Too Small For Tall

by Rosenberg, Aaron

  To his credit, Tall’s not fazed at all. “You can take my shadow,” he says, and he sounds completely calm about it. “You can take every shadow in the building, every shadow in the city, every shadow in the state, every shadow along the coast. But then what? I know they make you stronger, but will it be enough to bust out of here? Because you know we’ve held some pretty tough customers before. Even if you do get out, you’ll face the entire organization, and this time they’ll be looking to put you down instead of just lock you up. Can your shadows save you from that? If you get off-planet somehow, well, we have ties to several other galactic peacekeeping organizations, and we’d put out a bulletin about you. You’d be on the run, with everyone after you. Is that what you want? All because two agents were a little more hands-on than you’d like, and because they didn’t want you burning down a performance?”

  Vic glares at him for a minute, and I’m guessing they’re locking gazes. I try to help by staring hard at his high forehead, but I doubt he notices. Still, he finally looks down at his hands and sighs, his shadow breaking apart into a small village again. “No, you are correct,” he says softly. “I lost my temper, and I shouldn’t have. Nor should I have overstepped my bounds, or the rule of professional courtesy. I apologize.” He straightens up, chin high, and waves one hand. “I dismiss the shadows back to their true owners,” he declares, and I watch as they flee like rats from an oncoming train, racing off in every direction and disappearing through cracks or into corners. All except one, the one behind him, which must be his real one.

  Tall nods. “Good,” he says as he stands up. “I’ll make sure those two agents apologize for manhandling you, and I’ll let my superiors know you regret your actions and vow to behave better in future. They’ll probably ship you back immediately, I’m afraid, but at least you should be able to go home. And in time you can apply to return and see the rest of the performance.”

  “Thank you.” Vic stands—damn, he’s really tall!—and holds out one hand. “You seem more even-tempered than your compatriots.” Wow, he has no idea who he’s talking to! “I appreciate that.”

  “You’re welcome.” Tall shakes with him. “I’m sorry your visit was cut short.”

  Vic laughs. “Oh, that’s fine. I still enjoyed what I saw of the performance.” He gets a slightly evil look on his face. “And human shadows are so much fun to play with!”

  Tall leaves him there and heads back out into the hall, and I relax a bit, especially after checking my own shadow. Yep, still here and still duck-headed. Whew! That went a helluva lot better than I thought.

  But just as Tall passes through the outer door back into the lobby, the elevator opens. Out come two MiBs, dragging a short guy between them who looks like a cross between Barney and a heavy metal rocker—he’s covered in pink and purple dinosaur scales and has horns at his temples and a row of triangular spines running down his back, but he’s wearing black leather and chains and has piercings all over, including most of those spines. He’s struggling against them, and holding his own considering each agent has at least a foot in height over him, and he’s cursing up a storm the whole time, too.

  “Let me go, motherfuckers!” he’s shouting as they half-drag, half-lift him toward the door. “You’re just jealous ’cause I’m not bound by the Man! I can do what I like, when I like! When’s the last time you did that?” Then he spots Tall, standing to the side to let them pass. “You! When’d you last cut loose, huh? Why don’t you do it now? Go on, cut loose! Go stomp about! Go full-bore rampage through the streets!”

  I swear, I can practically feel Tall go frozen-seal-stiff through the camera.

  Uh-oh.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Godzilla with shades

  “Tall? Tall? You still with me, man?” I’m practically yelling into the mic, for all the good it’s doing me. He’d turned, after the death-rock-dino’s rant, and gotten into the elevator. Not a word, not a sound. Pushed “L” for lobby, and now he’s standing there as the doors slide shut, hands behind his back, feet slightly apart, looking in the reflection like the perfect model of a MiB—tall, stern, and utterly unmoved.

  I’m not fooled for a second.

  For one thing, I know Tall. I know him real well. In fact, now that I think about it, he may just be my best friend after Mary, and since she’s my girlfriend that makes him my best friend anyway, by default—you can’t be best friends with the person you’re seeing, just because then who’re you gonna talk to about your relationship? Ever tried talking to your significant other about them? See how well that works: “So I’m really into her—I mean, you—but there’s this one thing she—I mean you—does that really drives me nuts. And I can’t say anything about it to her—I mean you—because I know that’ll just piss her—I mean you—off. So here it is.” Yeah, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the whole “best friend or girlfriend?” question very long.

