Ch 4 - The Towers of Oslo

Tucker-James awoke to the sound of gentle chimes and soft static. The airship had entered descent mode. A polite voice, slightly synthetic but still warmly feminine, informed him of their arrival over the Oslo region.

He rubbed his eyes and sat up, the thick duvet still warm around him. He shuffled to the small observation window in his cabin—and froze.

Below him was not the Norway of his father’s stories. No wooden cabins, no farmers with suspenders waving from fields. What he saw instead looked like something out of a dystopian travel poster rendered in high resolution.

The coastline curled in jagged fingers, snow-dusted and dramatic. Fjords snaked into the land like glassy scars. There were spruce forests, white waterfalls, distant hiking trails etched into mountainsides—yes, that part looked old. Beautiful, even. But dotting the wilderness, like invasive species, were the black silhouettes of Imperial Towers.

Some stood alone, tethered to landing pads or high-tension lines. Others were nestled in fortified compounds. Their matte surfaces were rough and angular, broken up by pulsating red lights that blinked in strange, silent rhythms.

As the airship approached Oslo itself, the contrast became even sharper. Below lay a city of breathtaking elegance—copper-green rooftops, domed spires, and curved balconies of pale stone. Art Nouveau buildings dominated the downtown skyline, painted in faded pastels and soft cream. It looked like a painting. A dream.

And then—

Three.

Three towers, rising like black monoliths above everything else.

The Qvam Tower, tallest and thickest of them all, loomed in the center like a divine judgment. Its surface shimmered slightly from atmospheric shielding. Enormous red lights traced lines up its flanks. It was built like a fist punching the sky, and its docking arms extended in rigid symmetry from its top floors like the spokes of a cruel crown.

Two smaller towers flanked it—less colossal, but no less grim. Together they formed a triangle of power, their steel veins feeding into the bones of the city.

Tucker couldn’t stop staring. The airship began to bank, gliding toward one of the massive upper docking arms of Qvam Tower.

Just before they docked, Tucker heard a commotion behind him in the corridor. He turned and peered through the narrow cabin window into the hallway. A young man—maybe in his twenties—was pinned awkwardly against the wall by three laughing women in Imperial uniforms. One was tweaking his ear while another had a hand unmistakably down the front of his pants.

He looked more annoyed than afraid.

A stern female officer stormed in, barking in Norwegian. The women stepped back immediately, straightening their jackets like guilty schoolgirls. The officer pointed sharply to a government poster tacked to the wall nearby—Tucker hadn’t noticed it before. It showed a cartoon diagram of a man holding up his hand, palm out, with a caption in bold red type:

RESPEKTÉR HANNS PRIVATOMRÅDER – INGEN BERØRING UTEN SAMTYKKE

Beneath that, in small print:

Issued by Decree of Supreme Matriarch Freydis IV, Statute 442-B.

The officer kept lecturing, gesturing at the poster, then waved the man along. He adjusted his trousers with a sigh and headed down the hall—right past Tucker’s door.

Their eyes met.

Tucker opened his mouth, but all he could manage was, “Are you okay?”

The man chuckled dryly. “Welcome to Imperial Norway.”

Tucker blinked.

“You’ll learn,” the man added, and disappeared around the corner.

He felt something drop in his stomach.

This wasn’t a return to tradition.

This was something else.

He didn’t say a prayer this time. He just held onto the window frame and watched the old world disappear beneath the shadow of the new.

The interior of Qvam Tower swallowed them in silence and steel. The airship dock hissed shut behind Tucker as a long corridor guided passengers into a cavernous reception chamber. The scale of the place pressed down on him like gravity. Every wall, every floor panel, every angular support beam was too tall, too thick, too solid to feel anything but oppressive.

They entered an enormous elevator platform the size of a tennis court, which descended with a hum so deep it made Tucker’s teeth vibrate. No mirrors, no music. Just metal walls and red LED strips that blinked rhythmically like a heartbeat.

They descended for what felt like minutes. And when the doors finally opened, the full scale of the Qvam Tower’s foundations became clear—security checkpoints, customs platforms, sterile white lighting, armored staff in gray and black moving with mechanical precision.

And then he saw them.

