by Ed Naha
“Are you telling me there’s no way to bring Robo back?” Lewis asked. “I can’t believe that.”
“Sure, there are ways,” Tak conceded. “You could pull his cranial circuits out, which would shut down his life-support system altogether . . .”
Garcia climbed down from her perch next to the throne. “Or you could run a few thousand volts through him and pray his insulation holds out and his living tissue doesn’t get fried.”
“Whatever we do,” Tak said, “it would be too big a gamble. We could destroy him.”
“Kill him?” Lewis gasped.
“Destroy him if you believe he’s a machine,” Tak stated. “Kill him if you believe he is a thinking, human being.”
Robo lurched to life.
“What the fu—” Tak began.
Robo ripped the cable from his head. All the readout screens on the computer consoles went blank.
“Hey, hold on there!” Garcia screamed.
Robo glanced at Tak, Garcia, and Lewis. His eyes were cold and steely.
He arose from his throne and walked out of the room.
Lewis tried to follow. “Hey! Murphy! Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Robo marched ahead of Anne Lewis, shoving startled policemen and -women out of his way.
He hit the front exit at a full canter and continued to the street.
Lewis skittered to a stop at the front door. “Oh, Murphy,” she whispered. “Poor Murphy. You’ve been through so much. Come back to us, Murph. Come back. We’re your family now. Realize that. Believe that. Come back. We love you, you big bag of bolts.”
[ 19 ]
Outside the stationhouse, Robo waved to the picketing police officers as he walked toward the side of the building. Whittaker turned to a cop named Stef. “Murphy’s gone out of his mind.” He sighed. “He went into the juvenile tank this morning. The way I heard it, he gave them an hour-long lecture on civics.”
“Way I figure it,” Stef smirked, “it’s just one less scab to worry about. Management will cave in that much quicker.”
“Hey,” Whittaker protested, “Murphy’s no scab.”
“Am I missing something here, Whittaker?” Stef asked. “I don’t recall him marching on this picket line.”
“He’s a machine, Stef,” Whittaker said. “They tell him what to do.”
“So, how is it he can go crazy then, smartass?” Stef retorted. “How does a machine go nuts? He’s a fucking scab, plain and simple.”
“Hey, what’s going on, there?” Whittaker wondered aloud.
Robo had paused in his march, staring down the alleyway next to the side of the stationhouse. He then began to walk down the alley. Whittaker motioned for Stef and a few other cops to leave the picket line. They followed Robo’s path.
“What the hell is he up to?” Whittaker asked.
“You’re asking me?” Stef smirked. “You’re the expert on machines.”
Robo walked up to a large transformer at the side of the station. A chainlink fence surrounded it, reading DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE. Robo extended his hands, grabbed the fence, and tore it asunder.
Then he grabbed the protective metal covering of the transformer and tore that away as well.
“Hey!” Stef called. “Get away from there, Murphy. That thing’s dangerous!”
Without warning, Robo thrust his hands into the transformer.
The cops near him shielded their eyes as an explosion of sparks ripped through the alleyway.
Robo’s body twitched as angry fingers of blue lightning zapped out of the transformer and into his body.
He tilted his head back and screamed as part of his wiring burst into flames.
Robo emitted a deafening howl as the electricity continued to invade his system.
Lewis ran out of the stationhouse and skidded around to the alley.
Robo stood there screeching in pain.
“Murphy!” Lewis gasped, running down the alley and past the small gaggle of cops. She made a beeline for the twitching, tortured RoboCop.
“Don’t touch him, Lewis,” Stef urged, running after her and downing her with a flying tackle.
“What the hell is going on here?” one of the picketers in front of the building asked. “Holy shit! Officer down!”
The picketing cops threw down their signs and ran to the alley.
“Can’t we do anything?” Lewis wheezed as Robo’s body continued to jerk.
Spotting a stack of discarded planks, Lewis shoved Stef away and, grabbing a wooden board, ran toward her partner. Wielding the plank like a baseball bat, she sent a blow smashing into Robo’s chest.
