Sadly, I don't own the Millennium novels. I still wish Stieg Larsson had lived long enough to build up more on Lisbeth's past, and perhaps write more work focusing on different characters.
I don't know if I've said this or not, but I have plans of writing a series of stories depicting Lisbeth in an alternate timeline - I haven't figured that part out yet - and she is a thief.
Please let me know what you think.
Why won't they leave me alone?
Lisbeth had spent the best part of her life locked away by society. She believed they were embarrassed by her for her declaration of incompetence, and how they believed her to be a deranged young woman who was trying to fit in with the gothic world. It never occurred to any of them she dressed the way she did, with her tattoos and her body piercings dotted in and around her body - her dragon tattoo was one of her most prized tattoos and body art in her collection - because she wanted to dress as she did.
What did it have to do with them? In Lisbeth's mind, she had the right to dress how she wanted without being harassed, but of course, it didn't work out that way.
For so long Lisbeth had been content with her anonymity while she tried to find ways out of being under guardianship - Palmgren had been the best of them, but since his successor was a rapist pig that wasn't saying much - and she had hoped that being with Palmgren would give her the means of getting out from under the shadow of the Swedish government's thumb, who had declared her incompetent.
She had gotten a job at Milton's to appear to be as respectable and responsible as she could. One of the reasons why she had moved up through the ranks as a researcher in the first place was to prove to those bastards who called her retarded even though she knew she was better than them combined was so then she could hold her hands up and show them and everyone else what she was capable of, although she had no desire to immediately show them she had hacked her way through different people's computers in order to get the information needed for the research.
Ever since the internet became what it was today, it had become increasingly simple to gain access to information. Lisbeth was incredibly worried by how ignorant people in society were. They posted videos online, sent people emails containing their home addresses, shared personal details on social media without giving a thought of any potential consequences. Some of them were begging to be hacked.
Lisbeth had learnt the art of computer hacking a long time ago. She had worked with Plague, and the rest of Hacker Republic and her skills had grown and evolved as she had gone. Originally she had thought about using her new skills to finding a way of getting herself and her status changed. While Palmgren was a lovely man and Lisbeth had grown to trust him despite her misgivings especially since other authority figures had gone out of their way to call her a liar, she did want her own freedom.
She had gone to the police.
She had even visited a priest, for fuck's sake. So much for the word of God, and so much for that junk where religious authority figures are meant to be there to help.
The result? All of them had called her a liar, so she had taken the law into her own hands. Lisbeth did not regret what she had done despite the consequences which had seen her lose her liberty. Her father had been a psychopath. He had abused her mother for years before finally pushing her too far that it caused her extensive brain damage. Surely the police who arrived at the scene could see that? Now, her mother was in a home, a catatonic vegetable.
But what happened to her… Lisbeth simply could not understand why she had been arrested and placed in that damn hell. Had they not bothered to look at what had happened to her mother? There were so many signs of what had happened to her - the flat was full of signs of extensive and long term abuse, did they think she was faking?
However, as the years passed by, Lisbeth had worked out the Swedish government simply did not care. And it made her hate them. But now she was convinced they were more interested in hiding something, but she didn't know what.
Teleborian had been her last chance, but instead, the filthy, depraved pig had chained her down so she could not even move an inch. In the end, Lisbeth had simply chosen not to say a word to anybody about her past, what she had seen and done. Everyone had claimed she was a liar, so what was the point?
Lisbeth had hoped when she had proven proficient in hacking she might find a way to reverse the decision to make her declared incompetent and perhaps even find some clues into where her father was. But it hadn't worked. The Swedish government, like many others, had quickly learnt of the foolproof means of keeping hackers out of their records. All they needed to do was write on old-fashioned paper. There was no way she could access her files from her home.
But things had changed for her recently. After she had hacked Wennerstrom's accounts, stealing a vast chunk of his considerable fortune, Lisbeth had left the country for a bit. She had gone all out; leaving Sweden had allowed her to view and sample more of the planet, and so she had indulged a little. She had wanted to see more of the world, especially since any hope and expectation she might've had having a relationship with Blomkvist went south, but when she had gotten back she had gained access to his computer once more to see what was going on.
One of the things she had done when she had hacked Blomkvist's computer was to gain a backdoor into Millennium. It didn't take long to discover that Millennium had gained a couple of new hands. Dag Svensson, a young journalist, and Mia Johansson, a doctoral student who had put together a meticulously researched report. Lisbeth had been impressed with the ironic title. While she wasn't sure about 'From Russia with Love' as a title, and she was worried since her research into trafficking gangs showed they were made up of individuals who were not the type of people who'd allow something like this, but she approved of both of them. Thanks to her past, Lisbeth had grown hateful towards men who abused and targeted women and young girls. She refused to allow them to suffer while the system did nothing.
