Original GitS RPG

That Tommy bot went beserk downtown, killing a few innocent people, but section 9’s finest quickly disabled the robot and brought it back to their HQ for analysis. But a dark shadow observing from a nearby alley manged to steal a piece of the robot.

"Puppet Master..." mumbles the dark man... This renegade hacker, known only as "Incubus," hates the Puppet Master. Master once took over Incubus’ best friend and got him killed. Now Incubus has sworn revenge. "The style of the modification of this board is obviously the Master’s, but the quality of the work is inferior.

" Must of ghost-hacked some poor S.O.B. into tampering with this robot. If the Puppet Master is active again, the time to strike back at him is now..." Incubus decided he would investigate the factory tommorow.

Late that night, the janitor from Microsoft snuck into assembly line and ghost-hacked a technician there. The technician was to construct as many robots as possible which would go haywire and destroy the place.

Blaring alarms startled sleeping Togusa. "7 Tommy-bots have gone haywire" a voice over the intercom announced "2 of which are being handled. Request that all agents report to the staff lounge for duty assignement."

Togusa was still half asleep as his fukichoma rushed over to the Tommy bot factory. Seems that most of the situations could be handled, but Togusa had to investigate the source of the problem. it was 9AM when he got there, he found a large crowd of people gathered around the front entrance. He walked over to the nearest police officer, showed his Section 9 badge and asked what was going on. Apparently about 50 robots in the factory have gone crazy and 20 officers are in there trying to stop them with brute force and gunfire. Togusa decided to jump into the fray and rushed in, his fukichoma following closely behind. At the first intersection, Togusa ran to the the left only to bump into a Tommy bot, who had no inhibitions about opening fire. Togusa dodged out of the way just in time and returned fire, eventually taking out the Tommy.

At the next intersection, Togusa was more careful and peeked around the corner before turning. He was interrupted by a bluish figure running down the hallway. Togusa quickly backed against the wall when something ran past him, turned around and drew its weapon out. Togusa fired at the weapon, knocking it out of the other's hand.

"You’re not a robot!" the blue officer exclaimed as he saw Togusa.

"Be more careful next time!" shouted Togusa.

Just then, the officer jumped to the floor, as bullets came flying past the corner. Togusa peeked around and fired at the incoming Tommy. After a brief argument, Togusa resumed his way down the hallway while the officer went in the opposite direction.

Togusa's attention was caught by a red flashing police siren-like light above a pair of double doors. He found the door to be locked and in an attempt to hotwire the nearby control panel, only managed to increase the security of the area and have another set of thicker doors closed over the first. Togusa asked his Fuchikoma to blast it open. The robot fired a burst at the door, but all of the bullets bounced off, nearly killing Togusa. Togusa had the Fuchikoma try to open the door with brute strength, but that didn’t work either. Then, Togusa noted the vent above the door. He climbed up into the vent and crawled through the shaft.

The janitor from microsoft knew he had a busy day ahead of him. First off, he headed over to the airport where he ghost hacked a pilot. The pilot nodded, signifying he understood and took off in his helicopter. The janitor then looked at the control tower through the copter pilot’s enhanced eyes and saw 3 control tower staff. The janitor hacked all three of them and headed for Borland, where he took over another janitor to do his dirty work. The janitor then headed by to Tommy factory, pretty much exhausted.

Kusanagi had just taken care of two Tommy Bots running amock downtown and took them back to HQ for inspection. When she got there, the coroner explained that the 'Bot Togusa had taken in was Ghost-Hacked by a janitor from Microsoft. Kusanagi nodded and told her Fuchikoma to radio Togusa’s Fuchikoma this info. Immediatly after the transmission, Kusanagi’s Fuchikoma told her that a huge crash at the airport involving 3 airplanes had just occured. She got on her Fuchi and headed there.

