The Time War

Chapter 20: The Deinvention of the Telegraph

The Luddites:

Tom Stoyer tried to calm some of the unhappiness in the quad.

He wasn't blind to the fact that Brad wasn't happy that he was having sex more and more often with his blonde, busty wife Maggie. And he also knew that Donna was equally unhappy that he was inserting himself between Maggie's legs a lot more often than he was hers.

Tom couldn't make Bradley happy. But he thought there

was

something he could do for Donna. So when he started kissing her and fondling her breasts at the dinner table one night, Donna was pleasantly surprised.

Very

pleasantly surprised. And when Tom smiled knowingly at her and led her by the hand to his expansive sleeping quarters, she felt a thrill permeate her body. She was about to have sexual intercourse... with her husband!

But then, when they entered the bedroom, Donna saw Maggie, wearing lingerie, lying on her back with her legs spread, in what Donna guessed was an approximation of a sexual pose.

"What's this?" Donna asked, turning to Tom. Tom guided her to the bed. "Don't you want to say hello to Maggie, dear? She put this sexy outfit on... just for you."

Donna's heart sunk. Suddenly, she knew what the tableau for the evening was: her and Maggie. She gave Tom a doubtful look, and saw his smile of steel and the hardness in his eyes. What Tom wanted, Tom got.

Trembling slightly, Donna leaned forward and gave Maggie a kiss. Maggie responded eagerly, grinding her lips against Donna strongly. Donna was confused by this for a moment, until she realized that Maggie's eagerness wasn't about pleasing

her

.

They undressed each other, and did what they were expected to do. Tom directed it, like it was holoporn, telling Donna to put her head there or Maggie to spread her legs here. Very soon, Donna found herself munching on Maggie's rug while Maggie was doing the same to her. Maggie was moaning as she did it, acting like she was eating dinner at a five star restaurant. Donna couldn't complain about her skill, though; Maggie's lips and tongue polished her clitoris like it was silverware at a thousand credit a night hotel.

Donna tried to please Maggie as best she could, but whether she was actually successful was hard to know, as Maggie was as likely as not to give an orgasmic groan during moments when Donna wasn't in contact with her hot button as in moments when she was. It was all an act, put on to please Tom.

And please Tom it did, judging by the tent he was pitching inside his trousers. He smiled as he slowly undressed himself, and when he was ready, he said, "All right," And then Maggie's sensual moans ceased instantly, as if someone had flicked a power switch.

"Are you ladies ready for a real man?" he asked.

He was erect; he was ready to use their bodies. Two women nodded affirmatively.

Tom got into bed and gave Donna a passionate kiss. Donna felt a thrill go through her body. Her nipples got hard instantly.

And then Tom made love to Maggie.

********

Donna watched, dabbing the tears from her eyes, as Tom plowed between Maggie's legs. "Uh... uh... uhhhhhhh!" he cried, his body sleek with sweat, as he filled her with his semen. Maggie cried out as well, perhaps climaxing herself, or perhaps not. And then Tom collapsed on top of her body, and they lay silent.

Donna waited a long moment. She started to sniffle audibly. Tom didn't pay attention. Then she sniffled louder.

"What... what are you doing?" Tom asked.

"What about me?" said Donna.

"What about you?" said Tom, in a way that made Donna shiver slightly, but not from lust.

Tom stared at her with hard eyes for a moment. "All right," he said. "Come over here," he said, patting the side of the bed.

Donna squealed with joy and lay on the bed parallel to Tom and Maggie. Tom was still inserted inside of Maggie, but she was certain that he would disengage and-

Suddenly, she felt a hand, probing inside of her. A finger. Two fingers. Tom started to rub her inside her nether folds. He gave her a bored look. "Faster?"

Donna didn't know what to say. She nodded.

And so Tom masturbated her, while Maggie watched with clinical disinterest. Or perhaps not entirely with disinterest. Just a hint of a smirk started to appear on the edge of her lips, and her eyes seemed to be sparkling with mischief as she watched Tom pleasure his wife digitally.

