alternatehistory.com
Sixteen: September 2009
Sixteen: September 2009
The young woman sat on the train, looking out the window. The central parts of Helsinki were behind her now, and on the right side of the track she could see old concrete tower blocks, slowly crumbling away and in their old age reaching out for the overcast September sky. The general colours were grey, and peeling pink and light blue.
Billboards of advertisements framed the tracks in parts, blocking much of the view. The woman noticed many of the same ads and logos she had seen at the airport and the central railway station, but there were new ones as well. Car ads by Peugeot and Renault, cosmetics and lingerie ads with ubiquitous smiling blondes, Ericsson phone ads (”Connecting the North. Ericsson.”). Further away from the city centre, one ad kept repeating: a professional-looking woman in her forties, in a business suit and glasses, standing in front of rows and rows of computer equipment, accompanied with an angular, futuristic logo. The caption on the billboard said ”Massive Information – Massive Improvements.”
Inside, the train carriage was newish but already somewhat rundown. The info screen that was supposed to show the next stations was not working, and for obvious reasons: it appeared someone had punched it with some force. On the side wall, the cheery green logo text ”H-RATA” for the train company had be turned with a red permanent marker into the sentence ”mun on pakko HuoRATA”, the meaning of which the woman wondered.
Without the info screen in a working condition, the woman almost missed her stop. At the last moment, she squeezed out of the train to find herself on the Leppävaara station. It was a concrete affair, adorned with yet more big billboards, with some of those small kiosks and vending machines in evidence. The woman took off towards a random exit, and then in a minute found herself out on a small square. She was surrounded by a collection of older and newish buildings, some of which housed hairdressers, second-hand shops, small grocers and a couple of bars. In the centre of the square was an old empty plinth on which the woman assumed had stood a statue sometime in the past. Now, she saw a sign, in Finnish and English, telling her that she had apparently arrived to ”Fatherland Square”.[1]
Next to to the empty plinth, a small knot of idle youngsters was listening to music from a derelict-looking boom box. They glanced towards the woman but didn't take any real interest into her. They were more interested in a grey jeep that cruised past the square right then, with a prominent ”S” logo on its doors. The jeep was occupied by two men in grey uniforms and it flashed its lights to the youth, one of whom flipped it the bird.
Digging a tourist map of the Greater Helsinki area out of her bag, the young woman started putting together a path towards her destination. It was happily just a few blocks away – walking alone, lost in her thoughts, wondering if there would be rain, she was suddenly confronted by a big open lot of land, the landscaping of which was far from completed. In the middle of it stood an impressively big pile of a building, a modern thing the outer shell of which made out of acid-treated steel to give the impression of old, rusted steel surfaces.
The woman entered the spacious hallway, past a security guard in a somewhat old-fashioned grey uniform at the door. There were coat racks and lockable lockers on the right and apparently a cafeteria on the left. To the front of her, stood a long desk with four separate counters for visitors, two of which were occupied by members of staff. On the wall, there was the logo of the Finnish National Archival System, SKA. Below it, the woman noticed a familiar jagged S and T symbol.
”Good morning, how can I help you?”, a humourless-looking woman in a colourful blouse asked the woman as she sat down in front of the counter at the right end of the long desk.
”My name is Nora Farrah”, Nora said in English, ”and I am here in hopes of being able to go through Second World War era documents about my relatives in Finland.”
The woman just nodded.
”Your ID, please.”
Nora handed over her passport, which the woman put under a scanner and then perused the text on the screen.
”Have you completed and filed a VL101 form at the Archival System main office?”
Damn. What with the taxi accident, the young woman had forgotten all about that.
”Sorry, no. I haven't had the time yet. I came straight here as I read somewhere that this is where the relevant files are kept at.”
The woman in the colourful blouse looked at her mournfully.
”Then I can't really help you. You need to fill the VL101 first for access. Without it, we can't let you order any files on your own, or use a research station here.”
Nora felt disappointed and a little angry.
”Please. I have come all the way from the United States. Surely I could fill the form here and wait for it to be accepted?”
The woman shook her head.
”That's not how it works. All access permits go through the main office. There's really nothing I can do here before you go back to Rauhankatu and get the access permit worked out”, the woman said, shrugging.
The woman could feel something in the clerk's demeanor that she liked how she could use what little authority she had to make her life more difficult.
”All right”, Nora said, ”if you can't help me, maybe someone else can? Can I maybe talk to your supervisor about this?”
The look on the female clerk's face turned colder.
