Defekt is Nino Cipri’s second novella set in the world(s) of LitenVärld, a fictionalized IKEA, following
Finna (2020) but perfectly readable as a stand-alone. While Jules does pop up in the background at the start of the book, our protagonist for this frightful multidimensional excursion is Derek: an employee whose loyalty to the LitenVärld family is unparalleled, whose living space is a shipping container at the backlot of the store and who’s never taken a sick day… until he starts coughing blood unexpectedly.
But the perfect employee shouldn’t need time off. Calling out sick leads Derek to be assigned to a special inventory team for a locked-in night of hunting defective products, like toy chests that have grown pincers and eyestalks, but that’s not even the strangest part. The honor of peak weirdness goes to the visiting inventory team, a set of four strangers who look and sound (almost) identical to him.