Chapter 4

Crater Lake Industrial District, Incorporated Chicagoland, IL July 2, 2031

Lara Brighton would have been content to spend what she was thinking of as her last night on Earth in quiet contemplation. She wouldn't actually be leaving the planet tomorrow, but she expected to end the day on a military base held by an alien race and that was close enough.

She had poured herself a cup of tea and gone out to sit on the front porch when she noticed a line of cars coming up the road that led from the nearest industrial park. Without putting down her teacup or looking away from the road, she unhooked the clasp on her holster and ran one finger over her pistol's grip to make sure it could be quickly drawn.

She frowned as she counted the cars. There were five sets of headlights moving together towards her on the long, uneven road. They could be headed to one of the other squats that dotted the edge of the lake. They could be headed to the lake itself to gawk or swim. Most likely, they were coming for her.

When it became clear that the cars were coming right for her house, Lara put down her cup, drew her pistol and clicked off the safety. If five cars full of people were committed to making her life difficult, there wasn't much she'd be able to do about it, gun or no gun. Still, there were plenty of situations where one might make a difference.

When the cars pulled over on the road in front of her house, she rose to get a better look and to show that she wasn't taken unaware.

The first person she recognized was Janet Krakow. The sociology student raised her hands and called out, "Don't shoot me." She said it like it was a joke with an asinine grin on her face that only made the idea of putting a bullet between her eyes more tempting than it already was.

She looked past Janet and recognized the man behind her and the man behind him as well. In spite of herself, she holstered the gun and laughed, "God, did you guys come all the way from Berkeley to see me?"

"Yup," said Peter Romanov, associate professor of mathematics. He had a wolfish grin, "We made a road trip out of it."

"How did you find me?" Lara's smiles slipped a little. If her fellow professors could find her, the authorities might be able to as well.

Romanov placed a cooler on Lara's porch, "Remember how we cracked the Draft Dodger system last year, but couldn't think of anything to do with it?"

Lara remembered things differently. She'd come up with any number of suggestions for how to effectively use the system that the US government used to track down people who'd been drafted, but gone into hiding. They'd been good ideas. No one else had the stomach for them.

Even so, she reached up and stroked her left clavicle thoughtfully. The chip nearly every single person now had inserted there was too small to feel, but its presence was a constant reminder that humans were a conquered people.

"I didn't tell them anything," said Alice Perez. She placed a foil-covered tray of food on top of the cooler and kissed Lara on the cheek, "I swear."

Lara gave her a brief hug, "I didn't think you did, dear. You've always been faithful." She was gratified to see Janet look away, embarrassed. Alice had helped her hack her chip. It had turned out to be ridiculously easy to reset the chip to an earlier state. Naturally, not many people wanted to fraudulently claim that they had never taken and passed the exclusion test.

"So, this is where you decided to run off to," said John Lamott. He held out his arms as if to take in the whole squat, "It's a bit of a step down from our place on Le Conte."

Everyone fell silent at once, the joviality of the moment suddenly gone. The sudden tension made Lara hold her tongue. She would have been happy to cut her common-law husband to the quick, but these were her friends and colleagues of the past decade and they'd come a very long way.

"I like it," she said. "I fixed the place up, got the water running, and I'm leeching electricity off of the factory grid. It feels like it's really mine, except the part where I'm stealing from the Qiin."

That got more of a laugh than it deserved. People were grateful to have the tension broken. But, John was having none of it, "If Lake Michigan overflows its banks again, it'll be underwater."

"I was thinking of setting it on fire before I left anyway," said Lara airily. Everyone stared at her. Someone actually gasped. She couldn't help but grin, "Covering your tracks is basic strategy. I don't have any reason to believe anyone is suspicious of me. Eventually, if I do my job right, somebody will be. I can't guarantee I'm leaving the house clean, so I need to not leave it at all."

Alice looked stricken, "I still can't believe you're going through with this. It's so ... extreme."

Lara pursed her lips, "Extreme measures are called for." She looked around at the group, "I'm sure you didn't drive all this way to argue with me some more."

Edgar Hurst, who Lara considered her star pupil, held up another cooler, "No. We came here to give you a going-away party, Doctor Brighton."