”My supervisor's not available right now”, she said, in a cool voice, ”and besides, he does not deal with these kinds of things – he's a very busy man.”
Nora leaned closer to the woman.
”Could you call him, anyway? I'd like to talk with someone who can help me.”
The young woman could now see that the clerk was getting annoyed with her.
”Please, you have to understand that...”
Right then, an older man in corduroy pants and a blue sweater walked past the desk, apparently en route to the staff area. There was a staff ID card hanging around his neck.
The clerk looked at the man.
”Jyri.”
As the man turned at the clerk, she said something to him in Finnish, nodding at Nora. The man, Jyri, took a sort of pained look at her and appeared to sigh. Then he nodded.
”This is one of our researchers, he can talk to you for a moment.”
The man held out his hand to Nora. He was in his sixties, and slightly overweight. His hair was almost white, and he had an impressive full white beard. Nora had immediately thought about Santa Claus upon seeing him.
”Rantanen”, the man said, shaking her hand.
”Follow me.”
Nora did that, walking after the man along a long corridor. In here, it was even more obvious that the building was brand new. There were electricians here in blue overalls doing some wiring work. Looking out through an open doorway to the left, Nora could see racks of computer equipment with blinking green and yellow lights. A technician in a white coat stood there, fiddling with a laptop.
On his white coat, he had the jagged S and T logo.
Systek, said the text below it.
Rantanen led Nora to what apparently was his office. It was a newish room, with a large desk and some bookshelves. Despite its newness, the room was overflowing with folders, files and books. The bookshelves were full of them, and so was the work desk. Looking slightly apologetic, Rantanen picked up a bunch of folders from the chair in front of the desk, and without anywhere else to put them, gingerly placed the teetering pile next to his desk.
He nodded towards the chair.
”Please, sit down.”
The man took a seat himself, and then looked at Nora with eyes she thought reflected tiredness as well as genuine compassion.
”So you are here to find out about your family, eh?”
It turned out that Jyri Rantanen was a researcher and administrator working with the National Archival System, and that he was currently engaged in getting the new Leppävaara Unit up and running. Apparently, the Unit had only opened last year, and the transfer of files and materials from the old archive was still a work in progress.
”It's several archives, in fact”, the bearded man told her, ”now concentrated here and digitized. Massive Information, you know?”
MassInfo was the recent buzzword in information management. Several companies were at it around the world, the management and utilization of great amounts of data for various purposes not possible before recent advances in computing and programming. And practical access to the data of millions of people, of course.
”Everything we have will be digitized. For easy access and searchability, you see. To better serve the public, they say. It is a massive undertaking, and we have hundreds of people around the country just using scanners and working in information input.”
Nora did not understand.
”You do this for better access, and yet you have this – pardon my French, now – bullshit system where I can't access to files right here but would have to go bodily to another unit of the System?”
”Ah”, the man said, scratching his head, ”that is partly tradition – but it is also connected with the partnership the Archival System has with Systek. They are building much of the new archival system for us, you see, in public-private partnership like it is called. But for their support for this work, they also get some benefits. As a matter of fact...”
The man suddenly went quiet, as if realizing he might be saying too much. He glanced out of the open door into the gleaming new hallway. Then he smiled a sheepish smile.
”I shouldn't say any more about that. Let's talk about you instead. What is it exactly that you'd like to find out in our files?”
Nora Farrah laid out her plans to this rotund, bearded man who somehow felt like the most reliable person she had met in Finland so far. The man nodded and took notes. He then got up, pulled a couple of books off the bookshelf to his right and consulted them.
Then he looked up and smiled.
”I think I can help you. But you need to give me a couple of days. And then I think we should meet off-campus, as it were.”
The man glanced again to the corridor, and only now Nora realized that there was a row of discreet domes for security cameras running across its length.
…
Out in the parking lot by the big, rust-coloured building, two men in suits sat in a car. The younger one of them kept his eyes on the entrance of the building while the older one was reading a newspaper. He then folded up the Uusin Suomi[2] and reached for a big bag of candy.
”Why exactly are we keeping an eye on this girl, anyway?”, he asked his partner, a traditionally handsome man in a severe coal-grey suit.
”You don't need to know that”, he said, ”we're just following orders. I'm sure the boss has good reasons for the surveillance.”
The older man munched on some Nami-Mättö licourice candy, swallowed and grimaced.
”You're no fun at all, you know that, Jänö?”
...
Notes:
[1] Isänmaanaukio.
[2] ”Newest Finland”.
...
