Back to the Future (15 page)

"One-point-two-one gigawatts," he mumbled over and over as he continued his nervous dance.

Marty stood and watched, certain that his friend had gone quite mad. A frightening thought struck him: suppose seeing himself on tape had been enough to send Doc Brown of 1955 over the edge? If the shock had been too great, might this not mean that all bets were off for the future? A 1955 Doc Brown gone insane would not be able to invent the time machine thirty years later. Would this leave Marty McFly stranded in 1955 or mean that the Marty of 1985 simply wouldn’t meet Doc Brown?

He shook his head. The fact was he didn’t really comprehend who or where he was. Was the real Marty McFly standing here at this point in time; or was this just a clone, as it were, thrown off from his later self? If something happened to him now, would he be reborn again in 1968? Was it even possible that there might be two Marty McFlys, separated by thirty years of age, who could meet in the future?

Doc Brown had stopped painting for a moment and was now looking up at the portrait of Thomas Edison.

“Tom!” he shouted. “How am I gonna generate that kind of power? It can’t be done, can it?”

Abruptly, he dipped his brush on the palette and made another foray on the painting.

Marty stepped close to him. “Doc, what’s wrong?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

“I’m painting! I always paint when I can’t understand a problem.”

Marty decided to humor him. “Well, use green,” he suggested softly. “Green’s your color.”

“Is it? How did you know that?”

“I just know. Trust me.”

Brown looked at him a moment, then swabbed a mass of green onto the palette and transferred several broad strokes of it onto the canvas.

He was almost immediately calmed.

“Why, yes…yes, you’re right,” he breathed. “That’s much better.”

Marty nodded. “I knew it would be,” he said.

He waited a few moments before bringing up the problem again. The idea of sending Doc Brown into another tantrum was not appealing but Marty was desperate for information now.

“Is it possible for me to get back to 1985?” he demanded.

Doc Brown put his brush down and sighed. “Marty,” he said, “I’m sorry this had to happen. But 1.21 gigawatts is just too much power. I can’t get that kind of power. I’m afraid you’re stuck here.”

Marty looked for a chair. The statement by Doc Brown made his entire body feel so weak he actually thought there was a chance he might faint.

“No…” he murmured.

“I would like to help but I don’t know how,” Doc said. “It’s outside the range of my capabilities.”

“Plutonium, Doc,” Marty said. “All we need is plutonium, right?”

Doc Brown laughed. “Archimedes said he could move the earth if he just had a place to stand,” he replied. “That was a pretty safe statement. Ours is more or less the same. Yes, we can get you back if we have plutonium. If. It’s not just a big if. It’s a monumental one.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because you don’t know how tight things are in 1955, my boy. I’m sure that in 1985, plutonium is available at any corner drug store. But now it’s hard to come by. In fact, just about impossible.”

“How about through illegal channels?” Marty suggested. “Isn’t there a black market for stuff like that?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Damn…Damn…”

Doc Brown smiled and put his hand on Marty’s shoulder. “It’s not the end of the world,” he said.

“It’s the end of the world I’ve known.”

“Sure, but look on the bright side. This isn’t such a bad time to live. You could have gotten stuck back in the Dark Ages when you’d have to spend half your time dodging barbarians. Or you could have turned up during the Black Plague. Or even as recently as the early 19th century when there were no anesthetics, no television, movies. I mean, we’re really pretty advanced. We’ve got 3-D movies, hi-fidelity music, Frank Sinatra, instant coffee…”

“Yeah, well, in 1985 we’ve got MTV, compact discs—”

“Wait,” Doc Brown interjected. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“—Burger King and birth control,” Marty continued. “Don’t you understand, Doc? I have a life in 1985. I like it and want to go back to it.”

“But this time is so much safer. Here, you know there’ll be a 1985. In 1985, do you know there’ll be a 2015? Think about that.”

Marty shook his head. “I’ll have to chance that danger,” he said. “My friends, my music, my girl’s waiting for me. Look, here she is…”

He withdrew his wallet and showed Doc Brown the head shot of Jennifer.

“Say, she’s not bad,” he said.

“Not bad? She’s great! And she’s crazy about me!”

“Well, can’t you find a nice girl here?”

