Doctor Strange, page 1
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CHAPTER
1
How did I get here?
We’ve all asked ourselves that question at one time or another. Usually, we’re thinking about the decisions we’ve made, the events that led to one important, significant moment in our lives. It’s almost a metaphysical question—how did we come to occupy this space, this moment in the universe? We might as well be asking, Why am I here?
Yeah, that’s not what was running through Stephen Strange’s mind when he wondered, How did I get here?
What he really wanted to know was, how did he get to Greenwich Village? Like, physically. Because just a second ago, he was standing in an ancient library in an ancient place called Kamar-Taj, with his less-than-ancient colleagues Mordo and Wong.
Strange drew in a deep breath, and surveyed his surroundings. There was no mistaking it—this was New York City’s Greenwich Village. Bleecker Street, to be specific. (Thanks, street sign.) The telltale brownstone apartment buildings and coffee shops were a familiar sight to Strange, who used to live in this place, the city that never sleeps.
That was before Kamar-Taj.
That was before the accident.
“You wanna maybe move sometime today?”
Strange whirled around to see an older man with a cane standing next to him. The wrinkled man scrunched up his nose and smacked his lips a few times. It was only then that Strange realized he was standing in the middle of a sidewalk and blocking the path of the older man. He quickly moved.
“Sorry, just getting my bearings,” Strange said slowly.
“Eh, that’s me every day,” replied the older man. “Good luck with the circus.” And the older man shuffled off down the sidewalk.
Circus? thought Strange. Then he remembered, looked down, and saw what the older man meant. He was still wearing the blue robes he had acquired in Kamar-Taj. The blue robes of a true disciple of The Ancient One. The flowing garment certainly set him apart from the other people walking the New York streets—the tourists, the local hipsters. These other people, by the way, were actively staring at Strange in his peculiar garb—peculiar even by New York standards, which is really saying something.
Whirling around again, Strange spied a three-story building behind him. A brownstone. Lifting his eyes, he saw a large, round window. Within the window, there was a peculiar curving lattice pattern. The pattern formed a symbol, one that Strange recognized.
It was the symbol of the Sanctum Sanctorum.
Strange rushed toward the building, raced up the steps, opened the door, and went inside.
CHAPTER
2
It would have been hard for Doctor Stephen Strange to separate this day from any other. It was nothing special. He found himself inside a scrub room at Metropolitan General Hospital, washing his hands and forearms. Another day, another operation.
He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, releasing the elastic opening on his right wrist to produce a satisfying snap. The sound caused Strange to grin. He looked at himself in the mirror just above the scrub sink. What had gotten him here, to this moment in time? Hard work and a lot of natural talent. Strange took in the gray hair at his temples. And experience.
Let’s do this, he said to himself.
Doctor Bruner,” Strange said through his surgical mask as he strode into the operating room.
“Stephen,” replied Bruner. Bruner was an anesthesiologist. She stood over the patient on the table, administering an anesthetic and monitoring the patient’s vital signs.
Beneath his surgical mask, Strange smiled. “Are you flirting with me, Doctor Bruner?”
“Don’t encourage him,” came another voice, that of Doctor Varma. “We can all barely fit in here with his ego as it is.”
Strange smiled again, though Varma and Bruner couldn’t see it because of the surgical mask. But his eyes crinkled at the corners, betraying his amusement.
“You wound me, Doctor Varma! Yesterday you said my ego could fill up this hospital. Now it’s only a measly room?” Strange barely suppressed a chuckle, and he could practically hear the sound of Varma and Bruner rolling their eyes. Did they like Strange? Certainly. Did he have a large ego? Unquestionably.
Amid the camaraderie, a curious thing was happening. Strange and his colleagues had gone to work. The doctor with the ego large enough to fill a measly room, or possibly an entire hospital (given the day), moved his fingers almost imperceptibly. Delicately. Like a concert pianist.
Through a small hole they had made in the patient’s scalp, Strange and Varma slid the endoscope. Its camera opened another world to Strange—he could see the patient’s brain. Moving with grace and a practiced ease, Strange guided the endoscope until he found what he was after.
“And this would be our friend the tumor,” Strange said. “Like most friends, this one has outworn its welcome.”
The tool Strange was using was highly advanced. Bleeding edge. The probe was laser tipped, and Strange zapped the tumor with incredible precision. Bursts of heat targeted the growth, eating away at the cancerous mass. One careful burst. Then another.
“And that,” began Strange, “is how you save a life before your coffee gets cold.” Strange looked up from the patient, toward a window overlooking the operating room. Behind the window, a group of medical students watched in amazement as Strange, Varma, and Bruner performed their miracle. The students burst out clapping, as if they had just witnessed a feat of magic, some sleight of hand that they could not explain.
Allowing himself to enjoy the moment, Strange turned toward the students and bowed, just slightly.
