av Ragna Tunseth

A RABAGAS Feature in Eight Parts

Part 0.5 – The Green Light

The coffee machine had given up again.

Hampus stood bent over it like a priest at the wrong funeral, muttering to himself and pressing buttons that had stopped working sometime around the financial crisis. The pink mug his niece had given him sat empty on the counter like a silent threat.

Dag, meanwhile, sat on the other side of the room laughing quietly to himself in front of his laptop.

LinkedIn.

Always LinkedIn.

He claimed he was "building his personal brand", but the rest of the newsroom knew better.

He was hooked.

Every now and then he released a snorting laugh that sounded like a small animal dying somewhere inside a ventilation duct.

Jonas arrived late.

His hoodie was pulled up, and he was livestreaming himself as he walked through the door.

"And here we have the trolls running RABAGAS," he announced to his phone.

Dag swatted at the device like a pensioner trying to kill a wasp.

Ragna didn't laugh.

She had been waiting for this for months.

The story.

The feature.

The chance to write something that actually mattered.

Her notes had been sitting in her bag for so long that the corners had started curling.

She had pitched the story several times before.

A completely ordinary Scandinavian mother. The kind of person you sit next to on the bus. Someone working in the grey areas of the internet.

Every time, the story had been pushed aside in favour of safer material.

"Employee of the Month."

Dag's latest LinkedIn monologue.

Another article about the coffee machine.

Then Hampus slammed the chalk against the old blackboard.

TODAY'S PLAN: FOOL ARTICLE. MYSTERY CASE. MISCELLANEOUS.

He turned around, rubbed his eyes and said:

"Alright."

"You get to do it."

"The big one."

Ragna felt her stomach tighten.

The green light.

Finally.

Why did it matter so much?

She thought about an old friend.

They had lived together for a while.

During the pandemic, her friend had started working on OnlyFans.

Ragna remembered the shame in her voice.

The fear.

But also the brutally practical attitude.

"It's just money. The rent doesn't care."

That sentence had stayed with her.

If her friend — funny, intelligent and completely ordinary — could enter that world, where exactly was the line between normal and taboo?

Ulrikk looked up from his sketchbook.

"So we're doing this?"

"Yes," Dag said without looking up.

"Heading south. Hotel tonight. Café tomorrow."

"Elin."

"No last name."

"No photos."

"No leaks."

Jonas raised his hand.

"Can I come?"

"No," everyone answered in unison.

The room exploded into exhausted laughter.

Even Ragna laughed.

She wrote the name Elin in her notebook and underlined it twice.

Her pulse was racing.

The deadline was set.

Whether it was the coffee steam, the broken machine or her own nerves, she didn't know.

But for the first time in weeks...

...she felt awake.

Part I – The Drive

The rain was doing its best impression of an old crime film.

It lashed sideways across the windscreen as Ulrikk guided the ageing Volvo south.

He drove the way he drew:

Calm lines.

Precise movements.

Almost nothing wasted.

Ragna sat in the passenger seat with her notebook on her lap and three pens stuck into her hair like improvised weapons.

She wrote.

Crossed things out.

Started again.

Her questions already looked as though they had survived a minor military campaign.

This is it. Green light. Don't ruin it now. Start with everyday life. Make her comfortable. Don't lead her. She isn't a symbol. She's a person. An ordinary woman. Could have been anyone. Could have been... Anna.

She shook her head.

One of the pens fell onto the floor.

"Second casualty today," Ulrikk said without taking his eyes off the road.

Ragna groaned and tried to retrieve the pen.

Almost immediately, she nearly fell headfirst into the glove compartment.

"Relax," he said.

"You're talking to a woman in a café."

"You're not uncovering Watergate."

"That's exactly what worries me."

A road sign disappeared behind them.

Gothenburg.

98 kilometres.

Then a faint vibration came from the back seat.

Ulrikk looked in the mirror.

A mobile phone was glowing from the seat pocket.

"Guys," Jonas's voice crackled through the speakers.

"The chat wants to know why you never invite me on the fun assignments."

Ulrikk slammed on the brakes so hard that Ragna's notebook flew into the dashboard.

"IS HE IN THE CAR?!"

Jonas shot upright from the back seat like an unwanted jack-in-the-box.

Half-zipped hoodie.

Open bag of potato chips.

A huge grin.

"Surprise trip!"

For three seconds, the only sound was the windshield wipers.

Ulrikk slowly breathed in.

