Free The Guard by Peter Terrin Page B

disappearing into water, a car crumpling against a wall, until its speed falters, the first resistance makes itself felt, the fracture lines branch through the crystal, creating shards, and finally canceling out the shape of the vase. I seeit again and again, time after time. Eventually I’m able to make out the high-pitched sound waves that sweep swiftly toward my head over the unmoving mirror of silence and break on my eardrums. It has long stopped hurting. I know what it sounds like, that’s why it can’t touch me. But the unending repetition is alienating. Is that what a falling vase really sounds like? I start to question the whole thing. Could this scene have another outcome? I watch closely. In my heart of hearts I believe that the vase will fall, but apparently not now, or now, or even now, not even within the foreseeable future; we learn that from experience, from time spent waiting. Perhaps that is the source of the confusion. I have time to study the woman and think of other possibilities and I think of them. While I am pondering this, the woman lets go, the vase falls, the sound hits me full on and completely unprepared; the entrance gate starts up.
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    We jump as if hit by a surge of electricity and immediately we’re ourselves again, no longer hungry, no longer sleepy. It turns out to be nighttime, as Harry predicted. After just a couple of steps I get tangled in the beams of the headlights, apparently swinging my arms around because I swipe Harry’s head, his cap. He shoves me and shouts over the racket, “Position!” His push was in the right direction. Taking the source of the scorching light as my point of reference, I quickly reach the spot near Garage 3 that I have spent long hours staring at from my prison on the stool, goaded by its terrible proximity. I spread my legs slightly, stretch my arms out in front of me and aim my service weapon just above the thundering engine, which is slowly approaching. Through the soles of my feet I feel the massive weight of the gate descend on the concrete. The engine turns off. My ears are ringing.
    Gradually I regain control of my eyesight. The familiar emblem on the hood, large, presumably designed to be recognized from the sky. Again, spotless bodywork lavishly reflecting the basement’s frugal emergency lighting. The driver says, “Here we are, then.” He’s lowered his window all the way down into the door. It’s only when he gets out of the van that I recognize him. He’s wearing the same clothes as last time: the blue sweater, pants without creases, sneakers. The clothes are loose on his body, like normal clothes. He is tall and scarcely twenty. Does the organization choose underprivileged, foolhardy youths to work as drivers in the radioactive zone? Is his inflamed skin a first sign of contamination? Do they simply neglect to inform them about the conditions and the dangers? Is that the easiest and cheapest solution? I can’t see any adjustments to the van. There’s no oxygen tank mounted on the roof. It’s an ordinary van.
    “A sight for sore eyes,” he says. “My good old buddies.”
    “Shut up,” Harry says. “Papers. And fast.”
    The driver shows both passes.
    “And who are ‘we’?” Harry asks.
    The youth casts a cool glance over one shoulder, then looks back at Harry, who still has his pistol trained on him from behind the van. “God knows who you are, but you look pretty hungry.”
    Harry comes very close to losing his temper. “You said, ‘Here we are, then.’ Who are ‘we’?”
    The driver grinned. “Me and my friend.” He raps on the side of the van.
    For us, that rap is a punch in the face.
    The guard.
    Harry turns as white as a sheet.
    I feel like my legs are about to buckle and force my knees back to lock them in place.
    The driver raps on the van a second time and says, “We’ve had some wild adventures together.”
    The silence that follows is broken by the youth’s nervous laugh. “Before you attack and eat