AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

after the introductions so she didn’t know who he was, but he looked familiar. He was handsome, tall with short blond hair and blue eyes and around 40 to 45. Then she saw the “AV” pin on his lapel.
    “Sorry, just curious,” he apologized.
    Munroe sensed another field and he knew the man was carrying a portable terminal, but like his partner’s, it wasn’t set for anonymous access.
    “Yes, I was,” she said. “Talking to my partner, that is.”
    The man stuck out his hand. “Bill Rybold,” he said. She reached out to shake his hand but quickly moved it to cover her mouth when she sneezed.
    “Um, Linda Yamaguchi,” she said, and took a tissue out of her bag. He took back his hand.
    “And your partner is … Alex Munroe, correct?”
    “Yes, I’m sorry, I should have said. I know you, don’t I?” she asked while dabbing her nose.
    The man grinned. “I don’t think we’ve met. I would have remembered. You might have seen me on television or in the newspaper.”
    “Oh sure,” she said. “You own the cable company. But I thought … I mean, I didn’t realize that …” Yamaguchi wasn’t sure how to proceed. Despite her acceptance and familiarity with the disembodied, she had never met an avatar before. “Help me out here,” she said silently to Munroe. Avatars were mostly a luxury for show biz types or the ultra rich.
    “Why do you think I know what to do?”
    “bcause ur dead.”
    “Go ahead, play the dead card. I don’t know. I think you’re supposed to just play along and pretend this guy really is Rybold.”
    The man decided to help her out by ignoring her difficulty. “I don’t own the cable company. I am — or was — the CEO. When I died, I lost the job. But with a few others, I still have a controlling interest in the company.”
    “Oh, that’s right,” she said aloud, now remembering all she’d read about Rybold, who’d died a year or two ago. He was one of a growing number of people who’d prepared for his afterlife by creating a trust that would oversee his interests after his death, with the proceeds going to a bank account that only he could access. “Uh, why were you curious if I was talking to my partner?”
    “I was wondering why you weren’t speaking to him directly. Wouldn’t that be more convenient, Officer Munroe?”
    “I’m afraid I’m still a lot more comfortable, and more accurate, allowing the terminal to translate what I say out loud. If I try to use the field, I get a headache after a while. Uh, Munroe says I’m getting a lot better at it, but that he still has to figure out my shorthand sometimes. I tend to think in chat shorthand when I use the field myself. It’s just a little bit easier but he hates it.”
    “You don’t use shorthand yourself, Officer Munroe?”
    “He says, ‘You can skip the officer. Just Munroe. Or Alex.’ And he never uses shorthand or emoticons or abbreviations. Says it dilutes the beauty of the language. I think he just likes to show off.”
    “Interesting. And, if I may ask, how did you get this job, Officer Yamaguchi?”
    “Oh, please, just call me Linda. I … uh … well, my mom’s dead … I mean disembodied. So I had some familiarity with the disembodied and when I went through the AfterNet orientation … because my mom insisted … that’s when I found out that I could access the field pretty easily. And just about that time the department was looking for someone to work with Munroe. He says I lost and I ended up with him,” she said, smiling.
    “It sounds like you two have a good partnership. I was talking to your chief and he was saying, Alex, that you’ve been a great help to the department.”
    “LOL,” said Yamaguchi.
    “Excuse me?”
    “He just proved me wrong.”
    “Oh, I get it,” Rybold said, with a quick grin. “Let me ask a possibly rude question. Although you’re undoubtedly a great asset for the police department, aren’t you feeling a little … under utilized.”
    She was surprised that Munroe hadn’t groaned when he heard “under utilized.”
    “Go on,” she prompted. “Uh, that’s Alex who said that.”
    “As I understand it, you were a detective, a homicide detective, and you had a very good reputation in Seattle. In fact, there was a book about a serial murderer in which you were prominently featured.”
    Yamaguchi said, “I never knew that. Sorry, please continue.” She said silently to Munroe, “the only reputation I thought u had was pain in the