"Outatime" - Chapter Eleven

            Marty had mixed feelings about the night of November 12th, 1985. On the one hand, she was excited about returning to 2025 with Phineas and Ferb; on the other, she was worried about how her plan with Linda would go down. And then there was the fact that she still hadn’t told Emma about her future death, no matter how much she was advised not to by Phineas.

            A few minutes before eight o’clock, Marty was gathered at the Town Square with Emma and the boys, putting everything together for the big departure. A cable was strung down from the lightning rod atop the clock tower to a lamp post, which Emma had connected to the socket of an extension tied around the post. Her Pacer Wagon was parked just across the street from the DeLorean. In spite of the fact that DeLorean motor vehicles of this model existed in 1985, Emma thought it nonetheless wise to keep it covered by a tarp from prying eyes.

            Sitting atop the hood of the covered DeLorean was a boombox Lewis brought to listen to tunes off the radio as they worked. After playing Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” an ironic tune considering the night’s circumstances, there came a weather report from the DJ: “Area weather on this Tuesday night – an electrical storm in the vicinity will bypass the Tri-State Area, including Danville and Hill Valley – but we can expect continued cloudiness and some light rain…”

            Listening to the report from the top of her ladder, Emma grew skeptical. “Are you sure about this storm, honey?” she asked Marty.

            Marty, of course, smirked knowingly. “Since when can a weatherman predict the weather, let alone the future?”

            “Good point,” Emma smiled, descending from the ladder. “You know, I’m gonna be real sad to see you sweeties go. You’ve really made a difference in my life and certainly in Lewis’s.” She approached the covered DeLorean, lifting the tarp halfway at the rear to look at the units on the engine. “To think, one day, we’re gonna live to see the 21st century, and that I’ll succeed in this – time travel!”

            To hear Emma reflect on these events made Marty uncomfortable, knowing the fate that awaited her. It wasn’t any better when Lewis then told her and the brothers, “It’s going to be hard to wait 30 years before we can talk about everything that’s happened in the last few days. I’m really gonna miss you guys.”

            “We’ll miss you, too, Lewis,” Phineas said. “Or, at least, this version of you. It’s like meeting a 1985 equivalent of me and Ferb.”

            Marty couldn’t fight it any longer. “Doc, listen, about the future…”

            “Marty!” Emma deflected. “We’ve already talked about this. Having knowledge of the future can be incredibly dangerous. Even if your intentions are good, it could backfire drastically. Whatever it is you need to tell me, I’ll find out through the natural course of time.”

            This was not what Marty wanted to hear; but, just as before, she saw there was no arguing with Emma.

            For the remaining minutes Phineas and Ferb had to assist Emma and Lewis in the preparations, before leaving for the Battle of the Bands, Marty was nowhere to be found. The boys set out around the square to look for her, ultimately seeing her walk out of the Century Café.

            “Marty? Are you O.K.?” Phineas asked. “What were you doing in there?”

            “Oh, nothing,” Marty answered. “I felt a little hungry, so I grabbed a quick bite before we left – that’s all.” She seemed rather cagey to Phineas; she hid her hands behind her back during their brief exchange. Phineas didn’t bother looking into it, as they were late enough as it was to get to the Battle of the Bands. Had he been paying close attention to Marty before they left in the Pacer Wagon, he would have noticed her slipping something into Emma’s fur coat that she kept draped over the covered DeLorean.

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            The Battle of the Bands was in full swing inside Hill Valley High’s gymnasium. Some of the school’s faculty served as chaperones for the big event, while a few were selected to be the judges for the bands that performed onstage. Sticky Rosen and his band, “The Sticklers,” were the first ones up with their rendition of “Things Can Only Get Better” from Howard Jones.

            George stood at the back of the gym, behind the mosh pit of teens that jumped and screamed in support of the performing bands. There was a buffet table that offered a variety of snacks and other dishes, supplied by the school staff. George decided to try some of the Pâté, out of curiosity, only to spit it into the nearest trash bin.

            “I think that’s Mrs. Hughes’ cat food.” He heard a girl giggling hysterically at his expense. Looking up, George froze with his head hovering over the trash bin with bits of the Pâté around his mouth. The girl of his dreams, Lorraine Baines, was laughing at him. But it wasn’t the sort of laughter that was meant to belittle him; it was more out of pity. Once she was able to collect herself, Lorraine grabbed a napkin off the buffet table. “Here, you got a little…” She wiped the leftover Pâté off George’s gaping mouth.

            “Uh, t-thanks,” he stammered, not once taking his eyes off Lorraine. “D-Do you know who you are?”

            Lorraine chuckled. “I would hope so.”

            George mentally slapped himself over the flub in his phrasing. “What I meant to say was – do you know who I am?”

