Errorby Ásgrímur Hartmannsson |
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| Chapter 19 |
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 stood outside the bar for five minutes, mentally preparing himself for the experience. He had gone in there often enough to know it would make him feel terrible: headaches, nausea and the like, and he would end up smelling like an ashtray.
The evening had hardly started yet, but the fumes emanating from under the door were incredible just the same. The place might have been used to smoke salmon. Jonas thought about it for a moment. Did he really need to wait at the bar?
He figured he would just walk a few laps around town before he ventured into the bar. And why stay there longer than he had to? The guys would appear at some point before midnight, and they would stay there all night if he knew them right. They were simple people.
So Jonas walked away from the bar and took a nice long walk through town. There were not many people there yet, but they were arriving on the scene, one by one, sometimes two by two.
The waffle car had arrived, and someone stood beside it eating a waffle. The aroma from the waffle car was much better than the evil foetor of the bar. It was like descending into hell, visiting that place. And just like hell, it was populated with demons. Jonas was happy they did not have anything against him personally. That guy Rick looked like he could tie someone’s torso into a knot.
Jonas walked slowly and took in the scenery. He had never done that before. It did not interest him much though, he had seen it out the corner of his eyes before and not been interested then either.
The buildings were ugly, so were the people. It all reminded him of a Doors song.
Jonas walked on. Some birds were swimming in the town pond. They looked suspiciously similar to seagulls. Jonas stood by and watched them instead of the scenery. They looked so peaceful; at least at the moment, just happily swimming in a pond. They did not need to be registered in the archives to make a living. Jonas envied them for it.
Jonas turned away and walked back to the bar. The traffic had picked up a little, and the bars he passed had a few more people in them than before. The night was beginning.
Jonas saw the smoke before he saw the bar door. There, partially hidden by smoke, was Frank’s car. The guys had arrived. Jonas walked toward the bar, taking deep breaths as he neared. When he entered, he began taking only shallow breaths. No sense in using ones full lung capacity in there. It would just serve to spread dust over a larger area of lungs that one might need later in life.
Jonas became a little dizzy when he started his breathing routine. He was not getting quite enough oxygen to move about normally, and he had to slow down. He could not see a thing. Was it just his imagination, or had the level of smoke increased since he first came there a week ago?
He had a seat where he had remembered his contacts normally sat.
“Good day. So you have arrived,” said a voice from the mist. It sounded like Frank.
“I am ready,” Jonas replied.
“Do you want to begin now, or do you want to have a beer first?”
“Why don’t we just begin right away?” said Jonas, eager to go outside again.
“Yeah, why not? Let’s go.”
Jonas could hear them stand up. He did not see them because of the thick fog. He stood up to follow them, and traced his steps out the door from memory.
As the smoke dissipated he finally spotted the guys. Frank was opening the trunk of his car. Eddy and Rick stood near by, watching. They waved Jonas to come and join them. He was on his way anyway, still disoriented by the smoke. He was pretty sure he was suffering from smoke inhalation, as firemen sometimes do.
Jonas half-expected Frank’s trunk to contain firearms, or at the very least a dead body. But far from it; on the floor of the trunk lay the tools he was planning to use on the Bureau of Personal Information Protection building.
A battery-powered drill, a crowbar, a sledge, a couple of baseball bats, a hammer, a 20-litre fuel container and some ski goggles.
Jonas looked the stuff over. “Why the ski-goggles?” he asked.
“If the police come and spray mace on us, it won’t matter, if we have these on,” said Frank.
Jonas nodded.
Frank closed the trunk and went into his car. Rick and Eddy found seats too, but Jonas walked out of the lot, over the road toward where his own car was parked. Frank and the guys noticed, and Eddy called after him:
“Where are you going?”
“I am taking my own car,” said Jonas.
“Why?” asked Eddy.
“Because after I’m done, I want to go home and sleep for a couple of days,” said Jonas.
“Suit yourself,” said Eddy after a brief pause.
The big car slid off the lot and onto the pavement as silently as a cat. Jonas walked to his own car and started it. It sounded like a rally-cross vehicle. He did not bother to slow down when he exited the lot. It made the car jump a bit, but nothing it could not handle, he knew from experience.
He followed the big black car for as long as he could. He caught up with it on lights, but in the end it went over on a red light, and Jonas got left behind. No worries, they were heading to the same destination.
When Jonas arrived at the lot in front of the Bureau of Personal Information Protection building, he made sure not to park too close. Frank had parked his car in the far corner. He was so far away he almost did not look suspicious: nothing suspicious about three guys taking baseball bats and crowbars out of the trunk of a large luxury car in an empty parking lot in the middle of the night.
Jonas closed his car, did not bother to lock it, and approached them.
“Here, have a crowbar,” said Frank, handing Jonas a crowbar.
Jonas received it and stood by watching. The guys put the snow-goggles on their head, but did not pull them down over their eyes. Eddy had the drill in his hand and was testing it. It seemed to work OK.
They carried everything to the back of the building. They figured that breaking the front door would be too obvious.
In the back they found a normal fireproof door with a regular keyhole. Eddy got the drill ready and drilled the keyhole. When he was completely satisfied with his drilling, he got a few assorted keys from his pocket, and tested them until he found one that slid in, and once he did, he turned it, and the door opened.
“That’s the way to do it,” he said smiling.
They all walked in. It was dark.
“Okay, where is the light switch?” asked Rick.
“It should be by the door,” said Frank. “They’re always by the door.”
Jonas found the switch, and the lights flickered on.
The walls were white, the floor was grey, and the ceiling was set with white spongy-looking sound-suppressing material. Jonas poked it with his crowbar. It was loose, just as he thought it would be. All the electric lines and the sprinkler system were probably hidden under there.
