Mother and Child

Acting on Ishikawa's intelligence, the Major travels to Taiwan to run down word of Kuze, whose sway over the refugee population is thought to have birthed a smuggling operation dealing in narcotics and explosives. Told at the police station that her flight will not depart until the next day, Kusanagi finds herself with rare idle hours. Out on the streets she encounters Chai, a scrappy kid dreaming of striking it rich through the drug trade. He has already made himself a target by lifting cocaine from the Shouji, a rival gang, and he explains that he and his friends plan to press the stash into figurines to ship abroad.

Kusanagi lets the boy stay the night at her hotel, but by dawn he has slipped away. Heading for the airport she discovers a bathhouse key tucked in her handbag, and following it she recovers the missing cocaine. Reasoning that the children are being held at the Yakuza's headquarters, she storms in and catches both the Shouji and the three Yakuza bosses unprepared.

Leveling separate weapons at the Yakuza leaders and at the Shouji, Kusanagi lays out her bargain: return the boy and swear off reprisals against Taiwan's refugees, and she will surrender the recovered cocaine. The bosses accept, compelling the Shouji to release Chai and let the pair leave untouched. At the airport she urges the boy to build something for himself rather than throw his life into a futile gang feud. The episode showcases real Taiwan settings, including the first terminal of Taoyuan International Airport and the Grand Hotel.

This is the seventeenth episode of Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG, subtitled RED DATA. It debuted in Japan on September 4, 2004, and in English on March 25, 2006, directed by Itsuro Kawasaki from a script by Shotaro Suga, positioned between The Fact of Being There and Angel's Poem. A memorable exchange has Chai bluntly asking whether a fully prosthetic body can still have sex, to which Kusanagi wryly offers to let him find out, an offer he declines.