01110011 01101110 01100001 01110000 01100100 01110010 01100001 01100111 01101111 01101110 01110011 [Snapdragons]

I couldn't get a thing out of Aiko. That could've been because she didn't know anything, or because she did and Zima had told her not to tell; either way, it didn't help me. If she didn't know, she didn't know, and if Zima had said keep it a secret she would. Other 'coms always listened to Zima, because they liked him. They couldn't help it.

So I didn't find out what he was planning, but I did get the something for me. It was a package. A box that measured a foot on all sides, wrapped in white paper with a black satin ribbon. I thought it a novelty, because I had never received a gift; I'd never needed or wanted anything I didn't already have. Besides, who would give a gift to a persocom? Curious as to what he could possibly have put in it, I took the box downstairs to the cellar, and then to the room where our pods were installed. There, I was sure I could be alone.

I situated myself on the floor, my back against the wall, the box in my lap. Carefully, I loosened the bow. When I did, the lattice of ribbon unraveled, and fell away from the box. From there I slid a fingernail beneath a seam in the paper, slicing through strips of clear tape; I peeled back the paper from each side, its glossy surface shining in the light. For some reason, I didn't want it to rip, or crinkle. It didn't make sense, but it was what it was.

The box itself didn't look special. Just white cardboard, not especially heavy, not especially light. I opened the lid and had to dig through several layers of tissue paper, before I got to the contents of the package: on the top, another, smaller box, this one rectangular instead of square. On the bottom, a bundle of folded fabric. And taped to one side, a note in Zima's handwriting. 20th floor terrace. 7:30.

I furrowed my brow, but unpacked the box anyway, beginning with whatever he'd tucked into the bottom. Unfurling the fabric, I realized it was a dress. A short dress, with a ruched bodice and thin shoulder straps, the neckline shaped like a heart. Upon inspection, the skirt revealed layer upon layer of gossamer silk, each a slightly different shade – some indigo, some magenta, some the violet of a ripened plum. All together, I supposed I'd have described it as purple. A shimmering, light-catching purple, the topmost layer dusted with glitter.

Inside the smaller box was a pair of kitten-heeled silver sandals. I had never worn sandals before. In fact, I'd never worn anything but my costume, and all of this was a far cry from that. Zima must have had a reason, for wanting me to wear these things – at least, I assumed he wanted me to wear them – but I remained mystified. Where did he get this stuff? I wondered, holding up the dress by its straps, checking the tag for a size. I don't even know what size I am. How does he?

But I'd learned a long time ago never to ask how Zima knew something. The answer was always the same.

20th floor terrace. 7:30. By then, it was already 7:15. I unbuckled my coat and unzipped my boots, wriggled out of my shorts. I slipped the dress down over my head. It felt incredibly strange, wearing that and nothing else – all my life, I'd been festooned with accessories, garters and armlets and gloves of different lengths. They were cumbersome, sure, but familiar. In just the purple dress, its hem falling just above my knees, I felt almost naked. And those shoes – dainty as teacups – didn't much help.

I glanced at myself in the glass door of my pod. Spun on the slender heel of one sandal, and watched the dress billow around me. I had no scans to run for beauty, no program to tell me whether I looked pretty or not; all 'coms were built to a certain aesthetic standard, because nobody would buy an ugly one, but beyond that I wasn't sure where I fell. Wasn't this what human girls did, when they wanted to look pretty? Put on a filmy little dress, and wobble around in high heels, and paint their lips bright and eyes dark? If Zima and I were human, and I was trying to impress him, was this how I would dress?

If Zima and I were human. God. Perish the thought.

Before I left, I noticed something I hadn't before, in the bottom of the box. It caught my eye when it glistened in the light. Picking it up, I saw that it was a blown-glass barrette, in the shape of a butterfly – plum-purple, too, like the dress. At first, I just kind of blinked at it, unsure of where he'd intended it to go. I never wore anything in my hair. Except, of course, for the tie at the base of my ponytail, and when I thought of that I understood; I undid it and slid the butterfly into its place.