To Be Continued
Sixteen: September 2009
The young woman sat on the train, looking out the window. The central parts of Helsinki were behind her now, and on the right side of the track she could see old concrete tower blocks, slowly crumbling away and in their old age reaching out for the overcast September sky. The general colours were grey, and peeling pink and light blue.
Billboards of advertisements framed the tracks in parts, blocking much of the view. The woman noticed many of the same ads and logos she had seen at the airport and the central railway station, but there were new ones as well. Car ads by Peugeot and Renault, cosmetics and lingerie ads with ubiquitous smiling blondes, Ericsson phone ads (”Connecting the North. Ericsson.”). Further away from the city centre, one ad kept repeating: a professional-looking woman in her forties, in a business suit and glasses, standing in front of rows and rows of computer equipment, accompanied with an angular, futuristic logo. The caption on the billboard said ”Massive Information – Massive Improvements.”
Inside, the train carriage was newish but already somewhat rundown. The info screen that was supposed to show the next stations was not working, and for obvious reasons: it appeared someone had punched it with some force. On the side wall, the cheery green logo text ”H-RATA” for the train company had be turned with a red permanent marker into the sentence ”mun on pakko HuoRATA”, the meaning of which the woman wondered.
Without the info screen in a working condition, the woman almost missed her stop. At the last moment, she squeezed out of the train to find herself on the Leppävaara station. It was a concrete affair, adorned with yet more big billboards, with some of those small kiosks and vending machines in evidence. The woman took off towards a random exit, and then in a minute found herself out on a small square. She was surrounded by a collection of older and newish buildings, some of which housed hairdressers, second-hand shops, small grocers and a couple of bars. In the centre of the square was an old empty plinth on which the woman assumed had stood a statue sometime in the past. Now, she saw a sign, in Finnish and English, telling her that she had apparently arrived to ”Fatherland Square”.[1]
Next to to the empty plinth, a small knot of idle youngsters was listening to music from a derelict-looking boom box. They glanced towards the woman but didn't take any real interest into her. They were more interested in a grey jeep that cruised past the square right then, with a prominent ”S” logo on its doors. The jeep was occupied by two men in grey uniforms and it flashed its lights to the youth, one of whom flipped it the bird.
Digging a tourist map of the Greater Helsinki area out of her bag, the young woman started putting together a path towards her destination. It was happily just a few blocks away – walking alone, lost in her thoughts, wondering if there would be rain, she was suddenly confronted by a big open lot of land, the landscaping of which was far from completed. In the middle of it stood an impressively big pile of a building, a modern thing the outer shell of which made out of acid-treated steel to give the impression of old, rusted steel surfaces.
The woman entered the spacious hallway, past a security guard in a somewhat old-fashioned grey uniform at the door. There were coat racks and lockable lockers on the right and apparently a cafeteria on the left. To the front of her, stood a long desk with four separate counters for visitors, two of which were occupied by members of staff. On the wall, there was the logo of the Finnish National Archival System, SKA. Below it, the woman noticed a familiar jagged S and T symbol.
”Good morning, how can I help you?”, a humourless-looking woman in a colourful blouse asked the woman as she sat down in front of the counter at the right end of the long desk.
”My name is Nora Farrah”, Nora said in English, ”and I am here in hopes of being able to go through Second World War era documents about my relatives in Finland.”
The woman just nodded.
”Your ID, please.”
Nora handed over her passport, which the woman put under a scanner and then perused the text on the screen.
”Have you completed and filed a VL101 form at the Archival System main office?”
Damn. What with the taxi accident, the young woman had forgotten all about that.
”Sorry, no. I haven't had the time yet. I came straight here as I read somewhere that this is where the relevant files are kept at.”
The woman in the colourful blouse looked at her mournfully.
”Then I can't really help you. You need to fill the VL101 first for access. Without it, we can't let you order any files on your own, or use a research station here.”
Nora felt disappointed and a little angry.
”Please. I have come all the way from the United States. Surely I could fill the form here and wait for it to be accepted?”
The woman shook her head.
”That's not how it works. All access permits go through the main office. There's really nothing I can do here before you go back to Rauhankatu and get the access permit worked out”, the woman said, shrugging.
The woman could feel something in the clerk's demeanor that she liked how she could use what little authority she had to make her life more difficult.
”All right”, Nora said, ”if you can't help me, maybe someone else can? Can I maybe talk to your supervisor about this?”
The look on the female clerk's face turned colder.
