Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley

by Danyl McLauchlan

  But which door? Danyl thought hard, retracing his steps. He visualised the layout of the level in his mind, calculated his position and made a decision: the door on his left joined up with the hall. The right door was the way forward. He strode over to it and threw it open.

  It led back to the hall. Campbell stood at the other end. He saw Danyl and raised his arm and cried, ‘Ho there! Brother!’

  Danyl shut the door. Other way. Fast. From all around came the sound of voices, doors banging, the stomp of feet. The SSS were rising.

  He jogged through the laundry and through the opposite exit. It led to a large vaulted chamber. This used to be the DoorMen common room: the SSS obviously used it for the same purpose. The space was filled with couches, coffee tables, stuffed chairs and inflatable sex dolls, and was lit by muted lamps casting pools of warm light separated by regions of darkness. It was deserted.

  A steel gate in the far wall opened onto the elevator shaft. The outer doors were closed; the lift cage was elsewhere. And there in the corner was a door with a glass window leading to the stairwell.

  He hurried across the room, kicking a sex doll out of his path with savage glee. He was close now. He was going to make it. He reached for the door handle.

  ‘Brother?’ The voice was timid. Uncertain. Directly behind him.

  ‘Brother? Can you help me?’

  Danyl turned. Sitting in a high-backed chair—and thus invisible from behind—was an SSS cultist. Or, rather, a junior cultist. He had smooth, pale skin and a halo of curled blond hair, and instead of a black robe he wore the same black SSS T-shirt that Danyl had seen on the video-game players at the other end of the level. The junior cultist held a large hardback in his soft, girlish hands.

  ‘I need assistance with my studies,’ he said, looking up with imploring eyes. ‘Will you guide me, brother?’

  Danyl cleared his throat and then stopped himself. He dared not speak. The cultist, or apprentice-cultist, or whatever he was would fail to recognise his voice and instantly identify Danyl as an outsider. So he merely shook his head: his cowl wobbled from side to side.

  ‘Oh, thank you, brother,’ replied the young cultist. ‘I’m literally grateful. Here, sit with me.’

  Danyl shook his head harder. His cowl flapped around his ears. He glanced back at the doorway. Campbell and his disciples might burst in at any second. He edged towards the stairway entrance, still flapping the hood of his robe.

  ‘Don’t go,’ the juvenile cultist pleaded. ‘Please help me. I don’t understand any of this.’ He held up the heavy black book. ‘There’s no one else I can ask. I’m new here, you see. I don’t know anyone.’

  Danyl’s cowl straightened and quivered like a rooster’s comb. ‘New, you say?’

  ‘I was only recruited a week ago, brother, and—’

  ‘Address me as sir,’ Danyl said kindly.

  ‘Sorry, sir. When he recruited me the DHH told me to read this book and master its wisdom as preparation for my initiation examination ceremony. But I don’t understand anything. I’m not very good at science or mathematics or philosophy. I’m a poet, you see.’

  Danyl considered the young cultist, keeping one wary eye on the door to the laundry. This was a chance to collect intelligence, gather insights into the inner workings of the SSS and the diabolical schemes of the Campbell Walker. Did he have time? Was it worth the risk?

  He gritted his teeth. No, he had to move on. He said, ‘I’m sorry my child. I have urgent—’ His gaze fell upon the spine of the book in the cultist’s hands. It read, in gothic script: Liber Peditis. Danyl quickly translated the Latin. Book of the Walker.

  ‘Perhaps I can spare a moment.’

  The young cultist passed him the book and stood beside him, pointing, ‘I’m stuck on this section.’

  Danyl ignored him. He flipped through the pages, amazed. This was his book! Not his secret book, of course. It was his chronicle of Project DoorWay with all the material pertaining to the actual project—the drug, the rats, the maze, the sudden and terrible conclusion—edited out, leaving, mostly, his transcripts of Campbell’s rants. The key themes were intelligence, consciousness, logic, strange-loop theory and the worthlessness of the human species. Pictures accompanied the rants: Argand diagrams, Fuseli drawings of demons, a map of Aro Valley with the Kabbalistic tree of life laid over it. Sections of each rant were left blank, as in a children’s exercise book where the reader filled in the gaps.

