Outatime

Chapter Six: Hill Valley, 1985

            It was a two-mile walk back to Hill Valley. Marty normally took the road from her neighborhood into town on her skateboard, so walking should have been a piece of cake for her and the boys. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for when they arrived in town. Hill Valley in 1985 was dramatically different from Hill Valley in 2025.

            Some kids were dressed like punk rockers with rainbow-colored, super-spiky hair.

            Others carried boomboxes on their shoulders with the music blaring in their ears.

            The cars driven along the streets were vintage and in pristine condition.

            The theater marquee advertised two "new" films: Rambo: First Blood Part II and The Goonies. Tickets were $3.55 a seat.

            "We'll have to do our best to blend in," Phineas suggested.

            "S-Sure," Marty stammered, still adjusting to the bizarre situation she found herself in. "It shouldn't be all that hard. I-I mean, think of all that we know 'bout the 80s, thanks to Stranger Things."

            Phineas snickered. "Yeah, including the monsters."

            "T-There were real monsters?" Marty asked. She was so jittery that she took Phineas's joke as an actual fact.

            DONG! DONG! DONG!

            Marty and the boys were shaken by the ringing of the Hill Valley Courthouse clock tower, which was still in working condition in 1985. Amused by the historical circumstance, Phineas reflected, "Baljeet would've been happy to see this."

            Unable to handle the eeriness around her, Marty needed something to calm her. She took out her phone and put in her wireless earbuds, hoping that some music would calm her nerves. However, when she tried to access her Spotify playlist, she kept getting an error message: "No Internet Connection."

            Of course. Wi-Fi hasn't existed yet in 1985!

            "Dammit!" she verbally griped.

            Seeing her distraught again, Phineas told her, "Take it easy, Marty. We'll find a way out of this. All we have to do is call Doc."

            "How're we gonna do that without a phone?" Marty indicated her now useless smartphone to Phineas.

            "Well, payphones did exist in 1985." Phineas pointed to one specific area in the square that Marty recognized as the Retrograde. Of course, in this 1985 setting, it was the old Century Café that was established before its closure and Phineas and Ferb renting the space. Immediately, she and the boys went there, being careful not to get run down by the blue 1980 Chevy Silverado along the way.

            The difference in the atmosphere was discernable as soon as they entered.

            Whereas the Retrograde was designed to be like Phineas and Ferb's answer to Dave & Buster's, Century Café was a basic coffee shop hangout with an open mic stage. Of course, being as early as it was, there wasn't anyone on stage and barely much activity, save for one redheaded girl sitting alone and eating breakfast at the counter and a janitor sweeping away at the floors.