8127/frame/fm

 
6:30 AM
 
GunIDer135
:
Well, the coffee is cold and the doughnuts are stale. I guess some
things never change.
 
Cop8957
:
The food servos never seem to work very well at this hour in the
morning. Don’t know whether it is overload on the power grid or
the programmers do this on purpose.
 
DNAtyper794
:
Back to our little crime, I’ve established with certainty that all the
blood at the scene is from the two victims.
 
Criminalist976
: What about the pattern of the blood spatter — anything unusual
or unexpected?
 
DNAtyper794
:
Well, I checked the World Database twice, and I’m sure the types
are correct. No one else’s blood was at the scene.
 
GunIDer135
:
I compared all the guns in the collection with the World Database
of guns. I found that these guns were manufactured before all guns
were test-fired prior to being sold, and records kept of the bullet
striae patterns. None of them match any of the guns in the database,
even with extended computer simulations for predicted wear of
barrel markings.
 
Cop8957
:
Uhm — did anyone happen to collect the antique knives that the
victims used to stab each other to death?
 
7:00 AM
As the conversation continues, the Criminalist neophyte realizes something is amiss.
She has an idea, but she needs a NanoBioSampler. She is frustrated that she has not
yet completed the one-week advanced training course after which she would be given
her own NBS, but she has an idea. Setting the background of her CyberCafe projector
to run a loop of her office background, she continues to engage her colleagues in
aimless conversation while she sneaks off to the Forensic Mobile Unit and surrepti-
tiously purloins her colleague’s NBS and returns to the crime scene. She sets the unit
to “robotic autosample” and sends it into the crime scene. When the SceneScan is
completed, she changes the setting of the NanoBioSampler to “Determine Bioactiv-
ity,” and hits the “execute” activator. The Biopack processor struggles with the analysis
for an unusual number of gigglecycles, but finally issues a report. When she reads
the report she realizes her suspicions are correct. The results from the samples
recovered from the DNASynthoComp’s internal environment monitoring port sug-
gest an intriguing idea. She taps for a few moments on her personal computer, which
is permanently connected to the worldwide directory of reference databases and
confirms her suspicions. A few moments later her suspicions are confirmed, but she
realizes she cannot report her findings to her colleagues. She leaves the investigator
to keep them busy and contacts his partner.
8127/frame/ch13 Page 326 Friday, July 21, 2000 11:43 AM

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