The Ultra Thin Man

by Patrick Swenson

  Brindos stepped toward the curb, making as though he would open his umbrella. He heard the bar door swing open, the din of the bar becoming momentarily apparent, then quiet as the door sealed shut. A light rain had fallen, and there was a hiss of sparse traffic on Eagle Street, tires sliding over wet, mirror-black pavement. He glanced quickly over his shoulder, seeing a large figure coming at him.

  They hadn’t gone inside.

  He drove the umbrella hard behind him, jabbing the point into the Helk’s massive leg. It moaned loudly, the umbrella sticking out comically. Although he knew he couldn’t outrun a Helk, Brindos shot for the street as the Helk limped along, only slowed slightly.

  Then a deep painful heat ran through Brindos’s body, every bone and muscle locking up. He tumbled to the ground, paralyzed but fully conscious. The injured Helk—the male—hobbled up, by now having removed the umbrella, and, picking Brindos up like an old suitcase, carried him swiftly to the police car while his partner holstered his weapon.

  As he lay trundled up in the backseat, limbs shuddering involuntarily, Brindos found he couldn’t move anything save his eyeballs in their sockets. He watched the shadows cast from the streetlights fade and jump on the back of the front seats. His blaster was gone. Code card gone.

  The two Helks were silent as stones, obviously intent on their job, the one not complaining a bit about his wound. Not surprising. In any case, if Brindos could have talked, he might have asked where they were taking him, just to annoy them.

  After a few minutes, movement in his neck allowed him to move his head a little to glance out a window. The lights and buildings of the city were gone. They had entered into the rural outlying areas, not on their way to the MWC police station. Brindos would’ve thought they were taking him out for his coup de grace, sans trial, if it had made any sense. But they could have killed him right there on the street. Something else was going on. His pulse quickened, an odd feeling considering he could do nothing in response to it.

  They’d been on the road about thirty minutes when he felt the car brake and turn off the smooth highway and onto an unpaved route. Trees cast their silhouettes against the moonlight. Some movement had returned to Brindos’s fingers and toes, and he figured eventually he’d regain complete mobility. They must’ve known he didn’t have a weapon. Or his code card. Or maybe they just weren’t concerned about the possibility. They turned off the road onto rough ground, Brindos bumping around in the back, and then they came to a stop.

  Their doors opened and shut, Brindos heard heavy footsteps, then the door at his head opened. The female Helk reached in with one arm, pulled him out, carried him twenty feet, and dropped him in ankle-deep wet grass. Humbling. She mumbled to the other, laughing. Brindos felt movement returning, but not quickly enough. Maddeningly, Brindos tried crawling, willing his motor functions to return. He made growling noises in lieu of swearing, but intense pain turned him back, and he almost passed out.

  The female Helk raised her weapon. Brindos was still sure they wouldn’t kill him. Not yet. A beam burst past him, flaring into the ground, steam rising. The two Helks got a good laugh out of that. He didn’t know if the event inspired him, or if he had finally just found his voice, but Brindos managed to say a choice Helk slur, which loosely translated had something to do with inadequacy of a sexual nature. The laughing stopped quickly, but they made no move toward their prisoner; they just glowered, checking their watches.

  After three long minutes, the vehicle comm signaled, a soft spiraling tone. The one went back to respond while the other kept his weapon leveled. It was clear they all knew he could move now, but how well? The other returned and the two Helks spoke briefly. Then they waited in silence. At this point Brindos was beginning to feel that maybe they’d extended his lease on life.

  Fifteen minutes later, a new car approached their spot. As it turned off the road onto ground, it rocked gently over the sinewy terrain, headlights sawing through the night. The beams swung sharply through the air, blinding them all as the car neared, then jabbing harmlessly into the earth as it came to a rest on the downward slant of a small depression. Two doors hissed open, then shut, followed by the crunch of heavy feet. A low fog hugged the ground, and in the spray of headlights everything was reduced to silhouettes. Brindos could make out the shadows of one Helk—First Clan, by the size of him—and a human.

