Phagocytosis

Malmö, European Federation, December 2037

It is as cold as it gets for Malmö in December. Peter Berglund is the head of security at the central train station. He oversees the safety of passengers and staff, as well as the well-being and status of the 20 or so Police officers under his command. He knows every shop owner, every newsstand and tobacconist, and most late and early commuters, even if they do not know him. He is familiar with every cleaning robot and their maintainers. Until the controversial street peace act, which forcibly removed all the homeless from the streets, he also knew all of them by name. The act, controversial all over Europe was one of a series of development in this Scandinavian principality of the federation.

Thanks to its rise to 45 million inhabitants, Sweden now boasts thousands of factories running around the clock, with minimal human labor thanks to advanced automation and robotics. The country has experienced a remarkable boom in energy production, fueled largely by a rapid expansion of renewable sources alongside its numerous nuclear power plants. This industrial surge is, in many ways, a byproduct of the war that reshaped Europe.

It is no coincidence that many German refugees chose to stay, attracted by the stability and opportunity in this Scandinavian powerhouse. Despite ongoing complaints from Brussels, few can deny that Sweden, spared the worst of the conflict, has emerged as one of the continent's strongest and most resilient nations.

This strength is visible in many areas. Sweden leads Europe in the number of operational nuclear reactors, fueling not only its cities but also its vast industrial complexes. Its steel mills churn out high-quality materials that feed both domestic industries and export markets worldwide. The country's GDP per capita ranks among the highest in Europe, reflecting a prosperous and well-educated population.

Militarily, Sweden commands several well-equipped divisions, fleets and the largest air force in Europe, projecting its power and ensuring national security. Culturally, Swedish artists consistently dominate the global music charts, with multiple hit songs in the worldwide top 100 each year. This blend of economic might, military readiness, and cultural influence makes Sweden a true superpower in the modern European landscape.

Despite all of this, Peter Berglund still takes an hour or two every day once things quiet down in offices to patrol the on foot.

"Being a reservist, I had been called up and fought for six months in Denmark before Task Force KALMAR was established, that Scandinavian battlegroup. When I was called back here, I thought it was a blessing. Turns out, the army always wants something from you. I was just a street cop before all of that, responding to calls, handling domestic disputes, drunk students, and, every now and then, sexual assaults and shootings. Those last two happened more often than most people realized.

God, if I had known things would only get worse. Because of my combat experience, they put me in the anti-gun task force. That was partly motivated by Amir, an old colleague of mine, who was shot dead on the street by some scum with an assault rifle, a Colt, one of the millions built during that war.

The fucking war spilled over into every corner of our streets. Weapons meant for soldiers ended up in the hands of criminals and desperate people alike. They call it "war leakage," but it was more like a flood. Assault rifles, handguns, explosives, and the number of hand grenades was unreal. We had some of that before, of course, either private weapons stolen or old Yugoslav army stock making its way north.

The frontlines were a mess. Supplies slipped through cracks in the system, stolen or sold off by corrupt officials, black market traders, and even soldiers themselves. You would have a guy die out there, and his rifle would magically disappear without a trace. People on the front line had other things on their minds than asking questions.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Three months later those same weapons were being used to shoot up bars. Gangbangers targeted their rivals without a care for the civilians caught in the crossfire. It used to be criminals tried to break ATMs at night using saws or by pulling them apart with trucks. Now you had commandos assaulting banks in broad daylight armed with assault rifles and machine guns.

This started to hamper our war effort. That prison transport breakout where five officers were killed and about ten mobsters escaped really set people on edge. Instead of sending soldiers to Berlin entire infantry battalions were deployed on the streets of major cities. Our boys and girls were dying by the hundreds, and still there were scum who saw this chaos as a business opportunity.

The parliament changed the laws fast. Faster than I ever thought possible in this country. First came the curfews in high-risk zones. Then stop-and-search without a warrant. Surveillance expansion. No more waiting for a judge's nod. If you had cause, you acted. They lowered the threshold for wiretaps, let us carry military-grade gear, and even brought in judges who rode with us on raids.

We had proper teeth for the first time in my career. No more chasing ghosts with a flashlight and a clipboard. You could feel it on the streets. Criminals started watching their backs again. They knew we were coming and we weren't coming to talk.

Of course the media cried foul. Civil liberties groups called it racist. Said we were targeting poor communities, profiling, brutalizing. There were headlines every week, footage taken out of context, sob stories about kids tackled too hard or doors kicked in too early. Politicians wavered at first but the public stood with us. People were scared. They wanted order. They wanted results. And we gave them that.

Just as Peter leans back, adjusting the collar of his jacket against the cold, a small voice cuts through the murmur of the station.

"Hi, excuse me... do you know where the train to Lund leaves from?" can be heard in Swedish

A boy, maybe eight or nine, stands in front of him, bundled in a red puffer jacket with a backpack almost bigger than he is. His cheeks are red from the wind, eyes wide but polite, his mother not far behind.

Peter smiles. Not the cold professional smile he gives reporters, superiors or even me earlier, but a real one.

"Sure," he says, nodding. "It leaves from track seven. But it's a little delayed, so you have plenty of time. Are you going to visit someone?"

The boy nods eagerly. "My grandma."

Peter chuckles and points him toward the right platform. "Then say hello to her from me."

The boy runs off back to his smiling mother, his backpack bouncing with every step. Peter waves at her as he watches him disappear into the crowd, then glances back.

"See, that's why we do it," he mutters. "So kids like that don't have to grow up dodging bullets."

"Where was I, yeah. For a while, we had real momentum. We cleaned out blocks that had been gang territory for a decade. Recovered hundreds of illegal weapons. Wasn't just us, we had infantryman on standby, you had maybe one volvo of ours patrolling at night, with a Terräng­bil 16 full of eager 19 year olds behind it. Add to that, they were handing out draft notices like hot cakes. Either you went to the front or you went to prison. And not the pre-war prison system we used to have, the ones that felt more like summer camps. You did your time in those poultry farms, locked in with no privacy and no future. And when your sentence was up, they put you on a plane to your ancestors' homeland. You were reunited with a parent who had been deported the same week you got locked up. If you catch my drift. Shut down arms channels flowing in from the front. You couldn't get a spoon across the Oresund. You don't do that with kind words and social programs." He grabs me by the arm, makes me stop and look at him.

"You do it with force. With presence. With pressure. That's what we didn't understand before. I won't lie. It felt good. We had been held back for too long by bureaucracy, paperwork, and the fear of being accused of overreach. Now we were finally allowed to act like a real force. I know what they said about us. I read the reports. I saw the protests. But I also saw mothers finally letting their kids walk to school again. That matters more to me than any headline. And as you see, or more importantly can't see, we kept the momentum going even after the show was all over."

The door of the tabac shop sticks slightly before giving way, and the dry heat inside wraps around me like an old coat.

"Pack of Lucky Strikes" I ask.

He reaches for the shelf without breaking eye contact. A smirk starts to curl at the edge of his mouth.

"So," he says, voice thick with amusement, "did Oberstleutnant Peter not talk too much today?" he asks, mocking a German accent.