AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

no closed captioning.
    Some kind of burglar alarm? he wondered. He was going to ask Yamaguchi what it was when he noticed her lips were moving and she had that glassy-eyed stare television can induce. Then she laughed and said, “Finally I can use a restroom or try on clothes at the store.”
    “What?”
    She looked at him. “Huh? Oh, sorry, you haven’t seen this? It’s a hoot.”
    “What is it? A burglar alarm? One of those arthritis bracelets?”
    “No. It’s Dispelle, the incredible ionizing Z-ray wristband.”
    “Yeah, so what’s it do?”
    “It keeps away the dead without harming them.”
    “No, really? People actually believe these work?”
    “Not intelligent people, but stupid people. Oh, what’s his name, graveyard guy, kind of good looking, tall, got a scar on his cheek, dumb as a brick … Tomás. He wears one.”
    Munroe searched his memory and tried to recall the officer in question. “I don’t think I know him.”
    “Of course you wouldn’t. You can’t get within a mile of him. So you’ve never seen one of these? They’re on TV all the time.”
    “I mostly watch the news. So people are really scared of the dead?”
    “Well, some people are. I don’t know what the big deal is.”
    “So it doesn’t bother you how many disembodied there are?”
    “Of course not,” she lied, remembering the doors opening and closing in Rybold’s mansion.
    “It doesn’t bother you that there might be a hundred other dead people in this room right now, watching you?”
    “No. But you’re creeping me out.”
    “Even if we were to set your terminal to anonymous access and see how many hits the field might record?”
    “Ew, no. Let’s not. What’s got into you?”
    “Just thinking about some of the things Bill and I talked about.”
    “Oh, so that’s it. You and Bill. What were these things?”
    “Just … the tensions between the living and the dead, what we might … what he’s trying to do about it.” He couldn’t even begin to summarize their talk. He realized their conversation lasted ten minutes, but it reminded him of those late-night bull sessions in college or the instant friendships he made in the army. He felt a connection to Rybold, but oddly not a personal one, more the friendship of two people worried about the same problem. “He really wants to hire me.”
    “Why?”
    “I think he wants me as a poster child of what the disembodied can accomplish. He wants to create a center or foundation to help the disembodied.” He felt guilty not telling her more. He really had no intention of taking the job but somehow he felt like he’d been caught going out with someone else.
    “That sounds like a good idea,” she said, reluctant to encourage him. She decided to change the subject. “I read that book about you and the Seattle Strangler.”
    “What? Aw Linda, that book is a pile of crap.”
    “Well I hope it was.”
    He remained silent, trying to discern some meaning from her statement and reluctantly found himself asking, “What do you mean by that?”
    She looked at him again. Damn, sometimes she knows exactly where I am, he thought.
    “I mean the book makes it sound like you were a brilliant self-destructive loner who covered up his feelings by either making jokes or bullying those who were close to him.”
    He said nothing.
    “Alex?”
    He still said nothing.
    “OK, I’m sorry to bring it up.” She turned back to watching the TV and the silence grew heavy. He started it with that stuff about all the dead people in the room. She drew her knees up and hugged her legs close to her body.
    “Why are you bringing this up now anyway?” he finally asked.
    “I just couldn’t believe what that guy was writing about you.”
    “Damn straight. The guy got nothing right.” Why the hell was she reading it? He realized that, except for that email from Sunderland, he hadn’t thought about Seattle and the dark times he’d gone through. Now that he wasn’t specializing in serial murderers, he found that he actually enjoyed being a cop again. It was a whole new job, being a disembodied cop. Granted I have to suffer Denver’s penny-ante, cow town crime and rescuing Timmy from a well, but overall, I’m enjoying myself.
    Shit, I’m happier dead than alive. I can’t believe it. I’m a happier person dead than alive —not that I wouldn’t gladly trade being a ghost for a chance to get laid or eat a steak or even a bowl of Ivar’s clam chowder.
    “So, why were you