One Million Sieverts

[pepsi]

-- // ONE MILLION SIEVERTS

The rhythmic clacking of the Captain's heels echoed across the hall as she walked towards the lead door. In her mind she repeated the first few words she was meant to tell the "subject"; she didn't want to forget anything.

She had been called by the Mastro Alchimista Nicoletta Goldstein, with the utmost urgency, to attend a matter on which she was totally unsure how to act. The Captain's own knowledge about energy and radiation could have been quite useful in that situation, so she was picked for the job.

It was all over the news, one whole day after it happened. The nuclear reactor in Grenoble suffered an overheating, and had to shut down. This event spelled terrible news for the surrounding region, of course, and the Templars had to work really hard to keep social media and newspapers from learning all the details. As it turned out, it wasn't entirely the fault of humans.

The city of Grenoble, France, will have to hold out using alternative energy sources for the foreseeable future.

Why Demons would tamper with nuclear reactors of all things, however, was entirely unclear.
Miraculously, the responsible for a sudden de-escalation of the overheat - that could've cascaded into a complete meltdown - survived. They appeared to be in an almost perfectly-conserved state, their biology seemingly unaltered by the thousands of Sievert in radiation energy they received. They should have probably died, back there, but for whatever reason they did not.

What exactly that reason was, together with the details as an eyewitness of what precisely happened only a few hours prior, was the Captain's job to find out.

The woman approached the leaden door and removed her heels and her beige coat. Passing a badge over the electronic lock beside the door, she was granted access to a "decontamination chamber", where she would cover her civilian clothes with a properly sterilised and clean hazmat suit.
As she changed, she thought her expertise was really misplaced; yes, she was a leading expert on radiation, but not quite the gamma ray kind. She shrugged those thoughts and chalked it up to her superior's lack of knowledge of human biology over mechanical engineering; she was there already and "les jeux sont faits", as people in Grenoble would say.

The second lead door opened, slower than the first. It led into a small concrete room with dim fluoerescent lighting. Furniture was minimal: a bed and a table with two chairs. One of the walls featured a one-way window; another an iron door, welded shut. It was clear that the room was not at all designed to hold anyone prisoner, like the Templars were doing; the bunker had been designed many tens of years prior in case of a nuclear war.

Rosalyn sat down in one of the chairs, and recited the script. "I'm Doctor Rosalyn Lovelace. You were found at the scene of the reactor's meltdown. Can you understand me? Do you remember your name?" she said, speaking a plain English.

[Vio]

^{Curie #1}

---

An odd crackling sound stirred her from a moment of idleness. The buzz of static shooting across metal, though that wasn’t the cause of the noise. It was far more tame, far more subtle, and seemed to stem from the hair follicles hanging unevenly over one ear. A constant reminder of something, if only she was entirely sure of what that something was. Thoughts were still muddled—her senses too in fits and starts—and crisp memories seemed to replay themselves over and over, intrusively.

Then again, what else was there to do? No tools, no familiar faces, and the utilities provided were so minimal that those of a death row inmate would’ve looked luxurious in comparison. All she had was a very simple hospital bed, table and chairs, and a mirror. No, not a mirror. Mentally addled she might have been, but she was lucid enough to recognise it for what it was: A one-way window for observation. The amount of police and crime dramas on television or popular streaming services meant everyone with some modicum of interest could discern them for what they were.

Hiss… That wasn’t the sound of whatever had stirred her. No, that was the sound of mechanisms at work. Doors opening and shutting. It wasn’t heightened senses, just the heightened awareness of isolation. And then she realised her pulse was high. A deep breath, hold, then slow exhalation helped to relieve it all. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant breath to take, either, with the stale and almost offensively sterile air making it tasteless upon her tongue as it exited her mouth. She had been standing, but opted to instead sit herself down on the edge of the bed, far enough away from the table and chairs—and especially the door—to not be considered hostile if she moved.

“I’m Doctor Rosalyn Lovelace,” the woman introduced herself, features mostly locked away behind the elaborate, high grade hazmat suit she wore as she sat herself down. She stared at the Doctor for a moment, processing the woman’s words and parsing suitable responses from jumbled thoughts. Just the scene alone said so much: A normal woman protected by a special suit, versus an abnormal entity of grey skin clad in little more than a hospital gown.