  Brindos found he could move enough to get to his knees, but it was an effort.

  The two newcomers spoke briefly with Brindos’s escorts, then the Helk shadow moved forward. He was impressive—all First Clan were—dressed in what appeared to be ebony black animal hide from toe to collar, including gloves that stretched over massive hands nearly big enough to encircle my waist.

  Even as Brindos recognized him, he was caught off guard when the Helk spoke flawless English.

  “Mr. Brindos,” he said.

  The hell of it all was that this Helk knew Brindos, had said his name without hesitation.

  “Goddamn it,” Brindos whispered. “Plenko.”

  Plenko crouched down. “As you see, Mr. Brindos, there has been a change of plans. You know me as Terl Plenko, but soon I will be more than a name to you, and you will be much more than a name to me. It won’t mean anything to you right now, but on Helkunntanas, a name means nothing. What matters is ozsc.”

  Ozsc. Brindos knew that Helk word. It had no exact translation, but roughly meant substance or soul.

  Eleven

  The sunshine had melted most of the snow and ice on Kimson’s twisting streets and sidewalks, and tiny rivers cut across the top of the pavement. I stepped across them, trying to keep my shoes dry as I headed for the Flaming Sea. Sunny outside, but my mood was anything but sunny. The Helk who’d called himself Koch was dead, and I was as confused as ever about the whole mess.

  The Flaming Sea’s sign still flashed its wave and flame design as I approached, but because of the cloudless day, the LED colors looked washed out. No crowds loitered outside the Keelhull door, most of them, I’m sure, probably panicked at the thought of all the famous snow melting before they could get in their last ski runs down the slopes. The tavern was open though. The Flaming Sea never closed, just slowed down as the sun came up. I went in, and darkness swallowed me.

  “I came for my luggage,” I said to the man at the door before he could ask me to pay. “A carry-on bag.” The small light of the podium revealed the same short bald man from last night. Didn’t he ever sleep?

  He held out his hand. “Claim check.”

  I fished in my coat pocket, came up with the tiny ticket stub, and handed it to him. He took it and looked it over carefully. After a moment he took the laserwand from his little podium and ran it over the surface of the ticket. An amber glow from a hidden inset monitor illuminated his face. He stared back at me, eyes narrowing.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. Your luggage is in the top-floor suite.”

  Where Cara’s boss worked. I tensed, weighing the doorman’s reaction to my ticket against the location of my luggage. “Kristen’s room? What’s it doing up there?”

  He shrugged. “Cleaning the storage area. Had to move it. You can go on up. The girls don’t work this time of day.”

  I wanted to say to this jerk that someone should bring down my luggage for me. Then I thought: at least this gave me freedom to snoop around. I didn’t buy for a second that someone had hauled luggage out of the storage room and up to the top-floor suite just so some cleaning could get done.

  “I’m not paying to get in again,” I said to the man.

  He waved me in politely. “Take your time. Have a drink if you want.”

  I mumbled my thanks and headed for the elevator. I noticed two stiffs in gray neck-to-toe jumpsuits hanging back to the left of the elevator, and two more near a curving stairwell to the right. Flaming Sea security, looking downright out of place on a slow morning. On the way there I felt the panic well up inside me, the Koch incident still under m
y skin. And Gray, the NIO, the setup. No electric handshake, with my finger capacitors drained, but the blaster in my pocket reassured me. I pulled it from my coat as the elevator took me to the top floor, then opened up to Kristen’s waiting area.

  The lights came up automatically, and I swore as the room came into focus. The place was a shambles. Someone had flipped over Cara’s reception desk, and everything that had once sat on it lay strewn about on the carpet. The furniture had seen better days. Somebody had taken a knife to the cushions and pulled out the stuffing. Some of the stuffing dangled from the chairs and couches like icicles. A picture still hung, though crookedly, from the wall behind the desk, a photo of a breathtakingly beautiful woman with thick, shoulder-length black hair. A crack ran through the glass, cut through just underneath the woman’s chin. This must be Kristen.

  This would’ve been a better place for security to be hanging out.

