"Want to join the Free Association, huh?" Her hat and sunglasses obscured her face enough to foil recognition by the train station's ubiquitous cameras. Sitting with his back to her with his nose in a magazine, Dan mumbled, "Yeah. I can't take any more of this police state."

"Stating the obvious," she said. "I'm Ella. C'mon."

He followed her through a door labeled maintenance into a lounge. It was incongruously comfortable beside the terminal's dingy tiles and loud advertisements. Several people read books or played video games on a big TV, and a woman lay on a couch with a newspaper over her face. Ella grabbed a book.

"So, are you guys, uh, the resistance?"

"Resistance is futile!" said one of the game-players.

"Resistance is feudal!" said another, with a laugh.

"Feudal is as feudal does," said the third.

Dan blinked several times. "Ella, should we have a little conversation—"

In an Elvis twang, she sang, "A little less conversation, a little more action please!"

"Your pleas do not fall on deaf ears," mumbled the woman under the newspaper.

"Oh, god," Dan said. "This is the wrong kind of association!"

"Club," muttered a man in an overstuffed chair. Dan fled.