AUTHOR: "Matrix Refugee"
RATING: PG-13
ARCHIVE: Permission granted
FEEDBACK: Please? Please?
DISCLAIMER: I do not own "The Animatrix: Second Renaissence, Part I", its characters, concepts, imagery or other indicia which belong to the Wachowski Brothers, RedPill Productions, Warner Brothers, et al. Nor do I own "A.I., Artificial Intelligence", its characters, settings, concepts or other indicia, which are the property of the late, great Stanley Kubrick, of DreamWorks SKG, Steven Spielberg, Warner Brothers, et al.
NOTES: This is the last chapter, and I am breaking my heart trying to type it. I've had a grand, if at times painful time writing this story and I enjoyed writing it and sharing it with you, but it still hurts to finish with it. I thinbk some of my feelings show in Declan's mood in this chapter...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 11 -- Aftermath
As the Martins had their supper in the hotel dining room that evening, the hotel manager approached the table, a concerned look on his face. "Mr. Martin, there's a call from a Mr. Wilson Schreber waiting for you on the office line. It sounds urgent."
Declan rose, dropping his napkin onto his chair. "I'll take it," he said and followed the manager to the office.
He picked up the receiver of a telephone on the manager's desk. "Hello?"
"Hey, Deck, y' better come to the Amherst Library pronto: I think I cornered our Flesh Warrior."
"Why--What?"
"Make that FleshWarriorzz. There's two guys on this. Y' might want to call the local boys in blue."
"All right, give me a few minutes to make some calls. Can you stall them for me?"
"Yeah, I got some fake spyware I'm gonna upload onto the comp they're usin', make it do some freaky-deaky things. Fake screen-devouring pop-up for !HOT MECHAS IN ACTION!"
"That'll keep them busy," Declan said.
Once he hung up, he called the Amherst Police and arranged for two units of uniformed and plainclothes officers to meet him at the Library.
On second thought, he called up Sweitz and McGeever and tipped them off, then went back to tell Sabrina and Cecie what was going on, before he headed out...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When he arrived at the library, twenty minutes later, Declan found the police waiting for him. Sweitz and McGeever pulled up behind him, nearly clipping the right rear fender of his car before they jumped out, McGeever already hefting a camera with a telephoto lens nearly as long as the small man's arm, Sweitz nearly falling over his companion in his rush.
Orland Ngai, the lieutenant in charge of the police unit, approached Declan. "You want us to go in with you, Mr. Martin?" she asked.
"Have them follow me in, but let me find out what's going on first. I don't want there to be a scene," Declan said.
"All right, but if there's any trouble..."
"There won't be if I can help it. I think I know who's behind this," Declan said, and went into the library. Three plainclothes men in dark suits followed him at a near distance.
The 'Net access computers were on the second floor in the reference section. Declan found Wilson seated at one terminal at the head of one row, watching a computer at the far end of the next row, at which two men were seated.
When Declan saw who the men were, he felt his jaw drop; he had to steady himself on the back of Wilson's chair.
"Don't ask me why, but I saw that coming, too," Wilson said in a low voice.
Declan steadied himself, took a deep breatha and approached the computer in the other row, at which sat a slightly stocky but slender young man and an older, bulky man: Damon Varriteck and Kevin Johnson, both watching the screen intently.
"I think that's the last of it," Damon said.
"Here's hopin' th' bugs didn't eat yer message as it went t'rough t' loines," Johnson added.
Declan cleared his throat noisily. The two men looked up at him.
"Wha-hi, Maisther Marthin, I'd figgered y'd be celebrathin' yer gan' vic'thry," Johnson said, smiling nervously, and looking utterly phony.
"Johnson... I should have known you'd have a hand in this," Declan said.
"What made you guess that?" Damon asked, trying to look innocent.
"I figured that you must have helped Damon copy that data off B1-66-ER's memory cube so he could make that disk," Declan said. "And, Damon, I know you're upset with how I handled the case. I sent copies of all those messages you'd been sending me, to a tech who works in the DA's office to analyze them."
"So what are you going to do to us now?" Damon asked.
"I'm going to give you a chance, not that you deserve it for terrorizing my family and I," Declan said. "You can walk out of here and give yourselves up to the police, who are waiting for you out there. Or I can have you arrested. Considering that one of you is liable to lose his job in the State Department of Justice, and the other is the son of the victims in this last case I tried, I'd rather that went out like the men that you really are."
"Aren't you even going to ask us why we did this?" Damon asked.
"I think you both acted out of fear," Declan said. "You were afraid the verdict would have ended up being 'Not guilty', so you tried scaring me into changing the arguments. Your messages caused my family and I a lot of unnecessary grief, but a weaker man would lash back in fear. I'm giving you a chance to atone for what you did."
Johnson glowered at Declan, then rose and headed for the stairs nearby, where the three plainclothesmen waited. Damon logged off the computer and followed Johnson.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The son of the victims in the B1-66-ER case admits he's on the wrong side of the law. Find out more after the World Series," the voiceover on a trailer for the evening news announced on a TV in the bar of the hotel a few nights later; the screen showed an image of Damon and Johnson, surrounded by reporters and police, being led out of the Springfield Court House.
