+J.M.J.+
The Eyes Have It
A Minority Report/"A.I." crossover
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
This chapter, and the next few, is more "A.I." than Minority Report; but the story also starts to speed up from this point on, so hang on for the ride. WARNING: mild violence.
Disclaimer:
See the Prologue.
Chapter VI: Dazzled Eyes
"You ever been to Rouge City, Jack?" Fletcher asked.
"Once, and I promised myself I'd never go back there unless I had to," Anderton said, keeping his eyes on the road.
"That bad? Why'd you go anyway?"
"I went for the ride with some friends back in college. And yes, it was that bad. I spent most of the time in the hotel room."
That was no exaggeration: he'd never been hit on so many times in the course of one evening. It had seemed as if every three seconds, another female Mecha in an outlandish get-up—even a couple male ones, though he certainly didn't want that—was at his elbow, offering him a good time. He simply wasn't interested: he'd just met Lara at that time, and he'd decided she was one girl worth saving himself for. So he'd nipped back to the hotel room and spent the evening channel surfing—only to find that about half the stations they carried broadcasted porno flicks.
"Oop! Anderton's in the zone," Fletcher said.
"What zone?" Agatha asked.
"When this guy's reeeallly concentrating or something, he gets really quiet," Fletcher said. "Not that he's a chatter box the rest of the time."
Agatha didn't reply to this. "Hey, Jack," Fletcher asked in a low voice.
"What?" Anderton replied.
"Is this girl a little…y' know…hoo-hoo?"
"She can seem that way, but she's harmless," Anderton said. "It's just how the drugs her mother was doing when she was pregnant with Agatha affected how her brain grew."
They turned off the Turnpike onto the Rouge City exit. They crossed the Delaware over a length of cantilever bridge which arched slightly toward the city gates in the form of a vast sculpture shaped like a woman's head, mouth agape, the road running right into the orifice, the whole thing lit with rose and blue floodlighting. It was all Anderton could do to keep from closing his eyes to slits.
"Eeee, we're gonna get swallered!" Fletcher whimpered comically.
"Well, once we get in, don't let it happen.
A little voice had insinuated itself into his mind. Maybe Agatha's desire could be served here. There were plenty of lover models like Joe who would gladly oblige her. And they would take no notice of her plain features and cropped hair either.
No. No, it couldn't be that way, he thought.
They turned onto the main thoroughfare of the city, which had been built on two levels: the lower deck was mostly residential, but the upper deck served the tourists who flocked from all over the country, even from all over the world.
They found a parking garage and deposited the car there, but not before Anderton took a few precautions.
"Agatha, stay in the car and stay down," he told her. "Don't let anyone see you."
"I will not," she said, already curled up on the floor, with Lara's raincoat covering her.
Anderton turned to Fletcher. "Let's go."
They got out and headed for the escalator hub at the center of the lower deck.
"Now stay close to me and don't talk to anyone or anything," Anderton warned, as they rode the escalator. "If anything goes after you, just ignore it."
"Yes, Uncoo Jack," Fletcher squeaked in a fake little-kid voice.
The city hadn't changed in the twenty years since he'd first been there, as he discovered when they stepped off the escalator: garish neon lighting on every building, holographic advertising projected against the night sky, buildings with domes like women's breasts—or shaped like women, for that matter—crowds of people jamming the streets.
And Mechas. It seemed as if every other passerby was a Mecha: females, males, a few that Anderton couldn't place as either, dressed in every kind of scanty or gaudy outfit imaginable. He scanned the crowds, looking for anything that looked like Joe.
"How are we ever gonna find our boy in this crowd?" Fletcher groaned, over the shouts of the street vendors and the raucous jazz that blared from the open doors of a nearby club.
"Good question," Anderton said.
They walked along the main boulevard, scanning the crowd.
Fletcher edged in a little closer to Anderton. "Too bad we couldn't bring the oracle along. I bet she'd know exactly where our boy is at."
"That's quite possible." When the Pre-Crime shock troops had been following him and Agatha through a shopping mall in D.C. after he'd swiped her from the lab, she'd had enough information to keep them from getting caught. She'd told him to stop and wait, while a balloon vendor blocked the shock troops' sight line, effectively keeping the both of them from being spotted.
"Want me to go get her?" Fletcher asked.
His first thought was no, then yes popped into his head.
"Go ask her if she knows anything about where we can find Joe," Anderton said, finding a compromise.
"Aw, she don't get to help?"
"We can't risk her," Anderton replied.
"Okay," Fletcher said, and scurried away.
Anderton set his back against a kiosk with a map of the city and kept a strict watch on the crowd for a male lover-Mecha, black hair, green eyes, about twenty-five by appearances, weighing around 130 pounds.
He spotted a figure that he guessed was Joe. He got a better look and realized it was their boy. But then he noticed David was walking with him, hand in hand. He hazarded a double take: no, his eyes weren't fooling him. What on earth was the child doing here in an awful, God-forsaken place like this?
The incongruous pair headed for a Dr. Know information center. At that moment, Fletcher returned, alone. Anderton had had a brief concern that Fletcher, purely well intentioned, might have brought her along.
"She says they're going someplace to find the answers to the little guy's questions."
"Well, they just went to call on the good Dr. Know," Anderton said.
"And there's something about a Blue Fairy, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it," Fletcher reported.
"The Blue Fairy, as in Pinocchio?"
"I guess: it's been years since I saw the movie."
