That sanitary smell again. My awareness was caught in the ebb and flow of my twilight consciousness, but one thing was certain; I wanted to get away from it. The scent of sterility represented something that I resented. Feared. I knew I wasn’t safe before the abstract concept of safety had even returned. As my bleary eyes opened, I stared at the mesmerising shapes on the wall. They were little more than smudges of grey, white and yellow. Any thoughts I had would have been purged into inexistence by the time the images focused.

  It was a window. But not like any I had seen. There was a thickness to the glass. I could tell even from the awkward horizontal position I was in. From my angle, I could see a couple of identical grey buildings. This doesn’t look like my apartment, I thought. And then the memories echoed. As if the force of their impact was tangible, I shot up from the bed. A mistake. The repercussion of the swift movement came in the form of a pounding headache. Whether it was from the drugs that my captors had injected into me, or from the density of the thoughts that inundated the space between my ears, I couldn’t tell.

  After a moment of recuperation, I threw the white blanket off of my body. White trousers and long sleeves. For the second time, they had dressed me while I was unconscious. The idea didn’t bother me as much as it did the first time. After all, my clothes had been blemished with the ejected contents of my stomach. For once, I was grateful. Waking up in vomit would have been significantly less pleasant. It was then that I noticed the softness of the bed I was sitting on. This one had frames and I couldn’t feel the springs of the mattress. This seemingly innocuous detail was important, because like a fractal it repeated itself in everything else. This room was larger than the one I had been kept in previously. The door looked less oppressive and didn’t seem like it was designed to lock me in. There was a window. A study desk with a chair. There was a panel near the door that even had the time. A little past four in the afternoon. So they’re treating me better this time, huh? I thought wryly. But will they let me leave?

  Remembering my experience from waking up last time around, I slowly got up from the bed, making sure my hand was holding onto something at any given time. I was terrified of getting a proper look of the world that lay outside the window. What I had seen from the bridge had shook me to the core. It was as if the universe closed in on itself, and it was no longer infinite. It had slapped me with the weight of my own privilege. I had taken for granted the horizon. The open air. The certainty of the sky above my head wherever I was. The breeze on my face. The splatter of rain on my palms. They were all things I thought I was entitled to. Even when I was locked up in that room, I believed that on the other side of one of the surfaces of the cuboid were those experiences waiting for me. When those notions shattered, a sense of dread that I never knew was possible bore down on me like the crushing pressure of an ocean so deep that even light couldn’t reach me. It was primal. Even thinking about it felt like prodding at a dormant anxiety. And yet, I had to see it. There was the pragmatic reason; I needed to outlast my insanity if I were to eventually leave this place, assuming that was possible—a pragmatic belief in and of itself. But there was also a curiosity in me. This place shouldn’t exist. It didn’t make sense.

  Making my way to the window, the outside world began revealing itself. The structures were not only tall, but wide. They demanded my awe. From this window, I saw many, but it was impossible to tell exactly how many due to their obstruction. And this was just one view. No city—if this place could even be called that—I knew of looked like this. The closest thing that came to mind were the images of Soviet cities. Of tall, interconnected apartment blocks sprawled across snowy Russian landscapes with the organisation of a spreadsheet. The similarities were there; the sameness of buildings, their straightforwardness. But that was as far as the analogy went. If Soviet apartment blocks were brutalist, then these structures were brutalism distilled to a concentrated dose beyond lethality. They looked so devoid of humanity that it was easier to imagine these structures as the remnants of some alien species. One that had completely missed the evolutionary need for individualism. Where real apartments were slimmer and had plenty of room in between, these structures passionately disagreed. There was a tiny appreciation at the back of my mind that had suggested there was something attractive, perhaps even beautiful. I wasn’t sure what it was, and whether it reflected poorly on my state of sanity. I could see windows in the distance. Even the occasional floor that had thick glass for walls. And the bridges of course. There was movement. People. They were seemingly going about their business, but I couldn’t see what they were doing. The horizon, unfortunately, still eluded me. A white and yellow shell that made up the ground, walls and sky. Is this place underground, I wondered, or on the surface somewhere, but enclosed by something?

