Sanctuary

He’d gotten used to the clinking of chains when venturing down into the basement of City Hollow. As soon as the elevator doors opened it was like entering the Twilight Zone. Gone were the lavish furnishings of the upper floors, the sounds of clerical input and the lingering smell of politics. Down here they were replaced by empty hallways and the sight of medical personnel. He was greeted by a cluster of professionals in navy blue scrubs as soon as the doors opened, junior doctors perhaps? The smell of chemicals was ripe in the air, some sort of bleach-based cleaning product to mask the phantom aroma of whatever it was that took place down here. With his right foot forward he stepped out of the elevator, his gunmetal grey suit creating quite a contrast to the endless stream of uniforms and doctor’s coats. He should have been in quite a good mood in truth, but this place never exactly left him jumping for joy. In truth, the lower he found himself in the depths of City Hollow, the more he was overwhelmed with a bittersweet cocktail of sadness and anger. This place had become his sanctuary, four floors below ground level, ten below the mayor’s office where he now spent the majority of his day posturing and pretending to give a fuck about the common folk.

As David began down the corridor he was greeted with a different respect from passers by than he did when he was upstairs, the look of admiration was wiped clean and stained in its place was the look of fear. The medical staff were probably his biggest expense since he’d taken office. Sixteen doctors, four scientists and a lead physician were on the payroll officially, but that didn’t account for the nursing staff, orderlies or the cleaners who while currently invisible were obviously working around the clock. Or at least that’s what the overwhelming scent of disinfectant would suggest. Despite his success in the previous evening’s endeavor, David looked to be holding a grimace of quiet concern, Danco knew not to call him down here unless it was of the utmost importance, and so Sanchez feared the worst. He had to be careful, not many people on the surface streets of Chicago above even knew of this place’s existence and he preferred it that way. Further down the corridor David traveled, passing symmetrical iron doors on either side, each numbered with a unique combination of digits. Finally he stopped in front of one, rather he stalled for a split moment and banged his fist against the wrought iron door.

“Mickey… are you still alive in there?”

David’s voice was more curious than concerned when he asked, but as he unbolted a service hatch on the door that vaguely resembled one which could be found in the solitary confinement wing of a maximum security prison, he was greeted by a familiar face. Mickey Vegas was silent and still as the camera caught a glimpse of him crouching in the corner, covering his face. It had been four weeks since David’s security detail had removed Vegas from the Warehouse on the night that Sanchez stepped out of Mr. Wright’s ramblings and into reality. Had he been here this entire time? The fact that his wardrobe hadn’t changed would certainly suggest this much. Mickey seemed to flinch at not just David’s voice but the very sound of the hatch opening. Whatever had been done to the traveling musician had certainly left a serious impact on the way he carried himself.

“... N-no more. Please, I’m r-ready.”

The words came between whimpers, and hit the eardrum more like cries than his once soft-spoken voice. He had never exactly had the voice of an angel; his musical influences having been the likes of Jack White and Dan Auerbach, but this was something of a different genre entirely. Like Adele being mercy fucked by a Christmas Tree, pine-needles first.

“I wish that was the case Mick, I really do. You know the rules though. Nobody is ready until the good doctor makes it so.”

He was lying, David couldn’t care less whether this glorified busker died of undernourishment in this prison of sorts. He was more of a nuevo flamenco man himself and found Mickey’s particular brand of acoustic heartache to be an over-saturated market ripe with hipsters and kids with half of their head shaved and the other half swept over in trademark lesbian fashion. Vegas was hysterical at this revelation, he rushed to the door and tried to press his face through the gap that Sanchez was addressing him from. In doing so though, he caused two things to happen; first, the camera was able to identify some fresh scarring around the dome, consistent with those present after receiving a lobotomy, and secondly it activated a surge of electricity powerful enough to jolt the two-hundred pound man from Atlantic City back onto the cold concrete floor. As if just for effect, it also caused a dampness to appear around his crotch, which in turn seemed to disgust the mayor who immediately slammed the hatch closed with a disappointed shake of the head.

“I’m sorry old friend, but rules are rules.”

Mickey’s screams echoed long after the red, iron door was sealed once more. They were neither those of pain, nor sadness. Rather they fit the bill of somebody being tormented by their own thoughts. Something you might hear whilst visiting a distant relative in their padded room at an insane asylum. For a brief moment David lingered in front of the door, straightening his tie after having had to bend his knees to see through the gap. It wasn’t until he felt a hand on his shoulder that he was stirred back into life with a frightening presence behind him.

“Fuck... Josef. What the fuck man? We’ve talked about this, announce yourself before you touch me. It’s just fucking creepy man, shit.”

