The Babylonian Mask

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Nina blinked profusely.

Her eyes listened to her synapses as her slumber fell into REM, abandoning her to the cruel talons of her subconscious mind. In the private ward of the University Hospital of Heidelberg, the lights buzzed through the dead of night where Dr. Nina Gould had been admitted to reverse, if possible, the dreaded effects of radiation sickness. So far, it had been difficult to diagnose how critical her case really was, as the man who’d accompanied her had inaccurately relayed her level of exposure. The best he could say was that he’d found her wandering the underground tunnels of Chernobyl a few hours too long for any living creature to recover.

“He did not tell us everything,” affirmed Sister Barken to her small group of subordinates, “but I had a distinct inkling it was not half of what Dr. Gould had endured down there before he claimed to have found her.” She shrugged and sighed. “Unfortunately, short of arresting him for a crime we do not have any proof of, we had to let him go and deal with the little information we had.”

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