“Could the scanners be wrong?” the major asked.
The lieutenant beside him shook her head. “The scanners do not detect an ID chip.”
Ken patted his body. He and every other human—Purebred and XHuman alike—had a nanochip that stored everything about them, from their date of birth to the last shirt they’d bought.
“That can’t be right,” the major said. “He must’ve found a way to deactivate or remove the chip.”
That couldn’t be right, either. Ken’s forehead bunched up. The chip circulated in the blood, making it impossible to find without technology only the government had.
The major turned to another station. “Specialist Hernandez, run facial recognition. Corporal Wilson, run spectral DNA analysis.”
“Yes, sir,” a man and woman said in unison.
The woman’s fingers waved through the air, and in front of her, two-dimensional faces flashed over each other. They looked so similar as the images slowed, like the stick figures Ken used to draw and flip through in the corner of his textbook for classic languages.
“Well?” The major put his hands on his hips. “Is it like the girl who turned up at Honnoji Temple last week? Nothing in the database?”
“Yes, but I’m searching deeper in the older archives.” Specialist Hernandez’s hand swiped through the display again, and a mix of both the alphabet and the old script danced through the air.
Kanji, they’d once called it. Ken shuddered. Studying the classics from actual paper books had been considered spirit-building, to imbue a sense of pride in the Asiatic cultures that once flourished here. Even though everyone used the planetary government’s sanctioned alphabet now.
He turned back to the image of the stranger, who looked to be speaking to a young woman. Words flashed above her, identifying her as Yuki Papadapolous.
“Have the closest team intercept,” the major said. “Computer, transfer sound to main speakers.”
In the display, the woman waved a hand back and forth and shook her head as the man’s speech came out in a lilting mix of sounds.
He was speaking the old language, just like the strange girl from last week who’d turned up out of nowhere, stolen a glowing blue sphere from an old well, and then vanished into a folding space aperture. Analysis of her skin particle DNA didn’t match anyone going as far back as DNA records went; an algorithmic analysis of mitochondrial DNA predicted her maternal line had died out three thousand years ago. Still, her genetics had proved one thing: unlike the vast majority of XHumans today, she’d been Purebred, like Ken.
“It must be another like that girl,” a sergeant said.
“Maybe.” The major snorted. “The Elestrae know something about it, but they won’t tell us. Computer, translate.”
The stranger approached another man and bowed in the old way. Just like in the really old movies from the great empire known as Shaw Brothers, the words coming out of his mouth didn’t match the movement of his lips.
“Excuse me, I am looking for Honnoji.”
Ken’s heart raced. Nobody else but him would have remembered Honnoji if the strange girl hadn’t turned up last week. Since then, it had been all over the news. Investigative reporters had dug up old records showing that Honnoji Academy had once been an elementary school. It, in turn, had been built over the ruins of an old temple where the famous warlord Oda Nobunaga was betrayed by one of his retainers, one thousand, three hundred years before.
“DNA analysis shows he is also Purebred,” the sergeant said.
Just like the strange girl.
And Ken.
Specialist Tani gasped. “I found a record that matches his DNA…from 2015. Ishihara Ryusuke.”
The buzz of Peacekeepers went silent. No doubt they’d done the math faster than Ken. The man was eight hundred years old. XHumans only lived to three hundred, and the theoretical maximum for Homo sapiens was four hundred. Chatter erupted again.
“That’s not possible,” someone said. “Life expectancy back then was eighty years.”
Just like Ken’s kind now. If the man wasn’t genetically modified, his appearance would suggest he was in his late twenties.
“Cryostasis?” the major asked.
A female lieutenant shook her head. “Cryotech wasn’t so advanced back then.”
“The Pointy-Ears have supposedly dabbled in time travel,” Specialist Tani said.
The lieutenant shook her head. “Time travel takes a vast amount of energy, and it’s just as reliable now as cryostasis was in his time. Look.”
In the display, three Peacekeepers in light armor approached the man.
“Excuse me, kind sirs.” Ishihara Ryusuke bowed. “I am looking for Honnoji.”
The Peacekeepers exchanged looks.
Of course, they didn’t have the benefit of translation AI, unless they’d thought to activate it in their ear dots. One held up an open hand. “Stand where you are, drop the staff, hands on your head.”
The man cocked his head. “So sorry. My English not good.”
In the monitoring station, murmurs erupted again. He was speaking in Universal Sol, with a heavy accent. The ancients had called it English.
Snarling, the lead Peacekeeper shot a hand out. His motion blurred in Ken’s eye, the effect of centuries of genetic modification combined with the reflex enhancements imbued by his armor. His fingers closed around the staff.
In an even faster movement, the stranger seized the Peacekeeper’s hand and twisted the staff. The Peacekeeper dropped to his knees with a yell. It happened so quickly, Ken would’ve missed it had he blinked.
It shouldn’t have been possible for a Purebred to do that to a XHuman in reflex-enhanced Peacekeeper armor.
But there it was. The end of the staff dug into the Peacekeeper’s wrist, which bent at a sharp angle.
The other Peacekeepers drew their particle guns, but their target released the first, ducked low, and used the staff to sweep the second’s feet out from under him. Rising, he let go of the staff—which balanced on the street—
