196

Bjorn went back to his room after dinner, sat down on his bed and turned on the TV. However, he kept the sound off and watched the news channel as a sort of distraction rather than as a source of information. His thoughts remained centered around what had been discussed around the dinner table.

The atmosphere had been surprisingly relaxed, despite the big differences in perspective. Thomas had made some rather provocative claims, especially in the ears of people like Frank and John, but no one's feelings had been hurt. It had all been quite civil, despite the frank language used, and Bjorn wondered for a minute how that could be. Then a thought struck him, that it might have been Ante, or rather his food and wine, that had set the stage for the open and relaxed atmosphere.

The feeling of wealth and plenty that Ante's meals always conjured up set the stage for the sort of frank and open exchange of ideas that Bjorn had just witnessed. One could not help feeling content and pleased sitting at Ante's table, and with such a cushion to lean on, as it were, mere words and ideas were nothing to be overly worried about. The world would not end, one way or the other. And to think that anyone actually had a say in the matters discussed was delusional anyway. No one at the table had any real influence on the world of politics. Everybody knew that. And in that respect, it mattered little what Thomas or anyone else might think about the state of the world.

But before Bjorn had time to think more about Ante's ability to create a good atmosphere for discussions, he was suddenly distracted by the word Lundby on a banner being waved on TV, and he turned on the sound to hear what the news was all about. However, there was nothing new being said. The protests against the colony was continuing, mostly in Oslo, but other places too. People were gathering outside asylum centers, repeating the same mantra about the Lundby colony being cruel and uncivilized.

"We can't send people to the arctic, just like that," people said. "It's inhumane. It violates their rights. It's fascist. It's not worthy of a civilized country like Norway to treat people like this."

But the project had not lost any of it's popularity among the general public, despite the protests, the anchor woman noted. Then she asked a news reporter in front of a gathering of protesters why she thought the general public did not object to the cruelty of sending people to the arctic, noting that many of the refugees were indeed from warm places like Africa and the Middle East, making it all the worse to send them to a place so cruelly different from where they were from.

"It is hard to say," the reporter answered. "It may be the crisis. It is certainly not natural for us as a nation to be so indifferent to people's suffering as we are today."

And with that reply forming the final note on the matter, the anchor woman thanked the reporter for her insights before switching to economic news where the big headline for the day was a private pension fund that had gone bankrupt. Having made tremendous losses on financial papers tied to European debt, the pension fund could no longer meet its obligations, and with the new right wing government unwilling to pick up the pieces, the bankrupt fund had been liquidated.

The assets were already being transferred to another insurance company, the anchor woman explained, and new contracts would soon be issued to the unfortunate pensioners, however, at a substantially lower monthly payout than what had been the case up until the bankruptcy. The pensioners were in essence left without a say in the matter, and when interviewed about it, one angry old lady described it as daylight robbery and a gigantic failure of capitalism.

Bjorn turned the sound off again, having heard enough to feel relieved that he never payed anything into any pension fund. Except, of course, the mandatory monthly contribution to the state pension fund. But that was state run, and could not fold in the same way. Its pay outs were guaranteed, not by some private company, but by the state itself.

And while thinking about the convenience and security provided by the state run pension fund, Bjorn was reminded of all the other services provided by the state. Health care, old people care, schools, police, courts of justice, fire fighters and defense were all provided by the state, free for all. And in that light, Bjorn's salary was not bad at all. To think that he was no better off than people like Aung in Lundby, was just plain silly.

Why had he even thought such a silly thing? Bjorn wondered. Salaries in Lundby were horrendously pitiful. And they had to pay for everything. Nothing was free down there. They didn't even have schools. That's how bad things were. And then, for some reason, Bjorn had nevertheless managed to imagine himself no better off than them.

Bjorn turned off the TV, shaking his head in silent recognition of his own silliness. Then he got up from where he was sitting, found the letter from Oslo on his desk and looked through it again.

190

Walking back to the barracks with his PC safely tucked under his arm, Bjorn felt strangely satisfied with his situation. Things were not perfect. But they were not bad either. Life at the checkpoint was not bad at all, even with annoying colleagues like Geir.

Bjorn found Frank in the living room, watching sports on TV.

"What do I do with this box," Bjorn asked, dangling the empty package for the scanner above the coffee table.
"Ah... Just leave it there. I'll take care of it," Frank replied before returning his attention to the TV.

Bjorn met Thomas, Espen and John on his way up the stairs. They were on their way down to their regular bridge game, and Bjorn greeted them cheerfully on his way up. The daily routines of the place were comforting, almost soothing, and Bjorn was in a positively cheerful mood by the time he reached his room.

The TV was still on in Bjorn's room, and he was suddenly confronted with images of people in pickup trucks firing rocket propelled grenades and heavy machine guns in a dusty landscape of bombed out houses and sand dunes. However, he had no patience for this constant reminder of the war in Libya, and turned the TV off immediately.

Bjorn put his laptop on the table in front of the window. He hooked it up to the mains, and sat down, eager too double check that Geir had not been up to any more mischief on the Blacklist. Even the remote possibility that Geir might have initiated a law suit against people like Jan and his daughters, was a gut wrenching thought, and Bjorn was eager to free himself from this anxiety. However, the moment he sat down, the envelope he had put in his back pocket crumpled uncomfortably, and his attention was suddenly directed away from his PC.

Bjorn pulled the letter out of his pocket, and looked at it. It was from the headquarters in Oslo, and he was suddenly struck with horror at the thought that it might be related to the foreign minister's plan to deploy ground troops to Libya. Bjorn's heart started pumping hard, and he ripped the letter open with sudden urgency. However, he was immediately relieved to see that the letter had nothing to do with Libya, and his pulse fell back to normal almost as fast as it had risen.

The letter, it turned out, was simply a confirmation of his new status as a customs officer, complete with a calculation of his new salary. "Well, that's good news," Bjorn thought, relieved to see that the letter was nothing to worry about, and so he put it down next to his PC without bothering to read the details of it. Instead, he logged into the Blacklist to double check his activity log.

It turned out that his activity log was nothing to worry about either, with the only activity recorded during Geir's mischievous snooping around, being his attempt to add Mr. Clueless to his list of nick names.

Bjorn gave a sigh of relief. He leaned back in his chair, and let his mind rest for a while. Then he picked up the letter from Oslo to read it in more details. He looked through the salary calculations, eager to see what his new salary had been calculated to be after taxes and deductions. "Probably not a great difference," Bjorn thought to himself as he looked for the right number.

His new salary before taxes and deductions was highlighted and easy to find. It looked promising. But at the end of the day, only the net salary counts, and when he found that number, he could not quite see that it had changed at all. "Surely, they're not taking all of my extra income for themselves?" Bjorn thought to himself, feeling disappointed despite his low expectations.

Bjorn had to go through all the numbers in greater detail to see where all the money had gone. For some reason, all the numbers except the net total had a before and after column, and it was only by adding up the old numbers manually that he managed to calculate the old net total.

"I guess they simply assume that I know this number by heart," Bjorn thought for himself as he added the numbers. "But I really can't remember. I would have to look it up."

It quickly became clear that child support and back taxes were the main factors contributing to the disappointing final number. But Bjorn had also entered a higher tax bracket, and his social security and pension obligations had also increased. In fact, every single item on the list showed an increase in expenses, and the net total, when he finally managed to work out the number, had hardly changed at all.

Bjorn made a quick mental conversion of the numbers into Lundby's local currency, thinking that this would make him seem rather rich in comparison to the poor devils down in the village. But even that did not help much. He was far better off than Ane's workers. However, he suspected that he was in fact earning less than somebody like Nora, with her restaurant, or even Aung with her multiple jobs. And Bjorn's increase in salary was a mere two hundred MG per month. Hardly anything at all, even by Lundby standards.

