Back to the Future Part II (3 page)

‘Then wait for a guy named Griff,’ Doc continued.

‘Griff,’ Marty repeated.

‘Right.’ Doc nodded, pleased that Marty was taking this all in. ‘Griff’s going to ask you about tonight - are you in or out? Tell him you’re out.’ Doc raised his voice, as if this part was even more important than what he had said already. ‘Whatever he says, whatever happens, say no, you’re not interested.’

Doc waved at the alley-way. ‘Then leave, come back here, and wait for me.’ Doc’s voice started to rise again. Don’t talk to anybody, don’t touch anything, don’t do anything, don’t interact with anyone. And try not to look at anything!’

Doc was really serious about this not-messing-with-your-future business. Still, there were some things that Marty didn’t understand.

‘I don’t get it, Doc. I thought this had something to do with my kids.'

‘Precisely.’ Doc rummaged in the gym bag. ‘In those clothes, you’re the spitting image of your future son, I know, I just checked on him with my binoculars -’

He paused, staring at Marty quizzically. ‘Hmmmmm,’ he murmured, then grinned with a snap of his fingers. ‘Pull out your pants pockets.'

Marty did as Doc asked.

‘Perfect!’ Doc declared.

Marty’s eyes rose doubtfully toward the cap above his forehead. ‘I still don't get it, Doc.'

‘Well...' Doc replied hesitantly, ‘I guess there’s no point in keeping it a secret.'

He reached into another one of his pockets and pulled out a newspaper. It was a USA Today: ‘Hill Valley Edition’!

LOCAL YOUTH JAILED IN ATTEMPTED THEFT! the main headline screamed, and below that, in smaller letters, ‘Youth Gang Denies Complicity’.

But Marty’s eyes were drawn to the colour picture immediately beneath, a photo of a kid who looked exactly like Marty!

Marty realised he was staring. He pulled his gaze away from the photo to look back at Doc.

‘My son? He looks just like me!’ He looked back down at the paper, and tried to read the story, but that only made it worse. What could he do if his son was in jail? ‘This is terrible! But, Doc, if this is already in the newspaper -’

Doc pointed at the date in the corner: ‘October 22 2015.’

‘This is tomorrow’s newspaper,’ he explained. ‘That’s why we’re here today - to prevent this event from ever happening!'

Marty looked up from the paper again. Now he understood why Doc needed him!

He whistled softly. ‘Whoa, Doc, this is heavy.’

‘I know,’ Doc agreed grimly. ‘And it gets worse. As a result of this, your daughter goes into a state of severe depression and commits -’

‘My daughter?’ Marty asked. This was getting to be beyond heavy! ‘I have a daughter? What does she do?’

Doc's watch beeped loudly.

‘Damn!’ Doc snapped his head down to look at the dial. ‘I’m late!’

He grabbed the newspaper and ran down the alley.

‘Doc, wait!’ Marty yelled, trying to keep that touch of panic he was starting to feel from growing any larger. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To intercept the real Marty Junior,’ Doc called over his shoulder. ‘You're taking his place!’

He disappeared around the corner.

‘Marty Junior?’ Marty mused aloud. ‘I name him Marty Junior? With a name like that, how could he go wrong?’ Hey! There was no reason to panic - the kid had Marty McFly’s genes, after all, right?

‘Well,’ Marty added to console himself. ‘At least he’s not a wimp.’

But his son was about to make a really bad decision, and it was up to Marty to take his place and save him! The original Marty took a deep breath and walked out of the alley.

2015 or not, he knew exactly where he was.

Directly in front of him was Courthouse Square'. It had changed some in thirty years, but it was still easy enough to recognise. After all, he had skateboarded around these streets a thousand times or more in 1985, and even managed to do the same once or twice during the week he had spent in the 1950s. He wondered for a second if kids still skateboarded in 2015.

The village green had been mostly replaced by a large duck pond and a fountain, although the square was still bordered by those same hedges. The courthouse building was still there, too. but it looked like it had been turned into some sort of mall, with a fancy, smoked green glass entryway that led to dozens of underground shops. The names of the stores below flashed on a 3-D electronic display, places with names like World O’ Transponders and Hydrators unlimited.

There were still stores on the other three sides of the square, too, although most of the names had changed since 1985. The adult bookstore had been replaced by a shop called Bottoms Up, ‘Specialising in Plastic Surgery since 1998!’, with signs in the windows advertising face lifts and a today-only special on breast-implants.

