IF OUR GODS AND OUR HOPES ARE NOTHING BUT SCIENTIFIC PHENOMENA,
THEN LET US ADMIT IT MUST BE SAID THAT OUR LOVE IS SCIENTIFIC AS WELL
- TOMORROW'S EVE, 1886
OBSERVATION
What's the situation?
52 minutes ago, in the flat where the first of fence took place,
the owner was killed and the suspect fled.
At the second crime scene, two policemen were killed.
All entrances and exits are blocked.
We're storming the place in two minutes.
Damned Section 9 cyborg.
No matter how many lives they take, it's never enough.
The telecoms people want to intervene.
I requested a data link.
First the security services, then telecoms.
Muddying themselves one by one.
Help me.
There have been eight gynoid murders this week.
They self-destructed after killing the victim and initialised the computer.
The gynoids are all of type 2052 made by Rox.
They're all mass-produced evaluation copies provided for free.
They have now all been recalled.
According to the latest reports received the machines and software...
I suppose you heard.
A new type of gynoid attacked their owners for no apparent reason.
The manufacturer panicked and recalled them.
Long civil suits will be brought by the victims' families.
I understand that this is why Section 9 was called in.
Do you understand?
Understanding is something we aspire to.
Section 9 has intervened for two reasons.
First, not one lawsuit has been brought by relatives.
Rox Sol has settled out of court in all cases.
Second, one victim is a politician,
one is a retired public safety official.
It's part of our job to assess whether or not it was terrorism.
lshikawa and Azuma will follow the trails of the victims.
You guys, check the gynoids concerned.
Don't ask questions. Just go.
Let me tell you, I didn't ask for this assignment.
I'm a rookie compared to the Major.
That's not the issue.
She's still considered a missing person, I hear.
All she ever had was her brain and her ghost.
That was her entire existence.
Her body and computer were government parts.
Her memories, including classified material, were government property.
The top brass want to recover that memory.
They don't care whether she lives or dies.
Where shall we begin?
Rox is far to the north. They're a northern manufacturer.
Let's be straightforward and begin with the firm.
Why are you here?
It's about the gynoids destroyed yesterday.
Two of our young staff were also killed.
They didn't take the gynoids home.
That is included in our investigation.
It's on the 19th floor, to the right at the end of the corridor.
- Shall I show you the way? - No, I'm not here for a tour.
"Even a crow wouldn't touch fruit if it's not ripe."
You only come when you need me.
When you were a detective,
were you hurt by some big guys?
That's why I don't like seeing my old self.
If your face is disfigured, don't blame the mirror.
The mirror leads not to the land of enlightenment but to confusion.
You don't have the face of somebody who gets lost in a mirror.
Come as many time as you like. I said I won't cooperate.
I'll have you locked up if you're too pushy.
I'm Togusa from Section 9.
Who's this scary character?
The guy who shot this girl to pieces.
Restoration would be easier if he'd used a 50 calibre hollow point.
They killed three. Two of them were cops.
She tried to commit suicide before she was shot.
What do you mean by suicide, Ms...?
- Haraday. - Ms Haraday.
How does a robot commit suicide?
Gynoids can break down and allow themselves to attack humans.
As a logical conclusion, however, Ethical Code 3 prohibits it.
Once they harm humans, they lose the will to self-preservation.
I think the precise term for it is self-destruction.
If you wish, you can consider the human-machine distinction axiomatic.
Is suicide specific to that model?
Not exactly.
For years, robot making has been done in a hurry.
It's terrible.
- What's the cause? - Well...
E-brain failure due to viruses and microbes,
human error during the manufacturing process, old parts.
- There are plenty of causes. - But?
As I see it, it's because humans discard robots.
They're constantly buying new models.
The scrapped ones become vagrants.
Left without maintenance they degenerate.
Robots want humans not to use them and then dispose of them.
I don't believe it.
Humans and robots are different.
But the difference between the species is not black and white.
Industrial robots are different.
But androids and gynoids exist for utilitarian and pragmatic purposes.
