| Minority
Report (2002) by Jon Cohen. Based on the short story by Philip K. Dick. Early draft, Aug 15th 1997. More info about this movie on imdb.com
DARKNESS
And then, slowly emerging from the mists of darkness, a pale,
beautifully proportioned FACE.
The oval face is female, a woman of indeterminate age, her
features as fragile as porcelain. Her eyes are closed in
sleep, or in death ... or in something in between.
Now TWO MORE FACES emerge out of the darkness. They are
male, and they float into position on either side of the
female. They are just as ethereally beautiful, just as pale,
and like the female their eyes are closed.
The ghostly lips of the female begin to twitch. Her features,
which have been expressionless, suddenly contort, mask-like,
into the face of a woman in fear. Her eyes open.
The male face on her right contorts too. His features warp
into an angry snarl -- the mask of a man enraged. His eyes
open.
The male face on her left takes on the expression of a young
boy, a boy who is terribly frightened. His eyes open wide.
As if they are lost in the same terrible waking dream, a
sudden and unnerving exchange begins ...
FEMALE
(frightened woman)
JOHNNY, PLEASE
MALE RIGHT
(mocking man)
"Johnny, please. Johnny please."
FEMALE
You're scaring me.
MALE LEFT
(child's voice)
DADDY, DON'T. DADDY
MALE RIGHT
(considering)
I don't like you any more, Carol.
FEMALE
(imploring)
Put the scissors down. You're scaring
me. Please.
MALE RIGHT
Oh, Carol.
FEMALE
Johnny! Stop!
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2.
MALE RIGHT
Don't grab at me! Let
MALE LEFT
Daddy! No!
All we see are three faces on the screen mouthing words but
we can imagine a terrible struggle taking place before us: a
man with scissors lunging at his wife, her anguished scream,
the whimpering cries of their son.
And then there is silence, and it is over, and the three
faces instantly return to their impassive porcelain state.
Their eyes slowly close. They do not move.
So that when they do move again, it is startling. In abrupt
unison, the EYES flash open. Three pairs of eyes stare
straight at us, accusing.
Three mouths open, but speak, in rasping tones, as one.
ALL THREE
Murderer!
The faces linger a moment, the weary eyes slowly close, and
the dark reaches forth, and takes them.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. SUBURBIA DAY
Morning in America. Just look at it. America in the
midfifties, the suburban landscape stretching endlessly into
the sun drenched distance. White house upon white house.
Emerald lawns, glistening with dew.
In each driveway, a big Chevy, or a Ford, muscled with chrome,
long tailfins that taper like the fins on rocket ships.
Kids burst out of the houses, and zoom down sidewalks on
trikes. Mothers in bright dresses stand in doorways,
watching. The smiling mothers wave to one another, then go
back into their houses.
Dogs bark, birds sing in trees of just the right height,
boys and girls laugh and ring the bells on their trikes. It
is a delicious world, where dogs and birds and children are
safe.
INT. A HOUSE
A family room with all the trappings of the era: a flagstone
fireplace, a console TV, a man's leatherette Barca-Lounger,
a pipe stand holding two pipes on a nearby table, boxes of
children's games neatly stacked on a wall shelf.
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3.
A young mother, CAROL, her hair -in a pony-tail, stands at a
picture window in a corner of the family room, staring mildly
at the scene outside.
CAROL'S POV - A LITTLE GIRL
A little girl bounces a red ball on the sidewalk. The ball
gets away from her, and rolls into the street.
At the same moment, a two-toned CHEVY, lush and huge, rounds
the corner.
The girl sees the car coming, but still goes after the ball.
THE FAMILY ROOM
Carol sees what is about to happen -- but she doesn't cry
out, or bang on the window, or run for the front door. She
watches. And smiles a little.
OUTSIDE
The girl careens gleefully into the middle of the street.
INSIDE THE CHEVY
The driver -- a man in a loose fitting dark green suit, white
shirt, thin brown tie -- sits behind the steering wheel of
the car.
Disturbingly, the man's hands are not on the steering wheel.
Not only that, he is holding the morning newspaper up in
front of him, reading, oblivious to the scene before him.
Through the windshield, we see the little girl in the road
in front of him, going for her ball.
CAROL
Watches, her smile in place.
OUTSIDE
The little girl picks up her red
ball, as the Chevy bears down on
her.
INSIDE THE CHEVY
An alarm suddenly CHIRPS. The car automatically brakes to a
halt. The man looks around the edge of his paper to see
what is happening.
THE STREET
The car has stopped, inches from the girl.
The girl giggles as, the man in the car gives her a big wink.
She waves, then runs back to the sidewalk with her red ball.
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4.
The man goes back to his newspaper, and the car, entirely on
its own, starts up again. The car rounds a corner, and
disappears.
INSIDE THE HOUSE
Carol turns away from the window. She startles when she
sees her husband, JOHNNY, is there behind her. He is in his
pajamas. How long has he been there, watching her?
JOHNNY
(gruff)
Why'd you let me sleep so long?
CAROL
It's Saturday, Johnny, you always --
(beat)
Why are you staring at me like that?
He takes a step toward her. He stands there, his thick black
hair tousled with sleep, scratching his stubbled jaw,
considering her.
JOHNNY
I'm unhappy that you let me sleep so
long.
He takes another step toward her. She doesn't move a muscle.
A little BOY suddenly enters the room. Johnny turns, looks
at his son, looks back over his shoulder at his wife. Then,
without a word, he begins to walk out of the room. On his
way out, Johnny's eyes flick to Carol's sewing basket, which
sits beside a sewing machine. It is not the sewing that has
caught his attention, but a large pair of garment SCISSORS
which lie across a fold of colored cloth.
EXT. THE HOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER
Johnny stands on the front porch, scratching. He walks down
his front walk, and bends over to pick up the newspaper.
Carol stands in the doorway, watching him.
A SHADOW slides over Johnny, cast from above. The air fills
with the piercing WHINE of an engine. Johnny looks up,
alarmed.
In the sky above him, just beyond the tips of the suburban
trees, is a black PRECRIME POLICE HOVERCRAFT.
The children, the mothers, Carol in the doorway -- everyone
freezes in place, as Johnny is cast into an inexplicable
drama.
Racing SOUNDLESSLY down the street toward him, are SLEEK
TECHNOLOGICAL MARVELS, lethal and efficient looking -- they
seem to be cars -- but they are so different from the fat
Fords and Chevies in the driveways that it is hard for us to
process them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.
Helmeted police with mirrored visors erupt out of the cars.
More police drop from the hovercraft in harnesses. Their
uniforms are black, seem actually to absorb light. Their
left hands are bare, their right hands are encased in some
sort of complicated glove.
CLOSE
ON - A GLOVE
The glove is a weapon of some kind, the elongated index finger
ending in an open barrel.
Clearly, this is not, as it first seemed, the past -- not
America in the 1950's. It is the neo-past, the retro world
of America 2040, where the familiar of yesterday is
intermeshed with hypertechnology.
And all of that hypertechnology is focused on JOHNNY, as he
makes a run for the house, sheets of newspaper scattering
behind him. He bursts up the front porch, shoving Carol out
of the way.
Eight Precrime police officers assemble in the yard. >From a
backpack, one of them quickly removes an instrument with a
handle grip and an ovoid screen. It is a holographic scanner.
He activates it, scans the officer in front of him, and an
IDENTICAL POLICE OFFICER takes three-dimensional form.
The two real officers circle the house, repeating the maneuver
a dozen times.
In less than a minute, a decoy force of men -- three
dimensional, standing in place, but shifting and turning
like living beings -- has been created. An overwhelming
police deterrent presence has been established.
INSIDE THE HOUSE
The Precrime police overwhelm the interior of the house,
too. It is impossible to tell which officers are real, and
which are scanned holographs. The juxtaposition of the
futuristic cops in a 1950's style house is disorienting.
INSIDE A BEDROOM CLOSET
Johnny, in his pajamas, crouches beneath a rack full of his
wife's dresses.
UPSTAIRS HALLWAY
Two OFFICERS, standing back-to-back, hold their gloved hands
out in front of them, palm out. When the first officer points
his palm toward a door at the end of the hallway, his glove
BEEPS softly.
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6.
The officer looks at his PALM. A red thermal IMAGE appears
on a small flexible screen -- the heat outline of a crouching
man. The first officer flicks his helmeted head to the second
officer.
THE BEDROOM
The room is packed with police -- how many are real?
THE CLOSET
Johnny squirms, his pajamas saturated with sweat. He calls
out through the door.
JOHNNY
I didn't do anything!
OUTSIDE THE CLOSET
Every officer in the room lifts his gloved hand and points
his index barrel at the closet door. The effect is deeply
accusatory.
An OFFICER 1 speaks, his VOICE electronically manipulated to
be as menacing as possible.
OFFICER 1
Come out of the closet on your hands
and knees.
Nothing happens. Two officers aim their barrels at the
perimeter of the door. In repeated, small SONIC BLASTS, the
closet door is blown off of its frame, revealing Johnny among
the dresses.
Johnny starts to rise, and BAM, a section of floorboards is
blasted away beneath his feet.
OFFICER I
Hands and knees!
Johnny trips among the splintered floorboards, and drops.
He stays on his hands and knees, and approaches. He lifts
his head and looks up at the officer.
JOHNNY
I didn't Another OFFICER 2 bends
down with a DEVICE -- the words
"IdentiScan" on its side -- and blips
a red laser light into each of
Johnny's, eyes, reading his irises.
The officer nods affirmatively to
the other officer.
OFFICER 2
POSITIVE FOR JOHN PALMER.
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7.
OFFICER 1
(to Johnny)
John Palmer, if you were being
arrested for any other crime, I would
now read you your rights.
(beat)
But you are under arrest for the
future murderer of your wife, Carol
Palmer. You have no rights.
Johnny, on his hands and knees, goes limp.
EXT. THE HOUSE -- LATER
In the background, Johnny is guided into a Precrime police
vehicle as the neighbors look on. Carol and her son stand
in the doorway, stunned.
TWO OFFICERS remove their helmets. The first man is tall,
sandy-haired, good eyes, deeply blue; This is PAUL ANDERSON,
late thirties, Director of the Precrime Division, Washington
D.C.
The second man is ED WITWER, Anderson's second in command,
late thirties, big like Anderson, good face, strong in the
shoulders, short brown hair.
The two men are deeply comfortable together. They can speak,
or not. It doesn't matter -- they still communicate. Two
good cops, good together.
They walk side-by-side around the house, dematerializing the
holographic decoy cops.
WITWER
Thought we might a had a runner.
Anderson seems tired, takes a moment to answer.
ANDERSON
Yeah, a runner.
WITWER
A little chase -- that'd been good.
ANDERSON
Fifty cops on the scene takes the
chase out of them.
WITWER
(smiles)
But only eight of us were real.
Witwer dematerializes the last decoy.
ANDERSON
We ever get a runner, I'd be too old
to give chase.
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8.
WITWER
You'd chase. You'd love it,. Man.
They get to the front of the house and watch the Precrime
vehicle holding Johnny zoom SOUNDLESSLY away.
ANDERSON
I love it more Johnny boy doesn't
get to murder his wife.
WITWER
(beat)
It's a beautiful world.
EXT. SAME SCENE -- LATER
The children play on their trikes. The wives talk among
themselves. The birds sing, the dogs bark.
The little girl bounces her red ball again. She stops a.
minute, when two pieces of newspaper blow past her,
unexpectantly littering the orderly suburban landscape.
INT. A BEDROOM - SUBURBAN VIRGINIA (OUTSIDE WASHINGTON) DAY
Decorated in a 1950's style. Anderson lies in bed beside
his wife, LISA, a pretty, green-eyed brunette. It is early
morning, they are both awake. Her hand caresses his chest.
Maybe they will make love.
Lisa's hand stops suddenly on the center of Anderson's chest.
LISA
Jesus, Paul. Your heart's hammering.
(playfully)
I excite you that much?
He turns to her, and the grim set of his jaw makes her smile
vanish.
ANDERSON
I used to love being a cop. LISA
You're still a cop. I'm a factory
worker. We don't catch murderers.
We process them.
Lisa takes a long breath. She's been down this road before.
She speaks reassuringly.
LISA
You're the best homicide cop in the
country Anderson snorts disdainfully.
ANDERSON
Great -- except there's no such thing
as homicide. What I do best doesn't
exist anymore.
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9.
LISA
PAUL.
(beat)
You're the Director of a perfect
system. A Cop with a perfect record
ANDERSON
The Precogs have a perfect record.
They identify the accused -- I just
put on my monkey suit and go round
them up.
Lisa hugs him, kisses the back of his neck.
LISA
And then I prosecute them. And they
go to jail. And lives are saved.
Thousands of lives.
(beat)
And that's a cop's dream.
Anderson is silent for a time. He sighs, then smiles, and
turns to his wife, takes her in his arms.
ANDERSON
No. You're a cop's dream.
INT. THE BATHROOM -- LATER
Anderson steps out of the shower, and begins to towel himself
dry- He glances out a casement window. He tilts his head,
curious, then wipes at the steam on the window.
ANDERSON'S POV LISA
Lisa stands in the backyard in her nightgown, talking on a
cell phone. She hangs up, moves quickly back into the house.
ANDERSON
Cocks his head, then goes back to
toweling off.
INT. KITCHEN -- LATER
Checkered linoleum floor. Appliances out of the 1950's.
Except there are little differences. When Lisa puts a skillet
of eggs on the stove, the heating element is not an electric
coil, or gas but a shimmering field of light.
Lisa is dressed in a blue jersey skirt and a brief jacket.
Anderson wears a gray suit, thin blue tie, white shirt,
wingtipped shoes. He doesn't look up from the newspaper as
he speaks.
ANDERSON
Who called?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.
Lisa keeps her back to him as she flips the eggs. She touches
her long brown hair.
LISA
No one. I called about my hair.
Getting it done this afternoon.
Anderson looks like he's about to say something else, when
suddenly someone RAPS on the back screen door. Anderson and
Lisa both turn and smile.
ANDERSON
Come on in, neighbor. Want some
coffee?
OUTSIDE THE DOOR
FRANK D'IGNAZIO, 65, white-haired, robust, hesitates before
coming in. A thin METALLIC ARM with a red laser light arches
quickly down from above the doorway, shines into each of his
EYES, scanning the irises. The arm lifts out of view, the
screen door UNLATCHES.
Frank enters the kitchen, carrying a basket of tomatoes.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
Brought these for your supper.
LISA
Oh, Frank. That's so sweet. Thank
you.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
Sweet, nothing. I gotta get rid of
these things. One plant, and I'm
invaded by tomatoes. When I was a
kid
Anderson laughs, claps his friend and neighbor on the back,
teases him.
ANDERSON
Before all this genetically engineered
crap ...
Frank gives him an ornery look, then a smile.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
Yeah well, it's true. It used to be
a challenge to grow things. An art.
Now you put one plant in the ground
-- then jump the hell out of the
way.
Anderson gestures for Frank to sit down.
ANDERSON
Coffee?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
Nah, thanks. Can't stay. You guys
are rushing off to work anyway.
Lisa sets the eggs down in front of Anderson.
LISA
You and Ellie come for supper then.
ANDERSON
We'll barbecue.
Frank nods and pushes on the screen door.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
You betcha. We'll bring some more
tomatoes -- a new batch will have
grown by then.
They all laugh, Frank exits, Anderson goes back to his paper.
EXT. DRIVEWAY -- LATER
Anderson waves to Lisa. Her big Studebaker drives off down
the tree-lined street and away.
Anderson approaches his Chevy. He doesn't take out a key to
unlock it. There is no lock. He slides in behind the wheel.
Doesn't take out a key for the ignition -- there is no
ignition.
A thin METALLIC ARM arches down from the sun visor, scans
Anderson's EYES, identifying him. A seat harness wraps around
him, and the car STARTS.
Anderson picks up a folder marked "Precrime" and begins to
read through the papers. The Chevy backs out of the driveway
and takes him to work.
EXT. INTERSTATE 95 - ALEXANDRIA, VA -- LATER
A vast spread of corporate and government buildings -- the
spillover from Washington D.C. across the Potomac River into
Virginia.
Beyond the white of Washington is "The Sprawl" -- the massive
unzoned city that has spread uncontrolled on the outskirts
of the Capitol. It is impenetrable and uninviting, especially
to those comfortable in the utopian suburbs.
Anderson's Chevy moves in a sea of fifties-type cars.
Occasionally, an ultramodern vehicle zips past them. In the
sky above is another sea -- of advertising dirigibles,
holographic billboards, hovercrafts, skim-jet transports.
On one of the holographic billboards giant words begin to
flash: "I LIKE MIKE!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.
Then a picture of the smiling President appears. Then the
words: "RE-ELECT PRESIDENT MIKE BILLINGS FOR ANOTHER FOUR
YEARS! KEEP THE PAST IN OUR FUTURE!"
INSIDE ANDERSON'S CHEVY
Through his windshield, Anderson glances at a holographic
road sign.
THE ROAD SIGN reads: "FBI Headquarters 1 mile. CIA
Headquarters 1.5 miles. PRECRIME Headquarters 2 miles."
Anderson goes back to his papers.
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS
Anderson sits in a too large office in a too large chair.
He abruptly rises and begins to pace. The room is large,
but he paces like a lion confined in a cage.
He punches an intercom. A female VOICE responds.
INTERCOM VOICE
Yes, Director Anderson?
ANDERSON
Where's Ennis Page? Why hasn't he
delivered this morning's Precog discs?
Ed Witwer opens the door to the office., and casually walks
in.
INTERCOM VOICE
I'll find him, sir.
Ed shakes his head, smiles.
WITWER
Bullying the staff again, Director
Anderson?
ANDERSON
Screw you.
Anderson turns away and stares out a large window. Witwer
joins him.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Was that fun for you, yesterday?
WITWER
The Johnny Palmer bust?
ANDERSON
Yeah.
WITWER
It was okay. We got our man.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13.
Anderson takes a long breath.
ANDERSON
When do we not get our man?
They turn as Ennis PAGE, 44, a thin, tight little man with
burr cut hair, knocks and enters the room. He carries a
black BRIEFCASE marked:
"Zone 218 - Washington/Alexandria, VA." The case is cuffed
to his wrist.
PAGE
Sorry I'm late, sir. Precogs put
out a heavy national volume this
morning -- four for our zone.
ANDERSON (DISTRACTED)
Put the case on my desk, Ennis.
Page hesitates, doesn't do it. Anderson moves quickly to
Page.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
What was I thinking.
Anderson leans over the BRIEFCASE. A small panel recedes, a
red laser scanner clicks on, scans Anderson's eyes, BEEPS
affirmatively, then clicks off. The cuff on Page's wrist
falls open.
Now Page puts the case on Anderson's desk. Page hesitates.
Anderson and Witwer know just what he's going to do. Page
reaches down, unable to resist straightening a pile of papers
strewn on Anderson's desk.
Anderson and Witwer exchange knowing smiles. When Page looks
up they try to cover, but are not quick enough. He frowns
tightly, and heads for the door.
Anderson calls after him.
ANDERSON Thanks, Ennis. Witwer turns to leave, too.
WITWER
Now that's a guy who really cares.
Witwer grins to himself as he walks out of the office.
