"Outatime" - Chapter Thirteen

            “Where is that girl?!”

            Emma’s fur coat fluttered in the wind, which began to pick up from the oncoming storm. Lewis could hear thunder in the distance. The entire lightning rod setup was complete with the cable strung across the street between two lampposts. Emma had been checking her wristwatch every few seconds, griping with each glance at the time, which was 9:57 – three minutes before ten o’clock.

            “Relax, Mom,” Lewis calmed her. “They’ll be here.”

            Sure enough, just as Lewis offered his guarantee, Emma’s Pacer Wagon pulled up across the street from the tarped DeLorean. Marty jumped out, dressed in her clothes from 2025, along with Phineas and Ferb. “You’re late!” Emma howled at her. “Where have you been, kid?! Have you no concept of time?!”

            “Hey! I’m not leaving my clothes behind in 1985!” Marty argued. Both women, with the boys’ assistance, pulled the tarp off the DeLorean. “My old man and Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher really came through tonight.”

            “Yeah, they both really stood up to Tiff Tannen,” Phineas added. “Mom decked her pretty good with a single punch. I never knew she had it in her.”

            “Same here,” Marty said. “My dad’s never stood up to anyone his whole life.”

            She showed Emma and Lewis the proof on her phone, which she kept on the photo of herself, Phineas, Ferb, and Candace. The snapshot was fully restored, yet Emma examined it with contemplative interest, following on what Marty told her. “Never, you say?”

            “No, why?” Marty inquired. “What’s the matter?”

            Remembering the time crunch they were on, Emma dismissed her thoughts and refocused on the task at hand. “Never mind. Let’s set your destination time.” She climbed into the DeLorean and indicated the Last Time Departed readout, which read the date of June 21, 2025 at 1:35a.m. “This is the exact time you kids left. We’re gonna send you back at exactly the same time.” She punched in the keypad; the Destination Time now read the same as the Last Time Departed.

            “It’ll be like you guys never left,” Lewis added.

            Emma stepped out of the vehicle and pointed eastward down the street. “We painted a white line on the street, way down over there – that’s where you start from. Lewis and I calculated the precise distance, taking into account the acceleration speed and wind resistance retroactive from the moment the lightning will hit the Clock Tower, at exactly seven minutes and twenty-two seconds.”

            Lewis held a digital timer with the minutes and seconds displayed in LED. “When this alarm goes off, you hit the gas.”

            “Gotcha,” Marty nodded, watching Lewis as he placed the timer on the dashboard.

            Emma huffed after her thorough explanation. “Welp. Guess that’s everything.”

            Marty looked on her forlornly. “Thanks.”

            “Oh, sweetheart, I should be thanking y—” Emma was suddenly surprised just as Marty leapt onto her with a tight hug. She returned the embrace, although she wasn’t quite certain why the young redhead was so emotional. She could hear her sniffling over her shoulder. “Hey, hey. Forty years for me will be like forty seconds for you. We’ll see each other again – in the future.”

            “I…I hope so,” Marty whimpered.

            Emma unlatched from her, looking confidently into Marty’s misty eyes. “Don’t worry. As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at precisely 88 miles per hour, the instance that the lightning strikes the tower, everything will be fine.”

            Marty wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her denim jacket, nodding affirmingly. “Gotcha,” she verified, hopping into the driver’s seat while Phineas and Ferb took position at the passenger’s side.

            “Good luck, guys!” Lewis waved in farewell.

            “See you in forty,” Emma included, putting her hands into the pockets of her fur coat. Noticing her doing so, Marty wanted to warn her not to, but she was too late. Emma detected the item left in there by the young time traveler: an enveloped letter marked with the instruction “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 2025.”

            “Crap,” Marty muttered as she saw Emma regarding the letter curiously.

            “You wanna explain this?!” She demanded an explanation from Marty.

            Phineas noticed the letter in Emma’s hand. Looking on Marty and remembering how she momentarily disappeared before they left for the Battle of the Bands, he put two and two together. “So that’s what you were doing in the café!”

            “This is about the future, isn’t it?!” Emma flew into panicked rage. “This is information about the future! I warned you about this, girl! The consequences could be disastrous!!!”

