AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

another cop found her and said they needed her at a traffic accident. She left the beef stew behind, found Munroe at his desk and they went to the accident scene.
    A hit-and-run driver had plowed through three people in wheelchairs crossing busy Speer Boulevard at Colfax Avenue. All three were seriously injured. Traffic wanted them to canvass the area and find any disembodied who had witnessed the hit and run. Taking statements lasted several hours and it was 9 p.m. before they returned to the department.
    When she went to the break room again, for grins she pressed the button for the beef stew and it plopped out. No one had bought anything from the machine, a testament to the popularity of its offerings.
    She took her steaming Styrofoam cup of beefy goodness back to her desk and with the aid of several packets of hot sauce and crackers from her desk, ate while they discussed their options.
    “What are we going to do, Alex? Do we go to Clemens?” she mumbled while slurping stew.
    Munroe, glad for once that he no longer needed to eat, said, “You’ve got to be joking. Tell him that someone is kidnapping the disembodied? And even if we can convince him, then he has to convince the Weld County Sheriff’s Office. They’re going to say it’s not even a crime.”
    “It’s got to be a crime.”
    “Not a state crime. There’s an executive order, signed by the president in 2002. Basically it’s just to keep the U.S. in step with a decision by the International Criminal Court. It makes it illegal to do any research into trying to dissipate the energy field that makes up the disembodied. I found it while I was in the search chamber through Lexis/Nexis. From what I could see, it’s never been used. No one’s ever tried to trap the disembodied before and I don’t know if the order would even apply. And there’s no way Weld County is going to try to enforce a presidential executive order … on New Year’s Eve.”
    “So we don’t do anything? These are your … people. All right, that sounded stupid, but you know what I mean.”
    “Of course we do something. But it might be a case of going there without asking permission and seeking forgiveness later. After all, this is part of an ongoing investigation. We haven’t been told not to investigate.”
    She opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off. “Think about it. No one ever said we should stop.” She closed her mouth.
    “And until Jan. 1, we’re still officially responsible for processing disembodied witness reports,” he finished.
    She threw away her empty cup. “Speaking of which, back to work on these statements,” she said. They spent the rest of their shift corroborating the identities of the disembodied witnesses to the hit and run.

Chapter 15
DAYTON, Ohio (Bloomberg) — Dayton company Allaire Systems yesterday announced that they are now selling disembodied detectors in the under $1,000 range.
Although the military and intelligence agencies reportedly have installed detectors at sensitive locations, the common knowledge has been that those detectors were quite expensive to produce.
“Our models are affordable because we’re not making something that can cover an entire room or building,” explained Tom McClane, marketing manager for the company. “As you try to cover larger and larger volumes, the price increases exponentially. Instead, we aim our detectors in a narrow radius that can monitor a standard doorway or window opening.
“So a medium or small company can now afford to have a room with a single door protected for under $1,000.”
The company sells a wide range of detectors that offer coverage from three to seven feet in radius, ranging from $799 to $999.
Allaire’s products do not actually prevent a disembodied person from entering a room equipped with a detector, it merely detects and records their presence.
    “No, we’re not on the list,” she told Munroe at the start of their shift Friday. She was looking at riot patrol duty and their names were not on it. It was the one thing that would have kept her from going to Gilcrest that evening.
    “I guess we fell through a crack,” he said. “Nobody thought to put us on the list. For once being part of the equipment budget worked in our favor.”
    She felt slightly better about their trip, but she still hoped this New Year’s Eve would be quiet. She remembered the riots in 2001, her first full year on the force. Every available officer was needed that year.
    “We still