And the movie theater had changed too. It was called the HOLOMAX now, and the marquee announced they now featured

FULL HOLOGRAPHIC SCREENS!
- Now Playing -
JAWS 14
 DIRECTED BY MAX SPIELBERG
 - This time, it’s really, really personal! -
DELIGHTFULLY AIR CONDITIONED!

There was still a gas station on the corner, too, only now it was on the second storey, above a Seven-Eleven! A car landed on the upper deck, and a dozen robot arms appeared, pumping gas, checking the tyres, washing the windows. Further up the street, there was a tavern called the Fusion Bar and a Century 22 real estate office. On the other side of the square, Marty could see a robotics shop (‘Sales, Service, Rentals!’). And a Video Software store, with a sign in the window advertising ‘The Video Classic: A Match Made In Space!’ Wow, Marty thought. They’d made a movie out of his dad’s book, too?

Most of the traffic seemed to have relocated itself overhead. Cars, some of which looked old enough to come from 1985, or even before, briskly flew back and forth across the air lanes. Marty could have sworn one of those fliers was an Edsel. There was a flashing sign overhead, advising drivers of current ‘Skyway Conditions’. And there were billboards both up there and down close to the ground, too, pointing out the advantages of ‘US Air to Vietnam’ - complete with a smiling couple with surfboards - or ‘Earl Shieb IV will hoverconvert any car! ]ust $3999!’ or even ‘Pepsi-Perfect - it’s vitamin enriched!’

Actually, there was only one thing in all of Courthouse Square that hadn’t changed at all - except maybe to look a little older. The courthouse clock was still there at the top of the converted courthouse building, and still stopped at 10:04, the time lightning struck it back in 1955, letting Marty get back where he belonged, to 1985, at least for a few hours.

Marty stepped out onto the street. Well, maybe there were a couple of other things that hadn’t changed so much. Those folks dancing up there looked like Hare Krishnas. And the sign on the store directly behind the dancing guys in the saffron robes read 
E-Z CREDIT FINANCE COMPANY.
 And one whole corner of the street had been completely torn up by the electric company.

But where was the 
Café 80's?

There was an antique store on this side of the street, a place called BLAST FROM THE PAST. The front window of the place was full of things Marty remembered from 1985 or before, all carefully labelled, stuff like a Betamax VCR, a Super-8 movie projector, a lava lamp, a Macintosh computer, and a whole bunch of Perrier bottles. In fact, the only thing Marty didn’t recognise in the window was a small, silver book with the bold, red title:
Grey’s Sports Almanac
 
1950-2000.

Marty looked up the street. He still had an important job to do. Just beyond the antique store, on the corner where the aerobics place used to stand back in 1985, was the 
Café
80’s.

Marty walked quickly to the Café. The door slid aside to let him enter. Doc Brown had called this ‘one of those nostalgia places’. The walls were painted in pastel pinks and greens straight out of that new cop show - Miami Vice. But a lot of stuff here either Marty didn't recognise at all, or it somehow looked wrong.

He supposed some of it could have come from after 1985. That was weirder still, when be thought about it. He was in a nostalgia place for stuff that hadn’t even happened yeti Like what were all these weird yellow squares pinned to one wall, squares that said stuff like ‘Baby on Board’ and ‘Dead Wife in Trunk’? Why would anybody want to use that sort of thing?

The front counter in the place looked a lot like fast food places Marty was used to from 1985 - but he guessed that was the idea - with a big wall display overhead, complete with pictures of the burgers and other stuff they served. Every seat in the place, though, had a small video screen in front of it, sort of like a ‘Watchman’, and all the screens were showing images from the 1980s - news clips, movies, rock videos. The sound system was pounding out a song about heaven being only one step away, or something, that Marty thought sounded vaguely familiar. At least there was some good guitar work in it.

There was still something strange about this place, though. A good part of it, Marty thought, had to be the counter help. They weren’t human, for one thing, but some kind of robots with large video screens that

switched between showing human faces and food items. Beneath each robot’s screen was a tray to carry food, but - for some reason - all of the robots also sported a pair of red metallic wings to either side of their screens. Wings? Marty hoped they were just there for decoration.

But Marty had come in here to do more than stare. He was supposed to order something. He walked up to the front of the restaurant.

