by Ed Naha
The pincer grip tightened.
The decapitated thing that was once Angie dropped to the concrete floor. High above her, two metal slabs atop the monster’s head snapped shut, effectively erasing the vision of Cain.
The monster turned its body, flaring its headlights to life.
Hob, still quivering in his pants under the table, gazed upward, tears in his eyes.
He scrambled as fast as he could toward the back of the armored truck filled with cash. Diving inside, he swung the heavy metal doors shut behind him.
He sat in the back of the truck sniveling.
He heard shotgun blasts outside.
One of Hob’s well-dressed thugs opened up with a shotgun on the monster’s back. The Cain-Creature swirled and dispatched the man with a shrug, turning the thug into something resembling pudding with a flick of its shoulder.
At the monster’s feet, Mayor Kuzak crawled to a grated sewer opening.
The Cain-Creature next stared at the armored truck. Heaving its torso, it unleashed all its weaponry on the back of the truck, which began to collapse.
The Cain-Creature caught a glimmer of movement to its left. Kuzak was straining to lift the drainage grate above the sewer. He froze for a moment as floodlights lit the floor around him. Then, screaming, Kuzak tore off the grating and dropped into the sewer system as the monster above him raked the floor with bullets.
The mayor plunged into the sewer, splashing into the black muck. Kuzak didn’t want to consider the origins of the dark water as bullets sliced deep into the sewer system. He knew what the Detroit River was made of these days.
He began to trot forward. Shit. He’d rather die of cancer than a bullet through his head. Somebody could always cure cancer.
A mile away, a solitary RoboCop guided his TurboCruiser through traffic. Thinking about the life he had left. Thinking about the life he might have recovered. Thinking about the world he had just given away, a victim of blackmail.
His ComLink buzzed to life on his dash. “Unit seventeen, we’ve got heavy gunfire at Cadillac Avenue and Toyota-Ford Expressway. No back-up available. Restricted area. Proceed at own risk.”
Robo nodded toward the ComLink. “Got it. I’m on my way.”
Robo had no idea, but he was about to meet and witness the doings of his brother in OCP experimentations.
A big brother.
A big brother named Cain.
[ 28 ]
Robo drove his cruiser, its motor purring, onto the grounds of the battered factory. He pulled to a stop behind the mayor’s shattered limo. Its roof was crushed. The driver, a bloodied mass, hung from his shattered window. Robo marched past the body of Councilman Poulos, unaware of what he would find inside the edifice.
He walked up to the ruptured wall and paused.
Inside the factory, Hob was pinned down by searchlights. His thin young body was cradled by fallen money. He was twitching spasmodically, and his eyes were wide in terror known only to very little boys.
He faced the lights, sure that it was Cain, returned to kill him.
“Nooooo!” he shrieked.
RoboCop entered the rear of the truck. Hob relaxed. Relaxed a lot. “Hiya,” Hob whined.
“Hello.” Robo nodded.
Hob glanced at the carnage around him. “This really sucks.”
Robo knelt down next to Hob. The boy was trembling, fighting to stay conscious. He grabbed at Robo.
Robo embraced the fallen boy. “You are going into shock,” he announced. “Try to stay calm. I will call for emergency medical teams.”
“No!” Hob exclaimed. “Please! Don’t leave me. I’m scared. It’s really cold. Don’t leave me!”
Robo stared at the boy.
Jimmy?
Son?
No.
He shook his head clear and said, evenly, “I will not leave you . . . son.”
Hob almost managed a childish smile. “Thanks.”
“What happened here?” Robo asked.
“I had this big deal going,” the boy wheezed. “Then, it showed up.”
“It?”
“Big. A mechanical man. Real big. Bigger than you.”
Hob grabbed Robo’s left hand. His head tilted back as his eyes rolled. He shook his young senses clear for a brief second.
“I’m gonna die, ya know,” he said, nodding toward his torso.
Robo gazed at the crimson patch below the boy’s nipples. It was growing larger and larger. A pain surged up from within Robo. He pushed it back down. He was a machine, after all. Without rights. Without feelings.