That’s when the door to the operating room burst open, revealing the bloodstained medical scrubs worn by Doctor Christine Palmer. She motioned to Strange, clutching a tablet computer under her arm.
“Better get this, Stephen,” said Varma, taking note of the scene that was unfolding. “We’ll close up for you.”
Strange nodded and moved toward Christine in one fluid motion. Varma slipped in and started the closing procedure.
What is it?”
“A GSW,” Christine replied.
Gunshot wound.
The pair moved down the hospital hallway as they exchanged questions for information. Christine handed the tablet to Strange, who swiped through medical charts with his right forefinger.
“Amazing you kept him alive,” Strange observed, shaking his head. It didn’t look good. At first blush, it appeared nothing could be done for the patient. No possibility of survival. Strange looked down at an X-ray, then frowned.
“I think I found the problem, Doctor Palmer. You left a bullet in his head.”
Christine caught herself just as she was about to roll her eyes—she wouldn’t take the bait. “It’s impinging on the medulla. I needed a specialist. But Nic diagnosed brain death.”
“Nic… Nic diagnosed brain death?” replied Strange. Nic was Doctor Nicodemus West, a fellow surgeon whom Strange held in not-so-high regard. Strange flipped through the charts once more, then stared at an MRI image. Something wasn’t right. It didn’t add up. He looked at Christine. Their eyes met. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
They sprinted down the hall.
The hospital emergency room was a mess of people. Hospital emergency rooms always are. It took a moment for Strange and Christine to make their way toward the GSW patient. Hovering over the patient’s bed was Nic West. The dark-haired surgeon looked serious as he prepared for a medical procedure with the help of some attending physicians.
Out of breath and in a rush, Strange gasped. “I need a craniotomy set in Trauma, stat!”
Christine stared at West and the other physicians. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Organ harvest. He’s a donor now,” West said coolly.
“I didn’t agree to that!” yelled Christine.
West sighed. “I don’t need you to agree. We’ve already declared brain death.”
Strange pushed right past West and the other physicians, inserting himself between them and the patient. Strange didn’t speak a word, but his body language said, You’re wrong, West, just like you’re always wrong.
“Get him prepped for a suboccipital craniotomy,” said Strange. He was going to remove the bullet lodged in the patient’s brain.
West stared at Strange like he was some kind of grandstanding lunatic. “I’m the doctor on call here, and I’m not about to let you operate on a dead man!”
Strange shoved the computer tablet with the X-ray into West’s face. “What do you see?”
“A bullet,” West replied wearily. “Of course there’s a bullet.”
Strange shook his head. “A perfect bullet. A perfect bullet that punched through bone,” he began. “It should be deformed. It’s not.”
West stared at Strange, not getting it.
“That means it’s been hardened,” Strange continued. “You harden a bullet with antimony—a toxic metal. If the metal leaches into the ce
West’s eyes lit up. “Rapid onset central nervous system shutdown.”
“The patient’s not dead, but he is dying,” said Strange. He gave West a thin smile. “Still want to harvest his organs?”
With that, Strange set off, the patient being wheeled right behind him, for the operating room.
That’s the good part,” said Christine as she and Strange walked away from the patient’s family. The operation had been successful—Strange had extracted the bullet, and the patient would make a full recovery. “And I guess the good part for you was humiliating Doctor West in the operating room. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t have to save his patient, either,” said Strange. “Sometimes I just can’t help myself.”
The pair walked down the hospital hallway, exhausted. Strange extended the fingers on each hand, moving them back and forth, as if they were sifting through sand.
“I could really use you as my neurosurgeon on call,” Christine said. “You could make such a difference.”
Strange looked at Christine, then shook his head. “I’m fusing transected spinal cords. Stimulating neurogenesis in the central nervous system. The techniques I’m developing will save thousands of people for years to come. In the ER, you save what? That one guy?”
Christine looked at Strange. Her heart sank a bit, and she felt a heaviness as she stared at her friend. “You’re right. In the ER, we only save lives. There’s no fame, no TV interviews.”
They had been over this territory before, had had the same conversation. Sure, the words were always different, but each side kept making the same points. Christine wanted Strange to use his gifts to help people however he could. Strange wanted to use his gifts… however Strange wanted to use them.
Changing the subject, Strange turned to Christine. “I have a presentation at the Neurological Society tonight, if you’d like to come.”
Christine smiled. “Another speaking engagement. How romantic. I’ll pass.”
“We used to have fun going to these things together,” Strange said a little sadly.
“You used to have fun. They weren’t about us; they were about you,” Christine replied, brushing back her hair.
“They weren’t only about me.”
Without skipping a beat, Christine said, “Stephen, everything is about you.”
With that, she was gone, leaving Strange to his thoughts.
