Danyl waved at him. ‘Hey. Is everything OK?’
Campbell considered the question for a second, and then hurled the phone against the wall. It exploded into fragments of plastic and circuitry. He nodded in satisfaction, turned back to Danyl and said, ‘No, writer. Things are not OK.’
‘Oh.’ Danyl felt the waters of the vortex pluck at him again. ‘What’s up?’
‘They’ve stolen it.’ Campbell’s voice was hysterically calm.
‘Stolen what?’
‘Everything.’ He slumped to the floor. ‘He betrayed me.’
‘Who betrayed you?’
‘Simon. The biochemist. He discovered the DoorWay compound and convinced me to manufacture it. But he tricked me. Me! Oh, I’ve been blind, but I see it all now. Our entire stock of DoorWay has been stolen. The sponges poisoned, the reagents contaminated. Everything’s gone. Months of work: isolating the compound, breeding the sponges, executing the rats—all undone by one wretched traitor.’
‘That’s too bad, I guess. Can’t you just make some more?’
‘No, I can’t.’ Campbell’s eyes glittered with fury. ‘No one can. There was only one copy of the formula. It took years of experimentation to discover. It was in Simon’s possession, and the fool destroyed it in a freak laundry mishap. Now he’s stolen the only stocks of DoorWay that will ever exist and destroyed our capacity to make more.’
Danyl was still confused. ‘But I’ve never even seen this biochemist around here. Does he have access to the lab? How could he have destroyed everything?’
‘He must have seduced one of my disciples—metaphorically, obviously—and turned them against me. One of my beloved DoorMen has done this to me.’
Campbell buried his head in his hands. He might have been crying. Danyl shifted uncomfortably and looked over at the door. ‘I’m sorry, Campbell. I truly am.’ He paused in respectful silence. How long was respectful? Five seconds? Ten? Make it five. He counted them off, then said, ‘If everything is destroyed I guess you don’t need me around any more?’
‘What?’
‘Well, if there’s no Project DoorWay then you don’t need a bard. And I have to slip out for a while now. See, I need to meet someone about something.’ He sidled towards the door.
‘Stay where you are.’
Danyl stayed. He said, ‘I’m—’
‘Silence. I need to think.’
Campbell rocked back and forth on the floor. Danyl waited on him, a slave trembling before his bipolar emperor. He looked at the door again. Should he just leave? Defy Campbell, walk away, leave the tower forever, go find Verity and begin his new life with her? He would have to leave all his things behind, but really, what did they amount to? A packet of miso soup in the kitchen, some shirts, a couple of pairs of pants—nothing irreplaceable.
But what if something fell through with the house sale? Or what if Campbell could reverse the transaction somehow? He was unstable, more so than usual, capable of anything. No, Danyl needed to talk to Verity, and that meant waiting for Campbell to work through his current issues.
So he waited. Campbell sat cross-legged with his head in his hands, trembling slightly; Danyl assumed he was crying, but when he eventually looked up his eyes were dry and his expression calm. He saw Danyl and smiled. Danyl smiled back. That had to be a good sign.
Campbell said, ‘Writer. You’re the only one I can trust.’
‘Am I? I mean, yes. I am.’
‘You couldn’t have destroyed DoorWay. You were trapped in the maze all evening, for far longer than even my most pessimistic predictions.’
‘I wasn’t—’
‘And your book. It’s incontrovertible proof of your loyalty to the DoorWay Project.’
‘Does that mean I can go?’
‘No.’ Campbell leaped to his feet and pointed at the couch. ‘Pick that up. Take the far end.’
Danyl obeyed. Campbell lifted the opposite end of the couch and said, ‘Backwards.’ They moved the disgusting orange vinyl couch towards the far side of the room. ‘What are we doing here? Will it take a while?’
‘We’re doing what has to be done,’ Campbell replied. ‘He’s left me no choice. How fitting that you could be here for this. A bit further,’ he added, gesturing with his head. ‘Up against the door. Now down.’
They set the couch down lengthwise against the door leading to the hall. Danyl was unable to keep the dismay from his voice. ‘Now I can’t get out.’
