Cory Doctorow - Super Man and the Bug Out
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Cory Doctorow >> Super Man and the Bug Out
"Tell Mama," she said.
He sighed and finished the cake. "It's the new Minister. He won't give me my
pension unless I tell him my secret identity."
"So?" his mother said. "You're so ashamed of your parents, you'd rather starve
than tell the world that their bigshot hero is Hershie Abromowicz? I, for one
wouldn't mind -- finally, I could speak up when my girlfriends are going on
about their sons the lawyers."
"Mom!" he said, feeling all of eight years old. "I'm not ashamed and you know
it. But if the world knew who I was, well, who knows what kind of danger you'd
be in? I've made some powerful enemies, Mama."
"Enemies, shmenemies," she said, waving her hands. "Don't worry yourself on my
account. Don't make me the reason that you end up in the cold. I'm not helpless
you know. I have Mace."
Hershie thought of the battles he'd fought: the soldiers, the mercenaries, the
terrorists, the crooks and the super-crooks with their insane plots and
impractical apparati. His mother was as formidable as an elderly Jewish woman
with no grandchildren could be, but she was no match for automatic weapons. "I
can't do it, Mama. It wouldn't be responsible. Can we drop it?"
"Fine, we won't talk about it anymore. But a mother _worries_. You're sure you
don't need any money?"
He cast about desperately for a way to placate her. "I'm fine. I've got a
speaking engagement lined up."
#
There was a message waiting on his comm when he powered it back up. A message
from a relentlessly cheerful woman with a chirpy Texas accent, who identified
herself as the programming coordinator for DefenseFest 33. She hoped he would
return her call that night.
Hershie hovered in a dark cloud over the lake, the wind blowing his coat
straight back, holding the comm in his hand. He squinted through the clouds and
distance until he saw his apartment building, a row of windows lit up like
teeth, his darkened window a gap in the smile. He didn't mind the cold, it was
much colder in his fortress of solitude, but his apartment was more than warmth.
It was his own shabby, homey corner of the hideously expensive city. On the
flight from his mother's, he'd found an old-style fifty-dollar bill, folded
neatly and stuck in the breast pocket of his overcoat.
He returned the phone call.
#
The super wasn't happy about being roused from his sitcoms, but he grudgingly
allowed Hershie to squirt the rent money at his comm. He wanted to come up and
take the padlock, but Hershie talked him into turning over the key, promising to
return it in the morning.
His apartment was a little one-bedroom with a constant symphony of groaning
radiators. Every stick of furniture in it had been rescued from kerbsides while
Hershie flew his night patrols, saving chairs, sofas and even a scarred walnut
armoire from the trashman.
Hershie sat at the round formica table and commed Thomas.
"It's me," he said.
"What's up?"
He didn't want to beat around the bush. "I'm speaking at DefenseFest. Then I'm
going on tour, six months, speaking at military shows. It pays well. Very well."
Very, very well -- well enough that he wouldn't have to worry about his pension.
The US-based promoters had sorted his tax status out with the IRS, who would
happily exempt him, totally freeing him from entanglements with Revenue Canada.
The cheerful Texan had been _glad_ to do it.
He waited for Thomas's trademark stream of vitriol. It didn't come. Very
quietly, Thomas said, "I see."
"Thomas," he said, a note of pleading in his voice. "It's not my choice. If I
don't do this, I'll have to give Woolley my secret identity -- he won't give me
my pension without my Social Insurance Number."
"Or you could get a job," Thomas said, the familiar invective snarl creeping
back.
"I just told you, I can't give out my SIN!"
"So have your secret identity get a job. Wash dishes!"
"If I took a job," Hershie said, palms sweating, "I'd have to give up flying
patrols -- I'd have to stop fighting crime."
"_Fighting crime_?" Thomas's voice was remorseless. "What _crime_? The bugouts
are taking care of crime -- they're making plans to shut down the _police_!
Supe, you've been obsoleted."
"I know," Hershie said, self-pitying. "I know. That's why I got involved with
you in the first place -- I need to have a _purpose_. I'm the Super Man!"