  The desk had drawers. I opened them one by one. Tissues. Sleeping masks. Unused notebooks. Pens. Three-star amenities, I dismissed mockingly. The idea of me staying long enough to go through them was preposterous. Offensive. The man named Lennox said I would have a choice. If he was serious to any capacity, then I was going to choose to leave. The wardrobe had several outfits. A grey long sleeve and trousers. The fabric was firmer than what I wore. They had pockets and a white stripe above the heart. They think I’d willingly wear their uniform? I thought in defiance. I had the urge to spit on it. I didn’t. Next to the uniform was a lighter coloured shirt and trousers. Beside that was a soft blue bathrobe. In the corner of the wardrobe was a folded set of clothes. Those were the ones I would change into. Because those were what I had worn the night they took me. Thankfully, they were washed. My phone, however, was nowhere to be found.

  There was only one thing the previous room had that this room lacked. The bathroom, which I needed. I opened the door. A small hallway with two other doors. Going through them, one was indeed the bathroom, and the other was another room identical to the one I just left. At the end of the hallway was a simple lounge that doubled as a kitchen. A part of me realised that I wouldn’t be able to afford an apartment like this. On the dining table was a plate of food. A Sandwich. Sausages. An apple. I couldn’t tell whether this was their idea of a joke or if it was all they had. Next to the plate was a tablet. It was small enough to fit the palm of my hand. A sheet of paper on the table had handwritten notes:

  Call me - Irene

  Irene. I had severely underestimated her before. I couldn’t trust her. Unfortunately, I was on their turf now. I had to play by their rules until I could figure out a way to leave. And Irene had to be a part of that. The tablet felt light in my hand. There was a layer to it, which revealed a keyword when I pulled. Pressing a small button on the bottom, the screen lit up. The device was intuitive to use. I typed in Irene’s name and it dialled. I placed the device to my ear. I heard two ascending tones.

  “So you’re finally awake,” came Irene’s voice.

  “Yeah,” I said. Speaking to her non-confrontationally felt like self-flagellation. “You told me to call you.”

  “That I did. Now can you move the handheld away from your ear?” Irene asked in a subtle amusement. “Nice of you to expose your earhole to me, but I don’t want it. And not that it’s any of my business, but you might want to clean it.”

  I moved the handheld in front me and saw the shadow of a smirk on Irene’s expression. I tried to strangle the feeling of embarrassment with exasperation. “Satisfied?” I asked.

  “Only mildly. Anyway, go eat some food and shower,” Irene said indifferently. “Be ready to leave your apartment in twenty minutes. I’ll come get you.”

  “Why? Where are we going?”

  “Answers,” Irene said. “I did promise them. And they’re with Lenny.”

  The call ended with two descending tones. Lenny? I wondered. Oh. Lennox. It might have been petty of me, but in defiance of Irene I decided to shower first. The bathroom lights switched on automatically as I entered. Looking up, I saw that the familiar cylindrical light had no black rim around it, meaning I didn’t have to worry about my privacy. To my immense relief, this bathroom had a toothbrush, toothpaste and shampoo. Brushing my teeth was a ritual I was uncomfortable with surrendering. And not that I cared about my appearance, but I hated the prickly sensation of my greasy hair. All of the products were pure white and unbranded. The toothpaste tube had “Toothpaste” in a serif typeface printed on it. The shampoo bottle was the same but with “Shampoo” instead.

  I left the bathroom in my own clothes. White collared shirt and blue jeans. The symbol of freedom and liberty. I opened the kitchen cabinets one by one until I found a glass, and filled it up with tap water. It was odourless and looked potable, so I chugged it down without abandon. The food that sat patiently for me at the table was cold, but I dove into it with a shrug. As I ate, I appraised the space around me. Thrice as much as what I’m paying for my place, I thought. At least.

  When the tones played, I jumped. It came from the interfaces that were in every room. The door? I wondered. When I reached it, I looked through the peephole.

