Error

by Ásgrímur Hartmannsson

Chapter 11

'Error' synopsis

One day, Jonas, who has recently migrated to the city, discovers that all his records — including his assets — have been erased somehow. No longer able to get work, buy anything on credit or sell his now legally non-existent car, his life becomes a unique adventure.

Jonas slowly woke up at about noon. The sun was up, but he did not bother to get up just yet. He thought it would not make him feel any more productive, somehow. He would have breakfast, and then he would just sit around until he got bored and decided to have another go at the Bureau of Personal Information Protection.

What a name: “The Bureau of Personal Information Protection.” It was not like personal protection, because here he was, a person, and he did not feel protected. Maybe it was more like “protection” as in “birth control.” Birth control is nothing about controlling how birth goes about happening; birth control is instead all about stopping birth from happening.

That must be it. Personal information protection must be about stopping personal information from being generated and contributed to new people. Everybody from here on would have to get an identity from someone who already lived. Yeah, a whole branch of the State committed to stop personal information from happening.

Jonas grinned at his train of thoughts. But he was hungry, and it became slowly more and more difficult not to think about the hunger. And he was getting a headache from lying down so much. So he finally pulled himself out of bed.

Jonas wasted as much time as he could on making breakfast. When he dined on it, he tried to enjoy every mouthful. After breakfast, he thought maybe he should go out and grab a burger later in the day. And come next week, he had to remember to go to Frank and do a little job. That is, if he could not get himself undeleted before that time.

Having nothing better to do with his time, Jonas decided to go out and annoy the people at the Bureau of Personal Information Protection again. He got out and locked the door, went out of the building and to the parking lot. There his car waited as usual, ready for use.

Jonas went the scenic route this time, just riding along listening to the radio. He arrived at the Bureau of Personal Information Protection building just before dark. In the twilight it looked even more evil than before.

Jonas parked in front of the dead tree again and stepped out of the car without ever even looking at it. The tree did not look so evil today. It just looked like what it was: a helpless victim of encroachment.

When Jonas walked into the building, he noticed the grey cat there again. Just sitting on the hot air vent as before, it ignored Jonas. A cat does not have to rely on the State to live. It can just go out and hunt down and eat mice. A cat actually prefers this order of things.

At the desk sat the same woman as he had talked to the first time he was there. Jonas walked straight up to her and began speaking, but was interrupted by the woman saying:

“Take a number and get in line.”

“But...”

“Take a number and get in line,” repeated the woman.

“But there...”

“What part of ‘take a number and get in line’ do you not understand, sir?” asked the woman.

“I am the only one here,” said Jonas.

“You must take a number anyway, and get in line,” said the woman.

Jonas wondered if she recognized him from before and was being nasty because of something since then. Jonas could not for the life of him recollect what he had done to her back then, but she was after all a woman, and women think differently.

Jonas would not have liked to be shown out by the guards again, as nice as they were, because he had things to do in this place. So he went to the number dispenser and got a number. Strange, he thought. The other women, equally evil as they were, did not require him to get a number. Perhaps they were evil minions in training, and this one was the head demon of the Bureau of Personal Information Protection, which resembled a sadistic punishment for something more and more each day.

Jonas roamed around, inspecting at the floor and the ceiling, now and again taking a look at the paintings on the walls.

Red: Jonas had looked at this painting before, and it was still a red and black lava-like surface. Nothing else — not surprisingly, it looked evil. Just demanding money for a painting such as that would be evil.

The next painting over was more red, with more lava-like lumps in it. Or was it this painting that Jonas had been looking at the first time he was here? He could not be sure. Up close, they were lava-like. When viewed from ten paces, they were like two windows to the regions of hell located outside of the building.

Jonas wondered where the burning sinners were. Why could he not hear them moan? Perhaps in hell, everyone suffered in silence. That way, each sinner would think he suffered alone. How ingenious, he thought.

“Next please,” announced the woman. Jonas figured that would mean him, there being nobody else there, and walked to the desk.