So small was the change that Bjorn had to do some further calculations to see if his salary, calculated in Gram, had in fact increased at all.

Bjorn looked up the Lundby Gazette on the web and clicked his way to a chart, showing the Gram's performance against the Norwegian currency over the last few months. And his heart dropped at the sight. While his salary had increased by close to nothing in Norwegian currency, the Gram had gained a whopping ten percent over the last month. His salary in Grams had not increased at all, in other words. It had in fact fallen by quite a lot.

118

The vision of the airplane stuck to his mind, and with nothing else to occupy him, Bjorn found himself speculating around it, wondering if he had missed something important. But he could not remember any mention of anything that could explain what he had just seen. And when Bjorn was relieved of his duties by Espen, he too had no ready answer to why a plane would come in like that in the middle of the night.

"A private jet?" Espen asked, trying to come up with an explanation.
"Yeah."
"Someone rich and powerful, in other words... It might have been Pedro."
"Or Jan, or that ship owner?" Bjorn suggested.
"Yeah, someone like that," Espen agreed.
"But why?"
"Well, why not?

And why not indeed? The airport was there after all, and why not take advantage of this? If the destination was Lundby, or the port, it would be the quickest way to get there.

The incident was not all that mysterious when he looked at it that way, and when Bjorn entered the kitchen carrying his empty thermos over to the sink, he told Ante about it as if there was nothing very unexpected about it.

Ante looked up from the breakfast he was eating.

"Does not sound quite right to me, though. I'd report this to Frank if I were you," he said.
"Sure, I'll send him a mail right away."
"Yeah, but have some breakfast first, will you?"

Ante pointed over to Bjorn's spot at the table. Everything was set for him to sit down and enjoy the bacon, eggs and other goodies.

Bjorn sat down, and pretty soon the two men were talking about their planned trip to Lundby.

"I used to visit Lundby quite a lot as a kid, you know," Ante remarked. "But that all changed when the place was abandoned."
"Sad story, how that went with Lundby back then," Bjorn commented.
"Sure is... It will be interesting to see how long the current revival goes on before it's all shut down again."
"You think they will shut the place down?"
"I do."
"Why?"

Ante gave Bjorn incredulous look, as if the question made no sense at all.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's getting a little out of hand, isn't it?" Bjorn admitted.
"A little? The place is an anarchy. Anything goes down there."
"And how do you feel about that?" Bjorn asked, curious to see if Ante was merely pointing out an obvious fact, or if he was expressing his personal opinion.
"Me? Well... I love it. But it is not the sort of place that Oslo will leave alone for very much longer... And what else can they do than shut the whole place down?"
"They could regulate it like every other place in this country."
"Sure... Which was precisely the reason this place got shut down in the first place. Lundby died due to those regulations, and it will die again for the exact same reason."

Bjorn looked at Ante with a crooked smile.

"You've been talking to Thomas again, haven't you?" Bjorn asked.
"Sure... But he's right."
"Maybe so... And if so, all the more reason for us to go down there and explore it while it still exists."
"You're damn right, we will!" Ante agreed. "Let's go down there right away."

104

Thomas got up from his chair to leave for his room, and Bjorn joined him out to the hallway. But instead of going up to his own room, Bjorn entered the living room. There was nobody there, and the silent emptiness of it seemed just right after all the emotional bickering he had been subjected to by Thomas. Not that he minded it much, but Thomas was bitter, and some of his acid remarks simply felt uncomfortable, no matter how true they might be.

It was time to put things in perspective, and focus more on the here and now. Things weren't bad, all things considered, and there was really no reason to feel upset about things completely outside his control. And again he was drawn to the view to the north as an excellent way to sooth his mind.

Bjorn decided to pull the large easy chair from in front of the TV over to the coffee table by the window. It was surprisingly light, considering how bulky it was, and it took no effort at all to place the chair squarely in front of the large window. Sitting down in it, Bjorn immediately felt a sensation of well being, and watching the snowflakes drift by, obscuring, but not completely hiding the overall view, was soothing and meditative.

He remained seated, just watching the view, for some time before feeling any urge to do anything at all, and when he finally pulled his glance back from the view he absentmindedly picked up the first thing he saw in front of him, the stall owners' leaflet that he had dropped on the coffee table before going to the kitchen for breakfast. He did so mechanically, as if merely floating about randomly, a little like the snow flakes outside, and he proceeded to look at the leaflet as if the words were carrying no meaning, focusing on its form and its lettering rather than its content.

The whole thing was nothing more than a single sheet of paper, folded in the middle to give the impression of being somehow full of information. But the font size and the generous use of whitespace made it clear that there wasn't an awful lot to be said about the stall owner's position. Then, directing his attention to the actual message in the leaflet, he started to read.

"This Land is Our Land" it said in a big fat typeface, followed by a short argument in a needlessly bold typeface laying out the fact that the stall owners were the first ones to use the village square, and that Pedro never used it for anything. Being the first ones to use the village square productively, it followed that it belonged to the stall owners, and that Pedro's attempt to extract rent from them was nothing less than neo-medieval rent seeking. And having read this, Bjorn felt certain that the stall owners were in the right, and that no argument could be formed to counter this claim. Bjorn felt happy about having signed the petition. He agreed with it full heartedly.

The pamphlet also included a list of the stall owners who had joined together to form their union, and Bjorn found himself for some reason fascinated by the list of names. He soon found Peter's name on the list. There were several East Asian names too, as well as a couple of Russian looking names, but no Norwegians. The union was in other words a union of foreigners, all making exclusive claims to Norwegian soil, and this thought, although sinister in a way, did not worry Bjorn in the least. Rather, it got his imagination going.

Bjorn could suddenly see Lundby growing into a great cosmopolitan city with people from all over the world residing there, and he felt exited by his vision. "Was this in fact the project?" he wondered as he leant back in the easy chair. "Was Lundby in fact a conspiracy to create a huge city at the top of the world? A city to dominate the world. The heart of the empire, as it were."

Bjorn's visions expanded quickly where he sat, and he could see ferry services crisscrossing the bay in front of him, buildings everywhere, tall ones and smaller ones, industry, commerce, a great industrial and commercial hub right at the edge of the world.

95

Bjorn walked up to the car that had stopped in front of the casino entrance. It was an old rusty Volvo, and there was no sign of it being a taxi. However, Bjorn was used to these kind of unregulated services from Oslo where illegal cab services had been quite commonplace until the new government had made a point of shutting them down, and when Bjorn learned that they had a taxi service in Lundby, this was exactly the sort of thing he had expected.

"I´m going to the checkpoint up the Neiden road," Bjorn said to the driver, who he immediately recognized as the driver of Pingo's grocery van.
"That will be forty MG," the driver said with a smile, apparently recognizing Bjorn from their brief exchange up at the checkpoint the day before.

"Well, that's practically nothing," Bjorn thought to himself as he stepped into the back seat of the old car. Then, while buckling up he commented on how he keeps bumping into the same people over and over.

"Well, that's because Lundby is a village," the man said before putting the car in motion. "We're only a few hundred people all together... I'm Igor by the way. And you must be the new guy up at the checkpoint... Bjorn, right?"
"That's correct," Bjorn answered, surprised to hear him say his name. "How do you know."
"Ante told me... Made excuses for you making yourself difficult up there."
"And Ante told you my name?"
"Well, I asked him about your name. I like knowing the names of everybody... It's a thing. A hobby if you like."

