CRYPTIC SCIENCE: Was she still on the base? If so, one thing was certain: she had never been in this laboratory before. A figure stepped from the shadows and into her line of sight. It was a man, tall with bony, square shoulders, yet thin of build. He was dressed in a lab coat and he wore upon his head a surgical mask and cap. The man leaned forward, pressing his masked face against the glass; his mouth was placed directly over one of the air holes. Professor Appleby could smell garlic on the man’s breath, hear a shallow rasp in his exhale. “I would like to know about Project Nephilim.” Nephilim! She felt the cold hand of the military’s conditioning clamp down on her throat. She labored for breath. “Please ...” The words were hard to speak. “I can’t tell you
anything ....”