There was something unsettling about the eastern loop of the east/west route, Nita decided. She couldn't put her finger on it, but it didn't feel right as compared to the rest of the route. Maybe it was simply because it was a loop, since Ottawa had priority over everything and everyone. Vancouver, so close to Seattle, was the only other city that had even half as high a priority. Maybe it was the government; American expatriate, Nita had inherited a deep distrust of all things that came from a nation's capital. It didn't really matter; she'd been driving the route for almost seven years now, and she was used to both the area and the uncomfortable feeling. She had a job to do, and that was all there was to it. The Ottawa interceptors were starting to crack under the strain, so they needed replacement parts from the depot at SkyDome. After that, Vancouver would call, and she'd be off across the country again, in a familiar rhythm almost like the blood in her veins.

When she brought the truck in at Ottawa, a surprisingly familiar face greeted her. "May! What in hell are you doing here?" Nita asked, pleasantly surprised. "Thought you had a practice down in the States. Finally had enough of that ghetto shit and decided to come up?"

"Nah, just on a homestand with the team. Just my luck, the guy they called up from Single-A has his wisdom teeth coming in. Serves a double purpose, though. You've heard about everything, of course. The war is on." May's blue eyes were fever-bright, her face flushed. "And there are some folks who might not have heard about it yet. You have to go to Green Mountain."

"Isn't that just Vermont? I had to learn French to get government work, you know."

May shook her head. "It's named after that, but it isn't. It's a militant hideout. It's on the American side, but it's in range of some of the interceptors, and they don't let any media in there anyway. Once a month they send someone out to get the paper from both sides of the border, or so I've been told. By the time they hear about this, it'll be too late. Someone has to tell them. I can't go back. I almost went, and so did Reggie, but we loved each other more than we loved rebellion, and the Green Mountain folks don't hold with that. They're the ones who were too pissed off to run. They think we're cowards. They say New York and Canada are just hiding places for pussies. But they'll fight hard and to the bitter end. They've made themselves hard to find so the locals don't get wind of their existence, but I know how to find them."

"Why me?"

"Because they'll know you as one of their own, or at least someone they can deal with. I know some of them thought *my* hair was too long." Nita raised an eyebrow at this, glancing at May's barely chin-length brown hair. "Seriously, Mac, it has to be you. Dana may know the area, but there's a warrant out for her just for breathing, and she's too straight anyway. You're the only one tough enough to pass muster, and even then you're gonna need a little help."

Nita rolled her eyes. "And what about my route? I gotta get to Vancouver after I stop in at Toronto, and you know how thin the margin for error is there. We can't lose that port."

"I arranged for a relief driver to take your truck. You can take her car." May flashed a triumphant smile at Nita's cursing. "The directions are in the glove compartment, but in case you get lost, just keep going up. They'll ask you three questions when you approach their borders, and believe me, you don't want to give them the wrong answers, so here are the right ones: truth, justice, and liberty. They might expect freedom instead of liberty, but you gotta say liberty. That's the answer that'll get you to the woman in charge. If she asks who sent you, tell her it was me, and tell her where I'm working. You gotta hit all her buttons, else you'll get nothing out of her, but don't hit the wrong buttons or she's likely to kill you before you can blink. But they're itchin' for a fight up there, and all you need to do is tell 'em to get up here for mobilization. They can deal with that."

"I may look dumb, but I ain't, and you oughta know that better than anyone, May Kensen. Give me one good reason to go somewhere I ain't welcome and deal with crazies so hardcore they think I'm a pussy."

May named a reason. Actually, she named several thousand. Nita knew then and there that she had been cornered. Freebird Trucking lived on the edge whenever they couldn't get non-resistance contracts, and those had been hard to come by in the last two months. The payment May was offering would get them well out of trouble and provide a month's worth of cushion before things got tight again. She would have refused for herself, but not for the rest of her crew. "You got me and you know it. But believe you me, you or whoever you're representing owe me bigtime for this. If these crazies take my head off because they don't like my face, you gotta take care of Marie, can you promise me that much?"

"I promise," May said solemnly, and the concern on ther face told Nita just how dangerous this job was. But Nita McKenzie had never been a woman to back down from a challenge, and this was no time to start.