As for Tom, he looked bored at first, and then, increasingly impatient. "Are you almost there?" he asked more than once, his tone getting increasingly dark. Each time Donna shook her head, and he sighed theatrically.

By the third time he asked, she knew she had run out of time, so Donna "did a Maggie". She arched her back up, her eyes went wide, and she shouted. "Ooooh... ooooh... oooooh! Oh Tom!" she cried, as her body shuddered and vibrated.

But as she came down from her simulated high, she heard Maggie giggling, and saw that Tom was already kissing her again.

********

"The Continuity Service has stymied us at every turn," said Tom, speaking to the group the following morning. He felt good. He had drained his balls most thoroughly inside of Maggie's vagina not once but twice, and didn't feel the distracting tug from the thing between his legs; in short, he could think clearly and

focus

.

"Part of the problem is that we have attacked where they expected us to," said Tom. "I propose we attack the timeline at a most unexpected place." He pressed a button and the image of a 19th century white man appeared above them. "This is Samuel Morse, the founder of the telegraph system in the year 1843."

"Uh, Tom, what do we care about the telegraph system?" Brad asked, in a mild voice. If he was annoyed that Tom had put two heavy loads of cum inside his wife just hours earlier, he didn't show it.

"The telegraph system was the precursor to the telephone system, which was a precursor to the internet and modern global communications. If we can prevent the telegraph from being discovered for even another hundred years, it will greatly slow the pace of technical progress in our present." Tom looked at his followers. "Remember, my friend, that when we focus ourselves on a tiny holoscreen, we ignore all those around us. We ignore our true selves, our own community right in front of us! Global networks allow global communication. Global communication allows global wars, and global capitalism. The more we can slow it down, the better."

He was pleased to see them all nodding in agreement, even Brad. Tom wondered if Brad was so cuckolded that he would nod his head in agreement if invited to watch him and Maggie go at it. Maybe he would try it, sometime....

********

Samuel Morse was credited with inventing what came to be called as Morse code, but really, most of the credit belongs to his sexually frigid second wife, Sarah.

Samuel Morse's first wife Lucretia died when her vagina exploded prematurely during childbirth. He was more careful in selecting his second wife, making sure that she was a woman with good childbearing hips--which Sarah had.

What he couldn't have anticipated was that while Sarah had all the necessary baby making equipment, her signaling circuits might have a fault in them. Although Morse enjoyed plowing into her, and filling her with his seed, Sarah felt... nothing. At first, Morse didn't care, but over time, Sarah assumed this facial expression, every time he made love to her, like she was having a painful bowel movement. It was most distracting. He was considering covering her head with a pillow during the lovemaking act, when Sarah said, "You know, I might prefer it better if you touched me... down there."

This confused Morse, as he

already

thought he was touching her "down there", and quite considerably too. But Sarah showed him a specific spot that she enjoyed being touched on, and before long, Morse was bringing her to orgasm by rubbing her in just that spot.

At first, Morse was pleased that he could bring some pleasure to his wife. But the joy was short lived. The time it took to bring Sarah to completion grew longer and longer, and Morse got bored. And so, as he tapped her most sensitive spot, his mind wandered. He started to pretend he was tapping out a code. Three short taps. Tap tap tap. Three longer swipes. Swipe swipe swipe. Three short taps. Tap tap tap. Like an SOS. Like a call for help. HELP ME, Morse cried silently, tapping and swiping vigorously. Help me escape this frigid wife of mine!

"Oh yes, Samuel, just like that!" Sarah groaned, as she felt sensual pleasure down there.

And suddenly, Morse got an idea, and Morse Code was born, given birth to from Sarah's vagina, exactly like a babe.

********

But on that important day in 1843, when Morse, standing in the signal booth in Washington DC, tapped out a message to the Baltimore line, he received no response. Nothing. For some reason, it simply didn't work. There was no response. Even Sarah was more responsive than this.

But it

should

have worked.