“I’m gonna die,” Hob repeated. “But, you know what that’s like, doncha?”
Robo nodded sadly. “Yes . . . yes, I do.”
Hob arched his back. Blood dribbled from his grimaced lips.
“This really sucks,” he whispered again, before relaxing his back. Before staring emptily into space.
Robo emitted a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob.
He picked up the boy and cradled him in his arms.
Damn this world, he thought. Damn it to hell.
[ 29 ]
Casey Wong and Jess Perkins were on the tube, exchanging tattooed grins.
A film clip began behind Casey. A sheik, bedecked in his robes, and a dour Israeli prime minister faced off across a bargaining table.
“Israeli Prime Minister Yadir has flatly rejected the United Arab Emirate’s latest offer of six trillion dollars for the Holy Land,” Casey intoned. “While negotiations continue, each side maintains that their differences are strictly ideological.”
The background switched to a crime scene, showing police guarding several pyramids of bloodstained money.
“And . . . it’s big money,” Jess chirped, “in local news as well . . . An estimated five hundred million dollars in cash was confiscated today, but the state district attorney won’t let the bankrupt city government touch it.”
The bullet-riddled bodies of Poulos and Thomas appeared on the screen.
“Yes,” Jess pointed out, “it’s NUKE money, seized at the sight of a massacre. Among the victims: Councilman Poulos and city attorney Darren Thomas. Was the city striking a deal with drug lords, hmmmmm? Mayor Kuzak?”
The scene switched to a perpetually flustered Mayor Cyril Kuzak facing a horde of reporters in front of City Hall. “These are men,” he began, “who served our city so tirelessly. I won’t comment on any of the charges. However, I make a promise to the people of Detroit: No effort will be spared to investigate this thoroughly.”
The camera returned to a smiling Casey, who that night was trying especially hard to outdo the smiling Jess. “But,” he said through his teeth, “there might not be time for an investigation. Not by the mayor’s office, anyway. With the NUKE millions denied, the city has no hope of forestalling OCP’s takeover of all city assets tonight.”
The tube cut to a portrait of the Detroit Civic Centrum, a sleek, hundred-story skyscraper.
Casey stuck his head into the picture. “OCP has invited the media to attend the ceremony at the new Civic Centrum, when they officially take Detroit private.”
Jess giggled. “Ought to be quite a bash! See you there, Casey.”
“See you all there, Jess,” Casey said, almost losing his eye contact with the camera.
A metal hand switched off the television.
Robo sat in silence.
He had things to do.
[ 30 ]
With Lewis at his side, Robo aimed his cruiser toward the entrance to OCP. He slammed the car to a halt. Robo and Lewis leaped out.
As they reached the building, a recently cleaned ED 209 lumbered up to them, looking a bit like a well-honed Mr. Potatohead, but with minicannons in each hand.
The ED 209 barked, “You are carrying firearms. Please present proof of authorization. You have ten seconds to comply.”
The oversized egghead continued to lumber toward the pair.
“You now have five seconds to comply,” it announce
d.
Lewis smiled at the tomato on stilts. “Knock it off,” she chirped.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” the robot said, before turning its back on them.
“I can’t believe they’re still making those stupid pieces of shit,” Lewis muttered, marching alongside Robo toward the front entrance.
“That is the least of our problems,” Robo hissed, bursting through the two front doors.
“Uh-oh,” said Lewis. “I guess we’re not playing this one by the book.”
“The only book I recall is the Bible,” Robo offered.
“Good one,” Lewis said, scurrying after him. “But I think I forget the ending. As I recall, one of the two versions was a pretty bad scene.”
Upstairs, in her office’s private washroom, Dr. Faxx was taking great pride and pleasure in adjusting her makeup. She chatted soothingly into a cellular squawk-box at her side. “Yes, darling. The meeting ran a little long. The general does love to hear himself talk . . . and . . . talk and talk and talk. Ahahaha. Yes, I’ll be right along. Bye.”
