Two warriors sat down at a tiny noodle shop in the Little Busan neighborhood of Neo-Miami. Being an open air restaurant, only patrons with cybernetic filters or who did not breath at all were welcome. N0ne sat behind an empty tea cup. She had purchased an order of tea to be polite, but she ordered it without any tea to not be wasteful. She quietly watched the beggar scarf down his second bowl of noodles. N0ne did not breath, and the beggar probably had an entirely synthetic respiratory system since she observed that he seemed to be robotic from collarbone down.

She had asked him a few questions, but his mouth was always too full to answer. Most of the way through his second bowl, he was finally slowing down. She observed, “For a Truman with so little organic biomass, you eat a lot.”

The man grunted and pushed more noodles into his mouth with his chopsticks.

N0ne asked, “Do you intend to eat every noodle in this place?”

The beggar stopped slurping to grin. He swallowed and answered, “Not entirely. I’m eating for both of us. Since you won’t eat, I have to eat for both of us.”

N0ne said, “Is that how it works?”

The beggar wiped his mouth with a dirty sleeve. “I don’t see but three or four A.I.s riding robots on the street each year, and they are always accompanied mercenaries and always passing through. Never once have I seen an A.I. stop in one of our shrines at the birds. What brings you all the way down to Busan?”

“My job,” she answered truthfully.

“Ah, the missing girl.”

“I think that maybe you could spread her picture among the other panhandlers.”

The beggar slurped another mouthful of noodles. Then he said, “If I saw her tonight and told you, what would become of her?”

“She would be brought home, and you would be rewarded.”

He grimaced and pushed away he noodle-less bowl. “By home, you mean dragged to Hyperborea, whether she wants it or not. My name is Beop Sa. You never asked.”

“You never introduced yourself. You never asked my name.”

He wiped his mouth with a filthy robe sleeve. “Fair, fair. If I may introduce myself, I am still Beop Sa. Your name is Oh-Oh. It’s on your uniform’s nametag.”

N0ne leaned in a little and spoke with her sweetest voice. “My friends call N0ne.”

Beop Sa make an exaggerated expression of doubt. “You have friends?”

“I have at least one. She’s missing.”

Beop Sa stood up and made of show of stretching. N0ne doubted very much that his robot limbs required that after sitting still. He strank down to his compacted height and walked away from the noodle shop. As he did, he said something to the noodle chef in a dialect that N0ne did not recognize and could not translate.

She followed him. “Mister Beop Sa, will you please ask the other panhandlers you know?”

“Digital child, that will not help. A beggar doesn’t pay attention to the face. A beggar thinks only of the hand which gives money. You do not have a picture of your friend’s hand.”

“I can get that for you. Wait, you weren’t being serious.”

Beop Sa stopped on the sidewalk. “You aren’t going to leave me alone and let me beg, will you?”

“Unlikely.”

“I’ll starve!”

“Mister Beop Sa, I think you are holding back.”

He lowered his voice. “If you really want someone found who doesn’t want to be found, you need friends in low places. I don’t mean Hyperborea or the other megas. I mean contacts in the street whose networks run wide. The triads, the church ladies, the police.”

“I am the police.”

“The corrupt police!”

N0ne tried a different approach. “Your body is a custom combat frame. You did not obtain it by panhandling. You don’t pay to maintain it by panhandling or settling for two bowls of noodles. You have connections. You are my connection.”

“Ahhh” Beop Sa said in exaggerated exasperation. “You really were trying to avoid killing those gutterheads in the shrine, weren’t you, N0ne?”

“I really was,” she agreed.

“Yes, I can introduce you. But a sweet word or a coin won’t win over this honor. You’ll need to convince me first of your own honor, and that may take years.”

“Beop Sa, what is honor to you? Tell me so that I may appease your sense of honor in the most efficient period of time possible.”

They passed close to a mariachi band of street performing neo-dogs played Cuban salsa music. Beop Sa asked, “N0ne, do you know the word ‘Hwarang’?”

“I know the title refers to military commanders during the Three Kingdoms and their major battles.”

“Military officers? No no no, the Hwarang Do were knights! Legendary heroes of ancient Korea, martial artists, pious Buddhist, and honor-bound warriors. Hwarang was their code of honor.”

“Please, teach me.”

Beop Sa scratched his chin and said, “Well, it’s more basic than European chivalry or Japanese Bushido. There are only five laws. They are each simple but wide in their reach.” He lifted his pipe high into a striking position. The mariachi players stopped playing their music and retreated to watch from a safe distance.

N0ne copied his stance.