"So where's this new set of wheels you want me to take on for the good of all mankind, or whatever shit you feel like feeding me? Lead the way. The sooner I get this shit over with, the sooner I can get back to my pretty lady."

Vermont had once been a den for eccentrics of what might be considered a left bent. Some of them had almost certainly been into meditation, and that particular spirit infused Nita as she followed the directions that May had left for her. None of them would have approved of the form of her mantra, though.

"When I get off this fucking mountain, I'm gonna kick May Kensen's skinny ass from sea to shining fucking sea for putting me up to this. When I get off this fucking mountain, I'm gonna make May fucking Kensen wish she'd never been born. When I get off this fucking mountain, I'm gonna fucking kill May fucking Kensen. When I get off this fucking mountain…"

The Japanese hybrid that so sluggishly responded to Nita's less verbal commands might have agreed with her. It was not handling the altitude well, nor did its slightly unhinged doors and loose antenna appreciate the wind whistling around the mountain. Nita had had a bad feeling about that car from the moment she laid eyes on it, although that might simply have been because she thought there was no way on earth that she was going to fit her six-two frame in it. With the seat pushed all the way back, it was possible, but it was a close and uncomfortable fit that caused her to wham her head against the roof of the car on particularly hard potholes and other bumps- which, since she and the car were on a rarely used mountain road, were coming fast and furious, leaving Nita with a pounding headache that even her mantra could not soothe.

She kept up a running dialogue, even though she was aware that this was a good sign that whatever sanity she had left was bailing out on her. "Swear to God, if we go much further up this fucking mountain, the help I'm gonna be bringing back down is the heavenly fucking host. I'm getting to the point where I don't fucking care who's up here, or if they can win us the war, I am really sick of climbing this fucking mountain- holy fucking shit on a popsicle stick!" Breaking off her rant to the car, she slammed down on the brakes just in time to avoid crashing into the barricade on the road. "Guess I found 'em."

Indeed, two figures in faded green camouflage approached the car from opposite sides, guns drawn. They were big guns. Nita was impressed. Both figures were shorthaired, hard-faced, and spare-bodied; it took Nita a very long moment to realize that one was male and one female. The only way she ended up being able to judge was the deep voice of the man who asked her, "You know what you're doing here, little girl?"

"Fuck you, you fucking fuck," Nita replied, being in no mood to hear anything like that from anyone.

The man looked over the car at his female companion. "At least she's got the right attitude."

She ignored him. "What do we have that they don't?" she asked Nita, and something in her tone cued Nita to remember the coaching May had given her back in Ottawa.

"Truth," Nita said wryly, remembering years of advertising campaigns founded on lies sold to lonely men.

"What do we need?" the man asked in turn.

"Justice." Nita's voice here was like steel, thinking of the flight to Canada that Angie hadn't taken because of the blood that called for blood.

"What will you fight for?"

"Liberty," Nita replied, not letting her fear show in her confident voice. This would be the test, the variation; if they were as inflexible as they looked, she was a dead woman and her lovely Marie would be entrusted to the care of strangers.

But the guards were exchanging looks, and neither of them seemed inclined to mow her down then and there, which she considered rather promising. "She's hardcore," the woman finally said, and Nita was amazed at the awe she heard in the woman's voice. The man seemed slightly less impressed, although Nita had never been good at interpreting male body language. Still, he was the one who ordered her to park the car at the barricade and follow him on foot.

She had expected Green Mountain to look like a small town, maybe with a few gay pride flags flying instead of the Stars and Stripes. Instead, it had the look of a military camp, nothing unnecessary and nothing out of place. One large, terraced, strip of land was set aside for farming, while another field was pasture for a small herd of cattle. Long, grim twin buildings were, according to her close-mouthed guide, men's and women's barracks. Nearby was something with the look of a general store, but it had none of the charm Nita had grown up to expect in such a place. The paths that connected buildings were packed dirt, worn into place by a daily parade of feet, bordered by stray stones that looked to have been pulled from the field. Most important to Nita's mission, there were several large weapon caches, some of them with very large weapons; she wasn't sure she wanted to know how they'd gotten the tank up there, although she figured that it would have to be an interesting story. At a conservative estimate, there were two guns for every person in the group. For the first time, she cracked a smile. Maybe this trip would do some good after all.

