3.4 - Gate Basilisk

EPISODE 3.4
“Gate Basilisk – UNFINISHED GIG 1”
Hokkaido, Nukekubi Japan, 2039

. . .

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 device detected. Kusanagi Motoko, Major. Public Security Section Nine.”

She had made a small assessment error. Motoko felt an icy clasp upon her system earlier, thinking it was one of her own network protocols. A touch of an ally, maybe herself. She didn’t notice the virtual snake shifting its scales as it slunk all throughout her cyber lobby. It cut winding data paths around the Section Nine operatives, the Sapporo SAT police operatives, and Kusanagi’s command staff. It dug into Fujisawa and his senior police officers.

The beast spoke again: more clear, more direct, more malicious. Was it in her system, or was Kusanagi in the net creature’s lobby instead?

“Blossom child, wrought with doubt. You enter the terminus of god’s country. Have you come to seek guidance, or harmonize in the song of our flock?”

A single bell chimed from a far-off distance within the cyber fog. Snakeskin shifted and shallow water splashed, unseen. The dream-like vision seemed to solidify by the second.

Kusanagi made a very human-like imitation of gulping in fear. Where the instinct came from, she did not know. Maybe it imitated an old movie, or a line in a story? Or were humans born with innate physical reactions to strong emotion? Smothering her sudden surprise and fear, she spoke up.

“I…If this is the kingdom of heaven… What is the unit price of a Sapporo double cheeseburger?”

The net creature curled, vibrating as if mulling over the question.

“Bloss—”

Kusanagi spun around and faced down Reiko in cyberspace, blowing past private and segmented chats to scream across all available cyber lobby channels.

KUSANAGI:

「 REIKO! COLLAPSE THE NETWORK! 」

Kusanagi’s eyes darted back to the vision and gasped in relief as the fog retreated and creature vanished in a hissing flicker. A sudden spike of static pierced her cyberbrain like a javelin, striking bloody from top to bottom. Mouth once agape, she teethed down on her synthetic tongue hard in cyberspace and reality.

Throughout the cyber lobby, users across the ranks of Section Nine and Sapporo SAT clutched their heads in sudden, writhing pain. “AWK,” people cried and groaned out in distress. Some were not so lucky, their static screams echoed into the digital echo "AAK-AAAAK-AAAK..." Their own virtual avatars vanishing one by one, until in masse, Kusanagi was alone. An empty theater removed of visitors. The virtual screen upfront still displayed an image of Chief Fujisawa’s quad drones.

Blinking uncomfortably, Kusanagi raised a hand to her forehead and noted the pain was gone as soon as it appeared. Checking her status, she saw her network status changed subconsciously in the moment to ‘Standalone Mode.’ She lost her network connection to the Section Nine field network, but it wasn’t a total loss. She flicked her hand through her personal cyber lobby and confirmed on a log panel for security events, she closed the attacker connection herself.

“Musashi. Can you hear me?”

The Tachikoma warbled twice before speaking up in its agender, toddler-like voice. “We’re alright, Major! The network suddenly shutoff but the Tachikoma-subnet failover server rebooted and we’re up and running again.”

Blinking a bit, the Major flipped through the control panel of her spider tank and began an offline vulnerability scan. “Restart the network handshake with the tiltrotor and give me Radio Line Two for Reiko’s team. Run a self-diagnostic on the failover server. Make sure the software signature hashes are the same as prior to today’s deployment.”

“What time stamp do you want us to check against?”

“Try forty-eight hours or older, just to be safe.”

The Tachikoma shook out a physical mock salute despite her inability to see the cute display of loyalty while in the abdominal pilot chamber. The Major finally allowed herself a careful sigh as the fuzzy confirmation of radio connection kicked in.

“Major? Major, can you hear me? Is everything alright?”

“I’m here, Reiko. Has Ishikawa reconnected to the Section Nine virtual network?”

The gruff voice of the older hacker popped in, “I’m here too, Major. What was that shock? My brain is ringing…”

Kusanagi sighed. “I, or we, got back-hacked. I think Remuda was in my cyber lobby. I’m reconnecting to the network right now; I’ll send you the logs.”

