Terror, like a stain, is already spreading through Alexis Mead. A small question, a small, simple, seemingly innocent question; "Is there anything you'd care to tell me?" But it's a small question fraught by terror when asked by Gilbert Stainer, the Director of Interrogation from the Bureau of Human Affairs (The Secret Police) to Alexis. In the apartment she shares with her mother, Alexis faces her fiancé Eric, and asks him what he knows. She is devastated by his answer...