+J.M.J.+
The Eyes Have It
A Minority Report/"A.I." crossover
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
Yes, I know "Eyes Wide Shut" is the title of Stanley Kubrick's official last movie. Yes, I know Tom Cruise was in it. I just liked the title and I wanted something really odd but still in keeping with the "eyes" theme that I've used for the chapter titles. This chapter forms the grand climax, bringing together all the main players, with a couple major epiphanies, one of which was inspired by a major similarity I found in both MR and A.I., and also what is that "Weegee Wannabe" really up to? WARNING: Mild slash ahead (Bevins/Joe—my wacky friend Ruby Tuesday came up with the idea for the ultimate "'A.I.' pair who definitely should NOT be slashed".)
Disclaimer:
See the prologue
Chapter VII: Eyes Wide Shut
It was well past midnight, into the wee hours of the morning when Anderton and Fletcher returned to Haddonfield. Stuyvesant had been airlifted to a hospital in Camden. The EMTs didn't expect the lieutenant to last the night, much less survive.
"The case is in your hands until I can appoint another supervisor," Rance, the chief of police told Anderton over the phone.
"You sure you can trust me with it?" Anderton said, facetiously.
Rance chuckled gently. "Of course I trust you. You're the best man for it. I don't know how you do it, but I'm impressed."
"I just follow my nose."
"Well, keep following it, you're red hot this time. Do you honestly think that Mecha killed Ms. Bevins?"
"No, sir."
"That makes two of us; I'm glad you're covering this case."
"So what's the verdict?" Fletcher asked Anderton after he got off the phone.
"Rance is letting us keep working on this case," Anderton said.
"Hot dog!" Fletcher cried. "So now what do we do?"
"Get ready to do some more traveling: We're going to Manhattan."
"You taking Agatha?"
Anderton hesitated. "Yeah."
His next step was to contact the Dr. Know information center in Rouge City and have them send up the recording of David's session with the good doctor. If the boy-bot was looking for the Blue Fairy, maybe the answer would give them an idea where to go. The tech in charge of recording the sessions was reluctant to turn over the files, but Anderton gently threatened to press charges for obstruction of justice. He exactly where they were going, but he needed to set up a scrim first, in case Rance got suspicious.
The tech finally emailed the file, which Anderton reviewed with Berube, the tech expert, looking over his shoulder. The boy-bot's first few questions came up with abortive answers, but his last question, "How can the Blue Fairy make…a robot…into a real, live boy?" turned up an even stranger answer: "At the end of the world, where the lions weep."
"Okay, what in heaven or hell does that mean?" Anderton asked.
"A lot of Mechas refer to Manhattan as 'the end of the world', since a lot of their numbers tend to vanish once they venture into it. And the weeping lions…must be the Cybertronics building there. They get four, five way-larger than life-size weeping lion statue-fountains outside the front entrance."
As Berube described it, Anderton saw the image in his mind's eye, as Agatha had seen it, as he had reviewed it.
"In that case, care to do a little more traveling, Fletch?" Anderton asked.
Fletcher yawned. "After I get a few winks. This is gonna kill me."
"You can rest in the transport," Anderton said.
Anderton went out to call Lara and let her know what was going on. And to smuggle Agatha into the anti-grav transport.
They assembled their escort; Anderton personally briefed the squad on their procedure.
"We are only holding this Mecha for questioning, namely, a neural cube scan. So, anyone who damages this Mecha is answerable. Whatever your feelings toward Mechas, he isn't a suspect. We have strong reasons to believe he was simply in the wrong pace at the wrong time. Any questions?"
The squad glanced at each other among themselves, but no one ventured anything.
"Good, let's roll. We've lost too much time already."
Agatha lay hiding in an empty storage locker aboard the transport, listening for anything that sounded like Anderton and his colleagues coming. She heard someone rustling about in the cockpit. She peered out carefully so as not to be seen.
Someone had a light out there, which they shone about the compartment. Then suddenly the lid of the locker flew open.
The light shone into her eyes, blinding her. Whoever it was grabbed her by the front of her shirt and dragged her out onto the decking and held her down with himself.
