Remuda's Shadow

“Network Anxiety – UNFINISHED GIG 1”
Hokkaido, Nukekubi Japan, 2039

. . .

Batou's saucer-like eye implants glimmered porcelain white in the Hokkaido snowfall. At a distance of a few paces, Major Kusunagi couldn't identify his emotion but she knew he wanted to say more.

Instead, he said less.

“Hai, Major.”

The pair of combat cyborgs lowered themselves into their spider tank abdominal cabins and listened for the signature hiss of sealing doors. Kusanagi shut her artificial, violet eyes for a period as Musashi, her personal Tachikoma, completed one more self-diagnostic. A soft warble confirmed satisfactory performance after a few seconds. Opening her eyes, Kusanagi rode along and watched the assembled Sapporo Police-Public Security convoy roll off towards Akiya Power Solutions. The car park disappeared into dust and wet sleet kicked up behind the heavy vehicles.

Through Musashi’s aluminum shell, Kusanagi felt the rumbling of asphalt and gravel under its thin, fragile-looking wheels. Unlike traditional tanks, Tachikoma were light and quiet for police work and used an efficient, buggy engine instead of gas guzzlers—unlike the delayed, roaring engines of the MRAP heavy trucks, or the typhoon whirling of the Section Nine tiltrotor as it too took off again into the sky. Satisfied with her external camera feeds of the road and staring into the aluminum bumper of a Section Nine armored van, the Major engaged her distributed lobby joining once more with cyberspace.

Less than a hundred shadowed heads hovered or sat at the edges of the Major’s virtual reality chatroom. Batou, Reiko, Ishikawa, Togusa, and many familiar Section Nine faces were present. Chief Fujisawa sat with his own police sergeants, separated from the Section Nine senior officers.

KUSANAGI:

「 Thank you all for joining us. This debrief will address the Den Spirit group and mission to detain leadership and secure their main facility. This will be a rough overview of our operational jurisdiction under the national terrorism law, and what all parties are responsible in performing. The operation has already begun due to limitations of the weather and rules of engagement outlined by the National Police Agency and Interior Ministry. Togusa, your turn. 」

The mullet-headed lead investigator nodded and rose to the virtual stage, filling in what Section Nine and the police Special Assault Team needed to know about their government-designated adversary. Kusanagi was already familiar with the information and then some as Togusa’s words blended into a dull concerto of keywords and recognized phrases where the Major filled in the details for her half-present mind.

TOGUSA:

「 Detective Reiko’s Team North will act as the C2 control unit, Major Kusanagi will be on-site commander. We’ll divide the operation into two task forces, a ‘warrant’ team, and a ‘assault’ team. This will allow us to maximize our options and avoid unnecessary escalation or incidents.

I will lead the warrant team made up of mostly Sapporo officers, Section Nine’s Team North arresting officers, and myself. It will account a quarter of our manpower and approach the facility’s main entrance.

The assault team will account for the rest of our force, including the C2 control unit and led by Major Kusanagi. They will approach the facility from the sides and the riverfront to corral and eliminate methods of escape. 」

Togusa’s presentation flicked to a display of a satellite camera’s overhead view of Akiya Power Solutions. The warrant team would approach with a good number of the convoy vehicles and a single Tachikoma tank and present their warrant provided by a judge in the Justice Ministry who owed Chief Aramaki a favor. Even if Sapporo or other Hokkaido judges were unable or unwilling to deal with the Den Spirit, Section Nine would cut through to address it.

Meanwhile, the convoy would let off the other five Tachikoma along with the remaining Sapporo SAT and Section Nine operatives along neighboring roads on private farmland to trek through snow and under tree cover onto the Den Spirit property line.

TOGUSA:

「 Anyone missing cold weather training or with cold weather health concerns, please let your team leaders know ahead of time and we will reassign people to the warrant team. We expect the march to take ten minutes to reach the property line and within reach of the facility structures itself. The terrain is flat but we’re dealing with unpacked snowfall, be careful on the approach. 」

Kusanagi eyed the crowd and noted three, or four SAT operatives wink warning yellow lights in the crowd, grabbing mild attention from comrades and commanding officers but nothing of major concern. She whispered to her personal Tachikoma, “Musashi, can you read up on the health and training records of the winter-adverse agents in SAT? Check their team leaders too for any Den Spirit connections too.”

“Hai, Major.”

It wasn’t a priority concern, but vetting who slotted in with Togusa was worth a second look over. Security wise, Sapporo SAT was still an unknown risk factor in the operation. And percentage wise, the warrant team would have the highest portion of SAT personnel and significantly outnumber Section Nine’s arresting officers. If there was any compromise, Togusa’s team would be making first contact with Den Spirit and would be in the thick of things if they blew up. It could easily turn into a front door hostage situation, or lead to casualties from saboteurs.

