A skilled and unseen hacker known as the Puppetmaster is breaking into people's cyberbrains and using them to voice his political rhetoric. In the hunt for this criminal, Motoko, also known as the Major to her public security unit, has to cope with the idea of whether she has a ghost/spirit, or is she jut a collection of wires and backed up memory. Is she a human with synthetic parts, or a robot with a backup of a human?