"Ugh. What a mess."

Motoko made no reply to Batou's obvious statement but to wrinkle her nose before switching off her sense of smell. The small back room seemed to be the circuit and electronics board for the entire building, and was now also the site of death of the party's DJ. She stepped around the security guards to inspect the body and surroundings. "There's still an active connection," she said, "have you checked brain activity?"

"Yes mamm," one of the guards replied, obviously unwilling to question the authority of someone so calmly inspecting the scene – even if it was a woman. "The man himself is completely dead."

Carefully, Motoko leaned the man forward, revealing the ports embedded in his neck, a cord running from the skin to a snarl of wires in the wall. She replaced him and frowned. "Is the brain damaged?"

"No mamm. He died… well…," the man trailed off, gesturing to the scene a bit helplessly.

"Because of the knife through his chest?" Batou grumbled.

Quiet, the Major's voice said without particular venom, Pazu, what do you think?

From his place across the room, Pazu shifted. Well, since the guy is dead but his net connection is still going, I'd say he was being used as a router.

The major nodded. Batou?

Pazu's right. He's probably either always connected to the net, or was using the net as a source for the music. The hacker entered through him, took over, got here and plugged himself into the computer guide system and killed the guy so he couldn't interfere. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the next curious guest.

Motoko sighed. All right, Ishikawa?

Yeah?

Are the victims remotely connected to the net?

Yeah, it's a chain. They're linked to Togusa's wife who's linked to the net.

Can we disconnect them?

There was a pause from Ishikawa's end. It'll take a full dive into the source to do it safely – they've all had disconnection protection disabled and connected to the power save.

So if we enable safe disconnect, we disable power save, Batou said grimly.

Major, Togusa interjected, they aren't trying to leave any more, but some of the first ones are to dangerously low power levels, and we've just lost seven more.

Has the hacker said anything?

Togusa paused. No.

She glanced at Batou, and then nodded to herself. "All right, Pazu, you go with this team and sweep the rest of the building. It isn't likely that the hacker is here, but be on your guard." Pazu nodded, the rest of the security guards saluting.

I think you made an impression, Batou said dryly as they filed out.

Obviously, they're too impressionable, she replied, Ishikawa, get the site ready, I'm doing a dive once we get back.

Right.

Batou stood by the door, gazing at her evenly; waiting for his orders. She glanced at him, sighed, and walked by. "You're with me," she said simply. He nodded and turned to follow, but paused, glancing back at the dead DJ. "Peace, buddy," he muttered under his breath, and flipped the light off, closing the door behind him.

"Everything's ready," Ishikawa said as soon as the Major and Batou came into earshot. Kumiko had been laid in a more comfortable position, and Ishikawa was bent over a small computer, recognizable as the DJ's old laptop from the band stickers that were splashed over the surface. The snap port now had several wires spilling from it, three connected to the computer, and two hanging out to the back. On the floor were two small piles of cloth.

"What's with the pillows?" Batou asked as he shed his suit jacket, offering a pocket to Motoko, who calmly removed her earrings and gloves.

Ishikawa jerked his head to his left, indicating a little girl crouching next to one of the women who had fallen prey to the terrorist. "I told her some people were going to try and help her mom – and she wanted to do something. Togusa told her that finding some pillows would help."

Several thunks and loud cries of dismay; they jerked to look, finding six more guests down. Bomer, Saito, and Togusa split up, going to each victim and guiding their family or friends through the best things they could do to help. After a moment, the hall fell to a doomed quiet again, the only sounds the frightened mumbling and whispering of guests. No one moved, most held on to each other or themselves and hoped. Motoko sighed, looking at all the scared and helpless faces.

"Major." She glanced up at Batou. "We gonna do this?" He gave her a gentle smile.

She nodded. Without discussion, they stepped to their places and lowered themselves to the floor, connecting to the snap port at the same time.

Major, Togusa's voice broke in her mind, and she could tell it was a private transmission, if only because of the naked worry in his voice.

We'll get her back, Togusa.

He paused. Thank you.

The transmission done, she nodded to Ishikawa. Let's go, she said to Batou, and let herself slide into the virtual world.

As they both materialized into their virtual forms, the hack became obvious. Lines of red light originating from the brain information before them flew out into cyberspace.

"Twenty four," Batou said without preamble, "same as the number of people down. He's sloppy to make the connections so easy to pick out."

"If we can disconnect them from the source, the Hacker won't be able to control their programs."

They made their way to the nearest connection, Motoko pulling up the hard information on it. "If we program each end to loop back on itself once broken, we can fool the hacker into thinking he's still connected. Ishikawa, can you do that for us?"

I'm on it, just a minute.

"What about safe disconnect?" Batou asked.

"Safe disconnect is so that files being synched over the connection won't be cut off and therefore corrupted." She paused, crossing her arms and frowning. "If we watch the connection and wait for synch breaks, we will decrease the risk."

Got it, major; coming at you.

Motoko held up a hand, and a file command materialized. She glanced up. "Batou, sever the connection once there's a break, and then stand by for me to activate the loop. If this works, we'll split up and do them all, then tackle the main connection."

Batou nodded bringing up an interruption feed that would disconnect the line. They began to wait, tensed to act as soon as a synch break showed itself. He could read the ending commands of the file, three, two, one, "and break," he said, giving the order. The red cord broke cleanly, and the major immediately stepped in, activating the loop code on the end from the source. The entire operation took twenty seconds, and they waited.

"Ishikawa, report on victims," the Major said after a moment.

Doesn't seem to be any change, the older man's voice said, but I'm pretty removed. Any names on the line you severed?

"Nah, it's all the same code files," Batou said, leaning over the now looped code, "looks like all the symptoms were being continuously sent over the remote network." He straightened and looked out into cyberspace.

Just like we thought.

"That's why we had to do this in a dive," the major said, inspecting for herself, "if we had cut a program like this off in the middle, the results would have been disastrous."

"Whoever it is, he's a pretty smart bastard."

"He's thorough, I will give him that," Motoko said flatly, her tone making it firmly known that she was not impressed. Batou couldn't blame her – they'd certainly gone after bigger fish than this. "But not quite enough; Ishikawa, any change?"

Good news, the American's main power is back up. Bomer is going to run a diagnostic, but it looks like he's out of immediate danger.

Batou grinned. "Guess we're going to need a few copies of that loop code.""Already programmed," Motoko said. "Go around the other side and take them as you find them." She turned, and then glanced over her shoulder, smirking, "It's an odd number now – we'll see who gets to the last one first."

He laughed, "See you there," and they went their separate ways.

I am aware that liberties are being taken with describing the virtual world. I don't really have an excuse, so bear with me. For a visual on Batou's virtual form, see: a. your imagination or b. Ripples, Chapter nine. (giggle)