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

“Absolutely.” Ouelet was proud of her own work, but also proud of how well Mira had withstood the test of having her essence put into its new shell. “She’s a miracle.” Guessing what Cutter was thinking, Ouelet continued, “A machine can’t lead, it can only follow orders. A machine can’t imagine, or care, or intuit. But as a human mind in a cybernetic frame, Mira can do all those things… and more.” She momentarily looked away from her visitor to study the holographic blue stream of data scrolling down over the window.

When Cutter spoke again, it was clear to Ouelet that he understood the operation was a success—and comprehended almost none of its implications. “The first of her kind. She will join Section Nine as soon as she is operational.”

Ouelet tried hard to keep hold of her temper. She and her team had succeeded in creating a new life form, and Cutter simply saw Mira as a tool for law enforcement. “Please, please don’t do that. You’re reducing a complex human to a machine.”

“I don’t think of her as a machine.” Cutter’s voice was bland as he dismissed Ouelet’s concerns. “She’s a weapon. And the future of my company.”

Cutter turned and left. Ouelet turned to look through the observation window at the examining room beyond. Mira was now sleeping peacefully.

A year later, nothing and everything was new in New Port City. As its name suggested, the place was a major shipping destination, with a heavily trafficked harbor. It was also a hub of international industry, a magnet for worldwide corporate dealings.

The night sky above was a dark cowl of heavy cloud, dense with unspent rain, looming over myriad steel and glass skyscrapers that reached toward it like the fingers of some giant machine.

Due to the peculiarities of the city’s microclimate, it rained here often, but tonight the weather-modification technology kept the downpour in check. Traffic ran on multiple levels through downtown, with steel arches placed over each road at regular intervals both to hold up the infrastructure and to remind distracted drivers of the lane parameters. Green and red shimmering holographic signals pointed out on-ramps and off-ramps to the motorists. Packed in atop one another, the citizens ebbed and flowed through the avenues of the downtown core in pulses, mimicking the patterns of electrons through some vast circuit diagram. From high above, it was impossible to discern individual figures on the walkways or in the vehicles. There was only the flow of light and color, the constant motion. The city-as-machine, endlessly running.

The sky, though, was full. Some things in it were simply for civic beautification, like the holograms of shimmering, glittering spheres that suggested New Port City was a place of glamour and joy. But most of the skyline was dedicated to commerce. Advertising was everywhere, on the sides of buildings and floating free in the air. Holograms, many of them towering higher than the city’s forest of skyscrapers, hawked everything imaginable, everywhere the eye could see, in every color of the spectrum. Solograms—holograms that appeared to be solid—proliferated as well. The audio for the ads was easily accessed on a variety of phone apps or cyber-augmented hearing channels within the ear, for those who were interested.

One floating billboard crossed the sky, while a male announcer on the audio declared, “Introducing Bridgeworks from Lippastrift Technologies, the first artificially created memory enhancement…”

The hologram competed for airspace and attention with many others. One simply advertised something called “Locus Slocus.” Another promoted “virtulearning” from Hanka Robotics. In another a female announcer promised, “Sirenum’s training protocol is the fastest and most efficient way to develop the abilities you’ve always wanted.”

A fifth holographic billboard showed a man with a techno-enhanced hand. A male voice enthused, “Stronger than ever. Experience your power with PneumaGrip.” A sixth billboard had a contrasting style, as it was from law enforcement rather than a corporate sales division. Part of it read, in huge letters, “CYBER CRIME IS PUNISHED SEVERELY.” For those still unclear on the concept, the audio warned, “Cyber crime is a type-one offense. Minimum punishment: fifteen years in prison.”

Hanka Robotics, arguably the world’s largest corporation, probably didn’t need to advertise itself. Then again, perhaps its prominence was due in part to its relentless self-promotion. It had yet another hologram commercial winding through New Port City airspace: “Protect your life essence, with virtulock technology. Hanka Robotics guarantees personal safety and integrity against outside threats.” With so many readily available bodily implants, this was a danger facing most ordinary consumers.

More ads, some aggressive like the fifty-foot geisha advertising a nightclub, some subtler, like the zeppelin-sized solographic koi that swam between buildings, all clamored for attention in a variety of languages—English, Japanese, Cantonese, Arabic and more—as tuners in cars and radios and implants changed channels.

On a restricted channel, heard only by the city’s law enforcement personnel, one voice came through unopposed. “All patrolling air units be advised. Possible cyber-crime activity in the vicinity. Airspace in all adjoining areas to be locked down. Section Nine is currently on site. Repeat: All patrolling air units be advised. Possible cyber-crime activity—” the voice faded a little, its wavelength compromised by the uncountable others, “—in the vicinity. All airspace…”

With the enormous, vividly colored images moving everywhere, few people would even try to look through and past them to anything more solid. It would take both augmented optics and tactical knowledge to see a single figure, perched on a rooftop.

The Major—this was how she thought of herself now; only Ouelet called her Mira—blinked. She stood near the edge of the towering building. Her visor was pushed up on her forehead as she looked down and across the street through the ocular implants that the rest of the world saw as lovely, but normal, green eyes. The edges of her long matte-black coat to flapped against her legs in the wind.

Across the street from the Major, the Maciej Hotel was one of the city’s biggest towers, a jagged shard of reflective emerald and spun-lattice lunar steel that reached a dizzying one hundred floors high. Every level was an exercise in opulent luxury, with dozens of suites and bespoke rooms assembled atop each other to appeal to the richest men and women visiting the city, or even richer locals looking to impress someone.

The Major looked down into the sheer drop between her position and the hotel opposite. The wind toyed with her, threatening to push her over the edge and into the gulf. She imagined the fall; the thought held no fear. The solograms briefly won her notice, each one claiming to offer the key to a better future through cybernetic improvement. The Major looked away from the advertisements and down at her gloved hands, pondering whether cybernetic enhancement, planned and voluntary, unlike her own, really did make people’s lives better. She saw herself reflected in the ideal identity the corporations were promoting. Her young face framed by short dark hair, with its deep eyes and old soul beneath. The body of an athlete all spare lines, lean and flawless. And within that shell—

“ This is Major. I’m on site. ” She didn’t need to speak, or even subvocalize her response; the mindcomms link implanted in her neck gave her a kind of machine-telepathy that was routed directly back to Chief Aramaki at headquarters, and to the rest of her tactical team looped into the encrypted network. She could almost sense them out there in the darkness, faint phantom presences that existed just beyond the limits of her perception.