187

Bjorn was reluctant to leave his PC with Geir. But what could he do? Frank had in a sense taken over control of it, and ordered it used by Geir. Bjorn could not very well take it with him without first talking it over with Frank.

Bjorn left the glass cage feeling very uncomfortable with the whole situation. Then, as he spotted Frank up the road where Gus and his men were setting up a larger sign board, he figured he had to tell Frank how Geir had misbehaved, so in stead of heading back into the barracks, Bjorn proceeded up the road in the direction of Neiden.

Snow was melting on both sides of the road, but the tarmac was dry with the exception of the occasional trickle of water from one side of the road to the other. The tepid heat of the sun warmed his back pleasurably, and he felt strangely excited by the fact that he was walking up a stretch of road that he had never walked before.

"It's not a bad life at all, is it?" Bjorn thought to himself as he looked around at the great expanse of snow, poked through by rocks and bare knolls, recently freed from the white blanket of winter.

"Come and have a look at this," Frank said in a loud voice before Bjorn had come close enough to vent his frustration with Geir. "You got to see this! This is great."

Bjorn went up to Frank, turned around, and looked at the sign with its instruction to the drivers entering the colony from Neiden. "Passports required on entering," it read. "24 hour rule applies for tax free quotas purchased in the colony. Minors may only enter together with legal guardian."

"Well... Minors can't drive cars," Bjorn commented, thinking the last sentence a little superfluous.
"Sure, but they can hike, or take the bus," Frank countered. "There have been quite a few cases of kids getting into the colony without their guardians' consent over the last few months."
"Is that so?" Bjorn asked, feigning ignorance.
"Yep. The child protection service even had to close down its orphanage in Kirkenes and move to Alta. And even then, there have been escapes."
"Really?"
"It's a big problem. It's not something the media talks about, of course, but truth is that this colony is starting to be a lot of trouble, and I'm afraid it's our job to contain it and keep things from getting too much out of control."

Bjorn nodded thoughtfully.

"I caught Geir snooping around on my PC," Bjorn said, changing the topic of conversation to his more immediate concern.
"Really?"
"Yeah! And I'm not at all happy with him using it. I wasn't happy to start with, and I'm even less happy with this now."

Frank looked at Bjorn. "So how did you find out about this?" he asked.
"I got a message on my mobile. He was trying to change my profile."
"On your PC?"
"No. On a website where I have an account."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"That's not like him, is it? Why would he do that?"
"I don't know. But he did it, and it is my PC. I just don't want him to use it."
"You want me to talk to Geir?"
"No, no..." Bjorn answered immediately, feeling suddenly uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going. Just the thought of having Geir and Frank discuss Bjorn's profile on the Blacklist was enough to make his cringe. "I just want you to know that I'm not happy with the situation."
"Okay," Frank said, turning his attention back to Gus and his helpers. "That looks absolutely fantastic, guys!" he said with genuine enthusiasm. "Let's set up the other ones too."

Then, as Gus and his men put away their tools in the back of their truck, a car could be seen pulling up to the glass cage, down the road.

"That looks like Igor's car," Frank noted. "Let's go down and see if he brought any post with him. If we're lucky, he might have the scanner. And then your problem will be solved."
"Igor brings the post with him?" Bjorn asked.
"Yeah, once or twice a week," Frank explained.

Frank turned back to Gus and asked him if he was all right with setting up the rest of the signs on his own. Gus responded by reiterating what Frank must have told him earlier, and it was clear that Frank's help was no longer needed.

"Let's see what Igor might have brought with him today," Frank said. Then the two men headed down towards the barracks where Igor had swooped in with his van and started to offload his cargo.

186

Bjorn got out of bed and rushed down to the glass cage.

"What the heck are you doing?" Bjorn asked angrily as he tore open the door to the little office.
"What you mean?" Geir asked, pretending to not know what Bjorn was talking about.
"You're making changes to my status, aren't you?"
"Status?" Geir asked, still pretending to be clueless.

Bjorn pushed Geir aside and grabbed hold of his laptop. "Yeah, there it is," Bjorn noted. "How did you find it? I'm sure I closed this window before giving the PC to you."
"It came up in your browsing history," Geir explained rather nonchalantly.
"You've been snooping around in my browsing history?"

Bjorn looked at Geir, fuming with anger.

"Hey! I'm not the one with ties to right wing fanatics," Geir said with a smirk.
"Right wing fanatics? What are you talking about?"
"Come on! The Blacklist! What were you thinking, registering yourself with those guys?"
"So you've heard of them?"
"Sure, and I'm a little shocked to see you having an account with them, to be honest."
"And what exactly have you heard about them?" Bjorn asked.

Geir leaned back in his chair, smiling smugly. "It's a pathetic attempt to set up some sort of alternative legal system. It has no legal basis. And the only ones posting there are frustrated hippies and right wing losers. I'd remove my profile right away, if I were you."
"Well, I've tried, and I can't," Bjorn said, feeling his anger change to frustration.
"Is that so?" Geir asked, still smirking.
"Yeah!"
"I believe that ir illegal. Isn't that ironic?"
"It is. It's a trap."
"So you fell into their trap, did you?" Geir asked, clearly happy about the whole situation. "You really are clueless, aren't you?"

Bjorn did not answer. Instead, he looked down at the profile editor on his PC.

"So what sort of changes were you making?" Bjorn asked, eager to put things back in order.
"I opened a case against Jan and Pedro."
"You did not!" Bjorn exclaimed,with a rush of panic spreading through his veins.
Geir chuckled. "Of course not. I'm not that cruel. I just added a nickname to your profile."

Bjorn looked over his profile, and there it was, marked as a tentative change. "Mr. Clueless," it read. Bjorn removed the entry without making any comments on Geir's choice of nickname.

"And that's all?" Bjorn asked.
"That's all."
"You're sure about that?" Bjorn asked again.
"I swear! That's all I did."

Bjorn logged out of the Blacklist. Then, he put his laptop back where it had been.

"I trusted you, you know." Bjorn said. "And this is how you thanked me?"
"Hey! It was just a bit of innocent fun. Come on! Don't be sore!"

Bjorn looked at Geir without saying a word.

