April. A second year high school student, Arato had a normal life he spent with his friends Ryo and Kengo. Until that night. On his way home from shopping, Arato is attacked by a corrupted hIE, but a beautiful hIE named Lacia comes to his rescue.

Despite his awareness of analog hacking, Arato can't help himself from being drawn to Lacia. Amid all of this, Lacia is "kidnapped" right in front of Yuka. Arato is upset with the police and their unwillingness to treat this as anything but property theft, so he gets the help of Ryo and Kengo to investigate on their own.

Arato arrives at the industrial promotion center which is the target for the antibody network's terrorist attack. He heads up the stairs and sees the android politician Mikoto his father developed, which leaves him with feelings of uneasiness. Soon after, the terrorist unit led by Kouka as well as another Lacia-class hIE arrive on the scene. A big battle is about to break out!

Lacia has a new modeling gig. It is an image commercial to promote a new type of relationship between hIE's and human beings, one in which people view hIE's of the opposite sex as an equal partner.

Once again, Methode appears to stand in the way of Arato and Lacia down in the underground facility containing Higgins. They must also be wary of Snowdrop who had been sent there by a rival super intelligent AI. As the conflict escalates, Arato and Ryo try their best to fulfill their duties as representatives of humanity.