nerve, she would be glad to have this portion of the evening over.
And that disc was eating away at her last nerve. She wanted to know what was on it and who had left it so blatantly for her. Until those mysteries were solved, she wasn’t going to be able to rest.
“Do you want to use my computer at the station to check out the DVD?”
Xavier didn’t seem in the mood to answer questions and she was too tired to pry it out of him. Maybe, though, that was it. Maybe he was too tired to deal with the curious stares and questioning looks they’d received in the station the night before. Heaven knew she was just as glad to not have to spend any longer there than the time it took to return the patrol car and climb into Xavier’s Hummer. They’d had a bizarre and scary night. They’d done battle. It wasn’t something Sarah was used to.
Most of her shifts were spent rather uneventfully. There might be a traffic accident or maybe a break-in, sure. A report of disorderly conduct or a domestic incident. All that she could handle. Battling zombies and turning them into piles of goo while they tried their best to surround you so they could eat your face off was something way more difficult to deal with.
They arrived back at Sarah’s home in the wee hours of the morning. They still had some time until dawn, but Sarah was tired. Xavier had been giving her time to acclimate to the nighttime schedule, but she wasn’t quite there yet, as her bone-popping yawns testified.
Xavier fetched the ultrathin laptop from his vehicle and set it up on the coffee table while she started making a pot of coffee. By the time she got back to the living room, he was ready to begin.
She sat next to Xavier on the couch as the boot menu of the DVD came up.
“He customized this,” Xavier observed, pointing to the screen.
“Tells me that he or someone working with him has some technical knowledge.”
The screen displayed a menu that had two selections. The first read simply “Watch Me” and the second was titled “Maps.”
“So do we follow his instructions and watch the video first?”
“I’ll play his game…to a point. Let’s see what this clown wants to show us.” Xavier clicked on the video option.
After the disc whirred up, a picture came into view. A man stood in shadow in a stark room full of angles and planes of light. She could make out his shape but not his face. Then, over the tiny speakers in the laptop he began to speak.
“Forgive me for not showing my face, but I have altered my appearance since visiting you in the hospital and there’s no sense in giving my new identity away.” Sellars’s voice was smug and condescending. “I have a proposition for you, Officer Petit. Or perhaps I should call you Sarah. After all, I hope to be working closely with you in the near future.”
“Fat chance,” she scoffed under her breath. Xavier put a hand over hers, offering silent support.
“Since you’re watching this, I surmise you got past my little greeting party. Did you enjoy your time with them, Sarah? Did your military escort notice how much improved they are over the initial versions? My new experiments are capable of working as a group when given specific instruction and are more impervious to the toxin we developed at the military’s insistence—before those sanctimonious bastards shut down the project and kicked us all to the curb. They’ll regret banishing me and you can tell that to your military friends with my blessing.”
“He doesn’t know who you are, Xavier. He’s just assuming I’ll have military protection.”
“I noticed.” Xavier nodded. “Unless he’s playing more games. This guy is loony tunes.”
“My proposition is this, Sarah,” the oily voice continued. “I want you to come to me. I promise you will come to no harm, though you will be forcibly detained. I need samples, you see. I need to know how and why your body is immune to my experiment. Without that vital bit of information, my work is incomplete and the weapon cannot be used.”
“Weapon?” Sarah was aghast. The crazy son of a bitch intended to sell the contagion as a weapon. With the knowledge of how to inoculate people against it, any rogue power or terrorist group could unleash it on the world and keep themselves safe from its effects.
“I’ll be in touch shortly for