Why are they made in human form and with perfect human bodies?
Why do human beings want to make them in their own image?
- Do you have children? - One daughter.
Children always deviate from human norms.
If you define a human being as an autonomous self acting out its will.
Where are children in the gradation of human existence?
Their inner state of being obviously differs, but they have human form.
When girls play with dolls, it's not practice for actual motherhood.
They're not practising childcare.
Games played with dolls and childcare may, however, be similar.
What are you talking about?
Raising a child used to be the only method of realising
the ancient dream of making an artificial human being.
- I'm just posing that question. - Children are not puppets!
Human and machines.
If you don't distinguish between the biological and non-biological.
I made a doll to look like my daughter Francine, who died at five,
and we could meet. That happened.
Isn't it time to talk about something real?
I'd like to hear your views on Rox robot model 2052.
Well, it's well made.
Its body is fine workmanship, but it's a prototype.
A prototype?
The finished types have some unnecessary parts.
And that means?
Sexual functions.
It's not to my liking, but it's not illegal.
I see. That's why the bereaved families withdrew from mourning.
The e-brain is initialised.
This is in order for the manufacturer to protect their software.
- But... - But what?
There's a file left in the buffer. I'll play it.
Help me. Help me.
Help me. Help me. Help me.
Help...
- Thanks for everything. - Hey!
Sorry to ask you a personal question...
I've never given birth or raised children.
I haven't registered my eggs for donation either.
Thank you, Miss...
Haraday. You don't need to call me Miss or Mrs.
She didn't seem like a technologist.
The type who writes her thoughts in reports. I've done that.
It's delayed our investigation.
The gynoids brain should be checked in Section 9's lab.
So we won't see the old lady again.
Is she your type?
I like older women.
We'll follow the routine.
09 to 907.
Incident. The victim is an inspector...
901, got it.
- Well, well. - Spring is shortlived.
What's up? Are you here alone?
Kogawa and Tsuwa went to have dinner.
Lazy sods.
This is the situation 22 minutes ago.
Did they give this job to rookies?
It's all part of their training.
I'll check the situation.
The victim's e-brain is that of Rox director Jack Walkson, 54.
He applied for leave a few days ago and disappeared.
This place was rented on a three-week contract three days ago.
We've checked local parking records.
We're checking connections to organised crime.
Seven cards were found in what's believed to be the victim's coat.
Look at that. A 38 calibre S&W.
Doesn't seem to have been used.
It may not have been much use anyway.
The assailant may have been a professional.
We'll be arriving at the crime scene... Don't touch...
I haven't touched anything.
We'll leave the rest to you.
907 to 90. Leave the site to 960.
- It's my daughter's birthday today. - Her day of birth.
- I'll give you a lift there. - I'm going the other way. lshikawa?
So am I.
His daughter's birthday is important.
This looks like good fun.
You're being uncharacteristically direct.
I've come to find the missing parts.
Take your time.
Why don't you let the local police handle it?
Because that guy's involved in it.
I found something in containers in the fridge.
Heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas.
What a bastard.
Do you buy fresh dog food? The dry stuff lasts for half a year.
Yeah, but it's inedible.
- You've become Togusa's partner, I hear. - It's better than working with a rookie.
I have no complaints against him.
Only the Major was a good enough partner for you, right?
- Eh? - lshikawa, you talk too much lately.
- Well then, Batou... - What is it?
You're right. I'll try dry dog food.
In terms of nutritional balance, it's the wiser choice.
Death was caused by a blow to the cervical vertebrae.
The kitchen implements were used for dismemberment, not for the murder.
- Was he butchered after the murder? - Yes.
The organs in the refrigerator belonged to the victim.
He had gastritis and cirrhosis. He was probably an alcoholic.
Why was he so meticulously cut up?
The perpetrator could be psychologically abnormal.
Or a strong desire for revenge, perhaps.
In that case, it wasn't a professional killer.
What about the twisted door handle?
The analysis results.
The artificial limb is a Chinese-made MR26.
