by Ed Naha
“Only to build sparkling, secure living units,” the Old Man replied. “Now, please, take your seat on the stage.”
“Won’t be much room for neighborhoods,” Kuzak pointed out. “The kinds we all grew up in.”
“These days the neighborhoods just seem to be places where bad things happen,” the Old Man argued. “Please, don’t be so nostalgic.”
“What about democracy?” Kuzak shouted. “Nobody elected you!”
“Anyone can buy OCP stock”—the Old Man smiled—“and own a piece of the city. What could be more democratic than that?”
Kuzak whirled toward the cameras. “That’s bullshit! The people won’t stand for this!”
“You haven’t been following the polls.” The Old Man sighed. “Please sit down.”
Kuzak sank into a chair, and the Old Man smiled at the multitudes. “About a year ago, we gave this city RoboCop. Now, I think he’s worked out pretty well, but things have gotten a little rougher out there. And now we need a law-enforcement unit capable of meeting the enemy on his own ground . . . and carrying enough firepower to get the job done.”
The Old Man gestured behind him.
A hulking shape appeared behind the model of the gleaming, futuristic Detroit cityscape.
The crowd gasped.
The room was filled with a steady hydraulic hiss as the massive Cain-Creature lumbered forth.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the Old Man enthused, “I give you, with great pride . . . RoboCop 2!”
The Old Man found Faxx on the sidelines and smiled.
Faxx returned the smile nervously.
The hulking mechanical monster marched forward, taking Mayor Kuzak by surprise. “Those bastards,” he muttered. “Those maniacs. Those killers.”
“Something wrong?” the speech writer asked.
“I can’t believe this shit,” the mayor mumbled. “These people are butchers!”
The mechanical monster flexed its body like a well-oiled tank truck as the crowd gasped. The Old Man grinned triumphantly. “He’ll work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There’s going to be a big demand for this unit all across the country, and we’ll make him right here in Detroit. That means jobs we can all be proud of. We’re going to make ‘Made in America’ mean something again.”
He turned to the mayor. “Shall we talk about what your leadership has brought us, Your Honor? Shall we take a look at the ‘growth industry’ your administration has made possible?”
The Old Man picked up a silver canister from under his podium and held it up. “This single container holds enough NUKE to addict a city block. A hundred of these are produced every day!”
He pushed a button on the side of the canister. It popped open, chock-full of NUKE ampules.
“These things are sent to the sweatshops where urban slaves prepare this poison for consumption by our friends, our loved ones, our children. I say this has got to stop. I say it’s high time we brought an end to this man-made plague! RoboCop 2 will seek out every lab, every dealer, and rid our city of NUKE once and for all.”
The Cain-Creature’s head pivoted toward the canister, suddenly alert. The Old Man didn’t notice.
“Yes, things will be a lot quieter with this new boy around.”
The metallic monster suddenly let out a howl. Its head flaps yanked open, revealing the hungry face of Cain. It reached a large talon down toward the canister. Startled, the Old Man held on tightly to the metal case, engaging in a brief tug-of-war.
The Old Man gasped. “What are you doing, son?”
“Fuck you!” The Cain-Creature roared again, snatching the canister in a jerking move and sending the ampules scattering in every direction.
The crowd, thinking it a gag, laughed.
The cyborg raised an angry fist, bellowing in frustration. The monster’s head scanned the crowd angrily, its torso whirling. The Old Man backed away nervously. Faxx ran up to him. The Old Man grasped Faxx by the shoulders and shook her hard.
“Why is he doing this?” he demanded. “What’s wrong with him?”
“The NUKE!” Faxx gasped. “Oh, God!”
“What?” the Old Man sputtered.
Faxx blanched. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
The monster screeched and began smashing the model skyscape with a slashing motion of its mighty arms. It stepped forward, pulverizing model buildings beneath large pincered feet.
“I think you’d better turn it off!” the Old Man screamed at Faxx.
“I can’t.” Faxx smiled lamely. “But it’s all right. It’ll be all right.”
