by Ed Naha
“If we can’t kill them,” Hob reasoned, “let’s mess up their cars.”
Hob’s lips formed a thin smile as he began targeting the parked TurboCruisers.
Outside the building, RoboCop adjusted his hearing. He heard Hob’s voice distinctly. Where the child was, Cain would be, he reasoned.
He marched toward the rear of the building, near the loading dock.
The rest of the police fanned out behind him.
Robo ambled onward. Suddenly he stiffened his body and cocked his head. A roar emerged from inside the building.
The roll-down metal loading door exploded, and two armored trucks burst forward from within the brewery, heading directly for Robo.
Angie gunned the accelerator of the first truck. It hit Robo dead-on, sending him tumbling under its wheels.
“Murphy!” called Lewis from the legion of police behind the fallen hero.
Riding shotgun in the first truck, Hob heaved a tear-gas canister out onto the loading area. The canister ignited upon impact, sending a thick, choking column of gas into the small army of police. Hob heaved another and another, and soon the police were caught in a man-made fog. They staggered, choking and wheezing, away from the area.
Robo slowly got to his feet as the second truck roared by him. He ran a quick check on his systems. He was intact.
Another engine roared to life nearby. Using his thermovision to cut through the tear gas, he saw one of Cain’s hoods sitting on a large Harley-Davidson and gunning the engine.
The hood made an attempt to zip away from the building and follow the two escape trucks.
“Not this time,” Robo said as the Harley thundered forward.
Robo calculated at what point the Harley would pass near him and made sure he clanked his way to that point seconds before the cycle. Clenching his left hand in a fist, he raised it at the last possible second.
His fist smashed into the head of the passing cyclist, sending the thug tumbling backward onto the ground. Without thinking twice, Robo righted the fallen chopper and swung his large frame onto it. He revved the engine and sped away from the brewery.
The rest of the gathered law-enforcement officers watched RoboCop pursue the speeding trucks.
“He’ll never catch them,” Stef said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “The vans have too much of a head start.”
“He’ll catch them,” Lewis said. “That’s just the kind of guy he is.”
“Come on,” Whittaker said, motioning to the ruptured metal door of the back room. “Let’s see if Cain has any other surprises for us.”
Lewis, Stef, Whittaker, and a cop named Merkel walked gingerly into Cain’s inner sanctum. The large trailer truck stood in the center of the room. The four cops padded to the rear of the truck. The vehicle’s loading doors were open.
Stef motioned the others back. He sidled up to the rear doors and looked inside. His eyes widened. In the back of the truck, rigged to blow, was a wad of plastique.
“Get down!” he said, turning around. Stef threw himself to the floor just as the truck exploded. A vast fist of fire smashed through the walls and ceiling of the room, sending metal chunks slicing through space above the four prone cops.
Lewis choked on the smoke. The cop named Merkel crawled up to Stef and dragged his unconscious form away from the blazing inferno that had moments before been a big rig.
From out of nowhere, Catzo appeared. “Hey, Cop!”
Whittaker raised his head. Catzo’s large left boot slammed into Whittaker’s stomach, sending the officer rolling and groaning across the floor.
Lewis leaped to her feet behind Catzo. The big man whirled and, pulling a .45, fired a round at near point-blank range.
Catzo’s shot echoed in the room. The slug slammed into Lewis’s chest, hitting her flak jacket. The force of the impact knocked the wind out of her and sent her staggering backward. A weasel named Gillette, Catzo’s right-hand man, leaped from the other side of the wall of flame and grabbed Lewis’s arm, knocking down her pistol. He dragged the struggling cop headfirst toward the flaming truck.
Merkel, looking up from the inert Stef, raised his revolver and fired two shots at Catzo. Catzo laughed as the bullets whizzed harmlessly by him. Taking out his own pistol, the thug ran forward and began pistol-whipping the stunned Merkel to the ground.
Catzo turned and relished his next shot. He’d blow that police bitch’s head off.
Lewis was grappling with a determined Gillette, who was pushing her face closer and closer to the inferno. Lewis managed to execute a lethal kick, aiming for a spot directly between Gillette’s legs. The punk moaned and released his grasp.