  Wow, so Tall’s my best friend. Weird. I never would’ve pegged that. Neither would any of my old friends, especially my old frat buddies. Me, best friends with a MiB? Get out!

  But anyway, the thing is I know him pretty well. I know all his facial tics, on account of I’ve caused half of ’em—I feel a certain sense of proprietary responsibility toward them. Which is why I can tell something right now that probably nobody else in the world can, except maybe his mom assuming Tall wasn’t grown on a vat somewhere deep in the basement, which I’ve still got good odds on. But that thing? Yeah, here it is:

  He’s smiling.

  It’s almost unnoticeable. His lips are still pressed together like they’re vacuum-sealed, and they’re still as straight as a ruler. His brow’s still slightly furrowed, with that crease just above his nose. His jaw’s still solid enough to shatter boulders. But I know the signs. There’s just the tiniest hint of an indentation along the outer edge of his eyes, peeking out from those shades. There’s the barest bit of a shadow at the corners of his mouth. That crease isn’t as long or as deep as usual.

  Listen to me, I sound like a stalker. Or, worse yet, a fanboy. Ugh.

  But I know what I’m seeing. Inside, Tall is smiling.

  And it isn’t a good smile. Oh, no. I’ve seen those too, usually when we’re hanging out and his team trounces mine in whatever sporting event we’re watching at the time. The actual Tall smile, when he’s not trying to be a bad-ass and is almost human—not that I’m one to judge.

  But this isn’t that.

  No, this is the kind of smile you see a guy get right before he pulls a pistol and starts opening up on everybody standing in line in front of him. Or before he floors it and smashes his massive SUV over and through all the other cars in his way. Or right before he sets foot on the ice in a pro hockey game. Or before he opens his mouth to tell you that your loan’s been rejected, so sad too bad, kiss your great-grandma’s house good-bye.

  This is the smile of a man about to destroy people’s lives.

  I am so glad I’m all the way over here and Tall is all the way over there. Not that this guarantees my safety, but at least I should have a little advance warning.

  It’s not going to help all those unsuspecting people in midtown Manhattan, though. And I’m not sure what I can do about that.

  I try again: “Tall!”

  And this time he answers. “Yes, DuckBob?”

  “You need to chill, man!” I tell him. “Just relax, okay? Go fill out some parking tickets or something—I know you enjoy that!”

  “I am relaxed,” he tells me, just as the elevator dings. “I am perfectly relaxed.” The elevator doors part, revealing what looks like a normal office building lobby, just as he says, “I am about to cut loose.”

  Two guys, two MiBs, are standing waiting for the elevator. They kinda startle when he says that. I don’t blame them. Too bad they don’t startle enough. Neither of them does much more than grimace and look askance, which is why they’re still in easy reach as Tall grabs their heads, one in each hand, and clonks them together. That�
��s the sound they make, clonk!, like a pair of big coconuts. I can tell even through the sunglasses that their eyes’ve just rolled up in their heads, and they both drop to the floor. And Tall crouches beside them long enough to reach into their jackets and pull out a gun from each. Then, holding those aloft, he makes his way toward the front door and out onto the street.

  Oh, man.

  “Wa-hoo!” he shouts as he emerges from the building. “I am cutting loose! I am on a rampage!” And he levels both guns at a parked car right nearby. Yeah, I’ve always wanted to shoot those cars that think they can just park anywhere, too—there’s a No Parking sign practically over this sleek sedan, but it’s sitting there with its hazards on like, oh, that makes it all okay. There’s nobody in it—thank God for small favors—and I’m betting it’s been sitting there at least an hour, but of course nobody’s touched it.

  Well, that changes rapidly.

