Too Small For Tall

by Rosenberg, Aaron

  Anyway, I relax a bit while Jones helps Tall to his feet. Then they bind Mercer’s wrists—and gag her for good measure—and hoist her up as well.

  “Who called the Hazmat team?” Tall asks as they step around the groggy crew and head outside. They’ll probably chalk it all up to “incidental contact with an incapacitating agent” or some such. And in a way, they’ll be right. Tall can certainly incapacitate people!

  “I did,” Jones admits, “but it was DuckBob’s idea.” See, she’s even giving me credit for something! People can change! “Must be a holdover from his clearly misspent youth,” she adds, “and doubtless only one of many questionable and even illegal things he’s done over the years.”

  Well, hey—even the nicest bulldog’s still gotta growl at you from time to time. Right?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Saved by a one-hit wonder

  “So, will it hold this time?” I ask Tall as we sit on deck chairs out in the Matrix Chamber. I’ve got my feet in the wading pool, of course. Tall is actively ignoring that fact—and wincing every time I splash him.

  “It should,” He answers, taking a pull from his beer. Tulaskan Glacial Ale, guaranteed to chill your insides or your money back. I’ve got the heat cranked in here to simulate a sunny, summer day, so a super-cold beer feels good right now. Admittedly, I’m not a hundred percent sure what I found was really the thermostat—it may be some kind of microwave-based security system, slowly cooking us from the inside out—but it’s warmer in here, so I’m not gonna complain. Or say anything to Ned. He gets a little irritated when I mess with systems I don’t fully understand. Like TiVo.

  “The process is a lot more effective these days,” Tall continues. “Miss Mercer won’t remember anything about her days in the agency, or any of her recent activities.”

  “How’s that gonna work, though?” I ask sipping my own beer. My fingers are going a little numb, so I set it down on the ground beside me afterward. “I mean, sure, you can erase those two years, but she’s been carrying those memories ever since, and it’s obvious she’s been scheming on ways to pay you all back this whole time. How can anything wipe out a single thread of thought that stretches over forty years and probably influenced most of her activities throughout?”

  “I don’t know, honestly,” Tall admits. “I just know that the tech guys say it should work. The agency will be keeping a close eye on her, though, just in case.”

  That still weirds me out, him talking about the agency like it’s a separate entity—and the fact that now it is. “I can’t believe you quit,” I tell him again. That’s got to be at least the twentieth time, but it’s true. I think I’m in shock. “You love being a MiB! It’s your whole life!”

  “Well, maybe it shouldn’t be!” he snaps back. Then he sighs and stares out across the pool. “Look at me. I’m thirty-four years old, I’m not married, I’m not in a relationship, I barely have any hobbies, and my closest friend is a former alien abductee who now manages an interstellar security system and can’t leave his workspace.” Aw, I’m his closest friend? Really? I don’t know whether to feel flattered or horribly depressed. “You’re right,” he goes on, “It was my whole life. But there’s got to be more to life than just working all the time. And I think it’s high time I found some of that.”

  I reach for my beer, find it without knocking it over, and raise it to my bill so I can sip from the straw—trust me, it’s better this way, things get messy otherwise. “Hey, I’m the first to admit that work shouldn’t be the only thing you do,” I tell him. “You want to get out and party more, make some more friends, join some clubs, take up woodworking, hit the dating scene, I’m all for it. But what happens if you find out it’s not for you? Some people really are all work, man.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe so. In which case, I’ll go back. Or move on to some other job. But I need to know for sure.”

  “You think they’ll take you back?” The agency never struck me as big on second chances.

  He actually grins at me. “I’d like to see them try to stop me.” Yeah, I can just picture Tall striding back into MiB headquarters, plonking down at his old desk, and saying, “I’m back—like it or not!” and glaring at anyone who tries to object until they just give up and go on with work like he never left. Heh.

  “I still don’t see how you kept your memories,” I say. And he laughs again. Grinning, laughing—I’m starting to wonder if this is like Cookie-zombie Tall, version 2.0.

  “That’s all you, my friend,” he tells me, holding up his bottle. So naturally I clink it with mine. Hey, some habits are hard to break. “I pointed out that, if they wiped me, they’d have to bring someone else up to speed on you and the Matrix, which was a security risk. Or they could make me a Confidential Contact, let me keep my security clearance, and allow me to continue acting as your go-between. Even if I’m not your official agency liaison.” He takes another sip, and shivers for a second. “And they went for it.”

  I lean back in my chair and stretch, locking my arms behind my head. Which, unfortunately, means I clunk myself in the head with my beer, since I forgot I was still holding it. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool not having a MiB watchdog on me anymore. I feel like I’ve been let off the leash. Even though you’re still reporting back, it’s not the same somehow.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes, broken only by the sounds of our drinking and my occasional splashing. “How’s the cookie thing going?” I ask finally.

  “Good,” Tall answers. “Agent Jones is spearheading the cleanup. They’ve isolated almost all of the boxes from the affected batches, and they’ve deprogrammed everyone already affected.” He grimaces for a second. “Damn, that’s annoying.”

  I grin. “Stuck in your head again?”

  “Yes!”

  “Hey, what can I say?” I drain the last of my beer. “I’m a musical genius!”

  After taking Mercer in, the MiBs were still a little stumped on what to do about all the potential cookie-zombies. They couldn’t exactly go door-to-door and tell each person, “hey, snap out of it!”

  So I figured out a way to do it for them.

  Rosy was only too happy to help, which made things a lot easier. She brought my proposal to the CampGirls Central Committee, championed it for me, and I’m sure the MiBs brought some pressure to bear as well. Which is why, a few days later, the CampGirls unveiled their official Cookie Song: “Snap Out of It!”

  Yes, I came up with that. And wrote it. Well, okay, I used a synthesizer program, which behaved about as normally as anything else around here—I think really my computer has to get a lot of the credit. But I did the lyrics!

  The song’s been a huge hit, and not just among the CampGirls and their families. It’s topping all the charts, which has been great for the organization but even better as a way to make sure everyone’s heard it and is singing it. Because, of course, it’s a total earworm. People everywhere are walking around telling each other, “snap out of it!”

  What? It works!

  And it annoys Tall to no end. Bonus!

  “So what’re you gonna do now?” I ask him, mainly because he’s starting to fix me with Stare Number Two again and I need to distract him from that song ASAP. “Got any ideas for another job?”

  Apparently that was the right thing to say, because just like that his scowl transforms into a smile. “Already taken care of.” He finishes his beer and sets the empty bottle down. “I’m going into business. With Heidi.”

  “Seriously? You’re gonna be an interstellar trucker with an animate bowling ball filled with steam, goo, and a miniature sandworm?”

  He actually shrugs at me. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Tall shrug before. “Why not? We get along well, it pays well, and I’ll get to travel. A lot. Maybe I won’t stay with it forever, but for now it sounds like fun.”

  Fun. Hm. The idea of Tall having fun doesn’t really fit with my concept of reality—but it looks like I may have to alter that a little. And maybe that’s not a
bad thing.

  “Good for you,” I tell him. “Go live a little.”

  “I will,” he says, rising to his feet. “Right after I jog around this room a few dozen times.” He reaches down and a hand the size of a Volkswagen latches onto my arm and yanks me out of my chair. “And you’re jogging with me.”

  “What? No! You can’t!” I protest as he drags me away from the chairs and starts circling the chamber. “I’m not wearing the right shoes! I just drank—I have to wait an hour! I have a doctor’s note saying no heavy exercise, or having to watch old Bonanza reruns!”

  Help!

  The End