The bed...actually, under the bed. Yes. Before running out of the apartment that night, lured by who knows what noises, he was about to check if somebody was hiding under it. He had moved away the covers with his gun, had knelt down, even if not completely...and he had seen something.
But of course, damn it!
He quickly got up from his chair, tapping the center of his forehead with a index finger, and went to his bedroom. With his heart pounding in his chest he went on all fours and lowered his head until he almost touched the floor with it.
And there it was. That white triangle...
It was a sheet of paper. No, some sheets, between the mattress and the frame. A corner hadn’t been hidden properly, so it was hanging generating the white form that had stuck to his subconscious. HE didn’t hesitate and extended his arm, grabbed the side of the sheets and started pulling cautiously. Nothing. He risked ripping them. So he stood back up and, keeping the mattress lifted with a shoulder, he managed to get hold of what somebody clearly wanted to hide.
“What the...?”
He sat on the edge of his bed and started examining that bundle of sheets on which the base had impressed an hexagonal pattern. Giovanni looked at the bottom of the last one, in case there was a signature or something. Nothing. The text looked incomplete, stuck halfway, as if the author had ben forced to stop writing and never got to it again.
There was no indication on the first page either. Yet reading the first few lines was enough to grasp the nature of that manuscript.
Today, March 29th, I heard voices coming from the Ring...
It was a diary, or at least a draft. Written on A4 sheets, certainly taken from the fax machine. By who? He had no doubts. The former Keeper.
“Oh my...”
The rules strictly forbade leaving any personal written traces of any kind. Even simple notes were considered a violation of the norms that regulated the role of Keeper. Nothing could be divulged. There was an oath. And yet...that’s why those papers had been hidden. He had never lifted the mattress completely when changing the sheets. He could as well never be able to find it. Provided it was there to be found. Right. But he didn’t see any other reason why his predecessor would leave a memoir in there. The risk of being found by someone else, and not the new Keeper, was high.
He casually leafed through the pages, catching another paragraph: 14 July - last night I heard a voice calling me. I woke up and saw a man inside the Control Room. His face was hidden by the shadows and he was pointing towards the screen. “There I am” he told, pointing his finger to a motionless body, on top of the mountain of pain. Then he added: “You threw me down there today.” So I passed out. This morning I was in my bed. A dream? Or are there ghosts in this place?
Giovanni stopped reading and blew through his teeth. So that’s how things were. The former Keeper hadn’t had it easy, it seemed. But...why did he write those things? To warn him, maybe? It was a plausible idea. He imagined that at some point the idea of leaving a testimony must have popped to the man’s head, worn down by solitude and tiredness as he was. Maybe as a self-defence mechanism. Giovanni knew a thing or two about psychology, and in some cases writing has a strong therapeutic value.
He read some more, browsing to read here and there: noises in the walls...a red cat staring at me, resting at the foot of the bed...the convicts stare at me in the eyes and judge me, before entering the Shutter...time never passes in here, never...few months left, I must get to the end...everyone cries an calls my name...their eating each other alive, down there...
Giovanni stood up with a sigh, shivering. That stuff had tired him. He already understood what it was and he already felt a mixture of nausea and compassion. The poor guy must have gone mad. At least he managed to complete his term, managing to vent out his tension through that delirious bundle of notes. Of course, he could only commiserate him, but...
He had done something that went against the NMO’s regulations, and that made him look wretched. How could he then, pass the selections - tests that included scrupulous psychological examinations - and in just a few months be a victim to hallucinations and disorders worthy of a madman? Deep inside him, however, Giovanni recognized his strict attitude as a shield, probably induced by
(Aren’t you afraid?)
some sort of fear. The fear of being conditioned, maybe. Hadn’t he already experience many disquieting moments? Hadn’t he already had the occasion to doubt his perception, his senses?
“Oh, to hell with it!”
