RoboCop 2

by Ed Naha

  Outside the restaurant, the rider pulled off the dark helmet, revealing a close-cropped mane of auburn hair and a pair of lightly made-up lips. Officer Anne Lewis lifted up a handheld ComLink communicator.

  “I found Murphy,” she wheezed. “We’ve got ourselves a real situation here.”

  Inside the kitchen, meanwhile, Robo continued to diffuse the situation. One sniveling guard remained, and he had grabbed hold of two sobbing women. Chuckling softly, the guard held them both to his chest, effectively creating a human shield between himself and the square-jawed law-enforcement agent.

  “You can’t get me now, tin-can man,” he jabbered. “I read the papers. I know what you can do and what you can’t do. You’re screwed now, you bag of bolts. Hey! I made a joke! Screwed? Bolts? Sometimes I kill myself.”

  “No,” Robo said, gently, “you do not.”

  The guard stopped, puzzled.

  Robo stared impassively at the scene, activating the grid on his RoboVision. Through his visor, he clicked into targeting mode. He tilted his head this way and that, attempting to conjure up a suitable path of fire that would eliminate the perpetrator while saving the lives of his two pleading hostages.

  No matter how much he concentrated, his computerized sense of possible trajectory paths would not approve a final course of action. No matter where Robo aimed, the women would be in the way.

  The guard began to sweat it, pointing a machine gun at the head of one of the sobbing women.

  Robo blinked at the guard. His RoboVision flashed. DIRECTIVE TWO: PROTECT THE INNOCENT.

  The guard began to chuckle. “Back off, tin man. You got it? Back off! You’re going through that ‘protect the innocent’ crap, right? Ahahaha! I knew it.”

  The guard sent his head back with a roar of laughter. Robo glanced at the ceiling as well. In his RoboVision, the entire scene took on another angle. Robo suddenly saw the view from overhead. Adjusting his internal computers, a possible line of attack formed on the gridlines materializing before his eyes.

  Robo smiled thinly. “Yes, you are right,” he said. “I am defeated.”

  He caught a small glimmer of movement from the rear of the building. “Lewis!” he thundered. “Get down!”

  Anne Lewis hit the ground immediately as Robo squeezed off a round from his powerful Auto-9 pistol. The tracer bullet smashed into a wall on the far side of the room and then spiraled into a second and a third, before careening into the guard’s skull.

  The man dropped like a stone, releasing the two screaming women.

  Robo marched up to Lewis. “Are you all right?”

  “Murphy,” Lewis said, scrambling to her feet, “as your long-time partner, buddy, and welder, have I told you, lately, that you’re a complete fool?”

  RoboCop thought about this. “Not since yesterday at 9:15 A.M.”

  “Then you’re due, fool,” Lewis said, smiling.

  “We have criminals to apprehend,” RoboCop declared, facing the back alleyway. “Outside. Stretch limo. Felons.”

  “I get the picture,” Lewis muttered, following Robo out of the restaurant.

  Down the block, the raven-haired Amazon named Angie and the angular soul called Cain slid into the back seat of their limo. Their driver, Catzo, as big as an ox but not quite as smart, bit his lip.

  “Where’s Hob?” Catzo asked.

  “That boy is incorrigible,” Cain muttered.

  Suddenly, the limo was assaulted by the sound of pounding fists. Cain lowered his window dapperly. A middle-aged woman crouched next to his door, sobbing for mercy. “Let me in! Please! Let me in!”

  “It would really bother me.” Cain sighed. “There are three people in here already, and we’re hoping for a fourth.”

  “Really,” Angie said, smiling sweetly. “He can’t help himself. He’s claustrophobic.”

  “It’s true,” said Cain to the distraught woman. “I’m really sorry.”

  Cain nodded at Catzo, motioning toward the woman. The gorilla of a chauffeur whipped a small pistol from his side and, aiming it at the startled woman, sent a shard of lead screaming into her skull. The woman tumbled back from the limo, stone-cold dead.

  Hob, the young boy with the computer, scrambled out of a back doorway of the restaurant, nearly landing in a startled RoboCop’s arms. The boy stood there, smiling. Robo froze. Behind him, Lewis was picking up speed. The elfin Hob pointed a silver-plated Automag at Robo, who quickly clicked into targeting mode. The target, trained on the boy’s head, dissolved as soon as it was formed.