"Okay," Geir said reluctantly. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

185

Bjorn rinsed his thermos and put it on the rack above the kitchen sink to drip dry. Then, he went up to his room for a rest. He felt like being on his own again, and sensing that Ante was feeling the same way, he left the man in the kitchen to finish his things.

Back in his room, Bjorn took a quick peek outside. He looked over at Gus' house in the distance, and was struck by how the place had completely lost its menacing appearance now that he had met Gus in person. Having shook hands with him, it seemed quite inconceivable that the man would do anything to harm him or any of his colleagues at the checkpoint. Gus simply wasn't the type to do anything rash. Bjorn's brief encounter with the man had convinced him of that.

"Strange how that goes," Bjorn thought to himself. "How meeting someone face to face can change ones feeling about another so dramatically."

Bjorn picked up the remote control for the TV, got into bed, and started zapping through the channels.

"... fight extremism," a voice said as he zapped over to one of the news channels. And there was a picture of the Wikipedia logo in the information box next to the anchorwoman that drew Bjorn's attention.

"Is Wikipedia fighting extremism?" Bjorn wondered. But he soon understood that Wikipedia was in fact the source of the alleged extremism, and not an institution fighting it. The TV display split into two, with the minister of cultural affairs appearing with a concerned look to the right of the anchorwoman. The minister explained how articles on Wikipedia had become ever more extreme over time, and that it was currently at a point of being dangerously misleading. She had therefore decided to allocate resources towards a general clean up of Wikipedia to make sure the various articles that so many people rely on for facts, were as factual and reliable as they should be.

It would be a daunting task. But the alternative to facing the online extremism head on would be to let it grow unhindered, and that could have some very serious consequences, the minister explained. Then she made a general appeal to the public about being critical about things found on the web, announcing that people should report suspicious content to the ministry through a newly created website called Real Truth.

The web address was displayed at the bottom of the screen, and the anchorwoman repeated it twice before thanking the minister for her time.

What followed was economic news. There had been a hostile attack on the Norwegian currency, but it had been pushed back by the central bank selling record amounts of US dollars. Nevertheless, the Norwegian currency had fallen, and there were concerns that there would be renewed attacks coming soon.

"That won't go down well with Espen," Bjorn thought, remembering how cross Espen got at the unexpectedly high price of the Gram on Friday. "Surely, the Gram will go up in price even more after this."

Bjorn remembered, with some amusement, how Espen had reacted to the price rise, which had occurred despite the falling gold price, so much touted in the news. But just as Bjorn's mind started to drift, a message came in on his mobile phone, and he was cut short in his meditative ramblings. He picked up his phone to see who it might be, and was somewhat surprised to see that it was from the Blacklist.

"Please confirm the changes to your profile," it read. And on reading these words, Bjorn immediately knew that Geir had been messing around on his PC. He leaped to his feet, and headed down to the glass cage, angry and impatient with Geir's misbehavior.

184

Bjorn finished his cigarette and headed indoors, leaving Frank behind with Gus and his two helpers to discuss the details of where to put up the signs. He found Ante, busy preparing dinner in the kitchen, and out of idle politeness, he mentioned that he had just met Gus.

"He seems like a reasonable guy," Bjorn concluded, putting his thermos on the table.
"And he's here to set up the signs about our new status as a customs office?" Ante asked.
"Yes, that's it. Kind of weird to have Gus set it up, don't you think?"
"No. Not really. We're after all buying our food down there, and Hiep and Hahn come up here every Wednesday to clean this place. Why not have Gus put up our signs too?"
"Hiep and Hahn, huh? So that's why we don't have to clean this place ourselves?"
"Well... Officially, I'm the one taking care of the cleaning, but I've outsourced it to them."
"And you're making a small profit on that too, I bet."

Ante smiled and chuckled. "You know, a penny here and a penny there."
"You're in this only for the money, aren't you?"
"Of course, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I guess. But you seem to be better at it than I am."
"I've been here longer than you. You know, the early bird gets the worm."

Ante wiped his hands leaving the prepared food on the counter, ready to go into the oven when time was right. It was a simple looking dinner. Sausages and baked apples.

"What kind of sausages are those?" Bjorn asked.
"They are Alheiras. Portuguese sausages."
"Ah, I should have known."

Ante went up to the south facing window and looked out. "So, there they are, putting up the signs," he commented, leaning a little to the side to get a better look. "It is finally official."
"Yep, we're a customs office now. Not exactly what I signed up for. But then again, hardly anything is what I expected."
"Is that so?"
"I thought this was going to be nothing but one big camp for asylum seekers, and yet, here we are, being told that the place has to be treated as a free port. Is that even legal, according to our constitution?"
"What you mean?"
"Isn't Norway an indivisible country?"
"Sure. But that doesn't mean we can't set up airports, and places like this colony. Norway is a sovereign state and we can do whatever we please within our borders. That's what it means to be sovereign."

Bjorn nodded unconvinced. "But are we retaining sovereignty down there? They don't follow our laws, and they don't use our money."
"It's all done within a perfectly legal framework, though. It's not like the foreign minister did anything illegal when he set up this camp. And those tokens they use can hardly be considered money. Like the foreign minister said, they are casino tokens, and to say that casino tokens are money is just stupid."

Bjorn nodded again, still not convinced, and a little confused by Ante's parroting of the official line.

"You're pulling my leg, aren't you?" Bjorn asked.
"Of course I am," Ante replied with a smile. "I totally agree with you. I just wanted to hear you say it, so I was playing the devil's advocate there for a minute."

"Well, anyway," Ante continued, turning away from the window. "Why don't you rinse your thermos and put it away. I'm not your servant, and I don't like people just putting their dirty stuff on my table."

183

Bjorn found Frank talking to Gus and his two helpers by the entrance to the barracks.

"Did you tell Geir to use my PC?" Bjorn asked, breaking into the conversation.
"Yeah, I did," Frank replied, glancing briefly over at Bjorn before continuing talking to Gus.

Bjorn put his thermos by the entrance. Then he picked a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. He started puffing it, standing by the door, at a discrete distance from Frank and the men from the village. The sun was just about to turn the corner of the building, but its rays were still beating down on the south wall, and Bjorn enjoyed the heat that they generated. There was still plenty of snow everywhere, but it was melting, and in another few weeks, it would probably all be gone.

