The Ultra Thin Man

by Patrick Swenson

“I’ve got time.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Brindos squinted at him, remembering Dorie’s warning about the treatment. His gut twisted as the hot needles there poked and prodded.

  “The copy process isn’t foolproof,” Plenko continued. “The ‘stuff’ you were given keeps you well enough to interact with society. Did Dorie tell you I’m a copy of her own, beloved Terl Plenko? It’s true.”

  “So if I don’t get the treatment?”

  “A few missed treatments,” he said, leaning forward in the chair, “and you will die.”

  The door didn’t seem so inviting anymore, even with the escalating pain.

  Plenko leaned back and smiled. “The problem of pattern rejection is considered an acceptable risk considering the instances of it happening are rare.”

  Brindos gulped. “It didn’t happen to you?”

  “No. It happens only to those individuals whose size changes. It’s a problem with internal density. I went from Plenko to Plenko. You went from human to Helk.”

  “So I have to keep taking the treatment to survive.”

  “The degradation of the pattern is continual, even with the treatments. Eventually, even the treatments will not save you.”

  “Terl,” Dorie whispered.

  “Mr. Brindos, you have no hope beyond what little I give you. You will die within the week, one way or another.”

  Brindos swallowed, fighting back his anger. His despair. He lay back on the floor and Terl Plenko kneeled down and brought his face close. He whispered in Brindos’s ear, and Brindos should have heard him clearly, but didn’t. Or maybe he did, but decided it was nonsense. Brindos lay back, giving in.

  Brindos stayed on the floor and forgot about the door.

  A loving fog shrouded him from all manner of evil. Oh, yes. Good-bye to the concerns of Union. For now, anyway, the pain was gone, and he could relax.

  Plenko left the chair and walked to the back of the house. Brindos turned his head to watch Plenko enter a room and flick on a light, revealing the kitchen. A moment later Plenko brought out a travel bag. It only took a few moments more for him to open the bag, pull out a syringe, and prep it.

  “You’ll retain all your memories,” Plenko explained. “Alas, the RuBy has seen to that, but no matter. We still need you.”

  “Why?”

  Plenko ignored him.

  Brindos needed his treatments to stay alive, and Plenko knew Brindos wouldn’t leave. At this point, Brindos couldn’t figure out why he’d want to, but his head still struggled to catch up with all the drugs he’d been subjected to. He didn’t struggle when Plenko injected Brindos’s upper arm. The needle pinched and stung, but he didn’t mind.

  “You will keep a close eye on him, Dorie,” Plenko said.

  Brindos had no intention of moving a single inch from his spot on the floor. The hardwood felt good, actually, and he traced the little grooves around him with his fingers, preferring to lay flat on his back.

  “You’re leaving?” Dorie asked.

  “I’ll be back to give him another dose in an hour. We’ll double up on the serum, see if Brindos’s system can handle it. I’ll send Knox or Chinkno back later.”

  Then he left.

  Good riddance, Brindos thought. Good-bye, Plenko.

  Dorie said something about there being a couch in the room he could rest on, but Brindos ignored her; almost immediately he fell asleep.

  Light.

  The fog thinned and Brindos had a brief glimpse of someone’s face above him.

  Noise hurt his ears. An argument. Garbled words, spoken rather heatedly.

  Brindos thought he might be dreaming, because the face staring down at him looked like his own.

  No, not me. Plenko.

  Another pinch in his left arm. A second dose.

  Brindos smiled and succumbed to sleep once again.

  Light.

  The haze still surrounded him, and this time the noises were random, little pops and deep rumbles that seemed to be far away, sometimes very close. A strong acrid smell made his nose itch. The light dimmed and blurred, brightened and faded as the pops and rumbles echoed around him.

  Brindos wondered if Dorie had slipped him some more RuBy.

  And yes, there was a voice. A voice he thought he recognized.

  His eyes seemed to clear, but the haze didn’t go away. The smell bothered him.

  It wasn’t anything from Plenko’s treatment. Brindos recognized it now for what it was.

  Smoke.