KUSANAGI:

「 Saito. Wake up, I can feel you dozing off. I need you listening to this part. 」

The Section Nine designated marksman’s vitals spiked for a second before cooling again from sudden surprise.

SAITO:

「 Uh. Uh huh. I’m on him, no problem. Major, I know my place. And you’re one to talk. 」

Light static from his neural connection zapped the Major back, a small act of rebellion from the eyepatch man. Kusanagi didn’t respond to the childish behavior but sent him a mental image of distaste.

SAITO:

「 Yeah, yeah. You’re built different, Queen Kong. Sorry… I’ll paying attention. 」

Kusanagi turned elsewhere once more, letting the rare but well-known insult slide. Instead, she admired the rising walls of snow on both sides of the Hokkaido roadway and made some last-minute maneuver suggestions over a virtual reality simulation of the Akiya Power Solutions compound.

“Major, none of the mentioned SAT operators you requested inspection of have apparent Den Spirit ties.” Musashi reported. The AI tank received a warm, motherly sensation from the Major. She didn’t say anything, tuned in and out of multiple places at once. Togusa was discussing relevant histories of the cult and their founder now.

Regarding the Den Spirit organization, they settled in the farm region east of Sapporo after the renewed Korean War using business seed money to start and acquire pachinko parlors in the Ishikari River valley. The founders were veterans of the United Nations-Korea coalition “peacekeeping” forces (PKF) and received funding from the Defense Ministry’s veteran support fund through the 2020s. They broke into land resale and auto-farming soon after, pushing out their debt-lined pachinko customers.

Because of the Korean War, a significant refugee crisis swept into Japan and Northeast China. Missing people, human trafficking, and exploitation. Mass boat sinkings. Anti-refugee and anti-nationalist protests, and riots. Familiar windfalls of the crises followed: drugs, disease, malnutrition, food and housing shortages, and intersectional violence.

Kusanagi huffed to herself at the long tapestry of suffering her country served as a canvas for. Her loyalties to the idea of “Japan,” muddied over the years but her job as the “Prime Minister’s bagwoman” gave her a sharp, unfiltered awareness of the state’s shortcomings.

“Softer hearts broke long ago looking at this home of ours. Kuze wandered the Continent and found his loyalty with the downtrodden rather than his countrymen. And what of me?”

There was a quiet snap in her synthetic heart, like the strum of an over-whined guitar string. Not physical but thrumming with dangerous tension. Not towards conflict, but a cloud of melancholy. Kusanagi was here before, but in a different state of mind. Racing down Fukuoka’s highways then, or farm roads outside Sapporo now in a Tachikoma, once more the Major felt lost. The first time after the Solid State incident, she left Section Nine to break out as a cyberwarfare freelancer, and to escape from her creeping helplessness.

Now, she was watching Section Nine shutdown around her. Her mission was, had been, to fight and solve crime. Fight for a common good. But the unsurmountable mountain continued to climb skyward, the mounting crises kept pushing. Did any of her police work amount to something meaningful? With or without Section Nine? The unit had been her job, her home for more than two decades. Why and where would she escape to this time?

She put away the virtual reality map of the hydroelectric station and zoned in on the roadside snowbanks. In this part of Sapporo, the land was flat and the temperature cold and stable, increasing the average snowfall. It packed together and didn’t melt away in the late winter. She watched civilian cars cautiously drive by, slowing as their passengers took pictures of the snowbanks. What started as a quarter meter of snow, became three or four meters high, rising over the tops of the police MRAPs. In the central Japanese Alps, such snow walls could climb to twenty meters. It was a peaceful drive, but the winter storm still raged inside Kusanagi. The promise of endless crisis. What bothered her especially?

Kusanagi didn’t see value, or opportunity. She felt eternity.

But such crises did give opportunity and raise a fraudulent name as a legitimate shepherd for a quarter century. If the Major were to lose from circumstance, someone out there was bound to win out. Someone cut from different cloth, and different hearts. Not a light and dark difference, rather a thin veil of emotion. Kusanagi didn’t pretend to understand him, but she could maybe understand his story. Enter the name of prominence: Yuuka Remuda. As Togusa illuminated before, it was not a name native to the Kanji or Hiragana alphabets. Yuuka was a Japanese personal name, but Remuda was vaguely Spanish. Hokkaido had a long history with Western influence as Hakodate at the southern end of the island became one of Japan’s first treaty ports in 1854, and Westerners like rancher Edwin Dun influenced industrial development during the Meiji Restoration and again in the post-World War Two reconstruction eras.

