Story [RoboCop: The Series] Broken Glass (Drabbles)

always a delight reading your insightful pieces

 

Mira_Jade: Thank you.

earlybird-obi-wan: Very happy you think so. Thank you.


From the Prompts Thread...


Truly, Madly, Deeply


Gadget was standing by, watching as Charlie used the virtual data probe to access into MetroNet's datacore, NeuroBrain. She wasn't exactly sure why he needed to use a virtual reality headset to do that, but didn't want to leave him alone while he did it. While at Child Services, she'd seen one too many television shows about Virtual Reality gone wrong and caution was good, even if she couldn't put what she felt into words. Or something... would he have believed her if she'd told him? Probably not.

A sigh escaped his lips and she looked sharply at him to find him more relaxed than she'd ever seen him, and his posture was suddenly not as rigid as it had been.

Later, Charlie would deny that anything out of the ordinary had happened, and Gadget would be left wondering if she'd imagined it.

 

A/N: In this fandom, it goes without saying, but I'm going to anyway... angst warning. From the Prompts thread, I present Hand in Hand...


Hand in Hand


The service had been long and ardous, and she couldn't wait to get out of the church so she wouldn't have to be reminded of how her world had so suddenly turned upside down. They'd been married here, had baptized their only son into the faith here... and, now, with her in-laws at her side and Jimmy's hand in hers, they were having his funeral here!

Was it only five days ago that Jimmy had turned and asked a hard question of his father during sermon? It felt longer than that.

"Dad? Why'd they hurt him so bad?"

 

A touching use of the prompt

 

earlybird-obi-wan: Thank you.

Mira_Jade: Thank you, Mira. (...I'd been wondering when and if I would find somewhere to use that church flashback. Ouch when it finally happened.)

From the prompts thread, I present...



Devour


When Charlie found her in cyberspace, she was sitting at an ornately set table, looking at virtual food longingly. "Diana?"

She didn't respond at first, then shook herself and looked at him. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be visiting your family?"

He smiled and pulled up a chair, joining her at the table, and ignoring the fact that there was a virtual lake swirling beneath the "glass" at their feet. "It's Thanksgiving, and I wanted to visit you." Charlie motioned to the food. "And this?"

"Alex will be joining me. Sort of. He misses food, too." She glanced at the table. "And this is something we've done together for three years now."

"And I am with my family," Charlie told her quietly. "You."

She sighed. "You know what I mean."

"Same answer."

When Alex spiked into NeuroBrain, he was surprised to find them kissing madly, and decided that maybe later would be better...

 

Nice use of the prompt

 

Mira_Jade: Mallardo had the almost-perfect computer plan... he just didn't take into account the fact that it's a brain being used... of an actual person... who has wants and desires and needs. Which was probably why the folks at MIT shot the idea down to begin with. Trying to kill the person in question AFTER realizing the mistake with a virus only makes it worse, you know? And you're right: at least she has Charlie. Thank you, Mira.

earlybird-obi-wan: Thank you.


From the Prompts thread...


Aftermath


She hung up the phone and stared at it for several seconds, wondering why the Retired Russell Murphy would call and check on Robo after seeing the news report of the encounter with the biotoxin, RicinX. He had sounded relieved at hearing the good news, that the toxin had been contained and Robo was fine after the encounter. Did he suspect? Did it matter if he did suspect?

Hearing the tell-tale whirr and grind of moving heavy metal, Lisa turned to find her partner walking through the station to go back to the tech room. Maybe it didn't matter either way. The man cared enough to call, and Robo was fine. He'd even surprised people with an insight... which, granted, had been about sweat on a sweatshirt, but an insight all the same.

 

Mira_Jade: Thank you.


A/N: So... Movie One began with outright corruption and something not touched on again. That something? The ED-209 test... which would get any normal corporation sued six (or more) ways from Sunday. Only... they never mentioned it again. (And I got plot-bunny attacked by a "things we don't write" discussion. I don't write giant robots shooting people on account of a "glitch.")


Tangled


Somewhere in Detroit, Michigan, a little girl watches. Watches as a casket is lowered into the ground, silently wondering all the while how her daddy went to work like any normal day and ended up dead. Standing beside her mother, who has said nothing for a week about anything, the questions will go unasked. The time will never be right to ask them. She knows this, even if she doesn't understand it yet.

Somewhere in Detroit, Michigan, a little girl watches as people start to leave, and her mother grabs her hand. "Let's go." She blinks up at her, surprised by how hollow her mother's voice is. After a week of silence, she is not comforted to hear her mother speak, and begins to cry. Nothing is right, and everything has been turned upside down, and now it's real. Real in a way it hadn't been before.

Somewhere in Detroit, Michigan, beside a grave in a cemetary, a young mother attempts to comfort her young daughter as she cries.

The gravestone stands silent, witness to this new reality that the wife and daughter of a now-deceased junior executive named Kenny have found themselves in. There will be much to do, and much to overcome in the coming days.

 

Mira_Jade: Thank you!!!!



Orbit


It was easy to see how they circled each other, even before they knew one another. Same company, different departments... and yet, but for an accident of circumstances, they never would have met. "You really like that pattern?"

Charlie glanced at her on the vid-phone screen. "What's not to like about it?"