Togusa saw two red dots in front of him. He knew it was a laser system and decided to use standard procedure of reflecting the lasers off of his glasses to get pass. When he got to the end of the ventillation shaft, he peeked through the grid. A technician was busily working at the assembly line, mass-producing Tommy-bots. Togusa kicked down the grid and jumped out, setting off an alarm and calling to the tecnician’s assisstance thousands of mini security droids. "SHIT!" Togusa screamed as he fired at them like crazy. The technician saw Togusa and started to run, but Togusa intercepted him and shot him in both knees. Eventually, disgusted by the number of droids, Togusa threw a grenade into the pile. Just then, the siren over the double doors turned green and the doors opened. In walked the Fuchikoma "Yeah!" Togusa shouted. "Hey, watch out for the..." The explosion knocked the Fuchikoma clear out of the room. Togusa shot the 4 or 5 droids left and ran out to the hallway, to see the Fuchikoma peeling itself out of the wall "You okay?" Togusa asked. Retorical. Togusa ran back into the room and questioned the technician.

"What are you doing?" Togusa asked.

"Re-programming these robots." The technician answered.

"Why?"

"Uh..."

The conversation ended there. Togusa told his Fuchikoma to take the tech out to the front as Togusa tried the door on the other side of the assembly room (making sure to turn off the assembly line first, heh heh.) The door turned out to be an exit. Togusa was facing the brick wall of another building, and standing on the fire-escape, 2 stories off the ground. A glitter struck the corner of Togusa’s eyes. He looked up at the wall and notice a slight blur around the area in front of him... not knowing what to do, Togusa pointed at the blur and shouted "Hey, you!" Just then, gunfire was heard and Togusa’s shoulder was hit. "What the hell?" Togusa screamed as he pulled out his rifle and blasted in front of him, white blood spewed out from nowhere... then a crashing sound was heard as something invisible bounced off the railling of the fire-escape, and a few trashcans were knocked over. Togusa climbed down the steps and examined the floating wound. Underneath was a Tommy Bot."A Tommy with thermo-optic camouflage?" Togusa asked himself. Just then, he received a garbled transmission from his Fuchikoma. ".... Front....... C.... pl.... ash....................emer..... rep...... bo....." Togusa went around the Factory and headed towards the front, to his Fuchikoma.

Incubus was at the Tommy factory and saw the large crowd. He went over to the nearest officer and asked what was going on. "Nothing, move along" he was told. Hmm... Two officers and a Fuchi, Incubus noted. It was too risky for a frontal attack so Incubus headed over to a nerby alley and looked at the officer. How dare he dismisses me, Incubus thought. I’ll teach him a lesson... And he began his ghost hacking.

As Togusa headed towards his Fuchikoma, he was bombarded with net-messages. The first one said they found out who ghost-hacked the technician. It was a janitor from Microsoft "Those damn Microsoft!!!" Togusa tought. The second said a disaster just occured at the airport and 3 planes have crashed to each other. The last one was from the police officer, rather than the Fuchi. The police officer wrote that someone says they’re from section 9 and they want to enter the factory. Togusa headed over to the officer and looked at the man who claimed to be from Section 9. He looked slightly old, wearing a completly green uniform and has a cart next to him. He was arguing with the officer. "Who are you?" Togusa asks him. "I have to get into the factory! It’s imperitive that I get in," he responds. "Who are you?" Togusa insists. "I’m from Section 9 and I’ve never seen you before..."

The janitor was arguing with a police officer, trying to get into the factory when a man came over and announced himself to be from section 9. The janitor knew he was in trouble, because he lied to the officer about being from section 9. He looked at the fellow, then at the window of the factory. He saw a Tommy-bot. Perfect, he thought, and hacked into and commanded it to attack the officer from Section 9. It lept out the window and the janitor shouted "Look out!"

"Got it" Incubus whispered to himself. He managed to ghost-hack the police officer. "Interesting," Incubus thought as he read through the officer’s mind. An officer fro m section 9 is here, as well as 20 officers in the building trying to deal with 50 messed up Tommy-bots. Definatly the Puppet Master’s work.

Togusa looked at the window and saw something jump out of it. It started firing, so Togusa leaped onto the man in front of him, forcing him down as he fired at the thing - a tommy bot - that jumped out of the window. The man in green was struggling and ruining Togusa’s aim "Let me go!" he protested, so Togusa let him go and concentrated on firing at the robot. Not too difficult, Togusa thought, and looked around for that green guy. He was no where to be found, but he left his cart here. The cart with filled with cleaning tools. A janitor, Togusa thought. He ran into the factory where he was confronted with a Tommy-bot, but Togusa’s Fuchikoma (Ralph) takes it out. As Togusa continued down, he arrived at the assembly line, which he found someone had turned on again. Togusa looked around, but found no janitor. He continued down the hallway and was attacked by another 'bot. Ralph made short work of it and they travelled on, eventually reaching a dead end. Togusa turned back and headed back for the fire-escape. There, he saw somebody run off. Togusa got on Ralph and they jumped down to the alley.

