In the near-future city of Niihama, where cyberization and prosthetics are commonplace, Batou of Public Security Section 9 shares tiny romantic sparks with the super-wizard class hacker Ishikawa. Both are terrible at being honest with their feelings, and they spend their days exchanging awkward words during missions.
One day, they begin investigating a series of cyber hacking incidents. The common thread among the victims is the use of the latest chips from the major prosthetic manufacturer 'Po
Lovers in the Cyber Labyrinth - Those muscles, unable to touch the ghost.
In a hotel room, Batou closed his eyes.
That's wrong, he thought.
Behind his cyberized eyelids, something smelled faintly of scorched circuits. An unpleasant electronic whine keened at the core of his skull.
"...What a mess."
Those were the only words that slipped from his lips.
The man sprawled before him simply stared at the ceiling. His mouth hung half-open, a single trail of drool staining the silk pillowcase. Age 52, former technical advisor for Poseidon Industries. The kind of man who'd clad his entire body in top-grade prosthetics — what they called a "winner."
But now, he was nothing more than a doll.
Batou dropped to one knee and reached toward the man's temple. The cyberchip insertion port. His fingertips met cold metal. There was nothing there.
"It's been pulled."
Only a small hole gaped open. The clean mark of someone who'd expertly carved the chip out.
Batou rose to his feet. His massive frame, 192 centimeters tall, stretched its shadow beneath the suite's indirect lighting. The floor creaked faintly under the weight of his military-grade full-body prosthesis.
"Batou, can you hear me?"
A voice resonated directly in his cyberbrain. Ishikawa. Public Security Section 9's electronic warfare specialist, a super-wizard-class hacker. Right now, she was in the operations room at headquarters, remotely monitoring his prosthetic eyes and cyberbrain.
"...Yeah."
"I'm extracting memory fragments from the victim's terminal here. I'll send the data to your cyberbrain — can you take a look?"
"Roger."
As Batou answered curtly, a data stream began flowing at the edge of his vision.
Ishikawa was brilliant. He couldn't hold a candle to her. In cyberspace, she was royalty, and he was little more than a scarecrow.
(Well, that's fine.)
Batou murmured inwardly.
He had muscle. That was enough. He'd decided to believe that.
Suddenly, the data flow in his vision warped.
"...Ishikawa?"
"Wait, this is...!"
Her voice tightened with tension in an instant.
"It's a trap! The perpetrator planted something in the memory data. We've been detected!"
"What do I do?"
"That room's terminal — can you see the wiring embedded in the wall? Physically destroy it. Hurry!"
Batou spun around. Through the gaps in the wall panel, a bundle of fiber optic cables peeked out faintly.
Without hesitation, he drove his hand into the wall. His military-grade prosthetic fingers crushed concrete and seized the wiring. Sparks scattered with a sharp crack.
The room's lights flickered once, then fell silent.
"...That do it?"
"[breathing heavily]... Hah, you saved me. Thank you."
Her breathing came through the cyberbrain link. Her voice trembled slightly.
Batou pulled his hand from the wall. Concrete dust clung to his knuckles.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. ...Well, I suppose even your muscles come in handy once in a while."
A barb. But the tremor in her voice hadn't faded yet.
(She was scared.)
Batou thought. Even a genius hacker is human. Having her ghost nearly traced back — there's no way she wouldn't feel terror.
But she hides it.
"...Yeah. This is all I've got."
Saying that, Batou clapped the dust from his fist with two sharp pats.
Three hours later, Batou was underground in the Tachibana district.
Bar "Shelter." Public Security Section 9's unofficial watering hole. Descending the dimly lit stairs, you reach a heavy wooden door. When you open it, a shaven-headed man looks up from behind the counter.
An old surgical scar runs across the crown of his head. The mark of an outdated cyberization procedure. His left eye is his original brown; his right, an old military-grade prosthetic. It gleams with a dull gold.
"Hey, Batou. You're early today."
The master, Gouda. Age 58. A former mercenary who survived the Fourth Non-Nuclear War, now a man who finds his purpose in life listening to young people's troubles from behind this bar's counter.
"Got stood down."
Batou sat at the end of the counter. He removed his black round sunglasses and placed them on the countertop. His prosthetic eyes reflected the bar's dim lighting in deep blue.
Wordlessly, Gouda produced a glass and poured an amber liquid into it.
"That cyber-hacking case, huh. I heard another hollowed-out victim turned up at a hotel in Minato district."
"News travels fast."
"It's my business."
Gouda grinned and slid a small plate forward.
"On the house. Eat."
