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Chapter 6: There Was That One Time ...

2524 AD

Michigan Arcology Factfinding Bureau

Meatspace-Interrogation Specialist First Class Delta Kosovo Poseidon stepped in through the door of the Factfinding Bureau confer room. He shut the manual-hinging door behind him in a smooth move that he’d practiced for hours on a real door in a real building. Most people were more used to virtual space than realspace and tended to run face-first into tangible barriers because they were accustomed to things getting out of the way.

“What issues are?” he asked testily. “Off duty I was. Intimate/personal time with male/female partners.”

The holo-representation of the virtual-space interro officer morphed into a red-skinned muscular creature with sawn-off horns. A similarly holographic image of a duracrete block appeared and the creature punched it, sending chunks flying. These vanished before they would have hit the wall, and the interro officer turned to Delta.

“I have been trying to get answers out of an anomalous detainee for the past hour, with result nil,” the creature snarled. “Implants nil. Virtua presence nil. Cooperation nil. Speak with him. I’m shutting down for the night.”

Before Delta could ask any more questions, the holodisplay blinked off. Delta frowned, an expression he had studied for meatspace interactions. “Anomalous detainee, display,” he ordered. “Signify location.”

“Anomalous detainee located, Interro Sigma Seven,” the building intelligence replied at once. “Self-designated ‘Tal’.”

An image appeared over the holo-table. It portrayed a stocky human with blunt features and several indications of advanced age, including considerable male pattern baldness. Delta wasn’t sure how to parse this. In the post-need society of the Terralune system, few chose ordinary features, much less assumed the appearance of someone afflicted by above-norm age.

A few more commands elicited the playback of the attempted virtua interrogation. He absorbed the sense of it, though some aspects did not logically fit into what he knew of the world. He would, he decided, have to speak directly with the detainee.

Turning, he left the room. His implants gave him a virtual path to the detainee’s location, and unlocked the door when he placed his hand on the handle. Pulling the door open, he entered with the careless air of “I do this all day” that had disarmed so many interro subjects.

It didn’t seem to impress the person sitting on the bench. The detainee barely looked up as he entered, seemingly more interested in the pattern of weave in the cuff of the auto-dispensed coverall he was wearing. “Oh, good,” he said, his voice heavy with what Delta’s training allowed him to recognize as sarcasm. “Somebody real just showed up.”

“Virtual-space valid. Colleagues no less real than you,” Delta retorted.

“Pfft.” The detainee sat up, eyes intent. “They wouldn’t know a fact if it bit them on the ass. I mean, seriously, I look like someone who stopped a terrorist act five hundred years ago? Where does that even come from?”

Delta pushed the door shut and assumed Dominant Pose; Arms Folded. “Images clear of person stopping bomb-terrorist Olympics twenty twenty-four,” he stated, because it was true. “Footage, multiple angles. Features parse as yours, to multiple decimal places. Bomber beaten to death. Final, no revive. Image in system. When identical individual appears five centuries later, pickup signaled. Questions to be asked.”

The old man shrugged expansively. “I told the truth. Holo-guy didn’t want to believe me.”

“Not in virtua now,” Delta advised him. “Real truth best idea. Speak.”

“What do you want me to say?” The detainee rolled his eyes. “Sure, I’m real old. When I saw what that terrorist sonovabitch was up to, I kicked the shit out of him. No big, no conspiracy. Can I go now?”

Delta Kosovo Poseidon had conducted many meatspace interro sessions, and he considered himself adept at detecting signs of deception. The detainee’s story was impossible to believe on its face, but every indicator he could pick out said that the man was not lying.

“Advanced age achieved how to avoid fatal senescence?” he asked sharply.

“Mishap with a time traveler, back in the day. Can I go now?”

Delta only read assurance. There was no nervousness. He decided that he did not need to deal with this right now. Time travel mishaps had happened before. Chronon infusion could have strange effects on human tissue.

Also, no crime had been committed. “Yes, allowed to go. Have a good day, citizen.” The admin details were dealt with in microseconds.

“Yeah, thanks for nothing. Where’s my stuff?”

“Personal belongings being delivered,” Delta assured him. He turned and walked out, carefully leaving the door unlocked. If he hurried, he could get back to the intimate time before everyone lost interest.

Ten minutes later, the last Neandertal emerged from the front doors of the Factfinding Bureau.

“If this keeps happening,” he grumbled as he stumped away down the street, “next time they can stop their own damn terrorists.”

Chapter 7