💾 Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space › ~solderpunk › schaft-enterprises › wxiiisyn.gmi captured on 2024-05-26 at 15:28:08. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-09-08)
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It is the year 2000. A fishing boat out in Tokyo Bay sees a plane flying over head. It seems to be in trouble and the contents of the plane are spilling out the side. Very large fish and various other sea creatures fall from the sky, some hitting the fishing boat causing it to rock violently. The plane crashes into the ocean.
Two months later Detectives Takashi Kusumi, who is temporarily using a crutch after an accident, and his younger partner Schinichiro Hata, are called in on a Labor accident in the harbour. A number of Labors have been attacked and their pilots killed. This is the fourth case. On his way back to the car, Hata notices a young woman having trouble with her car and offers her a lift. He drives her to the university and carries her large heavy suitcase to the door. She thanks him for his help.
At police headquarters, Kusumi goes over the current Labor case they are working on. Four Labors have been damaged, and several have been killed or hurt. All have been Schaft Labors. Were they accidents, terrorist attacks or something else? Hata suggests they should probably liaise with the SV2. Upon investigating Labor operations in the harbour they soon discover there are giant Goby in the bay. Could they be the cause for this? They ask a local fisherman about them. He points out where they can be found. It's in the same spot where the attacks have taken place. In fact the attacks started 10 days after a cargo plane crashed in the bay. Is something from the plane is causing this? It all seem too good to be true. The detectives decide to check out the plane wreck. One of the recovered containers has been ripped open. It's from a company called Hermes Enterprises.
Meanwhile another Labor has been attacked. This time it is an undersea unmanned Labor, a Hishii Labor, not a Schaft Labor. The video from the labor's camera shows a flipper. The SV2 are also on the case, and Asuma and Noa come to talk to the Labor operators as well. Kusumi and Hata investigate Hermes Enterprises and discover they are a dummy corporation.
After Kusumi discovers a lighter in Hata's car, Hata realises it belongs to the woman he gave a lift to. He decides to return it to her. She tells him her name is Saeko Misaki, and she works as a professor at the university. The two start talking and end up seeing each other regularly. After finishing a date with Hata one night, Misaki takes her large suitcase out to one of the piers in Tokyo Bay...
Hata has sourced some TV news footage of the plane crash. On the tape, there is a US military boat recovering the plane, and US military personnel on board the boat. A lip reader tells them that one of the men says in English, "Check", "Capsule", and "Baker's Dozen". She can't make out the whole conversation.
In a the car park of club that night, a young couple discover two people dead in their blood splattered vehicle. Hata and Kusumi are being driven to across town in a police car by a pair of officers. The officers receive a call to investigate a power outage at the Babylon Sector Storage Facility. They are unable to get in contact with any of the staff there, and the officers can see that none of the lights are on the facility. The officers and Hata and Kusumi enter the building and investigate. Nobody seems to be inside. The power returns, and a bizarre monster appears and starts to attack the staff and police officers. Some are killed, but Hata and Kusumi barely escape. The monster falls into the cowling of a Labor and into the bay and disappears under the water.
The media are onto the story the next day, but the police manage to keep any references about the monster out of the news. The police have obtained some genetic material from the creature, and Hata escorts one of the team from forensics to the Toto Medical Lab to have the tissue analysed. While waiting in the foyer, he meets Saeko Misaki, and discovers she works there. She invites him into her office for a coffee and is surprised to learn he is a police officer. After seeing a photograph in her office, she tells Hata that she had a husband and daughter, but both had died. Later that day her boss Toshiro Kurusu, head of the Toto Medical Labs, shows her the sample the police had brought. She looks at a section of the tissue under the microscope and smiles to herself.
Kusumi meets Captain Gotoh to exchange information. They discover that the cargo plane that had crashed had previously stopped over at the Marshall Islands where US Military Facilities are located. On one of the islands is a laboratory. Goto has discovered that all the Labors were in fact Schaft models. The Hishii Labor uses a Schaft superconductor motor. They still can't figure out why the couple were attacked outside the night club.
Meanwhile another smaller monster is discovered in laboratory. It kills most of staff and the police eventually catch it in a ventilation shaft. Analysis of this creature and the previous tissue sample show that it is a fusion of cancer and Nishiwaki cells. It is a creature created by humans. Nishiwaka was discovered by Professor Nishiwaki from comet embedded in the Antarctic in 1984. Nishiwaka cells reproduce at an amazing speed.
At the Toto Medical Lab, the director Toshiro Kurusu talks to Misaki. He knows she has let one of their creatures out. The lab is creating creatures for a secret military project, and the test subjects should die in an controlled laboratory environment. Kurusu is very angry with Misaki as she has crossed one of these creatures with cancer cells. It is growing at an alarming rate. They must kill this creature before it does any harm, and they know that it won't be long before the police follow the trail to the labs. Eventually the lab make a virus that will kill the creature and give it to the military, who are going to take on the job of killing it.
Although Hata and Kusumi have made a breakthrough by tracing Hermes Enterprises back to Toto and discovered they were also the source of the monster, they are told to stop investigating Toto Medical Labs. The police and the military have hatched a plan to capture the monster inside a disused stadium and shoot the monster with a bullet that will release a virus into it's body and destroy it. Only problem is that the creature is inside a Labor cowling, so the Second Unit of the SV2 is called in to help.
Meanwhile Kusumi discovers that Hata is seeing a woman from the Toto Medical Labs, one of his suspects, Saeko Misaki. Hata doesn't want to believe she could be involved in this, and sets out to prove him wrong. Unfortunately at every turn he takes, it seems that Kusumi was right. In fact she's in deeper than they ever suspected. Hata desperately tries to find her to ask her why she has done the things she did, but can not find her where ever he looks.
The time soon comes to commence the operation. Kusumi discovers the missing pieces involving the Labors and the couple that were attacked, information that will give them the edge over the monster. However the military have a secret agenda, and will do anything to achieve their goal.