Her assistant, Jenny, walked tentatively into the washroom.
“What is it?” Faxx glared at her.
Jenny tried to get her lips to work. “I’m sorry to bother you, but . . . Mr. Schenck just called from the lab. It’s RoboCop!”
Faxx emitted a sound that only could be compared to a feline hiss and barged out of her office, her stiletto heels sparking along the tiled hallway floors.
“Sonofabitch artifact!” she swore, as an alarm system wailed to life above her.
She burst into the robotics lab, striding past several security guards who lay sprawled unconscious on the floor.
A computerized voice burped above her: “Alert! Security breach on level three.”
She found Schenck cowering before the police officers. “This is private property! You’re breaking the law.”
Robo stood before her at a computer console. Lewis, her gun drawn, was at his side. Schenck whirled to face Faxx. “He’s breaking the law!”
Lewis walked forward. “Yeah, he’s full of surprises today.”
She turned her attention to Faxx. “You want something?”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Faxx fumed.
Robo flexed the access strip out of his clenched fist and plunged it into the lab’s computer.
Lewis smiled sweetly. “Seems we got this killer robot on our hands. Couldn’t think of a better place to start the investigation.”
“I assume you have a warrant,” Faxx sneered.
“Those banks contain classified data,” Schenck whined. “There’ll be charges.”
The computer bank lit up with varied lights.
Schenck emitted a hoarse laugh. “You’ll never break through the security code, Robo. I wrote it myself.”
Robo twisted his spike. The data began to unscramble.
“My God! You can’t!” Schenck amended. “This is impossible!”
“Stop him!” Faxx growled.
Schenck ran toward a keyboard and began tapping in signals. Robo glanced at him impassively. He slightly twisted his access spike. At Schenck’s monitor, a video-game image, Nintendo-style, of RoboCop appeared. The computerized cop raised his pistol and fired. A cartoon explosion filled Schenck’s screen. The words BACK OFF, FATHEAD appeared on the screen.
Schenck did as he was ordered.
GAME ENDED flashed on the startled scientist’s screen.
In the distance, clanking footsteps echoed.
Lewis ran to the doorway, glancing over her shoulder at Robo. “It’s okay. I’ll handle it.”
She ran out into the lobby to face a wobbly ED 209. “Do not move,” the titanic turd-head announced. “I am authorized to use lethal force.”
Lewis sighed. This was old hat. She ran between the tater-topped mammoth’s legs. The ED 209 tracked her, trying to aim between its own legs. The outmoded robotic critter toppled forward and crashed to the ground with a resounding whooooof.
The thing lay on its back, mewing like a kitten.
“Pathetic!” Lewis sighed, striding back into the lab.
Inside, Robo was still plugged into the data banks. He consumed the weapons diagrams, the feeding mechanisms, the guts of Cain’s workings.
Robo turned to Faxx and Schenck. “This is Cain!” he snarled.
Lewis stared at the two scientists. “Are you crazy? You bastards! You fucking crazy bastards!”
Robo twisted his data spike again. He removed the spike and turned to leave the room. Schenck’s body trembled as he realized that all his data had been erased from the computer system.
“No!” he whined. “You’ve erased the whole file! You can’t do this to me!”
Robo offered a salute. “I just did!” He marched toward the exit door.
Faxx ran after him. “Count your last hours, asshole. This is just the excuse we need. We’re turning you off. You’ve been replaced! You’re obsolete! You’re an embarrassment!”
Robo glanced over his shoulder, almost a grin on his face. “Try me,” he announced.
[ 31 ]
At the newly constructed Civic Centrum, a gala fête was taking place. Citizens of the city, not used to a celebration, clustered behind police barricades. Reporters surged around the front of the building.
Spotlights reflected off the front of the massive building, searching on into the heavens.
Jess Perkins, microphone in hand, smiled at the cameras. “Citizens interviewed on the scene express the excitement and the hope that OCP will make good on its promise of ‘making life better in the Motor City.’ ”
A black limo purred up to the entrance of the building.