‘More important, no one can get in. Follow me.’ Campbell marched across the lounge and disappeared into Danyl’s bedroom. Danyl began to obey, and then noticed his phone lying on the floor where the couch had been. He picked it up and checked the display: five messages from Verity.
‘Writer!’
He hurried to the door, fumbling with his phone. Campbell sat on the edge of his bed, holding a small plastic tube up to the light. It contained a clear, colourless liquid. His other hand held a syringe. Danyl watched while he inserted the needle into the cap of the tube and drained it.
‘They thought they could outwit me,’ he said, staring intently into the liquid. ‘Me. The Campbell Walker.’
‘What is that?’ Danyl already knew the answer.
‘It’s the first batch of DoorWay manufactured for human testing. Clinical trials are about to begin.’
‘I don’t want to second-guess you, Campbell, but this doesn’t seem like a safe, controlled—’
‘You must stay here and watch over me,’ Campbell said, his eyes still fixed on the hypodermic needle. ‘Don’t let anyone in. Tell no one I’m here. Understood?’
‘Sure. But what I’m saying is let’s think about this for a couple of days—’
‘It needs to be injected into fat tissue. Where would be best on a human?’
‘We should check that with a doctor.’
‘The abdomen.’ Campbell pulled up his T-shirt, slapped his belly and expertly injected the solution into a roll of chalk-coloured flab, while Danyl looked on in horror.
‘Yes,’ Campbell breathed. ‘Yes. There’s no turning back now.’
‘How long will it take to kick in?’
‘It should take at least thirty— Oh my God.’ He shuddered: the syringe slipped through his fingers and fell to the floor. ‘Oh God no.’
Danyl rushed to his side. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Ha!’ Campbell sneered weakly. ‘Soon I’ll be more than OK. Goodbye, writer. I’ll be a superior species next time we meet.’ He slurred his words, sinking back and clutching Danyl’s arm. His eyes rolled in their sockets like dead flies circling a drain. ‘Don’t wake me,’ he rasped. ‘Whatever you do, don’t wake me. But call an ambulance if. If . . . I—’
‘Campbell?’
Campbell sprawled back on the bed with his mouth agape and his eyes open but vacant. Danyl picked up the syringe and rested it on the bedside table. He checked Campbell’s pulse. It seemed strong. He paced around the room. He phoned Verity but the call went through to her voicemail. He pressed the option to leave a message.
‘Hi, sweetheart. Sorry I missed your calls. Campbell trapped me in a maze all day and now he’s injected himself with DoorWay and gone into a coma. It’s Danyl here, by the way. Actually, if you could just call me back that would be great.’
He hung up and checked Campbell’s pulse again.
‘Sapiens! Sapiens! Sapiens!’
Angry shouts rang out from the crowd. Someone standing behind Danyl cried out, ‘What intruder?’
‘Who dares?’
‘Blasphemy!’
Another chant of ‘Sapiens! Sapiens! Sapiens!’ broke out and the mob pressed towards Campbell. Someone jostled Danyl from behind. He stumbled and struggled to hold his cowl in place over his face.
Campbell motioned for quiet. Instant silence. He said, ‘Brother Toby called me a few minutes ago.
He and Brother Scott were on sacred SSS business in the basement where they saw an intruder enter. Then he lured them into the forbidden second storey and trapped them there.’
Danyl cursed his foul luck. The cultists in the maze had made contact, somehow. They must have found a region of the maze with phone reception.
‘We don’t know what this intruder looks like,’ Campbell continued. ‘Or what they want. But we do know two things that will let us capture and annihilate them!’
‘Sapiens! Sapiens! Sapiens!’
‘Firstly,’ Campbell shouted above the din, ‘he is disguised as one of us, in the robe of an initiate. Two apprentices saw a man so dressed enter this floor just minutes ago via the north stairway.’
Danyl swallowed. People in the group were whispering; looking around at each other with angry stares. Not good.
