by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Crime/Court Writer
It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie: police using sophisticated technologies to determine where crimes will happen before they are committed. Okay, actually it was a science fiction movie: Minority Report. However, many scientific advances, everything from cellular phones to digital ice picks, were anticipated by the literature of the scientifically fantastic, so why not this?
The Santa Cruz, West Lombardy police force fed eight years of crime data into a computer programme, which used the input to brew a fine jamoca almond fudge latte. (In retrospect, running the programme on a Hamilton Beach BrewStation 12 Cup Coffeemaker may not have been a smart choice, but it was the only way the cash-strapped police force could justify replacing the dinky pot they had been using to brew their java since, like, forever.) In addition to making tasty beverages that officers could use to down - not doughnuts, since that is a crude and outdated stereotype - but some sugary snacking food that wasn't doughnuts, the coffeemaker output places in West Lombardy that were most likely to be the scene of a crime.
Not long after the Haemacher-Schlumberr Programme - named after the lead software engineers' fathers - was initiated, the problems started.
The first target of the Programme was an undistinguished office in an industrial park ("You're industries will love the swings and the monkey bars!") in a northern corner of the state. Multinational drug company Pfier-Pfizer was caught planning to fake test results for cancer drug Allahallahakbarfree (commercial name: Cancer be Gone), then pay major cancer researchers to put their name on the company-written Journal of Not At All Dubiously Provenanced Medical Research C paper about the test. (For more on this story, see: "Where there's smoke, there's Pfier-Pfizer," Alternate Reality News Service, June 18, 2...last year.)
"That...wasn't supposed to happen," Libertini "Comfy" Haemacher, one of the creators of the Programme, said when asked about the Pfier-Pfizer raid. "White collar crime wasn't part of the programme's parameters. Still, I...I'm just so darned proud - sniff! - that my baby is taking its first steps!"
"Wow," a pale and slightly stunned Governor Frank Piscatorie also responded. "That, really...uhh...worked, didn't it? Okay, fun is fun, but we should use the Haemacher-Schlumberr Programme for what it was originally intended: fighting street crime."
While the Governor's sentiment was a noble one, the Haemacher-Shlumberr Programme had other ideas. On its second trial, it sent police to the West Lombardy branch of investment bank BearSternsLatoyaGrubnichBachmannTurnerOverthruster. It took the officers no time at all to discover that the investment bank was bundling air from different parts of the country and, with the collusion of bond ratings companies, was planning on passing it off as AAA securities. (For more on this story, see: "A History of Vile Ants," Alternate Reality News Service, February 12, this year.)
"Whoa!" Haemacher enthused. "My baby has become the Eliot Spitzer of crime fighting computer programmes! Umm...minus the hookers and embarrassing talk show on CNBC, I mean."
"Oh, dear," an ashen and very tired looking Governor Piscatorie said. "Don't get me wrong: this may have saved innocent investors from billions of dollars of fraud. But, did it have to happen in an election year?" He mopped the sweat off his forehead, wrung the mop out, and mopped the sweat off his forehead again.
Then, two days ago, in a dramatic middle of lunchtime raid, the Haemacher-Shlumberr Programme sent police to Mountebank Studios, one of Hollywood's big five production companies. Seven executives were arrested for using accounting tricks to ensure that even their biggest grossing films would never appear to turn a profit, cheating thousands of employees out of money they had earned.
"It was just like a scene out of Serpico!" Haemacher said. "Except, without Al Pacino's manly stubble of facial hair."
Governor Piscatorie was taken ill and could not attend a press conference in response to the raid. However, in a press release with his hastily scrawled signature at the bottom, the Governor said, "The Haemacher-Shlumberr Programme has been a wild success, beyond anything I could have imagined when I authorized the pilot project. Well beyond anything I could have imagined, believe you me! That's why we're shutting it down for the time being. To, uhh, study its success. Yeah. Study its success. And, all being well, we'll tweak it ever so slightly and have it up and running in no time. Say...after November."
"This is totally bogus!" Professor Haemacher went full bore Bill and Ted on the decision. "Everybody knows that it's cheaper to prevent a crime than to solve a crime!"
"Have you seen my campaign contributions since this nightmare began?" the Governor's press release retorted.
It was like something out of a science fiction movie, then it went back to being something out of a science fiction movie. For that brief period in between, though, it was magnificent.