On the twentieth floor, a railed deck wrapped around the building, bisecting the lower and upper half. It was meant more for show than for use, but there was one door leading out to it. I made my way to that door surreptitiously, so that no one would see me dressed as I was; pretty or not, I couldn't help but feel somewhat ridiculous, and I didn't want memories of that getup stored in every 'com I ran into. So I traversed floors on the back stairways, as though I were heading to the roof. I slunk through dark halls as quietly as I could, wincing with each click of my heels. Talk about ridiculous. I feel like a cat burglar.

But eventually, I found the door to the terrace, and stepped out into the setting sun. He was waiting for me.

At least I wasn't the only one who looked weird. He was dressed in black, still, but most definitely not in his costume; he was wearing a jacket, but not the one I knew so well. This one was tailored, short by our standards, and whatever it was made of, it wasn't leather. Underneath, he wore a button-down shirt, left untucked over slacks and loafers. Actually, the longer I looked at him, the more self-conscious I felt – I'd thought he looked weird, at first, but I got used to it in record time. We were both out of our shared element, wearing such—human clothes, but he didn't look half as stupid as I felt.

"Wow." As the door swung shut, his eyes travelled slowly over me, from the silver sandals up to the butterfly barrette. "You look—"

"—ridiculous?"

"Ridiculously stunning." I felt my cheeks warm, no doubt pink as the horizon. I shouldn't even have been able to blush, but somehow, Zima always teased it out of me. "I was right. That color is magnificent on you."

"What are we doing out here, anyway? What's the point of all this?"

He answered with a nod towards the left corner of the terrace. Not sure what else to do, I headed in that direction, with him following close behind; when we turned the corner, I gasped. "What did you do?"

It wasn't a very smart question – I didn't know why he'd done it, but I could very well see what he'd done. He'd made over that entire corner of the terrace, to what end I wasn't sure. In the center, there sat a little wrought-iron table, with a mosaicked surface and matching chairs; there were places set, too, with napkins and silverware and some kind of something arranged on china plates. Between them, a glass vase housed a spray of flowers, roses and lilies and sprigs of yellow snapdragons. As far as I could see, he'd lit candles on each post of the railing, tiny flames flickering clear down to the next corner. Except for one, on which a true fossil of technology was perched: a CD player, silent for the time being. I hadn't thought those existed anymore.

"Dita," he said when I turned to look at him, before I could open my mouth, "do you remember the question I asked you ten days ago?"

He knew I did. I knew he knew I did. He just wanted to hear me say it. "'Were you really going to leave without saying goodbye?'" I said mulishly.

"Farther back."

I rolled my eyes upwards, pretending to think. "'Did you have something to add?'"

"Warmer."

"'I like Aiko, don't you?'"

He leaned down to look into my eyes. Cradled my face in his bare hands. It occurred to me that this was only the second time I'd seen them, and the first time they'd touched me. "Do you love me?" he said, almost whispered, the faintest smile on his lips and in his eyes. I knew, without knowing, that he wasn't just quoting himself; he was asking me again.

I still couldn't answer. At least, not how he wanted me to. "Yes," I mumbled, dropping my gaze. "I remember."

"And do you know what it is that humans do, when they fall in love with someone, and they want that person to love them back?"

"Tell me."

He let me go and drew himself back up, his smile blooming into a full-fledged grin. "They take that person on a date."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded as he took my hand, giving me little choice but to follow him out onto the terrace. He pulled one of the wrought-iron chairs out from the table, and made an unnecessarily grand gesture to indicate that I should sit. "What's a date?"

He took a seat in the chair across from me. "Data indicates," he said, officious because he knew it annoyed me, "that a date is a form of human mating ritual, in which the two involved parties take great pains to impress each other via affected styles of behavior and dress. Popular locations for the execution of this ritual include restaurants, movie theatres, nightclubs and public parks. If the involved parties are male and female, as is traditional, it is thought to be the male's responsibility to propose, plan, and finance the event."

"So what?" I wrinkled my nose, less in distaste than disbelief. "That's what this is supposed to be?"

"Dita, you wound me." He laid a hand on his heart – where his heart would have been, if he'd had one – and shook his head. "And after I went to all that trouble, just to set this up for you."

"Zima, come on. Be realistic. This—this doesn't make sense." Glancing down at the place setting in front of me, I saw that the some kind of something was, in fact, food. Some kind of meat and some kind of noodles, and some kind of vegetable. I couldn't have described it further if I'd tried. I didn't know much about food. I didn't eat. "I mean—what the hell is this? Did you make this? Did you forget that we can't eat?"