RoboCop’s arms left the transformer just as it exploded into flames. The force of the explosion sent Lewis tumbling backward. Robo flew across the alley, slamming into the wall opposite the transformer. He slowly slid down the wall, his body charred and smoking.
He did not move.
Lewis rushed over to him and extended a hand to touch his chest. Her skin sizzled. “Jesus!” she cried, yanking her burned fingers away.
“Get a stretcher!” she called. “Get him inside!”
Stef whirled around at the crowd of wide-eyed officers behind him. “You heard her!” he bellowed. “Move it!”
With seconds, there was no sign of any picket line in front of the station as all the police snapped to. Four men raced out of the stationhouse, carrying a stretcher into the alley.
Robo’s inert form continued to smolder.
The four men lowered the stretcher.
“He’s too hot!” Stef cautioned. “Don’t touch him. Use your jackets to lift him.”
Lewis, Stef, and Whittaker doffed their jackets and wrapped them around Robo’s legs. They slowly lifted the heavy metal limbs as the other cops slid the stretcher beneath him.
“Why the hell would he do something as stupid as that?” Stef asked Lewis.
Lewis was trying to keep from crying. “OCP gave him crazy commands. Screwed him up. Made him a bad cop. He fried himself to get rid of them.”
“He couldn’t wait to get back on the job,” Whittaker said to Stef. “He knew how things were out in the streets and he wanted to go back.”
Stef blinked. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“Just that Murphy liked doing his job. And he thought it needed doing.”
Stef gazed down at Robo. “Shit, Murphy! You’re one special kind of asshole.” He turned to the other cops. “All right, we’re gonna need a lot of help lifting this stretcher. Murphy weighs a ton.”
A dozen cops ran to the stretcher, grabbing it in any way possible.
“One,” Stef ordered, “two, lift!”
Amidst a chorus of curses and grunts, the stretcher slowly rose. The cops zigzagged their way toward the stationhouse’s entrance, trampling their discarded picket signs.
Suddenly Robo’s body began to thrash about.
“Shit!” Stef cried. “It’s slipping!”
Robo’s body gave a violent jerk, sending the cops tumbling and his body sliding onto the ground. Robo hit the pavement and slowly sat up.
He gazed up at the cops and clicked into command mode.
On his visor, superimposed above the faces of the curious policemen, Robo saw the command LIST DIRECTIVES.
After his computers ran a search, the words DIRECTIVES NOT FOUND appeared.
Robo slowly got to his feet and stood steadily. Calmly, he turned to Lewis. “How is your hand?”
“Stings a little,” she said. “No big deal. How are you feeling?”
Robo formed a fist with his left hand. “Fed up.”
He turned on the cops and began to walk away.
“What’s bugging you, Murphy?” Whittaker asked.
“Cain,” Robo said, halting and facing the cops. “Cain is bugging me.”
“Who the hell is Cain?” Stef asked.
“You’ve spent too long on the picket line,” Lewis said.
“Damn straight we have,” Whittaker agreed.
<
br /> “So, who’s Cain?” Stef demanded a second time.
“Who do you think makes the NUKE?” Lewis asked.
Robo again began to walk toward his awaiting TurboCruiser.
Stef glanced at Lewis. “Shit, he just can’t . . .”
Lewis shrugged.
Stef yelled at Robo’s back. “You can’t go after that fucker solo, Murphy! He’ll rip you to pieces! Just like he did before.”
“The hell he will,” Whittaker said, walking toward a second TurboCruiser.
Robo continued his solitary march, trailed only by Whittaker. His mind was in turmoil as rage welled up from within him. He wanted revenge, true, but not just for the harm Cain had done to him.
He wanted to fix things somehow. He was a cop. A good cop. Children were being lost all around him. Children—the future—their young faces hardened, their systems brimming with poison. The future of the world depended on the children. They must be protected.
“Hey, Murphy,” Whittaker called. “I’m going to tag along if it’s okay with you.”
“It’s okay with me,” Robo replied.
The other cops—who, moments before, had been picketing—all began to walk toward their long-parked cruisers.