Bjorn looked out at the moonlit surroundings as the car drove up the road to the construction site, and noticing a shimmer of dawn to the east, Bjorn checked his watch.

"Kind of early for the sun to be rising," Bjorn commented as Igor turned east, towards the deep red glow.
"Well, this is the arctic," Igor said. "Another five weeks and we will have midnight sun... Besides, we are much further east than most people realize, so morning comes early."

Bjorn felt strangely happy where he was sitting, and the big Russian driving the car fascinated him.

"So, where are you from?" Bjorn asked, hoping to start a conversation.
"I´m from Nikel, just across the border."
"And what brings you to Lundby? You're not asking for asylum, are you?"
"Oh no!" the Russian replied. "That would be stupid."
"Why?"
"Well, you would not let me out again, would you?"
"No, that's true," Bjorn conceded.

Igor had a good point. Anyone asking for asylum would immediately have their passport withheld, and without a passport there's no way to get out of Lundby. Besides, Russia was, as far a he knew, not on the list of places considered dangerous enough for people to qualify for asylum, so he would probably not be taken seriously even if he had applied. But Bjorn had no time to dwell on this as Igor happily continued the conversation.

"I'm here to make some money," Igor explained. "There's no work to be found in Nikel these days, and Kirkenes is just as bad."
"It's the crisis, isn't it?" Bjorn asked rhetorically.
"Sure is. Things are getting pretty desperate."
"But isn't it terribly difficult to find work here in Lundby too?" Bjorn asked. "I mean... Ane at the fish factory is paying a lousy hundred MG per day to her workers. That's saying something, isn't it?"
"Ane is a crook!" Igor said with contempt. "But she won't be able to keep her racket going for long."
"No? Why not?"
"People will find other things to do."
"Like what?"
"Well, I'm not working for her, am I?"
"No, but not everyone can work for Pingo."
"But everyone can start their own business if they like."
"Doing what?" Bjorn asked. "This is the arctic. There's nothing here but rocks and ice."

Igor smiled as if he was harbouring a secret.

"They could make little toy animals to sell to tourists for instance," Igor said casually. "Or T-shirts with popular slogans on them, or underwear to be exported all over the world."
"And does that pay any better?" Bjorn asked.
"It does," Igor answered with a big smile.
"How do you know?"
"Because my wife runs a cooperative making these kind of things."
"She does?"
"Yep!"
"And what does she pay her workers?" Bjorn asked.
"Nothing... She only pays them for what they produce. But if you got a sewing machine, and you're good at what you do you can easily make three times as much as what Ane offers her workers."
"But what if you don't have a sewing machine? Or if you have one, but aren't very good at using it?"
"Well, then of course, you´ll have to find some other kind of work."
"Then you're screwed?" Bjorn asked.
"No. Even then there are better jobs to be found than to work for Ane. Heck... I know house maids who make more money than Ane's workers."
"So why are people still working for her?"
"Beats me."
"She's locking them in, isn't she?"
"No! I don't think so... That would be illegal. And everyone would know by now."

Bjorn had been getting so used to thinking of Lundby as a place where everything goes that he found Igor's use of the word "illegal" almost misplaced in the whole conversation.

"Illegal?" Bjorn asked, unable to formulate a good question around the term.
"As in against the law," Igor explained, as if unsure if Bjorn was struggling with his English.
"What law?" Bjorn asked.
"The legal code here in Lundby."
"There is such a thing?" Bjorn asked, genuinely surprised.
"Yeah, sure."
"And who's in charge of it?"
"Who?" Igor asked, as if he had not thought of this question before. "Everyone, I guess."
"Everyone is a lawyer?"

Igor chuckled at Bjorn's genuine puzzlement.

"I know what you're thinking," Igor said while suddenly slowing down to avoid a couple of particularly deep potholes that he evidently knew the exact location of from having driven along the road many times before. "But it's quite simple to explain, really."
"So, go ahead, educate me!" Bjorn said, challenging the man to give him a quick introduction to Lundby's legal code.
"Well, we basically stop dealing with people who don't behave," Igor explained. "If you steal or hit or imprison people, you'll soon find yourself without any friends."
"But how does that prevent people from behaving badly?"
"Well, how well do you think you would be doing without anyone wanting to do any business with you?"
"Not very well, I guess. But what if people decided to gang up on me?"
"And why would anyone want to do that?"
"I don't know. To get some kind of advantage over me maybe."
"Like what?"

Bjorn could find no answer.

"So you basically isolate people who behave badly?" Bjorn asked, not at all convinced that this qualified as a legal code.
"Yep, that's about it."
"And do you have any objective criteria for what it means to behave badly?"
"No, not really... There's always the golden rule of course."
"And that's your legal code?"
"Yep... That's all you need to know."

Bjorn shook his head in disbelief. Then, tired of the subject, Bjorn returned to what Igor had mentioned about his wife.

"So your wife runs a clothing factory here in Lundby?" Bjorn asked.
"Not a factory exactly," Igor corrected. "She runs the business from here, but many of her workers actually live in Nikel, and do all their work over there... They all work from home."
"Really? So why are you her? Wouldn't it make more sense to run it from Nikel?"
"You would think so, wouldn't you?" Igor answered. "But there is so much red tape, and they will tax you even before you make a profit. They are ruthless."
"So your wife is here to avoid taxes."
"And all the paper work they force her to do. If it was only the taxes, I think Olga might have put up with it. But all those taxes comes with so much paper work. It's just too much... And now that we got Lundby, why even bother."
"But the authorities over in Nikel can't be too pleased with this?" Bjorn asked.
"Actually... They are turning a blind eye to this at the moment... They know that if they clamp down on this, they will only spark resentment... And since there's no factory or headquarter to crack down on, it's hard for them to even start controlling this, short of going door to door to see if anyone is sewing stuff."
"But your wife runs a headquarter of sorts, doesn't she?"
"Yes she does. That's why she's here and not in Nikel. She organizes everything via the internet. The girls come to her to deliver their finished products and pick up new assignments. Olga and I haven't been back to Nikel since we left two months ago."
"And how do the girls bypass the border patrols? Why aren't they stopped at the border with their bags full of stuffed animals and underwear?"
"Well, that's one of Olga's little secrets, and I'm not going to share that with you. You are a border guard, after all."

85

Bjorn was suddenly speechless, and if it hadn't been for the waitress appearing with four beers, he would probably not have been able to hide his disappointment. But with the other men suddenly all busy paying for their beers, Bjorn could let the initial shock sink in in silence.

It was ridiculous to be disappointed, of course, and this in itself was half the embarrassment for Bjorn. It was not like he knew Ane, and she was in many ways way out of his league, successful, young and beautiful as she was. But he had come to think of her as an heroic lone ranger of sorts, and himself as her trusted ally. And now, that illusion was broken.

Bjorn lifted his glass to his lips, and swallowed a mouth full of beer, not for the thirst, but as a way to hide his embarrassing emotions. He looked at Ola, as he paid the waitress, and he was again struck by the sheer physical size of the man. Had he been just a little bit bigger, he could properly be classified as a giant. And to think that this enormous guy was involved with tiny Ane was almost obscene in its erotic implications.

But Ola had asked Bjorn a question, and it deserved an answer. It also gave Bjorn an opportunity to catch his balance again, and rid himself of his silly immature disappointment.

"I inspected Ane's factory on Wednesday, together with a colleague," Bjorn explained.
"Ah! So you are one of the millimetre guys," Ola said with a friendly smile.
"Is that what she called us?"
"Yep!" Ola answered, still smiling. "Are you the nasty obsessed one, or the nice clueless one?"

