Her ghost returned to a strange sensation. She was being kissed. It wasn't a bad feeling; in fact, she was not at all adverse to it. Confused, she moved a hand to see who was holding her so – and found the familiar feel of Batou's ghost around her. Before she had a chance to react to that though, alarms rang shrill and insistent in the background. Her eyes snapped open and she gasped to find no one there, though she could just see the twinkling of a recently vacated virtual body.

"Ishikawa!" she called to the space, "Report!" She refused to think about the feelings the virtual data had manifested – it could have been a result of the barrier she had gone through earlier.

Major! Are you two all right? I lost contact and an A-class attack barrier just went through a moment ago. From the looks of it, it would have done more than its share of damage even on you.

"I'm fine." She paused, a small worm of fear manifesting itself. "Do you have an output for Batou?"

There was a pause. Major, his data introverted a second ago… I can't be sure, but I think he might have taken a hit from that barrier.

The worm turned into a rope, one hand clenching into a fist. From what Ishikawa had said, she had still been connected when the barrier hit – which could only mean that she was still here because Batou wasn't. She cursed silently.

"Ishikawa! I'm coming back. Get Togusa, Pazu and Saito – I know where the hacker is, but he won't be there for long."

Got it, Ishikawa replied, and she closed her eyes, returning to her physical body.

As soon as she opened her eyes, she rolled over and pulled the dive cord from the back of her neck, reaching out and taking out Batou's as well. If he was on introverted data, she wouldn't need to worry about disjointed files.

"Major?" Togusa's voice asked from behind her, but she ignored him, grimly connecting herself to Batou… and gasped, disengaging almost as quickly.

She cursed, dropping the wire to support herself on the cold tile, breathing heavily. She had her answer though, Batou had defiantly protected her from the tracing trap – his cyber brain was a tangled web of static still in the midst of the attack.

"Major, are you alright?" Chief Aramaki asked, crouching down beside her. She grimaced.

"In a vague sense of the word, yes," she replied. "I have the hacker's location," she sent him a set of coordinates and directions, "Send Pazu, Saito, and Togusa, and tell them to be careful – whoever it is, they've got military attack barriers and hack techniques - they might know what they're doing."

"What about you?"

She frowned, gaze falling on an unmoving Batou. "Batou took an attack barrier for me," she said shortly, "I need to make sure that he isn't in immediate danger after the initial offensive."

Aramaki glanced over at the cyborg, face suddenly grim, and then stood up. "All right, They can handle acquisition without you. But as a main observer to his technique I need you when we get to interrogation."

She nodded, ignoring several curious gazes of relieved party guests as she lay down again, connecting to Batou. Ishikawa reached to move the computer connection, she shook her head. "Don't bother," she said, "I can do this alone – help Kumiko and the others recover."

There was a long pause, Ishikawa frozen with his hand out. She knew that the older man knew both her and Batou well enough to guess that there was more than a wish for him to help others behind her insistence to go alone. But he didn't show it when he finally nodded. "Be careful," he said, and she couldn't help but recall that those were also Batou's last words to her. They seemed so different coming from Ishikawa, though. Frowning, she forced herself from sentimental ideas, and closed her eyes.

She didn't require a full dive to see the damage the barrier had inflicted. It wasn't the damage that worried her though; she knew that a reset would repair most of it, or get it to a point where he could repair it. But he couldn't do anything because the barrier had forced him to retreat inward and then trapped his ghost in reversed barriers.

She knew that the alternative would have been a ghost hack or even elimination, and considering the circumstances he was either good or lucky.

Probably a bit of both; she had come back just as the barrier was ending its pass and taken the last bit of it on her dummy barrier. She frowned, not wanting to dwell on the fact that it had been her return that had pushed the barrier along. In a roundabout way, she was responsible for this ghost trap Batou was caught in. Brushing the barriers that had been erected, she realized that they were slowly closing in and growled. Not only was he trapped, but the space was getting smaller, and no doubt he was still too stunned to do anything about it.

Forcing herself to be calm, she reached in to try and at least halt the barrier's advance.

Nothing. She'd have to disable the barrier itself first.

And to do that, she'd need either a lot more time… or a code. And no doubt, if the hacker had the wall – he also knew the door.

One of the security guards hardly registered that section nine's major had gotten up before she had grabbed his gun and disappeared.

Bomer looked up as she went by, Ishikawa catching a glimpse as well. She was out the door before he could get a word out though.

Togusa, you guys got the bastard yet?

Togusa's voice was tinted with surprise as he replied, No, not yet – we had a little trouble with some security AI in the building.

Hurry up – I'll come on a different route, but I need that hacker pronto!

She was almost to the door of the building – a typical business tower across from the new center – when a crash and several shot made her look up. Glass shot out from a top floor, sparkling in the city lights like spring rain. A figure jumped out, spreading its arms wide.

Major! He jumped out the window!

She didn't reply, something constricting her thought processes… whoever it was, they were plummeting towards the ground with no signs of stopping. In the part of her mind that was still processing properly, she dully realized that he was going to kill himself rather than let them take him in. He was probably a perpetrator with nothing to lose.

Well. She had something to lose. Grimacing, she planted her feet and jumped at the falling man, slamming into him from the side. Midair, she twisted around to land hard on her feet, contact cracking the pavement beneath her. She grunted and threw the man in her arms to the ground harshly, kneeling on his chest as he coughed and sputtered, cursing her blindly.

"You bitch!" he mumbled over broken teeth, "Let me die," he coughed, "with honor!"

She punched him, sending his head back into the pavement. "Normally I'd grant your wish to die still in the glory of your exploits with relish, but you have something I want."