  “Irene,” I said as I opened the door. Irene wore the same dark jacket she had before.

  “Let’s go.” If Irene was slighted by my greeting or the lack thereof, she didn’t show it. I doubted she was. She did, however, flick her gaze up and down. I felt self conscious, but that was merely the price of being an ardent defender of my inalienable liberty.

  “Do I need to bring anything?” I asked.

  “Not really,” she said as she began walking. I followed behind her. “But try to keep your handheld on you at all times.”

  As the door to the apartment closed, I suddenly panicked. “Wait. Do I get a key to the door or anything?”

  “You think this is a hotel?” Irene asked flatly. She didn’t turn back to look at me.

  “I guess not.”

  “No. But you do have a key. Just place your handheld near the interface next to the door and it’ll unlock.” Was she amused? I certainly wasn’t.

  There were many doors and corridors. It was similar to what I had previously traversed, at least structurally. But it was different. There were numbers on the doors. Some doors had decorations on them. A few even had welcome mats in front. The walls were beige. Down the hall, I saw someone appear from a corner and entered one of the doors. This place was lived in. It was breathing. Approaching the elevator, Irene pressed a button and waited. The silence felt awkward.

  “So,” I began, “is kidnapping a normal day-to-day job for you?”

  Irene looked at me boredly. “When the occasion arises,” she said casually.

  “Okay,” I said uncertainly. “So what is it that you actually do?”

  Her sigh was so subtle that I could barely make it out over the perpetual ambient hum of the ventilation. “There’s really no point explaining it to you before your chat with Lenny.”

  The elevator arrived with the fanfare of a soft tone. It proved to be only a temporary respite, as the awkwardness returned ever stronger when the doors slid closed, confining us to an unwanted proximity. Irene didn’t seem bothered. She turned to me with her arms folded across her chest. I felt self conscious.

  “So,” she started, “you’re about to get some answers.”

  “So you say,” I said.

  “But if you had known that this was the process to getting them, would you still have asked?” With Irene’s expression and tone, she might as well have dispassionately asked about the weather. I wondered if this was her version of small talk. This place didn’t have weather, right?

  “Well. That depends on the answers,” I said casually. It was a pointless question.

  There was a ghostly smirk on her face. “I’m surprised,” Irene said. “And here I was, so sure you’d say no and call me terrible names.”

  “I can appreciate the idea that some things justify extreme measures,” I said. “But I’ll be the judge of that. And you never know. Maybe I’ll call you terrible names later.” I thought for a moment. “Or maybe you do know. All that about knowing everything about me and all.”

  “We know a lot. But not everything.” Irene shrugged.

  We had ascended half a dozen floors above before the elevator opened to a sea of noise. Footsteps from every direction. Conversations that echoed through the open space. Perhaps it was because I had barely seen anyone for a long time, but the bustling of people took me aback.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Let’s go,” Irene said from a few paces ahead of me. As we walked, I saw dozens of people who walked with purpose. Like they needed to be somewhere and the floor was purely a transitory state that they wanted to spend as little time in as possible. There were people who didn’t and were content to stroll, sometimes in conversation with a friend. Among them was a group of children who were only approaching adolescence. Their skin colours varied, but they were much more defined by the shades of grey in the clothes that they wore. There were a few in white or beige, but the lack of any saturation or details on what they wore felt strange. It made the crowds feel monolithic. The last time I had been in such an environment was high school. There were several who regarded me curiously as they passed. The distinct clothes I wore made me feel incongruous. I was the outsider.

  The floor was like a city block. The ceiling was higher than the previous floor. There were buildings segmented by streets and walkways. I had seen the bones before, but this was the fleshed version. There were trees and bushes. Streetlights and benches. We walked past a large establishment with dozens of people eating in. Another seemed to be a barber. There was even a bar; The Message. The floor of the larger streets were almost white. There were a couple of people whizzing past in scooters. Perplexingly, I saw a riderless scooter in the distance that moved by itself. The technology in itself wasn’t impressive, but the idea that it was in use had surprised me. Surely they were easy to steal if they were driving by themselves. Unless they were a part of the infrastructure, in which case no one could own one without being a thief. But if so, then surely a lot of these scooters would be needed. After all, how many of these city-block-esque floors existed in this so-called city? One of these monolithic structures could fit many. And there were a lot of them. A multiplicative estimate was so large that it didn’t seem realistic. Then again, the very existence of this place sank the credibility of my notions of what was possible.