“Hello. Grenoble, France. Yes. And I am Doctor Eleanor Curie,” she answered, even to the parts that weren’t necessarily questions. Perhaps it was a little bit of frustration, but there was a cold mechanical nature to her response—a little more curt than she probably should have been. “Where am I? I’m rather certain I’m not dead,” she added, properly revealing a well-spoken mixed accent of American English and French breed that still seemed to be trying to find its own identity. She had many more questions, all of which pressed upon her mind, but the scientific method dominated for the time being. Better to step things through and process and record the results, than to rush ahead and make a critical miscalculation…

---

^{Eleanor Curie | #007bb8
Rosalyn Lovelace | #f05197}

[pepsi]

The poor thing looked like they ripped her straight from a waterboarding session in the river Styx itself. Grey skin, sluggish movements; Rosalyn had a hard time imagining the kind of pain she must've gone through moments before passing out.
And her scientific mind almost took off, the moment she attempted to consider the vast biological changes her body must've undergone.

The woman spoke a near perfect English, much to her relief. After all, she was also a scientist; not only are they most likely to know the lingua franca of the scientific community - English - but they are also smart enough to know it at a very high level.
Having ascertained that her interlocutor's brain functions weren't completely impaired, Rosalyn pressed further.

"Indeed you aren't" Rosalyn replied, nodding lightly. Her voice was followed by the sound of the hazmat suit rustling about. "But as you can see, we had to take precautions. You are now located in a bunker underneath the Italian Alps, not far from Grenoble."
Rosalyn shifted in her seat, getting ready for the most important news to be delivered to Doctor Curie.

"Radiation poisoning has been recorded in multiple occasions throughout history. I'm sure you are aware of the dangers, Doctor Curie. Radiation sickness may set in at about one Sievert." Rosalyn paused, formulating her next few words. "After World War Two, the Demon Core Incident caused a handful of people to experience some of the highest recorded radiation doses in history. In the span of a few moments, it is recorded that they received upwards of a hundred Sieverts. These people died a few weeks after the incident. Their body broke down as the radiation demolished their very DNA."
She had only made a few calculations on the back of a napkin as she traveled by train to get to the underground bunker; from the little data she was handed by the engineers over at Grenoble, the result was something to be scared of. "We believe you have absorbed a radiation dose of around..."

"... One million Sieverts."

Delivering that information felt like handing an atom bomb personally to Doctor Curie. "For this reason, you will remain under constant surveillance until the inevitable happens. I'm sorry to say that there are no chances of survival. None."

-- NAME // Rosalyn Lovelace

-- RANK // ?

-- TECHS USED // None.

[/div][/div]

[Vio]

^{Curie #2}

---

Lovelace spoke, and Curie listened. A bunker beneath the Italian Alps was a suitable location in some lengths of logic, but something didn’t quite sit right in her mind about it. Then came the talk of radiation poisoning. Mindless drivel to her own mind, but that in and of itself was proof that she still had her own wits about her. The Demon Core Incident was well known amongst physicists. A horrific example of the dangers even the slightest mishandling of radioactive materials could impose.

^{“We believe you have absorbed,” Rosalyn said:
“One million Sieverts…”}

^“…”

“I’m sorry to say that there are no chances of survival. None.” How could any one person be expected to deliver that news? The way she sat there, contained within a hazmat suit to the point where her voice nearly sounded as if she were speaking through a fish tank. Curie stared at her for a moment. Blankly. And then, raising her own two hands, she clapped once.

“Three hundred and forty three metres per second,” the scientist stated, hands dropping and pointing down. “Six thousand, three hundred and seventy eight kilometres.” Again, her hands moved, but her eyes never left the bearer of bad news as she pointed upwards. “Five thousand, seven hundred and seventy two Kelvin.” Hands moved yet again, arms outstretched as far as her limbs could allow. “Sixty six million years ago.” The words she spoke were two things, neither of which were the ramblings of a woman experiencing shock and grief, but she was sure she would be inflicting some semblance of confusion upon her conversation partner.

“Fascinating measurements, are they not? Science has surely progressed exponentially throughout the decades, but one thing remains certain about it. Tell me, Doctor, what are those numbers? What do they mean?” She allowed pause. A long enough frame of time for the woman to process everything—to take in the bizarre statements and questions cast her way and to answer them however she saw fit—before clapping her hands together once more. This time, grey fingers meshed.