"Shit," Incubus thought as he saw a Fuchi coming down from the fire-escape. Incubus ran off, trying to think of a plan. He ran off into the crowd at the front of the factory, with the Fuchi chasing close by. It stopped and glanced around through the crowd. "It can’t see me..." Incubus tried to convince himself, while slipping back into the factory (he had a mission to complete, after all)

Togusa followed Ralph towards the crowd. He told it to scan the crowd for the janitor, who had probably ran out towards the crowd to hide... Nothing, Ralpha responded. Just then, a helicopter was flying towards the building. "You’ve given yourself away, my friend" Togusa chuckled as he ran back into the building, racing up the stairs. "Ralph, you climb up the wall, and I’ll take the stairs. We’ll surround him"

Togusa smiled. He had disabled this man, and started to walk towards him, stating "Don’t move. You’re under arrest." "Yo, man, this whole place is gonna blow up!" Togusa grabbed the man and dragged him towards the stairway, opened the door and dragged him downwards. Togusa realised then that he would not be able to get out in time and rushed, but heard the explosion comencing. The door at the top of the stairs burst open and flames started coming in. Having no other alternative, Togusa used the man’s body as a shield to the blast, but it was not enough. The white-hot flames engulfed him and rendered him unconcious.

Incubus, facing the door the entire time, saw the explosion burst the door open and the fire, almost liquid like, flowing in. It was over for Incubus, so he quickly chose someone at random, the first person he could find, and hacked into him. He then transfered his entire ghost into his body. That was his last thought before he burned.

The Puppet Master was observing the helicopter pilot... He was flying towards the building, and two guys were standing on the roof. And suddenly, he lost the transmission. Master swore. What had gone wrong? He decided to watch the live news to see if the pilot had made it. Master smiled. The reporter stated that a helicopter had just crashed into the Tommy factory and killed at least 1 section 9 officer, a civilian and injured most of the strike team that was sent in to deal with the malfunctioning 'bots. So the pilot had succeeded in his mission after all... Then what was that last minute black out, he wondered... No need to worry, Master decided, and started to watch the planes’ explosions at the airport with great attention, seing these things in movies, but never in real life (well, through the eyes of a tower controller, and that through the eyes of a janitor, anyway) just then, a "ding" was sounded and the elevator doors opened. The controler in the tower got up and turned to the elevator, where a woman walked out. She glanced around, pulled out a gun and fire three shots. The screams were cut off as Master loss the transmission.

Kusanagi put away her electrogun and watched the tower controllers recover from their shock "What am I doing?!" one of them said. "Oh my god, I’ve just killed hundreds of people!" said another. "I think I’m gonna be sick." Kusanagi frowned. "Don’t worry, guys, it’s not your fault, you were ghost hacked. You are not to blame. No one will blame you for what you did, but I need you to come with me." "Where are you taking us?" panicked the first "I thought you said we’re not in trouble!" "You aren’t," Kusanagi explained "but we need to examine you to find out who ghost hacked you. Please cooperate"

Togusa saw a flash of white light before him. He often heard stories that when you died, you’d be travelling through a tunnel of white light. Is this whiteness heaven? He asked himself. Suddenly, the white light faded, and strange people were standing around him. "This guy’s going fast... hand me the tweezers." Kilree cursed. He wanted to die. He knew he’d be in deep shit if section 9, or more precisely Kusanagi found out. He grabbed for the tweezers in an attempt to stab himself in the neck with them, but found he had no motor control. He couldn’t feel his body... In fact, he noticed he couldn’t feel the presence of an arm, or a neck... The doctor tapped on Togusa’s eyes, sounding a "Tink Tink" "Can you hear me, fella?"