”My supervisor's not available right now”, she said, in a cool voice, ”and besides, he does not deal with these kinds of things – he's a very busy man.”
Nora leaned closer to the woman.
”Could you call him, anyway? I'd like to talk with someone who can help me.”
The young woman could now see that the clerk was getting annoyed with her.
”Please, you have to understand that...”
Right then, an older man in corduroy pants and a blue sweater walked past the desk, apparently en route to the staff area. There was a staff ID card hanging around his neck.
The clerk looked at the man.
”Jyri.”
As the man turned at the clerk, she said something to him in Finnish, nodding at Nora. The man, Jyri, took a sort of pained look at her and appeared to sigh. Then he nodded.
”This is one of our researchers, he can talk to you for a moment.”
The man held out his hand to Nora. He was in his sixties, and slightly overweight. His hair was almost white, and he had an impressive full white beard. Nora had immediately thought about Santa Claus upon seeing him.
”Rantanen”, the man said, shaking her hand.
”Follow me.”
Nora did that, walking after the man along a long corridor. In here, it was even more obvious that the building was brand new. There were electricians here in blue overalls doing some wiring work. Looking out through an open doorway to the left, Nora could see racks of computer equipment with blinking green and yellow lights. A technician in a white coat stood there, fiddling with a laptop.
On his white coat, he had the jagged S and T logo.
Systek, said the text below it.
Rantanen led Nora to what apparently was his office. It was a newish room, with a large desk and some bookshelves. Despite its newness, the room was overflowing with folders, files and books. The bookshelves were full of them, and so was the work desk. Looking slightly apologetic, Rantanen picked up a bunch of folders from the chair in front of the desk, and without anywhere else to put them, gingerly placed the teetering pile next to his desk.
He nodded towards the chair.
”Please, sit down.”
The man took a seat himself, and then looked at Nora with eyes she thought reflected tiredness as well as genuine compassion.
”So you are here to find out about your family, eh?”
It turned out that Jyri Rantanen was a researcher and administrator working with the National Archival System, and that he was currently engaged in getting the new Leppävaara Unit up and running. Apparently, the Unit had only opened last year, and the transfer of files and materials from the old archive was still a work in progress.
”It's several archives, in fact”, the bearded man told her, ”now concentrated here and digitized. Massive Information, you know?”
MassInfo was the recent buzzword in information management. Several companies were at it around the world, the management and utilization of great amounts of data for various purposes not possible before recent advances in computing and programming. And practical access to the data of millions of people, of course.
”Everything we have will be digitized. For easy access and searchability, you see. To better serve the public, they say. It is a massive undertaking, and we have hundreds of people around the country just using scanners and working in information input.”
Nora did not understand.
”You do this for better access, and yet you have this – pardon my French, now – bullshit system where I can't access to files right here but would have to go bodily to another unit of the System?”
”Ah”, the man said, scratching his head, ”that is partly tradition – but it is also connected with the partnership the Archival System has with Systek. They are building much of the new archival system for us, you see, in public-private partnership like it is called. But for their support for this work, they also get some benefits. As a matter of fact...”
The man suddenly went quiet, as if realizing he might be saying too much. He glanced out of the open door into the gleaming new hallway. Then he smiled a sheepish smile.
”I shouldn't say any more about that. Let's talk about you instead. What is it exactly that you'd like to find out in our files?”
Nora Farrah laid out her plans to this rotund, bearded man who somehow felt like the most reliable person she had met in Finland so far. The man nodded and took notes. He then got up, pulled a couple of books off the bookshelf to his right and consulted them.
Then he looked up and smiled.
”I think I can help you. But you need to give me a couple of days. And then I think we should meet off-campus, as it were.”
The man glanced again to the corridor, and only now Nora realized that there was a row of discreet domes for security cameras running across its length.
…
Out in the parking lot by the big, rust-coloured building, two men in suits sat in a car. The younger one of them kept his eyes on the entrance of the building while the older one was reading a newspaper. He then folded up the Uusin Suomi[2] and reached for a big bag of candy.
”Why exactly are we keeping an eye on this girl, anyway?”, he asked his partner, a traditionally handsome man in a severe coal-grey suit.
”You don't need to know that”, he said, ”we're just following orders. I'm sure the boss has good reasons for the surveillance.”
The older man munched on some Nami-Mättö licourice candy, swallowed and grimaced.
”You're no fun at all, you know that, Jänö?”
...
Notes:
[1] Isänmaanaukio.
[2] ”Newest Finland”.
...
To Be Continued
- DrakonFin
- Word Count: 2k