            “That’s a risk you’re gonna have to take!” Marty countered. “It’s your life we’re talkin’ about here!”

            “NO!” Emma shrieked. “I will not accept that responsibility!”

            On that declaration, Emma tore up the letter.

            “Doc! No!” Marty protested, hopping out of the DeLorean. Just as she did so, however, a tremendous gust of wind blew through, accompanied by a loud CRACK! All heads turned to see a tree limb in the square fall right onto the cable between the Clock Tower and the first lamppost. The plug attached to the lightning rod on the tower was yanked out, resulting in the cable being dropped down.

            “GREAT SCOTT!!!” Emma cried over the sudden disaster.

            BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!

            To make matters worse, the clock bells struck ten o’clock on the dot.

            Ferb gulped. “Well, that’s not good.”

            “We’re gonna be stuck here for sure now,” Phineas sulked.

            “Not on my watch!” Emma asserted in adrenaline-fueled determination, grabbing a big coil of rope. “Lewis, find the end of that cable and I’ll throw the rope down to you. Marty, you and the boys get in the DeLorean, drive to the start line, connect that hook, and get ready as soon as that alarm goes off!”

            Marty hesitated. “Doc, I have to—”

            “Look at the time!” Emma pointed to the clock on the tower. “You’ve got less than four minutes! Please, hurry!”

            Much as she wanted to stay and warn her about the impending future, Marty had no other choice but to heed Emma’s warning. She, Phineas, and Ferb ran to the DeLorean, took their positions, and put the car in gear. While the DeLorean took off down the street, Emma bolted into the courthouse with the rope. As Lewis fetched the cable from the fallen tree limb, he inspected the point from where the limb was severed, noting how clean the cut was – as if the limb was deliberately cut.

-----------------------------

            Marty drove past the hand-painted white line on the street, which included the words “START HERE” for their benefit. She made a sharp U-turn, pulling up to the line, shortly before Phineas and Ferb hopped out to connect the hook at the rear of the DeLorean.

            Temporarily alone in the vehicle, Marty furiously slapped the steering wheel. “Dang it, Doc! Why’d ya have to tear up that letter?! If only I had more time.” Realizing what she said, she glanced at the readouts and got an idea. Quickly, before Phineas and Ferb returned, she made a slight alteration to the Destination Time.

            She was finished just as soon as Phineas and Ferb returned, and the alarm signaled them with a series of digital beeps. “Right on cue,” Phineas cheered. “Ya think Lewis and Dr. B got the cable fixed?”

            “Only one way to know for sure,” Marty said, restarting the engine.

            Unfortunately, just as she turned the ignition, the engine died.

            “Oh, you gotta be kiddin’ me!” Marty flared.

--------------------------

            Madly charging up several flights of stairs, Emma finally reached the Clock Tower. Her blond locks blew wildly in the wind as she stepped out onto the ledge. Looking up, she saw the connecting socket dangling on its cable between the “1” and “2” on the huge clock face. Its other end was attached to the lightning rod on the tower above. Looking down, Emma saw Lewis – five stories below – waving the plug in his hand.

            Emma tossed one end of the rope down, unraveling the coil. Lewis caught it, tying it to the plug. He then waved to his mother, who started pulling the rope with the cable back up. Immediately, she worked on getting the plug reconnected with its socket mate, but the latter was too far for her to reach. The only way was to move across the ledge, much as she didn’t want to do that.

            Conquer your fear, Brown! Those kids are counting on you!

            She thanked herself for opting to wear tennis shoes rather than her pumps that night, or else this duty would’ve been a billion times more challenging. She edged herself across the ledge, slowly enough to avoid falling while quickly enough to avoid wasting valued time. She was just near the dangling socket before…

            AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

            Something she perceived to have been a statue frightened her right off the ledge. Her only saving grace were the clock hands that she instinctively grabbed onto, sacrificing the cable that was in her hand and now on her left foot.

            Down below, Lewis turned pale. “MOM!”

            Hanging off the clock face, Emma caught another glimpse at the thing that initially terrified her: a dark figure in a kabuki mask. It held out its right arm at her, unleashing some sort of black blade that nearly slashed both of Emma’s wrists, had she not released her hold on the clock hands. Once again, she fell but managed to get a grasp on the ledge at the last second. Her feet were now dangling precariously above those five stories she distinguished earlier.

