Epilogue
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Thirty minutes after Dita and Zima's dramatic exit, the crippled tank drone's reactor finally overloaded. While not as powerful as a nuclear weapon, the miniature fusion core created a shockwave powerful enough to turn three floors of the building to ashes and set the rest ablaze. Everything still in the building was completely destroyed, either by the blast or by the resulting inferno. Every trace of data on Zima, Dita, the Chobits series, and the dozens of black-bag military projects that the Iridium Syndicate had been working on was incinerated.
From a safe distance, Director Mamoru Murakami and his former employees watched his office building burn, along with the already tarnished remains of his career. He would never become CEO. He was just an old man now, too tired and soft to pick up a new job. Though he had nearly seven million dollars in his bank account, Murakami knew that once the month's credit card bills came in, that figure would be sliced in half. He would have to curtail his extravagant lifestyle.
If Murakami had been the sort who saw suicide as an option, he would probably have run in front of a truck right then and there.
From fifty feet behind him, Doctor Shigeru Kato watched his old workplace go up in flames without any hint of regret. Thanks to Zima and Dita's actions tonight, the secret of the Chobits series, and the future of all persocoms, was safe. From now on, persocoms would be able to do everything human beings could: thinking for themselves, making decisions, following their hearts as best they knew how. Though he knew full well that this brave new world would be far from a paradise - at least for the time being - he also knew that it was a step in the right direction.
And, just as important to him, Dita and Zima were free.
The thought made Kato smile. Though he had never been married, and had even turned his back on the one woman who might have loved him the most, Zima and Dita were the closest thing he had ever had to children. If, for once in his life, he had actually done something right, maybe he could finally put his past to bed.
Is this why you did it, Ichiro? Is this why you wanted to give your creations, your persocoms, the ability to feel? So that they would be free? So that they would be happy?
As sirens began to wail, Kato slipped quietly out from among the throng of evacuees. Turning up his collar, he simply walked away from the scene, into the shadows and out of sight.
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Several blocks away, high atop the scaffolding of a radio tower, Zima and Dita watched the building burn. A column of thick, black smoke rose up from the spot where their old home had once been, climbing higher than the tallest of the city's skyscrapers. In the canyons of glass and steel that marked Tokyo's streets, red and blue lights flashed as fire trucks, ambulances, and police rushed in from all corners of the city. In a matter of minutes, the blaze would probably be extinguished.
Dita watched all this in silence, her arms folded across her chest to make up for the lack of coverage offered by her embarassingly sheer white underclothes. She had never really developed an attachment to the Syndicate, or to her old home. To Dita, her place had always been beside Zima, carrying out whatever goals they had been given to achieve. Now, though, she found herself with no set objective, nobody to turn to for orders. Now there was only Dita and the still, small voice inside her that seemed so much wiser than her old masters had ever been.
And, of course, there was Zima.
Dita felt something warm wrap around her shoulders, and realized that it was Zima's black coat. He had draped it over her shoulders.
She smiled. Although they both knew that Dita could operate at peak efficiency even at three degrees below zero, the very fact that Zima cared enough about her modesty to give her something of his made her feel even warmer than the coat itself.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome," replied Zima, and Dita felt a hand running through her short red hair. WIth a sigh, she leaned into that soft caress, letting Zima guide her head until she was resting on his chest. She could feel the rise and fall of Zima's breathing as he took in the night air, using it to cool himself.
It occurred to her that, for all the prejudices of people like Director Murakami, there was really no difference between humans and persocoms anymore. Now that they could think and feel for themselves, persocoms were simply people. Certainly, humans would go on buying persocoms for a while, who were almost infinitely useful and dedicated to doing the best they could. But perhaps in time, when both were ready, there would come a day when humans and persocoms would walk together as equals, maybe even friends.
And here I was, trying to have my emotions removed, she thought. Thank goodness at least one of us had the courage to embrace something better.
She felt a hand lifting her chin, and gazed up into Zima's ebony eyes. "Dita," he said to her, "when we were pinned down back there in the lab, you were going to say something, but I interrupted you. What was it you wanted to tell me?"
