Revelation of Hannes, The

The Icelandic parliament has been presented with a bill which will allow the Institute for State Supervision to create a SuperCode Databank which will centralize all other databanks based on personal ID numbers; with this SuperCode the Institute can follow and monitor everyone’s behavior, all to make Iceland “the first country in the world in which perfect equality and justice in all relations between the public and the authorities will be guaranteed."

Hannes, a middle-aged man who still lives with his aging mother, is an employee at the Institute, and he is the originator of the idea, though publicly the Institute itself claims responsibility. Hannes has such complete faith in the bureaucratic system and the SuperCode that he has already secretly started working on it on his computer, even though it is uncertain that Parliament will agree to it, indeed there is much political controversy over such a databank.

Hannes is secretly in love with Stefania, the new secretary in the Institute, and hopes to impress her with his “private” SuperCode Databank. But one day, before he can impress her, Hannes’s computer, containing the databank, is stolen. Hannes is afraid of the consequences if it is discovered he has been working on the SuperCode illegally. He does not dare tell the police what the computer contains and starts trying to catch the thief himself only to become a victim of the very systems he has believed in and worked so hard to strengthen.

By taking over the role of the police, Hannes himself ends up the guilty party and scapegoat, finding himself in catastrophic confrontations with society’s controlling institutions and authorities—where he meets Stefania again in a different manner. Having lost all faith in his “masterpiece,” Hannes decides to quit his job and destroy his creation, the SuperCode—but then comes The Revelation!