Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology - Chapter 885

Chapter 885: The Typewriter is Out!
April 1672

Several days passed, and the news about the establishment of two new ministries had become a topic of heated discussion throughout the empire. Middle-aged men and women, college teachers, doctors, policemen—everyone speculated about why the ministries were established, why exactly they were established now, and what roles they fulfil.

For anyone living in the India of the 21st century, such questions and the phenomenon of politics becoming a topic of national interest might look like a fantasy, but that is exactly what is happening now. With the Bharatiya Empire’s education policies seeping deeper into the roots of even the remotest villages, people are getting educated at a breakneck speed, giving rise to an atmosphere in the empire where people started to crave knowledge.

The rise in sales in all newspapers better signifies this. National newspapers like The Times of Bharat, The Observer, Bharatam Daily, and other lesser-known ones have already broken through the sales of 5 to 8 million copies a day, while the regional newspapers that dominate in a single state like The Ahom Daily, Nepali Times, My Hampi, The Balochi, Kannada Nudi, Tamil Urai, Marathi Samachar, Gujarati Varta, Bangla Barta, Odia Prabha have all hit the figures of a million newspapers or more on a single day, depending on the topic of discussion. And this rise of the media industry is not showing any sign of slowing down, especially not now, when the newspaper companies are slowly expanding their reach to the overseas territory of the Bharatiya Empire. The top three national newspapers have already embarked on this path, and they have found relative success.

Over the course of the last couple of days, apart from the topic of the new ministries’ establishment, the first judicial case that attracted the attention of the whole nation was being held. The case was about the four informants who got caught selling government information to media companies for personal gain.

The nation was split in this case, as no one knew how to judge what level of punishment should be given. On one hand, people argued that they should be punished severely because they had used the knowledge of the government, which had not been made public yet, and sold it as a commodity.

However, others argued that they did not leak out any state secrets. They simply used their position to their advantage and made some extra money without going against the law, as there is nothing in their employment contracts that states they are not allowed to interact and cooperate with the media. Although there is a provision to stop them from leaking confidential information, the news about the establishment of the two new ministries was not confidential information.

There were smart intellectuals, public figures, and politicians arguing on both sides of the case, causing the judicial framework of the Bharatiya Empire to be tested like never before. Every day, new news and developments in the case come out, and every day, the newspapers get sold out as if the case is a serialised soap opera.

In the middle of all the chaos of opinions about the new state of Khalsa Raj, the founding of two new ministries, and the judicial case that has become a nation’s problem, the intelligence handlers of foreign nations spread in various parts of the empire noticed the unusual developments in the three military conglomerates and Sriranga Industrial Tools. Digging deeper, most of them found out that several talented workers were being taken somewhere out of the manufacturing plant. As they dug deeper, the best of them zeroed in on a name called Power Labs of Raya Research Institute.

Intelligence handler Alpha was one of those talented intelligence who, by using the intel obtained by the assets controlled and adding together the pieces of intel to form a complete picture, discovered the unusual nature of Power Labs that seemingly only existed in name for the last decade but was now showing unusual transactions between some of the most important organizations in the empire.

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Alpha’s eyes brightened; he knew that he had discovered something important, and he immediately took the intelligence to some of his clients to see if they were interested in the news and if they wanted to provide more investment for him to increase his assets in the area.

However, Alpha, when he was on his way to meet a Grand Duke from the Holy Roman Empire, couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong. Although he had spent all his efforts to obtain the intelligence, he had a feeling that it was obtained too simply. But this feeling only lasted for a split second as he shook his head and moved on.

What Alpha did not know was that his feelings were really true. The news he obtained with so much difficulty was part of Operation Maya being conducted by the Bharatiya Internal Pragya. If Director Selvan of Bharatiya Internal Pragya, knew that Alpha had suspected something suspicious in the news, he would be very impressed, because in order to not make it too obvious, the clues were hidden too deeply, and as far as he knew, only two or three people “discovered” the anomaly that is Power Labs. He wouldn’t have expected a person like Alpha to exist who would even suspect the process of his discovery.

Thankfully, everything worked out for the better since Alpha doesn’t truly belong to only one nation. He manages the intelligence assets and sells intelligence to whoever the highest bidder is, so as long as the intelligence he holds is valuable, it does not matter if it is true or not.

—

The royal carriage came to a slow stop as Vijay got down with a tired expression. It was a busy day for Vijay once again. Thankfully, the work ended early, and he did not have to sleep in the office.

Straightening his back with some effort and walking back home, Vijay was taken aback when he came across what looked like a typewriter placed at the security quarters of the palace.

Looking at His Majesty staring at the lump of metal, the royal guard immediately came forward and saluted, “It came through post early in the morning, Your Majesty. It came in a large wooden box. We took the box apart and made sure that nothing dangerous is within. We wanted to take apart the device as well, but Your Majesty, we were not sure if we could put it back, so we were waiting for your orders.”

Vijay understood and nodded as he turned around and left, his voice lingering in the air.

“Pack it as it was and send it to the palace.”

Vijay was a little annoyed that the package was opened, since opening up or unboxing a new device was an experience in itself. In his last life, for this exact reason, he would buy products online despite them being available at the same price offline. He wanted to be the one to open the boxes himself. Unfortunately, it has become a luxury in this life, but he can understand. Half the world wants to see him dead. In such a situation, he cannot afford to take chances just because he wants to experience excitement for a few seconds.

Getting home, he saw his son and daughter, Vedant and Tanvika, doing what looked like their homework, while Kavya was in her studio working on something. Not disturbing anyone, he went to freshen up. While he got back dressed in a set of loose and comfortable clothes, he had dinner with his family. When the time of dinner was about to reach an end, the typewriter, which had been repackaged by the royal guards, was brought by some of the servants of the palace.

His son and daughter looked at the package with some curiosity, while Kavya looked at him with doubt.

Vijay smiled and motioned to Kavya, “It is for you. Go open it.”

She looked around at the box, and there were no symbols or paintings on it. Her curiosity only increased further. Looking around, she could see that the box was nailed shut, so she asked the servants to remove the nails.

After the wooden panels of the box were removed, inside was a large machine wrapped up in several layers of paper. Kavya took a knife in her hands and cut up all the threads holding the paper together.

“This…?” Kavya was taken aback when she saw the neat row of letters, numbers, and symbols on top of the machine. In curiosity, she tried pressing a button. She did not know what to expect, but when the key went in and then came out with a satisfied click, she looked towards Vijay, hoping for an explanation.

“It’s called a typewriter. By using this, the speed of writing is increased, and even the words are uniform. It was invented by a guy called Govindan Yadav.”

“A few months ago, he just finished perfecting the design. I ordered 100,000 units to be manufactured. It looks like they have been manufactured and are ready to be sold.”

Kavya’s eyes brightened as she curiously continued to press different keys. Vijay, looking at her playing with the typewriter so seriously, came forward and explained how to jump to the next line, how to operate the space key and the symbols, how to feed the paper, and other things.

Vedant seemed to have been attracted by the machine, as he put his head to the ground in order to see the moving parts in the typewriter with interest. As for Tanvika, she was also interested, but it was not for long, as she went back to her room.