Jonas got an idea. He got Eddy to open a few of the doors in the basement, until he found what he was looking for: the water system for the whole building. Jonas went to the largest valve, and turned it off. Then he systematically went to every valve, turning each one down.
“What are you doing?” asked Eddy.
“We are going to torch this place in a moment...” Jonas began.
“Is that why we are here?” asked Eddy.
“Yes. And I am making sure the sprinkler system will not put out my fire,” said Jonas, turning the last knob shut.
“I have never set fire to a government building before,” said Eddy.
“Hey, you are living everyone’s dream,” said Jonas, and smiled.
Frank was waiting for him outside in the hallway.
“How long do you think it will take the security to come here?” he asked Jonas, as if he would know anything about it.
“Maybe ten minutes, who knows?” Jonas answered.
“We better be quick then,” said Frank.
They hurried up stairs, and Jonas had a look at the building layout plan that was hanging on the wall. It had a red dot, marked “you are here” on it. It helped him orient himself. The main computer was on the third floor. Jonas hurried up the stairs, holding the tank of fuel in one hand and the crowbar in the other. Eddy chased him with the drill.
They were out of breath when they reached the door. Eddy was readying the drill when he got a phone call.
“Eddy here,” said Eddie.
“This is Frank. Hurry up. I think the guards are coming.”
Eddy turned to Jonas: “The guards are coming. What do you wanna do?”
“Let’s do it. Open the door,” said Jonas.
Eddy drilled the lock, and began fitting keys from his collection to it.
Outside, the guards had stopped contenting themselves with merely looking through the windows and were preparing to go in through the main door.
In their minds, it could just be a false alarm. They were checking before they decided to call the police. The police would be busy enough downtown tonight.
The front door slid open and the guards hurried in. They looked around in the hall, and saw nothing. They did hear some strange noises from the upper levels, though. Someone was definitely playing with power tools up there. Yep. It was a burglary; time to call the cops. One of them grabbed a phone and started dialling.
“You don’t want to do that,” said a voice from the side. The guards looked to where the voice came. A man came walking towards them, holding a baseball bat. There was a sound from behind the counter too, and looking there, they saw a large, powerful looking man holding a sledge.
“Stop right there!” said the first guard, pulling up a can of pepper-spray and holding it to bear on the first man. The second guard did the same, aiming his can of spray toward the bigger man.
The men did not listen. The smaller one approached the first guard, brandishing the bat, swinging it about. The guard sprayed him. The man took a few steps more, and the guard saw he had ski goggles. He backed away.
The man behind the counter raised his sledge and smashed the counter with it. A piece of it broke, and the sledge hit the floor. The man swung again, this time horizontally, clearing almost everything off the desktop.
The guards ran out of the building. They hid in their car, and one radioed for help while the other turned on the engine and started backing away.
Frank and Rick smiled.
Once the door was open, Jonas wasted no time entering through it. The room was well lit. It would have to be, it was in the middle of the building, not near any windows. He carried in the fuel and opened the can, but before spilling any of it, he decided to explore the place a bit. After all, he had never been there before.
The place was all white except the floor, and with the same generic soundproofing on the ceiling. There were four rows of metal boxes or lockers in there, each with a little window on them, so the small green lights could be seen.
The computers would be in these lockers. Jonas decided to have a look. He opened one of them up. A row of ordinary looking PC’s lurked therein, in a single stack to the ceiling. Jonas poked one with his crowbar. This was the enemy?
Jonas looked around. At the end of the room was a desk. It reached from wall to wall, and on it was a lot of assorted junk, including soda cans and Mars and Snickers bar wrappings. Right there in the middle; facing Jonas was a screen. It had a normal desktop on it, Windows OS, like everybody else has, and there were a lot of open windows displayed on it. In front of the screen was a keyboard and beside it was a mouse.
Jonas figured this was where they administered the archive. He pondered it for a few seconds.
“I wonder what happens...” he said to himself, raised the crowbar for a good swing, and bashed one of the PC’s in the stack. The front cover fell off after a few hits, and Jonas could poke around inside it. He did, and a lot of stuff came out.
Jonas looked at the screen on the table. A new window had just popped up. It read:
ERROR.
And then some details Jonas could not make out from the distance. He opened up another locker, and bashed a few PC’s there too.
“Can I join in?” asked Eddy.
“Go ahead,” said Jonas, busily smashing hardware.
Eddy started hammering the lockers with his bat, but was not getting anywhere. So he went to get the drill. After hammering and beating for a minute or two, Frank and Rick arrived. They did not ask, just joined in the fun. When Jonas noticed, he went to Rick and asked him, “Would you trade for just a second?”
“No problem,” said Rick, and they exchanged weapons.
Jonas took the sledge and carried it to where the screen was. It had turned blue by now. Jonas grinned. Then he took a swing and smashed the screen, top down. It blew up, throwing glass-dust all over Jonas. He closed his eyes and backed away. Once he opened them again, he saw the monitor was destroyed. No matter. It had not been showing anything important anyway.
He had a couple of more swings, breaking the keyboard and the wall length desk, before he went to return the sledge. He put the crowbar down outside the room, and got the gasoline can. He poured some over the desk and splashed everything that remained on the smashed-up computers.
“Has anyone got a match?” he asked.
“I got a lighter,” said Frank.
“Good,” said Jonas. “Light it.”
Frank smiled and brought flame to the gasoline on the floor. It was quite the explosion, and the whole room was engulfed in a second.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Rick. The others let out similar exclamations.
“Now let’s get out of here!” said Frank, and they all ran out of the room, heading down the stairs.
Outside, they could hear sirens. The police had arrived.
To be continued...
Copyright © 2010 by Ásgrímur Hartmannsson