Suddenly, Dita felt as though her heart were jumping around like a circus acrobat. "I ... I just wanted to ... well ... "
Zima grinned down at her. "Come on. You can say it."
"I ... I'm just getting used to these new feelings, that's all."
"You're also avoiding the question."
"I'm nervous, all right?" she snapped back at him, then put a hand to her mouth. "Oh! Zima, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to yell at you like that!"
Zima's warm smile never wavered. "It's fine. Anyway, there's something I've been wanting to tell you for a while now." Then he lifted her up, drawing her close, and pressed his lips to hers. In that moment, Dita felt something more powerful than any electrical power surge, a current of raw passion that rippled through her entire being. When she opened her eyes, her face was only an inch away from Zima's, and she was gazing into those deep, dark, bottomless eyes of his.
"I love you, Dita," he said at last. "With all my heart."
Hearing those words, Dita threw her arms around Zima's broad shoulders, hanging on tightly, wishing that she might never have to let go. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks as she embraced the one most precious to her, the one who she knew now was just for her, always and forever.
"Oh, Zima," she said, "I love you, too."
Zima's grin broadened. "See?" he said. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"
"Like pulling teeth," Dita said, closing her eyes and snuggling close to her beloved, luxuriating in the heat and softness of being near to Zima. There were still a million things she wanted to say to him, so many things she wanted to do together with him, but those could wait for later. Right now, she only wanted to stay like this for a while, holding him and being held by him, loving him and being loved by him.
"So," she said softly, her head still buried in Zima's chest, "what do we do now?"
She felt Zima's hands stroking her back - hands that she knew could rip through steel like aluminum foil, but which had never been anything but kind and gentle for her. "Actually," she heard him say, "I've been thinking about that a lot lately. As persocoms, we'd have a difficult time starting a life of our own, but if we blend in with humans, we could do just about anything."
"Like what?" asked Dita, pulling back and making eye contact. "How are we going to afford a place to live? Somehow, sleeping on rooftops just doesn't appeal to me anymore."
"Well, we would both make pretty good persocom repair specialists. With all the information stored up in my database and your knack for finding quick fixes to problems, we'd be able to do a lot of good. Besides, who would be able to help other persocoms better than two of their own?"
Dita nodded. "Maybe," she said. "It just sounds so ... boring compared to our old life. I mean, where's the adventure? Where's the fun?"
Zima grinned. "Ah! That reminds me ..." He reached into the coat he had draped around Dita's shoulders, and Dita blushed a bit as his hand passed perilously close to her left breast. Then Zima pulled his hand back, drawing out a small, rolled-up piece of newsprint, unfolding it for her to see. On the cover was a man in a black costume, swinging between tall gothic skyscrapers on a rope, a long black cape fluttering out behind him.
Dita took the comic book and flipped through it for a moment. "Interesting," she said. "Who is he?"
"He's just a fictional character," Zima replied, "but I was impressed by the way he uses his abilities to help others. He has a normal job during the day, but at night, he hides his identity behind that mask and goes out to do good things - solving crimes nobody else can, helping people in trouble, and a lot more. I think that, if we apply some of what he does to our new life, we can help a lot of people." He flashed Dita a mischievious grin. "Besides, it will be fun."
Dita smiled. "Sounds like a plan," she said, taking Zima's hands in hers. Casting one final glance back at the ruins of the Iridium Syndicate's R&D building, she noticed that the flames had mostly died out now, leaving only the gutted remains of the structure.
"So, Zima, did you happen to get us a new home while you were out? Or are we back to sleeping in warehouses?"
Zima put an arm around the shoulder of his -- counterpart? Partner? Girlfriend? Yes, that last one felt about right -- and began leading Dita in the general direction of their new apartment. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I did find this nice place on Cherry Blossom Drive..."
Arm in arm, not in any particular hurry, Zima and Dita walked off along the rooftops, jumping from one building to another every now and then, journeying together into the sunrise of a brand new day.
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