Digital Extremities by Adam Bassett

Author:Adam Bassett [Adam Bassett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Adam Bassett
Published: 2024-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Kanan’s plane landed at Svalbard Airport at 22:00 local time, and the sun was still in the sky. He had slept during the flight, but not enough. A shot of espresso from the airport café helped pick him up.

He collected his luggage and boarded a small white bus. Kanan found a seat by a window and retrieved a pack of cigarettes from his bag. He lit it and brought it to his lips, breathing deeply. Immediately, he felt his muscles relax, and he breathed a trail of smoke out through the open window.

Kanan had studied the maps, but being in Longyearbyen felt different. The city reached around Adventfjorden, swallowing the ancient settlements there. Hiorthhamn, Advent City, Nybyen, and even the old satellite station had been incorporated as neighborhoods. Around it, the mountains stood tall. Some bore roads carved into their façades, leading up into small suburbs through pine forests.

Downtown Longyearbyen, where the old town once stood, was like any other city. The streets buzzed with the movement of taxis and buses—there were shockingly few personal vehicles. Advertisements clung to and exceeded the height of skyscrapers, flashing images of attractive people promoting a drink or film. Many bore some form of the Norwegian flag, whether it was part of their outfit, on the product, or elsewhere. The space between was filled with smoke, shadows, and a neon haze that clung to the air like water on a dog. To Kanan, it felt rather quaint.

Kanan found his hotel on Vei 36. His room was small, no more than a hundred square feet. It was barely enough space for a bed and restroom, with a small folding desk built into one of the walls. It wasn’t much, but it was all he needed for the week.

He pried open the blackout shutters and peered through the window. The golden glow of the sun illuminated the city below. He checked the time on his lens: 22:46. The sun would not set until summer was over. What an odd thing to behold, to be normal.

Kanan closed the shutters and went downstairs into a ramen place that he’d spied on the way to the hotel. He found a seat at the bar and ordered a spicy hasselnøtt Tantanmen with pork ribs. It was prepared like Kanan remembered from his time in Japan, just made with slightly different ingredients. The hazelnut sauce had a lovely, subtle spice, and the noodles had a stronger wheat taste—though not so much that it distracted from the rest of the meal.

“It’s all local ingredients,” one of the staff said after Kanan asked about the dish. “Well, local to the mainland. Most of it’s from Norway and Sweden. Some of the sauces, we can only get from Japan.”

“I imagine you can’t grow much on these islands, with all the mountains,” Kanan said.

“Tsk. A few try, but there’s no space for a farm. Nothing on the scale the city needs. Ocean’s a different story, though. Plenty of that to go around.”

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