My remaining coworkers wouldn’t meet my eyes as I gathered my things and walked for the door. I could hear them whispering behind me, and no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I was being paranoid, I knew full well that if I turned around, I’d find them artfully not looking. They didn’t like me, thought I was weird and standoffish and a know-it-all, and maybe they were right about all those things, but that didn’t make it okay for them to treat me the way that they did.

“See you Monday, jerks,” I muttered, and left the building.

Home was calling, and I was ready to answer.

Chapter 2

Seattle, Washington: July 13, 2031

Twenty-five days pre-invasion

1.

Lucas was waiting at the park and ride. That was nice. I can drive, but I don’t own a car, and taking the bus home takes forever and isn’t much fun. All my complaints about riding the bus to work are tripled when I have to ride the bus home, with a heaping side order of feeling like a terrible person due to not wanting to be around strangers. I’m not misanthropic. I just don’t like people. They’re not quite the same thing.

Similar. But not the same.

It was the misanthropy that made me stop, nearly stumbling, when I got closer to the car and realized the front passenger seat was occupied by a tall woman in a Rat City Roller Derby T-shirt, her head crowned by a mass of corkscrew curls dyed in all the shades of sunset. She was as indie-looking as Lucas was corporate, and the main reason I hadn’t noticed her sooner was that she was halfway into his seat, the fingers of one hand threaded through his hair, the fingers of the other hand wrapped tightly around his tie.

Roxanna. Oh, joy.

It’s not that I don’t like Roxanna. On paper, we should be the best of friends. She’s quirky at best, eccentric at worst, with a passion for reptiles that I honestly respect, even if I don’t understand it. She works at the university, helping them keep their bio department from bursting out of confinement and eating everyone, which I assume is what poorly tended bio departments do. She’s been dating Lucas for almost five years. Mandy and I both expect to be evicted one day so he can give our rooms to her lizards.

As long as it makes Lucas happy, we’ll go. We won’t be happy about it, and we’ll complain constantly, but we’ll go.