!! Short Summary

An obsolete satellite drifting in Earth's orbit suddenly begins making carvings on the Earth. Police come to the conclusion that a hacker named Radical Edward is responsible and put a bounty on "him", and the Bebop crew get in on the chase. However, when they meet Edward, they do not find what they expected, and Ed requests their help in saving the awakened A.I in the satellite, which she has befriended.

!! Long Summary
An old satellite in orbit above Earth wakes up and activates the surrounding attack satellites, which fire lasers into (what was once named) South America, making a series of giant animal carvings. A bounty is put out for whoever hacked the satellite to do this.

Most Earth residents are said to live underground, using the satellites to communicate with other worlds. They rarely venture to the surface since the Hyperspace Gate accident, which removed a sizable chunk of the Moon, bits of which still rain down onto Earth in 'rock showers' to this day. A skinny red-headed teenager is lying on the ground, basking in the sun and listening to the daily 'rock shower' forecast. The odds for a shower start low, but a sudden rock shower (caused by the satellites carving) revises the odds up to 90%. She then checks the spaceship travel logs, and seeing that the Bebop is coming to Earth she jumps for joy.

The crew hear that there's an extraordinary hacker on Earth called Radical Edward who could help them secure their bounty. Jet interviews various people to build a profile on Radical Edward, but gets outlandish and contradictory accounts from everyone.

Meanwhile, Police break down the door of a shack, declaring Edward under arrest. The redheaded teenage girls leaps out of a pile of junk, yelling a friendly "HI!" and startling them. She then hacks into the police ship parked outside and remote controls it, as if it were a toy. The cops look out the window in despair as Ed accidentally crashes the ship in a ball of flame. Ed hacks into the satellite network, and communicates with the AI. She nicknames it Emphu. She deduces that there was no hack and no hacker: This was all the satellite AI's doing. The AI missed the ancient land carvings and decided to recreate them. Ed decides to call the Bebop and give them the news. The crew are surprised that they're receiving a video call, especially as they don't have a live communication channel in that computer. Ed says that if Faye promises her something (revealed at the end of the episode) then Ed will help and not claim a portion of the bounty. Faye agrees to these terms.

The plan is to fly to Emphu and disable its communications array. Spike approaches the satellite with as many ship systems turned off as possible to avoid detection. Nevertheless, once he fires his Swordfish cannon, it still notices him and blocks the laser with another satellite. The attack satellites erupt into laser fire, trying to hit Spike and Faye's ships. Ed advises them to get very close to Emphu, as the others will not fire and risk hitting it. Spike makes the manual connection, and Ed makes a copy of Emphu.

Spike and Jet hand the copy over to the police and explain it was the culprit. Big Shot announce that the bounty association have ruled that they only payout for humans: The Bebop crew get nothing.

Faye is impatient to leave Earth. Jet asks her what promise she made to Ed: Faye testily replies that "some promises are made to be broken". The Bebop takes off, and Ed is watching from the ground. She then hacks into the Bebop, changes its course and forcing it to land. Coming aboard, Ed is overjoyed that she gets what she was promised... to be part of the Bebop crew. Spike reminds Jet that he dislikes women, children and animals, and he is furious that now they have all three on the ship.
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* AllForNothing: The Bebop Crew went through all of the trouble of capturing Emphu, only to learn that they won't receive a single Woolong because their target isn't ''human''.
* ADayInTheLimelight: The introduction of Ed.
* ActuallyIAmHim: "[[ThirdPersonPerson Edward is Edward.]]" [[SarcasmMode For some reason]] the crew doesn't understand at first.
* AIIsACrapshoot: Nope! Emphu isn't malicious and was just making carvings in the Earth to keep itself company. Specifically, it redraws the Nazca Lines after they get erased by a meteor shower.
* AscendedFanboy: Ed turns out to be a fan of the Bebop. At the end she joins them.
* BrickJoke: Spike mentions earlier that he can't stand kids or pets. Adding Faye to the mix, he puts it like so...
--> '''Spike''': Jet, do you know that there are three things that I particularly hate? Kids, animals and women with attitudes... So tell me, Jet, '''WHY DO WE HAVE ALL THREE OF THEM NEATLY GATHERED ON OUR SHIP?!'''
* TheCakeIsALie: As the crew try to locate Emphu, Faye and Ed get to talking and Ed offers to let the crew have the bounty in exchange for a favor. Faye accepts the offer, and being Faye has no intention of keeping her word. Once the bounty seems secured, Faye tries to have the Bebop ditch Ed, only for her to hack their controls and force the ship to land. The favor? Becoming a member of the Bebop's crew.
* DefaceOfTheMoon: Emphu redoes the Nazca Lines because it misses them, which sends the authorities into a tizzy. At the end, Ed sketches a smiley face on South America that can be seen from orbit.
* KillSat: The defense satellites guard Emphu with deadly lasers.
* LoopholeAbuse: The Bebop find and apprehend the vandal, but the government decide the "only live captures" rules of bounties [[InhumanableAlienRights does not include an artificial intelligence]], and so [[DudeWheresMyReward the Bebop are paid literally nothing for it]].
* NeverTellMeTheOdds: Spike shows no interest in the hacker case until he hears Jet say that success is impossible.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: An alien-favoring conspiracy theorist by the name of Yuri Kellerman (Uri Geller) works for the news. His English voice is also a Creator/PeterLorre impersonation.
* RadarIsUseless: {{Subverted}}. Spike tries to approach Emphu's satellite in an armed spacecraft just by turning his computer off and flying manually, assuming that its sensors are designed to detect the presence of active computers... But the satellite ''does'' see him approaching, and dodges the attack.
* SamusIsAGirl: Confirmed by Faye at episode's end that Ed is indeed a girl.
* TakeThat: The crazy alien conspiracy theorist is named (at least in the English dub) Yuri Kellerman, and is a take-down of fraud psychic spoon bender Yuri Geller. Though Geller wasn't a conspiracy theorist of that type, he did make his living off of mystical nonsense in its heyday of the 70s.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: After Ed attempts to download Emphu into her computer, we never see it again. Either it got fried in download or Ed released it onto the net.