Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley (30 page)

‘Mind the vents.' Georgie pointed with her cane at a hole in the floor. Danyl detoured around it and peered down. The vent was a perfect circle, slightly wider than his hand span. His torchlight lit up other circular holes, some as small as a fingertip, others too wide for him to jump across.

Georgie's voice rang out in the darkness. ‘Over here.'

The pool was a smooth dip in the floor, like a shallow bowl. Its sides curved away out of sight. It looked like it was empty, but there were thin films of liquid dotting the basin at irregular intervals. They glistened blue in the torchlight.

Georgie tapped the floor beside the pool with her cane. ‘Set your girl down here, dear. Mind her head. Don't touch the pool.'

Danyl obeyed. He stood and looked out at the emptiness, the glittering cascades of water dissolving into regions of mist, the rim of the pool extending out of the torchlight, and said, ‘So this is the Chamber of the Great Sponge.'

‘Aye.'

‘And you're going to drink some of its milk.' He lit up a film of the blue liquid with his torch. ‘And rescue Verity from the thing beyond the Spiral.'

‘Aye.'

‘Why do you call it the Chamber of the Great Sponge? Where is this Great Sponge?'

‘Where is it?' Georgie cackled again. ‘You're inside the Great Sponge, dear. You have been since you left my basement.'

Danyl knelt in the warm water. He was exhausted. His brain buzzed and sang. He was inside a sponge.

Little flashes of light were appearing in his vision. A voice in his mind said,
You're not here. There is no sponge. You've gone insane. Totally insane
. But another voice told him that it was all true.
The sponge is real, and you should run from it. Flee back to the surface, back to the light
.

Which of the voices was Medicated Danyl? Which was the sickness? Which was the real, true Danyl? Or was Real Danyl gone, replaced by the babble of madness? Had Danyl ever existed? Danyl didn't know. He didn't know which Danyl to listen to or what to do. He was still struggling with this problem when he heard the sound: a loud splash and then a voice, out there somewhere, in the darkness.

Georgie heard it too. She was crouched beside Verity, tucking a shawl under her head. She stiffened. Her hands flew to the recorder which hung from a string around her neck.

They listened. There it was. More splashing. Footsteps. Someone was inside the Great Sponge with them.

Georgie said, ‘It's the Adversary. They serve the thing beyond the Spiral. So long as there's someone inside the City, the thing out there can whisper to certain minds in our world and get them to open the way.'

‘Why would anyone betray their own universe?'

‘Oh, they don't know what they're doin'. The thing past the Spiral is subtle. Clever, like. That's why I had the Cartographers bringin' across so many pilgrims. The more from our side lookin' at the City, the harder it is for the thing to send a signal back.' She raised her voice and called into the darkness. ‘Come on, Adversary. Show yourself.'

They waited in silence while the footsteps approached. Finally, a shape appeared at the edge of the light. It walked with a wounded, limping gait and clutched a club in one hand. Clothes hung from the figure in tatters. It was Ann.

Ann stepped towards Georgie. Danyl moved to intercept her. She pointed her golf club at him. ‘Out of my way.'

Danyl did not move. Ann had blood on her torn jeans and blood on her golf club. Her face was scratched. Her hair was matted. But her expression was calm. She looked like a reasonable, intelligent person, except for the bloodstained club. Was she? Or was she an unwitting tool of the evil sentient mathematical universe?

Danyl said, ‘We need to talk.'

‘No, we don't. Move or die.'

‘Ann, stop. There's so much you don't understand. Georgie's been telling me about the Real City. Did you know she discovered it when she was a kid?'

‘I did know that.'

‘She says it is a conduit for something beyond the Spiral but it doesn't work the way we thought it did. Instead of betraying our universe, she's saving it. And now she has to save Verity.'

‘She's not going to save Verity, idiot. She's in league with the enemy universe. She's kidnapped hundreds of people. Drugged them and sent them to the Real City to open the way.'

Georgie started to speak, but Danyl held up his hand. ‘Let me handle this.' He said to Ann, ‘Georgie explained all of that. Sending pilgrims to the City blocks the way. It means the thing beyond the Spiral can't pass through, or manipulate the thoughts of people in our reality. See?' Danyl gave Ann his most winning smile. ‘She thinks you're being secretly manipulated by the thing beyond the Spiral, and that if you kill her and stop her from rescuing Verity, then you're the one who'll destroy our universe.'

