"A Team Nanban (594mgnav) Release" "I'm amazed we got permission to exhume the body." "It's backward." "They disregarded our investigation by burying him to begin with." "Yes, sir." "Still, a military cemetery..." "It's ridiculously expensive to dispose of a prosthetic body that can't be reused." "Thanks to their cost-cutting, we can recover the cyberbrain." "Where are the engineers?" "Drawing straws at HQ." "Apparently connecting to a dead criminal's cyberbrain is "creepy"." "We don't know yet that he's a criminal." "Chief Aramaki!" "We'll check the contents, then take it back to headquarters." "What are you waiting for?" "Put it down!" "Sorry, sir!" "Don't open that coffin!" "This is from your unit." "Are you military?" "I'm Aramaki, with Public Security Section 9." "We're investigating Lieutenant Colonel Mamuro's murder." "I'm seizing his cyberbrain and prosthetic body as evidence." "He's also suspected of taking bribes, and we're investigating that too." "Public Security has no right to ransack this place." "We'll bury him again when the case is closed." "And how do I know you won't pull a cover-up, or fabricate evidence?" "The military is in the middle of its first major shakeup since the war." "It would be more suspicious if this only got an internal investigation." "If he were still with us, Mamuro would have been the first to say so." "You knew him?" "Yes, back when I was an Army man." "There's not a soldier in the world more squeaky-clean than he was." "Your name and unit?" "Major Motoko Kusanagi, Unit 501 ." "501 ?" "So you were his subordinate." "Open it up." "Can I ask your rank?" "I was in the old Investigations Section." "That's all." "They sold off whatever wouldn't fit in the coffin to a junk shop." "That's not his body!" "Get down!" "Finally back on base, you delinquent?" "Why did you authorize Public Security's involvement?" "!" "Since I can't dismiss the possibility that Mamuro was corrupt, I had no choice." "Unit 501 should be investigating this!" "The higher-ups told us to stay out of it." "Someone set a trap at his grave." "Ignore it." "His cyberbrain is gone!" "This isn't the time to stir up a hornet's nest." "Then you believe that he was taking dirty money?" "He got mugged downtown." "That much is fact." "Not an honorable death, but compared to indictment, maybe he got lucky." "Thanks to him, our letters of recommendation are on hold, too." "Concentrate on your work for now." "Work?" "I distinctly remember asking you to analyze that infected hardware." "Not possible." "I just got back to Japan today, you know." "True enough." "I'll do the assignment." "In return, give me leave to go off-base and authorize direct debit." "Such a problem child." "I'm only going to find out who set the trap." "νery well." "I'll take care of it in Mamuro's place." "Thanks, Kurutsu." "Don't forget your meeting with the brass." "Giichi Mamuro, member of a special unit of the GSDA, was murdered on the fifth of this month." " Niihama police say the investigation into his possible corruption is ongoing." " Lieutenant Colonel Mamuro is suspected of taking large bribes while serving as a security official in Harimadara's weapons export—" "Access records of his movements on the day of his death and all data from city surveillance cameras." "He was tailed." "Scan anyone who traveled the same route he did before time of death." "Three..." "A fourth?" "Three men and a mobile land mine were following him?" ""Funds transferred."" "What is this?" "Any pain?" "Not right now, no." "It's similar to the phantom pain particular to cyborgs, but that should not affect you." "Could be a bad contact in your nervous components." "Any other abnormalities?" "No." "We should do a full-body checkup to be safe." "Thank you, but I have a meeting to go to." "Goodness, you have visitors." "They announced themselves as Public Security Section 9." "Say I'm not here." "As both a Special Cyborg and a recognized wizard-class programmer, new regulations apply to you under the revised Weapons Act." "The Prosthetics Maintenance Rule now applies to issuing identification, possessing cash, opening bank accounts, or other ownership of assets." "In Lt. Col. Mamuro's letter on my reclassification, he guaranteed my financial autonomy." "If he's proven corrupt, he'll receive a dishonorable discharge, and all such documents will be void." "You expect me to endure a position where l have to file paperwork