Declan hardly took notice of it: the image was already in his head, albeit from a completely different angle. Glynnis had taken that case, since he had too much of a conflict of interest in it. Besides, the two had already plead no contest to the charges. Johnson had lost his job at the House of Corrections; Declan had considered filing suit against him and Damon, but part of the community service the two were required to do included helping repair the broken window in the Martins' house.
Around him, the bar patrons watched the screen intently as the broadcast cut back to the World Series. The Red Sox had finally made it to the series and were up against their age-old rivals, the New York Yankees, now relocated to Albany, which had been rechristened "New Manhatten" after the rising waters had swamped the Empire City. The Sox were already ahead, 7 to 5, close but the gap was already widening. In their favor.
Declan barely paid attention to the game commentators' chatter, or the cheers of the people around him as the Sox' batter scored a run.
Mort, the bartender, came up to him. "You okay there, Marty? I figgered you'd be celebrating or y'd be wrapped up in the game."
"You'd think that, but I can't help thinking I lost the case," Declan said.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Happened to me and my old lady when we split up. I mean, she'd been messed up since our son died of Sinclair's Syndrome: started drinkin', messin' around with younger guys... some of 'em maybe three, five years old if y' know what I mean. We'd grown apart, so she left me: took the house, took my boat... I got over losin' the stuff and I got over what she did to me, but I still ain't gotten over her. Everyone tells me I'm better off without her if she was that much of a mess, but I tell 'em it's not so simple as it seems."
"Same thing with this last case..." Declan agreed.
The stool beside Declan had been empty. He heard someone grunt as they settled onto it: he turned to see Hal McGeever clambering up onto it.
"Mind my joinin' you for a victory drink?" McGeever asked, looking up at Declan. To Mort, he said, "Straight vodka and keep it comin'."
"I'm not really celebrating," Declan said.
"Didn't think so," McGeever said. "So, how's your woman and her arm?"
"She's healing well: the nanotreament has the wound closed up already, so she took the bandages off today."
"Good to hear that... so I guess in that case you'll be able to go back to your home sweet home, eh?"
"We might need the police to keep an eye on us for a few days more, but the media frenzy has died down. We found out who was bothering us; they're unlikely to disturb us any more."
"After you were the fine up-standing citizen to them?"
"I wanted them to get another chance."
"Makin' yerself feel better since the case with the droid didn't work out quite as you'd hoped? If you can't get it easy for the Mecha, go easy on the humans, eh?"
"No. I'm not a vengeful man, McGeever, only a just one. I didn't want to see B1-66-ER destroyed any more than I wanted to see Damon Varriteck's and Kevin Johnson's lives destroyed."
"And now, since that droid's gettin' the ultimate maximum sentence, you're all cut up inside. Dammit, Martin, are you like this with every case?"
"Not every case is this complicated."
The fans around them cheered, applauding and whooping as the score was called: 8 to 5 at the top of the ninth inning. Declan glanced over his shoulder toward the booths. In the booth directly behind him sat a group of young folks, most of them clearly reporters and newspaper office workers, along with a few others, cheering and chanting, "Reverse the Curse! Reverse the Curse!", in the hopes that the legendary bad luck that had fallen on the Boston team since they had given up their best player, the equally legendary Herman "Babe" Ruth waaay back in the early 1900s. Frank Sweitz was among the group, his arm around the shoulders of a lovely girl with wavy red-gold hair. She laughed and applauded with the rest of them, but Declan noticed something too glossy about her face and hair, and her bosom was too shapely for a woman as young as her...
"So, is it true what I've heard rumored? that the state might be repealing the MIT Bill of Rights?" McGeever asked.
"The attorney general wants it to be reconsidered: ultimately, the State Representatives will decide what happens next," Declan said.
"The CRF ain't gonna like that, though they've been trying to buy B1-66-ER's contract," McGeever remarked. "The ARM will love it, though, which'll make the CRF mad, so the ARM well get into a worse lather and so on until blood and hydraulic fluids are running on the pavements outside the State House."
"What about Dr. Hobby's research? What about those self-motivated reasoning parameters?"
"Oh, those'll make Mechas more like Orga, if they work at all, but the thing is, no matter how human a Mecha might be, there's gonna be people who just hate their circuits and 'll do anything to knock them down."
"Hobby seems to think otherwise."
"If he thinks he can make a robot that can love, he should stop to think that he might be making robots that are able to hate. And we've seen what happens when even the older model ones develop crude self-motivated reasoning, and what results when they get pushed to the limits by the people above 'em."
Mort turned up the TV:
"...Bottom of the ninth, the bases are chock full of Sox... Kim's on the mound: if she can make this hit, the curse of the Bambino may be lifted... Here's the pitch..."
!CRACK!
"And it's a hit! Kim's going for it... She's on second... she's on third... she's rounding to fourth... OH MY GAWD! What a night for Red Sox Nation!"