"So your purpose is speaking to military shows? Telling the world that it still
needs its arsenals, even if the bugouts have made war obsolete? Great purpose,
Supe. Very noble."
He choked on a hopeless sob. "So what can I do, Thomas? I don't want to sell
out, but I've got to _eat_."
"Squeeze coal into diamonds?" he said. It was teasing, but not nasty teasing.
Hershie felt his tension slip: Thomas didn't hate him.
"Do you have any idea how big a piece of coal you have to start with to get even
a one-carat stone? Trust me -- someone would notice if entire coalfaces started
disappearing."
"Look, Supe, this is surmountable. You don't have to sell out. You said it
yourself, you're the Super Man -- you have responsibilities. You have duties.
You can't just sell out. Let's sleep on it, huh?"
Hershie was so very, very tired. It was always hardest on him when the Earth's
yellow sun was hidden; the moon was a paltry substitute for its rejuvenating
rays. "Let's do that," he said. "Thanks, Thomas."
#
DefenseFest 33 opened its doors on one of those incredibly bright March days
when the snow on the ground throws back lumens sufficient to shrink your pupils
to microdots. Despite the day's brightness, a bitterly cold wind scoured Front
Street and the Metro Convention Centre.
From a distance, Hershie watched demonstration muster out front of the Eaton
Centre, a few kilometers north, and march down to Front Street, along their
permit-proscribed route. The turnout was good, especially given the weather:
about 5,000 showed up with wooly scarves and placards that the wind kept
threatening to tear loose from their grasp.
The veterans marched out front, under a banner, in full uniform. Next came the
Quakers, who were of the same vintage as the veterans, but dressed like elderly
English professors. Next came three different Communist factions, who circulated
back and forth, trying to sell each other magazines. Finally, there came the
rabble: Thomas's group of harlequin-dressed anarchists; high-school students
with packsacks who industriously commed their browbeaten classmates who'd
elected to stay at their desks; "civilians" who'd seen a notice and come out,
and tried gamely to keep up with the chanting.
The chanting got louder as they neared the security cordon around the Convention
Centre. The different groups all mingled as they massed on the opposite side of
the barricades. The Quakers and the vets sang "Give Peace a Chance," while
Thomas and his cohort prowled around, distributing materiel to various trusted
individuals.
The students hollered abuse at the attendees who were trickling into the
Convention Centre in expensive overcoats, florid with expense-account breakfasts
and immaculately groomed.
Hershie's appearance silenced the crowd. He screamed in over the lake, banked
vertically up the side of the CN Tower, and plummeted downward. The
demonstrators set up a loud cheer as he skimmed the crowd, then fell silent and
aghast as he touched down on the _opposite_ side of the barricade, with the
convention-goers. A cop in riot-gear held the door for him and he stepped
inside. A groan went up from the protestors, and swelled into a wordless,
furious howl.
#
Hershie avoided the show's floor and headed for the green room. En route, he was
stopped by a Somali general who'd been acquitted by a War Crimes tribunal, but
only barely. The man greeted him like an old comrade and got his aide to snap a
photo of the two of them shaking hands.
The green room was crowded with coffee-slurping presenters who pecked furiously
at their comms, revising their slides. Hershie drew curious stares when he
entered, but by the time he'd gotten his Danish and coffee, everyone around him
was once again bent over their work, a field of balding cabbages anointed with
high-tech hair-care products.
Hershie's palms were slick, his alien hearts throbbing in counterpoint. His
cowlick wilted in the aggressive heat shimmering out of the vent behind his
sofa. He tried to keep himself calm, but by the time a gofer commed him and
squirted directions to the main ballroom, he was a wreck.
#
Hershie commed into the feed from the demonstration in time to see the Quakers
sit, en masse, along the barricade, hands intertwined, asses soaking in the
slush at the kerbside. The cops watched them impassively, and while they were
distracted, Thomas gave a signal to his crew, who hastily unreeled a
stories-high smartscreen, the gossamer fabric snapping taut in the wind as it
unfurled over the Convention Centre's facade.
The cops were suddenly alert, moving, but Thomas was careful to keep the screen
on his side of the barricade. Tina led a team of high-school students who spread
out a solar collector the size and consistency of a parachute. It glinted in the
harsh sun.
