Motoko glanced at her wristwatch peeking out from underneath her sleeve. She had kept it, even after all these years, the timepiece faithfully ticking away. 45 minutes until the invaders began the execution of the cybernetically-enhanced workers. They had plenty of time, to infiltrate, subdue the assailants, and rescue the workers before 3pm. The challenge before them was the blast doors now blocking every potential entrance and exit into the building.
Her team was small and only half familiar. With her was Saitou, Azuma, and two recruits. She reviewed the files Togusa had forwarded her before they departed from headquarters.
Sasami Daimon. 35, 168cm, 60% prosthetic.
Recruited from Section 1 under a year ago, served as a special investigations field agent after serving in the military. Specialties include close-range combat and tactics.
Section 1 served as a special investigations force into serious criminal affairs. Daimon was rather built and definitely fit for the job of pursuing criminals in the field. Her height seemed a natural attribute, not something enhanced by partial cyberization, her long blond hair curled into something akin of a braided crown. She focused on the roof access door with her bright orange eyes, waiting silently for it to open.
Kasumi Mori. 33, 152cm, 40% prosthetic.
Recruited from Section 1 under a year ago along with Daimon, previously served as cyber crimes investigator. Rumored to have been a black hat hacker prior. No military experience. Specialties include hacking, cyber infiltration, and darkNet diving.
Mori had remained behind at headquarters with Ishikawa to attempt to pick apart the clues leaked onto the Net as soon as Kotobuki went offline this morning. Motoko had noticed her in the back, sitting next to Proto practically with stars in her eyes.
The darkNet was nothing short of a complicated labyrinth. It was the darkest, most unscrupulous part of the Net that always seemed to be scheming something and stealing data. To be able to navigate within that network, Mori had to be skilled and likely was a black hat hacker at one point.
Rei Aozora, 30, 167cm, 0% prosthetic.
Motoko paused in reading the file. No prosthetics was rather unusual in Section 9. She stared at the man crouched nearby on the roof, busying himself with some sort of cellphone game. He had shoulder-length dark hair that perpetually looked like he just rolled out of bed but otherwise looked completely unremarkable. He stood out mostly for his unusual and rare surname.
Recruited from Section 2 under a year ago, previously serving as a field agent and investigator. Jack of all trades.
Section 2 hardly seemed like a place to find recruits for Section 9. Section 2 served under the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, handling patent enforcement concerning biomedical advancements and investigations into illegal experimentation. Motoko couldn't see much of Section 2 doing anything close to what Section 9 did on a regular basis, but to be here as a field agent, Aozora had to be something special.
Aozora peered up from his game. "I hope the other team hasn't run into any trouble."
But as soon as Aozora had spoken, sounds of gunfire and crashing rang out from the ground below. "You just had to open your damn mouth, Aozora," Batou fussed.
"Togusa!" Motoko called out over the cybercoms. "What's going on down there?"
"Just some cyborg enforcers," Togusa replied, adding in person, "that come out of the wall. Where does Mori get these ideas that end up being right?"
"Nothing we can't handle," Borma added. Pulling out his gun. While he preferred large, heavy artillery, repeated shots from an automatic into the joint of a wall-emerging cyborg would equally do the trick.
Paz snuck behind, taking his knife and driving it into the back of the cyborg's neck, attempting to sever any circuits he could reach. The combined efforts of the four at the access door took the cyborg down with ease.
"Well that was a bit disappointing," Paz noted, reaching into his pocket for a fresh cigarette.
Proto inspected the crumpled form of the cyborg. No noticeable ports, nothing to permit him to hack into whatever security system spawned the cyborg or to understand the numbers. It seemed rather odd to have such a small defensive line at the door, but the door itself wasn't overtly easy to find either. As Togusa reached for the next door, Proto was prepared to fight another wall cyborg, but found that it was a regular door. And with the access codes Aramaki had retrieved from the company building the internal network, the door opened without resistance.
Motoko glanced at her wristwatch again. Only a minute had passed since the sounds of gunfire had quieted. Batou had taken to smoking, while Daimon stood patiently, folding her arms as she cautiously watched the door. Aozora busied himself with some cellphone game, the sound effects whispering into the silence. Azuma had taken to keeping a watchful eye toward the skies, either watching for possible counterattacks or just looking at the clouds impatiently.
"Major," Proto spoke politely over the cybercoms. "I have taken control of the security system and internal network." It had taken him longer than usual as he attempted to counter the static that seemingly flooded the internal Net. He couldn't quite pinpoint its origins or why it was there, simply that it was. However, as a precaution, he kept his own intergates locked within his mind in an attempt to protect himself from any potential back-hacking as he dove into the system.
"I have control of the surveillance systems as well," Proto added. "Many of the workers have been corralled on floor 40, but the president is held on floor 42. Unlocking the roof doors. I am working to unlock a lower floor to handle the remaining assailants on the lower floors."
"Good work, Proto," Motoko complimented as the blast door rolled up, revealing the regular roof access door. "Tachikoma, assist Proto in whatever he needs."
"Roger, Major!" one of the Tachikoma replied excitedly.
"Proto," she added "I need a report on what artillery these people have."
