Behind the Scenes at the RABAGAS Newsroom

Part One

He woke to birdsong and a gentle breeze playing with the pale blue curtains before brushing through his three-week beard. He had slept like a child and dreamt a whole collection of dreams he could actually remember.

It had been a long time.

He stretched until it tickled between his shoulder blades. Then he sat bolt upright in bed, as straight as a guardsman, and bent forward towards his toes.

His index finger just reached one big toe.

Not bad.

It had been a long time since he had felt this well rested, Hampus thought, smiling to himself as he greeted the coffee kettle by its full name.

"Good morning, faithful companion of the caffeine deprived. It's me—Hampus Fickelton himself. I've come to request your services."

The old, well-worn kettle seemed to have woken up on the right side of the morning as well. It brought the water to a boil surprisingly quickly, leaving him barely enough time to fish a pair of boxer shorts from the untidy pile on the stool beside the bed.

It had been remarkably fortunate that the couple renting out the little house had received a cancellation only minutes before he called.

Sometimes life simply lined things up for you.

He looked out of the window towards the sea, searching for the little birds that had woken him.

He couldn't see them.

That didn't matter.

The coffee was good.

The bed had been good.

The weather looked promising.

For the first time in a very long while, it didn't feel as though somebody was waiting for something from him.

He poured himself a second cup.

Perhaps he would take a walk before leaving.

In fact, he was beginning to consider staying another day.

Life had a curious habit of sorting itself out once you stopped trying to organise it.

The phone rang.

Hampus considered ignoring it.

Then he looked at the screen.

Ragna.

"Hello?"

"Did you pay the electricity bill?"

A long silence.

The distant horn of a ferry.

Seagulls crying overhead.

"Which electricity bill?"

"The electricity bill."

"For the office?"

"Yes."

"I thought Dag dealt with that."

"Have you spoken to Dag?"

Hampus straightened a little.

"No."

"Neither have I."

Suddenly, it felt just a little less like summer.

"We've got a deadline in a week," she said after another pause. "We'll be fine if we start first thing tomorrow."

Now it was Hampus's turn not to answer.

"Call everyone in."

He paused.

"Tomorrow. Noon."

Then he hung up.

Part Two

Apart from a couple of hours on the overnight ferry to Sweden and half an hour in an airline seat between Arlanda and Gardermoen, Hampus hadn't slept much.

This was their first attempt to gather the troops.

The electricity had been cut off.

So they sat in the half-light, trying to read one another's faces by candlelight. Quietly, Hampus admitted to himself that he had missed them.

All of them.

As far as he was concerned, electricity wasn't a prerequisite for holding an editorial meeting. Ragna had brought a thermos full of hot water so they could at least make coffee, and to be honest, it was rather pleasant not having to argue with that infernal coffee machine, which normally sulked its way through dispensing a lukewarm splash every other week.

Everyone in the office had their own battle with the coffee machine.

And it had one with each of them.

Three out of four had shown up.

Not bad, considering the short notice.

Nobody was entirely sure who was chairing the meeting.

"Where's Dag?" Jonas wanted to know.

The others would have liked to know that as well.

None of them did.

Hampus did something he almost never did.

He sent a text message.

WHERE ARE YOU?

In capital letters.

Technology was one of the things he found most difficult.

Over the next hour they discussed story ideas, articles and all the other things that suddenly seemed terribly important when what you actually lacked was electricity and any real understanding of the magazine's finances.

They also managed to put together a list of everything that needed doing.

But first things first.

Ulrikk would find Dag.

Ragna would go through his paperwork.

She knew the office better than anyone else.

She hadn't mentioned it to the others, but over the past six months she had spent quite a lot of time there. Sometimes she would simply sit in the corner sofa with a good book for an afternoon.

Anyway.

Her job was to get the electricity back on as quickly as possible.

They had a magazine to produce.

Part Three

Ragna and Hampus tried to make sense of the finances.

Jonas helped.

By setting up a petrol generator so Ragna could power a computer while she searched.

Jonas did things his own way.

It made the situation worse.

Then better.

Then worse again.

Eventually, they at least had enough electricity for Ragna to work, and Ulrikk managed to bring his laptop back to life as well. Bent over the screen, he tried to piece together the handful of articles, photographs and fragments of text they actually had ready for the year's first issue of RABAGAS.