  ‘This part here,’ the young cultist said, a little curtly, Danyl thought, considering he was addressing a superior in the Order. He turned to the section indicated and said, ‘What the hell?’

  ‘What is it, sir?’

  Danyl coughed and pulled his cowl further over his head. He hadn’t written this part of the book. It featured a recent, grainy photograph of Danyl standing outside his house.

  ‘Something wrong, sir?’

  ‘It’s hard to read in this light.’ He turned the book towards a nearby lamp. The text below the photograph read, ‘The Problem of the Infinite Traitor’. He sat down. The cultist sat beside him and they read together.

  Question: The thief, liar, traitor and sub-creature Danyl is captured by the brave scholars of Sapiens! Sapiens! Sapiens! To punish him for his crimes against humanity they destroy him, shattering him into an infinite number of pieces. To ensure that his evil can never again trouble the world, they place the pieces into an infinite number of sealed caskets. Wise and good are the scholars of Sapiens! Sapiens! Sapiens! But then they realise they have overlooked a fragment of the traitor’s anatomy. The tiny penis of Danyl somehow survived his destruction. Left whole it still poses a threat to the future of super-humanity. So they wisely shatter the penis into an infinite number of pieces. Now they are troubled, because the infinite number of caskets are already full. How can they seal the infinite fragments of penis inside them and render them impotent?

  ‘Like I said,’ said the cultist, ‘I’m not very good at maths. The DHH told me to mediate on the problem and enlightenment would come. But I did and it hasn’t. Can you guide me?’

  Danyl touched the pages of the book to make sure it was real. It was, horribly so. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. They shatter the penis into an infinite number of pieces.

  He had to get out of here. Now. Escape this building and never return. He judged his distance to the stairs. Less than five metres. He stood and said to the juvenile cultist, ‘Maybe you should, continue to mediate and enlightenment will, uh—’

  ‘The DHH told me to ask for help if mediation failed. He said all the brethren would know the answers.’

  The DHH. The young cultist kept using that phrase. Thinking back, Danyl heard it before from the cultists in the maze, and it was on the sign on the door forbidding entrance to the biochemistry labs. What did it mean? Was Campbell the DHH? The initials nagged at Danyl. Something familiar; something important. He needed to concentrate . . .

  ‘Sir?’ The young cultist looked quizzical. Danyl needed to help him or risk exposure. He said, ‘Of course I know the answers,’ and threw in a fake laugh while he sped-read the question again. They shatter the penis . . . Think, Danyl, think.

  He thought. It was a classic Campbell Walker riddle—a problem in discrete mathematics restated in a way so sick and weird it almost defied rational thought. But when he put the image of his fragmented penis out of his mind he instantly grasped it—the problem, not his penis—and said to the cultist, ‘This is about countable infinities. Do you know what they are?’

  The boy shook his head. Danyl explained, ‘We think of infinity as a very large number, or a way to describe a large set of numbers. But some infinite sets are infinitely larger than other infinite sets. Do you follow me?’

  ‘No. Like I said, I’m a poet.’

  ‘OK. Well, take Danyl’s penis—’

  ‘His tiny penis.’

 
; ‘All right, sure. You have to fit the infinite number of penis pieces into an infinite number of casks. But each of them already contains a fragment of Danyl from when he was smashed into infinite pieces. Right?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So we number all of the caskets. Then you take each Danyl fragment out of its casket, and place it in the casket with double the original number. So Danyl fragment number one goes in casket two, fragment two goes into casket four, fragment three into casket six, and so on. Do you follow?’

  The young cultist nodded, his eyes filled with wonder.

  ‘Now all the odd-numbered caskets are empty, because their former Danyl fragments have been relocated to a casket with double that number, which must be even. This means you have an infinite amount of odd-numbered empty caskets in which to place the infinite number of penis fragments. You see?’

  The cultist’s eyes shone with comprehension. Danyl clapped him on the shoulder and stood. ‘I must leave you now, child,’ he said and glanced over his shoulder at the laundry door. He heard shouting coming from the far end of the building.

