“…when it became evident that after a few month Corte still hadn’t noticed the material…”
(Oh, how wrong you are, mate…)
“…I abusively used the terminal in the Center when it was unmanned and made him find the manuscript to… to scare him in such a way that it would decrease the quality of work…”
(Poor, poor Alex. I feel nothing but pity and disgust…)
“In the early hours of the 7th of the current month I stole from the archive a copy of the key that grants access to the Tank through the security door and, entering the structure masked in order to… scare Corte, I found him while he was inspecting…”
“That’s enough, Allevi.” The general retracted his arm and folded the signed confession, putting it back into his pocket. Alex stood there with a half-open mouth, the dumb expression of somebody who just lost something. “I think you know the rest, Corte.”
Giovanni nodded, suddenly shaken from the anguishing speech.
“I want you to know that this public reading was essentially for your benefit, Corte. You had to the right to get some answers. Did you ?”
Giovanni nodded again, but Stevanich’s frowning face suggested him to answer appropriately. “Yes, general, sir. Thank you.”
“Let’s think of this regrettable matter as a closed one, then. You may proceed.”
Alex grimaced, emitting a sob filled with repressed tears. He then advanced abruptly, pushed by Scalp’s weapon.
Giovanni stepped to the push-button panel. He then raised the clipboard and looked for the Unlocking Code. He felt his stomach twitch. Things were happening so fast…
Maybe it was better that way. Emotions had already had enough space: they now had to be caged, buried. There was no chance the general would change his mind or that the sentence could be discussed. He would be the first to try and talk about it, maybe; explain his point of view, ask if the punishment really was commensurate to the crime. But he was no lawyer. He was the Keeper of the Tank (and the executioner), and he would only end up with Stevanich not thinking well about him anymore. On the other hand, that poor devil had committed to many infractions and him being part of the NMO’s army made it all way less forgivable.
His fingers moved on the buttons with clockwork efficiency under the general’s stony gaze. And in was probably the fact that he felt observed, together with the emotional chaos contracting his abdominals, that lead him into making a mistake.
The scarlet spy on the upper part of the panel lit up intermittently. Giovanni’s heart skipped a beat; the back of his head started burning, then the heat went down the neck and to his cheeks. Right when the general was staring at him, for the first time since he worked at the Tank, after hundreds of unloadings, he had gotten the code wrong.
His instinct made him turn towards Stevanich, who didn’t move a muscle.
“I apologize, general…” His voice barely came out, cracked like Alex’s. He had input the UC as it was written on the fax, shamefully forgetting the date, so he pressed the RESET button while trying not to tremble too much, and started over. While inputting the code, a window opened his brain to show him what it had caught when he had turned first towards the general, then back to the panel. On Scalp’s face a grin had appeared, on Alex’s an absurd hope: if case of three consecutive wrong inputs during the opening process, the convict’s punishment would be suspended.
I know what you are thinking, Alex. But I can’t do it, and you know it.
He pressed each button with extreme caution. The certainty of doing everything correctly pervaded him like a white fire even before the Shutter’s door opened.
“Go!” Stevanich’s exhortation made the convict move to the threshold of that small vestibule of Hell more than Scalp’s 13-S.
Please don’t look at me, Giovanni thought, Don’t look at me now!
And yet, as he feared, before stepping on the mobile platform Alex raised his head and stared at him dead in the eyes. “I would never have…” he whispered. “I would never have pushed the button…”
Giovanni felt burning coal between his corneas and eyelids.
He could only nod.
“You will, won’t you?”
Giovanni stopped nodding. It was the only way he managed to say yes.
Alex smiled bitterly and, closing his eyes and clenching his teeth, stepped forward.
“Close it, Corte!” The general, who still hadn’t stopped staring at him, wanted to sever possible any emotional thread.
Giovanni pressed the Closing button, holding his breath.
A hiss, a slight vibration, and the dark glass of the door cut Alex’s shape from view. But before he disappeared completely, Giovanni could see him bend his neck forward and almost touch his chest with his chin. He immediately understood his intentions. It was the ideal position to plummet and hope to break his neck.
I hope you make it, he thought.
He then pressed the Unloading button and, staring right in front of him, listened to the buzzing of the moving platform.
He mentally counted to thirteen and pressed again, trying not to think about what he had done. Useless. Even silence, now, was filled by the scream he couldn’t hear.
Stevanich turned towards Scalp and with a simple nod ordered him to move towards the elevator. The Guard obeyed immediately. Then the general turned back towards Giovanni, who was standing still, hands behind his back, legs slightly spread. Like a soldier at ease.
“You did a good job, Corte.”
“Thank you, general. I’m sorry for that mistake…”
“Don’t make it twice more.”
“I’ll do my best to avoid it, general.”
The two stared at each other for a few more seconds. Then Stevanich suddenly asked him that famous question: “So, Corte… aren’t you afraid?”
Giovani hesitated. When he opened his mouth, his lips moved as if he was saying something. But it all remained inside his head.
Stevanich once more turned towards Scalp, waiting like a sentinel in front of the elevator’s door. “You can go, Guard. Wait for me downstairs.”
A click of the heels, fingers at his forehead, and Scalp disappeared from the ring.
The general, who still hadn’t moved his feet from where he first planted them, turned back towards the Keeper. He simply raised an eyebrow, and it was like he was asking:
So?
Giovanni – who in the meanwhile had searched inside his head and found in Scalp’s departure an incentive to speak more sincerely – answered: “Yes, general, I was. And I will probably have again in the future.”
Stevanich slowly chewed on those words as if they were tobacco. “Of course, Corte. We are human. It’s impossible not to, isn’t it?”
Giovanni felt light-headed for a second. He still hadn’t eaten anything, had just executed the only person he thought to be his friends and now general Aurelio Stevanich in person was engaging him in a private conversation with slightly surreal tones. He had to be steadfast and show he could keep up.
“I think it’s impossibile, general.”
“Yes, it. Do you know why I ask you this question, Corte? Or better, why I ask you again?”
“I’m afraid not, general.”
“Because our work lives on fear. Without fear, the New Moral Order couldn’t stand. I feel it a lot, Corte. Consider it a confidence. I always feel it. Everyone do. You, Corte, just answered me by saying you were afraid, and you will be again. Past and future. But mow, in this precise moment… can you say in all honesty you don’t feel fear’s presence at each and every heartbeat? Think about it.”