Saturday, 26th October, 1985
9:15pm
It was wrong, it was all wrong.
If Doctor Emmett Brown had ever wanted to know what Marty had felt like when he suddenly appeared in 1955, he need not wonder. However, he had a feeling that this was going to turn out much, much worse.
Ever since dropping off Marty at his house, Doc had regretted it and thought about returning to get him, but he had the feeling Marty would no longer be there. Doc was pretty sure that the McFly family didn’t live in that house...
It had taken a while for it to really dawn on Doc, after all, it was dark out, darker than usual with so many street lights not working, but he realised that that in itself was strange. Excepting Courthouse Square, Hill Valley was a well maintained town (and even the Courthouse wasn’t this bad) or at least it had been...a few hours ago.
On the way back to his garage, Doc had seen abandoned homes and cars, Do Not Cross This Line police tape and chalked outlines on the pavement and by the time he got to his home he was more sure than ever that something was very, very wrong. And if he hadn’t entering his garage would have made it abundantly clear.
The place was an utter mess, which wouldn’t mean anything really since tidyness wasn’t one of his priorities, it was what the mess consisted of that struck him.
There was no power...and a quick check of the power box proved a blown fuse was not behind it. The box of emergency candles was fortunately still by the door, although there were a lot more candles in it then he remembered. The lighter was still there as well and soon Doc had a lit candle in hand, which cast an eerie glow over the place.
And eriee it was, there wasn't a single newspaper from beyond May 1983, the new kitchen appliances he had brought at the beginning of the year were nowhere to be seen.
Doc may have thought he’d been robbed (it wouldn't have been the first time a group of teens had decided to mess around with the town nut) if not for the absence of one very noticeable piece of equipment. The giant amplifier, a late birthday present for Marty, was nowhere to be seen, not a single component or wire was there. The amp was much too big for any thief to have taken, not without dismantling the entire garage...what was going on?
As Doc looked about, confused, wondering if somehow there had been a catastrophic malfunction in the time machine and they were in the wrong year, Einstein, his faithful dog whined and barked from the side door.
"What is it, Einey?" Doc looked over his shoulder, then looked around wondering if there was an intruder. But that seemed unlikely, there was a film of dust over everything and a musty smell that indicated that no-one had been here for quite a while.
Doc’s mind raced, trying to put together everything...but he couldn’t, considering what Hill Valley had looked like in 2015, he couldn't imagine a time in between then where the town would be so rundown. He certainly hadn't read about it in all the newspaper clippings he had gone through....
Newspaper clippings...
Turning quickly, Doc hurried from the centre of the garage, kicking things out of the way as he did, rejoining Einstein at the side door. "I've got an idea, boy." He whispered, not sure why he did exactly, but paranoia was in the air. Doc felt as if he was too loud, someone would hear.
He and Einstein hurried back to the DeLorean and in the few minutes they had been gone, someone had emerged from the shadows and was fooling around with the driver's side door.
"Hey!" Doc shouted candle still in hand. "Hey, you!"
Later he would realise what a risk he was taken, everybody and their brother probably carried guns in this place, but fortunately for whatever reason at the sound of his yell, the would-be car thief made a break for it, disappearing once more into the shadows.
Doc looked the DeLorean over carefully, relieved that Mr. Fusion had not been disturbed, opening the gullwing door he ushered Einstein in and climbed in himself. "We better be careful with the time machine from now on." He muttered to the dog.
He locked the doors and drove well above the speed limit towards his goal. Every street had a nightmarish cast now, familiar but wrong, Doc noticed that many many trees were blackened and leaveless as if they had been poisoned.
It seemed to take forever to reach his destination and when he finally did he wasn’t too surprised to see the entire place was deserted, the building covered in cracks and the windows boarded up with rotting boards. The DeLorean’s headlights caught a fallen over sign: Hill Valley Public Library.
"This is it, boy," Doc whispered, bringing the DeLorean to a stop behind the building. He didn't want to leave the car, but there was really no choice, but the entire place seemed to be deserted, and if he was going to find out anything...
"Keep the car, safe boy..." He patted Einstein on the head, and locking the car behind him Doc hurried to the back door of the Library.
Despite the dilapidation of the place, the door was still solid and immovable, at least at first. Doc knew about a lot of things and one of them was how to break down a door, a few solid kicks were enough to make the wood splinter and another one sent it falling.
