 1. In the morning's platinum light he raised his leaden head. He was lying on a plastic mattress in a converted shipping container below a tiny fan that circulated the room's tepid air. He washed himself with packaged towelettes and put on his uniform, a black jumpsuit of synthetic fiber. Under a quickly rising sun he walked across the hotel's gravel courtyard to his partner's room. They had never met. He knocked on the corrugated steel door. There was no answer. He knocked louder. After some shuffling from within, a lie that some man answered, naked but for a pair of white boxers. He had dark eyes, a cleft chin, and a wide mouth ringed with full, womanly lips. A swirl of black hair rakeishly obscured his left eye. Pick a number. Nine? The man at the door said, smiling, slyly. Okay, you know how the company handles names. I don't know yours, you don't know mine. For the next two weeks, you're nine. Call me four. You're four? You will call me four. I'll call you nine. Got it? For reasons of security, the company insisted on simple pseudonyms, usually numerical. Got it? Nine said, and swept his hair from his face and threw it back. They had arrived without passports. Passports were complications and liabilities in such a place, a nation recovering from years of civil war, riddled with corruption, and burdened now by a new and lawless government. For a nine had been flown in under assumed names on a private charter. In the past, in other nations, the company's employees had been ransomed and killed. The kidnappers went first for their quarry's company, then family, then nation. But without passports or names, men like four and nine were anonymous and of little value. Their machine, the RS-80, was almost impossible to trace. It bore no company name, no serial number, and had no national registry. No one but their clients, the northern government and the capital, would know anything about them, their origins, or employer. You ready to eat? Fore asked. We have forty minutes till we begin. The crew is making a final check on the machine. Soon, Nine said, a smile overtaking his expansive mouth. Nine stepped out of the doorway and tilted his head toward the bed behind him. Beyond Nine's naked torso, four could see the furrowed sheets. Sample complete. Ready to continue?