"Get out."

"On the motorway?" Jonas replied.

"That's attempted murder."

"My followers are going to cancel you."

Ragna buried her face in her hands.

"We're going to end up in prison before we even reach the hotel."

Ulrikk tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Symbiosis, he thought darkly.

If this is symbiosis, nature needs a new definition.

The rain grew heavier.

The Volvo creaked.

And the three of them continued towards a city where a woman named Elin was waiting with a story that was bigger, darker and far more ordinary than any of them had yet realised.

Part II – The Hotel

By the time they rolled into the hotel outside Gothenburg, Jonas had already been livestreaming for almost the entire journey.

The audience had fluctuated somewhere between seventy-three and eighty-nine viewers.

Nobody was entirely sure why.

The hotel looked like every other business hotel along a European motorway.

Blue-grey carpets.

Framed pieces of abstract art that nobody would ever steal.

A receptionist who looked as though she was slowly dying of boredom.

Ragna dropped her bag onto the floor.

Ulrikk stepped up to the counter and checked them in with the same serious concentration other people used when signing mortgage documents.

Jonas filmed a potted plant.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced into his phone.

"Here we see the glamorous reality of investigative journalism."

"Today's broadcast is sponsored by cheap parking and existential anxiety."

"Do your followers know you were actually hiding in the back seat?" Ragna asked.

"Of course."

"Why?"

"Because it's content."

Jonas shrugged.

"People like chaos."

"Chaos is real."

His phone chimed.

"Look at that. Someone sent me beans."

"Actual beans?" Ulrikk asked.

"Digital beans."

"That explained absolutely nothing."

"Gifts. Currency."

"On BIGO."

Jonas turned the camera towards himself.

"I don't get rich from this, but it is money."

"A little here."

"A little there."

"I even have an agent."

"An agent?"

"A contract and everything."

"You have an agent."

"Yep."

"To sit on the internet and talk about hotel breakfasts?"

"You say that as if it isn't a growing market."

Ragna stopped.

A thought had suddenly caught hold of her.

"Wait a second."

Jonas continued explaining digital beans to his audience.

"Jonas."

"Yes?"

"You realise what you're doing actually isn't that different from what Elin is doing?"

He blinked.

"I usually keep my clothes on."

"That's not the point."

"Then I'm not entirely sure what the point is."

"Strangers pay for attention."

"For closeness."

"For the feeling of connection."

Jonas thought about it.

"When you put it like that, it almost sounds professional."

"It is professional."

"I feel like that's the nicest insult I've received in a long time."

Ulrikk leaned against the wall.

"Be careful."

"If Jonas starts describing himself as a cultural worker, we'll never hear the end of it."

Jonas smiled broadly.

"Dear audience."

"I am apparently some kind of digital artist."

"Now stop."

"No."

"Yes."

"Absolutely not."

Ragna shook her head.

Still, the thought wouldn't let go.

Where exactly was the line?

Ten years ago, Jonas would have been called unemployed.

Now he had an audience.

An agent.

A contract.

Digital beans.

Her phone vibrated.

Herman Julep.

She answered on speaker.

"Are you there?"

"We survived," Ragna said.

"Just barely," Ulrikk added.

"Excellent."

Herman sounded as though he was shuffling through papers.

"I've looked at the numbers."

"Oh no," Jonas said.

"Oh yes."

Herman continued.

"The digital adult content market is enormous."

"Globally, we're talking tens of billions of dollars annually."

"Millions of creators."

"Hundreds of millions of users."

"Hundreds of millions?" Ragna repeated.

"Yes."

"That's..."

"Bigger than most countries."

The room went quiet.

"And it's still growing."

Jonas let out a low whistle.

"My digital beans suddenly feel very small."

"They are small," Herman replied.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Ulrikk crossed his arms.

"What about the other side?"

There was a pause.

"The same thing that always happens when large flows of money move faster than society can keep up with."

"Meaning?"

"Grey areas."

"Exploitation."

"Human trafficking."

"Economic crime."

"Platforms making money by asking as few questions as possible."

Ragna took notes.

"But that doesn't mean everyone working there is a victim."

"Exactly."

"Or a villain."

"Exactly."

"Or a hero."

"Also exactly."

"So what are they?"

"People."

Jonas nodded thoughtfully.

"That was disappointingly non-dramatic."

"Reality usually is."

Herman cleared his throat.

"By the way."

"Yes?"

"Is Jonas with you?"

