A Notebook With Hope

Abhishek grasped the bracelet on his left wrist, making sure his finger covered the authentication indentation. A thin magenta light emanated from the embossed surface and expanded over the oval table between them. He adjusted his clear protective visor to reduce the glare.

In response, Altea squeezed the pendent on her necklace given to her as a gift from her mother. She caressed the translucent crystal in its center. Her diffused light fused with Abhishek’s light, gaining strength as the interface started to form an image. An anti-bacterial aura surrounded Altea’s faux mahogany chair so wearing a visor was not necessary in her home. Even with strangers present.

The displayed image was a black rectangle with a marbled texture. “It takes a minute to coalesce,” Altea murmured quietly.

“No worries, no worries,” said Abhishek. “Why is it black?”

“Black and white image printer. I couldn’t afford color pigments when I bought it. This is the print view. What color is your computer display?”

“The view is corrupted.” A third dimension materialized, making the surface marbled and softer. “We tried several displays. This is the best view I have seen. It looks like an old-fashioned book but we couldn’t see any place to access it or select a page. Nor are there emojis or icons. I knew we needed better equipment.”

“Yes, this predates our common Padapps or Emoji-texts. But it’s not a book for reading. I think it may be a Notebook.”

“Note … book?”

“On paper, sir.” The golden aura made Altea’s smile warm and inviting. “Never handled one. Let me see ... Imagine a book but smaller and instead of selecting the next page or swiping the screen, you grasped the physical corner of each page and flicked it. The text traveled across the middle hinge and the next page displayed.”

“Hashtag exclamation point!” cried Abhishek. “That explains much.”

“How much do you know about books?”

“The usual amount. I read books on my Reader.”

Altea shook her head. “I mean an actual book, a physical book. Books were originally made of wood pulp. Ah, you see now? As the world temperature kept rising throughout last century, wood burned very easily. Almost all books were lost, especially contemporary publications. That’s why it’s easier to read Shakespeare than books written during the Fires and Storms decade. Those books were already archived. No paper books now.”

“Yes, that is correct. In this case, I bought a data stream. By chance, this … Notebook was a thread in the stream.”

“I see. And the thread has degenerated so you cannot view the individual pages. Unless perhaps an old printer which could separate them as a print view. Logical.” Altea looked at her readout under the image. “Curious emoji. Where did you purchase this data stream?” Her long fingers furiously tapped the table. An emoji-board lit up and she began typing, trying to sharpen the old printer view.

Abhishek sipped his caffeine pureed with kiwi. “It’s a good post. I am on the Binaurora20 task force. We are locating any historical records helping us solve our current crisis. We believe whatever past information we can find may lead us to a cure. We found evidence of a pandemic a little over a hundred years ago. Similar to Binaurora20. It also bloomed on both coasts. I started looking for more records in all 64 states but historical records are scarce. Fires and Storms destroyed everything. I found nothing in New Newyork. Nothing in the District State of Washington. I looked for information overseas based on a rumor that the virus started in the China countries. Nothing. I returned to The United States of North America, landing near Seattle. A pure coincidence. I could have flown to any of the coastal cities in North or South California or I could have flown a week later. But I flew to Seattle where I saw an announcement for a data stream auction that very night. On a whim, I went. This particular data stream was guaranteed to be eighty to ninety years old. The oldest stream for sale.”

“Nice. Triple checkbox thumb up emoji.” Altea rubbed an icon on the table. The black rectangle disappeared, and fragmented patches of text slowly became visible. “The cover had no text. The pages I am trying to restore have no emoji-texts or icons. The age seems correct. Do you recognize that object?”

“What object?” said Abhishek. Altea lifted her finger and highlighted what she saw. A dark circle with red spikes sticking out from all sides. Abhishek’s eyes grew big. “That’s the coronavirus symbol! It’s what the virus may have looked like. This could be Big News emoji!”

“Let me try to extract more pages.”

“Triple excited emoji!”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions.” A second page sliced away from the first, followed by a third and a fourth. More words became clearer on each page.

Abhishek’s nose virtually touched the pages. “I can read some of this.”

“That means they can be printed. That is what you want to do, am I right?”

“Correct, correct.”

“Wow. I am not the pandemic expert you are but I am familiar with many historical artifacts. No doubt why you contacted me.” She smiled and again squeezed the pendent and looked at the display in front of her, tapping the table.

“Yes, yes. I hoped you could help me. You were highly recommended.”

“Thank you. Yes, this is a timeline with a chart. Medical terminology. Variants?”

“That makes sense. A virus can mutate, change its structure. Binaurora20 hasn’t done that yet.”

“Do you see the signature? At the bottom? It looks like a name.”

Abhishek removed his visor but covered his face with his left hand. He knew there was no danger with Altea bathed in her protective aura but childhood habits were hard to break. He had to get a better look. “It looks like ‘Anthony’—and some random letters. This is amazing!” Altea looked at him, curiously. “There was a pandemic doctor back then. Worked under tremendous adversity when Covid19 started. Things got better at the end and he was thought of as a hero of sorts. After he died, books were published about him. His first name was Anthony but when books were lost his last name was lost as well. Even the initial of his surname was debated. Some thought it was a “P,” I thought it was a ‘T’, because the first three letters may have come from an old Latin word.”

“This looks like an ‘F’ to me.”

“I agree, I agree. I think this is word product that somebody directly copied from this doctor’s research. Maybe this Notebook even belonged to him! Perhaps this is the signature of Dr. Anthony F.”

“Do you realize what you are saying?”

“This is the information I am looking for. Thank you.”

Altea smiled at Abhishek. “That is only part of it. My expertise is historical artifacts. I can give you twenty thousand in old currency dollars right now. Cash as they used to say. And even though that is a fair price, you should reject it. Because when I print this, the signature of this doctor who may have helped solve two pandemics one hundred years apart, even if it is only a facsimile of his signature, artifact hunters would pay millions of North American BitDollars for this printout. I could print this out a few times until the data stream degraded too much so you might be able to get tens of millions of BitDollars, hell yens of millions of BitYen or EuroBitPounds if you prefer. If you decline my offer of twenty thousand old dollars, I will increase my fee to a quarter of a percent of each printed copy you sell.”

“This is good, this is good, but I am only interested in what the information says, not how much people will pay.”

“Don’t be so fast. If this is indeed a methodology of the past Corona virus that may be studied to resolve the Bonaurora20 virus today, then one hashtag follows the next. Use the BitMoney to pay for the cure, use it for good. I can put the pages back to your interface for you to study while you sell the hard copies. You will give every person on the planet something we did not have before.”

“And what is that?”

“Hope.”

Tears welled in Abhishek’s eyes. He understood. As unexpectedly as his discovery, he spread the fingers on his left hand and extended them over the table mingling with the printer view of the recovered pages. Altea nodded and extended her own fingers until they touched, caressing the pads of each finger. It was a long time coming.