to take forever.
futureboy85: Who are you, really?
Guest says: just as i said. my names frank bannister, and i’m typing this from my house in new zealand.
Guest says: you didnt answer my question.
About a quarter of a minute passed
futureboy85: I may have heard of him.
Guest says: whos he?
futureboy85: An actor.
Guest says: whats he look like?
Another eternity went by.
futureboy85 says: LEAVE ME ALONE, OKAY? I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you think you’re doing, so JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!
[futureboy85 has left the conversation.]
…Rule out ‘1’, Frank thought.
#
20th December 1985, Friday
Hill Valley, California
Marty set up the microphone next to the computer and turned it on, before selecting Doc's e-mail address and clicking on 'Make Phone Call'. He hoped this worked; and for the moment, it looked like it did. He’d never tried this before.
A few seconds passed before the connection was made, and Marty spoke tentatively into the microphone. "Hello?"
There was a pause, before a child’s voice replied. "Marty? Is that you?"
Probably one of the kids, the teen thought. "Uh, yeah. That you, Verne?"
“Yeah.”
"Oh… Hi. Uh, what are you doing on your father's e-mail?"
There was a short pause. "He's in the toilet and the computer was still on, so..."
Marty doubted that he was telling the truth but it didn't matter at the moment. "Anyway, when he comes out just ask him if he knows of anything strange going on that’s not supposed to be going on, because this guy named Frank Bannister was just chatting with me online and he’s really freaking me out."
"Frank Bannister?" Verne asked.
"You know him?"
"No… wait, wasn't he the main guy from that Peter Jackson movie? The Frighteners?"
Marty blinked. "What? I've never heard of it."
"It's one of those shows I got from some other universe. I’ve got lots of ‘em. You saw them that day."
"Uh..."
"Yeah. I think it's that one starring Michael J. Fox…
Verne heard a click. "Marty? MARTY?"
The teen had disconnected. Verne shrugged and went back to reading through his father's e-mails. He went to the next one and grinned. ‘Sexy thing’? His father?
#
From - EternalDensity@notoneofthem.com
To - futureboy85@hillvalley-online.com
Subject: nilHi Marty.
Troubled, confused, scared?
Don't be: this is only a story.
A tip: send threats or bribes to flautist_wannabe@hotmail.com.
Yep, that's the author's addy.
It might just work.
P.S. In my universe, you and Doc are just a movie, a cool one.
- Eternal Density *this is heavy*[x]
Marty buried his head in his hands as he sat in front of the computer reading his latest e-mail. Troubled? Yeah. Confused? Definitely. Scared? Very. And if the sender of the e-mail thought it would make things better by saying it was all only a story, whatever that meant, it was only making things worse. His life was complicated enough as it was. The author's addy? What author? The sender's e-mail address. At notoneofthem.com. But he WAS one of them... he said he and Doc were just a movie...
Marty couldn't bear it any longer. He couldn't bear all those people trying to convince him that he was fictional. He wasn't... he wasn't... he was real, wasn't he? Marty stared desperately at the computer screen, as if begging it to reply. Wasn’t he?
Outside, the sun was setting. Marty miserably shut down the computer, took his skateboard and skated off.
He spotted Jennifer outside Burger King with some of her friends. She turned, saw him, and came over, waving goodbye to her friends.
“Going home?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Marty answered softly, flipping his skateboard up into his hand.
Jennifer looked at him for a while, biting her lip. “Marty, what’s wrong?” she asked after some time.
“What d’you mean?” he asked in return. “Nothing’s wrong…”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, Marty. I know there’s something bothering you. I can tell. Ever since Doc Brown gave you that computer, you’ve been acting weird. That day Nick asked me if I knew where you were, because apparently you just ran off…”
“It’s nothing, Jen.”
They paused at a traffic light and waited for the lights to turn. A thought suddenly occurred to Jennifer, and she looked her boyfriend squarely in the eye.
“Is it about the future, Marty? Did you find out something?”
“It’s nothing to do with that,” he replied.
“So there is something.”
“It’s just…” Marty hesitated. It would be so much of a relief to tell her everything, to share the burden of what he’d discovered with someone other than Doc… but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth: that in some other universe, at least, they were fictional and all the events of two months before were just part of a movie. He couldn’t tell her all that; already he himself was feeling the effects of knowing what he did.
Marty knew he was getting paranoid. Everywhere he went nowadays, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. He thought a lot more before dong or saying anything, in case They were watching, somewhere out there, and he didn’t want Them to see things he wouldn’t want Them to see.
And it wasn’t just the physical things. Even his thoughts were more wary than before. It freaked him out to realise that he had the thoughts he did because someone in another universe had written them out for him, controlling his mind, in that effect, and everything he thought or said or did. He was the person he was because someone had written him that way. Just the night before had seen him staring intently at his hand, wondering if it was really his, or just a copy of some actors’.
The same queasy feeling crept up at him even regarding things such as the arrangement of furniture in his bedroom: were they arranged that way because he had made it so, or had it been the work of the prop people in another reality? The location of his desk, his guitar, his bed, his underwear...
He didn’t want to burden Jennifer with all that too, and yet she apparently already suspected something was up. Sooner or later, he supposed he’d have to tell her. He only hoped it would be later, but he didn’t seem to have much of a choice…
“Marty?” Jennifer asked, concern in her voice.
Marty took a deep breath. “Are you free tomorrow morning?”
“Huh? Yeah, sure… why?”
“Just… uh, meet me at Doc’s garage tomorrow,” he said resignedly. “Eight o’clock. I’ve got to show you something.”
“What’ve you got to show me?”
