The same voice and the same warning the Major had heard in the banquet room now came from the hologram. “Collaborate with Hanka Robotics and be destroyed. Collaborate with Hanka Robotics and be destroyed.”
Section Nine had considered the possibility that the murders were anti-tech bio-purity militants or counter-capitalists targeting Hanka as part of their agenda, but those theories appeared increasingly unlikely. The attacks seemed designed to demonstrate that enhanced minds could be hacked, without consent, without control.
Batou felt his skin crawl a little, but he ignored it. It was the secret fear of everyone with a neural interface: no matter how good your firewall, there was a chance you could fall prey to a mind-hack. He made a mental note to check his interface barrier software for an update when the briefing was over, just to be on the safe side.
Aramaki spoke decisively. “Togusa. You and Ladriya go speak to Mr. Cutter, the CEO of Hanka. Major and Batou, get Dahlin’s report. Find out what she recovered from the geisha.”
Batou stood and bowed to his commander. “Aramaki.”
“Major!” Aramaki said, before the Major could follow. The chief stood, indicating she should follow him into his adjoining office as the rest of the agents exited the conference room by the opposite door.
Two female attendants shut the double doors behind the Major, then stood silently to either side. The Major had never heard either of them speak in the entire year she’d been with the Section. So far as she knew, both women were entirely human, but they’d had some sort of neural enhancement that allowed them to stand unmoving for hours.
The chief’s office brought together tradition and technology. There was a bonsai tree on a side table, which Aramaki had painstakingly cultivated himself. The furniture was a combination of dark carved wood and leather. One of the walls was green marble shot through with white. The desktop was made of the same marble, with a single plain teacup sitting on its surface. The wall behind the desk was alight with shimmering green circuitry. The Major waited, standing, as Aramaki sat down behind his desk, facing away from her and staring at the circuitry, as though it might give him insight into her rebellious actions.
Aramaki smacked his lips, then spoke. “I told you not to jump.”
“I had to, or more would have died,” the Major countered.
Aramaki’s tone made it clear he did not accept her explanation for the previous night’s exploits. “You are a member of my team, and my responsibility.”
The Major wanted to make it clear that she understood her own responsibility when it came to the terrorist Kuze. “I will find him, and I will kill him. It’s what I am built for, isn’t it?”
Aramaki at last turned in his chair to face the Major, then held her gaze as he spoke with uncharacteristic softness. “You are more than just a weapon. You have a soul… a ghost.” He paused for a moment, thinking how best to help the single-minded woman before him connect with her own humanity, no matter how violent her work. “When we see our uniqueness as a virtue, only then do we find peace.”
The Major bowed her head to him, in gratitude as well as formal farewell. It was more than kind of Aramaki to take time to speak to her so personally. She only wished she knew how to take his advice.
The streets were even busier, if that was possible, than they had been in the morning. The Major and Batou, both clad in jeans and jackets to blend in, adroitly made their way on foot through the pedestrians and peddlers heading in all directions. Many of the people were too distracted by their own tech to watch where they were going.
Above, one floating billboard for Locus Slocus depicted a doctor giving a flower to a child, “Safely reconfiguring your child’s genetic structure. Families: built better.”
Given all of the drama, real and fictional, based on men’s concerns about making sure their genes were passed down through successive generations, Batou wondered how that particular technology would fare with the public, but he had more important matters to discuss with the Major, starting with her strange reaction to the deactivated geisha bot. “What was going on with you at the hotel last night?”
“Nothing,” the Major declared, not looking at him. “I’m fine.”
A pair of beat cops hurried past, their uniforms flashing the word POLICE.
“You sure?” Batou pressed.
Before the Major could respond, a male street hustler emerged from the crowd, targeting the Major with his spiel. He wore a turquoise snakeskin jacket over a white t-shirt, and the entire left side of his face was covered in mech. He smelled as if he’d spent the last week without showering while he sampled his own product, which was likely the case. “Hey, sweetheart,” the hustler began, zeroing in on the Major.
“Move,” Batou said. He tried to get between the punk and the Major, but the idiot ignored him.
“You want an upgrade?” the hustler crooned.
Batou glared. Some street dealer offering illegal cyber-enhancement to the Major, of all people, might be comical if it wasn’t so annoying. “Move,” Batou repeated.
“I have anything you want,” the hustler promised.
Batou lost it. “Back off!” He gave the man a hard shove, sending him tumbling backwards. The dealer’s squawk of pain was drowned out by a loud male Japanese-speaking hologram and the giggles of two nearby girls, who were apparently amused by the altercation.
And still the Major didn’t react. She was hard to read at the best of times, but Batou thought she seemed unusually remote today.
They reached a marketplace full of food vendors. The smells and sounds were as varied as the languages. Sweet, sour, savory, salty—whatever anyone might want to eat, it was all here for the best prices in the city, as the vendors were quick to shout from their stalls.
Batou spotted a butcher he knew and called out, “Hey, Ming!”
“Hey, Batou!” the butcher called back, coming out of his stall. “I got your bones.” He handed over a bag filled with animal bones and scraps of meat, whatever leftovers he couldn’t sell for human consumption.
“Thanks, man.”
Ming gave him a nod that said Batou was entirely welcome. It certainly beat having the offal sitting in the booth’s garbage cans, attracting rats and stinking up the place until the weekly trash pick-up. Ming added, “See you soon.”
Batou saw the Major’s cocked eyebrow. He was pleased to see something had piqued her curiosity, even if it was something as mundane as the contents of the bag. “For the dogs,” he explained.
Batou turned down a dark, damp alley. The Major followed. “For someone who doesn’t like people, how come you care about dogs so much?” she said.
Batou shrugged, his bleached hair the one bright focal point in the alley’s dimness. “Don’t know. I just like strays, and they like me.”
“They like you ’cause you feed them,” the Major pointed out.
They passed a delivery man pounding for entry on a dingy metal door, despite the holographic sign proclaiming, CLOSED 11AM–4PM.
Batou hoped the noise wouldn’t scare off the dogs. “You got no heart,” he teased the Major. He didn’t mean it, and she knew that, but he did think there was more to stray dogs than simple hunger.
Sure enough, four dogs came out of the shadows, tails wagging. “Hey, girls!” Batou was happy to see them, and so far as he could tell, they were happy to see him. Two were large and black, their breeds unknown, and one was some kind of German Shepherd mix. Batou whistled and began feeding them before a smaller dog—a basset hound—trotted up to him. Batou made sure the little guy got his fair share. “Hey, Gabriel,” he said to the canine. “Meet Major.” Then he looked up. “Major, Gabriel.”