Bjorn could not help smiling despite the insult. "Who do you think?" he asked.
"I guess you're the nice clueless one."
"I guess you're right," Bjorn answered. "But was it really that obvious?"
"I'm afraid it was, despite your best efforts."
"Well... Maybe we shouldn't talk more about this," Bjorn continued, looking over at Thomas and Espen who were following the conversation with amusement.

"So you are all from the checkpoint?" Per asked, helpfully changing the subject for Bjorn.
"Yeah," Thomas answered.
"That makes sense."
"How?"
"Well... Five guys, obviously not all from up here, and not working at the mine either... Where else could you be working."
"True..."

Thomas took a sip of his beer, leaning back in his chair to look at the people out on the dance floor.

"But you're not from around here either, are you?" Espen asked.
"No... We moved down from Svalbard when they opened the iron mine down here," Ola said helpfully.
"You worked in the coal mines up there?" Espen asked full of wonder. "I've heard it's a crazy place."
"It is... But not as wild as Lundby."
"You think this place is weirder?" Espen asked. "But at least we don't have polar bears wandering the streets in Lundby."
"Sure... But they aren't sending thousands of people to the Longyear village, are they."
"But if it wasn't for that, then Longyear would be weirder than Lundby."

Ola took a sip of his beer. Then, after swallowing the brew with a thoughtful look on his face, he continued. "Lundby is like Longyear on steroids, minus the polar bears."
"What do you mean?" Thomas asked.
"Longyear is a tiny project in comparison to this. And it is more isolated," Ola explained. "This has the potential to become something really big."

Then, turning to Per, Ola continued. "You know, if you don't buy that house, I think I will... I'll see if I can find the money to buy it, and I'll sell it in a few years and make a ton of money."

67

Ante was apparently the only one who had seen the news from Lier, and so he became the centre of attention that morning, describing the fiery scene to every new colleague coming into the kitchen for breakfast. And by the third time the same story was being told, Bjorn felt a strong desire to leave the kitchen.

Bjorn was in no mood for further speculations about the imminent influx of desperate, aggressive and right out violent asylum seekers. Not that he was very concerned for his own safety. He knew full well when he signed on to the job as a border guard that violent episodes might well happen. But the uncomfortable dream, still lingering in the back of his mind was a terrible backdrop for a clear and level headed assessment of the news story. And the excited small talk among his colleagues did not help much either.

So it was with some relief that Bjorn stepped out in the sun, thermos in hand, on his way to relieve John from his night shift. The fresh air was invigorating, and Bjorn felt happy knowing that he would be able to enjoy a full six hours all to himself in the glass cage.

There were no whales to watch this morning, but there were plenty of other things to keep Bjorn entertained. A small army of workers were putting red terracotta roof tiles into place on the apartment building down by the fjord, the morning delivery of fish for Ane's processing plant was coming in from the east, and there was even a large container ship entering through the narrow straight, with a delivery for the port.

The ferry had just entered through the strait when the enormous ship suddenly appeared, and for a moment it looked like the ship was going to crush the ferry. However, it was soon clear that there was never any danger of the ship hitting the ferry. As soon as the two vessels were inside the bay area, they headed in different directions, and Bjorn could see that the ferry was in fact moving a good deal faster than the enormous ship.

The general level of activity in the bay area had picked up noticeably over the last few days. Things were happening everywhere, and it was quite exciting to see the progress made over such a short period of time. The apartment building was now fully clad with a brick façade, the windows and doors were all in place, and the roofing would, by the look of it, be completed pretty soon too. There were more cars going between the port and the village, and the two big cranes over by the village centre were also doing more work.

Bjorn was starting to feel excited about the planned outing to the village to celebrate Thomas' birthday too, and all this energy and excitement made him feel happy and optimistic. When he, every now and again, had to let a car in or inspect a car before leaving, he greeted the drivers with a happy smile, asking them where they were from and what they were planning to do on their way in, and warning them politely on their way out that the amounts of stuff they could freely take with them from the village would soon be subject to customs regulations.

Bjorn considered Frank's prediction for what the lawmakers in Oslo would come up with to be so likely that he warned people as if it was a done deal. And Bjorn was strengthened in his belief by the reaction of the drivers. Everyone seemed to accept his warning as inevitable, saying such things as "it's too good to last", and that "it is pretty much a miracle that it has not been stopped yet".

Towards the end of Bjorn's shift, a small bus load of young men and women heading for Lundby stopped at the barrier, which once again reminded Bjorn of his own imminent pleasure trip to the village.

"So where are you all from?" Bjorn asked, expecting the usual answer. But, as it turned out, they were not from Neiden. They were from Alta, a full six hours drive away Lundby. And they were going to Lundby to spend the weekend partying. Rumors about Lundby's night life had clearly also spread. People were not only going to the village to buy chap stuff, they were going there to have a good time too.

51

The foreign minister was busy defending Norway's military actions in Libya as well as his own involvement in it in what was clearly a well orchestrated interview with no surprise questions.

"Simply bombing rebel positions is not enough to ensure security for our national interests," the foreign minister explained. "We will need an additional five hundred men in order to defend our economic interests in that country, which coincidentally are one and the same as the interest of the Libyan people. Only a stable and peaceful environment can ensure prosperity for all, and as a leading peace nation we have a particular moral duty to make this happen."

The economic interests the foreign minister was talking of were of course the oil fields in which the state controlled oil company, Statoil, was heavily invested. However, this was not mentioned by a word, nor did the interviewer make any inquiry into what the foreign minister was referring to by his words. Instead, she moved on to ask him why he, and not the minister of defence, was in charge of the operations.

"The answer here, of course, comes down to the nature of our involvement in Libya," the foreign minister replied with a confident smile. "Since we are not at war, but simply helping the Libyans in their struggle to rebuild their national institutions after decades of neglect under the deposed dictatorship, our involvement can best be described as foreign aid, which falls under my department. What the Libyan people are labouring under on a daily basis is the absence of good national institutions, and the first and foremost of these is of course the institution of law and order which can only be achieved by legitimate and dispassionate force. Hence the involvement of our armed forces."

"Libya is not at war," the foreign minister continued. "It is burdened by civil unrest, and we have a duty to the world community to take our share of that burden. All of this has been laid out in detail by the UN, and we cannot simply ignore this and pretend that things will sort themselves out without our involvement. Such an approach has already been tried, with terrible consequences, and no one wants to see a repeat of that."

And again the foreign minister was referring to things without mentioning them. Neither the foreign minister nor the interviewer felt it necessary to explain that the terrible consequence referred to was a particularly bloody attack on a Statoil installation in the south of Libya where almost everyone had been killed in cold blood. Those that tried to escape were gunned down, and those that surrendered were ritually beheaded. The videos of the beheadings went viral on the Internet, and were in large part responsible for the surge in support for the foreign minister's anti-immigration party, which in turn won him a seat in the current government, and ultimately his current position as foreign minister.

Having risen to his current position on the back of the outrage that the bloody attack had caused, the man clearly felt that no further explanation was necessary. And the interviewer, presumably no big fan of the foreign minister, had even less of a desire to delve into the memories of the terrible incident.

After a few more questions about Libya where the foreign minister got the chance to repeat his objection to the word "war", re-emphasizing instead that this was all about foreign aid and nation building, the interviewer changed the subject to Lundby, which made Bjorn sit up and pay even closer attention. "Another mention of us," Bjorn thought. "We really are about to become famous!"

