Author's Note: I should write this movie. I actually think it's a pretty good plot.

Jenny stared, in horror, as she watched her sister lying comatose on a hospital bed. Anyone treating her wearing hazmat suits, and treading carefully.

Jenny wasn't even allowed close.

"We don't know what's wrong," one of the doctors reported, emerging from the quarantine zone. "She just… collapsed, shortly after we took her in. Some kind of coma, except we can't tell…" The doctor faltered. Then, admitted, "Investigator. If you know what species she is, that might help."

"Machines don't pick her up, and she's got two heartbeats?" Jenny guessed.

The doctor nodded.

"I know the species," Jenny said, turning back to the glass, to look at the comatose form inside. "You won't have heard of it." She looked on, for a few long moments. Realizing that the only person who'd known the truth was now unavailable. "I've got to go in there. Analyze her physiology myself."

"Investigator," Peters cut in, "if they say it's not safe… then it's not safe. You have to trust me."

Jenny yanked at the nearest hazmat suit. "A man who can't die is dead," she said, slipping into it, quickly as she could, "and the person who shot him has now lapsed into a coma." She zipped up the suit, and put on the helmet. "Oh, yeah. I definitely believe it's dangerous. There's no doubting that."

Then she stepped inside.

Heading over to her sister, checking her, carefully.

"Heart-rate's slowed, again," said one of the doctors, using an old-fashioned stethoscope to measure it. "How long before we declare her brain-dead, and take her off life-support?"

"She's not brain-dead," Jenny insisted, trying to brush the others away. "She's putting herself into a healing coma. It's something her species can do." She knelt down. Checking Seo's vital signs. "Although healing from what is a good question. I don't see see any indication of—"

Jenny yanked her hands away, as the psychic message blazed through her.

DANGER. STAY AWAY. MORE THAN ONE.

Jenny stepped back. Frowning.

Then turned, and left the quarantine area. Did as her sister advised.

Seo must have known something. She must have had a plan — one that fell through, thanks to Gavin and the Zillwell Machine.

And if Gavin had retired that long ago…

Then Seo's plans had been foiled before she'd ever shown up here in the first place.

The best thing that Jenny could do for her sister, now, was to solve this mystery. Get to the bottom of the whole thing. And figure out what was really going on.

Time to watch that movie.

Find out what the Zillwell Machine could actually do. What people thought it could do. And what was really going on.

"Welcome to the movie library," said the electronic voice from the vending machine. "Please select the movie you wish to see."

It displayed the options out, in front of her.

Jenny pushed on the option for Christopher Zillwell's Minority Report.

"You have selected a classic movie," the vending machine chirruped. "Please be advised that classic movies were not originally intended for the viewing formats available. Full Sensory Recall for this movie may be purchased for an additional 500 credits."

The display options whizzed up in front of Jenny.

Dreamscape viewing.

Concentrated packet download.

Memory alteration insertion.

Hallucinogenic projection.

Jenny made a face. Suddenly realizing that this machine was vending movies in pill format, not vending movies in any format she'd actually want to watch.

"Don't use those options," came Peters' voice.

Jenny looked up, to discover him right behind her, canceling out her selection on the machine.

"Zillwell wrote it, directed it, and shot it for Standard 3D Surround," said Peters. "It was archaic, even then, but everyone thought the movie would be kind of blah, so they didn't give him the budget to shoot the film in anything better. They've been trying to upgrade it ever since." Peters shrugged. "Watching it in these other formats… you just lose something. You know?"

"Hence the extra 500 credits for Full Sensory Recall," Jenny muttered.

"And if you pay those 500 credits," said Peters, "all you get is a book that explains what happened in the movie. Total rip-off." He grinned. Then, in a lower voice, whispered, "But I've got the Standard 3D Surround version."

Jenny spun around to face him.

"And… yes," Peters said. "I'm giving up two whole hours of my life for you. And just you." Peters held out a hand to her. "So. Do we have a date, Miss Fisher?"

"Jenny," Jenny corrected.

Peters seemed intrigued. Grinned. "First names already? Be still, my heart." He grinned even wider. "I'm Harmont."

Jenny returned the smile. And took his hand in hers. "In which case, Harmont, yes. I think we do have a date."