It's like crab pincers.
Isn't it a military model? They're on the black market.
There are also images of the shredded neck.
Any criminal records on the car?
- It's been difficult to find out... - Just give me the conclusion.
According to the car park records,
the vehicle belongs to a criminal gang.
The bullet-proof chassis has been involved in past criminal activities.
It's cyborgs who did it.
Criminals need to be cautious. Is it a Yakuza gang?
What's the motive? Who are this gang?
They come from an old Japanese gang. Drugs, prostitution, tobacco.
They do everything that the Yakuza do.
Wakabayashi killed lnoue three days ago and became leader.
Of course.
Eliminating your predecessor is the absolute condition of control.
There's just one question.
If the victim expected to die, why was he hiding from the gang?
The data in his e-brain is gone. We can only conjecture.
In any case, this falls under our jurisdiction.
How about terrorist groups using out of control robots?
At present no links with political groups are known.
That line of investigation is weak.
Batou and Togusa will conduct the operation.
The rest of you, continue what you were working on.
Dismissed.
Togusa.
Come to my office before you go.
How is it going?
We have to find the link between the gang and the Rox Corporation.
I'm talking about Batou.
Thorough psychological assessment is part of the debriefing.
Yes, but I'm not a cyborg. I don't have an e-brain.
You don't need to be Caesar to understand Caesar.
You're a family man. Do you feel happy at present?
Well, yes.
Most people are neither happy nor unhappy.
What's important is that they don't lose hope and the will to live.
What do you mean?
When I see him lately, it reminds me of the Major before she vanished.
Solitude breeds evil
It demands only little
Like an elephant in the woods
Director, why did you choose me?
The Major had you transferred.
What did he say?
Apparently, you don't need to be Caesar to understand Caesar.
That's right. The world can't live at the level of great men.
Are you planning to start a war?
You don't need to become a Yakuza to visit them, but you need guns.
- I want to check something before we go. - What?
- We're just going to talk, right? - Don't you like Yakuza?
- I hate them. - Me too.
- We're just going to talk to them? - I told you. To go to the Yakuza...
...you don't need to become Yakuza. But you said you needed guns.
- I have a family. - I can go on my own.
I'll come with you. We're partners.
Promise me.
We're just going to talk. We'll avoid shooting as far as possible.
- Fine. - Let's go, then.
Who are you?
We want to talk to Wakabayashi. Get him.
You said you'd avoid shooting.
I did, as far as it was possible.
Be ready. Reinforcements are coming.
Come on. Is he trying to trick us?
I hate these incomplete e-brains.
What's up?
It's dark and narrow. How shall we advance?
- Do it quickly. I'll go first. - I'll go.
You're too big to be in front. I can't back you up.
Your little present exploded above your head.
Even if you achieved maximum impact,
you can't kill a big cyborg in body armour with just two grenades.
Scared?
I don't just want to know about the murders.
What are your links with Rox Sol?
Just what you'd expect.
Come on, crab boy, I'll fight you.
You're no match for me, you fool.
I'll tell you where the head of the section is. Let's make peace.
I've just come back from a three-year sentence.
I don't know what they were doing with that company.
Are you alive, partner?
My mind is full of images of my daughter's face.
It's neither your wife nor your daughter you're seeing. It's death.
I ordered you to investigate.
I did not say abandon procedure and step outside the law.
I don't remember ordering you to attack a Yakuza office.
This is not the jungle, and you're not special forces assassins.
- Still angry? - I'm not angry.
But I'm reluctant to thank you for saving my life.
Being your partner it's not enough no matter how many lives you have.
We're an investigation team, just the two of us.
If there's anything fishy about Rox, we'll find it out.
So you did it on purpose?
If the boss is really angry, we'd both have been fired by now.
Stop just there.
See you.
You've stepped into a killing zone.
Don't reset the right arm yourself.
The operating system upgrade interferes with the control software
and there have been cases of malfunction.
I'll ask you to initialise me then.
By the way, where are my original parts?
Don't worry about it. That hand is adapted to your DNA.