It turned out that he was right. He was next. Jonas stated his problem again, as so many times before. The woman gave him an increasingly more evil look as his story unfolded.

“So it is you?” she said.

Jonas was speechless for a moment.

“I did what?” he asked after a brief pause.

“You people are not giving up, are you?” said the woman.

“Us people? But there is only me..,” said Jonas.

“No, you are not getting out of this so easily. Your cronies have been calling here over the past two days, complaining about why we don’t just hand out identities to anyone who waltzes in here and demands it. I tell you, for the last time, we do not make new identities for people for the fun of it. I have given their telephone numbers to the police to be taken care of in proper fashion. As for you, get out and stay out.”

Jonas thought about attacking and strangling the woman. But instead, he walked out the door again. He did get her name off her tag. It read: “Karen.”

He went straight to his car, and drove downtown. He passed the bar where Frank and his team hung out, but Frank’s car was not there. Jonas saw that he would have to wait till midnight again. Nothing ever happens until midnight.

Jonas figured he ought to call his mother, to ask her if that woman was telling the truth. For this, he went to get a hamburger. No use losing his appetite before eating. As before, the burger was very tasty.

Jonas used the pay phone to call his mom, and she confirmed what he had been told. The police had come to her house, pointed automatic rifles at her and searched for signs of terrorist activities.

Jonas said goodbye to her and called his friend, Mac. He told the same story again. The police had come, pointed guns and made a thorough search, looking for explosives and other terrorist paraphernalia.

Jonas was pissed off. He got a hold of the phone book, and looked up Karen. There were several Karens in the Smoky Bay area, but Jonas only needed the one who worked for the Bureau of Personal Information Protection. Any name with “nurse” after it would be wrong.

He made a list of some ten suspects, and jotted down their info in his pad, right after the list of criminal contacts. It took him two hours to rule out three of the names. The fourth name ruled out the other six: it was hers.

Jonas found her house and her car, and saw her family: an equally grim-looking man and a couple of unruly children.

Being home did not make the woman look or act any less evil. She yelled at the man, the kids, and even at some animal on the floor. Jonas guessed it must be a dog. It could have been a cat, but nobody ever picked it up, so he ruled that out.

Later on, the man yelled at the kids and petted whatever was on the floor. Meanwhile, the kids reacted violently toward each other and to the thing on the floor. After dinner, the kids escaped outside. And they went off in various directions.

The man and wife were left to watch TV in silence. As fun as all that was to watch, Jonas had to go. He memorized the address first. He had no idea what to do with it just yet. Something would come to him. Something always did.

Jonas parked his car near the bar that Frank and company frequented, locked it, and had himself a walk along the pier. He just ambled along, looking at the ships. It was either that, or return to the apartment and watch TV for a few hours. Jonas was in no mood for that. And he figured he needed the exercise.

Jonas walked along the entire pier, as well as some of the industrial areas connected with it, seeing many a thing he had not seen before, and being in many a place he had not explored before. The place where they dragged the ships out of the sea for repair was of great interest, as full of junk as it was. There was also a surprising number of discarded cars behind the big industrial buildings.

Hooligans had gotten to them, mainly children, and busted all the windows and jumped on the roofs. In some cases the sheet metal on the sides had been bashed with various implements, even rocks; all very artful, surpassing most of the stuff currently shown in museums throughout the city.

A bashed-up car is not a cultural item unless it is bashed up and displayed in a museum by a recognized artist. Otherwise it is just an eyesore. People: they do not see the beauty in scrap metal unless the scrap metal has been mangled by an artist.

Jonas took a small walk into one of the habited areas on his way back. There was nobody around. Which was not strange; it was nearing midnight. Then again, during the day, nobody would be seen around either. It is just one of those things about Smoky Bay. The city is full of people, yet one rarely sees them. The city might as well be abandoned, but for the ever-flowing traffic of cars. But the cars do not often go into the more densely populated areas. They stay on the freeways running around the populated areas.

Ten minutes later, Jonas was standing in front of the bar, looking at Frank’s Mercedes Benz. Frank must be in. Would he have contacted the hackers?

To be continued...