"You're her, aren't you? You're the Pre-Cog girl John Anderton used to make his grand escape from Pre-Crime, aren't you?" a man's raspy voice asked, behind the light.
"I am, " she admitted, not knowing what else to say. She recognized the voice as the voice that had snapped at Anderton and his friend as they left the fairgrounds much earlier that night.
"So did they catch the Mecha?" the stranger asked. He kept his face hidden behind the light, but she made out his shadow, a lean, small-shouldered form.
"No."
"Ah, too bad. Then where is he?"
Images panned through her head: Tall buildings rising up from an ocean, battered, rusted, ruinous. A flying craft swept by, bearing the young metal-man and the boy.
"They are in a city sunk in the sea. Lots of tall buildings…a hand with a torch."
"Manhattan…Good girl. You've been very useful." The light went out. He suddenly leaned over her, pressing his mouth on hers in a dry, closed-mouth kiss. He let her go just as suddenly. "Now, not a word of this to anyone, y' hear?"
The light in the compartment went on.
Anderton opened the hatch of the transport, but he held out his hand behind him, stopping the others from climbing in.
Agatha lay on the floor eyes wide open, startled. The Weegee Wannabe, kneeling over her, looked up, his snide face quivering with nerves. For a moment, Anderton feared the worst, but he realized the small man was merely pinning her to the floor with his knees and elbows, his body well clear of hers.
"That does it!" Fletcher yelled, crawling under Anderton's arm. He grabbed the intruder by the neck and shoved him up against a wall of the compartment.
"What are you doing here?" Anderton demanded.
"Just collecting information," the Weegee Wannabe said. He darted a look at Agatha, then looked up at Anderton. "Though it looks as if YOU'VE been up to a little info-gathering yerself. You got something for this girl."
"Gad, so that's why you knew so much about this case, Jack," said Drolesky, one of the squad members.
"She had visions of the Bevins murder," Anderton said. "I've only been using them as a guide." He meant this as much for the intruder as he meant for the squad.
To the reporter, he added, "I don't know why you're here, but let me say this: I'm going to have Fletcher let you go and I want you to walk away from here quietly. Whoever you're leaking this information to, don't go near them, or I may have to arrest you for interfering with an investigation."
The Weegee Wannabe gave him a nervous smile. "I can go along with those terms," he said.
"All right. Fletcher, let him go." Anderton ordered.
Fletcher released the reporter. Anderton stepped aside, letting the small man climb down from the transport. With a sidelong glance back at Agatha, the reporter sidled off into the night.
"I say you shoulda let me smash his camera," Fletcher argued.
"And have him file police brutality charges?" said Phuong, their pilot. "Not my idea of fun."
"So this is her?' asked Canfield, another squad member, looking at Agatha. "This is the Pre-Cog?"
"This is Agatha," Anderton said. He knew this would have happened sooner or later. It amazed him that it hadn't happened sooner.
Agatha looked up at the others with uncertainty, almost frightened.
"I guess she's gonna be on the scene now," said Drolesky, as they started to climb aboard, while Phoung started the generators.
"Hey, Stuyvesant's out of commission," said Freder, climbing in beside Anderton. "We can keep our mouths shut about it."
"There's no time to decide that," Anderton said. "We gotta run."
There was nothing more to be said about Agatha. They let her sit on the bench with the rest of them as Phuong flew them to Manhattan. Fletcher took a nap, but Anderton was too keyed up. It was like the old days in Pre-Crime, almost, or at least the mounting adrenalin rush felt the same. And Agatha was helping them.
Well after dawn, the broken towers of Manhattan loomed up before them, out of the water.
Phuong flew them into the heart of the old financial district of the city. They kept on the lookout for a building with weeping lion fountains.
Agatha edged close to the front seats, keeping low but looking out through the windscreen. She looked up at one massive structure, more solidly constructed than the derelict buildings around it.
"Circle this building," she said
"What she say?" Drolesky asked.
"This is the place where they have him," she said. Phoung brought the copter around, circling the building Agatha had pointed out. Even over the whine of the thrust generators, they could hear the rumble of falling waters.