Using it will make me my original self.
Ouch! Stop it!
- Why has he come with you? - I went to your house.
I felt bad seeing him hungry and waiting for his master.
I see you're kind to animals.
I had the dog for one night.
My daughter was overjoyed. My wife got angry when he crapped on the carpet.
How long have you had me under surveillance?
- It's nothing. - No, it's not. Being manipulated.
You're to blame for not noticing.
If you're angry, be angry with the boss.
Is it a clone? Originals are expensive.
It's one of the original test tube-bred ones.
I can't imagine it having an e-brain.
It doesn't fall into the trap because its life is stable.
I told you to get dry dog food.
He likes the stuff I buy, and they only sell it in that shop.
You shocked everybody and started a big fight.
You almost killed the shopkeeper.
He's not insane, and nobody can hack into his systems.
Except for the Major.
Why didn't I blow my own head off?
The objective was not your death but to cause a scandal.
You sent dozens of Yakuza to heaven or hospital.
You ran amok on the same day in a food shop.
Don't be surprised if people think you've gone mad.
Hey, wait. The attack proves that this was no accident.
Section 9's raison d'être will disappear. There's no doubt.
A message from the boss.
"Continue the investigation, but if you find no evidence,
"you have no official backing."
We can only go directly to Rox.
Speed is of the essence.
- Go to the North straightaway. - The North?
- Are two people not enough? - But what about the dog?
A single man should not keep a dog.
Especially one that needs lots of care.
Do something about it!
It's the biggest information city in the Far East.
The Etorofu Special Economic Zone.
It's become this giant tombstone,
a haven for corporate criminals.
It's become a lawless zone beyond UN and ASEAN authority.
I'm thinking that what an individual creates is genetically encoded.
You mean beaver dams and spider's webs, don't you?
I'm thinking about coral reefs. Well, it's not quite as beautiful.
The essence of existence is the genetic transmission of information.
Society and culture are just enormous memory storage systems.
Cities are huge external memory devices.
They're innumberable. More than there are grains of sand.
Old Testament, Book of Psalms, Psalm 139.
If you suddenly come out with things like that,
your external memory is a little strange.
I don't want to hear that from you.
You'll be landing at Rox HQ shortly.
We've completed the approach. We're commencing landing.
He falls like autumn leaves
The chaos come to fruition bellows
Is it Milton now?
But we're not Satan.
Batou.
Who taught you to address me by first name'?
I haven't forgotten what you did for me.
The less you forget, the more you remember.
Forgive me, Batou. Mr Batou.
You're not entitled to call me Mr Batou.
I beg your pardon. Please forgive me.
- Do you know a guy called Kim? - I don't know the guy.
This city is full of people called Kim.
The Kim I'm looking for is unique.
Even in my trade, there is loyalty.
There are two kinds of loyalty. Keeping secrets or integrity.
Where does your loyalty lie?
They also say that there is no truth without secrets.
I'll ask you again. Do you know that bastard Kim?
I don't know him! I don't know anybody of that name.
People are like puppets
They perish in a flash
So?
He was a long-distance scout in the army.
He couldn't bear having people above or below him.
He went from special forces to electronic warfare.
He made a career for himself as an arms dealer.
Eventually, he became a common hacker.
What a CV.
A donkey does not return from his travels a horse.
He destroyed everything around him, the fool.
Shall we go?
Batou, this is the study.
We were too late.
The brain must have been taken to sell on the black market.
Whatever the case, he was not useful.
According to the testament, there shall be no flowers at the funeral.
Hey!
Don't act like a corpse.
Master Confucius taught us not to sleep like dead men.
I don't have time for your silly games.
It's a long time since we've met.
I'm here on business.
Something to do with Rox?
They began late as robot manufacturers.
They expanded rapidly after concentrating on the development
and sale of high-specification gynoids.
Politicians, senior civil servants and crime syndicates became involved.
Hearing rumours of State intervention,
production lines have been relocated to an offshore factory ship.
The androids made there are very good.