  That urgent voice called to him, and he jerked fully awake.

  “Brindos! Please!”

  Dorie.

  Outside, thunder boomed close by, and the house shook.

  “Brindos, wake up. Over here. Here!”

  Brindos stood quickly, almost toppling back over, and located Dorie. She was pinned under a wooden beam. The beam had once held up part of the roof of her house.

  “Fucking hell,” Brindos whispered, staring at the night sky above her living room. Something had torn it apart. He stumbled to Dorie’s side and kneeled next to her. “Dorie, are you all right?” No, of course she wasn’t all right. “What happened?”

  “I think I’m okay. I just can’t get out of here.”

  It didn’t take but a few seconds with his Helk strength to move the beam aside and free her. She got to her feet and she winced a little when she put weight on her right leg.

  “You okay?” Brindos asked.

  “Twisted the ankle a little, and I think the leg’s bruised pretty bad. But I can walk.”

  “What happened?” he said again.

  Dorie glanced at the hole in her roof, then around the room, at the mess. Windows had shattered, much of the furniture was overturned, and the door had popped off its hinges and fell inward.

  “They’re attacking the Helk district,” she said.

  “The whole district?”

  “Looks like they’re willing to accept the collateral damage. We’re definitely not where we want to be.”

  “Union. It has to be Union, not the NIO.” The NIO was compromised. He guessed President Nguyen had decided to take a proactive approach to getting rid of Terl Plenko.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Dorie said. “You’ve been out of it most of a day.”

  “A whole day?”

  “It’s the next evening.” She rushed to a nearby closet and scrounged around inside until she found a large, heavy gray coat and a matching wide-brimmed hat. “Put these on.”

  “I’m not cold—”

  “It’s to hide you.”

  “What?”

  “They’re after you, Brindos. They’re after Plenko.”

  His blood froze. Join them or get caught by the authorities, Plenko had said. Joseph and Plenko had originally set him loose in the Helk district near where the Midwest City Authority had set up patrols, hoping he’d get caught. A scapegoat for the real Plenko. Or, Plenko had hoped Brindos would lose his memory and be primed to do their dirty work, whatever that was.

  Dorie helped him put on the coat, covering him up the best she could. She grabbed a jacket of her own, a black rain slicker, one with a hood. She pulled up the hood as he plopped the hat on his head. “Come on,” she said, urging him toward the kitchen. “There’s a back door.”

  Goddamn.

  Brindos hadn’t been set up to take a fall for the NIO. He’d been set up to help Plenko. Help Joseph, whoever he was.

  If NIO operatives and agents had been replaced with copies—and he had to assume now Timothy James was one of them—then he and Crowell might be the only ones from the organization who knew the whole truth about the Conduit and the fake explanation the rest of the Union had been told. The compromised NIO would tell President Nguyen anything to confirm and perpetuate the lie.

  Brindos wished to God he knew what was going on with Crowell. If Brindos had fallen prey to this invading force—whatever it was—here on Temonus, was Dave Crowell okay on the backwater planet of Aryell?
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  An explosion on the street lit up the house and the concussion shattered a window near the door. Brindos pulled Dorie out of the way just as the overhead light fixture crashed down within inches of them. Dorie pointed him to the kitchen and he rushed in there with her, giving support by holding her under her arm as she limped.

  Brindos stopped suddenly. “Dorie,” he said, looking around at the counters, at the wooden table in the corner.

  She knew what he’d stopped to look for. “He has it with him,” she said. “There’s no time now, we have to go.”

  Terl Plenko had his bag. The treatments that would extend his life. Plenko might already be dead somewhere, caught in the brunt of the attack.

  They crashed through the back door and slipped down a redbrick alley, Dorie pointing out the way she said would get them out of the Helk district.

  Brindos had nothing to lose.

  You will die within the week, one way or another.

  And, finally, Plenko’s whispered words, the ones Brindos thought he had misunderstood, came to him loud and clear.

  You are a Thin Man now, Mr. Brindos.

