Super Man and the Bug Out | Page 6

table.
"Geez, how many people did you invite?"
Tina, a tiny Chinese woman who could rhyme "Hey hey, ho ho" and
"One, two, three, four" with amazing facility said, "Everyone's here.
The Quakers, the commies, a couple of councilors, the vets, anyone we
could think of. This is gonna be huge."
The food hot, and the different curries and salads were a symphony of
flavours and textures. "This is terrific," he said.
"Best Ethiopian outside of Addis Ababa," said Thomas.

Better than Addis Ababa, Hershie thought, but didn't say it. He'd been
in Addis Ababa as the secret weapon behind Canada's third and most
ill-fated peacekeeping mission there. There hadn't been a lot of
restaurants open then, just block after block of bombed-out buildings,
and tribal warlords driving around in tacticals, firing randomly at
anything that moved. The ground CO sent him off to scatter bands of
marauders while the bullets spanged off his chest. He'd never
understood the tactical significance of those actions -- still didn't -- but
at the time, he'd been willing to trust those in authority.
"Good food," he said.
#
An hour later, the pretty waitress had cleared away the platters and
brought fresh pitchers, and Hershie's tights felt a little tighter. One of
the Quakers, an ancient, skinny man with thin grey hair and sharp,
clever features stood up and tapped his beer-mug. Gradually,
conversation subsided.
"Thank you," he said. "My name is Stewart Pocock, and I'm here from
the Circle of Friends. I'd like us all to take a moment to say a silent
thanks for the wonderful food we've all enjoyed."
There was a nervous shuffling, and then a general bowing of heads and
mostly silence, broken by low whispers.
"Thomas, I thought you called this meeting," Hershie whispered.
"I did. These guys always do this. Control freaks. Don't worry about it,"
he whispered back.
"Thank you all. We took the liberty of drawing up an agenda for this
meeting."
"They always do this," Thomas said.
The Quakers led them in a round of introductions, which came around

to Hershie. "I'm, uh, The Super Man. I guess most of you know that,
right?" Silence. "I'm really looking forward to working on this with you
all." A moment of silence followed, before the next table started in on
its own introductions.
#
"Time," Louise Pocock said. Blissfully. At last. The agenda had ticks
next to INTRODUCTION, BACKGROUND, STRATEGY, THE DAY,
SUPPORT AND ORGANISING and PUBLICITY. Thomas had hardly
spoken a word through the course of the meeting. Even Hershie's alien
buttocks were numb from sitting.
"It's time for the closing circle. Please, everybody, stand up and hold
hands." Many of the assembled didn't bother to stifle their groans.
Awkwardly, around the tables and the knapsacks, they formed a rough
circle and took hands. They held it for an long, painful moment, then
gratefully let go.
They worked their way upstairs and outside. The wind had picked up,
and it blew Hershie's cape out on a crackling vertical behind him, so
that it caught many of the others in the face as they cycled or walked
away.
"Supe, let's you and me grab a coffee, huh?" Thomas said, without any
spin on it at all, so that Hershie knew that it wasn't a casual request.
"Yeah, sure."
#
The cafe Thomas chose was in a renovated bank, and there was a
private room in the old vault, and they sat down there, away from
prying eyes and autograph hounds.
"So, you pumped?" Thomas said, after they ordered coffees.
"After that meeting? Yeah, sure."

Thomas laughed, a slightly patronising but friendly laugh. "That was a
great meeting. Look, if those guys had their way, we'd have about a
march a month, and we'd walk slowly down a route that we had a
permit for, politely asking people to see our point of view. And in
between, we'd have a million meetings like this, where we come up
with brilliant ideas like, 'Let's hand out fliers next time.'
"So what we do is, go along with them. Give them enough rope to hang
themselves. Let 'em have four or five of those, until everyone who
shows up is so bored, they'll do anything, as long as its not that.
"So, these guys want to stage a sit-in in front of the convention centre.
Bo-ring! We wait until they're ready to sit down, then we start playing
music and turn it into a dance-in. Start playing movies on the side of
the building. Bring in a hundred secret agents in costume to add to it.
They'll never know what hit 'em."
Hershie squirmed. These kinds of Machiavellian shenanigans came
slowly to him. "That seems kind of, well, disingenuous, Thomas. Why
don't we just hold our own march?"
"And split the