“No,” Marty assured him. “I didn’t spy on you. In 1985, you told me about this morning. You said after the fall, you had a sort of vision about the flux capacitor, which is the heart of the time machine.”
Doc Brown frowned. This was indeed a puzzler. How could this young man know what went on in his mind unless he told him? While he was trying to figure it out, Marty spread his palms and voiced the same question.
“Doc, how else could I know that unless I was from the future?”
“You could be a mind reader.”
“Yes, but I’m not. I’m just an ordinary guy you happened to confide in.”
“Where is this time machine now?” Doc Brown asked.
He was beginning to become intrigued.
“I’ve got it hidden,” Marty replied. “I stashed it in a garage. It’s so flashy-looking, I couldn’t drive it around the streets without getting a lot of attention. Maybe the cops would even arrest me.”
Doc Brown looked at the young man for a long moment.
He wanted to believe him but there was something missing. It was just too fantastic. The kid was just a good actor who had somehow found out about his accident. Whatever motive was behind his story-telling wasn’t important. He had other things to do.
“Good night, ‘Future Boy,’” he said, closing the service door of the garage.
Marty stood silently for nearly a minute. Try as he might, he could think of no one else who could help him but Doc Brown. That meant only one thing: if Brown required more evidence to convince him, that evidence would have to be produced.
“But he probably won’t let me in next time, if he knows it’s me,” he sighed.
He looked down, noting that the same potted plant, much smaller now, sat outside the door to Doc’s garage.
“Is it possible…?” he smiled.
Bending down, he lifted the pot and found the key. He put it in his pocket and walked away.
It was his plan to wait until dark when the DeLorean would be less obtrusive. The machine itself would be sure to impress Doc Brown and contained several articles from 1985 that would serve as evidence. Walking slowly, Marty went back to the Town Square, bought himself a burger and Pepsi, and watched the hands on the courthouse tower clock slowly move toward four o’clock. Finally, growing bored with people-watching, he decided to take in a movie.
He strolled toward the Essex, but after only a few paces turned left in the direction of the Town. Westerns had never been his favorite type of movie and Ronald Reagan was far from his favorite actor. At least The Atomic Kid was a picture he’d never seen on television.
He paid his fifty cents admission cheerfully, bought an Almond Joy for a dime and went ins
ide. The movie was pretty lame and Marty actually found himself yearning for television commercials as a way of relieving the tedium. Ninety minutes later, having suffered through the story of a prospector who becomes immune to atomic radiation and tracks down Communist spies, he went outside, noting with satisfaction that it was considerably darker.
By the time he returned home, it was quite dark. Marty opened the garage, got into the DeLorean, dropped the seat into a reclining position and closed his eyes. He had decided to wait until at least midnight so that few people would be around to see his car from another world.
Eventually he dropped into a fitful sleep, a succession of dreams reminding him that he was in a serious situation…He saw himself pursued by professional gamblers eager to pick his brain for future knowledge that could be turned into money…Police and government officials, meanwhile, wanted to silence him in order to prevent panic…Lorraine was after his body…He had no way of returning to 1985, to Jennifer, his friends…Awakening with a start, he looked at the digital clock on the DeLorean dashboard. It was after midnight.
Bringing the car to life, he rolled softly out of the garage and returned to Doc Brown’s house on Riverside Drive. True to its image, Hill Valley had rolled up its sidewalks early and only a few cars were on the roads.
Arriving at Doc’s garage, Marty opened the door with the key he’d appropriated and pulled the DeLorean inside. Doc Brown was asleep, snoring loudly, at his workbench. Beneath his slumped figure were blueprints of the Brainwave Analyzer and a note pad with scribbled memoranda.
Marty touched Doc gently on the shoulder. “Doc…Wake up,” he whispered.
Brown’s eyes fluttered open. “Huh?” he muttered thickly, his expression vacant.
“It’s me,” Marty said.
A twinge of anger came into Doc Brown’s eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded. “How the hell did you get in?”
“I borrowed the key…”
“You got a lot of nerve—”