  ‘But I need more guidance on this next question,’ the cultist pleaded, tugging at Danyl’s robe. He turned the page. Danyl glanced at the book and sat down again. ‘The Problem of the Second Infinite Traitor’.

  Beneath this title was another photograph. This one showed a bearded red-haired man whom Danyl recognised, but couldn’t place. Then he realised he had seen him at the restaurant at dinner last night. He had stood beside him at the urinal. Coincidence? Who was he? How did he know Campbell?

  The text beneath the photo read:

  Then the scholars of Sapiens! Sapiens! Sapiens! capture Danyl’s master, the treasonous biochemist Simon who tried and failed to trick the DHH into unleashing a terrible evil on the world. Because they are wise the wise scholars of Sapiens! Sapiens! Sapiens! also smash Simon into an infinite number of pieces, and they smash each infinite piece into infinite pieces. But again they are troubled. How can they fit an infinite number of infinite pieces into an infinite . . .

  Danyl’s master? Danyl frowned, troubled, confused. He had never even met this biochemist until their awkward encounter at the restaurant urinal yesterday. What did this mean?

  A door banged from the direction of the laundry, jolting him out of his absorption in the text. He pushed the book into the cultists hands and said, ‘I must go now, child.’

  ‘My name is Colin.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Danyl stood up, making sure his cowl stayed on his head. ‘Good luck with your initiation, kid.’ He hurried towards the exit, his heart drumming, Colin’s reply a meaningless babble in his ears. He was almost there, almost free, he could see the stairs through the window, when the door behind him boomed open and a crescendo of voices and the tramp of many feet filled the room. Above this din he heard the nasal bellow of the Campbell Walker, who thundered, ‘Stand where you are. I, your Deputy High Hierophant, command it.’

  24

  Colin

  Dozens of cultists poured through the doorway, Campbell Walker at their head. He marched towards Danyl, changed direction midway across the room and headed for a desk set against the wall. He leaped onto it and cried, ‘To me, my brothers. Flock to my feet.’

  Most of the cultists shambling about looked sleepy, and slumped into the couches and chairs. Many wore robes and some of them had their heads covered. A handful wore the same black SSS T-shirt as Colin, marking them out, Danyl supposed, as apprentices.

  But apprentices to whom? What was the SSS? Campbell called himself the Deputy High Hierophant, while the head of the sinister and mysterious Order of Thrice-Wise Hermes was known as the High Hierophant. What was the connection between the organisations? And if Campbell was only the deputy of his Order, who really ran things?

  ‘Come, brother.’ Colin clapped Danyl on the shoulder and hurried to join the crowd assembling at Campbell’s feet. Danyl looked wistfully at the exit door, the stairway—but it was too risky. He sighed and made his way to the outskirts of the dozens of thronging cultists.

  A few more shuffled in, tugging on their robes over their heads. One of them stood beside Danyl and whispered, ‘What’s going on?’

  Danyl shrugged and pointed at Campbell, who covered his face with his cowl and motioned for quiet. ‘My brethren,’ he said in a voice both commanding and grave. ‘We have an intruder among us.’

  ~

  Danyl said, ‘I can explain.’

  Campbell closed the lid of the laptop and drummed his fingers on Danyl’s kitchen table. He said, in a very calm, quiet voice, ‘Can you?’

  A terrible silence filled the room. Danyl stood in the archway and considered the question. Should he make up some wildly plausible lie? Or come clean? Danyl always favoured the first option but this wasn’t Verity he was dealing with now. Campbell was unpleasant, yes, but he was still very smart.

  ‘Well?’ Campbell demanded. ‘Do you have an explanation?’

  ‘Not a convincing one.’

  ‘No.’ Campbell stood. ‘You lied to me.’

  Passages from the book flashed through Danyl’s mind, candid and unflattering descriptions of Campbell’s rants, his crackpot schemes, his disciples, his risible DoorWay project, the graphic description of Campbell masturbating while staring at a match. He said, ‘You didn’t read all of it?’

  ‘Oh, but I did.’

