The Ultra Thin Man

by Patrick Swenson

  She shrugged, giving in. “Two different procedures. The first makes a copy from the original. Or, more accurately, makes a pattern based on the original that is then stored. The process doesn’t kill the original, but we could easily make the original go away. The second procedure transforms bodies—such as these tent dwellers—into any of the stored patterns on record. Now, the key—”

  I held up a hand to stop her. “So let me see if I have this straight,” I said. “You took Plenko on Coral Moon. Plenko Prime is copied into storage. Then you grab someone, like one of these RuBy guys, and use the Plenko pattern to turn this guy into a Plenko clone? But he’s not even half Plenko’s size. There has to be conservation of mass. You can’t make someone into an alien three times his size and break that law.”

  “The density decreases,” she said. “Mass stays the same, but there are internal changes to make the body bigger.”

  “I’m guessing that doesn’t end well for anyone that happens to.”

  “No. We decided initially we would gather up the biggest Helks we could find and replicate them. Plenko was quite the find. Put a copy of him in charge of a terrorist group. Dial up a few extra Plenkos. Confuse the authorities trying to find him. An alias here, an alias there, but nothing matching up, the visuals never quite right.”

  “No one knows who to trust.”

  She smiled. “As you’re finding out.”

  “You’re a copy of yourself, so there’s no mass degredation, I’m guessing. And your memories?”

  “My One decided how many to keep. As it turns out, I have most of them.”

  I stared at her, her outline fleshed out now, physical details coming into focus. “Your guy Koch first mentioned this key to me. But I have nothing. You took the only thing I had on me of worth when you took my code card.”

  Jennifer Lisle stood, and anger radiated from her. “You’re lying.”

  “Maybe. You’re not going to find out for sure, though, if you kill me.”

  “We’ll see.” She turned toward the tent opening, yelling out something in Helk. The same two Helks from the clearing came into view. She said something else to them, then looked back at me. “You’re not long for this world, Mr. Crowell, just like Mr. Forno. Your meddling in our affairs has proven most troublesome.”

  She left the tent abruptly, and the Helks made their presence known by standing where I could see them through the flap, one with his back turned to me, the other facing the opening.

  Forno had showed me the unfinished Conduit in the Flatlands. The towers were complete, and evidently the way and means to capture the patterns lay inside the towers. But making the physical copies, according to Forno, required the thin wire of the Conduit itself. They couldn’t do anything like that here on Aryell with the wire missing, and I wasn’t going to get to Temonus now to warn Alan. And what about the rest of the refugees here? They couldn’t just shuttle five hundred thousand bodies to Temonus. No, the aliens needed the Conduit on Aryell working.

  Did the Conduit on Temonus still work, even after the carrier pulled over the tower? It seemed possible. If it could be destroyed completely, the bad guys—aliens controlling the Science Consortium, NIO, Kenn—had no way to move forward with its plan to invade the Union on the large scale they planned.

  I wondered about their reasons for invading, or why they’d chosen to come at us in this way instead of with guns blazing. Their weapon technology might not be as advanced as their body-morphing technology, but I honestly didn’t know enough about them to even make guesses.

  This tent had been cleared of RuBy. I certainly didn’t see any stacks of the red paper anywhere, and I didn’t notice any of the telltale cinnamon odor. Stuffing my hand into my pocket, I pulled out one of the RuBy squares I’d put in there earlier, fingering it thoughtfully. If they were going to kill me anyway, perhaps I should spend my last moments alive conked out on the drug.

  I brought the paper to my nose and sniffed. Only now did it actually smell enticing; before, in the tent of the addict, the odor had overwhelmed me.

  Maybe just a taste. Just a brief flick of the tongue on the red dye of the paper.

  Eyes closed, I put out my tongue.

  “Don’t do that,” came the voice of Jennifer Lisle.

  I was ready to ignore her, resigned to my fate, willing now to pop the whole thing in my mouth. But something stopped me. Something other than her order to do so.