Catzo raised his gun to fire. Lewis, seeing the big man, pushed Gillette into the line of fire.
A surprised Catzo found himself pumping three slugs into his equally startled accomplice’s torso, sending Gillette collapsing in a bloodied heap onto the brewery floor.
“Oh well,” said Catzo philosophically. “At least you won’t be hurt no more.”
Catzo stared across the room. Lewis stood alone, her form illuminated by the blazing truck. Catzo chuckled. He raised his gun.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel.” He squeezed the trigger. Click. Catzo stared at the gun in puzzlement. No more bullets? Damn. Oh, well. Catzo tossed down the .45 and produced two large knives out of his belt. He juggled them with the ease of a trained knife-fighter.
Lewis bent down and yanked a switchblade from her boot, swinging it open. “Just knives, then.” She smiled.
Catzo danced toward Lewis, amazingly graceful for his size. He swung his knife, toying with Lewis. The blade cut through her gunbelt and sent it clattering to the ground.
Catzo thrust and parried again, producing a razor-thin cut on a startled Lewis’s right cheek.
“Just knives.” Catzo giggled. “Never needed anything else. Not on girls.”
Feeling as if he were already the victor, Catzo took a wild swing at Lewis. Lewis raised her right arm up, blocking Catzo’s lunge. Crouching, she brought her left hand up hard. Her knife blade sliced into a spot on Catzo’s chest between two ribs.
Catzo uttered a casual “Oh, shit.”
Lewis slowly raised her body, twisting the blade as she did so. She felt the blade pierce Catzo’s heart. She placed her face an inch from his and watched as the dumbfounded man died.
“Guess you haven’t spent much time in Detroit, huh?” Lewis asked him.
Catzo stared at her, a blank look on his face. Lewis pulled her knife out of the man. His bulky body teetered for a moment before crashing onto the ground.
Lewis turned to Whittaker, still sprawled on the ground. He motioned to her that he was all right. She ran over to Stef and Merkel. They were pretty messed up but nowhere near death.
“Hey,” Lewis called from the ruptured door to the cops outside, “call an ambulance! We have two men down in here.”
[ 21 ]
The two trucks roared through the impoverished neighborhoods surrounding River Rouge. Angie and Hob smiled confidently at one another. “Cops are stupid,” Angie concluded.
Hob nodded. “That’s a given.”
In the second truck, Cain gripped the wheel, feeling both angry and triumphant. He would see RoboCop dead for this little stunt. Millions of dollars wasted. Countless dreams put on hold. It wasn’t right. America was supposed to be the land of opportunity. What was Cain’s big crime? He was only trying to make a few bucks.
Cain’s train of thought was derailed by the loud whine of an approaching engine.
He glanced over his shoulder nervously. Astride the Harley, RoboCop was gaining ground on the cumbersome armored truck.
Cain gunned the accelerator, but to no avail. The cycle continued to pull closer and closer. Soon Robo was at the driver’s side of the truck, slowly overtaking it.
Cain cursed under his breath. He swerved the truck to the left, trying to pancake Robo against a long-abandoned tenement. Having expected the move, Robo revved the Harle
y and pulled ahead of the truck.
Cain let out a shriek of anger as the truck hopped the curb and slammed into the front of the tenement, neatly shearing off its front stoop. Cain wrestled the wheel, sending the truck careening back onto the road.
He glanced this way and that. There was no sign of either Robo or the cycle. Cain smiled confidently. “Squashed him like a bug!” He sighed happily.
Cain sent the truck speeding into a populated area of Old Detroit.
Three blocks ahead of the truck, Robo executed a screaming U-turn and sent the cycle speeding into oncoming traffic. Slaloming expertly through the screeching autos in his path, Robo zipped down an alley, turned on a forty-five-degree angle, and plunged down a street. At the far end of the block, Cain’s truck appeared.
Behind the wheel of the truck, Cain suppressed a gasp as he spotted the metallic upholder of the law speeding directly toward him. No doubt about it: They were on a collision course.
