11: Private Lessons

"E.T.A. 30 seconds", Kotoko posted on the persocom chat line. Freya opened the window and curtains wide, and in she flew to a perfect landing on the floor.

"So, who's this runaway you've picked up?", asked a voice outside the window. It was Kojima. "That was an interesting chat entry, to say the least."

"Eh, What's up, 'Doc'?", Freya called out to him, and the smiles (or at least the absence of any scowls) Kojima saw through the window told him it was okay to go on in.

"I'm not there yet, Freya", he told her. "I still have to defend my thesis."

"Data Feedback Bug?", Ms. Hibiya repeated, wondering why they'd asked about it. "Yeah, I remember it. Used to be a common occurrence. First, you'd zone out like you were daydreaming. Then you'd just keep slowing down, until soon you wouldn't move at all. Usually the owner would do a reformat at that point. Otherwise, within a few days the whole system would just crash."

"WHAT? Are you saying if I don't get reformatted I'm gonna DIE?", Zin blurted out, almost shouting, his eyes wide with fear. "Don't they know what causes it, isn't there some way to cure it?"

"Wait a minute...", Hibiya turned to Zin. "YOU have it?"

"That's what they told my owner at the electronics shop!", he replied. And the reason she took me in to get checked was BECAUSE I was zoning out and daydreaming!"

"Before you get too worried", Kojima said with a smile, "why don't we just do a test and see if you really have the bug? Somehow, their diagnosis seems a little off to me."

Ms. Hibiya connected Zin to a console, and began some tests.

"Well, Zin, your CPU usage is ...slightly... above baseline, but it's nowhere near 100%. Harddrive space, memory usage, fairly normal. You look okay so far."

But as she typed on her keyboard some more, Ms. Hibiya's expression began to change.

"There they are, the telltale files", she stated in a somber tone. She was pointing to Zin's index files, those lists of references that keep track of the actual articles of data, and the relevant links by which they relate to one another within the encyclopedic database that is the core of all standard persocom learning software.

"Note how big the indices are now, in relation to the actual data content", Hibiya pointed out. "References are probably indexing off of other references. That's why they called it the Data Feedback Bug. It's like your own data has started to feed back on itself."

"I had never even heard of the Data Feedback Bug", Zin told her, "until they diagnosed me with it."

"I'm not surprised", Hibiya replied. "We figured out how to prevent it years ago, by writing strictly programmed subroutines for how all the indexing is done."

Ms. Hibiya turned back to Zin. "Any idea what happened to your index routines?"

"Well, my owner was a financial consultant", Zin offered, "and she did do a lot of database programming. It is possible her experimenting could have caused a glitch."

"And when was it they first diagnosed you?", Hibiya asked.

"Nine days ago", he answered.

Hibiya did some math. "Based on the time frame, your modern hardware resources, and the amount of superfluous indexing data already written, I'd say you have about a year. Maybe a cure can be found by then."

Kotoko, as usual looking deep in thought, offered her own opinion. "I'm not convinced that the extra data IS superfluous", she speculated. "My own routines, which Kojima designed, allow for nearly unlimited indexing, as long as I have the harddrive space and processor resources for it."

Freya was noticing the way Kojima was looking at Zin. "You want to analyze him more, don't you?"

"Actually, that might be a good idea", Kotoko cut in. "But I want to be there to monitor his condition."

"Come along, Freya?", Kojima asked. "I hear you got a secondary OS. We can show you a thing or two about programming."

And so Kojima set out on foot for his house, Freya beside him, carrying Zin, Kotoko, and the little plastic helicopter.

Ms. Hibiya was outside in front of the apartment building, broom in hand, staring off down the road with a worried look on her face when Chi and Hideki arrived home. "You okay, Mom?", Chi asked.

Hibiya took one more glance into the distance as though she could somehow see Freya, who had left with Kojima a few minutes earlier. Then she told the Motosuwas about Freya's secondary OS and the runaway Kotoko had picked up.

"A chobit can run a secondary OS?", Hideki asked, looking very interested. "Does that mean Chi could run San's OS too, and go on the internet, and send email and stuff?"

"I was running Freya's OS until recently", Chi informed him, and the look on Hideki's face told her he hadn't known that that was an OS.

