Disclaimer: I do not own any Ghost in the Shell. That is proudly owned by Shirow Masamune. This goes for both the movies and the Stand Alone Complex.

Chapter 6:

Entry 51:
And God said to Motoko, 'I will give you gills and open the doors to paradise.' Or at least that's what God would have said to me today if he was talking. Mack, the guy who developed my BCD (buoyancy control device), took us out into the area just outside of the old city. He anchored the boat and got our gear ready. He only stumbled once, when I answered his question about my body weight. I laughed and reminded him I'd spec'd a heavy-duty floater for that reason and he said he just didn't realize I was made out of lead. Once he rebalanced the system for my weight, he strapped it on me and told me to delay entry until he was in the water. Then he walked off the edge of the boat. When I did the same, I bobbed on the surface like a child's toy. He chuckled and explained he'd over compensated just in case I'd lied about my true weight. After a few more adjustments, he said I was ready to dive.
There's a part of the human section of my brain that argues against logic with faith. It tells me that I should stand and fight when logic demands I retreat. It also tells me that breathing when surrounded by water will drown me irregardless of the regulator. However, when the world starts getting fuzzy around the edges, the human sides takes a blind leap of faith and says…BREATHE!
So there I was, getting fuzzy around the edges when I suddenly suck two lungs full of…air. After a panicked breath or five, I calmed down and opened my optics. The view is astonishing.
Sunlight filters through saltwater, diffracting in unique ripple patterns that gives the world in front of me a visual texture. But when I reach out to touch these ripples, I pass right through them, as if I have no substance. For the brief few minutes of time I had before my tank beeped to let me know I was running out of air, I felt as if I was only a mirage, an inconsequential pattern woven into the weft of the universe itself. For the first time in a very long time, my ghost was at peace.
When we came to the surface of the water, it was like I was personally experiencing the painting by MC Escher in which a fish looks through the water at leaves and shimmering trees. I could almost envision the fish thinking that he was looking into another dimension. I felt the same way, looking at wavy sky-scrapers and dislocated floaty clouds while the sun rained rippled beams around my body. Breaking the surface is like falling from heaven, but in reverse. Gravity suddenly asserts itself at the normal ratio and all of the invisible worries begin to climb back on. It's almost as if I'm putting armor on to go into battle, and quite disturbing after the freedom I've just deserted. If only I had gills.

Entry 52:
On a professional note, the Laughing Man seems to have made a resurgence. We sent Togusa in undercover to a cyber asylum for children. It was the location TLM was last traced to. We haven't heard from him yet today, but I won't be worried for another…forty-three minutes.
I also approached Batou to see if he would be willing to go diving with me. He gave me the "Batou Death Glare;" but said if I was determined to do a fool's folly, he'd be the man on the surface.

Entry 53:
Sorry I've been gone for a day or two…Togusa managed to get himself brain hacked, and beaten up while on assignment. After he finally woke up, he drew a picture of the person he thought was TLM. When he handed it over, it was just the deaf-mute symbol TLM uses to hide his own identity. The guys howled at it, but I didn't find it so humorous. It really bothered me because until the guys pointed out his foolishness, he thought it was the profile of a real person. TLM has more abilities than we originally suspected.

Entry 54:
Togusa's wife and I had a long sit-down chat today. She informed me that she did not appreciate the danger I'd placed her husband in. I explained that as THE single human member of the team, he was the only person who could have gone on that assignment. I know she was frustrated and upset. Her husband left to go on-duty, disappeared for three days, and reappeared in the hospital looking like he's gone seven rounds with Muhammad Ali. Since she didn't know details, I took her bitch-slap without blinking. The things I do for my team. She made a nice gash in my skin with that damned diamond ring of hers, and I'll probably have to get my jaw realigned. I wonder if Togusa has any idea his wife is actually a tiger.