Anderson takes a deep breath and goes to his desk, and opens
the briefcase. Four small bright DISCS sit in rows. He
removes one, places it in a VIDEO MONITOR that lifts into
view from the center of his desk. He sits back, weary, and
watches.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.
VIDEO SCREEN
A young black woman stands in a hallway. She stares at a
door, gun in hand. She opens the door, enters a bedroom.
She glides toward a bed, where a man lies sleeping. She
lifts the gun and fires it into his sleeping form.
ANDERSON pops the disc, jots down some notes, pops in a new
disc.
VIDEO SCREEN
A white woman stands at a stove, cooking. A man comes up
behind her slowly, silently, a necktie taut between his hands.
He raises the necktie toward her neck
ANDERSON
He's not watching the screen. He is
out of his chair now, looking out.
The window.
INT. PRECRIME MAIN LOBBY
A tour of Precrime is in progress, like the public relations
tours run by present-day FBI. The TOUR GUIDE, a pretty,
smartly uniformed woman in her twenties, leads a group of
adults and children, all with glowing nametags, through the
building.
TOUR GUIDE
Welcome to the main headquarters of
Precrime. Smaller Precrime branches
are scattered throughout the United
States.
The group follows the guide slowly through the lobby.
TOUR GUIDE (CONT'D)
Precrime was established in 2030,
with the harnessing of the remarkable
talents of the Precognitive mutants.
She points cheerfully to a stubby little man, MR. HARRIS.
TOUR GUIDE (CONT'D)
Mr. Harris, can you tell me how many
Precogs there are?
MR. HARRIS
Three. Uh, right?
TOUR GUIDE
That's exactly right! A lot of people
assume there are Precogs in every
branch office.
(MORE)
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15.
TOUR GUIDE (CONT'D)
But there are only three Precogs,
right here in this building. And
the information they give us, we
send out to all the other branches.
(beat)
And what is that information -what
do the Precogs do?
An eager boy, TIMMY has the answer to that one.
TIMMY
They protect us.
The guide tousles his hair.
TOUR GUIDE
(chipper voice)
That's right, Timmy. Because of the
Precogs, you're going to grow up
murderfree. Isn't that something?
MR. HARRIS
They ever wrong? The Precogs ever
screw up when they predict a murder?
The guide laughs tolerantly.
TOUR GUIDE
Never, sir. It's an infallible
system. The Precogs predict a
homicide, and our Precrime police
then apprehend that future murderer
before the event occurs. And right
next door is the Judicial Center,
where we prosecute the
futuremurderers.
TIMMY
Can we see the Precogs?
TOUR GUIDE
No, I'm sorry. That part of the
building is not open to the public.
(beat)
Now, if you'll just step this way
...
She waves the group on toward an elevator.
INT. THE PRECOG CHAMBER
The chamber is an elaborate, hypertech hospital, constructed
for the maintenance of three beings -- the Precogs. They
are triplets -- two of the Precogs are male, one is female.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
16.
Technicians swarm all over them like worker bees. The bodies
of the Precogs are being tended to: exercised, cleansed,
groomed.
The head of each Precog is encased in a complex, ornate HELMET
that seems to be an amalgam of organic tissues and bright
metallics. The helmets pulse slightly, and the surfaces
seem to flow and shift, like oil on water.
A network of micro-thin cables that are actually strands of
light, rise Medusa-like from each helmet, then centralize
into a single strand, and connect to a massive mainframe
computer.
The Precogs appear to be in suspended animation, or in comas.
They are absolutely still and limp -- except for their faces.
Their faces are in constant motion, the lips mouthing scenes
from murders only they can see. Life for a Precog is an
endless cycle of death.
CLOSE ON - THE FEMALE PRECOG
we recognize her fragile and perfect FACE from the opening
scene of the movie. She floats in a glowing nutritive bath.
Like her brothers, she seem to be eternally young, or
eternally old.
The technicians lift her from her bath. She is dried, dressed
in a robe, then guided into an over-sized, throne like chair.
Her brothers are guided into their thrones, on either side
of her.
Not once are their helmets removed. What they feed into the
mainframe is too valuable. It must be gathered twenty-four
unrelenting hours a day.
INT. A ROOM
Ennis Page sits in a room just off the Precog Chamber. He
can see them through a large window. He works a large
computer console, the gathering point for the information
the Precogs constantly feed the computer.
Perhaps every ten seconds, a small DISC is released by the
computer, and mechanically gathered, sorted, and placed -under
Page's watchful eye -- into a black case.
ANDERSON is in the room standing quietly behind Page. As
Director, Anderson is authorized to come and go, but from
his fussy movements, it's obvious Page sees anyone else in
the room as an intruder in his special domain.
Anderson turns and looks through the window at the Precogs.
ANDERSON
What would they think about if we
unhooked them?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17.
Page looks up from his work.
PAGE
They don't think, sir. They just
see.
Anderson is silent.
PAGE (CONT'D)
They're not even alive, really.
Anderson contemplates the scene, nods to Page's words, then
turns and walks out of the room, as Page looks on.
INT. THE PRECOG CHAMBER
The female Precog sits in her chair. Her eyes are open.
She faces the window that looks into Page's main frame room.
In the window we see Anderson leaving the room.
The female Precog's eyes drift closed.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT.COURTROOM - JUDICIAL CENTER -- DAY
A trial is in progress. The defendant is Johnny Palmer. He
sits, ashen, at a table, his DEFENSE ATTORNEY beside him.
There are no jurors in the Juror BOX. There is a JUDGE, 55,
and stern. There are a few people in the public seats.
The Precrime prosecuting attorney is Lisa Anderson. She
wears a black robe, and addresses the Director of Precrime,
Anderson, who sits in the witness stand.
LISA
Director Anderson, do you swear that
the disc you now present to the court
is the only and authentic disc of
the future murder of Carol Palmer by
her husband, John Palmer?
It is a ritual that they both have acted out hundreds of
times. Anderson gives the rote answer as he holds up the
DISC.
ANDERSON
Yes. This is the only and authentic
disc of the event seen by the
Precognitive mutants and recorded by
the Precrime Division. This is the
immutable evidence of the infallible
system.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
18.
LISA
The murder of Carol Palmer will occur
... ?
ANDERSON
In one week -- June 16th, 2040 at
10:33 in the morning.
Lisa steps back. The judge reaches out and Anderson hands
him the disc. The judge inserts it into a special video
machine on his desk. Anderson steps down, his ritual part
in this trial completed.
A. huge MONITOR comes to life behind the judge. He does not
turn around to watch -- he has his own monitor.
Johnny Palmer watches, eyes wide. We now see, in detail,
what we previously heard the Precogs act out in the beginning
of the movie.
THE MONITOR
The Palmer's family room. Johnny reaches into Carol's sewing
basket for the scissors. Carol stands defenseless in front
of him. Their son cowers in a corner of the room.
CAROL
Johnny, please --
JOHNNY
"Johnny, please. Johnny please."
CAROL
You're scaring me.
JOHNNY'S SON
DADDY, DON'T. DADDY
Johnny approaches his wife with deadly menace.
JOHNNY
(considering)
I don't like you any more, Carol.
CAROL
(imploring)
Put the scissors down. You're scaring
me.
Please. We cut away from the monitor and stay on JOHNNY
PALMER'S FACE as he sits at the defense table. He winces at
each terrible exchange.
JOHNNY (O.S.)
Oh, Carol.
CAROL (O.S.)
Johnny! Stop!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19.
JOHNNY (O.S.)
Don't grab at me! Let
JOHNNY'S SON (O.S.)
Daddy! No!
Johnny Palmer cries out as the MONITOR goes blank.
JOHNNY
I didn't do it. I'm innocent! It
didn't happen!
The JUDGE hits his gavel.
JUDGE
How does the defense plead?
The defense attorney glances at his watch, then quickly
rattles off the words to his part of this judicial ritual.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY
The defense acknowledges the
infallibility of the system. We are
Guilty. We throw ourselves at the
mercy of the court.
JOHNNY
Not Not The Precogs are wrong! No!
The court guards are on him in an instant. They lead him
out of the courtroom.
INT.A BOARDING HOUSE - THE SPRAWL -- DAY
Anderson pushes down a tight hallway thick with police and
enters a disheveled room. The fifties interior is drab: a
Formica table, bad curtains, a frayed Lazy Boy positioned in
front of a TV.
Ed Witwer is already on the scene. He stands a few feet
from the BODY of a man, gunshot wound to the head, a handgun
on the floor nearby.
WITWER
(to Anderson)
Looks like the old days.
Anderson nods to his former partner. Anderson leans over
the body.
ANDERSON
That would be bad news for an
infallible system.
Witwer is suddenly bored.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.
WITWER
We know it can't be a murder -- the
Precogs would've seen it. Why do
you insist on coming to these things?
ANDERSON
Keeps the system honest. And besides,
I like to pretend I'm a cop.
Anderson turns to an officer.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Who's got the Coroner?
Another OFFICER steps forward with a large blue case.
OFFICER
Right here, sir.
The officer places the case beside the corpse, and opens the
latches. Inside the case is a large metallic APPARATUS: the
"Coroner."
It comes to auto-life, and begins to unfold itself - It rises
crab-like, and steps out of its case.
Except for his mouth, the doctor doesn't move. His projected
image stands beside the body, his arms folded behind his
back. He is the interface, the way the humans communicate
with the crab apparatus.
ANDERSON
Hi DOC.
HOLOGRAPHIC DOCTOR
Hello, Director Anderson.
The coroner crab begins to walk the body, which is face down
on the floor. It moves slowly, hesitating as it crawls the
body's back to insert various razor thin probes and core
samplers through the shirt and into the spinal cord.
WITWER
This a homicide, Doc?
HOLOGRAPHIC DOCTOR
I'm presently analyzing neurohormones,
Assistant Director Witwer. I have
not concluded my examination.
The crab engulfs the back of the head, probes the wound.
HOLOGRAPHIC DOCTOR (CONT'D)
I'm detecting carbonization of skull
fragments around the entry wound.
Witwer whispers to Anderson.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
21.
WITWER
Bingo. The guy put the gun to his
own head.
HOLOGRAPHIC DOCTOR
I have not determined that yet,
Assistant Director.
Witwer grins.
WITWER
You have good ears for a ghost, Doc.
The coroner crab steps away from the body.
HOLOGRAPHIC DOCTOR
Please rotate the corpse to the
lateral supine position.
Two officers turn the body face-up. The crab inches close
to probe the face. Disconcertingly, it lifts the eyelids,
and examines the interior of the mouth, so that for a moment
the manipulation makes the corpse seem alive.
Then the crab moves down the trunk and the legs At last, it
comes to a standstill. The holographic Doctor closes his
eyes as if in thought.
WITWER
Can you imagine if this was a
homicide? Who even knows how to
hunt down a killer any more?
Anderson gives him a hard look.
ANDERSON
I know how, dammit. You know how.
WITWER
Easy, partner.
(beat)
But you know what I'm saying. The
state legislatures are pushing to
stop funding for training homicide
detectives ...
ANDERSON
God bless the Precogs.
The Doctor opens his eyes.
HOLOGRAPHIC DOCTOR
This event is a negative homicide.
A mortal wound was generated by a
.22 calibre bullet self-delivered to
the parietal 'portion of the skull
on June 10th, 2040, at 11:57 pm,
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22.
HOLOGRAPHIC DOCTOR (CONT'D)
Eastern Standard Time. This event
is a positive suicide.
The holographic doctor begins to shimmer, then disappears
back into the coroner crab. The crab crawls back into its
case, folds its probes and legs tight to its metal body, and
shuts down.
Witwer turns to Anderson.
WITWER
It's time to stop coming to these,
partner.
Anderson watches as the med techs lift the body onto a
stretcher.
ANDERSON
Yeah. You're right.
INT. A BANQUET - WASHINGTON, D.C. -- NIGHT
Anderson, in black-tie, with Lisa in a shimmering blue gown
at his side, moves through a huge room filled high level
government officials and politicians.
ANDERSON
A little bit of me dies every time I
come to one of these things.
LISA
It's only a party, Paul.
ANDERSON
I'd never have let them appoint me
to Precrime if I'd have known this
was going to be part of it.
LISA
You're exactly what Precrime needed.
An amazing homicide cop and a real
person ANDERSON in an unreal job.
Exactly. The public loves the
Precogs. But they give people the
creeps, too. You're something they
understandp a regular cop running
things.
Anderson sighs as he looks around the elegantly appointed
banquet hall.
ANDERSON
Let's invite all these irregular
assholes over for a barbecue. Burgers
and beer -think they'd come?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
23.
A barrel-chested man with a great shock of pepper gray hair,
SENATOR MALCOLM, 58, takes hold of Anderson's elbow from
behind.
SENATOR MALCOLM
I'd come, Mr. Director. And I'd
make all the other assholes come
with me.
Lisa reddens, Anderson gives an embarrassed cough. The
Senator laughs and claps him on the back.
SENATOR MALCOLM (CONT'D)
Nice job this morning. Another
negative homicide. The Precogs never
let us down.
Mrs. Malcolm smoothly occupies Lisa, while the Senator eases
Anderson in the opposite direction SENATOR MALCOLM I have a
dream, Paul.
ANDERSON
I know you do, Senator.
SENATOR MALCOLM
Hundreds of Precogs. Not just
predicting murders, but predicting
all crimes. Burglary, arson, assaults
...
ANDERSON
How about jaywalking? Littering?
Now there's a crime.
The Senator smiles through his teeth.
SENATOR MALCOLM
I don't want a police state, you
know that. But we have an opportunity
here, and
ANDERSON
No sir, we don't have that
opportunity. There are only three
Precogs. They're a lucky accident
of nature. There are no more.
SENATOR MALCOLM
(beat)
We can make more. Just give me your
support. Help me increase funding
for the Precog Engineering Project.
ANDERSON
Precogs aren't sheep or pigs. Seeing
into the future is a gift, a
nonreproducible event.
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
There was only one Mozart, and there
are only three Precogs.
SENATOR MALCOLM
Fuck Mozart. The people want to be
safe. They want that more than they
want food or love.
He gestures at the room full of glittering partygoers.
SENATOR MALCOLM (CONT'D)
Look at us -it's 2040 and we've
wrapped ourselves up in the 1950's
like a big security blanket. Why?
Because we want to feel like they
felt. Safe.
ANDERSON
Senator, a world filled with hundreds
of Precogs is not my idea of a safe
place.
The Senator gives it one last shot.
SENATOR MALCOLM
Sure could use your help, Paul.
ANDERSON
I decline, Senator. I'm sorry.
SENATOR MALCOLM
(icily)
Don't think I'll come to your barbecue
after all.
The senator moves off. Anderson stands stiffly among the
sea of black-ties and exquisite fifties dresses.
INT. PRECOG ENGINEERING LAB - CHEVY CHASE, MD DAY
Anderson walks through the lab with a tall, pale man, DR,
RESFIELD, 60, the head scientist. It is not a place that
warms Anderson's heart.
Biotechnicians work at long stainless steel tables dissecting
and examining protoplasmic tissue masses. Other technicians
peer through massive microscopes. Still others use robotic
arms to manipulate radioactive organics behind leaded-glass
barriers.
DR. RESFIELD
You don't get out here much.
ANDERSON
Not my sort of place.
Dr. Resfield emits a dry little laugh.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
25.
DR. RESFIELD
The head of Precrime squeamish?
ANDERSON
When it comes to needles and scalpels,
yeah.
DR. RESFIELD
I promise we won't use any on you.
ANDERSON
What do you use them on?
DR. RESFIELD
(beat)
On bits of this and that.
Anderson looks at him. The doctor pauses outside a thick
door. An IdentiScan device quickly reads their eyes, and
the door opens with an electronic hiss.
Anderson looks around the lab. Technicians lower mesh
cylinders into some sort of chemical VAT. Another technician
turns a dial, and an electric charge courses through the
roiling liquid.
ANDERSON
What's happening here?
DR. RESFIELD
We're in an interesting phase.
ANDERSON
What's in the cylinders?
DR. RESFIELD
Neurotissue.
ANDERSON
From ...?
DR. RESFIELD
A fusion of sources. From the
Precogs' deceased mother. From the
Precogs themselves.
ANDERSON
A fusion of ... ?
DR. RESFIELD
In lay terms, we mated sperm from
the brothers with ova from the mother
and sister to create new growth.
The CYLINDERS shudder as the voltage is increased.
DR. RESFIELD (CONT'D)
And then we add mutating variables.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
26.
Anderson stares into the roiling vat. Dr. Resfield waits
for more questions. But it is clear from Anderson's
expression he has already learned enough.
INT. ANDERSON'S OFFICE -- DAY
Anderson sits in his office reviewing Precog discs for
premurders in the local Washington area We stay on him as he
watches the monitor. He pops the disc, jots down some notes,
slides in the next disc.
Anderson's mouth slowly opens. He leans close to the monitor,
his face ashen.
EXT. FRANK D'IGNAZIO'S BACKYARD -- LATER
Frank is on his hands and knees, working his vegetable garden.
He whistles softly under his breath as he trowels the rich
soil.
He sits up as he hears someone open the garden gate. He
lifts his straw hat in greeting, gives a smile. It's
ANDERSON.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
What are you doing, playing hooky?
Anderson tries to smile. But it won't come. He looks around
the abundant garden.
ANDERSON
It's great out here, Frank.. You got
the touch.
Frank straightens with a grimace.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
I got the arthritis, is what I got.
Anderson reflexively looks up at a high WHINING sound from
over head. Frank follows his gaze. A Precrime HOVERCRAFT
glides into position overhead.
Frank stares, then lowers his eyes to the ground. He takes
a long sad breath.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO (CONT'D)
Ah shit, neighbor.
(beat)
Goddamn Precogs don't miss a beat,
do they?
(beat)
Can we do this inside? Ellie's not
home.
Anderson's voice is full of pain.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
27.
ANDERSON
Sure, Frank. Yeah.
INT. FRANK'S KITCHEN -- MOMENTS LATER
Frank wanders the kitchen, trying to focus on his situation.
Anderson has trouble meeting his friend's eyes.
Through a window we can see black suited police officers
with mirrored helmets swarming outside Frank's house.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
(distracted)
I thought I'd buried it all.
Thirty-five years -- all those minutes
and days to bury it.
(beat)
But suddenly you see the man who
murdered your daughter walking the
streets -- my God it throws you.
Frank stops pacing. He stares at a kitchen drawer.
ANDERSON
He'd served his time, Frank. I know
it's not fair. It's way beyond not
fair ...
Frank looks. At Anderson bitterly.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
(yells)
God damn the Precogs. You know?
Why couldn't they have been around
to save my girl?
(softly)
Now they're catching me.
Frank reaches into the drawer and pulls out a small handgun.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO (CONT'D)
I really shoot the bastard, huh?
When?
ANDERSON
Next Wednesday, at noon.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
Good.
Anderson's cop eyes are all over the gun.
ANDERSON
It's not in you, Frank, to kill
anybody.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
28.
FRANK D'IGRAZIO
Tell it to the Precogs. It's set in
stone now, right?
Frank puts the gun on the kitchen counter. Anderson relaxes.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
(almost inaudible)
I don't want to be a part of this
world anymore.
ANDERSON
I know, Frank.