‘Secondly.’ Campbell raised his hand to grip the cowl covering his head. He pulled it back and his gaze swept the crowd. Danyl shook with fear, knowing that Campbell would command them to reveal their faces. He inched backwards, preparing to run. But what was the use? The mob pressed in on all sides. And even if he escaped somehow, and made it back through the dormitories and down the stairs, he couldn’t outrun the entire cult. No, he was doomed. Doomed! Easier just to give himself up. It was the most dignified way. He took a deep breath and prepared to pull back his cowl and throw himself upon the cult’s mercy.
‘Secondly, we know this intruder is fat,’ Campbell announced. ‘Grotesquely, hideously fat.’
The crowd burst into mocking laughter. Danyl released the hem of his cowl and rested his hand on his belly. Fat? Grotesquely? He’d let himself go in the past year, sure. He was husky, perhaps, but certainly not—
‘Fat. Yes my brothers. Larger by far than anyone in this room. This pig will be easy to identify, even disguised in a robe, and even easier to capture. This is the moment you’ve all trained for. Search the building. Bring him to me. I want men stationed on each landing.’
Danyl stopped listening. Immensely fat? Then comprehen-sion dawned. The stolen trousers! The cultists in the maze never saw his face: he was a shadow, a ghost. All they saw were the over-sized trousers they pulled from around his ankles in the elevator. Now they hunted the man who could fill those pants, while the real intruder stood among them, like a panther in a crowd of . . . He frowned, struggling with the metaphor. Penguins? Whatever. The point was, he had unwittingly outwitted them all. He chuckled.
‘Something funny, brother?’
Danyl froze: Campbell was staring at him. The rest of the mob turned to follow his gaze.
‘Do I amuse you?’
Danyl shook his head.
‘Then why were you laughing?’
He shrugged. A terrible silence filled the room; dozens of eyes bored onto him.
‘Brother, is that egg-yolk on your sacred robe?’
He shook his head harder, his cowl flapping. Angry whispers swelled about him. Campbell started to speak, but then his phone rang. He glanced at the display and shouted, ‘It’s Toby. He’s still trapped in the maze. Fly to the hunt, my brothers. Avenge him! Sapiens!’
‘Sapiens!’ The crowd burst into action, running about the room and chanting as they went. Danyl stood still amid the chaos, dazed by the narrowness of his escape. Then he noticed Campbell’s eyes were still upon him.
All the other cultists were pairing up, and after they paired they hurried from the room, which was emptying quickly. He needed to get out before he attracted more suspicion.
He cast about, and through a gap in the crowd he saw Colin the apprentice, looking around, bewildered. Danyl grabbed him and said, ‘You’re with me, child.’
Colin struggled as Danyl led him towards the door. ‘Actually sir, I have a buddy. The other new apprentice. The bald guy, but I don’t see him—’
‘Forget him. He’s nobody. Stick with me.’
They were almost at the exit. Danyl glanced over his shoulder and felt relief when he saw he had lost Campbell’s attention. The cult leader was barking orders into his phone.
He dragged the still-resisting Colin through the exit door and shut it behind him. The confined concrete space of the stairway rang with the noise of cultists pounding on the steel stairs. Their footsteps echoed in the bright, fluorescent-lit air.
Colin said, ‘Where are we going?’
Good question. The only sensible thing to do was flee the tower. Danyl could lead Colin to the next floor, set him to guard a closet or something, and then climb out a window onto the fire-escape, clamber down to the courtyard and disappear in the confusion. It was the perfect plan. And yet . . .
He said, ‘We go up. Right to the top.’
25
The fate of all poets
They passed the fifth-floor landing. Two cultists guarding the entrance nodded to Danyl and Colin. From the distant rooms beyond them came the sounds of shouts, doors slamming. The hunt for the fat intruder.
They stopped at the sixth floor so Danyl could catch his breath. There were no guards here, no light through the window in the door. Colin peered through it, shading his eyes with his hands and said, ‘Should we go in and investigate?’
‘Nargh,’ replied Danyl. He gulped down oxygen, still wheezing. He really needed to get more exercise. He sat down on the steps, feeling dizzy and really rather unwell. Colin seemed anxious about this delay, and Danyl didn’t want to give the young cultist too much downtime to think things over, so he said. ‘Tell me about yourself, child. How did you come to join our Order?’
‘Why do you ask, sir?’
