by Ed Naha
Moving forward past a gaggle of technicians, she approached Robo. Robo, however, marched right by her, following Morton, his mentor.
Lewis watched the broad-shouldered figure disappear down the hall. She shrugged and laughed to herself. She was probably going crazy. There wasn’t the slightest resemblance.
[ 10 ]
Robo sat in the holding cell and watched Tyler, Roosevelt, and the technicians hover around him. They all carried clipboards and checklists. He was aware that they were all very excited about him without really noticing he was there. A sudden thought floated through his brain. It was reassuring to be considered a thing. Did he remember that? No. Not really. Morton paced up and down before him, sweating. He was cheerful. That was odd.
Tyler glanced at a technician. “Test the targeting grid.”
Tyler pointed his pen at different objects in the room. A toilet. A box. Morton’s leg. Robo noticed them all. As he saw them, however, a small series of green lines appeared superimposed over them. They united and formed a round target.
“Check,” said a technician.
Robo listened to Tyler bark commands and questions. The technicians answered in a litany of “checks.”
Green lines and graphics poured through his brain. He didn’t actually comprehend what they were designed for but he rationalized that they were an integral part of his functioning. After a few moments, Tyler turned to Morton. “He’s ready.”
Morton smiled so hard his teeth ached. “Great. Can we have some privacy?”
Tyler, Roosevelt, and the rest scurried out of the room. Morton bent down over Robo. Robo saw both the man and the biographical printout that went along with his face. Morton placed a paternal hand on Robo’s shoulder. “RoboCop,” he intoned. “What are your prime directives.”
A series of sentences flashed across Robo’s vision. Dutifully, he recited them as they printed out in his brain center. “Directive One: Serve the public trust. Directive Two: Uphold the law. Directive Three: Protect the innocent. Directive Four . . .” Robo hesitated. “Directive four is classified.”
Morton removed his hand. “Very good. Very, very good.”
Robo blinked. Did he remember that? No. Just a phrase.
Morton motioned him forward. “Come on.”
The OmniCon executive led Robo into the main room of the precinct house. He stopped before the towering desk of Sergeant Reed. Robo was aware that he was being followed by a small group of technicians. All eyes were upon him. He certainly seemed popular.
Reed refused to acknowledge their presence until Morton spoke up. “He needs a car.”
Reed didn’t bother to look up. He tossed a set of keys to Morton. They were heading for his forehead. Without thinking, Robo extended a hand and, in one swift motion, grabbed the keys and placed his hand down at his side. “Thank you, Sergeant Reed,” Robo said politely.
Reed stared uneasily at the hulking figure. “Anytime,” he said.
Morton pointed Robo toward the door. “Go get ’em, boy.”
Robo nodded and marched through the precinct house and out the front door. A TurboCruiser awaited him. Robo stood outside the car for a moment. A primitive means of transportation, one prone to breakdowns and not that maneuverable at high speeds. Still, it was more attractive than the other squad cars around. It seemed new and extremely shiny. The moon shone down on the hood. Not a single ding in the metal surface.
Robo climbed in the car, fired up the engines, and roared off into the night, paying strict attention to the grids on the fluttering dashboard displays. Robo guided the car down dimly lit street after street. He noted that most of the neighborhoods were in an advanced state of decay. He wondered what had brought about this ruin. And, if the place had reached this putrid state, why didn’t someone come along and just clear the area and replace it all?
He enlarged the scope of his vision, watching the road before him and the various data being displayed on the dash of the car. He passed by a street still housing several stores in operations. A frizzy-haired young man was darting up the street in an erratic manner, his overcoat badly stained. Robo made a mental note. Loss of balance. He zoomed his vision in for a closer look. Dilated pupils. Drug-related reaction. Crusted mucus about the nose. Lips dry and flaky. Weight: approximately 110 pounds. Thirty pounds less than normal for a male this height. Conclusion: condition brought about by abuse of pharmaceutical substances. Illegal variety. Likely substance of abuse? Cocaine, possibly heroin.
Robo turned the corner and considered the facts.