“It’s time we acted like cops again,” one officer stated.
Stef stood there blinking. “Shit,” he said, “this is crazy! The union’s gonna crucify us. They got a list!”
But, he reasoned to himself, I’ve always thought the union was run by a bunch of assholes.
Stef jogged across the street. “Hey, Whittaker, wait up! You ain’t going nowhere without your partner!”
Whittaker slid behind the wheel of his TurboCruiser and turned the engine over. Stef slid into the shotgun seat. “Okay, Murphy,” Stef muttered. “Let’s get this goddamned show on the road!”
[ 20 ]
RoboCop and Lewis led the small parade of police cruisers through the streets of Old Detroit.
People began trotting out of their homes and businesses to see the sight up close.
“What the heck is that?” one hot-dog vendor asked a loitering cabbie.
“Cops!” the cabbie answered, amazed. “And they ain’t holding no picket signs!”
“Way to go!” the vendor said, waving at the fleet of cruisers.
“Welcome back!” another man called.
“Go, Police!” an old bag lady yelled, raising her hand in a clutched fist of solidarity.
The police continued onward.
Miles ahead of them, in the River Rouge district, Cain and Angie pulled up in their limo, Catzo behind the wheel, before the large Tokugawa Brewery. A dozen of Cain’s hoods along with Hob were already there, awaiting his arrival.
Angie looked up at the sleek building. “It’s beautiful!” She smiled.
Cain reached into his jacket pocket and produced a deed. “It’s ours. Bought and paid for. We’re coming out of the shadows, dearie. We’re going to stand tall in the sunlight for a change.”
“I don’t get it,” Catzo muttered, following Cain, Angie, and Hob inside the building.
The interior of the brewery was vast, and were it not for the presence of several inches of dust, it would have looked like the set of a futuristic science-fiction film. Large metal vats sat side by side, and tubing was everywhere.
“Beer?” said Catzo. “I don’t get it.”
“We’ll reduce the alcohol content”—Cain was grinning—“to demonstrate our commitment to public health.”
“You’re going to start this place up again?” the oaf called Catzo asked, his face a fleshy question mark.
“At full capacity.” Cain chuckled.
“You’re gonna make beer?” Catzo asked.
“We’ll even rehire the old staff,” Cain said. “Pay them well. We’ll be a legitimate business. Beyond suspicion.”
“But why do we want to make beer?” Catzo queried.
“Jesus!” Hob said, screwing up his small face into a mask of astonishment. “You are thick. It’s a cover. It’ll keep the cops looking the other way.”
Catzo blinked, still not quite comprehending the Big Picture. Cain sighed. “Let’s continue the tour.”
He walked up to a large white-enamel door, the size of those found leading into a bank vault. Hob scampered forward and punched a twenty-digit code into an electronic combination lock. The door swung open without a sound.
“I think you’ll understand now,” Cain said, leading the trio inside.
Outside, meanwhile, the police cruisers had pulled onto the brewery grounds. The cops scrambled out, fully armed, and began trotting toward the large building.
“Now, isn’t this something?” Cain asked Catzo, pointing out the well-crafted second brewery room.
Inside the second room stood two armored trucks, a 1950s antique airstream trailer, and a huge trailer truck, its back door open. Large barrels, connected by tubes leading into the trailer truck, sat unattended.
“This, my flock,” Cain announced, “is the heart of our new enterprise.”
Cain stood at the back of the truck, while Catzo lumbered up behind him. Inside the truck was a mountain of state-of-the-art lab equipment.
“NUKE!” Cain was beaming. “Made right here. Every one of its chemical components will be manufactured right here.”
“Made in America,” Angie added with a wink.
“We’ll make that mean something again,” said Cain patriotically, wrapping an arm around Catzo’s broad shoulders.
“Phew!” Catzo grinned. “I’m really relieved. I thought for a minute there that we were just going to make beer.”
“This is an awful lot of stuff,” Angie said reverently, gazing at the equipment. “We can make shitloads of NUKE.”
