‘Yeah!’ Match added. ‘And he changed clothes again!’
‘I don’t know,’ Skinhead growled back. ‘But when he gets down, we’ll be waitin’ for him! C’mon!’
Oh, no! Marty had lost them all right, but only because he’d led them right to the earlier version of Marty! He moved down to the end of the refreshment table, only to see the three gang members now standing off in the right-hand wings backstage, waiting until they could get their hands on the other Marty!
What could Marty - either of the Martys - do?
The one with the Walkie-talkie decided he'd better call Doc.
Doc Brown wandered around the future home of Lyon Estates, looking for dead leaves, old beer cans, and any other trash he might be able to use in his Mr Fusion drive.
The walkie-talkie crackled to life in his pocket. Doc pulled it out as Marty started to speak.
‘Doc! Biff’s guys chased me into the gym and now they’re laying for me!’
Marty seemed to be getting a little upset by all this. But that was one of the reasons Doc was here, after all, as a calming influence.
‘Then go out another door,’ he suggested reasonably.
‘No,’ Marty explained frantically, ‘they’re laying for the other me: the one that’s on stage, playing “JohnnyB. Goode!” ’
‘Great Scott!’ Doc replied. This was serious. Even the ramifications of something like this had ramifications!
‘If they succeed,’ he explained to Marty, ‘you’ll miss the lightning bolt at the clock tower, you won’t get back to the future - and we’ll have a major paradox.’
‘A paradox?’ Marty asked. ‘You mean one of those things that could destroy the universe?’
Doc couldn’t have said it better himself.
‘Precisely!’
‘This is heavy! ’ Marty agreed.
Doc thought for a second. They had been so close to success - and now this! There had to be some way out of this, didn’t there?
‘Marty,’ he said back into the Walkie-talkie. ‘You have to stop those guys at all costs - but without being seen by your other self, or your parents!’
There - that pretty much summed up exactly what Marty had to do, or else.
So why didn’t Doc feel any better about this?
'Ten-four,’ Marty replied, putting away the walkie-talkie. So all he had to do was stop these guys without letting the other Marty, or just about anybody else, see him, right? Hey, piece of cake - if only he could figure out how.
One thing was certain - he wasn’t going to get anything done standing behind the refreshment table. He should probably get up on that stage himself - maybe in the wings opposite where the gang was standing. He walked behind the refreshment table one more time, keeping to the edges of the gym, circumnavigating the dance. No one stopped him - no one even much noticed him - and both the guitar-playing Marty and Biff’s boys were busy doing their own things. It was easy to make it to the steps leading up to the stage - but now what?
But Marty knew what happened next, since, after all, he’d done it before himself. It was time for the guitar-playing Marty to go into his solo, and - once he did that - he’d be oblivious to the world! Yep! Here came those first fractured chords!
Marty shot up the stairs and into the wings, stage left.
So far, so good, Marty thought. But, not to repeat himself - now what?
He didn’t have any ideas until he looked overhead. There were some awfully heavy sandbags over this stage.
Marty found a catwalk ladder and started to climb.
The Mr Fusion was filled at last. Doc climbed into the DeLorean and set the destination d
isplay for good old 1985. Better to do it now, he figured. Heaven knew how fast he would have to get Marty out of whatever he’d gotten himself into at the high school.