It's Time. . . .

[clockwork_doc]

Doc's excited. It's a very special day for him. Today, he is going to finally take a step toward realizing his lifelong dream. The car is fully wired, and everything checks out on the preliminary tests. The DeLorean is finally, FINALLY ready for time travel. Granted, Doc is still a little iffy about the time-dilation effect in place on the pocket of reality he now calls home, but he figures that he can at least try a short time trip, just to see if everything truly works. Just to achieve the dream.

Of course, a moment like this must be shared with one's closest friends. Doc promptly sends out a message over the PINpoint to Marty and Alice, asking them to come to his world, before going to the apartment next to his and knocking on Victor's door. "Hey Victor!"

Comments

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

The group waits impatiently for the arrival of the DeLorean. Doc babbles on for a moment about flux storage and wormholes to fill the airtime. However, soon enough, an alarm goes off on his watch. "There! In about two seconds. . . ." he says eagerly, everyone leaning forward. Moments later, there's a bright flash of light –

[dee-lorean81.livejournal.com]

And then, the DeLorean is back, but it's making a horrible screeching sound. And something about it seems very different.

[save-us-alice.livejournal.com]

Victor and Alice slap their hands over their ears. Marty does the same with his free hand. "What on earth is that?!" Alice demands, screwing up her face in pain. "What happened to the car?"

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

"I don't know!" Doc says frantically, fiddling with the remote. "The brake's not working on this!"

[deadgirlsliekme.livejournal.com]

Victor, looking up at the car, frowns. "Wait – where are the tires?"

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

"The tires?" Doc repeats, finally looking up from his remote as the DeLorean screeches to a halt.

His expression turns to one of utter shock and horror as he gets his first real look at it. "THAT'S NOT MY CAR!"

[dee-lorean81.livejournal.com]

Indeed it isn't, as the group very quickly realizes as they run up to it. This DeLorean looks very beat-up. The tires are missing, as Victor noted before, and there's a strange coglameration of vacuum tubes strapped to the front hood. There's also a Mr. Fusion mounted on the back, just to confuse everybody further.

[museicalmarty.livejournal.com]

"Doc, what the hell happened?" Marty asks, letting the hand with the video camera drop. "I mean - this is obviously a time machine, but it's sure as hell not the one we sent off!"

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

"I don't know! It seemed to work!" Doc protests, staring at the car. "When I struck my car with the lighting, it obviously opened up some sort of ri-"

He stops dead. "Rift," he repeated. "God damn it, it didn't go through the time barrier, it went through a Rift! And this version must have been dragged through in its place!" He slams a hand on the hood while thunder growls overhead. "Did I somehow manage to transfer my horrible luck with dimensional traveling to my inventions?!"

[deadgirlsliekme.livejournal.com]

Everyone feels for you, Doc. You can see it in their faces. "I'm so sorry," Victor says softly. "I know how much this meant to you."

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

"Thank you," Doc says, noticing the threatening thunderstorm forming overhead and forcing himself to get a hold on his emotions. "Great Scott, am I glad I decided not to invite everyone I know to witness this humiliation."

[save-us-alice.livejournal.com]

"It's not your fault," Alice says firmly. "How were you to know those things could still open up here? And it could have turned out much worse. At least now you still have a time machine. One in need of repairs, yes, but it's still one of yours." Her expression fades into puzzlement. "Though I am wondering why it looks like that."

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

"It looks like one of the ones from the movie," Doc comments, opening up the door. Inside this car is a pressure gauge, with its needle firmly in the red zone. The time circuits are also on - Doc looks at the dates. "Last Time Departed is September 7th, 1885, Destination Time is October 27th, 1985," he reports. "It appears we got the DeLorean from the very end of Part III. That explains why it has no tires - this particular version needed to be pushed up to 88 miles per hour via train, so my counterpart and his Marty set it up on the railroad tracks."

[museicalmarty.livejournal.com]

"What's with the weird thing on the hood, though?" Marty asks. Remembering he has a video camera, he decides to film it for posterity.

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

"Replacement for the time circuit control microchip - this DeLorean got sent back to 1885 via multiple bursts of lightning, and the original chip got destroyed," Doc explains. "This was the best my 1955 counterpart could do." He looks it over. "Which is actually pretty damn good. I think you could actually run a small computer off this."

[deadgirlsliekme.livejournal.com]

Victor twists his tie a little. "So - ah - what are you going to do?" he asks, a bit fearfully. He doesn't want to get Doc mad all over again.

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

"Well, any further time travel experiments are being suspended for the moment, obviously," Doc says, rubbing his forehead. "I don't know if that was just a random, one-time event, or if that will happen every time I try to time travel in here." He sighs, steam hissing from his back. "Alice is right, though - it could have been a lot worse. At least I do still have a time machine. Once I replace the tires and make some other minor repairs, I can search for a better, more stable place to make a new test."

[museicalmarty.livejournal.com]

Marty pats his best friend's back. "I'm sorry, Doc. I wish it had turned out better." He was looking forward to this almost as much as his best friend. It really sucks the universe is still playing games with the Doc.

[save-us-alice.livejournal.com]

"We're here to help you with anything you may need," Alice says.

[deadgirlsliekme.livejournal.com]

"Yes, exactly," Victor agrees. "We'll get it working. Just you wait and see."

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

Doc smiles. No matter what, it's always good to know he's got real friends. "Thank you." He closes the DeLorean back up. "Come on, let's have something to eat. I feel the need to soothe myself with some hot chocolate."

[dee-lorean81.livejournal.com]

The group walks away, leaving the DeLorean sitting quietly in the parking lot. Later Doc will come back and make a list of everything that needs to be repaired, ranked from most urgent to least urgent.

But he won't notice that the DeLorean is different even from the one at the end of Part III. There's no signs of it on the outside, but it is different.

After all, it went through a Rift.