Entry 55:
TLM went back underground as a result of Togusa's actions, so Aramaki gave us all a couple of days off. Of course it's with the provision that we come back as soon as we're called. So, Batou agreed to go "boating" with me if I would spend the morning helping him look at options for a dog. Although I thought a militant man such as himself would be partial to miniature Dobermans, Batou leans towards Bassett-hounds. What? Does he have any idea how much work those dogs require? How ironic. He's a high-maintenance cyborg thinking about getting a higher maintenance hound, while performing a job that is not conducive to any kind of lifestyle that requires predictable schedules.
I told him my thoughts while we were heading out to the dive site, the wind whipping my words around us in disarray. Batou finally said that as long as he had me around, he didn't need a pet. I was high maintenance enough for him. I smacked him and went below deck to suit up.
Just like last time, when I hit the water, my concerns scattered, as if they were dissolvable in that universal solvent. I concentrated more on my breathing this time, allowing myself to be under far longer than my initial dive. I had my link off, so it was just the void and myself. I later tried to explain to Batou that being down there is akin to regaining my mortality. Mortal people face the eternity of the beyond. Regardless of what religion each person has or does not have, each mortal dies. At that point, the only thing humans know is that the continuum of life ceases to exist in the four dimensional plane.
Being deep underwater, where the ripples of light fear to go, is figuratively observing eternity. It is staring at the unknown of what is to come. That dark place between the surface and the bottom, where life again reasserts itself, is only seldom broken by fish and other marine life that dart in and out of visibility. Much like how my ghost drifts in and out of my normal consciousness. This trip, I was actually glad to breech the barrier between the world of Poseidon and the world of air. My ghost had nothing cheerful to say.
When I broke surface, I looked over to Batou and had to stifle a chuckle. His forehead was all wrinkled up and he was shouting at me. I couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, but I could get the gist. I opened my link and told him a shar-pei would better suit him since he got all wrinkly when he frowned. He flipped me off, but immediately helped me with my gear without a single complaint.

Entry 56
Aramaki called us back in one day early. A librarian was found in the middle of the park yesterday, completely in a quandary about how she'd gotten there. She had no recollection about anything after filing a group of books in section 142.56.7. Togusa said he felt it was related to TLM, so Aramaki stuck him in the library cataloging every book. I always though he was a little bit of the bookworm. A tenacious bookworm at that.

Entry 57:
Dogs, dogs, dogs. I had a dream last night I was being chased by a basset hound with optic implants and a wrinkled forehead. It kept barking at me that I'd been underwater too long and I needed to come up so we could go shopping for a human. Okay, so maybe my ability to metabolize alcohol isn't as up to par as I've been bragging about, or maybe I shouldn't have stopped at the bar on the way home last night. Today I get to work, and Batou is looking at breeder records for…dogs. I HATE dogs. Well, not really. I just don't like to dream about dogs. I don't have a dog, I don't want a dog. I don't think Batou needs a dog, but he says he needs something to care for, he feels like he's losing his humanity. I told him that it was because he'd traded his human brain in on a better model. I can't repeat his exact words, but they were quite acerbic.

Entry 58:
Day three of the Togusa Bookworm Watch. He'd made it through the letter J of books cataloged three years ago when he found the missing book. Pretty impressive considering he had to pull each box out by hand. It had a list of each person who'd received the Murai Vaccine. I am now very curious to find out if TLM is involved or if it's another copycat.

Entry 59:
After extensive research, Batou decided not to get a dog right now. He said that currently he can only get cloned dogs, and they are neither individualistic nor healthy. I pointed out that I was not individualistic and he argued that I wasn't a clone either. I needed to remember that a clone was not unique on the inside, while a cyborg body was just a shell that housed the soul and was how people "see" me in their minds when they hear my voice. He went on to say that he'd always see me as the girl I was before I became a cyborg and my current shell was of little importance to our friendship. Then he smacked my ass and said that this shell was certainly nice to look at though. He's definitely going to pay for that at some foreseeable future.

Entry 60:
The sun shining through my normally closed window woke me very early this morning. Since I always sleep with the window closed, I was very disoriented. Rolling over, I realized that I was fully dressed and lying on top of pink covers, which was an immediate sign I was not at home. Furthermore, Courtin was curled up under the covers beside me. That's when I remembered stopping by after work last night because she left me a message stating we needed to talk. However, I crashed before we were able to have the discussion in question. She probably wants to kill me right now.
Although she's the most emotionally stable of the three, she still gets bent when I don't spend any time with them. I've not been available the last three months, which is a long time for all of us to go without meeting. Courtin is just going to have to understand that I'm not here for her amusement. There's a reason I haven't pursued a more permanent relationship with anyone. I am a public safety officer, and dammit but terrorists don't choose convenient times to come calling.
To make matters worse, I left without even waking her up. I needed to stop by my place before I went in to work, and I didn't have time to deal with what she wanted to discuss. I wonder if WacDonald's Apple Pies would work on her, probably should send flowers instead. My watch says it's 7am and I'm going to have to jet. Each of us have been given separate assignments, none of which can be discussed in here.

sssss

A/N: If you're watching the TV series, the only timeline I'm trying to stick with is the events of TLM. Anything else is interjected wherever I feel like it. As you can clearly see, I'm several episodes behind the current ones airing on AS. I haven't seen the ending. If you know the ending, please DO NOT spoil it for anyone else by stating it in a review. Most kind thanks!-TK