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class with Jax and a few others, and they seem to enjoy it well enough. None of the digients were raised on bedtime stories, so text doesn't fascinate them the way it does human children, but their general curiosity—along with the praise of their owners—motivate them to explore the uses that text can be put to. Derek finds it exciting, and laments the fact that Blue Gamma didn't stay in business long enough to see these things come to pass.
    They arrive at the park; Ana sees them and walks over as Derek parks the car. Marco gives Ana a hug as soon as Derek lets him out of the car.
    "Hi Ana."
    "Hi Marco," replies Ana; she rubs the back of the robot's head. "You're still in the body? You had a whole week. Wasn't that enough?"
    "Wanted ride in car."
    "Did you want to play in the park for a bit?"
    "No, we go now. Wendy not want us stay. Bye Ana." By now Derek has gotten the charging platform for the robot out of the backseat. Marco steps on to the charging platform—they've trained the digients to return to it whenever they return to Data Earth—and the robot's helmet goes dark.
    Ana uses her handheld to get the first digient ready to enter the robot. "So you have to go, too?" she asks Derek.
    "No, I don't have to be anywhere."
    "So what did Marco mean?"
    "Well..."
    "Let me guess: Wendy thinks you spend too much time with digients, right?"
    "Right," says Derek. Wendy was also uncomfortable with the amount of time he's been spending with Ana, but there's no point in mentioning that. He assured Wendy that he doesn't think of Ana that way, that they're just friends who share an interest in digients.
    The robot's helmet lights up to display a jaguar-cub face; Derek recognizes him as Zaff, who's owned by one of the beta testers. "Hi Ana hi Derek," says Zaff, and immediately runs toward a nearby tree. Derek and Ana follow.
    "So seeing them in the robot body didn't win her over?" asks Ana.
    Derek stops Zaff from picking up some dog turds. To Ana, he says, "Nope. She still doesn't understand why I don't suspend them whenever it's convenient."
    "It's hard to find someone who understands," Ana says. "It was the same when I worked at the zoo; every guy I dated felt like he was coming in second. And now when I tell a guy that I'm paying for reading lessons for my digient, he looks at me like I'm crazy."
    "That's been an issue for Wendy, too."
    They watch as Zaff sorts through the leaf litter, extracts a leaf decayed to near transparency, and holds it up to his face to look through it, a mask of vegetable lace. "Although I guess I shouldn't really blame them," says Ana. "It took me a while to understand the appeal myself."
    "Not me," says Derek. "I thought digients were amazing right away."
    "That's true," agrees Ana. "You're a rare one."
    Derek watches her with Zaff, admires her patience in guiding him. The last time he felt so much in common with a woman was when he met Wendy, who shared his excitement at bringing characters to life through animation. If he weren't already married, he might ask Ana out, but there's no point in speculating about that now. The most they can be is friends, and that's good enough.
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    It's a year later, and Ana is spending the evening at her apartment. On her computer she has a window open to Data Earth, where her avatar is at a playground, supervising a group play-date that Jax has with a handful of other digients. The number of digients continues to shrink—Tibo, for example, hasn't been around in months—but Jax's regular group has merged with another one recently, so he still has the opportunity to make new friends. A few of the digients are up in the climbing equipment, others play with toys on the ground, while a couple watch a virtual television.
    In another window, Ana browses through the user-group discussion forums. The topic du jour is the latest action by the Information Freedom Front, an organization that lobbies for the end of privately owned data. Last week they publicized techniques for