He opened a bruised eye, looking at her properly for the first time. She met his gaze fiercely, lips tight, and his good eye widened. "You're...," he gasped, "oh God, you're the one I felt." He paused. "But I set that trap for you… why're you…"

Another pause, and then he began to laugh, body shaking beneath her hands with mirth. "That other one! He- oh this is too much!" the hacker continued to giggle like a madman, Motoko quickly losing patience.

Nice catch, Major, Togusa said over the com system. She glanced up, just barely seeing Togusa and Saito's figures leaning out of the tower.

I'm going in, she said, yanking the connector cord from her neck, be ready to take him into custody as soon as I'm done.

Major, Saito said, are you sure you should be doing a dive on that guy? He's got some shiny toys – looks like he knows what he's doing.

He's also got a reverse firewall ghost trap with Batou in it, she replied shortly, and immediately felt the silence as the three men took that in, get the hell down here, I won't be long no matter what happens – we're running out of time.

She didn't wait for their reply, connecting to the man and shoving herself into the tangled web of his thoughts as the hacker continued to giggle, obviously long off the deep end.

For a military man – or at least someone with access to military cyber codes – his barriers were flimsy as hell. She bypassed the man's protective systems with more caution than was necessary, wary of traps, but there weren't any. His brain was practically clean – no mazes, no firewalls, no traps. Only a low grade military barrier – nothing like the ones she had seen during the hack. If she had had more time, she would have snooped for information, but all she bothered to get was his name – the rest could wait as far as she was concerned.

She just needed the codes…. There. Behind a modest wall – easily sidestepped – were codes for erecting each barrier and dismantling it. She frowned. This was too easy… she glanced around. Nothing. For all she could tell, this was the brain of a low ranking military secretary – if that. Even soldiers managed to have better protection than this…

But that didn't matter. Togusa and the others could figure that aspect of this case out. Right now, she had to think about Batou. The firewall that had him trapped seemed to jump forward out of the mass of codes that lay embedded in the man's mind and she quickly copied the files, withdrawing from the man's brain as quickly as she could.

But she paused, halfway out, something catching her eye. "Remnants of a dummy barrier?" she muttered to herself, inspecting the shred of code more carefully. No doubt – whatever it was had been blown almost completely away. She swore – this could be evidence of a ghost hack, and she didn't have time to investigate right now. Filing the information away for later, she pulled out, sitting up in the real world to find Togusa, Pazu, and Saito jogging towards her. She pulled the plug on the connection, idly realizing that her gloves were still in Batou's coat.

"Major! What's going on?" Togusa said in slight frustration, he paused, glancing at her face. "Are you all right?"

She blinked, and then shook her head. "I'm fine. Cuff this guy and keep him stable. There's some evidence of a ghost hack and the main codes for the barriers he used are in that brain of his – we'll need it." She stood, "I'm going back."

None of them protested, the knowledge that she was leaving to help Batou ensuring their silence. As Pazu took a hold of the hacker, she began at a dead sprint back to the refugee center. It had been seven minutes since she had disconnected with Batou and she was starting to think she was dangerously close to being too late.

The thought troubled her far more than she was willing to admit to herself.

She burst into the center again to a much thinner crowd than she had left. The police and security teams had probably cleared out anyone not directly affected or related to those affected. But she didn't bother to check who was still there, and strode to where she knew Batou still lay, staunchly ignoring a guard who tried to get her name and rank.

Aramaki stood over the ex-ranger with the aura of a cranky bird of prey, hands linked behind his back and feet shoulder length apart in parade rest. He nodded as she approached, and she could see Ishikawa's computer hooked to Batou, monitoring his signs. She bit back a sigh of relief, knowing that her greeting would have been different if his ghost had disappeared.

Taking out her connector cord yet again, she gently worked her fingers under his neck, plugging into the port and diving in. The barrier had closed in alarmingly fast in less than ten minutes – she had been right to be worried. As she uploaded the dissolution code to his system, she briefly wondered what would have happened if she had not been able to catch the hacker. If his ribcage and heart had not been prosthetic, he probably would have died merely from the impact of her jump…

She closed her eyes, swiftly severing all lines of thought which lead down that road. It was a dangerous one to travel. Something beeped and clicked – she opened her eyes to find Batou's brain suddenly cleared of all military firewalls. But she knew he wasn't completely out of danger yet – his dummy barriers were all down, and some of his memory caches were probably banged up; to say nothing of the damage the ghost itself had probably suffered. She knew that trap barriers like that were often traumatizing, and his past as a ranger had been as smudged and dirtied as hers with the military.

She allowed herself a quiet sigh, dissolving from the dive and disconnecting herself. Batou, you idiot, she thought, why did you take that for me? She glanced over at him, knowing that there were at least three different answers to the question.

"Major – is he out of danger?"

She looked up in slight surprise having forgotten that the chief was standing over them. "Yes," she replied, standing up and forcing herself to settle, "all signs of the attack barrier are gone. Unfortunately, so are most of his own protective measures." She paused, arms folded tight across her chest as she watched Batou. "He probably won't be up for awhile," she said quietly.

"What about you, are you all right?" the chief asked.

It occurred to her that most everyone was asking her that. She shrugged. "Thanks to him," she said and turned. "I'm going to help Togusa and the others."

Aramaki nodded. "Good. I'll let you know when arrangements have been made for Batou."

She paused, glancing back at the man again; her ruby eyes softer than usual. "Thank you," she said simply, and waved as she went to the front of the building, where police lights flashed like a crooked circus show.

I love the image of the Major catching someone midair only to slam them into the pavement and get information from them. It just seems like something she'd do.