CHAPTER
3
As Stephen Strange stepped inside the foyer of the Sanctum Sanctorum, he noticed an eerie stillness. A quiet beyond quiet. A feeling of being frozen in time, like he was walking into a painting. Only he was in motion, only he caused sound. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before.
The foyer led to an ornate grand staircase. Strange hurried up the stairs, taking note of the sound of his feet, of his breathing. At the top of the stairs, he came to a large circular room, a rotunda. Inside were three enormous panoramic paintings. No, they weren’t paintings—they were windows.
One window looked over a misty forest, trees as far as Strange’s eyes could see. Another opened onto a spectacular view of a tempest-tossed ocean, the seas roiling in anger. The last window bore witness to isolated, snowcapped mountains.
I wonder what you’d pay for a New York apartment with these kinds of views, Strange thought, allowing himself a slight laugh.
Curiosity welling up within him, Strange opened the middle window, the one with the ocean view. For the first time since entering the Sanctum, Strange heard a sound that he did not make. It was the sound of the ocean itself, the crashing waves, the wind. He felt a spray of cool salt water on his face. This was no illusion; this was real. The window really did, somehow, open to the ocean.
“Gateways,” Strange said aloud to himself. “These windows are gateways… portals to other parts of the world.”
He looked about excitedly, until his eyes came to rest on something in the window’s frame. It looked like some kind of control panel. Placing his hand on the controls, Strange turned a dial. The view inside the window changed abruptly—in the blink of an eye, the ocean was replaced by a vast, arid desert.
Strange was accustomed to being astonished these days. Ever since the accident. Ever since Kamar-Taj. Ever since The Ancient One.
Turning his attention from the mysterious gateways, Strange continued his exploration of the Sanctum. Right off the rotunda was another room, dark-colored. It had the feeling of an old museum or library, and yet, there was something quite modern about the design.
Lining the walls, he saw what could only be described as artifacts, relics of a time gone by. There were swords, daggers, and helmets. There were amulets of all shapes. Chalices and cauldrons of varying sizes.
“The Chamber of Relics,” Strange said.
His mind raced as he lost himself in his thoughts. How did I get here?
The solitary moment came to an end with a sound. A sound not from within the Sanctum, but from without.
The sound of door chimes.
The sound shocked Strange back to reality, back to the moments just before he suddenly appeared on the streets of New York City.
“Kaecilius,” he whispered.
CHAPTER
4
TIME WILL TELL HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU.
The words inscribed on the back of Stephen Strange’s watch bored themselves into his mind. He glanced at the hands on the timepiece, and then at his own delicate surgeon’s hands, clasping the black leather-covered steering wheel. His sports car was speeding along Manhattan’s West Side Highway, ducking in and out of traffic, making its way north.
There was a time when Christine would have gone with him to an event like this. The Neurological Society shindig would be a bore without her. Why did he keep pushing her away? Why did he push everyone away?
Strange tugged at the black bow tie he wore around his neck, fidgeting slightly in his tuxedo. He was tired of thinking about times past. Glancing down, he touched the controls for the car’s satellite radio, the music breaking the silence. It was nothing Strange wanted to hear.
“No. No. No,” said Strange, flipping through the channels, trying to find something that didn’t hit his ears the wrong way. He finally heard a distorted guitar coming through a messed-up amplifier, signaling the start of a classic garage-rock song. Satisfied, Strange hit the gas pedal, and the car raced up the Henry Hudson Parkway, then made the turn onto the George Washington Bridge.
The afternoon gave way to early evening, and along with it came darkness. Strange was well on his way to the Neurological Society gathering, his sports car zooming along a lonely mountain highway outside New York City. To his left, a sheer cliff—he was high up, no doubt about that. Taking in the view, Strange continued on his way, driving as fast as his car would take him.
He tried to silence the thoughts in his head with another song, but it wasn’t working. Not tonight. There was too much going on in his mind: Christine.
“Time will tell how much I—”
Before Strange could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. The fingers of his right hand quickly turned down the volume of the car stereo, then danced across the console to the button that set his phone to speaker mode.
“Go ahead, caller one, you’re on the line,” said Strange.
“A thirty-five-year-old marine colonel, paralyzed,” said the young voice on the phone. It was Claire, Strange’s assistant. “Crushed his lower spine in some kind of experimental armor. Mid-thoracic burst fracture.”
Strange divided his attention between driving and talking, giving each task just enough notice to be dangerous.
“I could help him,” Strange said with a sigh. “So could fifty other guys. Come on, Claire. Give me something worth my time! I believe in you!”
Then it was Claire’s turn to sigh, clearly flustered. In the background, the song ended, and Strange shunted his attention away from driving and talking to finding the next perfect song. As his car thundered down the highway, Strange came upon a slow-moving vehicle. He flicked the wheel to the left, stepping on the gas, ready to pass.
