Cycle of Time

2.1

It was all very strange. Nobody ever read any books these days. The days of books and paper had faded away so gradually that few people ever realised it. Like the old tape recorders or VCRs, the younger ones just heard of these old archaic things people used to read.

That was exactly why Uben was fascinated. Why was the woman trying to hide the book? There was no law against it. At least no written law, but it was way hip to have the newest gadget.

As he continued to think he came to the sudden realization that he himself had hid away the piece of paper after he'd read it. Was it that he too was afraid that others would see?

As Uben kept wondering of these things he noticed the tiny text printed at the bottom of the paper, 'www. Book .com'. These days' people hardly ever typed to search for anything. Dot coms were still there but nobody used it. It seemed like technology was this seamless space that connected your thoughts to what you wanted on your gadget. There were no remaining search engines that worked by typing as far as Uben knew.

In all likelihood this was just a defunct web address from the past. But Uben was too curious now.The pattern was different. Like a good physician, who had found a rare disorder, Uben was intrigued and scared. Intrigued because it was such an anomaly, scared because he did not know where this would lead.

As soon as work allowed Uben called up his tech adviser. Sena was a difficult person to get in touch with. He worked for a tech company. He had an ordinary life, except that in his spare time he dabbled in cyber tracing. Whenever Uben need help in looking at the traces left behind by people he needed to get hold of in the cyber world, Sena would be the one he would turn to.

"Hey, Sena do they use .com searches anymore?"Uben got straight to the point.

"Hey man, what are you up to now?"Sena as usual was distracted.

"Come-on Sena help me out here, and tell me what you can," Uben was impatient.

"Well okay then. The short answer is no."

Just as Uben started to talk, Sena continued, "except a few groups who still use it as platforms to chat. Its probably the best way to communicate if you want to keep a secret"

"Okay, but can you still read all those websites?"

"Sure you can. They are all there. But I don't think people bother creating new ones. Plus it's no fun searching after all the search engine tech companies moved on."

" I think I'm onto something here. Can you look this up for me ."

"Sure man I'll call you back."Sena kept the phone in a hurry as if he had some other thing to do.

It was one week later and Uben was back to his normal routine, the monotonous urgencies of work had pushed the encounter with the lady on the street to the back of his mind. He only called Sena to get some details on another case he was working on.

After discussing issues around this new case Sena interrupted, "by the way I had a look at that www address you gave me."

"Well what happened?"

"Really interesting it's a site about books. It's some kind of a library. You know it's something like a book club, the kind they used to have some time back."

"You know a place where they exchange books. I think it's some kind of retro rebellion thing."

"Huh?"

"You know where people get nostalgic about things in the past and start going back to the past. Anyway I can send the details to your device."

"Thanks Sena, that'll be great."

"Hey you need to keep me updated on this one. I haven't come across something like this myself before."

"Sure will do."

Uben's device beeped a few minutes later and he could see that it was a message from Sena.