He looked around him, instinctively trying to find a garbage can in which he could throw those papers. But then he realized he gave in to nervousness a bit too much and, with a long sigh, tried to calm down. He knew perfectly well that there were three cans in his flat: one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom, and one in the Control. But what he had in his hands wasn’t something that could be thrown away just like that, to be carried away with the rest of the garbage. That stuff was hot. It was practically proof that his predecessor had acted against the New Order, however indulgent one could be because of his mental state. And he also had to consider that he had hidden those pages under the mattress. He didn’t get rid of them, nor carry them with him. He wanted him to read.
A thought started burning a hole in his mind like hot wax. A new perspective jumped onto him like a tiger out of the jungle: what if the NMO knew about that piece of writing and left it there on purpose, hidden, to test him? It was complex, but not impossible. It was the kind of initiative that fit in the New Order’s modalities, for which loyalty was one of the first qualities that were required in its collaborators. He felt sweaty all of a sudden, but the temperature in the apartment hadn’t changed. The feeling of being observed, controlled, monitored overwhelmed him like a torrid and oppressive gush. No, nobody was spying him. There were no cameras nor microphones...or were there?
He stared at that meagre diary trembling in his hands as if crossed by a low voltage current. His conscience was blocking him. Did he have to denounce his predecessor, dragging him into endless troubles, wherever he was? Or was it better to pretending not to have found the papers and put them back where he found them? He didn’t want to read them again anyway. He knew himself. Something like that would be harmful to him, giving him nightmares, or just lead him in the dumps.
On the other hands, putting everything back and pretending nothing happened was equal to betraying the NMO, in a way. Was it better, then, to ruin a stranger’s life? He would have to at least give back a part of the sum he had received, if hadn’t already spent it all, to pay a fine. He tried walking in his shoes for a moment. He imagined himself under the sun, on his tropical island, while watching with perplexity two soldiers walk towards him on the beach, looking like someone who was bearing some bad, bad news...
He absent-mindedly - or maybe driven by an unconscious impulse - looked out of the window to maybe find advice in the white sky. And finding out that a truck was coming towards the Tank from the Confinement sector made him jump. He looked at the clock. Two minutes to five.
“Oh, shit...”
He had the presence of mind to lift the mattress and put those damn sheets of paper over the frame, trying to be as accurate as possible as for what their original position was, fighting against the nervousness of the moment. He then rushed to grab the clipboard with the fax and secure the holster of his Beretta to his belt, just in time for the signal to announce the lift’s arrival.
While positioning himself in front of the Shutter, with his typical expression comprehending the three things that were expected of him (readiness, security, efficiency), he wondered if the tumult he felt between heart and lungs also showed in his eyes.
The cabin stopped at his floor and, when the door opened, a man in his sixties came out, pretty elegantly dressed, even if the clothes were dirty and creased. He wore a pair of round glasses, kept on by a crooked sidepiece. One of the lenses was shattered and the cheekbone underneath was red with fresh blood, as if the man had recently received a s
trong blow on his face. A red rivulet was still dripping down his cheek before being absorbed by the collar of his shirt.
Giovanni shifted his focus on the Escort Guard - there was only one of curse - appearing behind the convict and he felt his stomach contract. Alex Allevi.
The ex-candidate for the Keeper position was unmoved behind his mirror glasses. He didn’t wear them last time. They probably represented some sort of status symbol for the EGs, ora maybe they were just a vanity item. He advanced pushing the old man with the barrel of his sub-machine gun with energetic and nervous movements. He didn’t even look at Giovanni; when they were in front of the Shutter, he took the form and declared: “As per regulation 9817/40, I deliver today to the Keeper of Tank 9 the convict Mario Debonis, sixty years old, grooming and fraudulent solicitacion of children.”
The bleeding man groaned, nodding.
Giovanni stared at Alex for a few seconds, certain that it was him who hit the convict. It wasn’t possible that the convict had been brought there from Confinement already in that condition: when ha convict was confined, he became a sort of pariah, untouchable. And until the Unloading phase he was not to be harmed in any way.