"Freya's not in danger of the Data Feedback Bug from San's OS, is she?", Chi asked in a rather worried tone.

"No", Hibiya told her. "San didn't have learning software, or even consciousness. Plus, even if it did, it would only affect the secondary OS, it couldn't spread to her chobit core. Mainly, I'm just worried Freya will get her heart broken again."

Back in their room, Chi turned to Hideki, a serious look on her face. "Hideki, I thought I was your girlfriend. Why are you wanting me to do persocom things?"

"Chi... I... ", Hideki stammered, blushing beet red. He had really put his foot in his mouth earlier, and he knew it. "I - I'm sorry, Chi, I didn't mean it like that. It's just... the idea of... I'd run an OS like that myself, if I could."

And as they shared an embrace beneath the fluorescent light fixture, Chi wondered if maybe she had overreacted, just a bit. "It does seem like an interesting idea", she admitted.

And then they hit the books. Worried though they were about Zin and Freya, the Motosuwas had a curriculum to keep up with, and really needed to study if they didn't want to take THREE years to get into college.

"This is interesting", Kojima observed after about a week of giving Zin daily data checks. "The extra indices are still being written, but not in the quantities we saw before. You do seem to have the Data Feedback Bug, but frankly, I don't think it's going to crash you."

Kotoko, who had spent the week at Kojima's, still seemed concerned. "How you feeling, Zin? I have noticed you zoning out a bit, now and then."

"Ah, just thinking about things", he replied with a smile. "Daydreaming. I'm getting used to that."

Kotoko sat down beside him. "I'm thinking maybe today's more powerful modern processors don't need the strictly programmed indexing anymore. If you can index all the relevant data you have without bogging down or running out of RAM or harddrive space, so much the better."

"Hmm, don't you two make a cute couple?", Kojima teased. He had been noticing the way the two mobiles would sit and chat.

"Oh good grief", Kotoko complained, rolling her eyes at Kojima. "Mind your own beeswax, will you?"

"Kotoko's got a boy-friend", Kojima sang, to the tune of "Ring Around the Rosies", as he sat back on the sofa, drinking sake straight out of the bottle.

Kotoko got up, and went storming into the next room. {How dare he suggest such a thing}, she fumed.

When she reentered the living room, Zin and Freya were sitting at a console. For much of the week, Freya had been showing up for programming lessons. And with three knowledgeable programmers to teach her, Freya was learning quickly.

But as she stood there in the doorway, watching Zin explain the finer points of memory allocation and pointer arithmetic, it started to dawn on Kotoko that maybe there really was more than just an interesting case of the Data Feedback Bug keeping her there at Kojima's all week.

{This is absurd!}, she thought to herself, her fingers against the side of her head as though she were dizzy. {I shouldn't be having such feelings. I'm not programmed for this!}

Kotoko shut her eyes tightly for a moment, trying to forget the thought she just had. Then she turned around to leave the room again, only to find herself eye-to-eye with Kojima, who was lying flat on the floor, his chin resting on his wrist, smiling drunkenly at her.

"You've got it bad, little Kotoko", he grinned. "I see the signs."

"Shut UP", Kotoko growled, slightly denting Kojima's nose with her tiny fist. Then she stood still, looking shocked, realizing she had just punched the guy who built her. "I - I'm sorry, Kojima..."

But Kojima was still smiling. He was watching Zin and Freya. Mostly, he was watching Freya. "Watch this, Ko", he said, as he picked himself up off the floor and headed for Freya.

Turning the conversation to something other than programming, he got Freya away from the console, away from Zin, and soon had her on the sofa with him, doing things Kotoko didn't feel like watching.

Kotoko facepalmed at what seemed to her a ridiculous situation. But for a persocom programmed to always tell the truth, there was no denying it. Kojima was right.

Standing next to the chopper, she called out to her little runaway. "How about some fresh air, Zin? Care for a ride in the whirlybird?"

One of Kojima's other persocoms opened a window, and out they flew into the afternoon sky.

Next chapter:

More trouble for Hideki, more worries for Chi.

Zin and Kotoko have eloped. They reappear in chapter 13.

Freya has written her first app ... But things just don't go as she planned.