Frank gives Anderson a look -- no, friend, you don't know.
Then Frank looks hard at the gun on the counter.
FRANK D'IGNAZIO
(beat)
21 Tell me, Paul. Do the Precogs
see everything?
ANDERSON
No.
FRANK D'IGRAZIO
Then they won't have seen this.
Frank suddenly snatches up the gun and presses it to his own
head. On Anderson's anguished FACE, at the SOUND of the gun
going off.
EXT. FRONT YARD -- LATER
Anderson stands with his old partner, Witwer, on Frank's
front porch. Behind them, through an open door, we see Lisa
comforting Ellie D'Ignazio in the living room.
Anderson is deeply shaken. Witwer tries to talk him through
it.
WITWER (GENTLY)
We had to bring him in.
Anderson doesn't respond.
WITWER (CONT'D)
He was a future murderer.
ANDERSON
(angrily)
You blame him? The guy killed his
daughter!
Witwer lets the implication of his words sink in.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Yeah. I know. I know.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
29.
Anderson turns and watches as they wheel Frank's draped body
into the back of an ambulance. Anderson's bitterness erupts.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
I hate the Precogs, Ed. I believe in
them absolutely and I hate them
absolutely. Jesus.
Witwer listens to him.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
And that goddamn lab trying to grow
more of them. Put a Precog in every
home, you know? So we can have more
Franks -people shooting themselves --
over who knows what?
Witwer kneads Anderson's shoulder, talks to him in soothing
tones like you'd calm an agitated horse.
WITWER
Precrime did the job it was supposed
to do.
The two men can hear Ellie sobbing inside the house.
WITWER (CONT'D)
You know it. And you believe in it.
ANDERSON (BEAT)
Yeah.
WITWER
It's not easy. It beats us down.
Ellie in there -- no doubt she hates
you right now.
Anderson turns to Witwer.
ANDERSON
That's why I got into this business
-- to be hated.
Anderson almost manages a small smile. Witwer puts his arm
around him. Walks him away from the scene.
WITWER
They hated us when we were regular
cops. Now we're Precrime, and they
still hate US. It's one of the little
perks of law enforcement nobody knows
about.
Their quiet laughter is tinged with sadness. Anderson looks
into his partner's good, open face. Then they both look
away, their understanding of each other complete.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
30.
INT. ANDERSON'S BEDROOM -- LATE NIGHT
Anderson stares out the window at Frank's house, illuminated
by the moon. It's a mournful sight.
Lisa rises on an elbow and watches him from the bed.
Lisa rises on an elbow and watches him from the bed.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS-ALEXANDRIA-DAY - ONE WEEK LATER
Ennis Page, in the mainframe room just off the Precog Chamber,
picks up a black BRIEFCASE marked: "Zone 218 Washington /
Alexandria, VA." He approaches the door, and his eyes are
scanned. The door opens with a HISS.
We follow Page as he walks through doors and corridors until
he reaches a long hallway leading to the Director's office.
Anderson's secretary, Angela, looks up on Page's approach.
She nods. He nods.
He walks around her desk. His eyes are scanned, and the
door to Anderson's office opens.
ANDERSON looks up, wearily.
INT. ANDERSON'S OFFICE -- LATER
Anderson inserts a disc into the video monitor, almost
absently. As we have seen him do before, he swivels his
chair away from the monitor, and stares at Washington D.C.
across the Potomac. Hovercrafts and transports skim through
the sky above the Washington Monument.
The camera stays on Anderson's back as the sound from the
Precog disc begins. He hears his own voice speaking in
strained, agitated tones.
ANDERSON O.S.
Let's not do this, Ed.
Anderson slowly swivels around and stares with disbelief and
horror at the monitor.
THE MONITOR
shows Anderson and Witwer in a room, a few feet apart pointing
guns directly at each other. Their eyes intense and panicked.
Who murders whom?
Ed's eyes cut to a huge digital clock on the wall as the red
seconds tumble away.
ANDERSON
Oh, Ed ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
31.
Witwer lowers his gun. He stands unresisting before
Anderson.
Witwer sees his own death in Anderson's wild eyes, has always
seen it.
Anderson FIRES his weapon, puts a bullet straight into
Witwer's heart, throwing him back against a wall. Witwer
slumps, dying, beneath the huge digital clock, which reads:
5:20 AM.
BACK TO SCENE
Anderson stares as the monitor fades to a blank. His hand
goes to his mouth. His body begins to shake. He hugs
himself, but he can't stop the shaking.
The DISC pops out of the side of the monitor. It is a small
SOUND, but it has Anderson up and out of his chair as if it
were a gunshot, He reaches for the disc but cannot touch it.
His legs suddenly weaken, and he drops to one knee beside
his desk, like a man in need of prayer.
There is a single thought that screams through his brain.
It is an almost visible thing, filling the room, blackly.
Anderson whispers the sickening words that shape his fate.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
I kill you.
(beat)
Oh god, I kill you.
As Anderson pulls himself up, and tries to reach again for
the disc ...
CUT TO:
INT. THE PRECOG CHAMBER
In an image just like the scene in the beginning of the movie,
the three FACES of the Precogs hover in the misty darkness.
Their closed eyes open in SUDDEN UNISON. They speak as one.
ALL THREE
Murderer!
After a long moment, the eyes close again, and the Precogs
fade into the mists ...
CUT TO:
INT. ANDERSON'S OFFICE
Anderson looks up sharply at the SOUND of a knock on his
door. Every normal sound seems grotesquely AMPLIFIED, the
traffic outside, his own breathing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
32.
His senses are on overload.
The door begins to open. A stockinged leg is the first thing
Anderson sees. His secretary, ANGELA.
ANGELA
Sir?
She hesitates before fully entering the room, Anderson grabs
at the incriminating disc. He sees his EYES reflected in
its alloy surface. He pushes the disc deep into his pants
pocket.
Somehow he finds his voice.
ANDERSON
Come in. Angela.
She looks at him, uncertain. Then she places a small stack
of papers on his desk.
ANGELA
Need you to sign these. And your
eleven o'clock starts in five minutes.
ANDERSON
My ... eleven.
ANGELA
(beat)
Budget coordination with the FBI.
(beat)
You okay, sir?
Anderson runs his hand through his hair, can't think fast
enough. He sees her glance at the black Precog disc case.
He shuts it, awkwardly, and it auto-locks.
ANDERSON
Have Page take this.
Angela steps back, disturbed.
ANGELA
But sir, the procedure
ANDERSON (SNAPS)
I make procedure. Call him.
(long beat)
I'm not okay, Angela ... you're right.
My head and stomach. I'm going down to the clinic. Or maybe
just home.
Angela looks relieved at the explanation.
ANGELA
Yes sir.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
33.
He moves past her. His FINGERS fidget against the hidden
disc in his pocket.
ANDERSON
I'll speak to Witwer, put him in
charge for the rest of the day.
He hesitates at the door, turns to look at his office, and
at his view of Washington. Then he is gone.
INT. OUTSIDE WITWER'S OFFICE -- MOMENTS LATER
Anderson looks in the door Of Witwer's empty office. He
takes a step inside.
Witwer's booming voice sounds from behind him, startling
him.
WITWER
Breaking and entering. That'll get
you five to ten, hard.
Witwer immediately scans his old partner's ashen face.
WITWER (CONT'D)
What's wrong?
Anderson can hardly bear to meet his friend's eyes. He
REACHES into his pocket, as if to lift the disc into the
light. If he could just do that, show it to Witwer.
WITWER Paul?
Anderson's hand comes out of his pocket, EMPTY.
ANDERSON
Take over for me today?
WITWER
You sick?
ANDERSON
Yeah.
Witwer makes a show of backing away.
WITWER
Don't give it to me. You probably
have that Trans-10 virus going around.
A stomach thing. I hate stomach
things.
Anderson Almost smiles.
ANDERSON
Ed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
34.
WITWER
Yeah?
Witwer looks at him. Anderson almost reaches out for him.
ANDERSON
Run the place, okay?
WITWER
(smiles)
Sure. Right into the ground.
(beat)
Go on home before I call Infectious
Control and have them spray you down
with something.
Anderson moves unsteadily down the hallway. Witwer calls
out.
WITWER (CONT'D)
You want me to do the discs, or hold
them for you to review when you get
back?
ANDERSON
Can't let them back up. Do 'em.
WITWER
Call you later. Take it easy, all
right?
Witwer lifts his hand in farewell, Anderson fixes on that
last image -- Witwer waving goodbye.
INT. PRECRIME UNDERGROUND GARAGE -- LATER
Anderson, sweating now, leans against a thick cement pillar
and pulls out a cell phone. He hits a button.
INTERCUT BETWEEN ANDERSON / LISA AT THE JUDICIAL CENTER
Lisa sits in a meeting. Her phone CHIRPS softly. She glances
at the display, then rises to take it. She goes to a corner
of the room.
LISA
Paul?
ANDERSON
Listen to me.
Lisa presses her phone close to her ear.
LISA
I can hardly hear you.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
35.
ANDERSON
I'm underground. Weakens the signal
so it can't be picked up.
Alarm moves across her face.
LISA
But we're on Secure
ANDERSON
Listen, dammit! I'm going to murder
Ed.
The Precogs picked it up.
On Lisa -- can she have heard right?
LISA
Paul. Paul His crackling voice
faintly comes through the phone.
ANDERSON'S VOICE
... home.
Lisa's phone goes dead.
BACK TO ANDERSON
Anderson looks down a long row of parked Precrime ground
transports. They are sleek and menacing, the black shells
lumpy with dangerous gadgetry. In the distance, a POLICE
OFFICER, holding an armful of equipment, opens the back of
one of them.
He looks up at Anderson's approach. He puts his equipment
down, and salutes.
POLICE OFFICER
Hello, sir.
Anderson nods, moves close.
ANDERSON
What's your name, officer?
POLICE OFFICER
Bob, uh, Robert Smythe.
ANDERSON
These the new Python transports?
The young officer turns and looks at the transport with pride,
is about to speak, when Anderson touches a palm-sized Nova
stun gun to the base of his neck.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
(sincerely)
Sorry, Officer Smythe.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
36.
The officer buckles. Anderson catches him, rolls him gently
into the back of the transport.
Then Anderson quickly reaches into the transport, and begins
stuffing equipment into a duffel bag: a helmet and black
uniform, the weapon-glove, a folded rifle, a holographic
scanner, and other equipment whose function we can only guess
at.
Anderson looks up at a sound, echoey FOOTSTEPS. They
approach, then fade away.
Anderson places the officer's hands and legs together, then
aims a nozzled cylinder at them. He shoots a spray of blue
BindFoam chemical restraint, sticking the man to the floor
of the transport in an adhesive glob.
Then he leaves the scene, running.
INT. ANDERSON'S CHEVY
Anderson grips the wheel of his Chevy, driving down 1-95.
The fact that he can't control his car -- that the steering
wheel has no function, his speed is predetermined, and his
direction is guided by satellite -- is maddening now.
From inside the cars that glide along beside him people turn
and look curiously at the man who is actually gripping his
steering wheel.
Anderson slams it with his fist. Through his windshield
Anderson sees a four year old boy in the driver's seat of a
passing red and black Ford. His mother sits in the
passenger's seat, blithely reading. The boy mimics Anderson,
gleefully slams his steering wheel too, then laughs.
Anderson turns and looks the other way, into the distance,
at the "Sprawl,' the vast unzoned city attached to Washington
D.C. You can see it in his face: a man could lose himself in
there.
EXT. POTOMAC PARK
Anderson stands on an embankment. He holds the Precog disc
in his hand, ready to throw it into the river.
He stands like that ... and then slowly lets his hand drop.
He doesn't do it.
INT. ANDERSON'S HOME - SUBURBS -- LATER
Lisa enters the house, in a rush. Every shade is drawn.
Paul Anderson sits in an overstuffed chair, absolutely
motionless, like a man who has died suddenly.
ANDERSON
Don't move.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
37.
Lisa doesn't get it. She continues toward him.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Stop! Moving heats you up, makes it
easier for them to pick you up on
their thermals.
She looks at him, scared, stops in her tracks. She is
suddenly suffocating.
LISA
It's a hundred degrees in here.
ANDERSON
I turned the furnace all the way up.
Your hair dryer. The oven. If they
come, it'll buy me twenty seconds.
Maybe thirty.
LISA
Nobody's coming for you.
Anderson stares at her.
LISA (CONT'D)
On the phone -- what you said. It's
impossible.
She shakes her head in disbelief. Anderson speaks, choking
on the words.
ANDERSON
I'm going to kill Ed Witwer.
LISA
It's not true.
Anderson's right hand hangs over the side of his armchair.
We see the bright DISC cupped in the palm. He seems about
to reveal it to her, but doesn't, yet. He keeps staring at
her intently. Something is holding him back.
LISA (CONT'D)
You're upset. You've been unhappy.
There's a lot of pressure on you.
And then Frank ...
ANDERSON
One week from today. Tuesday, June
25, at five-twenty in the morning.
I shoot him, Lisa.
LISA
(beat)
You need to take time off.
Anderson laughs harshly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
38.
ANDERSON
You don't have to worry about that.
She steps toward him.
LISA
(gently)
I want to hold you.
ANDERSON
If you love me, stand there. And
don't move.
Tears well in her eyes.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
I saw the disc, Lisa. I shoot him.
In the chest. And he dies. I I've
watched a thousand murders. This
time I star in one.
LISA
Something's wrong. You wouldn't do
it.
ANDERSON
The Precogs are never wrong. They
emit a single disc. "The immutable
evidence of the infallible system."
The room is terribly hot, his words -- she begins to sway
unsteadily.
Anderson focuses on her. Her face. Her hair ...
LISA
We'll figure this out. We'll review
the system.
ANDERSON
There is no review. There's only
the disc. It Shows My quilt. There's
no defense.
Her long hair. He stares.
LISA
You can't run. Please, let's --
A SOUND outside. They both turn. A deep silence. The
furnace churns out heat. And Anderson looks at Lisa's hair
... and finally understands.
Slowly, and very carefully, Anderson slides the DISC back
into his pocket. He rises from his chair. For the first
time he goes to her, reaches out, and touches her hair.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
39.
ANDERSON
Last week. It was strange. I watched
from the bathroom window. You went
out in the backyard to make a call
She looks at him.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
An appointment, you said. For a
haircut that afternoon.
Lisa's hand jumps to her hair.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
You didn't get your hair cut. You
went to the trouble of calling first
thing in the morning. It was that
important ...
She reaches for him. He pulls away.
LISA
Stop it! Paul, please. You're
panicking. Everything's going to
look wrong. You're going to distrust
everybody and everything now.
Lisa implores him.
LISA (CONT'D)
You can't distrust me.
(beat)
It was Ed I called.
Anderson cocks his head.
ANDERSON
Ed. why outside? Why lie about it?
LISA
Stop being a cop and listen to me!
A booming, electronically altered VOICE suddenly penetrates
the walls of the house from outside.
VOICE (O.S.)
Director Anderson! There is no
escape!
Anderson, betrayed, glares at his wife. She's frantic.
LISA
Your birthday's tomorrow! We wanted
to But be's already on the move,
running for the upstairs.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
40.
VOICE (O.S.)
Drop to your hands and knees and
stay there. Precrime is entering
your house!
Lisa screams, as her front door is sonically BLASTED off its
hinges, and a swarm of Precrime officers in mirrored helmets
hurtle in.
LISA
Paull They move past her and spread
through the rooms and up the stairs
like a disease in fast motion.
UPSTAIRS
Helmeted officers hold their gloved right bands palm out,
scanning rooms for thermal presence.
An OFFICER I steps out of a small room. He speaks, his voice
electronically altered.
OFFICER I
He Is got a hair dryer going. Screwed
up my reading.
The others nod.
OFFICER 2
We're not picking up shit.
They rush into rooms, with increased urgency. We follow
OFFICER I as he moves counter to the group and down the
stairs.
He hesitates as he moves through the living room, which is
awash in personnel. Lisa stands against the wall, pale and
shaken. He looks at her for a long beat, then steps over
the shattered door and out into the sunlight.
OUTSIDE
Everywhere else in the neighborhood it is green and calm.
But Anderson's house looks like a wasps's nest someone has
kicked. Four Precrime hovercrafts are suspended above it,
engines WHINING. Black Python transports are all over the
street out in front, and more keep coming.
And everywhere on foot, there are Precrime police. OFFICER
I approaches a Python ground transport. Another officer
guards it, weapon out, his head turning right to left. He
settles on OFFICER I's approach and raises his weapon.
OFFICER 1 doesn't even break stride. He walks right up to
the guard -- and then right through him. A holograph decoy.
OFFICER 1 enters the Python.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
41.
INSIDE THE PYTHON
OFFICER 1 removes his helmet -- it's Anderson. And then
comes the moment of truth -- have they cancelled his
IdentiScan access to Precrime vehicles yet?
A little scanner arm arches down from the visor, and flashes
a red beam into his eyes. Anderson presses his lips together.
The Python turns on, and a generated voice greets him.
VOICE
Paul Anderson 0256 clear.
Anderson grips the steering wheel. But his time, since it
is a law enforcement. Vehicle, the steering actually works.
Anderson pulls out.
FROM ABOVE, as the Python transport slips away from the chaos.
THEN HIGHER, and we see that the direction the Python is
headed will take it from the green of the suburbs, through
the white of Washington, and into the dark of The Sprawl.
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS -- DAY
Ed Witwer sits alone in an antechamber. He stares at an
oversized oak door, then looks down at the floor.
He runs both hands through his hair. He is tired, his eyes
weary, lost.
A voice comes over the intercom.
VOICE
Enter now please, Assistant Director
Witwer.
Witwer pulls himself together, and opens the door.
INT. A CONFERENCE ROOM
Witwer takes a seat at the end of a long table.
Powerful men sit at the other end of the table. SWANSON,
sharp-boned, the FBI Director. CRONIN, awl-like eyes, the
CIA Director. Senator Malcolm. Chief Justice POLLARD, whose
face reveals nothing. Vice-President ALMER, whose tongue
darts across his dry lips unsettlingly. Unpleasant looking
men in an unpleasant mood.
Cronin looks up from a printout he's been reading and stares
at Witwer.
CIA CRONIN
The central question is: Why does
Anderson want to kill Witwer?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
42.
Cronin holds up the printout.
CIA CRONIN (CONT'D)
We checked your finances. His
finances. Nothing irregular, you
don't steal from him, he doesn't
steal from you. You haven't done
anything that he might have
discovered, and vice versa.
Swanson holds up another sheath of papers.
FBI SWANSON
Personnel checks reveal no ambitious
coups planned by you to topple him.
(beat)
He's done nothing to you, or you to
him.
Witwer presses his lips together.
VICE-PRESIDENT ALMER
You fucking his wife?
WITWER
No.
FBI SWANSON
HIS MOTHER? HIS BROTHER?
Witwer gives him a bad look.
FBI SWANSON (CONT'D)
Okay. There we are.
JUSTICE POLLARD
So, you are friends, partners, and
soul mates. Anderson has no motive.
WITWER
I can't think of one.
(beat)
Maybe JUSTICE POLLARD The Precogs
are mistaken?
Witwer looks away. Jesus, he wants out of this room.