He did it when nobody could see. In the lift, with the barrel of his 13-S.
“Grooming and fraudulent solicitacion of children.” Alex repeated to shake Giovanni awake from his state of bewilderment.
The Keeper instantly came to. He ticked the new guest’s name of the fax, then input the Unlocking Code of the day. Debonis went in silently, ruefully, the binds on his wrists so tight that they left a vivid red mark on his skin. And justice took its course.
A few seconds of silence followed, a silence filled by heavy and labored breathing, ascending to burn against the neon of the Ring.
Alex hadn’t moved, a hint he wanted to stay there, talk.
It was Giovanni who broke the ice. “Hi, Alex.”
The Guard slowly took his glasses off and smiled tiredly at the former rival. “Hi, Giovanni.”
The Keeper realized his throat was dry and tried to mitigate the halo of embarrassment hiding behind a simple triviality. “So...now you’re a Guard.”
“Yeah...”
“And...is it good?” An annoying drop of sweat ran down his back. He managed to dry it up by slightly moving his shoulder blades.
Alex, who still had his gun up, immediately lowered it. “Yeah, I...I can say so. They make us move a bit, from a place to another, where it is needed...but it’s a good job, yes...”
Giovanni was under the impression he could read something else in his eyes: you’re way better off in here, you bastard. You don’t have to work all that much and in the end you will leave with a compensation we can’t even dream of.
“ Did you serve in other Tanks, too?”
Alex smiled bitterly, almost with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, but you know it’s confidential. Nothing personal, Giovanni. But you’re not in the military.”
“No, of course. I understand. Rules are rules.”
A thin layer of eyes created between the two; but it melt down almost immediately because Alex did something Giovanni didn’t expect. He extended his hand.
“I...despite what you might think...I’m happy for you. And I want to congratulate with you.”
Giovanni was left speechless, his mouth open, one second more than he actually wanted. Then he shook his hand.
“Thank you.” He muttered.
He mentally blamed himself for judging the guy the wrong way. At least concerning the supposed rivalry between them. But there was still the problem of the pedophile’s bleeding, black-and-blue cheekbone (even thought the man had more serious problems to handle now). He could pretend he didn’t see anything, on professional level.
When they broke the handshake, he said: “Did you...do that to...”
Alex coughed and instinctively took a step backwards. “I’ve always hated pedophiles. And I don’t think it’s appropriate to tell you why. I had a very bad experience when I was a kid. I know I made a mistake. But I couldn’t hold back.”
Giovanni nodded. The young soldier had violated the rules, but he couldn’t blame him. To be frank, it was possible he would do way worse, were he in his shoes.
“I know you should report me.” Alex added defensively. “But...it would be your word against mine. You have now ay to prove it, you know? That bastard is gone. What do you say?”
Giovanni didn’t move. His reasoning was ironclad. “I have nothing to say. If you had damaged the NMO in some way, I would be obliged to talk. But in this case...”
He let the sentence fade. The meaning of his answer was clear enough.
Alex got a hold of himself, preparing to leave. “Good. It was a pleasure meeting you again, Giovanni. Have a good day.”
Giovanni saluted him, half-seriously and half-jokingly.
“I better leave. I’m already late. Better if I get back to the Center to avoid any questions.” He that got to the elevator and pressed the button to make the doors open. “If I’m assigned to any other single deliveries, we’ll have the chance to chat for a while. If there’s another guard...” he shrugged, walking inside the cabin.
A sudden question came to Giovanni’s mind. “How’s the general?”
While the doors were closing, Alex smiled and raised his thumb.
***
That night Giovanni couldn’t get to sleep. There were too many relics in the surface of his awarness, waving lazily adrift. He wanted to grab one of them, but as soon as he thought to have made it, the makeshift buoy would turn over, sending them back among the waves. The Keeper’s diary. Alex’s tired smile. The bleeding face of that man...
