John, as he would have put it, was in deep yogurt.

A bullet ripped over his head and through the expensive upholstery of the couch he was using as cover, and he edged an eye around its corner. The three goons dressed in pajamas raised their guns - AK-47s, maybe? - and opened fire again. Tucking one leg up to his chest, John hurled himself forward and rolled into the closet. The couch was pulped, feathers poofing from its cushions, and John sighed.

This particular operation could have gone better. The seat of his pants was beginning to get sore from all the close calls he'd been having, and the literal seat of his pants was ripped from one of the aforementioned close calls, an encounter with a pair of persistent German Shepherds. After that had been the electric fence, where he learned that rubber gloves only worked if they didn't have tears. Or maybe the bulletproof glass windows that he hadn't known were bulletproof?

It'd been an off-day, to say the least.

Racking the slide on his Colt .45, he yelled, "Can't we talk about this? Maybe have a nice chat?"

A hail of bullets tore through the wooden corner of the closet, and he winced. A second hail, this one largely composed of insults and commands shouted in Italian, hit his ears a moment later. Peering through one of the holes, he saw the Mafia boss he'd broken into the mansion to find gesturing furiously at the furniture and trim, and he grinned.

Carefully raising the iron-sights of his handgun to the hole, he closed one eye and squinted, muttering, "Really should've stayed in your bunker, bud."

Then he pulled the trigger.

The boss jerked backward, staring down at the rapidly spreading red stain on his shirt in total disbelief. Looking upward, he pointed into the room and said in shock, "Mi hai sparato!" Stumbling backward, he collapsed, and the shooters stared at him for a moment.

As one, the shooters spun to John's closet and flooded into the room, assault rifles raised. Hurriedly, John pulled a battered green notebook out of his jacket, speedily wrote something down, and then jumped out of the closet, raising his gun. "Screw you, ya-"

They shot him, and he fell down. "Ouch," he said irritably.

They shot him again.

John opened his eyes.

There was no skip in time, no brief blackness. He was staring up at the ceiling.

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It was a nice ceiling.

He frowned, wondering what had just happened. Obviously, he'd died, but he couldn't remember how. Did he get what he was trying to do done? Or had it gone wrong?

Sitting up, John discovered to his mild surprise that he wasn't wearing anything, and also that he was no longer a John. Sighing, he wrapped the thin blue blanket around himself - no, herself - and got off of the cold steel table he'd been lying on.

There was a neat pile of clothes on the floor and a steaming mug of what appeared to be coffee. Checking to make sure that no one was in the room (aside from the cadavers, of course) John, henceforth to be known as Jane, changed into the clothes. They consisted of a too-large gray T-shirt, a too-small pair of jorts, and of course the necessary underwear. Once Jane was finished, she leaned down and carefully pulled off the tag tied to her toe. She read it out loud. "Jane Doe. Gunshots to the chest."

Hooking a finger on her shirt, she glanced down it and snorted. "Why's it always got to be gunshots? Can't someone be original for once and just strangle me? Perhaps a good drowning?"

Shaking her head, Jane picked up the green notebook sitting on the table she'd just gotten off of and tried to put it in her back pocket, only to find that it was decorative. She sighed loudly. "Fake pockets, there is no reason for your existence."

Naturally, the pockets did not respond to the crushing insult.

Picking up the mug, she blew it off and took a tentative sip. It was definitely coffee, with... yup, two cubes of sugar and a generous dollop of honey. Whoever this guy was, he knew what her preferences were.

Tucking the notebook under one arm, Jane headed through the swinging metal doors and into the lobby. There was only one person, a tired-looking man with a bristly beard and a balding head. As she walked through, he smiled. "How's da coffee?"

She smiled brilliantly at him. "It's perfect. Have we met before?"

He shook his head, rising from behind his desk and extended a hand. "Naw. I only heard th' stories. Figger when a corpse shows up uninvited in my freezers it's prolly yew."

Jane nodded sympathetically, shaking the hand. "Thanks. I appreciate the clothes. Didn't cost you too much, did they?"

He shook his head again. "Naw. Got some weird looks buying th' underwear, but I figger it's worth it ta meetcha."

Standing back, Jane checked herself once over again and asked, "Would you happen to have a mirror? I have no idea what I look like right now."

He doubtfully looked under the desk and made a grunt of surprise. "Apparently. Didn't think I would, but here ya go."

Straightening, he handed a small handled mirror to Jane, and she immediately checked her reflection.

Objectively speaking, she was fairly nondescript. African-American, with a sort of half-afro (a halfro?) framing her petite face. Relatively large lips, dark brown eyes, thin features. Hopefully, she raised one arm and flexed. To her pleasant surprise, she found a not-insignificant amount of muscle there and shrugged.

The mortician raised an eyebrow. "All good?"

Jane nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I think so." Flexing the arm once or twice just to make sure that the muscle was real, she glanced over at the mortician, her forehead wrinkling. "Sorry, did you introduce yourself yet? My memory's still setting in."

He grinned. "M'name's Davis, ma'am. Jeff Davis."

She smiled. "Nice to meet you, Davis. I'm Doe. Jane Doe, at the moment."