166

Bjorn leaned back in his chair and looked out of his window to the north east. He scratched his head idly as he let Ingunn's story sink in. The woman had come across as quite eccentric, even the first time he read about her. And her eccentricity had become more acute over time. The woman claimed to have direct contact with angels, and at one point, shortly before her eviction, she had even performed a wedding ceremony between mother earth and Jesus.

It had all been quite entertaining to read about. But the woman was clearly mad, and Bjorn had no trouble understanding the need to treat her. Isolating here pretty much completely from the outside world seemed rather excessive, though. That was probably not so much for her own safety as it was for the safety of others. Her world view, as strange as it was, had a charismatic appeal that had proven to be rather contagious, and this was probably the real reason to keep her away from any public interaction.

Ingunn had to be isolated due to the contagious nature of her madness. Anders, on the other hand, although popular in certain circles, did not have the same appeal. And this difference in public appeal could easily explain why Anders was relatively more free than Ingunn. Ingunn's followers had started emulating her ways. Anders' followers, on the other hand were more like cheer leaders with a morbid fascination with his insanity. No one had been found to emulate Anders in any way. People were drawn to him, but his followers did not cause any harm to themselves or society in general. Ingunn's followers on the other hand, were handing in their passports, refusing to associate themselves with the state, and even stopping their mortgage payments. Ingunn's followers were disrupting public order and causing harm to themselves in the process. Ingunn's ideas were in a way, although completely peaceful, much more damaging than those of Anders.

Bjorn was reminded of the public debate on mental illnesses that had emerged during Anders' trial. Several experts had pointed to the dangers of infectious misconceptions, erroneous ideas with dangerous appeal to certain types of people. Anders had been infected by the outlandish idea that the government was seeking to destroy Norwegian culture by encouraging immigration from Muslim countries. Unchecked and untreated, this idea grew into a whole system, and finally, the man went completely mad. He took it upon himself to stop the government by killing the children attending the summer camp of the leading political party, and in doing so he became one of the biggest mass murderers of all times.

What started as simply an eccentric belief morphed over time into a homicidal madness. Likewise, Ingunn's eccentric ideas had not only morphed into a weird system of angles and energies and whatnot, it had spread like a contagious disease. There was no telling where it all could lead if left unchecked, and the move to stop it was probably not a moment too soon.

But what about Frederico and his weird empire idea? Was that not similarly eccentric? It was certainly contagious. Bjorn had even entertained the idea of trying out a citizenship for a while. Frederico did not come across as quite as eccentric as Ingunn, but he was certainly wane and a little strange, and his popular appeal had left Bjorn with a feeling that something was not quite right.

Could it be that the people of Lundby were falling pray to a dangerous idea that would eventually turn into some sort of collective madness? Frederico and Ingunn had both been talking about personal sovereignty. This idea was the common core of their separate beliefs. And if Ingunn's version was considered dangerously delusional, then Frederico's version was probably not much better.

And what about Thomas? He made no secrets of his admiration for Frederico. Was Thomas turning mad? And if so, was his madness beginning to spread to Ante? Was Bjorn himself getting infected? Bjorn wondered. Was he exploring ideas that might best be ignored?

The whole empire thing smacked of manipulation. People were being infected by Frederico's fantastic ramblings. And into this whirlpool of madness, people like Jan and Pedro had stepped and started to stir the pot. Pedro, acting in the dark, had already made fortunes through corruption and manipulations. Pedro was a master of dark arts, Jan was his thug in chief, and Frederico was his sorcerer. A fantastic combination.

And this most sinister trio was acting with impunity. No one was making any moves to stop them. Ingunn, on the other hand, eager for fame and deluded by her own ideas and popularity, had been locked up for life. The forces of darkness, as is often the case, roam unchecked, while those unable to see the dangers of their good intentions end up mad and isolated.

Bjorn felt the world suddenly spinning as if the mad whirlpool of ideas out there were dragging him physically into its darkness. But before he could relate to the dizziness, he was abruptly woken up from his budding daydream. Ante was knocking on Bjorn's door, informing him that dinner was ready. They were waiting for him to come down stairs.

Bjorn got up, and shaking off his dizziness he headed downstairs to join his colleagues for dinner.

165

Ingunn had for a while been a rather popular character in the news, and Bjorn needed only to skim the article to be reminded of her rather eccentric stance against the state. However, she had for some reason suddenly fallen out of favor with journalists, and after she was evicted from her house, there had been no more mention of her.

Bjorn had not thought much about it. News stories come and go, and as far as he was concerned, Ingunn's story had pretty much ended with her eviction. But now that he had her full story in front of him, he read with interest that she had in fact ended up in a mental asylum for treatment after a panel of judges had declared her innocent of criminal civil disobedience due to a severe case of paranoid schizophrenia.

Rather than going to jail for her activism, she had been sentenced to treatment at the national center for the criminally insane, the same place where Anders the mass murderer was being treated for his mental illness. And just like Anders, Ingunn's release from the mental asylum would be wholly dependent on her being well enough to return to society. A panel of medical experts were monitoring her progress, and would not sign her release before they could all agree that she no longer posed a danger to herself or her surroundings.

However, unlike Anders, Ingunn had been denied all contact with the outside world. Her mental illness was such that even indirect contact with the outside world would pose a problem. She had no TV, no radio and no internet. Her only contact with the outside world was through a limited group of people deemed harmless to her health. Only a handful of close friends and relatives were allowed to see her, but only while under observation by medical experts who would make sure that the topic of conversation never stayed away from the mundane.

