Marty was scratching his head, a mild sweat had appearing on his brow. He made it very obvious that this story was anything but, ‘easy to follow’. But, things were becoming clearer. As scared and confused as he was, he knew Doc was onto something.
“Two survivors came out of the station attack,” Doc continued. “One was the lieutenant, and the other was the criminal psychologist. They both befriended the mother and father, then followed them to the destruction of the first machine to travel through time. As far as the machines, and myself are concerned there are no other faults in the story of the first film, however, the second film is skewed in a few places.
“The boy lived with the lieutenant, not fosters. The mother was in a mental institution under the close watch of the psychologist, but not as a patient. She and the lieutenant set it up so that it appeared as if she murdered her son soon after birth and was sent to the hospital. The psychologist set it up so that the mother could trade identities with another patient, then got her a job in the building as a member of the security force under her assumed identity.
“Both mother and son remained under the radar until the second attack. One that roughly played out just as it was seen on screen according to the journals found by the W/ I’s. After that everyone split up, completely confident that they had stopped the machines nearly the same way the machines had planed to stop us… but they were wrong.”
“Rise of the Machi --” Marty tried to interject.
“-- Cyber Space is a metaphor created by William Gibson back in the 80’s Marty,” Doc said. “Even though the term has been adopted by our government and is now a critical part of its infrastructure, that doesn’t stop it from being a preposterous means for the machines artificial intelligence to survive.”
“Fuck you asshole!” said the W/ I.
Both men looked over at the machine, then back at each other as if nothing had gone on at all.
“The machine race survived through a built in failsafe from the model one-thousand that was sent back on the second attempt to kill the time child. When it was mangled in the final battle, it shed enough of itself to form a mega micro processor chip just like the one found after the destruction of his predecessor, only this one was unharmed. The third film, and possibly the fourth, were created by the W/ I’s to lure the humans away from the truth.” Doc lowered his head, took a deep breath, sighed, then removed his goggles and dropped them to the littered floor.
“When the scientist sacrificed himself to destroy his research of the damaged processor, it was in vain. As well as the destruction of the model 101 sent back as a protector.
“With a perfect processor to give them a head start, the machines formulated another plan,” he looked back up. “The watcher/instigators. They were sent back only to watch, then help start the war again by bringing any new information to help kill the human leader. But, since they have all of this new data, they changed the plan yet again. Now their goal is to retard the beginning of the war, along with the creation of the machine race, until the life of the time child and his offspring have died.
“The original date of the day of judgment was 1997. After the second time jump, it was pushed back to 2004. Now, according to the watcher/instigators, the machines will wait for the year 2155 AD. They have tricked us all into thinking that none of what will happen is real, and that if it were, we actually have a chance at beating them at their own game. All through the magic of Hollywood.”
“Great Scott,” Marty said. He remembered the note with the circled dates from moments ago, and his arms found themselves wrapped against his chest again. In 2155, long after the end of his music career, and even after his death, the world as Marty knew it would belong to the machines. “I know,” Doc remarked. “Heavy isn’t it?”
Marty nodded in answer as Doc uncapped the black marker.
“Now,” Doc exclaimed, “here is how it all will work.” He drew a horizontal line about a yard long, six inches from the top of the whiteboard. “This is the timeline before the first assassination attempt,” he said. Then, he drew a letter A at the beginning and circled it. “This is the date of the first attempt,” he marked the top of the circled letter with the number 1984. “Next, life goes on unaware of anything until here,” he marked a letter B in the center of the timeline and circled it. Above it, he wrote the word boom and the number, 1997. “And finally,” he marked the end of the timeline with a capital C, and added the words, machines rule, directly above it. “Are you following Marty?”
Marty nodded, and Doc continued. “This,” he said, tapping the C, “is when the machines come back.” He drew an arcing line from C to A, then wrote film #1 above it.
He pointed at the A and said, “At this point, a drastic change is made in time,” he drew a vertical line about three inches long just beneath the A, “creating alternate reality that for the sake of explanation, we will call…” he drew a number 2 at the bottom of the line, circled it, then drew another horizontal line the same length as the one above.
He turned and nodded to his friend. Marty nodded back.
Next he marked the second line with an X about three inches beyond the 2 and circled it. Above it, he wrote the word, prepared. “This is where the family waited in hiding before the war unaware that two machines were on their way back for a second attempt,” he said, then marked the second line with a B-2 beneath the original, and a C-2 at the end.
He then proceeded to draw another arc. This one was between timelines one and two, and from C-2, to X, and labeled film #2.
They exchanged more nods.
“This creates another dimension,” Doc drew another vertical line from the X, marked it with a 3, and added the next timeline. “This,” he said, drawing a B-3 with a circle around it then crossing it out, “is delayed until here.” He marked the third line with a circled Y four inches beyond the crossed B, then above it wrote the number 2004. “Which leads to,” he continued drawing another C at the end of the line then added a -3 before circling.
“Along dimension three no one was aware,” he drew a third arcing line between lines two and three from C-3 to an open spot between the crossed B and the Y, “the machines sent W/ I’s here.” He marked the end of arc three with a Z, and at its top he wrote WI and circled the letters.
