“That’s fine with me,” Marty replied. “But I’m not an expert. You gave me a couple minutes’ instruction time in 1985 and that was it.”
“Why so little?” Doc Brown demanded. “If you were to be my subject, why didn’t I explain everything fully and completely? That’s irresponsible, to send a boy thirty years into the past with improper instruction.”
Marty smiled. It sounded as if he were criticizing someone else when he was actually commenting on the activities of his future self.
“No, Doc,” Marty explained. “It wasn’t a matter of being irresponsible. You see, we were attack—”
He paused. Should he tell Doc Brown the manner in which he had been killed? It hardly seemed appropriate and certainly not kind.
“Quite right, my boy,” Brown nodded. “Let’s not go into details. I already know too much—”
“What, Doc?” Marty asked. “I haven’t really told you anything important.”
“Oh, no?” he shot back. “First, there’s my matter of inventing a time machine. That’s big news, not only to me but the entire scientific community. Then there’s the Miracle Mets of 1969. And Ronald Reagan as President. You were kidding about that, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” Marty lied.
“Good.”
An hour later, after figuring out how the DeLorean time machine worked, Doc Brown took out the suitcase containing his 1985 articles and began examining them one by one.
“What’s this thing?” he asked.
“A hair dryer,” Marty said.
“A hair dryer? Don’t they have towels in the future?” He tossed it back in the suitcase. “Don’t tell me I’ll actually use that,” he muttered.
He examined some of the clothing. “And these clothes,” he said, “they’re all made of cotton. I thought for sure we’d all be wearing disposable paper garments by 1985. Not much improvement there…”
A copy of Playboy was uncovered. Brown leafed through it, nearly dropping it when the centerfold fell out in all its glory.
“Hey!” he smiled. “Suddenly the future’s looking a whole lot better.” He turned the picture upside-down and then sideways. “This is kind of crazy,” he laughed. “Here I am, ogling a woman who hasn’t even been born yet.”
“Yeah,” Marty said. “If you want to blow your mind, take a look at this.”
For the past few minutes he had busied himself setting up the video camera so that it could play back the tape he had taken on the Twin Pines Mall parking lot. Now he was ready to roll.
“Prepare yourself for a shock, Doc
,” he said as he hit the ON button.
A glitch was followed by the picture of Doc Brown’s 1985 preamble to what he called temporal experiment number one.
“Who’s that guy?” Doc Brown began. Then he gasped. “Why, that’s me! Look at me! I’m an old man! But I don’t look too bad for an old geezer. Thank God I’ve still got my hair—baldness runs in my family, you know. Even some of the women. But what on earth am I wearing?”
“A radiation suit.”
“Of course, because of all the fallout from the atomic wars.”
“No, Doc. There were several close—”
“Never mind. Don’t tell me. Sorry I got out of line there. If I’m gonna avoid learning things about the future, I shouldn’t make provocative statements like that. But this is truly amazing—it’s a portable television studio. I never imagined that…”
“Watch this,” Marty urged. “This is the most important part coming up.”
Doc Brown of 1955 stood transfixed as Doc Brown of 1985 explained how the time machine was powered by plutonium. Marty McFly of 1985, looking exactly like the Marty of 1955, listened to Brown’s comments, then spoke on tape: “Plutonium?” he said. “You mean this sucker’s nuclear?”
“Electrical, basically,” Brown replied. “But I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity I need. The flux capacitor stores it, then discharges it all at once, like a gigantic bolt of lightning. It's really quite efficient.”