‘Well, isn't that convenient? Have you considered that she might be lying? Or being manipulated herself? Or'—Ann's eyes narrowed—‘maybe you're the one who's being manipulated. Maybe if I listen to you, the evil sentient mathematical universe wins.'

‘Um, excuse me, but I think I would know if I was being subtly manipulated by another universe,' Danyl replied. But then he wondered: would he really? Where did his thoughts come from? His brilliant, intricate plans that sprang from nowhere, the brain zaps that punished him whenever he questioned them—was it possible they were some form of control? Something from an outside source?

He held up his hands, palms out in supplication. ‘You're right,' he said to Ann. ‘I could be under control. So could Georgie. So could you. None of us know if our thoughts are our own.'

Ann lowered her golf club a fraction. ‘You're right,' she admitted. ‘The mathematical universe could be manipulating any of us. Or all of us. Or none of us. We all want to save the universe.' She cast a dark glance at Georgie, who was watching them both wordlessly, her lips pursed. ‘Or pretend to want to, but in trying to save it, we might destroy it. How do we know what to do?'

‘I don't know.' Danyl waggled his finger at Ann. ‘But you do.'

‘Do I?'

‘You're a mathematical genius. You understand logic. Right? Isn't this a logical dilemma? How do we think about saving the universe when our own thoughts might trick us into destroying it?'

‘It is an interesting problem.' The gold club sank again. ‘Non-trivial. It's more meta-mathematical than mathematical.'

‘But you can solve it?' Danyl was filled with hope. Ann wasn't going to kill them. Instead, she would use her vast intellect for good. She'd lay down her weapon, figure out how to save the universe, and whatever the answer was, they'd do it, together. Everything was going to be OK.

Ann nodded to herself as she thought, untangling the complex meta-logic of their problem in real time. Her lips moved. Finally, a light went on in her eyes. She set her jaw.

Danyl said, ‘Do you have the answer?'

‘I do.'

‘And?'

‘I am my own thoughts,' Ann replied. ‘I can't stand outside them and examine them. And I can't rely on anyone else to examine them, since that someone might be controlled by the evil sentient mathematical universe. Since I can never be sure of my thoughts, or your thoughts, it's logical to believe the thing that seems most likely and advantageous to me. And that is that I am not controlled by an evil universe. Therefore, I do control my own actions and I must make choices that seem logical, sane and just.' She raised her bloody golf club. ‘That's why I'm now going to beat that old woman to death, and you too if you try to stop me.'

‘Stop.' Danyl raised his hand. Ann stayed her blow and raised an eyebrow. Danyl asked, ‘Is this about us?

‘Us?'

‘You and me. Your strong tender feelings. The kiss? Because if you're putting the universe at risk because of your emotional instability—'

Ann raised the golf club once more. ‘Time for you to die, Danyl.'

Danyl tensed. He closed his eyes.

Then Georgie, who had been silent and motionless, croaked, ‘There's a way.'

Ann shook her head. ‘No more tricks.'

‘No tricks. Aye, you're right. There's no way to know who is tricking whom, or who controls whom. But there's a way to act without knowing. There is a way to seal the way.'

Danyl asked, ‘What is it?'

‘A sacrifice,' Georgie replied. ‘A terrible sacrifice. It's hard, but it's the only choice.' She turned to face Danyl.

‘My lad. This burden will fall on you. You must reach within yourself. You must find strength. You must—' She stopped. Her mouth opened and closed. She raised her hands and clawed at the air, then sank to her knees and toppled into the warm water, face down. Steve stood behind her, holding his taser. He tossed it in the air, flipping it, then he caught it and grinned at them.

‘Dammit, Steve. Gorgon was just about to tell us how to save the universe.' Danyl pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Your timing couldn't have been worse.'

Steve stood over Gorgon's twitching, shrunken form. He looked confused. ‘Save the universe? I thought she was trying to destroy it.'

Ann snapped, ‘She is.'

‘We don't know that. We don't know anything.' Danyl looked at Steve. His right arm was in a sling and his sleeve was soaked in blood. ‘What happened to you?'

‘Dog got me. What about you?' Steve pointed at the cut on Danyl's forehead.

‘Orgy.'

