1 Ramses

The 25th of July, Tuesday

"It's alive! It's alive!"

Johan read the backward text on the shop doors exterior when he put the key in the lock and opened Ramses facilities for the week.

The clock was only 9:00 this Tuesday morning at the end of July, so there was no major rush. He could've sat in front of the computer for a while longer. The first customers usually don't trickle in until 10:00 like this in the middle of the summer vacation. Luckily there were letters from yesterday for him to deal with at the moment.

For once, the sun was shining. It had otherwise rained almost constantly since midsummer. Johan's entire vacation had been a disappointment, and he had mostly hung in front of the computer, playing Minecraft.

Johan stepped into the white room and smiled towards the big wall painting that depicted a mummy that sat up in an Egyptian sarcophagus. The arms of the mummy were stretched straight forwards and looked like it wanted to grab hold of something. Except for the clock on the wall and the computer- and cellphone newspapers in the magazine stand next to the customer sofa was the painting the only other decoration in the room. It's supposed to be spartan-like. Cool, stylishly bright, and fresh, Scandinavian design. All four Ramses stores in Göteborg, Luleå, Stockholm, and Malmö had the same clean graphic profile. Customers could recognize themselves. But really, it was rare for a customer to visit any of the Ramses stores.

You only came here when cellphones needed to wake from the dead.

From the beginning, Johan Hallberg's chain of stores had dedicated itself to unlocking operator locks, selling batteries, and performing smaller repairs. The big breakthrough had come with Apple's iPhone and all Android imitations. Especially the iPhone, with its built-in, fixed battery and sensitive, large glass screen, was a haven. The most common repair was a cracked or broken screen, which Johan changed in five minutes. Otherwise, it could be contact failure or an old battery that needed replacement, which could take a little more time.

Most customers sent their phones in standard padded envelopes, and for the most part, Johan and his employees in the other stores could sit connected via Skype and talk while routinely repairing the mobiles. It happened that a customer with urgent repair needs came into the shop on Aschebergsgatan, but otherwise, it was quiet, which suited Johan immensely. He wanted as little direct customer contact as possible.

The first envelope from yesterday contained a dusty iPhone 5 and a damage report.

"Does not work. The screen is completely black, and I can't get it to start in any way, let alone get the charging symbol or status. The warranty has expired. Thanks in advance!"

The paper was also dusty, and the small gray particles slowly began to swirl around the room. Johan wiped the cellphone with a cloth. There were no marks, not even scratches or notches on the outside. An internal error, maybe? Probably the charging plug was broken, and the battery was out of juice. There was no money in doing advanced troubleshooting, so if it were not a standard error, he would email the customer to get approval for paid troubleshooting. But probably it was just a contact error and a discharged battery. So the first step was to try to charge the phone with Johan's guaranteed functioning iPhone charger.

The next envelope also contained an iPhone, this time with a cracked screen. Johan started the phone and found that it worked, just as it said in the attached injury report. A quick check on the laptop confirmed that the customer had paid in advance for express return so that he could start right away. Johan wiped the phone with a rag to avoid junk falling in when Johan dismantled it. With his hand, he fished out the right screwdriver and started working. A few minutes later, the new screen was in place, the phone closed again, tested and, together with a receipt of SEK 2,500, stuffed down in a padded envelope addressed to Växjö.

So he picked up the first phone again. It had not charged, and on the black screen, Johan's eyes were visible in the reflection. Near the outlet, some gray dust particles had landed, which he quickly wiped away before dismantling the phone.

A cloud of dust swirled up and made him cough as he lifted the screen; this was someone who had a dirty job. No wonder the phone had broken. A quick check of the error report showed that the customer was named Pär Stjärnström. He could google it. It would be interesting to know how to get so much crap into a phone. He picked up the little vacuum cleaner to vacuum the phone internals.

The troubleshooting was fruitless. It was not the contact. Neither was it the battery, which was still charging. Johan now had to do the advanced troubleshooting.

With a sigh, Johan sent an e-mail with the question of whether Stjärnström wanted to pay for further work. I have probably wasted time. With that amount of dust in itself, the phone could very well have become overheated, resulting in a microchip or processor probably melting and causing damage internally.

Johan looked up at the wall clock. He still had four letters left to handle before the postman arrived with today's mail at eleven. He directed the Macbook so that the built-in camera pointed straight at him and connected with Skype to the others for a bit of small talk.

It was equally fantastic weather on Wednesday, but when Johan pulled up the blinds in the housing estate on Sveagatan on Thursday, he met yet another Gothenburg rain and gray sky. He wasn't sure if it was the weather or the night's playing of Minecraft Realms that made him tired. Had the computer not, without warning, shut down, Johan would have sat up all night playing. Tonight he had to take the work computer home as a replacement. On the other hand, it felt like he was catching a throat infection. So far, no cough, but an irritating itchy throat. At least it didn't feel like a fever, but if it was an infection, it could explain why he was so tired.

Nothing that a cup of espresso could not solve.

The espresso brewer refused to start. The display was empty, and it did not help to unplug the plug and plug it back in. Sometimes it happened that the brewer's software crashed, but it was something he was adept at solving by cutting the power.

Might as well have breakfast at work.

Johan left the bike and instead took the 2nd to Vasaplatsen and walked the last stretch up Aschebergsgatan, past Vasaparken, and across Engelbrektsgatan.

As he walked, he connected himself to the job email and looked through the mailbox on his iPhone. Thirty e-mails had appeared in his inbox. The headings seemed to be about various complaints or reclamations.

He opened the first e-mail and started reading.

"My phone is not working at all now. The screen's repaired, but now the phone refuses to boot. Also, it was dirty! I had just heard good things about you, but this was the worst shit I've ever had. Fix! Order Number 432231A. Without friendly greetings."

Shit.

Reclamations were the worst. Sometimes customers tried to bluff, but when they were exposed, they never heard from them again. In the few cases that Johan or one of his colleagues at Ramses had done wrong, it was boring to remedy it. Admittedly it was usually routine business, but without getting paid, it still felt sluggish.

Johan looked up under the screen cap. It was still cloudy and without the slightest hint of cracking up — typical Gothenburg. Stockholm may be a ski resort and Sweden's shithole, but on the front, it always rained.

When he looked down at the mobile phone again, the screen had turned black, and it did not wake when he pressed the button. He could not remember that the battery had warned, but an iPhone drained the batteries so quickly that he now always clicked the battery warnings on routine without noticing.

At the shop, he unlocked the door. The alarm did not start beeping. He must have forgotten to turn the alarm on the night before. That's bad. After all, the alarm protected dozens of customer phones, plus a lot of expensive equipment and his laptop work computer.

Johan shook off the rain from the thin rain jacket and walked off to the counter. The lamp on the counter did not turn on when he turned it on, and he swore silently to himself. LEDs were expensive, and if they didn't last longer than this, he might as well buy a traditional low-energy lamp instead. So much for saving the environment.

He plugged the charger into the phone charging port and sat down in front of the computer and opened up the screen. The Macbook did not start. The green light on the charger did not light up either.

The keyboard was dusty.