The Tank

by Nicola Lombardi

  Without turning the big neon lamp on - he could very well see in the mould-colored light coming from the screen - he grabbed the 9 mm gun from the third drawer and went back to the entrance door.

  The key, and the whole set, was in the lock, like every other night. Giovanni hesitated for a few more seconds, realizing he was rhythmically folding and extending his toes. He happened to unawarely do so every time he was in a stressful situation. He remembered noticing himself doing it more than once during the tests. He stopped immediately, irritated by the thought of being distressed by a stupid dream.

  He turned the key with intentional vigor, causing a sudden clatter that would surely scare whoever was out there to ambush him.

  Ambush me? Night and solitude really stress nerves out...

  He opened the door aiming his gun in front of him, rapidly checking both ways. His pupils shrunk immediately, hit by the constant light of the long, circular corridor. It was a cold light, like those in hospitals.

  Nobody was there, of course.

  Neither on the left, nor on the right. Nobody. The elevator was silent. So was the Shutter’s door. Something in his chest told him he could speak without being afraid of any surprises.

  “Is there anybody there?”

  His words flew along the ring, split up and probably met on the other side, on the dark side of the moon. It was obvious that if someone had been actually there, he would never answer. It was a truth known by any sentinel: if it doesn’t answer, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. He did the only think left to do.

  He decided to go right, keeping to the Ring’s longest wall. The rubber soles of his loafers whistled weakly against the linoleum floor. He didn’t try to be more stealthy; he made clear he was there. The neon’s light came down intermittently, with a darker cone every two steps between one lamp and the other. He stubbornly blocked himself from thinking, knowing that letting his fantasy run would be a big mistake. The whole thing whose more emotionally challenging that he had imagined. Maybe he did have to report the episode. All in all, the fact of hearing or believing to have heard a noise in the dead of night and reacting as expecting from him would do him honour. He wouldn’t mention the dream.

  He finally reached the Escape (he immediately verified if it was locked) and the Porthole, diametrically opposite to his flat. As soon as he realized it, a slimy shadow crawling up his spinal cord made him shiver. The thought penetrated his brain like a corkscrew.

  The flat...he had left it wide open.

  He didn’t need to panic, though. He kept on walking along the Ring, now walking faster, his weapon aiming forward should he see the intruder beyond the turn, in the heart of the Dark Side.

  He reached the lift, then the reinforced door. It was open, of course. He cursed himself through his teeth for being so clumsy, deciding that would he really report the episode - and he wasn’t so sure about that anymore - he would also leave that detail out.

  He entered with a dash, turning all the lights on. There was nobody in the Control. Nor in the kitchen and the bedroom. He looked in the toilet too, to be sure. After finishing that quick inspection he realized he was holding his breath since the moment he came in, so he let out an ominous sigh that flew in the silence. He felt quite ridiculous now. Where had all his cockiness gone? The tough-guy act he put on to be selected? If Stevanich could see him, he would probably call him to his office for another face-to-face. And a lot less pleasant than the previous one.

  So, he told himself, you might as well go all the way: look under the bed. It is the favorite hiding place of any nocturnal threat, isn’t it?

  He knelt with a grin and, using his Beretta to move away the sheets, which almost touched the floor, he went on one elbow and lowered his head...

  The sudden buzz of the Spy almost made him scream.

  Teeth clenched, his heart pounding against his rips, he ran towards the still open door (over which the red light shone) and almost fell. One of his loafers slipped away from his foot and and into the air, but he didn’t care. The noise of the lift’s mechanism stopped with the metallic thud that signalled the cabin’s arrival to the ground floor. But...how could he not hear any noises earlier? There had to be some. Had an intruder come up while he was sleeping. the acoustic signal of the Spy should have woken him up. Or maybe not...