"So? It's not about eating. It's about the experience." He swept out an arm, its arc encompassing the terrace. "This is all," he said, his eyes catching mine, "about the experience."

I sighed. This whole thing was absurd, even for Zima; whatever was left of my logic program was going absolutely mad. But he had gone to a lot of trouble, to set all of this up. I didn't even know how he'd done it, having been in maintenance for ten days. Still, he'd done it and he'd done it for me - however odd that notion was – and the longer I sat there, the more I thought it might not hurt to humor him. The longer I sat there, with the breeze batting the flowers' leaves, the sweeter grew the scent of the snapdragons, and the cool air against my bare legs. The longer I sat there, watching the candleflames dance, the more I felt I ought to stay until they went out.

Our headquarters was the tallest building for miles. Even its middle floor towered above the cityscape. From the terrace, we could see the sun as it went down, in a blaze of pink and gold; as we'd spoken, the day had begun to fold his wings, and the night to scatter her stars. This must be the best view in the city, I thought, fingering the butterfly in my hair. It would be a shame to miss it.

"I guess it is a nice night."

My reward for conceding was a smile – the most genuine in his repertoire. Given what that smile did to me, I'd call it more than a fair trade. "Data indicates," he said again, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, "that appropriate conversation for a first date consists mainly of small talk. I'll start. How was your day?"

"Just wonderful, thanks. I spent the morning numbing my circuits with busywork. I went to the roof and you scared the shit out of me, made me chase you all the way up the warning light, then proceeded to disappear completely after having been gone for ten days. And now I'm here, making awkward small talk over food I can't eat." I cocked an eyebrow. "How about yours?"

"Best I could've asked for. I got to be with you."

I felt my face redden all over again, at the sheer sincerity in his eyes. That, and a pang of guilt, for being so cynical. "I swear to God, Zima—"

He held up a hand to stop me. "We're not done yet. Where do you work?" Before I could protest, he added, "Remember, this is a first date. We don't know each other yet."

Fine. If I was going to play along, I figured I might as well go for broke. "I work for the government. With the national data bank."

"Do you, now?" He rested his elbows on the table, laced his fingers together, and set his chin on the bridge. "It must be fascinating."

"Actually, it's not an it, it's a he. They've managed to compact it into a persocom."

"Is that so?" he asked, as if he were really curious. "Now, why would they want to do that?"

As I considered my answer, I toyed absently with a sagging sprig of snapdragons, dripping with so many flowers it nearly fell from the vase. "Beats me," I said at last. "He's incredibly annoying."

"I would imagine so. Sort of a know-it-all type, hm?"

"Oh, yes. Very self-important, too. But enough about my troubles; what do you do for a living?"

"I'm an international jetsetter," he seemed to decide out of the blue. "I'm independently wealthy, and stunningly sophisticated for my age. I travel the globe gracing various exotic locales with my illustrious presence, along the way sampling fine wines and finer women – since, as you may have guessed, I'm a perpetual womanizer."

I didn't understand everything he was saying, but that was par for the course with Zima and I. In any case, I got enough to improvise. "It sounds as if you lead a very exciting life."

"I do indeed. However, like many young men of my means and persuasion, I find myself wanting for the one thing that matters most in life – love." At least this time, he wasn't being so deadly serious about it. "That's why when I met you, at the meat counter in the grocery store—"

"Wait, what?" I interrupted. "We did not meet at the grocery store."

"Well, where would you rather have met? On the white-sand beaches of Makalawena? Horseback riding in the Andes? In line at a burger joint?"

I thought about that. To busy my hands, I plucked a snapdragon and began to peel its petals, one by one; they came off like strips of yellow gauze, fraying along curled edges. Vaguely, I recalled having heard of this somewhere, the practice of pulling flowers apart. I'd heard it was a game among human girls. "We met at the bookstore," I told him, as soon as it occurred to me. "I was buying a book about…snapdragons. But when I got to the register, I realized I'd forgotten my wallet. And you – being independently wealthy – decided to buy it for me."

He nodded gravely. "That sounds," he said, "like exactly the kind of thing I'd do."