Three pairs of eyes met.

Jonas waved at the phone.

"Hi Herman."

Silence.

A long silence.

"May God be with you," Herman said.

Then he hung up.

Ulrikk rubbed his face.

"Symbiosis."

"I don't think that word means what you think it means," Ragna said.

"It doesn't anymore."

"Fair enough."

Jonas filmed the potted plant again.

"The chat loves it."

"Of course they do."

None of them were entirely sure why they were laughing.

But they were.

Part III – Breakfast

The hotel's breakfast room smelled of coffee, scrambled eggs and resignation.

It was the kind of breakfast buffet that tried to appear international but ultimately ended up serving the same four things to people who would rather have been somewhere else.

Ragna sat at a table in the corner.

Her notebook was open.

The slice of bread in front of her remained untouched.

She had already read through her questions three times.

Ulrikk was on his third cup of coffee.

He sat with his back against the wall and a clear view of the entrance, as though he expected someone to burst through the doors at any moment and expose an international conspiracy.

Jonas had placed his phone next to the juice dispenser.

Of course he had.

"Good morning, internet," he said to the livestream.

"Today we're testing hotel breakfast at a place I don't remember the name of."

He held up a piece of bacon.

"This bacon has seen things."

"Turn that thing off," Ragna muttered.

"This is behind-the-scenes material."

"There are no scenes."

"Everything is a scene."

"Jonas."

"Yes?"

"Turn it off."

"In a minute."

Ulrikk smiled into his coffee cup.

"If journalism doesn't work out, you could always become a food critic."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I choose to interpret it that way."

Jonas took a bite of his croissant.

"Ragna could become a food critic too."

"No."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because all her reviews would consist of the words social structure, trauma and capitalism."

He laughed.

Nobody else did.

Ragna looked up.

Sharp.

"What does that actually mean?"

Jonas stopped smiling.

"It was just a joke."

"Was it?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"I didn't mean anything by it."

The silence that followed was uncomfortable enough that even the juice dispenser seemed embarrassed.

Ragna placed her fork down.

"My sister didn't have subscribers."

Jonas blinked.

"What?"

"My sister didn't have livestreams."

She looked down at her notebook.

Her voice was calmer now.

Dangerously calm.

"She had customers."

Nobody said anything.

"She had parking lots."

"Back streets."

"Cold nights."

"People who promised things and disappeared."

Jonas slowly lowered his phone.

For the first time since they left.

"Ragna..."

"I was fourteen years old."

She looked up.

"Fourteen."

The breakfast room continued around them as normal.

Cutlery clinked.

Coffee machines hummed.

Someone laughed at another table.

But around their table, the world had suddenly become smaller.

"So when people talk about this like it's just some funny culture war or an internet debate..."

She took a breath.

"I get tired."

Jonas stared down at his plate.

"I didn't know."

"No."

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

Ulrikk carefully placed his coffee cup down.

"That's why we're here."

Ragna looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Because reality is more complicated than headlines."

He leaned back.

"Elin isn't your sister."

"No."

"But she's not a statistic either."

"No."

"She's a person."

Ragna nodded.

That was exactly what had made her chase the story in the first place.

Not the numbers.

Not the debates.

The person.

Her phone vibrated.

Herman.

Again.

"He has radar," Jonas said.

"He is radar," Ulrikk replied.

Ragna put the call on speaker.

"Now what?"

"New numbers."

"Of course."

"You're going to need them."

Herman sounded as though he was already inside a spreadsheet.

"Consumption of digital adult content is far more widespread than people like to admit."

"That was the polite version," Jonas said.

"Yes."

"What's the impolite version?"

"That people publicly condemn what they privately finance."

Jonas nodded.

"There's the headline."

"You're not using it."

"I know."

"Good."

Herman continued.

"The point is that this is no longer a phenomenon on the edge of society."

"It's right in the middle of it," Ragna said.

"Exactly."

She wrote it down.

Not because the wording was new.

But because it felt true.

Right in the middle of society.

Among people who took the bus to work.

Who bought milk.

Who dropped their children off at kindergarten.

Who sat next to you on the train.

Like Elin.

The conversation ended.

Nobody spoke for a while.

Eventually Jonas broke the silence.

"I think I'll avoid livestreaming the interview."

Ragna looked at him.

"Thank you."

"Besides, my followers would get bored."

"Jonas."

"What?"

"You just ruined the moment."

"That's my role in the ecosystem."

