He failed, and asked, ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a maze.’
It looked like a wall: a black plastic barrier stretching from floor to ceiling and from one end of the building to the other. The bulb in the elevator tried to light up the unbroken, featureless segment directly before them but the wall just soaked up the radiance.
‘OK.’ Danyl waited while Campbell stretched out his hands and caressed its blank face. When no further explanation seemed forthcoming he said, ‘But where’s the entrance? And aren’t you done with mazes? All your rats are dead. You murdered them.’
‘This is no rat maze.’ Campbell knelt. For a second Danyl thought he was bowing to the wall but then Campbell produced the key fastened to the chain around his neck and fitted it into a small, almost invisible slot in a panel located just above the floor. He turned the key and a mechanism concealed within the wall clicked and shunted, and when Campbell pushed against it a two-metre wide section of matte black, floor-to-ceiling wall pivoted about on a column in its centre, and an opening appeared, leading into darkness.
‘Behold.’
‘You already said behold.’
‘Then re-behold,’ said Campbell, turning the key in the lock again, fixing the segment of wall in its new position. ‘To the next and penultimate phase of the DoorWay Project.’
Danyl stepped up to the opening and peered inside. Passageways with walls so black they looked wet, vanishing into darkness.
‘Allow me to explain.’ Campbell took a torch from his jacket pocket and lit up a long dark tunnel with side-branches receding to a distant dead end. ‘Having conclusively determined that the DoorWay compound increases the neural capability of the test rats—dramatically increasing their maze-solving abilities—we now turn to our own species. My DoorMen and I will be subjected to DoorWay, and our spectacular intellectual advancement will be measured by our ability to solve increasingly complicated maps. Onwards!’
He swept through the opening and Danyl followed. They walked down a long hall walled from the same dense, hard plastic. The air smelled of factory chemicals, the phenol-based scent of an empty supermarket bag left in the sun.
‘It extends across the entire level,’ Campbell said proudly. ‘And it’s all reconfigurable. Every two-metre section of wall is a separate panel that I, and only I, can unlock from its position and realign. I have hundreds of different layouts prepared, each based on a mathematical formula that must be solved for an optimal negotiation of the maze.’ As he talked he led Danyl deeper into the construct, down branching unlit halls.
‘Why aren’t there any lights?’
‘Same reason we blacked out the rat maze.’
‘I was never really clear on that.’
‘Advice from the biochemist.’ There was a current of tension in Campbell’s voice. ‘Although he’s no longer on the project. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was the fiend who tipped the police off about our rat testing. He’ll be found and dealt with, in time.’ Campbell stopped at a midway point between two crossroads, looked around at the featureless plastic surrounds with great satisfaction and said, ‘Ah. Here we are.’
‘Where is here?’ The only light came from Campbell’s torch. Danyl could see nothing of interest in its narrow beam.
‘This particular map is very simple. This is the approximate centre. Before we run subjects exposed to DoorWay through the maze we need controls. Low-calibre intellects to measure the achievements of the highly intelligent against. Do you follow me?’
‘No.’
‘Perfect. Observe.’ Campbell knelt down and inserted his key into the wall panel, turned and pushed the wall inwards. It spun soundlessly and he stepped into the opening. ‘You’ll be timed from now. Good luck.’
Danyl replied, ‘Thanks. Wait. Good luck with what?’
Campbell pushed at the open section of wall. It swung back into its original position, sealing Danyl off from Campbell and the light from his torch.
He was alone in the centre of the pitch-dark maze.
Danyl stepped out of the lift, making sure to leave the gate open and trap the elevator on this level. Whispers and groans floated up the shaft, the bestial sounds of the cultists in pain. Danyl smiled. They hadn’t even seen his face. Although the loss of yet another pair of trousers was a blow.
He shone the torch over the entrance to the maze. It was unchanged since the terrible day Campbell lured him into it. It still looked new, but the plastic chemical scent was gone and now the air smelled stale and dead.
The exit, as Danyl knew all too well, was on the far side of the level. It led to a stairway that zigzagged up the side of the building to the eighth floor. A direct route to Campbell’s lair.
Danyl remembered the way through the maze. He had spent hours wandering it, trapped, until he finally mastered the path-finding algorithm to solve it and, carefully counting each step and each turn, eventually escaped. This time around he should be through in a matter of minutes.
He started towards the entrance but stopped, caught: his jacket was snagged on the lift door. He pulled it free, absent-mindedly slid the door shut and crossed over to the entrance, and then yelled, ‘No!’ and ran back to the elevator, lunging for the door—but before he reached it the lift began its descent.
No. No. No. No. No. Idiot. He dropped to his knees, fumbling at the handle. If he could open it the lift would stop, but he couldn’t keep the torch steady, couldn’t see, couldn’t see, and the handle slid below floor level.
He pounded the roof of the cage in frustration and peered down the shaft. The lift halted two floors below; then came the rattling of the cage door as the cultists opened and then closed it behind them, and it began to rise. He switched off his torch to avoid giving away his location—although they’d probably already seen it—and the absence of its light revealed a ghostly blue glow illuminating the interior of the elevator. The glow lit up two black-robed figures but their cowls were thrown back revealing their faces. Danyl stared in horror as they both looked up simultaneously. Their features were hideous, alien. They had no nose or mouth, just smooth blank skin where their orifices should be.
