Esaki Purin decided that she didn't like to hibernate. Booting up from hibernation by a call from Major was the worst one so far. Not only did she have to wait an agonizing half a second before joining the group call, but she also saw that Alicia wasn't sleeping already and was looking at her with a smile. Purin sat on the bed with a groan.
"Sorry, a call from work," she said to Alicia and joined the group call. She wasn't even the last to join, it was Togusa.
*"Good, everyone is here,"* Major started. *"We can't wait anymore, the Prime Minister spoke to the American president and the situation is heating up. Yesterday we nailed down the list of suspects to three people. We will try and capture all three of them, just in case. Togusa, Paz, you're going with me to the first target. Borma, Ishikawa, Saito, you're on the second one. Batou, Esaki, the third one on you. Remember that even if it's our hacker, we really need him alive for interrogation, and all three of them are American citizens. Ishikawa, Esaki, try to save all the data they might have lying around, but prioritize caution, who knows what surprises they might have."*
There were multiple positive responses to her command - everyone took their role extremely seriously.
*"Major, I'm in the city right now..."* Purin started.
*"I know. Tachikoma is waiting for you outside. Don't forget to get dressed. Let's go, everyone, keep me updated."*
"I'm sorry I have to run first thing in the morning, Alicia, but this is very urgent," Purin said to her date with a guilty look.
Alicia took a moment to read Purin's expression, thinking about something, and eventually, they replied. "Don't worry about it, this happens. Just..." They paused with an uncertain look on their face. "Tell me if it was a one-night stand or not."
Purin smiled and leaned in for a kiss. "I would like it to be more than just a one-night stand, if you let me."
Alicia met Purin's lips. "Yes, please," she said and kissed Purin. But the kiss didn't last as long as both of them wished. "We'll continue next time, cutie," Alicia said.
"Okay, I will call you in the evening, unless this thing drags out. But I will call, or at least message with an update! Now I really have to run," Purin said while putting on clothes. "Talk to you later!"
Purin dashed out of Alicia's apartment without even a slice of toast in her mouth and rode an elevator to the underground parking lot. There, a parked Tachikoma was waiting for her.
"Purin-san, here, here!" It waved to her and opened the cockpit in its back.
Purin hopped inside, and Tachikoma took off from the parking lot. Before leaving the underground parking, it engaged its optical camouflage, making it practically invisible to most sensors and eyes. Purin looked around the cockpit and found that there were two guns waiting for her: a standard-issue Seburo M-10 pistol, and a Seburo C-26A assault rifle. She put on the holster that was also provided and took the pistol, hoping that there would be no need for heavy armaments this time since Major didn't mention anything.
With Tachikoma being able to move faster than the speed limit and jump over obstacles, they reached the outskirts of Tokyo in less than 15 minutes. They stopped near one of the rougher multi-apartment houses and Purin got out. She opened the 3D map of the building with her target marked in one of the apartments on the fourth floor.
*"Batou-san, we have arrived!"* Tachikoma sent to the communication channel with the three of them.
*"Good. Tachikoma, watch the escape routes. Esaki, meet me at my position,"* Batou took the lead of the operation.
*"Aye-aye!"* Tachikoma responded and jumped on the wall of the building nearby and started looking for a good vantage point. It was still in the camouflage, but Purin could keep track of it from their shared channel.
She also knew that Batou was waiting for her on the stairs inside. She engaged her own invisibility and entered the building. After meeting Batou, he gave her a quick gesture to follow, and they climbed to the target floor. They both had their guns at the ready and were moving through the corridor trying to make as little noise as possible. Before they reached the target apartment, another door suddenly opened and a neighbor with his dog blocked their path.
Still in the camouflage, they both pressed into the opposite walls trying to avoid unnecessary commotion. The dog momentarily stopped to sniff Purin's boots, but was dragged by the neighbor by the leash. After the neighbor and the dog left the corridor and went down two floors, Batou and Purin relaxed slightly. They concentrated on their task immediately and stopped at the two sides of the target's door.
Batou moved in front of the door, messaged Purin the action plan, and counted down from three. On one, he disabled his camouflage, used all of his force to kick the door off its hinges, and rushed inside, gun forward. Purin followed behind, staying invisible.