The monster continued to smash the city of the future as video cameras recorded the entire debacle. OCP guards ran forward, training their automatic weapons on the berserk beast.
Faxx ran across the stage, spotting the weaponry. “Don’t shoot!” she screeched. “It’s not armed! It’s harmless!”
Faxx fingered the control device as, behind her, the Cain-Creature roared at the guards. She punched every command she could muster.
The monster moved forward, bellowing down at her. Faxx whirled and dropped the control module, sending it clattering across the stage.
She screamed as the monster lunged at her.
Before it could cleave her in two, it stopped. A loud bang. A shell burst off the back of its neck. The monster pivoted, turning to the back of the stage, unharmed but angry.
There stood RoboCop, wielding a Cobra assault cannon.
The monster raised its machine-gun-laden arm. The firing mechanism of the gun snapped back and targeted Robo. Blutttepepep.
The monster gazed down. The gun wasn’t loaded.
Robo fired the Cobra again.
The round burst harmlessly across the startled creature’s chest.
The monster roared, stomping its foot and crashing into the stage with a resounding whaaap. It spotted the discarded command module and, reaching down, snatched it, punching in the command ARM.
The Cain-Creature cackled as it raised its loaded arm. It blasted away at anything and everything that moved, tearing away chairs and slabs of wall. Robo hit the floor in a daring roll-and-tuck maneuver, raising the Cobra high as the monster continued its firing frenzy.
The monster whirled toward Robo just as the supercop was about to fire. The Cain-Creature sent a round slamming into the Cobra, completely imploding the weapon before Robo had a chance to squeeze the trigger.
Robo slammed back into a wall, his hands twitching, his chest smoking.
He was hurt.
Hurt badly.
He tried to reach for his pistol. His fingers convulsed.
At that moment, the OCP guards opened up on the marauding metal monster. The Cain-Creature whirled around, firing all weapons on the galloping guards. Guards, guests, and TV reporters collapsed in the stream of screaming, seething, simmering lead pellets. Cameras exploded. Lights blew out.
The Cain-Creature cackled from within the computerized head. It turned its attention once again on Robo. It raised its taloned feet and wobbled toward him.
Robo shook his head clear, trying to get his system in synch with his RoboVision. Beneath his visor, he targeted the creature. He zoomed in on the barrel of the creature’s massive cannon. TARGETING, his sensors told him. The Cain-Creature raised its lethal arm.
Robo winced and pounded out round after round. The monster’s extended arm exploded.
The creature was caught by surprise. It howled at the heavens.
It continued to march forward, its shoulder gun and other weapons firing wildly. It was angry now. Out for blood. Out for vengeance. It hadn’t chosen to be like this. It would kill everyone who kept it from controlling the world. Control. It had dreams. It had dreams of the future. World dominance. Universal submission for these poor human slugs.
The scooping ram shot out from its arm, sending a grappling tentacle toward Robo.
Robo tried to dodge it, but the tentacle slammed into him, sending Robo crashing through a wall and into a hallway.
Robo scrambled down the hallway, avoiding the still-pursuing tentacle.
There were times he wished he wasn’t a cop.
Murphy gasped as he trotted down the hallway.
Murphy, Robo considered. Murphy. I am Alex J. Murphy. A fighting Irishman, you percolating piece of metal. His legs pumped harder.
Outside the building, an army of police converged, their TurboCruiser sirens wailing.
Lewis, Stef, and Whittaker led the charge inside the building, Stef bellowing over a megaphone, “Clear the area! You are all in danger!”
Inside, Robo continued to elude the tentacle. By this time, the Cain-Creature was marching after him, tearing through walls and crashing through corridors.
Robo jumped through the gate of a large freight elevator, frantically pushing buttons.
Nothing happened.
Robo reached up and punched a metallic hand through the wall of the elevator car, pulling himself up and over the car on its main cable. Sitting above the car and hanging on the cable, Robo pulled the high voltage cable in two, leaving just enough tethers intact to keep the elevator in place.