Tony Alvarez, aged sixty, sat behind the liquor counter of his small store and watched the TV overhead. He loved that Bixby Snyder Show. It’s Not My Problem. What a funny guy. He must have taken at least a dozen pies in the face every show. Bixby made a remark concerning hooters and Tony laughed out loud.
His wife, Elvira, turned from the register and watched her husband giggle. Sixty years old and still acting like a kid. She shrugged. Oh well, every man had a little boy still inside.
When Elvira’s back was turned, ten-year-old Petey Davison made his move. He extended a hand and quietly ripped off a Snickers bar. He jammed it into his jacket pocket as Elvira turned around.
“Find anything yet, Petey?”
Petey perused the candy rack. “No ma’am. Not yet.”
“We’ll be closing soon, Petey. Make up your mind.”
“Yes ma’am.” Petey grinned at her. Idiot. She had nose hairs sticking out of her snout.
Elvira smiled as the young man in the overcoat staggered into the store. He looked wasted as hell. Elvira sighed. This neighborhood certainly wasn’t what it used to be. The new customer walked over to the girlie magazine rack and stared, hollow-eyed, at the badly dog-eared issues in front of him. Elvira didn’t like the looks of the boy. He was shaking. His forehead was dripping with sweat.
Petey glanced over his shoulder at the dude. He smirked. Hophead. Adults were so screwed up. Maybe if the guy caused enough of a ruckus, Petey would get to swipe a second Snickers bar. He watched the man hopefully.
Elvira glanced at Tony. Tony was already watching the kid. The stranger grabbed an issue of Anal Lesbians in Heat and rushed over to the register. He slapped the magazine down on the counter hard. Petey looked up at the geek. His eyes were nearly pinwheeling.
Elvira maintained her smile. “Will there be anything else?”
The hophead seemed to consider this. “Yeah,” he replied evenly. “Empty the register and put the money in a bag.”
Elvira was puzzled. “Excuse me?”
The hophead pulled a shortened Chinese AR-56 from inside his overcoat. Seeing the shiny weapon, Petey slowly backed away. Suddenly, he lost his desire for Snickers.
The hophead snapped a spring-loaded bayonet into place on the barrel of the sawed-off gun and waved it below Elvira’s nose. Tony stood beneath the blaring television set, petrified.
“Give me your money,” the stranger said emphatically. “All of it. And don’t fuck around.”
He turned toward Tony. “Where’s the safe, old man?”
Tony’s lips quivered. “We—we don’t have one.”
Elvira began filling a paper bag with money. The stranger glared at Tony. Elvira pressed a small button inside the drawer of the register, activating a silent alarm. She hoped. It hadn’t been used in five years.
The stranger spun and grabbed Petey around his neck. Petey’s eyes widened as he felt the tip of the bayonet hover above his left ear. “Open the safe, pops, or I’ll blow junior here all over the candy rack,” the hophead commanded.
Petey closed his eyes. Jesusmaryandjoseph. If he got out of this one, he’d never steal any Snickers again. Tony seemed to sag. “Don’t hurt the boy,” he wheezed. “I’ll open the safe.”
Tony walked toward a picture of Jesus hanging behind the register. One of those 3-D portraits that winked. He pulled the picture aside and started to fumble with the combination lock on the wall safe. He was nervous. He was old. His fingers wer
e stiff. He was afraid he’d hear Petey scream any second.
“You’re stallin’, old man,” the hophead said. “You got to three to get that safe open. One. Two . . .”
He pushed Petey down in front of the candy rack. Elvira screamed. The hophead pulled the bolt on the rifle and aimed it at the ten-year-old boy.
Elvira let out another yell.
This time, her attention was not focused on the robber.
The hophead, seeing that Elvira was staring over his shoulder, spun in time to see Robo crash through the doors of the store. The robber froze.
“What the hell is that?” he blurted. It was a cop. But it wasn’t a cop. It was a machine. But it looked like a man. He pointed his rifle at the cop.
Robo wasn’t impressed. “We can do this one of two ways,” Robo announced gently. “The easy way or the hard way.”
Elvira and Tony hit the floor as the hophead let three rounds loose. “Screw you, cop.”