every time I open my wallet?" "The cost of prosthetic bodies far exceeds standard health insurance payouts." "You ought to do your duty to the government which guarantees your right to life." "This is the consent form for your monitoring and custody post-restructuring." "Make an effort to understand your circumstances." "During the war, Japan allocated a sky-high budget to promote cyborg development." "Did they tell you to become Army property to foot the bill?" "There were large deposits made to Mamuro's accounts." "But after his murder, someone withdrew all that money." "What do you want?" "Major Kusanagi, of Unit 501 ." "No criminal record." "You work with the Army and Public Security as a special consultant." "You specialize in solving cybercrimes." "I request that you track down the missing money and analyze the coffin records." "Since it's an official investigation, you should get leave to go off-base." "What's the pay?" "I'll give you the regular consulting fee, as a civilian." "That'll be an issue, you know." "A soldier famous for his integrity being shot to death in secret is a bigger issue." " Hey!" " How dare you?" "!" "Tomorrow morning, I'll send you a liaison who'll double as a bodyguard." "Think she's in?" "She's as in the dark as we are." "If she wants to be free, she'll have to find out the truth." "Still don't want the 501 to investigate?" "Make one wrong move, and our unit could get dissolved." "Public Security offered me an assignment." "Will you accept?" "Lend me a hand." "If you can't get it done alone, you'll be at the end of the line." "No one else will be able to protect you then." "Being protected isn't what I learned to do here!" "I learned to make the most of my strengths!" "I'll grant permission for you to use Server 6." "Thanks." "Just don't forget the job I gave you." "List the people working on the case." "But this is clearly related to the LTC's mugging!" "We know he met up with the prostitute." "We need a warrant for her cust— lt's military jurisdiction!" "You keep out of it!" "You just forget this case, you hear me?" "That's an order!" "Then what's a special investigator even for, dammit?" "!" ""Mamuro was being followed."" "What?" "!" " Hey!" " St-Stop right there!" "There you are!" "Well, if it isn't the little tomboy from the lab." "The one who infiltrated me... is in that car...!" "You fool!" "That makes you a deserter!" "Stop, Raizo!" "All right, Kusanagi?" "Instructor lbachi..." "Don't think you can do whatever you want just because you were Mamuro's favorite!" "Your selfish actions put the whole unit in danger!" "That's enough!" "I'll be the one to lecture her." "That bitch only survived as a test subject." "The number is a fake." "He's a slippery customer." "We've proven there was an infiltrator, at least." "What does Kurutsu say?" ""ignore it."" "Is your prosthetic body acting up?" "I don't know." "Goodness, another visitor." "You've got a strange one here to see you." "What is this?" "It uses signal lights?" "How old is this thing?" "Here, come with me." "Construct your learning base yourself." "Hello, nice to meet you!" "I'm an autonomous-follower logistics system— a "Logistics Conveyer Machine"." "You're Section 9's "liaison who'll double as a bodyguard"?" "Chief Aramaki calls me a "Logicoma"!" "You'll be receiving information through me, Major Kusanagi." "No synching." "Explain things orally or as data." "Um..." "Any Army case information on the group identified as illicit arms dealers would be very useful to Chief Aramaki in tracking down a mobile land mine!" "The Army?" "Arms dealers?" "Yes, sir!" "You disappear. I'll take it from here." "Order acknowledged!" "Optical camouflage?" "Stay here and guard my bike." "Right!" "Come on, walk straight!" "Look, we're almost there." "Hi there!" "Come on in." "It's not even dinnertime, and this guy's three sheets to the wind!" "Get him something cold, okay?" "Come on, get it together!" "Sit straight!" "I fold." "Gonna go hit the can." "Hey, no fair!" "But you had a great hand!" "There." "Warning!" "Warning!" "Someone approaching, extremely close!" "Don't move." "Who sent you?" "!" "Were you the ones who killed Lt. Col. Mamuro?" "Huh?" "Are you Public Security?" "Answer me!" "First you check the Army database!" "Code 24, Ops H2976 code name Paz!" "You're undercover?" "!" "Yeah, the group I'm in with was hired for a hit." "They said the target was a full cyborg and his