The monster approached the elevator, not firing, relishing the kill.
Robo stood immobile above the car.
The monster crouched to enter the elevator, Cain’s face grinning on its head monitor.
It lurched upward toward the hiding RoboCop.
Robo ducked and extended the sparking, high-voltage cable.
The monster grasped the cable and was thrown back.
Robo severed the cable, his body jerked high into the air as the cable snapped.
The Cain-Creature, caught by surprise, was tossed to the top of the elevator car as it plunged downward, floor after floor, due to lack of a main cable.
As the monster descended, pulling the severed cable down with it, Robo found himself hanging onto the main cable, yanked upward story after story, the snapping, flapping cable twisting and turning in his hand.
With a resounding crash, Robo was thrust into the elevator’s gears at the very top of the complex’s elevator shaft. His arms plunged deep into the gears.
He heard the falling elevator with the Cain-Creature aboard crash at the bottom of the shaft below.
Robo heaved a sigh of relief, but then he heard a curious scraping sound.
He glanced downward.
The metallic monster had survived the crash and now, using its talons, was slowly climbing up the shaft.
Up the shaft to where Robo hung helplessly.
The Cain-Creature began to pick up speed, digging into the metal shaft faster and faster, like an old-time locomotive picking up speed.
Robo wrenched his arm from the elevator mechanism and sent his body plummeting feetfirst toward the advancing mechanical madman.
Glancing upward, the Cain-Creature tried to halt its advancing body’s progress. Too late. Robo’s feet slammed into its head mechanism, causing it to lurch violently to the side.
The two went crashing through the towering building’s side.
Outside.
Space. Nothing but space. A starlit night. A sheer drop of ten stories.
The metal monster dug its claws into the side of the building. Below it, ant-sized police cruisers. A tiny crowd. A fall meaning certain death.
Robo slid down the monster’s spine, grabbing hold of its legs.
Robo, the creature’s legs clutched to his bosom, braced his own legs against the building’s side.
“It’s all over, Cain,” he stated. “We’re going down. We’re going down together.”
The monster growled as its steel pincers began to sag downward.
Sparks arose as metal met metal, the creature clawing at the side of the newly constructed high-rise.
“Damn you!” Robo said, pushing his feet forward against the building, swinging the creature’s bottom out toward the heavens.
The Cain-Creature howled as it lost its grip.
RoboCop and RoboCop 2, his scientifically created brother named Cain, plunged toward the streets below.
The stars watched in silence.
The crowds below gasped in unison.
Silhouetted against the sky, two metal figures fell.
The only sound to be heard was the hiss of metal against a damp Detroit evening.
The hiss grew to a shriek. The sound of a falling bomb.
The crowd below backed away. Lewis stood next to her cruiser, watching the tangle of metal descend to the ground.
She raised a pallid hand to her mouth. “Murphy!” she whispered. “Oh, my god! Oh no! No!”
The shrieking sound grew louder as the metal mass drew closer to the ground. Cameramen trained their lenses while reporters clutched their ears.
In the air, the computerized Cain-face screeched.
Robo grit his teeth and stared stolidly at the approaching street.
Robo extended an arm.
He caught hold of a window, sending both metallic creations swinging into the building.
The falling metal mass careened inside the skyscraper, sending startled workers vaulting from their workplaces. Ceilings exploded and walls caved in.
Robo continued to clutch at the tumbling metallic monster as the Cain-Creature thrashed at him.
Below, at the entrance to the building, police and OCP guards erected barricades as, above them, the two metal creations continued to flail against each other, smashing through the side of the building and tumbling onto the overpass. Robo and the monster slammed their fists at each other, causing their bodies to smash through the overpass and down onto the street below.
The metal mass crashed through the roof of a newly constructed parking garage, flattening a station wagon.
The weight of their combined bodies forced them down through the ground-level floor of the parking edifice, where they landed with a crunching thud.
