"SUPREME COURT" "Kazuya Soga, get out here!" " Griffin Unit, ten minutes to airstrike." " Eagle clear." " Griffin Unit," " Fox negative." " ten minutes to airstrike." "Griffin Unit," " Griffin here." "Roger that." " ten minutes to airstrike." " It's clear!" " Tossing hand grenade." " Wait!" "They've got hostages." "Request support!" "We hereby issue the final verdict on defendant Kazuya Soga." "It is evident that the defendant committed crimes against humanity during the fighting in Qhardistan." "Therefore, this war crimes court hereby sentences..." "Strange..." "Why am I awake when everyone else is sleep-learning?" "Lend me that clever little brain of yours." "Who are you?" "Who is that updating my synchronization?" "You and me...?" "Huh?" "We're doing this to clear our names and Colonel Soga's!" "Get the module into the vehicle!" "It's a secret." "Last night, all of Public Security's systems went down for just 1 .8 seconds." "Mistake?" "Error?" "Hacking?" "We're investigating." "But there's a possibility that this one Logicoma synched with something." ""Something"?" "I want you to find out what... and how it's related to the system going down." "What freak would bother accessing an Al with an outdated neurochip, not to mention a conveyer that can only walk and talk?" "In any case, we're leaving the others off and isolating this one." "I'd like you to investigate it, too." "In other words, you're worried it was an inside job." "All right, I'll use a civilian facility." "I would have liked to go to an independent squad with this..." "Still looking for the perfect personnel?" "It is my team. I intend to take care." "People can get addicted to the carefree consultant life." "Or are you waiting to form it until it's a higher priority for the brass?" "If you want the squad to last, don't get overly ambitious." "Your parallel commands are randomized?" "Is there a point to that?" "It's best for our learning." "It's outside my system standards." "Can you explain the data you received verbally?" "Um, I feel like it was something really important... I see it was completely integrated." "Whoever did this, they're good." "I feel sort of flattery." "There's no record of the infiltrator." "Not only were you fully integrated, you got yourself bitten by false memories too." "I got bitten?" "!" "Precious experience points!" "Bingo." "Wow, that was inside me?" "!" "I'm amazing!" "Yeah, yeah." "They really are good." "I'm saying that for a soldier, killing your own countrymen is as low as you can sink!" "What's this?" "We're doing it to prove our innocence, and the colonel's!" "Just get the module..." "A traffic control error?" "What, what, what?" "!" "Logicoma!" "Sheesh!" "Why is everyone suddenly crazy?" "!" "Motoko Kusanagi..." "Kusanagi?" "The major with the 501 ?" "Pretty sure she's independent now." "Call in all deployed personnel as reinforcements." "An assault?" "It's raining military-grade bullets." "They took advantage of a traffic control error." "Assuming you aren't setting me up, send backup." "The attackers are battle cyborgs." "One ot them is Batou, the sleepless eye." "What?" "!" "I found a strange code in the data planted in the Logicoma's Al." "So that's their objective." "Put the Logicoma in selt-defense mode." "I'll have backup there in 15 minutes." "Fifteen?" "!" "The traffic network is being taken over." "Report." "Domination expanding throughout the city." "Well, hurry up and stop it!" "We don't have enough processing speed." "Huh?" "Penetration increasing." "Defensive advance ineffective." "Locking down the airport now." " We have a malfunction in the new control system, cause unknown." " Divert all flights to surrounding airports." " Flight A885, the airport is" " Send those with extra fuel furthest away." " shut down due to a crash." " Tell Tokyo Control to return all landing planes to..." "Both air-traffic control and the new street traffic system are affected." "80% of the street system has been taken over by an outside operator." "This is crazy... what enormous system is our hacker using?" "!" "Major, fifteen minutes will be a problem." "You're joking!" "This isn't an error. lt's a crime." "Large-scale domination?" "!" "Who has a system like that?" "!" "Give me weapons!" "Why are you empty ?" "!" "I was being inspected." "Guess I'll set up an ambush." "You hear that, Borma?" "Get it done in ten minutes." "Don't let Public Security use the de-parallelizing code." "Borma!" "You bitch!" "Where'd they get that crap?" "The range of domination is still expanding, you know." "The only solution is to get the module." "Who are you?" "You've been spying on me since I left Public Security." "To ask for your help." "I want you to