A/N: Here's the latest chapter; I worked on it for about three weeks. It's taken me this long to post. That's sad, I know, but due to popular demand I'm trying to pump out some longer chapters. To remove any confusion, let me give a little aside about Kameko's life and career. She is a native of Japan, but her family moved to the US when she was very young. She became a citizen there, and as an adult she worked for the American CIA. That explains why she has an American girlfriend and a persecom with a Western name. When Kameko retired, she returned to Japan. She does some freelance writing, which is why she's always meeting with her publisher, agent, etc. Why she was able to retire so young is an issue I plan to address in this chapter…

"You two look fabulous," Kameko gushed. "This is definitely a start." Dita looked down at herself. She was wearing a pair of khaki pants and a dark green blouse. Zima had on shorts and a tee shirt decorated with a surfing logo. "Only a start?" Dita asked, disguising the pleading in her voice.
"You have different clothes," Kameko said. "Now you need new identities." Marie looked up from her book. "I take it you have a plan?" "Don't I always?" Kameko said, looking smug.

"So this friend of yours," Zima said from the back seat, "he can be trusted?" "She," said Kameko, driving. Dita was sitting next to Zima; Marie was in the passenger seat. "And yes, she can be trusted. She's an old work contact, so she knows how too keep quiet." Kameko took them to a suburban housing development, pulling up to a large house. They got out of the car. Kameko rang the doorbell.
The woman who answered was short and slightly thickset, though not unattractive. She wore glasses and had pale violet hair that fell to her shoulders. "Hello there," she said, smiling at Kameko and Marie. "This is a nice surprise." "I'm glad you think so," Kameko said. "Florence, I'd like you to meet a few friends of mine, Dita and Zima." "Dita and Zima?" the woman said. "The government database and firewall?" "What makes you think that?" Zima said.
"Not as big a secret as you think," Florence said. "I'm an underground computer technician, we know about you." "Florence, remember that favor you owe me?" Kameko did not seem to want to waste any time.
Now Florence started to look suspicious. "Why don't you come inside." Kameko explained their plight to Florence, leaving out any non-essential details such as Minoru's name and the location Zima and Dita had escaped from. Florence seemed less apprehensive the more she heard.
"So you want a clean-sweep job?" she asked when Kameko had finished. "All non-essential files cleared, programming signatures changed, the works?" "Wait," Dita interrupted. "You can't delete Zima's files. He'll lose all his programming." Florence smiled. "If government workers cleared him, that would happen. I know things those hacks don't, and I'm willing to bend a few more rules. I can pull it off no problem." "I appreciate this, Florence," Kameko said. "How much are you asking?" "I'll do it free of charge. We're friends, Kameko, and it's no skin off my nose, honestly." "Unless we get caught." "In that case, I ask for your silence. That's payment enough." "Thank you." Florence looked at Kameko curiously for a moment. "Of course. Let's get started, shall we?"

"What does it feel like?" Dita asked Zima when they were lying in bed that night. "Having everything gone like that?" "Strange." Zima sighed. "Very, very strange. It's as if there's a hole there, a void where it all used to be. I used to have the entire database there. Now I'm just like a regular persecom, albeit a powerful one. Still, I have Internet access and very little else. Also, I used to be connected to every other persecom in existence. There are billions, Dita. I could sense them all the time. Now I can't. The only one I'm still connected to is-" "Hibiya's creation, Chi? You and I were meant to keep tabs on the girl and her program, after all." "No, I can't feel her either." Zima touched his fingertips to his temple. "It's you, Dita. You were designed to protect me when I couldn't hold the firewall system." He smiled. "When you think of it that way, it's no wonder they hit Tani for an upgrade." Zima stroked Dita's hair. "Anyway, we were always connected. You're the only one I can still hear. Good night, love." "Good night." Dita couldn't help a jealous smile in the darkness.