Szandor hastily cabled a projector/loudhailer apparatus to the collector.
Szandor's dog nipped at his heels as he steadied and focused the apparatus on
the screen, and Szandor plugged his comm into it and powered it up.
There was a staticky pop as the speakers came to life, loud enough to be heard
over the street noise. The powerful projector beamed its image onto the screen,
bright even in the midday glare.
There were hoots from the crowd as they recognised the feed: a live broadcast of
the keynote addresses in the Centre. The Patron Ik'Spir Pat's hoverchair
prominent. The camera lingered on the Patron's eyes, the only part of him
visible from within the chair's masking infrastructure. They were startling,
silvery orbs, heavy-lidded and expressionless.
The camera swung to Hershie. Szandor spat dramatically and led a chorus of
hisses.
Hershie hastily closed his comm and cleared his throat, adjusted his mic, and
addressed the crowd.
#
"Uh. . ." he said. His guts somersaulted. Time to go big or go home.
"Hi." That was better. "Thanks. I'm the Super Man. For years, I worked alongside
UN Peacekeeping forces around the world. I hoped I was doing good work. Most of
the time, I suppose I may have been."
He caught the eye of Brenda, the cheerful Texan who'd booked him in. She looked
uneasy.
"There's one thing I'm certain of, though: it's that the preparation for war has
never led to anything _but_ war. With this show, you ladies and gentlemen are
participating in a giant conspiracy to commit murder. Individually, you may not
be evil, but collectively, you're the most amoral supervillain I've ever faced."
Brenda was talking frantically into her comm. His mic died. He simply expanded
his mighty diaphragm and kept on speaking, his voice filling the ballroom.
"I urge you to put this behind you. We've entered into a new era in human
history. The good Patron here offers the entire Universe; you scurry around,
arranging the deaths of people you've never met.
"It's a terribly, stupid, mindless pursuit. You ought to be ashamed of
yourselves."
With that, Hershie stepped away from the podium and walked out of the ballroom.
#
The camera tracked him as he made his way back through the Convention Centre,
out the doors. He leapt the barricade and settled in front of the screen. The
demonstrators gave him a standing ovation, and Thomas gravely shook his hand.
The handshake was repeated on the giant screen behind them, courtesy of the
cameraman, who had gamely vaulted the barricade as well.
The crowd danced, hugged each other, laughed. Szandor's dog bit him on the ass,
and he nearly dropped the projector.
He recovered in time to nearly drop it again, as the Patron Ik'Spir Pat's
hoverchair glided out the Centre's doors and made a beeline for Hershie.
Hershie watched the car approach with nauseous dread. The Patron stopped a few
centimetres from him, so they were almost eyeball-to-eyeball. The hoverchair's
PA popped to life, and the Patron spoke, in the bugouts' thrilling contralto.
"Thank you for your contribution," the bugout said. "It was refreshing to have
another perspective presented."
Hershie tried for a heroic nod. "I'm glad you weren't offended."
"On the contrary, it was stimulating. I shall have to speak with the
conference's organisers; this format seems a good one for future engagements."
Hershie felt his expression slipping, sliding towards slack-jawed incredulity.
He struggled to hold it, then lost it entirely when one of the Patron's silvery
eyes drooped closed in an unmistakable wink.
#
"Hi, Mama."
"Hershie, I just saw it on the television."
He cringed back from his comm as he shrank deeper into the corner of the
Belquees that he'd moved to when his comm rang.
"Mama, it's all right. They've signed me for the full six months. I'll be fine
--"
"Of course you'll be fine, bubbie. But would it kill you to brush your hair
before you go on television in front of the whole world? Do you want everyone to
think your mother raised a slob?"
Hershie smiled. "I will, Mama."
"I know you will, bubbie. You're a very good-looking man, you know. But no one
wants to marry a man with messy hair."
"I know, Mama."
"Well, I won't keep you. Do you think you could come for dinner on Friday? I
know you're busy, but your old mother won't be here forever."
He sighed his father's sigh. "I'll be there, Mama."
--