“Okay, bucket brain,” Cain said, stomping on the gas pedal. “It’s time you experienced real pain.” Cain’s truck sped toward Robo.
Robo gritted his teeth and continued to sail onward. This was for the children, he told himself. For the future. He wrenched the throttle, picking up speed.
Cain laughed to himself. This was going to be too easy.
The Harley slammed into the front of the truck, sending Robo’s body tumbling through space. The Harley was completely crushed by the front of the armored vehicle. Cain cackled. Then he lost his sense of humor.
Robo’s airborne body crashed through the truck’s windshield, smacking into Cain’s screeching form full force. Metal met flesh. There was no contest.
The truck, dragging the Harley on its undercarriage, moaned forward, sending up a spray of sparks as metal sliced concrete. It zigzagged for a hundred yards before it groaned and flipped over onto its side.
The truck hit the pavement with a resounding crunch, its back doors wrenching open. A cloud of cash billowed into the air—millions of dollars in small bills. The startled residents of the impoverished neighborhood stopped in their tracks.
“Sonofabitch!” one wino declared, plucking a twenty-dollar bill out of the air. “It’s raining money!”
Inside the cab of the truck, there was a sudden movement. A metal hand ripped the driver’s door open, and RoboCop emerged.
He ignored the street people scrambling after the money and pushed onward.
There is going to be a lot of paperwork involved in this collar, he thought.
[ 22 ]
The Old Man, Johnson, and Dr. Faxx sat in the despot’s penthouse office in silence. Dr. Faxx, sitting as primly as an ice sculpture, rested her hand on the Old Man’s reassuringly. Johnson pretended not to notice.
Before them, a TV set was droning. A commercial. A beautiful woman wearing a string bikini stood before a full-length mirror that reflected a bright sun. The words LOS ANGELES appeared over her curves as an announcer intoned: “They say twenty seconds in the California sunshine is too much these days, ever since we lost the ozone layer.”
The woman smiled and reached for a jar. She began to daub a black, tarlike substance across her breasts. “But that was before Sun Block 5,000,” the omniscient announcer declared. “Just apply a pint to your body and . . .”
The bikini-clad tar baby stretched near a pool. “. . . you’re good for hours. See you by the pool!”
The commercial ended, and newscasters Jess Perkins and Casey Wong returned. Both still wore their smiles.
The Old Man stiffened somewhat as a video of RoboCop surrounded by cheerful cops hit the screen. “The police strike is over!” Jess declared. “And have they been busy! Led by RoboCop, Detroit police smashed the NUKE operation and apprehended the mysterious kingpin of the NUKE gang, who is rumored to be hovering between life and death at OCP’s medical center.”
A jittery video of Mayor Kuzak trying to choke Johnson in the middle of a crowded courtroom then appeared. Johnson rubbed the bruises on his neck.
“In other local news,” Jess continued, “Mayor Cyril Kuzak was held in contempt for an outburst following his latest failure to block OmniConsumer-Products’s hostile takeover of the city’s government. OCP director of operations Donald Johnson had this to say.”
The screen cut to Johnson, speaking in a hoarse whisper, addressing reporters: “The fact is that OCP can’t foot the bill for an incompetent administration. We can, however, do much for this city once Mayor Kuzak and the people who got us into this mess are out of the way.”
“Well said,” commented the Old Man, flicking off the TV as a commercial featuring a Yuppie blowing his head off after ordering the wrong business phone system flickered onto the tube.
“Thank you, sir.” Johnson smiled. “Nothing in our agenda has changed.”
“Something has changed,” the Old Man declared. “I don’t like having the police back to work.”
“That could turn out to be a plus for us, sir,” said Dr. Faxx, smiling.
Johnson winced. The Old Man was in her power. He knew it.
“With the police back to work, the public will perceive us as a fair-minded corporation,” Faxx stated.
“But we are a fair-minded corporation,” said the Old Man. “All I’m trying to do is trim the fat from America. Restore it to its vitality!”
“But not everyone is as much of a visionary as you, sir.” She smiled again.
“That’s the problem with this country today,” the Old Man began.