Taking out the candle and lighter he had placed in his coat pockets, Doc relit it and climbed over the broken door into the library. The silence was oppressive and the shadows the light of the candle cast were disturbing. Passing a desk, Doc saw a newspaper, a Hill Valley Telegraph dated April 12th, 1984.
Doc had been to the Hill Valley Library more times then he could count in his life, which was a good thing because he knew exactly where he was going and was able to concentrate on keeping his footing. Chairs and tables had been knocked over, books thrown from the shelves, he wondered if the Newspaper archives would be in such bad condition.
But he was in luck, the room which housed them was relatively untouched except by dust mites, the Archive books in order upon the shelves, all the way up to March 1984. Doc pulled that one from the shelf and opened it to the back.
Hill Valley Tycoon to Open New Plant on Outskirts of Town.
It was perhaps a very regular headline for the newspaper in these times of development and growth...except for the picture. The picture of the Tycoon…
"Biff Tannen," Doc gasped, his voice barely above a whisper. He couldn’t believe it! The last time he’d seen Biff Tannen, he was washing cars in the Burger King parking lot for a discounted price, but in the picture in the paper he had the look of a powerful man. His hair was slicked back, and her wore a smirk Doc hadn’t seen him wear since an encounter in early 1955, and several heavy gold chains around his neck.
Doc didn't understand how this could be, it was as if...somehow...the present had been changed...but that was impossible! He and Marty had gone to the future, the past couldn’t be changed from the future...
He wondered if it was perhaps a gag...after all April Fools was the very next day, but as Doc flicked back and looked at the headlines Tannen was mentioned on just about every page. That wasn’t the only strange thing. Other smaller headlines on the front page read things like:
President Nixon to Address Congress on Deflation Rate
Embargo on Russia Continues
Olympic Games Cancelled Due to War Fears
Vietnam claims 2 millionth Death
None of these things made any sense, and as Doc pulled more newspaper archive books from the shelves and looked through them it was clear this was no joke. No-one would have gone to so much trouble for a simple prank.
And it was definitely no joke when he saw the headline for the May 23rd 1983...
Emmett Brown Committed: Local Crackpot Declared Legally Insane!
And there he was, in a straitjacket and a crazed look in his eye being hauled through the doorway of the County Mental Health Facility.
"May 22nd," Doc muttered, "but that was the day I received the Eckerman Prize..."
Under normal circumstances Doc would never deface Library property, but this was serious, he had to find out what was going on here. He pulled the entire paper from its temporary binding.
He had to find out what was happening...he had a feeling that, somehow, it all had to do with Biff. Doc returned to the binder contain the March 1984 editions and looked at the last front page headline.
"Local legend...billionaire...owner of Biff's Pleasure Paradise,” Doc muttered as he read. "His meteoric rise to wealth began in 1958 with a lucky bet at Hill Valley Downs...Hill Valley Downs." That was the horse track on the outskirts of town! A bet.
Doc raced to the 50s section of the Archive Room, he wasn’t sure where to begin, but he pulled several bound Archive ledgers down from January, Feburary and March, figuring he might as well start from the beginning.
Eventually he found it on March 27th, 1958 on the Sports Page.
Hill Valley Man Wins Big at Races
And there was Biff Tannen holding up an oversized novelty check in both hands a big grin on his face outside a Betting Window, he was surrounded by other reporters and cameras. Reading the article Doc learned that Tannen had made a bet on a one in a million outcome and had won.
"Unbelievable," Doc muttered to himself, then frowned.
Flicking though other newspapers in the ledger he saw more articles on Tannen and his bets, each one bringing in a big win. Each one accompanied by a picture of the smirking man.
Tannen finally hit the front page of the paper in 1960 with a purchase of a company he then renamed Biff Co. specialising in garbage removal and disposal. Doc decided to skip ahead a couple of years to 1970 and discovered that Tannen had brought the company to the outskirts of town, Doc imagined such a factory probably destroyed the environment of the entire county, but the newspaper didn’t seem to care. Almost as if they were being paid off to sing Tannen’s praises.
Doc didn’t know how much time passed before he discovered what exactly Biff's Plesaure Paradise was, he assumed some sort of hotel, but in a 1979 advertising supplement he discovered it was not only a hotel, but a casino, located in Hill Valley's Town Square. In fact the building had taken over the whole square!
"Good God, gambling..." Aside from the fact gambling was illegal in California, he couldn't believe the City Council had agreed to such a thing. Conveniently, though the same paper had an in depth series of article on Tannen and Doc was able to discover that with his giant fortune Tannen had all but brought the votes he needed to legalise gambling. But that wasn’t what horrified Doc.
