After the events of In the Forest of Pupae, Togusa uses J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye as a starting point and develops a theory that the Laughing Man is after something published on paper. Togusa receives permission to check out a Health, Labour, and Welfare records building and stumbles upon a key piece of evidence: a list of Cyberbrain Sclerosis patients treated with a secret vaccine has disappeared from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare. Togusa traces the missing list to a group called the Sunflower Society, where he learns that several prominent Japanese citizens have been secretly treated with the experimental cyberbrain sclerosis medication, due to the secret fact that the nanomachine treatments are ineffective. Elsewhere, the head of the Japanese DEA unit dispatc