O-Town
Disclaimer: I don’t own any recognizable franchises in this fic. The dimension depicted in this particular segment was inspired by the show Rocko’s Modern Life, which I had been watching. This was inspired by the episode
Schnit-Heads. (URL leads to video of whole episode (it's the second of the two episodes shown on the vid)).
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Tom Paris, Celes Tal, and Henry Kano stood outside the Delta Flyer as the mysterious flying steam locomotive they had seen earlier began to land in the clearing beside them.
Out of the vehicle stepped a man in his mid-sixties with white hair and wild looking blue eyes. Every inch of him screamed mad scientist, but there wasn’t a trace of the air of menace that tended to follow that sort of sentient.
Beside him was a woman with brown hair and eyes in a pinkish purple dress in the fashion of the 19th century Earth.
“Tom Paris, I presume?” The man said, and extended a hand, “Dr. Emmett Brown, Institute of Future Technology.”
Tom took the hand and shook it: “Yes.“
”My wife, Clara.” Emmett said as he introduced the woman. Clara extended a hand and Tom shook it.
“This is my team, Lieutenant j.g. Henry Kano and Crewman Celes Tal.” Tom said as he introduced them.
“So what manner of aircraft is this?” Emmett said as he indicated the Delta Flyer.
“It’s a shuttlecraft from the Federation starship Voyager.” Tom replied.
Brown walked around the perimeter of the Delta Flyer, “So what is the year for you?” he asked.
“It’s 2376 for us.” Tom said, “And for you?”
“1991.” Emmett Brown replied as he took in the sight. A very futuristic looking aircraft. A blonde haired man with a black jumpsuit with a red horizontal band at the shoulders, a dark haired man similarly attired but his band was teal instead of red, and a woman similarly attired with a gold band. He presumed the one with the red band was a leader of some sort.
”What was it about this catastrophe you were telling me about?” Tom replied.
“Well, it started when we became aware that there are an infinite number of universes that exist as a multiverse.” Brown began as he started gesticulating.
“OK. You’re talking about other dimensions?” Tom asked.
“Yes. Yes. Precisely!” Brown said, “Of which this is one.”
“What is this place?” Celes asked.
“Based on the data compiled we know this place is known as O-Town by its residents.” Emmett replied, “Its residents appear to be several varieties of anthromorphic animals.”
“What sorts of animals?” Celes asked.
"Animals native to various continents of Earth." Brown replied as he looked at Celes closely, as if scrutinizing her face. He walked at least a few inches closer, causing Tal to start feeling uncomfortable and causing Henry to start moving into a position to protect Tal and deal with Brown.
Clara made her own observations as she hung back and observed. Emmett was definitely curious about the female of their group. She appeared human except for the ridges on her nose and it was those ridges Emmett was likely curious about.
“Curious.” Emmett said as he thought aloud, “It matches nothing I’ve seen on Earth: it must be alien in origin. It appears to be an extraterrestrial osteo-dermal nasal ridge.”
Clara walked over to them and gently put a comforting hand on Celes’ right tricep, “He means your nose, honey.”
She turned to her husband and said, “Emmett, I’m certain that she’s a little uncomfortable with you scrutinizing her nose like that.”
“I’m sorry.” Emmett said.
“No harm was done.” Celes replied.
“So where are you from?” Emmett asked.
“I’m from Bajor.” Celes replied.
“So are all of you from this ‘Bajor’ as well?” Emmett asked.
“No. I’m from Australia.” Henry replied.
“On our world we’re part of a government called the United Federation of Planets that comprises many planets.” Tom explained.
“Tell me about it.” Emmett asked.
Tom gave Brown a quick overview of the Federation and the state of affairs of his particular galaxy and Voyager’s stranding in the Delta Quadrant.
“Great Scott!” Emmett said, “So in your plane of reality you humanity is exploring the cosmos from a united Earth, several star systems are united in a peaceful Federation. Your ship was stranded in a far corner of your galaxy by a strange entity and you’ve had many misadventures in your trek back to the Federation. Recently your ship discovered a spatial rift and sent you and your team to investigate. You came into contact with hostile aliens and were sucked into the spatial rift and wound up here.”
“In a nutshell that’s it.” Tom replied.
“Great Scott!” Emmett remarked.
“So what is this catastrophe you were telling us about?” Henry asked.
“It involves a phenomenon we’ve been studying, one that’s been lurking around the multiverse.” Emmett replied, “They’re called the Heartless.”
