AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

like you to be informed before our next meeting.
If you’re amenable, contact my secretary, Phyllis (see below), and let’s set up a meeting.
Again, nice to meet you.
Bill
    So Munroe researched Bill Rybold. He found several pictures from before Rybold’s death and saw that his avatar did not at all resemble him. In life, Rybold was short, dumpy and plain. Well, who wouldn’t want to look better after their death? He was 54 when he died.
    Although not much to look at, he was apparently a very good businessman, rising up the corporate ladder in the very competitive Denver telecommunications world, and then surprising everyone by taking the top job in a relatively minor player in the field. But Rybold took ClearView Cable (now ClearView Broadband) into the Fortune 500 quickly.
    His business expertise wasn’t his only achievement, however. He was a bona fide geek, with several patents to his name in the telecom field. And Munroe found news profiles of Rybold that applauded his business and his management skills. When he took over ClearView, he didn’t fire everyone and install his own team, but worked with what he had. There were several quotes from employees, from upper management to cable installers, which praised Rybold.
    Unfortunately, he was saddled with a board of directors who wanted to take a buyout offer from a competitor, which Rybold successfully fought until his death from some kind of freak pancreatic cancer, after which Rybold was removed as CEO and chairman.
    After his death, Rybold didn’t fight the removal and seemed to vanish until a few months ago when a columnist in the Rocky Mountain News spotted his avatar at a fund-raising dinner. Since then, Rybold came back with his new persona in a big way by sponsoring the reception. Munroe couldn’t find any information on the man Rybold had hired to be his avatar.
    All in all, Rybold seemed like a decent, if possibly vain man. Of course, if I looked like that, I think I’d want to find someone better looking.
    He thought about Rybold’s assessment of his situation within the department.
    God knows he’s right. What am I to the department besides their latest crime-fighting tool? What do I owe them? But the chief did give me a break when he hired me. And maybe I made some progress tonight and they’ll think of me as a person.
    Munroe found the secretary’s email address and phone number. He added the information to his address list. Then he saw Yamaguchi turn over and get out of bed for the sixth trip to the bathroom.
    About 7 a.m., Yamaguchi woke briefly.
    “Alex, you there?”
    “How you doing, partner?”
    “I feel like dog poo.”
    “Yes, I gathered that.”
    “What time is it?” she asked.
    “It’s about seven. Go back to sleep.”
    “Need to take you back to the station,” she said as she slowly tugged the covers away from her.
    “Forget it. Look, I’ll call a cab later — Metro’s pretty good at picking up the disembodied. Is the front door locked?”
    “Uh huh.”
    “OK, when you feel better, unlock the door and I’ll tell them to knock and open it for me. For now, go back to sleep.” He got no reply and realized she’d already gone back to sleep with her ear buds clutched in her hand.
    He realized that he’d been online seven hours straight, but the time had gone pleasantly after he’d found Melissa in one of the chat rooms. She was in New York City and she’d been dead 20 years, dying when she was 21. She died a long time before the discovery of the afterlife in 1997 and the start of the AfterNet in 2001, but remarkably she was a warm, funny, sane person, which Munroe doubted he’d have been in the same situation.
    She had found his unabbreviated sentence structure in the chat room “quaint,” while she used every contraction in the book, which he found maddening. He found it funny that at 41 years old, she was still a 21-year-old who seemed clued in to every fad of the last 20 years and apparently knew the plot of every episode of Friends and Seinfeld .
jollycopper: When did you start watching them?
messym: when they startd
jollycopper: They started before the AfterNet, didn’t they?
messym: ? Duh.
jollycopper: You watched them without sound?
messym: :) watchd em at def cupls house whre i lived most of the 90s. they wre gr8, cute baby 2, and they wer young, in there 20s & they watchd alotta tv. a real barbie and ken but nice. i still keep in touch, but they wre freakd when they found out id been livng with em.