“No,” Sierra said, her tone calm and reassuring. “Your aura shows some indications that you were drugged. Can you describe the man you talked to?”

“I didn’t get a close look at him. You know how dark it is inside the Vault. I’d put him in his midthirties. He was wearing a dark jacket. And a baseball cap. Dark glasses.”

“Dark glasses?” Sierra repeated. “Like those that Mr. Chastain is wearing?”

“Nah. Not the fancy kind. Just regular dark glasses. I think he was trying to hide his eyes so I couldn’t get a good look at him. He had a weird vibe, I can tell you that. It’s one of the reasons I figured him for a collector or a Puppet. They’re all obsessed and paranoid as hell.”

“What about his hair?” Sierra said. “Do you remember the color?”

Matt shrugged. “Light brown, I think. Couldn’t see much of it because of the baseball cap. Sorry, that’s about it.”

“You don’t remember anything else unusual about him?” Sierra prompted. “His shoes?”

“Didn’t notice his shoes. He put me in mind of a professor or a scientist. A doctor, maybe.” Matt stiffened abruptly. “The bastard followed me here. He wasn’t alone.”

“Are you certain?” Sierra asked.

“Positive,” Matt said, growing angrier by the second. “I remember going through the fence and into the apartment house. I heard a noise out in the hall. The next thing I knew, the professor guy was standing in the doorway. He was carrying a briefcase. There were a couple of big men with him. Tattoos-and-steroid types.”

“Muscle?” North asked.

Matt grunted. “Definitely.”

“Can you describe them?” Sierra asked.

“Aside from their size and the tats, not really. It wasn’t like I had a chance to take a photo. One of them had this strange flashlight-shaped artifact. I remember it was transparent. Must have been made of crystal. He aimed it at me and switched it on. There was a beam of light, but it wasn’t normal light. It was like looking into a prism, or maybe a kaleidoscope. Lots of colors. I couldn’t look away. I could feel it closing down my senses but I couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Light from the paranormal spectrum,” North said.

“Yeah,” Matt said. He shuddered. “Never seen anything like it. I went down to my knees.”

“What happened next?” Sierra asked.

“The guy in charge, the one who looked like a doctor or a scientist, yelled at the man with the flashlight gun. Told him to shut it off because it wasn’t reliable. Then he took out a syringe and injected something into my arm. Told me I was going to go to sleep and probably wouldn’t wake up. But if something went wrong and I did survive, I wouldn’t remember anything about him or his men or what had happened.”

North held up the steel container so that Matt could see it. “Do you remember this?”

Matt peered at the container. “The doctor handed the briefcase to one of the muscle guys and told him to take that thing out of the case and put it in the cupboard. Then he told the guy to open the lid. Warned him to be careful because it was now set and would explode the next time someone with a lot of talent touched it. You should be careful with that thing. There’s some energy in it. I can sense it. It’s hot enough to be a lab artifact.”