“Heartless?” Tom asked, furrowing his brow.
“Sentient beings that lost their hearts to what we call the Great Darkness.” Emmett replied.
“Wait a second.” Celes interjected, as her eyes went wide with recognition, “Henry, when we ran into that Vaadwaur fighter didn’t we find some strange aliens that lacked hearts?”
“That’s right. I remember Billy going on about them.” Henry replied.
“Where did those creatures come from?” Emmett asked.
“We assume they came from the spatial rift that pulled us to this world.” Henry replied.
“Damn. They’ve already crossed into your world.” Emmett said.
“What do they want?” Tom asked.
“They seek the hearts of worlds as well as the hearts of sentient beings.” Emmett said.
“Hearts of worlds?” Tom asked.
“At each dimension there is a heart. The Heartless seek to consume all hearts. Especially the hearts of worlds.” Emmett replied.
“OK. I can see biological creatures having hearts that these ‘Heartless’ would want to consume, but I can’t buy worlds or dimensions having living hearts.” Tom replied.
“The heart as I mean is not the biological organ. It is one of the three components that makes up a sentient being. The heart, the body, and the soul. The biological heart as we know it is a component of the body. I’m speaking of the heart in terms of the emotional essence of a being.” Emmett replied, “For lack of a better term for this emotional essence, we call it the heart.”
“So these Heartless things are what attacked us?” Celes asked.
“It would appear so.” Emmett replied.
“So you’re after these Heartless things?” Tom asked.
“No. A member of our group is missing.” Emmett said, “Marty McFly. He was on an observation mission when we received a distress call. He said only that a very nefarious character from our reality, Biff Tannen, and his gang were responsible and they were in company with something like a walking oil slick...”
“Biff Tannen?” Celes asked.
“It’s sort of a long story.” Clara replied.
“Walking oil slick? Why do I get the distinct feeling I’ve heard of that thing before? The distinct bad feeling.” Tom thought.
“I’ll see what I can find out.” Celes added, helpfully, as she tapped her comm badge, “Celes to Telfer.”
Doc Brown’s eyes went wide as he heard sound coming from the brooch on the woman’s chest, presumably this Telfer individual was talking back to her on this portable and wearable communication’s device.
“Telfer here. Go ahead.”
“Billy, can you find out if there’s anything about a ‘walking oil slick’ in the database?” Celes asked.
“I’ll give it a shot.” Telfer replied.
“Thanks Celes.” Tom said as he turned to her.
“About this Biff Tannen character, what’s his story?” Henry asked.
“It depends.” Doc Brown said, “On when you’re referring to.”
“Go on.” Henry replied.
“Biff Tannen was a high school bully of Marty’s father in the year 1955. When Marty inadvertently traveled back to 1955 the first time, he managed to accidentally cause the younger version of his mother to become amorously infatuated with him instead of his father. We masterminded a scheme to get them to fall in love so as to restore the timeline and as a result Marty’s father was able to win over his mother and stand up to Biff for the first time in his life.” Doc began as he gesticulated wildly and walked about as he spoke, “Then when Marty and myself traveled to the year 2015 Marty purchased a book called Gray’s Sports Almanac with the intention of using it to win money at gambling. I threw the book away but an older version of Biff from that timeline went and stole the book and my DeLorean time machine to give a copy to his younger self...”
Doc pulled a chalk board from inside the time train, setting it down between their two groups, and drew a horizontal line and wrote the year 1955 on one side of the line and the year 2015 on the other side of the line. He drew a diagonal line somewhere in the middle of the horizontal line and wrote the year 1985A as he spoke:
“At some point Biff gave himself the book and began a gambling winning streak that resulted in an alternate and hellish alternate 1985 where he became rich and powerful and married to Marty’s mother, who he had a longstanding crush on. Marty and I thought we’d reversed that timeline, but I failed to factor in the concept of a multiverse.”
“Hold on. This is giving me a headache.” Tom said as he reached his hand to his forehead, “You’re saying that the Biffhorrific Hill Valley still exists?”
Celes looked on with just as much of a headache brewing before Henry explained to her in a whisper, “That’s a term used to describe the alternate reality that Doc’s talking about. The one that they thought they erased with a temporal incursion.”