            “George McFly, right?” Lorraine said. “We have 3rd period Biology together.”

            “That’s right!” George exclaimed. “Mr. Dawson made us lab partners once.”

            Lorraine verified this with a nod and a smile. “I was there last Saturday at Century Café to see Linda perform. It’s a bummer she never got to because of that mouth-breather Tiff Tannen. Is she going to perform tonight?”

            George shrugged. “Only time will tell.”

            However, in discussing Linda, George was shaken with recollection. He was finally able to take his eyes off Lorraine to glance at the wall clock hanging above the buffet table. It read 8:59, which prompted him to check his own watch that read 8:55. That prompted him to ask Lorraine, “What time do you have?”

            Lorraine checked her pink wristwatch. “Five after nine, why?”

            Panic stricken, George told Lorraine, “I gotta go! I’ll be right back! Promise!”

            She watched as he ran out of the gym like a bad out of Hell, concerned as to what made the young man so alarmed.

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            For once, Marty was the one on time and everyone else was late. She waited outside the gymnasium with Phineas and Ferb. The music from the performances vibrated through the walls, booming from inside the building. Marty envied all those bands who were chosen to be the finalists in the school event, never able to have her own chance back in 2025. She couldn’t allow those thoughts to distract her from why she was really there that evening: to convince Linda to go onstage and perform herself. Of course, she couldn’t do that, unless Linda was there altogether.

            “Where are they?!” Marty griped, checking the time on her smartphone, every few seconds. They were in a fairly secluded area for her to do so.

            “Relax, Marty,” Phineas urged. “We still have plenty of time.”

            “You sure about that?” Marty asked. “It’s seven past nine, which leaves us less than an hour to get your mom on stage and get back to the square in time before the lightning hits the clock tower! If you ask me, we’re cuttin’ things pretty close!”

            In seeing how much of a nervous wreck the usually cool-headed Marty was, Phineas suggested, “Ferb and I will head inside and get ready for the performance, just to be on the safe side.” It sounded like a solid plan for Marty. She watched the brothers round the corner and disappear out of sight.

            Unfortunately, Phineas and Ferb never reached the gym entrance.

            The boys were blindsided as soon as they were both snatched up in bags large enough to hold them. Judging from the synthetic odor the bags carried, they figured their purpose was meant for holding recreational equipment, like soccer balls. As they were lugged away to who-knows-where, they heard voices outside the sacks, presumably spoken by their captors…

            “Where did Tiff say to take these runts?”

            “How dah heck should I know?! She never even told us!”

            “Duh, I know where we oughta take ‘em!”

            Ranging from cynical to dimwitted, Phineas and Ferb could only deduce that Tiff Tannen’s weasel cronies were behind their sudden abduction. Clearly, Tiff was getting revenge for what happened a few days ago – the putrid scent of manure could be whiffed even through the sacks.

            They heard what sounded to be two locker doors opening before suddenly being dumped out of the sacks and into cramped spaces. Sure enough, those were lockers they heard and stuffed into by the weasels. “Have fun gettin’ outta dis one, ya lil’ punks!” said the weasel in the pink zoot suit, prior to closing the locker doors. The weasels departed after the fact, relishing in their malicious act.

            Thankfully, it didn’t go unnoticed by an outside party who witnessed the whole thing – a teenage African-American boy who was on his way to the gym to perform a saxophone solo for the Battle of the Bands. But, now, he felt the need to help free Phineas and Ferb. “Hang in there, fellas,” he told them as he approached the lockers. “These belong to some friends of mine, so I know the combinations. I’ll have ya’ll out in a jiffy.”

            “Mr. Gardner?” Phineas said from inside his locker. “Is that you?”

            The boy frowned. “Do you know my daddy or somethin’? Only everybody else calls him ‘Mr. Gardner’. You can call me ‘Joe’.”

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            Marty checked her smartphone for what felt like the billionth time. It was now 9:15, and her nerves were practically shot. While she had her phone out, she took a glimpse of the photo. Looking at it was just as nerve-wracking as looking at the time, being another ticking clock.

            “Oh, no,” she muttered.

            Candace had completely vanished from the photo.

            It was just Marty, Phineas, and Ferb left in the frame – and Phineas’s form was starting to fade right before Marty’s eyes.

            “MARTY!” She jumped at the enraged calling of her name, turning to see Linda storming right up to her, apparently still angry. That made things a little easier for Marty’s plan. “You really don’t know when to give up, do you? George tells me that you had some sort of complaint about his song and my singing?! What about it?! If there’s something you wanna say, say it to my face!”

            Marty could barely get a word in, with Linda doing most of the shouting.

            Maybe this plan was going a little too well?