Seperite was wearing a dark trench-coat and a baseball cap with the words "Atlanta 1996" etched upon it. He opened the enveloppe he just received. He pulled out the pictures and the letter. The first picture was of a young girl, rather cute, and seemingly defiant. He could tell she hid great combat skills behind that pretty face of hers. The next picture seemed to be a circle, with the words "Section 9" written in the center. He looked at the next picture, which was an empty uniform, also bearing the "Section 9" mark. He started to read the letter "Major Kusanagi of Section 9, the girl in the picture: 5M credits. Any other section 9 officer: 1M credits. Payment on kill. Account number 11111-XXXX-XXX-32" Seperite checked his pockets. He had 14 credits and 350 milicredits. Not enough to buy some weapons for the job, he thought. He checked the weapons he had on him. One pistol with delayed-explosive bullets (he liked to call them retarded explosives.) That would be enough, he thought, for what he had in mind. He did a quick system check on his cyborg limbs. Arms function normally. Legs functioning normally. Everything normal. Seperite had purchased these cyborg limbs for increased performance for his line of work. For now, these limbs were all that he could afford, and he was trying to earn some money for a completly cyborg body, to be virtually unstopable. He went over to the nearest payphone, dialed 911 and asked for a Section 9 officer. When the dispatcher rerouted him, he told the officer "I need help" and rested the receiver on the payphone’s stand and waited. A few seconds later, a Section 9 car arrived and an officer got out. He walked over to Seperite, looking around and asked "Is there a problem here?" Seperite nodded, pulled out his pistol and shot the Section 9 officer. The officer looked down at his wound, and exploded. Seperite when over to the nearest ATM, withdrew the Megacredit he earned and purchased a mini-chaingun, which he hid in a gymbag he bought, as well as 1 more explosive clip, and 2 armor piercing clips; all from a trusted source. He wondered where those Section 9 officers would be, and as he walked down the street, he passed a media shop which had several TVs on display. "In more recent news, the Tommy-bot factory has just come under siege by a series of malfunctioning robots. Several officers and section 9 agents are already on the scene, but refuse to make any comment." Seperite grinned and headed for the Tommy factory.

Jennie was about to perform her first human-to-cyborg operation. She was rather excited, but tried to hide it. Lisa was here too, but she wasn’t qualified to perform operations yet. She was just an apprentice. She made herself useful by reading off the monitor, indiquating Tosuga’s thoughts. She thought it would be neat to know everything this man was thinking, and was more than happy to do the task. "Can you hear me, fella?" was the first question Jennie asked, seeing if the nanophone system she implanted worked. Suddenly, Lisa felt a twitched in her head... Then, she blanked out.

Incubus suddenly became concious. This was his new body... he looked down at it. He was female. Well, better than dead, he supposed. He read throught his body’s history... He was a nurse, an apprentice doctor. They were reconstituting someone’s body by replacing the missing limbs with cybernectic ones. Incubus, or rather the person whom Incubus had taken over, was supposed to simply read off the monitor so that Jennie, the operating doctor, could know what the cyborg was thinking (since his audio capabilities hasn’t been instaleld yet.) Not too tough, Incubus realise, and decided to play along. "No" he read off the monitor. "Funny" Jennie said as she shook her head at the metallic skull lying on the table before her. "Aren’t I... So, what are you doing tongiht?" Incubus read. Jennie smiled at the skull as she started working on the torso. "You’re gonna just fine." She said.