‘Ouch.' Steve rolled his head to unkink his neck, then looked around, taking in the sponge pool, Verity, Gorgon—lying beside each other, both unconscious—and Ann, who had her golf club raised, still poised to attack. ‘So what happens next?'

‘Let's turn Gorgon over,' Danyl replied. ‘The least we can do is save her from drowning.'

‘Agreed.'

They knelt beside the old woman and rolled her onto her back, positioning her next to Verity. Steve said, ‘You know she was Matthias Ogilvy's daughter? And Simon Ogilvy's older sister?'

‘She told me. How did you find out?'

‘I found a secret archive of Te Aro Council papers hidden in Ann's office.'

‘Hey, I found my book in there too.'

‘Awesome, buddy!'

‘Ann took it when she killed Simon Ogilvy.' Danyl looked at her. Ann was thinking again. Blinking. Lips moving without sound. ‘When she saw that I'd seen the book, she tried to kill me.'

‘Really? I thought she had a thing for you.'

‘She does. She tried to kiss me earlier but I wasn't into it.'

‘She seems like your type.'

‘I guess. Things are just kind of confusing right now.' Danyl gestured at the sponge pool and the comatose bodies beside it.

‘She is cute, though.'

‘Oh, sure. On the other hand, she smashed Simon Ogilvy's head in while he was asleep. So.'

‘Why did she do that?'

Ann spoke up. ‘I was protecting our reality. I was sealing the way.'

‘That's what she says,' said Danyl to Steve. ‘But Gorgon thinks Ann is the Adversary. That she's being manipulated by the evil universe into letting it into our world, but she doesn't know it.'

‘Wow.'

Ann said, ‘A sacrifice.' She nodded at Gorgon. ‘That's what Gorgon said before you stunned her. She talked about a terrible sacrifice.' She pointed at Verity, who lay peaceful and still in the warm water. ‘Her. She's the sacrifice. Kill her now, and we seal the way. That was Gorgon's plan. So long as she's in the Real City, the universe has a conduit to our world. It can influence our thoughts. It can use her as a vector, travel into our reality and destroy it. But if she dies, no one from our side is observing the Real City, and the way is sealed. Then we close these tunnels. Collapse them. Destroy the laboratories. Block the way forever.'

Steve looked at Danyl. He said, ‘That's a good plan.'

‘Yeah, except for the murdering Verity part. We can't just kill her.'

‘We're brainstorming, Danyl,' Steve told him. ‘No blocking. No judgements.'

‘It's her or everyone and everything else,' Ann said. ‘We have to kill her.'

Danyl protested, ‘Maybe we shouldn't do what we think we have to? Maybe we should worry about the morality of our actions? Murdering someone while they're asleep is wrong.'

‘That sounds a lot like evil sentient mathematical universe talk,' said Ann.

‘I won't let it happen.' Danyl positioned himself between Ann and Verity's unconscious form. ‘To get to her, you'll have to go through me.'

Danyl did not think Ann would hit him. Something would stop her. Even as she raised the club, he hoped that she'd have an epiphany, see the truth in his words. Or Steve would tackle her from the side. Or Gorgon would rise up and shoot her with a dart. Someone else would materialise out of the darkness. Maybe, it occurred to him as the club swung towards him, the Great Sponge itself would intervene? But none of these things happened. Instead Ann hit Danyl in the side of the head with her golf club.

He didn't lose consciousness or go into shock, which was a shame because the pain was incredible. It felt like someone was holding a blowtorch right up to his skull just above his ear and pressing the blue flame into his skin. He dropped to his knees and held his hand to the side of his head. Warmth. Blood. Lots and lots of blood.

Ann raised her club again. Maybe something would stop her? Danyl was less optimistic this time. The sponge might save him, but it seemed more likely now that Ann would hit him again and kill him. He flung up his blood-drenched hand to ward off the blow, and the force of the motion splattered Ann's grim, determined face with arcs of ultra-red arterial blood. Her face contorted with disgust. She made a revolted choking sound in her throat and stepped backwards and disappeared.

~

Silence returned to the Chamber of the Great Sponge. It was broken by Steve, who said to Danyl, ‘Are you OK, buddy?'

Danyl was on his knees, blood streaming down the side of his head. He did not dignify Steve's question with an answer. Instead he stood and staggered over to the spot where Ann had vanished. The surface of the water was troubled. Waves were spreading in concentric circles. They settled as he approached, revealing a vent in the cave floor wider than his arm span. At the edge, he stopped. A perfect circle of darkness—then something floated up out of it, gleaming as it spun to the surface. Ann's golf club.