A cluster of women in matte-black body armor, standing off to one side. Their breastplates were molded and severe, their helmets perched beneath their arms like symbols of judgment. They were tall—at least half a head taller than most of the guards—and broad-shouldered. Their blonde hair was coiled tightly behind their heads, not a strand out of place. Each carried a short stun baton and wore a crimson sash that marked them as something beyond ordinary security.

Tucker nudged the man beside him in line, another foreigner, possibly American.

“Who are they?”

The man didn’t look up. “Imperial Inquisition.”

Tucker swallowed. “Are they like… customs?”

The man chuckled softly. “No. They’re more like morality police. Secret service meets sex therapist meets internal affairs. Don’t look them in the eye. They’re trained to pick up arousal signs from pupil dilation.”

Tucker blinked. “What?”

“They’re dangerous,” the man continued in a whisper. “Sexual deviants, the lot of them. Zealous. They’re obsessed with rooting out the Red Pillers. Male insurgency. Radical cells. Mostly idiots with old porn stashes and too many podcasts. But it’s made Oslo into a city of cameras.”

Tucker didn’t respond. He just stared at the armored women as they moved, scanning the crowd with slow, deliberate precision.

This wasn’t home. This wasn’t safe.

And his pants felt far too thin for all this attention.

When he reached the customs desk, he was handed a sleek digital clipboard with glowing blue text and a stylus. Most of the form seemed normal—passport ID, biometric scan confirmation, blood type, prior travel history.

Then his eyes stopped on one section:

MALE SEXUAL DATA - CONFIDENTIAL Length (erect): ______ cm Girth (erect): ______ cm

Tucker stared at it. His mouth moved silently, trying to form the right question. Finally, he stepped to the counter, flustered.

“Um, excuse me,” he said to the nearest attendant, a bored-looking woman in a gray uniform. “This part here… is this a mistake?”

She glanced over, sighed, and didn’t even look up again.

“Your dick,” she said flatly. “Your penis. How big is it. Can’t you read?”

Tucker flushed crimson. “I—uh—I just didn’t expect—”

“It’s for your file,” she added with a yawn. “Standard male intake. Most of you foreigners get weird about it. Just fill it in and move along.”

He returned to his station, gripping the stylus like it might explode.

This was definitely not Solhavn.

Outside the tower, the world exploded into contrast. The towering black mass of Qvam behind him hummed with power, its flanks lined with antennas, red lights, and aerials. The plaza below was buzzing with soldiers in sleek black armor, most of them blonde and towering, their weapons slung casually as they marched in tight formations. Surveillance drones floated overhead like metallic jellyfish.

But just beyond the plaza, the old city revealed itself. Streets of curved pastel facades, wrought iron balconies, Art Nouveau windows—Tucker had never seen anything like it. It was like a fairy tale drawn over the bones of a sci-fi dystopia. Every beautiful curve of the buildings only made the sharp edges of the Imperial presence feel more surreal.

He was ushered toward the taxi bay by another official. The vehicle awaiting him was unlike any car he’d ever seen—an angular, black-plated beast with sliding pneumatic doors that hissed open like a vault. The surface was matte, armored, bolted. It looked like it could survive a minefield.

He slid inside, nervously settling into the rigid seat. The interior smelled faintly of antiseptic and rubber. A middle-aged man in a tight dark uniform looked at him through the mirror and grunted.

“New in town?” the driver asked.

“Yes. Just arrived,” Tucker said.

“American, yeah? Figures. You guys always look like you just saw a ghost your first time through Qvam.”

Tucker hesitated. “Why’s the car like this? I mean… armored?”

The driver snorted. “Redpillers. Bunch of morons still trying to fight the system. Used to be worse. Bombings, firebombed fertility clinics, some poor male therapist got flash-sterilized by a suicide vest last year. Now everything’s shielded. And they keep us men in the driver’s seat. Literally. Not many jobs left for us otherwise.”

“Oh,” Tucker said. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah,” the man muttered. “You’ll learn.”

They drove on. Oslo blurred past the windows—glimpses of quaint cafes next to towering surveillance pylons, statues of Norse goddesses watching over armored checkpoints. Tucker didn’t know whether to be terrified or enchanted. He had never been to Europe before.

It was all so... much.

Like a fairy tale wrapped in razor wire.