AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

with those fold-down shelves.
    And now Munroe wants me to come in tomorrow when I have nasty cold, a perfectly legitimate excuse for calling in sick. Of all the inconsiderate partners …

Chapter 5
By John Lester
National Geographic
“Let’s move on to the next grid,” says the man with the hang dog face, the three-days growth of beard and the red stocking cap that looks like it was chewed by the previously mentioned canine. “We’ll find him eventually. Just a matter of time.”
Bob Bodigger is referring to his friend, trapped in a submersible under 5,000 feet of water in the Indian Ocean. Even if it takes him a month or more, Bodigger swears they’ll find Ronnie “Fitz” Fitzgerald. Even if they have to return next season, he swears they’ll find Fitzgerald. Actually, they have all the time in the world, because Fitzgerald is already dead. As a matter of fact, he died ten years ago in remarkably similar circumstances.
Bodigger recalls, “Fitz was working for Shell in the North Sea, one of the lucky bastards that has to descend to the sea floor inside a hardsuit (an articulated diving suit that maintains sea level atmosphere). He had to clear some wreckage that had fallen off the rig above but he got stuck in it instead. He died in that suit.
“Most normal people would swear off repeating that experience. But no, once I had designed the AutoShark, Fitz wants to know if I can find a way for him to pilot it.”
The AutoShark is Bodigger’s pride and joy: an autonomous robotic shark that can effortlessly prowl the deep ocean for up to a month. It’s not designed to carry passengers and it’s not supposed to need a pilot. But Fitzgerald convinced Bodigger to put a transparent plastic sphere and an AfterNet field interface inside the AutoShark. This would allow Fitzgerald to field test the AutoShark for Bodigger and let Bodigger pay a debt he owes Fitzgerald. You see, Bodigger designed the suit in which Fitzgerald died.
    Yamaguchi quickly covered her mouth with a tissue to conceal her cough when she entered the station. She didn’t want to be branded another Typhoid Mary, like the poor cop two years ago whom everyone blamed for spreading a stomach flu that kept the swing shift understaffed for two days. She did her best not to be noticed, but some people nodded to her as she passed by and one cop jumped back two feet when she sneezed directly in his face after they met at a corner.
    She clocked in for the day and went to the CID room. Munroe’s terminal was on. She woke up the computer at her desk, sat down and then switched on the portable terminal in its armband. She immediately heard Munroe’s voice.
    “Hey Linda, how you doing?”
    “Oh, God, I feel like crap, Alex. I’m draining in the back of my throat. I feel like my head weighs five pounds more than it should. I’m achy. I can’t breathe. I cough.”
    “Yeah, and you’re ugly too.”
    “What!?”
    “Sorry, just a joke.”
    “What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the cartoon taped to the side of his terminal. She looked at it, frowned, then removed it and threw it in the trash.
    “Thanks for coming in.”
    “You’re welcome. What’s so damn important that I’m here and not in bed?”
    “It’s a missing person’s report.”
    “We don’t do missing persons, Alex, and even if we did, they’re rarely urgent.”
    “It’s a favor for Detective Rollins.”
    “OK, better explain.”
    Munroe explained to her about the two disappearances and his lead on the Christian rave.
    “I don’t know, seems like coincidence,” she said.
    “Humor me for the day. And it beats going through disembodied witness reports,” ignoring the fact that he had cleared their backlog last night.
    “Got that right, although I think you were just going stir crazy. Where are we going?”
    Munroe gave her the address in LoDo. They went down to the squad room and she picked up some dirty looks as she sniffled while picking up a radio. “Use some Lysol when you bring it back,” the desk sergeant told her.
    They went to their cruiser and Yamaguchi barely gave Munroe enough time or space to get in. Grouchy, he thought.
    “How’s your mom?” he asked.
    “Not going to work this time, Alex. Mom and I had a long talk. Oh, and she seems very interested in you.”
    “Thanks. How’d she get my email address, by the way?”
    “Are you kidding? You spread that thing around like most guys …”
    “You need to turn right here, Linda.”
    “Oh, right. So,