Super Man and the Bug Out Part 2

Hers.h.i.+e stared. "What do you think you're doing?" he said, after a measured silence.

The cop took a step back and slipped a little on the ice before catching himself on his cruiser.

"Since when do you kick unarmed civilians in the back?"

"He -- he ran away. I had to catch him. I wanted to teach him not to run."

"By inspiring his trust in the evenhandedness of Toronto's Finest?" Hers.h.i.+e could see the cooling tracks of the cruiser, skidding and weaving through the projects. The kid had put up a good chase. Behind him, he heard the kid regain his feet and start running. The cop started forward, but Hers.h.i.+e stopped him with one finger, dead centre in the flak jacket.

"You can't let him get away!"

"I can catch him. Trust me. But first, we're going to wait for your backup to arrive, and I'm going to file a report."

A _Sun_ reporter arrived before the backup unit. Hers.h.i.+e maintained stony silence in the face of his questions, but he couldn't stop the man from listening in on his conversation with the old constable who showed up a few minutes later, as he filed his report. He found the kid a few blocks away, huddled in an alley, hand pressed to the small of his back. He took him to Mount Sinai's emerg and turned him over to a uniformed cop.

The hysterical _Sun_ headlines that vilified Hers.h.i.+e for interfering with the cop sparked a round of recriminating voicemails from his mother, filled with promises to give him such a _zetz_ in the head when she next saw him. He folded his tights and cape and stuffed them in the back of his closet and spent a lot of time in the park for the next few weeks. He liked to watch the kids playing, a United Nations in miniature, parents looking on amiably, stymied by the language barrier that their kids hurdled with ease.

On March first, he took his tights out of the overstuffed hall closet and flew to Ottawa to collect his pension.

He touched down on the Parliament Hill and was instantly surrounded by high-booted RCMP constables, looking slightly panicky. He held his hands up, startled. "What gives, guys?"

"Sorry, sir," one said. "High security today. One of Them is speaking in Parliament."

"Them?"

"The bugouts. Came down to have a chat about neighbourly relations. Authorised personnel only today."

"Well, that's me," Hers.h.i.+e said, and started past him.

The constable, looking extremely unhappy, moved to block him. "I'm sorry sir, but that's not you. Only people on the list. My orders, I'm afraid."

Hers.h.i.+e looked into the man's face and thought about hurtling skywards and flying straight into the building. The man was only doing his job, though.

"Look, it's payday. I have to go see the Minister of Defense. I've been doing it every month for _years_."

"I know that sir, but today is a special day. Perhaps you could return tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? My rent is due _today_, Sergeant. Look, what if I comm his office?"

"Please, sir, that would be fine." The Sergeant looked relieved.

Hers.h.i.+e hit a speed dial and waited. A recorded voice told him that the office was closed, the Minister at a special session.

"He's in session. Look, it's probably on his desk -- I've been coming here for years; really, this is ridiculous."

"I'm sorry. I have my orders."

"I don't think you could stop me, Sergeant."

The Sergeant and his troops shuffled their feet. "You're probably right, sir.

But orders are orders."

"You know, Sergeant, I retired a full colonel from the Armed Forces. I _could_ order you to let me past."

"Sorry sir, no. Different chain of command."

Hers.h.i.+e controlled his frustration with an effort of will. "Fine then. I'll be back tomorrow."

The building super wasn't pleased about the late rent. He threatened Hers.h.i.+e with eviction, told him he was in violation of the lease, quoted the relevant sections of the Tenant Protection Act from memory, then grudgingly gave in to Hers.h.i.+e's pleas. Hers.h.i.+e had half a mind to put his costume on and let the man see what a _real_ super was like.

But his secret ident.i.ty was sacrosanct. Even in the era of Pax Aliena, the Super Man had lots of enemies, all of whom had figured out, long before, that even the invulnerable have weaknesses: their friends and families. It terrified him to think of what a bitter, obsolete, grudge-bearing terrorist might do to his mother, to Thomas, or even his old high-school girlfriends.

For his part, Thomas refused to acknowledge the risk; he'd was more worried about the Powers That Be than mythical terrorists.

The papers the next day were full of the overnight cabinet shuffle in Ottawa.

More than half the cabinet had been relegated to the back-benches, and many of their portfolios had been eliminated or amalgamated into the new "superportfolios:" Domestic Affairs, Trade, and Extraterrestrial Affairs.

The old Minister of Defense, who'd once had Hers.h.i.+e over for Thanksgiving dinner, was banished to the lowest h.e.l.l of the back-bench. His portfolio had been subsumed into Extraterrestrial Affairs, and the new Minister, a young up-and-comer named Woolley, wasn't taking Hers.h.i.+e's calls. Hers.h.i.+e called Thomas to see if he could loan him rent money.

Thomas laughed. "Chickens coming home to roost, huh?" he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hers.h.i.+e said, hotly.

"Well, there's only so much s.h.i.+t-disturbing you can do before someone sits up and takes notice. The Belquees is probably bugged, or maybe one of the commies is an informer. Either way, you're screwed. Especially with Woolley."

"Why, what's wrong with Woolley?" Hers.h.i.+e had met him in pa.s.sing at Prime Minister's Office affairs, a well-dressed twenty-nine-year-old. He'd seemed like a nice enough guy.

"What's _wrong_ with him?" Thomas nearly screamed. "He's the fricken _antichrist_! He was the one that came up with the idea of selling advertising on squeegee kids' t-s.h.i.+rts! He's heavily supported by private security outfits -- he makes Darth Vader look like a swell guy. That slicked-down, blow-dried a.s.shole --"

Hers.h.i.+e cut him off. "OK, OK, I get the idea."

"No you don't, Supe! You don't get the half of it. This guy isn't your average Liberal -- those guys usually basic opportunists. He's a _zealot_! He'd like to beat us with _truncheons_! I went to one of his debates, and he showed up with a _baseball bat_! He tried to _hit me_ with it!"

"What were you doing at the time?"

"What does it matter? Violence is never an acceptable response. I've thrown pies at better men than him --"

Hers.h.i.+e grinned. Thomas hadn't invented pieing, but his contributions to the art were seminal. "Thomas, the man is a federal Minister, with obligations. He can't just write me off -- he'll have to pay me."

"Sure, sure," Thomas crooned. "Of _course_ he will -- who ever heard of a politician abusing his office to advance his agenda? I don't know what I was thinking. I apologise."

Hers.h.i.+e touched down on Parliament Hill, heart racing. Thomas's warning echoed in his head. His memories of Woolley were already morphing, so that the slick, neat kid became feral, predatory. The Hill was marshy and cold and gray, and as he squelched up to the main security desk, he felt a cold ooze of mud infiltrate its way into his super-bootie. There was a new RCMP constable on duty, a turbanned Sikh. Normally, he felt awkward around the Sikhs in the Mounties. He imagined that their lack of cultural context made his tights and emblem seem absurd, that they evoked grins beneath the Sikhs' fierce moustaches. But today, he was glad the man was a Sikh, another foreigner with an uneasy berth in the Canadian military-industrial complex. The Sikh was expressionless as Hers.h.i.+e squirted his clearances from his comm to the security desk's transceiver.

Imperturbably, the Sikh squirted back directions to Woolley's new office, just a short jaunt from the exalted heights of the Prime Minister's Office.