“Yes. Precisely. Due to the theory of the multiverse of infinite possibilities there was a possibility that we failed in our mission and the Hell Valley of the alternate 1985 continued to exist. And it was that universe’s Biff, in company with the walking oil slick Marty described that caused this potentially catastrophic chain of events to come into existence!” Doc Brown said with a near hyperventilation towards the end.
Clara looked like she’d seen this high strung and overly dramatic form of presentation before as she watched Doc carry on with a slightly bemused expression.
“Telfer to Celes. I’ve found something that sounds like your walking oil slick. I’m coming out to give that information to you.” Telfer replied over Celes’ comm badge.
“Acknowledged.” Celes replied.
A few moments later Billy Telfer came out of the Delta Flyer with a PADD in hand. “I found some data on the walking oil slick you described.
Everyone turned to give Telfer their attention.
“It was on Stardate 41602.1 that the crew of the USS Enterprise encountered a lifeform on Vagra II with similar properties.” Telfer began.
“Stardate?” Clara asked.
“Oh. That’s how we measure time. The stardate corresponds to our year 2364. So twelve years ago, our time, the Enterprise went to respond to a shuttle crash on planet Vagra II. They beamed an away team down to rescue their two crewmembers. During that rescue they encountered a black oil slick that seemed to be a lifeform.” Telfer said.
“Go on.” Emmett said.
“The slick coalesced itself into a vaguely humanoid shape which gave the name Armus to refer to itself. Armus. Armus made threats to the away team and when the Enterprise security chief, Lieutenant Natasha Yar, tried to bypass Armus she was killed by an energy discharge generated by the thing.” Telfer replied, “It was revealed that Armus was created by an unknown race that somehow was able to strip all their evil and negative impulses that came to become the entity of Armus. Captain Picard promptly stranded Armus on Vagra II.”
“Let me discuss this with my people.” Tom replied.
“Certainly.” Emmett said and watched somewhat uneasily as he watched the four Starfleet people gather together.
“So we’re dealing not only with your interdimensional overgrown hoodlum but someone with a serious axe to grind against the Federation. Guys. I don’t know about you but I think that means we’re involved.” Tom said.
“I wasn’t voicing any objections, mate.” Henry replied, “I’m simply saying what’s our plan then?”
“It’s pretty obvious. We help them.” Tom replied.
“Shouldn’t we try and get back to Voyager?” Telfer said.
“These people need our help, Telfer.” Tom replied, “We can’t just turn our backs on them. Besides we don’t know how to get back to our dimension.”
“But there are only five of us. And who knows what this Biff character is capable of if he gets his hands on 24th Century Federation technology?” Celes argued.
“Yes. But if Biff’s got the help of this Armus character, from our world, these people don’t stand a chance.” Henry replied.
“The question is what can we do against Armus? I read about his capabilities: blocking sensor scans, communications, and transporters within some energy field he can generate at will. The ability to use psychokinesis and teleportation inside that field. And worse, inflicting energy charges that disrupt the synaptic patterns of humanoids. Like what killed Lieutenant Yar.” Telfer had said.
“And if he’s teamed up with those aliens that attacked us, our dimension and every other dimension is in trouble.” Henry replied, “Look we have to help them any way we can. We know something of what we’re up against. We can be of help.”
“Agreed.” Tom replied.
“I’m in.” Tal replied.
“So am I.” Telfer replied, “Dalby’s gonna be pissed he didn’t get a vote.”
“He’ll get over it.” Tom replied.
Emmett and Clara had been watching the Starfleet people talk amongst themselves just after Tom had mentioned Armus had an axe to grind against his people.
“Do you think they’ll help us?” Clara asked.
“Shh, let me see if I can hear what can...” Emmett said.
“Emmett, if they don’t trust us now, they’re not gonna think much more of us if you eavesdrop.” Clara admonished her husband.
Just then the Starfleet personnel moved from their huddle. “Doctor Brown.” Tom Paris spoke up, “We’re with you.”
“Excellent. Now we’ve just got to figure out where Marty is...” Doc said.
“Don’t you mean when Marty is?” Tom replied.
“That would assume they got a hold of the flux capacitor.” Doc replied, “And Marty’s SOS said that he hid the flux capacitor.”
“But it’s only a matter of time before they break him.” Tom replied.
“Agreed. We’ve got to find him and rescue him.” Clara said.
“Or find where he hid the flux capacitor.” Henry replied, “Get to it before they do.”
“Also agreed.” Doc said, “We’ve got to find that flux capacitor and get a hold of Marty before the universe as we know it is altered.”
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To be continued.
