He came to the security door, the so-called Escape, just it time avoid crying, focusing his thoughts back on the inspection.
It was a common green-painted fire break door. He tried turning the handle out of habit, knowing perfectly it was closed. He took the keys from his pocket and inserted the key with the green-coloured plaque in the lock, turned it open, lowered the handle, pulled the door… and the vertigo made him shiver. He felt inexistent insects crawling down his legs.
A cold stream of air immediately passed through the gap and a whitish ray of light did the same. An invasive breeze whistled in his ears, ruffling his hair. Separating him from the fall there was just a metal platform with a railing. In the distance he could see the wire fence that formed the Camp’s perimeter. The buildings behind the Tank weren’t visible. All he could see was a large patch of grey, barren land that gave away to the brown colours of a woodland area, from a height that Giovanni found unsettling. He cautiously lowered his gaze, to his right, to look at the ladder that disappeared towards the base of the building.
He had seen enough. He closed the door and put the keys back with a layer of what on his forehead.
Turning his back toward the Escape he saw in front of him the Porthole for Direct Inspection. It was mounted on the inside wall of the ring, the convex one. It was a round window, very similar to a ship’s, made with a clever game of reflections and mirrors that – despite being set on a vertical surface – let him see almost perpendicularly inside the Tank in the event that the emergency lights (there were several even inside his flat) turned on. In case of power outage, where using the big monitor in the Control, it would be possible to verify the guests’ condition by looking at the abyss through it.
Giovanni approached it and, exactly as he did with the Shutter, the tried to see something. But finding himself looking at a dark puddle in which his face floated, curved and deformed, made him desist. Moreover, he was bugged by the stupid idea that inside, down there, someone was looking at him…
The strange silence weighing on the Ring unsettled him. It was enough for a first day inspection.
He headed towards his starting point, skirting the wall on the right side. His pace was a bit quicker, but he didn’t notice.
The rest of the afternoon slipped away on a western movie, a documentary about metalworking in Ancient Rome and some relaxation on the bed, reading poetry from D’Annunzio without any particular captivation.
His dinner was particularly frugaclass="underline" some toasted bread with cheese and orange juice. That first day seemed to have no end, despite doing next to nothing, but the overwhelming amount of new information tired him as if he had exercised for hours; that difference was that in this last case he would be very hungry, while now he just wanted to lie down and turn his brain off
Sitting on the edge of his bed he stared at the tip of his toes as if seeing for the first time.
If only he would raise his gaze he could see from the window the vastness of Camp 9, it’s quiet, restful stillness, now that the sunlight stopped leaking from the hills’ back crests leaving purple stains in the lower part of the sky. He could see how the annoyed treetops were shaking off invisible birds made of shadows and winds; he would recognise, half-swallowed by the evening, the buildings where the unknown lives of soldiers, sentries, maintenance staff, officers and all those who worked with commendable zeal in that branch of the judiciary mechanism went on. Wired fences and barbed wire – barely visible from afar – drew a huge, crooked figure that only from above could maybe make sense, imply a project.
He didn’t raise his gaze. Too many thoughts were slowly churning in his head. With a bowed head, now that he had nothing left to do but lie down and try to sleep, he felt the huge responsibility he took on himself when he walked in that office a lot more vividly. He would have to face whatever came to him one day after another. He had a whole year in front of him, but it would eventually come to pass. He made a choice. And he had been chosen. Now, instead of racking his own brain, he thought it would be more useful to stare at his feet, studying his toes’ slow and meticulous undulating movement, waiting for his mind to stabilise.
5 – First Deliveries
There would be nine deliveries during that second day of January, divided in groups of three. A little above average, but it would compensate for the previous day’s lack of activity.
Giovanni received via fax a list of the delivered, a document he thoroughly examined. After studying every procedure using duplicates he finally had his first official communication in his hands. He smiles. It was a tangible proof that it was all really happening and he wasn’t living a reverie, as it would often happen to him during his months of exams and selections.
He hadn’t slept much that night. Sleep – however tired he thought to be – arrived late. It often happens to be physically tired but with a brain so bombarded by stimuli that it just won’t stay put. He was stuck in some kind of dream, at least as far as he could remember. It seemed to him to have experienced a very personal, weird version of what would be his first delivery, but now, one hour after waking up and with a stomach full of coffee, he found impossible to gather the details scattered somewhere in his mind.
The document – written on the NMO’s headed paper and signed by a Penal Executive Office’s supervisor – had twelve names and surnames on it, together with the age and charges for which each one of them had been tried and condemned. In a corner, after the UC acronym, the Unlocking Code 473 had been handwritten.
To the attention of the est. Keeper of Tank 9 was written on the recipient’s space. It had a nice ring to it. He thought that, more or less in that same moment, his colleagues were feeling a similar wave of pride receiving the announcement of their first delivery, being at the beginning of their brand new year-long assignment like he was.
The Tank he was assigned to was the most recently built, being only three years old. It was also the tallest and most capacious. The other eight, scattered throughout the nation’s territory, were barely twelve meter tall and managed at most fifty/sixty people per month. This one could host at least twice those people, as stated by the previous year’s movements. Moreover, they weren’t as well equipped on a technological level; the oldest Tanks didn’t even have structures like the Shutter, but used more rudimental devices like hatches and slides. He would be a liar denying that such observations didn’t please him. He had heard voices about a tenth Tank, but it was nothing more that a project; they didn’t even agree on its location. It would probably be for female prisoners, as it was for all even-numbered Tanks. The NMO opposed sexual promiscuity, even if confined in such an extreme environment.
He looked out his bedroom’s window just in time to see the van approaching the Tank. He quickly looked at his watch: 7:59. He then re-read one line of the fax, which he had fixed to a clipboard he found in the Controclass="underline" first delivery: 8:00 A.M.
“Great…” He said.
The vehicle parked beside the elevator’s entrance, but it was already out of the Keeper’s line of sight, who had leaned to watch the manoeuvres, but to no avail. Giovanni got back to the vestibule, breathing in deeply and, with a big sigh, getting rid of the tension he felt contracting his stomach’s muscles. With the fingers of his right hand he caressed the holster that was strapped to his waist and almost felt the weapon vibrating with a life of its own.