Togusa felt a small passage behind him... somewhere he coupld slip into... he was curious, but decided not to... not yet, anyway. "I’m serious... Whatcha doing. You want o get some dinner?" Togusa asked. "Sure," she said "just hang on tight..." Togusa saw her reached into his stomach and play around with his insides. (Well, not exactly, PLAY... she did some medical stuff) "That tickles... hehehahaha" Togusa said. The doctor looked behind her at something and laughed. He heard a wirring sound... and felt the presence of an arm... "So how long is this gonna take. I’m kind of hungry" Togusa asked. "Not long" she answered. "OW. That really hurt" Togusa tried to say sarcasticly, but found that it came out monotone and female, with a giggle at the end. Togusa realised that his voice was female... "Give me back my male voice, will ya? And preferably a male body" his female voice said. "Wow, he doesn’t know, does he?" his voice continued... but Togusa didn’t mean to say that last part. It seemed his voice had a mind of it’s own. "How could he? He was dead a few minutes ago." The doctor in front of him answered to his voice. "so, you like that voice?" the doctor asked. "Explain everything to me" Togusa thought, but before he could hear the female voice say it, he slipped, almost fell into the passageway, the hole behind him. His vision, the image of the doctor, shranked into darkness. Now Togusa was floating in a green pool of mist. He saw in front of him the specs for a mechanical body. It looked complex, and Togusa couldn’t really understand it. A loud low male voice boomed in his ears "This is you. You’re the latest in cyborg technology." Wicked, Togusa thoguht. Cool. But I want to be male. I’d feel a lot more comfortable. "Your gender depends on your ghost," the male voice replied. My ghost is male. You understand me... "The body is only the shell, it can easily be discarded. I understand that Togusa is male. " Very good. "I think you should see this" the male voice says. What? A small screen appeared in the top left corner of Togusa’s vision. It was the doctor, saying "Okay, we’re finished, you’re ready to go." I am in a male body, right? "Your body specification is categorized under male" the deep voice said. It’s my major concern. Good. So let’s go to dinner. " I do not eat" the voice answered. I’m talking to the nurse. "Good. So let’s go to dinner" the male voice says. In the top left view, the doctor blushes a bit. Togusa felt the strange urge to move in front of him. He did so and he seemed to zoom through an endless tunnel. The green pool of mist is gone and the top-left corner screen is now fullscreen. He felt the wight of his body, all of his nerves activating. The coldness of the room, the smell of cleaners, and the brightness of the lamp... "Listen, a doctor can’t go out with her patients, I’m sorry." The doctor says. Senses too... "Well, Once I get out of here, I’m not a patient naymore right? So you can have dinner with me.&qu ot; "Listen," the docotor stars, rather frustrated. "I really can’t get in trobule. I’m sorry." "Well, if I come back in a few days, then we can have dinner, right?" Togusa pushes. "Alright, fine" she finally gives in. " Kewl. I’ll be back tommorow." "Whatever" the doctor mumbles as she pushes Togusa out of the door.

"Hey, don’t be so pushy." Kusanagi heard. That must be Togusa, she thought. She got up and walked towards the operating room, where a military style robot burst out the double doors, pushed out by a doctor. "Wow..." Kusanagi said "The new body really suits you." She couldn’t believe that they gave him a military body. He could never work for Section 9 looking like a robot. He couldn’t blend in... but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, especially after such a tragic experience. "Does it?" Togusa asked as he looked down. Kusanagi could hear the body’s AI... "You have a small plasma cannon built into your right wrist." It said. Kusanagi figured that Togusa was asking if he had any weapons built onto the body. This was very dangerous for Togusa. First of all, he looks like a robot, and any hacker knows that robots are the easiest to ghost-hack into, since they have no ghost. Second of all, Togusa used to be all human, so he didn’t have any experience in setting up firewalls against ghost-hackers. Third of all, Togusa was emitting his thoughts on high-frequency radio waves. She would have explained it all to him, but it would have taken too long and besides, she was curious about what he was thinking.

"And laser lances?" Togusa asked his AI. "You have no laser lances" it answered. "Great... Yeah, I liek it. I would have liked laser lances. So, how much trouble am I in?" "Danger level is low" it said. "I’m talking to Kusanagi." "So how much trouble am I in?" the voice asked. A small screen appeared in the bottom right of Togusa’s view. It was Kusanagi. Togusa went back to full screen. "Are you there? You seem to be... nevermind" she said.

"Follow me" Kusanagi said. "I’ll brief you on the situation." "Danger level medium" the AI stated. Kusanagi stopped, wondering if Togusa knew how to silence this AI or not. "Shut up!" Togusa said. Kusanagi figured he didn’t, so she turned around and stared at him, hacked into his mind (while avoiding detection of course) and turned off the AI. "I was talking to the computer" Togusa nervously stated. "I know" Kusanagi smiled and continued down the hallway. Her voice faded out as she tried to brief Togusa. "We captured the 3 guys who were responsible for the plane crash at the airport. They were all hacked by the Janitor from Microsoft. And remember that ..."