JUSTICE POLLARD
You don't believe that, do you?
WITWER
(barely audible)
No. The Precogs are infallible.
Senator Malcolm is impatient with all this.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
43.
SENATOR MALCOLM
You're goddam right. So, gentlemen
-screw the motive. We got a
pre-murderer on the run, and a nasty
little PR problem.
The very powerful men level their unpleasant gazes on Witwer.
VICE-PRESIDENT ALMER
And here is our solution. You are
now Director Witwer.
Witwer shakes his head, starts to protest. Almer silences
him with a raised finger.
VICE-PRESIDENT ALMER (CONT'D)
Precrime must demonstrate its
willingness to go after one of its
own. Total impartiality.
WITWER
Now look--
Cronin talks right over him.
CIA CRONIN
The public must believe that every
future murderer is pursued with equal
vigor.
FBI SWANSON
Therefore, Precrime will put in charge
the man best suited to the job. And
who would pursue a murderer harder
... than his intended victim?
JUSTICE POLLARD
You went after Anderson yesterday
-because it was right, and because
you believe.
Almer speaks with a tight irony.
VICE-PRESIDENT ALMER
And your belief will certainly grow
stronger with each tick of the clock.
Witwer looks at the men with thinly-veiled hatred. But he
does not deny their words.
JUSTICE POLLARD
Haw long will it take, Director?
Wiltwer takes a long breath, concentrates his mind on the
task he can't avoid.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
44.
WITWER
He knows Precrime, of course. And
the streets -- he's rusty, but he'll
remember how to work them. It'll
come back to him fast. He's ... the
best.
Witwer almost smiles. Justice Pollard's not smiling.
JUSTICE POLLARD
We're not here to praise Caesar --
we're here to bury him.
Witwer looks at Pollard, then lifts a finger and touches his
right eye.
WITWER
He can't avoid iris identification.
Every door he opens, every ATM he
uses, or taxi or transport he boards
-- he'll get scanned.
(quietly)
It won't take long to find him The
eyes that look back at Witwer
areunblinking.
EXT. THE SPRAWL NIGHT
The unzoned city is full of 1950's iconography, but it all
feels different than it did in the suburbs. Where the burbs
were Ike, the city is Joseph McCarthy.
The fat Ramblers and Studebakers have a little grime on them.
The women's dresses are tighter and more urgent, the men's
suits have some shine at the elbows. You look over your
shoulder here, move faster, and smile a lot less.
And some streets you don't go on at all. Anderson's Python
moves down one of them. He stops under a blackened suspension
bridge, gets out. He's still in uniform. He holds a duffel
bag.
He starts to walk away from the Python, then hesitates.
He's left the door open. He shakes his head at his
sloppiness. Goes back and shuts the door. Walks away again.
INSIDE THE CAR
He's left a small DEVICE on the passenger's seat. Digital
numbers shoot by in reverse. Something CLICKS.
OUTSIDE THE CAR
Anderson continues walking away. He doesn't look back as
the Python is engulfed in a miniature sun of heat and flame.
It's not a gasoline powered vehicle -- so it doesn't explode.
It just ceases to exist.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
45.
EXT. ORANGE DRY CLEANERS - -- NIGHT LATER
Through a smeared window Anderson sees racks of suits and
dresses hanging in clear plastic bags. He gets to work on
the door.
INT. ANDERSON'S HOUSE -- NIGHT
Lisa lies in her bed, alone in the dark. She listens to an
almost inaudible sound, a high WHINE.
EXT. ANDERSON'S HOUSE
A Precrime HOVERCRAFT floats high above her house, a dark
moon in the low clouds.
EXT. ORANGE DRY CLEANERS -- EARLY MORNING
A worker stands in the back of the store puzzling over the
clean clothes piled on the floor. It almost looks like a
nest, like someone slept there
EXT. SUBWAY LATER
Anderson, in a blue suit and fedora, carrying his duffel
bag, stands on a subway platform. He takes out a cell phone,
dials a number. He looks up at the SOUND of a train.
The approaching MagLev train has a lit sign on its front
car: "33rd Street Express."
CUT TO:
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS
Search and Command room. Witwer moves up and down the aisles,
past technicians who man computers and holographic tracking
displays.
A Precrime TECHNICIAN 1 suddenly sits upright. Witwer picks
him out of the cgowd and zeroes in.
TECHNICIAN
I It's Anderson.
Witwer grabs a phone, punches a button
WITWER
Paull The technicians scramble to
pinpoint Anderson on a
Glowing holographic MAP.
CUT TO:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
46.
EXT. SUBWAY STATION
Anderson, holding his phone, is IdentiScanned along with
everyone else as he steps onto the train.
CUT TO:
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS
Another TECHNICIAN 2 calls out to Witwer. Witwer covers his
phone mouthpiece.
TECHNICIAN 2
He's been Scanned. He's on the 33rd
Street Subway!
TECHNICIAN 1 Calls from the other side of the room
TECHNICIAN
His cell phone tracks for The Sprawl.
We got him on the Subway, tool
CUT TO:
INT. SUBWAY CAR
Anderson sits on a seat in the rear of the car.
ANDERSON
Why am I going to kill you,Ed?
INTERCUT:ANDERSON ON THE SUBWAY /WITWER AT PRECRIME
WITWER
There's no motive
ANDERSON
My wife calling you before breakfast?
WITWER
We were planning a surprise party.
It was going to be today.
(beat, ironic)
Happy birthday, partner.
ANDERSON
This party's no fun, Ed. It's a hell
of a surprise, though.
(beat)
I'm having trouble trusting people,
Ed, I gotta tell you.
At Precrime, they upload a MAP DISPLAY of the Express train's
route. We see a blue light moving -- the train. And two
separate red dots along its route.
An OFFICER points at the dots, and speaks to Witwer in a low
voice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
47.
OFFICER
The train makes two stops, here and
here: 20th, then 33rd Street.
Witwer covers the Mouthpiece
WITWER
(to the officer)
Split the units, go to both
OFFICER
We'll never make 20th Witwer waves
him away -- do your job. Now.
ANDERSON
You there, Ed?
WITWER
I'm here. You gotta come in, Paul .
ANDERSON
I'm a Cop, Ed. I need a motive.
WITWER
Come in. We'll figure this thing
out together.
CUT TO:
EXT. THE SPRAWL
Precrime transports zoom through the city
CUT TO:
INT. THE SUBWAY TRAIN
Anderson looks out the window into the tunnel dark. He talks
to Witwer.
INTERCUT: ANDERSON/WITWER
WITWER
It'll get ugly if you keep running.
And your eyes, Paul -- every move
you make a Scanner will pinpoint you
for us.
ANDERSON
I saw a news flash. You're the new
Director. Is that the point of this?
WITWER
Fuck you.
Anderson smiles.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
48.
ANDERSON
Didn't think so. But it has to be
something, Ed.
Witwer looks at the DISPLAY MAP. We see the blue train
nearing its first stop, 20th street. We see two waves of
lighted green dots -- Precrime units heading for 20th and
33rd.
WITWER
Paul. Come in.
Anderson sees an overhead light come on in the train: "Next
Stop 20th Street.
ANDERSON
If I come in, it puts me close to
you. If I get close ... I may kill
you. I can't risk that.
(beat)
Anyway, they'd force you to lock me
up. And that'd be it -- I'd never
get my chance to solve this thing.
Witwer needs to keep him talking
WITWER
You're kinds liking this, in a way,
aren't you? The action ...
ANDERSON
And you get to be a real cop again.
We get to flex our muscles.
CUT TO:
EXT. 20TH STREET SUBWAY STATION
Precrime vehicles pull up. Hovercrafts appear in the sky
above.
CUT TO:
INT. 20TH STREET SUBWAY STATION
Anderson's train is just finishing off-loading passengers.
The doors close and the train begins to pull out as the first
helmeted Precrime officers flood the platform.
One of them points.
CLOSE
ON: A TRAIN WINDOW
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
49.
Anderson is visible through the window, talking on his cell
phone.
CUT TO:
INT.PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS
Witwer stares at the map. The train has stopped at 20th
street. But Anderson's still talking. He isn't getting off
-- he's going on to 33rd Street, the last stop.
Technician 2 presses his earphone close, listens, then calls
over to Witwer. Witwer covers his mouthpiece.
TECHNICIAN 2
We have visual verification -- he's
still on the train.
Witwer gives him a thumb's up. We STAY ON Witwer as he
listens to Anderson, and watches his train move toward 33rd
on the MAP.
ANDERSON'S VOICE
I want to tell you something, partner.
You listening?
Witwer nods. Now the MAP shows all the Precrime units
swarming toward the 33rd Street subway station.
WITWER
Yeah.
ANDERSON'S VOICE
I gotta do this. I have to figure
this thing out.
(beat)
But listen to me now. If it was you
running, I'd come after you, Ed.
Witwer stares at the MAP, at all the units he's sent after
his friend.
ANDERSON'S VOICE (CONT'D)
You're a cop. And I'm a future
murderer.
(beat)
Do your job, Ed. Come after me hard.
Because, Jesus Christ, I wouldn't
sleep or eat until I had tracked you
down and put a gun to your head.
CUT TO:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
50.
EXT. 33RD STREET SUBWAY
Precrime officers pour down the stairs toward the train
platform.
CUT TO:
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS
Witwer watches on the MAP at all the little symbols merging
together, like a gameboard -- but this game ends in a reallife
confrontation between one man and an army of them.
WITWER
You wouldn't shoot a cop would you,
Paul?
(beat)
Paul? Paull He looks urgently to
the phone technician
TECHNICIAN
I He's still on the line.
Witwer presses his ear to the phone. He can hear the subway
make its STOP. Then he hears a chorus of mechanized VOICES
-the voices of the Precrime police, the SCREAMS of panicked
passengers
VOICES ON ANDERSON'S PHONE
Police. Everyone down on your hands
and knees!
(then)
Oh, shit.
CUT TO:
INT.SUBWAY TRAIN
The Precrime officers aim the index barrels of their
gloveweapons at ANDERSON, who sits blithely on a seat, holding
his cell phone to his ear.
Anderson begins to shimmer, then dematerialize ghost-like,
into nothingness. He was a holographic decoy.
What is actually there on the train seat is Anderson's cell
phone. Rigged to its mouthpiece is a tiny digital voice
recorder.
CUT TO:
INT. 20TH STREET SUBWAY
Anderson trots up the stairs and safely out onto the streets
of The Sprawl.
DISSOLVE TO:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
51.
EXT. STREET - THE SPRAWL -- NIGHT
Every city has its underbelly. If you lifted the fat dark
underbelly of The Sprawl this is where you'd end up.
The streets here feel like alleys, clotted and tight. There
are streetlights, bright ones -- but the light dies at its
source, never makes it through the sour air down to the
ground.
The retro fifties look comes apart here. The people that
you see -- and you only catch quick glimpses of them, they
move like rats -- wear black mostly, tight fitting
tech-fibers.
ANDERSON'S caught one of the rats, a thin bald guy in black.
Anderson has him pinned up against a wall. They're having
some kind of exchange -- which consists of the guy answering
none of Anderson's questions, and Anderson pressing him harder
against the wall.
Finally, the guy does something odd. He lifts a finger and
pulls down Anderson's right lower eyelid. Anderson lets
him. Then the guy does the same on the left. Has a long
look. And then nods. Anderson releases him, and they go
off together.
EXT. AN APARTMENT BUILDING -- LATER
An oppressive brick thing on a side street. The facade is
crumbling. Nothing good happens in a building like this..
The guy leads Anderson to the building, then scurries off
into the night.
INT. ROOM -- LATER
A stained overstuffed chair in the corner, a dreary little
kitchen with crusted dishes in the sink.
But jarringly, in the center of all this, is a make-shift
hypertech medical setup: a gleaming operating table, an array
of lasers, scalpels and surgical equipment, an anesthesia
console.
Anderson sits in a chair facing DOC. DOC is a big man with
delicate fingers. He sneezes, then blows his nose hard into
a handkerchief.
DOC
Got a cold.
Anderson looks at him uneasily. It's not just DOC -- it's
the whole setup, the needles and scalpels, the medical thing,
which Anderson truly does not care for. Doc sneezes again,
then looks up at his patient.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
52.
DOC (CONT'D)
Don't worry. I could cut open your
chest, sew a dead cat in there, and
you'd never get an infection. Not
with the spectrum antibios I'll be
shooting into you.
ANDERSON
I'm not hem for cat surgery,Doc.
Doc chuckles. Then he waits, expectantly.
Anderson hands him a tiny opalescent card. A preset cash
card. DOC slides it into small console, watches the numbers
flash up. He frowns, sighs.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
It's all I could safely move
He waits. Doc's not thrilled, but finally, he nods.
DOC
Yeah. All right.
Time to got down to business. Doc walks over to a large
medical cabinet and opens the door. It's full of EYES, and
parts of eyes -- 611 ! A cryo-jars.
Anderson tightens.
DOC (CONT'D)
You understand what I told you then.
I can't just give you new irises.
The Scanners will read the scar
tissue. Alarms will go off.
ANDERSOIN
I'm a cop, I know
DOC
I gotta take your eyes out.
Anderson knows this, too, wishes Doc would shut up ANDERSON
Yeah.
DOC (CONT'D)
And put in new ones.
ANDERSON
Yeah. I get it, DOC.
Anderson rises up out of his chair and goes over to the
operating table. He lies down.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Do me quick before I run out of here.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
53.
Anderson lies there, blinking up at the ceiling. He listens
to Doc preparing instrument trays. It's a bad sound.
EXT. THE SPRAWL -- DAY
The suspension bridge where we saw Anderson vaporize the
Python transport. Witwer stands watching as a Precrime
techno-unit sifts through the white ashes.
Witwer lifts his face to the acrid breeze coursing off the
Potomac. It's a pose a track dog might hold, nose up, testing
the air for a scent.
INT. BOARDING HOUSE ROOM - THE SPRAWL -- DAY
We can't see anything at first, because Anderson can't see
anything either. He's in a deep post-surgical haze. DOC'S
voice comes to him. It's warped and ugly.
DOC'S VOICE
Don't take the bandages off for twenty
four hours. You'll go blind if you
do.
Anderson makes an affirmative grunt Now we see his
surroundings, even though Anderson still can't. He lies in
a grungy bed, his head and eyes swathed in white dressings.
Doc stands over him.
DOC
You're in a room. I had you moved
here, a couple miles from my place.
If they find you, they don't find
me.
Anderson grunts weakly.
DOC (CONT'D)
A guy will come in, feed you once.
(beat)
I juiced up the nano-reconstruction
around your new eyes, 'cause I know
you're in a hurry.
ANDERSON
(Fuzzily))
Nano-re ...construction.
DOC
Organic microrobots that reconstruct
nerves and blood vessels. It'll
feel like fleas chewing on your
eyeballs. Don't scratch.
Anderson is already reaching his hands for his bandages.
Doc forces them away.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
54.
DOC (CONT'D)
I'm giving you a bonus, might come
in handy. Feel this.
Doc takes an air-syringe out of his pocket and touches it to
Anderson's hand.
DOC (CONT'D)
It's a temporary paralytic enzyme.
Someone spots you, you duck into an
alley, shoot this under your chin.
Doc presses the tip into the soft underpart of Anderson's
chin. Anderson jumps.
DOC (CONT'D)
The enzyme turns your facial muscles
to mush. You won't look like the
same man.
ANDERSON
Jesus.
DOC
You tighten up again in about thirty
minutes. Hurts like nothing you
ever felt. It's vicious, but
effective. I'll put it in your bag.
Finally, Doc takes a small clock out of his pocket and places
it on a dresser beside Anderson's bed.
DOC (CONT'D)
I'm setting up a timer. When it
buzzes tomorrow, take off your
bandages, and get the hell out of
here.
Anderson, groggy, starts to say something else, but then he
hears a door open and close, and Doc is gone.
EXT. THE SPRAWL -- NIGHT
The Precrime presence mounts on the streets. A couple of
units move past the boarding house, but they don't stop.
INT. BOARDING HOUSE ROOM -- DAY
Anderson sits in a chair, his dressings like a blindfold.
He looks like a hostage. He is sweating. Keeps reaching
for his dressings to scratch, then forces himself not to.
He speaks to someone we don't yet see. The guy DOC said
would come.
ANDERSON
I'm hungry, but sick to my stomach.
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
55.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Guess I should eat. (Beat) You gonna
help feed me?
Now the camera moves and we see who it is that has been sent
to help Anderson. It's the rat guy, the thin bald man
Anderson had roughed up the day before. The guy has a bowl
of hot soup in his hands. He stares contemptuously at
Anderson.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
So how do we do this, pal?
The rat guy doesn't say a word. He simply tips the hot soup
and it splatters down into Anderson's lap. Anderson cries
out in pain and surprise. The guy walks out of the room.
CLOSE
ON- THE TIMER
Twenty hours gone by. Four more to go.
EXT. THE SPRAWL
Precrime cops are shaking down any of the rats they can catch,
looking for leads, looking for anything.
INT. THE BOARDING ROOM
The TIMER shows one hour to go. Anderson sits in a chair,
squirming miserably. His dressings are wet with sweat, and
frayed and dirty at the edges where he has tugged and plucked
at them.
ANDERSON
(to himself)
Fuck.
He is this close to ripping the dressings off
EXT. THE BOARDING HOUSE -- DAY
A Precrime transport stops. Two officers get out. One of
them sets up a large thermal scanner on the sidewalk, and
does a read on the boarding house. The other does a read on
a pawn shop and bar next door..
The OFFICER I doing Anderson's boarding house, calls to the
other officer.
OFFICER 1
Got 27 warm bodies in this place.
What should it take, three or four
Spiders?
OFFICER 2
Do four. Speed things up, so we can
go eat.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
56.
The Officer 1 opens the back of the transport, and takes out
a box. He removes four round BALLS. They are silver, as
big as billiard balls.
He goes up to the boarding house, gets IdentiScanned, and
the front door opens. He rolls the balls down a dark hallway.
Then he goes back out to the transport, and leans against
it, bored. He holds up an electronic clipboard and waits
for the data to come in.
INT. THE BUILDING
The BALLS roll about eight feet, then suddenly come to
autolife as they spin. They open like flowers -- flowers
with legs.
CLOSE ON : A BALL
A fist-sized Spider takes shape. On its head is an IdentiScan
lens mounted on a thin metallic antenna.
INT. A ROOM
An OLD WOMAN sits at a card table eating a bowl of something
unidentifiable. She looks up with annoyance as she sees a
spider scuttling across the floor toward her. It makes a
CLICKING sound on the floor as it comes. She's poor, living
in The Sprawl -- she knows the drill. She continues to eat
as the SPIDER crawls up the leg of the card table. She barely
watches as it moves past her bowl and toward her hand.
OLD WOMAN
It's nice to have a little company
She smiles toothlessly at her joke The Spider hops onto her
am and inches up, then moves across her shoulder. It grips
her cheek lightly, as the IdentiScan antenna reads her eyes.
Then it leaps off her and onto the floor and CLICKS away
across the linoleum.
EXT. THE BOARDING HOUSE
The Precrime officer lifts his clipboard and checks a column
with his laser pen, and waits for the next one.
INT. ANDERSON'S ROOM
Anderson sits in his chair. He cocks his head, listening.