Bjorn listened in on the conversation taking place without paying much attention. But from the accents, he figured that Gus must be an American and that his two helpers were Eastern Europeans, maybe Russians. They were talking about the signs, and where and how to set them up.

"What do you think, Bjorn?" Frank asked a little unexpectedly, lifting up a metal plate with the word "Customs" printed on it. "Looks professional, don't you think?"
"It sure does," Bjorn agreed.
"They made some bigger ones too, with instructions for people entering and leaving the colony. Come have a look!"

Bjorn walked over to where the men were standing. Looking into the back of Gus' truck, he could see several more metal plates with text on them, and a number of metal rods. There was also a big chest of tools and a small generator next to the plates.

"You got all this done this morning?" Bjorn asked, more out of politeness than genuine curiosity.
"Yes we did," Gus replied with a smile. "I'm Gus, by the way," he added, extending his hand for a handshake. "We promise, and we deliver. That's our motto."

Bjorn introduced himself briefly, and the two men shook hands. Gus' handshake was firm and assertive without being unpleasant.

"And this is Aleksander and Martyn," Gus continued. "They are from Ukraine."
"Pleased to meet you," Bjorn said politely, giving the two Ukrainians a friendly nod.

182

Bjorn felt strangely pleased with himself for having registered his complaint with the Blacklist. He was not alone in finding it intolerable that the website did not allow him to remove his profile, and having registered his complaint together with the three other disgruntled users, he had at least made it clear that he too was less than pleased with the way the site was hogging his data. He still felt irritated that his profile could not be erased, but his anger was gone. It was not like the site had an awful lot of information on him, and apart from the villagers and a few desperate individuals from places like Libya and the Middle East, no one was taking the site seriously anyway.

Bjorn poured himself a final cup of coffee from his thermos. Then, looking out over the fjord, he noticed the barge that had entered the port earlier, maneuvering out towards the center of the bay, filled with a cargo of containers. On studying the containers more closely with his binoculars, he saw that they were accommodation units, similar to the ones next to Ane's fish processing plants. And indeed, pretty much identical to those used as barracks at the checkpoint.

Bjorn sipped his coffee while following the barge on its way to its destination. For a while, it looked like it was heading for the village, but then, as it came closer, it made another turn and headed towards the airport. And just as the barge disappeared from view, another barge appeared, heading out from the port. This one filled with rocks and boulders. "It must have come in on someone else's watch," Bjorn thought as he looked closer to see if the rocks were iron ore, or simply building material.

The rocks carried by the second barge were pale grey, and clearly not iron ore, so Bjorn concluded that it must be intended for some building project, possibly related to the living units that he had just seen. He put down his binoculars and finished his coffee, idly following the barge on its way. And to Bjorn's satisfaction, the second barge followed the exact same path as the first one. They were related, in other words, just like he had thought. "They must be doing some last minute work in preparation for the influx of asylum seekers," Bjorn concluded.

The second barge disappeared behind the hill between him and the airport, and for a while, there was virtually nothing to occupy his mind. The coastguard vessel out to the north east was laying still in the water. The cranes to the north west were hardly moving, and even the luxury apartments down by the water seemed almost lifeless, with very little work being done outside.

Bjorn grabbed his pack of cigarettes, and was about to step outside when a small truck that he had idly been following as it headed towards the port, slowed down by the intersection with the Neiden road. The truck took a right turn, and sped up again as it started its climb towards the checkpoint.

Bjorn put the pack of cigarettes back in his pocket, and looking briefly at his PC to see if he was still logged in with the Department of Justice, he closed the tab connected to the Blacklist, not bothering to log out. A few minutes later, the truck appeared from behind the hill to the north east, after having been out of sight for a while. Then it completed its climb up the winding road before coming to a complete stop next to the glass cage.

The driver was a strong man with a crew cut, and next to him sat two men, just as strong as him but with a less disciplined look.

"We're here with the signs that Frank ordered," the driver said, before Bjorn had time to ask for the men's passports.
"Signs?" Bjorn asked, confused.
"Yep. Frank placed an order for some stuff this morning, and we're here to deliver it."
"Is that so?" Bjorn asked, still a little confused. "Wait a minute, I'll call Frank."
"Sure, you go ahead."

Bjorn called Frank, and got him immediately on the other end of the line.

"There's a guy here with some signs he's delivering," Bjorn explained. "Something you ordered this morning, he says."
"Oh! Already?" Frank replied. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I thought they wouldn't be here before Geir had taken your place. Just let him in, will you?"
"Okay... He has two guys with him. Is that still all right?"
"Sure! They're putting up the signs. He'll need help to do that. You let them in. Tell them to drive up to the barracks, and I'll meet them there."
"Okay."

Bjorn put down the phone.

"That seems to be in order," Bjorn said to the driver. "Frank will meet you at the back of the barracks." Then, he opened the gate, letting the truck pass.

A little later, Geir appeared from behind the barracks, all smiles, wearing his bomber jacket and pilot sunglasses. Bjorn checked his watch, and was surprised to see that it was indeed time to call it a day.

"So, who was that guy I just let in?" Bjorn asked as Geir entered the glass cage.
"That was Gus, the owner of the gun store down in the village," Geir explained.
"Really?" Bjorn said in amazement.
"It's not as crazy as it sounds," Geir continued. "He is good with these kind of things. He does it cheaply and quickly. And Frank figures that we can influence him to our advantage if we promise him some business from time to time. Pretty smart, huh?"

Bjorn was not convinced, but nodded nevertheless. Then he handed the automatic pistol over to Geir.

"And let me use your PC, will you?" Geir insisted, as Bjorn was about to unplug it.
"No! It's mine," Bjorn retorted, pulling the cord from its socket.
"But mine is a stationary. I can't very well bring that one out here. And Frank suggested I use yours."
"He did, did he?" Bjorn asked, still very reluctant to hand his PC over to Geir.
"Yeah, he did."
Bjorn looked at his PC, then back at Geir. "Okay. If that is so, I'll let you use it. But only this once."

181

Bjorn made a few more attempts to change his profile at the Blacklist, but there were simply no way to change anything of significance. At best, he could change his name, but his real name would still be listed as one of his nicknames. There was no way to get rid of his real name, and no way to get rid of his contact details. His initial feeling of shock on discovering that he was stuck, gradually morphed into a lingering irritation with the site. Its refusal to let him remove his profile was in such blatant disregard of generally accepted rules. Surely, he had the right to remove his profile. Refusing him this right was clearly against the law.

