Genders And Gendarmes: The Dubious Double Standard Of Directive Five

by Quillon42

Rather a Robocop 2.1 of sorts as this occurs within days of the end of Robocop 2 (1990). Juliette Faxx won't go down without a fight as she has some underhanded moves up her sleeve, including a Fifth Directive that applies not only to the synthetic superhmachine but also to so much of fiction in general. (I hope to write an Afterword to supplement to explain this story further).

GENDERS AND GENDARMES: THE DUBIOUS DOUBLE STANDARD OF DIRECTIVE FIVE

By Quillon42

(NB1: Spoilers incidentally for the films Scott Pilgrim Versus The World and Afro Samurai: Resurrection as well as the Punisher Max (Seventh Volume of the Punisher): Widowmaker).

(NB2: I think also that in Robocop 2, Robo eventually sheds all of his Directives…but here I make it so that there are five in play for the story).

Unenviable was the position that many of those in control of Omni Consumer Products were in at this time. Mere days ago, their followup product to their initial success of Robocop in the foray of robotic law enforcement—said successor possessing the inspired moniker of Robocop 2 in scintillating fact—this latter leap in technology had proven quite false, as the Nuke-addled entity could not function properly given his lack of resistance to both that destructive drug as well as any dash of human decency.

There was still one loose end, however, which had at present endangered the Old Man and concomitantly the future of OCP. Still lingering in the RoboRealm was a certain princess of psychology by the handle of Juliette Faxx, who heretofore had still not as yet been prosecuted for her dalliances in the Electrical Deputy Deux disaster. And there was a certain perilous parameter which shielded her, such as she was in the moment, in any case (more on this later), from actions of any kind against her.

Of course, it goes without saying in a deepened Peter Weller voice that all RoboKooks such as this author can recite the first four Directives by artificial heart. They were, respectively, the general tenets that a robotic officer must Serve The Public Trust, Protect The Innocent, Uphold The Law, and, to paraphrase the first film, Do Not Arrest Senior Officers Of OCP Under Pain Of Shutdown. Yet, not counting all the insipid instructions foisted upon the programmed po-po in the original trilogy's second installment, there was a Fifth Directive, which not only Robo but most roustabouts of violent fiction had to abide by: Do Not Engage, If One Is Of XY Genetic Makeup, Individuals Of XX Chromosomes In Combat Under Pain Of Readers Or Viewers Voting With Their Dollars And Shunning All Future Iterations Of A Given Author Or Director.

Yea, there are myriad instances of said Directive throughout so many scads of narrative in which Directive Five has applied. From the midst of Scott Pilgrim, in which Ramona Flowers had to battle Roxie Richter in the titular putz's place; to the Punisher Widowmaker mini series, in which Jenny Cesare had to act as the skull-bearer in place of the symbol's regular owner; to the film Afro Samurai: Resurrection, in which Sio could only be slain if her own brother was skewered by the same blade, in the same blow…not in all cases, but in more often than not it was the matter of the fact that no man could fairly fight a woman and win.

This Fifth Directive would come into play in the instant story as well, as now, just so many sunups after the cyber-slobberknocker between the Robotic Cops First and Second, the fairest Faxx would interfere again so severely in the operations at OCP. In the past, against the wishes of the proto-George-Constanzas that were the other scientists there, Faxx had before filtered over two hundred directives into the dome of Robo, most of them fruitily frivolous. Unable to sustain the infinitude of inane instructions for long, this most mechanized of Murphys had absorbed an immeasurable amount of voltage to effect a robotic reboot far more effective than the one from 2014 featuring Joel Kinnaman.

Thus galvanized into action once again, New Detroit's noblest dreadnought then took on those naughtiest of Nuke enablers. Robo routed the operation and crippled Cain, resulting in the latter's lying in hospital and on life support. Unbeknownst to the steely hero, though, that thot who would not be thwarted resurfaced as the psychotic Psy-D Faxx appeared to snuff the lord of drug and drag him to OCP, where his brain would be studied then shunted into a monstrosity of metal that was as malicious than the original cyborg cadet was beneficent (if excessively brutal). It took all of Robo's reconstructed brain cells and engineered cylinders running at full blast to best the criminal-turned-cybercolossus.

Here too now, during another morning meeting between the Old Man and his associates, Faxx would weave her destructive path again as she would saunter her way to the side of the wizened one controlling the corporation and then, in a lovely flourish, whip out a pistol and hold it to the side of his head as her hostage. This, of course, just as the man who was once Alex Murphy full in the flesh had come righteously tromping into the well-windowed boardroom.

"Come any closer and I'll let the Man have it," screeched Fax at the hardy hero. In turn, the Cop stopped a second, as (at least in this reality) he was staggered by Directives Four and Five in particular. While Robo was in a problematic holding pattern here, though…the woman's would-be victim had an unknown advantage.