His body tenses. Something feels wrong.
The TIMER shows ten minutes to go. Blindfolded for a day
and a night, Anderson has no idea how much time he has left.
Three seconds, four hours?
A flattened SPIDER squeezes under his door. Anderson tenses
as it CLICKS across the floor toward him.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
57.
He knows that sound.
Anderson stumbles up and out of his chair. He starts to
grab at his dressings, remembers Doc's warning, and stops
himself. The SPIDER waits for him to settle, then CLICKS
toward him again.
Anderson moves around the room, avoiding the Spider. He is
dripping with sweat, starting to breathe hard. The Spider
Comes faster. Anderson crashes into a table, brings it down.
Falls across the bed.
EXT. THE BOARDING HOUSE
The Officer 1 squints at his clipboard. One of the Spiders
is taking too long. He adjusts his thermal scanner, and
sees the heat outline of a man bouncing around a room.
The other Officer 2 finishes reading the pawn shop and the
barroom, then wanders over to Officer 1. They both watch the
screen.
OFFICER 1
Stinking drunk.
OFFICER 2
(beat)
Or a guy who doesn't want to get
read.
INT. ANDERSON'S ROOM
Anderson forces himself to sit still, because he knows the
consequences. The Spider advances, starts up his leg.
The TIMER has not buzzed. Anderson can't touch his dressings.
The Spider moves across his shoulder and onto his face. It
WHIRS and HU14S trying to adjust its antenna against the
dressings.
EXT. THE BOARDING HOUSE
The officers eye the thermal scanner, as they reach for their
mirrored helmets, getting ready to go in.
INT. ANDERSON'S ROOM
The Spider crawls all over Anderson's head, trying to get
past the dressings for a read.
Anderson has no choice. None. He starts to lift at his
dressing. The Spider senses his cooperation, freezes in
place.
Anderson wants to scream. He unwraps his head, tugs the eye
pads away from his eyes. He rips them off. The Spider sits
on his shoulder, waiting.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
58.
Anderson's eyes are tightly closed. He opens them
ANDERSON'S POV - BLINDING LIGHT
Light brighter than a magnesium burn, brighter than a nuclear
flashpoint. Light to buckle the knees and push the brain
beyond endurance.
And though all this the faraway sound of a BUZZER going off.
The TIMER has finally sounded. Anderson's open eyes are
streaming with tears, but he has survived the moment.
ANDERSON'S POV - THE ROOM
It comes into slow focus The Spider, all business, reads his
eyes. Then, as if nothing unusual has occurred, it jumps
off his shoulder, and crosses the floor. It flattens, scoots
under the door, and is gone.
EXT. THE BOARDING HOUSE
The officers see that the Spider has gotten its read. They
pull off their helmets.
OFFICER I
Let's eat.
They start putting their equipment back into the transport.
INT. ANDERSON'S ROOM
Anderson stares at himself in a dusty mirror. His new eyes
are tender and bloodshot. And they are not blue, like the
ones he was born with, but a deep brown. Anderson is exactly
the same, and utterly different.
He grabs his duffel bag, and gets the hell out of there.
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTER'S -- DAY
Lisa, looking drawn and scared, sits in Witwer's office.
Witwer isn't looking too well, either.
WITWER
They told me to move into Paul's
office. I said fuck you very much.
Lisa nods.
WITWER (CONT'D)
(softly)
I don't want to do any of this, Lisa.
LISA
I know. I know that.
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
59.
LISA (CONT'D)
(beat)
Everybody's got their reasons for
wanting you in charge. So do I --
you won't bring him in dead.
WITWER
Yeah. But if he shoots a cop ...
(beat)
Which is what he does four days from
now, isn't it?
Witwer's eyes imp involuntarily to a CLOCK on his desk.
LISA
He'd never hurt you.
WITWER
I know that. But the other thing I
know is -- the Precogs are never
wrong.
The words are leading them no place good. They stop talking,
and just sit there.
INT. THE SPRAWL
Anderson stands on a street corner waiting in line with
several people waiting for the N0.6 Turbo Tram.
The double decker Tram comes. People get off, then the line
starts to move forward as people get on.
Anderson fidgets. He's last in line. Each person gets
IdentiScanned as he boards. Anderson's putting his new eyes
to the test. If the scan goes wrong, he's positioned himself
to run.
The woman ahead of him, gets scanned, pays her fare.
Anderson's turn. Anderson goes up the steps, and a red beam
reads his eyes.
The Tram DRIVER glances at a monitor beside his steering
wheel, then nods at him.
DRIVER
Welcome aboard, Mr. Symington. Plenty
of seats in the back.
Anderson nods, moves casually to the back. But his jaw
muscles are flexing hard, working off the tension.
INT. A WEALTHY HOME - SUBBURIAN WASHINGTON -- NIGHT
Senator Malcolm releases a self satisfied little belch as he
finishes off a late night whiskey in his panelled den. He
wanders about admiring himself in the many political photos
adorning the cherry wood walls.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
60.
He's feeling cozy and safe, the way rich people can afford
to. No IdentiScan Spiders would ever be sent under his doors.
No intrusions of any sort, nothing that a coiffed secretary
or a loyal wife wouldn't announce before hand.
Which is why he doesn't immediately understand the small
SOUND at ear level, coming from just behind him. It's a
metallic CLICK-CLICK. He turns amiably. His eyes instantly
widen, and his knees buckle when he sees he's looking into
the barrel of ANDERSON'S cocked gun.
ANDERSON
Time to upgrade your alarm system,
Senator.
Senator Malcolm tries to regain his composure. His fear
embarrasses him.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Your work-up of Witwer. The Security
Panel would've done one.
(beat)
Why do I kill Witwer?
The Senator finds his voice.
SENATOR MALCOLM
There's no motive.
ANDERSON
There's, always a motive.
Anderson presses the gun to the Senator's forehead. He slides
the barrel tip back and forth across the Senator's sweaty
skin. It makes a greasy red mark.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
I could've come to anyone on the
panel. But I picked you.
(beat)
Of all the shits on that panel, I
like you least of all. So if this
gun goes off, I'll feel bad, but
not, you know, devastated.
You can almost see a thought dawning on Senator Malcolm.
And then, shockingly he spits in Anderson's face, and turns
and walks to the other side of the den. His tone is mocking.
SENATOR MALCOLM
What the fuck was I worried about?
You can't kill me. The Precogs
would've seen it.
Anderson realizes this, too, lowers his gun. The Senator is
even laughing now. For a moment Anderson does nothing, then
he moves toward the Senator again.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
61.
The Senator stands his ground smugly.
SENATOR MALCOLM (CONT'D)
Witwer's clean. You're clean.
There's nothing. No motive. Kind
of like something Kafka would've
cooked up.
(beat)
You like that, cockroach? You're
fucked and you'll never know why.
The Senator is laughing hard now. Anderson lets him.
ANDERSON
Tell you something about the Precogs,
Senator. They're great on murder.
But it's the little things they fail
to see.
Anderson hits the Senator so hard it bounces him across the
floor and into the cherry wood panelling. Several of his
beloved photos crash down onto him.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Little things like that, for instance.
Anderson steps over him, and walks out of the room
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS -- DAY
Search and Command room. Witwer stands there amidst all of
the technology speaking to a group of Precrime officers.
WITWER
He hasn't shown up on one goddamn
IdentiScan in three days.
No one says anything, and then LIEUTENANT GLASER, 30, speaks
up.
LIEUTENANT GLASER
He's found a room -- he's going to
sit it out.
WITWER
Yeah, except for holding a gun to
senator Malcolm's goddman head in
his own goddman house last night,
Anderson's sitting it out!
(beat)
Why hasnt he been scanned?
The officers look at their shoes.
WITWER (CONT'D)
Why is he invisible? He's moving
around but he isn't being seen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
62.
Lieutenant Glaser tries again.
LIEUTENANT GLASER
He’s beating the scanners
WITWER
No one beats the scanners.
Witwer reaches up, wearily, rubbing his face and eyes with
his hands. The fingers dragging across his eyes stop. Then
his hands drop away, and he looks at his men.
WITWER (CONT'D)
He's done his eyes
LIEUTENANT GLASER
But the scarring always
WITWER
He went the whole way. The crazy
bastard had his eyes removed. New
ones sewn in.
LIEUTENANT GLASER
That takes weeks to heal.
WITWER
If you're prepared to go blind, a
street surgeon'll juice up the repair
cycle. They don't give a fuck about
risk.
Witwer's eyes flick to a digital CLOCK on the wall. It's
something he can't help doing now.
WITWER (CONT'D)
He's going to do what it takes to
stay free -- if it blinds him, maims
him, or kills him.
Witwers admiring smile makes his men very uncomfortable .
INT. KITCHEN - THE SUBURBS -- DAY
A mother places a carton of milk on a table in front of her
teenage son. He pours it into his cereal bowl, then puts
the carton down in front of him.
There's a flexible Vid-Screen on the side of the carton,
about the size of a playing card. AS the sleepy kid watches,
the disposable Vid-Screen sparkles to life.
Nothing unusual, they always do that. For advertisements,
lost kids, or in this case crime bulletins.
A good one. The kid straightens up.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
63.
THE VID-SCREEN
A fully rotating mug shot of PAUL ANDERSON fills the screen,
followed by vital statistics and details of the precrime
he's been charged with.
The kid watches for a while, then gets bored, and pulls the
Dexi-Pops cereal box over and starts reading the back of
that.
INT. A LIVING ROOM - THE SPRAWL -- DAY
A big man in a tee shirt lies on a couch, a bowl of popcorn
perched on his belly. He stares at a TV monitor that's the
size of a twin bed.
TV
Anderson's face fills the monitor. The TV image is so big
that Anderson overwhelms the room with his video presence.
It's like God coming to pay a visit -- even if you want to
avoid Him you can't.
The big man with the popcorn tries to do just that. He surfs
through a zillion channels, but Anderson's visage is
omnipresent.
EXT. THE SKY - THE SPRAWL -- DAY
Anderson's face fills the skies, too. Witwer and Precrime
have pulled out all the stops.
Advertising dirigibles float by with Anderson's image on it.
Holographic billboards with Anderson hover in the air. There
are so many Andersons in the sky he seems to be part of the
weather, a special type of cloud.
People on the streets look up, briefly interested, then go
about their business.
EXT. A STREET - THE SPRAWL
One person who is paying deep attention to all this is
Anderson himself. He stands on a street corner, wearing
dark glasses and a fedora, staring at a public video kiosk.
VIDEO KIOSK
The mug shot of Anderson disappears and is replaced by a
Precrime SPOKESWOMAN.
SPOKESWOMAN
The United States Supreme Court has
issued a special injunction allowing
the unprecedented public viewing of
former Precrime Director Paul
Anderson's future murder of Edward
Witwer, the current Director.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
64.
ANDERSON
His mouth slowly opens. He steps
back against a wall and slides his
hand into his pants pocket. He looks
at the Precog DISC in his cupped
hand, then quickly puts it away.
He stares at the kiosk as people on the street begin to gather
around excitedly.
CROWDS OF PEOPLE look into the sky, in store windows, at
other video kiosks. They have the enthralled anticipation
of a mob at a public guillotining.
SPOKESWOMAN
She continues her declamation
SPOKESWOMAN (CONT'D)
The video you are about to see,
generated by the Precognitive mutants,
is the immutable evidence of the
infallible system.
(reassuring smile)
Citizens are urged to call
1-800-PRECRIME with any information
that may lead us to the whereabouts
of Paul Anderson, future murderer.
ANDERSON
Shakes his head in confusion and
disbelief. But he has the Precog
disc ...
The OLD GUY him nudges him
OLD GUY
This oughtta be good, huh?
VIDEO
KIOSK
And there it is, Anderson and Witwer standing there pointing
guns at each other. The whole thing just as we saw it before.
All the way through to the fatal moment.
ANDERSON
Oh, Ed ...
Anderson shoots him. Witwer slumps, dying. The video stops.
And then begins to play all over again, right from the start,
the 1-800-PRECRIME number scrolling along the bottom of it.
"Call now! Call now! Call now!
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Moves quickly through the crowds.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
65.
INT. BAR - THE SPRAWL -- NIGHT
Ennis Page sits on a bar stool at the far end of a bar so
full of cigarette smoke it doesn't seem capable of supporting
life. But it supports the kind of life Page is interested
in.
An emaciated woman with a feral smile slides onto a stool
beside Page. He gives one shake of his head, and she slides
away again. His eyes cut to a group of females. He waits
for the next approach.
CLOSE ON: PAGE
as a HAND reaches over his shoulder and places a Precog disc
on the bar in front of him. Page makes a sound and tries to
jump away, as if the disc is something lethal. Which it is,
in a way.
Anderson presses him back down on his stool. Sits next to
him. Page stares at him, scared. Anderson looks straight
ahead as he speaks.
ANDERSON
"Ennis Page engages the services of
prostitutes because his relationships
with them compound his feelings of
selfloathing."
(beat)
Direct quote from your psychological
profile -- the kind of shit I had to
know as your former boss.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
'Page is an obsessive-compulsive
Type Nine." Another quote. Niners
are great for the kind of work you
do -- keeping all those Precog discs
in order.
You can almost see Page's heart slamming in his chest. He
tries to hide it with tough talk.
PAGE
I fuck whores and I'm orderly, so
what?
ANDERSON
Something's out of order, Ennis.
Deeply out of order.
Page looks unhappily at the disc on the bar PAGE You got a
disc Anderson picks it up, holds it tight in his fist
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Not A disc. The disc. When I went
home sick, I stole it.
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
66.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
I took it with me, Ennis. I wasn't
sick, I was running with the evidence.
(lets that sink in)
So how is it that Precrime has one,
too?
PAGE
(utterly baffled)
You can't make copies Anderson waits.
Lets Page work through it.
PAGE (CONT'D)
It's the basis of the system. The
immutable evidence. Copies are
impossible.
(beat)
You went home. A little later, I
came in with a disc for Mr. Witwer
to review. I wasn't halfway out the
door when he cried out.
Anderson is barely breathing, he's listening so hard.
PAGE (CONT'D)
He was in shock. He showed me. It
was you shooting him. Then all hell
broke loose. He had to send the
Precrime units to your house.
ANDERSON
Ennis -- you gave out the same disc
twice. Less than an hour apart.
The one I stole. And then another
one. Of the same event.
PAGE
It's impossible. The Precogs can
only move forward to new events.
Into the future. They never repeat.
Anderson looks around. Patrons are beginning to look over
in his direction, eyes lingering. He rises.
Page seems in a daze. As an obsessive-compulsive niner, the
concept of an untidy system is disorienting.
Anderson starts to say something to the man, then doesn't.
On the way out Anderson gets IdentiScanned. An automatic
DIGITAL VOICE calls out after him.
DIGITAL VOICE
Have a nice night, Mr. Symington
Anderson leaves the dark of the bar
for the deeper dark of The Sprawl.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
67.
INT. A STREET - THE SPRAWL -- DAY
A YOUNG GUY with a sparse moustache walks up to a payphone.
He picks up, the receiver and immediately gets IdentiScanned.
A light goes on, he's about to dial.
Anderson appears out of nowhere, shoulders him out of the
way. The young guy drops the receiver and stumbles back
onto the sidewalk. Anderson grabs the hanging receiver.
YOUNG GUY
Hey!
Hey, you can't He reaches for Anderson, then thinks better
of it. Anderson is twice his size and very menacing in dark
glasses.
YOUNG GUY (CONT'D)
I'm get-in' a cop.
The guy scurries off. Anderson dials quickly.
INTERCUT ANDERSON/LISAS OFFICE
Lisa, walking down a hallway in the Judicial Center, stops
to answer her BEEPING cell phone. She leans against a wall,
as lawyers and judges pass by.
ANDERSON
It's me.
LISA
Paul.
Lisa grips the phone and turns to the wall
ANDERSON
Your phone will be bugged. So we
can't meet, we can't do anything.
Just listen. Nowing you're listening
is enough.
Lisa nods, as if he's right there. He is right there, for
her. This is all she's got.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
When Precrime stormed the house, I
thought you'd called them. Betrayed
me.
LISA
No.
ANDERSON
I know. Witwer sent them. He saw
the disc and had to do his job.
(beat)
Tell me you forgive me. Please.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
68.
LISA
Of course, I forgive you.
There's no time left. He has to get off the line and start
moving again. A vast weariness enters his voice.
ANDERSON
All these people I need to forgive
me.
(beat)
Do you think Frank forgave me? All
I could do for him was send him
gardenias.
(long beat)
I love you.
Lisa almost cries out when he hangs up. She flattens herself
against a wall. She stays like that for a long moment,
pulling the sound of her husband's voice, his words, deep
inside of herself.
And then she gets a look, as one of those words registers
profoundly.
LISA
(whispers to herself)
Frank hated gardenias.
EXT. EAST END CEMETERY - ARLINGTON -- LATER
A public cemetery along the Potomac. There's not much land
left for new graves. A funeral is taking place. A lot of
mourners in dark 1950's suits and dresses. The service is
nearing its end.
Frank D'Ignazio's newly dug grave is nearby. Lisa stands
there, looking at the temporary marker, and the flowers and
wreaths piled up against it.
Two rows over, they are lowering the casket into the ground.
High in the sky, a PRECRIME HOVERCRAFT, everpresent in Lisa's
life, floats in the low clouds with a barely audible WHINE.
Lisa rests a floral arrangement against the pile of flowers.
Her hand drifts near a white GARDENIA WREATH. There is a
small envelope tucked beneath a blossom. She takes it.
Then she rises and begins to walk back to her car.
The funeral is over, and the mass of mourners, many wearing
dark glasses, fan out toward a long line of cars.
One of the MOURNERS brushes past Lisa. She looks up and he
tips his dark glasses down onto his nose and stares over
them at her.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
69.
It's Anderson. Isn't it? She looks into his eyes. And
it's jarring, the blue eyes gone, that they're brown now.
But it's him, he's there, and she wants to reach out for
him. Knows she can't.
He's already moving on. He's risked everything for a look.
He slips into the black sea of mourners, she goes to her car
-neither of them ever breaking stride.
The Precrime craft hovers, unaware
INT. LISA'S CAR
Lisa opens the envelope as her car drives her down the
Alexandria-Washington ConnectWay.
A Precog DISC falls into her hand. Her mouth opens -- she's
never held one before.
And there is a NOTE with it It READS:
"The Precogs generated duplicate discs. This is the first.
Precrime has the second. Duplicates. Why?"
EXT. A CONVENIENCE STORE - THE SPRAWL -- DAY
Anderson has to eat bad food quickly, and on the run. He
gathers up a wrapped sandwich, a bag of donuts, something to
drink.
He waits in line. He doesn't like to be in a line, waiting.
The woman ahead of him argues about change. He presses his
lips together.
And then he glances at the mirrored surface of a hidden camera
DOME attached to the ceiling. It gives him a fish eye
reflected VIEW of what's happening behind him.
Precrime police are happening behind him. He doesn't stop
to ponder, as two Python transports zoom up outside the store.
Anderson vaults the counter, knocking the customer and the
clerk to the floor.
INT. BACK ROOM
Anderson plows over a guy filling a trash can. He hears the
mechanically altered COMMANDS of a Precrime officer calling
from the store.