The unfriendly local guide led her to a small outbuilding near the largest of the caches. "New recruit, Commander," the man called out. "She knows the codeword to talk to you."

"Send her in," a crisp female voice ordered from the interior. The woman sounded… not impatient, because there was too much iron discipline in that voice, but as if she had better things to do and wanted to be doing them. Nita swallowed but showed no fear as she entered the starkly lit building. Her hand hovered over her tranq gun, and the weapon's presence lent her a sense of security that she wasn't used to experiencing with it.

When she navigated the twisting, narrow maze of corridor and entered the office, its occupant was waiting for her. At six-two, Nita was used to being the tallest person in the room, and certainly the tallest woman, but the angular person on the other side of the desk towered over her, although her ramrod-straight posture and Nita's habitual slouch helped matters. Nita's first reaction was that this was an Amazon, not those writers with the great porn; then a card flipped in her memory, bringing forth a factoid from a forgotten mythology class: Valkyrie, woman warrior, bearer of the dead. The woman's hair was buzzed so short that Nita couldn't tell what color it was, and her gray eyes were like stone in her harsh face. She seemed familiar, although it might have been because Nita expected to have, at some point in her life, crossed paths with every woman six feet or taller, and more than a few of the shorter ones. For some reason, she couldn't shake the sense that the dull green camouflage that the woman wore was the right color, just the wrong shade; it needed to be brighter, maybe dashed with blue.

"Juanita McKenzie. I always thought you'd end up here, even after you wussed out with the rest of Charlotte. You always struck me as too proud to run and too angry to hide."

"I go by Nita," Nita said, irked at the woman's casual use of her full name. "Ain't no one calls me Juanita, especially when they haven't gotten around to telling me who the hell they are and what their name is."

"You should have been paying closer attention to the pros instead of pouting on the bench because you whined about playing time. You might have learned something useful."

"I did watch the Lynx. More than most people can…" Nita paused, and recognition dawned. "Ingrid Nilssen. You did that interview with the magazine and tore the New York management a new asshole I heard they needed."

The woman offered a half-smile, or at least that was what Nita would have called the expression on a sane person's face. "I don't go by my father's name anymore. I'm no piece of property and I belong to no man. You may call me Ingrid Throdsdatter, if you call me something other than Ingrid."

Nita carefully filed that away with the other pieces of evidence that Ingrid had a few screws loose and more were falling out even as she spoke. "Ingrid, I'm not here to join you. I got a girl at home I gotta take care of. May Kensen sent me- she told me to tell you she's workin' with that Ottawa minor league team, what the fuck was their name? Oh. Duh. The Lynx."

Ingrid managed not to sneer. "And what does Reggie's wife have to say to me?" she asked, disdain for love and marriage dripping from every syllable.

"That if it wasn't too much trouble for you, we wouldn't mind you joining us for the throwdown with the US government and whatever forces they got. Phillippe Bouchard's got thousands of troops ready on his side of the border, which I saw myself since I work outta that base, and I hear there are millions of rebels ready in New York, people who broke out and are pissed as hell that they were under."

"You mean pissed at their own weakness for being slaves for ten years. At least they had a choice- they just didn't take it until now. They have no right to be angry with anyone except themselves. Why do you think I founded Green Mountain? I know the difference between biding my time and running away like a coward."

"I lost teammates, good people. I lost my best friend, and you know there was hope for her if she woulda hung out with me, no matter what she thought of me. Don’t you ever call me a fucking coward- you have no right!" She couldn't remember the last time she'd been this angry, this ready to haul off and punch someone in the face the way everyone expected her to do at any moment. She could feel her face burning, her heart beating faster, her teeth grinding together, all the symptoms of blinding rage. Just before Ingrid spoke, Nita did remember, and her mood swung from fury to grief in a moment, because the last time had been when she heard about Lindseyville and all that it implied.

