"I phrased that badly. What I mean to say is, this is a new Cabinet, a new
Ministry. It has its own modus operandi."
"How can it have its own modus operandi when it was only created last night?"
Hershie said, hating the petulance in his voice.
"Oh, I like to keep lots of contingency plans on hand -- the time to plan for
major changes is far in advance. Otherwise, you end up running around trying to
get office furniture and telephones installed when you need to be seizing
opportunity."
It struck Hershie how _finished_ the office was -- the staff, the systems, the
security. He imagined Woolley hearing the news of his appointment and calling up
files containing schematics, purchase orders, staff requisitions. It wasn't
exactly devious, but it certainly teetered on the meridian separating _planning_
and _plotting_.
"Well, you certainly seem to have everything in order."
"I've been giving some thought to your payment arrangement. Did you know that
there's a whole body of policy relating to your pension?"
Hershie nodded, not liking where this was going.
"Well, that's just not sensible," Woolley said, sensibly. "The Canadian
government already has its own pension apparatus: we make millions of
direct-deposits every day, for welfare, pensions, employment insurance, mothers'
allowance. We're up to our armpits in payment infrastructure. And having you fly
up to Ottawa every month, well, it's ridiculous. This is the twenty-first
century -- we have better ways of moving money around.
"I've been giving it some thought, and I've come up with a solution that should
make everything easier for everyone. I'm going to transfer your pension to the
Canada Pension Plan offices; they'll make a monthly deposit directly to your
account. I've got the paperwork all filled out here; all you need to do is fill
in your banking information and your Social Insurance Number."
"But I don't have a Social Insurance Number or a bank account," Hershie said. Of
course, Hershie Abromowicz had both, but the Super Man didn't.
"How do you pay taxes, then?" Woolley had a dangerous smile.
"Well, I --" Hershie stammered. "I don't! I'm tax-exempt! I've never had to pay
taxes or get a bank account -- I just take my cheques to the Canadian Union of
Public Employees' Credit Union and they cash them for me. It's the
_arrangement_."
Woolley shook his head. "Who told you you were tax-exempt?" he asked,
wonderingly. "_No one_ is tax-exempt, except Status Indians. As to not having a
bank account, well, you can open an account at the CUPE Credit Union and we'll
make the deposits there. But not until this tax status matter is cleared up.
You'll have to talk to Revenue Canada about getting a SIN, and get that
information to Canada Pensions."
"I _pay taxes_! Through my secret identity."
"But does this. . ." he made quote marks with his fingers, "_secret identity_
declare your pension income?"
"Of course I don't! I have to keep my secret identity a _secret_!" His voice was
shrill in his own ears. "It's a _secret identity_. I served in the Forces as the
Super Man, so I get paid as the Super Man. Tax exempt, no bank accounts, no SIN.
Just a cheque, every month."
Woolley leaned back and clasped his hands in his lap. "I know that's how it used
to be, but what I'm trying to tell you today is that arrangement, however
longstanding, however well-intentioned, wasn't proper -- or even _legal_. It had
to end some time. You're retired now -- you don't need your _secret identity,_"
again with the finger-quotes. "If you already have a SIN, you can just give it
to me, along with your secret identity's bank information, and we can have your
pension processed in a week or two."
"_A week or two_?" Hershie bellowed. "I need to pay my _rent_! That's not how it
works!"
Woolley stood, abruptly. "No sir, that _is_ how it works. I'm trying to be
reasonable. I'm trying to expedite things for you during this time of
transition. But you need to meet me halfway. If you could give me your SIN and
account information right now, I could speed things up considerably, I'm sure.
I'm willing to make that effort, even though things are very busy here."
Hershie toyed with the idea of demolishing the man's office, turning his lovely
furniture into molten nacho topping, and finishing up by leaving the man
dangling by his suit from the CN Tower's needle. But his mother would kill him.
"I can't give you my secret identity," Hershie said, pleadingly. "It's a matter
of national security. I just need enough to pay my rent."
Woolley stared at the ceiling for a long, long time. "There is one thing," he
said.
"Yes?" Hershie said, hating himself for the note of hope in his voice.
"The people at DefenseFest 33 called my office yesterday, to see if I'd appear
as a guest speaker with the Patron Ik'Spir Pat. I had to turn them down, of
course -- I'm far too busy right now. But I'm sure they'd be happy to have a
veteran of your reputation in that slot, and it carries a substantial
honorarium. I could call them for you and give them your comm. . .?"