True, nobody had helped her and her mother, and Camilla had been determined to follow in their insane father's footsteps to care. Lisbeth had never understood why Camilla did that, but she had decided to push it out of her mind. But she had faced the consequences of her actions and she wanted to ensure nothing like that happened to others. She had even met them in order to ask them questions, especially when they had tried to research a shadowy figure involved in the sex-trafficking industry.
Zala.
Zalachenko. It was a big red flag, and it immediately captured her interest.
Lisbeth was praying it was definitely her father the two journalists had been researching and writing about. But she knew how her father was; while she knew he was likely crippled after being burnt alive by the molotov cocktail she'd thrown at him, there was little doubt at all he was still a force to be reckoned with.
And if he was behind the sex trafficking… Considering what she had seen as a child, Lisbeth would not put it past him.
She knew he would likely have gangs under his control.
But the couple didn't know anything much about Zala beyond what was written in the reports and in their research. But she had left with a great deal of respect for them both. What she hadn't expected was for them to be murdered and the gun had her fingerprints on it. She had only held one gun since she had been back in her home country.
When Lisbeth had returned to Sweden she had checked Bjurman's computer. To her anger and horror, Bjurman had pretty much shut down his practice until he had only the one ward. Her. Bjurman had for the last year been trying to gather all information on her, although if he could access the documents relating to "All the Evil" Lisbeth would not only be incredibly surprised, she wouldn't mind getting her hands on them. Those documents would go a long way not only discovering the location of her bastard father, but if she could get hold of them she might be able to remove the stupid declaration of incompetence off of her shoulders.
The declaration of incompetence had been like an Iron Maiden. It had restricted Lisbeth's desires for the future although her time in that fucking room where Teleborian could keep her captive had snuffed out many of her opportunities and for a moment Lisbeth thought back to her childhood and later preteen desires, desires Teleborian and whoever was protecting her father had snuffed out, entrapping her like the aforementioned torture device. But the declaration of incompetence snapped it tight shut.
But what surprised Lisbeth the most was how Bjurman had taken things so far, but she couldn't believe how stupid he was. He wanted the recording she had made of him raping her to use as proof of what he had done, he wanted to find it so he could destroy it so he could ensure she couldn't use it - long experience had taught her nobody would believe her unless she had rock-solid proof to back up her claims.
But he was stupid, and Lisbeth had worked out ten seconds after meeting the bastard pervert he was simply unintelligent. Did he really think she was as stupid and simple-minded as her damn files made her out to be?
Did he really think she would leave the recording somewhere where he could find it?
She had confronted him, of course, to ensure he did as she wanted - she might have dropped a few clues she was a hacker, but Lisbeth was unconcerned about that.
Whether or not he would have worked out she had hacked his computer, Lisbeth didn't know, but it didn't matter anyway regardless. She only prayed he hadn't joined the dots. Even if he had known she was a hacker from the off, he wouldn't have the skills or the knowledge needed to clear his computer of anything she had done. In any case, she had doubted it would make any kind of difference. It didn't matter now. Bjurman was dead, and Lisbeth's only regret was she hadn't even tried to release the disc anyway to make him pay a price he couldn't walk away from. But what she did regret was not taking Bjurman's gun, the very gun she had used to threaten him. The very gun the police had tied to her was the weapon used to murder Dag and Mia.
Thanks to what she had learnt from the reports so far, including the pathologist and coroner reports she had managed to get access to about their murders, Lisbeth knew whoever was behind the murders had killed them only moments after she had dropped by to speak to them. The very timing was not just frightening, it was almost too coincidental and Lisbeth had begun to ask herself if the killer was following her and just killed Dag and Mia, but she doubted it.
From what she had learnt their apartment was wrecked. That meant the murder wasn't merely premeditated they were looking for something in that apartment. It was likely connected to their research. That certainly made more sense. The logic was so obvious Lisbeth simply could not wrap her brain around what the police were doing. They had not made that logical deduction yet, but no.
They must know about Dag and Mia's research.
They must realise the two were researching sex trafficking and were trying to bring those responsible for ruining the lives of girls - which probably involved drugging them and raping them- to justice.
The answers and the clues were in the research. That made more sense than the ridiculous path the case against her was taken. Instead of focusing their time and energy on going through the research and finding the people involved, the police were more focused on her being a lesbian!
How did that make any sense? Where was her motive?