Once Zima's small talk quota had evidently been filled, he leaned his chair back and punched a button on the CD player. After some protest – and a good chunk of static – the disc inside began grinding to life. "What's with that thing?" I finally got the chance to ask. "It's got to be old as the hills. Couldn't you have brought a speaker instead?"

"Ah, but if I were plugged into a speaker," he answered, pushing back his chair, "I couldn't ask you to dance."

He came around and pulled out my chair for me, and against my better judgment, I stood. "Zima, you can't mean—"

"Bear with me, love." Once more, he reached out to take my hand, tugging me out to the corner of the terrace. The empty space closest to the CD player, now churning out what I guessed was music. "Your suffering's nearly at an end."

It wasn't that I didn't know what music was; I didn't know as much as Zima did, but I did at least know that. It was just that this music didn't sound like any I'd ever heard. And it must have been very old music, to have been written onto a CD. In any case, he'd been right – we couldn't have danced, if he'd been tied down by a cable, and as it turned out dancing wasn't so bad. It wasn't hard, either. I just held his hand, and he rested his on my hip, and we swirled and swayed across the deck.

All around us, night fell like a veil. The candles burned low on the posts, the stars winked bright in the sky, and the breeze blew cold and fluttered my dress; when he wasn't dipping me down low, or lifting my hand to twirl me on one heel, I pressed my cheek against his shirt. When the wind made me shiver, he was warm. He laid his hand on my back, sliding his thumb up and down between my shoulder blades. He let his fingers wander up to stroke my hair. As we danced, we didn't speak, not even once – the only sound was the music, plugging faithfully along despite the occasional skip. The music and the white noise we made together, that sound like a cicada's song. The sound that let us know we were alive, or what passed for it. That reminded us we could pretend to be human, if we liked, but it was only a game. We might say the things they would say, we might do the things they would do—but in the end, we had more in common with that CD player than we'd ever have with them.

I had no idea what time it was, when the music faded. I didn't want to know. As we went inside, I found myself still swaying, wanting to rock back and forth on each step.

We went downstairs, walked in comfortable silence to our pods. I had thought that would be the end of things. But Zima, as always, had more surprises in store. "I can't go in with you," he said, when I went to punch in the code.

"What? Why not?"

"Because that's not how a date works," he informed me. "I'm supposed to take you home, then walk you to your front door and kiss you goodnight."

"So do that and then come in with me."

"I couldn't. That'd make you easy."

"That'd make me what?"

"Never mind." He scanned me and shook his head. "There's no other way. You'll have to go in first, and I'll leave and come back once you're shut down. I'll just…I don't know, not look at you."

I groaned. "That is literally the most idiotic thing I've ever heard."

"Yeah, well. People do stupid things when they're in love."

He bent down, cupped my chin in one hand, and kissed me. A long, soft, gentle kiss, his mouth as warm as his hands. It was funny how, as many times as he'd kissed me, it had never made me feel quite like that; it was funny how, though taste was the one sense we lacked, I somehow knew it was sweet. "Goodnight, love," he murmured, against my cheek pinker than ever now. "Pleasant dreams."

I still didn't know what a dream was.

And before he left, there was one more thing he had to do. Seemingly out of nowhere, he produced one of the sprigs of snapdragons from the vase, and held it out to me by its leafy stem. "A single red rose is more traditional," he told me, a smile playing at his lips. "But data indicates you prefer snapdragons."

I stood there holding it as I watched him go, every step echoing down the hall. When he turned a corner, I keyed in the code, and went inside to my pod; he'd insisted he couldn't come back until I shut down, so shut down I would. I changed out of the dress first, though. It didn't seem right, to wear it now that the date was over, so I slipped out of it and pulled off the shoes and put it all back in the box. The butterfly barrette went in last. I folded the paper I'd preserved into a neat square, rolled the satin ribbon into a spool. Everything went into the box, and that I sealed with the lid, and placed in a corner of the room. I wouldn't need it again, I knew. But it was nice having it there all the same.

I buckled my coat and zipped my boots, wriggled back into my shorts. Pressed rewind on the entire evening, and ended up back where I'd been. Nothing changed save for the snapdragon. Before I stepped into my pod, I picked a single flower from the stem, and tucked it beneath the higher of the two straps across my chest. Where my heart would've been, if I'd had one.