********

Major Alex Reynolds, Lieutenant Daniel Acton, Lieutenant Erica Green, and Captain John Calle appeared just outside of Baltimore, Maryland in the year 1843. Calle looked jealously at the others, who had compression rifles. He only had a compression pistol.

"If I had known we were coming to Baltimore, I'd have brought a rifle too," said Calle.

They were next to a rail line on the edge of town. Reynolds looked up, and saw the elevated cable paralleling the train tracks. "Activate the drones," he said.

Erica Green and Calle had each been given a drone. Erica unpacked hers and sent hers aloft in seconds.

Calle, however, was having more problems. He suddenly discovered his hands were moving very slowly. It was like they were in quicksand, only there was nothing but air around them.

"Uh, guys... having some problems here," said Calle. He could still move his arms, but very, very slowly.

Reynolds realized what was happening first. "Get back!" he snapped.

"What?" said Calle.

Reynolds pulled him back. Suddenly, Calle's arms started working normally again.

"What was that?"

"A pocket of slowed down time," said Reynolds.

"A pocket of slowed down time?" said Calle. "What causes that?"

No one answered. Everyone looked away.

"Guys?"

"We did," said Daniel finally.

"We did?" said Calle.

"Sometimes, as a temporary side effect of the gateway opening, artifacts appear," said Reynolds. "Small pockets of time that move a little faster or slower than they should. It's nothing to be concerned about."

"Nothing to be concerned about?"

"The anomalies are only temporary," said Reynolds.

"How long do they last?" Calle asked.

"No one really knows," said Daniel, squinting slightly.

Calle nodded. This was something he had never encountered before.

"Activate your drone, please," said Reynolds quietly.

In moments, there were two drones, heading down the 43 mile length of the cable line. They spotted the first cut five minutes later, and then, over the course of the next hour, two more cuts.

"Sabotage," said Daniel.

"Yes," said Reynolds.

"Well, we can repair the cut lines, can't we?" Calle asked. "We'll simply go back in time and fix them."

"It's not that simple," said Reynolds. "We can go back in time and fix these three cuts in the line. However, the Luddites (assuming it is the Luddites), can simply make more. There's no way we can guard an entire 43 miles of cable."

"So what do we do?" Calle asked.

"We go home," said Reynolds.

********

"I don't want to hear that there's no answer," said Colonel Strayker, glaring at them. He was wearing a severe green suit with tall collars. An Indian woman with long black hair and firm buttocks handed him a Pad. "I have here a report on the current state of technology now, in the year 2453, and we're a good 150 years behind where we should be. We can't let this stand."

"But sir," said Erica Green. "There's no way we can guard a 43 mile cable line."

"There must be another solution."

Everyone was silent for a long moment. And then John Calle spoke up. "In order for history to unroll as it already has, the telegraph has to work, does it not?"

"Yes," said Strayker.

"But that doesn't necessarily mean the

telegraph line

has to work, does it?"

"What are you getting at, Captain?" said Strayker.

"Well, sir, what if we get to the telegraphs on both end, and implant hidden transmitters and receivers-"

"We can use 25th century technology to make it appear like their 19th century technology was working," said Strayker. "A brilliant idea, Calle! Good work." And then in a move that shocked everyone, Colonel Strayker smiled. He had incredibly white teeth.

********

Samuel Morse was having more fun than sex with Sarah. As he tapped messages, he was almost simultaneously hearing responses. It was so clear it was as if they were right in the room with him. Everyone around him cheered when the first response rolled in. It was a resounding success! Soon the entire nation would be blanketed with telegraph lines... just in time for the Civil War!

Major Reynolds, John Calle, and Daniel Acton watched with satisfied grins a few dozen feet away.

And a hundred feet behind them, Tom Stoyer surveyed the scene through his electrobinoculars. "That one," he said, staring directly at John Calle. "Is he the one who keeps thwarting our plans?"

Bob Novato looked through his own set of binocs. "That's him. That's the man from the Moon. He seemed to know exactly where our holographic projector was."

Tom lowered his electronocs. "Then we'll have to begin thinking of a way of dealing with... Mr. John Calle."