"Teammates. Friends," Ingrid sneered. "I lost my little sisters to that bitch, and one of them I lost because she followed me and because they couldn't have me. They took her instead, and they turned her into a monster. You pride yourself on paying attention. Tell me, how much attention were you paying in the 2004 tournament? Do you remember Mela Rose's last game? Or Alicia Morrison's first tourney?" Her voice had softened almost imperceptibly as she spoke of Mela and Alicia, and for a moment she seemed almost normal. But the moment passed, and so did the emotion; once again, she was cold as ice, the only feeling visible in her pure rage. "I hold myself responsible for them because I couldn't protect them and I couldn't avenge them."

Nita knew that she might live to regret this if she lived through the day, but she couldn't resist needling Ingrid and her towering sense of superiority. "Thought you guys swore off outside ties. Shouldn't they not matter to you if you're up here?"

"You really are as dumb as you look, aren't you? And here I thought that meant you'd have to breathe through your mouth and use your toes for higher math. Do me a favor and act like you're a member of Homo sapiens for a change. There's a difference between present connections and past connections. One is a hindrance. The other is another weapon." She turned away and spoke bitterly, half to herself yet still audible to Nita. "Even if it hits everything but the original target." For a moment again, she was vulnerable and human, but again she closed up and became as close to impassive as she would ever be. "Enough of that. You said that the so-called rebels are finally getting it together enough to strike the blow they should have done ten years ago? Tell them that Green Mountain will be bringing a hundred armed men and women. We have close to three hundred guns, mostly small arms but three major pieces of artillery, and at least fifty rounds of ammo for each weapon, more in some cases. You saw the tank. We'll be bringing that too. Doesn't do us much good up here. Half our people have bomb-making expertise. We've been practicing for years. We've gotten good at it. We have the raw material for several hundred bombs, and if we bring that expertise, we'll expect extra materials from the main forces." She sat down and started scribbling rapidly on a worn-down legal pad. From Nita's upside-down perspective, it looked like a bunch of numbers. Ingrid signed it and sealed it in a thick, opaque envelope. "Here. Written confirmation of everything I've just said, in case you forget, because there's an awful lot there for your few brain cells, and I'd hate to push out something important like the last time you got fucked."

"Do you practice bein' an asshole, or does it just come naturally?" Nita took the envelope. "Hell, maybe you need a good fuck to loosen you up."

"Get out. Get in that heap of shit you call a car and get the fuck out of here before I throw you off the mountain with my bare hands. This meeting is over. We'll be in Toronto to protect your pansy asses, and that's all you wanted, isn't it?" Ingrid's voice had dropped to a growl, and Nita decided not to take this matter any further, fun as it had been to push her buttons. Since Ingrid was now ignoring her in that way which took extreme concentration and force of will, Nita saw herself out, flipping the bird absently at one of the security cameras. There were guards outside the door, only one of whom had been there earlier.

She retraced her steps until she was back at the entrance to the compound. A shiver ran through her body at the thought of having to get back into that cramped little car and back down the mountain. A few deep breaths and a repetition of her calming mantra stabilized her, and she was ready to make the return journey. The woman who had been on guard when she arrived was still on duty, and she gave Nita a searching look. "Leaving?" she asked sharply, her hand on her gun.

"Yeah, actually. I wasn't here to stay in the first place. I just had to make an alliance. See you in Toronto for the big throwdown. Thanks for recharging my battery- I'm gonna need that to get me home." Having detached her battery from the recharging device, Nita started performing the complex contortions required to get herself into the tiny car. "At least there's no way in hell I'll fall out," she grumbled as she wedged herself firmly into the driver's seat and started the car. "I'm still gonna kick May Kensen's skinny ass just as soon as I get the hell off this fuckin' mountain."

The trip back was as bad as the trip in, though in different ways; it seemed that the car found every bump in the road that it hadn't found on the way up, and she had to hide in the woods and count the minutes until primetime television would stupefy the border guards so that she could cross the border without attracting attention. She hated night driving, especially when she was so wound up and ready to commit violence on someone. But the urge would have to wait, since she had to bring news of the accepted alliance to SkyDome first, after which the stress took its toll on her and she had a very unexpected nap in Suite 25, only awakening with the dawn. Only when she was rested and breakfasted was she allowed to go out on the road again.

After a few hours on the road, she was back in Ottawa and hunting May down with the intention of fulfilling her mantra's promise. It didn't take long to find the Lynx's facilities and track down May. "You could have warned me!" she shrieked as soon as she laid eyes on May, something that neither May or her patient much appreciated.