The Blacklist, claiming to support the law of the so called empire, was breaking his right to privacy, and Bjorn found this both ironic and arrogant to the extreme. He looked around on the page in front of him to see if he could find out who might be the responsible owner. And there, at the bottom of the page he found a link to someone called Vinod. "That's it!" Bjorn thought to himself. "Now, let's sue him for everything he got!"

Bjorn clicked on the link, and somewhat to his surprise, he was not sent to a different site. He was simply presented with Vinod's profile on the Blacklist. It was reminiscent of Maria's profile in that it was rich in text and complete with a picture of Vinod himself, an Indian looking guy, proudly presenting himself as the owner and developer of the Blacklist.

Going down to the list at the bottom of Vinod's profile, Bjorn saw that the man had already managed to get himself into a dispute with three users over a privacy issue, and sensing that this dispute might be related to what he himself was going to write, Bjorn clicked on the case.

Bjorn read quickly through the complaint, which was marked as resolved, and realized that it was in fact identical to what he was planning to post. Bjorn was not the only one frustrated with the fact that he could not remove his profile. The three plaintiffs were just as frustrated with Vinod as Bjorn was. But the plaintiffs had lost the case. Maria had closed it with a remark saying that there is no such thing as a right to privacy.

Bjorn could hardly believe his eyes, but there it was. Maria had come out in favor of Vinod, and had closed the case. Bjorn moved his mouse over the status field and saw to his surprise that he could re-open the issue. Bjorn clicked on it and was presented with a comment field where he was required to make a legal argument, disputing Maria's closing argument.

"Oops, I'm getting ahead of myself again," Bjorn thought, panicky and closing the comment field almost as soon as it had popped up. "I better not do anything rash." Then he proceeded to read Maria's closing argument in detail.

"There is no such thing as a right to privacy," it read. "There are only property rights, and the data typed into the Blacklist are residing on Vinod's server, and are therefore Vinod's property. The so called right to privacy is actually a feature of property rights, and not a right in itself. Every person has an absolute right to privacy in their own home, because they have an absolute right to their property. The right to privacy cannot extend to other people's property, unless contractually extended by the rightful owner of said property. But Vinod has not extended such a right to the users of his website. In fact, everyone opening an account at the Blacklist had to agree to the conditions that explicitly stated that all data stored on the Blacklist belongs to the owner of the Blacklist. All data stored on the Blacklist belongs to Vinod. He can do with it what he pleases. And that includes his refusal to delete it."

Bjorn read Maria's comment with a sinking feeling of loss. He had indeed checked off on the warning when he in all haste opened his account, foolishly thinking that it was of little or no consequence. But he knew, even then, that the Blacklist was no ordinary website. He just assumed that it had to abide by the generally accepted rules and laws governing the internet. As it turned out, his assumption was wrong, and now that he had read Maria's final argument, it was evident that Vinod was not obliged to change the way the website worked, at least not according Maria's legal standards.

Bjorn moved the mouse over the list of plaintiffs. Then, as he let the marker hover over their names, a comment box appeared. "This case is close, but you can still join the plaintiffs if you agree with their case," it read. "Well, that's one way to register my dissatisfaction with the system," Bjorn thought. He clicked on the list. Then, when asked if he wanted to join the plaintiffs, he responded by clicking the OK button.

180

Bjorn finished his ham sandwich and poured himself another cup of coffee. "So this woman would argue against me," he thought, bringing the coffee to his lips. "So what? Who does she think she is anyway."

Bjorn felt the weight of the automatic pistol on his lap, and he put his free hand on it to feel its cold metal. "She has no authority," he thought, smiling to himself as that word authority appeared in his mind. For was it not the case that she was in fact arguing against herself. Her argument implied that she herself had no authority. She could argue as much as she wanted, but who would come to arrest him?

"The Blacklist is a joke," Bjorn thought. "I can't believe that I'm taking this seriously. After all, it takes a great deal more to establish a legal system than setting up a website." But Bjorn could not escape the fact that quite a few people, including Jan and Pedro, were in fact taking the Blacklist seriously, so if he were to get blacklisted, it could make it difficult, if not impossible, to enter the village without being harassed or otherwise inconvenienced.

But it was not like Bjorn was going to shoot anyone. The pistol on his lap was a defensive weapon, meant for his protection only. If he spotted someone trying to escape the village by foot, he was simply to report this, and the escapees would be picked up by the police in Neiden. Similarly, if some desperado was to ram a truck through the barrier, it too would be reported to Neiden where the truck would be stopped.

However, now that he had been promoted to the status of customs officer, Bjorn would from time to time have to stop smugglers and confiscate their wares. And Bjorn suspected that such confiscations would qualify as theft in Maria's eyes. The smugglers might in other words try to get back at him by blacklisting him, burdening him with the inconvenience of a mock trial. Bjorn did not think that such a trial would come to anything. He was after all warning people of the change in rules, so it was not like things were happening out of the blue. Maria might in fact end up agreeing with him, saying that the smugglers were forewarned, and that they had no case. But even the vague prospect of a conflict felt uncomfortable.

Bjorn suddenly regretted having registered himself with the Blacklist. Having registered with it, he had in a way lent it legitimacy, and now that his contact details were known, he was suddenly an easy target. Bjorn pulled up his profile, looking for a way to delete his profile, but there did not seem to be any way to delete it. "Well, that's definitely illegal," Bjorn thought to himself, feeling trapped by the system. Then he tried to blank out the fields, but that was not allowed either.

Bjorn changed his name and hit return, and to his relief, the Blacklist accepted the change. Then he proceeded to change his contact details. He hit return again, but to his shock he saw that the changes could not be made. He was presented with a popup informing him that the changes he had made required his confirmation. He had to go to his e-mail and respond to the automatic message found there. Similarly, he had to respond to the automatic message sent to his phone to make the new phone number permanent. But both the e-mail and the phone number he had typed in were phony. He had no access to them, if they even existed at all.

