Jump 140: Robocop

Jump 140: Robocop

Location: Detroit, 1987
Age: 27
Identity: [-100] OCP Board Member
Drawbacks: None

[Free]    Basil Poledouris
[Free]    He Fumbled The Ball And I Was There To Pick It Up
[100/900] Role Models Can Be Very Important To A Boy
[250/900] We Practically Are The Military
[550/900] They'll Fix You, They Fix Everything
[600/900] Body Armor
[Free]    Desert Eagle
[Free]    6000 SUX
[900/900] ED-209a

Once upon a time in Detroit, Dick Jones arranged for a demonstration of the ED-209 unit for the OCP board, having arranged a certain plan in advance to eliminate what he saw as an up and coming threat to his position in the Security Concepts division. A certain board member by the last name of Valentine was selected to help demonstrate the effectiveness of the enforcement droid, only for it to recognize that board member as armed even after dropping his weapon. And so, that board member was quite thoroughly gibbed by the ED-209's 20mm cannons, Dick Jones was rid of what he saw as a thorn in his side, and a certain Mr. Kinney was quite happy that he chose to resign that morning and retire to a Caribbean island.

The aftermath of this, of course, was the Robocop program being promoted within the company, and ED-209 being taken back for retooling at the Old Man's word. What Dick Jones did not expect, however, was for Valentine to show up in the executive bathroom the next day, cheerful as anything.

"Ah, hell of a day, isn't it?"
>"Valentine? I thought you were..."
"Yeah, me too. Paramedics are damn miracle workers these days, I tell you hwat."
>"Er... right. Carry on then."
"Roger wilco. I heard what they said about ED's programming, I'll see to it personally before I go back to the other projects. Light duty and all, you understand."
>"Of course, of course..."

And so it was. Bob Morton's rising star within Security Concepts with Robocop would have gotten him far, but like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun and his wings melted... courtesy of a certain Clarence Boddicker interrupting a classic eighties coke party. One that he'd even invited Valentine to, since Valentine had helped contribute some useful code that smoothed the mind-machine interface's operation for what was left of Murphy. Ah, good ol' Dick Jones, got a confirmation that both the thorns in his side had been removed.

Which is why he was surprised to see Valentine in the office the next morning, even if he was looking a bit hung-over. When pressed by Dick Jones, Valentine explained there had a... 'late night meeting' with Bob Morton, but it seemed Bob would be late thanks to getting Dick Jones' message via courier. And thus the entire thing was blown off, while Jones became increasingly paranoid over the entire affair and Valentine fortified his position within Security Concepts. He even ensured that the Detroit police got new body armor and uniforms, rather more effective than the jumped-up riot gear they'd had before - he sold it as cheap updates, and since Detroit PD was essentially a division of OCP, they'd be field testing potential gear for sale to the military. Lightweight ceramic composite laminate rather than simple kevlar, it proved surprisingly effective.

And then the fated board meeting after the police strike had begun... and Dick Jones' quite abrupt fall from grace at Robocop's hands. The end result? Valentine ended up as head of Security Concepts, while Johnson himself took Dick Jones' position as the Old Man's right hand.

And, for a time, all was well.

The strike continued, though Valentine's efforts were stymied by a Dr. Faxx trying to shoehorn her way into the Robocop program. He at least managed to shut her down, derailing what was probably the most hamfistedly stupid comedy subplot since ED-209 declaring it was authorized to be as loyal as a puppy ... no wait, that came later. Regardless, Faxx was given free reign to take over the Robocop 2 program after a duo of very unfortunate failures, while Valentine seized full control of the original Robocop. This took things in a rather unexpected direction from there; the cyborg been revisiting parts of his old life as old memories surfaced, and rather than suppress it he looked at it as an opportunity to create more realistic, but still potentially military-grade, prosthetics.

This had unexpected effects when Robocop met Murphy's wife, and rather than rebuffing her... Valentine was able to talk her into dropping the suit, before bringing her down and talking to the two of them in private. Explaining in detail what happened, the legal status, and more importantly what he was going to be doing - because frankly, even a cyborg needs down-time. Moreover, giving the cyborg a reason to live - a family - would be even more important. That, by his estimation, was why the other entries into the Robocop program failed... that, and a lack of tactile feedback.

Things went predictably, of course, in certain respects. Robocop 2 was quietly debuted as Faxx's off-the-books enforcer who murdered a number of gang members and part of the mayor's staff. It of course went berserk, and met a revitalized Robocop in a showdown at the OCP civic center, where things were made a complete mess of. Robocop 2 gunned down innocents in front of news crews, giving OCP a black eye their stock prices could never recovery from. The mayor's office received an influx of funds after this and were able to stop OCP from taking Detroit private, and the Old Man suffered a heart attack while Dr. Faxx took the blame for the whole course of events and was sent to play tennis behind bars for the next ten to fifteen.

After the debacle... well, OCP was bought out. Multiple companies put in bids, but eventually, the winning bid came in from Crux Industries and they took everything down to the very bolts of the OCP world headquarters skyscraper that they disassembled to prove the point that they simply did it because they could. Delta City, a vanity project decades in the making, was scrapped without a peep. Detroit PD was given back to the city, but kept a contract for the hardware formerly provided by OCP. Crux Industries of course upgraded the ED-209 heavily and did indeed manage to get a number of military contracts, as well as pressing highly advanced prosthetics into service in both the private sector and the military. The buyers of the ED-209 laughed when he told them that he'd stolen the designs from a parallel universe and improved them, same as he stole the designs for the EM-208 as well, but they certainly did the job well.

As for Alex Murphy himself? He was given a more sane schedule, a salary, the mark 4 Robocop body let him have a family life even if it wasn't ideal... and he in fact started to put his life back together. He could pass for human in appearance. He could help raise his son, as his mind healed and therapy aided him. And four years later, the mark 5 prosthetic body gave him truly full natural function once more.

And Crux Industries' CEO Valentine sat in his office and lifted a toast to the posthumous Dick Jones, the ego that started the whole thing going.