James Swallow - Ghost in the Shell - The Official Movie Novelization

The brief surge of fear that had threatened to well up in the Major’s chest fell back and faded away. She had been in this place and this situation before, more than once, and Ouelet was always there to put her back together. Still, she frowned, looking inward as her internal systems diagnostics brought up a dozen error readings. Her dermal plates were visible, much of the artificial skin badly shredded, torn ragged as if by the claws of some great beast. Internal circuitry in her limbs and torso showed in many places, exposed to the air. She wanted to get back to work at once, but it was going to take hours to apply a new layer of skin and for the hardware to reset.

“I saw him down there.” The Major needed Ouelet to understand how Kuze had toyed with her and that it was essential she be back on the case as soon as possible, even though it was hard to put definite meaning to the events in the club’s basement. “It was like…” she paused momentarily, “he waited to see me.”

“We synaptic-scanned you,” Ouelet said over the intercom, anticipating the Major’s concern. “Everything you witnessed went to Section Nine to evaluate.” She paused before adding, “You know, the scan… also turned up a number of glitches.”

“They’ve been getting worse,” the Major admitted.

“Since when?”

“Since the Deep Dive.”

Ouelet left her office and entered the operating room to stand by the Major’s bedside. “Do any of the glitches mean something to you?”

“No,” the Major said, with more surety than she felt. “They don’t.”

Ouelet took a moment before speaking again. “You’ve been inside the same shell as he has.” The Major’s Deep Dive had been within the geisha’s cyber-consciousness, which had also been entered and probed previously by Kuze. “That could have… very serious consequences.”

The Major could hardly argue with this, so she said nothing.

“You were not authorized to Deep Dive the geisha,” Ouelet reproved.

“You’re disappointed.” The Major felt regret. There were few people whose opinions she valued, but Ouelet was one of them.

“No,” Ouelet corrected her, “I’m worried.” She swallowed. “You’re not invulnerable. I can repair your body, but I can’t protect your mind.”

This didn’t make sense. “Why not?” the Major queried. “You can see all my thoughts, so you should be able to secure them.”

Rather than answering directly, Ouelet turned the conversation to a theme she often visited—that the Major had a responsibility to exercise self-preservation. “Try and understand your importance, Mira.” Ouelet paused, then added, “You’re what everyone will become one day.”

The Major didn’t wish that day on anyone. Meanwhile, Ouelet’s words simply reinforced that there were no others like the Major, that there might never be others in her lifetime. “You don’t know how alone that makes me feel.”

Eventually, Ouelet released her and the Major dressed stiffly in her spare clothes, the surface of her mended skin still pale and moist where it was setting into place. Fluid link replacements in her joint servos repaired the damage she had suffered from the electroshocks and, as much as was possible, she felt whole again. The visions in the murky room, the explosion and the engulfing wave of dust—those things were fading already, as if they were someone else’s memories that she had only heard about.

She made her way across the hall to the Enhancement Department, slowing as she approached, a fraction of doubt forcing its way into her thoughts.

He lost his eyes? Batou had come down to that basement looking for her, and if he had been badly wounded, she bore some responsibility for it.

She saw Batou through the window of a recovery room. He was sitting up, his left shoulder and arm secured by a speed-heal wrap that held broken bones in place and allowed the replacement skin to take hold without risk of infection. His eyes were covered by a protective VR headset.

“I can see you out there, you know.” Batou raised his voice to make sure the Major heard him.

She raised her middle finger in response, her voice dry. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Batou smacked his lips. “Funny.” His tone was sarcastic, as if the Major had done something childish, but they both knew how glad he was that she was there.

The Major entered the recovery room, and Batou opened up the headset to reveal what was underneath. After what she’d been told, she was expecting it, but it was still a shock when the medical module around his face folded open and Batou looked up at her. His kind eyes were gone, and she stifled a small gasp of dismay. From the side, it looked as though two short, flesh-colored gun barrels had been implanted in his eye sockets. Moving to look at him straight on, the Major saw that Batou’s implants contained multilayered cyber-mech lenses; the inside workings of each new eye bore a resemblance to a telescope, and had the function to match. They rotated and focused on her as she approached. The technicians had managed to replicate the blue of his original irises in the optical discs that now sat at the end of his eye barrels, which just made his appearance more unsettling.

Batou had a notion of how he looked. “Say something nice,” he requested.

The Major liked him too much to lie, so she went with an insult and a smirk. “You chose those?”

Batou grinned. “They’re tactical.” This was true—there was no such thing as too much enhancement for a Section Nine agent.

“Always for the job,” the Major teased.

Batou shrugged and then winced. “What else I got?”

She didn’t want to discuss the fact that neither of them had lives outside of their work. So she said something nice after all. “They suit you.”

“Yeah?” Batou sounded hopeful. He’d gone for the full military package. “I got night vision, mile-zoom… and X-ray.” He gave the Major a sly grin. “I guess I see like you now.”

If that was true, the Major thought, Batou was in for a hell of a learning curve. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Batou swallowed. He knew it would make her uncomfortable, but he still had to say it. “Thanks for saving my ass.”

He didn’t expect a reaction, nor did he get one. What the Major really wanted to ask was whether he’d seen anything strange in the club—a burning pagoda, perhaps, or Kuze’s cloaked image. But surely he’d say so if he had, and she didn’t want to bring up anything that might make a colleague, even Batou, think there might be something wrong with her perceptions.

“Glad to see you’re okay,” the Major said, and headed for the door.

“Major?” Batou called. She stopped. “Could you feed the dogs for me? I don’t want to scare them.”

So underneath the bluster, Batou was afraid his new look was disturbing. The Major didn’t know how to counter that, so she just nodded and said, “Any time.”

Batou’s self-doubt was sincere but contained. After the Major left, he spotted a pretty worker seated at a console in the recovery room. He zoomed in on her with his new eyes, delighted by how well they worked and what they were showing him.

That night, the Major went to the alley where Batou had taken her previously. She had a bag full of butcher’s scraps, but this time, the only dog to come out of the shadows was the basset hound mix Gabriel. He trotted up to her, tail wagging, and whined to be petted even after she’d put the meat down for him.

The Major knelt. At first, she wore the frown that was her usual resting expression. The little dog was happy with the attention. He didn’t care whether she was fully biological or in a synthetic shell, he just wanted the touch of a friendly hand, a friendly face to look into. That, she supposed, was what it meant to be human. Or in this instance, canine. She put her hand on Gabriel and smiled at him. The dog wagged his tail again.