"Free drinks for everyone!" Mort yelled. "Hey, Manuelo, get Francois to break out the bubbly!"
Something crashed in the back room behind the counter, a man shrieked briefly with pain and something like fear, but quickly subsided. Declan peered over the counter into the back room.
A stocky Latino man, Mort's assistant, stood over a tall, slender man with reddish-brown hair brushed back, kneeling on the floor in an awkward position, amid several fallen cases of wine.
"You clumsy bastard, look what you made me do!" Manuelo shouted at the man on the floor.
Without pressing his hands to the floor to steady himself as he rose, the man on the floor pulled himself upright. He stood a full head taller than Manuelo, maybe even a few inches taller than Declan.
"Zat was an accident which I assure you will not happen again," the tall man replied to Manuelo, with a heavy French accent.
Declan noticed something a bit glossy about Francois's skin, but his long, too-thin face lacked the usual super-human good-looks given to most male Mechas, and he looked like he might have been in his mid-forties, while most serving men looked as if they were in their thirties or their fifties. He thought he noticed an oddly crafty look in the Mecha's eyes... but it vanished.
"It better not, or else you're on the scrapheap," Manuelo snapped back.
"Lay off 'um, Manelo," Mort called, heading into the back room. "Hey, you okay there, Francois?"
"The winds of change are blowin'," McGeever remarked. "The day's gonna come when things like that clerk-Mecha are on top and we're on the bottom. It only stands to reason: the more they become like us, the more likely they are to repeat our crimes. And those who commit crimes end up causin' more harm than they expected: The Merovingian kings of France built a vast empire, but failed to rule it well and lost it all to a bloodless revolution. We're obsolescing anyway."
"You got a touch of the Frankenstein Complex, McGeever?" Declan asked.
"No, I can just see the hand writing on the wall: Mane, Thekel, Phares. Numbered, Weighed, Divided."
Declan eyed the level on the bottle of vodka on the bar in front of McGeever. "I think you've had enough to drink for one night.
McGeever pulled his lips back from his teeth in a sour grin. Something in it made Declan think of a skull. "They say things like that to every Oracle."
Declan turned away and called for his bill, paid it and went outside to get some fresh air.
He turned his coat collar up against the frosty wind that blew from the north, rushing so loudly between the buildings that it swallowed every sound. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets as he stood gazing up at the sky, at the stars overhead shining coldly in the darkness. The icy wind picked up a thin cloud of dust, blowing it into his face. He turned away to avoid the stinging particles.
A contra-grav turbine whined overhead, drawing near. He looked up in time to see the red lights on a low-flying aircraft overhead. A police amphibicopter, most likely carrying the defendant to the maximum security facility in Holyoke... He sighed, lowering his head, a thin wisp of mist trailing from his mouth...
As he headed back into the hotel, he heard movement nearby.
Three shadows stepped out of the darkness at the edge of the lot, crossing the lighted area. Three tall male figures clad in dark suits. Something about their posture and the way they carried themselves looked too straight, and even on this dark night, they wore sunglasses. He slowed down as they approached him.
The tallest one, in the middle, looked Declan up and down, fixing him with his gaze even through the dark lenses covering his eyes. The other two followed his example.
"Good night, Mr. Declan Martin," the tall one said. The three figures moved away.
Just plainsclothes security Mechas, he told hinself, nothing to fear. With that thought, he turned and went back to the hotel room where his family waited for him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"DVD extra" -- The "A.I." ending
Declan turned away and called for his bill, paid it and went outside to get some fresh air.
He turned his coat collar up against the frosty wind that blew from the north, rushing so loudly between the buildings that it swallowed every sound. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets as he stood gazing up at the sky, at the stars overhead shining coldly in the darkness. The icy wind picked up a thin cloud of dust, blowing it into his face. He turned away to avoid the stinging particles.
A contra-grav turbine whined overhead, drawing near. He looked up in time to see the red lights on a low-flying aircraft overhead. A police amphibicopter, most likely carrying the defendant to the maximum security facility in Holyoke... He sighed, lowering his head, a thin wisp of mist trailing from his mouth...
As he headed back into the hotel, he heard movement nearby. He looked up to see Sweitz and the girl-bot standing nearby in the cone of light cast by a lamppost. They held each other close, kissing, deep, Sweitz leaning over he a little as they swayed in a delighted but gentle rhythm, almost on the verge of dancing.
Sweitz pulled his face away from hers; she smiled up at him, running her fingertips under his chin. "We had better take this to some place more comfortable, before this gets indecent."
"Hey, some folks would say we're already being indecent just because our skins aren;'t made from the same stuff," Sweitz said. "But I'm certainly not one of them."
He slipped his arm about her slim little waist and led her into the dusk, toward a car parked in the corner of the lot.
Something Johnson had said came back to haunt Declan's mind. 'Would you honestly want to see your daughter with one of those lover-bots?'
He hoped that if she did, that somehow she could help that Mecha reach beyond the boundaries of his programming for something better...
With that thought, he turned and went back to the hotel room where his family waited for him...