Invasion

Jesse was tempted to turn the question around since it was a lot stranger for the captain to be there than it was for him. But Jesse held his tongue. Instead he said: "Just dealing with a problem involving a couple of kids."

"In the property booking cage?" the captain asked, looking over Jesse's shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm looking for a bit of evidence," Jesse said. But then to change the subject he added: "Terrible tragedy about Kinsella."

"Hardly," the captain said. "He had that chronic illness with his blood. Listen, Kemper, how are you feeling?"

''Me?'' Jesse questioned. He was nonplussed by the captain's response concerning Kinsella.

"Of course you," the captain said. "Who else am I talking to."

"I'm fine," Jesse said. "Thank the Lord."

"Well, that's strange," the captain said. "Listen, stop by my office before you leave. I've got something for you."

"Sure thing, Captain," Jesse said.

The captain took another look over Jesse's shoulder before heading back to his office. Jesse watched him leave, perplexed at what was going through his mind.

When the captain had disappeared from view, Jesse hustled back inside the property booking cage. "Let's find one of those discs and get the hell out of here,'' he said.

Cassy and Pitt emerged from their hiding place in the knee space below the counter. All three went back to opening envelopes.

"Ah ha!" Jesse said as he peered into a particularly heavy one. "Finally!" He reached in to pull it out.

"Don't touch it," Cassy cried out.

"I was going to be careful," Jesse said.

"It happens quickly," Pitt said.

"All right, so I won't touch it," Jesse said. "I'll leave it in the envelope. Let me sign this custody chit and then let's get out of here."

A few minutes later they were back at Jesse's desk in the nearly empty squad room. Jesse glanced into the captain's office. The light was on, but the captain was nowhere to be seen.

"Let's take a look at this thing," Jesse said. He opened the clasp on the envelope and let the disc slide out onto his blotter.

"Looks innocent enough," Jesse commented. As he'd done earlier, he used a pen to push it around. "There's also no opening. How could it possibly sting someone?"

"Both times that I witnessed, the person had wrapped either their fingers or palm around the periphery," Pitt said.

"But if there's no opening it can't happen," Jesse said. "Maybe they're all not the same. Maybe some sting, some don't." He got out his reading glasses, which he detested for vanity reasons, put them on, and then leaned over to get a closer, magnified view. "It looks like polished onyx, only not as shiny." With the tip of his finger he touched the top of the dome.

"I wouldn't do that," Pitt warned.

"It feels cold," Jesse said, ignoring Pitt. "It's also very smooth." Gingerly he moved the very tip of his finger down from the apex of the dome toward the periphery with the intention of feeling the little bumps that lined the edge. The sound of a cabinet banging shut over at the duty officer's desk made him snatch his hand away.

"I guess I'm a little tense," Jesse explained.

"For good reason," Pitt said.

Ready to withdraw his hand at the slightest provocation, Jesse touched one of the little bumps. Nothing happened. Equally carefully he began to run the tip of his finger around the disc's periphery. He got about a quarter of the way around when an extraordinary thing happened. A millimeter-wide slit formed in the seamless surface of the disc's edge.

Jesse yanked his hand away in time to see a chrome-colored needle punch out through the slit a distance of several millimeters. From its tip sprang a single drop of yellowish fluid. In the next instant the needle withdrew and the slit vanished. The whole sequence lasted only a second.

Three pairs of startled eyes rose to regard each other.

"Did you see that?" Jesse asked. "Or am I crazy?"

"I saw it," Cassy said. "And there's proof. There's a wet spot on the blotter."

Nervously Jesse bent his head forward and, with his magnifiers, as he called his glasses, studied the area where the slit had formed. "There's nothing there, not even a seam."

"Wait a sec," Pitt said. "Don't get too close. That fluid must be infectious."

As a hypochondriac Jesse didn't need any more encouragement. He got out of his chair and backed several steps away. "What should we do?"

"We need some scissors and a container, preferably glass," Pitt said. "Plus some chlorine bleach."

"How about a coffee creamer jar?" Jesse suggested. "I don't know about the bleach, but I'll check the janitor's closet. The scissors are in the top drawer."

"A coffee creamer jar is fine," Pitt said. "How about latex gloves?"

"We got those too," Jesse said. "I'll be right back."

Jesse managed to find everything Pitt needed. With the scissors Pitt carefully cut out a circle of the blotter containing the wet dot and deposited it in the jar. The underside of the blotter didn't appear wet, but still he disinfected the area of the desk with the bleach. The gloves and the scissors went into a plastic bag.