VOICE
Paul Anderson. Drop to your hands
and knees!
Anderson crashes out into an alley, and clambers up a fence.
SONIC BLASTS shatter the air around him. Chunks of brick
fly off the walls on both sides. But he is full of
adrenaline, and there is no stopping him.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
70.
INT. A TURBOTRAM - THE SPRAWL -- LATER
A different part of the city. Anderson hunkers low in the
back seat of a tram.
He looks up, as the DRIVER swears
DRIVER
What the hell --
Anderson stands up, looks down the aisle, through the
windshield. Precrime transports are heading straight at the
tram, going the wrong way on a one way avenue.
They've even taken radio control of the P.A. system on the
tram.
VOICE
Paul Anderson. Drop to your hands
and knees!
Anderson can't believe it -- how are they suddenly pinpointing
him? The passengers turn in unison like cattle, and stare
at him, terrified.
Anderson grabs his duffel bag and kicks at the back exit
doors, smashing them open, and tumbles out onto the street.
He rolls, and is up on his feet in a second, reaching into
his bag for a glove. He pulls the weapon onto his right
hand, as he whirls around sizing up his predicament.
Precrime transports have begun to seal off both ends of the
street. He looks up. He is surrounded by skyscrapers and
buildings -- he is walled in, at the bottom of an urban
canyon.
People freeze against the sides of buildings, run into
doorways where they can. Passengers in trans and taxis or
cars stay there, pressed against their windows watching.
Nothing moves, except the Python transports, closing in.
The lead officer speaks, with that menacing electronically
altered VOICE.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Lower your weapon, or we will
neutralize your threat potential.
The Precrime police are out of the transports now, advancing
at either end of the city street in phalanxes of men.
Anderson eyes the side of the black granite office building
closest to him.
ANDERSON'S POV - A HIGH PRESSURE HYDRANT
The large red hydrant sits a few inches out from the building.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
71.
Anderson almost smiles as he begins to walk slowly toward
it, his weapon pointing harmlessly at the pavement.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Do not move!
Anderson is up on the sidewalk now, two feet out from the
building, right beside the high pressure hydrant.
He stops, looks up, looks down, looks at the police advancing.
It is a moment for prayer. Anderson doesn't have a moment.
He spreads his feet and fires a massive SONIC BLAST down at
the sidewalk. The effect on the underground water main is
immediate.
A GEYSER of water two feet in diameter erupts straight up
from the sidewalk, lifting the tumbling Anderson fifteen
feet into the air right alongside the building.
The stunned police officers try to take aim, but Anderson's
bouncing at the top of the geyser. And they can't fire,
anyway, because officers workers stare at the excitement
from every window in the building.
All this in a time span of seconds. The world spins crazily
for ANDERSON, but he manages to grip hold of a metal support
beam holding the building's sign, one story up.
The police try to see what he's doing, but the torrent of
water from the water main break obscures his moves.
He pulls himself onto a ledge, steadies himself, slides along
it toward a second story window. The office building gawkers
lurch backward from the window as Anderson blasts it to
sparkling dust and leaps inside.
INT. OFFICE BUILDING
The building covers almost an entire city block. Anderson,
dripping wet, runs from one end of it to another, blasting
through doors, shoving terrified workers out of the way.
He is like a wide receiver running the length of the field,
jumping obstacles, slamming through, over, and around whatever
he must to get to his goal.
And then he reaches his goal -- the windows overlooking the
avenue next block over and parallel to the one where Precrime
ambushed him.
He spots a double-decker TurboTram moving slowly in the stream
of traffic. It pulls to the curb below to pick up passengers.
Anderson blasts out the window and leaps onto the roof of
the bus. It is a bone-jarring landing. He loses
consciousness for a second, rolls the length of the roof,
and slides off it onto the pavement.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
72.
He lies there, trying to rouse himself. Traffic brakes to a
stop automatically as car and truck sensors read his form in
the road. No one wants to touch him. A single car horn
SOUNDS, and then a chorus of them.
Anderson rouses, struggles to his feet, and takes off in a
limping run.
INT. SUBWAY STATION LATER
Anderson, out of breath and in pain, leans against a post at
the far end of the passenger platform. There are tracks on
either side of him, one marked "Uptown" and the other
"Downtown. "
He feels a blast of air and looks to his right and sees that
the Downtown train is coming in. And on his left, too, the
Uptown train rounds the bend and comes into view.
Which MagLev train will lead him to safety? Which one won't
they pinpoint? He runs up to a teenage KID who has his am
around his girlfriend. They step back, startled. He's got
a flat top hair cut, she wears a pleated skirt and saddle
shoes.
The trains pull in.
ANDERSON
Pick one for me!
KID
What?
THEY TRY TO WALK AWAY
ANDERSON
Point to the train I should take.
Please.
KID
I don't know.
The girl lifts a nervous finger and points. The Uptown. He
runs to board it, as they run in the opposite direction to
the Downtown.
INT. SUBWAY CAR
He sits at the back of the half empty train watching the
dark rush by. A train chosen arbitrarily -- it's impossible
they could find him.
A station Stop. He starts to get off, is actually on the
platform, then steps back onto the train.
The rushing dark again. When the MagLev eases to a halt at
the next station he gets off this time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
73.
INT. STATION
He walks toward the exit stairs with a handful of people.
He eases back and lets them go up first.
THE STAIRS
Precrime officers crouch around the bend, silently snatching
people out of the way as they come into view. They wait
-but Anderson does not come. And he does not come.
On signal, the Precrime officers rush down the stairs.
DOORWAY ABOVE THE STAIRS
ANDERSON hangs high above the doorway near the ceiling,
adhered by one am there by a blue glob of adhesive BindFoam.
ANDERSON'S POV - THE OFFICERS
as they run below him down the stairs. They go out of sight,
he can hear them rushing along the platform searching for
him.
The strain of hanging by one arm is killing him. He reaches
up. With a laser knife, and cuts away at his coat sleeve,
releasing himself from the glob. He drops to the stairs,
and instantly slips up them.
He surprises a helmeted OFFICER, just around the bend. He
slams HIM against the wall, yanks off his helmet, and holds
the laser knife against his throat.
The officer is clearly terrified. He speaks hoarsely through
Anderson's choking grip.
OFFICER
Don't kill me! Jesus. Please.
Anderson looks at the panicked officer. Anderson closes his
eyes trying to put it together. He opens them.
ANDERSON
But the Precogs would've predicted
me killing you. You'd know whether
I do or not.
The officer looks at him with eyes begging for mercy.
Anderson suddenly gets it. He tightens his grip on the man.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
They shut down the system. Haven't
they? They've shut down the Precogs.
The officer nods.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
74.
OFFICER
They're off homicides. They're
redirecting them to help us locate
you.
Which is how they knew where he'd be every time.
Anderson chops quickly at the base of the man's skull,
knocking him out. And then he runs, because what else can
he do?
INT. JUDICIAL CENTER -- DAY
Lisa stands in a long hallway outside a door, labeled:
COURTROOM 17. She holds a briefcase in one hand. Down the
hall, other courtrooms are in use, but not this one. She
enters the dark and vacant Courtroom 17.
INT. COURTROOM 17
Lisa sits at the judge's bench in the empty courtroom. The
lights are dim.
She takes a small, battery-powered tv out of her briefcase.
She turns it on.
TV
The murder of Witwer by Anderson is being shown over and
over in a continuous loop. Flashing at the bottom is the
hotline number: "1-800-PRECRIME." Then- "Call Now! Call
Now!
BACK TO SCENE
Now Lisa takes out the Precog disc Anderson gave to her -the
first disc.
She places it in the specialized monitor on the judge's bench.
The tv and the judge's monitor sit side by side. The tv
plays the version of the murder from the second disc; the
judge's monitor plays the version from the first disc.
She stares intently, her eyes flicking back and forth from
one version to the other. They seem absolutely identical.
When the judge's monitor goes blank, she starts it over again.
Lisa stares, watching her husband murder his best friend,
endlessly.
EXT. A GAS STATION - ALEXANDRIA -- DAY
A gas station right out of the fifties. An attendant in a
uniform and cap whistles while he wipes down the windshield
of a sky blue Rambler.
In the background, Anderson walks toward a men's room.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
75.
INT. THE MEN'S ROOM
Anderson looks at himself in the mirror. He reaches out and
touches one reflected eye, which is a deep brown. It is
still startling to him, the color of his eyes.
Then he reaches into his duffel bag and takes out the air
syringe Doc gave to him. He looks at it nervously. It is
filled with 5 cc's of an opaque green liquid.
He touches the tip of it to the soft center under his chin.
He closes his eyes. Then he screws up his courage, and hits
the plunger. The liquid is pneumatically delivered with a
searing HISS.
Anderson screams out in agony, slams back against the wall
of the bathroom. His hands reach up for his face -- which
looks like it's boiling from within.
ANDERSON'S FACE
The skin on both cheeks begins to pucker. The muscle tone
around his chin goes soft, and begins to sag like an old
man's. That is the effect -- like he is aging fifty years.
His forehead wrinkles, the skin under his eyes droop. Healthy
pink is replaced by bloodless gray.
AND MOTHER OF GOD DOES IT HURT
EXT. THE MEN'S ROOM
The ATTENDANT knocks nervously on the door
ATTENDANT
You all right in there?
When the door opens, an unhealthy looking old guy with a
fedora hat pulled low comes slowly out of the bathroom.
Anderson nods, and walks past the attendant, who watches
after him uncertainly as he wanders off.
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS - ALEXANDRIA -- LATER
The perky tour guide we met earlier takes another group around
the headquarters. There may be a massive campaign to find
Anderson, but the Precrime public relations machine continues
to run without interruption.
There are ten people in the group, and the physically
transformed Anderson is among them. They all wear glowing
nametags. Anderson's reads, "Mr. Symington." He keeps his
hands in his pockets, and his head low.
We have heard the tour guide's spiel before
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
76.
TOUR GUIDE
Welcome to the main headquarters of
Precrime. Smaller Precrime branches
are scattered throughout the United
States.
She is about to go on when she looks over at Anderson. He
is fidgeting uncomfortably.
TOUR GUIDE (CONT'D)
Are you ... all right, Mr. Symington?
Anderson moves up close to her, a little too close. He
whispers to her, embarrassed. She gives him a professional
smile, and points in the distance past the elevators.
Anderson nods, and heads off. She calls after him.
TOUR GUIDE (CONT'D)
We'll wait right here for you, sirl
INT.
A STAIRWELL
Anderson runs down a back stairwell
to a lower floor.
INT. A BASEMENT CORRIDOR
Anderson stands outside a door marked: "Housekeeping." Above
the doorway is an IdentiScan device.
Anderson reaches into his coat and carefully removes a small
cryo-jar.
CLOSE ON: THE CRYO-JAR
Imbedded in the clear gelatinous coolant are two eyeballs
-the irises a luminous blue.
INT. SEARCH AND COMMAND -- MOMENTS LATER
The operations room in Precrime. The technicians sit at
their computers and holographic tracking displays.
Witwer paces among them. His eyes keep flicking to the
digital clock on the wall. Then they cut back to the men
and machines that are telling him nothing. Witwer does not
look well at all, When a TECHNICIAN leans close to his
computer monitor,Witwer almost leaps across the room to get
to him. He looks over the man's shoulder.
WITWER
What is it?
TECHNICIAN
Must be a glitch ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
77.
WITWER
What?
TECHNICIAN
Anderson just got IdentiScanned.
Witwer grips the back of the technician's chair. The
technician types the data through again.
TECHNICIAN (CONT'D)
It's him -- he's been scanned.
WITWER
Where is he?
The technician looks up at Witwer.
TECHNICIAN
But he's had his eyes done. Right?
Sir? Tries to think it through.
WITWER
(barely audible)
He had to have.
The technician's computer flashes the next piece of
information. When he speaks, it's the last thing Witwer
wants to hear.
TECHNICIAN
Jesus Christ, sir. He's in the
basement of this building.
All eyes turn to Witwer. The unspoken question hangs in the
air. Anderson's come to murder Witwer?
INT. PRECRIME HEADQUARTERS
Throughout the building, every available Precrime Officer
begins to receive orders to mobilize toward the basement.
INT. THE PRECOG CHAMBER
Four officers stand guard in the chamber. They listen to
the orders coming in on their earpieces. Three of the guards
rush out of the room, one stays behind.
The three Precogs sit in their oversized chairs, the female
in the middle, the males on either side of her. Their eyes
are open ... and they are deeply alert.
Two technicians tend to the Precogs. At the back of the
chamber, through a large window, we see Ennis Page sitting
at the huge mainframe.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
78.
INT. SEARCH AND COMMAND
A ring of Precrime officers three men deep stand guard around
Witwer. Witwer looks like he wants to kill them all.
WITWER
This is ridiculous.
Lieutenant Glaser replies forcefully
LIEUTENANT GLASER
Standing orders from the Security
Panel, sir.
WITWER
If he wants to get to me, he'll get
to me.
LIEUTENANT GLASER
No, he won't, sir.
Witwer looks at the confident young officer almost pityingly.
Then his eyes flick to the wall clock.
INT. THE BASEMENT
Armed Precrime officers clog the corridors, conducting
defensive searches of one room after another. All they are
coming up with so far are some very startled housekeepers.
INT. THE PRECOG CHAMBER
In the chamber are one guard, two technicians, and three
Precogs. And all of them are left in sudden darkness, as
the power is cut.
INT. SEARCH AND COMMAND
The officers around Witwer reach for their maglite
flashlights. The Search and Command room suddenly looks
exceedingly vulnerable.
A technician calls out from the darkness
TECHNICIAN
Don't worry, air -emergency generators
will kick on in five seconds.
The green glow from a roomful of wristwatches makes the room
seem alive with fireflies. Five seconds go by. Then ten
more.
WITWER
Explanation, please!
TECHNICIAN
Uh, sir. It seems ... he got the
generators, too.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
79.
There is a long moment of silence. And then Witwer begins
to laugh.
INT. THE PRECOG CHAMBER
The room is utterly dark and silent. The silence is broken
by the SOUND of something rolling across the floor. Somebody
speaks, probably the guard.
VOICE
Shit.
An explosion of light fills the room in STROBE-LIKE blasts.
And leaping through the light is ANDERSON. The temporarily
blinded guard and technicians have dropped to their knees.
Anderson stun guns them quickly.
The strobes fade, and Anderson sets a zirc-flare on the floor.
We see that the enzyme is wearing off -- his facial features
are returning to normal.
He is oblivious to the Precogs in their chairs. It is the
equipment he is after.
Through the observation window we see ENNIS PAGE watching in
horror as Anderson severs the light cables connecting the
Precog helmets to the mainframe.
Anderson aims a sonic blast at the observation window, blowing
it out and knocking Page unconscious. Then he reaches into
the room and destroys the mainframe itself with a series of
blasts.
Anderson is so intent on destruction he does not sense a
PRESENCE behind him. Perhaps it is because the movement is
so completely devoid of malice it is beyond detection.
A HAND, the fingers pale and slender, reaches out and takes
hold of his hand.
Anderson whirls around, weapon out. And there before him,
is the FEMALE Precog. He looks at her, then beyond her to
the other Precogs who are lolling in semiconsciousness in
their chairs.
Her helmet is off. She is young, but her close-cropped hair
is silver white. And when she speaks, her voice is like the
wind whispering through time.
FEMALE
Save us, Anderson.
Anderson can feel the seconds ticking away, his carefully
planned operation interrupted in an unfathomable way.
ANDERSON
I have to get out of here.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
80.
She grips his hand.
FEMALE
Save us.
It is beyond pitiful, this frail little woman, pleading.
And her eyes, she won't let him go. She is beginning to
weaken, to sway on her feet.
A sudden realization floods over Anderson.
ANDERSON
You let me get here, didn't you?
You stopped giving them information,
so they couldn't track me.
The Precog female is fading fast. She tries to reach out
for him and her legs give way.
FEMALE
Save -- And what can Anderson do but
catch her before she falls? What
can he do but throw her over his
shoulder, and in the fading light of
the flair, make a run for freedom.
INT. TUDICIAL CENTER
Lisa has been staring at the judge's monitor and the tv screen
for aver an hour. The two versions of Anderson murdering
Witwer play over and over.
LISA
(wearily, to herself)
Help me, Paul.
She hits freeze-frame on the judge's monitor, at a moment
during his confrontation with Witwer when Anderson's FACE
fills the screen.
Lisa looks with deep urgency into her husband's eyes.
And it is his EYES, finally, that tell her everything. Lisa's
hand rises to her open mouth.
LISA (CONT'D)
They're blue.
She keeps the image on freeze-frame, and turns and looks at
the tv, which shows Precrime's disc over and over, the 1-800
number scrolling along the bottom.
When the same close-up of Anderson flashes onto the tv screen,
she leans close to it and squints.
Anderson stares right back at her. And for the first time,
Lisa sees that the tapes are not exactly identical. His
eyes...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
81.
LISA (CONT'D)
And now they're brown.
For the first time in days she allows herself a small smile.
INT. PRECOG CHAMBER
Power has been restored to Precrime Headquarters. Witwer
walks slowly through the ruins of the Chamber. EMT teams
work on Ennis Page and the other dazed personnel Anderson
has left in his wake.
Technicians cluster around the two remaining Precogs, the
brothers. Their eyes are closed and they are limp. Their
lips move soundlessly as if in conversation with each other.
Lieutenant Glaser is with him, but when Witwer speaks it is
almost to himself.
WITWER
Why didn't the Precogs know he was
coming to do this?
The Lieutenant has no reply. Witwer runs both hands through
his hair. It has begun to wear him down, the ticking of the
clock ...
WITWER (CONT'D)
The next time he shows up it'll be
to kill me.
LIEUTENANT GLASER
We won't let that happen, sir.
Witwer takes in the chaotic scene around him, then gives the
Lieutenant a withering look.
WITWER
You won't, huh?
When the Lieutenant tries to speak to him, Witwer walks away
and goes over to the technicians working on the Precogs. He
stares at the Precogs.
WITWER (CONT'D)
(to a technician)
When can we get these things
operational?
TECHNICIAN
They're a hive mind, sir. It takes
three for their predictive abilities
to be fully operational.
Which Witwer does not want to hear. Witwer leans very close
to the technician.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
82.
WITWER
These two are all I have to find the
man who is about to murder me. Hook
them up, and flood them with whatever
kind of fucking chemicals you have
to. They are a machine, and I need
that machine at my disposal.
The Precogs's lips stop for a microsecond, and then begin
their silent movements again.
INT. ENNIS PAGE'S HOUSE - ALEXANDRIA -- NIGHT
Ennis Page is a man unglued. He sits on a tidy little sofa,
in a tidy 1950's style living room. But his movements have
become untidy. He puts a very tiny pill on his tongue.
When he drinks from a glass of water, it dribbles down his
chin onto his shirt. Not like Ennis, at all.
When his doorbell RINGS, he slowly looks up, then looks down
at the floor again. He doesn't answer it. It RINGS some
more.
And then Lisa is standing there before him
LISA
Your IdentiScan is off, Ennis. I
could just walk in here.
PAGE
I forgot. To turn it on.
She sits down beside him.
LISA
You don't look surprised to see me.