“It doesn’t matter. Precise values or merely an approximation, those numbers are—to our perceptions at the very least—arbitrary at best. To people of science like ourselves, they fascinate us as proof of what we have accomplished.” Curie’s hands rested in her lap. “But even we can’t put them in perspective. Velocity. Distance. Temperature. Time… The effective dosage of radiation absorbed from a nuclear meltdown.” Another pause, this one audibly filled by the crackle of something originating from the anomalous ‘survivor’.

“At one million Sieverts,” she continued, “I should be a misshapen puddle of proteins, cellulose, and cytoplasm on the floor of the Grenoble reactor primary control room. Not sitting here in an underground bunker. By that alone I’ll assume I did, in fact, shut down the reactor before it went into full criticality. That answers the first of my questions, at least.” Flashes of imagery streamed through her thoughts, prompting the cold expression she had been wearing to sharpen. “Second. Where’s Joseph Weaver? And finally, what precisely were those monstrosities that sabotaged our finest work…?”

---

^{Eleanor Curie | #007bb8
Rosalyn Lovelace | #f05197}

[pepsi]

Rosalyn stood in complete silence as Eleanor Curie engaged in a dramatic monologue. As it played out, Rosalyn was certain that such a reaction was caused by one thing and one thing only: Doctor Curie was in complete distress, and did not know what to think of her current situation.

She still tried to engage her interlocutor when prompted. "They are... the speed of light, the radius of the Earth, the temperature at the surface of the sun, and..." she hesitated, "I'm not an expert, but the fourth definitely isn't the age of the universe. Perhaps the half-life of some radioactive isotope" she hypothesised, going off of what kind of numbers would be ingrained in a nuclear physicist's head after years of study.
If anything, it was absolutely clear that Doctor Eleanor Curie's mental acuity did not suffer from this.

"Correct" she said, when Doctor Curie mentioned the kind of damage that organic tissue would receive from a dosage of one million Sieverts. That much was clear: it was beyond being cooked alive, it was beyond being liquified. Organic molecules would break down into their simplest components, and nothing would remain.
Then, Eleanor asked about a certain Joseph Weaver and about creatures that supposedly sabotaged the reactor. Rosalyn took a deep breath, and paused for a few seconds.

A scientist like her doesn't usually sign up to answer questions of ethics. A scientist gathers data and formulates hypotheses; the ethics come after. And yet, at that very moment, she wondered if she was really supposed to deliver all the news about Curie's situation, or if some details were better left unsaid.

She had only been summarily introduced to Joseph Weaver's diagnosis. Compared to her, the man suffered a much smaller dose of radiation; however, his body did not retain shape nor show signs of organic stability. It was possible that Joseph Weaver may have suffered a complete breakdown of organic tissue in the time between Rosalyn was last informed and the beginning of the conversation.
"Doctor Weaver has been hospitalised. Compared to you, the dose he received was far lower; comparable to the Demon Core incident, let's say. For reasons unknown, however, his clinical condition worsened far quicker than yours. Hence the hospitalisation."

And then, the two entered the most dangerous topic of conversation. "And about the monstrosities... before I disclose any information, I will warn you that there is no turning back from hearing what I'd say. It's heavily classified information under the tutelage of the Italian government and the Vatican City, and knowing it will impact your life from here on out. Are you sure you want to know?"
Rosalyn was impressed with herself, with how coldly she managed to articulate out that terrifying warning.

-- NAME // Rosalyn Lovelace

-- RANK // ?

-- TECHS USED // None.

[Vio]

^{Curie #3}

---

With so much information being processed, emotions running high and low alike, Eleanor Curie allowed the fellow scientist a mistake or two. Besides, she wasn’t that far off the mark. The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event introduced absurd quantities of iridium into the Earth’s crust, an element now well-known amongst geologists, chemists, and physicists for its abysmal stability outside of its two naturally occurring isotopes. All the same, it was a moot point.

“Doctor Weaver has been hospitalised,” Doctor Lovelace told her. The name ‘Demon Core’ was far from the kind of comparison she would have liked to hear, but she was far and away beyond those levels of exposure. In a sense, she was grateful that Joseph’s dosage was lower, but did it really mean anything? Her own point rang in her head—the numbers are arbitrary to the perceived reality. Curie sank a little, eyes looking to her own hands as a means of distraction, hoping that the anomalous form would be enough of a distraction for the scientific side of her to stay in control.

