01110111 01100001 01110010 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 [Warning Light]

Not all the other 'coms were like May. Whatever was happening, it didn't seem to affect them, at least not in any discernible way. If there were changes, they were small, and I only noticed them as they added up – as one by one by one, the little things became too much to ignore.

But that wasn't happening just yet. For the next few days, I did my best to forget about May, and go about my business as ordered. As Ms. Yamane had said, she'd had quite a few requests for my time – and now that I was done self-maintaining, I couldn't escape them anymore. Aiko changed my schedule to reflect this, listing me as "on call" – the definition of which was available when summoned for service or use – but that wasn't exactly right. I wasn't just available. In fact, I'd been ordered to remain busy; as a government 'com, I shouldn't have so much as known the word "downtime." If no one wished to summon me for their service or use, then I had to find something to do.

I spent my nights in the pod and my days on the elevator, being shuttled back and forth from floor to floor. Everybody wanted something. Buffy Broadband had opened a bad link, and I had to debug her. Someone in accounting was throwing a party, and I had to send the e-vites. All of the secretarial 'coms were busy, and I had to fetch the coffee. As the week wore on, the tasks got more and more degrading, until I began to despair of Zima ever coming back.

One morning, after finishing up some filing in the upstairs offices, I returned to the lobby to get my next assignment from Aiko. She and I had become quite familiar, as anyone who wanted me sent their request to Ms. Yamane, and Ms. Yamane sent those approved to her. "Okay, Aiko," I said dutifully, trudging to a halt in front of her desk. "What's next?"

"Nothing," she chirped.

Automatically, my face slid into a frown. She can't be serious. "What?"

"I've got no more tasks for you, Dita. You're done for the day."

But my time has to be accounted for. That doesn't make sense. "But my—"

Aiko tipped her head to one side, blinking at me with those innocent doe-eyes. "Are you saying you want me to find you something to do? I could call around—"

"No!" I held up my hands. "No. Um—thanks."

I could've sworn I heard her giggle as I left.

Of course, I went to the roof. It was the only place I could go, to feel even remotely better. I wound my way up the stairs, clambered through the hatch, and settled against one segment of an industrial vent system. It was eleven o'clock, the sun climbing through melting clouds; soon enough it would be noon, and the sky would be blinding bright. Just how I liked it. I didn't know how long my reprieve would last, but I planned to spend it all right there, basking in the midday sun.

I couldn't doze off, in so many words, but I could and did slip into sleep mode. Unlike a full shutdown, sleep mode came on quickly, and ended without fanfare – no buzzing or beeping or the ordeal of booting up. My systems stayed online. And I was still marginally aware, enough so that I could be woken. When I was shut down, there were only certain things that would restart me, like someone flipping my ear-switch, or Zima lifting my shades, or a predetermined length of time ticking by on my pod. But when I was in sleep mode, I could be woken up, as easily as if I were human.

"Hey."

I had rolled my eyes at Yui, acting like she'd had a heart attack. But that day, I knew how she'd felt.

My eyes snapped open to meet his, just like that first day in the lab. He was upside-down this time, too. "Zima!"

His name came out somewhere between a cry and a gasp. He laughed and swung down from on top of the vent, lit on the ground in front of me. "So tell me something, love," he said, leaning down to pull me up. "Was I right? Did you miss me?"

I had no words. I just let him pull me up, and into him, and he washed over me and made me whole; he slid his arms around me, hugged me so tight it almost hurt. Not tight enough. I could never be close enough to him, even when he held me—even when I felt him murmur against me, pulsating through his coat. At least, it began as a murmur. Within seconds, it was a drone, then a surge. It drowned out all other sounds, all other feelings, the way he blazed holding me – I would have lost my breath, if I'd had any. Instead, I felt myself answer. I couldn't always answer him in words, all of his riddles and nonsense-talk, but I could answer him like this.

I knew it was merely mechanical, his reaction to me. My reaction to him. It was only one processor recognizing another, and establishing a link; it was a pair of symbiotic systems starting up in proximity, to do the things they were wired to do. It was humanoid unit 01165A saying I am the national data bank, and you are the program designed to protect me. It was humanoid unit 01165B responding, I am a data security program, and yours is the data I was designed to protect.

But standing there on the roof, twined into him – drowning in the scent of leather, and a head-spinning heat sweeter than sun – I couldn't help but feel it might be more.

Without preamble, he picked me up and set me on top of the vent, so that I could look him in the eyes. I didn't get to for long, though. He leaned in, took me by the waist, and – true to form – began kissing me everywhere he could reach. My nose. My forehead. My eyelids, first one and then the other. "Would you quit it, already?" I mumbled, feeling a flush color my cheeks. "You're so weird."

"Sorry. Can't." He grinned and kissed my right cheek as it reddened, doing nothing to help the matter. "You're just too cute when you blush."

"Yeah, well," I said when he craned to kiss my ear, burying his face in my hair, "if you keep slobbering all over my ears like an overgrown puppy, I'm going to short-circuit, and then I'll have to be in maintenance for forever and a day." Zima just chuckled and kept at it, until I took his shoulder and held him at arm's length. "How was it, anyway?"

"How should I know? I was shut down."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you okay?"

"Right as rain, love. No more overload." I let him go, and after one more kiss – this one on my mouth, where humans thought a kiss most significant – he let up. He did start to play with my ponytail, though. "What about you?"