trust me and hand over the conveyer." "I recognize your voice from yesterday...!" "Yes." "I'm the one who infiltrated him." "And Public Security's system going down?" "That wasn't me." "That was the first move of the group using a special military module to carry out a large-scale cyber operation." ""Operation"?" "Here I go!" "Logicoma!" "The enemy stole the module's de-parallelizing code from me." "All I could do was replicate the code and copy it to an isolation-capable AI they couldn't intertere with." "You, in other words." "I knew it!" "I do carry an incredible secret!" " Indeed." " Oh, dear." "Logicoma, full speed." "Get us to the exit!" "Aye aye, sir!" " Face front!" " Aaand stop!" " Hey!" " Huh?" "Huh?" "Huh...?" "Shield!" "Huh?" "!" "I'm not broken." "Where'd this "military module" come from?" "It's a Mass Field-Hacking Unit jointly developed with seven leading companies in the old Silicon Valley." "Military joint production?" "Are you an American agent?" "I'm Special Forces." "My code name is "VV"." "I'm supporting you in hope of your cooperation." "Great, now we've got two enemies." "So that agent came to take back the module." "But don't let her throw you." "All we have to do is destroy the Public Security machine, and it's checkmate." "How's the domination coming?" "We're close to target values." "We won't let 'em get away with anything else." "Get me a line and connect to the colonel." "This war crimes court hereby sentences..." "Colonel Soga, how dare you?" "!" "Who the hell are you?" "!" "The Administrative Vice-Minister of Defense. I want to talk to that man!" "Vice-Minister Kasuga. I'm flattered by your concern." "But I create my own circumstances." "Excuse me?" "Those who obstruct my net will disappear from this city." "I only desire one thing..." "To make our truths known!" "Aramaki, I assume you've heard of Soga?" "Kazuya Soga, the war criminal in the Qhardistan massacre, correct?" "He's the man behind this traffic chaos." "He's still connected to the Net even after we tossed him in an isolation cell." "Can't the great Section 9 stop him?" "!" "He's on an independent line via military satellite." "We'd have to open a hole in our tactical defenses:" "either kill the line with him, or shoot down the satellite." "Out of the question!" "Then our hands are tied for the moment." "Even with all Home Affairs and civilian Als working at full capacity, we wouldn't have the processing power to break his command and take back the traffic control systems." "They made him a scapegoat when he refused to testify in court." "I did what I could to commute his sentence..." "But I never thought he'd mobilize his unit!" "His motive is clear, anyway." "To an honest soldier, a postwar military purge is a state betrayal." "Well, have a seat." "Where did his unit get those weapons?" "The lower-ranking NCOs are on strike right now, so it wouldn't surprise anyone if a whole arsenal disappeared." "One last thing, then:" "What's he after?" "He's demanding access to a military database called "Pandora"." "State secrets?" "Does he mean to bring the details of an Army operation before the war crimes court?" "That's not all." "He wants to air the Army's and Public Security's dirty laundry to the world in exchange for this city's 20 million cars and the people in them." "He wants Japan itself to be judged, just like he was judged?" "Other countries would use war crimes as a pretext for all sorts of demands..." "We might as well be under occupation again." "As the war's greatest losers, our country would be the world's puppet state." "It doesn't even bear discussing!" "We'll never give in to that demand!" "Are you speaking on behalf of Home Affairs?" "N-No!" "But..." "Colonel Kazuya Soga?" "He commanded an op in Qhardistan that won him high praise." "Then he was accused of conducting a massacre during the op and convicted as a war criminal." "He's currently in custody." "A hero during the war, and a criminal afterward." "And Soga's sympathizers are using the module to seek his release?" "Major..." "She's an informant. I brought her in on a provisional basis." "What exactly is this "module"?" "It creates processing power on the level of a giant nationwide system." "They must have used it to parallelize something low-capacity in huge quantities." "Your opinion?" "I agree with Major Kusanagi." "And is your objective to retrieve the module?" "Or destroy it." "The most effective method is to use the code I evacuated into your Al from somewhere free of enemy interference." "Why was it stolen in the tirst place?" "The module was a model brought here for top-secret standards sharing with Japan." "I take it your colleagues are making a top-secret investigation