The next couple of days were relatively quiet for the members of Section 9. It wasn't technically the break between cases, but at the moment most of them didn't have anything to do to further the investigation. Borma quickly developed a patch against the virus and sent it to everyone. Purin found out that she didn't really need it, since two out of four vulnerable subsystems weren't present in her cyberbrain, and another one she already patched herself. The last one worked slightly differently and didn't have the same vulnerability. Ishikawa was continuing to dig through the virus' code to try to figure out which state exactly developed it. Though there weren't many feasible options to begin with - only a few countries had this many resources.

The rest were waiting for something new to happen, like a new move from the attacker. Which for some meant going out to do who knows what, training, or spending extra time at home with his wife, in Togusa's case. Esaki Purin spent these days getting familiar with Section 9's building and processes, as well as bonding with mostly Tachikomas. The cute robot tanks were all about having fun off-duty and dragged Purin to play a bunch of retro games with them. None of which Purin managed to win yet, though she came close a few times in a party puzzle-solving game. But on duty or during training Tachikomas were very different. They felt and acted almost the same as usual, but their priorities were on the mission, and they were incredibly reliable.

Each Tachikoma had a cockpit in the back where a pilot could safely ride in, and even take control if needed. It was necessary for all Section 9 operatives to know their abilities in and out since they were often deployed on missions, and were often critical to the mission's success. That's why Purin spent quite some time training to pilot one of them and learning how to use all the cool stuff that the robots could do.

Purin also learned that despite that Tachikomas routinely synchronized their experiences, all of them were somewhat different, and some operatives preferred to pair with one over the others. She noticed that one of them was preferred by Batou, who treated it personally with organic oil. Another one was apparently Major's favorite, and it often acted as some sort of voice of reason for the group. Another Tachikoma was the last to join in their shenanigans, preferring to just laze around with an actual book. Purin was training with the same Tachikoma that helped her analyze the virus earlier. She wasn't sure if there was anything special about it, yet, but she was interested to find out how it differed from the rest, as well as how they managed to keep their individuality in general.

During the night she went back to the room she claimed for herself and tried to apply Batou's advice on training in virtual reality. Section 9's servers contained a lot of training programs for pretty much anything an operative would need. Piloting and driving all of the vehicles, including ancient and analog ones, and even planes. Shooting from all kinds of weapons. Tactics, data and software analysis, cybersecurity. And a whole suite of hand-to-hand combat training programs, ranging from basics to simulated matches with groups of unfair opponents.

Purin downloaded a few aiming and piloting programs, just in case she might need them in a pinch. She would need to talk to Saito, the group's ace sniper, as well as Batou, about the best way to train aim and weapons handling for cyborgs. But for now, she was pretty confident that she could aim really well with the software assist. Purin then spent the rest of her time training in hand combat. She quickly progressed past the novice courses but got stuck at the intermediate level. For her, it was like fighting while simultaneously trying to write an extremely complex piece of software. At first, she tried to figure out how the advanced training programs worked and if she could do the same trick. But she realized that despite being advanced and unfair, they weren't that flexible, and mostly relied on reading the user's thoughts and the sub-millisecond reaction time.

She found that she could get close to these reaction times in a simulation, but it wasn't that useful. The best she could do was to try to dodge or block, and even that with varied success. Without an ability to predict what her opponent would do next, she was always on the back foot, and even her defensive actions were limited to how fast her body could move. She also, to her surprise, found herself actually exhausted for a while after such a fight. Her theory was that she would actually overheat her cyberbrain and start throttling if she kept it up for a prolonged period of time.

So she tried to learn to read patterns and intents by continuously fighting "realistic" advanced opponents. At the same time, she was programming small subroutines of moves and reactions for her body's systems to reduce the conscious effort required. Eventually, her training culminated in her beating the intermediate-level opponent. She stopped simulation happy with her achievements, and returned her attention to the real world.

After "returning" to her room, Esaki Purin realized two important things. First, it was almost 8 am and the rest of the Section 9 members will be waking up or coming to work soon. Second, for the first time since her death, she felt mentally drained. At least that was the easiest description of what she felt. After a few days of different activities and learning new things, as well as writing and installing new experimental software on her cyberbrain's OS, she felt like her brain had a lot of leftover garbage that was distracting and slowing her down. We a sigh she committed to the experiment, and sent herself into a reboot.

Waking up from a reboot for Esaki Purin was as weird and unsettling as it was waking up from hibernation. Maybe even more so, this time around. After learning more about herself during the last few days, she could notice and remember more of the processes that went through her body and cyberbrain during the boot as her parts and systems were starting up. But she was not the one to sulk about her lot in life. Since she couldn't change what she was, she decided that instead of being scared, she would be fascinated with herself. She did have a doctorate in robotics, it was very normal for her to want to know how different robots work! Maybe even look through her own startup logs! Or actually maybe later... It still felt strange to her. The one thing she noticed was that, according to her clock, the whole reboot process took around 4 minutes, most of it being the shutting down part.