"Some say that the colony violates our constitution, and is in breach of basic human rights," the interviewer said with a stern face.
"Well, that is simply not true," the foreign minister replied, brushing aside the question. "Moving all asylum seekers to Lundby is a hugely popular move, with a recent pole showing more than seventy percent of eligible voters in favour of it, and it is in no way contrary to our constitution. Such a assertion is simply political nonsense."

"But what about the claim that the colony is in conflict with the indivisible sovereignty of Norway?"
"Well, first of all, Lundby is not a colony. It is as much a part of Norway as any other part. The fact that it has been turned into an asylum centre does not make it any different from any other place with special rules, such as airports, prisons, and, well, asylum centres. We have merely moved and co-located the centres already in Norway to a remote location where the inhabitants will be unable to cause stress or anxiety among ordinary Norwegians."

"And what about the claim that there is a casino up there? Isn't that in violation with Norwegian law?"
"Well, it is true that there is a casino in Lundby. Although, as far as I gather, it is hardly a place worthy of such an extravagant name. It is more like a bar where there is some gambling going on. However, the claim that this is in violation with Norwegian law does not take into account the Sami reparation act which give Sami people wide powers to regulate this kind of activities on their own land. The casino is fully owned and regulated by the Sami people, and as such completely legal."

"And the report that casino tokens are circulating as money, surely that is in violation of the recent amendment to the constitution making only Norwegian Kroners legal tender in Norway."
"But those tokens are not money," the foreign minister retorted with a big smile. "They are tokens. They have no value or use outside the asylum centre. Do you really think that anyone will accept a casino token outside of that village, far away from the casino? Of course not! The tokens are no more money than what similar tokens would be inside a closed club. They can be used inside the club, but have no value outside of it, so they are clearly not money. Only Norwegian Kroners are money in Norway."

And by this the interviewer had exhausted her questions related to Lundby and its constitutionality. She continued with a few questions regarding the centre and the claim that it was violating human rights. But here too, the foreign minister had no problem defending his position. And in the end, the whole interview seemed to Bjorn to be more like an orchestrated promotion of the foreign ministers policies than a truly critical inquiry.

Bjorn turned off the TV, impressed and a little surprised by what he had just seen. He had not expected such an open talk on Libya, and even less so on Lundby. But now that it had been aired, Bjorn got a strong feeling that the foreign minister was on the offensive, anticipating things to come, and positioning himself as best he could for some imminent storm. "He is a sly fox," Bjorn thought to himself. "This interview was no doubt carefully planned, putting him one step ahead of the rest. By answering questions before they were fully formulated by the opposition, he had effectively silenced most of his critics by making it very hard for them to come with a different interpretation of things."

The mention of more boots on the ground in Libya had left Bjorn a little worried, though. It was absolutely not a place he would like to be sent, and even the remote possibility of being sent there gave him the shivers. He had after all signed onto his three year contract with the army with the checkpoint along the Neiden to Lundby road specifically in mind, and he was at the interview lead to believe that this was indeed the only position he would ever be expected to fill. But the contract he had signed was deliberately vague on the exact scope of his duties, so he could possibly, at least in theory, be sent to Libya against his own wishes.

And with this worry lingering uncomfortably in the back of his mind, he set his alarm for the next morning, hoping that the spectre of Libya would not interfere too much with his sleep.

50

Back in his room, Bjorn sat down on his bed, turned on the TV, and flicked through some channels before settling on a reality show on a cooking channel where competitors faced each other in a "bake off" to make "the best chocolate cake ever."

"Just the right kind of entertainment after a festive dinner," Bjorn thought to himself with a smile. Then he let his thoughts drift, inspired by the spirited conversations he had just taken part in. He really felt he had come to know his colleagues quite a lot better over the dinner, and that he now finally had been fully accepted by his colleagues. Not that they had ever been anything but polite and friendly with him. But getting to know people always take a bit of time, and if anything, Bjorn felt that the process in this case had been surprisingly quick and pleasant.

Bjorn had taken an immediate liking to Ante, who had welcomed him wholeheartedly from the very beginning. Maybe primarily because Ante neither liked Geir much nor fit very well into the card playing group. Not that the card players were unpleasant in any way. But they were a closed group, uninterested in opening up much to others. However, over dinner they had opened up quite a lot, and Bjorn thought them all quite likable in their own way.

Thomas had consistently made positive comments regarding Lundby and Ane's business, arguing against John and Frank who both were of the opinion that the village would eventually blow up due to a combination of internal social tensions and right out desperation. Thomas pointed instead out the fact that the general atmosphere, as experienced by Bjorn, was positive, even optimistic, and that people always have a tendency to sort out their differences in a peaceful manner if left to themselves.

Espen on his side was always quick to oppose any position with facts to the contrary. His strange habit of never looking anyone in the eye, had made Bjorn jump to an early conclusion that Espen was suffering from some sort of autism. But Espen's well developed sense of humour soon made Bjorn realize that whatever was the matter with Espen, it was not interfering with his ability to see things clearly and humorously. When John and Frank argued that the village should be shut down, or at the very least be policed properly, Espen commented dryly that that would hardly save the government any money, which was the whole point of the establishment of the colony in the first place. And when Thomas, confidently stated that people have a tendency to sort things out peacefully when left to themselves, Espen suggested the so called "liberated Libya" as an example of how well people get together once the central government is gone, or left impotent.

John on the other hand revealed himself as truly sceptical to people's ability to take care of themselves, stating at one point that he would be lost without the strict routines of military life, and that he would probably not even get out of bed if it was not for Frank's schedules. "That's why you are our night watchman," Frank replied to this with a great big smile. "You don't seem to mind when you have to get up as long as I'm the one telling you to do so."

Realizing that he had thoroughly embarrassed himself by admitting his deep seated insecurity about his own ability to make even basic decisions regarding his own life, John quickly retorted that he was just making an exaggerated point and that he did not really need someone hanging over him for him to get through his daily routines. But none of his colleagues were very convinced, and taunted him for his silly comment for some time before focusing again on what they would all do on Friday evening.

"Poor guy," Bjorn thought to himself as he recalled the deeply embarrassing insecurity that John had admitted to. "I might be lost," Bjorn thought. "But I'm not as lost as John." And with this in mind, Bjorn flicked through several channels before stopping at one where the foreign minister was in the middle of an interview. "Ah, here he is," Bjorn thought. "The man at the centre of the universe."

47

Bjorn folded the Gazette, and put it down on the coffee table in front of him. Seeing that it was still a little crumpled from having been in the pocket of his jacket, he gave it a few strokes with the back of his fingers. Then, looking over to his three colleagues, still waiting for Thomas, Bjorn was again struck by a sudden feeling of being lost in the world. Seemingly out of nowhere, he heard his inner voice once again ask critically of himself "why are you here?"

A sudden urge to have some time to himself gripped him, and so he rose from the sofa, excusing himself politely to his colleagues before heading to his room. Once there, he sat down in his office chair feeling strangely exhausted. He stared out of the window for a long while, letting his thoughts drift freely.

His lap top on the table in front of him remained closed, and the TV on his wall remained turned off. And the dead silence surrounding him felt soothing.

He was obviously tired from all the impressions of the day, but the recurring feeling of aimlessness was worrying. Not least because it reflected the truth. Bjorn's main motives for taking the job as a border guard were that it got him away from Oslo and that it required no special skills. He had no other reasons for being at the check point than that, and with no plans for the future he had effectively stopped thinking of his life as having any purpose or direction. This, as far as he was concerned, was the final stop of his journey.

Then, for some reason, he thought of the boy from Senegal again. His strangely positive attitude had made a strong impression on Bjorn. Clearly, the boy was convinced that circumstances would change, that things would get better. How else were he and his father able to deal with their terrible lot? And it struck Bjorn that he too had sensed an energetic excitement while down in the village. It had been quite an adventure, and the place was infected with a weird sense of optimism despite desperate conditions for most of its inhabitants.