Ingunn's isolation was in other words complete. While Anders was free to interact with the outside world, even to the point of establishing a political party, Ingunn was denied all such interactions. Although seemingly cruel, her isolation was entirely for her own good. Her severe paranoia was such that even a tiny bit of news could have her regress into her madness.

Psychologists had in fact identified her illness at an early stage, and had advised reporters to ignore her rants and ramblings. But her world view was so eccentric and entertaining that most journalists had been unable to resist the stories that emanated from her. First it was her decision to declare her property in Skien an independent state, making herself a sovereign of her newly created nation, lovingly named Niceland.

Having declared herself a sovereign, she proceeded to send official letters to the foreign minister as if she was indeed a queen of an independent nation. She returned her passport and birth certificates, and finally refused to pay the debt on her house.

As a sovereign, she felt it wholly within her right to simply refuse to pay the "national debt". Furthermore, she argued that since her debt to the bank had been created out of thin air, there was nothing to be paid back. And with the bank unable to document the existence of any original owner, there were no one to pay the money back to. The money was simply conjured into existence when Ingunn signed the loan document, and there were no original owner. Hence, she had nothing to pay back, and no one to pay anything back to. She was therefore, in her own words, taking a principled stance against the banks and the fractional banking system that allowed for the current system of loan and currency creation.

The reporters covering this story were delighted, of course. Her David against Goliath like stance was insane. She was behaving in a manner reminiscent of Don Quijote, fighting windmills, conjuring up elaborate stories, and impressing the feeble minded with explanations that sound entirely true, yet had little or no baring in reality. And to the journalists' great surprise and further delight, Ingunn was getting followers, admirers who loved her explanations. Ingunn was becoming an increasingly popular subject for the journalist and common folks alike.

However, when a number of her followers started emulating her behavior, returning their passports and birth certificates to the state, it was becoming clear that things were getting out of hand. Reporters were again advised to stay away from the matter since it had clearly caused a lot of people to become similarly confused as Ingunn. The idea that one could simply declare oneself sovereign was of course pure madness. And seeing that her mad ideas were rather infectious, the justice department itself came out with a guideline concerning her particular kind of mental illness, making it clear that irresponsible reporting on this type of insanity could lead to criminal charges against the journalists.

Ingunn was evicted from her house, and shortly after, she was apprehended and brought to trail, charged with criminal incendiary speech with the aim to cause massive civil disobedience. The trial went largely unreported due to its sensitive nature. And with this, Ingunn's brief claim to fame came to an abrupt halt.

149

Katinka returned with two mugs and a pot of coffee. She put the mugs on the table and poured the hot brew into them. The men thanked her. Then she went back to the kitchen before reappearing moments later, sitting down on a stool behind the bar, and picking up a book that she had evidently left there for moments like this, with little or nothing to do.

There was something relaxing and pleasant about her person, almost serene, and Bjorn could not help thinking that Roger might actually have been right about himself and Katinka. The age separating the two was great, indecent even, but Katinka looked content, as if fully confident in Roger's ability to protect her from any kind of harm, and her initial worry, and subsequent interrogation by Ante, had left no lasting impression on her. She looked happy.

"So, they got their gun store over there, and their drug store over here," Ante said, breaking Bjorn's train of thought, and moving his attention from Katinka to the street outside.
"Yeah?" Bjorn asked, resting his eyes on a car moving slowly past in the direction of Gus' gun store.
"Well, what do you think about that?" Ante continued, sipping his coffee. "You get your gun over there, and then stack up on some psychedelic drugs over there, and you're all set for a shooting spree."
"But you're the one thinking that's cool," Bjorn noted coldly. "You know what I think about it."
"Yeah. You find it a little crazy, don't you?"
"A little? Well, I think it's insane. That's what I think of it."
"You wouldn't last long if you tried something like that here in Lundby, though," Ante continued. "Everybody has a gun, and you'd quickly find yourself dead if you started shooting wildly around you."
"Still. It's just not a very good idea to combine these things, is it?"
"But you know Anders..."
"The mass murderer?"
"Yeah," Ante said with a thoughtful look across the street where a young man entered the drug store. "He had no trouble getting the guns and the drugs that he took just before going on his murderous rampage. And that was in Oslo where they got rules against that kind of thing."
"Still... There wouldn't have been anything at all stopping him up here."
"Except for pretty much the entire village shooting back at him," Ante noted with a cheeky smile.

Bjorn couldn't help thinking that Ante had a point. Yet, the tragedy in Oslo was different, and a rather extreme example, he felt. He wasn't buying Ante's argument, but had no ready counter argument either.

"You know, he just started his own party," Ante continued.
"Anders?"
"Yeah. Didn't you hear about that?"
"Well... yeah. But are anyone taking it seriously. I mean, the man is mad, right?"
"He got a few thousand followers on Facebook."
"He does?"
"Yep. A few thousand. I think that's saying quite a lot, don't you?"
"Like what?"
"About people and politics."
"Yeah?"
"And the foreign minister is as popular as ever," Ante continued. "You know... far more people were killed in Libya on his orders than Anders managed to kill out on that island."
"Yeah, but come on... You're not comparing the foreign minister with Anders, are you?"
"Sure, why not? They both illustrate the same point."
"They do?"
"Killing people will actually make you more popular, not less."
"But..."
"Yeah?"
"It's a stupid comparison."
"Why?"
"Well, the foreign minister and Anders? Come on! Anders killed those kids in cold blood."
"And the kids in Libya?"
"Kids in Libya?" Bjorn protested. "We were bombing military targets. If we killed any kids, it was by accident. That's a huge difference right there."
"But killing people does make you more popular," Ante continued undeterred. "That's all I'm saying."
"Well... okay... you're probably right about that."
"And that's kind of sad, sin't it."