Throwing himself inside the door, he was met by another long, nondescript white hallway, lined with more nondescript white doors. Grabbing his credentials back quickly, he came close to having his fingers nipped off by an eager set of jaws. Hurling himself forward, he jogged down the hallway, the hissing breath of the dalrogs close behind him, when his ankle decided to give out again. He went down, sprawling, and rolling, coming to a halt facing the other direction, and watched as the lead dalrog tensed to leap as he heard yet another sound he couldn't quite place.

The dalrog was met in mid-leap by a garishly-striped red-and-white emergency barrier, which hissed down from the ceiling surprisingly quickly. The dalrog let out a croaking gasp as it was sandwiched between the barricade and the floor. The siren sprang up a moment later, complemented by a mechanical grating noise as the barricade sought to complete its seal with the floor.

Mike didn't even look back. With his jaw set and a firm determination in his eyes, he marched down the hallway, past another anteroom, turned a corner, and suddenly found himself back in the room with the elevator.

Jim looked up, from a different paperback this time, and stared incredulously at the figure before him. Mike went up to the desk, pulled out the pistol and shrugged off the bandolier, and plopped them on the desk, causing Jim to twitch nervously.

"I believe these are yours," he said in a moderately cheerful voice, the undertone of which caused the guard to involuntarily take a step back. "I'll be billing you for my umbrella."

Then, with a farewell wave, he stepped back into the entryway, walked back to his car, started it up, and crashed straight through the chain-link security barrier at the perimeter gate. On his way back, he briefly noticed a long line of police cars, their lights flashing and sirens screaming, traveling rapidly in the other direction. After a moment's consideration, though, the realized that he just didn't care. He cranked the radio up as he sped on towards home, and the noise of an unknown band doing a powerfully mediocre rendition of "Desafinado" was the most beautiful sound in the world.