Detective Briggs, voiced by Nolan North, is a character in LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS and the main protagonist in the second season episode titled "Pop Squad".
History[]
Briggs is a detective working in a futuristic society. His job is to root out "breeders", the people who refuse the rejoo treatment which is the key to immortality and keeps people infertile. Breeders choose to have children, which is in this society is illegal, as since everyone can live forever, no new people are allowed to come into the world as that would cause overpopulation.
On one job, Briggs walks into an apartment. Policemen Mantus and Soran are interrogating a mother, and he is greeted by his partner, Officer Pentle, who points out that the family had made bassinets out of drawers. "Resourceful." is what Briggs' response is. Pentle shows Briggs' the photos of the family that were taken for prosecution, and Briggs looks at them as he smokes a cigarette.
Maria is led out of the room by Mantus and Soran, and Pentle ushers two young boys into a room. Maria begs with Briggs as she is escorted out, stating that the boys had not yet had breakfast. Briggs ignores her. Once alone with the two children, one of them holds up a stuffed dinosaur.
"Sorry, kids." Briggs says. He shoots them.
Once in his sky-faring car, Briggs hears the police radio run over the situation of the two boys, aged eight and ten. He turns over the device with the pictures of the family, opting not to look at them, and heads up into the highest skyscrapers of the city.
That night, he watches his girlfriend, Alice, perform a solo. Once she is done, they talk. She asks him if the job was a bad one, and he responds by saying that it was the usual situation. Alice remarks that she doesn't understand why people would give up immortality to have children. Briggs says that if they weren't going to live forever, he'd marry Alice. Alice says if they weren't going to live forever, she'd let him get her pregnant. Briggs is shocked that she would say such a thing, but Alice laughs it off and tells him to not be so serious.
Alice gets led off into the crowd and is given a stuffed dinosaur as a gift, for her being a "slayer of dinosaurs", in reference to the old man whose solo she had just performed and spent 20 years perfecting. Briggs looks at the dinosaur, which is identical to that which the young boy had held up before Briggs killed him, and has a brief panic attack where he looks at his shaking hands.
The next day, Briggs takes Alice to get her rejoo treatment. On the ride home, she tries to have sex with him, but he refuses, being emotionally distraught from everything. Alice, not being sympathetic, dismisses it as him being "Such a bore."
Briggs attends his next job, where he meets Pentle. She states her disbelief that breeders think they can get away with what they are doing, and wonders if going off rejoo makes them crazy. Mantus and Soran are seen escorting a father out to a police car as Briggs has a cigarette, his hand shaking as he holds it. The father angrily confronts Briggs, saying "Child killer... murderer... coward... you fucking monster!" He pulls out the gun of one of the policemen and fires at Briggs. The bullet grazes Briggs' cheek, who just stands there in dismay. The man is killed when either Mantus or Soran shoot him in the head.
In his car after this latest job is done, Briggs looks in the backseat of his car where Alice's toy dinosaur lies. He looks at it and discovers the origin of the toy: Ipswitch Collectibles. He goes there, and once inside, discovers a young-looking woman buying a toy train.
He follows her, back to a run-down house surrounded by trees and other flora. He walks into the room where Eve is doing dishes while her young daughter is playing with her new toy, and asks the woman to take a seat, telling her that he just wants to talk. He asks her why people like her are having kids, and Eve responds that it is because she does not feel the urge to live forever. She is 218 years old, and has seen too much. But her daughter, Melanie, sees everything for the first time. The world is new to her, and her eyes are bright with discovering, unlike Briggs', which Eve states are the dead. Briggs smiles a little, which Eve points out, saying that he feels something, to which Briggs just bows his head and closes his eyes in shame and denial. Melanie reaches for his hat, and Eve tells him that she wants to play a game where she puts it on his head. Briggs smiles and gives Melanie his hat.
Eve reaches for his gun, but is unsuccessful. Briggs pins her to the table and points his gun at Melanie. The toddler starts crying. Eve pleads with him to kill her instead to make room for her daughter in this world, and Briggs just looks at his gun in disbelief. He lets Eve go and walks out of the room without another word.
He exits the house and, on the porch, sees Pentle. The woman is looking at him, and an expression of distaste appear on her face once she hears Melanie crying, revealing that Briggs has gone against his directive. Briggs stands firm, and the both of them draw there guns and fire at the same time. Briggs' bullet goes through Pentle's throat, and Pentle's goes into Briggs' chest. He staggers forward, passing Pentle as she takes her last breath.
Briggs looks up at the skyscrapers above him and the sunlight poking through the clouds as rain starts to fall onto his face. His eyes have light; he is happy that he has finally done something right. He cherishes the feeling of the rain, then sighs before collapsing to the ground and dying from the shot to his chest.