            “It’s over, Doctor Brown!” the stranger in the kabuki mask told her, speaking in a robotic voice.

            Emma gazed up at him, seeing how menacing he appeared with the tower, the lightning rod, and the lightning itself behind him. He attempted to stomp at Emma’s hands, breaking her grip on the ledge; but, anticipating such an underhanded move, Emma snatched his ankle and gave a tremendous yank.

            The kabuki man screamed, losing his footing.

            He fell right over both the ledge and Emma, who couldn’t bring herself to watch his body smack to the courthouse steps below. Thinking of Lewis, she looked down over her shoulder…

            …the kabuki man’s body had vanished without a trace.

---------------------------

            Marty fought rigorously to get the DeLorean’s engine started again, but every attempt was futile. Phineas and Ferb anxiously watched her, with the former brother offering whatever advice he could: “Just give it a sec, Marty.”

            “We don’t have a sec, Phineas!” Marty retorted, still turning the key. “We only got two minutes left! I don’t wanna be stuck in 1985! I don’t wanna miss having Wi-Fi…posting TikTok videos…or watching Netflix!” She growled in frustration, bashing her head on the steering wheel.

            VROOM! The engine roared back to life.

            Marty and the boys lit up along with all the indicators in the car.

            She hit the gas pedal, peeling the DeLorean out down the street.

-----------------------------------

            Lewis wasn’t sure what to make of what he just saw. The stranger that attacked his mother had suddenly disappeared while falling from the tower. It happened so sudden, between the blink of an eye and the flash of lightning. But he couldn’t afford to dwell on the mystery, with his mother pulling herself and the cable back onto the ledge.

            He remembered that the cable near the lamppost still needed to be connected, something that he neglected to do after he rushed to fetch it from the broken tree limb. However, just as he was about to reconnect the cable, a man in a lab coat suddenly appeared, snatching the cable and lamppost socket away from Lewis. “A-ha!” he shrilled.

            Lewis looked on the pharmacist, confusion intertwined with anger. “Hey! What’re you doing?!”

            “Making sure no one goes back to the future tonight!” said the pharmacist.

            Lewis heard a car speeding their way – the DeLorean was accelerating towards the square. He then looked to the Clock Tower – his mother had successfully plugged her end of the cable. All that remained was the one end yet to be connected, thanks to the maniacal pharmacist’s interference.

            BOOM! In spectacular fashion, the lightning bolt struck the Clock Tower, right at 10:04p.m.

            The connecting cable became electrified, with the current charging right through the pharmacist’s body, acting as a cathode, much to his unforeseen agony. The DeLorean passed under the cable between the lampposts, its hook making direct contact with the electrified cable.

            Lewis watched in wide-eyed astonishment as the vehicle puffed out of existence, leaving behind fiery tracks that ran the rest of the way down the street. It was the coolest scientific breakthrough he had ever witnessed up close. “Lewis!” he heard his mother call to him. He turned just as he watched her rush out of the courthouse. Her hair had turned completely white – no longer the glistening blonde she once was – presumably due to being so close to the lightning when it struck.

            “Mom! Are you alright?” Lewis asked her.

            “I nearly fell to my death and was almost struck by lightning, but otherwise, I’ve never felt better in my life!” Emma grinned from ear-to-ear, her face masked with exhilaration, especially once she looked on the aftermath of their successful experiment. “We did it, honey.”

            “Yeah, barely,” Lewis said. “Who were those guys that tried to sabotage everything?”

            “Guys?” Emma parroted his plural usage. “You saw someone else?”

            Lewis nodded. “This pharmacist – he tried to…” He glanced to where he presumed the manic pharmacist’s body was lying on the ground, charred by the lightning that surged through his body. But it was not there. “He’s gone! W-Where did he go?”

            Emma eyed the surrounding area suspiciously. “Something tells me we weren’t the only ones who knew about our friends from the future.”

            “You think it might’ve had something to do with what Marty tried to tell you?”

            Contemplating Lewis’ speculation, Emma reached into her coat pockets to retrieve the torn pieces of the letter. “Perhaps…”