AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

gene therapy and artificial intelligence because of the work of disembodied researchers. And those are just a few examples.”
Nobel watchers agree Simone is unlikely to be nominated. “Dr. Simone’s conduct, the crimes of which she was accused, would of course, remove her from consideration,” Herbert Walstrow, an editor at Scientific American , said. “But Dr. Olaf Bols definitely deserves recognition and it would help dispel the notion that he ‘stumbled into his field.’” Walstrow was referring to Bols’ accidental death at CERN, the high-energy particle research center in Switzerland. It was his work that proved the validity of “field fingerprinting,” making it possible to recognize a disembodied person’s unique energy signature.
    It was a nice idea, trying to sneak out of the courthouse Wednesday, but it didn’t work. The case was an arrest for selling fake IDs that Munroe and Yamaguchi had worked four months ago. Munroe had been asked to stake out a bench in Cheesman Park and observed a payoff between a Denver Motor Vehicles employee and the person selling the IDs. Bushes obscured the bench so only someone within 10 feet of the bench could see the exchange, which would have seemed obvious, so Munroe did the surveillance.
    As usual, they arrived at the courtroom early because the assistant district attorneys always wanted to go over their testimony one last time. And although they were expected to testify in the afternoon, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t be asked to testify in the morning, or at all.
    They were now sitting on one of the hard benches outside the courtroom. Yamaguchi was extremely uncomfortable. She was in uniform and the various items on her equipment belt were pushed into her side by the bench. She was also practically asleep. She really required her eight hours and when fighting a cold, considerably more. Munroe was mildly grumpy because the early start meant he didn’t go to his morning coffee klatch at Starbucks, which he had already made a daily habit.
    “Any messages from the guy in the Springs,” he asked.
    “What? Oh, I forgot. Let me check my messages,” she said. She used her phone to check her voicemail but kept talking to Munroe. “What did you do last night?” she asked, ready to let his drone of websites visited and chats partaken lull her to sleep.
    “The usual,” he said. “Caught one of the games at the sports bar next to Coors Field.”
    She opened her eyes. “You mean Hooters, don’t you?”
    “No, not Hooters. I don’t go there anymore since you raised your objections.”
    “Yeah, right. Uh, no messages, by the way. What else did you do?”
    “You’ll laugh.”
    “Oh, I never laugh at your interests,” she said, rolling her eyes. I bet she does that so automatically now she doesn’t even know when she’s doing it, he thought.
    “I went to a website for disembodied cops.”
    “Oh, no, you got to be kidding.”
    “No, really. It was kind of interesting. I talked to a guy who claimed to be Wyatt Earp and someone who said he was Allan Pinkerton.”
    “And were they? My voice is dripping with sarcasm, by the way.”
    “The guy who said he was Pinkerton was pretty knowledgeable. But then, he didn’t know anything about him that I didn’t know. I’m a bit of a buff on historic detectives, you know.”
    “You don’t say. And what did you talk about?”
    “Well, in theoretical terms, I asked about this case — specifically if we can charge anyone with a crime. And no, they didn’t have any suggestions. What about you? What did you do?”
    “Used up an entire box of tissues and went to bed. I need sleep, remember?”
    At that moment, the door of the courtroom opened and a bailiff called a witness, but not them.
    “Crap, we’re going to be here all morning for nothing,” he complained.
    “And our alternative is?”
    “Nothing. I’m just complaining that we’re going to be here all morning and I can’t go on the web.”
    “Were you this bad alive?”
    “What, grouchy in the morning?”
    “No, did you go online all the time?”
    “Hell, no, I never went on the web. It was still pretty new. Actually I can’t even remember if I knew anything about the Internet. And I didn’t do anything on a computer if I could avoid it.”
    “Pretty ironic then, huh?”
    “Yes, thank you, it is. And I also got an email from Cheryl Miller asking if we’ve found Sgt. Johnson. Oh, and there’s another thing. I meant to ask you