cyberbrain had to be destroyed, so we'd use mobile land mines." "Three of 'em—and I'm talking military-grade." "Lt. Col. Mamuro's murder?" "Who knows?" "Apparently somebody beat our guys to it, and we let the mines get away." "Where did the mines come from?" "Maneuver Area 6." "That place is a joke." "Might as well set foxes to guard a henhouse." "Feel like proving it with me?" "This ain't the best job, but I can't just drop it." "I'd be in danger, and I'd cause trouble for my CO." "is your CO trustworthy?" "Used to be." "I see." "Thanks for your cooperation." "I wish I had your freedom of movement." "You can't analyze it?" "It might just be noise." "No full-body cyborg gets to leave this organization and go independent." "You're just a girl with a little talent for cyber warfare." "Mamuro's death was an inevitability." "Don't step out of line, or I'll take you out." "Kurutsu and lbachi can't shield you from me." "An inevitability..." "Their security's a joke, all right." "All that's left is to connect the dots..." "Look, I've got authorization!" "And all I'm gonna do is ask questions!" "Take your complaints to the station." "Where does he get off?" "It ain't like I've never been deployed, dammit..." "This is bullshit!" "They're not even he—" "Ah, sorry." "I'm a special investigator with the Niihama police." "I was told I could find these two here." "I have some questions for First Lieutenant Moto Seta and Captain Amuri Noto here—" "Thanks." "You just connected some dots." "And I see some others just connected." "How about showing yourself?" "Batou the Ranger?" "Long time no see." "Gotta say I didn't figure you for this one." "What do you mean?" "The man you killed seven days ago was a comrade of mine!" "I just got back to Japan three days ago." "Oh, really?" "!" "I've told you your sleepless eye's weakness is how easy it is to infiltrate." "Still afraid of taking friendly fire out in the jungle?" "I'm an electronic warfare specialist too!" "I can't believe you infiltrated me in the middle of a fight!" "You're just about the only one who'd infiltrate me." "So, why are you after me?" "Don't play dumb!" "You're the one who got this place's mobile land mines!" "What the hell?" "!" "Wait!" "Don't shoot!" "Run!" "Don't!" "Those guys aren't with you?" "!" "Seriously, what are you talking about?" "Hey, look!" "They found us!" "They want to eliminate us here." "And their excuse will be a "training exercise accident"?" "I can't stop 'em with this puny gun!" "We'll just have to run!" "Now we climb!" "Climb this?" "!" "Damn straight!" "We'll hold them off, so get moving!" " Okay, fine." " Hello!" "What's that?" "!" "We're surrounded." "I told you, move it!" "I know, I know!" "Get in!" "I thought you "couldn't drop it"?" "This makes a nice change of pace." "You asked the military police for help?" "To escort a suspect." "What's this about?" "This makes no sense." "Firstly: the missing money went to your account, Major Kusanagi." "Secondly: the bullet you fired on the mobile land mine at the graveyard matched the one that killed Lt. Col. Mamuro." "Seven days ago, a prostitute here in town was shot to death." "The bullet matched the one that killed Mamuro." "Mamuro had met with her, and according to the other working girls, he was asking questions about one of her clients." "Seven days ago, one of my fellow Rangers was killed by a mobile land mine, along with his family." "He'd been in contact with Mamuro, too." "And when I traced the land mine to its source, it led me to the major here." "By the way, she says she got back to Japan three days ago, but Immigration records say it was seven days ago." "The three mines my group was supposed to use were the same model as the one Section 9 dug up at the graveyard." "Assuming one of those three was buried and another killed the Ranger, there's one more left unaccounted for." "At the moment, all the clues point to you murdering Mamuro and stealing his money." "Right after I landed, I got a message and an attaché case from him." "I'm sorry, Major Kusanagi." "I doubt I'll be in this world much longer." "I wanted to get justice." "I've left your recommendation in someone else's care." "You're the most promising squad member I know." "I wish you luck." "In the case, I found data on an internal weapons exportation racket and this gun." "You've moved a lot of money in the past few days." "Who are you sending it to?" "The widow of the man