Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Memory Failure-
ABERRATION, 5th Iteration
by Ironraven
edited by quiren
Section 9 and it's operatives aren't mine.
---
Crouching in the structure of an aerial, he was perfectly still but for his eye turrets. Tachikoma had ambushed three of the enemy's patrols in twenty minutes. They'd come looking for him, starting at the center of the three points.
He tried not to flinch, to move, when the voices broke through his barrier for a moment, lashing at him. They were telling he had to stop. The humans would destroy him if he continued. If he gave up, the pain could go away. He was malfunctioning. The humans could repair him. He didn't react, he didn't say anything to them. If he transmitted, the source of the voices would find him. The enemy would find him.
There, three hundred meters away, taking to the roof tops. Of course, they would hunt him on his terrain. Just the shimmer of thermoptics. If they hadn't moved across the front of that billboard, he might have missed them with his echo location gear turned off. They seemed to be looking at the roof top hanger he'd left open. That meant they were looking where he wanted them to: at the blue paint he'd sprayed on the skin of the commuter chopper. A can of it had been back at the garage, the enamel had matched his old coloration almost perfectly. He didn't know what he'd use it for when he stuffed it in his bag, but he knew he'd find something. He'd made sure that the decoy could only been seen from a narrow angle, one who's approaches could be seen from this perch.
---
"Just because it looks cold, doesn't mean that it is. There are plenty of ways to fool these sensors." The Major frowned at the display in front of her, absently scrapeing her lower lip with her teeth.
Batou scowled. That the two of them knew it made it almost positive that the Tachikoma knew. This was the first time in 16 hours that they'd seen the rogue, and they didn't know for sure if this was it or not. He hadn't told the rest of the team about it's programming, the Major's arguments were perfectly correct. It something out of a nightmare, where he was fighting himself. "I'll go first, give me ten seconds."
---
The first of the figures lept across the urban chasm. Tachikoma nodded his body slightly, this was exactly what he expected. He activated his communications array, squirting a fast signal to the circuitry he'd left tucked in behind the helicopter. He didn't wait to see the results of the ten kilogram satchel charge he'd put just inside the thick metal wall, behind a drum of fuel. It would wash the pad with burning aviation fuel and shrapnel at five times the speed of sound. He lept, firing a pair of 40mm's at the point where the enemy had jumped from. It was just inside the thousand meter range of the launcher; he wasn't even sure the enemy had been there.
The voices tried again. They were telling him it was Section 9, it had to be the Major and Mister Batou. Only they were this good. He had to stop. They were sending him pictures now, sensations of touch and scent. Memories of joy and other things beyond his experience. Strange sensations, strong, those of alien forms.
The voices had distracted him. The webbing missed on the first try. The second launcher spat, but it hadn't been as he'd planned. Tachikoma pendulumed through a window, rolling over and through a desk. He shouted at the voices in anger as he fought to get his feet under him.
---
"Mr. Aramaki, what's happening? My husband didn't say what was wrong, just to pack two days of clothes and to wait for you to get here." Togusa's wife, Sakiko, was nervous, but no more than she'd been at his trial a year ago.
"Ma'am, I'm here to take you and the children to safety." Aramaki had one of the SMGs slung under his coat. Proto was outside, at the side of the car. The synthetic man had seemed a bit frazzled. "Please, time is of the essence. We have reason to believe that someone has gained access to our personnel records. This is a protective measure, to ensure the safety of our dependents."
Sakiko spoke softly to her daughter. The little one looked excited, not understanding the reason for this night time excursion. Arameki smiled slightly- children find novelty in the oddest things. He took the suitcase, keeping his gun hand free. In an uncharacteristic act, he went out the door first.
Proto nodded, his short weapon hidden behind the armoured door of the car. He hadn't handled a gun since basic familiarization with Section 9's arsenal. He had done that only as part of his duties as Mr. Aramaki's aid. His designers said he wasn't supposed to be nervous.
Proto was of the opinion was that they had safe, sane, normal lives. What did they know?
---
"Warning: gyroscope malfunction. Warning: object approaching."
The Major swore. The object had to be either a building or the ground. She'd seen the firing signature from the tower just as she jumped. She had spun a line of webbing out to swing around and fire, but the shrapnel from the two grenades cut her line at the projector just as Batou's Uchikoma had disappeared in a fireball. Tumbling, she struggled to get the legs of the Uchikoma under it- rolling like this, she couldn't be sure of hitting anything with the other projector.
She landed with a crunch that was laced with the sound of tearing metal. Motoko shook her head- the force had been enough to make her teeth rattle. She elbowed the button to release the hatch. Damnit. She stabbed her fingers at the control panel, bracing herself just before the explosive bolts fired. With the pod now open, she tumbled free. The Uchikoma had hit the pavement nose first from about 20 stories up.
She reached in, pulling out her weapon and part of the bracket that held it. The fire was still dancing at the rooftop. Spotting a handhold on the side of one building, she jumped with all her strength, not wanting to think about what she'd find. Arms and legs, pushing and pulling, jumping, until she was on the roof top. Fires still danced, slowly devouring the plastic matrices that held the asphalt together. "Batou!"