If the Westerners influenced Hokkaido back then, it was Western soundalikes defining Hokkaido now. Yuuka Remuda was a supposed forty-three-year-old man born and raised in Hokkaido; his digital birth certificate put him in the more central, rural town of Furano in 1996. He was a long brown-haired man with large spectacles and wore dark, loose clothing that seem to bridge the qualities of a drab Chinese tunic suit, often called a “Zhongshan” or “Mao suit,” and ordained Kasaya monk robes associated with Buddhism. He was often present in such attire, suggesting the Den Spirit leader had a wardrobe full of them and worn over jungle pants, sometimes with combat boots or indoor shoes depending on the pictures and videos.

The assembly of footage displayed the mystic and his followers practicing basic squad and platoon-level maneuvering tactics pulled from the Self Defense Army’s infantry officer manual. His followers, women, and men alike, wore the mixed formal-informal religious wear, integrating casual blue jeans and workout tights depending on the person. Sandals and sneakers, American M4 carbines and Russian AKM rifles. Communism, Buddhism, naturalism, corporatism, capitalism, branding, cyberization. There was little to uniquely define the Den Spirit’s inner culture and belief system from items and icons of a million different places. It seems their only true union was the personal magnetism of Remuda. And yet, who was Yuuka Remuda?

Kusanagi had this wealth of knowledge of the mysterious cult leader, including the collected feelings of distaste from her fellow police officers thanks to Reiko’s team. But the sum of the information didn’t seem to account for enough. They were a militant organization, they upset the status quo. Sure, fine. But…

Maybe she was avoiding the greater question. She knew why. ‘Why was Section Nine here?’ The question’s answer was two parts – one simple, another complex. Because of orders. Because of politics, politics to which she wasn’t privy. The latter made for a scarier answer: the fear of the unknown. Unknowns meant chance and probability. Randomness invited surprise, and danger. Blind action leading to blind consequence.

In all her years as a military hacker, Kusanagi could attack and breach any network or system. She could hijack cybernetic bodies and tamper with individual minds under the right legal circumstances. She had all these powers of her skills and station, but no number of technical skills was going to illuminate the imaginations of geniuses and the machinations of collectives.

Kusanagi’s eyes wandered from her familiar group of Section Nine operatives to the face and then the back of Chief Fujisawa’s balding and plated, cybernetic skull. It was her cyber lobby, no one seem the wiser to her odd perplexities. The retired infantry officer was quiet, eyes glued to Togusa and switching to other speakers of occasional input like Ishikawa or Reiko. Sometimes a Sapporo SAT team leader would speak up for further elaboration and Fujisawa’s eyes followed.

The Major’s curiosity might be off the mark, but Chief Fujisawa’s attentiveness and silence left her on edge. For someone reported as government-adverse, he seemed to go along fine. She could hack him. She could cover her tracks. She could connect, parallel, and steal all the intelligence she wanted. But it wouldn’t allow her to “know” him.

Kusanagi paralleled data with more than a few unique individuals over the years, learning their beings and intimate secrets fully. And yet all it did was make her a poor imitation of their past. Like an old print photograph, developing once exposed to open air but surely trapped in the moment.

Fujisawa could be innocent. Or maybe he wouldn’t be. Damning evidence could hide away somewhere in his external memory server. Or maybe it rested just below the surface of his skin. Could he be in the cult’s pocket? Or was this operation someone else’s gambit? Confidence in evidence didn’t necessarily lead to good outcomes. Breaking the law certainly did not.

The human mind in the era of artificial intelligence remained mysterious, ever changing, a reflection of a fluid reality itself. Cybernetic or otherwise, something about humans remained organic even when translated into silicon and chrome. From the depths of human minds and collective imagination outflowed the wonders and miracles of human civilization. And eventually the Internet, and the Sea of Information.

It was wonderous how billions of connected minds could create such a complex and infinitely problematic machine. Maybe it was the greatest standalone complex of all, in a manner of speaking. And Remuda, where did he fit in the grand equation? Where did Major Kusanagi Motoko, or Chief Fujisawa fit into the equation? What made others want to follow them, or follow her?

Her thoughts became a scattered whirlwind of emotion and little substance. Lost even to her, caught on a proverbial wind. She left her casual Hokkaido landscape and virtual meeting forgotten on the periphery of her mind. Her virtual hands drifted towards the sparkling connection of Fujisawa’s cybernetic mind. Would she find the answer to her concerns there? It would be another illegal act for a legitimate operation, but the line between right and wrong became fluid like her thoughts when under the threat of outsiders. She needed her people safe, just one more operation. For Batou, for Togusa, her people. Just one more time and today could be over.