  I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Tall fire his gun before. No, that’s not true, I’m almost sure he was shooting back at the Dinotropic Aesthetic Elite that time on the train, but I didn’t stand around waiting to see if he hit anything. So this is the first time I see the result of him shooting something. I make a mental note to make sure he’s unarmed the next time I piss him off, because both pistols don’t fire regular slugs, of course—no, that’d be too mundane for the great and powerful MiB. No, they shoot what look like little tiny bursts of blue-white light, which speed toward the car, splash against it like water droplets, expand rapidly until the whole front end is covered in a fine spiderweb of glowing blue that I can see even in the broad daylight—

  —and then the whole front end just disappears. Winks out like the Cheshire Cat taking a nap. Whole car one second, half a car the next.

  The hazards on the back end stop blinking, too. No battery to power ’em, after all. Heh, that’d serve the owner right, to come back and find half his car missing AND a parking ticket!

  “Uh, nice one,” I tell Tall as he turns and starts marching down the sidewalk, both guns up at head-height. “Score one for you, and for responsible drivers everywhere. You can stop now.”

  “No,” he replies, “I am on a rampage!” And he promptly obliterates a hot-dog cart, leaving the umbrella to crash to the ground and the condiments and sodas that had been sitting on top to go splashing and rolling everywhere.

  Great.

  Ever see that one movie, the one about aliens invading our planet even though they’re deathly allergic to water—because, yeah, that makes sense! Do you have any idea how many planets there are out there that don’t have freestanding water? And they couldn’t pick one of those instead? That’s like the guy with the peanut allergy so severe even peanut dust in the air makes him stop breathing deciding to break into and rob a Planters factory! Anyway, there’s one really funny bit in the movie where the lead, who’s a retired priest and still just as stiff and awkward as one, thinks there’s somebody outside his house and decides to go outside and scare him off by running around acting crazy. So he goes out and he starts stomping around shouting things like “I am filled with furious rage!” and “I’m insane with anger!” It’s hysterical because he has no idea how to curse and shout and so it sounds ridiculous.

  Yeah, put him in a suit and give him a pair of guns and that’s about what you’ve got here.

  Now, in his defense, I’ve heard Tall curse plenty of times. Usually at me. But this is cookie-zombie Tall, which means he’s stuck in nicey-nice mode. Plus, Tall understands being pissed off easily enough, but Death-Barney told him to “cut loose.” And letting loose? Not something Tall’s good at. Or any of the MiBs, for that matter. To be fair, Tall may be better at it than most of them. I like to think some of that’s my influence. I’ve shaken him loose from his shell a little bit.

  But not enough for him to be able to act convincingly here.

  So instead he’s stomping around—because that’s what he was told to do, after all—and shooting cars and carts and trash cans and street signs and so forth at random, and shouting things like “Whee!” and “Yahoo!” and “I am free and out of control!”, all in a complete monotone.

  It’s the tamest rampage I’ve ever seen.

  Unfortunately, it’s still a rampage. He’s still doing a ton of property damage. No personal damage, though—he isn’t shooting a single person, not even the obviously snooty ones who possibly deserve a mild winging. No, he’s only targeting inanimate objects—assuming he’s targeting, and I’ve been on the receiving end of his tosses and pitches enough times to know he’s got excellent aim.

  I have no idea what’ll happen if he starts shooting people too, and I’m not keen to find out.

  Of course, the second I think that, someone shouts his name from behind him.

  “Agent Thomas!” Tall swivels around to look, and there’s two other MiBs there, both with their guns drawn but not pointed at him. Both of them look vaguely familiar—I think I saw them up in the office earlier.

  “You need to put down the guns and come with us!” one of them orders. He’s a little shorter than Tall, almost as broad in the shoulders but a lot wider in the gut, and his hair’s a little wild under his hat—he almost looks more like a Blues Brother than a MiB. Maybe they’ve got a band?

  The other one doesn’t say anything, he just stands at the ready.

  Thank God, I’m thinking. Now Tall can do what he says, and that’ll be that.

  Yeah, not so fast.

  “I can’t do that,” Tall yell back. “I am on a rampage!”

  And he shoots them both.