"It clashes..." At his raised eyebrow, she whirled out of the nearest socket and pointed from his coat, to the curtains, to the rug. "None of these look good with that bedspread! Not even your coat, and it's beige!"

"Diana?"

"What?"

"The electric grid here can't take you doing that for long. And I don't care that it clashes."

She heaved an un-needed sigh. "Why not?"

"Because it reminds me of the Neuro-brain interface."

That revelation made her pause and she looked at it again with new eyes. It was colorful and abstract and weird... and again a reminder of how they'd met in the middle of things and also a reminder that they could have just as easily missed each other. "I guess..."

"And since we can't always be together, I wanted something that speaks of your presence in my home. In our home... even if it is the craziest bedspread I could find and the cashier looked like she wanted to ask if I was crazy for buying it."

At that, Diana had to laugh. "If I could kiss you right now, Charlie, I would."

His responding smile would have been enough to light up all of Zone Five.

 

A/N: I've touched on Tin Man before, but not this moment.


We meet again


The man was staring at him with blank intensity and wild eyes, and Robo couldn't move as a memory overtook him...

"Malloy's rule number one: there is NOTHING, nothing better than being a cop."

...and he was still standing there in the warehouse in that silver jacket, with an uncharacteristically blank look on his face. "Malloy?" The name had left his lips before he'd even realized he had spoken, almost too stunned to register what happened next.

The familiar man's eyes started to blink and he twitched once, twice, and then the blank look returned and he pointed a weapon at the ceiling, launching something at it, and then walked away.

Robo had just enough time to tag him before the grenade went off and the building blew up. Answers would have to wait. For now.

 

Mira_Jade : It just seemed natural that Charlie would want the crazy bedspread if he couldn't have his wife at home, you know? Thank you, Mira.


A/N: In tribute to the really odd part of the Robocop Junior Novel where every action scene seemed to take place at night during the full moon...


Moonglow


She'd been officially tag-team arresting someone while off duty, was her first thought as she looked up at her partner from where she lay trapped by the bus. Off duty, last thing of the day before going back to the station to log out... and then this happened. Over Robo's metal shoulder, she noticed the full moon high in the sky. Barely, because the city lights were so bright, but there.

It figured. Of course a crazy bus accident would happen tonight! Why not?

That was the last thing Lisa remembered before sliding into blessed unconsciousness.

 

Mira_Jade: Having worked a medical assistant internship-like-thing during the full moon in an Emergency Room... oh yes. Totally. Thank you, Mira.


Rushing headfirst


It had started out as casual flirtation in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, Nancy reflected as she looked across the table at her companion. Once every month or so, they'd meet again in the same grocery store and trade stories about children or work or life in general, smile, and then forget about one another until the next time. Over and over again, they'd run into each other at that same store until once every month or so became twice a month, and then three.

After two years of meeting like that, seemingly at random, they finally exchanged contact information and names. His name was Robert, and it turned out that he lived three streets away from her and Jimmy, and closer to her in-laws than she did.

Tonight was their first real date, though it felt like they'd been dating for years... and maybe, in a way, they had.

 

Love all your short insightful pieces

 

Rushing Headfirst - It was a good piece, felt quite heartwarming and lovely. Seemed like the polar opposite of the title, though.

Moonglow was perfect, though. Good job.

 

Mira_Jade: Thank you.

earlybird-obi-wan: Thank you.

Sith-I-5: Re: the polar opposite of rushing into something headfirst. It depends on how you look at the situation... here's a woman who traumatically lost her husband who isn't looking to start again with someone else and is focused on raising her only child alone. Child is a teenager who often gets into trouble, because that's what kids do at times. She meets a man in the grocery store again and again, and he breaks down the walls little by little, but in the back of her mind, any contact with a man who isn't the husband she lost feels like a betrayal. Eventually... you get far enough away from the inciting incident that maybe, just maybe, it's okay to try again, to say yes to a date. So... from a certain POV, no, this isn't rushing into anything. But from another... yes it is, at the same time. Depends on how you perceive it. Thank you for the review.

 

last one to know


Standing outside the church on a cold afternoon in March, he is content to stand sentry, to let the ceremony going on inside continue all the way to it's conclusion without saying anything to stop it. He hadn't been, at first, when the news had finally trickled down to him.

It was one thing for his wife to get on with her life, entirely another for it to happen and not know about it until Madigan had let it slip that she was going to a wedding in two weeks.

Things had fallen into place... namely why his wife had been out of town while his son received an award for that Business Buddies thing that had turned into a fiasco. Even just thinking about it now, he shuddered in disbelief and disgust at how his family had nearly been torn apart again. Of all the things...

The doors opened, interrupting the spiral of his thoughts, and he turned his focus to the happy couple making their exit, his gaze centering on her as memories began to play in the back of his mind... he hadn't needed to be inside the church, because he had been, before, with her smiling up at him as they each said their vows.

A hand on his metal shoulder shook him out of the reverie and he turned to find his father watching him knowingly. There was nothing to be said right then, nothing at all.

 

Wow, the contrast of varied emotions in the last few, the coming down off of intense action in Moonglow then the wasn't expecting this but gradually working up to romance in Rushing Headfirst and then in the Last One To Know - ow! His wife is totally inaccessible to him now but somehow you can tell he feels her loss just the same.