"What do you mean, what about me?"

"You know what I mean. Did you solve your problem?"

I felt a gentle tug at the nape of my neck, as he wound my ponytail around his fingers. Made the mistake of letting my eyes fall from his. "Yeah," I answered, not intending to lie to him, unable to find words for the truth. "It was—I'm fine."

His hand moved to slide beneath my chin. He tipped my head up, so that I couldn't avoid his eyes – those knee-weakening, signal-scrambling, red wine-colored eyes, as sharp as the day I first saw them. I could never hide from those eyes. "Dita," he said gently, and something inside of me either melted or burst. Maybe both. "Don't lie to me."

At that point, I would've told him just about anything, to hear him say my name in that voice again. "I'm not lying," I said weakly. "I just—it's kind of complicated. Can't we talk about it later?"

The smile returned to his face, flickered like a candleflame over his lips. He took my face in his hands and pressed his forehead against mine, so that all I could see was him. "Anything for you."

For awhile, neither of us moved. We just stayed like that, me sitting on the vent, Zima leaning over me – his thumb stroking the skin nearest my ear, sending tingles down my spine. His eyes piercing mine. The two of us locked in a mode we had invented, halfway between sleeping and waking, speaking and silence, knowing for sure and not knowing at all. There wasn't a switch in the world that could wake us here. Nor could the wind, nor the calling birds. And I wasn't thinking I am a data security program, and yours is the data I was designed to protect. All I could think was stay close to me.

Stay close to me.

But eventually, the spell had to break. He picked me up again, and this time set me down on the rooftop proper. "I have good news," he announced, producing his shades from a pocket, and slipping them over his eyes.

Knowing Zima, it was probably something weird. Even so, I asked. "What?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Before I knew it, he had leapt up on top of the vent, where I'd been sitting seconds before. He just stood there, head cocked to one side, looking at me – well, I assumed he was looking at me; I couldn't quite tell, what with his shades – until I bit and gave chase. "Of course I want to know. What is it?"

Instead of answering, he chose to frustrate me further, by darting like a nervous bird to a another, higher perch. Beside the vent, there stood a water tank, and the next thing I knew he'd lit on its roof. "Are you sure?"

"Zima!" It was what he wanted, but I had to follow him. What else could I have done? Stood there and demanded he come down? "Stop playing games."

For a second, he actually looked like he might consider that. But no. I should've known better. As soon as I touched down on the water tank, he took off for the warning light. Mounted atop a tall metal pole, the aircraft warning light was the highest point on the entire building, and I knew he couldn't go further than that – so I closed the distance and met him there, landing on the glinting red dome. "I just wanted to be sure," he said, smiling down at me, "before I told you, that you really, truly wanted to know."

Up here, the wind was stronger than on the rooftop, billowing like ocean waves through my hair. I saw it catch and whip his ponytail. I saw it lift the wings of his coat, and felt mine flutter against my legs; for a moment, I glanced down at the world around us, the city a million miles below. We weren't afraid of heights. We lived for them. And the higher we could go, the better, because more distance between us and the earth meant more distance between us and reality. Up here, we didn't belong to anyone. Up here, we could have been anything.

"Zima…" I wrapped my arms around him and laid my chin on his chest, my face upturned. He pushed up his shades to look me in the eyes. "I really, truly want to know."

"Then I'll tell you," he said lightly. As if he hadn't made me chase him all the way up here, just to get him to answer me. "Before they send me out on another assignment, they want to make sure my drive updates are functioning right. They want me here, where I can be fixed if I crash, and they don't want me working too hard." I didn't like the sound of that – if I crash – but it didn't seem to bother him. "So I've got a little time. It's not much – only three days – but I'm free to do whatever I want."

"I fail to see how that's good news for me."

"That's because you didn't let me finish," he said. "I told them that, if they're so afraid that the drive's unstable, I really ought to have you with me for the test period. I mean, what if something happened?" I felt my brow crease, but he only laughed, smoothing it out with his thumb. "Nothing's going to happen. You don't need to flip out. Just be glad I got us both off the hook for three days." He leaned down and kissed me in the center of my forehead. "Consider it a vacation."

Well. That was good news. "But you're not really going to crash, right?"

"Of course I'm not." He rolled his gaze towards the sky above us, adding, "Well, I could."

"What?!"

"Computers crash all the time, love. You never know."

"Don't talk like that!" I held him tighter, burrowing into his coat, his warmth. Suddenly, I realized how cold it was, this high off the ground. "Don't ever talk like that. You're not…you're not just a…"

But he is. Isn't he?

He knew I wouldn't – couldn't – finish. So he didn't wait for me. In one swoop – a single, fluid motion – he dropped from the warning light, all the way back down onto the roof. "By the way, I left something with Aiko," he called to me, as I leapt down to land beside him. "Something for you."

"Why would you do that?" I frowned as he made his way across the roof, sauntering dangerously close to the hatch. He wouldn't. "If you have something to give me, can't you just give it to me now?"

"Nope. I've got stuff to do." He nudged the hatch open with his boot. "Preparations. You know."

"Zima! I've only just seen you, after ten days, and you're just going to take off? Just like that?"

"Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. If you don't get it now," he said, with his typically cryptic grin, "you will soon."

And just like that, he disappeared down the hatch. Leaving me slack-jawed, infuriated, and unable to believe I'd missed him so much.