  ‘It’s still very much a work in progress. I plan to edit out that scene with the match.’

  ‘Silence.’ Campbell crossed to the wall and unplugged the laptop. ‘You deceived me, writer. You told me your secret book had nothing to do with DoorWay. You’ve enjoyed my hospitality and taken my money, and all that time you were working on this.’ He wound the laptop cable around the adaptor. ‘Did Verity help you write that? I know that two of you are close and that you’ve been . . . doing sex together.’

  ‘Verity doesn’t know anything about this. I take sole responsibility.’

  Campbell thought for a minute. ‘You put me in a difficult position, writer. You’ve made me look like a fool. But I am not a fool. I am a genius.’

  Campbell approached him, and Danyl quailed in fear as Campbell raised his arms, the midnight folds of his robe eclipsing the fluorescent light overhead. As the shadow fell upon him Danyl thought, terrified, ‘He’s going to drain my soul somehow.’ And then Campbell embraced him. ‘As are you,’ he whispered. ‘Congratulations, writer. Your book is a triumph.’

  Danyl stammered, his words muffled by the heavy robes pressed against his face. ‘You like it?’

  Campbell pulled away, his eyes shining. ‘Like it? It’s a masterpiece. Oh, obviously I don’t appreciate being mocked. But I can laugh at myself, and you really get me, writer. Deep down. You understand me, better, perhaps, than I understand myself.’ He clasped Danyl’s shoulder. ‘And, most important, you understand DoorWay and its noble ideals.’ He led Danyl to the table, picked up the laptop and tucked it under his arm. ‘That’s why we have to get this out of here. Your book contains too many incriminating details. If the police seize it they’ll know everything. We need to hide it. Somewhere safe—it’s far too valuable to risk losing—in another city, or out of the country. We’ll leave tonight. Now.’

  Danyl tried to think. Things were moving fast. He felt as though he was on the outer edge of a great whirlpool, with the current plucking at him, drawing him towards the centre. ‘We don’t need to go anywhere,’ he protested. ‘I already have a backup copy of the book. It’s in a box. An archive.’

  ‘An archive. You’ve already taken precautions?’ Campbell smiled proudly. ‘I always said your IQ was higher than 105. Oh, certainly for a time I thought you were . . .’ He tapped the laptop again. ‘Well, let us say I never imagined you capable of anything like this. Where is this archive?’

  ‘It’s—’

  ‘Wait! Don’t tell me! The fewer who know t
he safer? Yes?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Campbell handed him the laptop and walked him towards the door. ‘You need to get this out of here. Take it to your archive. Let no one see you. There are traitors among us, writer. They plot against DoorWay. Against us. If they learn of your book they’ll destroy it. We’ll talk again tomorrow. There is much to discuss—not least of all the ending to your book. It’s very disappointing.’

  ‘Oh, I have a new ending.’ Danyl fumbled with the straps of his satchel but Campbell’s phone rang, distracting him. Campbell looked at the number on the display and said, ‘I have to take this.’ He pressed the touchpad, ‘The Walker! Speak!’

  Danyl slipped his satchel back over his shoulder and wandered into the lounge. He felt the currents of the whirlpool receding. He was going to make it out of there. He would see Verity and things would be OK. Campbell wasn’t such a bad guy, all things considered. He certainly knew good writing when he read it.

  He stood in front of the window and stared at the lounge reflected in the dark glass, the integrity of the image broken by the lights of the valley beyond. He thought about his book while Campbell’s voice rose and fell in the background.

  Was his novel really a work of genius? What the hell, maybe it was. Campbell and Verity obviously saw something in it that he didn’t—but who was he to say they were wrong? Why should he deny his own greatness just because he could not perceive it?

  He pressed his nose against the glass, focusing on the lights, trying to make out his new home. He followed the streetlamps along Aro Street, found Devon and then counted the houses. His should be a patch of darkness but it looked as though all the lights in it were on. He frowned. Someone was in there. Verity? Was she waiting for him?

  A sound behind him. He turned as Campbell entered the lounge, his phone dangling in his hand; his eyes red and dilated.