The bullets smacked into the armor on Robo’s chest and ricocheted wildly into space. Petey watched a bottle of detergent fall, mortally wounded, to the floor. A light bulb in the back of the store shattered. The selector dial on the TV spun wildly, changing the channels six times.
“Screw me, cop,” the thief muttered.
Robo shrugged. “Okay. We do it the hard way.”
He walked toward the robber. The frightened druggie opened fire again, point blank. Elvira and Tony held each other’s hand as bottles of gin exploded not five feet from their heads. The blast didn’t cause Robo to even break stride.
“Aggghhhhhhh,” the robber announced, charging toward Robo with fixed bayonet. The hophead smacked the bayonet into Robo’s groin. He pulled it back. The bayonet looked like a small concertina.
Robo took the thief’s gun in one massive hand and crushed the barrel. “Now it’s my turn.”
Robo swung the robber’s rifle like a baseball bat. The butt of the gun connected with the hophead’s jaw and sent the thief flying into the back of the store. Display racks tumbled as the intruder reached a speed of twenty miles per hour before slamming, head-first, through a massive freezer case door. What was left of his head wasn’t worth talking about.
Elvira and Tony slowly peeked out over the register.
Petey scrambled to his feet, staring up into the sort-of face of the supercop. “Wow,” Petey exclaimed.
Robo addressed his ComLink. “Central. Requesting prisoner transport . . .”
He gazed into the back of the store. The robber was still moving. Vaguely. “And MediVac unit. 174 South Pine Street. Copy?”
“Copy,” ComLink belched.
Robo turned to the two store owners. “I don’t think he’ll give you any more trouble.”
Tony looked at the shattered form embedded in the freezer case door. “I don’t think he’ll give anybody any trouble again.”
Robo placed two steely fingers to his helmet and tossed off a casual salute. He turned and marched out of the store. Petey watched him leave, wide-eyed.
Turning to Elvira, he removed the Snickers bar from his coat. “Uh, how much for this, ma’am?”
Tony put an arm around his wife. “It’s on the house, Petey.”
“Gee, thanks, Mr. Alvarez.” Petey ran out of the store just in time to see the TurboCruiser disappear down an alley. “That guy is better than T. J. Lazer,” he exclaimed.
Robo angled the TurboCruiser down the gaudy, garishly lit streets of the tenderloin district. Heavily made up hookers of both sexes slouched on lampposts near the curb. Several punks gave him the finger as he drove by. A neon sign bearing the words GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! reflected off his visor.
Robo watched both the streetscum and the dash carefully. A bright blue light began flashing on the gridmap before him. Four blocks away. Without thinking, Robo hit all the switches. Sirens howled. Lights flashed red and blue. Robo stood on the gas. The turbo engines screamed to life. There was a crime happening and, according to directives one and two, that wasn’t a proper thing to do in Robo’s precinct.
In a dark alley four blocks away, a young woman, her blouse torn, screamed for someone, anyone, to help her as two young punks trotted after her. The skinnier, faster of the two thugs was upon her in an instant, grabbing her from behind and pawing at her half-exposed breasts. She dropped her purse, struggling to get free. The young punk let her go, eyeing the girl’s torso. She turned to run and found herself in the arms of the second Cro-Magnon.
“Hey, baby,” he breathed. “Take it easy. We don’t want to hurt you.”
The woman’s lips quivered. He was only two inches away from her face. He was breathing hard. He smelled of sardines and tequila. Her head was yanked back from behind. The first punk had grabbed her hair.
He was practically drooling on it, a knife in his hand. “Way too much hair here for me. I like a girl with short hair.”
The mugger in front of her held her hard. “Yeah. Me, too. Let’s give her a haircut before we get . . . intimate.”
The thug behind her flicked his switchblade open and slowly sliced off a large hunk of the woman’s hair. In the moonlight, tears glistened down the woman’s face. She was angry. Frightened. Humiliated. Before she knew what she was doing, she shot an elbow into the groin of the creep behind her and tried kneeing the boy who held her by the shoulders.