Seperite was at the factory now, and saw a large crowd of people gathered around the factory. He saw a local police officer trying to control the masses and searched through his IDs. Seperite had a fake citizen ID, a fake section 9 ID, and his real ID. He went over to the officer, who stopped him, but allowed him to continue when he saw the section 9 ID. Seperite went through the alley and saw lots of cracks in the ground. He looked at them and figured out a battle took place here. These four impact-cracks look like a heavy object, a four legged mech maybe, landed here from high above. He looked up and saw the fire-escape stairs and an officer standing guard there. Seperite continued around the building, but found nothing else, so he climbed up the fire-escape and told the officer that he is needed for crowd control, showing his Section 9 ID. The officer obliged and left. Seperite pulled up the fire-escape stairs and entered the room. A janitor was there, busily working on the terminal. Seperite knew it was a janitor, because he wore a boring greenish uniform with a small cap, and had a cart next to him, filled with bottles, and a broom. He was standing on a cat-walk, which followed the walls of the room. Below him were two conveyor belts, with robots being assembled. Seperite walked along the cat-walk and the Janitor looked up at him. Seperite saw the janitor’s eyes. Seperite could tell from that look that the janitor knew as much about figuring out what a person is like by looking at him as... The janitor looked back down. "Hmm... maybe the janitor isn’t as smart as he looks." Seperite thought. He opened his gymbag, let it fall to the ground and attached the chain-gun right unto his arm. The janitor glanced back at Seperite from the corner of his eyes, and jumped over the railing, landing on the floor below, running beneath the catwalk. Seperite aimed through the catwalk at the janitor and opened fire. The bullets ripped right through the catwalk and shredded the janitor to pieces. All was left was a pool of blood a part of a ribcage sticking out of the puddle. Seperite laughed. He loved his chain-gun. He looked at the chain-gun and found out of 500 rounds, he now has 436... He jumped down from the catwalk and checked the cart the janitor had for weapons. Nope, just cleaning bottles and brooms and thrash. Seperite threw a bottle unto the conveyor belts. It rolled across the belt and disapeared from view behind some black rubber curtains. A few seconds later, it reappeard on the second converyor belt, travelling in the other direction, and disapeared just as quickly behind the other set of black curtain. Amused by this, Seperite brought the car over, pushed aside a half assembled torso and placed the cart onto the belt. The card traveled down the belt, and had a few arms assembled onto it’s side, and placed a head in mid air. The height of the cart not quite reaching high enough for the head to be placed properly, and so the head fell into the thrash compartment of the cart. Seperite grabbed the female limbless torso and continued down the hallway in search of section 9 officers.

Togusa went over to Microsoft, and looked around. He asked to see the manager and asked to see the records of employees here. The manager at first protested, but upon presentation of the section 9 badge, metnioned that a janitor had indeed quit his job a few days ago. "Do you know why?" Togusa asked. "No..." the manager answered. " He said he had to quit for personal reasons." Togusa nodded.

A few minutes and 5 section 9 officers later, Togusa had the janitor’s appartment surrounded. He knocked on the door, and the officers armed and raised their weapons. A woman opened the door. She was in her late 40s, smoking a cigarette and wearing a shower cap on her head. Her eyes were wide as she saw the weapons and she fainted. "Damn, I hate it when they do that!" Togusa complained, then signaled to an officer. "Wake her up..." The officer held a smelling salt up to her nose and she awakened...

After a bit of discussion, Togusa convinced the lady to put down the frying pan and managed to question her: "Where’s your husband?" he asked.

"I don’t know..." she answered "I haven’t seen him for the last few days."

"Why haven’t you contacted the police?"

"Well, this isn’t the first time this has happened. I figured he was out drinking with his buddies."

Togusa thanked the lady and asked for a picture and the address of the bar he usually went to.

Later that day, Togusa arrived at the bar. When he first came in, the room suddenly fell silent as they stared at the shiny military mech. Probably a very expensive one too. Could be worth a lot of money on the black market... The room then returned to it’s original ambiance, with lots of talking and swearing. Decidedly, they didn’t think it was worth the risk of attacking the bot. Togusa went over to the bartender, showed him the picture of the janitor and asked if he had seen him.

"Yeah, he used to come here..." the bartender said.

"What do you mean used to?" Togusa asked.

"He used to come here and he doesn’t anymore."

"Why not?"

"Well, he’s not a regular customer. He only comes here about twice a month. The last time I saw him was a few weeks ago."

"So he’s due here any day now."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Well, if you see anything, contact me."