Robo continued to work over the Cain-Creature. The massive metal monster continued to writhe. They rolled through large, expansive causeways of pipe. They smashed through warning signs reading DANGER: GAS MAIN.
The floor shook.
The walls collapsed.
The monster clawed at Robo’s helmet. Robo stiffened as electrical charges caressed his skull.
The monster got to its feet, sending Robo smashing into a cellar wall.
The monster grabbed a limp RoboCop and hurled him into a gas main.
The Cain-Creature cackled, releasing a small vestigial arm. A cutting torch snapped from its claw, stabbing at Robo’s visor. Robo attempted to roll his way out of the snapping claws of the eleven-foot snapping, snarling creature.
The torch neared Robo’s eyes. Robo extended both battered hands, grabbing the torch and twisting it.
The Cain-Creature roared in anger as Robo thrust the torch into the nearby gas main.
Robo twisted his head to watch the torch tip smack into the main.
A fireball whoooshed forward.
Robo lost his vision.
Outside, both police and civilians ran as a tremendous fireball smashed its way through the base of the building.
Blast after blast erupted from the bowels of the building.
Lewis began to scream.
Fire and smoke were all around her.
Behind her, sirens screamed to the scene.
A fireball erupted from a street grate near her.
Abruptly, the fireball disappeared.
A charred hand grabbed the grate and pushed it upward.
Robo emerged intact. He got to his feet, wobbled, and, facing Lewis, collapsed face-first onto the ground. Lewis ran toward him while, from the bottom of the building, the badly damaged Cain-Creature lumbered forward.
Both police and OCP guards opened fire on it.
The creature whirled dizzily, opening up its weaponry on its assailants, sending a dozen men to the ground, all dead.
In the crowd, Ellen Murphy, gathered with her neighbors to watch the salvation of her city, threw herself down on top of her son, Jimmy.
A police cruiser exploded, sending a fiery arm of smoke and debris toward the sky.
On a balcony overlooking the debacle, the Old Man stood immobile. He turned to a sweaty Johnson. “This could look bad for OCP, Johnson. Scramble the best spin team we have. We have to outdistance ourselves from this in terms of public relations.”
“Gotcha,” Johnson said, scurrying off.
Down below, the monster raged. Lewis, turning from the fractured Robo, spotted an abandoned armored patrol vehicle. She climbed into the truck’s cab.
The creature continued to fire on the crowd, killing both civilians and cops alike. Stef caught a slug in the forehead, his brains blowing out his skull. He fell into a startled Whittaker’s arms.
“Awww, Stef,” Whittaker moaned, easing his fallen comrade’s body to the ground before raising his own weapon again and firing a salvo at the berserk beast.
The monster whirled, stopping its fire, as a siren approached.
Lewis, at the wheel of an armored police truck, grinned grimly as she sped toward the titan.
The monster roared and blasted the car with machine-gun fire.
Lewis crouched down behind the wheel as bullets pinged around her. “Fuck you, Frankenstein!” she yelled, as the truck slammed into the guts of the monster.
The truck embedded itself in the creature.
The monster shot off a few minimissiles, blowing up two cruisers. Cops and civilians ran for dear life.
Lewis, stuck in the cab embedded in the writhing beast, kicked open the driver’s door and threw herself to the ground.
The creature grabbed the truck from its innards and sent it hurling to the ground with a deafening crash. The vehicle exploded.
The monster cackled, blinded by the flames.
Beneath the flame and smoke, RoboCop crawled toward the Cain-Creature.
Lewis ran to Robo’s side. “There’s no stopping that thing, Murphy! Your plan won’t work!”
Robo grimaced at her. “It’s the only way. Get into position.”
Lewis nodded and darted off.
The monster burst forth from behind the flames, scanning the area and sniffing.
From behind a wall of smoke, Robo strode, a gnarled truck before him.
The monster fired a salvo at Robo, hitting the truck instead.
The monster charged forward. It skidded to a stop, focusing on the truck.