Number: 76 Title: Silent Scream Type: Fan Fiction ---------- Opening scene is a nice, recent model sedan. Plain tan in color, a distasteful-looking man in a suit is behind the wheel. He receives a phone call and pulls off the road to listen to information beyond the first sentence. Then he pulls out a gun and kills himself. ---------- An awesome looking sports car, similar to Aikio's dreaded beast in SKU, is driven by Utena. She's on a long, straight stretch of road, listening to some off-beat dance techno and doing twice the posted limit (the posted limit is in German). The straight road ends in the most excessively curvy ribbon of asphalt one could imagine, laid out on some perfectly picturesque hills. A purple car of identical make appears and disappears in her rearview. Presently she sees Anthi driving it and follows her blinker to the knot in the road. Huge racing sequence, Anthi then seems to disappear as the sky goes all weird. Utena stops, gets out, and looks at the light show. ---------- Cut to Touga's office. Utena comes in, braves the routine advances of Wakaba and meets Touga, who's on his way out. ---------- The situation room. The situation room is filled with a variety of military staff from around Japan. It seems that a strange phenomenon is occuring across the globe, one which will allow SOMEONE to direct the mother of all lightning bolts at any place they choose, with devistating results. As the only scientists who's really studied the process has gone missing, and the only government employee who really knew about it shot himself yesterday afternoon, it is up to 007 to find the scientist or the person who's using his theories and make sure that whever caused the D-1 disturbance wave isn't up to no good. ---------- Utena goes to a local spring festival, where a former employer of the missing scientist is giving a speech on his daughter's behalf. Anthi is spotted there again, but slips away like a ghost. After Utena talks to the business man, he drops dead, and Utena begins chasing a person who appears to be an assassin of some kind. ---------- The chase runs deep into the slums of the city, finally ending fruitlessly on a train platform where several huge suited men attack Utena. When she calmly lays them all out, Saiyonji steps out of the shadows and greets Utena like an old friend. Jerk that he is, he won't tell her much, but does reveal the names of several corporations invovled in suspicious activities. A few of them would do well to...have some legal troubles. ---------- Utena, at the office, has Miki scan the personnel files (hacked!) of the companies in question for this Anthi. One sedate secretary looking suspiciously like the mystery woman works for Aikiocorp, based in Hong Kong. Miki gives Utena a loadout of new gadgets and she leaves for the island. ---------- A GitS moment in ensues while Utena gets used to the city and plans escape routes, eavesdrops on various employees, and generally scopes the place out. She picks a time and day, and marches right through the front doors to talk to Anthi. She's frozen in place when she first sees the woman, however, and is quickly captured by Saiyonji's gang, which seems to be guarding the woman. ---------- Utena is taken to the top of a distant skyscraper, to be dropped off the roof to her certain death. After saying he's sorry, Saiyonji lets her go, and she finds her bindings unwrapped instantly. What's more, she's tied to the building by the rope. Saiyonji's group takes out the company escort while Saiyonji has a cigarette. A bullet strikes Saiyonji as Utena comes through the roof door. She and Saiyonji's men take cover and watch the 'boss' die in their arms. Saiyonji spills his guts, gives Utena a thumbs up. His men offer their help to Utena, who agrees, but gives them specific orders. ---------- Utena goes for the company president's balls that night--literally. He spills everything; his company has been contracted to construct part a delicate piece of HUGE machinery. They've make a hundred and twenty units and think it's part of an experimental power plant. Utena gives him a cover story and he agrees to help right away. She slips away for the night. ---------- The president barges through the front doors the next morning, Utena at his side. Anthi is nowhere to be found and her records aren't in the employee database. The pres contacts Hector. Hector turns out to be a computer whiz and finds out that someone's been playing tricks with the company. They spend the better part of the day, tracking with computers, a likely delivery point for some of their machinery. ---------- Spotty from here on out. Utena gets some bodies from MI6/whatever Jap. equiv. is, and shows up at the installation. Battle ensues, Utena sees bad guys leaving in helicopter, Anthi manning the mounted gun. Utena persues with what's available, calls Saiyjonji's men up to get their help. She gets the headquarters location tracked down via Hector playing with government satellites. The pres offers Utena a cash bonus for putting a stop to the sub-contractor, which has robbed his company of some serious cash. She demures, but asks for weapons. Utena and company hijack a fishing trawler in secret and find a yahct at sea where the helicopter left much of its crew. A midnight assault at sea ensues. The helicopter flight crew fights Utena and she winds up killing them. The rest of the boat is deserted, save for Anthi, who battles on the top deck in the moon light, confesses she's infatuated with Utena, then apparently takes a mortal wound. Next, she certainly dives into the ocean. Is she gone for good? Dawn: Saiyonji's guys come aboard with the pres's men backing them up. Then the boat begins sinking and has to be abandoned. Utena relays (in abbrev. form) what happened until MI6/equiv arrives and they debrief her. Cut to mysterious location where Big Evil Guy has Anthi execute a person we haven't seen yet for their incompetent hacking of the company's servers and allowing Utena to make it to the boat. Utena in a tiny apartment that she calls "home." She's been there for a few days, recovering from her injuries. It's late afternoon and she looks out over Tokyo, wondering what happened to the hauntingly beautiful woman who tried to kill her. She mopes around, takes in the place, then notices a note sitting on her coffee table. She immediately draws a gun and checks all of her security systems before sitting down to examine and then read the letter. We don't see what it contains, and Utena doesn't show any emotion beyond a tiny smirk and a sense of hopelessly grim determination. Two minutes later she's dressed and out the door. At the office, Wakaba comments on how 'filled with purpose' Utena seems to be. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Secrets: The Big Evil Guy is Akio. The person executed is Hector. The pres is in on it. The boat contains the next plan Aikio plans to put into motion, and he will have a recovery operation done on the ship.