"Mostly handguns and a few semi-automatics," Proto replied, searching the feeds as he worked to unlock the entryway doors. "But there is something on floor 42, a strange box wired to a control panel and possibly to the internal system. It does not belong, Major. Something about it bothers me, as if it's the source of the static I am hearing in the Net." He sent her an image of what he saw, of the box and of the people who had taken over the building.
"Then we need to retrieve that box," Motoko agreed. Static in a Net sounded very unusual unless that box was somehow attempting to jam or alter a signal. It wouldn't be the first time they'd encountered jamming, though that last time was done with a plane. This was a box. But if experience told her anything, boxes could be many things including a cyberbrain wired into a system, a storage box, even a means to relay certain information.
Motoko relayed the images Proto had sent her of the floors and of the box. "Take down only the assailants. No civilian casualties."
…..
"Really, Major, riding the elevator down to floor 40?" Batou scoffed over a personal cybercom link.
"It's a classic," Motoko countered. "And the assailants don't exactly look all too bright."
She'd looked over the visual for the assailants. Despite their numbers and the guns they toted, not a single one looked looked like they had any combat experience or even looked like they were even focused on reality. Something about the visuals felt off, and she had to see for herself.
She had divvied up the groups in a manner that surprised Aozora and Daimon, but not the other two. She and Batou took the greater number of assailants and hostages on floor 40 while the other three took to floor 42, where the CEO and the mysterious box were.
Batou understood the reasoning. He and Motoko had the most experience, and he highly doubted she'd become rusty in the last year. She reveled in action and likely had missed it. He understood her reasoning for leaving, her desire to sort things out after the case of the Individual 11. She had something with Kuze, but he'd never asked about it. Didn't seem like his business.
"Yeah what was with that?" Batou frowned as the elevator dinged open at 43. Activating his thermoptic camouflage, he peered out the elevator and down the hall. Empty. It looked like the place hadn't even been touched. He ducked back in. "All clear."
The two teams left the elevator camouflaged, heading in opposite directions to opposite staircases while sending the elevator down to floor 40 as a decoy.
"There's something fishy about this, Batou," Motoko agreed as the pair slipped down the staircase quietly towards floor 40. "That dazed look the assailants have, that box, that odd static Proto is hearing in the system. Something isn't right."
"You can say that again," Batou agreed, cracking open the door. The assailants were distracted by the elevator. Any sounds of the door were drowned out by the sounds of the assailants emptying their clips into the decoy elevator.
The pair approached the closest assailant and Motoko got a good look at him before smacking him in the back of the head with the butt of her gun. For a moment she'd thought perhaps the assailants were cyborgs, but this guy looked completely flesh. "No ports. Is this guy completely without prosthetics? He's not even wearing a bulletproof vest."
"How the hell did these people take over this place if they can't even remember to wear that?" Batou scoffed, diving for cover against the wall as two of the assailants opened fire down the hallway. They shot directly at the fallen assailant, filling him with holes without even a concern for his life. "Who the hell are these people!?"
From her position in the hallway, Motoko got a clearer view of the situation. Just as before, the office workers were corralled into a corner, while the assailants stood at a distance. These people really didn't know tactics. Just who were they? "I'll draw their fire."
He already knew what her plan was. Drawing their attention as they emptied whatever was left in their clips as he took them out. Certainly wasn't the safest of ideas, but hers never were. She was up to something or had noticed something even more out of the ordinary than this situation already was.
…
Proto had stayed with Borma in the small side room as the rest of the team headed towards the front door. While he had taken control of the system, that static still bugged him. He attempted to sort through the sounds while the teams inside the building lead the assault, but so far, it seemed like the equivalent of incoherent babbling. Constant random noise as if someone or something were attempting to interfere with the system.
He watched the action but mostly he was focused on floor 42, where Aozora had reached the box. As he placed his hands on the box, Proto heard a severe feedback in the system, a high-pitched whine, then words. Eyes wide in surprise, he quickly yanked the cords from the back of his neck, grabbing at his head.
"Proto!" Borma exclaimed in surprise.
"I suppose this is a headache," Proto rubbed at his head. He knew what they were but he wasn't even certain he was capable of having them. "I could've sworn, right before that noise, I heard something say 'We are the Collective. You cannot stop us'."
….
"The hell is going on?!" Batou shouted. He stood in the middle of the room, his gun poised to fire. He hadn't shot a single bullet yet every assailant had simply fell dead before them.
Motoko approached, turning one over and feeling for a pulse. "They're all dead."
"So they just up and die when we get here?!" Batou fussed some more. "The hell are these people?"
"All the assailants just dropped dead suddenly," Togusa noted over the cybercoms.
"Ours, too," the Major confirmed.
"They all stopped when Aozora pulled that box," Daimon added.
"There really is something going on here," the Major noted aloud, mostly to herself but partly to Batou. She noticed it before, when she attempted to draw their fire, when she looked at the feeds Proto had given her. Something was controlling them and that box was somehow connected. "But what is it?"
...
Author's musings
If you've read my other stories, you may recognize Sasami and Kasumi. They're two of the most popular characters from my Sailor Moon fics, but you'll find that they have their differences now in the GitS world.
Aozora's name comes from Bust A Groove, an old PS1 rhythm game. My favorite character in the game was Kitty-N and her theme is called Aozora no Knife. Aozora is apparently a very unusual last name, and I like unusual names.