“This in turn creates alternate reality number four,” he drew and marked, “which is our present reality.” He finished by marking the end of timeline four with a C-4, and the numbers 2155 above it before turning back to his friend to ensure he still had his attention.
When Marty nodded, Doc continued. He marked line four, which was only about one quarter the length of its predecessors, with a tiny dot. Above it, he drew a downward facing arrow, and wrote, we are here, above it.
He capped the black marker, then uncapped the red. He held up the red cocking his head with a grin as he did it. “I,” he said, “will travel back in time to here.” He started beneath, ‘we are here’ with another arc, only this one was inverted and beneath all the other markings. He ended it two inches behind the A marked on timeline number one, then extended the line backward before marking his spot, 1982.
“With me, I will send an array of appropriate supplies in the stomachs of cows. That’s something I’m sure the soldiers wish they could have done before film scenario number one.
“All of this will cause a ripple effect that will erase dimensions two, three, and four, but only temporarily.” He drew a wavy red line through timeline one. “If I do nothing to effect the future,” he continued, “the puzzle pieces will fall right back into place.” He turned and nodded, but this time did not wait for reply.
“My plan,” he said, writing those words beneath the inverted arcing red line, “is to follow the path of film scenario one,” he traced along side the black line with the red marker stopping at the A, “and aid the mother and father with the destruction of the first machine. Next,” he followed the line downward from the A to the second timeline, “I help them along film scenario number two by giving them useful information on dates, locations, as well as a viruses that will kill the AI slow enough to e undetectable, killing them before it has been completed.” He traced the line up to the X then stopped again. “If successful this will create,” at the beginning of timeline three, he drew a red letter A just above the circled three, then drew another vertical line from the X downward almost twelve inches long, nearly breaching the inverted red arc, “a completely new alternate third reality.” He marked the bottom of his new line with a circled three, and a red B above it for good measure before drawing the final timeline in red.
After the final line was finished, Doc half crouched in front of the board hiding it from Marty’s view and scribbling wildly. When he stepped aside, Marty saw that he had written in big red letters atop the red timeline, “We Win!” in piss poor penmanship.
Arms spread, head cocked, grinning like a fool, Doc asked his friend, “Whadayah think?”
Marty could say nothing. He sat frozen in place, hopelessly confused.
“I have everything I need over there,” Doc pointed to the table on the opposite side of the glass box and disintegrated dummy, then began walking over despite his friends condition. “A laptop with an abundance of data on the machines,” he began, “Money, EMP, Fake ID’s, enough food rations and medical supplies to hold me off while I establish myself in the past,” he reached the table and was now pointing to each item, “I’ll be taking the plasma weapon with me, as well as my cotton supply of underwear, winning numbers to multiple lotteries for financial support, and a supper virus for the liquid machine to bring back to his pals so that they can rot from the inside out.” He was to exited to hear Marty pick up the plasma weapon as he started stuffing items from the table into several empty black duffle bags.
“What I need you to do Marty,” he went on, “is destroy my lab if I do not succeed. All you have to do is wait thirty seconds after my departure, and if nothing happens, press F-12 on the grey keyboard on my desk followed by the enter key on the black one. Everything is already set to go. Soon after, my entire lab will be engulfed in a time sphere destroying all things inorganic, and completely erasing my work from being tracked by the machines or anyone else. My entire home will be a spectacular wreck. Should that happen,” he stopped packing, his eyes glossy globes of water, “feel free to take something with you when you leave in remembrance of our friendship.” He wiped an eye, and continued packing his supplies. “You will have ten minutes to leave once the timer has been set,” he cleared his throat of his tears. “Now,” he said turning around, “lets get those cows in here… Marty?” Doc had been struck dumb at the sight of his friend pointing the plasma weapon in his direction.
Marty cocked the weapons slide, admiring the sound of its whine as the power charged.
“Marty? What are you doing?” Doc asked, eyes wide and confused.
“Well Doc,” he began, “I just cant let you do this.”
“But Mart --”
“-- sorry to interrupt you Doc, but this things charged and I gotta get going soon,” Marty said, squinting an eye along the weapons barrel. “Not that your plan wasn’t well thought out, but its still a bad idea as far as I‘m concerned.”
“But Marty wh…” Doc trailed off as he watched his friend get out of the chair and walk a little closer.
“Because me and Biff have tickets to part four at 6:18. If I let you do this, I’ll never find out if it was better then the third. Which it probably is, but I just have to know for myself. Plus, I‘ll be dead by twenty-one fifty-five, so none of this is really my problem-o.”
Doc was red in the face, struggling to speak. “Bi… Bi… Bi…” was the only sound he could make.
Marty pulled the trigger sending a great flash throughout the basement, vaporizing Doc’s head in mid speech. “Well my dad is getting to old for movies, and Jen hates anything Sci-Fi or action related. So, yea… Biff.“ When he realized he was speaking to a corpse he looked down, grimaced with a jerk, then looked again and said, “I’ll keep the gun as a souvenir, just like you said Doc. It’s pretty far out. Latter.”
He waved good buy, pressed F-12 on the grey keyboard, followed by enter on the black just as he was instructed, then stepped out of the house and drove away fast. It was 5:59 pm, and he had less then twenty minutes before Showtime.
The End.
No comments:
Post a Comment