  “Can’t shoot a kid, can you, fucker?” Hob cackled.

  Robo stood there stiffly.

  “Murphy!” Lewis called from behind.

  Hob squeezed off a harsh round. Robo, still frozen by the sight of a smiling child with a lethal weapon, took the blow in the head.

  The bullet careened from his helmet, leaving a large scratch. Robo staggered, nearly collapsing to his knees.

  “Murphy!” Lewis cried again.

  Robo shook his head clear. Hob’s recorded voice echoed in his ears like a long-playing record with a bad groove. “Can’t shoot a kid, can you? Can’t shoot a kid, can you? Can you? Can you? Fucker!”

  Robo squinted into the darkness as Hob trotted to the awaiting limo. The boy leaped into the back, and the limo pulled away with a deafening screech.

  Robo slowly straightened himself. “Felon,” he whispered. “Child felon . . .”

  “Nice going,” Lewis said, hiding her concern for her partner. “I go to get myself some coffee. I’m gone five—”

  “Fifteen,” Robo corrected.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Lewis yelled, “and I have to spend the rest of the night trying to catch up with you!”

  Anne Lewis gazed at Robo’s creased skull-helmet, determined not to show her worry. “Then, of course, I have to go and commandeer a motorcycle. The bikers weren’t very understanding . . . They looked like living proof of anti-Darwinism.”

  Robo’s entire body shuddered. He stiffened, withdrawing into himself. “You should not be here, Lewis.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she replied. “I know. This is off-limits to cops, like most of the city is.”

  He turned his back on her. She took a finger and ran it gently across the scratch in his helmet.

  “Does that hurt, Murphy?” she asked timidly.

  Robo shook his head from side to side. He was incapable of hurt now. He was incapable of . . .

  Lewis withdrew her hand, puffing up her chest like a good cop. “Christ! That was just a kid that shot you! He couldn’t have been more than—what? Ten? Eleven years old?”

  “They . . . use . . . kids,” Robo intoned softly. He felt saddened, both for discovering this fact and actually witnessing it. It wasn’t sadness; that wasn’t it. Sadness was an unknown factor. It was . . . an intellectual disappointment. The human race was devolving. That’s what made him feel so sa—disappointed.

  Lewis turned away from RoboCop’s turmoil. “Those bastards are smart,” she said. “We can’t shoot minors. Can’t even keep them locked up. Most we can do is send them to juve hall. Hell, that’s a walk in the park for them. They’re in and out of there in a few hours and . . . Whoah! Look at this, Murphy!”

  Anne Lewis stooped over in the alley, Robo standing, dazed, above her. She picked up what looked like a candy bar. It was studded with tiny NUKE ampules.

  “Just look at this, will ya! NUKE . . . packaged like candy so that it can be sold to kids in schoolyards. For lunch money. The bastards!”

  Not saying a word, RoboCop turned on his heels and marched down the street, leaving a startled Officer Anne Lewis in his wake.

  “Hey, Murphy?” she called.

  Robo continued to march forward into the dark, dank night.

  “Murphy?” Lewis repeated. “RoboCop? Robo? Partner?”

  Robo continued his march.

  “Goddamnit, Murphy,” Lewis said, trotting after him. “Don’t go doing anything stupid. Don’t you dare go shutting me ou
t again. Talk to me, Murphy! Goddamn you! Talk to me!”

  Robo disappeared into the swirls of mist and grit just as a TurboCruiser pulled up. An officer named Dante stuck his head out of the car. “Any trouble?”

  “Our trouble’s over for tonight,” Lewis said.

  “Where’s your partner?” Dante asked.

  “That’s tomorrow’s trouble.”

  [ 5 ]

  The first blotches of the morning sun that fought their way through the clouds over the city bathed the Old Detroit stationhouse in a mottled, orange glow. The building looked more like the Alamo than a precinct house. Bullet holes pockmarked the outside of the ancient brick building. Most of the police TurboCruisers parked in the street outside boasted a myriad of dents and scratches.

  Although it was only first light, a group of sullen police officers carrying picket signs had already gathered.