"Phase One was a complete success," Kameko said the next morning. "I'll be gone again today. Tonight, we initiate faze two." "Phase Two?" Dita asked, but Kameko just grinned and swept out the door.
Zima turned to Marie. "What has she cooked up now?" "It's a secret," Marie said. "She'll be back around two. I have to work until one- I waitress part time. I told Kameko I'd take you along, but she said I'd better leave you here. I've gotta get going now, see you a little after one." Zima and Dita bid Marie farewell, and she left.
"Zima," Dita said, placing a hand on his elbow.
"What is it?" "I need you to see something. I found it online." She wrinkled her forehead for an instant. It was a mechanism that her creator had found amusing; he had programmed her to knit her brow when she was searching something. Tani's predecessor had thought it was cute; Zima found it irresistible. "Do you need a hook up or can you manage without one?" "I've got it," Zima assured her. He reached out towards Dita. Her mind was familiar and comforting, files that were now near identical to his. He entered her web connection. It was a Tokyo newspaper. The headline was MALFUCTIONING GOVERNMENT PERSECOMS MISSING. The article told the story of Zima and Dita's escape, giving their names, descriptions, and various other information. There was contact in formation at the end of the article, and it offered a high reward to their capture and return. It specified that both should be functioning.
"I've been searching since we left Kokubunji's. This is the first thing that's come up.
"They wanted to keep it under wraps for as long as possible." Zima drew out of Dita's system. "Thought it is awfully early still. I thought they would want to keep a mistake like this quiet for a while." "We're obviously considered a rather less than significant mistake," Dita said.
Zima raised an eyebrow. "Do my ears deceive me? Was that levity?" "You tell me." He chuckled and pulled her close. "Doesn't matter. I love you." "Okay." "Dita…" "Right. Sorry. I love you, too." "That's more like it."

"Florence, as I mentioned previously, is a former wok contact- a professional when it comes to keeping her mouth shut." Zima, Dita, Marie, and Kameko were in the car later that night. Kameko was giving them the run down of Phase Two. "The man I'm taking you to tonight is nothing of the sort. Don't worry, I have a plan, but it'd be best if you kept silent when at all possible. Here we are." They got out of the car and followed Kameko to a storefront. "THEO'S: PERSECOM CUSTOMIZERS" read the neon sign. If Dita had had a stomach, she would have felt as though a block of ice had appeared in it. She gritted her teeth and remained silent. iIf Kameko thinks it's necessary, I'll got through with it./i Dita realized with a slight jolt that she had come to trust the ex- CIA agent.
The quartet walked inside. They were in a small reception area. The floor was tiled green; the walls were off-white with a few prints hanging on them. There was a high desk with a man standing behind it. He looked up when they entered. "Hello, may I help you?" "Maybe you can," Kameko said. "Is Craig around?" "I think so. Would you like me to go get him?" "Yes, please." The man stood up and walked down a short hallway. He appeared again a moment later, followed by a tall man with a short shock of black hair. "Kameko," the tall man said with a tight smile, "it's been a while." "It has. Is there any way we could talk to you for a few minutes?" Her eyes briefly shot to the other man. "Alone?" "Certainly. Fred, if you would?" Fred nodded and left. "What's going on?" He looked far more nervous than Florence had.
"I have two new persecoms." Kameko waved a hand at Zima and Dita. "I got them second hand, and they need a touch up. Nothing very serious, and I'll pay whatever you want. Sound good so far? Great. So if that's easy, you should have no trouble keeping it off the books." Kameko slid a stack of folded bills across the counter.
"No problem at all." Craig took the money and slid it into his pocket. "If you'd all follow me?" Craig led them into the back. The room they entered looked like a small, extremely high-tech beauty parlor. Craig sat Zima and Dita down in the two barbers chairs. There were mirrors on the wall in front of them; pictures cut from magazines were taped on the mirrors. "Any directions," Craig said, "or am I just supposed to have at?" "Like I said, nothing major," Kameko said. "Start with hair?" "Get rid of the rattails, certainly," Marie said.
Kameko nodded, studying the pictures on the mirror. "And I think I like this color for him, and something like that for her?"

When they left, both Zima and Dita were rattail-less. Zima's hair was no longer black but brown with a few natural looking blond highlights. He had a silver ring in his eyebrow. Dita's hair was a darker brown, and her ears had been pierced.
Dita was thankful that now they wouldn't match their descriptions, but something was still bothering her.
"Kameko," she said in the car, "it's not that I don't appreciate this, because I do, but can you really afford to bribe people for us?" Kameko sighed. "More explanations. I've always worked, first for the CIA, now writing, but I don't have to. My family owns a factory chain that's almost one hundred years old. I am financially set for life and then some. No expense like this is any trouble."

So that's my chapter. I'm thinking of about four more before the end. I finally know what I'm going to do in the end, believe it or not.