  I opened my eyes, and Jennifer stood inside the tent, right in front of me. Blinking to regain my focus, I stared at her eyes, and even in the dark of the tent I could make out the blue color. Her words still rolled around in my head. Without thinking, I looked down and took in the rest of her.

  She had changed her clothes. She wore the same blue denim pants, and still wore a sweater, but now it looked thicker and warmer, and it was checkered in a black-and-white pattern. Something clicked inside my head as stark realization came to me.

  These were the clothes I’d seen her in at the Flaming Sea.

  I looked up and her eyes and the set of her face told me Don’t say a word.

  “You’re coming with me now,” she said.

  She had a Helk stunner at her side, which she raised now. I stared at it. Then, with her back to the tent opening, blocking the view of the guards, she flipped the stunner in her hand and gave it to me, handle first.

  “It’s me,” she whispered, so faint that I almost didn’t hear.

  The real Jennifer Lisle.

  Twenty-two

  Brindos could have struck Terl Plenko hard in the face the instant the alien came close to admire the view. The RuBy was partially to blame, because it seemed to slow everything down, and he found it hard to see through the fog.

  He missed his chance. Plenko pulled back quickly and raised his stunner. Brindos hadn’t noticed it earlier in his left hand.

  “There,” Plenko said, pointing to the chair he’d been sitting in earlier. “Now.” Without taking his eyes off Brindos, he said, “Dorie, more light.”

  Plenko kept backing up, moving to Brindos’s left as he did so. Brindos walked to the chair and slumped into it just as Dorie turned on the room lights overhead.

  He hadn’t called Brindos by name, so did Plenko know who he was? Maybe not. Brindos kept quiet, just in case. Unless all the other Plenkos wore the same thing, this was the Plenko he’d seen the night with Joseph. The black pants and high-collared shirt of animal hide seemed to suck up the light. He flexed his fingers inside the same black gloves Brindos remembered him wearing. Helks often wore the same outfit for days at a time. Other than the clothes, he looked too much like Brindos.

  I look too much like him.

  Goddamn, Brindos had seen way too much of Plenko in the last few days, and his chances for getting a break from him didn’t look good.

  Plenko sidestepped back in front of Brindos, but kept his distance, out of reach of any sudden lunge. Nothing Brindos could do now. The idea of finding Joseph at the Orion Hotel—or Dorie seeing him and arranging a meeting—seemed more and more unlikely.

  Plenko called over his shoulder, his voice gruff, the anger obvious. “Dorie, what the hell?”

  Brindos figured Dorie would wilt under the pressure of Terl Plenko questioning her. But she surprised him.

  She put on her little show. Her RuBy act.

  Since she hadn’t said anything since entering the house, she had the advantage of altering her speech now. She slurred her words a little as she practically tiptoed toward him. “I didn’t know.” She seemed to disappear as she reached him and gave him a tentative hug. “It’s you? Really you?”

  “Please desist,” Plenko said, looking at Brindos instead of her as she tried to reach her arms around his torso. When she didn’t, he forcefully pushed her away, still looking at Brindos. “You’re not helping.”

  She stumbled, and the momentum from Plenko’s push caused her to fall and sit hard on the floor.

  Plenko stared at Brindos. “Nice outfit,” he said, smirkin
g. “Dorie, you couldn’t find him something better to wear of mine than this?”

  From the floor, holding her head in her hands, Dorie said, “I thought something had happened. You weren’t due back from your tour of the tower, and he”—she looked up and waved a hand in Brindos’s direction—“showed up, distraught, screaming, looking hurt, no clothes. I don’t know, I was confused. I thought…”

  She broke off and lowered her head.

  Brindos had been distraught. He still was. Especially now, considering she had told him he would die if he didn’t get loose of whatever it was that had changed him. This Terl Plenko had played a part in that change.

  Brindos wondered if Plenko would see through Dorie’s charade. Keeping quiet, Brindos looked on as Dorie continued her game, standing slowly, working her way back to Plenko, her eyes twinkling with a mixture of seduction and submission.

  “Don’t be mad,” she said, her hand reaching for his shoulder.

