End of Watch

Holly has been researching the Zappit game consoles. The company went out of business, leaving an inventory of thousands—most of which work. Hodges tells her about the message from Z-Boy on the Blue Umbrella website. The connection between Brady Hartsfield and the Zappit consoles is obvious. Hodges now remembers seeing Brady holding a Zappit in his lap. On top of that, a few years ago, one of Brady’s nurses, Sadie MacDonald, died by suicide, and Brady has a fixation with getting people to kill themselves.

Hodges resolves to visit Brady. Meanwhile, he asks Holly to track down all the missing consoles from when Zappit went out of business. Hodges is preoccupied with thoughts of the case and his cancer diagnosis and fails to see the old car and the old man in the patched parka watching him. On his way to the Brain Trauma Clinic, Hodges gets a call from Pete about the Zappit console examined by the police cyber-tech expert. Pete tells Hodges that when they tested it, the console lit up, the screen flashed blue, then died again. Pete concludes that Janice Ellerton can’t have used it because it was broken. Hodges knows she did use it because her housekeeper said so. Pete obviously hasn’t interviewed the housekeeper. Pete tells Hodges he can’t continue talking about the case with Hodges because Isabelle doesn’t like it. Hodges lies to Pete, promising that he is done with the case.

Nineteen blocks away on MLK street, Barbara Robinson is in trouble. Her older brother Jerome is a good friend of Hodges and Holly. He is currently out of town working for Habitat for Humanity. Barbara is walking through a neglected part of town, carrying a Zappit Commander, watching the Fishin’ Hole demo where fish are darting back and forth on the screen. Every once in a while, the screen gives out a blue flash. Barbara is feeling stupid and worthless because she has never been to this part of town. Her brother and parents have always told her not to come down here. She is a nice upper-middle-class girl from the suburbs. People she passes are calling her “Blackish” because she has their skin color but dresses like a white girl. A voice in her head is telling her she should just “end it.” This seems perfectly reasonable to Barbara in her dazed state.

While Brady is preoccupied with Barbara, Dr. Babineau charges into Brady’s room and tells Brady that Al Brooks (aka Z-Boy, aka Library Al) saw Hodges get on a bus going to the clinic. Brady, trying to focus on Barbara, tells him to shut up. He is seconds from getting Barbara to step in front of a truck.

Barbara is about to step in front of the truck when she is distracted by a boy grabbing her shoulders. He tells her she’s obviously not from the neighborhood. Barbara is furious at him for distracting her, and the friend in her head is gone. She looks back down at the game console, but the boy snatches it from her hands. She kicks him—which amuses and impresses the boy—then Barbara grabs the console back and runs into the street in front of a truck.

Believing Barbara is dead, Brady looks up from his Zappit. He speaks clearly, not in the slurred way he does when pretending to be semi-catatonic. Babineau is worried that Hodges may have recognized Z-Boy/Library Al/Al Brooks, the man in the parka who has been watching him. Brady tells Babineau to keep Hodges out of the clinic for now.

At the Brain Trauma Clinic located in Kiner Memorial Hospital, Hodges finds the clinic staff preoccupied with the news of Ruth Scarpelli’s death. Babineau has been watching for him and denies his request to see Brady. Out of Babineau’s sight, Hodges slips the duty nurse a note to call him later.

Jerome Robinson, Barbara’s older brother, is working for Habitat for Humanity in Phoenix when he receives a call from Holly, telling him to come home because she has snooped on Hodges’s computer and figured out he has cancer. A few minutes later, his mother calls about Barbara.

The duty nurse phones Hodges. She arranges to meet him at a bar after her shift. Next Hodges gets a call from Barbara and Jerome’s mother saying that Barbara was hit by a truck. Hodges meets the ambulance as it arrives. Barbara isn’t badly hurt, but she is crying and telling Hodges that she doesn’t want to die and she doesn’t know what is wrong with her.

After reassuring Barbara’s mother, Hodges tracks down the boy who saved Barbara by pushing her out of the way of the truck. His name is Dereece Neville. Dereese tells Hodges that Barbara had seemed dazed until he grabbed her game, then she seemed to come out of her trance. He says it was an old-school game console with a bunch of fish swimming on the screen.

Hodges heads for his meeting with the duty nurse from the clinic. The nurse reports that Dr. Babineau has been experimenting on Brady Hartsfield. She adds that Brady can move things with his mind.

Barbara’s parents tell Holly that Barbara has been asking specifically to talk to her. Barbara says that she knows Holly had some mental health issues when she was young and asks if Holly ever considered suicide. Holly answers that she had made two attempts. Barbara tells Holly about the voice in her head, her friend, the one inside the fish game who told her to step in front of the truck.

Library Al enters Brady’s room. Brady is watching his Zappit. Al takes out his own Zappit, and they both stare at the fish. Brady takes over Library Al’s body. He then uses Al’s phone to call Freddi Linklatter, his old co-worker from Discount Electronix, and tells her to go ahead with “the plan.”

On the other side of the hospital, Barbara tells Holly how she feels about being Black in a mostly white school and an all-white neighborhood; she notices herself being looked at differently. She is invited to some parties but not all of them. She rarely dates, and when she goes out with a white boy, someone throws popcorn at them at the theater. A few people have even used racial slurs. To Barbara, these things signify that she is othered by white people but not accepted by the Black people in Lowtown.

She tells Holly the voice in her head told Barbara that she is a worthless parasite. Barbara is now afraid she will never get that voice out of her head, and it will spoil her life. Holly tells her forcefully that she must strangle that voice; if it is in her head, she will never be able to fully understand herself. If she really wants to change, she should start by talking to Dereese.

Holly then asks Barbara about the game and where she got it. According to Barbara, a man gave it to her at the mall shortly before Christmas. The man was well-dressed and called himself Myron Zakim, but the initials on his briefcase were something different. She tells Holly that her friend Dinah got a Zappit from a website called Badconcert.com that offers free Zappits to people who can prove they were at the concert Brady disrupted six years earlier.

At the same time, Library Al is arriving at Dr. Babineau’s house with a gun and a homemade silencer.