Chapter 2, OCP
Chapter 2: OCP.
Donald Johnson is director of operations at Omni Consumer Products. For years, Johnson had been pursuing the position of becoming Vice president of the company.
Of course not without its trials, most recently he paid the price of being humiliated courtesy of OCP’s CEO Dan Highland, a.k.a “The old man” who had chosen other executives over him to fill the Vice presidency position in the past. It was Dick Jones first, then Bob Morton and since both were killed, Highland hadn’t chosen anyone new.
Johnson is in charge of the police department and the RoboCop project. His mediocrity and lack of original ideas had prevented him from developing any outstanding projects to impress the CEO and grant him the position. Johnson had been painfully trying to improve RoboCop’s performance over the years to prove to the old man, that even if RoboCop’s creation wasn’t his idea, he is taking what Bob Morton designed to higher levels of success; however, there were always obstacles in his way to accomplish his goals.
Doctor Tyler doesn't seem to agree on all his suggestions to improve RoboCop’s performance. Sergeant Reed felt that they didn’t comply with his orders to make the cyborg cop work alone and kept assigning him human partners.
A year ago, Johnson almost succeeded in making RoboCop a solo vigilante, after insisting to Highland more than once that RoboCop’s performance would improve if his judgement wasn't clouded by working next to human officers, the old man had finally been convinced and asked Sergeant Reed not to assign any more partners and Lewis was assigned to work with Estevez instead.
Some time after, Media Break had broadcasted the crisis in Prisma city:
Lee Jenkins, the mayor of the city had been kidnapped and the Splatterpunks were threatening to set the city on fire. Not only were the Nuke for Christ gang causing problems in Old Detroit, simultaneously, the Splatterpunks a gang of vicious delinquents, were causing trouble in Prisma city. They were trying to get money from city hall to tune some vehicles they had previously stolen and then use them to drive to Detroit and extend their domain there.
Prisma city’s name was inspired by the luxurious buildings with geometrical shapes located in the heart of the main district. Lee Jenkins was always proud of his hometown, those buildings couldn’t be destroyed. Prisma city’s crime rate is lower than Old Detroit’s, that is the reason why, when the attacks started, the Prisma Police requested help from Detroit’s police department, it was simply because they weren’t prepared for such contingency.
Jenkins was lucky enough to ask for help, before he was kidnapped himself, although the mayor’s luck faded away when it was Johnson that received the emergency call at OCP headquarters and decided to not send him any assistance.
Johnson always despised Jenkins; they both went to Harvard together. Their rivalry started there, many years ago and that’s the reason why OCP decided not to send aid to Prisma city. Johnson argued they didn’t have enough firearm backup to help, but Sergeant Reed from Metro West made a conscious decision and thought they couldn’t let other fellow officers die without support, so he sent a special team to help Prisma city’s police officers. Even the mayor of Detroit supported the motion.
RoboCop volunteered, and Lt. Michael Hedgecock, brother of the deceased Lt. Roger Hedgecock that had once received orders to destroy RoboCop, told his S.W.A.T. team they had to support him even if the mission was dangerous, Lewis didn’t stick around to listen to Reed and left with them as well.
After the River Rouge incident in which RoboCop was dismantled by Cain and his gang, she had been fearful to leave him alone.
The officers knew their resources were limited, since OCP’s executives were vindictive enough to prevent them to take any special weapons on the mission, nevertheless, they trusted in their tactical skills to succeed.
Once the courageous team were in Prisma city, the exclusive news had been covered by Casey Wong and his famous Media Break TV program. Shortly after, people from both Detroit and Prisma city started a conjoined hatred campaign on social media against OCP executives, bashing them for not sending enough firepower to the police officers from Detroit that had volunteered to save Lee Jenkins. The old man was extremely upset by the whole situation and eventually sent a helicopter with weapons for the S.W.A.T. team and RoboCop. Johnson had almost been fired that day.
The team succeeded, the troublemakers were booked and Lee Jenkins was found alive. All of them were battered and wounded after that episode. Jenkins was in awe of RoboCop’s skills and at his very tactical partner.
The mayor was so grateful, he even suggested RoboCop and Lewis could stay in Prisma city and work for him. After the situation was controlled and the police officers were back to Detroit, the old man asked Johnson to revoke his direct order and allow RoboCop to have partners again.
“We made a terrible mistake; RoboCop works better as part of a team”.
After Johnson’s idea backfired, he attempted to control RoboCop once more by teaming him up with Oscar Schysler, a very incompetent executive who works in security concepts. He’d been trying to develop improved ED-209 units that could work better on the streets.
People had complained repeatedly as a result of the clumsy robots they put out online. People would say the units were terrifying and unapproachable.
Especially for kids. If an ED-209 was assigned to control the traffic in a zone where there were schools, kids would be paralyzed with fear seeing the robot up close. Teachers and parents began complaining to OCP and the units were relocated to dangerous parts of the city.