Anderton looked up. They came in low, passing by a large shape masked by a curtain of falling water. He looked up further as they passed a second form like it, a huge molded simulstone figure, a massive lion, water gushing from its open mouth and running from its eyes.
Phuong raised the nose of the 'copter, heading for the aircraft shelter halfway up the face of the building.
When they had landed, there were already two other 'copters there, one mid-sized, the other a two man ornithopter, clearly a private one.
Bevins arriving at Cybertronics…
Phuong opened the hatch. Anderton turned to Agatha. "You'll have to stay here," he said.
She stood up. "I want to come."
"No, this could be dangerous," Anderton warned.
"You were in great danger in Washington."
"Listen, we're in trouble right now because you're here. But if you get hurt, it's gonna get worse for us both," Anderton said.
She sat down on the bench without another word.
Anderton looked at the rest of his squad. "All right; let's move."
He led them deeper into the aircraft shelter, up three steps to a set of automatic doors, which opened for them. They stepped up to a blacked-glass door in which had been stenciled a few lines of William Butler Yeats.
"Come away, O human child,
To the water and the wild,
With a faery hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand."
He drew in a long breath and reached to open the door.
They stepped through into a laterally running hallway. Directly in front of them, a set of glass doors opened into a library in which several service droids were sweeping up what looked like fragments of glass. Anderton turned away and led the squad down the hallway.
They reached a receptionist's desk at which sat a blonde young woman, pretty in an ordinary way. She looked up at them with unblinking eyes. And her skin was too glossy.
"Did anyone come through with a tall, dark young male Mecha with green eyes, might have been with a little boy about eleven?" Anderton asked.
The Mecha-girl looked at them calmly. "I cannot give out that information."
Anderton reached into his belt, drew out his service pistol and set it on the desk top, covering it with his hand.
"How 'bout now?"
The girl-Mecha looked at the gun, then looked at them. "Please come with me," she said, rising.
She led them down a hallway, past several offices. Two male voices made themselves heard, one practically shouting, the other much more calm. Anderton recognized Bevins's voice, the louder of the two. They followed the sound to the end of the hallway.
The Mecha receptionist tapped on the door. The voices fell silent. "Come in?" asked an academic-sounding voice, the one that had not been raised.
The girl opened the door and stepped back, letting Anderton, Fletcher and Canfield through.
The room was empty except for a scattering of office furniture and two men, Bevins was one, the other was a moderately tall, professorish looking man in his late fifties, thinning dark blonde hair, calm gray-blue eyes set in a square, care-worn face.
"Professor Allen Hobby?" Anderton said, showing his badge and ID. "We're with the Haddonfield police. We need to speak to you about a Mecha that may be in your facility."
Bevins looked at Anderton with a smirk. "Maybe you'll have better luck getting him to give up that bot," he said.
"Could you step outside for a few moments, Mr. Bevins, while I speak with these gentlemen?" Dr. Hobby replied.
"You don't have to tell me twice," Bevins sneered and turned to leave, pushing past Anderton as he stepped out.
"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" Hobby asked them, his gaze meeting Anderton's
Agatha sat alone in the transport, letting images pass through her mind: the young metal-man and the boy entering the building; the boy finding another boy very like himself; the first boy striking the second in the face with a table lamp, revealing the second boy to be like him inside; the metal-man fleeing from the building, out to the transport; a tall man with sad blue eyes speaking to the boy, then leaving the room, as if he would fetch someone else; the boy sitting alone on a ledge outside the window, then falling into the waters below; the metal-man coming after the boy in the transport, plucking him off the sea-bottom and bringing him up to the surface; an unmarked amphibicopter hovering over the spot where they sat, a sudden strong force—from a magnet—plucking the metal man away even as the other 'copter started to descend into the water; the people in the second 'copter bringing the metal man into the building, where the man with the sad eyes spoke to him for a long time, asking many questions.
One image lingered, that of the metal man alone in a room, strapped to a heavy chair, alone.
He shouldn't have to be held like that, she thought. She got up and went deeper into the building.
"We have strong reasons to believe that Mecha is completely innocent," Anderton said.
"We've confirmed that through a verbal interrogation," Dr. Hobby said. "We're just going to perform a cube scan to corroborate Joe's spoken testimony. But we were unfortunately interrupted by Mr. Bevins arriving."
