Somehow it felt normal to return to these familiar halls in the Niihama building, even after being away for so long. After the Dejima crisis, she'd left, conflicted and needing to understand what she felt, what she knew. A year ago, the Solid State Society incident had pulled her back into the world of Section 9, yet she was still hesitant. She'd never told anyone what she learned when diving into that man's mind, nor had Batou said what he'd seen.

A year ago, she'd had a talk with Batou, confessing she was uncertain what to do now, where to go, what purpose she could fulfill, how to be free of these constraints. She had thought about it for a year, slept on it, dove deep into the Net, but ultimately came to the same conclusion she'd thought a year ago. The Major belonged in Section 9. That was where she truly felt free.

She had entered the building in a black corset, tight pants, and a black jacket that trailed down to her knees. No one acted as if her appearance was out of the ordinary. In fact, she was a rather welcomed sight, greeted as if she'd simply been away on vacation.

"Welcome back, Major." His arrival was marked by the familiar sound of his shoes and his cane on the floor. Aramaki greeted her, offering her a bit of a wry smile.

"It's good to be back, Chief," she nodded, not mentioning her reasoning, but it was likely he knew or had at least an understanding. "But if that wry smile is any indication, I'd say I'm in for quite the welcoming party."

"It will be an exciting one, to say the least," Aramaki agreed, beckoning her to follow. "I was just heading to the briefing room. You'll find that it has changed."

And changed it had. It was larger, more formal, with more seating and a larger screen. She recognized many of the faces, but there were a handful of new ones, including two women who sat near the back. Togusa stood at the front, images of the headquarters of Kotobuki Prosthetics flashing on the screen. The Major knew the name. Kotobuki was a forerunner in building highly sensitive, almost lifelike prosthetics.

Togusa paused in the middle of his sentence, staring up at the back of the room. "Major!"

"About damn time you returned for real, Major," Batou scoffed with a bit of a grin. He knew Motoko would come around soon enough, returning to Section 9 to find that purpose she sought. "Keeping us waiting this long."

"Well at least I didn't keep you forever," she teased, but in truth, she wasn't sure for much of the last three years that she would return. Yet now that she was here, it felt right.

But there was the matter of who would lead the teams. There were more now, more recruits, more fresh faces, and Togusa had lead the teams for 3 years now. While she could certainly take lead, letting Togusa grow in his leadership position wasn't a bad idea either. She'd leave the decision up to him and the Chief.

She focused silently on Togusa for a moment as he stared back at her. Proto glanced between the two, the only one seemingly uncertain what the two were thinking, but the girl sitting next to him seemed to be exuding sparkles of idolatry seeing the Major standing there.

"Let's continue with the briefing," Aramaki interjected, stepping forward and bringing information up on the screen. "As we all know, the Kotobuki headquarters disconnected from the Net early this morning, preventing exit or entry to its network and even the building itself. Despite the press blackout on the subject, bits and pieces of information have been surfacing on the Net with no real information we have to who is responsible for this."

Motoko leaned against the back wall, folding her arms, listening to the detailed briefing. This sounded like an all-too-familiar scenario. A takeover of a building, a lockdown, another press blackout. What crawled out of the dark reaches of the Net this time?

"However," Aramaki pointed out, blueprints now showing on the screen, "I managed to come in contact with the company that built the internal network system. The lockdown can be overridden by accessing a panel underneath the building, but there is only one way in. Once a hacking team is in, you will have roof access."

"They really didn't make this easy, did they," Ishikawa noted, running through possible contingency plans and scenarios in his mind. "But for a prosthetics company to have an internal Net capable of disconnecting from the rest of the world, they sure sound paranoid about something."

"It could possibly a contingency plan to prevent hacking and loss of intellectual property," Proto suggested quietly.

"Whatever the case may be," Aramaki continued, "we need access to the building. The prime minister received a ransom note saying that if their demands were not met, they would start killing off the cyberized workers one by one at exactly 3pm, an hour from now."

"And what exactly are these demands?" Togusa inquired.

"They demand that CEO Kotobuki be put on the news of Channel 33 to denounce the benefits of prosthetics. They seem to believe that there is some alternative, untested method that is superior, but what exactly it is, is currently unclear." Aramaki shook his head a bit.

"What a load of bull," Batou scoffed. "That's barely even a ransom. The hell are these people doing?"

"They could easily saturate the Net with this information," Ishikawa pointed out, leaning forward on the desk. "But it's unlikely that anyone would believe it without some credible source to back it up. I'm guessing it's about legitimacy."

"We can debate their reasonings later," Togusa quieted the gathered agents. "Right now, we have the lives of the building's workers at stake here." He glanced up at Motoko, who hadn't said anything since the briefing began. She simply stood there, listening to the conversation. He wasn't sure if she wanted lead back or to simply take part in operations. No one could quite replace the Major and her ability to lead, even as much as he'd tried over the past three years.

But he knew the Major was hardly one to sit back and observe. She was often the one who did the extra work, diving in ahead literally and cybernetically. Her tactical knowledge was unparalleled. But she'd also been away for three years, likely unfamiliar with the new recruits since she'd left.

She had finally moved, offering Togusa a nod, leaving him to organize the teams.

…..

The two Section 9 helicopters circled around the Kotobuki Prosthetics building. The streets nearby were blocked off, no media or even police in sight. As the intel had noted, the police had evacuated the area when the ransom note had arrived at the Prime Minister's office.

Borma peered out the helicopter door as it landed, observing the area and watching the second helicopter fly towards the roof. "You'd think a paranoid company would have cyborgs marching around, defending the place."

"I would reason even as a preventative measure, there would be some manner of cyborg defenses, Mr. Borma," Proto countered politely. "However, it is possible they were disabled."

"Or they only show up when you get close to the access door," Paz pointed out, flicking the cigarette out the helicopter door. "Never reveal the power until someone gets close to the prize."

"Ishikawa, Mori," Borma called out over the cybercom. "Any word on what sort of resistance we'll find here?"

"Nothing yet," Ishikawa replied. "Just the workings of the system."

"Can't really rule out the possibility that the company's modified the security beyond the original design, I'd say," Mori chimed in. She was a newer member of the team, a hacker who had been sitting next to Proto during the briefing and idolizing Motoko since she'd walked in. "You never know when cyborgs might just pop out of the wall."

Togusa frowned. There were times when he pondered if Mori took her job seriously, but she was good at what she did and always contributed to the team. "We'll simply proceed with caution. Until we return, see if you two can chain together the information that's been leaking onto the Net all day. It can't be random."

"Roger that," the two hackers replied in unison.

Togusa motioned for the team to follow, hopping off the helicopter and approaching the building. The area was suspiciously clear and devoid of any movement. The journey to the access door was rather simple, the team rounding the side of the building and behind a hedge wall with ease.

The team had been cautious, even approaching using thermoptic camouflage to hide their arrival from whomever inside may be watching. The helicopters could easily have signaled Section 9's arrival but with the lockdown in place, their only clues that a team had approached would've been through the camera surveillance system. The building itself was barricaded in, blast doors now covering all the windows and doors.

As they reached the access door, they dropped the camouflage, now out of sight of anyone from within the building. But as Togusa reached for the door, it began to move. He had almost doubted his eyes for a moment, staring as the team backed up towards the bushes and away from the moving wall.

The wall formed into something more recognizable, a pair of arms and legs, a shape for a head and a body. What seemed like cement bent and curved. Mori was close to right. The defensive cyborgs didn't come out of the wall. They were the wall.