Back to the Future II - Told from Marty McFly's POV

Chapter Six // Jen and the Almanac

I walk out of the shop, staring at the almanac and grinning to myself. What a brilliant idea I had, I think. "I can't lose!" I could become rich off this!

As I continue to stare at it some more, I hear Doc calling me from above. "Marty, up here!" He calls down to me, and I turn up to him. "Doc, what's going on?" I ask.

"Stand by, I'll park over here," Doc instructs me, and I wait for him to land. Once he lands, I go over to the DeLorean, and Doc opens the doors. I say hello to Einie and scratch the sheepdog behind his ears, as he licks my face. "Einstein never knew I was gone!" Doc starts to say. "I left him in a suspended animation kennel."

But before I can respond, Doc gets out of the car and stares at something in the distance with a great horror in his eyes. "Marty!" He yells, and I turn towards him. "What the name of Sir Isaac H Newton happened here?"

I sigh deeply. "Oh yeah, Doc, my kid showed up, and all hell broke loose," I explain.

"Your kid?" Doc asks in horror, clasping his hand against his forehead. "Great Scott, the sleep inducer- I was afraid of this!" He collapses into the DeLorean, exhaustively. "Because I used it on Jennifer, there wasn't enough power to knock your son out for a full hour. Damn!"

But wait. I glance at the newspaper and check it, only to notice that the headline drastically changed. "Doc, Doc, Doc, look at this, it's changing!" I exclaim, showing it to Doc. The headline had now changed from "Youth Arrested", to "Gang Arrested". The picture also changes from my son being arrested to Griff and his gang arrested. Doc takes out his futuristic camera/binoculars and looks at Griff near the mall, who was resisting his arrest. Doc then places his binoculars down and grows excited. "Why yes, yes of course!" He says. "Because this hoverboard incident has now occurred, Griff goes to jail. Therefore, your son won't go with him tonight and that robbery will never take place. Thus, history- future history, had now been altered and this is the proof! Marty, we've succeeded, not exactly as I'd planned but no matter. Let's go get Jennifer and go home!"

Thank god, I think, as I place the hoverboard back in the DeLorean, and say hi to Einstein again. "Hi Einie, hi buddy!" I start to say as I grab as the almanac, but it falls out of the bag and lands on Doc's feet. Doc stares at it curiously for a minute, before asking suspiciously, "What's this?"

"Uh, just a souvenir," I say as I grow slightly nervous, hoping Doc would just forget about it. But of course, this was Doc, and he began reading the title. "Fifty years of Sports Statistics." He squints as he reads, and rolls his eyes. "Hardly recreational reading material, Marty." He says.

"Hey Doc, what's the harm of bringing back, er, a little info on the future?" I ask, with a mischievous grin on my face. "Thought maybe we could place a couple of bets or something."

"Marty!" Doc begins to lecture me, and I slightly roll my eyes, expecting the typical 'no one should know too much about the future' talk. "I didn't invent the time machine for financial gain! The intent here is to gain a clearer perception of humanity. Where we've been, where we're going, the pitfalls and the possibilities, the perils and the promise, and perhaps even an answer to that universal question- why?"

"Hey Doc, I'm all for that!" I exclaim, and give a little shrug, a smile creeping back into my face. "But what's wrong with making a few bucks on the side?"

Doc snatches the almanac away from me, and I sigh in exasperation. "I am going to punch this in the trash! "He states, but before he can we both see a police car right where Jennifer is. We run behind a wall, making sure we can't be seen by the cops. "Great Scott!" Doc exclaims, and I look at him worriedly.

"Doc, what the hell are they doing?" I ask, panicked. Is Jennifer okay?

"They used her thumbprint to access her ID," Doc explains. "Since her thumbprint never changes over the years they simply assume she's the Jennifer of the future."

"Well, we gotta stop them!" I desperately claim, and Doc shakes his head. "What are we going to say, that we're time travelers?" Doc asks. "They'd have us committed!"

I shrugged, hesitant on what to do. There had to be some way where we could stop the cops, at least. Meanwhile, Doc glances back out to look at Jennifer, trying to overhear what the cops are saying, and then turns towards me. "They're taking her home, to your future home!" Doc says, panic-ridden in his voice. I naturally grow curious and excited at the prospect. "You mean I'm going to see where I live?" I ask. "I'm going to see myself as an old man?"

 "No, no, no Marty, that could result in a-" he pauses and gasps, giving a loud groan. "Great Scott!" He yells suddenly. "Jennifer could conceivably encounter her future self, and the consequences of that could be disastrous." He turns away again, but this time I grab him, worried. I couldn't have anything happen to Jennifer. Or us.

"Doc, what you mean?!"

"I foresee two possibilities." Doc starts. "One- coming face-to-face with herself thirty years older would put her into shock and she would simply pass out. Or two- the encounter could create a time paradox, the results of which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum, and destroy the entire universe! Granted, that's the worst-case scenario, but the distraction might, in fact, be very localized, limited to merely our own galaxy."

This was heavy. "Well, that's a relief," I mutter, worriedly. The universe could end, that was only it. Not a big deal.

The police car takes off with Jennifer in it and Doc pushes me back to the wall so that the police officers don't see us. "Let's go," Doc orders. "I sure hope we find Jennifer before she finds herself!"

Yeah, no kidding, I think, as Doc looks up at a sign. "Damn!" He yells. "The skyway is jammed, it's going to take us forever to get there."

Great.

Doc takes one last look at the almanac before we leave. "This stays here," he tells me, "I didn't invent the time machine to win at gambling, I invented the time machine to travel through time!"

"I know Doc, I know." I mumble, and we head out to the DeLorean.

And unbeknownst to us, our entire conversation would affect the future, er- the past...

Drastically.