Motoko and her squad are finally getting closer to Fire-Starter's broker, but things get tense when they're instructed to take a backseat role on a sting operation.

In the year 2027, a year following the end of the non-nuclear World War IV, a bomb has gone off in Newport City, killing a major arms dealer who may have ties with the mysterious 501 Organization. Public Security official Daisuke Aramaki hires full-body cyber prosthesis user and hacker extraordinaire, Motoko Kusanagi, to investigate.