"You studying for a test, or something?"

I awoke to see Batou standing over me, examining one of the many books I had purchased on cults. My wife had gotten tired of me reading at the table, so I wound up "working late" several nights in a row.

He flipped through one titled The Psychology of Mind Control. "Didn't you get enough of this stuff in the police academy?"

I rubbed my eyes and tried to sit up straight at the little table, foiled by a crick in my back.

"I think you drooled on that one," Batou pointed with disgust at the book I had been using as a pillow.

"Togusa!" The Major's sharp voice came out of nowhere behind me and I jumped. "You're finally awake. Go into the interrogation room, there's a suspect we picked up while you were napping. He refuses to speak to anyone with cybernetic modifications."

Batou shrugged. "I was gonna give him the full Section 9 treatment, but the Major figured that since you're here, you might as well do your job…"

"Yeah, yeah." I stood up, smoothed down some of the worst wrinkles in my rumpled clothes, and headed for the interrogation room.

Once inside, I took a good look at the guy seated at the table. He didn't seem like much. Yes, he looked almost fully cyberized (when you've been working with cyborgs as long as I have, you learn how to tell the difference), yet he had this gaunt look about him as if he hadn't been eating or sleeping well. Whatever was wearing on him, it had gone on for a while.

I sat down with a friendly smile, ready to greet him with one line or another, but he spoke up before I could even open my mouth. "Thank God, a human," he said with visible relief. "You gotta let me outta here."

I didn't hide my puzzlement. "You're a cyborg. Did you forget?"

He shook his head vigorously. "I try to avoid other cyborgs as much as possible, after…" Here he looked furtively around. There were no cameras in the room, and I guess the Major and Batou didn't have their noses against the glass like they usually did, because he relaxed ever so slightly. He leaned forward and whispered to me with the conspirator's air, "The lady cyborg…she's been infested."

He said this last word with such fear in his voice, I was wondering if he would pass out right there. "We have very dependable antivirus programs here," I assured him.

Looking at me like I had lost my mind, he said, "You can't tell? Has she been acting…strangely…lately?"

Frowning, I decided to try a different tack. "What do you mean by infested?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it. "Can't talk here. I can give you an address, though…"

"What? You're going to give me, the employee of the enemy, the address to your hideout?"

Shaking his head, he said, "It's not a hideout, it's a perfectly legal NGO. But…we can't risk…someone with her level of infection…the virus is spreading as it is…I think…" Here he began to shudder violently. "I think she may be the main carrier…"

Here was a conundrum. I certainly had no intention of screwing over Section 9 and doing what he asked. And yet…how could he sense something was wrong with the Major?"

I excused myself and came out to talk to Motoko. "What did you pick him up for?" I asked her.

"We think he is connected to a gun-running group that has links with organized crime," she explained. I looked at Batou. He shrugged.

"I go with what our fearless leader says," he told me, but he didn't look convinced.

I wasn't either. My ghost was screaming now, and it had something to do with the Major. There was no way that little twerp was connected to the yakuza gangs. Something strange was going on…

-&-

It was the first time I had intentionally deceived my colleagues. It was true that I didn't see any threat in the guy. But I didn't tell them about the address he gave me.

Back in the refugee district again, I found the place he had mentioned. It was a little out of the way, somewhat difficult to find, but it had its name clearly displayed on its windows: Phoenix Sanctuary. The cheery colors reminded me eerily of the Sunflower Society.

The young woman volunteering at the desk gave me a half-friendly, half-suspicious smile. "Are you here to pick up somebody?"

"Actually, I heard about this place from a friend. He said it could help my sister…but she's a little skittish. Is there someone I can speak to?"

She nodded. "Our assistant director is in the first room on the left."

I introduced myself to the middle-aged man sitting behind the battered desk. He introduced himself as Mr. Tanaka and invited me to sit down. "Has a member of your family, someone with a cybernetic body, been acting strangely lately?"

"Yes, my sister. A friend of mine told me I should come here. But he wouldn't say anything about what you did."

He nodded. "We've heard rumors that someone has been investigating us…someone with the Kuze Virus."

I blinked, startled. "The what?"

Mr. Tanaka folded his hands on his desk. "Do you remember a set of incidents a while back, connected with unrest regarding the refugee population?"

I nodded.

"The incident was fuelled by two individuals. One worked in the Japanese government and wanted to drive the refugees out. The other claimed to be a leader of the refugees. They worked for a similar purpose, but completely independent of each other."

"How do you know all this?" I demanded. This information had been restricted to Section 9 and the top officials of the Prime Minister's office.