It was the check point and his own lot that was depressing Bjorn. His sense of being aimlessly adrift had nothing to do with the village. In fact, the village was the only thing that seemed to promise something other than just an endless repetition of days with the same format and same content. Just knowing that he would soon return to the village to spend an evening out with his colleagues, going to a restaurant and probably to the casino as well, made everything seem worth while, even exiting.

While his own life was a mess and with no purpose, the village was a mystery, ready to be explored. "Who cares if life has no purpose," Bjorn thought to himself. "At least I have this village to decipher, and who knows, maybe I'll discover something significant. If nothing else, deciphering the village will be an interesting and pleasantly distracting undertaking." And with this in mind, Bjorn grabbed the casino chips he had in his pocket and spread them out on the table in front of him. "Gold backed casino chips," Bjorn thought to himself. "What a strange thing to use as money. Surely, using regular Norwegian Kroners, or US Dollars for that matter, would have been more practical."

19

Bjorn was relieved from his shift by the chubby young man who had been sitting in the glass cage when Bjorn arrived at the check point with Ante the day before. The man introduced himself as Geir before excusing himself for being five minutes late, and he did this in a strange self important manner that Bjorn soon understood to be a part of his character. So when he explained that he had been delayed by Frank, it was almost as if he was referring to a great leader.

Frank had received news of a planned delivery of fish to the processing plant down in the village, and had stopped Geir on his way out to the glass cage to tell him that he had picked Geir to go down and inspect the site, making sure that the factory complies fully with the rules regarding the colony. He had also told Geir that he had picked Bjorn to be Geir´s assistant, since this would be a good opportunity for him to get familiar with the place.

The appointment with the manager of the processing plant was scheduled to twelve o´clock next day, and Thomas would be in charge of the glass cage while they were off on business in Lundby. Bjorn´s assignment for the next day would in other words be to man the glass cage until a little before noon, and then to spend whatever time necessary to make sure everything is in order at the plant, before returning to the regular schedule at the check point.

It all sounded fair enough, and Bjorn handed Geir the keys to the gun rack, before bidding him good bye. He walked slowly up to the barracks, lighting a cigarette as he went. The ground was soaking wet from melting snow, and the sun was pleasantly warm, contrasting the cool air. The thought of a trip down to the village the next day took hold as he stood in the sun by the entrance to the barracks, finishing his cigarette, and a sense of adventure filled him as he speculated on what it would be like.

Frank was sitting in front of the TV in the common area watching the news when Bjorn finally stepped into the warmth of the barracks. Frank confirmed what Geir had been saying, adding that he had chosen Geir because of his trustworthiness when it comes to this kind of things. No one was as well versed in the rules of the check point as him. Not even Frank knew the rules in such details as Geir, and he could always be relied upon to check out things thoroughly.

"Not like some other people who don´t seem to care one bit about the rules," Frank added with a louder voice as Ante stepped into the room.
"What? Me? Rules?" Ante asked, looking puzzled.
"Exactly!" Frank answered, with a broad smile. "You don´t care much about the rules, do you?"
"What rules?" Ante asked with an even broader smile.

Frank chuckled, and turned his attention back to the TV.

"There is left overs from lunch in the kitchen. You go and help yourself," Ante said, addressing Bjorn. "I heard you´re off to Lundby tomorrow."
"Yes, that seems to be the case."
"Do you have any Grams?"
"Grams?" Bjorn was suddenly confused.
"You know, the money they use down there?"
"Ah! No, I don´t. Do I need money going down there?"
"Only if you want to buy something."
"Like what?"
"Like cigarettes, for example. We are not going to provide you with cigarettes up here. If you want them you will have to get them yourself. And the closest place to get them is down in the village."

Bjorn had brought a carton of cigarettes from Oslo, which should do fine for several weeks, so he was not in any desperate need for more.

"Well, I don´t think I need to buy anything while I´m down there."
"Okay. But why don´t you borrow some money from me, just in case. If you don´t use it, you can return it to me."

Ante held a green gambling chip up in front of Bjorn, and Bjorn was again struck by the strange habit of using gambling chips from the casino as money.

"How much do I owe you if I spend it all?" Bjorn asked as he accepted the chip reluctantly.
"You can keep it if you take my night shift on Sunday. It buys you a night out in Lundby, complete with dinner and as much you can drink."
"Really?"
"Unless you go completely over board, of course."
"And what do I owe you if I spend just a part of this?"
"If you break it, it´s yours, and you have to take my Sunday night shift."
"That´s the deal, is it?"
"That´s the deal!"

Bjorn smiled and put the chip in his pocket. Then he headed over to the kitchen for some food. The memory of Ante´s delicious lasagne from the day before made Bjorn suddenly intensely aware of how much of an appetite he had worked up while out in the glass cage.

14

Bjorn could not help smiling to himself as he got back to his room. He was clearly a little overly self conscious, and should not be too hung up about his age. This whole experience was nothing less than an adventure, and age should have nothing to do with it. It is after all not uncommon to feel a little lost at times, and deep in our hearts, we are all the same age. A little insight into the darker side of life is nothing to be ashamed of.

Bjorn had left the TV on while he was away for his shower, and he was welcomed by the voice of a reporter, standing on a balcony overlooking a large public square, when he returned. Talking in an exited but level headed voice, the reporter was trying to explain in a few simple sentences what was going on down at the square, where riot police were lining up to stop protestors from advancing towards a walled building in the background.

There were slogans being shouted by the protestors and the occasional stone tossed at the police, who responded by advancing a few steps towards the protestors, sending off canisters of tear gas towards the crowd, before retreating to their original position, orderly and disciplined behind their plexiglass shields. The sight was fascinating, and Bjorn could not help admiring the police for their discipline and determination. Being himself in uniform, his sympathy was naturally with the police, but even out of uniform, Bjorn considered violent protests completely misguided and a huge waste, certainly in democratic countries where everyone has a say in how things should be done.

But the seemingly endless nature of the so called crisis was certainly both frustrating and disturbing. People were clearly better off before. And no one seems to have any good answer to where all the money and wealth has gone. How can wealth just disappear without any big crook somewhere cashing in big time? Bjorn figured the protesters were right about there being some unholy alliance between greedy bankers and corrupt politicians. But even then, setting fire to buildings and tossing stones is hardly the answer.

Protecting ordinary people, and making sure that violent thugs do not go around looting and destroying things, is the noble cause of the police man and his colleagues in the armed forces, and Bjorn felt proud to be part of this. Asylum seekers had after all been responsible for several violent incidents lately, and it was high time that the political will to fix this problem had emerged, not only in Norway, but all over the world. The time when asylum seekers were treated with kid gloves were behind us, and the decision to make a single national asylum seeker centre in Lundby was enormously popular with the population at large, even if some misguided left wingers were still arguing that this new policy was somehow inhumane.

But Bjorn was in no mood to sit and watch TV, and turned the set off. Instead, he drew the curtains aside to have a fresh look at the view as it reappeared in the dim light of dawn. Revealed behind the curtains was a motionless landscape drawn in an infinite number of grey tones, with the village of Lundby barely visible to the left, tucked as it were in between two rolling hills. And this great view served as a beautiful and soothing back drop to Bjorn´s little room.

Bjorn sat down at his desk, immediately in front of the window, doing nothing but taking in the view for a long while before turning on his lap top. Then he turned to his Facebook page to get the latest thoughts and updates from friends and acquaintances, finding articles on subjects not normally covered in the mainstream media. And pretty soon he was totally absorbed in literature that most people would consider controversial, even though most of it seemed to be surprisingly well documented, at least as far as Bjorn could judge.