Not frightening in the physical sense, Josef Danco was a man with around sixty-five years on this earth under his belt, no overbearing physical stature nor did he possess any hideous disfigurements which might have justified David’s response. The doctor was not a sight which would keep children awake at night, however his history and his experiments would make it so that the world would never need to see his face in order to fear this twisted physician. After spending twenty three years in the Russian gulag of Kovelshchyna based near Kaliningrad you would have expected a more bitter man to reflect his years of torture and imprisonment. Instead, the Polish doctor who was captured in Poznan sometime during the Cold War greeted the mayor with a smile that almost stretched from ear to ear. It was remarkable to behold, or at least that was what David had thought initially, but the more time he was spending in Danco’s company, the more he began to fear Josef was playing a much grander game of human chess than he was. Nicknamed ‘The Hand of God’ by the Russians, our good doctor was most famous for his studies and experiments into genetic modification. Or as David had taken to calling it ‘anatomical jigsaw fuckery.’

“Apologies David, I see you were checking in on patient seventy-three?”

Sanchez hadn’t quite grasped the concept of people’s lives being reduced to simple numbers yet, but that wasn’t why he had ventured down into the depths this evening. He could argue the value of mortality at another time.

“Yeah, he looks a bit… Well shit, I’ll just say ask. He’s not going to make it, is he?”

Josef smiled at the mayor once more. It was the intellectual grin of somebody who truly believed themselves to be in control of everything and everyone around them. He began to question his own messiah complex whenever he was around the doctor but in truth, this was one of the reasons he had hired such an eccentric character. His daily life was full of people who would simply nod and agree; ‘yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.’ Sure it was a good feeling to provoke such fear and respect among the masses but if it didn’t get results, what was the fucking point?

“Only time will tell David. He has shown a remarkable capacity for obedience and his manual dexterity is improving by the day. His problem lies in his inability to let go of his previous identity. I think we’ll give him another week, if nothing has improved then we will terminate the project and ship him up to maximum security so he can live out the rest of his days in a cell not unlike the one he currently calls home. Wouldn’t want to confuse him too much in such a fragile condition, now would we?.”

He was even asking rhetorical leading questions. That was David’s thing, what a cunt. The mayor held his composure though and nodded his approval, the last thing he wanted to do was get into a scientific debate with this man. He’d learned the hard way that while he might be knowledgeable in many fields, he didn’t even have the most basic grasp on the kind of medicine and science which was being practiced down here.

“Whatever you feel is for the best Josef. You are the doctor after-all. Just send the necessary paperwork up to Miss Valentyne and I’ll sign the documents when they cross my desk. I assume you didn’t call me down here to simply discuss the hypothetical though? You know I can’t be seen to be spending too much time vanishing into elevators, that’s how people start to ask questions.”

The doctor gestured a walking motion with his index and middle fingers, the universal sign language for ‘let us walk and talk.’ Both men start to take a slow pace down the concrete corridor, flanked on both sides by an endless number of red iron doors, each assumed to contain another living cadaver, a plaything if you will for Danco to poke and prod at in the name of scientific discovery.

“No. There’s another couple of things that you need to be made aware of. First, I understand your need to trial the subjects in real world applications but last week there was a number of complaints from citizens who witnessed two of our, shall we say projects? Roughing up a middle-aged, obese man in a dive bar a few miles from here. This is the kind of attention we would do best to avoid. Photographs were taken of both patient twenty-one and twenty-two, which means that they have had to be returned into captivity until the heat dies down a little. In future, might I suggest that you perhaps have any of the subjects removed from this laborat..”

“Sanctuary.”

David was quick to interrupt the Polish scientist turned doctor with a correction of his description of this place. Sanctuary seemed a little more glamorous than current surroundings would suggest, but then again, this was David’s world and he could call it 'Super-Happy Funville' if he seen fit. They continued down the corridor which seemed to stretch much further than the external foundations of City Hollow itself, suggesting that they may now be under the very streets of Chicago themselves.

“Sanctuary then. Regardless, if you decide to use any of our toys in public again, one would perhaps find them more suitable for repeated use if they were to be in disguises of some sort. I’m not talking morphsuits and wigs, but at least a balaclava and something to cover the extensive tissue scarring. It will save you having to explain why there are two burly men with seemingly superhuman strength roughing up local bartenders and business owners.”

David looked a little taken aback. In truth he wasn’t used to people questioning his methods anymore. Nevertheless he made a mental note to purchase some additional riot gear and balaclavas, now was the perfect time for such an expense considering he was expected to attend the policeman’s ball on Saturday evening and cut another ribbon to mark the grand opening of the new and improved Hope Valley Police Headquarters.

“Noted, I’ll make sure to conceal the identities of any abominations before they leave the Sanctuary.”