The generator, however, made a truly dreadful noise.

Every now and then they had to switch it off and throw open every window and door to clear the exhaust fumes.

The entire newsroom ended up coughing.

Everyone except Ragna.

She had soaked a towel in water and wrapped it around her head like a makeshift gas mask.

Hampus wasn't entirely convinced it actually worked.

But she coughed noticeably less than the rest of them.

Surely, in 2026, they couldn't simply disconnect the electricity to an ordinary business?

He could feel his irritation growing but kept it firmly under control.

The others were working as hard as they could.

Well...

Not Jonas.

He was standing by the window counting cars.

Hampus carried his coffee over and sat down beside Ragna.

Alongside helping to assemble the magazine, she was trying to untangle its finances using the few clues she had managed to uncover.

Dag must have invented his own filing system.

Every binder was organised according to public holidays.

Eventually she found the electricity bills inside a folder labelled:

COUP ATTEMPT

That was, in fact, a breakthrough.

At least now they knew who supplied the electricity.

She was currently waiting in a customer service queue.

Fortunately, she was only number thirty-nine.

"We have to find Dag," she said.

"Ulrikk's working on it."

"You know how good he is at tracking down clues."

"Digital clues?"

"Yes."

"Then I hope he's got plenty of time."

Hampus smiled crookedly.

"You know what Dag's like."

"Leaving traces of himself on the internet has never exactly been his passion."

Ragna leaned back in her chair.

"I'm still not convinced making him the public face of the magazine on LinkedIn was one of our better decisions."

That one stung.

Because Hampus had been thinking exactly the same thing.

Part Four

Once Ragna had enough generator power to keep working for a while, and Ulrikk had gone home to continue from there, Hampus connected the generator—idling beneath a small mountain of cardboard boxes they had arranged in a heroic but largely symbolic attempt to direct the exhaust outside—to the coffee machine.

The menu offered three choices.

Coffee with milk.

Half a cup.

A full cup.

Only Half a Cup worked.

Or rather...

...it used to.

When Hampus pressed the button, the enormous machine behaved like an empty aerosol can.

First came a loud shhhhhhh.

Then a small pop.

Then a shower of highly concentrated coffee droplets sprayed across half the corridor.

Everywhere...

...except into his mug.

Hampus was just about to abandon mature language altogether when someone knocked gently on the doorframe.

His old friend Jack Mikkel stood there, wearing a sheepish grin.

"It's a bit dark in here," Jack called over the drone of the generator.

Hampus felt almost as though he'd been caught in the act of arguing with the coffee machine.

At the same time, the visit couldn't have come at a better moment.

Jack was a writer—or an author, depending on whom you asked.

And the newsroom had found itself facing a rather pressing shortage of pages for an issue due to be published in only a few days.

"Oh, this isn't a permanent arrangement," Hampus replied gloomily.

"We just felt we needed a change of scenery."

He smiled.

"But it's good to see you, my friend. Please tell me you've brought something for us."

"We need a little more weight in this issue."

Without meaning to, he caught himself staring rather hungrily at the small backpack Jack was carrying.

Jack, blissfully unaware of Hampus's latest dispute with the coffee machine, strolled straight over to it, placed his mug beneath the nozzle...

...and received a perfectly respectable cup of coffee.

Apparently without ever wondering why half the corridor was decorated with dark brown coffee stains.

Hampus didn't even bother trying again.

Instead, he led Jack into the newsroom.

"Ragna!" he called towards the open office door.

Half an hour later, after talking things through with Jack, Hampus finally allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief.

Ragna appeared in the doorway, looking slightly flustered.

She, too, had been worried the issue would end up looking painfully thin.

"Hi," she said with a smile.

"Jack brought exactly what we needed."

Hampus held out a memory stick.

"Get Ulrikk to help you."

"There's enough material on here to get us across the finish line."

A loud cheer erupted from somewhere inside the newsroom.

"One thousand!" Jonas shouted.

"I've counted one thousand cars!"

He jumped up and down twice...

...then celebrated by dancing in a circle all by himself.

Part Five

Ulrikk knew what he was doing.

He usually did.

Late that afternoon he returned with a printout tucked under one arm.

"Found him."

"Where?" Hampus asked.

"Finnskogen."