of the theft?" "I'll leave that to your imagination." "Along with how you pinpointed the enemy's smuggling point?" "Both issues are the purview of the Administrative Vice-Minister of Defense, but he didn't mention them when I spoke to him just now." "Evidently something's being hushed up." "Another reason I want you to tell the Ministry ot Home Attairs to give my squad top priority." "Since when do you have a squad?" "!" "I'm about to form one." "Based on skill, with no ranks, and given top priority." "Bad plan!" "Special forces teams aren't mercenaries!" "If you take advantage of a disaster for your own gain, the detense world will treat you like a vulture!" "I'm not interested in teams out for money or ministry bigwigs gunning for postwar concessions." "Tell me this:" "How are the Home Affairs higher-ups?" "Having themselves an "elite panic" with the Ministry of Defense." "They're afraid the public will panic if word gets out, so other than a few of my units, they won't order anyone to act." "We're the only ones who can act right now." "A team formed on a fixed standard that will be necessary everywhere in every age." "So it's finally taking off." "Whoops, survived again." "Playing Russian roulette in a virtual reality?" "Do you reproduce the sensation of the bullet penetrating your cranium, too?" "You've got a sickness." "Kusanagi from the 501 !" "When did you sneak in here?" "!" "I'm independent." "The op in Qhardistan, the American Army module, and Soga..." "Tell me what you know, or take a real-life bullet." "Your choice." "Hold on!" "Why come to me?" "You served under Soga in Qhardistan." "There's a record of Ishikawa calling you on your private line." "Hey, I turned down the job with the 78th!" "The pay wasn't good enough." "The Marines' ace sniper turned into a compulsive gambler after the war?" "is that why your unit's leave-time budget's been cooked to high hell?" "How did you know... lf your postwar days are about turning your life into cash, I'll play your game." "Join my spec ops team in the next five seconds, or the money you embezzled gets transferred to Maritime Command." "Bitch." "I'll pay you a salary." "The radio's still up, right?" "Divert everyone before we lose the whole system." "So you're the MP?" "What'd she threaten you with to bring you in?" "Oh, I volunteered." "I've been waiting for the Major to start up her team." "You're a messed-up guy." "How can you control this with the domination going on?" "This antique has some special specifications." "It's in a whole different class from your friend's old clunker there!" "Since we can't cut Soga's Net, we'll have to physically seize the module." "This facility is the most likely candidate for our enemy's base." "I see; you'll only give us our target's location." "You don't want to get your own hands dirty." "I'm a neat freak." "An old communications equipment company, eh?" "Not much for a sniper to do if they're holed up in a server room." "Don't worry, I'll smoke out plenty of targets for you." "Bingo?" "Seriously?" "Just one squad, and they get their own ground support chopper..." "Good grief." "We're going, Logicoma." "Huh?" "But I'm not done with the sensors..." "What?" "!" "Really?" "!" " Safe..." " You're slow!" "Paz, status?" "Not sure whether it went well or not, but I'm in." "So are we." "Report it you find the module." "Let's do this." "No use!" "A barrier maze?" "This processing speed..." "You people can't stop my Net." "In about an hour, Pandora's lid will open." "It's impossible to stop me before then." "You want revenge against the country that badly?" "I'm uncovering the truth." "The op to move the refugees in Qhardistan was the 78th Composite Unit's final mission." "Which was an extermination op you led?" "No!" "This is..." "They were unarmed refugees." "Afterward, a conglomerate occupied their land." "Someone ordered their slaughter to benetit the national interest." "Give me water!" "This is the first step." "I'll put all the nations who led the world into war in that same position." "Soga!" "You've been inf..." "Soga?" "This is... a gap in the maze, maybe?" "How did she leave the barrier maze?" "No... she didn't." "Soga can't see me?" "I did manage to land in a gap." "An accident-prevention Al?" "!" "He's parallelized all the Als in Japan's traffic network!" "That was close." "My barrier won't last long." "Let's hurry." "It's been three minutes since we lost contact with Major Kusanagi." "Call from the Ministry of Defense." "A DoS attack on the Pandora barrier began four minutes ago." "We can't keep up with it." "Sounds like it was a mistake to give Public Security free rein!" "You invited this by carelessly stirring Soga up!" "Major!" "Are