The story contains elements of murder and the possibility that DNA evidence could be manipulated. One of the detectives named Xia who people call Shaw says at the end that a potential presidential candidate is ineligible because of being born in Canada. I can’t remember where this ties into the story. Read it in a short-story collection in the early 2000s.
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4Do you remember what aspects of it might be considered futuristic? The DNA manipulation is a good start, I think. What are their hovered cars? Laser weapons? Aliens?– FuzzyBootsCommented Nov 30 at 2:13
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1 Answer
Our Flag Was Still There by Steven Mohan. I read it in the anthology Future Americas, which according to ISFDB is the only place it has been published.
The agent is Jason Xia, but his partner pronounces "Xia" as "Shaw":
Xia inhaled the thick, greasy smell of it, mostly sweat with just a trace of something else underneath: the coppery scent of blood. They were afraid—the citizens, the reporters, hell, even the cops. And really, who could blame them? Not Xia. He was afraid, too.
His partner asked, "Was this what you had in mind, Xia?" (He pronounced it "Shaw.")
The story is set in a future America that has descended into a myriad of ideologically different regions. This was done deliberately to avoid increasing violence between different ideological groups. A woman is discovered in bombed hotel and turns out to be a famous politician Senator Callie Cook who disappeared fifty years earlier. It isn't clear if she was kidnapped and put in suspended animation or if she is a clone, but either way the plotters behind her reappearance hope she will de-Balkanise America.
The story ends:
For a moment, Cook watched them go. Then she drew a deep breath and stepped toward Xia, close enough she could smell him, sweat and soap and him. She looked up into those pretty gray-green eyes. She reached out and touched his arm. Her hand was shaking.
"Jason, America is not a place or a language or a religion. It’s not even the things we believe today. You showed me that. We may be wrong today. But America is the promise that we’ll do better tomorrow."
He was quiet for a long moment. Finally, he said, "Too bad."
"Too bad, what?" she asked.
"Too bad you were born in Canada. You might have made a halfway decent president." She leaned into him, and after a moment he took her hand. Together, they watched the flag flapping proudly against the blue summer sky
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How do I mark the answer as correct.? Is there a button to click? Commented Dec 3 at 13:04
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@RoystonNeale Yes, click the "checkmark" button located underneath the vote buttons. Commented Dec 3 at 13:25