Appears in: Double Vision
Biography
Doctor Richard McLaren was a brilliant scientist with Gulf and Bradley in Huston, Texas. He was educated, intelligent, and moreover, he was amoral. Doctor McLaren worked for Gulf and Bradley not for the sake of research and development but for earning big money and meeting women. While it is impossible to deny that McLaren was smart, it is even harder to deny that he was more interested in sex than his work.
When Gulf and Bradley chose to work with GENOM to build the ultimate Boomer, best known as the Boomer Giant. McLaren was set to take charge of its armor and AI while GENOM did the work on weapons systems. McLaren was excited, mainly because he was going to get to meet the famous Japanese Geisha girls. However, just after the deal was made Gulf and Bradley was attacked by the Genki (GD-42), piloted by Kou. The Chairman of Gulf and Bradley was killed, along with several other people. The Genki easily destroyed an attacking BU-55C. It went after McLaren, too, but he hid inside an office long enough for the Genki's efforts to be thwarted by the police. McLaren was the sole survivor of the attack.
The deal with GENOM was still on, go McLaren flew to Mega Tokyo to take part in the creation of the Boomer Giant. One of his assistants referred to it as a "modern day Frankenstein's Monster," and that it was. McLaren's achievements with the Boomer were hurt when the Genki, this time with both Reika Chang and Kou as its pilots, attacked the GENOM building. This time no one was hurt, but much property and many Boomers were lost. McLaren was hideously unnerved but Quincy refused to let him leave, telling him to take some time off for R&R while others finished up the Boomer. McLaren was willing, but only if he could hire some protection. The protection he chose was the Knight Sabers.
Fargo gave Sylia Stingray the information on McLaren's situation and his current whereabouts. He was staying at the Saint Regis Hotel where he called up callgirls on a nightly basis. Nene Romanova and Linna Yamazaki watched McLaren from inside the hotel while Sylia and Priss Asagiri watched him from a hot, stuffy, and uncomfortable surveilance room. McLaren was wearing a bracelet that told Sylia where he was at each moment. With Linna and Nene delivering his meals and drinks, things were working out fine. However, Reika Chang got into his room as his callgirl of the night and drugged him so that it appeared as though he had had a heart attack. When he was unconcious McLaren was kidnapped and taken to Reika's base.
Quincy was more than willing to let McLaren being torn to shreds so long as the Boomer was finished, but when during a phone conversation Kou suggested that he was getting information from McLaren, Quincy's only choice was to go meet Kou and Reika at a Boomer training ground, a false island in Tokyo Bay. There Quincy revealed himself yet again to be an android and the Boomer Giant came out from the helicoptor in which Quincy had been hiding to battle the Genki and the Knight Sabers. To end the losing battle, the Genki as set for self-destruct and McLaren was grabbed by Priss just as the explosion was about to engulf him. He was taken to a lasting remnant of the island where Leon McNichol, Daley Wong, and Nene Romanova arrested him for the development of a second generation Boomer and soliciting prostitution. He is currently incarcerated.
Personality
McLaren was a coward and little more. When he was faced with the idea that he was not entirely safe, he tried to turn tail and make a run for it; in fact, did precisely that. He was wise enough to hire the Knight Sabers to protect him even though they should have been no more trustworthy than Reika and Kou in his eyes. He paid them quite well, too.
McLaren was a pervert. He was forty-two years, old enough to know better but young enough that he was still trying to live in the prime of his life. His life consisted of working in a lab for a few hours and then getting into bed with a professional woman. McLaren is certainly not the most likable person, but in most respects he is fairly normal.