"Finnskogen?"

"Finnskogen."

Ulrikk raised his hands apologetically.

"Where in Finnskogen?"

"Finnskogen."

Hampus was beginning to turn slightly red.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the answer I was given."

Jonas looked up from the window.

"Is he in hospital?"

"Yes."

"I thought he was just stopping by the doctor's on his way home."

"When was that?"

Jonas gave it some thought.

"Last autumn, I think."

"That was nine months ago," said Ragna.

"Blimey."

Jonas looked genuinely surprised.

"That's ages. Has anything happened since then?"

Ulrikk laughed.

"Well, at least you haven't changed."

He got up and gave the grinning Jonas a friendly slap on the stomach.

Hampus drifted into his own thoughts.

It had been his idea to introduce Dag to the internet.

LinkedIn, he'd said.

How difficult could it possibly be?

But there would be time to think about Dag later.

First they had to finish the magazine.

Jack had recently returned from his travels, so they decided to build the issue around a series of travel letters. Everything happened on Ragna's laptop while the rest of the newsroom did whatever they could to keep things moving.

By now they were all thoroughly exhausted by the endless drone of the generator, so a small cheer went up when Jonas appeared late that afternoon dragging one end of an extension cable behind him.

"I borrowed a bit of electricity from the plumber downstairs," he announced proudly.

"Turns out we weren't the only ones getting fed up with that generator."

Hampus walked straight over and switched the machine off.

The silence that followed was almost moving.

"Good work, Jonas."

"When can we expect to be fully operational again?"

"They're sending someone as soon as they can, but probably not today. We still have to pay the bill, though. They've given us until Friday."

He paused.

"But Dag's the only one with access to the accounts."

Inconvenient, Hampus thought.

"Let's finish the magazine first," he said.

"Then we'll go and visit Dag after the launch party."

Part Six

A week passes quickly in the RABAGAS newsroom.

Even though nobody had managed much more than two hours' sleep on the sofas in the waiting area the previous night, they had done it.

Once again.

It came down to the very last minute.

Then Ragna finally gave the signal.

Jonas, who had been waiting impatiently, climbed onto his chair, clapped his hands above his head and shouted at the top of his lungs,

"Launch party!"

The project file containing the first issue of RABAGAS for 2026 had been sent to both the printer and the distributor.

Now there was nothing left to do except wait for the sales figures.

In the meantime...

...they could finally begin thinking about the next issue.

"Well done, everyone," Hampus said, wiping sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve.

It had been a battle.

Fortunately, the mountain of material Jack had brought proved to be more than enough to fill the magazine.

In fact, there would probably be enough left over for the following issue as well.

"Let's take a breather," Hampus said.

"How about we meet back here in an hour? I'll order some food."

He turned to Jonas.

"Could you nip over to the off-licence?"

Jonas was already out of the door.

Only one person was still missing.

They still hadn't managed to reach Dag.

The hospital couldn't tell them anything because of patient confidentiality, and finding any meaningful information about this particular ward somewhere out in Finnskogen had proved completely impossible.

No.

Tomorrow Hampus would simply have to drive there himself...

...and find out what was going on.

Part Seven

None of them had ever been to Finnskogen before.

The forest pressed close against the road, yet somehow it still felt inviting.

Hampus had suggested he should go alone.

He barely managed to say it aloud before Ragna was already sitting in the passenger seat of his Saab. She said nothing. She simply stared straight ahead and waited.

"Road trip!" came Jonas's voice from the back.

A moment later Ulrikk climbed in as well.

Hampus was the last to take his seat.

"Can I drive?" Jonas asked from the back.

"No," Hampus replied. "It's my car, so I'm driving. Besides, we're visiting a hospital, not a theme park."

Jonas hadn't stopped talking for the past hour.

By now the others had acquired a surprisingly comprehensive overview of everywhere he had ever travelled.

To their considerable surprise, the list included Abu Dhabi, Kuala Lumpur and the remote valleys of western Norway.

And now...

Finnskogen.

Hampus slowed the car and pulled over at a junction.

An old wooden sign pointed towards a narrow gravel road.

"This is it," said Ragna.

She checked the faded road atlas she'd brought—a Norwegian motoring guide from the 1990s—and confirmed what the sign already said.

Finnskogen Hospital.

