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

Aramaki was normally hard to read, but Batou and Togusa, summoned to his office, could tell the chief was extremely unhappy. His words were more curt and clipped than usual, and Cutter was there via hologram, which never improved the mood of anyone in Section Nine. Worse, while Cutter sounded convincing, the story he told didn’t jibe with the Major they all knew.

“I want to see her scan,” Aramaki told Cutter’s hologram.

“She killed Dr. Ouelet!” Cutter exclaimed. Even if that were true, and Batou didn’t believe it, they should be allowed to see what had gone wrong with the Major’s cerebral enhancements.

But Cutter did not want Section Nine anywhere near the Major. “You’re to have no further contact with her,” the Hanka CEO stated. “Hanka Security will hunt her from here.”

Batou spoke up without asking for permission. “And what are their orders?”

“To terminate on sight.” Cutter didn’t seem the least bit distressed by the prospect.

“You want to kill her?” Batou exclaimed. “You built her!” He moved angrily towards the hologram, as though Cutter were physically in Aramaki’s office and could therefore be punched in the face.

Cutter didn’t respond, but addressed Aramaki instead. “Have your sergeant stand down.”

“The Major would never harm Dr. Ouelet!” Batou said, trying to make the chief see reason.

Togusa put a restraining hand on Batou’s arm. “Come on.”

“She’s not the Major anymore!” Cutter sounded irritated that no one at Section Nine had grasped this. “We have a Section Nine operative under terrorist programming. This goes public, your unit goes down.”

So now Cutter was threatening to disband the entire Section Nine department should it prove an embarrassment to Hanka.

Aramaki inhaled, then said, “You kill her, you kill us.” Even if the whole business managed to stay secret, Section Nine would fall apart if one of their own were officially murdered. The team wouldn’t work for Cutter if he had the Major’s blood on his hands. Batou’s respect for the chief grew.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Cutter said in a tone of false courtesy. Then his hologram cut out, dissolving into falling fragments of code that glittered before vanishing.

Batou turned to the chief. “So what now?”

Instead of speaking, Aramaki reached behind his desk, opened a drawer and took out an old-fashioned revolver. Its leather holster was embossed with the image of a samurai with his sword raised above his head, about to strike at an enemy.

The Avalon Apartments complex was arranged in a towering set of rings. At one time, the design plan had called for an atrium with majestic trees in the middle of the circular walkways that engirdled each floor, but that notion had fallen by the wayside as the place grew cheaper and dingier. Now it just looked like some kind of giant upended tube. Characterized by crumbling concrete, rusted railings and lines of laundry hanging from windows, the Avalon was home to those who didn’t have the means to get themselves off of New Port City’s bottom rungs and had reluctantly made their peace with it.

The residents went about their morning, and none of them spotted the lithe female figure loitering in the shadows. None of them saw her fingering the key in her hand, turning over the question of what it might represent in her thoughts.

She entered one of the buildings around the circular courtyard and took a rattling elevator up to the nineteenth floor. The Major could hear the tenants chatting or watching television through the poorly insulated walls.

On the walkway of the floor below, a mother and her toddler emerged from another elevator. The child said something and the mother answered. Her words were unclear but the affection in her tone wafted up to the Major. A comedian was doing a routine on TV in one of the apartments; his patter brought laughter and applause from his studio audience.

The Major found the apartment door of Unit 1912. She listened for a moment, holding her breath. Now she was here, she found herself frozen in a final moment of indecision. She truthfully had no idea what she would find on the other side of the door. It was ajar, and a cat ran out—a grey-and-black tabby with a blue collar, identical to the one in her glitch. The animal ran straight up to Major, winding around her legs, purring.

Instinctively, she picked up the cat. “Hey, hey.”

The tenant of 1912, presumably the cat’s owner, came hurrying out of the apartment. “Oh, the, Pum—Pumpkin!” she called to the cat.

Looking down at the walkway, where she expected the cat to be, the elderly woman almost collided with the Major. She was Japanese and looked to be in her sixties, slim, small, and well-kept. There was a proud and weary cast to her face. Unlike most people in the city, who wore muted, neutral colors, Hairi Kusanagi was clad in a stylish, if outdated, dress of deep greens, blues and purples arranged in a print that suggested elements of a folktale. Hairi was startled briefly by the woman holding her cat, but she straightened and smiled. “Oh, you surprised me.”

She had a strong Japanese accent, but spoke in English, perhaps assuming that the Caucasian Major might understand her better that way. Pumpkin, nestled in the Major’s arms, gave a contented meow. “Ooh,” Hairi chuckled, “she likes you.”

The Major didn’t know exactly how to respond to either the woman’s amiable manner or the cat’s placid acceptance. For that matter, she didn’t know how to explain what she was doing here. She couldn’t imagine they had ever met before—that would stretch coincidence to the breaking point—but the impression of the older woman seemed strangely potent, almost familiar , and the Major felt a flicker of confusion. Perhaps this woman was somehow famous and the Major had heard of her on the news? She also had an air of contained sorrow underlying her kindness. The Major began speaking before she’d determined what to say. “I was looking… for, um… ”

Hairi didn’t seem bothered by the stranger on her doorstep. She stuttered occasionally as she spoke. “No, co-come in.” She opened the door wider and beckoned. The Major was so surprised that she stood where she was. “No,” the older woman said, “come, come. Okay.”

The Major, still carrying Pumpkin, followed the woman into the apartment. It was small but neat, with artwork and photos on the wall.

“Okay,” Hairi said. She turned to the Major. “Can I offer you some tea?”

“Okay,” the Major replied.

The older woman nodded, as though that was the answer she wanted. “Uh-huh.” She headed into the kitchen where she lit the burner under the kettle. Unlike the Major’s apartment or the homes of the Hanka scientists, this place was thoroughly lived-in. The paint on the kitchen walls was fading, but there were green plants in pots on the sill by the window’s wooden frame, hangers on a line that stretched along the ceiling, and colourful mismatched cups on the draining board. In the main room, cheap chairs flanked a square table that held a basket of citrus fruit. Hairi Kusanagi might be old, and she looked like she had regrets, but she clearly had a life.

The Major set Pumpkin down. The cat promptly trotted through the open door of a bedroom. The Major looked inside, curious, and found that everything in the room was draped in plastic, to keep it exactly as it had been, so that neither dust nor the passage of time could harm it. The posters on the wall, the bedspread, the dolls on the shelf, the clothes in the closet all suggested that the room belonged to a teenage girl.