Ulrikk sighed.

"There it is again."

"What?"

"The ecosystem."

"Symbiosis?"

"Don't get me started."

They laughed.

Not loudly.

Not for long.

But just enough.

Outside the hotel, the rain had stopped.

The clouds were beginning to open.

In an hour, they would meet Elin.

For the first time since Hampus had given the green light, Ragna felt something resembling fear.

Not of the story.

But of the answer to the question she had really travelled here to ask.

How ordinary is an ordinary person, really?

Part IV – The Café

The café was located on a side street that looked as though it had forgotten to be discovered.

Not far from the city centre.

Not far from anything, really.

A place people walked past without noticing.

Perfect, Ragna thought.

Perfect for people who wanted to be ordinary.

They arrived a little early.

Ulrikk ordered coffee.

Jonas ordered coffee and a pastry he insisted was essential for journalistic integrity.

Ragna ordered nothing.

She sat with her notebook in front of her and watched the door.

Eleven o’clock was approaching.

Nobody said much.

Even Jonas seemed unusually quiet.

Then the door opened.

A woman walked in.

Dark jacket.

Ordinary shoes.

A grocery bag from a supermarket.

She looked around.

Not nervously.

Not confidently.

Simply like a person looking for someone.

Ragna immediately felt a strange emotion.

Disappointment.

Not because the woman was wrong.

But because she was so ordinary.

No dramatic entrance.

No mystery.

No sign of the kind of life the internet loved to imagine.

Just a person.

"Elin?"

The woman smiled.

"Ragna?"

They shook hands.

Then Elin sat down.

Jonas instinctively picked up his phone.

Three pairs of eyes turned towards him.

The phone disappeared back into his pocket.

"I wasn't even trying this time," he muttered.

"Good," said Ragna.

They ordered coffee.

A few minutes passed with small talk.

The weather.

Traffic.

The hotel.

The broken coffee machine at the office.

Strangely enough, it was the last one that made Elin laugh.

"Every workplace has a coffee machine that hates them."

"Ours has declared war," Ulrikk said.

"Then you're ahead of schedule."

The laughter changed something.

Shoulders relaxed.

Breathing slowed.

People became people again.

Ragna opened her notebook.

"Can I begin?"

Elin nodded.

"Of course."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-six."

"Children?"

"Two."

"Married?"

"Living with my partner."

"Work?"

Elin smiled.

"Now we get to the interesting part."

"We can start with the uninteresting part."

"I'm a nurse."

Ragna paused.

"A nurse?"

"Yep."

"Still?"

"Part-time."

Jonas raised an eyebrow.

Ulrikk said nothing.

Ragna wrote it down.

Nurse.

Two children.

Partner.

The woman sitting in front of them almost perfectly matched the description she had used in every pitch.

The ordinary woman on the bus.

The ordinary neighbour.

The ordinary parent at a school meeting.

"When did you start creating content?"

Elin shrugged slightly.

"During the pandemic."

"Why?"

She gave a short laugh.

"Because the bank doesn't accept idealism as a form of payment."

She said it as a joke.

But not entirely.

"Financial reasons?"

"Financial reasons."

She took a sip of coffee.

"Electricity bills."

"Mortgage."

"Food."

"The same things everyone else worries about."

"Were you afraid?"

This time Elin thought for a moment.

"Yes."

"Of what?"

"Everything."

She smiled faintly.

"The internet is full of people who love telling you who you are."

"And who were you?"

"Depending on the comment section?"

"Yes."

"Either a victim or a monster."

"And the truth?"

Elin leaned back.

"That I was tired."

Nobody wrote.

Nobody interrupted.

"People like complicated explanations."

She looked out the window.

"But the truth is often boring."

"Boring?"

"I needed money."

"That was it?"

"That was enough."

The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable.

Just heavy.

Like a door slowly opening.

Ragna felt something move inside her.

Not triumph.

Not confirmation.

Something else.

Confusion.

The story was already becoming more complicated than she had wanted.

She had come here to understand a world.

Instead, she was sitting across from a woman who reminded her of half the neighbourhood back home.

"Does your family know?"

Jonas suddenly asked.

Everyone looked at him.

"What?"

"It was actually a relevant question."

"For once," Ulrikk said.

Elin laughed.

"Some people know."

"And the rest?"

"They think I work a lot of overtime."

"Don't you?"

"I do."

This time everyone laughed.

Even Ragna.

But as the laughter faded, she noticed something.