“Well put,” Cain replied. “We’re reaching out, city by city. It’ll be like a revolution. Shared consciousness for all. Shared happiness.”
“Plus,” Hob pointed out to the blinking Catzo, “the unit price will plummet.”
Catzo continued to blink.
“The more we make, the cheaper NUKE will get,” Hob said, exasperated. “The more we’ll sell.”
“Great!” Catzo blurted out.
Hob tilted his head to the right side, toward the doors, straining his ears. “Shhhh!” he hissed.
“What?” Catzo asked.
“Shut up!” Hob replied. “I hear something.”
Outside of Cain’s inner sanctum, in the main brewery facility, the police were silently pouring in through the unlocked doors, their guns at the ready.
Robo was in the lead. He eyed the brewery equipment and, using his RoboVision, scanned the area.
Lewis walked alongside Robo, unaware that she was now directly in the crosshair scope of a high-powered rifle trained on her from the scaffolding above.
Lewis walked past a storage tank, out of the line of fire. Stef stepped up, taking Lewis’s place.
Robo continued to analyze the situation. His eyes widened. He stepped forward and shoved Stef to the ground.
“Hey!” Stef exclaimed.
Robo launched his Auto-9 into his hand, raised the gun, and fired at the ceiling.
The shot took the hood above by surprise. The bullet slammed into and through the rifle’s scope and continued to sizzle into the man’s right eye and, finally, his brain.
The man jerked backward and fell from the scaffolding with a high-pitched scream.
Stef scrambled to his feet while more and more hoods appeared, as if by magic, from within the bowels of the cavernous building.
“Fan out!” Stef yelled.
Inside the second brewery room, the sound of gunfire could now be heard. The quartet of gang-leaders froze.
Angie ran up to a window. “It’s the cops!”
Catzo’s face reddened. “We’re not even ready! We don’t have a chance!”
Cain walked over to the window and peered at the scene through a pair of small sunglasses. The area outside the brewery was in chaos. A running firefight
was going on, with hoods and cops racing this way and that, firing wildly. His reed-thin body heaved a shoulder-raising sigh. “Stay calm,” he cautioned, deadpanned. “We have the NUKE formula. We can set up operations anywhere. Catzo, get the teams into position and hold them off for as long as you can. This is what we’ve trained for.”
Catzo hesitated. “I don’t want to go back to prison. I’m really serious about that.”
Cain patted Catzo on the back, leading the hulking man toward the combination door. “My friend, no prison will hold you. Not for long. We take care of our own. Now, into battle, Catzo!”
Catzo nodded like a punch-drunk fighter and jogged out of the room, his mini-Uzi drawn.
Cain turned to Angie and Hob. “Now let’s get the hell out of here!”
In the main brewery room, Catzo rallied his troops. His minions regrouped and took up positions behind the heavy brewery equipment, their guns blazing.
The police, out of practice for weeks, had all they could do to stay out of the line of fire.
Stef and Whittaker crouched behind a vat. “Well,” said Stef, “if nothin’ else, the picketing has made our legs a lot stronger.”
Whittaker nodded. “Might as well exercise ’em.”
The two darted out from behind their cover and ran forward toward the hoods, bullets pinging the floor all around them. They fired into the maelstrom ahead of them, taking out three of the hoods, before coming to a rest behind the next vat. The cops behind them, seeing the tactic, began to leapfrog their way closer to the thugs as well.
The hoods were soon pinned down.
Stef pointed toward the ceiling. He raised his gun, took careful aim, and sent a small avalanche of electronic brewery equipment crashing down upon the hoods.
The hoods scattered. Most were nailed immediately by the blazing police guns.
“Secure the area and take it outside,” Stef ordered, surveying the carnage before him.
He and Whittaker led the rest of the police outside the brewery, toward the loading dock.
Robo prowled the outside of the brewery, hardly noticing the gunfire around him. Cain was near. He could feel it.
In the back room of the brewery, Angie blasted the advancing police with a machine gun. Little Hob, his face a mask of intense concentration, sprayed volley after volley of mini-Uzi fire.