Fanning the Flames, Chapter 2 (GitS:SAC)

[rhyssafireheart]

Here's chapter 2 of "Fanning the Flames."  I have another chapter written for this, but I typically re-read my work several times making small edits as I go along.  Once I think I have nothing more to change, then it's ready to post.  I also have no clue where I come up with story titles from, sometimes I think they suck overall.

(Chapter 1)

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2033 - Four Years Later

 “So remind me again why we’re meeting recruits today?”  Batou asked, boredom evident in his voice.

“Because I’d prefer to have new members that fit in well with the rest of us.  You’ll be the ones working with them, so I want your opinions.”  Togusa answered in an exasperated tone.  “Last on the list for today – Kono.  Ishikawa, could you bring up her information for us on the screen?”  Togusa stood at the back of Chief Aramaki’s office while the other members of Section 9 arranged themselves on the chairs, couches and against the walls. 

“Another woman?  We could use a few more on the team.”  Morgan said with a smile from her spot on the couch.  She ignored the sour glance Batou directed her way.

In the meantime, Ishikawa brought up the requested information on the screen, showing basic data and an identification photo.  Those assembled in the room took the time to read what was shown of her history.

“She’s been part of Section 3 for eight years now,” Borma noted.  “Why does she want to transfer out?”

“There’s no reason listed, actually.  I believe she was recommended by her superior.” Togusa said.  “She has a good record and several citations for exemplary work.”

“Looks like she did a lot of undercover work for S3; must mean she has some good contacts in the underworld.”  Pazu noted.  “That could come in useful.”

“What did she do before joining Section 3?” Morgan asked.  “The file just says she was in the military but doesn’t give any details.”

“There aren’t any details to be found it seems.” Ishikawa retorted.  “I’ve been digging around, but all I get is what you see.  She served for eleven years before transferring to Section 3, again no reason given for transfer.  It shows her rank and MOS, but I can’t find any details about what she actually did.  Nor can I find out anything about that MOS listing; it’s not one I recognize.”

“Well, let’s bring her in and just ask.” Aramaki said before sending a cybercomm message to have Kono sent in.  A few seconds later the door opened and a woman entered the room.  She faced the couch and chairs before the Chief’s desk but her back was turned to the men leaning against the wall behind her.  Togusa walked forward to greet her and perform introductions to the rest of the team in the room.

“Good afternoon, Kono.  Thank you for coming in to be interviewed like this.”

“Thank you, sir.  I’m glad to be here, even though I’m not entirely sure why I was suggested for a transfer to this section.”  Her voice was pleasant and musical sounding, and it started Pazu thinking.  From what he could see from his position against the wall, she wasn’t very tall and had wavy black hair pulled back into a braid that fell to just below her shoulders.  She was dressed in dark slacks and a blue shirt and he could see the bulge of a holster at the small of her back as well.

“Well, I’m sure we can figure that out, but let me introduce you to the other members of the team.”  Togusa replied.  He started with those seated on the couch and chairs and then turned towards the men standing up. 

“This is Pazu.”  He straightened up from his slouch against the wall and held his hand out in greeting before her features registered in his mind.  Her green eyes stared back at him, surprise evident in her gaze before they were both moving.  His right hand pulled his gun from the shoulder holster he commonly wore as his left reached out to grab her right hand in turn.  He got his gun pointed at her head before he realized that her right hand was pushing his gun away from her face and his left was holding on to her elbow instead.  She was holding her own gun left handed with the cold barrel pressed against his jaw.  They froze in that position as the rest of the room stared at them in shock.

“Well, what do you know; a woman who wants to kill Pazu?  Never would have guessed that could happen.”  Batou’s voice was amused and his comment caused Kono to shift her gaze towards him in confusion.  She didn’t lower her weapon though and Pazu turned his hand slightly to point his gun more towards her head.

“Both of you, stop it now!”  Togusa barked sternly.  “I expect an explanation for why you drew your weapons like that.”

After staring at each other for another long moment, they both withdrew their weapons at the same time; Kono pushing his hand away from her.  She put the safety back on and reholstered her gun before turning to answer Togusa.

“I apologize, but I didn’t expect to see a hired thug like Ryozo here in a place like this.”  She said quietly.

“And I never expected someone like Ahito to show up here claiming to be a member of Section 3 either.” Pazu replied angrily.

“Ahito!”  Everyone looked at him as if he were crazy and Pazu nodded.  The woman in question just stood near the wall screen, arms crossed on her chest and looking as if she was enjoying a private joke.

“Pazu, are you sure this is Ahito?”  Togusa asked.

“Yes, I first met her when we were trying to arrest Yoshida on that arms deal four years ago.  I saw her from close up and she’s rather hard to forget.  I’ve seen her several times since, at a distance though.”

“Well,” Aramaki said, “what do you have to say to that, Kono?”  She shrugged slightly at the question.

