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Back to the Future
They caught the 8.01 p.m. Virgin train to Edinburgh. This would take them twelve hours and six minutes. Not the high-speed train. They slept on the train, with Rory’s legs stretched out underneath Murray’s. They’d got a two-seater facing two, once more. The rising sun’s beams lit the side of Murray’s face as the countryside flashed past the window. Murray’s head drooped, and drool trickled down his chin from the corner of his mouth. Rory had been awake for a while, mulling over many things. They would get the car, get the suits, avoid the riots—hopefully, and make their way back to Invercharing. And wait for a shimmer. Well, it’s what he’d done last time.
They’d gone over and over their plan on the way to Oxford railway station. Rory had more questions to ask Murray, but there were people around and the air was getting a tense edge to it. Now, in the almost empty train carriage, Rory had his chance to ask something that had niggled at him most of the night.
Rory kicked Murray’s foot. Murray snorted, but didn’t wake. He kicked again. Murray jumped with a start, unfolded his arms, and grabbed the backpack sitting on his lap. Murray’s eyes were bloodshot, and he wiped the saliva away from his chin.
“What?” Murray’s voice was hoarse.
“Tell me. What’s the badger-set all about.”
Murray shrugged.
“Come on, I know you ken.” Rory tilted his head.
Murray laid his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes.
“Psst! You’re awake enough to tell me. So, tell me.” Rory kicked again.
Murray’s eyes opened, but his mouth was a thin line.
“I shouldn’t say,” he said after a pause.
“Come on. After you tell me, you can kill me.”
Like that’ll be possible. Rory smiled at the thought.
“It’s secret code for something, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I’m only guessing.” Murray raised his shoulders.
“What are you guessing? Give me your theory,” Rory whispered.
The train continued its gentle rocking and Rory continued his stare at his brother.
“Oh, okay. Not sure mind, but I think it was the government.”
Rory nodded, encouraging him to continue. Boy, it’s like drawing teeth!
“So, they have, like, a list of people they want to save if it’s TEOTW.”
Rory wracked his brains for the possible words that went with the initials. Oh, the end of the world. “Got it,” he said.
“At last!” Murray shook his head. “Well, there is a high probability the professor would be on it.”
“So, when the Gov...they went underground... So, he’s been there all that time?”
“He may have passed away by then, by now. You know what I mean. He’s middle-aged now, and that’s forty years ago.”
Rory sat back in his seat. “Which Government?”
“Huh?”
“UK, or did England and Scotland do their separate thing back then?”
“Well, he’s English.”
“Aye, but his major work was in Edinburgh, was it no’? And his wife was Scots, and so would be his wee lassie.”
Murray shrugged. Rory, dissatisfied with the lack of information, opened the handmade manual on driving submarines and began to read.
***
THE TRAIN PULLED INTO Waverly station as Rory nudged Murray awake. They stepped off the train and walked to the multi-story carpark. Once in the car, Rory checked under his seat. His weapons were still there. Rory started the engine and drove as Murray navigated them out of Edinburgh through early morning traffic. The journey to Torness Power Station took forty-five minutes through the Lothian countryside. Hedgerows edged the road and flat fields lay either side of them, skirted to their left by a rolling coastline. Farmers busy bringing in their harvests blocked the road occasionally with mobile farm equipment, so different from the horse-drawn methods they used in the Community.
Once at the power station’s office, they parked the car, got out and walked in through the glass doors, passing the security guard on their way to the desk.
“Oh, hello. I have something for you.” The young woman at the reception, wearing a blouse buttoned up except for the top two, leaned under the desk and brought out two large plastic bags and passed them over to Rory. “My boss told me to give you these.”
“Thank you, miss,” Rory said to the receptionist, then lifted his eyebrows at the security guard while he and Murray walked out of the building.
“These won’t fit in our backpacks, but we can shove them in the pods with us. It will be tight. We’ll hug them.” Rory walked as he rummaged in the bag he held.
“I think I’ve got yours.” Murray held the bag open in front of him.
“They’re both the same size. What makes you say that?”
“I’m sure the odds are against Sarah’s phone number being meant for me.”
***
THE DRIVE BACK TO INVERCHARING was long and slow. The traffic travelling the other way was even heavier than on their journey down; car after car, and bus after bus.
“Must be the tourists heading home after sniffing trouble,” Rory commented.
When they arrived at Invercharing, the farmer was driving his tractor in his fields, bringing in hay as if there was nothing wrong in the world. They snuck past him and waited for the shimmering, which indicated the activation of the Time Machine.
It didn’t take long.