One of the red-winged robots smiled at him from the other side of the counter. The thing's video-screen face resembled nothing so much as a computer-generated Ronald Reagan.

‘Welcome to the 
Café
 80’s,’ the television image announced, ‘where it’s always morning in America, even in the afternoon.'

Music swelled behind the computer face, as what looked like an all-too-familiar political announcement from tho 1984 presidential campaign played itself out behind the Reagan image.

‘Our special today,’ The Reagan-thing continued, ‘is Mesquite-grilled sushi, cajun style, dipped in Thai 
cilantro sauce.’

Marty frowned. He didn't know what everything in that concoction was. but it sounded terrible! You weren’t supposed to grill sushi anyway, were you? There was maybe such a thing as having a little bit too much of the 80s.

The video image flickered and shifted, turning into this old guy with a beard and turban. It was the Ayatollah Khomeini!

‘No!’ the Ayatollah screamed. ‘It is the Great Satan Special'. I demand you have tofu!’

The image shifted as the voice turned to a gentle falsetto. ‘Hey - be cool.’ The image resolved itself to approximate Michael Jackson. ‘Don’t be bad. We’re all friends here.' The head bobbed around on the screen as if the unseen body beneath might be moonwalking.

Marty decided he should close his mouth and do what the Doc told him he should.

‘Uh -’ he managed. ‘Could I have a - Pepsi?’

He held up the fifty.

‘Cash?’ the screen - now once again in Reagan’s image - replied doubtfully. ‘Well, it’s much easier to just use your thumb -’

‘My thumb? Huh?’ Marty looked stupidly at his hand. ‘Uh, no, look, I’ll just pay cash.'

‘Well, there’s a handling surcharge on cash, but -’ The Reagan-thing hesitated, as if truly considering Marty’s plight. ‘- well, OK, we’ll take cash.’

The video creature pointed toward a tray on the counter. Marty placed the fifty there. It was instantly sucked out of sight. There was a quick series of electronic beeps and a small panel whirred aside, revealing a covered, see-through plastic cup with the words PEPSI PERFECT.

‘And your change,’ Reagan’s image continued cheerfully, ‘rounded off to the nearest five dollars.’

A crisp, new five dollar bill shot out of another slot. Forty-five dollars for a Pepsi? This really was the future.

Marty picked up the money and the cup. The cup’s lid seemed to be permanently stuck to the top. He had no idea how to open it.

‘Hey, McFly!’ a very familiar voice yelled from behind him.

A very familiar voice? In the future.

Marty turned around, and looked at the man sitting behind the plate of half-eaten sushi, a baseball game blaring from the walkman by his seat. The fellow who had spoken to him was maybe seventy, seventy-five years old, but Marty would recognise that smirk anywhere.

It was Biff Tannen!

‘Biff!’

Marty walked slowly toward the auto detailer, who now sported a head of thinning white hair and a full set of wrinkles.

‘Yeah,’ Biff replied with a smirk unchanged by the years. ‘I’ve seen you around. You’re Marty McFly’s kid, huh?’

‘Huh?’ Marty replied, still in a bit of shock from having run into his past. ‘What?’

‘Marty Junior,’ Biff replied in a tone that assumed Marty was too stupid to figure it out for himself. ‘You look like him, too. Tough break, kid.’ Biff’s smirk got even wider. ‘It must be rough being named after a complete butthead.’

Tough break? Butthead?

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Marty demanded.

Biff picked up the cane that rested beside his feet. Marty noticed that the cane’s brass handle was sculpted into a clenched fist. Biff lifted the cane and knocked it briskly against Marty’s forehead.

‘Hello?’ Biff asked rather more loudly than necessary. ‘Anybody home? Think, McFly, think! Your old man - Mr Loser!’

'What?'
M
arty was
completely confused. What was Biff talking about? His father was a success now - a published author and everything - or at least he had been in 1985! Had the future changed things again? ‘A loser?’

‘That’s right.’ Biff seemed to be really enjoying himself now. ‘A loser, with a capital L.’

But Marty refused to believe it. ‘That can’t be!’ he insisted. ‘I happen to know that George McFly is no longer a loser!’

Biff looked up at the ceiling, as if he couldn’t believe Marty’s stupidity. ‘No,’ he explained even more slowly than before. ‘George McFly’s never been a loser. But I’m not talking about George McFly. I’m talking about his kid - your old man! Marty McFly. Senior!’