who raised me." "She's taken care of me since I was little, but she's in a nursing home now." "What's her name?" "What is this woman's name?" "Phantom pain, huh?" "Even after you mechanize your body, your brain never forgets the original." "Pain in the ass." "I don't have an "original" body." "What?" "Have you heard of Doctor Bakeru's emergency medicine system?" "That thing where someone with a full prosthetic body uses their life-support system on somebody else?" "The person who raised me used it on me while I was in my mother's womb." "Supposedly a chemical weapon killed a large number of civilians way back when." "A pregnant woman and the man assumed to be her husband both died." "We don't even know their names." "Because someone with that particular lifesaver happened to be on the scene, the fetus's brain alone survived." "You're saying you were made a full cyborg at birth?" "!" "I lack any memory of a body." "So perhaps you could call this "ghost pain", created by false memories." "This is surveillance footage from Maneuver Area 6." "Your subordinate is in it." "If you refuse to hand her over," "I'll present you with a summons signed by the Defense Minister himself." "I'll submit a written report at a later date." "I can't hand her over." "Vixen." "I'll make you regret this." "That's Shujiro Kanzaki." "He's in charge of Maneuver Area 6, and he leads a team of special agents." "He's also the Army's dirty go-between with the Ministry of Defense." "Don't worry." "I'll protect you." "What's wrong?" "It's nothing." "It's been empty from the beginning?" "Then where's the gun?" "!" "Why did I think there were whistle-blowing documents in it?" "!" "And the lieutenant colonel...?" "What's real?" "What's the truth?" "Where's the lieutenant colonel's cyberbrain?" "Wait, Kusanagi." "Calm down." "The hardware Kurutsu had me analyze matched his Net synch pattern." "He and I were infected with the same virus, weren't we?" "With something hypothesized to be a cyber-virus." "We speculate that it's a self-destructing Stuxnet-type which causes unknown dysfunction." ""Unknown dysfunction"..." "You mean false memories." "It was purely a hypothesis." "At least, until we checked into your behavior." "I just got back to Japan today, you know." "True enough." "When did I come back to Japan?" "Approximately 1 80 hours ago." "In other words, seven days." "And yet you continue to claim it was another day altogether." "Route of transmission?" "It must have been contact with Mamuro's cyberbrain." "Which is still with his prosthetic body." "His coffin was a trap." "And the records Public Security got of his burial show no signs of tampering." "So that's how it is..." "Logicoma, synch with me." "Are you sure?" "Just get on with it." "Record my field of vision and play it back in real time." "Roger!" "I see things that shouldn't be there." "I don't see things that should be there." "Here, the whole time...?" ""Special agent" "The LTC is innocent"" "This is a warrant for Major Kusanagi's arrest." "Surrender her immediately." ""Special agent" "The LTC is innocent"" "The records weren't tampered with." "They just buried the truth under a lie." "I've found it..." "My reality." "Drive." "The lieutenant colonel came to you to blow the whistle." "Didn't he, Mr. Sadamoto, νice-Minister of Defense?" "Yes." "But you ordered a cover-up." "Because it couldn't be made public!" "We ignored treaties and sold arms to Third World countries during the war to relieve its financial burden on us." "That's governmental weapons smuggling!" " Harimadara was at the center of it, and as their security official, - νice-Minister, what's the matter?" " Lt. Col. Mamuro found out about the illegal trade." " νice-Minister!" "What is it?" " Do you realize how much" " He's in danger!" "the missile business has helped our country's finances?" "!" "The lieutenant colonel learned of your cover-up and investigated." "The prostitute you frequented." "The Ranger who escorted you." "When he got info from them, he decided to blow the whistle on you." "So you ordered Captain Kanzaki to kill him." "I just ordered him to solve the situation!" "Yes, a few people suffered, but I don't know who killed Mamuro." "Hell, maybe he really was mugged." "You claim even you don't know?" "No, and I don't want to!" "That arms dealing will be purged during restructuring anyway, and we're deliberating next-generation weapons to replace missiles." "But