"Tannen himself lives on the top floor penthouse of the Paradise with his wife, Lorraine. Lorraine, surely not...” Doc hissed, but turning the page over he saw his worse fears concerned. There was Marty’s mother a pained smile on her drawn face, standing beside Tannen, a caption accompanying the photo stated: Biff Tannen and his lovely wife were married on August 12th 1973.
Married! Marty's mother married to Biff Tannen?! The same Biff Tannen who constantly leered at her? Who had even attacked her once? What the Hell was going on?
The answer was in the article in the August 13th edition of the Telegraph with it's frontpage story on the Wedding.
"Tannen has been married two times, but has high hopes for this marriage. 'There’s nothing more I wanna do,' Tannen said 'then take care of Lorraine and her kids, after her first husband’s murder.' Murder?! Marty's father?!" Doc couldn’t believe it, he couldn’t think of any person less likely to be murdered...
Tannen gave no further information about when this murder occurred, but it didn’t seem to be too long before the Wedding, so he began a search again. Finally, locating the answer on the front page of the Telegraph for March 16th.
"Beware the Ides of March," Doc muttered to himself as he read. The article was suspiciously brief, with none of the usual imaginings news reporters usually added to such things. Could Tannen...
"Great Scott! If Marty's mother is married to Tannen and his father is dead...where the Hell could he be?!" Doc feared that in the highly violent world they were now in whoever now lived at the old McFly home may have killed him. Or he may have been killed running through the streets.
"Or maybe he's at my place, it would make sense," Doc tried to calm himself, but that was logical, and he could hardly imagine Marty being calm in such circumstances.
With a rising panic Doc looked about the room, almost as if he expected it to give him an answer. The light of the candle he held ran over the 1958 Telegraph Sports page and in the flickering candlelight he spotted something strange in the picture of Tannen. Doc squinted trying to get a better look and bent close to the page, visible in Tannen’s pants pocket was a book, Doc couldn’t make out the title, but it made him suspicious.
"Betting..." Doc muttered under his breath. "Could it be...?"
Grabbing up all the archive ledgers he could carry and extinguishing the candle Doc raced from the Library to the DeLorean, still safe although Einstein was jumping about on the seats.
As Doc opened the driver’s side door he heard something fall to the ground and roll to his foot. Throwing the books into the car, Doc bent over and picked up whatever it was. It was the top of a cane, the silver top in the shape of a fist. Doc had never seen anything like it, what was it doing in the DeLorean?
There was the sound of gun fire in the distance and Doc leapt into the car closing the door and locking it.
"Sorry boy, I didn't mean to leave you here so long." He patted and hugged Einstein who calmed down. "Let's get back to the lab."
Returning to the garage, for the first time in decades Doc opened the garage door and drove the DeLorean right in, it was the only way to keep it safe.
"We've got to find Marty, boy...he could be in a lot of trouble." Doc told his dog as he swung open the gull wing door. As he did, the DeLorean's light came on and something at the bottom of the passenger’s side floor reflected.
Frowning Doc bent over and picked it up, it was a plastic bag...a blue one with a silver logo on it of a store that didn’t exist…at least not for thirty years...
"I threw this out..." Doc muttered, even as he reached into the bag and retrieved the futuristic blue plastic receipt, with details of what the bag had once contained. "The Almanac!"
Doc grabbed up the March 1958 archive ledger and ran to the lab table infront of the DeLorean which was illuminated by the cars headlights. Hunting through the drawers Doc found a magnifying glass and turned to March 27th Sports page.
"The ALMANAC!" Doc shouted as he held the magnifying glass over the book in Tannen’s pocket.
Tannen had somehow got the book…and had used the information in it to amass a fortune!
Doc recalled vaguely something Marty had said about Tannen in 2015...how he had shown up at the Cafe 80s and had told Marty, who he thought was Marty Jr. to "Say hi to your Grandma for me."
Somehow Old Tannen must have followed them! Must have got hold of the almanac (after all, Doc hadn’t thrown it an instant disposal receptical...just a normal dustbin...) and then the DeLorean.
"Damnit! Why did I put instructions in the damn thing!" Doc cursed himself, thinking of all the labels he had stuck about the modified interior of the Time Machine. It made everything so clear even someone like Tannen had figured it out. "Or maybe he’s smarter than we thought," Doc muttered to himself, shaking his head.
"Einey, let's go!" He turned to his dog. "We've got to find Marty!"
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