The door opened before she could put her thumb on the plate.
There was a woman standing in the doorway. A woman who looked an awful lot like her, only puffier, with more wrinkles, and dark circles under her eyes.
Jennifer realised she was looking at her older self.
'Oh, my god',’ she screamed. 'I’m old!’
After that, everything went blank.
* * *
And all three of them. Doc. Marty and Jennifer, were busy elsewhere, so none of them could see Biff take off in the DeLorean, or, a moment later, land the DeLorean in the exact same spot. He quickly got out to hobble away, too quickly, maybe, because his cane got caught as the gull-wing door swung down. The cane snapped in two as Biff struggled with it. He took the half he had freed and hobbled away, leaving everything like it was before - except that now Biff no longer clutched the silver bag.
Chapter Nine
It was every bit as bad as Doc Brown thought it would be. A second after the two Jennifers spotted each other, both of them had fainted dead away.
There was a little luck involved, though. Both of them had also fallen forward - the 2015 Jennifer into the house, and the 1985 version out onto the front steps. And Doc had been there to catch her, and pull her all the way outside so that the door would close behind her. That part was neat, if Doc thought so himself. Now all he had to do was maneouvre the unconscious Jennifer back to the car, and they could get out of here!
As he steered the dead weight in his arms down the steps, he could hear Marty Senior’s voice through the door:
‘Looks like your mother's tranked again!’
Doc sighed. Well, maybe Marty Senior and Jennifer didn’t have the happiest life in 2015, but there was nothing Doc Brown could do about it. He didn’t dare tamper anymore with their lives, in the past or the future! This fiasco with Jennifer had convinced him just how dangerous time travelling could be!
Doc stopped to catch his breath. Jennifer weighed down Doc’s arms until they were almost numb, and he had barely managed to drag her twenty feet! Doc never realised how heavy an unconscious seventeen-year-old girl could be. He saw his young sidekick running up the walk, and decided he could use some help.
‘Marty!’ he called. ‘Come quick!’
Marty looked terribly afraid as he ran up to the two of them.
‘Is she alive?’ he whispered as he looked down at Jennifer.
‘She’s in shock,’ Doc answered hurriedly, ’as I predicted, but otherwise she seems unhurt. Let's get her back to 1985, and then I’m going to destroy the time machine.’
Marty looked up at Doc, the fear turned to surprise. ‘Destroy it? But what about all that stuff about humanity, finding out where we’re going, and why?’ Doc shook his head firmly. It had been a tough decision, but he wouldn’t go back on it now.
'The risks are just too great - as this incident proves,’ he pointed out. ‘And I was behaving responsibly! Just imagine the danger if the time machine were to fall into the wrong hands!'
That was funny. Doc could have sworn he heard that triple sonic boom - the same kind of boom that resulted from using the time machine. Oh, well. There were a lot of things in 2015 capable of making that kind of noise. He shifted some of Jennifer's weight into Marty’s arms.
‘My only regret,' Doc added, almost as an after-thought, ‘is that I'll never get a chance to visit my favourite historical era - the Old West. But time travelling is just too dangerous. Better I devote myself to studying the other great mystery of the Universe -women.’
Marty shook his head.
Doc. if you can solve that one, let me know.’ Jennifer between them, they walked back to the DeLorean.
Marty climbed into the passenger seat, and he and Doc managed to lower Jennifer onto Marty’s lap. Einstein jumped into the back as Doc got behind the wheel. The scientist quickly entered their destination data. They were going home - to 1985!
‘We’ll come back after dark,’ Doc explained, setting their arrival for the middle of the night. ‘The less we’re seen, the better.’
Doc turned around. The dog was playing with something in the back seat.
‘Einie, get that junk out of your mouth!'
Doc pulled the crumpled silver bag from between Einstein's teeth.
A silver bag? Something tugged at the back of Doc’s mind. Where had he seen a silver bag before? Where did that dog find this stuff, anyway?