‘I’m curious. You seem different—you’re not like the others.’
‘I suppose I am different.’ Colin leaned on the rail and peered down into the shadowless depths of the stairwell. ‘I don’t fit in here, it’s true. The DHH only recruited me two weeks ago.’
The DHH. Deputy High Hierophant. Campbell. Once again Danyl asked himself: who really ran the SSS? He decided to examine Colin, delicately, and seek to solve this mystery without arousing his suspicions. ‘Did you volunteer to join?’
‘Not exactly. The DHH selected me for the Order. He has a special role for me—but I’m sworn to secrecy. I’ve probably said too much already.’
‘Not at all. Your discretion is most commendable. But what the DHH meant is that you can’t speak to the general public about what you’re doing here. There are no secrets between brothers of the Order.’
‘He was very specific.’
‘Surely not.’
‘He said, “Don’t talk to anyone else in the Order about this.”’
Danyl tut-tutted at Colin from the hooded darkness of his robe. ‘I fear you’ve misunderstood the DHH’s words. Look to the book you hold under your arm. Does not the Liber Peditis teach us not to keep secrets from our seniors within the brotherhood?’
‘I don’t know. Which page is that?’
‘Somewhere in the middle. No, don’t look it up, my point is this. I sense you are troubled. I know the ways of the Order seem strange, and the DHH sometimes looks and speaks and acts like a mentally ill person. These things can prey upon the mind. Share your troubles with me, child. Tell me your story and I’ll ease your anxiety.’
His words found their mark. Colin’s huge brown eyes filled with sorrow and trust. ‘They came for me as I slept,’ he began, and he sat beside Danyl and told his story.
‘All my life I wanted to be a poet, like my hero Anna Akhmatova, and so I followed my dream and came to the Aro Valley one month ago to share in the struggles of its people and tell the world their story. But life in the valley proved hard. I slept on my brother’s couch and he stayed up late every night smoking pot and watching cartoons, and in the morning his fat girlfriend would read my poetry aloud at the kitchen table and laugh mockingly while I pretended to sleep.
‘Then, two weeks ago, I notice
d a notice on the noticeboard at the community centre. It was a job advertisement reading “Poet urgently required”. I took down the number and went home and phoned it immediately.
‘Campbell, I mean the DHH, answered. He asked me many questions about my life: my writing, where I lived, if I remembered my dreams; he asked me if anyone would miss me if I disappeared suddenly. I’ve never been interviewed for a job before so I didn’t think that last question was unusual, but thinking back I think it was.
‘Anyway, I looked at my brother hunched over his bong, watching the Smurfs and crying, and I told Campbell no one would miss me. He congratulated me and said I was fully qualified for the poetry job, the details of which, he promised, would be forthcoming at a later time.
‘I went to sleep that night dreaming of my new life as a professional poet. I woke with a gloved hand covering my mouth and black-robed figures looming over me. They bundled me out of the house and into the back of a white van idling on the side of the road. Campbell awaited me inside the van. He shook my hand and gave me a blanket to cover myself, and told me my job as a poet had begun. Then he knocked on the back of the driver’s seat and the van sped off into the night.
‘As we drove, Campbell told me the heroic story of the SSS—how traitors tricked him into inventing an evil drug, but Campbell outwitted them and formed an organisation to watch and protect the Aro Valley and thwart the traitor’s plans. There was also, he hinted, a higher purpose to the Order, a secret goal which he would reveal to me in due time, for the Order needed someone—a bard, he termed it—to document its heroic achievements and secret history so that future generations would know of them.’
Danyl said grimly, ‘This sounds familiar. Go on.’
‘There’s little else to tell. When we arrived here Campbell told me to call him the Deputy High Hierophant, and he gave me my apprentice clothes and this book, and told me to study it. He said I needed to prove my loyalty to the Order because he’d been betrayed by a writer in the past, and he needed to know he could trust me.
‘I’ve been here two weeks and this is the first time they’ve let me leave the fourth floor. No one talks to me. There’s another new apprentice who was supposed to show me around and explain things, but he’s never here. I’ve been very lonely.’
Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley Page 25