She glances at the bubble pack of pills on the table beside
him, three gone.
LISA (CONT'D)
I need your help.
Unexpectedly, tears well up in Ennis's eyes.
PAGE
He took one of my babies.
LISA
He's desperate, Ennis. He had to.
(beat)
We have to help him.
Lisa holds the Precog disc in front of his eyes. He closes
them against the sight, as if it were an evil talisman.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
83.
LISA (CONT'D)
It's a fake Ennis.
Ennis's eyes open again.
LISA (CONT'D)
This is the first disc. You delivered
it to Director Anderson. He reviewed
it. And then he stole it, and went
on the run.
Ennis tries to think through his fear and haze. His words
slur.
PAGE
I delivered ... a fake .. to him?
LISA
But he thought it was real, and ran
with it.
The pills, his tidy world coming apart -- Ennis is losing
it.
LISA (CONT'D)
An hour later, you delivered a second
disc of the same event. Witwer
reviewed it. It was real. (Beat)
How do I know this?
Ennis just wants her to go away. He wants it all to go away.
Tears stream down his face.
LISA (CONT'D)
Director Anderson had his eyes
changed. They were blue. Now he
has brown ones.
Ennis is sliding away. Lisa takes hold of him. Makes him
listen, dammit. She points to the disc in her hand.
LISA (CONT'D)
This disc, the fake one, shows a
blueeyed Anderson murdering Witwer
two days from now. He doesn't have
blue eyes anymore. The person who
faked this disc had no idea he would
change his eyes.
Lisa shakes him.
LISA (CONT'D)
Listen! But the second disc has to
be real, because he has brown eyes
when he murders Witwer.
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
84.
LISA (CONT'D)
(beat)
Somebody tried to frame him with a
fake. And somehow it all became real.
Why, Ennis? How could this happen?
Ennis gives her a look that's on the other side of
comprehension.
LISA (CONT'D)
You handle the discs. How did a
fake one get delivered?
Ennis's eyes roll back into his head.
PAGE Coffee ...
LISA (CONT'D)
You want-- ?
PAGE
He spilled coffee everywhere ...
Everywhere ...
LISA
What coffee? What are you -- ?
But Ennis sags unconscious. She shakes him hard, even slaps
him, but Ennis is out. She lets him drop down on the sofa.
From outside the house, somewhere high in the clouds, comes
the WHINE of a hovercraft.
Lisa looks once more at Ennis, then gets out of there
INT. ROOM - THE SPRAWL -- NIGHT
A small, dreary room, invisible with insignificance. Which
is just the kind of room you want if you've stolen a Precog.
The female Precog lies on a cot. Anderson sits on a metal
folding chair watching her.
Her eyes slowly open and look at him
FEMALE
My brothers aren't here.
ANDERSON
You didn't even look around. You
knew.
FEMALE
(beat)
We can sense each other. You must
save Anderson cuts her off with a
curt shake of his head
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
85.
ANDERSON
Stop. I saved You. It was the best
I could do.
She turns away and looks at the yellowing paper on the wall.
There is a fading pink cabbage rose. She traces the outline
of it with her thin finger.
She turns back to him.
FEMALE
Thank you, Anderson.
It is deeply eerie for him, chatting with a Precog.
ANDERSON
What am I going to do with you?
Her eyes grow very serious.
FEMALE
Name me, Anderson.
ANDERSON
What?
FEMALE
Give me a name. I've never had one.
Anderson rises, moves around the small room. He is shamed,
embarrassed.
ANDERSON
Listen.
She turns to the wall.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Listen to me.
(beat)
Listen to me ... Rose.
It is heartrendingly touching, the smile she gives him when
she faces him again.
FEMALE
Rose.
ANDERSON
Rose. They shifted your precognition
so you would locate me.
ROSE
(beat)
Yes. And it hurt us, physically.
Did you know that? The helmets, the
controls. It hurts.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
86.
ANDERSON
(guiltily)
I didn't know.
For a long moment he can't say anything. But there are things
he needs to understand ...
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
When they shifted you to find me,
you didn't reveal everything. That
I was going to break into Precrime.
ROSE
We saw our chance. You would need
to shut us down, you would have to
come. We wanted you to come.
ANDERSON
You used me -- to save you.
ROSE
I have been used all my life,
Anderson.
Anderson can't meet her eyes.
ROSE (CONT'D)
No one cared that we were human.
From a human mother. Taken at birth.
Hocked to machines.
(beat)
We have been alive, Anderson.
Enslaved, for the greater good.
Her words are unbearable, for both of them. She traces the
outline of the wallpaper rose again.
ROSE (CONT'D)
But now I have a name. And I know
the man who has named -me will not
allow me to be enslaved again.
Anderson looks at her, then goes to the window, carefully
watches the street below.
ANDERSON
Rose. What's going to happen to us?
Can you see that?
ROSE
I'm weak. And away from my brothers.
I see glimpses and hints of things
nearby. But it's all ... scattered.
(beat)
I'm tired of the future, Anderson.
She lies on the bed, watching as Anderson comes back to her.
He sits carefully on the side of her bed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
87.
Then be reaches out, and gently touches her cheek
ANDERSON
You didn't know I was going to do
that, did you?
She is almost too overwhelmed to speak
ROSE
No. Oh, Anderson. It was lovely.
And now it is Anderson who is overwhelmed
INT. ENNIS PAGE'S HOUSE DAWN
If he were not already dead, it would've killed Ennis Page
to see the state of his living room. Precrime officers
everywhere. Blood on the rug. A gun beside the sofa.
Witwer stands in the corner of the room witching the Coroner
crab walk Page's body. It WHIRS and CLICKS as it probes and
takes samples from various sites.
The holographic doctor waits patiently as the Coroner crab
makes its determinations.
Lieutenant Glaser talks quietly to Witwer
LIEUTENANT GLASER
Who else could it've been?
The crab probes the ragged hole in Page's head
LIEUTENANT GLASER (CONT'D)
He grabbed a Precog so he could commit
an undetected murder.
WITWER
(beat)
Page worshipped the system. He fell
apart. Shot himself.
The Lieutenant rolls his eyes.
LIEUTENANT GLASER
Anderson.
Witwer doesn't say anything. He just stares at the body The
crab finishes. The holographic doctor unfolds his arms and
turns his head to Witwer. He is only a computer interface,
but even so, it seems as if there is surprise in his
digitalized voice.
HOLOGRAPHIC DOCTOR
Director Witwer. This event is a
positive homicide.
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
88.
HOLOGRAPHIC DOCTOR (CONT'D)
(beat)
A mortal wound was generated by a
.38 calibre bullet delivered to the
left occipital portion of the anterior
skull, on June 16th, 2040, at 1:24
am, Eastern Standard Time. A Phase
Two Investigation is in order.
No one says anything as the holographic doctor dematerializes
and the Coroner crab walks across the floor and puts itself
back in its box.
At last, someone moves. It is Witwer. He lifts his arm,
pulls back his shirtsleeve, and stares long and hard at his
watch.
INT. WITWER'S OFFICE -- DAY LATER
Lisa sits biting her lip as Witwer watches two monitors play
the two versions of Anderson's murder of Witwer. Lisa points.
LISA
There.
She reaches down and freezes on a close-up of Anderson on
the two monitors.
CLOSE ON - THE MONITORS
On the left monitor Anderson has blue eyes, on the right he
has brown.
LISA
The one on the left, the first disc
-it's a fake. He doesn't have blue
eyes anymore.
Witwer stares for a long time.
WITWER
A fake.
(BEAT)
But the Precogs predict the infallible
truth. They don't emit fake discs.
And now Lisa smiles. She has set her lawyerly mind to the
solution. It is her moment
.
LISA
Exactly. You can't tamper with the
Precogs, induce them to make fakes
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
89.
LISA (CONT'D)
(beat)
But that doesn't mean someone couldn't
have made a fake disc on their own
and inserted it into the delivery
system.
The simplicity of it is inconceivable. Witwer speaks
carefully, trying to process it
WITWER
Bypass the Precogs and slip a fake
disc in with that day's real ones...
LISA
(excited)
We're all programmed to believe
anything we see on a Precog disc.
The system has never been wrong ...
Witwer stares at the proof before him. -- the different
colored eyes of Anderson. He ejects both discs and holds
them in his hands.
LISA (CONT'D)
You have to call off the hunt. He
was set up.
Witwer looks at the two discs he is holding
WITWER
(long beat)
It's gone too far, Lisa She shakes
her head, shocked at his response
LISA
He was set up! You both were. If
Paul kills you, you're both out of
the picture.
WITWER
Who wants us out? Of what picture?
LISA
Jesus, Ed. Stop this thing! And
then we can investigate Witwer's
mouth opens and closes. He tries
again.
WITWER
Ennis Page was murdered last night.
The blood drains from Lisa's face
WITWER (CONT'D)
Everything points to Paul.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
90.
LISA
He's not a murderer.
WITWER
I think he is. A murderer ... and a
future murderer.
(beat)
Lisa. What does it matter that the
first disc is a fake ... if the second
one's real?
Witwer's hands close tight on the discs. Lisa stands there,
motionless. Then she turns, and leaves his office, abruptly.
He watches her go.
INT. ROOM - THE SPRAWL -- DAY
Rose sits in a chair near the window. She is chewing lightly
on a cracker. Her face shows wonder -- at the cracker's
texture and taste. She holds it up and admires its shape.
Anderson's mood is less wondrous
ANDERSON
Rose. Listen to me. I'm going to
leave you here. I have to keep
moving.
ROSE'S SMILE ABRUPTLY VANISHES
ROSE
No. You must save my brothers.
ANDERSON
It's impossible. There's no time.
I've done what I can do!
Rose waits for him to finish. She looks out the window at
the street scene.
ROSE
Come here, Anderson.He does,
reluctantly.
ROSE (CONT'D)
Do you see that boy in the blue hat
walking with his mother?
(beat)
In sixty seconds he will walk beneath
those workers installing a window on
the tenth floor of that building.
ANDERSON'S POV - THE BOY AND THE WORKERS
Two men struggle to lift a large window in place. Way below
the little boy in the blue hat walks on along the sidewalk
holding his mother's hand.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
91.
ROSE (CONT'D)
They'll drop the window, killing
him. It is impossible to save him.
Anderson turns to her, shocked And then he runs for the door,
hurls it open, and disappears down the hall.
Rose listens to his FOOTSTEPS crashing down the stairs
EXT. THE STREET.
Even as Anderson rushes out of the boarding house, the WORKERS
have lost their grip on the window.
The little BOY in the blue hat and his MOTHER walk unwittingly
toward disaster. They do not appear to hear the MEN'S cries.
The WINDOW falls end over end above the boy's head. The
sunlight sparks off of the glass, so that from a distance it
looks like a star falling from the sky.
A WOMAN across the street sees what is happening, and cries
out.
But what Anderson does is run. He runs faster and harder
than humanly possible. He does not care if he is recognized
or hit by a passing taxi. He is going to get to that boy.
He has to get to that boy ...
ANDERSON rams the BOY from behind just as the corner of the
window frame kisses the boy's blue hat. He knocks the boy
to safety as glass and metal SMASH into the sidewalk.
The mother does not even have time to scream. She is on the
ground, stunned, But Anderson has saved the boy.
He rolls away, and gets to his feet. Before anyone can put
together what has happened, Anderson has ducked into an alley,
and is gone.
INT. THE ROOM - LATER
Anderson enters the room again, out of breath, some small
cuts on his face and hands. He stands across the room staring
at Rose.
Rose considers him. When she speaks her voice is near and
distant at the same time. For Anderson, it is as if the
words are coming from a place inside his own head.
ROSE
It was impossible to save that boy
-- but you did, Anderson. It's in
you. It's what you are.
Anderson sits on the floor and leans back wearily against a
wall.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
92.
ANDERSON
You knew it wasn't impossible. That
I'd get there.
Rose reveals nothing.
ROSE
You are a man who saves others.
(beat)
Save my brothers.
Anderson almost laughs. Her persistence is unbelievable
ANDERSON
I'm in a lot of trouble right now.
ROSE
My brothers are in more trouble.
They've moved them to ... an awful
place.
ANDERSON
Rose. Ed Witwer -he's in the most
trouble of all. Who saves him?
Rose suddenly grimaces in pain, and grips the side of her
head. She curls into a fetal position.
Anderson goes to her, touches her thin shoulder. Her eyes
roll into the back of her head.
Whose pain is she feeling? Her own? Someone else's?
Anderson doesn't want to think about it.
INT. PRECOG ENGINEERING LAB -CHEVY CHASE, MD -- NIGHT
Because Anderson has destroyed the Precog Chamber, the two
Precog brothers have been brought here.
The room is makeshift, uncomfortable ... a place for
experiments. The brothers are strapped into chairs. They
are helmeted.
But unlike before, large bore needles have been placed in
their jugular veins. Connected to the needles are long twists
of IV tubing. There are several IVs running at high drip
rates.
Witwer has his back to all this. He stands with Dr. Resfield,
watching a technician working the keyboard on a huge
mainframe.
Dr. Resfield, a man not given to squeamishness looks back at
the Precogs, uneasy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
93.
DR. RESFIELD
We're not really set up for this
type of He stops talking when he
looks into Witwer's hollow eyes.
Witwer is somewhere beyond the
influence and reach of words.
INT. BOARDING HOUSE ROOM -- MORNING
Anderson tries to get Rose to drink some water. Her skin is
translucent, unhealthy, glistening with sweat.
ANDERSON
Rose. Try to drink.
She pushes the cup away. She closes her eyes, as if even
the dim light of the room causes her pain.
ROSE
Your wife. We have to get her here,
Anderson.
She opens her eyes. Anderson doesn't like the feel of this.
ANDERSON
Why?
ROSE
I don't know ...
ANDERSON
What are you seeing?
ROSE
Glimpses, Anderson. Please. We
have to get her here.
ANDERSON
You're scaring me, Rose
She covers his mouth with her hand
ROSE
Stop talking. It uses me up.
For a long time, Rose says nothing, Her gaze is locked onto
a distance beyond the room. At last, she speaks.
ROSE (CONT'D)
In three minutes your wife will take
a walk ..
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. JUDICIAL CENTER - ALEXANDRIA -- LATER
Lisa sits in her office. But she can't stand it, the sitting
and waiting. She has to move.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
94.
She gets up and hurriedly leaves her office
INT. JUDICIAL CENTER -- MOMENTS LATER
Witwer walks past Lisa's SECRETARY toward the open door of
Lisa's office.
SECRETARY
Sir? I'm sorry, she stepped out for
a few minutes.
(beat)
Sir?
Witwer stares into the empty office. There is a clock on
Lisa's desk. His eyes fix on it.
EXT. JUDICIAL CENTER ALEXANDRIA
Lisa moves quickly down the steps of the white marble
building. She takes a deep breath, then heads down Jefferson
Boulevard toward the city.
A sleek black TRANSPORT with two Precrime officers in it
follows her from a discreet distance.
In the sky above, the ubiquitous Precrime hovercraft
INT. CITY STREET ALEXANDRIA
Lisa walks down the street. She hugs herself, barely aware
of her surroundings. She passes by stores, restaurants,
payphones, video kiosks ... oblivious. People push past
her.
On a street corner, as she waits at a red light, the payphone
beside her begins to RING. If she hears it, she gives no
indication. A KID reaches for it, listens, hangs up.
She walks on. Stores. Restaurants. An art gallery. As
she comes abreast of another PAYPHONE, it suddenly starts to
ring. This time Lisa glances at it. But again, walks on.
The TRANSPORT weaves through traffic, nearby She walks past
the K.L. Lawrence Graphics Museum. And another restaurant.
And a PAYPHONE. And this time, finally, when it, too, RINGS,
she turns and looks hard at it.
A man begins to walk over to it. Lisa almost knocks him out
of the way to get to it. She grabs at the receiver.
LISA
Hello? Hello?
ANDERSON'S VOICE
I need you.
Lisa's forehead sags against the side of the payphone. She
basks in the sound of him.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
95.
ANDERSON'S VOICE (CONT'D)
It's 1:03. Set your watch, exactly.
Lisa pushes the buttons on her digital watch as she listens
LISA Okay.
ANDERSON'S VOICE (CONT'D)
This is what you have to do ...
We now hear ANDERSON continue in VOICE OVER as we follow
Lisa through a SEQUENCE OF EVENTS ...
EXT. THE LAWRENCE MUSEUM
Lisa walks up the steps of the museum
ANDERSON (V.O.)
At 1:07 hang up the phone and enter
the Lawrence Museum.
INT. GRAPHICS GALLERY
Lisa walks quickly through a display of 19th century magazine
advertising.
INT. GRAPHICS GALLERY
The two Precrime officers walk into a room filled with Chinese
graphics.
ANDERSON (V.O.)
At 1:13 the two Precrime officers
following you take a wrong turn into
a different room, losing sight of
you for ten seconds.
The officers start toward the entrance way to another room,
then hesitate uncertainly, and go for another entrance way.
EXT. THE LAWRENCE MUSEUM
Lisa hurries down the steps
INT. A SUBWAY STATION
Lisa boards the "A" MagLev train
ANDERSON (V.O.)
An undercover transport officer will
have received emergency orders to
follow you.
(MORE)
He's wearing a red tie. He has short
blond hair.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
96.
INT. THE SUBWAY CAR
The blond transport officer with the red tie sits at the far
end of Lisa's car, watching her.
At the next stop Lisa gets off. He follows, not too far
behind.
INT. SUBWAY STATION
Lisa starts up the stairs. She looks at her watch, then
makes herself pause a few moments, to keep within Anderson's
time frame. She starts up again.
ANDERSON (V.O.)
As you come around the bend, cry out
and turn around and slap the
officer...
Lisa does this, and the officer reels back, surprised At the
same moment two big men rushing to catch a subway come into
view, and see this happening. Lisa starts to run. When the
undercover officer tries to stop her, the two men grab the
officer, and they get into a fight.
Lisa escapes.
INT. A TAXI - THE SPRAWL
Lisa looks at her watch, then taps the window for the driver
to stop. She gets out.
ANDERSON (V.O.)
Stay on Ninth street. Underneath
Ninth street is the main power feed
for The Sprawl. It'll mess up the
navigational beacon on the hovercraft.
(beat)
Keep switching taxis. But stay on
Ninth.
She hails another taxi. She holds her hand over the
IdentiScan before it can read her. The taxi driver looks at
her, sees her smile, sees the prepaid cash card she holds
out to him.
LISA
Two hundred dollars if you don't
scan me.
It's The Sprawl -- stranger things have happened. He grabs
the card, and jerks his head for her to get in. They take
off.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
97.
EXT. NINTH STREET LATER
Lisa gets out of the taxi and looks briefly into the sky.
It is dense with holographic billboards, skim-jets,
dirigibles. Somewhere in all that is a Precrime hovercraft.
And the neighborhood around her is definitely downscale.
ANDERSON (V.O.)
The hovercraft will try to drop
altitude, but the air traffic will
slow it down.
(beat)
Precrime loses you. You'll have to
walk two miles. Don't get scanned.
EXT. THE SPRAWL
Lisa walks hurriedly down a side street. She stands out in
her white dress -- a spot of vulnerable color in world of
black.