Kusanagi froze. An icy hand plunged into the darkness; the material world came calling back.

“Major? Major Kusanagi?”

Kusanagi shivered as she felt distant eyes fall on her. Saito sent over a sensation of roughing her shoulder in the cyber lobby, luckily over a private channel.

SAITO:

「 Come on, Major. You’re setting a bad example. 」

Kusanagi tsked at her subordinate, biting her lip in embarrassment as the feeling one pair of eyes sharpened into an attentive and full audience.

KUSANAGI:

「 Don’t let them know that… 」

SAITO:

「 I wouldn’t dream of it, but the Sapporo Chief has a remark. 」

FUJISAWA:

「 Major, might I make a last-minute change to your operation? 」

Focusing back on the Sapporo police chief, his moving lips, and spoken words, not his mind. He was offering an apologetic smile, soft and considerate. A flip from his off color and blunt behavior in the cold earlier. Did she spook him? Did he notice? The Major simply nodded, doing her best to save face and not appear lost in a daydream, or midway through a hacking attempt.

KUSANAGI:

「 What do you have in mind, Chief? 」

FUJISAWA:

「 I’ve already sent them ahead; I apologize in advance for the lack of warning. I note you have six, riot-grade spider tanks, so I’ve requisitioned some heavy-lift quad drones from our Emergency Search and Rescue department. They should meet you before your arrival at the Den Spirit facility. 」

An image flickered onto the virtual stage of eight quadrotor drones, black in color and pickup truck sized. They each came with four optional, mounting hardpoints.

FUJISAWA:

「 They’re rated to lift a small car and should be able to carry your Tachikoma and our operators over the snow and cutdown on wasted time. I would prefer not to have my people stuck in the cold for too long and I figure it might help augment your options. 」

Kusanagi nodded, pursing her lips at the sudden change of plans but the incredible convenience the new aerial assets offered was enticing.

KUSANAGI:

「 Thank you, Chief Fujisawa. We’ll take them. You’re very considerate. 」

The Sapporo police chief offered a professional nod back. But then he paused and shook his head, as if debating himself. He swapped to private channel, only including his senior officers and Section Nine’s onsite command staff.

FUJISAWA:

「 You’re helping us, it’s the least I can offer. I had trouble thinking of appropriate resources to help during the briefing. However, I can tell you run a certainly tight ship. Good people, good budget, and resources. I must admit I am somewhat jealous but such resources only come with people of proven capability, and someone who took great risks and provided results under fire.

I—we need this to work. It would be unsafe of me or my station to publicly speak ill of the Den Spirit organization. 」

Kusanagi balked at the sudden change in personality. The man spoke clearly over the cyber lobby connection but it dripped with a tone of heavy fatigue.

KUSANAGI:

「 What is your concern, Chief Fujisawa? Are you compromised in some manner? 」

The police chief shook his head, his face and eyes seeming to darken and age ten years in two seconds.

FUJISAWA:

「 No, no. Nothing like that. But I have two children. My daughter was friends with a boy who lost his life in one swatting incident. I attended the funeral; I faced the mother who lost her son. And Yuuka Remuda has the gall to talk about the children’s deaths in his online sermons as if they lived on his version of an afterlife. Martyring other’s children as victims to his faith.

The Den Spirit are a kind of people willing to hurt children over a harmless online spat. And Remuda is a very private person, I’ve seen him leave the power station twice in my time on the police force. Whatever he’s done there, I believe he’s created a personal fortress but to what goal I do not know. I just want this mystery unraveled and his influence cleared from my court and community. 」

Kusanagi imprinted a deep frown on her face, her lips forming a tight line in concern. What could she say to that? Her security concern mostly evaporated into a man afraid for his own people. In terms of criminal activity, Remuda’s cult hardly made the list of extreme, unusual, or grotesque offenders. They didn’t even make the list of outright criminals.

And yet, his name paralyzed the chief sentinel of Sapporo. Put fear into the mind of a hardened military veteran who fought against Russian mecha-marines at Nemuro.

KUSANAGI:

「 We’ll do what we can, Chief Fujisawa. Section Nine doesn’t leave cases half finished. We won’t fail you. 」

The Major’s words felt like fire as they left her lips, imagining her manifested kanji igniting into smoke as a signal of her sweet lies. The police chief didn’t seem to detect any falsehoods, leaning back and letting out a pent-up sigh seeming of dread and maybe a distant, growing hope. She hated doing that. More so than ever before, she was facing the feeling of a time clock than a salary. Her career ended when the workday ended.