ISHIKAWA:

「 Alright, I see your connected back now. Reiko, go ahead and follow the incident response framework. We’re going to half ass this thing since we still got an operation to complete… Right, Major? 」

Kusanagi nodded as her skin suited form materialized again in the shared cyber lobby, and her log panel passed in front of Ishikawa’s ever-hairy, weathered face.

KUSANAGI:

「 Yeah, mission is still a go. Prioritize rebuilding the network in lockdown mode. Segment the assault and warrant teams to their own subnets and create an ad hoc hierarchy for our communications back to Sapporo Police HQ. Get Fujisawa back on the line when we’re secure. 」

Reiko fired off a greenlight affirmative, turning slightly transparent and sluggish in the cyber lobby to dedicate more data packets towards repairing Section Nine’s C2 network.

ISHIKAWA:

「 Damn Major, this thing hit you hard. You suddenly have three hundred ports open. This dialogue doesn’t even sound human, maybe it was an AI or something? 」

Spinning back to Ishikawa, Kusanagi’s violet eyes glared at her ancient subordinate. She didn’t mean any offense at his remark, but she felt a deep foreboding. Her fists squeezed down on the metal control sticks of her Tachikoma, causing Musashi to yelp in warning. Pulling up her personal firewall panel in the cyber lobby, she burned through menus faster than her virtual fingers could keep up and rewrote the rule sets to lock them down to her personal operating standard.

KUSANAGI:

「 I was the only one that heard and saw that thing, right? 」

REIKO:

「 Sorry Major, I was watching your police network dive but I didn’t see or hear Remuda… 」

ISHIKAWA:

「 Well, you didn’t go crazy. I’m seeing the data in the event logs. I… I don’t know how he got in but I’ve identified sixty-seven malicious events relating to remote connection queries. You sure this was Remuda, Major? 」

Kusanagi frowned, moving to hover behind Ishikawa as he looked over the security event logs in cyberspace.

KUSANAGI:

「 These are ports I locked down… 」

ISHIKAWA:

「 I’m guessing one or more of the police officers had an unidentified root kit on them. The attack initiated during the briefing in your cyber lobby. It tried to go after the Sapporo police chief when you tried diving him too. 」

Raising a pair of fingers to her forehead, Kusanagi mumbled a silent curse at herself for almost giving the enemy further access.

KUSANAGI:

「 And what about us? Our command-and-control team alright? No back hacks on our end? 」

Ishikawa scratched his beard, contemplating the questions as he scrolled over more data logs.

REIKO:

「 I think we’re alright now. I apologize for the brain freeze earlier; I had my team fire off the Deadeye Array just to be certain we burned out the intrusion. 」

Ishikawa blinked twice in surprise before warping into a twitching frustration.

ISHIKAWA:

「 You used an all-band signal jammer on our own people? Jeez. You’re one crazy meathead, Lady! 」

REIKO:

「 I didn’t kill anyone, did I? 」

Ishikawa raised a open palm as Reiko’s face drooped with growing dread. Kusanagi could even feel him biting down on his cheek through their cyber lobby connection.

ISHIKAWA:

「 No, no. You’re fine, but I might have to go see a doctor about my blood pressure after work. Everyone’s going to feel that static bite for a week. At least. Deadeye is no joke of an EW suite. 」

Reiko managed a small smirk, reassured she didn’t just do something too insane. Ishikawa sighed, turning back to the Major.

ISHIKAWA:

「 Fujisawa is back on the radio. So is Togusa, they’re asking what the command structure looks like and if we’re still proceeding with the operation. They also asked if you were alright too. And Batou— 」

Kusanagi put up a frustrated, shaking hand. Her other virtual fist shook with a vigor few knew the Major was capable of. Calm, cool, collected – sometimes spiteful and impish. But Major Kusanagi Motoko was not easily known for rage.

Ishikawa watched on, and Kusanagi watched him as his eyes reflected her puffed-up cheeks and eyes full of fire. Forget the doubts of the day and the melancholy of a lost job.

Motoko’s voice spoke in the cyber lobby and the in the shadows of her Tachikoma’s cockpit. She faintly heard the nearby shouts and boots of SAT troops moving to their designated positions outside the spider tank.

The operation was still on.

“Ishikawa. If you see Yuuka Remuda, he’s mine. I’m going to stick his cyberbrain on a spike.”