End of Watch

Freddi Linklatter checks the zeetheend.com website and finds it active, and the comments section is full of people contemplating suicide. Freddy doesn’t dare shut down the repeater, or Brady will know she is alive. She tries to shut down the website, but she can’t get in.

Hodges receives a call from the duty nurse at the clinic. The only person on Brady’s visiting list is Freddi Linklatter. Hodges remembers Brady’s coworker at Discount Electronix. He now knows how Brady managed to modify the Zappits. Hodges tracks down Freddi’s address.

Meanwhile Brady pulls into the drive at Dr. Babineau’s vacation cabin—called “Heads and Skins” (referring to hunting trophies) by the wealthy doctors who share the ownership—and lets himself in. He fires up his laptop, checks the repeater and finds that 243 Zappits have been found and uploaded with the suicide software. The website is also accumulating views. Brady uses his own Zappit to sort through the people lured in by the altered Zappits. He picks one user and gets to work planting suicidal thoughts.

Freddi tells Holly, Jerome, and Hodges about Dr. Z and Z-Boy and that they are both actually Brady. Jerome disconnects the repeater from Freddi’s computer, shutting it down. It is too late to stop the Zappits that have already been modified, but no more will be infected.

In Dr. Babineau’s cabin, Brady checks the repeater and finds that 248 Zappits have been found and altered but the repeater has been shut down. At first he is furious at Freddi, then he realizes it had to be Hodges who did it. Brady is aware that somehow, Hodges always knew he was faking his catatonia. He phones Freddi.

Hodges picks up the phone and asks if this is Dr. Babineau, Dr. Z, or Brady. Brady hangs up. Hodges doesn’t really believe it is Brady. He thinks that Babineau is delusional and only believes himself to be Brady, but Holly tells Hodges it really could be Brady and that there is sound documentation for personality projection.

Hodges insists that it isn’t possible, and Holly tells him not to turn away from evidence just because he doesn’t want to go where it leads. He shouldn’t be like Isabelle Jaynes. Freddi tells them she knows Brady wrote the hacks for the Zappits because she recognizes some signature quirks that Brady always used. She also recognized Brady’s handwriting when Z-Boy or Dr Z wrote anything, and she just knows Brady from working with him for so many years.

Brady paces the cabin, wondering whether Hodges can take down the zeetheend.com website and find Brady at the cabin. His goal now is to hurt Hodges as much as he possibly can before the end. To do that, he has to go back into the Zappits and get to as many kids as possible.

Holly asks Hodges whether he really believes that Dr. Babineau is the “Suicide Prince” who is engineering all this, or is it Brady, who they all know has a fascination with manipulating people to end their own lives. Holly asks Hodges if the police have a cyber-crime squad. Their next step is to take down the zeetheend.com website. If the police had a cyber-crime unit, Pete could get them to crash the website. Hodges tries to phone Pete, but Pete isn’t answering. He phones Isabelle, who tells him Pete has walked out; he is taking his personal days to run out his last days before retirement. She blames Hodges and Holly for infecting Pete with their fixation on Brady Hartsfield. He tells her if she ever wants any chance of future promotion, she had better listen. Into her shocked silence, he tells her about the zeetheend.com website and tells her to get the cyber-squad to call Holly right away. Hodges threatens to call the press and make sure they know who refused to do anything to stop the coming wave of suicides. Isabelle resentfully capitulates.

With Isabelle blackmailed into dealing with the website, Hodges still has to stop Brady’s attacks on the kids with Zappits. Holly receives a call from the cyber-crime unit, excited for a chance to crash a website. Hodges gets the address of Dr. Babineau’s hunting cabin from the duty nurse at the clinic. By the time he, Holly, Jerome, and Freddi pile into Jerome’s car, the zeetheend.com website is out of service with a number for the National Suicide Hotline on the screen: 1-800-273-TALK.

Brady is infuriated to find not only that the website has been crashed, but the suicide hotline number is the insult added to the injury. He realizes Hodges will be coming for him next. Brady gets out a set of night-vision goggles and one of the guns stored at the cabin—a SCAR 17S—and sets up an ambush.

Hodges and Holly leave Jerome behind—over his vociferous protests—while they go after Brady. Holly brings Hodges’s two guns, his old service Glock and the .38 that belonged to his father. Isabelle calls, beside herself over the growing wave of suicides with Zappits found at the scenes.

Nearing the cabin, Holly and Hodges pass a video camera, alerting Brady. As they approach the cabin on foot, Brady lunges from behind the woodpile and hits Holly with the butt of a rifle. Then he knocks Hodges’s gun from his hand, takes the second gun—the .38—from Holly, and puts in the back of his belt. He makes Hodges pick up the unconscious Holly and carry her into the cabin with Brady behind him.

Inside, Brady makes Hodges take up a Zappit console and open the “Fishin’ Hole” game. He sees a blue flash, and the fish start swimming. He starts to feel Brady’s mind fiddling at his. He realizes Brady wants to control him so he can make Hodges kill Holly.

Hodges’s phone rings, startling him out of his trance. Brady jumps, and the .38 revolver falls out of his belt. Hodges throws the Zappit into the fireplace and throws a heavy pen-holder into Brady’s face. Brady raises his gun, but before he can fire, Holly recovers consciousness, grabs the .38, and shoots him in the shoulder. He flees into the snow. He turns and opens fire with the Scar, filling the cabin with bullets and shrapnel. The sound of gunfire prevents him from hearing an approaching engine. Brady pauses to put a fresh clip in the gun and finally hears a huge snowplow coming straight at him. He fires at the vehicle, and Jerome leaps from the cab. Before Brady has a chance to flee, the plow runs over him.

Jerome, Holly and Hodges gather around Brady, who is still alive and suffering. He begs Hodges to shoot him. Hodges puts the .38, with one bullet, in Brady’s hand and puts the muzzle to his head. Brady uses his telekinetic power to pull the trigger.

Pete visits Hodges in the hospital where he is celebrating his 70th birthday with Holly, Jerome, and Jerome’s sister Barbara. Hodges’s daughter Allie has just left. She has reconciled with her father. Pete and Isabelle have made up. Holly, Hodges, and Jerome are not in trouble over Brady/Babineau’s death. Babineau has been blamed for everything. Library Al died by suicide in jail. Jerome announces that Barbara is dating Dereese.

Leaving the hospital, Pete and Holly stop at the elevator and talk about Hodges. They both know there is very little hope for him, but Holly holds what she refers to as “Holly hope.” Hearing this, Pete thinks to himself that she’s not as weird as she used to be, but she’s still an odd one. He realizes he kind of likes it.

Eight months later, Jerome and Holly meet at Hodges’s graveside. On the gravestone is written, “Kermit William Hodges, End of Watch” (493). Holly is going to continue running Finders Keepers, with Pete to help now that he is retired. Jerome affirms that he loves Holly and that he always will, and they walk out of the cemetery and back into the world together.