“One who hums Pat Boone, you mean?” Marty shot back derisively. “No, thanks. None of them will ever measure up to Jennifer. See this? See what she wrote here? It’s poetry!”

He pulled out the scrap of paper on which Jennifer had written: “I love you.”

Doc Brown regarded it sympathetically but his shrug of helplessness was more significant.

“It’s too bad…” he said.

“Please, Doc,” Marty begged. “You’ve gotta help me get back to the future. You’re my only hope! I know you can figure something out. 

“How do you know that?”

“Because you’ve never let me down in the past.”

“You mean, in the future.”

“Right,” Marty agreed. “You’ve always told me that if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, solve any problem.”

“I said that? How egotistical. But I must say it’s pretty good advice.”

“Doc, I know you can pull this off. Maybe now I believe in you more than you believe in yourself.”

“Marty, I’m touched that you have so much confidence in me,” Doc Brown smiled. “I really am. It means a lot to me. But it’s going to take more than confidence to generate 1.21 gigawatts of power. Do you have any idea how much energy that is? The only power source capable of triggering that kind of energy is a bolt of lightning. And not a minor-league bolt, either. It would have to be a real wall-shaker, something big enough to stop a clock.”

Marty snapped his fingers.

“Ah!” Doc Brown said. “You’ve had an idea, but you forgot to say ‘Eureka!’”

“Maybe it’s not a Eureka-type idea,” Marty replied. “It just occurred to me that if we could use a lightning bolt for energy—”

“A reasonable thought,” Brown interrupted, “and quite practical except for one thing. You never know when or where a bolt of lightning is going to strike. Of course, you’ve got a start by waiting for an electrical storm, but even then there’s no assurance a bolt will even get close enough to use as a power source.”

Marty waited patiently for him to finish, then smiled.

“Except that I know when and where a bolt of lightning is going to strike.”

“You do?”

“I do indeed.”

He turned over the piece of paper on which Jennifer had written her note. It was the flyer given them by the lady for the 1985 clock tower preservation campaign. At the very top of the sheet was a replica of the 1955 newspaper headline which read:
CLOCK TOWER STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. CLOCK STOPPED AT 10:04
.

Underneath was the date: Sunday, November 13, 1955. Now it was Doc Brown’s turn to snap his fingers.

“Eureka?” Marty asked.

“Eureka, yes,” Doc Brown replied, nodding several times. “You’re right! This is it! This is the answer! Since the newspaper came out on Sunday, it means that the clock tower will be struck next Saturday night. If we could somehow harness this lightning…channel it into the flux capacitor…it just might work…”

Marty grinned. Now they were on the track! At least there seemed to be hope. All he wanted was a shot at getting back. If they tried and he failed, that would be unfortunate. But to remain here with absolutely no hope…It wasn’t an alternative he cared to consider.

Doc Brown looked up at the portrait of Benjamin Franklin. “What do you think of that, Ben? Harness lightning? If you could do it, why can’t I? It’s brilliant.”

He turned to look at Marty again. “You were right, Marty,” he said. “I was right! We can accomplish anything if we put our minds to it. And we’re gonna do it! Next Saturday night, we’re sending you back to the future—with a bang! This calls for a toast.

He walked briskly to the water cooler and poured each of them a glassful. Then, raising his dramatically, he said:

“To me! To you! To Ben Franklin! And to your girlfriend for writing this note.”

“I’ll drink to all of that,” Marty agreed. They drank silently.           

“Yeah, Jennifer’s really great,” Marty smiled. “I can hardly wait to see her again and tell her about this. But I don’t guess a week in 1955 will hurt me. As a matter of fact, it might be fun to check things out. You know, take in some of the local color, rub elbows with the natives, that sort of thing.”

To Marty’s surprise, Doc Brown frowned and began shaking his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s completely out of the question.”

“Why?”

“Because of the delicate nature of your being here. Apparently you still haven’t accepted what a potential threat you are to this town, other people’s lives, our whole society. No, I’m afraid you must stay in this house and not go outside. You can’t see anybody or talk to anybody. Anything you do or say could have serious repercussions on future events. Do you understand?”