  We walked out of an exit from one of the sides of the floor and onto a bridge. Looking out from the glass, the view invoked a sublime feeling. It was humbling. People were reduced to the size of ants as I watched them walk along bridges in the distance. The bridges were like veins, the people were like cells flowing from one to the other. It struck me that this place had so many of these structures for a reason. There must be a lot of people. It was dizzying to think about.

  “Why is everything sealed?” I asked. “Is the air outside not breathable?”

  “It’s toxic,” Irene answered as she glanced back at me. “No open atmosphere.”

  A thought struck me. “Were you born here?”

  “I grew up here.”

  The floor of the building we entered looked structurally similar to the previous, but it wasn’t exactly the same. While there were still eateries and other services, the square of this floor was much larger. At the centre was a large statue of a man and woman looking up above, reaching out for something. Or perhaps accepting something. Perhaps God. The grand aesthetics of this floor was a stark contrast to the distilled utilitarianism of everything else about this place. We waited for an elevator. When it arrived, we entered and Irene placed her handheld next to the panel. A high pitched tone played, before Irene pressed sixteen on the panel. The only number higher was seventeen. We stood in silence as the elevator took us up. It was less awkward than before. I wondered what changed. Irene turned. Her eyes met my darker ones.

  “The sooner you accept this, the better,” she said. “We didn’t bring you here to harm you. And while we may take necessary precautions to ensure our safety as well as yours, we aren’t cruel. We’re different.”

  A response came to mind, and I was about to voice it when the opening of the elevator interjected. Irene began walking before I could say anything. This floor appeared to be an office. There were open areas with desks of people wearing light grey. Above their chests were blue stripes of varying quantities. Whereas the people in the previous floors had looked at me with passing curiosity, these office workers seemed to either regard me with boredom or amusement. They weren’t curious. They knew something about me. Perhaps just another kidnapee they see every once in a while. We left the open floor and entered an area with many closed doors. The walls were sparsely decorated with frosted glass that gave away the fact that they were offices. On the doors were small screens that displayed names.

  We stopped by a door that said “Lennox Muir”. Irene placed her handheld near the interface on the wall next to the door. A second later it opened.

  “Ah, Alex!” Lennox greeted enthusiastically as he turned away from his monitor. “Come in.” As I entered, he nodded to Irene and she left. The door closed behind her. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said as he gestured towards the guest area in his office.

  Luxurious didn’t quite seem like the right descriptor, but it certainly applied to the spaciousness. The desk that Lennox rose from was so large that it wouldn’t have fit into my measly office in Miller University. The area he had gestured me towards had two couches arranged around a coffee table. Each was large enough to comfortably substitute for a bed. I took refuge on the one that faced the door. Lennox sat on the other.

  “Do you like coffee?” he asked as he pulled out his handheld.

  “Yeah,” I answered. At the encouragement in Lennox’s eyebrows, I added, “A flat white, no sugar.”

  “Done,” he said, after a moment of tapping at his handheld. His gaze returned to me with a wide smile. “Well. I didn’t manage to say it before you puked your guts out, but welcome to Sanctuary.”

  “Sanctuary,” I tasted the name on my tongue. It sounded pretentious. “Is that the name of your nation or community, or this city?”

  “It’s the name of our marvellous city.”

  It would be like calling Las Vegas Gambling Den, or San Francisco Vastly Overpriced. That was, assuming that the name was a fitting descriptor for this city. As far as I was aware, a better name would have been Prison.

  “I want to get down to business,” Lennox said. “But I’m sure you have lots of questions. Now’s your chance to ask them.” He gestured with his open palms, as if he had nothing to hide. That seemed contradictory to the very nature of this place.

