Chapter 4, Cadillac Heights
Chapter 4: Cadillac Heights.
It’s quarter past eight in the morning, RoboCop and Lewis are in the cruiser waiting to be called for duty; they are listening to the police newsflash that is broadcasted every morning on the cruiser’s radios.
The police newsflash audio recordings are a pragmatic way for Reed to inform all officers about news, administrative changes and OCP’s new rules, without in-person meetings just by using the radio. Reed allows all officers that have something important to say, to record something in advance the on the previous evening, so it can be broadcasted on the next day at exactly 8:00 AM. Some of the officers report important information, some others prefer to joke or even sing.
Mason loves to sings songs a capella for everyone to enjoy on the following morning. For most officers, listening to Mason’s singing is a soothing way to momentarily detach from the arduous stressful job they do. Except for RoboCop and Lewis, they seem displeased whenever someone plays with the newsflash recordings instead of reporting news.
Lewis: Do we really have to listen to this shit every day?
RoboCop: We should be getting calls for work instead.
Lewis: I can’t believe Reed allows them to record all these nonsenses…
RoboCop: The newsflash recordings should be used for police purposes only.
Lewis: Yeah, he should grow a pair and tell all of them to stop playing with the recordings
The first call they get is in Cadillac Heights. There have been store robberies in the zone, some of them have even been set on fire. There is a TV store there that RoboCop has liked to stand in front of in the past, moved by the curiosity to watch certain TV show scenes at once. He is disappointed to see, that his favorite store has been almost destroyed by the same robbers.
RoboCop and Lewis proceed to chase and arrest the trespassers and the shocking moment for both police officers is when they notice that one of them is wearing an official police jacket and it looks new. It is a woman that looks more like a beggar than a convicted criminal.
Lewis points her laser equipped Glock 17 gun at her and tries to get information about the jacket, but the woman seems to be way too drugged to give her a direct answer, all of a sudden one of her accomplices, comes out of nowhere, running and yelling frenetically, carrying a metal tube to try to hit Lewis from behind.
RoboCop automatically targets and shoots him as if he were a fly, the woman takes advantage of the distraction and tries to pick up the gun she had previously dropped on the floor, but before she does so, Lewis is fast enough to shoot her in the head.
A third robber is now driving a battered truck towards RoboCop at high speeds and Lewis aims and shoots at the windshield whilst shouting “Watch out Murphy!” nevertheless, the suspect doesn’t seem to be discouraged by the windshield crackling and doesn’t seem to listen either when RoboCop points his modified Beretta 93R at him asking him to surrender:
“Stop the vehicle, you are under arrest” Robo uses his computerized targeting system to shoot all the wheels in a matter of seconds and make the vehicle lose control and crash against a brick wall. The impact makes the man die instantly.
As they both pack away their guns and Lewis removes her helmet, RoboCop and Lewis get a hold of the situation, no arrests were made, all the trespassers are dead and there is no way for them to find out where the police jacket came from.
Lewis: This isn’t right… All of them, resisting to the arrest…? What made them so damn fearless? If they hadn’t acted in such an irrational way we could have taken them to the station for interrogation.
RoboCop: They seemed to be under the influence of a drug of some sort
Lewis: Nuke?
RoboCop: No. Something else.
Lewis: So what do we tell Reed now?
RoboCop: The truth.
Lewis: I am gonna get the jacket off her, as evidence…
In the meantime Lewis gets the jacket from the deceased robber, something calls RoboCop’s attention; inside the TV store, there are some electronic slot machines piled against a wall that seem to belong to a different company, he wonders what those machines are doing in a TV store.
Lewis: Those machines belong to Cyberotika; you know what those guys do, right?
RoboCop: No. Look at the screens, someone is using them to illegally break into their network, we have to notify the CEO of the company.
Lewis: Do you want to drive all the way to Prisma city to return them?
RoboCop: They must have stores in Detroit
Lewis: We can find out, leave that to me…
Everything is back to normal. Police work makes Lewis and RoboCop focus and bond again as partners and friends. Lewis calls the operator through the dispatcher requesting an official police vehicle to take the hijacked slot machines as evidence. She wants to drive the van back to the station once it arrives and RoboCop agrees with it.
