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 triple 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.