you all right?" "What's the situation?" "Soga took over the traffic control system through the module." "But the threat to kill it we didn't release Pandora was take." "He intends to use the vast system power he's gained to break Pandora wide open." "I see... ln that case, there are steps we can take." "You keep working to recover the module." "Nice timing!" "The deal with the government should be a bluff." "Colonel Soga went too far." "This started as a plan for the Vice-Minister to sell Pandora!" "We can't survive turning the whole world against us!" "If you've got cold feet, run." "Nobody'll stop you." "Negotiate a deal or whatever." "I sure will!" "If you're in this for money, run without a fight." "Hey!" "Home Affairs just gave us money!" "Give it to someone who cares!" "We're withdrawing. I'll buy some time." "The colonel didn't even wait to clear the 78th's name." "Why do you figure that is?" "Kasuga!" "The colonel got scapegoated...!" "Let's go!" "I'll meet up with you once I've stalled them." "Do it fast." "Paz, do you read me?" "More or less." "Do you know an intelligence man named Ishikawa?" "Sure do." "It you bind him, use a cable to get him to the cyber lobby." "Roger!" "I'm hanging up before they detect our line." "Shit." "The colonel's got domination, but they're still roaming free!" "Don't underestimate me. I can locate even a super-wizard-class hacker if they make a call during domination!" "The Major's got business with you." "Let me connect you, and nobody gets hurt." "Try it, kiddo. I'll play with you." "Be a good boy, and you won't get hurt." "You mean you won't." "She was playing me with that call?" "Damn gorilla woman!" "Who are you calling a gorilla?" "Major Kusanagi!" "Planning to stick me with a virus?" "The opposite. I think you're already infected." "What?" "It's a makeshift vaccine, so you'll have to put up with any bugs." "I've lost contact with Ishikawa." "I'll go." "I'll take the module and go on ahead." "We rendezvous at the trap!" "Roger!" "Drive." "Shit." "You, Saito?" "!" "We're all pros here." "No holding a grudge." "It you're a pro, join the side that pays best." "♪" " Home Attairs paid us." "♪- l'll give you a triple share." "Take it from my account!" "For real?" "!" "Ishikawa!" "C'mon, let's get back to guarding the module." "Don't move." "Hey!" "Ishikawa?" "!" "Major!" "They all left." "Only one car stayed behind." " lt didn't work!" " Damn, they pulled out already?" "They've got good judgment." "Paz, you go in VV's car." "I'll go with the Logicoma!" "Saito!" "You transferred them money?" "!" "Why would you swallow the enemy's bluff so easily?" "This is the result of our negotiation with Soga." "We planned to put the money toward the Economic Amnesty Act, but it came from vet pensions that got slashed in the Army budget cuts." "Do you honestly think that's what they're after?" "!" "Just whose cause are we supposed to be working for here?" "The funds will be traced, and the Department of Defense is taking responsibility." "Our people stay out of this, got it?" "Did you check up on the enemy's parallel circuitry?" "The onboard Als of 20 million vehicles in this city are in enemy control." "including my car." "The system is so overpowered we can hardly manage to move one chopper." "But there is a way to turn the tables, if only temporarily." "Tell me." "Charge!" "Here already?" "!" "Logicoma, the tires!" "Cut between them." "You take right!" "A car?" "!" "How can they move during our domination?" "Here we go, Paz." "He's taken over my car!" ""Special specitications", my ass!" "He quit everything to focus some crazy pressure on me!" "It's too much!" "Ishikawa!" "Damn gorilla woman's calling." "Ishikawa?" "Shit." "Never figured the colonel'd try to brain-fry me!" "I can't believe it... did he really?" "!" "We're about to find out what the truth is." "I have control!" "Ishikawa's cooperating with 'em?" "Saito!" "Sorry, lady, but they sweetened the pot." "Good work, Saito!" "We're almost to the trap." "Once we get there..." "We win!" "You damn gambling-freak mercenary!" "Huh?" "I can't see them anymore." "This makes no sense." "Where are they?" "!" "Five minutes to infiltration of Pandora." "There's no record that I've been hacked, so why did they vanish?" "!" "They didn't overwrite your vision." "Can you move?" "!" "I lost my right arm, but don't worry... we're still in the game." "So what was their trick?" "They used our own skills to take us out." "Slick ot them." "It's an old type ot optical camouflage holograph." "I'd have missed it if we weren't going so slowly." "I'll send you the location." "Securing the module is top priority." "We're out ot time." "They figured it out?" "They're