^{“…Are you sure you want to know?”}

“Doctor Lovelace,” Curie said, raising her head to look at the woman in the hazmat suit. “In my current condition—and Joseph’s by extension—there is little in this world you can say to me that would convince me turning back is an option on the table. The greatest scientific venture of my career was ripped apart in front of my very eyes after years of work, to the point where it’s likely all for naught,” she seethed. Again, something crackled and buzzed. “Joseph’s condition is more than likely fatal, and the probability that I could just turn to dust as a result of my own exposure any second now is non-zero.”

Click! A snap of her fingers.

“In this sinking scenario, I’m already up to my neck,” Eleanor gestured. “I might as well go down with the whole ship. Besides.” The coldness of her tone shifted somewhat. Not wholly, but enough to suggest that she was entirely serious about what she was saying—on only a scant few occasions had she ever wanted something so intensely. “You’ve piqued my scientific interest…”

---

^{Eleanor Curie | #007bb8
Rosalyn Lovelace | #f05197}

[pepsi]

The scientist had a good point. After all, she was already in it; the Templars would never just let her go without as much as trying to understand her condition and exploit it to their advantage. It was either going to be that or a complete memory wipe. It was only fair that she was given the information, even though it would turn her world upside down even more. "Very well," Rosalyn said.

The woman sighed, and collected her thoughts for a second. The order in which she'd put the information had a very important impact on how it would be received on the other side.

"As a matter of fact," Rosalyn started, "in the past few years we have established the existence of a new life form that does not belong to our world."
Rosalyn paused for a moment, checking that the scientist was still following. "They have been around for a very long time, but only lately did their presence become more than statistically significant. Human myths and legends are but the result of us interacting with them long ago, as it turns out. These creatures come from a different plane of existence that overlaps ours, the one we usually call 'hell'..."

"... Demons." Rosalyn said, in a grave tone. She took another moment to check on the scientist' reaction; but that didn't fully explain her original question, so more work had to be done. "Demons possess supernatural powers, and some have malicious intentions towards our own kind. So, in conclusion, we believe the sabotage has been caused by demons."

Rosie sighed again, and shifted into her seat. It was a really hard speech to deliver; she remembered the first time she heard the same: she could not believe her ears, she screamed that there was no scientific evidence for any of that; when she was shown a living, breathing demon captured by Templar Cavalieri, she had to yield to the overwhelming amount of evidence she simply wasn't aware of. That was many, many months prior; now, she was the leader of the Unusual Arms division of the Alchimisti and she knew better.
"So your condition might also be the result of some form of supernatural manipulation. Magic, if you will. We're monitoring you to make sure your biology hasn't been altered - forever - by some form of transmutation magic. In case it has, understand whether or not we can find you a cure. Same goes for Mr. Weaver."

-- NAME // Rosalyn Lovelace

-- RANK // ?

-- TECHS USED // None.

[Vio]

^{Curie #3}

---

Doctor Curie listened, though not even the slightest give in her expression appeared—the gravity of her situation was enough of a burden. Doctor Lovelace’s explanation almost sounded like something out of a science fiction movie, both in the words she used and her delivery of them, though any dramatic pause or shift in tone was purely coincidental and a likely result of her trying to condense greater knowledge into a smaller, more easily digestible parcel.

“Hmph,” she chuckled as Rosalyn finished, one hand raised in front of her own face and observed its greyed skin. The mild metallic sheen that seemed to replace the softer, most subtle creases and whorls in her fingers and across her palms. This was the work of things many an esteemed scientist would brand as fantastical, impossible, and downright stupid: An affront to all things that science stood for. The imagery of sorcerous symbology, flashes of horned and inhuman silhouettes, and of otherworldly planes of fire and ice—that’s what they would have imagined.

They weren’t scientists.

“You know, Doctor Lovelace, as a scientist I should be sceptical of and refute your claims due to lack of evidence,” Eleanor said, not yet taking her eyes off her own hand as she wrapped fingers into a gentle fist and allowed them to open again of their passive processes. “But then, I could not—in any right mind—call myself a scientist.” She paused, expression turning to one of contemplation as she processed the supposedly impossible. People always wanted proof of the existence of something before they cared to believe it, demonstrating the inferiority and ignorance of the common mindset, and many a proclaimed scientist was just as prone to that. Those that didn’t fall into the human trap pioneered brilliant things, from the innovation of modern electrical currents to the birth of nuclear power and even to the still young concepts of quantum computing.

