"Cory Doctorow - The Super Man and Bugout" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dodd Christina)

"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."



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"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.

#