The Laughing Man returns! And, just as he did six years ago, he kidnaps the president of Serano Genomics without being detected. Section 9 arrives at Serano's house too late, and sets out to find him.

A group of terrorists identifying themselves as the "Individual Eleven" barricade themselves within the Chinese Embassy. Section 9 is called in to eliminate the terrorists without any civilian casualties, all before the scheduled police raid.

While field testing new recruits, the Major finds herself hacked, and an old woman tells her a story from her past.

During a scheduled maintenance, the Tachikomas begin to chat away about the Individual Eleven. While talking in their new "forum", Batou and Togusa appear and take one of the Tachikomas - who just happens to be Batou's pet - with them to Spring-8 to look at the scientific evidence gathered on the Individual Eleven.

Section 9 heads to Etorofu in search of Kuze. During their investigations, the Major finds an interesting floppy disk on the body of a dead addict.

Kuze manages to take down the jamming plane, but becomes trapped in rubble with the Major. The Tachikomas begin discussing what to do about the nuclear submarine they have spotted, and Batou manages to convince the special forces that have been sent to kill them to listen to him.