  A scarlet flash lightened up a dark corner of his memory. There had been a moment in his nightmare...yes, when the Shutter’s door had opened to let that...that thing...reach the Ring. It did so with a deep, loud buzzing sound. Yes, he remembered now. It was the sound made by the Spy!

  He rushed to the bedroom again, barely noticing the difference in temperature being bare-footed. He opened the window and leant his head into the chill of the night. The vertigo’s icy fingers caressed his forehead, but he meant to endure it, hoping to catch a glimpse of movement somewhere.

  It was all useless. Down there, everything was coated in darkness. The moon, which was on the back side of the Tank, projected a vast lead-coloured shadow on the front, hiding the lift’s entrance from view. Anyone who exited it could easily see him at the window and cunningly crawl along the building’s circumference to disappear unseen.

  He retreated and closed the window, cutting out the cold bite of the night’s wind. There some lights in the distance, where all the activities of Camp 9 were organised and directed. Maybe in that same moment somebody was already preparing the faxes he would receive the following day. Or - why not? - he was looking towards the Tank, asking himself why was the Keeper still keeping the lights on...

  There also had to be many prisoners, convicts who were soon to be delivered, locked up in some cell. He could bet they had it way, way worse than him. The night before entering hell was a terrible one.

  He locked the reinforced door, drank the orange juice left in the fridge, then turned off the apartment lights one by one.

  Without even giving one last glance to the Well he sat on the edge of his bed, his head between his hands. Maybe he would manage to think about the whole episode with a clearer mind the following day. He knew how the human mind could glue together the pieces of a particular event, however problematic or lacking, in order to make it seamlessly fit in the ordinary. Did he really hear someone knocking at the door or did he just catch the echoes of a dream upon waking up? And if he chose to believe he had heard something, was it the knocking or the clang of the lift reaching the floor? That last hypothesis had to be discarded as it created more than one complication. He could just convince himself that what he had heard was not the sound of the descending car. Between the emotional stress and the blood pumping in his head, even a voltage drop of the fridge or the kitchen could be mistaken for...

  “Oh, damn it all!”

  He laid on the bed, hands crossed under his head. The ceiling was a dark and magical gulf where his dreams, which were born on the center of his forehead to drip through his brain and be absorbed, already forgotten, on the pillow, took form. Only one detail ruined that enchanted landscape: an indistinct shadow on the corners of his mind. The impression he missed something, like a splinter from a shattered mirror. Something he saw, maybe? That he had register somewhere in his brain, but then was buried in the depth of his head...

  But he had time to think it over. (A splinter). If someone had really been there, he was gone now. (Splinters everywhere. For how many you may pick up, one is always missing. A triangle.) And if he had just made everything up, all the better. (Under a piece of furniture. A white triangle. Under the bed.) It was time to stop thinking. (Under the bed). He had to worry about the sun...

  He fell asleep after three minutes and nothing more happened that night.

  7 - An Unexpected Encounter

  All of the night’s anguish disappeared under the morning light, as could be predicted.

  Giovanni undertook his daily activities in good spirits. First a glance to the Well, then one to the fax machine (there would be two deliveries that day: a double one in the morning and a tripl
e one in the afternoon). For breakfast he had yogurt, biscuits and fruit juice, all while watching the news. They were reassuring as always. Crime rate dropping, safe justice, someone received an award, another one was appointed to some public position...with NMO in power, it was unlikely for things to go badly. Of course the fact that the whole official news system in the country was run by the New Order could make people doubt that everything was as good as they were told; but if some things were still to be fixed - and to think they weren’t would be foolish and naive - Giovanni couldn’t help but admire the NMO for the revolution for which it acted both as promoter and perpetrator.

  After watching TV he did some push-ups and weight lifting, just to maintain his muscle tone. He used to exercise everyday before the Tank, during that part of his life he already considered a closed chapter, waiting for things to change, in any way, but a definitive one. The one-room apartment he lived in during his studies, where he had decided to stay even after graduating from university, seemed to belong to a faraway place. As if he was looking back to the road he had walked through an inverted scope. He had to thank the NMO for that. That was the true change, for him and everyone else.

