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.
Startled by the man’s sudden movements, Giovanni lost his balance and fell on one side. Falling, he wondered why his head felt the warmth and pressure weight of a human body. Only after impacting with the coarse and worn down moving platform, he realized he was inside the Shutter from the waist up and that he had hit the back of the other convict, who was waiting to be unloaded. He instinctively went supine, panting, on his elbows. His heart was pounding in his chest, as if it was trying to escape from it.
In the meanwhile, Steve’s screams and Scalp’s hoarse groaning were rolling in his ears, amplified by the dark, polished walls.
Back on the Ring, Giovanni had to jump not to trip on Scalp, who was trying to get up. He was on his knees, his head still on the ground, looking like he was peeping through a hole in the floor. His cheeks, which were bright red when he was hit in the groin, now were almost grey.
Despite his current state of pain, he managed to growl. “Watch… the elevator…”
Giovanni brought one hand to the holster of gun opened it and extracted the Beretta. Hurried steps came from the Dark Side. Steve was following Lucas, whose intentions were imponderable. What hope did he have to survive? Did he think he could best three armed men and escape? He had no chance.
No bullet had been shot. The manual did allow the use of firearms inside the Tank, that much was true, but only in case of extreme need. And that, unless the situation deteriorated, was still a case that could be solved without recurring to guns.
Lucas showed arrived to the other side of the Ring. He was stumbling, his hands tied behind his back. Alerted by Scalp’s words, Giovanni was ready to stop him from entering the elevator – whose doors were still open – but the convict went past it and rushed towards him head on. Steve appeared behind the fugitive’s back, his sub-machine gun aimed at him and his teeth showing behind a furious grin.
“Stop, you son of a bitch!” He ordered with a not completely firm voice.
Lucas, lunging forward with all his weight, completely lost balance. If Giovanni hadn’t moved swiftly, the convict would have fallen over him. Moreover, they would probably have fallen of Scalp’s back… but the Guard, having mustered enough strength to stand up, was quick enough to get out of the way; Lucas fell face first, sliding his nose on the linoleum for a meter or so. With a quick movement he turned on, pointing his bloody face towards the astonished observers. His septum had taken a weird shape, bleeding heavily.
Scalp, now stable on his legs – even if a bit stooped, a mask of fury and pain twisting his face – was pointing his FS 93 to the convict’s forehead using both hands, his arms extended. Steve, who had re-gained control of his gun, was aiming for the lower abdomen.
Giovanni, after a quick reflection, decided it was time to holster his Beretta. An armed intervention on his side would have been appropriate (dutiful even) if the EGs were in a situation of objective difficulty, as the manual said. But now everything was under control again.