She also felt refreshed again, so she concluded that she likely had no need for a prolonged rest. Purin got up from the bed, put on her glasses, and stretched as usual. Deciding to stick to her habits, she went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. As her coffee was brewing, Ishikawa entered the kitchen with a few bags full of street food.

"Oh, Ishikawa-san, you bought Chinese!" Purin got instantly excited by the familiar smell.

Ishikawa laughed slightly. "Yup. I'll make myself coffee and let's go to the meeting room, I'll treat everyone. I see that you eat only cyborg food. But food isn't just the source of energy and micromachines, it's also an experience. Don't forget to treat yourself."

"I actually forgot..." Purin replied with a chuckle.

A few minutes later all of the Section 9 operatives were sitting in a meeting room and eating the takeout with delight. Purin almost forgot how good the real food tasted like, subsiding on snacks for cyborgs since her "resurrection". Human food didn't provide everything that her body needed to function, but she resolved to at least eat something nice a few times a week, preferably in a company. *Ah it's a bummer I can't meet my friends from the University, with my death being a subject of national news and all that. It's not like we've been close, but it's probably a good idea to hang out with someone besides war veterans and robots.*

"Is there a reason why you gathered us here, Ishikawa, or did you just miss us?" Batou asked after finishing his food first.

"Hah! Nah, I actually have information about the creator of the virus," Ishikawa replied, and immediately all attention was on him. "I've been comparing the code styles with all the viruses leaked from the big forces. Some of the clues were misleading, so I also had to pull some strings and ask some people, so it took a while. But in the end, I'm 99% sure that it was made by one of the letter agencies from the American Empire."

"Shit," was Batou's reaction to the news.

"Indeed. Shit," Ishikawa agreed.

"I will go tell the Chief," Major finally said. "Our government and citizens were attacked with a weapon made by our closest ally. The prime minister would definitely want to know about that." She put down an empty food bowl and stood up. "Everyone, we need to find who's controlling the virus before we get an intentional scandal on our hands."

After Major left, Togusa took the lead. "Right. Did we find any leads on the attacker or on the control signal to the victims?"

Ishikawa pulled up a map of Tokyo on the projection over the meeting table. "The commands were sent via onion routing, so even though we know the last node they came from, we don't have a way to trace them to the source." A few lanes traced the map connecting seemingly random places to victims' locations. "I already have scripts in place waiting for the new command to the infected to try and trace it back to the attacker, but it has been quiet so far."

"What if we could narrow it down?" Esaki suggested.

"Do you have some ideas?" Ishikawa asked.

"It's grasping at straws, but now that we know the virus is American, I think there are a few options. The attacker can be in the American Empire itself. This is very unlikely unless they want an actual war with Japan. I don't think anything on their soil is out of reach for them, so it can't happen without the government's knowledge."

Everyone was nodding at her explanation, fully aware of the iron grip the American government had on its citizens.

"So it's likely that someone is using the virus but isn't in the Empire. My bet is that they're actually in Japan, but they arrived from America and brought the virus and the control software with them."

"That's the best assumption we have, yes," Ishikawa nodded.

"We know that the first attack happened 4 months ago. If we take American citizens who arrived between, let's say 10 and 4 months ago..." Purin queued the Ministry of Foreign Affairs database and a few millions of dots appeared on the map. "Now we remove everyone who already left the country by the time of the last attack." Most of the dots on the map disappeared, leaving tens of thousands instead of millions. "Ishikawa-san, can you figure out which of these people accessed the onion routing around the time of the attacks?"

Ishikawa nodded and spent a minute pulling logs and applying them to the map. "Still a few hundred suspects."

"Hm-m," Purin held her chin and started analyzing the logs herself while staring at the map unmoving.

She did that for roughly 5 minutes, during which Batou even waved a hand in front of her face, but then shrugged and decided not to bother her. Eventually, some of the dots on the map changed color from blue to yellow.

"These 72. It's the lowest I could narrow it down without the risk of eliminating the real attacker," Purin finally said. After she noticed that everyone was looking at her, she provided a bit more explanation. "I analyzed the network access patterns, and I'm sure the rest are using the onion network only to access pirated movies or porn. The 72 left are either always using it, or just have very suspicious access patterns. Of course, I can still be wrong..."

"72 is way better than over 500," Togusa nodded. "We can look through their files and try to gather more information about them. Are you okay?" He asked Purin when he saw that she was holding her head.

"Yes, don't worry, I think I overdid it a bit. If you don't mind, I'll leave that to you and go rest..."

Purin left the worried looks of the rest of the team and went outside to the fresh air. Cool morning air helped her cool down faster, and the change of scenery helped clear her mind.

*I should be taking it slower, there was no rush this time. I slightly overloaded my cyberbrain, and probably creeped out everyone too...*

She stood outside for a while, enjoying nice weather and just trying not to think about anything. She thought for a moment to go back and help the rest with the suspect files but decided to leave it to professionals who actually knew what to look for. Her strong sides were engineering and data analysis, not police investigations or suspect interrogations. So Purin sent the group a message to call her when she's needed and went to find something fun to do in Tokyo. She only briefly left Section 9's building after her death, and she didn't want to spend all of her new life there.