Last Sanctuary

Chapter 3: The Workshop

Engineering is chaos. Organized chaos, but chaos nonetheless.

Pipes run across the ceiling like metal veins. Wires hang from open panels. Machines hum and beep and clatter. The air smells of ozone and grease and sweat.

Chen is a small man. Bald. Round glasses. Hands permanently stained black. He looks at me like I'm a broken part he needs to fix. His eyes are quick, scanning me head to toe in under a second.

"Commander Kael says you're a mechanic."

"I am."

"Show me."

He points at a dead console. Sparks flicker from its base. The screen is cracked. Smoke curls from the ventilation grille.

I walk over. Open the panel. Inside, a mess of fried circuits. Someone tried to patch it. Made it worse. Wires crossed where they shouldn't be. A capacitor is swollen, about to blow.

I start working.

Five minutes later, the console boots. The screen glows blue. The fan whirs to life. I turn to Chen.

He's smiling. It's not a warm smile.

"Good. You're useful." He walks over. "The Commander says I should trust you. I don't trust anyone. But I'll use you."

"That's fair."

"There's a maintenance shaft on Level 3. The air circulation unit needs calibration. I need someone small enough to fit."

"I'm small."

"Then go. Take this." He hands me a toolkit. "Don't touch anything else. Don't look at anything else. Fix the unit and come back."

"Understood."

The maintenance shaft entrance is behind a grate in the corner of Engineering. I slide it open. Crawl inside.

The shaft is narrow. Dark. My shoulders brush the metal walls. Dust coats everything. I crawl forward, my knees scraping against the corrugated floor.

The ventilation system branches every ten feet. Left. Right. Up. Down. I follow Chen's directions. Fifty feet. Then a hundred.

I reach the circulation unit. It's a massive metal box bolted to the shaft wall. The calibration panel is open. Numbers flash in red.

I start working.

But my eyes wander.

The shaft intersects with other shafts. Some lead to rooms. I can see through the grates. Slivers of light. Edges of furniture.

One room catches my attention.

It's small. White. A single table in the center. On the table, a piece of equipment I recognize.

My father's oscilloscope. The portable one. He built it himself. Custom housing. Modified casing. I'd recognize it anywhere.

My hands stop moving.

The room is empty now. But the equipment is there. It's been used recently. Cables still connected. A mug half-full of liquid next to the scope. A coat hung over a chair.

Someone is working in that room. Someone using my father's tools.

I memorize the location. The grate number. The turn pattern.

Then I finish the calibration. Quick. Sloppy. It'll hold for a day.

I crawl back to Engineering.

"Done," I say.

Chen looks up. "Fast."

"I told you. I'm good."

He grunts. Goes back to his work. Soldering a circuit board. His hands steady.

---

I wait until the shift change. 1900 hours. The day crew leaves. Chen packs his tools. He pauses at the door.

"Don't do anything stupid."

"I won't."

"You will. You have the look." He shakes his head. "Just try not to get caught. I don't want to train another mechanic."

He leaves.

The night crew comes on. Three engineers I don't know. They settle in. One sleeps at his desk. Two play cards, whispering.

I pretend to work. I fiddle with a broken water pump. I look busy.

At 2100, the lights dim.

The card players don't notice me. The sleeper snores.

I slip into the maintenance shaft.

This time, I go the other direction. Past the circulation unit. Past the branching tunnels. I find the junction I saw earlier.

The grate to the white room.

I push. It's not locked. It swings open on silent hinges.

I drop into the room.

The oscilloscope is real. I touch it. The metal is warm. It's been on recently. I run my fingers over the custom casing. My father's handwriting is still on the label. Black marker on white tape. SV-OSCOPE-1.

I look around. The room has cabinets. Metal filing cabinets. I open one.

Files. Hundreds of them. Medical records. All labeled with numbers. No names.

I pull one at random. Open it.

Patient 174. Age: 34. s*x: M. Pre-existing: None. Procedure: Genetic recalibration. Viral vector injection. Strain: SV-7. Results: Partial integration. Immune response severe. Subject expired after 14 days. Cause of death: Organ failure. Multi-system collapse.

My blood runs cold.

I open another.

Patient 189. Age: 22. s*x: F. Procedure: Cellular regeneration therapy. Dosing schedule: daily. Results: Initial improvement. Subject regained motor function. Day 12: sudden regression. Subject expired Day 16. Notes: Subject showed signs of consciousness on Day 11. Reported vivid dreams. Memories of surface life. Requested termination.