  Plenko grabbed her by the wrist and pushed her away a second time. She stumbled back and Brindos tensed, wanting to jump out of the chair and help. Although matched for size in every detail, Plenko still held the stunner, and Brindos didn’t dare try anything. Brindos had other disadvantages, including trying to wrap himself completely around this body; he doubted he could control it well enough in a fight. And then there was the RuBy, although he had started to ease out of its grip.

  “I’m stupid, I guess,” she said.

  “You’re more than stupid,” Plenko said, a growl in his voice. “You’re nothing. If you didn’t know it was me at first, you should have figured it out. You go through your RuBy like candy, and your judgment is so impaired that I wonder sometimes whether you’d be better off in an asylum somewhere. I don’t trust you, Dorie. Is it any wonder we watch you day and night?”

  Dorie shook her head. “Don’t say that. Don’t. I told you I would help you.”

  “Which is the only reason we’ve kept you alive,” he said. He folded his arms across his mammoth chest, the stunner tucked for a moment under his right elbow. “Maybe that’s not enough of a reason anymore. The last help you gave us didn’t turn out so well, did it? There are at least two deaths on your head from that little incident.”

  “Well, then,” Dorie said, disgusted, “I’m sorry I don’t know about your precious key.”

  Brindos frowned, having no idea what Plenko’s “precious key” was. If Dorie had knowledge of it, if they’d kept her alive for that reason, she was walking a thin line. Brindos wondered if she could bring off her act, keep Plenko guessing about what she knew, and convince him to keep her around.

  Then again, if this key was something Plenko and his cohorts desperately needed for their cause, would it be better if they had no chance of getting it?

  Brindos looked at Dorie now, uncertain. If Plenko didn’t trust her, should Brindos trust her?

  Plenko’s eyes became slits. “Do not discuss that here. That slim chance you might still lead me to it keeps your life hanging on a thread. You should not have brought him here, to your house.”

  “It’s not my house.”

  “You know what I mean, Dorie.”

  She shrugged. “He didn’t know anything. I thought bringing him here—because I thought he was you—might dislodge something. Make him remember.”

  Now Plenko made a deliberate turn toward Brindos, studying him as he kept still in the chair. “He doesn’t remember?” he said.

  “He remembers waking up without any clothes. For a while he thought he might be someone else, but all he thinks now is that he’s you.”

  “Terl Plenko,” Plenko said.

  Was he saying it directly to him? Brindos lifted his head slightly, trying to show recognition of the name in his eyes and face. Since opening the door to the house, no one had said Plenko’s name aloud. Who wouldn’t be confused, seeing another Helk identical to himself? So if he responded to Plenko’s name, perhaps he could work his way out of this.

  “Why do you look like me?” Brindos muttered. He didn’t need help looking confused. He was. And some of the earlier pain had seeped back into his stomach as the RuBy wore off. “What’s going on? I’ve been held against my will, stuck with needles, drugged—”

  In an instant, before Brindos could react, Plenko covered the distance between them and hit Brindos across the face with his open palm. The strength of the blow knocked Brindos out of the chair, and he fell hard to the floor. Pain spread across his face. For a moment he lay on the hardwood floor, stunned, his eyes trying to focus on the tiny grooves between the wooden slats.

  Roughly, Plenko turned Brindos over, and his leathery head bowed down, his face lined with fury. “Who are you?”

  Brindos rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know,” he lied. Did Plenko not know Brindos was Brindos, or was Plenko just trying to find out if Brindos’s memories had atrophied completely? Was Brindos the Helk he’d turned Alan Brindos into, or did he believe Brindos was some other Plenko duplicate?

  He brought his forearm down hard and slammed it into Brindos’s jaw, and he cried out and turned his head. Plenko kneeled down on Brindos’s chest, grabbed his head with one hand and forced him to look at him. He took his forearm and wedged it under Brindos’s chin, choking him.

  “You were once human,” Plenko said. “Do you know that?”

  Brindos tried to speak but could get out nothing but a wheeze. Plenko let up a little, less pressure on the throat, and Brindos struggled to get out his next words. “I have a feeling that I was, but I don’t know who.”