  RoboCop guided a cruiser toward the underground parking-garage entrance, easing it carefully through the picketing cops. Shouts of “Scab!” greeted his arrival. Lewis sat silently at his side.

  A cop on the picket line trotted up to Lewis’s open window. The cop offered her a sneer, nodding toward RoboCop. “Him, I could believe it of, Lewis. He has no choice. But I never figured you for a goddamned scab.”

  Lewis returned the sneer. “And I figured you for a cop, Stef. I guess we’re both wrong.”

  Robo accelerated slightly, sending the car rumbling down the driveway. The cop named Stef shook an angry fist at the retreating vehicle.

  “The union’s got a list, Lewis,” he shouted. “We ain’t forgetting who you are!”

  “I hate that man,” Lewis muttered.

  “His use of slang doesn’t enhance the department’s image,” Robo conceded.

  Inside the stationhouse, the booking desk reflected the chaos engulfing the city. Civilian volunteers tried to man the phones. A holding tank was loaded to the brim with lowlifes who were all, to a man, “innocent,” the victims of a bum rap. In the background, a deranged woman screamed a mantra of insanity.

  Lewis and Robo entered the room. Wounded cops staggered in and out of doorways.

  Lewis sighed and removed her flak jacket. “Home, sweet home.” She sighed, turning to Robo. “Gotta shower. I’ll catch up with you.”

  Robo nodded. “Thanks for the loan of the car.”

  “What are partners for?” She smiled, entering the overcrowded locker room.

  If the outside of the station resembled the exterior of the Alamo, then the locker room surely reflected the inside of that historical house of carnage. Since the strike had begun, the few cops who did show up for work were pulling more than their share of shifts. They were outnumbered and outgunned on the streets, their presence providing little more than a bandage for the gaping wound known as Detroit.

  Lewis slowly undid her blouse, watching exhausted cops of both sexes bandage themselves before staggering into the showers. She unslung her gunbelt and hung it on her locker door.

  A frazzled sergeant named Reed led a stunned and bloodied cop by her. Reed caught the eye of a nurse across the room. “Call an ambulance, goddamnit!” he bellowed. “We sure as hell can’t help him here!”

  Reed softened his features, propping up the dazed rookie.

  “You’ll be okay, Mesnik.”

  He glanced at a cheerful rotund cop who was in the process of sliding on a flak jacket. Reed checked his watch. “That’s two shifts tonight, Duffy,” he said. “You’re pushing it too hard.”

  The other cop shrugged. “Tough times need tough cops, Sergeant. I’m fine.”

  Duffy loaded his pistol, whistling softly, then holstered it and marched out of the room. Lewis eyed him suspiciously, nodding toward Reed. “Never seen Duffy so eager, Sarge.”

  Reed nodded. “Robo come back with you, Lewis?”

  “Yeah. He’s in records. Cross-referencing his memory with the mug file.”

  “Christ!” Reed muttered. “Keep an eye on him, will ya? The last thing I need is him getting pulverized battling twenty hopheads at a time.”

  “Will do,” Lewis promised.

  Downstairs in CompuLab, Robo strode silently past the rows of computer banks and monitors, forcing the kibitzing data processors to lapse into silence. Even after all this time, they still weren’t used to seeing the metallic mountain of a cop prowl about the station.

  Robo marched to a point before a massive computer. Extending his right hand, he flipped out his built-in, metal-accessing strip—a frightening appendage that resembled a stiletto. Robo inserted the strip into the computer’s access port. The video monitor before him snapped to life as Robo downloaded his recorded scenes from earlier in the morning.

  The faces of Cain and Angie appeared in the sweatshop office. Robo zoomed in on their faces and held the scene. He then called up a series of mug shots on the right hand of the video terminal. He fast-forwarded through thousands of them, attempting to match eyes, mouth, noses, and shapes of heads.

  SUBJECTS NOT FOUND, announced the computer.

  Puzzled, Robo downloaded the furious face of elfin Hob, raising the gun toward RoboCop’s face.

  Robo twisted his fist and called up the avalanche of mug shots once more. First the eyes appeared. Then the mouth. Finally, the nose and the entire face.

  He had a match.

  HOB MILLS: AGED TWELVE. LAST SEEN: HAMTRAMCK GROUND ZERO VIDEO ARCADE.