Johnson and the Old Man emerged, fighting off the horde of reporters.
The pressmen peppered them with questions. “Does OCP own the city?”
“Will you hold elections?”
“Does this make us all OCP employees?”
“Isn’t this a deliberate attempt to humiliate the mayor?”
Jess Perkins nudged her way forward. “Why aren’t you going to City Hall?”
The Old Man said nothing, his smile blazing radiantly against the skyline of Detroit in the background. He suddenly turned to Jess. “Just a minute,” he announced. “I’ll answer that, young lady. City Hall is a decaying symbol of mismanagement and corruption.”
A spotlight on the Centrum, as if on cue, illuminated the OCP logo on its façade.
“This magnificent structure,” the Old Man continued, “OCP’s Civic Centrum, is our gift to this new city.”
Beyond the cluster of reporters, Mayor Kuzak’s limo was approaching the centrum unnoticed.
The Old Man was feeling talkative. “This new seat of leadership for Detroit is our gift to our citizens,” he said, beaming. “What better place for a new start?”
Kuzak sat in the back of his limo sullenly, watching the goings-on via his limo TV. He glanced toward a new speechwriter, barely out of college. The twit was typing on a laptop computer.
Kuzak sighed. “ ‘A new start,’ ” he fumed. “I’ll give that old fart a new start—right out of town. OCP will be drowned in a wave of populist sentiment. How’s that speech coming?”
“Almost there,” the twerp responded.
The limo screeched to a halt, sending Kuzak bolting forward. “What the hell—”
A dozen OCP guards flanked the limo.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” Kuzak demanded.
“Please proceed to parking lot three. That’s three blocks down Liberty, on the left,” the first guard advised Kuzak, Jack Webb style.
“There’s been a mistake!” Kuzak declared. “I’m the goddamned mayor!”
The guard pointed to a space on the horizon. “Sorry, sir. Media only. Your space is reserved. Three blocks down.”
Kuzak eased himself back into the limo as the driver assumed his new course. The mayor faced the typing twerp. “Can you believe this shit? I’m the mayor and I can’t get a p
arking space within three blocks!”
“Right,” the typist enthused. “I got it.”
“No!” Kuzak bellowed. “I don’t want that in my speech!”
A cameraman ran up to the limo. Kuzak flashed an insipid smile as the limo pulled away.
Inside the monolithic structure the Old Man stood at a podium worthy of Mussolini, facing the multitudes, both live and via a hundred TV cameras.
“And, so,” he said, “my dear friends, in a few moments OmniConsumerProducts and the troubled city of Detroit will join in a bold new enterprise.”
Faxx ran into the room.
The Old Man pulled back a curtain. “I’d like to show you exactly what this will mean to you!”
The air was electric.
The curtains began to swing open, and the Old Man beamed at the assembled crowd. “Sometimes you just have to start over . . . right from scratch . . . to make things right. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to build a brand new city where Detroit now stands.”
A nearby band bleated out a fanfare.
The curtains finally swung apart.
There, on the stage behind the Old Man, stood a large-scale model of the Detroit of the future, hundred-story spires standing six feet high. It was sleek. Futuristic. Impressive. The Old Man marched before it, gesturing.
“This is my example to the world,” he intoned. “Welcome to our city as it should be . . . and will be . . . in the hands of responsible private enterprise.”
Flashbulbs went off. Cameras whirled. The assembled crowd gasped. Kuzak found himself escorted into the back of the room by a surly security guard. “Fuggoff,” the mayor grumbled.
“And a special welcome to the mayor and the outgoing administration,” the Old Man announced.
“We ain’t goin’ anywhere!” Kuzak shouted from the back of the room.
Kuzak was forced to the stage with his speech-writer by a burly guard. The Old Man extended a hand, but Kuzak glared at it.
“Your Honor,” said the Old Man with a grin.
Kuzak glared at the model city and faced the microphones. “You’ll have to tear down a lot of people’s houses before you make that thing. Take away their homes!”