Then his mobile suddenly vibrated in his pocket, and for a moment Bjorn thought that he might have misunderstood, and that the confirmation had to be done on his existing phone rather than the phony one he had entered. But his hopes were soon dashed. The message was from the Blacklist, but it was simply informing him that his account was experiencing suspicious behavior. Then his phone vibrated again. This time he was asked to confirm his change of name. To make his change official, the message read, he had to respond with OK. If he did nothing, the name would appear on his list of nicknames. Else, he had to respond with NO, or alternatively log in and remove the nickname in the profile editor.

And sure enough, looking over his profile once more, Bjorn saw that his real name was not removed. It was still there, marked as his real name. And the phony name he had typed in was marked as his nickname. Bjorn put his mobile back in his pocket. Then he deleted his phony name from his profile. And Bjorn realized to his quiet horror that his profile at the Blacklist was completely unchanged. Once registered with the Blacklist, there was simply no way to un-register, or even blank out the essential fields.

179

Bjorn looked up from his PC and reached for his ham sandwich. He felt agitated by Maria's words, and frustrated with the fact that he could not find a good counter argument. He had initially thought of Hitler and the Holocaust as the perfect proof of Maria's error. But he could not use it without either sounding silly or insinuating that the foreign minister was somehow comparable to Hitler.

Bjorn took a bite of his sandwich. "Surely, Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust," he thought. "Yet, Maria is right too. The executioners were the ones doing the killing, not Hitler himself, and there would have been no Holocaust without them."

But on the other hand, Hitler knew he wielded the power of authority, and he used it to kill. Surely, that was a crime. He held a magic spell, as it were, over his followers, and he ordered them to kill. However, this argument would only hold in a system where authority is a legal entity. It also assumes that Hitler's followers were indeed under some sort of spell and unable to think for themselves. To hold Hitler responsible for the Holocaust, it is necessary to appeal to the authority argument and assume his followers to be some sort of automates, unable to think or feel. In Maria's system, authority is not a legal entity and everybody is assumed to have free will. Maria, it turns out, has no way to blame Hitler for the Holocaust because she is denying herself the key assumptions necessary to argue in that direction.

Bjorn felt pleased with himself for having identified the source of Maria's standpoint. He took another bite of his ham sandwich. And while munching it, he could not help giving Maria credit for having at least applied her principles consistently. She had not treated Ane in any way different from the foreign minister. In Maria's world it was the fighter pilots that were responsible for the death's in Libya, and it was Ane's workers that were responsible for polluting the waters around her factory.

"But that's fascism," Bjorn thought to himself. "To blame the little guy for just doing his job while letting the big fish off the hook is no way to run a legal system." Bjorn could not quite believe that Maria was sincere in what she was saying. Going after the little guy, the way she did, could not possibly be out of any sense of justice. This woman was motivated by something far less honorable than justice, and considering her relationship to the local drug lord, it seemed quite obvious that she was really just out to protect her husband. She was sucking up to the foreign minister as a return favor for protecting David. "And why not consistently argue on behalf of the rich and the powerful?" Bjorn thought. "If you already sold your soul to the devil, you might as well get as much out of it as you possibly can."

Then the full scope of Maria's sinister plot suddenly dawned on Bjorn, and it was clear why he had reacted with such anger on reading her comments. Maria was going to hold Bjorn fully responsible for any and all actions committed in the line of duty. Bjorn was the little guy, and he would be held personally responsible for any damage or loss he might cause while merely doing his job. If he shot anybody, and it was not self defense, Maria would charge him with murder. If he confiscated anyone's property, he would be charged with theft.

Bjorn was not angry with Maria due to her apparent defense of Hitler. Bjorn was angry and frustrated with her because she was going to argue against him if he ever was to break the golden rule. Bjorn would not be allowed to use the argument that he was just following orders.

178

Bjorn poured himself another cup of coffee, not at all convinced by Maria's arguments. By her logic, people like Hitler would be innocent. After all, he never killed anyone himself.

Bjorn felt suddenly provoked and angry with Maria's arguments, and he had a strong urge to comment on Maria's line of thought, pointing out its obvious flaw. But only registered users could comment, so he was left to simmer with frustration over the ignorance of the woman. Unable to contribute with a rebuttal, he felt the anger swell in him. Suddenly he felt convinced that he had the ultimate counter argument at hand. And he just had to get himself an account on the Blacklist to post this for everybody to see. Letting this woman get away with her nonsense, was just too much to bare. Not least because the woman was obviously influencing people with her flawed logic.

Bjorn opened an account with the Blacklist, filling in the required fields only. He had no desire to say much about himself. All he wanted to do was to post his killer argument against Maria's nonsense. But when he returned to the case against the foreign minister, he got second thoughts. Maria had after all defended a representative of the Norwegian government. Being himself a representative of the government, he could hardly start arguing for the prosecution of the foreign minister. He had to find some other place to post his argument, so he clicked on Maria's name to see what other cases she was commenting on.

There was no lack of cases that Maria had commented on, but the list was confusing, with only titles and status shown. There was no good way to know which one to choose. He recognized the case against the head of the child protection services in Alta, but that was as hopeless a place to post Bjorn's argument as the case against the foreign minister. Bringing up Hitler and the Holocaust in either of these cases would not do. He had to find a case against some private individual, and use his argument there.

Bjorn took another sip of his coffee. Then he recognized the case against Ane and the fish waste she was dumping into the water under her factory. The case was resolved, but that didn't necessarily mean that the comment field was closed. And, with her being an authority figure, Maria might have used her flawed logic there too. Bjorn clicked on the case, hoping to find it an opportune place to put his rebuttal.

Bjorn browsed through the case and the first few comments until he got to the point where Maria had commented that the plaintiffs had no case against Ane as long as there was no damage made to their properties. But Ane was fighting an uphill battle against Jan and Pedro, with the men arguing that they would rather see Ane come up with a solution before any damage was made. If she persisted in dumping fish waste into the fjord, this would surely result in a pollution problem at some point, and then they would demand generous compensation for the damage caused.

At that point, Maria made the comment that Ane was not in fact spewing fish waste into the waters below her factory. This task was done by one or more of her employees. Ane was innocent of any pollution coming from her factory as long as she was not personally doing the polluting. The case should not be made against Ane, but the employees doing the dumping.

