5) Bring Back My Ghost
A high-ranking officer and his driver are crossing a fog-enshrouded bridge. The driver is uneasy, because of a rash of horrible accidents that had happened to senior officers on the bridge. The officer, who seems to be extremely prejudiced against Paradigm City's poor, dismisses the driver's complaints. Then, a gigantic, formless monster with misshapen eyes and an eerie, glowing mouth appears. The driver screams; the brakes screech. There's a crash. Seconds later, the car, and presumably its occupants, are so much twisted, flaming wreckage. Meanwhile, Roger is entertaining yet another client. He's about at the end of his rope-- the gentleman, named Rick Frazier, is a lawyer, and not a very courteous one. Roger capitulates and takes on the job when he finds out that the client is actually Rick's mother, the long-retired and extremely wealthy attorney, Melissa Frazier. He agrees to go and meet her. The elderly woman is bedridden, and clearly not in good health. Nevertheless, she seems to express almost extrasensory abilities (she's blind), and calls Roger over to make her request. Later, he departs, to find Rick Frazier waiting for him. He tells the cynical lawyer that he's taken the job, which horrifies the man-- Melissa Frazier was approaching her birthday, and very aware that she only had days left to live. She wanted to see her son before she died. Her younger son, that is. Problem was, her younger son was dead. Nevertheless, Roger takes the job. The son, it turns out, is a certain Bonny Frazier-- a pudgy, kind-faced young man, who left his high upbringing to fight for justice in the ranks of the military police. He's remembered fondly by his colleagues as a friendly, idealistic officer, and admired by the residents of Paradigm City for his final act-- an act of martyrdom. A year before, the military police and the poor people on the outskirts of the domes were on the verge of starting a bloody melee. The Paradigm Group was busily trying to expand the domes, thus gentrifying the poor's homes and driving them out. The MPs were there to enforce the land deal; the poor would have none of it. As a firebomb exploded and the two sides rushed towards each other, a single shot rang out-- and Bonny Frazier plunged from the bridge. This horrifying and utterly unnecessary death stopped both sides in their tracks, and a settlement was negotiated. Roger gets this information from Dan Dastun, who also reveals that a high-ranking officer whom Bonny served under, a certain Antony Gauss, would be in the area of the bridge soon. Both men see their opening, and start making plans. At the bridge, the paranoid Gauss suddenly realizes that his escort is missing. He angrily asks the driver what's happening, and why they're going over the unsafe bridge. "This is the correct route," the driver tonelessly tells Gauss. It's Bonny Frazier! Gauss leaves the car, pleading for his life, but Bonny isn't placated by this. The frightening apparition that appeared to destroy the other officers appears again-- and the MP's coast guard, led by Dan Dastun, opens fire. It proves totally ineffective. At this point, the Big O appears, and starts firing on the apparition with its eyebeams. Still, nothing. Dastun watches, his teeth on edge, as the ghost robot blasts the Big O repeatedly with its lasers. But Roger is carefully watching the radar, because he knows that the ghost isn't the real robot-- he takes a shot, and destroys the actual robot. Turns out that the robot had generated the fog, and the ghost was just a laser projection. As Bonny Frazier quietly leaves the area, Roger stops him, and asks what happened and how he got the robot. Bonny sits down to talk. The reason he plunged from the bridge with a gunshot would was because the officers he later killed had grouped together and planned to wipe out the poor protesters, executing their leader right in front of Frazier. Frazier couldn't let this slide, so the officers shot him and quietly dumped him over the side of the bridge, just as the riot was about to start. As Frazier plunged into the icy depths, asking himself, "Is it okay if I go like this?", a giant metal hand reached up and rescued him. When he awoke later, he somehow knew how to pilot the robot-- and took his revenge. The police stand by while Roger escorts Bonny to his mother. The two have a tearful reunion, and she almost immediately passes away. As the former military cop goes out to meet his brother and the police, Dan Dastun assures Roger that the man will get a fair trial given his extraordinary circumstances.