"We'd like to be present when you run that scan," Anderton said. "After which, we're taking Joe back to Haddonfield. To return him to his owner."
"I'm afraid I can't allow all that," Hobby said.
"Why the heck not?" Fletcher demanded.
Hobby shook his head. "You don't realize what's going on. Belladerma J-01229s have been known for their idiosyncratic behavior before, but Joe is exceptionally so. We have reasons to believe some of David's programming might have, so to speak, infected Joe's programming."
"What makes you say that?" Anderton asked.
"Mechas don't form relationships, they don't reach out to help someone when their own integrity is at risk. Joe could have just kept running after he escaped from the Flesh Fair, hid in the woods, maybe run to Canada. But he didn't. He chose to make David's quest his own."
"But still, we have to continue our investigation," Anderton said. "We have to be sure Joe didn't kill Samantha Bevins."
"Her father would like to know that as well," Hobby said, something flickering in his eyes.
"We also have reasons to believe Frazer Bevins killed his own daughter and pointed the blame at Joe," Anderton said. "We've found he has connections with several anti-Mecha activist groups."
"In that case, it might not be safe to keep him in Haddonfield," Hobby warned.
Agatha stepped through the door opening into the library. She looked about her. The service droids at work sweeping the floor looked at her, but did not take much notice of her.
She walked through the library, toward the inner room, which looked like some cross between a laboratory and a conference room.
On several tall metal stands along the perimeter of the room hung a row of small figures. At first she took them for human beings, but she realized they were not, they were replicas of the small boy robot that had accompanied the young metal man. stepping down the three steps that separated the library from the inner room, she looked about her, looking down the length of the room.
"Hallo?" said a young man's light voice with a British accent.
The image of the young stranger strapped into a heavy chair passed through her mind's eye. She looked down to see him before her, about twenty feet away.
He had turned his head, looking right up at her. She stepped forward, approaching him slowly.
"Who are you?" he asked, friendly, simply desiring to know who she was.
"I am Agatha," she said, coming up to him. She knelt to his level. The padded restraints held in his ankles and wrists, with a larger one across his chest. "And you are?"
"They call me Joe," he replied. He looked at her, his green eyes unblinking, calm, curious, scanning up and down her face. She looked right into his eyes, feeling his gaze meet hers. His eyes warmed and a soft smile curved his mouth. She returned the smile, feeling a tremble pass through her limbs. Warmth suffused her skin, and she knew she was blushing. She had thought Anderton was a nice-looking man, but this young stranger looked far, far better. He had that thing called beauty, that quality that eluded her.
"Have you come to help me?" Joe asked. He glanced down at the restraints and looked up at her face.
"I have," she said.
He looked at the restraints again. "Can you free me from these bonds?" His eyes flicked up to meet hers, looking at her through his long lashes.
"I think I can," she said. She reached down and found the locking pin holding the restraints at his ankles. Pulling the pin, she undid the strap. She sat up on her heels and undid the clasps at his wrists, then she reached in and undid the straps across his chest. Her hand brushed the silvery shirt he wore and she felt his chest underneath. She withdrew her hand quickly and rising, stepped back as he stood up. He lifted onto his toes and turned, the gleaming black skirts of his long jacket swirling.
"So, Agatha, are you with the people who have been wracking my brains?" he asked.
"No, I have come with the police," she replied.
His eyes went cold with fear or concern. He stepped back from her. "Am I still in bad trouble?"
"No, they only wish to know if you did not kill the girl Samantha Bevins."
"I did not kill her. An Orga man did that hideous deed."
"I know you did not."
He looked at her, his high smooth brow furrowing with questions. He cocked his head. "How then do you know this?"
"I can see things that have not yet happened."
"And how can you do this? Are you a psychic?"
She wagged her head. "I have dreams. I have terrible nightmares of things happening. Murders, killings. I want it to end. The people who care for me give me medicine to help me sleep better at night, but it does not stop the images."
"They trouble you, and well they should."
She nodded. "I think that you can help me."
He cocked his head. "I? What can I do that would help you?"
