| After the credits, Michael eats some horrible junk food and registers the new police security officers on the system. Zaizen's Scientist Gimp talks about how 80% of Toudou's research data ROM was analyzed 15 years ago, but the remaining 20% was trashed, probably because it was irrelevant to the research problem at hand. Zaizen cracks the whip and tells the Scientist Hamster to run faster on his little research wheel. Haruto and Doujima are staking out FACTORY, and Sasaki's brooding about the scene with Robin and the researcher yesterday. Doujima asks him why he doesn't just ask Robin himself, but Sasaki wusses out. Doujima gets a call on her cute cellphone, presumably from SOLOMON based on how serious she gets. Amon and Robin, for their part, are driving around while Robin angsts about her sinful existence and what she knows about herself, based on the photo, Juliano's letter, and that old researcher's death rattle. "I am a being that never should have been born." That car must be the black hole of Angst with those two in it, eh? "I suck." "No, I suck, Robin. I'm older, and have sucked for many more years than you have." The two return to STN-J HQ, and Michael announces that Robin has a visitor from Italy waiting for her. It's Father Juliano, and Robin immediately runs to him for confession. Juliano, for his part, is wearing a top hat and sunglasses at night. Robin asks him about the secret of her existence, and Juliano gets to explain most of the mysteries of the series: 1. Robin is a genetically engineered designer Witch created by Toudou, using his wife Maria to bear the "Devil's Child" - as the project was nicknamed. 2. Maria was a Witch, and Juliano's daughter. Doujima walks in, and announces that SOLOMON is going to lead an attack on FACTORY early tomorrow morning. Amon decides to lead their own pre-emptive strike tonight. 3. Juliano had intended to kill Robin at birth, but he couldn't do it, so he raised her instead of killing her or hunting her. Then Robin and Juliano play the "whose fault is it?" game. 4. Maria had called Robin her "hope." BTW, that pendant that Robin wears, and that you see in the ending sequence, was Maria's. Juliano pulls the cork out of the hilt of his dagger, taking out the missing pages of Toudou's diary that he'd hidden inside there. (I'm sure he keeps a shot of whiskey there when he's not hiding evidence.) Juliano gives them to Robin and departs, telling her to hang in there and deal with the emotional piano he just dropped on her. Zaizen pulls up some more files on his screen, and discovers something called "Project Robin." STN-J ambushes a FACTORY van. One FACTORY goon almost escapes, but Nagira appears out of an alley and KO's him with his PimpSlap, to Amon's surprise. Nagira announces that he's coming along with them. Zaizen yells at his Research Gimp to research the last bits of Toudou's encrypted ROM faster, and the Research Gimp looks pained. Meanwhile, STN-J has put on the FACTORY suits and is entering FACTORY in the vans, using fake irises to fool the iris-scans at the door. Kosaka is summoned to the police HQ, leaving Hattori at STN-J HQ to watch the house. Inside FACTORY, there's no security and nobody in the halls, which is kind of odd. Michael hax0rs and discovers that the only way to reach Zaizen's office is a single elevator. They go through the halls and down the floors with no problem whatsoever, which is even more suspicious. Michael hax0rs them into a different room, which has strange little platforms raised from the floor. They look around, seeing Orbo in the drawers. Robin hears something and whirls around, and everyone's wondering where all the captured Witches are detained. Robin touches something, raising one of the platforms from the floor. It turns out to be a holding container with comatose humans suspended in it - the witches they'd captured. Everyone's horrified to find out what the true nature of their "Humane Hunts" was, and Robin wonders if Karasuma's being held like this somewhere. Three hundred and twenty years have passed since the coven sank in the dark. The trap of perdition. A refused successor. Believing in a hope...and its power to create the future, I start walking now. [previous] [next] |