The police vacuums were sweeping the crowd, sucking DNA samples and storing them by quadrant, hoovering any data from the cellphones of protesters not smart enough to pull the card when they might be tracked by the police, despite the inconvenience, and reading the bank codes and library codes and ID codes from the cards in their wallets, if they hadn't figured out to make a tinfoil reader shield. It was all basic stuff, and one of the first things a protester learned when taken under the wing of another was countermeasures: vacuum up DNA gunk from buses and trains, to disperse when sniffers are around; wrap your wallet in tinfoil to block scans; pop your cell card to keep from being tracked and mined; paint jagged lines on your face to disrupt the face rec software, wear a bandana to cover your ears, and wear a hoodie to shadow your face. Cameras were the easier stuff, though; every crowd of protestors had designated laser pointers.


Inspiration: http://boingboing.net/2012/05/17/london-cops-want-to-suck-your.html
Story Potential: Low. This is just setting.
Notes: The creepy thing is that most of this isn't science fiction--it's current.

The boy had to die. I hated to have to tell his mother. She wouldn't understand. Mothers never did, and the 6-year-old was clutching her skirts and staring up at me, innocent eyes wide. I always got the kid duty. At first, the others lied and told me that it was because all the rookies had to do it, but they gave that up after the third new person joined and I was still doing kid duty. Then they told me it was because I was so good at it. It wasn't a compliment. They might burden me with the nastiest part of our business, but they still looked down on me. Kid-killer, they'd whisper when I walked into a room, never mind that the rules--

Inspiration: Voices in my head. Maybe caused by reading the new J.D. Robb book, who knows?
Story Potential: Medium. High? No, medium.
Notes: Science fiction, I think. Maybe of the same ilk as future crime prevention? Would need a new twist, if so.