  The blue lights hit them, spider web across them, and then flare flash-bright, but the MiBs don’t disappear, at least. Instead they just stiffen and collapse on the sidewalk. So apparently these guns can disintegrate nonliving matter but just stun living creatures? That is so cool! I wonder how well they can distinguish. If there’s a person in a car and Tall shoots the car, will it disappear and the person collapse on the ground, or will it just annihilate both of them? How does it deal with previously living matter? Would it make a tree disappear or just try to stun it? A log cabin? A package of luncheon meat? Moldy luncheon meat, which would technically be living again? What about a zombie, where would that fall on the scale?

  But Tall’s marching along again, shooting things, so I table the questions for later.

  Except for one—why didn’t he stop? The one MiB ordered him to, and so far he’s done everything people tell him. At least, everything people right there tell him—he hasn’t done bupkus of the things I’ve shouted in his ear.

  Which is when two things hit me at once.

  First, it’s a presence issue. I’m not there, so Tall isn’t obeying me. If I was standing right in front of him, he’d snap out of like every other time.

  Second, the MiB screwed up. He said “You should.” It was a suggestion, not a direct order. Yeah, that’s splitting hairs, but Tall’s always been a grammar Nazi, why should cookie-zombie Tall be any different? If the other agent’d just said “Put those down and come with us!” Tall would’ve done it.

  Which begs the question—can I count on any of the other MiBs to be that direct?

  And the immediate answer is no, I can’t. One of them might be, but it’s a serious longshot. After all, they’re used to being deliberately vague and spooky. They talk double-talk all the time. Hell, half the time getting Tall to answer a simple question like “you want another beer?” gets me a sly look and “I’m considering it” or “I’ll let you know” or “We’ll come back to that.”

  A cop’d be direct, but I’m not sure how close any of them’re gonna want to get once they see the kind of damage Tall can dish out. I wouldn’t get within a city block of him. And I don’t know if there’s a range involved on the voice-command trick—so far every time someone’s given him an order he’s obeyed they’ve been within five feet, in which case we’re screwed. Nobody around here’s gonna be dumb enough, or suicidal enough, or just plain crazy or inattentive enough
, to get that close.

  But I think I know somebody who would.

  Besides me, I mean. But I can’t, damn it. So this’ll have to do.

  “Hang in there, buddy,” I tell Tall as I turn away from the monitor. It’s weird looking around at my real surroundings again, and it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust—one minute I’m staring at midtown Manhattan (and almost crying as Tall obliterates one of those halal carts because I’d kill for a good chicken-over-rice with indefinable white sauce) and the next I’m back in my living room, with the computer steaming in front of me and my couch oozing around somewhere behind.

  Never mind all that right now, though. I grab my phone and hit one of the numbers I programmed into it a few months back.

  “Hey, it’s me,” I say when it picks up. “Listen, drop whatever you’re doing and head to Manhattan. I’ll explain on the way.”

  I sure hope this works.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cutting it close

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Ned says for like the fifty-thousandth time as he appears in midtown. “I must be crazy.”

  “You are,” I agree. “Definitely crazy. But in a good way.”

  Ned was the only person I could think to call. Well, I could’ve called Mary, of course, but she’s way too smart to go anywhere near Tall at a time like this. And Ned, well, he’s a bright guy, of course, really good with gadgets and wiring and computers and stuff, but when it comes to everyday things—yeah. You know those stereotypical absent-minded professors, the ones who’re brilliant in the lab but can’t figure out how to button their shirts correctly, or remember to wear matching socks, or puzzle out which settings to use on the washing machine?

  Ned’s a lot like that.

  Still, he did agree to go, which counts for a lot. I figured he would. He’s buddies with Tall too, after all—the four of us, them and me and Mary, we saved the universe together. That kinda bonds you together. I don’t see him as often as Tall, just because the Grays still send him on jobs all over the place, just like they do Mary, but he stops by at least once a month to check in on me and on the Matrix, and we hang out and order pizza and beer and watch a game or play foosball—yes, I have a foosball table, only it floats and spits out soap bubbles here and there and sometimes growls if you slam a shot home—or whatever. I don’t think he and Tall get together separately, but when their trips coincide it’s like old-home week and we all have a blast.