Virus

Another morning started with a sunny kick in the ass. A day perfect for tourists, mothers with children, the elderly, and the newly introduced cyborgs, meant to "make our lives easier." But not in this city. There's nothing left to do here but get drunk and sleep through all this musty-smelling crap.

Japanese, Chinese, and even Korean gangs composed of the bored sons of wealthy investors and politicians roam the streets, provoking fights and looting goods from stores and warehouses. The bastards modify their bodies at will. They can afford it, and technology allows for practically any modification. Men implant mechanical muscles, and women implant adjustable breasts and anti-pregnancy internal fetal destroyers, which they then excrete in the form of brown urine. The possibilities are endless.

Apparently, members of Japan's largest gang, known for its cruelty, implant implants in their jaws, resembling vampire fangs, and bleach their skin to make it appear sensitive to sunlight. At night, they murder anyone they can, feasting on the victim's flesh and savoring the entrails together. I don't know if it's true, but I've heard stories of eviscerated corpses missing most of their organs.

Chinese gangs invest primarily in mechanized prosthetic limbs, giving them superhuman strength, while Koreans... well, they're traditionalists and simply stock up on weapons.

The police don't react. The triads and yakuza, the only "registered" and openly operating gangs, dominate smaller gangs, rendering them untouchable in exchange for monthly payments and performing minor tasks.

It was in this city, rife with fear and cowardice, that I became a cop—hated by both syndicates and civilians.

The only thing keeping me alive is my six-year-old son in a coma, who thankfully doesn't have to witness what's happening here. His soul is currently in a computer-generated world, where it can survive for up to several months. However, doctors say his body is slowly dying, and it will only be a few days, maybe weeks, after his death that it will be possible to transfer his spirit into a surrogate, cybernetic body. Then they'll have to delete it. Unfortunately, I can't afford it, and GITS, the company that promised help, recently halted production of its armor due to a virus released into their system by a man named Sanjuro, who described his exploit on his website.

Moreover, GITS representatives reported the matter to the police just two days ago, having received no help from the yakuza and triads, and now I'm in charge of finding the hacker.

GITS was supposed to introduce revolutionary solutions. Their products were supposed to be more durable and significantly cheaper than anything available on the market. However, compared to the competing behemoth, Kenji Moritaka's BRAIN Corporation, GITS was a mere fledgling, lacking funds.

GITS isn't a wealthy company, so only my partner and I were assigned to this case.

We've been searching for Sanjuro for two days now. We're receiving a wealth of information about his location. However, once we arrive, it turns out there's no trace of him. He's playing cat and mouse with us. Or maybe he doesn't exist at all. We've searched practically all of New Tokyo, including long-abandoned districts and areas inhabited by the poor arriving from Europe. They came here with dreams, but they were robbed of them.

Once upon a time, Tokyo was a wealthy city where everyone could live a decent life. However, when the government decided to build a "Sky City" in the heart of the city, the funds quickly ran out. The state took out loans and accumulated billions in debt.

The building, over a kilometer tall, was completed, but no one but syndicate members could afford to rent an apartment or office space. And so, the project, intended to solve the city's urban problems, became a symbol of folly and led to poverty. The construction of this engineering marvel ended the era of the old city, thus ushering in the era of New Tokyo. However, what was supposed to usher in better times instead led to decline and crisis for the state.

Toward evening, we received word from an anonymous informant that Sanjuro was hiding in an abandoned building slated for demolition near Roppongi Center. It wasn't the best time to be traveling around the city. In the evening, all the scum were out on the streets. Despite the late hour, we decided to check the veracity of this information.

We arrived within twenty minutes. We quickly located the building, as a dim light was burning in one of its windows. I wasn't sure if a hacker was hiding there, but we had to start somewhere.

We entered the stairwell, where I immediately smelled the stench of rotting rats and soaked homeless people hiding from the vampire gang.

Creeping, we reached the door of a suspicious apartment. Hackers are usually harmless IT professionals who avoid combat, but just in case, we grabbed our weapons. We quickly decided that I would go in second and cover the rear. However, just as we were about to enter, two bullets pierced the door. One knocked out my partner, the other must have hit the wall. I began firing through the door, hoping that one of the bullets would kill or at least disable the enemy on the other side.

When I ran out of ammo, there wasn't much left of the door. I opened it and went inside. A dead man lay on the ground. In the corner stood an old table, on which stood a laptop, turned on. The entire room was relatively clean, but now the order was disturbed by small blood stains on the walls and a larger one forming on the floor beneath the corpse.

On the table in front of the computer lay a stack of files. These were documents detailing the activities of the organization to which the hacker belonged. It revealed that the mafia were behind the whole affair, and that Senjuro was merely a front that never existed. The virus that supposedly destroyed the GITS database was actually copying and transmitting information about their projects to the yakuza headquarters. They likely planned to create cybernetic corpses for themselves and their subordinates at a low cost—unbeknownst to their business ally, BRAIN Corporation—thus freeing themselves from Kenji Moritaka's influence.

The documents indicated that the deceased belonged to an organization seeking to overthrow the government—in this case, the syndicates, as the government's power was merely nominal and invisible.

The hacker was about to infect the triads' and yakuza's systems with a virus similar to the one that had infiltrated GITS's system. The stolen data was to be uploaded to the organization's server, where anyone could learn of the syndicates' plans. A second virus was also to be introduced. It would wipe the accounts of all the bosses and distribute the money to small investors and civilians cooperating with the organization. GITS was also on that list. For a moment, I thought of my son. It seems the New Tokyo era is ending. ENTER.