  My luggage wasn’t here.

  The door to the next room—Kristen’s room—stood open. The room lights were already on as I entered, blaster raised. The scene here mirrored the reception area, except instead of a desk there was a bed, and the bed had a body on it. I glanced quickly around the room before stepping to the bed to check who the body belonged to. Her face and hair matched the picture in the reception area. No blood, no marks at all. But she was most certainly dead, naked, her arms folded across her chest, feet together, hair combed neatly.

  I shivered, realizing I could just as well have found Cara dead in the other room. If I hadn’t shown up and asked for Cara, and if Kristen hadn’t given Cara some time off …

  “Kristen,” I said aloud, as if trying to get the dead woman’s attention.

  “Katerina Parker, actually,” a female voice said from behind me. “Earth girl, near the top of the Flaming Sea’s list.”

  I spun and pointed my weapon. A young woman with long blond hair stood in the bathroom doorway, leaning against the jamb. She wasn’t armed as far as I could see. She wore blue denims and a black-and-white checkered sweater.

  She inched out into the room, favoring her left leg. “Looking for something?” she asked. Her voice was slow and deliberate.

  “Every time I take a trip I lose my luggage,” I said, trying to be funny. She didn’t fall over laughing. I tried another approach. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Don’t get jumpy,” she said, “but I’m going to pull out some identification.”

  I nodded for her to go ahead. She did, and pulled out a black code card from her pants pocket.

  Huh. Just like mine.

  “Jennifer Lisle,” the woman said as she threw the ID to me. “Network Intelligence Office.”

  NIO. I tensed my grip on the blaster, thinking: they’ve found me. I palmed the card and a holo of Jennifer Lisle popped on the black surface. Below the holo, data scrolled leisurely, in order of importance. Current assignment: CLASSIFIED. Common procedure, of course, nothing unusual about that. Last assignment: RIBON: U.U. CORP INVESTIGATION/DORIE SENNALL. Now I recognized her. The undercover agent Dorie Senall had been with during the holo-vid recording.

  I’d expected to see CLASSIFIED there too, but the fact that she hadn’t meant she had set the code card so I could read it. Something she might do for another NIO agent.

  “Okay,” I said, looking up at her.

  “Don’t worry, I know who you are, if you’re trying to pretend otherwise.”

  “And who am I?”

  “A networker. A borrowed hound. David Crowell, private investigator from Seattle, on a four-year contract. Desk specialist.” She smiled when she said that, eyes shining.

  “You were on Ribon.”

  She nodded. “Took a sonic beam in the leg for my troubles there.”

  Yes, and she’d also been betrayed by an NIO insider, the recording of the incident with Dorie Senall fed into the dead woman’s vid screen. Was she really still an agent with the NIO? If so, had they brought her into the fold about what was going on?

  “They shipped me back home,” she said, “and your partner dropped in on me at the hospital. Awfully nice of him. Still, I don’t sleep much these days, remembering all that. One day I slept so long—” She waved a hand. “Never mind. I’m glad you showed up here.”

  “I was running out of places to look for my luggage.”

  She smiled and took back her code card. After stuffing it back in her pocket, she went over to the bed and sat on one corner, next to Katerina Parker’s left foot. “Haven’t been in the field much, I gather, since you tagged along with the NIO.”

  “Not much.”

  I managed a smile, but my gut told me to keep wary. She knew Alan and she recognized me at a glance. Jennifer Lisle was NIO, and the NIO had forced me to run. If she was here now, it was doubtful she’d learned about my security breach while in transit, but who knew what kind of information she’d received on her card since landing?

  “You made a mistake,” she said.

  “Mistake?”

  “Going over to Miss Kristen here without checking the bathroom first.”

  “Well, I just couldn’t wait to see her.”

  Jennifer glanced at the body. “She’s not your type.”

  “Her receptionist is a friend of mine. And I’m kind of not supposed to be here, so I wasn’t planning on sticking around for a long drawn-out crime scene investigation.”

  Jennifer shrugged. “Somebody was looking for something very important, seems to me. Kristen probably got in the way.”

