How to Build an Independent Nation

Aboard a submerged submarine, Suzuka fabricates herself onto the vessel through 3-D printing and cuts down several cooks and soldiers. Over in Shin-Tokyo, Batou and Ishikawa cross paths with the Major and pass along a lead on where Togusa may be.

The Major notes that some three million people have converged on Tokyo and look poised to mount a raid, yet she still orders Batou and Ishikawa, joined by Saito, to bring Togusa back. Togusa himself wakes near a tobacco shop, unable to find a stable signal, and drifts into a district crowded with armed figures around food stalls.

A Section 9 helicopter ferries the retrieval party and six Tachikoma toward Togusa. When he questions strangers in the crowd he is branded a Like-N, sparking a commotion, and a girl tied to Takashi pulls him aside, warning that failing to outrun the mob means being dragged to Room 101. Reporting to the Chief, the Major hears from Tate that two days earlier a post-human seized an American Empire submarine named the Arkansas. She counters that the culprit is no post-human but an autonomous, 3-D printed android resembling Suzuka Mizukane, which Tate confirms.

Opening a zip file attached to one of the transmitted images, the Major reads a message referencing N and links it to the three million gathered in Shin-Tokyo. Tate reads it as an outright declaration of war and orders Suzuka taken down at any cost. On the ground, the retrieval team lands to find their net access severed, though Ishikawa insists it is not a jamming system.

Togusa keeps fleeing alongside the nimble Kanami, and when he stumbles trying to match one of her leaps, a Tachikoma catches him, after which the pursuers vanish. He regroups with Batou and Saito to swap what each side has learned. Batou then spots an American plane deploying SOCOM soldiers near Takashi and Suzuka, and a swarm of glider planes brings the American ship down. The episode is the eighteenth of SAC_2045, falling between Man's Search for Meaning and Bridge of Promise.