"I should have saved you from making the trip," Anderton said, as they headed for the door to the information center.
"Yeah, but if I hadn't gone, you might not have spotted our boys."
They went inside. Several of the cubicles were occupied, but the foyer waiting room was empty. They kept watch of the room from off to one side.
"So you ever, uh, have anything for Agatha?' Fletcher asked discreetly. "I mean, you and Lara were separated at one time, right?"
"It's funny you should ask that," Anderton said. "Lara asked me the same question."
"Uh oh! She worried?"
"No, just curious. There was never anything between Agatha and me. It was purely professional after a fashion. She's young enough to be my baby sister."
"How old is she, just for curiosity's sake?"
Anderton calculated for a second. "She's twenty-five."
"Wow. She doesn't seem it," Fletcher said. "She seems older, I mean, younger—I mean, both, uh…"
"There are gaps in her growth. She's intellectually mature beyond her years, more than the both of us put together; but emotionally she's about ten or twelve. Her IQ is off the chart, but she seems simple because she doesn't know how to relate to us. So if she seems withdrawn, it's because of her condition."
"Kinda like autism."
"It's similar, but it doesn't have the mental impairment that goes with autism."
"Wow," Fletcher said, amazed.
One of the cubicle doors opened and David bounded out, striding for the door, his Teddy on his arm.
"David?" a voice called from inside the cubicle. Joe hurried out, stepping in front of the smaller Mecha, blocking the child's path.
"We gonna tap him?" Fletcher asked.
"Give him a minute," Anderton said. The older Mecha seemed to be counseling the younger about something. Watching them, Anderton thought of an older brother chiding a younger brother, or even…a father counseling his son.
"What's with the delay tactics?" Fletcher asked.
"It's called timing," Anderton said.
David stepped around Joe and headed for the door, Joe just behind him.
Anderton stepped out from their nook near the door, about to approach the two Mechas. But the door suddenly opened from the outside. Anderton looked out, following Joe's suddenly perplexed gaze.
A Rouge City security guard and Treves, one of the Haddonfield officers, approached the open door, closing in on Joe.
"What the--?" Fletcher started.
The plaza before the information center was jammed with police amphibicopters and an anti-grav transport. Stuyvesant stepped out of the crowd of officers and guards.
"I thought I told you to drop it, Anderton," Stuyvesant said. Treves and the guard escorted Joe to the transport. "What brought you here so quick?"
"We could say the same about you," Fletcher snipped.
"I just had a hunch," Anderton put in quickly.
"Well, with or without your hunch, the case is closed," Stuyvesant said, following the group approaching the transport.
David. They'd let him out of their sight. Anderton looked around the plaza: no sign of the small Mecha in the crowd of tourists and freaks gathered on the fringe of the plaza, the usual crowd that gathers when an arrest is being made. The security guards tried to disperse them, "Go on about your business: there's nothing for you to see here."
On the peripheral, Anderton detected movement near one of the amphibicopters, but he couldn't tell what it was.
The amphibicopter suddenly lurched into motion, spinning madly, knocking over the tables of the café nearby and sending the crowd scattering with shouts and screams.
"Someone stop that copter!" Stuyvesant roared. The tail of it swung around and hit him in the back of the head.
Anderton hit the deck, pulling Fletcher down. The 'copter veered wildly around the plaza, hovering just a few feet off the ground. Anderton felt the breeze from it on his hair as the craft swooped right over him and Fletcher, just missing them both.
The 'copter crashed into the waiting transport, turning it over. Treves and Joe fell out, Treves hitting his head on the doorpost. Joe fell clear of the craft, right side up, startled, but no worse for the wear. The Mecha got up, its eye following the 'copter. An odd smile crossed its face. He darted after the vehicle, matching speed with it as it cruised along the ground. The canopy opened and the Mecha climbed aboard.
Anderton had just risen to his knees when he saw the 'copter lift off the ground and shoot toward the sky. He drew his service pistol and aimed for the thrusters. But the craft rose to fast and his shot clipped a building. The stolen 'copter rose. It clipped an anti-grav sign overhead. Debris rained down. Anderton dropped, covering a still frightened Fletcher.
When the clattering and tinkling stopped, Anderton got up, looking into the sky. Gone.
Fletcher stood up, his gaze following Anderton's. "Now what do we do, Sherlock?" he asked, gravely.
"Let's go back to the car first," Anderton said.
Agatha lay curled up on the floor of the car, listening for Anderton and his friend. She wondered if the young man might be willing to help her in her effort to be freed of this burden of foresight. But he seemed too much in awe, even a little scared of her, like everyone else. That was how most men usually reacted to her. They either saw her as some strange freak of nature, or they just ignored her because she was not much to look at. She knew she wasn't pretty. She had once compared her reflection to several classic photos of famous actresses from the past. She didn't look half as pretty as any of them.
She let images of the young man who was not a man pass through her mind's eye. Perhaps he could do for her what she sought. He seemed made specific for this task.
She sensed an ache in her chest she had never felt before, a pain that was not a pain. The very image of the young metal man, in her mind's eye much more sharp and clear than it would be to most people, seemed to heighten and yet to sweeten her pain. She wanted to reach out and touch that smooth-looking cheek, wondering if it would feel as smooth and warm under her touch as her own.
She ran her hand over her own cheek, feeling the softness of her skin, wondering if his touch on her face would feel like that.
To be continued….