"Freeze!" Batou shouted. "Public Security, hands in the air, don't do anything."
Batou was pointing a gun at a man who, a second ago, jumped from his chair with a scream. He had a disheveled look and clothes that had more chips dust on them than at a chips factory. The rest of the place was no better: empty energy drink cans, pizza boxes, and chips bags were sprinkled over the piles of servers, all powered on and buzzing loudly with their fans.
"Hey dude, please let me go! If you touch me, I'll just destroy all the money and no one will see them!" The guy started bargaining. "I'll do you one better, if you let me go I'll transfer you 50 TTC! Think what you could get for this kind of money!"
"Oh-h?" Batou made a face like he was considering his offer.
In the meantime, Purin carefully navigated the minefield of chips on the floor and reached their target. She sprung on him from behind and put a cyberbrain lock on the back of his neck. The guy immediately lost control of his body as well as any means of commanding his servers to erase the data. Just in case the servers were already rigged, Purin pulled a link cable and connected to the servers herself.
It was of course pretty reckless, but her bet was mostly that it was the wrong guy. She assumed that instead of the attacker from their case they got some other shady guy, who was way less competent and way less dangerous. She still took precautions but quickly found out that she was spot on. The servers were not protected from local access and had a timer to wipe themselves. On them, Purin found private keys to tens of thousands of crypto wallets. She didn't have time to analyze them, so she just sent all of the data to Section 9 servers before it was irrecoverably lost. After the transfer was completed a minute later, she disconnected from the server. While she was saving the data, Batou put the guy in handcuffs and hoisted him over his shoulder.
*"I don't think that was our guy,"* Purin sent a message to the whole group.
*"We're still taking him, but it looks more like the work for the police,"* Batou continued.
*"I think we got him,"* Togusa sent a reply. *"Major is working on him and his servers."*
*"Our guy is... ugh,"* Ishikawa sent next. *"We're waiting for the police, I don't even want to touch what he's hosting here."*
A couple minutes later Major finally responded too. *"We have our target. Let's head back, we're taking everything here, even his underwear. There is a lot."*
Batou and Purin dragged their guy outside and put him in a van that Batou came in. Batou got in the back with him, while Purin got behind the wheel, and they drove to Section 9. It took a while for the commotion in Section 9 to die down. The guy that Purin and Batou apprehended was quickly handed over to the police. Apparently, he ran some kind of mass crypto scam, and the wallets that he controlled held stolen cryptocurrency worth multiple billions of yen. Certainly an impressive number with a lot of lives impacted by his actions, but not the threat that Section 9 usually worked with.
It took an hour for the Ishikawa's group to return from their own police handoff. In the meantime, Major was trying to make their target talk. He and Major were in the same room they held Purin in before, a white room for interrogation. The difference was that the suspect was handcuffed and way less cooperative. Batou was there with Major, playing either a bad or a good cop, Purin wasn't sure which. Purin herself was watching the interrogation via a camera in a nearby meeting room.
"Vincent Floyd, at least according to your passport," Major started. "Why did you come to Japan?"
"I always wanted to try the real Japanese hot springs," Vincent replied with a sneer.
"Don't be a smart-ass, you're suspected of terrorism, your best bet is to cooperate," Batou started his "good cop" act.
"You had servers full of encrypted data in your home, what's on them?" Major continued questioning.
"I'm recording white noise for my art project."
"Bullshit," Batou shouted at him and stepped closer, acting as an intimidating "bad cop" with his size and muscles
"Do you know what's actually bullshit?" He sneered, clearly not afraid. "You agency, whatever you call it. And the rest like it. I'm just a simple artist, but I was detained without a warrant or explanation, and my private property was searched without my consent. It's not just the American Empire. Japan is also like this now - on paper your citizens have more rights and freedoms, but your tools of control are the same. Do you know what would be really nice? If the whole world could see what you're doing and how... What an art piece that would've been!"
"If you like talking so much, start talking about where you got the virus," Major said.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Should I fix your memory?" Batou completely took the role of the bad cop.
"I can't tell you what I don't have. And anyway, shouldn't I have a lawyer or something?"
"Okay then," Major stood up and left the room. *"Everyone, meet at the Chief's office in five,"* she sent the message to all Section 9 members.
