-Chief? -The Old Man?
DISCLOSURE Quantized Gospel
Can I help you?
They're coming with me.
I cannot allow that.
Please read this.
Impossible.
An executive order?
They are members of a special forces unit working under your nation's president.
Special forces? That's news to me!
You must have known if you're in charge here.
Retrieve the bodies at once.
As for Mrs. Huge, prioritize the analysis of her lifelog.
Yes, sir.
It's been too long, Major.
Fancy meeting you here.
Seems you saved our hides.
Not to worry. I came with a job offer that's a perfect fit for you.
I have a bad feeling about this.
Sorry to hear we're disbanding.
But we cracked the case with your help.
I'm grateful.
I bet you are.
Well, good luck back in your homeland...
Princess Mei Ling.
Zài jiàn!
What's this false memory you put in his head?
Let's just say it's a fairly rousing tale of adventure.
Got a problem with that?
No problem here.
But he wasn't half bad.
I agree.
So I hid his memory of the mission in his payment file.
If he's ever needed, he's just a password away.
You're still one nasty son of a bitch.
Now, how about sharing this ops' true objective?
The mansion's owner... What was that thing?
Patrick Huge.
He was controlling the group conducting the raids
and providing them with his company's weapons free of charge.
He was the mastermind.
That's not what we're asking.
Why did you want to apprehend such a prominent figure?
And why were you willing to sacrifice us to hide your government's involvement?
After all that's happened, why not just come clean?
If we were to get officially involved,
their existence might become public, and the world would descend into chaos.
"Their existence"? You mean there are more like him?
That's right.
If you'd have captured Huge alive,
we might have been able to use him to devise a countermeasure.
Hold on now.
You blaming us for blowing your chances?
This would've turned out way better if you'd kept us in the loop.
He knows where we stand now.
Time to start talking.
Their cyberbrains possess processing power far greater than any supercomputer.
They were the ones who triggered the Global Simultaneous Default.
Wasn't that the G4's policy failure?
It's easy to pin the blame on the nations of this world.
The truth, however, goes far beyond that.
I sensed he wasn't human when I connected to his cyberbrain.
Why is that?
For lack of a better term, we refer to them as "posthuman."
It's best you see it for yourselves.
So the American president requested that you come get us?
Got a problem with that?
Never said I did.
Much appreciated.
I'm impressed you were able to track us down, Togusa.
Seems your skills have improved since we last met.
Not really. It's just you guys weren't exactly lying low out there.
We may have overdone it a bit.
I want all your cyberbrains offline.
Some kind of freak with a super high-performance CPU awaits?
He was the first to be discovered.
Is he conscious?
Yes.
However, nearly half his cerebrum has been damaged.
Unfortunately, that renders him inadequate for our research on posthumans.
-There it is. Save immediately. -Sir.
Commencing analysis.
What is this?
We believe he's using code to communicate, but the data is corrupt.
From what we can tell, it's something about your visit.
Maybe he's happy to see us.
I wonder.
We're unable to process his thoughts in real time, so...
Is she a nurse?
She doesn't have a cyberbrain.
Correct.
A precaution to ensure she cannot be hacked.
Were he to connect to the network, he'd take complete control of the system.
We'd then be at his mercy.
That's why every system in this facility is air-gapped.
Are they born with such capabilities?
No, they were once ordinary human beings.
Gary Harts was a master sergeant in the Third Army, Central Command.
As a young soldier, he always did his duty,
and his men had great faith in him.
-Shit! -You okay?
Commander!
Hang in there. We're almost there.
See? We're outside.
Commander, are you hurt?
I'm fine.
-Take care of these guys. -Yes, sir!
I'm fine.
Commander!
I'm good.
After retiring, he moved to the suburbs,
where he lived a peaceful life with his wife and kids.
But one day, he developed a high fever.
Its cause was unknown, but it continued for a week.
He was unable to even speak during that time.
But after a week in that state, he suddenly recovered.
There was no damage to his memory or speech.
His family was overjoyed, but his wife was concerned
because she noticed something different about him.
That's when it happened.
Honey?
Where are you going?
He... shot his wife?
Ever since that day,
Gary Harts has been missing.
Can you zoom in a little more on the D1 isolation room?
Sure.
-What the--? -Hey!
They're think tanks!
-Don't mind us. -Yeah.
We're the latest in ride-share tech!
We're killing time till our passengers finish their business here.
-Look. -What?
Isn't that a missile silo?
You're right!
That's so cool!
A week after Harts disappeared, the security system
of a nuclear missile facility located on a Nevadan Air Force base went down.
Someone had infiltrated the facility.
Every one of them had a cyberbrain with the latest offensive barrier.
Yet he hacked them in an instant?
He got every last one under his control?
One of the survivors reported that his body moved against his will.
Wait!
The way he's moving...
It's the same as Huge.
This incident two months ago was the first ever to involve a posthuman.
So he tried to launch a nuke to spark another nuclear war?
His motives are unknown.
However, we do know the target he set.
It was Moscow.
Is this objective shared by all posthumans?
We can't say for sure.
But from what we've seen while observing him,
their objective is the collapse of the existing social order.
The recent terrorist acts known as "raids" are an example
of what their actions are causing to rise to the surface.
So sustainable war is also their doing?
It's true that we launched the war-as-an-industry model
with the intent of making the world economy sustainable.
But that was no more than a controlled economic action.
As long as you live out of range of the carnage,
any war could be called a controlled economic action.
Exactly.
Posthumans have made war the new normal.
Even civilians are being dragged in.
What is it, Major?
He keeps throwing a paper airplane.
Childhood regression due to brain damage?
Look closer.
Every time he throws it, it returns right to his hand.
Room temperature, air pressure, air resistance...
He must be calculating it all.
Are you serious?
A miscalculation?
You threw it even farther than usual today.
Was he pretending to be brain dead this whole time?
She needs help!
Don't!
-Call the guards. -Yes, sir.
What's happening?
It's a complete system malfunction.
What did he do?
Looks like he's taken over.
It's impossible for him to connect to the system!
What about the error code he's been sending?
We've been storing it on this server.
That must be it.
You thought his code fragments were messages,
but they're probably a virus.
He used it to infect that switch.
That's the only system connected to the entire facility.
Which means...
Batou! He's trying to escape!
This is bad. Let's shut down the system!
What's going on?
It's hard to tell from just the video.
Looks like fun. I'll jack in and see.
New-terminal-detected-in-system. This-one-should-prove-useful.
What was that you just said?
What did you connect to?
Let me have a turn!
My barriers are fading, and everything is merging into one!
What just happened?
Major, they're coming in from above, too!
They'll smash their way in before long.
Why you...!
Take that!
Don't mess with an enhanced cyborg!
We won't get anywhere at this rate!
I don't understand. We already shut the system down!
Doesn't matter.
He's gained direct control over your robotic troops.
Just one way to stop this.
No! He's our only...
You're in charge of this operation!
Are you gonna make the call?
If not, back off and let us make it!
Fine.
-Batou! -I'm on it!
Got a problem with that?
It had to be done.
EEG flatlined. Heart-lung function stopped.
That was a close one.
Thanks for saving me.
What the heck did you see?
It's difficult to put into words.
What else have you learned about them?
I'll share with you all we know at a later date.
This job you accepted doesn't look like it'll be easy.
So it would seem.