Sanctuary. Sanctuary. Sanctuary. No matter how many times he said it in his head, it still sounded like a lie. Why not just call a spade a spade? This place was a prison. No, it was worse than a prison. The prison aspect was only the waiting room, what followed at the hands of Dr. Danco was a fate much worse than life behind bars.

“Fantastic. Secondly, this week I have a favor to ask of you if I may be so bold for it seems that you could be coming into contact with a few key components that I would love to apply to my… research.”

He had a way of making everything sound like an inanimate object. From this request he could have been talking about anything from a toothbrush and some lug-nuts to a newly born baby.

“If you enlighten me as to what these ‘components’ are, I’ll do my best to acquire them for you Josef… pending what exactly it is that you require?”

Danco hated asking for favors. It wasn’t just from David, rather from any other lifeforms on this planet. Like most scientific minds his was doomed to be stubborn.

“It’s not exactly a ‘what’ persay.”

Baby, he fucking called it. The creepy bastard wanted him to steal a baby.

“I would like to study the DNA of the two people you will be facing on Sunday, and I figure they are not about to willingly submit specimen samples. One Polar Phantasm and Bonnie Blue. Each of your opponents have a remarkable biochemical build…”

“Josef.”

Small words. Less jargon. Don’t be a dick your whole life Danco.

“I would appreciate it if you could get me some samples of their DNA, I feel it may hold some relevance to the work I’m doing down here. I’m not asking you get them to piss in a cup or submit to a swab test. Just pull a few hairs out or dig your fingernails into their skin and don’t wash your hands until you get back to me.”

See, that was more understandable. He didn’t need to understand why the doctor wanted these things, it was unspoken apparently. David was far from a stupid man but spending too much time in Danco’s company always left him longing for a few hours with Taylor Wright so that he could feel intellectually superior again.

“Scratch and pull hair. Understood loud and clear. I think I can fit that into my arsenal between biting and nipple twisters if I play my cards right.”

The doctor did not laugh. He never laughed actually. He just smiled that creepy, Cheshire cat grin and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose whenever they slipped. The Russians must have done some damn fine work on him.

“You don’t need to make it your entire offense, a single sample from each of them should suffice.”

My word this man was vanilla. David made a further mental note to slip some LSD into one of those decaffeinated mugs of brown swill he liked to drink one day for shits and giggles. They had reached the end of the hallway now, or at least Josef had. David on the other hand had stopped a few paces back from the final doorway, a large, polished brass entranceway that faced straight down the corridor they had just traveled. End of the line. The door was marked ‘zero’ and on either side of it, on opposing walls were ‘one’ and ‘two.’ Though David himself was being blocked from going any further than the seventh iron encasement by some sort of invisible force-field.

“... Is that everything?”

He was itching to leave now, you could hear it in his voice as well as see it in his physical appearance. Whatever was down there, Sanchez wanted no part of it.

“Well, no. Actually I need to talk to you about Patient Zero, she...”

“You say her fucking name or so help me God I will send you back to Russia in a gift-wrapped box marked ‘изменник!’”

David was enraged, those throbbing veins upon his temples looked like they might burst at any second. Still, hearing his boss say 'traitor' in the tongue of mother Russia seemed to make Danco all the more compliant. Fuck the Winter Soldier, Sanchez had acquired the Winter Scientist.

“Samantha, I’m sorry. I need to talk to you about Samantha.”

He was apparently glutton for punishment because every time he heard her name it was like being fucked in the ear with an ice-pick. Still, his wife was still his wife. If she wasn’t herself. Hearing her reduced to a patient number meant accepting that she was just another toy for Josef to play with and that was not the case. It never had been, infact she was the only reason for any of this sacrilegious study… this so called sanctuary.

“What is it?”

“There has been no further improvements in almost two months David. She handled the initial surgery and was all but reanimated. Since then however, she hasn’t moved, spoken or even blinked. She just lies there. Every second of the day, staring at the ceiling. It’s beginning to put some of my colleagues on edge.”

But she was alive, and that was more than she had been when David had found her. He failed to see the issue. So long as there was breath in her lungs he still considered his wife to be alive.

“Frankly, I don’t give a fuck about the anxiety levels of your colleagues Josef. You were brought here to bring my wife back to me, not play human Mr. Potato Head. If she leaves, or flat-lines. Shit if I even hear that one of your pet doctors or nurses passed her room without checking on her; I hit the master unlock button on all these cells, seal the elevator and this sanctuary becomes a fucking mausoleum. You want to play God? We’ll see how much you enjoy that idea when all of your children get to meet their maker.”

Before Josef Danco can even respond, David is pacing back down the hall in a blind rage. He passes over two-hundred doors on his way back to the elevator. Two-hundred human lives reduced to nothing but numbers for identities and scrambled egg for brains.

“Sweet Sanctuary”