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!"