May reacted as calmly as she could, taking care of the young minor leaguer before she turned to face Nita. "If I had warned you, you wouldn't have gone, because let's face it, Ingrid Nilssen's been sliding towards batshit crazy for the last twenty years and maybe even then some. Figured she'd have to have hit it at some point, 'cause I don't want to imagine how much crazier she could get. Also figured she might look at you as close enough to one of hers that she wouldn't hate you, though I can't be sure of that, knowing your mouth and that knack you got for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time."

"Fuck you twice sideways," Nita said by way of response. "You sure she didn't get the name of that place outta Ruby Ridge or some shit like that? I don't think I've ever seen so many guns in my life, and she said they made bombs up there too. That woman's nuts, the way she was talking about- who were Mela Rose and Alicia Morrison, anyway?"

May nodded, not looking surprised. "She's been looking for revenge for damn near ten years. Who do you think was sendin' those letterbombs to the HOPE camps? Damn shame is the only one she wanted to ruin was the one she could never get into." Nita looked confused, an expression that seemed all too natural for her, and May sighed in frustration. "Connect the dots, Nita. Ingrid was a Dukie, the first real great post they ever had. Duke co-sponsored Holy Trinity. Alicia Morrison was a Dukie, one of the best posts they ever had. Alicia Morrison fell in with the wrong crowd and ended up working at Holy Trinity. You been keepin' up with the news? You know what's comin' out at Rikers Island about the BALTO project, and the names that came out from the bitch who ran Holy Trinity?"

Nita was very quiet as she put the pieces together, and then she burst out with "Those fuckers!"

"Now, you were also askin' about Mela Rose. Her, it's no wonder you couldn't find. She was always in love with the pretty lights, so they let her have all the pretty lights she wanted, as long as they could change her name and do whatever the hell else they felt like doing to her. I hear she does TV-movies for Channel 4 now, and they just call her Rose. Great gig for a business major, ain't it? Guess it's better than beatin' the shit out of helpless prisoners, though."

"Shit," Nita said, and somehow that seemed to neatly encapsulate the whole sordid mess. "Guess I shouldn't have told Ingrid she needed to loosen up."

"Oh, no," May groaned. "I know your favorite method of 'loosening up', tell me you didn't suggest that to her, just tell me that even if it isn't true."

"Hey, she commented on my sex life first!"

"By the Lady, you aren't as dumb as you look, you're even dumber. Ingrid had a partner under Vermont law. Had. Until Times Square. Green Mountain's their old spread- I should know, I spent a weekend there once with Reggie and the two of them. In case it wasn't fucking obvious from all of that, Ingrid never got over her wife's death, and that became the reason why she doesn't allow couples to come in or even form there."

"Some of this information might have been really useful before I left," Nita said, half-spitting the words out. "You know I don't do diplomacy. You know sometimes I say stupid shit cuz I don't think and sometimes I say stupid shit just to say stupid shit. Knowing a couple of the things I shouldn't have said to the crazy woman would have been really fucking handy, you know?"

"You're right. Well, mostly. But I'm sorry about the parts you were right about. I know you tend to say stupid shit, and I know you say stupid shit sometimes 'cause someone pisses you off. I knew Ingrid was gonna piss you off 'cause she pisses everyone off. It's part of her schtick. I figured better let you say whatever stupid thing came to mind without having to worry that you'd purposely say something to piss her off. Just our luck you stumbled on the one thing that sets her off worse than anything."

"I guess that'll do. Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a truck here somewhere, and a girl waiting for me back in Toronto. Maybe I'll get home in time for dinner." At that, May looked very sheepish for a moment, and Nita asked, "All right, what's going on here? You didn't accidentally kill the girl while I was on the road dealing with the crazy woman, did you? Cuz I'm gonna have to kick your ass if you did."

"No, but I did call ahead…"

As May spoke, a lithe, brown-haired figure slipped into the room and made a credible attempt at putting her slender arms around Nita's waist. Nita turned and wrapped Marie in a fierce, tight, possessive embrace. "I love you," she said quietly, putting everything she had into those three little words. "I love you, and I'll protect you… but, um, would you mind if I didn't go crazy after you die, especially if it isn't a natural death?"