So good that they kill people and commit suicide?
If that's true, it's terrible.
I don't know if they want to make puppets with human souls.
A beautiful puppet is just soulless flesh.
Confronted with physical decay,
a corpse can continue living in that way.
Degraded to a cripple with an e-brain.
Is that the reason?
Puppets cannot attain the beauty of human shape, movement and existence.
Imperfect human cognition cannot grasp its own incomplete nature.
The imperfection can have no consciousness
or boundless consciousness.
In other words, only robots or gods can realise that cognition.
Shouldn't we talk business?
Only one other form of existence comes close to gods or robots.
Animals?
The skylark has something...
creatures with strong self-consciousness cannot perceive.
It lives happily in profound lack of consciousness.
To become like the birds, who live on the fruit of the trees,
is even harder than attaining divinity.
Having no other method, you entered a puppet and feigned death.
Confucius also says few people know life and death.
Humans who understand death are rare.
Most people are not prepared.
They have to bear stupidity and habit.
People die because they are not conscious of death.
The soulless puppet takes death as a given and lives.
Kim chose to become completely artificial. That's the reason.
And then?
He went from special forces to electronic warfare.
He went into the arms trade and his career took off.
Eventually, he became a common hacker.
What a CV.
A donkey does not return from his travels a horse.
All right? Let's go.
Batou.
I salute those who are to die today.
Hey!
I feel uncomfortable.
I understand that.
If it looks alive,
you wonder if it really is alive.
And you wonder if a lifeless thing is alive.
Where does the sensation of pain come from?
Robots are made by human beings.
Their bodies were made by humans.
They fear being casually turned off by humans.
In other words, they fear that their human appearance
obscures the main question.
Shut up, let's talk business.
Science tried to reveal the secrets of existence.
Science created the terror we feel.
Belief in evolution leads to the conclusion that human parts
can be replaced by artificial ones.
The body has a self-winding spring mechanism.
It's in perpetual motion.
18th century robotics introduced the mind-body dualism.
When computers made memory storage outside the body possible,
human biological evolutionary potential broadened.
Humanity actively continued mechanising.
They transcended Darwinian natural selection.
By their own power they manifested their will.
They expressed a will to overcome nature.
The source of this evil is the totally hardware-equipped illusion called life.
The gods work their eternal geometry.
Let's go!
Batou.
How do you feel?
What happened to me?
You were exposed. Your e-brain was hacked into.
For fortune to reveal itself thrice, misfortune will appear thrice.
See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.
Then boom - the end comes.
But in our world if you miss the first sign, you're dead, let alone all three.
I told you before, I have no time for your stupid bullshit!
When did you figure it out?
You know the old expression, no one's easier to trick than a trickster.
You may be some kind of electronic warfare specialist, Kim,
but you forget that I am also an intelligence expert.
Besides, I have a guardian angel looking over me.
Dig up the hall image in your external memory database.
Jacob Grimm wrote "Aemaeth - Truth Of God" on the clay man Salem's forehead.
But if you remove "ae" from the beginning, it becomes "maeth" which means "death".
That word made Golem clay again. That is how I knew what I saw wasn't true.
Someone broke through the firewalls I devised?
That's absurd! No one could do that!
You're wrong, someone did do it, my guardian angel.
The game's over, Kim. It's time you started talking.
It's just a doll. You know you're starting to piss me off.
Knock it off!
Batou, are you sure this is not an extension of false illusions
generated by virtual signals?
My ghost is whispering to me if that's what you mean.
Humans are nothing but the thread from which the dream of life is woven.
Dreams, consciousness, even ghosts
are no more than rifts and warps in the uniform weave of the matrix...
I'm just a worthless human being just like you are, Kim.
But we walk very different paths.
For those who don't believe in ghosts,
there's conveniently always insanity or schizophrenia.
What's left of your original body will not self-destruct immediately.
It will continue to function only physically until the time death comes to take you.
Are you sure we're actually back in physical reality?
Well, there's no way to distinguish reminiscence from true memory.