  “Likely,” I agreed. “You didn’t come here to investigate this, though. You were already in transit before any of this happened.”

  “So?”

  “Why are you here?”

  “That’s classified, Mr. Crowell. You saw my card.”

  “Just asking.” I smiled innocently. “Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

  “It’s Movement.”

  Sure, big revelation. Everything was Movement these days. I was Movement. But was she still Movement, after all that had happened between her and Dorie Senall?

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “I told you. Her receptionist is a friend of mine. Visiting. I hadn’t seen her in three years.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Union’s honor. Can you tell me anything else?”

  “I’m not allowed to divulge classified information to borrowed hounds.” She narrowed her eyes at me, trying to look tough. And maybe she was, considering the hell she’d gone through on Ribon, with Dorie Senall trying to kill her. “Pardon me if I’m a little tight-lipped. Just following leads.”

  Following rumors, I bet. About Aryell’s secession. And Temonus’s. Barnard’s. The Movement’s hand in all of them. Searching for anyone with ties to Terl Plenko. Or to me. I shivered, wondering if the NIO had sent an agent to Aryell well in advance, knowing I might run here, even before I knew I was going to run here. If she was still an agent.

  But the timing was off for that agent to be Jennifer Lisle. She probably did know about my disappearance by now. How could she not? Her code card, if nothing else, would’ve clued her in if there was an all-agent alert out on me. I wondered when would be the best time to bring up the subject. If I brought it up at all.

  I’d been standing there with my blaster out since Jennifer came out of the bathroom, and now I put it back in my coat pocket. “So. Dorie Senall.” I went over to a wingbacked chair and sat down amid a flurry of white stuffing. “Tell me about her. What was she like?”

  “A loner,” Jennifer said quickly. “Little respect for the law. Wild, and a bit crazy. Loved to take her RuBy and pop pills.”

  “But you slept with her.” I recalled the marble camera recording from the apartment.

  “It never got that far.”

  “Did you find her attractive?”

  “Fuck yes.” Jennifer shot a look at me that could have curdled molasses. “But I didn’t love her. Her stint with the U.U. Corp was bogus, she was strictly Movement, slipping illegal recruits past customs.
I was just doing my job, getting her to trust me, take me to Coral Moon.”

  “Lucky you weren’t there when it took a nose dive into Ribon.”

  “Lucky you weren’t here in Miss Kristen’s room when whoever it was decided to redecorate.”

  I looked over at Kristen’s white face. “Whoever did this might also have been looking for me.”

  “Why would they be looking for you?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied, thinking about the key that Koch had wanted. “Were you looking for me?”

  “Of course not. Anonymous tip. We’d been keeping Katerina Parker under surveillance.”

  That surprised me. “What for?”

  “Movement activities.”

  “But she was a Flaming Sea girl. You really think Movement?”

  “Did you know her well?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Well then.”

  I scratched at a hole in the arm of the chair, pulling out stuffing. “So does this look like Movement to you?” I asked, inclining my head toward Kristen.

  She didn’t say anything.

  I got up and walked to the other side of the bed, searching the floor. I got on my hands and knees and looked under the bed.

  “Looked around a little, before you got here,” Jennifer said, “but I can’t stick around.”

  I straightened and, on my knees, looked Kristen over, gazing up and down her body. “Why do you have to run off?”

  “I’m out of my jurisdiction here.”

  “Bullshit. NIO trumps local authorities anytime Movement is involved.”

  “True, and I used that power to get up here. I gave the Flaming Sea’s owner a cash incentive to hold off until I could get a closer look.”

  “Yeah, I saw their security people down there.”

  “But I really can’t stay. When I give the word, they’ll come back up, and the owner will call Authority.”

  Just when I decided to stand up, I spotted something tucked under Kristen’s neck and caught in her hair. I made a show out of it, checking the neck for bruises, and when I pulled away, I grabbed the object, which I recognized immediately. A Helk rygsa, a small silver Second Clan earring that clasped to the inner part of a Helk’s ear, which meant it wasn’t visible to most.