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"Mike Smith, huh?" the security guard asked from the safety of his small, enclosed kiosk. The strains from the theme of a familiar police drama emanated from a portable TV set behind him, only partially muted by the downpour that separated the kiosk from the window of the black coupe pulled up alongside it.

"Yep, that's me," the man inside the car answered.

"Mike Smith. Huh. That's, what, only slightly less common than John Doe?"

"Hey, give me a break. I didn't get to choose it. You want to complain, blame my parents."

"Jeez, you don't have to be so touchy about it." The guard thrust a hand out into the rain, holding Mike's driver's license. "Be kind enough and take it back before I'm completely soaked."

Mike grabbed it back, along with the other object in the outstretched hand - a strip of color printout, with his picture featured prominently at the top, encased in a thin plastic sleeve with a metal clip.

"That's your credentials, of course - remember to wear 'em at all times, or Security will want to have a word with you."

"Right. I can go through now?"

"Yeah, yeah. Be thankful you get to do something interesting, instead of sitting here in the middle of all this damn rain..."

The guard reached over and pressed a button on the kiosk's control panel, and the section of barbed-wire-topped fence in front of the car began to roll silently out of the way. The guard watched as the pair of taillights navigated the circuitous road beyond the perimeter fencing.

"Although, sitting out here in the rain's still a damn sight better than actually working in that place..."

After a few minutes of maneuvering the car across the narrow snaking path of pavement, and a few minutes too many of mediocre latin jazz pulsing out of the rental car's surprisingly impressive sound system, his destination finally pulled into sight - a low, nondescript gray building that served as a gateway to the rest of the sprawling facility. In the distance, Mike could see squat groupings of bunker-like concrete buildings seemingly scattered at random, interspersed with more razor-wire-topped fences, and groups of multistory buildings rose up beyond that, dark spires into a marginally lighter sky.

A sky that was rapidly dissolving into an undifferentiated blur, he quickly noticed. Thumbing the wiper control to a faster position, he negotiated the last twist of road and exited into a medium-sized parking lot that, with the exception of a few cars parked in far-flung spaces, was largely deserted. Probably the weather, he surmised.

Pulling into one of the spaces closest to the building, he turned off the rental car and slipped the keys, attached to a ridiculously large key fob advertising the rental agency, into the pocket of his jacket. Upon opening the door, he was greeted by the downpour, which he fended off with a compact umbrella that popped open smartly with a touch of a button - a surprise, given his previous luck with the somewhat ornery device.

The umbrella, predictably, inverted itself in a sudden gust of wind just as Mike made it to the double doors, which surprisingly swung inward of their own accord as he approached. Mike jumped inside, thankful for the respite from the rain, and the doors whirred shut and locked with the decisive snak of metal bolts as he struggled to right the umbrella. He became so engrossed in wrestling with the contraption, in fact, that he didn't notice the man walking up behind him until he cleared his throat. Startled, Mike whirled around, the umbrella hurling droplets across the utilitarian blue carpet.

"Ah, Mr. Smith!" the man boomed, a little too cheerfully. "It's so good of you to spare us a bit of your valuable time!"

Mike didn't think his time was that particularly valuable, but mumbled an affirmative acknowledgment anyway.

"Anyway, let me introduce myself. My name is Terrence Saxon-Du-Villier, although my friends call me Terr... before I sock them one, that is," he added, his broad smile adding just a hint of mischief. "Actually, you might as well call me Steven."

"Steven?"