And, whichever they are, they can only be understood after the fact.
The passage of time can't be stored, so it's difficult to say.
The real question is are the memories real, or have they been put there?
Do your wife and daughter truly exist?
Are you actually still living somewhere, or just dreaming of having a family?
Wouldn't you want to verify which is actually real?
If you knew, why didn't you say anything?
Because I wanted to ascertain his motives.
Kim set up his trap knowing full well that I'd come,
inserting the virtual experiences to turn us away.
When Kim surprised me and made me blow off my own right arm,
he must have planted something in my e-brain.
Like lshikawa told you, not many people could pull something like that off on me.
I'm pretty sure that Locus Solus felt the same way.
So you anticipated all of this?
I planned to get in by pretending to fall into his trap,
but Kim was pretty skilled.
Without the sign in the hallway, I may not have figured it out.
What about the guardian angel you were talking about?
Well, it seems she's vanished again.
Somewhere beyond that "rift in the uniform weave of the matrix."
Or somewhere on the vast Net, merging with the entire domain.
There are as many paths to proving your existence as there are ghosts.
You've got your daughter - your proof.
I'm sure Kim knew all about this back when he was in the jungle.
Well, at least there's one thing I've got figured out.
- What's that? - I'm really not cut out to be your partner.
I thought we worked well together.
I don't want to whinge, but I'd like to stay alive long enough to see my daughter.
You have to work long enough to earn your salary.
You wanna carry on?
Don't we have enough information from Kim's e-brain to nail Locus Solus?
We can only prove he interfered with an investigation. That, plus the ethics violation.
Besides, our investigation is officially off the record.
So, if we are going to make any charges stick in these gynoid murder cases,
we need some physical evidence.
Kim is a dead end now!
Not really. His e-brain's "ghost packed" and still connected to Locus Solus.
We must catch 'em with their pants down before they can clean everything out.
There is a good old saying,
"When there is no right or wrong, it's time to attack."
When talking doesn't work, it's time to use force!
Hey, this isn't going to be like barging into that Yakuza office again, is it?
If I were you I'd bring more than your Mateba!
"Birds see refuge high up in the heavens.
"Fish, on the other hand, dive deep into the sea".
- I've made contact with the escort. - Roger.
I can't believe a big guy like you decided to dive.
It's so deep that if you sank, we'd never be able to retrieve you.
I used to know this cyborg, she used to love to go diving.
- So what'? - I never knew what she was thinking.
I'm only helping you because you're a friend of Lin's.
No one's come back from that ship alive.
- Wait for me. I'll be back. - Hold on tight.
In 12 seconds you'll trip their sensors.
I'll send you a couple of seconds of camouflage signal.
Roger.
This guy Kim has a direct connection to the e-brain of the Chief of Security.
Initiating synchronisation.
I'm in. Send me the vessel data.
Download completed. You got my vision in your sights?
Of course, I wouldn't miss my mentor's assault for anything! I'm recording.
You're a real smartass, you know that?
Infiltrator detected. Rebooting level two security system.
Review status of all on board e-brains.
Scan for matches in memory usage and virus size.
It may be a latent virus. Cross monitor.
Logical contact with Chief's e-brain denied.
Re-formatting procedure engaged!
Rebooting of level two security system complete.
Creating detour to divert infiltrator. Rebuilding logic firewall.
Loading antibodies! Scanning viruses.
Response team, prepare decoys for ambush.
Deploy all latent viruses along firewalls. Security wall 014 breach.
Error type 280 in security wall 230.
Quarantine affected area. Rebuilding level one external security wall.
Intruder detected. Transmitting counter virus.
Pull out. It's too dangerous beyond this point. They'll fry your brain!
Not yet, I can go a little further.
Don't be an idiot! Pull out now!
LIFE AND DEATH COME AND GO,
LIKE MARIONETTES DANCING ON A TABLE
ONCE THE STRING IS CUT, THEY EASILY COLLAPSE
Illegal access at Hadaly gynoid final production area.