"But that's insane," Bjorn thought as he read this. "The poor workers are probably not even aware of the fact that they are doing anything wrong. You can't hold them responsible for this. They are just doing their job." And Bjorn was not the only one reacting as he did. Ane made the very same argument, to which Maria responded that it nevertheless was the case, and that she was putting her employees at risk of being prosecuted if she did not do anything about the situation.

Following up on Maria's comment, Jan told Ane that he would inform all her workers of the risk they were taking. He would print fliers and distribute them among her workers so that no one would be able to claim ignorance. Every worker would know that they may be stranded with colossal fees unless they stop the dumping immediately. And this threat, Jan figured, would most likely set an immediate stop to the dumping. Ane, in his opinion, had no choice but to find a solution to the problem.

What followed was a brief exchange of messages relating to practical issues and conditions required for Ane to continue her business until Sunday when she suggested a meeting with Jan and Pedro to resolve the problem. They all agreed to meet after church, and to let Ane continue her business as normal until then.

On reading this, Bjorn remembered how Ane had approached Jan and Pedro after mass on Sunday. And whatever they had agreed had proved to be fruitful since the case was closed that same evening. There was no explanation to what the three had agreed on, but the case was resolved. The threat against Ane's employees had made her fold, and the case had ended in some kind of compromise.

Bjorn wondered what they may have decided, but he quickly realized that the possibilities were practically limitless. It could have been anything from a joined ownership of the factory, to some practical solution pertaining to the waste itself. Maybe Ane had to pay some monthly fee, or give the men a cut of the profit. There was really no way to tell, and no point in speculating.

Then, looking at the comment field at the bottom of the page, Bjorn realized that his argument would be completely misplaced on this thread. The case was resolved. Threatening to sue Ane's employees had proven successful. To mention Hitler and the Holocaust on this thread would simply make him look like a complete moron.

Bjorn felt suddenly lost. His killer argument was not as good as he had thought. In fact, it was a stupid argument. And he knew what Maria would answer. She would simply repeat herself, saying that being a psychopath is not a crime. Just as following orders is no defense, giving orders is no crime. The crime is not what a psychopath says, but what the executioners do.

177

Bjorn read through Maria's comment once more. "That's just stupid," he thought. "Who do these guys think they are?" He chuckled at the very idea of bringing the foreign minister to trail in Lundby. But then, remembering that the foreign minister owned one of the luxury apartments down by the fjord, he realized that he could indeed become somewhat inconvenienced if he had a feud with the locals. Such a feud might make it difficult or impossible to use his apartment.

Bjorn clicked on the link to the case Maria was referencing, curious to know what the minister was charged with, and why Maria was defending the man. "It might all be nonsense, of course," Bjorn thought. "But even if it was, it would surely reveal something interesting about the village, and the sort of things they might one day be up to."

Bjorn half expected some local issue being presented to him, but was not surprised when he saw that the case against the foreign minister was related to the war in Libya, and had nothing to do with Lundby. A large number of Libyan individuals had signed up as plaintiffs against the minister, charging him of mass murder. The plaintiffs sought retribution for the death of their loved ones, all killed during the Libyan war.

The list of names of victims was long. More than two hundred names to be exact, all documented with names, dates of birth, pictures and a description of how and when they met their untimely end. Bjorn clicked on a few links, and some of the images coming up were truly horrific. Some of the victims had been burned alive in the firestorm caused by the bombs dropped on them. And many of the victims were clearly civilians. Children and babies were listed among them.

The case against the foreign minister was not some quick hack. It was detailed and extensive. And with so many civilians among the victims, the call for retribution seemed entirely reasonable, all be it a little far fetched. Political figures are generally immune against this kind of charges, after all. Certainly if the victims can be described as collateral damage, unintended deaths in the heat of battle.

But, reading through Maria's comments, Bjorn was surprised to find that Maria's defense of the minister was not based on the idea that the deaths were simply regrettable consequences of war. Not a single place did Maria argue that the fact that these victims died during a war, made the case invalid. Rather, she argued that the foreign minister was innocent because he had not in fact killed anyone. He had given an order to kill, but he had not killed anyone himself.

Bjorn was baffled by the argument, but it made perfect sense. Maria pointed out that the law of the Fifth Empire does not include the concept of authority. Following orders is no defense. And the flip side of this is that giving orders is not a crime. "Any psychopath can order the execution of people," Maria argued. "But the crime lies not in the order. It lies in its execution. Bring us the executioners, and we will judge them according to their crime."

Maria closed the case by asking the plaintiffs to list the names of the pilots, and bring the charges against them rather than the foreign minister, because they were in fact the murderers. Only when the correct defendants were identified would she consider opening the case again.

"But how do we know who killed whom?" asked one of the plaintiffs, as he objected to Maria's position. "That is entirely unimportant," she answered. "All we need to know is whether or not they flew to Libya with the intent to drop their deadly cargo. If they did, then clearly some sort of retribution is warranted, even if we never get to know the exact link between the victims and the executioners."

There were several objections to Maria's position on the legal status of authority, but she met every objection with the argument that the Fifth Empire is based on the fact that each man is equal, and that no godly authority exist between men. "Authority can take no responsibility off of the backs of the perpetrators, and the authority figure is therefore innocent," Maria argued. "Being evil and saying evil is not a crime. Only doing evil is a crime. To say that certain people have more responsibility than others due to their social standing is to assume the existence of authority as a legal entity. No such entity exists, and hence this rule applies to all, no matter their social standing."

The argument that all other legal systems known to man consider authority to be a legal entity was met by a short rebuttal to the effect that this merely shows that those systems are not valid in the empire. "We all live directly under God, whether we like it or not," Maria noted. "No man is above any other in any matter whatsoever. The fact that some men are wiser than others, do not change this. Men do not form legal hierarchies among themselves, even if one is wise and the other is a fool. We must all take full responsibility for our own actions. We must all adhere to the Golden Rule, the one and only law of the empire. And that implies that there is no such thing as authority in the legal sense of the word."

176

Bjorn had just sat down in his chair when he became aware of a car coming down from Neiden. Every time the car made a turn, the headlights flickered in the big mirror hanging outside the office. Bjorn watch the car as it came down the windy road, disappearing behind rocks and hills, reappearing a little later, and then disappearing again, off and on until it finally arrived at the checkpoint.