Togusa left the bar... "Nothing" he thought. He had no leads to go on except this janitor, who seems to have disapeared into thin air. Just then his radio activated "Togusa." "Here" Togusa said. "We’ve found a dead body at the factory." The radio replied. "I’m on it." Togusa replied.

Togusa entered the assembly room as instructed and found a 2 police officers examining a puddle of blood. "What have we got here?" Togusa asked. "Looks like someone was completly mutilated here, sir. Just a puddle of blood and 1 or 2 bones. Nothing left of the rest of the body." Togusa examined the body. He wanted to identify it. Fingerprints? No, he had no finger... what about checking out his teeth, Togusa wondered... No teeth left over either. Togusa finally performed a DNA scan. It was the janitor. So much for that lead. He looked up at the cat-walk. Part of the grating that formed the catwalk was ripped open. An explosion maybe? Could the janitor have been hit by an explosion so as to push his body down there? No, the angle wasn’t right. The janitor wasn’t directly underneath the hole, and besides, the blood would have splattered over a greater area. He looked at the body and found holes made by bullets. The bullets were pretty much normal bullets (i.e. not explosive, not armor piercing, not hollow point) there were about 70 or so bullet holes here. Since 2 bullets would have done in the janitor, Togusa figured that the person must have been using an automatic weapon with high re-fire rate. He looked at the hole in the catwalk and figured out that the person who was firing must have been just next to the control panel. Besides, there are a few empty bullet shells near the control panel and below that area. He examined them. It wasn’t really the shells, but rather chain-links, so as to attach the bullets together as a chain. That elimates uzis... The weapon was probably a chaingun, a modified assault-riffle or one of those old world war 2 machine guns.

"This officer here says he saw someone come in..." an officer said.

"What is it?" Togusa asked.

"Well, er... I was standing guard at the door when a section 9 guy carrying a gym bag and a baseball cap saying ‘Atlanta 1996’ on it came and told me that he would take over guarding for me." The officer said. "So I left..."

"Listen, we’ve gathered all we can. Good night, Togusa." One officer said.

Togusa waved to them and hunched back down, looking at the body. "Gym bag?" he wondered...

Seperite couldn’t find anything down these hallways but dead Tommy bots. He went back to the assembly room, but inside, saw a big mech, hunched over the janitor he killed. The robot had the Section 9 logo. Seperite aimed his his pistol, loaded it and fired 3 delayed shots, then quickly hid himself. He didn’t want to kill the robot; yet. He knew some robots reacted fast enough to avoid a bullet. He just wanted to test it. The robot, as expected, dodged to the side and quickly turned around and fired back. The bullets hit the wall behind where Seperite WAS standing. Seperite counted in his head, trying to time everything perfectly, and jumped down.

Togusa wondered why the bullet didn’t hit anything. He leaped onto the catwalk with his superior legs and landed. Turned on heat-vision, knowing that any optic-camouflage still left behind heat... Just then he heard explosion and his heat vision was filled with yellow and red.

Seperite’s landed noisly, but it was masked by the explosion. Seperite ran around the delayed-explosions of his bullets and hid behind a nearby panel. He was now visually concealed, and he knew that the heat from the explosions would mask his heat trace. Seperite glanced at the robot, who was obviously confused. Seperite got his pistol and chaingun ready and fired at the catwalk, to get the robot to fall. During his fall, he would fire his pistol at it. He visualised all this in his mind’s eye and got out from cover, firing at the catwalk.

Perfect, Seperite thought. He couldn’t have planned it better. The mech’s shot masked his chaingun-shots, so the mech would obviously be even more confused... That meant its reaction time would be slower, and he could pull off more shots. Seperite jumped out from behind his cover and fired 3 more shots at the mech.

Togusa felt three shots on right shoulder and turned to look at who fired them. He saw his man. As he landed on the floor, his shoulder exploded and he lost his right arm. "Time delayed explosives" Togusa thought... He might need help, so he radioed for backup and then jumped towards the man, who open fired with his mini-chaingun.

Seperite was in trouble. This mech’s armor was a lot more than he expected. It was jumping at him, and so Seperite fired his chaingun. The mech’s leg was heavily deformed because of this and Seperite was smiling. Perhaps he could knock of it’s leg and compromise it’s maneuvrability. But just then, his chain-gun stopped firing, kept spinning and made "click click click" sounds. Not good, Seperite thought, to loose all your ammo mid battle.