He shook her furiously, as his partner yelped in pain. “Baby, you’re making me mad.”
He produced a knife of his own and held it to her throat. “Don’t make me mad, honey.”
He laughed, watching the shimmering tears cascade down her face. He blinked. Her tears weren’t shimmering anymore. In fact, the moonlight that had illuminated her face had been blotted out . . . blotted out by a large shadow.
An Olympian voice thundered across the alley. “Let the woman go! You’re under arrest!”
“What the f—” The punk held on to the woman and spun his body around. Walking down the alley was the damnedest policeman the creep had ever seen. He looked like a cop. But he walked like a . . . well, a soldier or something. And his hands were as big as . . . his gun. Which was real big.
The two punks cowered together, the woman held in front of them.
Robo saw the time for talk was over. He switched from his Public Address mode to his Targeting sequence. He raised the gun.
The mugger holding the woman ducked behind her, the knife still to her throat. Robo analyzed the situation. Calling up his targeting grids he searched for a shot that would safely miss the woman and nail her assailant.
Computerized response: there was none.
Robo kept the gun upraised. He switched his targeting mode to a computer-generated overhead graphic of the scene. Green lines and numbers flew through his brain, calculating the correct angle of firing and the proper trajectory of the bullet.
The mugger holding the girl couldn’t figure this out. Why didn’t the cop back down? He had a hostage. “Are you kidding me, asshole? I’ll cut this bitch’s neck from ear to ear.”
Robo didn’t reply. Swiveling his body ever so slightly, he fired a single round into the alley wall on the left. He heard the bullet ricochet high into the wall on the right. Ping. Another ricochet. Downward, now. The hostage screamed as Robo’s bullet angled into the back of her assailant’s head, neatly blowing his face all over the back of her blouse.
He collapsed on the ground in a dead heap, his knife clattering harmlessly on the pavement. The woman ran off to the side of the alley and hugged a wall. The remaining mugger stood, knife in hand, gaping at the cop.
Robo faced the punk. “It’s your move, I believe.”
The kid dropped the knife and slowly raised his hands toward the moon. Robo calmly marched up to him and placed the muzzle of his A-9 against the punk’s head. Reaching behind his back, he produced a set of handcuffs. He snapped one cuff around the punk’s right wrist, pulled the kid up to a street sign and, wrapping the punk’s arms around the metal pole, closed the remaining cuff on the creep’s left
wrist.
“There,” Robo said.
The woman ran up to Robo, sobbing. She threw her arms around him. Robo faced her, activating his Voice Street Analyzer. There was anger. Relief. Fear. Affection.
Affection?
“Oh, God,” the woman sobbed. “Oh, God. I was so scared. How can I ever thank you enough, Officer?”
Robo gently pushed her away. “You have suffered a severe emotional shock. It’s important for you to be with people you trust, ma’am. I can notify a rape crisis center, if you so desire.”
Lewis and Starkweather angled their car into the alley and trained their spotlight on Robo and the woman. Lewis, at the wheel, shook her head admiringly. “He may eat batteries for breakfast, but he’s a pretty good cop. Two collars in a half hour.”
“He’s no more a cop than my blender is,” Starkweather groused. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Lewis backed her TurboCruiser out of the alley. She wasn’t sure whether she liked the idea of a cyborg on the force, but one thing was certain: once the word on Robo hit the street, Old Detroit would look like a new neighborhood.
[ 11 ]
Robo sat in darkness, the humming of his heart his only companion. Outside, a world went on living without him. He didn’t realize this, however. Babies were being born. Grandparents were dying. Young couples were loving. Robo, however, ceased to exist when he wasn’t called upon to function.
Click.
He was in the holding cell. Dr. Roosevelt was before him. “Time to roll, Robo.”
Robo nodded and arose from his chair. He walked past the three technicians at the consoles and headed for the booking room. The cops didn’t pay too much attention to him now. He’d been one of them for a week. They seemed to have accepted him, although he knew he was regarded as more of an appliance than a comrade. He didn’t care. He wasn’t programmed to care. To feel. Some resented him. Others admired him. He didn’t think about it. He had directives to follow.