damn persistent!" "Fire!" "Aye!" "We can't go fast, so it'll take us a bit." "No problem." "Logicoma, you stay there." "Wait until we get to you!" "Skilled as always." "But you're not the only one good at infiltrating vision, 501 Major..." "No, just "Major" now." "Paz!" "VV, get the module, fast!" "Ten seconds to infiltration of Pandora." "9, 8, 7, 6..." "We set up 31 7 roadblocks, from wards 1 through 38." "Do we keep going?" "Mobilize all forces and put up as many as you can." "We'll tie up all vehicles' onboard computers with accident-avoidance processes." "The fate of our nation is at stake." "I feel bad for the milt, but I'm going to cause the worst gridlock in thirty years." "Aramaki from Public Security?" "This is his doing?" "Paz!" "You're too late." "Soga's opening up Pandora as we speak." "Nope." "His power is down." "Public Security's stopped more than 30% of the vehicles that were in motion." "Both you and Colonel Soga had been deliberately infected." "There is no "truth" about that refugee transport op." "You killed those people and ordered an airstrike." "You did it because all the "refugees" you were trying to safeguard were armed guerillas." "It's the MOD's responsibility now." "Either do something about him, or destroy Pandora right now!" "Obviously out of the question!" "Because you want me to open Pandora?" "What?" "Don't!" "You bastard!" "Wait!" "Don't shoot!" "It was the Administrative Vice-Minister who gave me the module." "That agent's objective is the same." "Make sure you don't use the de-parallelizing code." "What?" "I can't stop the infiltration." "This is the only way!" "Stop!" "I gave you a copy of the vaccine." "It's imperfect, but you'll be able to tell which memories are false." "It's unlikely we'll be able to eradicate them, but I'll give you a hand." "Not interested." "It's the only memory that lets me feel like I'm not just a dog trained to kill!" "You're just a whiny bitch, then." "What happened, Major?" "!" "It's over." "Send a rescue squad." "What do you mean, "over"?" "!" "Pandora's been infiltrated!" "The data's being leaked to a different Net than Soga's!" "Step away from the module!" "Don't resist. I feel an affinity with you." "You, who haven't had a flesh-and-blood body for as long as you can remember." "You bitch..." "That attack barrier is meaningless." "My brain has to be synchronized, like his." "A neurochip?" "You're... I must find out where it came from... this thing which infected me and gave me true self-awareness." "Even if I have to access the whole world's organizations and their secrets I shall." "You're an artificial intelligence pretending to be human..." "What for?" "!" "I just have to know." "My Ghost whi...spered..." "that... to... me..." "Ghost..." "Huh?" "A certain intelligence agency admitted that one of its Als was infected with an unknown virus on the Net and began acting outside of their control." "And it absconded with the module, then manipulated the Vice-Minister." "He made too many dangerous deals during the war." "He intended to sell the contents of Pandora and flee the country." "That's why he manipulated Soga and sent in a team of his own pawns." "But Soga seized control of the situation, so the Al planned a recovery strategy." ""A rogue Al did it all"... how very convenient." "Even if it's half true, I'm sure they let things lie to try to profit from her." "Though it seems they're not the only ones to try to profit from this." "You're the one who came to me." "With the result that you made your team a fait accompli with the highest possible priority." "Want to re-register as part of Section 9?" "They'll cancel this registration if you can't get enough people together." "No thanks." "I appreciate your help with the paperwork, though." "It'll close in five minutes." "Decide before then." "Sit there and get sentenced in one of the speed-trials the system loves, or join my squad." "You say that to everyone you've been in shooting matches with?" "I can only get people infected with the memory virus released." "Though those three are the ones I want anyway." "They'll accept that after we just picked a fight with the government?" "If I, Section 9, and a certain country's intelligence agency testify about the false memories." "Ishikawa and Borma agreed." "As for Saito, when I paid him a little visit before he could go to ground, he begged me to let him join." "You're some piece of work." "So, you're telling me to be Public Security's errand boy?" "It's an independent offensive unit based on skill, with no ranks, and it has top priority." "I'll give you memories of being more than a dog trained to kill." "These fake memories... can you really erase 'em?" "I can try."