Hershie thought of Thomas, and of the rent, and of his mother, and of all the
people at the Belquees who'd stared mistrustfully at him. "Have them call me,"
he sighed. "I'll talk to them."
He got to his feet, the toe of his boot squelching out more dirt pudding.
#
"Hershie?"
"Yes, Mama?" She'd caught him on the way home, flying high over the fleabag
motels on the old Highway 2.
"It's Friday," she said.
Right. Friday. He told her he'd come for dinner, and that meant getting there
before sunset. "I'll be there," he said.
"Oh, it's not important. It's just me. Don't hurry on my account -- after all,
you'll have thousands of Shabbas dinners with your mother. I'll live forever."
"I said I'll be there."
"And don't wear that costume," she said. She hated the costume. When the
Department of Defense had issued it to him, she'd wanted to know why they were
sending her boy into combat wearing red satin panties.
"I'll change."
"That's a good boy," she said. "I'm making brisket."
#
By the time he touched down on the roof of his building, he knew he'd be late
for dinner. He skimmed down the elevator shaft to the tenth floor and ducked out
to his apartment, only to find the door padlocked. There was a note from the
building super tacked to the peeling green paint. Among other things, it quoted
the codicil from the Tenant Protection Act that allowed the super to padlock the
door and forbade Hershie, on penalty of law, from doing anything about it.
Hershie's super-hearing picked up the sound of a door opening down the hallway.
In a blur, he flew up to the ceiling and hovered there, pressing himself flat on
the acoustic tile. One of his neighbours, that guy with the bohemian attitude
who always seemed to be laughing at poor, nebbishy Hershie Abromowicz, made his
way down the hall. He paused directly below Hershie's still, hovering form,
reading the note on the door while he adjusted the collar of his ski-vest. He
smirked at the note and got in the elevator.
Hershie let himself float to the ground, his cheeks burning.
Damn it, he didn't have _time_ for this. Not for any of it. He considered the
padlock for a moment, then snapped the hasp with his thumb and index finger.
Moving through the apartment with superhuman speed, he changed into a pair of
nice slacks, a cable-knit sweater his mother had given him for his last
birthday, a tweedy jacket and a woolen overcoat. Opening a window, he took
flight.
#
"Thomas, I _really_ can't talk right now," he said. His mother was angrily
drumming her rings on the table's edge. Abruptly, she grabbed the bowl of
cooling soup from his place setting and carried it into the kitchen. She hadn't
done this since he was a kid, but it still inspired the same panicky dread in
him -- if he wasn't going to eat his dinner, she wasn't going to leave it.
"Supe, we _have_ to talk about this. I mean, DefenseFest is only a week away.
We've got things to do!"
"Look, about DefenseFest. . ."
"Yes?" Thomas had a wary note in his voice.
Hershie's mother reappeared with a plate laden with brisket, tsimmis, and kasha.
She set it down in front of him.
"We'll talk later, OK?" Hershie said.
"But what about DefenseFest?"
"It's complicated," Hershie began. His mother scooped up the plate of brisket
and headed back to the kitchen. She was muttering furiously. "I have to go," he
said and closed his comm.
Hershie chased his mother and snatched the plate from her as she held it
dramatically over the sink disposal. He held up his comm with the other hand and
made a show of powering it down.
"It's off, Mama. Please, come and eat."
#
"I've been thinking of selling the house," she said, as they tucked into slices
of lemon pound-cake.
Hershie put down his fork. "Sell the house?" While his father hadn't exactly
_built_ the house with his own hands, he had sold his guts out at his discount
menswear store to pay for it. His mother had decorated it, but his father's
essence still haunted the corners. "Why would you sell the house?"
"Oh, it's too big, Hershie. I'm just one old lady, and it's not like there're
any grandchildren to come and stay. I could buy a condo in Florida, and there'd
be plenty left over for you."
"I don't need any money, Mama. I've got my pension."
She covered his hands with hers. "Of course you do, bubbie. But fixed incomes
are for old men. You're young, you need a nest egg, something to start a family
with." Her sharp eyes, sunk into motherly pillows of soft flesh, bored into him.
He tried to keep his gaze light and carefree. "You've got money problems?" she
said, at length.
Hershie scooped up a forkful of pound-cake and shook his head. His mother's
powers of perception bordered on clairvoyance, and he didn't trust himself to
speak the lie outright. He looked around the dining room, furnished with faux
chinoise screens, oriental rugs, angular art-glass chandeliers.
"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."