"Passport!" Bjorn said in a formal voice. Then he proceeded to tell the driver about the new rules before typing in the number found in the passport handed over to him. Bjorn hit return, and up came a copy of the passport he was holding in his hand, complete with a green banner telling him that all was clear.
"So I better stock up on things today, while it's still legal?" the driver asked rhetorically.
"That's right!" Bjorn answered with a friendly smile, handing the passport back to the driver. Then he pushed the green button to raise the barrier.

Bjorn followed the car with his eyes as it wound its way downhill until it disappeared behind the hill to the north east, and he was again left to his own thoughts. He looked at his PC. Then he pulled up a second tab on his browser. "I wonder what the Lundby Blacklist has to say about Einar," Bjorn thought, finding the web address in his browser history. "Somehow I doubt they have anything on the man." And sure enough, the Blacklist used by the citizens of Lundby did not contain any mention of Einar.

Bjorn typed in Katinka's name. Nothing. Then he typed in Roger's name: also nothing. "How about David?" Bjorn wondered. He typed in his name, and got nothing. "But he's married to that Maria woman. That's probably worth something," Bjorn thought while idly typing in Cecilie's name for a final search. Bjorn hit return, and to his surprise, he got up Cecilie's profile. However, it was the same page he had seen earlier so his surprise soon passed. She was, as Bjorn already knew, listed as plaintiff in the case against the head of the child protection service in Alta. There were no charges against Cecilie. No one had charged her of anything.

Bjorn looked at the woman's profile. "So, which is it?" he wondered. "Is she dangerous and a criminal, or not?" He thought back to the episode in the church where Cecilie had come with her daughter, all done up and pretty. It did not look like anything was amiss. And they sat down with Ane and Ola. Why would Ane and Ola be involved with this woman if she was dangerous?

On the other hand, why would the child protecting service want to interfere if nothing was amiss? That made no sense either. Bjorn stared at the computer screen, trying to make sense of the situation. But the pieces simply did not fit together. He was missing something, some important fact that would solve the puzzle. Then he became aware of the status field associated with Cecilie's complaint. The case was on hold. It was not new, not active, nor resolved. It was on hold, and curious to know why, Bjorn clicked on it.

Up came the details of the complaint with its long list of plaintiffs. Bjorn clicked on the name of the defendant. However, all he got was her summary page. The woman was either ignorant of this case, or more likely, ignoring it as a crank thing with no legitimacy. Either way, she did not have a profile on the Blacklist.

Bjorn returned to the complaint. Then he scrolled down to the comment section, the last comment being posted by Maria. "Again, and I repeat myself," it read. "Just like following orders is no defense, giving orders is no crime. Unless you can show hard evidence that this woman has acted and aggressed personally against you and your children, you have no case. Please go to my defense of the foreign minister for a complete explanation."

175

Bjorn reached for his thermos. "And it's going to get much worse," he thought to himself as he poured hot coffee into the cap of the thermos. "Starting this week, they are going to send thousands of people up here, including many violent and dangerous ones."

The people would not come in one go. They would come in batches, as it were, one batch at a time as the various asylum centers around Norway were closing down. However, the first batch would include the thugs from Lier, the guys that had just burned down their own asylum center. How on earth would they be able to keep these people from going completely bananas once they were let loose in the village?

Bjorn knew the answer to his own question. The fact that so many were armed down there would keep the whole thing in a sort of balance. If anyone tried to set fire to something, they would be shot on the spot. He had no doubt about that. But what about his own safety? Now that he was required to wear his uniform whenever visiting the colony, he would stick out like a sore thumb. If anyone felt like it, he or she could easily just kill him. It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. After all, assassinations of police officers patrolling cities like New York, London and Paris, was starting to become almost commonplace.

Bjorn felt suddenly claustrophobic in the glass cage, and an urge for a cigarette rose in him. "Time to get some sun and stretch my legs," Bjorn thought, emptying the coffee in the thermos cap that doubled as a mug. He put the cap on the ledge by the window, next to the thermos, and stepped out on the sunny side of the office.

He felt immediately refreshed. Then, as he grabbed his pack of cigarettes, he thought himself rather good in having postponed his first cigarette of the day by as much as an hour. And he had not had any dizzy spells either. Not that he was having those spells all the time, but the fact that he had not felt the least bit dizzy all morning was at the very least a confirmation that the medicine had not made thing worse.

A long narrow barge entered the bay area through the strait while Bjorn was taking his first few puffs of his cigarette. It passed the coastguard vessel. Then it turned and headed for the port, passing the ferry heading in the other direction. And by the time Bjorn had finished his cigarette, the barge had disappeared behind the hill preventing him from seeing the port itself. "It is getting crowded out there," Bjorn thought to himself, before tossing the butt of his cigarette onto the ground. It hissed as it rolled into a little stream of melt water trickling past the glass cage.

174

Bjorn felt a sting of discomfort on seeing the red banner above Cecilie's passport details. His suspicions were at once confirmed, and it did not feel good. The woman was a fugitive, and he had let her into the colony.

He sat back in his chair, focusing again on the view ahead of him. "It's a good thing I kept this to myself," Bjorn thought. "I'd better keep this a secret between Ante and me."

Bjorn's eyes were drawn to the little gray ship patrolling the straight. It moved a little to the side as the ferry entered the bay. And soon after, a fishing boat appeared. The ferry headed towards the port, the fishing boat towards Ane's factory.

The coastguard did not interfere visibly with any of the two boats. The ship just laid there idly in the water, and the lack of activity felt reassuring. The rules concerning the colony had been tightened, but business went on as usual. The appearance of the coastguard did not signal a great shift in policy, just a general tidying up of loose ends. People had been slipping into the village. People who should not be there, and no one was to blame for it. Bjorn was surely not the only one having let somebody in who should have been arrested.

He returned his focus to his PC. He typed in Einar in the search field and hit return. And up came a list of two people. The top one, appearing with a red frame, was the Einar he had met in the village. Bjorn clicked on the name, and sure enough, there was Einar's passport details, complete with a red banner.  "Warning:" it read. "Immediate arrest on charges of: Murder (1 count), Assault (6 counts)."