“I have no other explanation for what I witnessed, even without the numbers and calculations to back it up,” the grey woman continued, recalling the sickened feeling of seeing those creatures—fleeting as many of her glimpses were—running rampant. “And that, I would say, is a worthy price to pay for being able to study a form of science that has forever lingered in the background of civilisation. New species are discovered every day. Why should ‘demons’ be any different? Theories of alternate Universes and additional planes are common amongst the scientific community—they can’t all be wrong? And for the longest time humans believed lightning, earthquakes, tidal waves, and more to be the work of divine wrath. Magic. All magic is science, and all science is magical,” she ended with a small, somewhat excited if heavily tempered smile.

Still, more questions lingered, but she refrained from spouting them too vehemently. Much as the lady in the hazmat suit before her seemed to be gauging her reactions, Curie wanted to gauge hers…

---

^{Eleanor Curie | #007bb8
Rosalyn Lovelace | #f05197}

[pepsi]

Rosalyn nodded. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It is essential for the scientific method, after all. In this case, I have to say, we do have very convincing evidence that the 'other world' and their inhabitants exist." The Alchimista softened her rigid posture and crossed her legs; she was somehow getting more comfortable as the conversation went on. The anxiety from having to withhold potentially harmful information hazards had dissipated the moment this information was passed on, and she could finally talk more or less unrestrained.
"The actual type and classification of demon that assaulted Grenoble, if there aren't more, has not yet been identified. We opted to ensure the safety of the humans involved, first."

"I must make myself very clear. Your medical condition is of extreme interest to us. So is your safety and the safety of everybody around you." Rosalyn pointed to herself. "As you can see, I have taken precautions. We have measured fluctuating levels of radiation emitted from your body, and before discharging you from this facility we need to make sure these fluctuations are under acceptable thresholds. Actually..."
Rosalyn gestured with both open palms at Eleanor's figure. "... Since I heard of the incident, and since I jotted down those numbers for the approximate radiation levels, I have also devised-"

The woman in the hazmat suit shook her head. She was getting ahead of herself. "As you may imagine, extraordinary situations require extraordinary deeds. Miss Curie, I'm not just a doctor. I work with the Vatican and the Italian Government to research and develop instruments to protect against the threat that the demons represent to mankind."
She shighed, and her suit's visor fogged up for an instant. "... as I was saying, I devised a prototype for a wearable suit that will help you manage your radiation levels. Consider it payment for doing what would be, under any other circumstance, legally considered kidnapping."

-- NAME // Rosalyn Lovelace

-- RANK // ?

-- TECHS USED // None.

[Vio]

^{Curie #3}

---

As she suspected. Eleanor Curie was as much a science experiment as she was a scientist, subject to the scrutiny of eyes that had seen much and yet still wanted to see so much more. A strangely accepted contest of wills in which neither side sought to best the other, but to analyse the mysteries and to comprehend the answers that only their opponent could give them.

“Consider it payment,” Doctor Lovelace began anew.

“I wouldn’t be too concerned about compensation, Doctor Lovelace,” Eleanor retorted, currently engaged in a mental game of solitaire with her own thoughts in order to better process and learn. Surely, she would be stepped through what was known in due time, but an eager mind was already finding questions that it just wanted the answers to. “The opportunity to delve into the known and unknown sciences of what you’ve shared with me is more than enough. At this point, I would rather consider your prototype a necessary step for both of our endeavours—scientific and personal alike. I’m not above being a test subject if it is required,” she clarified. A cool logic existed in such words, backed by her own interest in the inevitably interwoven intricacies of her current state of being and the supernatural.

“Now, if you don’t mind me asking,” Doctor Curie continued, “there seems to be rather a lot that needs to be covered in regards to my condition and the knowledge you have surrounding the ‘other world’ and its inhabitants.” The woman exhaled, partially out of disappointment and partially out of frustration. “Sadly, my exact memories of what transpired are a little hazy, and I’m not certain I can help you ascertain the reasoning behind our reactor being assailed. That being said,” she added with a grain of spite and a popping crack of energy, “it seems suspect that every single automatic shutoff feature of the Curie-Weaver Reactor had failed on launch. Joseph and I were very thorough on our tests and had several of the world’s leading nuclear engineers perform independent assessments…”

---

^{Eleanor Curie | #007bb8
Rosalyn Lovelace | #f05197}