Too vulnerable to pass up. A MAN in a gray overcoat slides
out from between two buildings in front of her. He is not
coy about his intent. He comes straight at her, all business.
Lisa freezes in place. She looks at her watch. The man
grabs her by the shoulder. When she starts to scream, he
claps his hand over her mouth, hard.
MAN
You bite me, bitch, I'll pull your
teeth out.
Her eyes look around frantically. He starts to drag her
backwards into the dark.
ANDERSON leaps into view, and slams the man's head into a
light post. It takes a lot of slamming before lie loosens
his grip on Lisa. His legs at last collapse under him.
Anderson scoops Lisa off the ground. She hugs him hard.
Then pulls back from him. She gives him a look.
LISA
Cut it a little close there,
honeybunch.
ANDERSON
Rose got the street wrong. She's
getting weak.
LISA
Rose?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
98.
INT. THE BOARDING HOUSE -- LATER
Rose sits up in bed silently watching Lisa and Anderson
together.
Lisa needs to touch him. She keeps a hand on his arm, brushes
back a loose look of his hair. Rose is mesmerized by her
actions. She drinks in everything, every bit of life.
Anderson and Lisa are deep in conversation. They speak to
each other as if Rose were hardly present in the room.
Anderson is trying to process everything Lisa has told him.
ANDERSON
Two discs. One fake. One real.
LISA
I don't think there were supposed to
be two. Whoever planned it, wasn't
counting on two.
They are silent for a long time. Rose watches them work it
through.
ANDERSON
An infallible system. Every disc
ever generated has been true ...
LISA
Somebody wants you out of the way --
so they make a fake disc. Who ever
doubts the discs?
ANDERSON
I never doubted it. I saw it. And
believed it, absolutely. I was
certain I was going to murder Witwer.
Anderson is shaking. Lisa wraps her arms around him. His
voice is a stunned whisper.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
I saw the fake, and believed so much
in the system, that I saw myself as
a murderer.
(beats)
And the Precogs picked up those
thoughts ...
LISA
And generated the second disc. The
real one.
ANDERSON
A self-fulfilling prophesy. I
believed it was true. And that made
it true.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
99.
Anderson and Lisa turn and look at Rose. She lies curled on
the bed, her face to the wall.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Rose. If all this is based on a lie
-the fake disc -- then do I really
kill Witwer?
ROSE
(beat)
We see what we see. I'm sorry,
Anderson. It's been predicted.
Such a small voice, delivering a message of such finality
INT. WITWER'S OFFICE -- MIDNIGHT
Lieutenant Glaser tries to get through to Witwer. Witwer's
back is turned to him.
LIEUTENANT GLASER
We can't take chances, sir
Witwer doesn't move or answer.
LIEUTENANT GLASER (CONT'D)
It happens in less than three hours.
(beat)
We put you in a hovercraft and keep
you airborne -- until after the event.
WITWER
The event.
Lieutenant Glaser shifts uncomfortably
LIEUTENANT GLASER
I've been ordered to get you onto
the craft. By force if necessary.
WITWER
The event is inevitable, Lieutenant
Witwer doesn't turn around.
WITWER (CONT'D)
The Precogs are never wrong. The
event will take place. I'm a
believer. Aren't you?
LIEUTENANT GLASER
I don't leave this room without you,
sir. The Security Panel insists.
CUT TO:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
100.
INT. THE BOARDING HOUSE SIMULTANEOUS
Anderson and Lisa keep working it, peeling away the layers.
Rose lies silent.
ANDERSON
Nobody could slip a fake disc past
Ennis Page Lisa shakes her head.
LISA
He was the weak link in the perfect
system.
ANDERSON
Obsessive compulsive niners can't
allow changes in the routine
LISA
Something threw him off.
(beat)
He tried to tell me. It didn't make
any sense. Something about "spilled
coffee."
(beat)
Someone was in his office with him.
And coffee spilled ...
We stay CLOSE ON Anderson and Lisa as Rose's voice cuts in.
ROSE (V.O.)
We were always treated as if we
weren't alive. As if we weren't
there.
The camera pulls back and they are watching her as she
continues to speak.
ROSE (CONT'D)
Even now. You forget that I'm here.
You talk between yourselves. And
when you need me to see into the
future, then you turn to me.
ANDERSON
Rose. What is it?
ROSE
(beat)
We weren't just lost in the future.
We were in the Chamber, too. Our
eyes were open. In the present.
And then Anderson gets it. He kneels beside her bed
ANDERSON
Your eyes were open. What did you
see, Rose?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
101.
ROSE
Who would I have told? Who ever
talked to us? Who cared that we
could talk?
ANDERSON
Rose. Who spilled the coffee?
Straight ahead ...
Rose stares stright ahead ...
MEMORY HIT
Rose sits in her chair in the Precog Chamber. Her brothers
sit in their usual places on either side of her. The
technicians tend to them.
Rose's eyes are open. She sees everything in the room. The
technicians, the machines ... and across the room a large
window where she can see Ennis Page working the mainframe
computer.
Rose watches through the window ...
As the computer emits discs, Page gathers them
ROSE (V.O.)
Ed Witwer entered Page's office.
Witwer carries a mug of coffee.
Ennis Page goes red in the face, stares at the coffee. Speaks
to Witwer, angrily, pointing to the coffee. We can't hear
the words.
`
ROSE (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Page was so upset at the sight of
the coffee.
Witwer goes to put the coffee down on a small table. It
tips, and spills.
Page looks like his head will explode. He pulls a neatly
folded white handkerchief out of his back pocket and drops
to his hands and knees and begins to obsessively blot at the
coffee stain on his spotless rug.
ROSE (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Ed Witwer took a disc from his pocket,
reached over Page and put it in one
of the open cases.
Witwer closes the case. He looks through the window into
the Precog Chamber, but the only one watching him is Rose --
and what does she matter?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
102.
Page rises angrily from cleaning the rug. Witwer shrugs in
apology and leaves the room. Page stares after him.
BACK TO SCENE
Rose is weeping. She looks at Anderson and Lisa.
ROSE (CONT'D)
I didn't understand what I'd seen.
And I had no one to tell ...
Lisa puts her arms around Rose Anderson tries to comprehend
what he has heard.
ANDERSON
Ed ...
Lisa turns, and speaks softly to her husband.
LISA
The perfect system -brought down by
a cup of coffee. My god.
ANDERSON
(long beat)
He set into motion his own death.
He didn't know it would go this far.
(to Rose)
What makes me leave this room? If I
stay here I won't kill him. Right?
But Rose and her brothers have already answered that question
for him.
CUT TO:
INT. WITWER'S OFFICE
Lieutenant Glaser looks at his watch. Witwer is still in
his chair, turned away from him.
WITWER
You see, if you think you can put me
on a hovercraft and save me, then
you don't believe in the infallibility
of the Precog system.
Lieutenant Glaser has his orders. He begins to approach.
And as he does, Witwer swivels his chair around, and lifts
the weapon he has been holding and silently shoots Lieutenant
Glaser in the forehead.
WITWER (CONT'D)
And what I do not want around me,
are nonbelievers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
103.
Witwer steps over the body as if it doesn't exist, and walks
out of the office, locking the door behind him.
EXT. THE PRECOG ENGINEERING LAB - CHEVY CHASE, MD -- LATER
Witwer gets out his car and looks at the two story concrete
building that houses the lab. The lights are out in all the
windows except the back section of the second floor. There,
the lights burn brightly.
Witwer sees Precrime officers posted at intervals around it.
He smiles as if he knows something they don't. He looks at
his watch. It is a cool night, but his face is slick with
sweat.
He walks to the entrance of the building. An OFFICER is
startled to see him.
WITWER
Things quiet?
OFFICER
Sir. Should you ... be here?
WITWER
There's been a development. A body's
been found in the Sprawl.
OFFICER
Anderson's?
WITWER
They're checking it out. I need to
see what the Precogs have seen.
Witwer is IdentiScanned. The door opens and he goes in.
INT. THE LAB
Dr. Resfield looks up as Witwer strides into the lab, carrying
a tv under his arm. Witwer is the last person he wants to
see.
WITWER
Borrowed this from the technicians'
lounge. You don't think they'll
mind, do you?
DR.RESFIELD
You shouldn't be here, Director.
Dr. Resfield's eyes cut to a large digital clock on the wall,
the red numbers ticking off time in seconds.
Witwer looks for a plug, finds one. Plugs in the tv.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
104.
WITWER
No, no. This is exactly where I
should be.
DR. RESFIELD
You're under a lot of strain,
Director.
Witwer finds what he's looking for -- the continuous loop of
his murder by Anderson. "Call Now! Call Now!"
WITWER
And tv's so good for that -- soothes
the mind.
Witwer turns his sweaty face to Resfield and gives him a
bright smile. The scientist looks like he wants to run out
of the room.
Witwer takes him by the elbow and guides him toward the
Precogs. Two technicians hover over the Precogs adjusting
IV's and turning dials on the Precogs's organic helmets.
The Precogs wince and shiver with each turn of the dial.
But they are no longer violently seizing -- they are too
weak for that.
WITWER (CONT'D)
Bring me up to speed, Doc.
DR. RESFIELD
We're getting nothing from them.
WITWER
And that's because ... ?
Witwer still grips him by the elbow.
DR. RESFIELD
I don't know.
WITWER
Do you think they know where Anderson
is?
DR. RESFIELD
It's impossible to tell.
(beat)
We've done everything. Maybe even
too much.
WITWER STARES AT THE PRECOGS
WITWER
They know how to find Anderson for
me.
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
105.
WITWER (CONT'D)
(beat)
They're the perfect machine, Doctor.
You just have to know which button
to push.
INT. BOARDING HOUSE - THE SPRAWL
Rose looks like she's on fire. Anderson wets another towel,
wrings it over the sink. Lisa takes it, and wipes down Rose's
face and arms .
Rose's lips are moving soundlessly. Her eyes are shut tight.
She begins to writhe in bed.
ANDERSON
Jesus Christ.
LISA
Come on, Rose.
ANDERSON LOOKS AT HIS WATCH
ANDERSON
One hour. We hold it together for
an hour, Witwer lives -- and I'm not
a murderer.
LISA
She won't last an hour.
It suddenly looks much worse than that. Rose's body contorts
horribly and she arches up off the bed. Lisa can't control
her.
Anderson reaches for her, wraps her in his arms, trying to
hold and comfort her.
ANDERSON
Rose!
She begins to wail as she thrashes in his arms.
ROSE
He's killed him, Anderson!
Rose stiffens into a seizure posture, then her body goes
slack. Anderson eases her back on the bed. He stares at
her, stricken.
Her voice barely leaves her now
ROSE (CONT'D)
You didn't save my brother.
Anderson reels at her words.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
106.
ANDERSON
Did he kill both of them, Rose?
Rose!
Rose manages to speak, one last time. Her whispered words
damn him.
ROSE
Does it matter, Anderson?
Anderson rises. Looks down at Rose.
It matters. He starts to move, quickly.
Lisa takes hold of his arm.
LISA
If you leave this room Anderson kisses
her.
ANDERSON
Then I'm a cop, just trying to do
hisjob.
He reaches for his duffel bag.
When the door closes behind him, Rose turns her head slightly
and looks. And then her eyes drift closed, as she goes to a
place deep within her own mind.
EXT. A STREET - THE SPRAWL - MOMENTS LATER
He passes by several cars on the street. But they're all
auto-drive, they won't do him any good.
So he smashes a store window within forty-five seconds a
city police transport zooms up, lights flashing. Two city
officers leap out of the transport. They approach the
smashed-in store window, weapons drawn. Which is a mistake.
Anderson rises into view behind them, and sonically blasts a
small crater in the sidewalk they are standing on.
As they trip and fall, he is already spraying them down with
BindFoam.
Their second mistake is they left the engine running to power
the bank of Nits -Tracker lights on the car's hood and roof.
Anderson screeches off through the choking predawn streets
of The Sprawl, a beacon of light in the darkness.
INT. THE LAB
The DIGITAL CLOCK races through time. Witwer reaches his
hand up and touches the vanishing numbers.
The camera pulls back, and we see Dr. Resfield and the two
technicians bound and gagged in a heap in the corner.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
107.
And when we see the lab in its entirety, there sprawled on
the floor in front of his chair is one of the Precog brothers.
A small rise of blood comes from a torn place in the back of
his skull.
The other Precog sits very still in his chair. He is still
connected to everything -- his helmet is in place, the TVs
drip into him. His eyes are open, and when Witwer moves,
the Precog's eyes follow him.
Witwer can feel them on him. He turns around.
WITWER
Is he coming? No? Yes? Maybe?
(beat)
I think yes.
The Precog looks at him.
WITWER (CONT'D)
And you think yes.
Witwer points to the tv screen, running Anderson's murder of
Witwer. Witwer smiles triumphantly.
WITWER (CONT'D)
Infallibly,immutably yes.
The Precog looks at him. Witwer's smile vanishes, and
suddenly strides across the room, and claps his hand over
the Precog's eyes. Then he turns, and stares again at the
clock.
EXT. THE PRECOG ENGINEERING LAB
Three officers stand thirty feet apart in front of the
building, facing outward toward the parking lot, weapons
cradled in their arms.
Behind them is a line of yew bushes. AS we watch, the officer
on the left is yanked off his feet backward into the bushes.
Several moments pass, and the same thing happens to the
officer on the right.
The officer guarding the front entrance casually looks right.
Then he looks hard. He grips his weapon tight, and swings
left. No one there, either.
ANDERSON drops him hard, from behind. The officer crumples
onto the cement.
But Anderson's not done with him. Anderson lifts him up,
struggles to drag him forward toward the entrance.
Anderson holds him upright in place. The man's head lolls
backward. Which is. Perfect for what Anderson needs to do.
Anderson reaches his fingers towards the man's closed eyes.
He pulls up on the eyelids.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
108.
An IdentiScan over the entrance clicks on and reads the man's
eyes. Access granted, the doors HISS open. Anderson enters
the building, dragging the officer with him.
INT. THE LAB
Anderson enters the lab. The very building sickens him.
What he sees sickens him even more.
The remaining Precog sits strapped into his chair. Witwer
sits beside him in the other Precog chair, the dead brother
at his feet. Witwer wears the dead Precog's helmet. His
hand is in his lap, holding a gun.
He grins when Anderson appears. He takes off the helmet,
drops it on the floor.
WITWER
I figured, since I can see the future,
too, maybe I could get a little disc
action going.
(beat)
Just kidding.
Anderson stares at his old partner. Then he looks up at the
digital clock. Five-seventeen AM. Witwer looks too, then
turns back to Anderson.
WITWER (CONT'D)
You find you been doing that a lot
this week? Looking at clocks?
(beat)
Three minutes to go.
Anderson turns to the tv.
ANDERSON
There's never anything good on, you
know?
Now Witwer smiles.
WITWER
There. That's the old Paul.
ANDERSON
You're not the old Ed. You've lost
it.
Witwer rises from the chair, the gun in his hand.
WITWER
You lost it. You went weak in the
knees, partner.
ANDERSON
I'm not your partner.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
109.
Witwer looks at him sadly.
WITWER
The air went out of you when Frank
D'Ignazio killed himself.
ANDERSON
He was guilty. I accepted that.
WITWER
No you didn't. The doubts were
creeping in on you. The lab trying
to engineer more Precogs ... Malcolm
pressuring you to expand ...
Witwer reaches out and gently touches the remaining Precog
brother's cheek.
WITWER (CONT'D)
Belief is the basis of the system.
It was your job to be the ultimate
believer.
Witwer is breathing hard. He lifts a hand and wipes the
sweat from his face.
WITWER (CONT'D)
And when Frank died, you faltered.
I'm a cop, I see into the hearts of
men.
(beat)
And the thing about you is, you
wouldn't have just walked away.
ANDERSON
Never been my style Witwer gives him
the flicker of a smile
WITWER
Precrime needs to grow. You would
have stood in its way. The Security
Panel wouldn't have understood that.
What you're capable of. What a
bulldog you are.
(beat)
Look what you've been doing to us
all week. Amazing. You're the best.
ANDERSON
So you took matters into your own
hands.
WITWER
I understood the threat. I understood
YOU
Anderson looks at the dead Precog
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
110.
ANDERSON
You killed a Precog. You ended the
system you wanted to protect.
WITWER
Wrong. This lab will make more.
Believe it, Paul.
They look at the CLOCK. Five-nineteen.
ANDERSON
Knowing the exact moment of your
death -it's made you crazy, Ed.
Witwer looks at the tv. The TV REALITY is almost in synch
with what is happening in the room.
Witwer lifts his gun -- and then realizes something is
terribly wrong.
Anderson is standing there before him just as he is on the
disc -- except there is a major difference.
WITWER
You sonofabitch!
Anderson lifts up both hands
WITWER (CONT'D)
You didn't bring your gun!
ANDERSON
That's right. No gun.
WITWER
You see?! That's exactly what I'm
talking about. You don't Believe!
Anderson just looks at Witwer, raging at him.
WITWER (CONT'D)
The system is infallible.
ANDERSON Doesn't Seem to be Witwer reaches behind him and
pulls a second gun from out of his belt.
WITWER (CONT'D)
I guess that's why I've always carried
two.
He tosses the gun to Anderson. It clatters at Anderson's
feet.
ANDERSON
You can't have it both ways. You
don't want to die. That's why you
lured me here -- to kill me first.
(MORE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
111.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
(beat)
But it you don't diet the system is
flawed, and you couldn't live with
that.
Witwer SHOOTS him once, in the right thigh. Anderson cries
out, falls to the concrete floor.
WITWER
Pick it up
Anderson speaks through his teeth ANDERSON It doesn't happen.
Witwer looks frantically at the tv, at the clock.
He reaches over and opens the dripmeter on a piggy back IV
feeding into the Precog's main line. A thick, yellow fluid
begins to flow toward the Precog's jugular vein.
WITWER (CONT'D)
You're killing him, partner.
And what choice, finally, does Anderson have? He reaches
for the gun.
ANDERSON
Let's not do this, Ed Witwer trains
his gun on Anderson. Anderson trains
his gun on Witwer.
ANDERSON (CONT'D)
Oh, Ed ...
Witwer lowers his gun. And stands there between Anderson
and the doomed Precog.
The yellow liquid has almost reached the Precog's jugular.
Anderson shoots Witwer, once in the heart. Witwer is thrown
back across the room, against a wall, beneath the clock.
Anderson drags himself to the Precog, and rips the yellow IV
out of the main line. The yellow drips onto the floor,
mingling with Witwer's red.
Anderson crawls to his friend, and cradles him. Witwer
whispers something, and Anderson leans close to hear him.
WITWER
Now do you believe?
Anderson pulls away from Witwer, and lets him take his last
breaths alone.
DISSOLVE TO:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
112.
DARKNESS
And then, slowly emerging from the mists of darkness, a pale,
beautifully proportioned FACE.
It is Rose's face. The camera pulls back and we see that
she is lying on a grassy hillside. Her brother is lying
beside her.
They are looking up at the night sky, at a sky filled with
stars.
Rose stares up into the sky, and speaks in a soft voice to
her brother.
ROSE
James. Can you guess what I'm
thinking?
JAMES
(beat)
NO.
James smiles. And then, after a long moment, so does Rose.
THE END
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