Nicola Lombardi - The Tank

“ Yes, master.”

While moving away from the mirror he had the terrible impression that his reflection had moved after he had. Just a fraction of second; but it was enough to pierce his heart. And to make him lucid again, like a bucket of cold water to the face. He went to the Control rubbing his cheeks and chin, considering whether if it was appropriate to shave, when his hands would stop shaking.

“ Est. Keeper Corte.” The message said, “ in renewing the expression of our esteem for your behavior during the critical moment, which came to a positive end also thanks to your resistance against the rebel horde, we inform you that the delivery operations will begin tomorrow.”

Giovanni didn’t even feel like smiling, even if that pompous language didn’t really adapt to his state of mind. But he know that form always had priority in that context. Especially in trivial matters.

He thought about the opportunity to answer appropriately, maybe with some highlights like “ I’m proud of fulfilling my duty” or similar sentences. But he decided he could skip the hypocrisy phase and be straightforward.

“ Is it possible,” he wrote, “ to know how many from the Center’s staff were killed and who they are? I also heard that the son of a general was head of the revolt. Is it Stevanich’s?”

He checked it on the fly and sent it without thinking twice. What did he have to lose? He had already asked several people, who had no doubt already reported him for being so curious. It was like stirring once more an already stirred soup.

It was for the conviction of throwing a stone into the void that the buzzing of the fax machine, after a minute or so, took him by surprise.

He grabbed the still warm sheet of paper with a quick gesture, almost as if he in case he would wait, then the machine would eat it back. It was a list of names and surnames, fifteen total; no premise, no side note, no signature. It was an aseptic list, with no apparent context. But it was very important to Giovanni. It was the first precise and unequivocal answer he had ever received from the Center’s brain trust. He then realized that it was a pretty useless answer. Maybe he knew some of those people, but only by the nicknames he had given them. He look for a Lorenzo , which was Scalp, but he didn’t find him. Who he found was Giulio Lojodice. Good old Scar. May he rest in peace. And who knows the others…

He lazily folded the sheet two, four, eight times, leaving it on the console.

But about the general…

Beep.

( Don’t tell me you also have an answer for the other question, guys. I could cry… )

On the Postman’s screen only one line of text appeared: “ Watch the news at 8:00.”

Good. He would.

“ Thanks ”, he answered. “ I won’t miss them. ”

Sitting in front of a tuna can and some slices of ham he turned the TV on precisely at 8:00, just in time for the jingle. He chewed, watched and listened without really following until 8:14, when the speaker closed his service about the inauguration of a high school and started the one the journalist had very cinematographically called Assault on Camp 9 . Giovanni straightened his back and opened his ears; and when after a short introduction he saw general Stevanich appear on the screen, he let the cutlery fall on the dish with a loud noise and crossed his arms.

An out of sight interviewer started asking some simple questions – undoubtedly agreed in advanced – regarding the dynamic of the Assault, to which Stevanich answered with calm and sureness born from preparation. Giovanni could live, through that report, the almost epic unfurling of the battle in the Center, the one could assist to only from afar. But when they said that the casualties in the ranks of the New Order had been five – while the fax he had received counted triple that number – he thought he should doubt everything they said. Then, when the general stated that all the rebels short of the ones that were killed had been arrested and imprisoned in Camp 9 waiting for a process, he understood it was a version he too should tell, in the future, when talking about what happened.

The interview veered towards a question Giovanni didn’t expect: “ General, is true that your son was leading the rebels?”

Stevanich remained calmed. Why shouldn’t he after all? It sure as hell wasn’t a surprise question. He nodded and answered: “ Marco was always against the ideas of the NMO and we never got along. I think family must take a step back in front of the political, social and moral ideals that inspire our Order. Marco is a traitor. He used confidential information to elude our security system, but he didn’t consider the immense defensive power we have. He was arrested and will share the fate of all those in his condition.”

Giovanni unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.

They are all underground now. Shot and charred. The kitchen was suddenly hot.

Salutations and thanks followed, then the journalist appeared on the TV again to introduce the weather forecast. Giovanni turned it off.

He tried to get up, but a sudden vertigo forced him into sitting again. Tiredness. Tiredness asking for immediate rest. What was that churning in his head? He sure wasn’t annoyed by the “revised” version the general had told to the spectators. It was natural, a part of the power plays. Had those rebels been imprisoned, then their fate would have been much worse. They would have only contributed to fill the Tank. How many deliveries would there have been? He whistled at the idea. No, the thought that kept annoying him was another. If that Marco Stevanich lead the operation, wasn’t it plausible that he was the first man who had to climb the ladder and shoot the lock? He would never know for sure; but the thought that the men he had shot was the general’s son upset him

Be honest: would you have shot him, if you knew who he was?

“Yes”, he answered out loud. “I would have, no doubt. He was there to kill me.”

Had he some alcohol to drink, then there couldn’t have been a better moment to get drunk. But in the Tank alcohol was forbidden, like smoke and may more things. For his own good, of course.

We inform you that the delivery operations will begin tomorrow.

Right. The show must go on.

To bed, Giovanni. March.

He found the strength to go to the bathroom, brush his teeth, go to his bedroom, and crash on the bed. His mind went off like one of those ancient oil lamps when a small wheel was turned to shorten the wick.

The last Cleansing of the year, the one scheduled for the end of October, was moved up a couple of weeks. Recently there had been more deliveries than usual and the Tank needed the extra work.

From the day of the great Assault on Camp 9 the NMO had intensified the investigations regarding the so-called risky environments, those suspected of being hostbeds for insurrections or dissidence. On the morning faxes Giovanni found “ Revolutionary ” way more often. He expected things to be that way.

And so, halfway through October a new wave of acid cancelled once more the layers of compressed, deformed, torn, stiffened, annihilated in postures no one could ever see, but only imagine. From the tucker to the anaconda, to the Tank, to the Crown, to the tissues, flesh, organs, bones…

He wondered what he would think, what he would feel, if he was there, among the others, alive but unable to escape his doom, buried in the dark under the tonnes of corpses, listening to the sizzle of that liquid caressing his skin and piercing him little by little, get inside him, reach the deepest, most inaccessible layers of his body, of his soul…