Batou stood for a few seconds trying to intimidate Vincent, but eventually followed her. After a few minutes, everyone gathered at the office of Aramaki Daisuke - the Chief of Section 9. He sat at the table with his back to a wide window, holding hands together in front of his face. Chief Aramaki was a very old and short man with a bald top of his head and bushy gray hair on the sides and on the back. Despite his age, he had a very sharp look in his eyes, and he was extremely serious. Major leaned on his desk in front, almost sitting on it. There was a coffee table in the middle of the room with two couches on the sides of it, and most of the rest of the Section 9 operatives were sitting on them. Two of them couldn't fit though, so Saito and Purin stood behind.
"He's hiding more than just a virus," Major was arguing with Chief Aramaki. "I don't know what's on his servers, but I'm sure it's important. I want to dive into his cyberbrain to find what he's up to."
"Are you suicidal?" Batou asked and made a face somewhere between anger and concern. "If you think that the virus is only the tip of the iceberg, diving in is even more dangerous. You're asking for your brain to be fried."
"We don't have time to wait for him to crack, you know as much as I do that Americans will soon complicate everything..."
That was the moment when the doors to the office opened, and a new man walked in. He had an obnoxiously business look - a three-piece black suit, glasses, short black hair. The only things out of place were his fingerless gloves.
"Speak of the devil," Major said.
The man adjusted his tie, looked around everyone gathered in the room, and went to business. "Ah, Aramaki-san, it's a pleasure to meet you," he said in a business tone and started walking towards Aramaki's table.
After he made a couple of steps, his path was blocked by Batou who stood up from the couch. "And who would you be?"
"My name is John Smith. I was sent here to pick up our citizen whom you unlawfully detained."
Batou looked at Aramaki who waved for him to sit. The Chief responded to John Smith: "Vincent Floyd is arrested under the suspicion of terrorism, we can't release him until the investigation is over."
"I believe you have no choice," John Smith replied.
At that time, Chief Aramaki raised his finger to show everyone that he got a call. The rest couldn't hear the caller, but they heard Aramaki's answers. "Minister Tate." "We can't do that." "I understand. I will visit you later."
He ended the call and took a moment to think. "Major, please hand over the suspect." Everyone immediately started protesting, but he just raised his hand. "We'll talk about it later."
Major crossed her hands over her chest and looked at John Smith like she could melt metal with her eyes. For all Purin knew, maybe she could. "Borma, Pazu, show the agent Smith the suspect and the exit. Make sure that he doesn't get lost on the way."
Borma and Pazu grumbled in agreement and led John Smith out of Aramaki's office. As soon as the door closed behind them, Batou exploded.
"What the hell was that?!"
"NSA," Ishikawa replied.
"Yes, I understand that he was from the NSA!" Batou shouted. "I'm asking why the hell the NSA is sticking their nose into our business, and why are we allowing them to?"
"Yes, Chief, both of these are very good questions," Major turned to Aramaki for answers.
"Hm. I don't have the answer to the first one, though I'm worried about it no less than you all are. As for the second: that was an order from the Prime Minister."
"So the rumors are true?" Togusa asked.
"It's very easy to see an American-born Prime Minister as their puppet. But we mustn't rush into conclusions. Leave Prime Minister Tate to me. For now, find out everything you can about this so-called John Smith and Vincent Floyd. We need to see the bigger picture."
Major sighed. "You've heard the Chief."
A few minutes later they all gathered again in a meeting room. Borma and Pazu returned after seeing John Smith off.
"What are we going to do next?" Batou asked the question mostly addressed to Major.
"I sent Tachikoma to follow them, but unless he's stupid, they'll likely leave for the American Empire on the first diplomatic flight. Pull everything you can find about both of them and let's dig."
"Can we get something from his servers?" Togusa asked.
Ishikawa shook his head, "Unlikely. He used strong encryption and powered everything off the moment he got caught. Unless he wrote the password down somewhere, it's extremely unlikely. I'll try to brute force it, of course, but don't hold your breath."
Batou leaned back into the couch. "So in the end we got nothing."
"At least we got rid of a dangerous guy," Togusa said.
"Let's hope that 's enough."
