Bridge of Promise

Batou, Saito, and Togusa ride a Tachikoma toward the spot where SOCOM troops have landed. In his office, Prime Minister Tate and Chief Aramaki weigh how the Americans managed to pinpoint the Post-humans, leaning on an enhanced image of Takashi and Suzuka as proof. Aramaki condemns the recklessness of the operation and fears it could touch off a civil war, while Tate stresses the need to reach Suzuka first and answer for the actions of 1A84. Aramaki also notes that the Post-humans addressed their declaration of independence to the Americans rather than to Japan.

Purin revives in a med bay as a full-body prosthetic cyborg, cut off from the net and locked out of the systems around her. Phoning the Tachikoma, who panic at what sounds like a ghost calling from Megatech Body, she cracks their mainframe and learns her new frame holds no cyberbrain and was seeded by a Post-human. She recovers the original 1A84 file, walks out, and commandeers a vehicle. Elsewhere the SOCOM squad finds Suzuka bound and asleep, only to dissolve into hysterical laughter and turn their guns on one another; a survivor's smoke round reveals that gas still troubles a Post-human. As the soldiers tumble into an artificial waterway, Batou dives in to haul one out, with Togusa and Saito close behind.

A van driver lends Purin a cosplay outfit and asks whether she follows N, reciting the movement's creed that equates war with peace and slavery with freedom. Reading his mind, Purin learns his name is Shinjo and that his ghost line is unraveling, and she spots a program much like the nostalgia code Togusa once found. Down in the sewers, Batou recognizes the rescued soldier as Stan, whose real name is Omoshiro, resets his disengaged Autistic Mode, and presses him on why he came. The episode closes at a GSDF blockade on a bridge, where soldiers train their weapons on an approaching Takashi as Purin recognizes him standing calmly before them.