In the meantime they wait, Lewis’ new black sophisticated smartphone that is in the glove compartment of the cruiser receives an incoming video call from Riggs, Lewis doesn’t answer the phone and puts it away, annoyed.
RoboCop: Your personal communicator should not be on during working hours.
Lewis: I am…testing it…you see, it has great new GPS spy functions I want to see how they work in the meantime we are driving around zone 4
RoboCop: Those functions don’t come in regular commercial devices.
Lewis: You’re right, I got the phone from Crazy Al…you wouldn’t believe how cheap it was! It even comes with a personal safety assistant; it is like an operating system that actually talks to you and…
RoboCop: You are a police officer. You should not break the law by buying illegal products.
Lewis: It’s not…completely illegal, calm down princess…it comes with military components not everyone knows how to handle. I do, because my dad was an army pilot…
Suddenly the smartphone rings again, Riggs doesn’t give up, she ends the call without answering.
RoboCop: Turn it off, we are on duty.
Lewis: No!…I want to see how the GPS works…it has been retrieving data the whole day, if I set it off now, all the information will be lost…it’s that idiot of Riggs…he keeps insisting in asking me out, but I am not interested…I don’t have time for that.
The uncomfortable situation goes on for some minutes, Riggs keeps calling and RoboCop repeats Lewis she should not break the law by buying illegal devices, like a broken record. By the time the van arrives, they’re both in a bad mood. RoboCop tells Lewis it would be safer if he drove the vehicle back to the station in case they are being followed.
Lewis knows it is a poor excuse to not let her drive and wonders if Robo is punishing her for buying a not-so-legal device or because another man was calling her, or both. Her partner is so hard to read sometimes, being this an unfair situation for Lewis, RoboCop broke his promise and will now monopolize the van, the same way he usually monopolizes the cruiser.
The officer in charge of the official vehicle is mostly ignored by RoboCop and Lewis in the meantime they debate who should drive back the machines to the station. Finally, Lewis proceeds to call Reed to report that important evidence was collected that day, the police jacket and the slot machines. RoboCop takes his chance to get the keys off the van’s engine just to keep them in his closed fist as a silent way of telling his partner:
“You won’t be able to get the keys from me now”.
Lewis has no choice now, but to drive the cruiser behind the van all the way to the station. The officer that is in the passenger’s seat tries to painfully start a conversation with her, although Lewis is mostly quiet, planning her revenge.
Lewis plans to do her own research on the hackers that are illegally breaking into the Cyberotika’s network and once the investigation is complete, the machines would be returned by her and Estevez and RoboCop could be removed out of the case.
She thinks that would be enough to teach him to not break a promise again.
RoboCop and Lewis have been living this intense adventure of feeling powerful together as a team and they have indulged in their own built up fantasy, as a desperate way to fill the need to live at least a platonic subtle romance between them. Their shared fear of realizing their relationship is moving forward is making them compete as cops now; it is easier to focus on police work rather than confronting each other in a personal way.
Lewis ignoring the officer in charge is not a new thing, being that one of the factors that make some of the cops at the station to not emphasize with her; some of the fellow officers think that both RoboCop and Lewis can come across as arrogant and presumptuous when they have inadvertently shown off their abilities as police officers in front of everyone.
Robo and Lewis are unaware that displaying how efficient they can be as a team could cause them problems in the future, especially with the incompetent cops that are envious of their skills.
The evidence is delivered to Reed. He wishes there were live witnesses to interrogate about the jacket, although Reed prefers to think this is just an isolated case, it would be terrifying to think that someone is illegally breaking into the OCP Warehouses where the police arsenal is being stored and official weapons can fall into the wrong hands.
The police officers that work as instructors at the police academy have access to the warehouses. Sergeants and Lieutenants from Metro West, North, East and South have entry cards as well. The crew from the Security Concepts department have access too, although it is undisclosed who exactly has cards and who doesn’t. OCP executives choose to not share that information with the police department as a way to remind them who is in control.
The slot machines is a side case, Reed video calls Colonel Thompson, the CEO of Cyberotika, to let him know two of his best officers found three hijacked electronic machines that belong to his company and that an investigation has been initiated to find out who the hacker that has been breaking into their network to steal fees from the products sold online by Cyberotika is. Thompson is pleased and thanks Reed for the call.