Danyl said, ‘She fell.'

‘Why did she sink? Why didn't she float back up?'

‘We're inside a sponge,' Danyl replied. ‘I don't know how things work here.'

They backed away from the vent. Danyl tried to think through the pain. Why was he here? What was he doing before someone hit him? Then he remembered. Verity. He'd been rescuing Verity. He splashed over to her. ‘I have to go back to the Real City,' he explained to Steve. ‘That's how I save Verity. That's what Gorgon did. She gouged out her eyes then she went back in and saved her brother.'

‘Why did she gouge out her eyes?'

‘So she couldn't see the thing beyond the Spiral. It couldn't plant its seed in her. Look, I don't remember exactly, Steve, I'm in a lot of pain, but it made sense at the time.'

‘Does that mean you're going to gouge out your eyes?'

‘I don't know,' Danyl admitted.

‘Buddy.' Steve knelt beside Danyl and touched his hand. ‘It sounds like you haven't thought this through.'

Danyl felt weak. Dizzy. It was hard to think. He was running out of time. He was going to pass out soon. Then no one would save anyone or gouge out anything. Everything would be lost. He said, ‘What should I do?'

‘You have five choices,' Steve said. He ticked them off on his fingers. ‘One. Do nothing. Maybe both Gorgon and Ann are wrong. Maybe there is no evil sentient mathematical universe. Maybe Verity will just wake up. Or maybe what's beyond the Spiral is heaven, and Verity has reached it.'

‘But if Gorgon or Ann are right—'

‘If they're right, then the evil universe uses Verity as a conduit into our own universe, which might be totally destroyed. So that's the downside there. Option two. Ann was right. The evil universe exists. The Real City is the conduit. We need to kill Verity before she wakes up. The downside there is that we kill Verity, which you oppose on moral grounds, but we need to keep it in the mix.'

Danyl rested his head in his hands. It was buzzing so badly he could hardly hear Steve speak.

‘Option three. Gorgon was right about the Real City but wrong about the eye gouging. You cross the Real City to the Spiral, somehow, then touch it and that rescues Verity. Option four. Gorgon was right about everything. You gouge your eyes out and take the compound.'

‘You said five options. What's the fifth?'

‘Ah. This might be the most cunning approach. You don't take the compound, but you do gouge your eyes out.'

Danyl thought about this. He asked, ‘Why would I do that?'

‘If the evil universe is real, they'll be anticipating your choices. They may even have manipulated all of us into this position right here and now. Maybe the only way to beat them is to do the one thing they can't predict you'll do. Claw out your own eyes for no reason. Then we win.'

‘Thanks, Steve. Good meeting. Good advice. Better than usual.'

‘No problem.'

Danyl considered the five options. Thoughts and emotions sloshed around inside his mind, flooding his consciousness then subsiding. Feelings of anger; hopelessness. Love. He thought about his own brain: a small jelly inside his skull, brilliant with billions of electrical patterns, complex chemical gradients. A tiny fistful of organic matter containing infinities. But there was something wrong with it. Chaos in the patterns. He dug his nails into his skull and tried to think through the fog.

‘Big issues to weigh,' Steve said, his voice low. ‘Life. Death. Murder. Love. Existence. I think …' He hesitated, weighing a decision in his mind, then he decided. ‘I think you need a hug.'

‘I don't need a hug. I'm trying to—Steve, no. I don't consent to this.' But Steve was putting his arms around Danyl. Holding him close. Danyl was too tired to fight. He slumped against Steve and surrendered in exhaustion. He stopped thinking. It was nice to be close to someone, even if that someone was Steve.

And then the hug was over and Danyl's mind was clear. He knew what to do. In theory he could pick any of his five options but there was really only one path. The others were fakes: stage doors painted on the surface of reality. They led nowhere; they didn't even open. He wasn't going to abandon Verity to the Real City. His feelings for her were too strong. And he wasn't going to gouge out his eyes. He wanted to see what lay beyond the Spiral. To solve the final mystery. Also, they were his eyes. He'd grown fond of them.

He knelt before the pool, dipped his fingers into the bright blue film, and touched it to his tongue.