"Ah, there, y' are, you abomination!" said a man's slightly husky voice.
They both looked up. Agatha gasped.
The man called Bevins, the man who had cut the girl's throat in the hotel room, the same man who had then accused Joe stood there on the steps leading down into the room. He stepped toward them.
Joe stepped forward, pulling Agatha behind him. She clung to his arm.
"We're not going to destroy Joe. We only want to see what's in his cube. It's the last bit of evidence we need to arrest Frazer Bevins," Anderton said.
"It's not easy for me to give him up." Hobby's gaze turned toward the window. "He's the last link we have to David," he added.
"What's with making a kid Mecha anyway?" Fletcher asked. "What's the point?"
"It's part of an experiment we started two years ago, an attempt to bridge the metaphysical gap between Orga and Mecha. We were creating a robot that can have genuine emotions, not just emulated emotion," Hobby explained.
Anderton watched Hobby's eyes. Something was just not right there. Something hid behind those eyes, barely concealed, barely revealed. Anderton recognized the expression, the shadow that lurked there. He'd seen the very same look in his own eyes, gazing back from the mirror first thing in the morning, a look he'd tried not to see in the weeks and months and years after Sean's disappearance.
And because of this inner turmoil which had generated this shadow, he'd tried to hide from it in his work. He realized the gap between himself and Hobby was not so wide as he had thought. Promoting Pre-Crime to prevent other people from suffering as he had suffered. Building a child Mecha to help others—and himself—stay up their hearts after the loss of a child.
"So what is it going to be?" Anderton asked. "Are you going to let us have him?"
"Let's see what the scans show first," Hobby said. "I have him down the hallway in the main office."
He led them out into the hallway.
"What are you doing with that girl, bot?" Bevins demanded.
"We were merely acquainting ourselves with each other," Joe replied.
Bevins's yellow eyes went to Agatha's face. "Did he do anything to you, girl? Did he lay a hand on you? Feel you up any way?"
"He has not," she said. "And if he had, I would want him to touch me."
"If you want that, you know where to get it. Hasn't that young whippersnapper from the police done the right thing by you?"
"He is married to another woman. They love each other very much," Agatha said.
"In that case, I'll help wean you off this thing," Bevins said, stepping around Joe and reaching for Agatha.
"Do not lay a hand on her," Joe said, almost threatening, stepping closer to Bevins.
The man turned to Joe, a cruel smirk contorting his face, his lips curling back from his teeth. "And since when do things like you give orders to Orgas."
"She does not want you," Joe countered. With a slight smile, he added, "She wants me."
"And that's the whole point of me getting her away from you," Bevins said, stepping toward Joe, backing him toward the wall. "I spent ten years of my life trying to warn people about how dangerous you things are. You poisoned my daughter's mind and heart against Orga men. You warped her desires, turned them unnatural. And now she's dead. Because I found out about you and her: it drove me so man I didn't know what I was doing, and I killed her."
Joe had backed up nearly against the wall. His eyes darted about as if he sought an exit. Agatha looked toward the door. Where was Anderton? She wanted to run for him, even though she knew he and the police were coming, along with the man who had built the boy robot.
"So you think you're better than a real man, eh?" Bevins said. "We'll see about that."
Bevins suddenly lunged at Joe, forcing his back up against the wall so that the young metal-man's arms got pinned behind his back. Bevins unfastened the front of Joe's trousers.
"Whatcha got under there, eh?" Bevins asked. "I bet they gave you more than I got…Dammit, they did!" Agatha looked away toward the door. Where was Anderton?!
"Don't touch me," Joe said, almost pleading. "If you ask this of me, I cannot oblige you."
"I bet you can, you dirty little man-whore," Bevins snarled, reaching in.
Joe's face twisted with pain, his eyes rolling up. His lips parted in a soundless cry of pain. He trembled, but the large man had him pinned.
Something like white-hot fire exploded in Agatha's breast. All those years of seeing images of other people killing had not affected her. She'd never fully grasped why anyone would take the life of another, but now she understood.
She hated Bevins.
She threw herself at the older man, punching him, raining hard blows on his back and shoulders.