“What would you like me to say, sir?  Obviously he’s seen Ahito up close and would apparently recognize her.”  She said with a sidelong glance in Pazu’s direction.  “I’m certainly not going to lie about using that alias for some of my undercover operations.”

“So you really are Ahito?  Why are you going by Kono then?”

“Because Kono is my name.  Ahito is just one of the alias’ I’ve used for the past eight years when I go undercover.”

“Very well then.  Let’s see if we can figure this out.” Togusa said.  “Would you like to be seated?”

“I’m fine standing if that’s all right, sir.”

Before any questioning could begin though, Batou suddenly moved from his position against the wall and walked over to stand behind Kono.  Having someone looming at her back obviously bothered her, but Kono only turned her head slightly and looked over her shoulder in response.  He stood there for a second before speaking in a bored tone of voice.

“Wait a minute, Togusa.  I want to ask Kono here what she thinks about luminous rainbows.”

At his words, her head jerked up and she opened her mouth for a second before closing it again, the smile widening somewhat.  She dropped her head to look at the floor in front of her, waiting to see what he was going to do next.  The others just watched and wondered at Batou’s strange behavior.

“Don’t care for them, hmm?  Maybe you’d prefer a transparent flower instead?”  As before, she jerked slightly as if to speak.  This time, the smile became a full-fledged grin but she maintained her crossed arm stance in the middle of the room.

“Well, I’m disappointed.  Guess that means you aren’t much of a nature person.  You probably wouldn’t like aggravated frogs either, would you?”  This time his words got a more pronounced reaction.  She spun around, her left hand punching towards a smirking Batou.  Just before striking him though, she froze for a second and stared at him, then reached up to pat him gently on the cheek. 

“You really are an amusing man, aren’t you?”  She said as she turned back around to face the rest of the room.  “I suppose you’ll be nice now and explain to your teammates what this was all about?”

Batou walked back to his place against the wall before answering her question.

“That MOS code is a Ranger one.  Took me a while to remember where I’d seen it before.  It wasn’t too common so a lot of people don’t know about it.  She was an Infiltrator and basically spent most of her time undercover setting up situations for a Ranger team to come and handle.  There’ve never been very many of them because it’s not the easiest training to handle, or so I’ve heard.”

“That’s true.”  She said.  “Not many people can handle having their minds messed with on a regular basis.  It takes someone who’s pretty sure of who they are; someone who won’t get lost in an undercover personality.”

“You don’t look like you were a Ranger though.”  Saito noted.

“I don’t have the eyes you mean?” Kono replied with a nod towards Batou.  “It’s a bit difficult to go undercover when you have eyes like that.” She continued.  “Still, I did have the normal Ranger training in addition to the separate Infiltrator training as well.”

“So you were a Ranger for eleven years.  Why did you transfer to Section 3?”  Batou asked.

“My handlers are gone.  There really wasn’t a choice but to leave Section 4.”

“What happened to them?”

“They both died within a few days of each other.  Official reports list the causes of death as accidents.”  Judging by her flat tone of voice, it was apparent that she didn’t agree with the official results.

“So why can’t we view your full records though?  Everything that Ishikawa has been able to dig up is what you see up on that screen.”  She turned to look at the wall screen, reading what information was shown there before turning back to watch Batou.  “Something’s missing.”

“The records were sealed at my request when I left the Rangers.  No one’s seen them unless they know how to access the information directly.”

“Why’d you request that?”

“Call it a form of closure for my time there.  It works for me.”

“I see.”

Batou just looked at Kono for a while after their exchange and she in turn stared back.  After long moments, she turned to look at Pazu instead, considering her options.  Making a decision, she turned to Ishikawa.

“Search under ‘Konahito’.”

“Huh?”

“Do your search using the name ‘Konahito.’  K-o-n-a-h-i-t-o.”

Ishikawa waited to get an affirmative nod from the Chief before starting, but once the name was entered, new data started to flow across the screen rapidly.  Lists of projects, countries, assignments and other mission data appeared before them, along with a much more detailed set of personal information.  Togusa gave her a hard look before saying anything.

“Well?”

“Konahito is my given name.”  A sigh.  “I’ve gone by Kono since middle school, but the military refused to allow me to enlist under anything but my full name when I joined.  All my records are under ‘Konahito,’ but they’re masked by the ‘Kono’ information you originally pulled up.”

“I see.  That actually makes a certain amount of sense, to be honest.”  Togusa looked around thoughtfully before continuing.  “So what was it that Batou said before to make you react?”

“He obviously knows some of the field agent commands, which is what he was using there.  When I’m in my ‘default’ mode, for lack of a better term, I can ignore the field commands.”  She paused to think before explaining further.  “Infiltrators generally have three levels of command sets that can be used on them.  The field set is the most basic one and is used to allow other Rangers to get reports from the Infiltrator without having to break cover.  Basically, the first two times Batou asked me to report and then he gave an order to attack.  It’s made of up two or three word phrases that you wouldn’t hear in normal conversation.