  Twenty-three

  The real Jennifer—I hoped she was the real one—said, “Follow me” as I tucked the stunner into my pants and arranged my shirt over the top of it. Turning, she led the way, and I followed, looking as sullen as possible, my eyes cast downward.

  The Helks stared at us as we walked into the night air, passing between them. One practically growled as I walked too near him. Nice of him to care so much. I hadn’t wanted to be that close, but the Helks’ own proximity to one another didn’t give much room. Deciding to help me, he put his mighty hand on my shoulder and shoved me forward. I was so tense that I was able to shuffle ahead without losing my balance.

  Jennifer slowed down and followed suit, pushing me ahead of her, saying, for the benefit of the guards, “Move. Haven’t got all day.”

  We kept walking, down the aisle, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out which way we were headed. Behind me, Jennifer whispered, “Eyes forward. Straight ahead.”

  “Wait,” rasped the voice of one of the guards.

  Jennifer said over her shoulder, “If I don’t get him to Cara immediately—”

  “Stop,” the guard continued, “or I will shoot.”

  “Stop,” Jennifer said, and I did. “Face forward.” I heard her turn around, her voice subdued when she spoke to the guards. “What’s the problem?”

  “What happened to your leg?” the voice asked.

  “My leg?”

  “You’re limping.”

  Damn. The sonic blast she took from Dorie on Ribon. I hadn’t noticed it in the tent, and walking out of there in front of her I certainly hadn’t noticed it. I inched backward, not wanting to draw attention to myself, getting as close to her as I dared. Cover of darkness helped.

  “I twisted my ankle a little on the way back here,” she said.

  “Is that so?” came the gruff voice. “And that’s not what you were wearing.”

  “You’re mistaken,” she said.

  “Who do you think you’re talking to?” the Helk asked.

  He was right. Some Helks could be downright stupid, but they had better memory than even the brightest of humans, and even some Memors. They never forgot a face. Or a sweater.

  Jennifer must have realized this could be a problem, giving me a stunner earlier. I hoped she had her own. Carefully, I pulled the stunner free from my pants waistband and held it in front of my thigh.

  Then I heard the unmistakeable sound of the Helk’s own stunners powering up.

  I made a decision. “Now or never,” I whispered. “Go left!”

  She slid left, I edged right, and we both fired. Unfortunately, the Helks fired almost simultaneously.

  A sharp pain erupted in my side as the sonic blast clipped me; the muscles there screamed. I fell to my knees, but the guards went down and stayed down, motionless. I’d caught my Helk right in the head; Jennifer had hit hers on its left side, dead-on perfect for a Helk.

  “You okay?” she asked as she bent down, concern on her face.

  I extended an arm. “I hope.”

  She hoisted me up and glanced at my side. I pulled up my shirt a little and checked out the skin, but of course a stunner left no mark.

  “Grazed you,” she said.

  “Lucky.” A full hit would’ve scrambled my insides and boiled the muscles. Goddamn Helk stunners. I looked at her. “So they made a copy of you.”

  “Funny, huh?”

  “Not so much.”

  “I told you about my sleep issues when we were at the Flaming Sea. I slept a day and a half in the hospital. That’s when they must have done it.”

  “You don’t know how it happened?”

  She shook her head. “After everything that went down on Ribon, and Dorie Senall, and someone betraying me with that vid feed into her apartment, then losing those hours … Well, by the time I saw you at the Sea, I realized I was in trouble with the NIO. That’s why I didn’t turn you in. I’m no longer an agent, Crowell. I’m just as on the run as you are.”

  “How the hell did you find me here?”

  She smiled. “Forno told me.”

  “Forno?” I felt a surge of relief. “You found him? He’s alive?”

  “He’s alive.”

  “In one piece?”

  “Whole as a Hulk. I ran into him on the far side, in a tent near a small landing field. Took care of the few guards there. We’ll use my ship because Forno’s was nowhere to be found.”

  “You just pulled into a parking spot in their own shipyard?

  “My ship’s official, NIO clearance. They didn’t challenge me.”