Harmont Peters' flat was more like a broken-down hovel. Buried in the middle of the rest of the ruins of the city, with no obvious signs to show that this building had parts of it inhabited.

"Safer that way," said Peters, as he settled down. "You never know who'll show up in the middle of the night. Especially if you're working as a cop."

They started the movie.

Minority Report. Written, directed, and starring Christopher Zillwell.

But as the movie began, Jenny was shocked to discover that it wasn't a science fiction film, at all. No. This one was set in the past.

"The Irwop Colony!" Jenny cried. "During the Artonian Occupation." She glanced over at Peters. "I thought you said this was a science fiction movie! The Artonian Occupation — that actually happened. There were no future-detecting devices on Irwop!"

Peters sighed, and paused the movie.

"The original Minority Report movie was about the future," Peters explained, a little exasperated that he was already stopping the movie, before they'd even started it. "The year 2054. But Zillwell watched it in the 33rd century. For Zillwell, that movie had always been set in the past."

Jenny frowned.

"Just watch and see!" Peters said, restarting the movie. "Trust me. It'll make sense."

The movie followed the main character, a human being on the Irwop Colony named Arthur Limsor. As was the case with everyone in that colony, Arthur Limsor believed he was a free man, part of an Earth colony, and with a democratically elected government.

But his colony had been dragged into an unprovoked war with the Civlaxians, which had shut down all communications with Earth.

"I know the Civlaxians," Jenny said. "I've been to their world. I saw what the transmat bombs did to their cities. That war wasn't their fault. I helped to end it."

"Sh!" Peters said. "Just watch the movie!"

The movie showed the transmat bombs, too. It also showed how the Artonians had helped the humans on Irwop, by presenting the human race with a machine — that could foresee violent events in the future.

Including the teleportation of transmat bombs.

"That's wildly inaccurate!" Jenny insisted. "The Artonians didn't have temporal technology!"

And she listened, irritated, to the ridiculous techno-babble about how the Artonians could detect the bombs ahead of time, because they were so violent that they left a visible scar on the fabric of space-time.

Which was just not how time worked!

Not at all!

"There are things that put a scar on space-time," Jenny explained, "but not transmat bombs. The temporal theory in this movie is appalling! 'Predicting the future makes it less likely to happen', they say. If I've seen my own future, live through the consequences, and then go back in time and stop it from coming into being… that could be catastrophic! Seeing the future basically sets it in stone, far as I understand. And…"

Jenny suddenly spun around, pointing at the image in the movie just out of the corner of her eye.

"There!" Jenny shouted. "That Cavlaxian character. She's been skulking around in the shadows this whole movie!"

"That's actress Emma Farndale," Peters agreed. "And she's about to answer all your questions."

Sure enough.

When the character Xera Wooy, played by actress Emma Farndale, appeared, she contacted Limsor. At first, he didn't listen to her, accusing her of being a spy. But eventually, she made him understand.

Brought him to the base, where the Artonian Machine to tell the future was kept.

And had him look inside.

Aurthur Limsor stared. His body shadowed by complex-looking machinery, surrounding the essence of the machine inside — the machine he had just uncovered. As if, looking at him, Limsor had become part of the machinery, his arms and legs no different from the complex wires and electrical cabling creeping out of the walls.

Connected to the core of the machine.

And that core… was empty.

"Empty?!" Jenny cried.

"Empty," Peters agreed.

In the movie, the two main characters were shocked, as well.

"Those bombs were directed at Artonian military targets," Xera said. "We couldn't figure out why they weren't getting there! They sent me through the transmat, disguised my signature so I looked like a bomb — to figure out where the bombs were being sent."

Jenny, outside the movie, figured it out. "The Artonians redirected the bombs!" she cried. "Oh, that's clever. They couldn't diffuse the bombs, so they sent them to transmats on the Irwop Colony."

She'd never known precisely how human colonists had wound up in that war.

"That is historically accurate, by the way," said Peters. "The bombs. The transmats. The redirection. Even these two characters actually existed — although not much is known about them." As the characters in the movie figured out what Jenny had already deduced. "This next part is also accurate."

Jenny watched, as — in the movie — Limsor spun on Xera.

Angry and betrayed by the world that had lied to him.