            Before Marty could utter so much as a syllable, she was suddenly sucker-punched right in the stomach, a move that brought her down to her knees. Angry as she was at Marty, the punch didn’t come from Linda, who merely stood in shock of what just happened. The scent of manure plagued Marty’s senses as a figure in a stained, tattered karate gi approached from her left, picking her up by the collar, so that she was face-to-face with them. Marty found herself staring into the eyes of Tiff Tannen, flaming with murderous intent.

            “You cost me $1,200 damage to my car, you lil’ snot!” she told Marty. “And now I’m gonna take it out on ya!” She sucker-punched Marty in the stomach again and tossed her aside, right into the waiting clutches of the weasels, who were sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels as they drunkenly roughed Marty up.

            Linda even smelled the booze off of Tiff. “Leave her alone, Tiff,” she demanded. “You’re drunk!”

            “Great deduction, Watson!” Tiff retorted. “Now beat it! This don’t concern you!”

            “I told you to leave her alone!” Linda charged at Tannen, only to be shoved back.

            The commotion spurred from their confrontation rang over the area. From around the corner, George heard it and figured Marty and Linda were well into their squabble. Made it just in time, he thought, psyching himself up for what was sure to be the performance of his life. “Alright, you two,” he put some bass in his voice for added measure. “Break it up!”

            But when George marched to the scene, he immediately dropped his act out of sheer terror, once he saw Tiff standing over a downed Linda and the weasels manhandling Marty. No one said anything about Tannen and her cronies being there, which only made George that much more scared.

            Tannen leered at him. “I think you oughta pretend you saw nothin’ here, McFly. Just turn around and walk away.” George didn’t move an inch, staring in dumbfounded amazement, not knowing what to do. “Are you deaf, McFly?! I said turn around and get outta here!”

            For a moment, George considered taking a step back, and he did, only to take a few unsteady steps forward – towards Tiff. “No, Tiff,” he said, his voice breaking yet somehow summoning courage that he thought he never had. “You leave them alone.”

            Tiff snickered, shaking her head in disbelief. “Alright, McFly. You asked for it – and now yer gonna get it.” With the snap of her fingers, she sicced her weasels on George, as if they were her own attack dogs. They swarmed in on George, expecting to get the jump on him. The odds were in their favor, being four against one.

            However, in a surprising turn of events, George successfully took them down with some lefts and rights that he threw out at random, each one hitting their intended target. George never knew himself to be capable of such a feat of strength. Sure, he watched a few boxing matches on pay-per-view, but he never would have imagined it to contribute to his coldcocking Tannen’s weasels. “Yeah! That’s what’s up!” he celebrated. “That’s what you get for messin’ with George Seamus McF—ACK!”

            All of the sudden, George received an unbearable pain in his left arm, courtesy of Tiff. When his guard was down, she rushed on him and locked his arm in an agonizing position that was liable to snap it in half. George could barely stand it, howling in pain.

            Linda, finally fed up with Tannen, jumped back on her feet and did what she should have done all the years Tiff had bullied her – punch her right in the face. The tremendous left hook made Tiff release her hold on George before she hit the ground, out cold. Linda could barely believe she did it, looking at her fist and then at Tannen, grinning widely.

            “Whoa!” She heard another girl say, walking into the aftermath of the chaotic conflict. She saw it was Lorraine Baines, the most popular girl in Hill Valley High. “Is everybody alright? What happened here?” Surveying the litter of bodies sprawled over the pavement, she noticed George nursing his arm. “George! Are you alright?”

            Soon as he was able to catch his breath, George told her, “Yeah…Tiff hadn’t caused any permanent damage.”

            “Oh, thank goodness,” said Lorraine, with profound relief.

            George smiled from her concern.

            Meanwhile, Marty began to recover from the weasels’ attack, managing to get back on her feet, with some help from Linda, who dashed over to check on her. “Marty, are you O.K.?”

            “Yeah, I’m fine,” she verified. “How’s—?” She looked over towards George, noticing the moment that he was sharing with an attractive young blonde who Marty recognized in mouth-gaping bewilderment. “Mom?”

            “Mom?” Linda parroted in confusion, seeing how Marty was looking at Lorraine when she said it. “How hard did those weasels hit you?”

            Marty smiled, watching her teenaged parents together.

            That smile dropped just as she spotted the teen counterpart to another adult figure from her future – Joe Gardner – show up at the scene with Ferb…and only Ferb. “Where’s Phineas?” Marty asked. “Is he still inside, getting ready for the performance?”

            Ferb just stared blankly at her and asked, “Who’s Phineas?”

            That question mortified Marty. She stood aside, privately taking out her smartphone and glimpsing at the photo again.

            Only her and Ferb were in the shot.

            Phineas was gone.