AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

pocket?”
    “Only if you want me speaking to your crotch. I have to keep pretty close to it.”
    “Oh, right. Uh, duct tape?”
    “Now you’re thinking. Just keep it in your shirt pocket for now. All right. Lay on, McDuff. And try not to lose me.”
    Munroe spent four hours with Morris at the HazMat spill near Interstate 70 and Colorado Boulevard. Chlorine had mixed with some other chemical and made a dense, deadly fog and the FD was worried that not all the workers had been evacuated at the manufacturing plant. Luckily the spill was inside the building and was mostly contained. So Munroe wandered around inside the plant, looking for the injured, although he knew that if anyone was still in the building, they were probably dead.
    He had the advantage, of course, of infrared vision and unlike the firefighters, wasn’t limited by the capacity of an air pack. Luckily he found no one. A better headcount showed everyone had gotten out of the plant.
    Thank God no one was in there because our response time sucked, thought Munroe. Munroe had lost contact with Morris as they were leaving the station and heading to the firefighter’s car. Morris drove half a block away before he realized Munroe wasn’t in the car with him. Luckily the firefighter was smart enough to simply pull to the side, open the car doors and wait for him.
    Once they got to the scene, more comic routines ensued. Another firefighter had to tape the terminal to Morris’ arm before he got into his gear, but he managed to tape the terminal with it turned off. So they had to remove it, turn it on and re-tape it, but while they were testing the terminal, Morris said he heard many voices. Munroe also was aware of others sharing the field and he quickly realized the problem.
    “Morris, you’ve got this on anonymous access. We’re picking up all the disembodied in the area. We’ve got to go back inside your car and set the terminal to single-user mode.”
    Luckily they were able to get inside the car without unwanted guests and Morris was able to tune the terminal to Munroe’s signature.
    “Sorry, Morris, I forgot about setting the terminal. Linda usually takes care of that.” The young man looked a little pale. “Hey Morris, you with me?”
    “There are that many dead people around all the time?” he asked, staring straight ahead.
    Oh, he’s got the heebie-jeebies. “Don’t let it scare you. Right now, I’m the only disembodied person you’ve got to deal with. Got it?” Morris nodded and they got out of the car.
    But their problems continued while Morris suited up in HazMat gear. After he put on his breathing mask, his voice was so distorted that the terminal’s speech translation became ludicrous.
    “Eustachian bike be file I go slide, OK?” Morris asked.
    “I couldn’t understand a word of that.”
    “You stake by meat while I gum in slide, OK?” he repeated.
    “OK, I think you said, ‘You stay by me while you go inside.’”
    Morris nodded.
    The cross-talk act continued, although Morris found if he pushed up just a little on the breathing mask his speech was recognizable, but Munroe worried that Morris might be breaking the seal around his face and told him not to do it. In the end, Munroe just went into the building, looked around, came back outside to report to Morris, and went back for another look, again and again.
    After they concluded no one was inside, Munroe and Morris held an informal debriefing, or bitch session, with the HazMat chief.
    “So that went well,” Morris said.
    “Sure, if we were a volunteer fire department somewhere in the third world,” the chief said. “What the hell took you so long getting here?”
    “I had to track him down. It was his day off. And I lost him once.”
    “You lost him?”
    “It’s hard to see … I mean. I lost him outside the PD. But mainly it was a matter of finding him.”
    “I see,” the chief said. “Well, it looks like we better have a little better training once our unit arrives. We’ll work it out in the morning. Come by my office.” He left and Morris stood there looking at the ground.
    “Your unit?” Munroe said, wishing he could make his digitized voice convey dripping sarcasm.
    “What?” Morris asked, startled at the voice in his ear he’d forgotten. “Oh, yeah, we’ve got a dead … disembodied person coming at the end of the month.” He suddenly seemed to recognize Munroe’s unvoiced sarcasm. “Sorry about the unit remark. The chief … you know