Particularly the Old Man, who came to call himself in time the Old Maph (as in "Hermaphrodite"), and otherwise known only to those closest to him as Terrence Isis…he had invented and was experimenting with a drug with the working title Fluid, which would enable people to switch sides between male and female and back again on the fly. Given New Detroit's embrace of the same gender fluidity that the reader's reality had (not that there is any issue with that honestly, but just saying and all), the Man figured that he could profit greatly off the identity-altering craze. He had tried some samples on himself to boot, which made him the he/she that he was at present (although he had not revealed any of this to anyone, not even the somewhat sniveling and interestingly-named Johnson (considering this context)).

Now it was the Old Man, anyways, who would act to save himself, as he did in a similar situation a while ago. Calling her accidentally by the pillow-talky name he once had for her, the former Conal Cochran, in a booming voice:

"Fuxx…you're FIRED…and you're GUYYYYYERRRRRED!"

Then with a geriatric flourish, the Maph whipped out a two inch carnation-colored syringe and, reaching back, jammed it jauntily into the ass of his assailant. For certain, the elderly executive had once wished to penetrate, most gluteally, this alleged Juliette…but never quite like this. Still, the ensuing exposure of the pert psychologist was nonetheless incredibly pleasurable, especially as the subversive ravisher now reverted to her original, insurgent persona, to the partial satisfaction and partial disgust of the ancient fart in charge.

Now the tresses of feculent fawn had reverted to their original gunmetal gray. Now the smooth skin had wrinkled back to the epidermis of an elephant. Now the chest had collapsed, the haunches had regrown hair, and the throat had emitted a far deeper and more dastardly register in fact.

"NOOOOOOOOO…"

Knowing at last where the original sample had gone off to, the Maph made menacing eyes at the return of Dick Jones.

"I thought, as I was lying in the rubble after falling all of those floors, the injection would act as a revitalizing…even fountain of youth or something!" mewled the once-more-man as he struggled to stagger away from the gunsight of the automated Alex Murphy. "I never imagined it would turn me into this…nefarious fox known as Faxx!"

But there was just no escaping the enforcement officer, as was the vindicating case the last time around. With Directive Four obviated once more…and ever more critically now, Directive Five no longer alive, either, Robocop was free to fire upon the man who almost ended him on more than one OCP occasion. As it turned out then, the Dick/Faxx's momentous fall from the umpteen-trillionth floor was just as graceless as it was the first time around. And so there was a wily workaround to the perennially-problematic Directive Five; now if said constraint could only be overcome in every other entry of fiction.

(To be fair, some sources say that Frank Miller in the R2 script here originally had Murphy fighting Faxx directly, as the latter placed her own psyche directly into the main automaton antagonist (yes, she was to become in fact a Faxx Machine)…but this author argues that one can only go by what was actually made canon in the film's final cut, regarding the trajectory of Directive Five).

(Technically, of course, Robocop was not a man at this juncture in his existence's trajectory, but rather a machine, as endless assholes reinforced again and again while staring into his unfaceplated, fleshy features. Yet between the two human genders (the original two of them, anyhow), Robo was much more in the camp of the male than the female.)

For a somewhat momentarily bittersweet aftermath, here Robo did encounter his wife and child once more, if only to comfort them that the Cop was in fact once their dear husband and father Alex in fact, and to assure them that he would be with them on the robotic regular for everything from PTA Meetings to Take Your Child To Work Day. As for the much more intimate kind of consortium, though, the stomping superfuzz knew he would have to turn elsewhere. It was cold fact that as Robocop could never do with his erstwhile wife, as RoboCain could not either engage with his woman Angie, Murphy was all too circuits-crashingly aware that he could have to so couple with his own kind. But there were designed distractions of his ilk that could do the trick in fact such that he was not lonely for long.

So it happened, during the Halley's Comet of an occurrence when piston-propelled policeman was actually off-duty, that the cop-contraption copulated with a babe of bolts, the cover model of Cyber Crush Issue 1 to be exact. (NB: Said issue is an actual comic book that you can Google and all here).

Robo made the cybernetic seductress sing his name just like the corny chorale in the 1990 sequel's end credits—in fact, that was Crushette-1's voice you had heard then, along with some of the other cybabe cover girls of that comics series. Indeed, it would be this most endowed enforcer of the law who would input his most potent component into his lover so lubricated in more ways than one. Verily the sensual sensors situated in her literal buns of steel would be stimulated, her titillating titanium triangular prisms processing his coming conductor most efficiently. Thence the man/machine would rest his Robocock, his visor-enveloping visage recharging upon his metal maiden's abs of iron, his human tongue upon her tummy of tungsten, her brass-alloy belly colored cinereous from the time of her synthetic conception. Murphy would gladly roboprobe the quite-built lady's nickel-plated navel with the tensor on which he still had all of his taste buds, and he would enjoy a most delicious time in general with this gal created from much the same mold as he was.

Forsooth, hopefully Alex Murphy could enjoy with his newfound love the bond he once enjoyed with his wife. Maybe, perhaps with much luck and lube in the future, it could even come to be that the Cop and the Crush would have their own fabricated nuclear family, complete with Atomic Robo-Kids more robust than the walking trash can in that old Sega Genesis game by the same name.