  He hadn’t forgotten the events of the previous night, of course. They kept interfering with his thoughts like low radio frequencies disrupting the main channel. But he had also predicted what his mind managed to do while he was sleeping: it had put the pieces together like a puzzle, and even if some weren’t easy to place, a small push had been enough. The result was all in all acceptable. Was there anything missing? Maybe. There was something still hanging from the edge of his memory, refusing to come back. It didn’t matter. It probably wasn’t anything important.

  ***

  That morning’s delivery (9:15, a mob leader and an occultist) brought in a small surprise.

  He knew the first EG, he had already been there four or five tines. Giovanni divided the EGs in terms of first and second taking from their position in the line of convicts. He still didn’t quite get whether there was a precise distinction or if their position was the result of random movements. However things really were, the first EG was the one he called Mole because of the particularly large one on one side of his neck. Other guards he knew included Wrinkle, Bags, and even Scalp, a guy with a receding hairline. But the second EG...

  He had already seen him, but he was sure that was the first time he had ever escorted some convicts to the Tank. Slim, quite tall, buzz cut.

  It was only when the new Guard looked back at him and raised his eyebrows in recognition that his identity came back to the Keeper’s mind. He thought he only remembered his first name: Alex; but in that moment he could also remember his last name, Allevi. Alex Allevi, the guy who didn’t become the Keeper for a handful of points. And now...now he was an EG. Well, good for him. Giovanni imagined the compensation at the end of the year of service in the Tank could come in handy to a lot of people. To all those who took part in the selections, to tell the truth. Each one of them had his own dreams, his own tropical island. He could suppose that Alex would be happy to clench his hands around his neck.

  The delivery went smoothly. Giovanni found himself thinking he wouldn’t be able to distinguish the mob leader from the would-be occultist. They were both balding, wrinkly and sordid-looking. Sure, the sedative played its part into making them look so dull, but Giovanni thought that people like those had been dead inside for a long time and the Tank was only logical conclusion to their pitiful journey. They went through the Suffering like big, shapeless lemming throwing themselves down a cliff.

  When the Guards started walking back to the lift, Giovanni stood motionless and watched them, like he always did, waiting for the doors to close. He did not expect Alex to turn around - slightly, in order not to be noticed by the other EG - to blink his eye and rotating the index finger as to say we’ll talk later. It was Giovanni’s time to raise his eyebrows in surprise. He then frowned as to ask for an explanation that he knew he wouldn’t get.

  The two Guards disappeared in the cabin, which was as always flooded by a blue-yellowish light, and the lift went down yet again.

  Once he closed his flat’s door, Giovanni realized his muscles were still contracted in a puzzled mask and hurried to wash it away with cold water.

  ***

  He thought about that unexpected encounter for a long time. Alex, the guy who ranked second, still managed to join the NMO’s military force. And he worked there, at Camp 9. To be honest, he didn’t know whether the EGs had a rotation schedule, periodic transfers or whatever, but he didn’t care. But that gesture...a promise or a thread? Well, it wasn’t necessarily one or the other. There were a lot of shades in between. It could also just mean see ya. Now that he thought about it, maybe Alex would be back that afternoon to deliver the new triplet of convicts.

  ***

  It wasn’t so.

  At exactly 4:30 P.M. Scar and Mole arrived, escorting three black men (with a permit to sojourn, but not to deal coke). They had probably sedated them more heavily that usual since they walked dragging their bare feet on the linoleum floor and kept their head bowed despite their efforts to keep their eyes looking upwards. As a result their eyes were almost completely white because of the sclera, as if they just came out of a zombie movie. The Shutter swallowed them ravenously and the Suffering delivered the to the realm of shadows without regret.