“You go first, I’ll keep watch.” Rory helped Murray into his pod with the bulky suit, and the book on how to drive a submarine tucked into his jacket, as there was no room for the backpack. “Leave it here.”
“It’s full of cash!”
“Does nae matter. The farmer will need it.”
Once Murray disappeared, Rory prepared. He had even less room in the pod than Murray, and he tossed the other backpack against the wall beside Murray’s.
The world went blurry, and then it went blank.
He stands at the Community’s gate, his Heckler & Koch submachine gun in his hand.
Ready.
The waves of headiness from his return from the past still echo within him.
The dogs’ barks are frantic.
Large solid-looking vehicles approach, army camouflage coloured.
Five of them head straight for the Compound’s gates.
A tank follows.
Each vehicle bears the Scottish Saltire—bright blue with a white diagonal cross.
The flags flap in the wind as the heavily armoured vehicles approach.
He stands with legs apart and braces himself for what is to come.
“Rory?” Christine’s voice accompanied the shaking of his shoulder. “He’s coming around.”
Rory opened his eyes. He lay on a trolley in the medical centre. A churning feeling bubbled in his mid-section. George, Murray, and his Aunt Bec were there, all wearing frowns.
“You okay, Rory?” Murray’s face came into view, his forehead a crease of furrows. “He’s been spacing-out while we were there, too.”
“I’m okay.” Rory’s voice sounded firm to his ears, belying the shaking in his gut. Those around him stood back and their expressions relaxed a fraction. “What happened?” He pushed the nausea away with a deep breath.
“You were unconscious when you came through.” Christine tightened the BP cuff around his arm. “All normal.” The ripping sound of the Velcro coming undone accompanied the release of pressure on his arm.
“Okay. I’m normal. The doctor says so. You can all go now. Thank you.” Rory raised his eyebrows and Murray left. “Really Christine, thank you.”
Rory watched Christine and George exit the room. Only Aunty Bec remained. He’d grown up in the medical care of this courtesy aunt, an old family friend. But more importantly to him at this moment, she knew him, and she was a truly honest woman.
“Please, don’t go,” he whispered.
Aunty Bec stopped mid-stride and returned to him. She took his hand in hers; arthritis deformed her aged hands. Her deep-brown eyes searched his; the rims of the pupils were a circle of white, while her mostly grey hair stood wildly around her face. Aunty Bec was the only one he could talk to now.
She glanced at the door as it closed.
“What’s wrong, son?”
Rory took in a deep, shaky breath. Should he tell her?
Should he tell anyone?
She’d take it the best.
“I think I’m going mad.”
“No, Rory.” Aunty Bec’s smile was gentle as she shook her head. Her fingers were cool on his hand, but her stare pierced his soul. “You’re the sanest man I know. And the bravest. So like your father.” She let out a sigh. “You’re the only one game enough to travel through the unknown—twice.”
His heart warmed at the compliment and the obvious love behind it.
“I keep seeing things.”
“You think they are hallucinations?”
“Aunty, they are so real, it’s like I’m there, doing it.” Rory’s mind briefly returned to his dream the other night. The dream that wasn’t a dream. He swallowed. “I... it’s like I’m reliving things from the past.” He looked at his hand, covered now by both of hers. “Like Dad’s death.” He swallowed. “Even things from my childhood. Like how I felt them when I was a child. I saw Dad young. He was great...I miss him!” Rory’s shoulders shook, and his throat tightened.
No, he wasn’t going to cry.
He took in a steadying breath.
“I see things that haven’t happened, but maybe they will.”
“You mean visions?” Aunty Bec tilted her head, her eyes still locked onto his face, searching. She opened her mouth to speak, but then paused.
Go on, say it. Please tell me I’m not mad. Or, get it over and done with, and tell me I am.
“Rory, you’ve gone back in time and returned to the present—twice. As far as we know, no one else has ever done it.”
Rory blinked.
“Who knows what effect it’s had on you.”
“Aye, madness!”
“No, son.” Aunty Bec hesitated once more. “I’m not speaking as a doctor or a scientist now. I’m speaking with my intuition.” She gave a gentle nod. “It’s possible your journey through time has given you the ability to see time. The past...and even the future. Time, perhaps, has become fractured for you, in a sense.”
He had no thoughts at first...just blank. Then...
“Nothing I have seen that wasn’t the past, has come true.” A thought hit him like a shock wave. “But what if it does?” He jumped off the trolley and released his hands from her grip.
“Rory, where are you going?”
“I need to speak to George. We’re about to be attacked.”