The problem they encountered was, as ED-209’s design is quite rudimentary, the robots hadn't been installed with any thermographic sensors to detect when a human approached or touched them asking for help, they were also inefficient in detecting voices and determining if someone was endangered.
Eventually, ED-209s began killing innocent civilians while trying to bring order, what made matters worse were the robots were constantly vandalized by local gangs or they’d be set on fire.
The internet became so littered with memes and videos ridiculing the faulty robots that it inevitably portrayed OCP in a bad light tarnishing their image as well as their reputation. Enough was enough and Johnson decided to take them offline until the security concepts could come up with better improvements for them.
Schysler had informed Johnson he had outsourced a brilliant technical designer in Europe to help his team in Security Concepts with the changes. According to him, this person was familiar with the work they did at OCP, and would have the upgrade of the ED-209s soon.
Nevertheless, once Johnson and the old man were presented with the Tactical Enforcer Droids, the TDX-1000s, the newer model of the ED-209s, they thought that the improvements that had been made were bizarre and useless.
Although they were lighter and faster than ED-209s, their “approachable” faces, with built-in screens that would greet the citizens, was an attempt to not make them so terrifying to the public. The old man was disgusted at the idea and how much money had been spent so decided to store them and not deploy any of the units.
The CEO demanded to know who the person that had developed the project was but Schysler said that the designer was outsourced from Europe and couldn’t come to the USA.
The old man himself had been travelling back and forth to Germany lately, so having some staff outsourced in Europe working for his company, could benefit his public image. He eventually gave in and decided to display the units just as building guards and traffic officers in key parts of the city; so far no complaints but not major improvements either.
Johnson had several heated arguments with Schysler for the way he ruined the ED-209 upgrading project. The old man, once again, ended up humiliating Johnson by reminding him what a brilliant executive Bob Morton was when he was alive.
Unlike Johnson, Schysler didn't want to control RoboCop to be more efficient on the streets, he wanted to put him offline. Someone had brainwashed him to believe that escalating positions in the company depends on the police robot’s permanent’s deactivation.
The deployment of the TDX units was in reality just a façade set by Schysler to aim at RoboCop’s destruction. Whilst things had gone wrong and the units weren’t deployed as planned, he came to the conclusion that robots blowing RoboCop into pieces would be more difficult than he thought.
Schysler is a lawyer and is clueless on what the security concepts department is really about; his motivations are financial ambition and the pursuit of power inside the corporation more than anything. Johnson was unaware of Schysler’s plans.
Highland had called Johnson for a private meeting and the director of operations thought the old man would have good news for him. Very recently, Highland had been toying with the idea of becoming a diplomat and working for the United Countries of the World Organization. That would mean that at long last, Johnson would be in charge once the old man became a spokesman for the organization.
Old man: Do you know why I called you, today?
Johnson: I might have an idea sir, your new position as a diplomat?
Old man: I wish, Johnson, I wish, no, the Germans and the Swiss are very picky…they still think I don’t have what it takes to be collaborating with them at the organization, they perceive me as some sort of evil villain with no heart or compassion, the media have torn us to pieces for years!
But, I have made up my mind and I will impress them the next time I go there, I have even scheduled a physical make over to make me look younger… more appealing.
Johnson kept thinking to himself “To the point you old son of a bitch”
Johnson: That’s very good news, sir, you always have great ideas…
Old man: Quit the ass kissing Johnson! let me get straight to the point, I know that you will have more work from now on and I don’t really want you getting tired, so, I have hired someone to help you with the extra burden…you will have a new junior executive that will work alongside with you, as a sub-director of operations…
Johnson: With all due respect sir, I don’t need any extra help…
Old man: Oh but you do…you’re becoming old Johnson…both you and I and we need fresh new perspectives, I have asked Giselle, my niece, to join our team, she will start from scratch, I want her to appreciate what hard work is, believe me, she won’t have any privileges because she is related to me…I had promised my brother I was going to give her a job, once she graduated from Princeton.
Johnson: Doesn’t she already have a job working in the media? She is too young to be sub-director of operations; don’t you think she would be better in communications?
Old man: No, Johnson, I want her to learn from you…and I want you to learn from her…
Johnson thought his day can’t get any worse, he knew the old man felt insecure and wanted someone to watch his back. Bringing Giselle into the department would be a way to monitor him and Schysler. His worst fear now, was that once the girl became experienced enough, the Vice presidency position would be granted to her and not him, all the bad decisions he’s endured over the years including his love affair with Dr. Faxx that resulted in disaster for the city of Detroit and ruined their public image would have been for nothing.
Johnson would like to think Faxx is rotting away in jail and prayed that Highland would die soon, purely because he's such an asshole. After all, he is the one that went to Harvard and deserves to be CEO of a major corporation like OCP.
**Do you want to know what a TDX-1000 unit looks like? Make sure you visit the artwork gallery on the website!**