“I… I can’t explain it. Just... meet me there tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-One: Out of Their World
Onboard the Nebuchadnezzar
Once again he was here: lying in his bed, unable to fall asleep. Only this time it wasn’t the coffee’s fault; Neo had, in a sudden unexplainable British mood, spent most of the evening drinking tea. Nice, hot, cups of true British Earl Grey tea, made with fresh tea leaves and boiling – not boiled – water, with the milk added before the tea such that it wouldn’t be scalded, and unfortunately also filled with caffeine. Not as much as coffee, but still enough to keep him uncomfortably awake.
He had thought he would be able to control it this time, what with the experience he had gained since then. The truth, however, was a totally different thing altogether.
Neo silently cursed the inventor of caffeinated drinks.
Here he was, future saviour of the human race – the one who would one day end the war, the one who might one day even convince Morpheus to grow hair and quit the bald look – kept awake for the second time running because of three virtual cups of tea. Nice, hot, cups of Earl Grey tea, each with a spot of milk in it.
Neo tried to turn his thoughts to other things. For one, the conversation he’d had with Trinity earlier that day….
“Do you ever wonder… what if this isn’t the real world?” Neo asked.
Trinity looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe there’s another real world, beyond this, only we don’t know about it. Like the people still in the Matrix don’t know about this world.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I don’t know, Trin. I was just wondering.”
And he was still wondering. It wasn’t as though such a thing was impossible – if his previous world had turned out to be fake without him knowing for almost forty years, what made everyone so sure that this world was the real one? Was there any real way of telling?
He rolled over in bed and stared at the sink. It wasn’t exactly a very fascinating sink, so he went to stare at the wall instead, which was even more boring. He hoped that the boredom would eventually drive him to sleep, the way his teacher’s lectures back in high school had never failed to drive his class to sleep.
Minutes passed, and he still couldn’t get to sleep. Sighing, Neo got out of bed. He sat there for a moment, then reached into his clothes rack for the sunglasses case. Opening it, he gazed wistfully down at its shiny black contents.
He closed the case and was about to put it back into the rack when his bed suddenly gave way to nothingness and he plunged, rather surprised, into the dark void.
#
Frank munched on a slice of pizza and stared out the window at the beautiful New Zealand scenery outside. Summer was coming. If he were still back in his old home in the town of Fairwater, California, it would be about winter now.
The pizza was nice. It had lots of cheese and pepperoni. Freddy had delivered a whole box to him the day before, as he now did once every two days. There would be another box coming later. Free.
Finishing the pizza, Frank wiped his hands clean and got up from his chair… when all of a sudden, his world spun. Startled, he grabbed hold of the table, only to see and feel it dissolve beneath his grasp, and suddenly the floor too was gone, and he was falling through darkness.
#
Past midnight, Marty was lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling.
What is real?
The thought revolved several times around in his head without him coming to a satisfactory answer
…If you’re talking about what you feel, taste, smell or see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
In that case, how did he know if he were real? Was his house real? Was his bedroom real? Doc’s garage, his guitar over there, his table, his clock, his homework, that sheep standing by his bed…
That sheep?!
Eyes widening in shock, Marty bolted out of bed and flicked on the bedside lamp, only to see that there was, indeed, a sheep standing next to his bed.
The sheep blinked at him. "Baaaaaa."
Marty fell out of his bed, dragging the covers with him to the ground.
"Don't panic," Marty told himself, quoting wise advice from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He edged slowly away from the sheep. He had no idea what it was doing in his bedroom, and neither did he have any idea as to why there were suddenly sheep in Hill Valley, but all that wasn’t exactly very important at the moment.
"Baaaaaaaaaa."
"Uh... nice sheep, good sheep..."
"Baaaaaaaaaa?"
"That's a nice sheep now... NO DON'T TOUCH THA... that's it... move away, sheep... good sheep... nice shee... AAAAAAH!"
Marty felt something pull him... and the next thing he knew, he was falling through blackness. Iridescent lights started blinking about him, adding only to his disorientation. And still Marty kept on falling, and falling, until a growing round circle of bright light appeared in the distance and he fell through it, landing with a rolling thump on the floor below.
"Ow."
Dazed, the teen tried to lift his head to get some idea of his bearings. He was in a small square room that had some sort of strange black equipment humming quietly on one side of the whitewashed walls. A protrusion of sorts jutted out one end of the ceiling, and at the opposite wall was a wooden door. It was near this door that another person lay, looking just as confused if not more so than him. Neo. He recognised him from the movie.
Turning his head slightly, Marty then noticed the third person in the room: a slightly older version of himself who'd been staring at him all the while, a mixture of shock and disbelief on his face.
Something clicked into place... and somehow, Marty knew...
"Frank?"
The guy just stared back, got slowly to his feet, and then made a panicked dash for the door. It opened suddenly... and Frank skidded aside, colliding with the wall to avoid a collision with the door.
Eurasian, and aged perhaps in his mid-thirties, the man who stepped in wore an amused smile on his face that was just short of smug. He appeared to be holding something behind his back that none of the three in the room could see.
Frank was almost hyperventilating, though he tried to hide it. "What's going on here?" he croaked, unsuccessfully attempting to sound more controlled than he felt.
The man grinned somewhat condescendingly at him as he shut the door. "You're really scared now, aren't you, Frank?”
Something told Frank that the issue of how the man knew his name wasn't exactly very important at the moment. He swallowed, trying to regain some form of his composure.
"Just tell me what…” – Frank took a breath – “…is going on here."
Leaning casually against the door, the man surveyed the other two occupants of the room and gave another smile. "Frank, Marty, Neo... welcome. To the real world."
Chapter 2.1 »
#