u'In 2034, two years after the events of 2nd GIG, Major Motoko Kusanagi has left counter-terrorism task force Public Security Section 9. Togusa is leading a Section 9 field team to investigate several suicides by refugees from the Siak Republic. When they intercept Colonel Ka Gael, son of the exiled dictator General Ka Rum who has taken a hostage to ensure safe passage out of Japan, he claims that the "Puppeteer" is coming for him, and he shoots himself in the head. Chief Daisuke Aramaki asks Prime Minister Yoko Kayabuki for permission to arrest Ka Rum for more information, but Kayabuki declines. Aramaki orders the raid regardless and Section 9 discovers that Ka Rum has been dead for some time, having been assassinated and staged to look like a suicide, with the word "Puppeteer" written in his blood. Section 9 also discovers that the Siak refugees plan to release a micromachine virus in a terrorist retaliation for Ka Rum\'s death.


Batou is sent to intercept Ma Shaba (\u30de\u30fb\u30b7\u30e3\u30d0), the Siak operative who has the micromachine virus, but he has an unexpected run-in with the Major who says that she is running a separate investigation. When they both find Ma Shaba, he believes that the Major is the Puppeteer and attacks both Kusanagi and Batou, but he dies during the fight. Kusanagi takes a case of virus ampules and warns Batou to stay away from the Solid State Society, before leaving. When Batou reports back to Section 9, he does not say that he saw the Major but says Ma Shaba attacked him without provocation. The Section 9 operatives develop a theory that the Puppeteer is a very powerful hacker who hacked into the Siak agents\' cyberbrains and forced them to commit suicide. Togusa also discovers that there are several kidnapped children in the facility, believing that the Siak agents were going to use them as vectors for the virus. While trying to discover their identities, they find that the children have had their cyberbrains replaced and their IDs reveal that they are the children of Noble Rot Senior Citizens (\u8cb4\u8150\u8001\u4eba), elderly citizens who are hooked up to a health care monitoring network that takes care of their every need, leaving them effectively comatose. Further investigation of the children reveals government file discrepancies that show over 20,000 unreported child kidnappings. When a case of the micromachine virus ampules arrives at a government office, Section 9 believes that the Puppeteer is tipping them off to the kidnappings by infiltrating the Siak rebels, when it was the Major who left the ampules behind. When Proto and several Operators watching the children are hacked, and the children disappear. Due to the turn of events, Batou reveals he saw the Major and that he believes she is the Puppeteer.

When Siak sniper Raj Puhto (\u30e9\u30b8\u30fb\u30d7\u30fc\u30c8) is spotted in Japan, Batou and Saito are sent to keep him from causing an assassination, but are located before they can stop him. Saito manages to incapacitate Raj Puhto, and under Batou\'s questioning, he reveals he was tipped off by a mole in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the name of Ito Munei (\u5b97\u4e95 \u4ec1) that his target was the man who ordered Ka Rum\'s assassination, until it is discovered that Munei, a highly nationalist member of the House of Representatives, was his target. Batou believes the Puppeteer orchestrated the events, and Raj Puhto says that he would kill the Puppeteer if he were human, claiming that the Puppeteer is a child abduction infrastructure in the Solid State System, the root of the Noble Rot program. Batou believes Ka Rum\'s people were targeted because they made this discovery and planned to use the children for their terrorist plot.

yes, we do some bad things and courier.'