So, there he had it. Definite proof that someone had let in a true criminal, much worse than Cecilie. Bjorn felt strangely relieved by this fact. He was not the only one having inadvertently done something wrong. "How about Katinka?" Bjorn wondered, suddenly curious to know how many criminals he had actually come across down in the village.

Having first misspelled her name, using Cs instead of Ks, which returned nothing, he then got up a single suggestion. And sure enough, her name had a red frame too. He clicked on it, and there she was, wanted on charges of three counts of assault. Bjorn made a search for Roger. "Fraud, embezzlement, and copyright infringement."

"How about David?" Bjorn wondered, eager to see what the Department of Justice might have on him. Bjorn got up a relatively long list, but Bjorn recognized David's face immediately. He clicked on it. "So he is from Lebanon," Bjorn thought to himself on seeing David's foreign passport. "Wanted by Interpol, no less, on charges of drug trafficking."

"The village is indeed full of desperadoes," Bjorn concluded, focusing again on the mountains across the fjord.

173

Still feeling uncomfortable about the things said during breakfast, Bjorn appeared at the glass cage with his PC and charger tucked under his arm, a thermos with black coffee in one hand, and an ham sandwich in the other. He excused himself for being late to John, briefly mentioning the new instructions and Frank's insistence on everybody following the new rules.

"He'll go through all the details with you and Geir later today, I'm sure," Bjorn continued, dropping off his things on the ledge by the window.

John handed the automatic pistol that was hanging across his abdomen over to Bjorn. "Okay, put this on, will you," he replied, eager as always to get out of the cage and back to the barracks. And as soon as Bjorn had tossed the belt of the gun over his shoulder, John was out of the office and heading quickly back to his other colleagues.

The gun felt clunky and uncomfortable, but he quickly go used to it. Sitting down, the gun rested across his lap where it did not get in the way of his movements. Bjorn plugged the power supply of his PC into a free socket by the door, and put the laptop itself on the narrow shelf-like desk in front of him. He turned it on, and knowing that it would take a few seconds before he could use it, he looked out at the view in front of him.

The sun was shining, and the view was as stunning as always. The great landscape, so indifferent and peaceful, was soothing to watch. "There are no rules or regulations out there," Bjorn thought to himself. "Nothing complicated to keep in mind. Just the natural order of things, intuitively known by all beings." Bjorn heaved a great sigh, and was about to return his attention to his PC when he spotted a small gray ship over by the narrow strait to Kirkenes.

Bjorn picked up the binoculars to take a closer look. "It must be the coastguard," he thought to himself. And he was right. The coastguard had already taken up its position by the straight to make sure no one could enter or leave the colony by boat without proper documentation. The ship, with its small artillery gun at its bow, looked uncomfortably menacing, and Bjorn was again struck by a sense that things were getting out of control. The sight of the ship should have given him a feeling of control and order. However, much to Bjorn's own surprise, he was feeling quite the opposite. Watching the gunboat float almost motionless at the mouth of the narrows, he could not help thinking of it as a predator laying in wait for its pray.

Bjorn put the binoculars down, and was about to return his attention once more to his PC when a car, coming down from Neiden, pulled up next to the glass cage. He recognized the driver immediately as the man who had offered him a pack of cigarettes the other day.

Bjorn opened the window. "Your passport please," he said, pretending not to know the man.
"Ah! But you know me. We're friends, remember?" the man said with a broad smile.
"Sure. But I still need your passport. And you have to stop taking so much stuff with you out of the colony."
"Really? Why?"
"New rules. Effective from tomorrow. Lundby will be treated like an airport. You can't take with you as much as you please. And you'll have to be down there for at least 24 hours to get your quota."
"No exceptions?"
"No exceptions."

The man handed over his passport, and for a moment Bjorn did not know what to do with it. He had not logged into the web site yet, so he had nowhere to register the passport number. However, he soon found a pencil and a scrap of paper to note it down for later. He would punch the number into the database as soon as he was logged in.

"We'll be registering everybody going in and coming out of the colony," Bjorn explained. "So there's no way around this, now."
"Not even between friends?" the man asked cheekily.
"Like I said. No exceptions."
"But today is still all right?"
"Yep. Today is your last day of freedom," Bjorn said, handing the passport back to the man.
"My last day of freedom, aye?" The man said with a cheeky smile.

Bjorn had no idea why he had used the word freedom as he did. It was silly of him. And having nothing more to say, he closed his window and opened the barrier for the driver without saying anything, ignoring the man as he sent Bjorn a friendly wave of his hand before heading into the colony.

The car drove swiftly down the curvy road, and soon disappeared behind the hill to the right, leaving Bjorn once more to himself. He returned his focus to his PC, pulled up his favorite browser, and proceeded to punch in the web address given to him by Frank.

The web site was hosted by the department of justice, and once he was logged into it, Bjorn had no trouble finding the right place to type in the passport number he had scratched down. And the response was pretty much immediate. A copy of the man's passport was presented on his screen, complete with a little comment in a yellow banner at the top of the page. "Warning:" it read. "3 past convictions. Smuggling (2 counts), Possession of narcotics (1 count)."

Bjorn thought for a second that he had made a mistake in letting the man into the colony, but once he clicked on the warning, he found to his relief that he had done nothing wrong. A pop up explained that yellow warnings were simply helpful remarks. Then, clicking on a link for further help, Bjorn learned that the web site operated with three different banners. Green banners were all clear signs. Yellow banners were warning signs, and red banners were immediate action signs. Typical action on a red banner would be either denial of entry or arrest.

Bjorn clicked on the phrase denial of entry, curious to learn more, and found himself immediately presented with a searchable database. It was the blacklist that Frank had mentioned. He had several fields he could use to search. And he could even browse if he so wished. One field was fixed, though. He could not change his own location from being Lundby. The database was in other words set up to give different results depending on location, and the only location Bjorn was allowed to browse was Lundby.

Bjorn did not immediately know of anyone he would like to check. But then, remembering the nervous looking woman and her daughter that he had let in the other day, Bjorn chose to try out the database by typing in the woman's name. He typed in Cecilie's full name, hit return, and was immediately presented with a copy of her passport. It had a red banner. "Warning:" it read. "Immediate arrest on charges of: Kidnapping (1 count), Assault (1 count), Harassment (5 counts)."