"You're leaving awfully early -- it's not even midnight yet," Batou remarked as Ishikawa passed him in the hall. "Don't tell me you've got a date." He chuckled at his own joke, and Ishikawa grinned back.
"Actually, I do. It'd be rude to keep her waiting, so I'd better go. See you in the morning." With that, Ishikawa left, reveling in Batou's speechlessness.
It seemed as though Ishikawa hit every light red on his way home. He considered hacking into the traffic control grid and making his trip a little easier, but decided against it. Finally, he arrived at his tiny one room apartment. Wires criss-crossed the floor, and most of the wall space was taken up with shelves of equipment and monitors that turned on at his approach.
I didn't remember it being so dirty, he grimaced, picking up a pile of empty take-out boxes and taking them over to the trash. Unfortunately, the trash can was full, so he had to take out the full bag and tie it up, and put in a new bag before he could begin to clean up. It had been a week since he had been home; but he was glad to see that his custom cockroach-hunter robot-cat had been doing its job. Now, if only he could program it to hunt trash, too . . .
He was halfway through formulating an algorithm when he realized he had better not be late. He hated rushing, but he had no choice if he wanted to be on time. I hope she's worth it.
Forty-five minutes later, he was waiting for her at an outdoor cafe downtown. All that rushing, and now she's late. As each woman drew closer, he wondered if it was her, but each passed by. He only knew her by her online nickname, "RobotDragoness", but he told her he'd be wearing a green shirt so she could find him. Well, Ishikawa didn't care that much what she looked like, anyway -- from their online discussions on various computer security forums, he knew she was sharp, realistic, and with a cynical wit that nearly matched his own. And she had liked his science fiction story about a planet of robots attempting to create and program intelligent biological life. I guess I'll have to wait.
It was a bit of a stretch to call it a "date" -- neither of them was really the romantic type, and they didn't really flirt at all. The only reason he considered it a date was because she was a woman. What if "RobotDragoness" is really a man? That would be . . . different. Talking via online avatars wasn't quite the same as meeting in person, so he had asked her to have dinner with him tonight.
He shifted around on the bench. He thought about reading some technical documents while he waited, but he knew that as soon as started, she would arrive. He shifted in his chair uncomfortably. It'd been too long; he'd forgotten all his favorite witty things to say, he didn't know any fun places to go, he didn't know any of the latest karaoke songs . . . But, the comforting thing was, he didn't think she'd care. They'd just have a dinner, and talk, just like they talked online.
It had been an hour. He thought about messaging her, but he suddenly felt awkward. What if she didn't really wanted to meet in person? What if she was just being polite, and he had misinterpreted. What if she had taken one look at him and turned around and left?
Before he could begin to sink into a mire of self-pity, he stood up. Whatever. I have things to do at home -- .
"Ishikawa? What are you doing here?" He turned, and saw the Major sitting at a table behind him.
"Major! I thought you were working." She shook her head, and he continued, "Ah, well, I was supposed to meet someone here, but she never showed up."
"Sit down, I'll buy you a slice of pie." He sat, a little surprised.
"Thanks, Major. I guess I should know better than try to get a date at my age, huh?" The waiter came at a gesture from the Major, and she ordered the pie.
"So, I've been thinking about some image recognition algorithms," Ishikawa said, changing the subject, "but I can't decide whether to use Bayesian neural nets or a simple decision tree to train the classification data. The data's not too clean, and the categories are pretty fuzzy . . . " He explained his goal, in general terms, and she had some good suggestions -- of course, he never admitted it was for his robot cat. After a half-hour or so, and three pieces of pie later, they said good-bye and he went home. Suddenly, he stopped and put his hand to his forehead.
No, no, no. RobotDragoness . . . is the Major? On the one hand, it seemed impossible -- the Net was so vast, with so many people, the chances of meeting someone you knew were minuscule. But on the other hand, it did seem awfully coincidental that she happened to be at that same cafe, on the same night . . . He shook his head ruefully. No wonder "RobotDragoness" seemed too good to be true. There was only one person that perfect.
And she was way too perfect for him.