Suspect unconfirmed latent virus attack.
Discharge all vaccines to thwart intruder.
Too late, all systems activated. Cannot establish logical contact.
Currently loading combat robotics control software.
Warning! Abnormality on the THO7 line.
Security personnel, secure arms and investigate immediately.
What took you so long? It's been a long time, Major.
How shall I address you now?
To be precise, it's just a fragment of me downloaded via satellite.
This gynoids e-brain lacks capacity.
It can only handle the combat robotics control system.
This is the best I can do for facial and vocal expression.
There should be an emergency access terminal 50 metres down this passage.
If you can infiltrate that, we'll take over the whole system.
- You haven't changed a bit, Batou. - You go on up ahead.
I'll cover the rear, just like the old days.
Who can gaze into the mirror without becoming evil?
A mirror does not reflect evil, but creates it.
Hey, no time to be philosophical now. We're running low on ammo.
Therefore, one should have a glimpse in a mirror, not stare into it.
Hey, isn't that risky?
It's only until I shut down the operating system.
Plug into the auxiliary inputs into the floor.
I have to gain control of this system, otherwise this gynoid's nonfunctional.
I'm counting on your 30-calibre arm, Batou.
My brain can control the firing, but I've only got one clip left.
And I have my doubts about going hand-to-hand with these gynoids.
Here we go!
Illegal on board breach of main system. Security breach. Security breach.
Isolate access point, engage proactive firewall.
Multiple camouflage signals identified. No fluctuation in any terminal.
Outside access detected. Terminate all external network links.
Disengage external inputs.
Emergency control system not responding. Remote ignition impossible.
Diffused viruses coalescing. Breach in system area firewalls.
Preparing system reset. Isolating level one data.
Multiple illegal accesses. Countermeasures ineffective!
We're in control. All external links are severed. The ship is now stand-alone.
We're moving...'?
Yes, we're heading south, leaving international waters for sovereign territory.
This ship will give us the physical evidence that proves Locus Solus' involvement.
They'll come after us.
We'll have a police vessel escort us before they have a chance. I already called it in.
But don't you want to see the Locus Solus technique that infused the dolls with souls?
Don't you already know?
You've got a hunch about this too...
Right?
It's totally silent. They must be blocking off all electric waves.
Ghost dubbing.
In animal experiments, they discovered they could mass-replicate inferior copies.
But the technology was banned
as they found out the brain of the original being was destroyed.
Locus Solus brainwashed girls supplied by the Kojin-kai mob,
dubbing their ghosts onto gynoids.
It was the ghost that made Locus Solus gynoids so desirable.
Are you here to rescue me?
Mr Volkerson promised me that the police were coming to rescue me very soon.
I was stage four, but my friend Soana - you see, she is already at stage five -
she can't hear anything and never answers any more.
Volkerson, the murdered consignment inspector, revised their ethics code.
The Yakuza took him out to avenge the death of their crime boss.
That's probably what happened.
He told us that if the robots made trouble, someone out there would notice.
Then someone would come and save all of us.
Didn't they think that they were victims?
I'm not just talking about the humans.
What about the dolls out there right now who are endowed with human souls?
But I never wanted to have to be a doll!
"We weep for the blood of a bird, but not for the blood of a fish.
"Blessed are those who have voice."
If the dolls could speak, they'd scream, "I didn't want to become human!"
Let me ask you a question.
Do you consider yourself really happy now?
A nostalgic value, I suppose,
At least I am free of dilemma now, and that's nice.
"Let one walk alone, committing no sin, with few wishes...
"..like elephants in the forest."
Batou, always remember - whenever you access the Net,
I will be there, by your side.
I'm going now.
Your guardian angel showed up on that ship, didn't she?
You're not going to tell me?
Do you think I'll put it in my report?
I'll pick you up at 8:20 tomorrow morning.
I owe you for looking after my dog.
You could come in if you like.
Hanging out with other people's families isn't my thing.
Daddy!
Did you remember to bring me something?
- I didn't forget your present, see? - Yeah!