Johnson settled back into his chair. He was going to hear The Speech, again. Faxx was smiling at the Old Man like an adoring supplicant. Something about her smile gave Johnson the creeps.
[ 23 ]
A lone armored car sat outside the parking lot adjacent to the OCP medical center. In the front seat, Angie handed a pair of binoculars to Hob. “Third floor,” she whispered. “Fourth from the left.”
Hob raised the glasses nervously.
“That’s where he is,” Angie said. “See? They still got the light on.”
“So what?” Hob retorted. “We shouldn’t have come here, Angie. Somebody’ll spot us.”
“ ‘We take care of our own,’ ” she whispered. “That’s what he said.”
“He said lots of things,” Hob answered, handing back the binoculars. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“He’ll kill us if we don’t come for him,” Angie pointed out.
Hob leaned his head forward, as if to nap. “He’s not killing anybody! You heard the news! Shit! He’s probably dead by now anyway.”
Angie’s lower lip trembled. “Yeah, but . . . I don’t know.”
Hob turned toward her, his young face growing rigid and determined. There was a fire in his eyes now, a fire that Angie had only seen in the eyes of Cain. “You do what I say from now on! Start the motor and drive.”
Angie nodded silently, responding to the newfound power in Hob’s voice. She guided the armored truck away from the scene.
As they left, other lights on the third floor of the medical center flickered off. Cain’s, however, remained well lit.
Inside his room, Cain was sprawled inert within a web of life-support equipment. He was conscious, his eyes staring widely at the glistening, gleaming machines all around him. Funny, he thought to himself. A machine had done this to him, and now machines were helping him. An artificial lung wheezed steadily to his right. A monitor tracked his heartbeat to the left. He heard the door to his room open. He turned his eyes toward the door.
Dr. Faxx walked in, a beatific smile on her face.
She glanced cautiously over her shoulder, making sure no one else on the floor had seen her. She entered the room, easing the door closed behind her. She locked it and walked to the bed, still smiling like an angel.
“Aren’t you the mess,” she cooed. “But I’ve got good news for you: You’re going to get your chance.”
Cain stared at her suspiciously. He tried to talk but was incapable of speech.
Faxx continued to smile. “Your chance to touch the eternal!”
Cain blinked.
Faxx produced a cellular phone from her purse and punched a few buttons. She raised the phone to her well-rounded lips. “Dr. Weltman? I’m afraid our patient has failed . . . Yes, I’m quite certain. Please prepare a death certificate and scramble a surgical team. We only have six minutes before the tissue will be useless.”
Cain glared at the woman. She was insane! He tried to thrash in his bed but discovered that he was tied down securely. Faxx tucked him in and placed a maternal kiss on his sweaty forehead. “Now,” she whispered, “be a good little boy and get some rest.”
Dr. Faxx tenderly disconnected the plug from Cain’s artificial lung. Cain’s eyes widened as he felt his insides collapse. He began to gurgle. His body convulsed, and his head felt as if it would explode. Cain wrenched a hand free of the tubing and wires and attempted to clutch at Dr. Faxx’s blouse. Faxx didn’t bother avoiding the move. She watched the hand as it paused, twitched, then fell back onto the bed.
Within seconds, Cain’s cardiogram was as flat as a slice of Kansas highway.
Dr. Faxx tenderly placed Cain’s hand back into a comfortable position. Facing a mirror, she adjusted her blouse and her hair. Then, walking to the door, she unlocked it.
Several interns rushed in with a stretcher. In an operating room minutes later, a surgical team scrambled around Cain’s inert form. Faxx watched contentedly from a viewing stand above. The lead surgeon, Dr. Weltman, had never performed this complicated an operation before and was aware of the corporate pressure on him to not only perform it well but perform it perfectly.
“Switch blood to serum pumps,” he instructed a masked nurse.
“Switch complete,” the nurse replied.
Cain’s lifeless eyes gaped at the lights above him.
“Give me current,” Dr. Weltman ordered.
A second nurse turned on a console, and there was a sudden surge of electricity. Cain’s body twisted spastically.
Weltman grabbed a scalpel and bent over Cain’s head. “All right, I’m isolating the medulla . . .”