I'm a soldier, znatchit ya... I'm a soldier, and that means...
...i otvetchik i sud'ya ...that I am both defendant and judge.
Ya stoyu na dvuh kontsah ognya I stand at both ends of the fire.
Ogibaya virazhi, Leaning into the curves,
obgonyaya smert' i zhizn', overtaking life and death,
ya begu srazit'sya s ten'yu lzhi I'm running to fight the shadow of lies.
Skol'ko b nitej ne plyol obman, No matter how tangled the web of deception is woven,
pokazhet lik sveta istina... truth will always illuminate the outline of the light...
Save your tears for the day...
...when the pain is far behind.
On your feet, come with me.
We are soldiers, stand or die.
Save your fears, take your place.
Save them for the Judgment Day.
Fast and free, follow me.
Time to make the sacrifice.
We rise or fall...
We've got an intruder?
Virus intrusion in defensive barrier. Infection spreading.
Conflict with antibodies. Enemy probes have breached outer wall.
Reinforce allocations to peripheral defenses.
Cut the infected sectors loose and use them as decoys!
Virus analysis status. Mutual destruction in progress.
Fourteen variants neutralized. Two variants active. One variant unidentified.
What do you mean, unidentified?! Get me verification!
Preliminary scans show it as inert and unresponsive. It seems to be a decoy.
Change the version of the antibodies and analyze it.
Don't let the intruder spot our response protocols.
Intruder has begun to gain control of proxies.
Unable to physically disconnect circuits.
- Viruses that have gained access are propagating. - Damn it... Who the hell are these cyber bandits?
#1 defense line is 60% eliminated.
Request backup from Poseidon's Decatoncheir!
Damn, too late!
Call an ambulance! Helping the wounded takes top priority.
Get some ambulances over here!
We're at the shopping mall in Niihama ward 3! We're gonna need five!
It's the same, all right. No doubt about it.
A suicide bomber, huh?
Yeah, using plastic explosives with nails and screws shoved into it.
Crap! Indiscriminate terrorism where they issue a warning? What's up with that?
Looks like what they were after was getting the maximum fear out of it.
Maximum fear?
Yeah.
Just like the Individual Eleven, they issue a warning ahead of time,
but then they end up attacking indiscriminately, bombing after bombing.
It's clear that they're a particularly nasty type that sees meaning in the terrorist act itself.
So you're saying that there's going to be at least one more suicide bombing?
If we believe their warning, then yeah.
Son of a bitch... What the hell is happening to this country?
Is something starting to go wrong somewhere?
Yeah, I guess.
At this rate, we're never gonna have enough manpower to keep up.
Chief, we're never gonna be able to catch up to the bombers like this.
Haven't you found any hints about times or places in the warning?
At this point, all we have is an e-mail sent in to the Prefectural Police that reads,
"We will set off five suicide bombings inside Niihama today."
If it follows the same pattern as the ones in Fukuoka last week,
the last blast also will most definitely happen here in Niihama.
Hand over the scene to the Prefectural Police...
...and do whatever it takes to stop the next bombing.
And do what? Arrest everybody in Niihama with a prosthetic body?
These may be acts of indiscriminate terrorism, but there ought to be some sort of method to it.
Roger...
By the way, where's the Major at a time like this?
She says she's conducting a top-secret dive investigation.
Top-secret?
Leave this to the prefectural cops and the old-timer. We're on the move.
Borma, if you find anything, give us a holler.
What's the deal with this "human bomb" crap, anyway?
This isn't some anarchist state that's under foreign rule.
It just means that this country isn't so peaceful that you can say stuff like that anymore.
Just like everybody else.
I'll admit that the refugee issue is a powder keg that's probably gonna blow someday,
and the fact that the individualists are resorting to such extreme measures...
...might be because the future political situation here is so uncertain.
Oh, damn! It might be refugees! I forgot about that!
Chief!
Do some digging on the suspects in both last week's bombings in Fukuoka...
...and the suicide bombings over the past few hours.
The bodies are damaged beyond recognition.
About all we know is that they had relatively high percentage of prosthetics,
No, that's not what I mean.
They probably showed up on the IR-System or security cameras while they were still alive.
I want you to pull all those records for me.
Understood. I'll see what I can do.
What's all this about?
Bombings like this aren't large-scale events that are carried out by people...
...who are coerced into it or ordered to do it by their superiors.
Suicide bombings are something that you resort to when you've lost all hope in going on living.
Chief, are things okay over there?
It looks like we're playing catch-up and losing.
We'll catch the next one in time. How are things going on your end?
The agent Tachikomas are working out fine.
I don't really need to worry about range-related signal loss.
We don't stand a chance of winning, but it doesn't look like we'll lose, either.
Too true, too true!
Don't do anything flashy.
I'll try. I'll exercise self-restraint, anyway.
Tachikoma! Is my sensorium mask working?
I'm done with planning out the shortest route!
Mask array activation complete!
I've disengaged the emergency lock on the security room, ma'am!