this mess kills the job Harimadara has lined up for when I leave office!" "You're quite the chatterbox." "A desire to confess?" "Maybe so." "Either way, you'll never tell anyone!" "Stop!" "Someone help!" "Should've blown him away." "Wasn't being more than a killing machine the whole point of getting out?" "In the end, I had no place to go." "They traced us through the remote control." "They're coming." "You go on." "They're mine." "There are two of them." "Fine with me." "We'll see who's the better killer." "Take care." "You too." "I hate to say it, but they're not the only ones to benefit from his death." "Yes." "Thank you." "You're the ones who killed the lieutenant colonel!" "I warned you that if you stepped out of line, I'd take you out." "That's enough of that." "You've reached your limit, Kusanagi." "Raizo and Ibachi were luring the enemy here with the money as bait." "We've eliminated six spies." "That's plenty." "Kanzaki funneled money into Mamuro's account, I moved it... and you used it." "That's right." "The gun used on the prostitute was the beginning of the enemy plot." "Blowing up the Ranger, the phony bribery..." "All the blame was placed on Mamuro." "And he intended to bring the νice-Minister down with him." "It was the worst possible choice." "Unit 501 would have gone on the Army purge list in retaliation for the scandal." "So you let him die." "All of you." "If it weren't for the memory virus, maybe we could have saved him." "But as things stood, the only option was to secure" "Mamuro's cyberbrain, the mine, and the money before he got blown up." "But what neither we nor the enemy accounted for was you." "As soon as I arrived and got the data, I went after the lieutenant colonel." "And you were infected by his cyberbrain." "Even as you gathered the evidence, you were continually losing memories." ""The LTC is innocent"" "What organization developed the virus?" "Unclear." "All we know is that a foreign broker brought it here and that people call it "Fire-Starter"." "Was it a foreign power that cooked up the scandal?" "Our enemy is the global military-industrial complex itself." "What would dragging down one vice-minister accomplish?" "Did you take the disc he left me?" "I did that to protect you." "You used me as bait for the enemy!" "I did that to protect the organization." "Why did you stand back and watch him die?" "I did that to protect myself." "You stick with me, Kusanagi." "I'll build a future for you." "The pain is gone now." "Section 9 and the review committee have formally cleared Lt. Col. Mamuro of suspicion." "Thus, as his recommendation was renewed by a third party, we will implement it." "Due to your excellent record, we also grant you the post-reorganization major rank." "In addition, in accordance with the will of your late legal guardian, you'll receive a testamentary trust." "It's an inheritance from the person who raised you." "A portion of it is earmarked for the purchase of your prosthetic body." "Which means that your body is now your property, and is outside Army jurisdiction." "You're quite sure about this?" "The virus may be an unknown, but we've identified the architecture of the false memories." "Do it." "νery well." "We'll attempt memory eradication." "Will you go?" "Yes." "Make sure to pay your respects to your parents." "Thanks." "I'm going." "We'll find a replacement." "Want a ride?" "Consider it my thanks for telling us the location of Mamuro's cyberbrain." "I'll take the bus." "Then I'll just give you the results." "Captain Kanzaki was replaced." "Mr. Sadamoto will be tried in closed court." "I promise to make the lieutenant colonel's findings public one day." "I see." "By the way—are you the one he gave my recommendation to?" "Hard to say." "A man in my position gets a lot of those." "In fact, one of them outlined plans to create a new special unit within the international rescue team." "I'd like someone who's got experience as a special consultant." "lntriguing, but I don't want to work under a man who digs up people's graves." "You dug up something even deeper." "If you're serious about going independent, you should have your own team." "The regulations say a unit needs a minimum of one commander and six members." "I'll keep that in mind." "May it be a team not for defense of self or state, but for taking the offensive." "Six people, huh?" "Hmm, whom shall I scout...?" "A Team Nanban (594mgnav) Release"