Danyl decided to panic.
He fled into the maze, the light of his torch dancing across the seemingly endless black walls, the black concrete roof, the black concrete floors. He ran until he reached a dead end and then stood, wild-eyed and half-naked, gasping for breath. He was back where he was a year ago. Lost in the maze.
An irrational thought seized him, that he had been in here all that time, the last year of his life was imaginary, and only the maze was real. The maze and the horrible faceless cultists. This nightmare panicked him further and he turned and ran even faster.
Eventually his stamina ran out and his reason returned. He crouched down, took deep breaths and, over the noise of his panting and the patter of his sweat dripping onto the floor, he heard the sound of footsteps and hushed voices. The cultists had followed him into the maze.
He tried to get his bearings. Which way was the entrance? Unknown. In retrospect, running blindly had not been a smart move. He crept on, keeping his torch off and flicking it on occasionally to light his way.
He stopped to listen. Their footsteps were louder now. Closer. He reached a four-way intersection. A flash of his torch revealed four identical passageways disappearing into darkness. One of them, he remembered, led back to the entrance by the elevator, the others deeper into the maze. But which led where? Which way did he want to go? What was his plan?
He stood in the darkness and thought. Before he reached a conclusion he noticed a faint glow emanating from one of the passageways. It must lead to the entrance. He stepped towards it, then noticed the glow was brightening: a blue nimbus rapidly growing in intensity, accompanied by the stealthy tread of the cultists.
Danyl hurried down another passageway: it turned and twisted until he was adj
acent to the cultists, the featureless black wall between them, their footsteps shockingly loud in the void, the only sounds audible until Danyl accidentally brushed against the wall and the zip on his jacket knocked against the hard plastic.
A voice hissed, ‘What was that?’
‘What?’
‘I heard something. He’s in here somewhere.’
‘Maybe we should split up?’
As they whispered together a plan took form in Danyl’s mind. He considered it carefully—his last few plans had had their flaws—but this one looked good. He clutched Campbell’s key in the pocket of his jacket, and deemed it sound.
He slipped down the passageway while the footsteps of the cultists moved in the opposite direction. Then, judging his distance as best he could, he knelt down, drew the key from his pocket and after some initial fumbling slipped it into the lock on the base of the section of wall and turned it. The lock clicked and he pushed at the wall: it pivoted with a screeching of unused gears and opened into the next hallway. Danyl stepped through and shut it behind him, sealing it with a loud click. Then he turned on his torch and shone it down the hall.
It lit up two black-robed figures. They raised their arms to shade their eyes from the light, shouted and ran towards him.
Fools. Danyl turned and fled, and when he rounded a corner he dropped to one knee again, unlocked the new section of wall, spun it around and re-locked it at right angles so that it sealed off the passageway, splitting it in two with Danyl on the opposite side from the cultists who, seconds later, came around the corner and smashed into the repositioned wall with delightful force.
‘It’s a dead end!’
‘But we just came down here.’
‘This is freaking me out, brother.’ There were two voices, one calm, the other on the verge of hysteria. The second voice continued, ‘We should go. We’re not even allowed down here. My knee is killing me.’
‘I’m not leaving,’ said calm voice. ‘I want this intruder.’ Danyl heard the sound of a fist smacking into a palm.
‘Then let’s alert the DHH. Get the rest of the brethren down here.’
‘Good idea. Do it.’
Then he heard a faint beeping noise. A mobile phone! That’s what they were using for light, he realised: their phone displays. And now they were calling for backup. Soon the maze would be flooded with SSS goons. He needed to get out now.
‘I get no signal down here. Try yours.’
Pause. ‘My phone’s dead too.’
No reception? Ha. The signal was probably blocked by all the concrete in the outer walls. Fate was on Danyl’s side, finally. He left the cultists bickering at the dead end and moved on, deeper into the maze. He didn’t have to retreat, it occurred to him. If the cultists were trapped and their phones didn’t work then he was safe to proceed. He just had to make his way to the exit and seal it behind him. Should he risk it? He felt a sense of giddy elation from his trick with the wall and decided, why not? Luck was with him. Why not ride out the streak?
So he proceeded in what sort of felt like the right direction, moving silently and keeping use of the torch to a minimum. In the dead hush he heard the distant footsteps and whispers of the cultists, and then they too went quiet. Whenever he came to a dead end he knelt down, unlocked the panel and stepped through the wall, knowing that eventually he would reach an exterior walls which he could follow to the exit. And eventually his hand brushed concrete. The outer limit of the maze.
He picked a direction and kept walking, keeping the concrete on his left. A flicker of his torch revealed a long hall leading to another dead end. His freedom might be as near as the other side of that wall.
He made his way through the darkness, unlocked the segment of wall at its end and pushed it open, switching on his torch in hopeful expectation.
A black-robed cultist stood on the other side. He was close enough to touch. The cowl of his robe was thrown back and Danyl’s torch lit up the cultist’s horrible, featureless, alien face. It was even more repellent up close.