Hampus turned off the main road, and the forest gradually closed around them.

The hospital wasn't exactly just around the corner.

The gravel road continued for several miles, and by the time everyone in the car had agreed they must have taken a wrong turning, the trees suddenly gave way.

Ahead of them stood something that looked far more like an old country guesthouse than a hospital.

They stepped out of the car and were immediately greeted by birdsong...

...and an almost overwhelming silence.

There wasn't another person in sight.

No other cars, either.

The place might just as well have been abandoned.

Which was why it came as a slight surprise when a short elderly man peered through the crack of the front door before stepping out onto the porch.

"Visitors," he murmured to himself with a satisfied nod.

The grey-haired, slightly stooped gentleman took his time descending the four wooden steps before holding out a small box.

"All telephones and other electronic devices, if you please."

Part Eight

"So," the old man said with a satisfied smack of the lips once they had stepped into the foyer and explained why they had come, "you're here to visit Mr Sandholt?"

The little box containing their mobile phones remained on the bottom step.

Much to Ulrikk's horror.

He was, by some margin, the one with the highest daily screen time.

Unlike Jonas, who tossed his phone into the box with a flick of the wrist as though he were shooting a basketball.

"So he really is here?" Ragna asked, visibly relieved.

"We've had such a difficult time finding—"

The elderly gentleman silenced her with remarkable efficiency by raising one hand and giving first her, and then each of the others, a long, meaningful look.

Only then did he answer, almost in a whisper.

"Oh yes. He's here."

"But that's also the only thing I'm at liberty to tell you."

"I would have thought journalists appreciated the importance of both source protection and patient confidentiality."

"How do you know we're—" Jonas began.

Another look stopped him in his tracks.

"You must be Jonas," the old man said.

"Oh yes."

"I know a thing or two about you, young man."

The others exchanged uneasy glances.

Not Hampus.

Given enough coffee and enough time, Dag could probably talk continuously for several months.

"Why aren't there any lights?" Jonas asked as the old man slowly—but steadily—made his way up the spiral staircase towards the third floor.

One step.

Both feet together.

Another step.

The old man stopped halfway up, turned around and looked down at them.

"Oh, we do have electricity for emergencies."

"But several of our residents are extremely sensitive to it."

"They're allergic to electricity?" Jonas asked, his eyes wider than anyone thought possible.

"You might put it that way."

Jonas opened his mouth to ask another question, but Ragna, whose patience had finally expired, gave him a quick tap on the back of the head before he could get a word out.

The little procession continued up the stairs and along a long, narrow corridor lined with worn carpet.

"Let's see..."

"Room eighteen."

The old man ran a finger along the nameplate.

"Here we are."

He opened the door.

They filed into the room one by one.

There sat Dag.

Surrounded by pillows, blankets, quilts and a remarkable amount of miscellaneous comfort.

He smiled.

Part Nine

Ragna was at his bedside in an instant.

She perched on the edge of the bed, resting her chin in one hand.

"How are you?"

She made no attempt to move, so the others were forced to lean awkwardly over her, one after another, to give Dag an affectionate hug.

"Oh, not too bad," he replied.

"How about you lot?"

"And how's RABAGAS?"

He looks starved for conversation, Hampus observed.

"We're doing well."

"And the first issue of the year came out yesterday."

"Did it?"

"Well now."

Silence settled over the room.

"Isn't it awfully quiet here?" Ulrikk asked eventually.

"Well..."

Dag shrugged.

"The first couple of weeks were a bit dull."

"But after a while you get used to it."

Silence again.

This time Hampus spoke.

"So what is it that's keeping you here, Dag?"

"Wouldn't you be better off being out among people?"

He studied his colleague, who lay there absent-mindedly twisting his thumbs together.

"We need you back at the office, you peculiar man."

"None of the rest of us can pay the electricity bills or make any sense of your filing system."

Dag looked from one face to another before answering.

"It all just became a bit..."

He searched for the words.

"...too much."

"Out there."

He nodded towards the window as though the entire world was waiting outside it.

"Nonsense," Hampus said, waving the idea away.

Then he stopped himself.

"Or..."

"Perhaps it isn't nonsense."

Ragna raised an eyebrow.

"Hampus..."

"No, hear me out."

"It feels that way because, frankly, that's how things actually are."