Why would a lesbian go after a pair of researchers investigating sex trafficking? Lisbeth had never particularly liked the police. Her impressions of them had been ruined when they had not listened to her about what Zalachenko was doing to her mother while Camilla did nothing. When they had arrested her in her teens, suspecting her of being a prostitute without even bothering to dig deeper, her impressions of them had fallen lower. But the case they'd drawn out at her now was making her question their intelligence. The current case was a joke, anyone could see that. From what she had learnt Prosecutor Ekstrom was ambitious, but he wasn't very bright, although Lisbeth saw so many people as unintelligent. His lack of intellectual capacity was there for all to see. He seemed to be passing the buck on Inspector Bublanski. From Lisbeth's research, the senior detective was a competent man, and yet it was beyond Lisbeth's comprehension as to why the police allowed Ekstrom, who seemed to delight in releasing bits about her until the press span the story around so it sounded like an insane lesbian gang with satanic worshipping traits murdered Dag and Mia, to get away with it.
The moment she read about that, Lisbeth was uncertain whether or not to laugh or weep. It was moments like that where she wondered if the human race had lost some IQ over the centuries.
A lesbian satanist gang. How did that work? How did any of that make even the slightest sense? Who had come out with such a stupid and irrational assumption just to sell newspapers? If that was the direction the police were going to go, then it would be simple for her to hide and carry out her own investigation. Unlike the police, she wasn't going to make foolish deductions without any proof. It was clear they had found what people had assumed was her personality, but wasn't prepared to probe deeper. Lisbeth wasn't offended by that; she had been treated in that manner her entire life, she had gotten used to it. At the same time, it had proven to be simple in itself to find cracks where she could vanish.
What angered Lisbeth the most was how the newspapers and the media were digging deeply into her life and speaking to people who had known her as a kid or those sensationalists who just wanted to see their names in the paper for fame, and she had slowly compiled a list of names of the reporters behind the stories and the people who claimed she had terrified them. There had been a few truthful accounts, but Lisbeth just planned on finding them although it would have to wait until she had diverted her attention to them.
But what bothered her the most, and had left her asking several important questions was why the newspapers and the police hadn't publicly produced anything relating to "All the evil."
At first, she had been concerned. The police and the media hadn't shown any kind of shame of what they were digging up; the 'All the Evil' was perhaps the darkest part of her life. If the newspapers got wind of it, they would be able to spin it around to make her look even worse in the eyes of the public. Personally, Lisbeth didn't truly care what people thought about her. But she did care about the possibility of being sent back to that damn asylum.
Scenario one; the documents for 'All the evil,' had long since been lost or destroyed. That was possible. Records went missing all the time, or they had been lost from whatever archive they'd been dumped in to gather dust. However, if any documents from that dark time had been written she did not know.
Scenario two; neither the police nor the media had gotten wind of it either because someone had simply not found it. But they had found out so many other details of her past, some of it predating "All the evil," so she dismissed it entirely.
Scenario three; there was more to the case than met the eye, and somebody higher than Ekstrom and even Teleborian wanted to keep it buried.
Lisbeth had dismissed scenario two, but she was leaning a bit more towards the third scenario although number one was attractive in many ways.
Another thing she was worried about was her few friends. There was no doubt in her head the band attributed to lesbian Satanists were no longer looking at her as a friend, and Lisbeth would not blame them. Another thing society had taken from her.
But at the same time… Lisbeth had gained a strong desire to just be left alone, and for a long time, she had been content with it, even without her periodic visits to Palmgren and Bjurman. And now she was the most notorious woman in Sweden. Thanks to the passport photo which made her look deranged and insane, which only strengthened the belief she was insane, Lisbeth wouldn't normally go out. But thanks to her disguises that wasn't an obstacle.
Nowadays she looked much better than her photo, and with her Irene disguise with blonde hair, it was easy for her to go out although she was prepared for many eventualities. But she was worried that sooner or later the police would spot her through her disguise. She wasn't worried about them working out she lived here. She had taken too many precautions for that kind of simple outcome.
But her mind drifted back to where she had earlier considered why nobody had found the records for "All the evil." Lisbeth had never liked conspiracies. She knew they existed she also knew many people took them out of context, even going as far as to begin equating ridiculous notions which were unrelated to find out the 'truth.'
But now she was wondering to herself if there was a conspiracy of some sort. Whoever was keeping Ekstrom and the police uninformed about the darkest moments of her past were likely the same people who had gone out of their way to keep her father protected, even against her. She was beginning to think her father was in some ways more important than she'd originally suspected.
Lisbeth lit a cigarette and took a moment to gaze out over the night lights of the city.
"Why won't they leave me alone?" Lisbeth muttered to herself, wondering what it would take before everyone stopped prying into her life, but that was irrelevant. She needed to find her father. She needed to clear this up before she either made a stupid mistake which gave the police her exact location or they got lucky.