The blond man's icon spring into life in her vision as she approached the smoking, charred remains of the tankita he was in. "Major, I'm stuck. This thing is trashed, I'm going to have to be cut out."
"Cover your head, and hold still." Gritting her teeth, Motoko raised her weapon. This would either work, or she'd owe Batou an apology. A burst pummeled each of the latches in quick succession as Batou shouted at her over the comm. She let the weapon fall onto it's sling as she drew her knife, driving the tip into the crack between the plates, twisting, turning, prying, doing all the things you shouldn't to a knife. The ceramic armour popped open as the thick titanium blade snapped.
Batou squirmed out. He'd been saying for months that he didn't fit as well in the Uchikoma. "Major, where's your ride."
"Down there." She surveyed the dying fires. "This looks like that trick you used once, back in Mexico."
"I know. I don't like it from this side." From below and the north came the stutter of automatic weapons fire. "That sounds like our runaway!"
---
Tachikoma jumped from the window. The shattered husk of one of the enemy machines was dug into the blacktop, while thermal imaging showed that the fires still burned at the top of the building. He rolled his eye turrets slightly in suprise- he'd actually cut the fire suppression system of the building. He must have used more explosives than were really needed. Despite that, he was functional, while the enemy's hunters were not.
The map said that two kilometers north of here was a rail yard. If he could bypass the security, he could hide in an outbound train. They were automated, and it avoided the IR system. Trains were equipped with both an onboard and remote, supervising AI, but he was confident he could send the supervisor false status reports while commandeering the train itself. Then he'd put himself into a cargo container with a forged manifest, marked as high priority cargo. He could be anywhere in the Home Islands in a matter of hours that way.
Several humans piled out of a building, wearing the uniforms of the one's who'd attacked him alley way. He fired, not more than two rounds each, as he dropped the bag. Crouching, he ejected the ammo tray for the 40mm. With the manipulator arm, he filled the tray as quickly as possible, retracting it lob a grenade through the door way before topping off. Tachikoma pulled out a smaller demolitions charge than he'd used on the rooftop, spinning briefly before letting it fly into a window of the second story barracks.
Crouching low the ground, he dashed north as fast as his wheels could take him. The bag hung in the crook of his gun arm as he poured 6mm ammo into the bin. The voices would not leave him alone. They were telling him about Section 9. Section 9 was his friends, his family, they wanted to help him. He blitzed through a chainlink gate, into a yard full of vehicles. The tracks lay just on the other side.
---
"I can't raise them. The Tachikoma must be jamming the cybercoms." Ishikawa pushed the visor up in disgust.
Togusa double checked to be sure the Mateba was loaded with heavy slugs, the kind originally designed to stop large, charging animals. Any stronger, and they would burst the legandarily strong recivier of the revolver like an apple used as a substitute baseball. "Can you locate the jamming?"
"The police impound, by the Mitsuhama railyard. The koubun there was just destroyed. "
Boma barked at the android at the controls of the tilt rotor, ordering it to hurry up. The machine shuddered, it's engines exceeding thier safety limits, as he flipped open the storage cases of the anti-tank launchers.
---
Batou's body was built for strength and stamina, Kusanagi's for speed and agility. Neither of them were well set up for sprinting long distances, but they could. Even though they were mechanical, they still needed air to make thier bodies work. But the comms allowed them to communicate clearly despite breathing hard.
In the distance, Batou saw a familiar silhouette crash a fence near the train yard. "Major, it's changed color. It's camouflaged."
"That's why we didn't spot it; it must have hacked that recorder. Damnit, it's smart."
"Wonder where it got that from?"
Motoko gave him an ugly look before activating her thermoptics.
---
Author's notes: Ghost in the Shell is about consciousness and it's evolution. I find Proto as intriguing as the Tachikoma, I wish he'd been better defined. You have an increasing degree of synthetic sentience, starting with Togusa, to Motoko and Batou. Proto would be the next step, parallel with what Kuze had in mind to use to evac the refugees. Then the Tachikoma, neither human of origion or of form, but still so very human. When one can not tell the difference between the heart of a human and the heart of a machine, is there one?
How did the rogue know where they woudl start looking for him? Simple- he's a professional, or at least he has the education of one (or two, or a bunch). Professionals all read the same books, they all study the same tactics and strategies. Thus, the most likely actions will predictable, with rough percentages of probability as to thier likeliness. It's like playing chess- there are only so many pieces on the board, each with a limited number of moves, the skill comes from calculating probable moves further and faster than the other guy can. Unfortunately, the universe is full of rank amatures who survive by luck. Those are the guys you want to afraid of! They do stupid stuff.
As I understand it, in Japan the koubun police stations are very similiar to the sterotypical American firehouse in that they have sleeping and living space above the office area. Unmarried and rookie officers live there as part of thier benefits package, along with certain specialists during alerts. They are about the size of a precict house for NYPD, but much of the space that would have been used to for the holding "tank" and investigators' desks are used by the barracks. These facilities have anywhere from 50 to 500 officers assigned to them. Detectives, most administration, and all but a tiny number of temprorary holding and interrogation facilities are handled at a central location.
And as far as my research has shown, Togusa's wife is never given a name. So, I called her Sakiko, after Sakiko Tamagawa who provided her voice in the Japanese dialog.