  I took a moment to think about where to start. “Who are you people?”

  “I’ve already told you. We are Receiverists,” Lennox said. “But I understand that’s not a helpful answer. We are a secluded society from the rest of the world. Both socially and geographically. Our existence is perfectly concealed.” There was hint of pride in his voice about that last part.

  “A nation?” I asked.

  “Sure. You can think of us in those terms familiar to you, if you like,” Lennox said with a shrug. It was a long winded way of producing an arrogant “no”. “But we think concepts like nation, country and state are too limiting. They have connotations that are inherently counter to our project. For one, the naming of our city was not a mistake. We really do plan on becoming humanity’s sanctuary for survival in the future. And this simple idea can’t exist for a nation. Because nations compete. They go to war. They only consider unilateral progress within petty and arbitrary borders. This myopia doesn’t exist for Receiverists. We pursue progress from a holistic perspective. From the necessary scope of humanity as a whole.”

  He believes what he’s saying, I noted. It was in the rise and fall of his tone. His eyes had the religious glint that I had seen only in pastors. That was dangerous. True believers didn’t take offence. They experienced sacrilege. But I had to press him, because fraudulent conversions were perhaps even worse than not believing in the first place. “If your ambition is to become the saviour of humanity, then why are you so hidden?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be trying to make a dent in the long list of problems that plague every country?”

  “That’s a fair point. If that was feasible, we’d certainly try,” Lennox said with a shrug. “But the more likely outcome is our destruction. Nations don’t tolerate perceived competitors, much less threats. The very idea of a society acting in the benefit of another would be perceived as an assault on sovereignty. Even if they accepted our help, they would be petulant, greedy children. It’s not hard to imagine the scenario where a country would consider our indiscriminate assistance of their adversary as conspiratorial. We would very quickly make enemies whose military intelligence would draft first strike scenarios and strategies for infiltration and destabilisation. It would be the end of our project as we know it.”

  The door opened. A young olive skinned man in a black apron entered with a tray of two cups. “Here you are sir,” he said.

  “Ah, thank you Ahmet,” Lennox said warmly.

  The man nodded with a smile before placing a cup on my side of the table. He left without another word.

  “You must have missed this, eh?” Lennox said before taking a small sip. “So anyway. That was the first issue. The second is that it would be pointless.”

  “Pointless?”

  Lennox nodded. “We know for a fact that the world, as you know it, will end. Someday, sooner or later, some catastrophic event will wipe out modern society. Even if we could help, it would only be delaying the inevitable. Becoming involved with the world above would mean that when the Event happens, we would be taken down with it.”

  “How are you so sure that everything’s coming to an end?” I asked. I was on the edge of the couch.

  “I can tell you that all of the hundreds of thousands of simulations our scientists have run all resulted in total calamity, but come now. You don’t need all that tech to tell you the obvious. Especially for a clever person like youself, Alex.” Lennox took a sip of his coffee before continuing. “I’m sure you’ve seen all the signs. The numerous ticking time bombs that could tear society apart. You already know this. I’m not really telling you anything new, am I?”

  I lifted the cup to my lips and blew before I took a cautious sip. The aroma was delicious, but the taste was bitter. Lennox was right. I did miss this.

  “That’s kind of pessimistic, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “It’s pragmatic,” he corrected. “And I’m sure you’ll find that Receiverists are many things, but being pessimistic is not one of them. We are hope.”

  This is a grand narrative, I thought. And grand narratives are never what they seem. “So you’re expecting a society ending event. This city is called Sanctuary. And you’re called Receiverists. Does that mean you’ll receive refugees—or what’s left of humanity—here, when it happens?”

  Lennox nodded as he took a sip of his coffee.

  “Where is here, exactly?” I asked.

  “Somewhere underground,” Lennox answered, before smiling knowingly. “I can’t tell you exactly where, of course. If I did, we couldn’t let you leave.”

  Despite feeling a stir of hope from that last sentence, the hairs at the back of my neck stuck up. “So I can leave?”