“Uh, sure,” Marty replied. He didn’t really accept Doc Brown’s notion that he was such a “threat” to society. Especially now that he knew what could happen if he started talking a lot about the future. On the other hand, if he guarded what he said and just observed, what possible harm could he do? It was certainly better than hanging around Doc Brown’s house and garage for a week.

“Marty, who else did you interact with today?” Doc Brown asked. “Besides me, that is.”

“Well, I went to the movies. Do you think the fact that the Town took in an extra fifty cents today will change the course of history?”

“Don’t be smart,” Doc Brown replied. “That’s a tiny item but even it could happen. Let’s suppose the theater operator is looking at the balance sheet one day and thinking about selling. Maybe that extra fifty cents pushes the receipts from $999.75 to $1000.25. That is, it goes from three figures to four figures. That might be the psychological difference between keeping the theater or selling it. So, influenced by the extra fifty cents, he keeps it. Not long afterward, when the theater would be closed if he’d sold it, a fire starts and some people are trapped inside. One of them is a youngster who’s destined to become President of the United States—except that now he’s dead.”

“And I did it,” Marty muttered. “I killed him with my fifty cents.”

“Not directly, but you get the point. History is a very fragile thing. A guy looks one way or coughs and one thing happens. He looks another way or doesn’t cough and a different thing happens. It’s scary. Didn’t you see that movie,
It’s a Wonderful Life?
That’s a textbook on how our little lives influence everybody else’s.”

“Yeah,” Marty said. “I get you now.”

“Now who else did you interact with?”

“Lots of people. My grandparents, my mother and father. Biff Tannen…”

Doc Brown winced. “You looked up your parents?” he said. “How could you? That’s totally irresponsible.”

“I didn’t look them up,” Marty retorted. “I just bumped into them.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Marty recounted the events of the day. He considered them rather bland until he saw how deeply they affected Doc Brown.

“You say you saved your father from being hit by the car,” Doc said.

“Yes, but I didn’t save his life. If the car had hit him, he’d have lived.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it’s a family joke about how Dad and Mom met for the first time when grandpa drove the car into him.”

“Good Lord! You prevented your parents from having their initial meeting?”

“Yes, but they’ll meet again. They go to the same school, you know…”

“No, no, no!” Doc Brown exclaimed. “You’ve done a terrible thing as far as your future life is concerned. Let me see that picture of your family again.”

Marty withdrew the snapshot from his wallet and handed it to Brown. His expression became grim. “Just as I thought,” he said.

“What’s the big deal?” Marty asked.

“It’s happened. This proves my theory. Look at your brother—what do you make of his head?”

He returned the picture to Marty. It was the same as he had always remembered it—except that Dave had no head. Looking closely at the photo, he saw that his brother’s head hadn’t been blotted out or torn off. Behind where his head should have been was a continuation of the rose bush which his body was blocking out. It was just as if Dave had no head when the snapshot was taken!

“Good God!” Marty whispered. “His head is gone…Like it’s been erased…”

“Erased from existence,” Doc Brown added significantly.

“I don’t understand this,” Marty said. “Or maybe I do but I don’t want to.”

Brown held up his finger. “Sssshh…” he said. “I’m developing a theory.” After thinking a moment, he snapped his finger. “Kid, we gotta get you some clothes,” he said. “You stay here and I’ll do the shopping. Tell me what your sizes are.”

An hour later, he returned from the local Sears, Roebuck with a shopping bag filled with a complete outfit. As he removed the labels from them and began to change, Marty discussed the situation with Doc Brown.

“Tell me about your theory,” he said. “Are you sure it makes sense?”

“My theories always make sense,” Brown replied. “It’s a simple genetic-mathematical extrapolation.”

“I don’t get it.”

“In plainer terms then: It was your father who was supposed to get hit by that car, not you. Thus, you interfered in your parents’ first meeting. If they don’t meet under those same circumstances, they may not fall in love. But that’s water over the dam now. We’ve got to get them to meet somehow, because if they don’t meet and fall in love, they won’t get married. If they don’t get married, they don’t have kids. That’s why your brother’s disappearing from that photograph—he’s the first since he’s the oldest. Your sister will follow, and unless you can repair the damage, you’ll be the next to fade away.”