28
Conclusions
Only time will tell whether the editor’s closing remark is a prescient vision of future
justice, or simply wishful thinking. In the MR’s climax, however, Lamar Burgess is forced to
face his future, as Anderton interrupts what is to be his triumphal moment, inaugurating the
nationalization of Precrime at the gala reception in posh Washington surrounds. Somehow
Anderton is able to transmit the feed of Agatha’s minority report of Ann Lively’s murder live to
the assembled audience, revealing Burgess as Lively’s killer; and as they speak by phone,
Burgess quickly comes to realize that Anderton is at the reception hotel, and sets off to hunt him
down as he tries to justify himself:
ANDERTON: I just wanted to congratulate you. You did it. You’ve created a world without
murder. So what if you had to kill someone to do it. […]
BURGESS: Think about the lives that little girl saved…Think about all the lives she will save? …
John, people have seen a future where they feel safe. If all it cost was the death of a former drug
addict... Leave it alone, John. Leave it alone…People want to believe in the system. That’s the
beauty of it...
ANDERTON: Beauty? The precogs don’t even always agree with each other!
BURGESS: The precogs don’t have to always work, John, just as long as people believe they do,
that’s enough…My God, John, a few hundred years ago, they used to bleed the sick. Twenty years
ago, you had a tumor, they’d cut it out of you, with a knife, for Christ’s sake… Since then the focus
of medicine has gone from cure to prevention. Well, now law enforcement is going the same way.
ANDERTON: Lamar, it’s over…What are you gonna do now? …What’s the matter, Lamar? You
see the problem, don’t you? If you don’t kill me, it means the precogs were wrong and Precrime
is over. If you do kill me, you go away, but... it proves the system works. The precogs were right.
ANDERTON: What’s it worth? Just one more murder...You’ll rot in hell with a halo, but people
will still believe in Precrime…All you have to do now is pull the trigger like they said you
would…. Except... You’ve seen your own future. Which means...You can change it if you want
to…You still have a choice, Lamar...
BURGESS: (finally) Yes, I have a choice... and I’ve made it….Forgive me, John.
54
Burgess is a tragic figure. In choosing to kill himself, Burgess has proven that
previsualization is not destiny, killing Precrime; but in doing so, he serves truth and his ultimate
Convention