11

Bjorn decided to retire to his room after having enjoyed the lasagne, served by Ante in the kitchen. It was quite a meal, and the glass of red wine had only added to the sense of well being that had filled him while in the company of the talkative and entertaining Sami.

Curious about Lundby, Bjorn had asked Ante about the village, both its history and its current status. And he could not help mention the woman he had met on the ferry, since her desire to move to Lundby seemed quite irrational in the light of its official status as a national centre for asylum seekers.

"Well, she is probably going to work for the people in charge of the centre. It is being equipped with industry and services to occupy the asylum seekers while they wait for their cases to be processed in Oslo."
"So it is a prison gulag in other words?" Bjorn asked, with a sense of unease about the whole business.
"Of sorts I guess. But it is one heck of a place to visit. I´ve been there a few times, and enjoyed it greatly every time. We are planning to go down there Friday evening. If you are curious about the place, you should come with us!"

Bjorn was in no mood to make a decision there and then about his Friday night plans, but the work schedule for the week was already set, so there was no hurry. Friday was still several days away, and Ante told him that he could make the decision any time, right at the spur of the moment if he so wished.

As for the history of Lundby, it had originally been a fishing village, which explained the distance between the village and the port. But this little fact was not what was occupying Bjorn´s mind when he entered his room. It was rather the mixed feeling of well being from Antes meal, and the disturbing feeling of unease regarding Lundby´s true nature.

Lost in his own thoughts, Bjorn was taken by surprise by what looked like someone coming in his direction as he entered his room, but he realized even before he had time to jump that he had only caught sight of his own reflection in the large window spanning the width of his room at the far end. The darkness outside was complete, and the window was almost a perfect mirror in the bright light.

Suddenly confronted by himself, he was struck by how old he looked. All the colleagues he had met so far were younger than him by at least a decade, and he felt at once lost, not so much in space as in time. He felt lost and bewildered and it was almost as if he asked out loud, "why am I here?" But the voice was only in his head. And the short answer to his question was that the army seemed to be the only one hiring in the midst of the current recession.

In no mood to answer the question more truthfully, not even to himself, Bjorn walked briskly over to the window to draw the curtains and be left alone from his own image, pushing the real answer to his own question to the back of his mind. He turned on the TV, pulled off his boots, and started taking out his things from the back pack on his bed.

8

It did not take long before the two men reached an abandoned air field with a surprisingly long runway, considering the modest size of the nearby village. And Bjørn remarked on this, also mentioning that he had seen the control tower from the ferry on the way into the port.

"It is a cold war relic," Ante explained. "The idea was to air lift soldiers and equipment into the area on short notice. This whole bay was to act like a fortress, impenetrable by the advancing red army. There are nuclear bunkers out there, remnants of a missile defence system, and all sorts of stuff."

"It was never properly opened," Ante continued. "All of Finnmark was unilaterally declared a demilitarized zone by the government to please the Russians, so this complex was never officially anything but a local air field. But it was closed down almost immediately after the fall of the Berlin wall, and it was completely abandoned when the village was de-inhabited after the iron mine closed a few years later."

"So it never saw much activity," Bjorn asked, intrigued by the strange site.
"Never. There were about twenty men here at the most, back in the sixties. The idea was to get troops and equipment up here super fast in the event of an attack, not to have stuff parked up here before hand. There was almost no interaction with the locals, though. I guess they were under strict orders not to mingle, so as not to give away any secrets. You see, the missile defence system was parked here all along, and it was fully operational. This was top secret of course. Very few knew of it before they started shipping the missiles out of here, and everyone could see what had been transported in at night over the decades, in big anonymous crates, so not to let anybody see what they were up to. The missiles were hidden in under ground silos. All part of a large system of bunkers."

Bjorn looked back at the empty expanse of tarmac, the tower, and a few barracks, as Ante approached a hill and a curve. The airfield disappeared out of view, and Bjorn turned back to look at the road ahead of them. When they reached the crest of the hill, they could see Lundby clearly in the distance. There was an intense orange glow from the setting sun illuminating the cloudy sky from behind the mountains to the west of the village.

Little wooden houses were scattered around on the side of a hill protruding out into the fjord, partly hidden from view by a nearer hill. Two cranes sticking up from behind the nearest hill bare witness of building activity, presumably in anticipation of the great influx of asylum seekers that would be moved to Lundby from other centres around Norway in the coming months.

More than ten thousand asylum seekers would have to either move to Lundby, or get out of the country by the end of the year. And this ultimatum had already had the effect of dramatically reducing the flow of asylum seekers to Norway, especially since all new arrivals were moved directly to Lundby. The expectation was therefore that less than half of all the asylum seekers currently in Norway would choose Lundby to deportation. But that would still mean an influx of several thousand people, so the building activity was still warranted.

Bjorn's thoughts drifted back to the woman on the ferry. He felt anxious on her behalf at the thought of the many desperate people who would soon be living in close proximity of her. He wondered if she fully realized what sort of danger she was setting herself up for. Moving into her grandparents' place at a time when the whole place was being turned into a modern day gulag was such an insane thing to do that he could not make any sense of it.

4

The ferry passed through a narrow straight, only a few hundred metres wide, before entering a wider and more open landscape. The mountains that had come progressively closer together, pulled back, revealing a port on the south shore, and a small cluster of houses on a low hill protruding into the fjord some distance further up.

Everything looked small in the grand landscape, but the port turned out to be quite a lot bigger than Bjorn had imagined. It was equipped to handle at least two ships simultaneously, with one part of the port dedicated to handling iron ore, and another part equipped with a large crane that could be used to unload containers.

It struck Bjorn as a bit strange to have a big crane on a port that had iron ore as its only export. However, considering how isolated the port was, it probably made sense to have a crane capable of unloading whatever machinery the mine might require directly from a ship rather than to have such equipment delivered in parts through alternative routes, and Bjorn let the thought rest with this as he proceeded to look for other land marks and tell tale signs of his future residence.

Bjorn was scrutinizing the hills to the south of the village for any sign of the check point where he would be spending the next few months when he was interrupted in his thoughts by the ticket controller.

"Is this your first trip to Lundby?" the man asked as he punched the ticket that Bjorn handed over to him.
"It is," Bjorn confirmed with a thoughtful nod.
"Are you planning to spend any time in the village?"
"No."
"Really?"
"No. I´m going to stay at the check point over at the road to Neiden."
"And never enter the village?"
"I wasn´t planning to. Why?"
"Well. It has some nice places to visit."
"Like what?"
"Like restaurants and night clubs and stuff."
"Night clubs? In Lundby?"
"Well. Only one."
"Lundby has a night club?"
"It does. It is not a bad place."
"You mean to say that Lundby, which was completely abandoned until just a few months ago, has a night scene with restaurants and a night club, and stuff like that?"
"It sure does. You should check it out."

Bjorn was stunned. This was very unexpected. No one had mentioned anything about restaurants and the like in Lundby, and he had thought of the place as a prison camp more than anything else. Yet, here he was talking to one with local knowledge, basically claiming that the place is an entertaining place to visit. Bjorn was tempted to have the woman sitting up front confirm what the man was saying, but seeing that she was still completely absorbed by her book, he simply told the man that he might consider checking the place out one day.