“The second level of commands is the control set.  These are the ones used by the handlers to control the Infiltrator; get them ready for going undercover, bringing them out of it, setting up the memory integration afterwards, things like that.  Generally an Infiltrator will only listen to control commands from her own handlers and no one else, but there are some commands that can be used by anyone that knows them.

“The last set is the master control commands.  These are the ones that are used to create handlers and infiltrators.  You can create and control the barriers and protections that are placed in the agent’s mind and make changes as needed.  There were only four handlers that knew this set of commands, and two of them are dead now.  I’m not even sure if they’re still creating Infiltrators anymore.”

“So you mean each Infiltrator is programmed with different sets of commands, and anyone who knows these commands can tell you what to do?”  Morgan’s voice was shocked.

“More or less.”  Kono went back to looking privately amused once again.  “There were reasons why we designed the programming like we did.  Mostly it was to protect the agent while they were undercover.  In fact, that was what made the whole Infiltrator program work, discovering how to protect someone’s core personality while they were given a new personality overlay to use while working.”

“You said ‘we.’” Batou noted.  “You implying you helped set all that up?”

“Yes.  I was the guinea pig we used to create the templates from.”  Her smile turned slightly bitter.  “How else could we be sure the programming worked if we didn’t test it on someone first?”

“So that means…”  Batou turned to look at the information on the wall screen once more, taking note of her MOS and rank codes.  “That’s why your MOS rank is listed like that, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.  I was the first Infiltrator.  I helped create all the rest along with my two best friends.  They were also my handlers.”  Kono went back to staring at the floor.  “We’d known each other since middle school and enlisted together.  They were the ones who knew how to create the different types of programming needed and apply it to a person’s mind.  I was the one who figured out what needed to be done to manipulate someone’s mind into accepting outside commands like that, and what sorts of overlays would work best, and basically just how to control someone like we did.”  An offhanded shrug.  “It worked much better than we ever imagined it could, but like I said, we tested everything on me first to see what would and wouldn’t work.”

“So you let someone else control you like that?”  Azuma seemed slightly horrified at the thought.

“They were my best friends; I trusted them with my life.  Of course I let them control me.”  She seemed unbothered by the questions, answering them in a matter-of-fact voice that was at odds with her smile.  “It was a necessary part of the program.  But there needs to be a lot of trust between the Infiltrator and the handlers, otherwise it won’t work.”

“So how exactly did it work?”  Aramaki asked.  Kono looked thoughtful for several seconds before she answered.

“Every person has a core personality; the conscious ‘you,’ in essence.  What we figured out was how to protect that core personality when someone goes undercover, especially if it’s for an extended period of time.  The core is put to sleep and a personality overlay is done.  The overlay is meant to work with the subconscious so that you essentially become a new person for however long is needed.

“It sounds easy and in a way, it was.  Where it gets hard is creating the personality overlay and making sure it’s believable and will last.  You can’t create something that is too different from the agent’s basic personality in the first place, otherwise the overlay won’t last as long and there’s a risk it will break.  If that happens, they can be left in overlay mode without any conscious directions to work with.  It happened a few times in the beginning.”  There was a wealth of sadness in her voice as she admitted the last.

“We hadn’t completely figured out how to put protections around the core personality to keep it safe back then.  When the overlays broke, the core woke up and that was usually pretty disastrous when it happened.  That’s why an Infiltrator has a lot of barriers and firewalls built into their mind.  It’s for protection.  A good portion of those protections aren’t under the Infiltrators control either, again for protection.  You can’t remove what you don’t control, and when undercover, what you don’t even realize exists.  A word of advice, don’t ever connect directly to me.  I don’t have any more control over my barriers than any other Infiltrator, and mine are more elaborate.  I also have an active attack barrier that I can’t shut off.  I generally use a substitute barrier collar to work with others directly.”

“So why didn’t you get new handlers when yours died?  Especially if there were two others that knew the master set of commands as you said.  Why’d you decide to leave Section 4 instead?”  Togusa wondered.

“Eleven years was long enough.  I didn’t feel like continuing without my friends and there really wasn’t anyone else I felt I could place that amount of trust in.  Besides, my handlers were the only ones that really understood how I was programmed; I didn’t think anyone else there would be able to understand it all.”  Silence fell over the room after she was finished speaking.

“So if you don’t have handlers anymore, how do you manage going undercover as Ahito then?”  Pazu finally spoke up.

“Becoming Ahito really isn’t going undercover for me.  She’s basically me, only more so.”  The look of amusement was back.  “Since I don’t usually have to be her for extended lengths of time, I don’t worry about it.”

“I see.” Chief Aramaki said.  “Very well, would you please wait outside while we discuss this further?”

“Yes, sir.  Thank you.”  Kono bowed slightly before leaving the room, the rest of Section 9 watching as the door closed behind her.

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As a note, the main character I'm using is an OC, and there is another here as well that I introduced in my story "The First Step."  Crossposted to Fanfiction.net, _fanfics_ , koukakukidoutai and my own site.

Enjoy!