Perched on the small plate was a single octopus-shaped sausage. What's more, two eyes had been deftly drawn on it in ketchup.
"...The hell is this?"
"I heard your missus saved your hide. That your muscles actually came in handy?"
Batou choked.
"Sh-she's not my—! She's just a colleague!"
"I didn't mention any names."
"...!"
Batou's face turned as red as a boiled octopus. Without his sunglasses, there was no hiding it. He picked up the octopus sausage with his chopsticks and fidgeted with it pointlessly on the plate.
"Look, Batou."
Gouda leaned his elbows on the counter and narrowed his old golden prosthetic eye.
"You seem like you're jealous of other people's talents. But you know, there are things only your muscles can protect. Like today."
"...I know."
Batou answered in a mumble.
(I know. But still.)
Ishikawa is amazing. She races freely through cyberspace, manipulating advanced programs he can't even touch. That sight of her is dazzling, and it stings a little.
It's admiration, and jealousy.
And probably, something else entirely.
"Ahh, I see. That face — you've gone and realized it, haven't you."
"Shut up!"
Batou popped the sausage into his mouth. The sweetness of the ketchup and the crispy sear on the surface tasted strangely good.
After a while, the two of them began discussing the case.
"The victims are all using the same chip."
Gouda pulled a tablet terminal from beneath the counter and turned it toward Batou.
"Poseidon's latest cyberchip, the Nereid Mark VI. Processing speed is 3.2 times the previous generation. It started gaining traction earlier this year, mainly among high-income earners in Niihama."
"So they're targeting that?"
"It's not just some random thrill-seeker. Either the chip itself has value, or they're after the information stored on it."
Batou took a sip of whiskey from his glass.
"Hear anything on the black market?"
"Yeah. Lately, the underground brokers in Tachibana have been catching a certain name."
"Who?"
"Kurasawa."
Batou's hand stopped.
"...You know him?"
"Former member of Section 9. The man who was my tactical instructor, and Ishikawa's...!"
He started to speak, then swallowed the words.
"He was supposed to have died during an operation three years ago. But there's a rumor he's alive — that his cyberbrain was modified at a top-secret Poseidon research facility."
"Huh. And this Kurasawa — "
Gouda's golden prosthetic eye glinted with mischief.
"What kind of relationship did he have with your missus?"
"...I don't know."
"Bullseye."
"I said I don't know!"
Batou half-rose, then stopped himself.
(Her first love — Ishikawa told me that once.)
(I remember. She said it in a really small voice, like she was telling an old story.)
Deep in his chest, something burned with a sizzling ache.
It was like the smell of scorched electronic circuits he'd sensed at the crime scene earlier. But different. This was a nastier kind of heat.
"...I'll look into it."
Batou grabbed his sunglasses and stood.
"Hey. Be careful. If he was your instructor, that means he knows every move you've got."
"I know."
When he stepped outside, the chaotic neon of Tachibana district assaulted his eyes. The old city, a jumble of post-war low-rise buildings and haphazard additions. The cyberization rate here was 68% — low for Niihama.
Batou looked up at the sky.
The night sky peeking through the gaps between buildings was stained by neon, the stars invisible.
(Kurasawa.)
His former mentor, now possibly his enemy.
And the man who dwelled in the depths of Ishikawa's heart.
"...Why now, of all times?"
The voice he muttered was swallowed by the city's clamor.
Batou turned up the collar of his leather jacket and began walking toward headquarters in Kanami district. It's a mission. He decided to think of it that way.
But beneath his sunglasses, his prosthetic eyes flickered faintly red.
Not a combat-mode response.
Just proof that his heart was restless.
In the underground operations room of Public Security Section 9's headquarters in Kanami district — a mid-sized building, nine floors above ground and four below, publicly operating under the name "Wakaba General Insurance" — Ishikawa sat alone, facing her terminal.
Before her lay the data recovered from the hotel terminal Batou had destroyed, alongside the black-market intel Gouda had provided.
"...All of them, Nereid Mark VI."
She murmured.
The latest chip, implanted in every victim. And Kurasawa, who vanished three years ago.
(It's not a coincidence.)
Ishikawa closed her eyes.
Behind her eyelids, her former instructor's face surfaced. A kind smile. But now, she couldn't grasp the meaning of that smile.
"Batou..."
She murmured it, then was startled by the name her own lips had spoken.
(Why, now, his name of all things?)
But she remembered his voice from today.
"You okay?"
How much those brief words had saved her.
Ishikawa shook her head.
"...I need to focus."
She turned back to her terminal.
But the fragments of data on the screen seemed, just for a moment, to resemble Batou's back as he walked away.
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