  Plenko spoke to Dorie, who had come up beside him, barely moving his head in her direction. “Where were Chinkno and Knox when this happened?”

  “Outside,” she said. “They brought him in unconscious. Later they gave him the treatment.”

  “Treatment? Why?”

  “You weren’t acting like yourself, and they figured you’d missed one. They were confused too, and brought me in. I was sure it was you.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “I don’t know. They left me alone with him. I thought they might have come here.”

  Plenko studied Brindos again. He removed his arm from Brindos’s throat and put his hand firmly on his chest, holding him down. “Are you feeling pain now?” he asked, smirking. “Besides your face.”

  Brindos nodded. The fire in his gut had returned, and tendrils of pain crept through his torso, burning, aching, threatening to consume him.

  “You don’t know who you are?” Plenko said. “Really.”

  “I don’t.”

  Plenko sighed, as if he’d decided to give in. Indeed, the pressure on Brindos’s chest lessened, and Plenko raised his head, staring off into one corner of the room.

  “I believe,” Plenko said, his tone even more severe, “that you are lying to me.”

  Brindos thought he was going to convince him otherwise. His body wanted to sink into the floor, but the pain wouldn’t let go, acting like a buoy.

  Plenko looked Dorie’s way. “You’re lying to me too, Dorie.”

  “Terl, I—”

  “You’ve given him your RuBy, haven’t you?”

  No answer.

  “You might as well tell me the truth,” he said to Brindos. He cocked his head. “No? Then I will tell you. You are Alan Brindos, part-time agent for the Network Intelligence Organization. You and your partner David Crowell were pulled into the game at the suggestion of Director Timothy James. You figured it out—a little, anyway—and went on the run. How am I doing so far?”

  Goddamn, he did know. Would anything Brindos said to the contrary make any difference? “I’m not following you in the slightest,” Brindos said.

  Plenko then went on explaining a little about the Conduit. What it was for, how it worked—Brindos didn’t understand much of the techncial side of things, but at the very least, he understood that the Conduit’s ultra thin wire had done its number on him.

  “We took the initiative,” Plenko continued, “when you came into
our sights here on Temonus. You’d either become one of us, get caught by the authorities, or die most uncomfortably.”

  At that moment, Brindos knew nothing he said or did would change the fact that Plenko had found him out. “Seems like none of those happened,” Brindos said.

  “Not yet.” Plenko sent a hard look to Dorie. “Thanks to Dorie.”

  Dorie hung her head.

  “But she’s a RuBy addict, and doesn’t know better,” he added.

  “So I’m guessing the RuBy counteracted the treatment,” Brindos said. Plenko still didn’t know that although Dorie took RuBy, she wasn’t the addict he thought she was. She still had Plenko fooled with her act.

  “A little.” Plenko stood, backed away, and pulled Dorie with him. He slumped into the chair Brindos had been assigned to earlier and left Dorie standing next to it. Brindos sat up and Plenko pointed a beefy finger. “Stay there.”

  Brindos stayed, feeling more and more like a puppet in Plenko’s control. Not caring whether Plenko saw him or not, Brindos glanced at the door, which stood open. No one else had been out there when they had come in, and no one else was out there now. If he made a break for it, he thought maybe he’d get away before Plenko could do anything. The pain was bad enough now that it almost begged him to go through the door.

  “Or don’t stay there,” Plenko said, amusement in his voice. “Door’s open. You want to leave, go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”

  Brindos gazed longingly at the door again. “Why would you let me go?”

  “Your treatment.”

  “My treatment?”

  “I’m the only one who can give it to you.”

  “The stuff that Red and Blue gave me.”

  “Who?”

  Dorie interrupted. “Chinkno and Knox. The jumpsuits they were wearing.”

  “Ah. Yes, they can give it to you too, if they have it around them.”

  “Why did you make me into you?” Brindos asked. “You’re fighting against the Union, but it’s something bigger.”

  “It’s a long story, Mr. Brindos.”