  I had plenty of questions for her: about how she found us here, about the NIO and what she knew about the invasion, about Cara—my Cara—but now was not the time.

  “That hot zone wasn’t much fun,” she said.

  I nodded. “You noticed. Datascreen, is what Forno called it. I’m guessing it’s alien technology.”

  “Memor?”

  “Something else.”

  The air, crisp and cold, smelled slightly of ozone due to the sonic discharges. I tried to use my keen sense of direction to figure out where I was, but it failed me. “We should move,” I said. “The other Jennifer—”

  “Is dead,” she said.

  I stared at Jennifer in confusion. “What? How?”

  “Forno got her as she came to his tent. I’d already freed him. Unfortunately, we didn’t get—” She paused, glancing my way. “Cara. The copy escaped. She made it to another shuttle ahead of us, and before we could get to her she blasted out of here.”

  I nodded, my earlier optimism drying up. I imagined it had been a bit strange for Jennifer to see herself killed.

  “This way.” She pointed behind me. “You going to live?”

  My side ached as we jogged through the spaces between the tents, but it was nothing serious. “I’m fine.”

  Jennifer never paused as we moved down the aisles, her path among the tents deliberate. Ten minutes later we came to the landing field, barely noticeable in the darkness, a small bit of flat land crudely fenced in with some sort of black plastic material about six feet high. Only two ships rested there, a one-seater flier, and a larger shuttle that rumbled quietly during its start sequence, the running lights turned off.

  “That’s mine,” Jennifer said, pointing at the shuttle. I nearly tripped over the bodies of two Helks sprawled on the ground near the shipyard’s entrance, which basically consisted of a gap in the plastic fencing. Just as we reached the shuttle, its side door flipped upward and Tem Forno stood there, silhouetted in the light of the cabin inside.

  “Need a lift?” he asked.

  “It’s my ship,” Jennifer said.

  “I doubt that very much,” Forno said. “In fact, I’m not sure how much I trust this NIO-issue shuttle, considering I don’t trust the NIO. Or you, for that matter.”

  “T
hen hop off and you can walk home,” she said.

  Forno grinned, his leathery face wrinkling with the effort. “Glad to have you aboard,” he said, reaching down to help us up to the deck.

  Forno steadied me as I scrambled up. The darkness was thick, the night sky punctuated by a scattering of stars that looked cold and very, very distant. “Didn’t find the key, I presume,” I said.

  “Nope. Or your code card.” He reached for the shuttle door above his head and pulled down. It thunked into place. “Cara’s gone.”

  I nodded. “The copied Cara’s gone,” I said. “Jennifer’s copy called Cara her ‘One.’ Definitely not like the other copies. I felt the difference.”

  “Agreed,” he said. “Now we need to figure out what she is, and from where, if possible.” He locked the shuttle door, slipping the bolts into place. “Can we get out of here now?” he asked Jennifer. “Preferrably before the tent people and any remaining guards get here?”

  Jennifer was already on her way to the controls. “Strap in.”

  That reminded me about something I’d wanted to ask earlier. As we sat down and buckled up, I asked, “How’d you find us? What made you think to come out this way? Why didn’t the datascreen discourage you from looking here, specifically?”

  Jennifer pointed at Forno.

  Suddenly a bit nervous, I backed up a step.

  Forno said, “Relax, Dave.” He pulled off his rygsa, the earring I’d found on Katerina Parker’s body, then given back to him. “It was the earring.”

  “Earring?”

  “I found it before you did in her room,” Jennifer said. “I rigged it with a nanotracker and put it where I was sure you or Forno would find it. I didn’t know for sure about either of you. I didn’t know who killed Kristen—Katerina Parker—and I was awfully nervous about the NIO finding me.”

  “Thanks for the confidence in my abilities to find it,” I said.

  “It worked, didn’t it? It led me right to Forno.”

  “Yeah, you found us,” Forno said, “so can we now get out of here?”

  Jennifer turned and palmed some sensors on the control panel. The ship shuddered a bit as it took to the air, banking right, putting it on a path over New Venasaille.