  “Oh of course,” Lennox chuckled, as if the obviosity was overwhelming. “I keep telling you but you don’t seem to believe me. Yes, you can choose to leave if you wish. But we ask only that you stay for a week.”

  “A week?”

  “Yes. By the end of the week, we want you to decide whether you’d like to stay a little longer to help with the research you’ve already been exposed to, or whether you’d like to go home.”

  “That’s it?” I asked incredulously.

  “That’s it,” Lennox said.

  I scratched my head. “What is it about the research that’s so important? It’s just maths. And gibberish maths at that.”

  “You of all people should know the importance of maths,” Lennox chuckled. “It’s the driving force behind the technology that allows this city to exist in a place that no city should. Maths is the energy powering the predictive algorithms we so heavily rely on. And maths is what will save us. Save humanity.”

  “That’s a bit dramatic.”

  “No. Not at all. I can’t tell you very much, partially because I’m no scientist, but I’ve been told that our research group is working on a model of particle physics that will ensure humanity’s continued survival.”

  I don’t believe it, I thought firmly. And yet, something ever so slightly stirred inside me.

  “And all of that work hinges on the maths problems that they have sent you,” Lennox continued. “So in very literal terms, you hold the key to saving us all. But of course, we can’t force you into it. So all we ask is for you to spend a little time in Sanctuary and see the context— the importance—behind your research.”

  So that’s the deal, I thought. If he wasn’t lying, then all I needed to do was spend a week here and give him the disappointing news that I wasn’t interested. And then I could be back in my own apartment, as if none of this had ever happened. But that’s assuming that he wasn’t lying. I had no proof that he wasn’t, and I doubted that such a proof could ever be produced. All I had was this man’s word, which was utterly worthless when the power imbalance was this great. He had all of it. I was on his turf. There were no friends here—everyone was a potential threat. Quite literally, I had nothing. As I took a long sip from my coffee, I saw Lennox’s eyes trying to read me. Or perhaps he had.

  “So this is what I’m thinking,” I said. Lennox gestured with his eyebrows for me to continue. “I’m totally powerless here. I’m completely at the whims of you and your associates. You’re telling me all this, but I’m in no position to question you. You might as well keep me here forever if you so choose to. I want to believe that you’ll keep your word, but I would be lying if I told you I did.”

  Lennox thought for a moment. “No, you’re right.” I was caught off guard when he abruptly stood up from the couch and walked back around his desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a black object. My eyes went wide. “If you don’t do as I say, then you’re gonna eat a fucking bullet.”

  For a terrifying, nerve-racking moment, everything stood still. I was sitting on his admittedly comfortable couch, holding my coffee with a clammy palm, looking down the barrel of the handgun that Lennox was holding several metres away from behind his desk. And then he broke out into a harsh laughter.

  “Oh god, you should see the look you have on your face right now!” Lennox wheezed out in between obnoxious cackling. “I’m just pulling your leg, mate. No, I'm not going to threaten you at gunpoint. That would be counterproductive.”

  Lennox returned to the couch. He placed the gun on the table and slid it over to me. I recognised it. It was the same one I had found during my escape attempt. He gestured towards it with a nod.

  “It’s loaded,” he said. “And it’s yours. Keep it as a gesture of our goodwill, that I’m giving you something that can kill me. And maybe a few others if you’re a good shot.”

  I reached for the gun with shaky fingers. As I did, Lennox tapped onto his handheld. A moment later, the door opened. Irene was on the other side.

  “I think that’s enough for today,” Lennox said as he stood up. “I’m sure you have a lot to think about, and I definitely have some more work waiting for me.”

  As I reached the door, Lennox added, “And because I’m feeling generous, you can consider today your official first day here.”

  Following Irene back to the apartment, I noticed that the bright lights at the ceiling of this cave, the ones that substituted for a sun, began dimming. The weight of the gun felt heavy. As I walked in silence, I couldn’t help but think, What does the gesture of giving me this gun mean, if he already knows that I won’t end up using it?