Giovanni says “Who’s there?”
And a voice – trembling, yet menacing – answers: “I just wanted to throw some fliers.”
In that moment Giovanni woke up for real.
His first feeling was to be rolled up in square meters of crawling skin. He had his knees bent against chest in a fetal position, like when he was a kid and had a bad dream. His heart as beating like crazy and drool came out of his mouth as he raised his head. His conscience – at least the part that managed to wake up in his brain – told him to calm down. It was a nightmare, nothing more. And if it wasn’t for the fact that he could still hear the knocking echoing in his ears he probably would. The impression that someone had really knocked, and loudly, stuck to his brain, and he would never be able to go back to sleep without checking first.
He reached out to turn on the screen of the digital alarm clock on the bedside table. He felt he had dreamt for hours, but only eleven minutes after midnight had passed. He reluctantly pulled the sheets aside, sat on his bed and looked for his loafers with his feet (he had woken up just a few minutes earlier, in his dream, and he remembered how cold the floor was).
A pale ray of yellow and grey light came into the room through the window – which was never dark, not even at night – filtering from behind milky white clouds that foreshadowed snowing, and the floodlights of the Camp’s sentinels. Being on the north-western side of the building, the bedroom was never flooded with too much sunlight and the morning sun came as a discreet, pink halo.
But the dawn was still far away. And so was sleep. His eyes had already adapted to the dim light and trying not to make any noise – even if there was nobody there – he got out of his room, whose door he usually left open, and for a few moments he remained still in front of the reinforced entrance.
His eyes were fixed on the tips his loafers, but his ears tried to scan the almost complete silence where the low, continuos buzzing of the fridge was the only thing he could hear.
He thought about asking: “Who’s there?” But he didn’t know how he would react if the same answer he heard in his dream would come from the other side.
He still had to go out and check. It was his duty. Even if he wouldn’t probably report that episode. It was something personal after all. He had a nightmare and the acoustic illusion had continued once awake.
Everything in the Control was calm and still, apart from the resell larvae in the Well. There, inside the big screen, day and night had no meaning. Time didn’t exist for the Tank’s convicts. Dawn, midday, dusk, midnight… a quick look was enough to confirm that everything was ok. What was he expecting, to find the Tank empty? And maybe that all those who had swarmed the Ring were waiting for him to come out? The mere thought made him smile, but he felt hundreds of tiny pinheads in the back of his head.
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 sentineclass="underline" 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…