  A data processor wearing hoot-owl glasses sidled up behind Robo. He stared at the screen as Robo twisted his extended hand again, attempting to call up Hob’s rap sheet.

  ACCESS DENIED, the computer declared.

  “I bet the little bastard’s lawyer had his record sealed,” the data processor muttered. “The little turd is probably a hit man.”

  Robo silently withdrew his accessing strip, reinserted the spike in his hand, and, without saying a word, left the CompuLab. “Remember when kids were just kids?” the processor called after Robo’s retreating form.

  Robo marched back into the main room of the precinct, passing by a cell block filled with young criminals and NUKE addicts. Over a dozen young offenders were crammed into a cell made for six.

  “Hey, here comes RoboFag!” yelled one.

  “Eat shit, bullethead!” called another.

  “Hey, RoboShit,” another one yelped, “screw any cruisers lately?”

  Robo spun around and faced the young perps, a strange look on his face. The felons settled down immediately, staring up at the icy-blue eyes beneath the clear visor. They were clearly frightened, and, for a split second, Robo saw them for what they truly were: kids.

  He marched past the locker room. Pausing at the door, he stared inside. There, rinsing the lather from her body, was Anne Lewis. Robo regarded her naked body in silence. Lewis turned, startled, and met RoboCop’s gaze. He stood frozen in the doorway for a moment, before turning and marching down the hall, without uttering a sound. Confused and concerned, Lewis scrambled out of the shower and quickly donned a fresh uniform.

  She bolted out of the locker room and ran down to the small RoboChamber, the computer-laden cubicle Robo called home. His massive form was missing from the large chair hooked up to his monitoring devices.

  Lewis glanced around nervously. Robo’s head technician, Tak Akita, was in the midst of a screaming session on a telephone. His partner, Linda Garcia, fiddled with a computer console impatiently.

  “This sucks,” she hissed.

  “Don’t make our job impossible!” Tak shouted into the receiver. “We’re losing hours with this program! It’s an antique! You hired us to maintain and study Robo! No! I will not hold. I’ve been holding for the last twenty-five—hello? Hello?”

  He slammed the phone down. “Shit!” He turned to Garcia. “No go. We’ll have to make do with the old program.”

  “It’ll take days to collate the new data,” Garcia said glumly.

  Lewis offered a tentative wave of her hand. “Problems?”

  “The usual crap from O
CP.” Tak sighed, turning to his consoles. “They treat Robo like he’s yesterday’s news. Won’t spend a dime to update his software.”

  Lewis glanced at Robo’s empty chair. “How’s he doing? He doesn’t seem to be himself lately.”

  “I could write a short thesis on his REM patterns if I had the software,” Tak answered.

  “REM patterns?” Lewis asked.

  “Rapid eye movement. Happens during the dream phase of sleep,” Tak answered.

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “Our boy’s been dreaming like a sonofabitch,” Tak replied. “Want to see?”

  He pressed a key on a computer keyboard lying before a video terminal. The video screen zapped to life. A myriad of images flashed in and out of one another, forming a sort of cerebral collage.

  A football glided high into the air, caught by a pair of hands directly in front of the video screen.

  The next screen image was the back seat of a car and a furious necking session with a cheerleader.

  A nun screamed at the viewers, waving a yardstick in her hand.

  Snow clung to a tree in the middle of a harsh winter.

  A rolling thunderhead cascaded across an azure-blue sky.

  A murderer named Clarence Boddiker raised his shotgun and blew a blast of molten lead directly at the screen.

  “What is all this?” Lewis asked, suppressing a shiver.

  “Murphy’s life,” Tak explained. “He’s done an amazing job of reconstructing his human memory. We’re seeing fragments of it here from his point of view.”

  “Amazing,” Lewis said.

  Tak nodded in agreement, pressing another key. “Lately, though, he’s been fixing in on three key subjects.”

  On the screen before them, a young woman dried herself in a bathroom following a shower. She was naked, and she seemed to shoo the camera away, making a funny face at it.

  “His wife, Ellen,” Tak said.

  Hands appeared on the screen, tossing a baby into the air.

  “His son, Jimmy,” Tak added.

  A helmeted cop took a swing at a felon, neatly cold-cocking the perp. The cop removed her helmet. Anne Lewis’s smiling face winked at the screen.