He screamed. The cultist screamed back, and they stood for a second, screaming at each other before the cultist lunged forwards. Danyl slammed the wall shut, triggering a howl of pain from the horrible creature. He shone the torch on the edge of the panel: it lit up a scrap of black robe and four fleshy pink fingers trapped between the segments. Another howl rang out, then came a furious torrent of curses as the cultist pounded on the wall and struggled to free himself. ‘Brother! Brother! Help! I’m trapped!’
Danyl was still shaking from the horrible spectacle of the deformed cultist’s face. Why didn’t they have mouths? How could they talk without them? Is that why they wore those hooded robes? What were they? What was Campbell doing to them? Or had they done something to Campbell? Danyl jogged backwards down the hall, eager to distance himself from the thing trapped at the end of it. He followed the concrete outer wall in the other direction, glancing over his shoulder for the tell-tale blue glow of a mobile display. One of those things still hunted him.
He pressed on, opening walls in the maze as quietly as he could. Minutes later he reached the exit. It was a steel door at the end of a passageway with multiple branches on either side. A window set in the wall above the door emitted the dilute light of the valley at night.
Danyl tensed himself to sprint, to flee, but stopped. The cobwebs along this section of the maze were shredded; they trailed in the breeze like broken ghosts. Someone else had come this way.
He held his breath and scanned the area, squinting into the near-darkness. There, in the last branch before the exit, the toe of a shoe poked out from behind the wall. The second cultist waited in ambush.
Keeping his eye on the shoe, Danyl sank onto his haunches and felt around for the keyhole in the nearest wall, then slid the key in one notch at a time.
The shoe did not move.
He turned the key and the segment released with a loud snap. The outline of a head appeared around the corner. Danyl switched on his torch, lighting up a tall, gangly, bespectacled, unshaven cultist. He also had no mouth or nose—but now Danyl could see why. A breathing mask covered the bottom half of his face.
Breathing masks! They weren’t horrible monsters—just nerds in breathing masks. Danyl felt weak with relief. But why were they wearing masks? He didn’t have time to ponder this new mystery: the cultist threw both hands up to cover his eyes and rushed towards him. Danyl pushed the wall inwards and slipped into the next hall. His foe gave a bellow of triumph and did the same, lunging through the complementary gap on the opposite side of the pivot point. Danyl jumped back into the first hall and slammed the wall shut, imprisoning his foe on the far side.
The cultist yelled in frustration and beat a savage tattoo upon the walls. Danyl ignored this. He ran to the end of the passage, unlocked the final segment of wall before the exit and swung it shut behind him, sealing off the exit. Now both cultists were trapped inside, lost in the maze with no way out. ‘Just like life,’ he mused aloud, feeling philosophical in victory.
The nearby cultist heard him and shouted, ‘What?’
‘Silence scum,’ Danyl replied. ‘I wasn’t talking to you.’
The distant cultist howled, ‘You broke my fingers, you animal.’
Whatever. Danyl’s work here was done. He stood for a moment, savouring his triumph—he was tempted to sing ‘The Danyl Song’ but the cultists had not seen his face and he feared that the lyrics would compromise his anonymity, so he merely bowed at the maze and turned and walked through the exit.
22
Danyl falls over a lot
The light from the stairway windows was faint, insufficient. It caused Danyl to trip repeatedly, smashing his shins against the concrete steps. His lack of trousers magnified the agony a thousandfold.
The stairs zigzagged up the side of the building. He hobbled his way up them to the third floor. The
door at the end of the landing was closed. A sign plastered to the window read ‘Strictly no admittance. Profane beyond this point. The DHH’.
The biochemistry labs.
Danyl shivered, remembering what happened in those labs: what he’d learned, what he’d seen. He tried to put it out of his mind, banished the memories, forced himself to concentrate at the task at hand. He hurried across the landing and continued up the stairs, hesitating at the point where they turned.
Light spilled down from the next level. This was the most dangerous floor of all. The dormitories. This was where Campbell’s army of disciples ate and slept back in the days of the DoorWay project. Now it would teem with SSS cultists.
He approached with caution. The door on the landing was propped open. The light came from the hallway beyond it, along with music and voices. Danyl lay down on the steps—the concrete rough against the naked pink flesh of his naked pink legs—and peeked down the hall. It was empty, but spaced along it were open doorways emitting the babble of voices. He would only pass by the entrance to this level for a second, but if a cultist happened to enter the hall and glance his way then all was lost. They would identify him instantly and even if he outran them he’d be back in the maze with the whole building raised against him.
Courage, Danyl. He took a deep breath, then darted across the gap and scurried up the opposite stairs, waiting to hear a hue and cry.
It did not come. He crept on, looking up at the blocky helical structure of the stairway repeating into the darkness above
Then a door boomed overhead. A light came on: he heard voices, the scuffing of feet on the stairs. Someone was coming down.
Danyl cast around in desperation. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Or was there? He looked up. Yes, he could brace himself between the walls, climb to the ceiling and suspend himself from the roof, then wait, concealed in the high shadows while the unwitting cultists passed beneath him. Perfect.
Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley Page 22