Intruder is utilizing 512 attack barrier variants. Deploying in level 1.
Chimera virus still progressing. Current rate of progression, 52%.
Defense line back up to 70%. 22% engaging intruder, 8% corroded.
403 are destruct/mobile types. 82 are chimera components. 27 are explosives and decoys.
Of the enemy's 512 attack barrier variants, 7 have infiltrated up to level 2. Request decoys.
Activity level of the supplemental barrier from Decatoncheir is maxing out at 97%.
- 108 of the enemy's 403 offensive barriers have been eliminated. - We fought our way back, huh?
Functionality down 30% due to enemy incursion.
Incursion line still undetermined. Security line, 40% eliminated. Attack barriers, 28% eliminated.
If you let A.I.s handle everything, even cats and mice will outsmart you.
We've received a report from the Cyber Police.
"People believed to be the suicide bombers have been identified..."
"...on footage collected from the locations of the incidents."
"See images attached below."
I see...
Borma, how's your analysis of the explosives coming?
Judging from the residue, it looks like C-4 was used in all four.
Can you profile where they got it or the manufacturing method?
I could tell you more if I could get this stuff over to Spring-8.
I see.
Chief, I found some interesting data from the shops that were blown up.
The first two were buildings used as salons where individualists would meet,
and the next two also belonged to groups that were making money...
...operating under the cover of the Refugee Action Policy.
This restaurant has an identical background, too.
Batou's take on this might be on the money.
Was the Prefectural Police's Public Security Bureau aware of that information?
There's no matching data on the public net.
I see.
Contact the Prefectural Police at once.
Have them send patrols to individualist meeting places, mob-affiliated offices and restaurants...
...where individualists meet or where money is made off of the Refugee Action Policy.
If they see anyone around 20 years of age who appears to have come from a refugee camp,
question them at once, regardless of gender.
And tell them to exercise extreme caution around anyone with a high prosthetics percentage!
Understood.
So, it really is the refugees, huh?
I'm surprised.
You'd figure that it would be the citizens who would have a problem with them...
That's exactly why individualist groups like the Individual Eleven...
have come onto the scene, right?
Maybe this is a backlash against them.
Well, now that you mention it, that's probably true,
so it's probably safe to assume that the refugee powder keg has now been lit.
Killing yourself to try to make a point... That's screwed up.
What were the intervals between the bombings, going from the first to this fourth one?
The warning was issued at noon exactly.
The first one happened 13 minutes later.
The second one happened 38 minutes after that.
For the third one, the interval increased a little, happening about two hours later at 3:23.
The gap was even wider for the fourth one, which was at 7:11.
It should be even wider for this next one.
In terrorism by serial suicide bombings, they're set off in order of willingness to die.
Let's hope that we have a little more time before the next bombing.
Big Man, you know way too much about this sort of scary shit.
Mind if I ask you one more thing?
What?
If their objective is the greatest amount of fear,
you'd think that it'd be more effective if they'd carried them out without issuing a warning.
Why do you suppose they issued a warning first?
Beats me. Maybe they wanted somebody to know...
To know what their last act on this earth was.
So, just as I expected...
We'd confirmed from Gohda's history that he had a fat pipeline to Poseidon,
but I had no idea it was manualized to this extent.
Is this a trap? Or is it a...
Deploy root array along all three axes. Have all attack barrier variants standing by.
Deployment complete, ma'am!
Back me up with all your functions on full. Watch out for chimera viruses.
Yes, ma'am!
Okay, do a sensorium projection into the heaviest barrier.
Upload my Chroma file into the system before their security shows up.
Go to high combat alert using eight arrays.
All tracker mines equipped with virus arrays have gone active!
We've taken over the cyberbrains of 12 people on the Security Alert Team.
Okay, do a final security check of the perimeter.
The activity control viruses we uploaded into 45 security personnel are functioning!
All attack barrier variants active! No conflicts detected!
Okay, we should have until somebody notices the freeze we put on their security people.
You three monitor the 45 cyberbrains. If we're discovered, notify me immediately.
Understood, ma'am!
Something wrong, sir?
No. It's nothing.
So, this is the Decatoncheir I've heard so much about.
Is it running a simulation, using a virtual personality...
...it constructed out of vast amounts of data?
Who are you?
I'm Kazundo Gohda.
Among other things, I was once involved in the molecular engineering robot project...
...at Greater Japan Research and Technology that created radioactive fallout scrubbers.
Radioactive fallout scrubbers? You must mean the Japanese Miracle.
As an engineer?
No, not at all. My brain specializes in linguistic functions.
After two great wars, this country has risen to prominence as an economic superpower again...
...thanks to the radioactivity scrubber technology that I acted as a producer for.
At the time, I thought that I would rise to the upper ranks of men, as well.
But just as this country was unable to garner a prominent position in the international community,
I was unable to hold a significant position within the system.
So are you saying that society didn't place any concrete value on a man who was all talk?
I noticed a long, long time ago that our current social system has a fatal structural flaw.
Which is?