For the first time since the interview began, Elin had looked down.

Just for a second.

Maybe two.

A small glimpse of something.

Shame.

Sadness.

Exhaustion.

Or perhaps simply the fear of being seen.

Ragna didn't write it down.

Some things don't belong in a notebook.

Some things need to remain human.

Outside, a bus passed.

Inside the café, the coffee machine continued to hiss.

And somewhere between the simple questions and the difficult answers, the real story began to take shape.

Part VI – The Money

It was Jonas who asked the question.

Perhaps because nobody else wanted to.

Perhaps because he lacked the part of the brain that tells people when caution might be appropriate.

"How much do you earn?"

Ragna closed her eyes.

Ulrikk took a sip of coffee.

Elin started laughing.

"There it is."

"What?"

"The question everyone is thinking about."

"I represent the people."

"You represent a serious lack of impulse control."

"Also true."

Elin paused.

"How much I earn now?"

"Yes."

"Or how much people think I earn?"

"Those might be two different numbers."

"Very different numbers."

She looked out the window.

"The internet loves success stories."

"Everyone does, really," Ulrikk said.

"Yes."

She nodded.

"But nobody makes headlines about the thousands of people who try and barely earn anything."

Ragna immediately wrote it down.

It was the first thing Elin had said that sounded like a headline.

"People think everyone gets rich?"

"Many people do."

"They don't?"

"No."

She laughed again.

"Most people don't."

"Why not?"

"For the same reason not everyone becomes a pop star."

"Or an influencer."

"Or a professional football player."

She shrugged.

"Attention isn't distributed evenly."

The table went quiet.

Ragna knew that sentence was going to matter.

Attention.

That was really what the whole thing was about.

Not pictures.

Not videos.

Not technology.

Attention.

The most valuable resource in the modern economy.

"So how does it work?"

she asked.

"Practically speaking?"

"Yes."

Elin nodded.

"The platform takes its share."

"Payment providers take their share."

"Taxes take their share."

"Then life takes the rest."

"Life?"

"Electricity bills."

"Food."

"Loans."

"Dentist appointments."

"Winter tyres."

She looked at Jonas.

"Things don't become less boring just because the money comes from the internet."

Jonas leaned back.

"That's almost offensively adult."

"I'm sorry."

"You could at least have spent the money on a castle."

"I bought a heat pump."

"You just lost half my audience."

Ulrikk chuckled.

"What about the other half?"

"They don't own homes."

Ragna let the conversation continue.

She had started noticing a pattern.

Every time the interview approached something dramatic, reality pulled it back towards something ordinary.

Mortgages.

Electricity bills.

Children.

Work.

As if life itself refused to follow the story the internet had written.

Her phone vibrated.

Herman.

Of course.

"We were just talking about you," Ragna said as she answered.

"I doubt that."

"We were talking about money."

"Then it makes sense."

Herman sounded pleased.

That usually meant he had found a spreadsheet.

"What do you have?"

"The same as always."

"Numbers."

"I already regret this."

"Many people do."

Papers rustled on the other end.

"The biggest misunderstanding is that people think the market is flat."

"Flat?"

Jonas asked.

"That everyone earns roughly the same."

"And they don't?"

"Not even close."

Herman continued.

"Like most digital markets, a large share of the income goes to a small minority."

"Like music?"

"Yes."

"And streaming?"

"Yes."

"And social media?"

"Yes."

"So basically everything?"

"Now you're starting to understand."

Jonas looked pleased.

That was rare.

"Most people see the top of the pyramid," Herman said.

"Not the bottom."

"Exactly."

"And the top is interesting."

"While the bottom is enormous."

"Exactly."

Ragna kept writing.

Pyramid.

Attention.

Visibility.

The same pattern appeared everywhere.

Not just here.

In journalism.

In art.

In streaming.

In politics.

Across the entire internet.

The winners were visible.

Everyone else disappeared into the background.

"So why do people continue?"

she asked.

Elin answered before Herman could.

"Because a little extra money can mean a lot."

Everyone looked at her.

"People hear millions and billions and forget reality."

She folded her hands.

"But if someone tells you that you can pay your electricity bill without worrying this month..."

She let the sentence hang.

Nobody needed the rest.

"Then you listen."

Jonas slowly nodded.

This time without a joke.

"I would too."

"Most people would."

"Yes."

"Most people."

The café had become busier.

People came and went.

Some carrying shopping bags.

Some pushing prams.