  ***

  After having supper (fish sticks and salad while watching the circus on the documentary channel) he decided to exhaust his body in order to avoid any bad encounters while sleeping. There was nothing better than a good run around the Ring maintaining an even pace.

  The habit of using the Tank’s circular corridor as a track to keep in shape was a recent one, taken after thinking over the matter of becoming overweight. He could presently say he was proud of his physical shape; but would he be so at the end of the year? The two small dumbbells were certainly helpful, but not like a good run, through which he could train a wider range of muscles. The Ring wasn’t the best track, but it was something.

  So he had started to regularly exercise every time he could. He had started with twenty laps, then he gradually increased them, always adapting the duration of his training to his will and tiredness, without any specific goal. Moreover, he noticed that the linoleum floor was more faded near the outer wall. His predecessor had probably head the same idea. Maybe even the ones before him.

  Other than benefitting him through by helping him burn calories, running around the Ring also helped him clear his head of the accumulating cobwebs.

  It was a fortifying, regenerating experience. He could almost feel the grains of sand and dust falling of his mind, lightening him with every step he took. Thump, thump, thump...the walls of the Ring rapidly slipped away from the corners of his eyes (he instinctively always run counterclockwise), and he always needed to be concentrated to keep track of the laps. He normally used the Porthole opposite to the Escape as a point of reference and every time he reached it he would say a number out lout. Porthole...lift...flat...Shutter...Porthole again...”One!”

  Thump, thump.

  Lift...apartment...he wondered if they could hear him down there in the dark.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Porthole...”Seven!”

  Lift...Porthole

  “Thirty!”

  Shutter...they heard him, in silence, knowing it was him? No, it was impossible...they couldn’t hear anything but the rattles, the cursing, the screams filling that fetid, cylindrical bedlam.

  Porthole...porthole...porthole...

  One month has almost passed. Almost passed...

  When he realized he had lost count of the laps and run out of energy he went back to his apartment, took a quick shower and got into bed.

  “I can do it.” Were the last words he said, mumbling, before falling asleep.

  8 - Cleansing Day

  In Camp 9 the Keeper would normally be notified of a delivery that same day. In case of a Cle
ansing, however, the notice would arrive two days earlier. And the fax informing him of the upcoming operation (there were usually four a year) came the last day of January.

  We notice the est. Keeper of Tank 9 that the Cleansing operation will commence on February 2nd at 8:30 A.M., as per regulation etc, etch. Bureaucracy was one aspect of the old State that the NMO didn’t eliminate. It was actually one of its fundamental principles. Where perfect organisation, efficiency and precision were needed there had to be am extremely meticulous apparatus. Empty spaces between one thing and the other in the established power had always constituted a threat, since they could be filled by anyone who felt like doing so, outside any form of control. So each initiative, regulation and operation was filed with a univocal code. The opposite concept - ambiguous - had the stench of anarchy all over.

  That particular Cleansing, the first of the year, and also for Giovanni Corte, was the B9.22.49.C-164n.

  It was a truly impersonal name for a mass slaughter.

  The morning of February 2nd Giovanni saw the tanker truck come from afar, proving that the world outside the Camp still existed. Because of the distance he could only barely follow its slowing down to stop at the gates. They were conducting all the necessary inspections, from identifying the driver the nature of the load. Everything was documented, of course. So Giovanni could see it go through, followed by a jeep. Time: 8:24. The precision with which the NMO could manage its immense gears was incredible.

  It had finally snowed that night, so Camp 9 was pretty different from usual, and it was a pleasure to look at it. From the widespread whiteness that had swallowed the ground trellises, towers, cottages with shining roofs, wire fences and sporadic, intelligible black spots emerged. Giovanni’s calm breathing condensed on the window, creating opaque auras over portions of the landscape. He had always like snow, since he was a kid. Like all children. And even if now he had to do something there was anything but a game, somewhere, between his heart and stomach, he could almost feel that hint of excitement that accompanied him through so many moments during his childhood.