"They can see the future!" Limsor insisted. "The spies they caught! The crimes they stopped! The criminals they swept off our streets before they could commit their acts of—"

The discussion was cut off, though, as they were detected in the room with the machinery. The Artonians began chasing them, as Limsor and Xera ran for their lives.

Xera shouting back at Limsor, "If they can see the future, why didn't they foresee us?!"

Turned out, the Artonians had no way of seeing the future. But had instilled fear and paranoia in the majority of the human population on Irwop, coercing people to spy on and report their neighbors for anything suspicious.

Disappearances were dismissed as the arrest of future criminals.

And fear ruled on the streets.

"A free world, you said, Arthur," Xera said. She gestured at the world around her. At the world with its curfews, its fear, its resistance clusters and its disappearances. "Is this freedom?"

"The Artonians won't invade," Arthur Limsor insisted. "They haven't the firepower to—"

"It's already happened," Xera cut in. "You've already lost."

Jenny turned off the movie.

Stood, in the center of the room, pacing. Trying to think this all through. Figure out how all the pieces fit together, so her current mystery could possibly make sense.

"But we hadn't even gotten to the climax, yet!" Peters insisted. "Where Emma Farndale—"

"The machine in the movie didn't work," Jenny interrupted. "It wasn't even real. It was just… being used to mask the fear and propaganda of that society! But your machine works."

"Yeah," said Peters. He put down the movie controls. "We said that. Some people believe us. Most don't. Lots of people think we're just making it up, to scare them. Local governments went to war because they knew that, if they had the machine, they could claim that their enemies planted it on them. Give them an excuse to invade."

"But it works," Jenny reiterated. "To a certain extent. Even if it doesn't tell the future… it's altering something having to do with time. I can feel it. I can feel…!"

Jenny stopped.

Staring at the kitchen area, realizing there was something very obvious she was overlooking. Something very obvious she'd missed.

"You still have food," Jenny said.

Peters looked a little ashamed. "Sorry, I… forgot to offer you some. What would you like?"

Jenny spun him around. "Your world has collapsed," she said. "You've got no farmers. No support from anyone else. Violent crime going on everywhere! But no crime over food."

"Of course not."

"But that's what happens when a society falls apart!" Jenny insisted. "First you raid the tinned food. And when that runs out, people start killing each other to get food. Fresh water! But you…"

She spun around, raced to the kitchen area.

Flung open the drawers.

"Tinned food!" she said. "You're still on the tinned food phase. This city hasn't been ruined for a century — or all this food would have been gone and rotten, by now." She turned on Peters. "You lot don't have a progenation machine, right? Generations gone through in a day or less?"

"A… what machine?" said Peters. He shook his head. "We don't go through generations in a day. That's ridiculous."

"Is it?" Jenny took out one of the tins, and plonked it down on the counter. "This tin's dated five years ago. Not a hundred. Just five." She shook it at him. "This world ended five years ago! When you were still alive!"

"I wasn't!" Peters insisted. "Five years? I'm a human being, Jenny. Not… immortal!"

Jenny paused.

Staring at him.

Recalling… how busy everyone seemed. Just how big a deal it was for Peters to take two hours out of his life to watch a movie. How everyone seemed to feel there wasn't time to do basic things like background checks or investigations.

This planet was placed under quarantine.

Maybe… there'd been another reason, besides the machine. Maybe something else had happened.

"Harmont Peters," Jenny whispered. "How… old are you?"

"Three months," said Peters.

"And… how long do you expect to live?" Jenny asked.

"I've still got another eight left in me," Peters assured her. "Not old and retired, yet! Even if policemen always do die a month or two younger than most." He grinned. Then, noticing she wasn't grinning, let the grin slide off his face. "What?"

"You're human," Jenny reiterated. "But you live… a year. Just a year."

"Yeah, of course," said Peters. "Doesn't everyone?"

Jenny shook her head. "No!" she cried. "Humans generally last about a century! Unless there's a war and a progenation machine hanging about, this sort of thing shouldn't happen! Not at…"

She drifted off.

Then turned, frustrated, towards the door.

"You're right," Jenny said. "We don't have time. Not for any of this." She yanked it open. "Gavin said this whole mess was started by some university student. Right?"

Peters nodded.

"Then you'd better show me where that student built the Zillwell machine," said Jenny. "Because it's nothing like the one in the movie."