He leaned forward.

"The world's full of wars, artificial intelligence, a climate that's falling apart, and every possible reason to lose heart."

"But we can't all disappear into the forest because of it."

"If you think there's something wrong with the world..."

He pointed gently at Dag.

"...you're probably right."

"But we'd still rather have you back at the office."

"And it would be nice if somebody paid the electricity bill every now and then."

"Well said, Chief," Jonas declared, offering an enthusiastic Scout salute.

"Come back," Ragna said quietly.

Dag closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them again, he smiled faintly.

"No mobile phone?"

"No internet?"

"You can pay electricity bills over the counter at the bank using paper giro slips as often as you like."

"No LinkedIn?"

"LinkedIn is on the internet."

"So that's a no."

Dag thought about it.

"Well..."

"I suppose I can't stay here forever."

Jonas and Ragna cheered.

Ulrikk broke into a broad grin.

"That's more like it," Jonas said.

"Get your clothes on."

"We're going straight back to the office."

"The coffee machine misses you."

When they reached the foyer, the elderly gentleman was already waiting by the door with a bag containing Dag's medication and personal belongings.

Dag accepted it with a grateful nod.

"How did you know Dag was coming back with us?" Jonas asked.

"We didn't even know."

The old man gave a dry, creaking chuckle.

"Oh..."

"I knew the moment you drove up the lane."

Part Ten

Hampus pressed the Half Cup button as slowly as humanly possible.

This was the eighth extraordinarily restrained attempt he had made to get himself a coffee.

His patience had disappeared after the third.

"Oh, you blasted..."

Not this time either.

He closed his mouth before saying anything out loud that might make the machine even less cooperative.

"Right."

"Let's try this together one more time."

He picked up his mug and walked a few metres down the corridor.

Then he turned around, put on the friendliest smile he could possibly manage and approached again.

"There we are."

"Here I come."

Tra-la-la...

"Oh my, what's this?"

"A coffee machine."

"How fortunate that I've brought my mug."

He stopped in front of the machine and examined it carefully from top to bottom.

"Now then... how does this clever thing work?"

"Do I simply place my mug here and press a button?"

"I suppose I'll give it a go."

He placed the mug beneath the dispenser.

"Or perhaps I ought to dance first?"

Hampus performed a slow pirouette in front of the coffee machine.

"Now, which button should I choose?"

"There are three..."

"...and two of them are labelled Out of Order."

"So naturally I'll press the one in the middle."

He smiled encouragingly at the machine...

...and fluttered his eyelashes.

The machine replied with the deep mechanical rumble it always made when it had reached a decision.

A little steam escaped from the side vent.

Promising.

More rumbling.

Then—

Pshhhhh.

Something began to drip.

"Yes!"

"Now we're getting somewhere!"

The machine released a great cloud of steam that completely swallowed his office mug.

A cheerful electronic beep followed, sounding immensely pleased with itself.

Hampus waved the steam aside.

"A quarter of a cup?"

"Have you developed a sense of humour, or what exactly is this?"

Just then the office door opened.

"Morning, Hampus," Dag said.

"Would you make one for me as well?"

"So you really produced the entire first issue using a petrol generator for electricity?" Dag laughed.

"Oh yes."

"The exhaust fumes filled the whole office."

"They drifted all the way down to the plumber on the ground floor."

"Would you believe it?"

"He started giving Jonas lectures about unhealthy working conditions."

Dag laughed again.

"I imagine Ulrikk had it worst."

"And Ragna."

"They're the ones who actually get any work done."

"And Jonas..."

"...works rather differently," Dag finished with a smile.

Out in the newsroom, Jonas and Ulrikk had somehow acquired one of the little stuffed toys that always stood beside Ragna's pen holder and were throwing it back and forth over her head.

"No, stop it!"

"Virrevarre's getting dizzy!" she shouted, trying unsuccessfully to catch it.

"Hampus!"

The little plush toy sailed overhead once more.

"They've got Virrevarre!"

"Hampus!"

Hampus chuckled and glanced over at Dag.

"What a bunch."

He nodded towards the coffee machine.

"Well... I need another coffee."

"And this time..."

"...you're making it."

He started walking back towards the others.

"Come on."

"Let's rescue Virrevarre before he suffers any lasting psychological damage."