She allowed herself a grin, "Well, there's a grill around back, by the pool."

"There's a pool?" asked Sreej Deivan, professor of engineering, walking past her into the side yard.

"It's covered up," she said, following him. "I didn't have time to get the pump working."

"No problem," called Sreej over his shoulder. "Give me twenty minutes. Do you have tools?"

Lara laughed, "Uh, yeah."

Sreej grinned like an imp, "Then give me ten minutes."

Lara sat in a pool chair watching her friends from Berkeley and wondering if tonight wouldn't be the last happy memory she ever had. She sipped a drink that Alice had optimistically called a "mai tai." It tasted like whoever mixed it had used some of the pure grain alcohol brewed in illegal stills by the chemistry department.

As promised, Sreej had gotten the pool filters running. In the time it had taken the pool to get clear, he and many of the others had drunk enough not to let their lack of swimsuits deter them from swimming. For most of them, it didn't take much alcohol. Any excuse to get naked was a good one.

To a casual observer, it might appear that the majority of them had driven all the way out here just to ignore her. Only one or two had actually done that. True, most of them were swimming or standing around in small knots, drinking and having private conversations, seeming to pay her no attention at all. Even so, she hadn't been alone for more than a few minutes at a time. People had come up to her all night in ones and twos to offer moral support or advice. A couple even gave material help.

"Could we take a walk?" Alice asked, looking around. She'd kept on all of her clothes, "I have to tell you something only John and I know."

Lara felt her shoulders tighten at the mention of her husband's name. She hadn't expected it from Alice, even though the younger woman had shared his bed for a while. She rose from the chair, "Come on. I know a path with a nice view."

The path was steep and dark at first, littered with rocks and branches. Lara took Alice's hand to guide her up. The path exited the tree line up on the edge of the crater. Lara could see all the way to Lake Michigan. The full moon seemed huge on the surface of the water.

Alice gave a little gasp at the sight and pressed herself into Lara's side. Lara looked down into the other woman's light blue eyes and felt a frisson run down her spine. She'd always been aware of Alice's affection for her, but realized only now that it went deeper than she'd thought.

She winced, "Alice, I..."

Alice shook her head, "I'm sorry, Lara. I know you don't ... I know you're not interested in me. I didn't mean to bring anything up now." She looked out across the waters, "It's just beautiful up here. Is that horrible? I know Chicago's just under the surface, but..."

Lara smiled, "I know what you mean. I've been coming up here a lot since I left Berkeley. It's very peaceful." She held out her free arm and drew Alice against her, "I didn't know you had feelings for me, Ally. You had plenty of chances to tell me sooner. I just thought you were one of John's girls."

Alice laid her head on Lara's shoulder, "I don't think I knew until you went away. You're so ... brave. I could never do what you're doing." She tilted her head back, "I still don't understand why you're doing it. I know what you said, but it still doesn't make sense."

Lara looked out over the water, "That's because I haven't explained all of it. I don't think any of you are ready to hear it."

"I might surprise you," said Alice. She grinned, "I have unrealized intellectual depth, you know."

"I do, actually," said Lara. "Even beyond your work in your field, I've always thought you had a good head on your shoulders. But intellect is part of the problem here."

"I don't understand."

Lara looked out across the water, "Everyone I knew in the first fifteen years of my life died out there. They left me completely alone in the world. The Qiin destroyed Chicago to punish the US government. I lived as a refugee for three years after that. I did a lot better than some. I'd volunteered as a candy striper and was able to get a place with the Red Cross volunteers, but it was still miserable." She let go of Alice and stepped a few paces away, "I can't count the number of nights that the only thing keeping me going was my hatred for the Qiin and the knowledge that I'd never get to strike back at them if I were dead."

"But, you have been striking back at them," protested Alice. "Your work..."

"My work is helping others hurt them," Lara shook her head. "I'm not the one doing it. This group ... you are my dearest friends in the world and the closest thing I have to a family, but you're fighting against the war as a matter of philosophy and treat the cracking of Qiin tech as the world's greatest game. Half of them are merry pranksters. If the Qiin hadn't come, they'd be using their brains to make trouble for whoever was in power. That's not who I am."