He suddenly found himself facing a thought he yet hadn’t, but that he knew it would annoy him more that necessary from that day on. What nightmares, what folly drenched the pillow on which his predecessor had slept, and was now his own? It was a crazy idea, of course. Yet, lying there, motionless, his eyes staring at the shadows on the ceiling, in the droning silence of that place of death, very few things seemed truly crazy. The previous Keeper had started losing touch with reality at some point. Not enough to lose its job, that much was clear. He still managed to hold the reins, reach the shore of December 31st and save himself, despite his brain starting to wander into shadowy lairs. After all, he had passed all the tests Giovanni had, so he was no doubt a sane person. He admired him, in a way. And as for the diary...it would stay where it was. He had to stop racking his brains on what was wrong and what was right. He had a conscience. And that conscience - always working in the background - had decided that the less complications, less trouble policy was to be preferred to any other.
His mind drifted off the real world right when the slightly psychotic thought that the NMO would examine the diary looking for his fingerprints was surfacing from the waves, hard and full of splinters like a broken slab of wood, but too far to grasp.
10 - A Dangerous Delivery
The first true incident happened - a coincidence, of course - on March 29th, his birthday.
The month had passed with nothing but the same old routine, alternating human, food, and clean sheets deliveries. He trained with weights, ran around the Ring, watched movies-documentaries-news on TV, read more or less difficult books: after finishing Jack London and Melville he was skeptically approaching Joyce; he already suspected he would end up putting him apart to go back to Hemingway (he would have gladly spent some time reading Poe, Baudelaire or Kafka, but their names - and many others with them - were not in the NMO’s good side).
He had had a lot more nightmares, but he had gotten used to it. Waking up in the middle of the night from time to time never killed anybody; and if that was the price for staying in there for a year, well...he could stand it.
But on March 29th he had to face a very unusual situation. It was in the manual, of course, but it belonged to that kind of incidents everybody wished to be just fantasies from the authors’ minds. An incident belonging to the disorders
in the delivery phase section.
He had had two double deliveries (gypsies and earthquake jackals) in the morning; in the afternoon he had another couple, two drug dealers caught selling marijuana at the exit of a middle schools. The ones escorting them were Scalp and Steve (as in Steve McQueen, since he looked a bit like the actor).
There were no signs of the upcoming mishap. The first Guard, Scalp, read the names and accusations on the form out loud. Giovanni ticked them on the fax, then input the day’s code for the third time (always careful not to make mistakes, adding 29 to each digit). The two new convicts slowly stepped towards the Shutter, staring in front of them. The first - Adriano, short, blond hair, in this thirties - obediently entered the glass cabin, pressing his chest against the Suffering. The man following him - Lucas, shaved head, thick build, a few years older than his comrade - was to do the same...
If only Giovanni had looked him in the eyes, he could suspect something and react accordingly. But he didn’t. He never liked letting the convicts entering the Shutter cross gazes with him. It made him feel remorse, as if he were to be blamed for their deaths. His role - one of his roles, as Stevanich had underlined - was to be an executor, plain and simple (even if when the word executioner came to his mind, he did everything he could to send it away).
That afternoon was no exception. He didn’t look at Lucas in the eyes, so he had no way of realising the usual sedative-induced blur was completely absent, or almost. Whatever reason was behind that mistake, the man was still wide awake and with very bad intensions.
With a sudden movement, like a hunted animal, Lucas turned towards Scalp and kicked him in the groin. The Guard went down with a groan, his eyes wet with tears. Steve, caught by surprised, screamed and jumped backwards, trying to wield his 13-S correctly at the same time; because of the unseemliness of his movements the shoulder strap slipped down his left arm, impairing him.
In the meanwhile, the large drug dealer had lunged forward, slamming Giovanni with his shoulder and clumsily running through the Ring, in the opposite direction to they one they had come from.
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