Kusanagi glanced at the virtual clock on her heads-up display (HUD). About seven hours before sunset in Fukuoka. Orders from the National Police Agency wanted Section Nine’s Fukuoka team gone from their public offices before sunset. A flight back would take three hours. She felt her lips faintly mutter “not enough time” in the material world where only her Tachikoma could hear.

Despite the police chief’s outburst of concern and thawing personality, she couldn’t separate her prior concerns about Den Spirit saboteurs. The police chief might not know or be complicit, but he had the access to know. Beset by population decline in tandem with increasing technical literacy, Japanese society continued to lay more responsibility at the feet of individuals. Kusanagi ran Section Nine in the field from her own cyberbrain, using her body as a command-and-control network module. The situation should be the same with Sapporo police to an extent.

Ishikawa was speaking up now, following the Major’s promise to Chief Fujisawa. It was a good distraction…

ISHIKAWA:

「 We’re now in sight of the Akiya Power Solutions facility. I can see their security quad drones along the perimeter along with the micromachine basins. Two minutes to arrival. What’s your drone ETA time? 」

Kusanagi pushed her mind towards the police chief’s connection to her cyber lobby. Opening her barrier console, she ran a vulnerability check against Fujisawa’s guest account.

His public network address diffused through Sapporo thanks to the Police virtual private network (VPN) but was easy enough to pin down to downtown Sapporo, near the prefecture headquarters. Their service provider, OCN, marked his connection as external 86.143.25.13, compared to Kusanagi’s internal 192.168.0.2. He used the standard National Police Agency cryptographic certificate which was easy to intercept since he had to handshake with Reiko’s team through their tiltrotor electronic warfare suite. She took a breath and prepared to dive a little deeper…

FUJISAWA:

「 Three minutes. I think it would be okay to split the convoy at this time since the assault team will be the only ones in need of the airlift. 」

Ishikawa hummed in agreement, nodding over to Kusanagi for input.

KUSANAGI:

「 I agree with that assessment. Let’s get the teams setup for the security cordon. Reiko, how long do you need for network domination? I want Den Spirit blind but unaware while we circle around back. 」

REIKO:

「 We’ll be ready anytime, we’ve yet to try and buzz their perimeter network but we expect few hiccups. We’re also circling at 8,000 feet above the river valley. It’s a suspicious height to seasoned military but it shouldn’t be apparent to the civilian neighbors. We can go lower if needed, also Major— 」

Reiko suddenly swapped channels, drawing a confused looked from Ishikawa but subtle enough no one else caught Reiko’s slip.

REIKO:

「 I see you’re tapping the police net. Going to back hack Chief Fujisawa? 」

Kusanagi offered an apologetic twitch of her lips.

KUSANAGI:

「 Better safe than sorry… 」

The Section Nine cybernetics engineer hummed an affirmative and kept an observant eye beside Kusanagi as one of the Major’s digital twins haunted the unified cyber lobby, and another probed across Reiko’s commandeered tiltrotor EW suite. Ishikawa was shooting them both odd side looks as some of Fujisawa’s subordinates began to confirm their teams offloading from MRAPs in the material world.

KUSANAGI:

「 Sorry Ishikawa, just want to make sure of something… 」

The ancient Section Nine hacker fired off a greenlight acknowledgement and said nothing. Her people trusted her. When the Major set her mind on something, they went with it. Her ghost was a trusted quantity. And so were theirs. Trust went both ways, between the subordinates and their seasoned commander.

Decrypting the NPA certificate... Tracing the SSH connection and downloading a digital twin into the Sapporo local police network. Kusanagi wouldn’t use her Chroma persona file, too personal… Which hacker persona to use…

Kusanagi froze in place. Earlier, she felt the clasp of a cold hand in her cyber lobby. The hand became a vine, curling into infinity. She felt it again. It was here, both in the police intranet and the Section Nine field network. The movement wasn’t her, or Saito. Not by Chief Fujisawa. Not Batou, Reiko, or Ishikawa.

Someone else. Something else. It was in her cyber lobby, in her system.

A distant voice, eking out choice words one at a time. It called out, seeming to breath between words through the release of extent data packets. The endless vine became rough and worn, coiling close and afar. Stem becoming bark. Moving, transforming.

Major… Major Kusanagi Motoko…

The voice spoke louder, no longer a feeling but audio addressing Kusanagi directly.

“So… much… noise… in this instance. Body. Mind. Cyberbrain. New terminal found. Kusanagi Motoko, Major. Public Security Section Nine.”