Some heading to work.

Nobody knew who Elin was.

Nobody saw a controversy.

Nobody saw a debate.

Nobody saw a headline.

They only saw a woman drinking coffee.

Maybe that was exactly why the story was so difficult.

And so important.

Because the longer Ragna sat there, the less the story became about the internet.

And the more it became about money.

Not greed.

Not luxury.

Not wealth.

Just money.

The ordinary money that holds ordinary lives together.

She looked down at her notebook.

There was one sentence alone on an almost empty page.

Many moral debates become easier when the bills are paid.

For the first time that day, she wasn't writing down a quote.

She was writing down a thought.

And she knew it would follow her long after the interview was over.

Part VII – The Secret

It was afternoon before the conversation finally reached the area Elin had avoided all day.

Not the money.

Not the work.

Not the internet.

Home.

Ragna noticed it long before she asked anything.

The small pauses.

The moments when Elin's eyes drifted towards the window.

The way she spoke slightly faster whenever the conversation moved closer to her family.

Eventually, Ragna closed her notebook.

"Can I ask something difficult?"

Elin gave a crooked smile.

"You've been doing that for several hours already."

"True."

"But ask."

Ragna hesitated.

"Who knows?"

Elin didn't need to ask what she meant.

"My partner."

"The whole truth?"

"The whole truth."

"How did it go?"

Elin leaned back.

"Badly."

Jonas looked up.

"Badly bad?"

"Pretty badly bad."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The silence that followed wasn't dramatic or tense.

Just honest.

"He first thought I was joking."

"Were you?"

"A little."

She laughed.

"It's amazing how much easier things seem before you actually say them out loud."

"What happened then?"

"We argued."

"A lot?"

"Enough."

She took a sip of coffee.

"Not because he thought I had done something wrong."

"But?"

"Because I hadn't told him from the beginning."

Ragna nodded.

That made sense.

People often handle the truth better than the secret.

"Were you afraid he would leave?"

Ulrikk asked.

"Yes."

"Did he?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Elin smiled.

For the first time that day, her smile seemed genuinely vulnerable.

"Because reality is more complicated than the internet."

Nobody said anything.

"He saw the bills."

"He saw the stress."

"He saw how tired I was."

She shrugged.

"And then he had to make a choice."

"Between what?"

"Between the idea of me..."

"...and the person I actually was."

Jonas stared down at the table.

"That was good."

"I know."

"Annoyingly good."

"I know."

Outside, the rain started again.

Small drops against the window.

Grey skies.

Gothenburg in its natural habitat.

"What about the children?"

Ragna asked carefully.

This time, Elin took longer before answering.

"They don't know."

"Will they find out?"

"Maybe."

"When?"

"When they're old enough to understand that adults sometimes do complicated things for simple reasons."

"And if they get angry?"

Elin smiled sadly.

"Then they can be angry."

"You're prepared for that?"

"You become a parent the day you realise your children don't owe you understanding."

Nobody wrote.

Nobody interrupted.

Some sentences are bigger than notebooks.

Ragna felt that familiar feeling again.

The one she always felt when people stopped being interview subjects.

When they simply became people.

Not stories.

Not sources.

Not characters.

People.

She thought about her sister.

About all the stories that were never told.

About all the people who only ever became statistics.

Maybe that was why she had been so determined to pursue Elin.

Not because Elin represented something.

But because she refused to represent anything.

She was simply herself.

And perhaps that was enough.

When Ragna's phone finally vibrated inside her bag, she already knew who it was.

"Herman?"

Jonas asked.

"Herman."

"Does he have GPS on us?"

"Probably."

She answered.

"What now?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I just wanted to hear how things were going."

The table went quiet.

"Herman?"

"Yes?"

"Are you ill?"

"No."

"You called without numbers?"

"I know."

"Voluntarily?"

"Yes."

"This is serious."

Herman sighed.

"I just thought you might have enough numbers."

Ragna smiled.

"We do."

"Good."

"Actually, we have more than enough."

"Then I'll let you work."

He hung up.

Jonas leaned back.

"This is the strangest day of my life."

"Why?"

"Herman called just to ask how someone was doing."

"Yes?"

"That means something major is about to happen."

Even Elin laughed at that.

And for a few seconds, the interview disappeared.

The story.

The notes.

Everything.

There were simply four people sitting around a café table.

None of them perfect.

None of them entirely certain about anything.

But all of them slightly wiser than they had been when the day began.