"Make sure you have some tokens if you do. Most of the places only accept Gram."
"Gram?"
"Yeah. They are like casino tokens. They serve as money in most of the places."
"Really?"
"All the places are basically owned by this one guy who owns the casino, and he insists on using the so called Gram tokens as money."
"So there is a casino in Lundby too?"
"Well. That´s the name of the night club."
"Oh. I see. Well. I´ll get some tokens when I need them."
"They are the cheapest if you buy them over there" said the man, pointing to a vending machine over by the stair well.

So this was what the man had been driving at all along, thought Bjorn with a smile as he thanked him for letting him know about the casino tokens. It was all a sales pitch for using the vending machine. A sales pitch that Bjorn chose to ignore.

3

The ferry turned the cape that separates the bay of Kirkenes from the Lundby fjord, leisurely entering the fjord´s wide mouth. And as soon as Kirkenes fell out of view, all signs of civilisation were at once gone. No roads could be seen on either side of the fjord, no houses, no power pylons. No tell tale signs of man´s activities could be seen anywhere. The only man made object in the huge landscape was the ferry itself, steaming close to the southern shore, heading for an isolated village at the edge of the world.

The Africans, sitting at the other side of the passenger deck, looked as miserable as always. But the young woman, sitting up at the front looked completely at ease, reading a book, and ignoring the landscape as it slowly drifted by. She was going to Lundby voluntarily, moving into the house that her grandparents probably abandoned when the local iron mine was shut down some thirty years ago, and Bjorn could not help wondering about her motives.

The complete journey from Kirkenes to Lundby takes about an hour, with the ferry taking just under forty minutes, and a connecting bus ride to the village itself taking another twenty minutes, so Lundby is a bit out of the way for daily commuting, not least because there is no shortage of affordable housing in Kirkenes. Moving to Lundby without having a job there would make little sense, unless she was terribly attached to her grandparent´s house. But her cold indifference to both his attempt at small talk and the grand surroundings of the ferry, made it seem most likely to Bjorn that she had found a job at the village, and was moving out there to be closer to work.

Bjorn had looked up the history of Lundby on the web in preparation for his move, and this was how he had learned that the village had been completely abandoned for close to thirty years. There had been a short lived attempt to set up a fish processing plant at the village immediately after the shut down of the iron mine, but it flopped almost as soon as it opened, and the village was permanently abandoned shortly after this when the local ferry company decided to terminate the service.

During the following thirty years, houses out at Lundby have at best been used as vacation homes during summer, with people having to bring all their necessities with them for the stay, and the ferry service did not re-start before quite recently when the foreign minister got his plan to set up a single national asylum seekers´ centre in the village pushed through parliament.

However, just as important as the new asylum centre was the decision to re-open the mine. Parallel to pushing through his idea for a national asylum centre in parliament, the foreign minister arranged for the transfer of the mine and port from the municipality of Kirkenes to an old school friend for a very favourable price. And although this political favour was met with a lot of criticism at the time, the net result has so far been one of increased economic activity which in turn has resulted in some people moving back to the village.

And one of those people returning to Lundby, was the woman up by the front window, quietly ignoring her surroundings while reading her book. Had it not been for the latest political maneuvering in Oslo, Lundby would still have been an abandoned village, the mine would still be closed, and the ferry in which Bjorn and the other passengers were sitting would not be sailing the current route. A few powerful men in Oslo had set in motion a chain of events that had led to this, forever altering the direction of the lives of everyone on board the ferry.

2

The ferry pulled up to the wharf, lowering the steel plate at its front to let off a couple of cars and half a dozen people, all looking like locals. The young woman, and the police officer with the Africans exited the shed, heading for the ferry with Bjorn following right behind them.

Bjorn noticed that the woman was dragging a big suitcase on small wheels behind her, while the Africans did not carry anything at all. He himself was carrying a back pack with some personal belongings and a uniform. His requirements for his stay at the border post, in the way of personal possessions, were limited to two uniforms, one of which he was wearing, and some civilian clothes, in addition to his laptop. Not exactly a heavy load, unlike the suitcase that the woman was struggling to keep from falling over as she was dragging it behind her. Knocking into the steel plate joining the ferry to the wharf, her suitcase tipped over, and it took her a bit of effort to get it back on its wheels.

Well on board, everybody hurried inside, and up to the sheltered and heated passenger deck, from which there was a great view in all directions. Bjorn tossed his backpack into the luggage rack at the base of the stairwell together with the woman´s large suitcase, and coming face to face with her as he did so, he took the opportunity to comment on her luggage.

"It is quite a suitcase you are carrying" he said, stating the obvious.
"Yes," she answered, "I´m moving."
"To Lundby?"
"Back to Lundby. Or rather, back to my grandparents´ house."
"Your family is from Lundby?"
"Yep."

She gave Bjorn a cold smile before ascending the stairs to the passenger area, making it clear that she was in no mood for small talk, and Bjorn did not approach her again during the half hour voyage, spending the time quietly watching the view instead.

Patches of snow were everywhere, despite it being April, and the cold weather they were having served to underpin the general feeling of quiet despair resonating from the inhospitable and barren landscape. No plants bigger than a bush could be seen anywhere. Not even Kirkenes, slowly receding as the ferry headed for Lundby, had any vegetation to speak of.

Everything was draped in shades of grey, from the snow covered peeks to the random snow patches along the water, and the steel grey of the water itself. Only manmade structures like houses and cars were reminding the world of the existence of other colour pallets, but all of this was quickly becoming desperately rare as the ferry headed away from the village that some people call a town.

1

Bjorn could see the ferry as it came round the cape on the other side of the bay, slowly turning towards the wharf where he was standing. Ten more minutes, and it would arrive with its passengers, ready to pick him and a handful of others up for the return journey. He stood there with the biting wind sweeping against his face, relaxing as much as possible to prevent himself from shivering as the cold forced its way through his thick winter jacket.

He took a final drag of his cigarette before tossing the butt on the ground, and feeling refreshed by the nicotine he hurried back into the glass shelter where he once again would be protected from the wind. The shelter could probably hold as many as a hundred people without becoming overly crowded. However, the only ones there were a police officer with four miserable looking Africans, a young woman, and himself.

What a terrible shock it must be to come all the way from Africa to this place, thought Bjorn, feeling a sting of guilt at the thought that he was now a part of this new system where all asylum seekers will be sent up to the arctic until their cases are properly reviewed. But the feeling of discomfort left him almost as quickly as it struck. He was after all wholeheartedly for the new and stricter immigration laws, and the Lundby colony was in his opinion by far the best political idea to be put into practice of the last decade or so.

And the miserable faces were in many ways a confirmation of the effectiveness of the new law. Only very desperate people will be willing to endure these kind of hardships in order to get asylum in Norway. Rumours spread quickly, and it will not take long before Norway becomes a dreaded destination for asylum seekers. Making conditions as miserable as legally possible for all the gold diggers out there will surely stem the tide of unwanted immigration.

But Bjorn could not help being curious about the Africans. What strange tales were these people going to tell the authorities, and how much of it would be true and how much would be fiction. Being an immigration officer must be incredibly difficult. Always faced with people desperate to get into the country, all of them telling lies and coming up with all sorts of stories. Compared to what the immigration officers have to deal with, Bjorn´s task was a no brainer. Which was precisely what attracted him to join the regiment of border guards in the first place.

Patrolling the colony, making sure that no one escapes, would be an easy way to make a living. The colony was after all separated from Kirkenes by eight miles of impassable mountains and ice cold water, and the nearest village accessible by foot was no less than forty miles away, forty miles of hills and arctic tundra. Any escape from the colony would therefore have to be well funded and well organized. Merely finding a way out of the colony would not in itself secure a safe return to civilisation. Rather, an escape from the colony would more likely result in death due to the harsh environment than a return to liberty.