Bevins released Joe and whirled round to face her, his bloodshot eyes blazing. Behind him, Joe slid to the floor in an awkward posture, knees up, back against the wall.
"You're messing with the wrong man, girl," Bevins said, drawing a knife from his coat pocket.
Something in the shadows of the room wing-clicked. Bevins looked around.
The short, ugly man with the camera stood on a chair in the back of the room. Bevins rushed at him, but the smaller man dove behind a table.
The double doors into the room flew open. Anderton and the other policemen rushed in.
"Oh, the Mecha-hugging cop again," Bevins drawled. He threw himself at Anderton, who kicked the knife from his hand. Anderton grabbed him by one shoulder and started pulling the older man's hands behind his back, trying to handcuff him. "Frazer Bevins, you're under arrest for the murder of your daughter Samantha Bevins," he said. He was tempted to add, 'And for the future murder of Agatha Lively.'
Bevins grappled with him, lifting Anderton off his feet. Fletcher and the others tried to surround them, but Bevins managed to shake Anderton off.
"You'll never take me alive!" Bevins screamed. He rushed toward the outer room, heading for the landing shelter.
Anderton ran after him. Fletcher and the others trailing him one step behind. Anderton drew his gun, ready to shoot out the anti-grav generators on the amphibicopters. Bevins ran past them toward the ledge. Realizing what Bevins was up to, Anderton holstered his gun and ran flat out after him.
Bevins stopped on the edge of the parapet and turned to Anderton.
"Bevins, this doesn't have to end like this," Anderton said. "You don't want to do this."
Bevins looked at Anderton, eyes devoid of all emotion, unblinking. "Down fiber, up flesh!" he said, cold-voiced, utterly devoid of emotion.
Before Anderton could grab at him, Bevins heeled over the edge. The man free fell, straight down. Deeper in the shelter behind them, someone let out a death yell from the gut, the unspoken cry on Bevins's slack lips. Anderton glanced back to see Agatha, face contorted, screaming, Joe supporting her, his face utterly baffled. Anderton looked back, over the ledge. The water broke under Bevins, fountaining up. The waves closed over him with hardly a ripple to mark the spot.
Anderton heard a series of rapid wing-clicks nearby. He looked to his right to see the Weegee Wannabe standing nearby, camera in hand, aimed down to the water.
"Hey, you can't do that!" Fletcher yelled, starting after the reporter.
"Fletcher, leave him alone!" Anderton ordered.
"Yeah, never heard of freedom of the press?" the reporter snapped.
"Who are you and what are you doing here anyway?" Anderton demanded.
"Halloran McGeever, of the Haddonfield Sentinel, amongst others," the short guy said.
"So what the hell brings you here?" Anderton asked, not following.
"I was supposed to be following the doings of Frazer Bevins," McGeever said. "I was also doing my part to help the CRF get him arrested, by hounding him right into your hands."
"So you're on our side?" Fletcher asked.
McGeever shrugged one shoulder. "I ain't on nobody's side but my own. But I didn't want to see that son of a bitch daughter-f---ing Mecha-smasher get off as easy as he has in the past."
"So you told him we were going to Manhattan?" Anderton asked.
"I did only because I figured it was the easiest way to get him to make an ass of himself. I told him the Mecha had kidnapped an eleven-year-old kid and dragged him to Manhattan. So that made him livid. He was determined to come all this way to free the kid and destroy the Mecha before it destroyed someone else's child."
"So you were working for him only to set him up?" Anderton asked.
"I had to do something to earn my points with the CRF," McGeever said, pocketing his camera.
"And Bevins took the coward's way out," Anderton mused.
The local police, who mostly worked for Hobby, sent down a dive team to recover Bevins's body. They found it almost right where he had dropped. Hitting the water had snapped the bones of his neck, severing his spine, killing him even as he sank, as an autopsy would later prove.
"At least there's one thing to be said," Anderton remarked to Fletcher as the local mortician and his crew loaded the body into the police craft.
"What's that?" Fletcher said, a little green-faced as he watched the crew at work.
"The state won't have to get Bevins's blood on its hands."
"IF Agatha's right and Joe's clean."
Concluded in the next chapter…