"I'll explain in a moment. The refugee leader, whose name was Kuze, was actually the charismatic leader of a doomsday cult. He'd been given a full cybernetic body at a very young age, and was dissatisfied with his life as he saw it, half-machine. He believed that both he and the refugees were confined by circumstance. So he claimed he would set them free…with immortality in the Net. But only those closest to him knew how he planned to do this; via nuclear holocaust."

He leaned forward. "For the past year or so, he was constantly connected to the Net. He let people flow in and out of his mind…a mind poisoned with the cybernetic equivalent of smallpox. Anyone who entered his mind left infected.

"He targeted some vulnerable part of their mind, some memory that he could manipulate for his own purposes. Even after they left his mind, as long as they stayed connected to the Net, he would continue to feed them poisoned information. Eventually his followers believed that he was a kind of god, a messiah that would lead them from their world of suffering into Paradise."

By this time I was getting chills down my spine. I tried to sound sceptical. "Sounds pretty crazy…and you haven't told me how you came to know all this."

He rubbed the back of his neck, as if about to reveal something embarrassing. "I was one of his original followers. But as more and more people started joining in, we began to argue. I wanted to give people full disclosure about what would bring this Paradise about. He didn't. So we split. But before I left, I learned through working with him about the other side of the story, how that government guy was just waiting for Kuze to push the button. And I haven't heard about him since."

I was impressed in spite of myself. "So now you give counselling for people that were followers of Kuze?"

He nodded, and added, "But it's more than that. From working with people, I've noticed that fragments of his mindset – which we call the Kuze Virus – still lingers. It's mostly found in people who are in denial of its presence that have the worst cases."

People in denial. Oh, God…

"We're trying our hardest to eradicate the Kuze Virus," he continued, "but we think that it is growing and festering in individuals we haven't reached. We fear that it may show up again in mutated form…in another infected individual."

I tried not to stammer. "Another individual? Do you think that this person could…become the next Kuze?"

He nodded gravely. "It is essential that we find this person, so this does not happen again. I do not believe the Japanese authorities understand exactly what happened, and would not be able to prevent it a second time. In fact, we believe that the most likely carrier is actually employed in the military or some other security branch, and has begun working against us recently."

"You think the virus has started to take root in the M…in this individual?"

"Yes. And it is probably starting to grow in others that spend a lot of time around this person…friends, family, that sort of thing. So while we're on the subject, what shall we do for your sister? When do you think you could bring her in?"

I gave him false information for the next ten minutes, then rushed out of the office to make sure I could begin my own intervention for my "sister".

-&-

"Ludicrous!"

"What?" I jumped to my feet. "Chief, do you think that I'd make up something like this? For what, a laugh?"

The Chief slapped his glasses down on the pile of papers I had presented to him. "Togusa, I have complete confidence in the Major. She understands her place in this operation and I'm not about to question that."

"But sir…you can't deny that the Major's been acting odd ever since that Kuze guy showed up…"

He crossed his arms and gave me his best Look of Death. "Our work is stressful, and sometimes we react more to things than we should. Remember how you nearly blew everything apart at the end of the Laughing Man case? If Batou hadn't found you in time…"

"I know, I know! That's why we have to do something for the Major now, before she…"

"I have spoken with her personally, several times. She has assured me that there is nothing wrong and I believe her. I'm sorry I couldn't offer you the same support when you had your breakdown."

"Chief, this isn't about me…"

"I can't have your paranoid delusions undermining the trust that the people of Section 9 have in each other. There is nothing more to discuss, Togusa. You are dismissed."

Aramaki had spoken. There was nothing left to do. I left his office, dejected, and sat on a bench in the hall, my head in my hands.

Batou strolled over, his hands in his pockets. "What's the matter, kid? The old man chew you out again?"

I rubbed my forehead. "Uhn…Batou, I'm not in the mood right now…"

"I am. What is it this time? You forget your brain somewhere again?"

I looked up at him. Was what Mr. Tanaka said true? That the virus would begin to affect the friends of the person infected? Batou seemed like his old self. It would take one heck of a cult leader to put one over on him.

"I feel like a drink," I said as I heaved myself off the bench. "You want to hit the bars?"

His eyebrows nearly leaped off his face. "You drink? I never would have guessed…"

"You want to go or not?"

"Sure. Let me go ask the Major…"

"No. Nobody else. Just you and me."

He gave me a funny look. "Um…no offence, kid, but I just like you as a friend…"

"Shut up. This is important, and I need somebody stable to talk to."

"Stable? Me?" he laughed. "Okay, but if I have to listen to your sob story, you're buying."