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

The Major began to recite the rote statement required at the start of every cyber-medical procedure. “My name is Major Mira Killian, and I…” she deviated from what she’d said every other time, “do not consent to the deletion of this data.”

Ouelet used the manipulator tool to open a second hidden port beneath the brain case, presenting a receptor plug for an intravenous chemical line.

“I do not consent,” the Major repeated. “I do not consent.”

“We never needed your consent,” Ouelet told Mira, sadly. “Yours or anyone’s.”

So the consent was just a ruse that Hanka used as a form of false reassurance, making their cyber-enhanced subjects compliant and trusting. Even that had been a lie. The Major realized out loud, “You’re killing me… aren’t you?” Tears welled up in her eyes. It wasn’t the prospect of death, but rather that everything she’d known was false. She had trusted Ouelet, having absolute faith that the doctor was saving what was human in her, keeping her human. Instead, she had been taking it away. Now it was going to end, and none of it was true. Perhaps she should be glad it was over.

Ouelet saw the moment unfold in her thoughts before she committed to it. In an odd way, it was like watching a hologram commercial, a three-dimensional image moving through a series of preprogrammed motions over and over. Abstract and unchanging. In its own way, inevitable .

Before her, Mira’s body lay tense and trembling against the support frame.

Ouelet kept her hands low. She knew that Cutter was observing through the window. She did not want him to see that the vial she inserted into the injector was filled with yellow liquid, not the red he had given her. Ouelet did not speak as she attached the inoculation device to a syringe, then plunged the syringe directly into Mira’s brain.

The Major gasped, reacting to the drugs.

Ouelet replaced the portion of skull she had removed and stepped around the side of the operating table, so that her back was to the observation window and Cutter beyond it. Mira could now see her face. She spoke very quietly. “Mira? Can you hear me?”

Keeping her hand below where it could be seen from the other room, Ouelet pressed a button. The restraints unclamped from the Major’s skull, leaving her free.

Cutter didn’t need to see exactly what Ouelet was doing to realize something was wrong. He turned from the window and moved to the office door.

“Mira, this is your past.” Ouelet took something from her pocket and pressed it into the Major’s hand. “Your real past. Take it.”

The Major looked down at her palm, not yet understanding. Lying there against her flawless artificial skin was an old mechanical key stamped with numbers, attached to a keychain with a fob bearing the inscription 1912 Avalon Apartments .

She no longer felt drowsy and heavy. Instead, energy was coursing through her body, both its biological and synthetic components. Her limbs were free.

In Ouelet’s office, Cutter pressed the button to open the door so that he could go into the operating room. The door remained shut. He began to pound on it. “Guards!”

Ouelet swept the dazed Major’s legs off the exam chair and set her upright on her feet. “Come on, come on !” Ouelet entreated. “Come on, go!”

Pulling Major along with her, Ouelet ran to the door. Two Hanka guards were standing outside. Ouelet gasped in dismay. The guards shoved her out of the way, charging at Major.

The Major lashed out with a few strategically placed blows that laid both men out cold on the floor. In the doorway, she turned to look back at Ouelet. The doctor was sitting on the floor, not poised to run or even stand.

“Go,” Ouelet said, tears coursing down her face. “Go!”

The Major hesitated a moment longer, then ran alone into the corridor.

“Hey!” a third guard yelled as he charged at her.

The Major swung a truncheon that she’d taken from one of the downed guards in the operating room. The weapon connected solidly with the charging guard, the impact rendering him unconscious.

A female voice spoke over the facility’s PA system. “Security alert on Level Twenty-Five.”

A door swung open and another guard came running out, gun aimed. He shot at the Major, who threw herself to her knees and used her momentum to slide into the guard’s legs, knocking him over.

He groaned in pain as two more guards ran into the corridor. The Major sprang up, using the baton to subdue one of the men as he fired his gun ineffectually. She grabbed the guard’s gun hand, struggling to control the weapon.

“Initiating lock-down procedure,” the PA system announced.

The Major squeezed the guard’s hand, his finger still on the trigger, shooting the second guard coming at them. The Major switched her grip on the guard she was holding and hurled him into the wall.

“Please,” the PA system urged, “relocate to your designated safe room.”

The Major took a moment to catch her breath and evaluate the situation. She ran back down the corridor and grabbed the guard’s gun off the floor.

“Security alert on Level Twenty-Five,” the PA system repeated. “Please relocate to your designated safe room. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Still trapped in Ouelet’s office, Cutter couldn’t quite believe what had happened. He knew Ouelet was arrogant, but this was too much. She had proved beyond a doubt that she couldn’t be trusted, in her judgments or her actions. He glared at her through the observation window as she got up from the operating room floor and turned to look at him. There was no apology in her face, not that it mattered now. She had put sentiment for 2571 over her professional obligations, over her duty to Hanka, over Cutter’s orders. It was unforgivable.

Ouelet’s value was really only in what she had brought to the projects. Her research was at Cutter’s fingertips and there were many other genius-level IQs at Hanka Robotics that could pick up where she left off—less involved, less sentimental scientists who would relish the challenge of building his perfect soldier. In the end, the woman had jeopardized the entire program, out of her own weakness. Ouelet had never had a child of her own, and it was clear to him now that she had projected that part of herself onto the Major.

“That’s the problem with the human heart,” Cutter told Ouelet. He raised his pistol and shot twice through the glass. Both bullets struck Ouelet in the left side of her chest. She lived just long enough to comprehend what had happened. She did not look surprised as she died.

Even at half her normal capacity, the Major was still a match for the best-trained human, and her hard-wired, combat-programmed training was now fully active. She attacked and disarmed the security personnel who crossed her path with ease. Her actions were rote and mechanical, operating on a level that was instinctive, beyond her normal thought processes. It was now simply escape, evade, and survive.

In the Hanka parking garage, the Major found a motorcycle that suited her needs, a fat black Honda with plenty of torque. She jumped onto it and broke open the ignition control with a twist of her fingers, hot-wiring the system. The electric motor hummed to life and she gunned it, lifting herself off the seat and leaning into the handlebars.

The parking lot guard tried to grab her. He caught the motorcycle’s rear frame and was dragged along behind it as the Major sped down the exit ramp. Once she was sure of her balance, she kicked the guard off, and he tumbled into the wall.

The ramp emptied out into the downtown streets of New Port City and the Major turned the bike to blend in with the traffic, soon leaving the tower of Hanka Robotics far behind and out of sight.