The degradation of information, which by all rights should not be degradable...
...and the illusory originality known as "individuality"...
...trigger synchronization all too easily within our current social system.
I call it, "acts of creation by the name of consumption."
That's a conclusion that an individual who's barricaded himself in the net would come up with.
A standalone complex, you mean?
As luck would have it, I had a rather strong tolerance for solitude.
However, it was quite some time before I realized that the reason why...
...the system hadn't given my contributions to society the recognition they deserved...
...was because the mental disposition that I had been born with...
...had prevented them from doing so.
In other words, you had an inferiority complex.
No, the problem lay in my very existence.
In a society, there exist personalities that the system itself longs for.
People lust after them.
But in spite of that, they are so unaware of that longing that it's funny.
And you're satisfied with the man you are now?
More so than I ever expected.
Were you aware of the fact that the Ghost, whose existence...
...is paradoxically proven by the physical body,
changes its appearance to match that of the physical body?
Not really.
There was once a thinker who saw in revolutions his own reason for being,
and tried to practice what he preached, though.
You mean Patrick Sylvestre?
I, too, idolized his thinking once.
I looked up to my hero and truly hoped to gain his charisma.
"I am a man who stands above other men."
That notion has filled my head for as long as I can remember.
In the end, my physical form stood in my way, but fate was on my side.
Caught in an accident that left me wandering between life and death,
my body underwent a transformation, and my Ghost unexpectedly changed, as well.
Just as the author you mentioned who stumbled upon a revolution did,
I, too, was given a mission.
A mission to rebuild the system known as the State.
Are you a state reform advocate? Or a man with delusions of grandeur?
What this country is searching for right now is the return...
...to a Shangri-la that is built entirely on the backs of outsiders.
There was a period in this country's history when this had come to pass, although by accident.
Even now, those without motive long for it without realizing it.
All I am doing is giving them what they want.
And making yourself a hero in the process?
I am not interested in such things now.
My role is to be that hero's producer.
To create an activist who will represent the unmotivated and carry out what they long for,
but are unable to put a voice to.
Is this "Shangri-la as a result of consumption" Japan as it was organized in the cold war?
So, who is this hero that you say you're producing?
Is it the Individual Eleven?
Oh, no!
Hey, what's the matter?
Hey, contact security. We've got a cyber bandit incursion.
It took them longer than I expected.
Major! They've spotted our break-in!
Understood.
So, is the enemy of this "hero" of yours the refugees?
You're directing the thinking of the citizens by setting up refugees as an imaginary enemy.
Am I right?
Guiding their thinking is necessary. As is bending the law in order to do that.
The ends justify the means.
This is a theory that applies equally to terrorists and democratic nations.
You're telling me that the consensus opinion of our citizens is to get rid of the refugees?
Humility is the chief virtue of our populace.
- Major! - I heard you.
One last thing. What about Public Security Section 9?
Section 9? That's a good question.
The cycle of hatred based on absence can't be stopped now.
I expect that they'll straddle the line between the will of the people and their own sense of justice,
gnashing their teeth all the while.
Major, you'll be in trouble if you don't log out right now!
Out of time, huh?
We just arrived at Gate 6!
When the Prefectural Police tried to question some girl,
she fled into the subway, threatening to blow herself up.
I've had them stop the trains,
but most have entered the station building with all their passengers aboard.
Do whatever it takes to stop her!
You go that way!
Where's the perp?!
I've found her. She's a refugee, all right.
Everybody stay put!
Okay, now... Put your hands behind your head.
That's right. We're not gonna hurt you.
Nice and slow. Stay calm.
Move it!
Why'd you shoot?!
You dumbass!
This is the detonator!
Call an ambulance.
She's got a bomb in her stomach, so keep her totally isolated.
Y-Yes, sir.
Where's the security department?! I want the building checked top to bottom.
It looks like the cyber bandit used decoys to infiltrate the building in person.
What were the security people doing? Reactivate the SAT team!
Check for viruses.
Once the defense array is rebooted, have the rest of the work done at Poseidon.
The bandit won't show up here again.
So, you managed to stop the last one, did you?
Just barely. This is gonna have repercussions, though.
This is a declaration of war from the refugees.
I hate to say it, Batou, but your take on this is right.
The Individual Eleven are probably individualists produced by Gohda.
Their objective is a refugee uprising.
Their main goal is is probably to create an autonomous region for them inside Japan.
We have zero in the wins column so far.
The cycle of hatred that Gohda has in mind is definitely starting.
Finding out a galaxy...
...of planets and stars within me...
Listening to each of them...
...singing the same silent melody...
I've never seen such beauty...
In possibility...
No speck of doubt or fear...
Wake up!
I hear a voice,
hear a voice calling out to me...
I see inside,
see the light now ever holding me...
All the truth, all I need...
...to make of this reality, it's inside...
The beauty within the shell...
I hear a voice,
hear a voice calling out to me...
I see inside,
see the light now ever holding me...
All the truth, all I need...
...to make of this reality, it's inside...
Right here within the shell...