Requested termination. She asked them to kill her.

I open another. Another. Another.

They're all the same. Human subjects. Experimental treatments. Almost all fatal.

Patient 203. Expired. Patient 217. Expired. Patient 224. Expired. Patient 231. Expired during procedure.

The numbers climb. Dozens. Hundreds.

At the bottom of the cabinet, I find a folder marked differently.

Project Phoenix.

I open it.

Inside is a single photograph. My father. Standing next to a woman I don't recognize. Both wearing lab coats. Behind them, a machine. Huge. Circular. Made of metal and glass. Cables running everywhere. Lights blinking along its surface.

The Shell.

The word appears in my mind. I don't know where it comes from. But I know it's right.

The photograph is dated. Six months ago.

My father was alive six months ago.

I slide the photograph into my pocket. I need to keep looking. I need to find more. I open another cabinet.

More files. But these are different. Personnel records. Names of guards. Council members. Scientists. And next to each name, a status.

Active. Deceased. Transferred to Project Phoenix.

Transferred. Just like Maya said. Just like Kael said.

A sound behind me.

I turn.

Kael stands in the doorway. His face is hard. His hand rests on his sidearm.

"Nova."

"I can explain."

"Don't bother." He steps inside. Closes the door behind him. "I followed you from Engineering."

"You knew I'd come here?"

"I suspected." He looks at the cabinets. The open files. The oscilloscope. "What did you find?"

"Human experiments. Dozens of them. Dozens of dead people. My father's equipment. Photographs of him from six months ago."

Kael's jaw tightens. He walks to the cabinet. Looks at the files. Reads one. His face doesn't change. But his hand trembles.

"Project Phoenix," he says.

"You know about it?"

"I've heard the name. The Council mentions it sometimes. In passing. Like it's something they'd rather forget."

"It's not something they'd forget. It's something they're hiding."

Kael closes the cabinet. Turns to me.

"I've seen the bodies, Nova. The ones who don't survive. They're incinerated. No records. No families notified. The ashes go into the waste system."

"Where do they get the subjects?"

He hesitates. Just a second. But I see it.

"The surface," he says. "Runners. Refugees. People who show up at the gate looking for shelter. People no one will miss."

"They're baiting people. Promising safety and then—"

"Yes."

I feel sick. My stomach churns. "And you let this happen?"

"I didn't know the full extent. I knew people were disappearing. I suspected. But I didn't have proof." He looks at me. "Now I do."

"What are you going to do?"

"What can I do?" His voice is sharp. Angry. "I'm Commander, but I'm not Council. I don't have the authority to shut down their operations. If I push too hard, I end up on one of those tables."

"Then we need evidence. More than this. Something we can use to expose them."

"Like what?"

I hold up the photograph. "Like whatever Project Phoenix actually is. The machine in this picture. The Shell. If I can find it, I can prove what they're doing."

Kael is quiet. He studies the photograph. His eyes trace the cables. The lights. The circular frame.

"I know where it is," he says.

"Where?"

"Level 3. The restricted zone. I've been there once. Three years ago. They showed me a fraction of what's down there. A tour. Controlled. Supervised."

"Can you get me in?"

"I can try." He looks at me. "But if we get caught, I can't protect you. The Council doesn't answer to me. They answer to no one."

"I'm not asking for protection."

He almost smiles. "I know."

We stand in the white room. Surrounded by evidence of atrocities. Two people who shouldn't trust each other.

"Tomorrow night," he says. "0200 hours. Meet me at the Level 3 stairwell. Don't be late."

"I won't."

He turns to leave. Stops at the door.

"Nova."

"Yeah?"

"Your father. I met him once. Before he disappeared."

My heart stops. "What?"

"He came to my office. Six years ago. A few months before the bombs fell. He was agitated. Said the Council was pushing him to do something he didn't agree with. He asked me for help."

"What did you say?"

"I said no." Kael's voice is barely a whisper. "I told him it wasn't my place. I told him to follow orders. I was young. I didn't understand."

I don't speak.

"The next day, he was gone. Disappeared. No trace. I've always wondered if I could have stopped it. If I'd helped him, maybe..."

"You couldn't have."

"You don't know that."

"No." I look at him. "But I know you're helping me now. That's what matters. What happened then is in the past."

He nods. Once. Then he's gone.

I stand alone in the white room. The photograph is heavy in my pocket.

Tomorrow night, I find the Shell.

Tomorrow night, I find the truth.