The Time War Ch. 11&12

The Time War

By Gary LM Martin

Chapter 11: Pornography Breaks the Internet

"I hear you have been asking people about John Collier," said Doctor Vladek.

"You must have quite a network of informers," said Calle.

"That's quite a defensive answer, John. I'm here to help you," said Doctor Vladek.

"I'm sure," said Calle.

"What is the subject of your interest in John Collier?"

"We have very similar names. John Calle, John Collier," said Calle. He paused, waiting to see if that answer satisfied Vladek. It obviously didn't. "And I'm told he was my predecessor, the so-called Special Talent right before me."

"Yes," said Doctor Vladek, speaking in a measured tone, as he always did. "John was a Special Talent."

"What happened to him, may I ask?"

Vladek looked away, the classic sign of someone about to tell a lie, in Calle's experience. "John... had a breakdown." He looked back at Calle. "It's quite common in our line of work, actually. What we do is incredibly stressful, as you know."

"I do."

"John was with us for about two years. And then the stress... got to him."

"Got to him... how?"

"He became unable to function on his own," said Vladek.

"And where is he now?"

"In an assisted living facility, being taken care of."

"Could I meet him?"

"Oh, I don't think that would be advisable, John." Those enormous bags under Vladek's eyes somehow made him look sinister.

Calle stared at Vladek for a long moment, before getting to his feet. "Thanks for the talk, Doc."

"My pleasure, John. My door is always open to you."

"I'll keep that in mind."

********

The Luddites:

All was not happy in the Luddite secret base.

Donna had begun to notice something. Something important.

She, Tom, Maggie and Bradley were supposed to be a quad. But the quad seemed to have some unwritten rules. Ever since Maggie and Brad had joined their duo, Tom seemed to be having sex more with Maggie than he was with her. When Donna confronted him about it, Tom just chuckled and said, "Have you really been counting, Donna? That's such classic duo behavior. You have to open your heart. We are a quad. One discrete unit. You can't be jealous and start looking at who is sleeping with whom on any given night."

And Donna felt properly chastened, until an hour later when Tom took a giggling Maggie into his bedroom. Tom still slept with Donna, perhaps once a week, to keep his "claim" on her, perhaps, but he was clearly more interested in Maggie. And what struck Donna as most interesting was that Tom seemed to have sex with Maggie whenever Tom sensed that Bradley was trying to score with Maggie himself.

It happened right in front of her eyes last night. She thought, after her latest complaint, that Tom would take her into his bed and give her a pity fuck, as he usually did when she complained. And things seemed to be heading in that direction when Tom started fondling her breasts through her shirt after dinner, in front of everyone, as Tom was wont to do. But then Tom saw Bradley hugging and trying to kiss Maggie, and Tom's hand dropped off her teat as if it had been burned by a hot stove. Tom was all over Maggie in seconds, and then all of a sudden the two of them were gone from the dinner table.

What was worse was the way that Bradley looked at her after Tom and Maggie left. He clearly wasn't happy that Tom was fucking his wife, but he also clearly was attracted to Donna. He smiled suggestively at her and put an arm around her. "Hey Donna," he began.

Donna cut things off before they began. "I'm sorry, Brad, I have a headache," she said, grabbing her temples and marching off. She was in no mood to have consolation sex with the beta-male of the quad.

********

The next morning Tom emerged from his bedroom with Maggie. Both of them had a freshly fucked look, especially Maggie, whose hair was all over the place; she also had red kiss marks in a ring around her throat.

Tom smiled broadly at breakfast. "Ladies and gentlemen, I had an epiphany last night."

An epiphany, Donna thought. That's what he calls it.

"What is it?" asked Carole Wells.

"The one thing that is most distracting us from our true selves is the global data network," said Tom. "How often do you see people on the street, paying more attention to their data streams on their wrist comm than they are to the people around them?"

"Always," said Garrett Arnough. The others nodded in agreement.

"Precisely. That is why I propose to eliminate it."

"The global data network?" said Bob Novato. "How?"

Tom popped a grape into his mouth. "We will eliminate its immediate predecessor, the Internet, strangling it in its crib before it is ever born."

"How are we going to do that?" Oscar Wood asked.

"Pornography," Tom grinned, as he chewed on a juicy grape.

********

"Colonel, I think you need to see this," said Sarah, with some urgency in her voice.

Commander Strayker, who had just accepted a cup of atomic coffee from a long haired Indian woman with juicy buttocks, nodded and walked over to her. He was wearing a brown suit with high collars. "What is it, Sarah?"

"It's the global data network," said Sarah.

"What about it?" Strayker asked.

"It's... gone," said Sarah.

"What do you mean, it's gone?" Strayker snapped.

"It no longer exists," said Sarah. "I can get video feeds of the outside world, but purely from our own network. As far as we know, the outside data network no longer exists."

"How can that be? And how can we find out what happened?"

"I guess we'll have to send someone to a library," said Sarah.

********

Sarah and John Calle were sent to a local library. Society seemed... changed. It was less industrialized, less technically advanced. When they got to the library, they found that information was still stored electronically; but there just was no national or international data network.

Together they sorted through databases to figure out what had happened. Sarah had been sent to investigate because as a Passive Observer she had a meticulous observation of detail; and Calle was sent because of his Special Talent ability. Hopefully one of them would be able to figure it out.

"There is no mention of the precursor of the global data network. It was called the internet, I believe," said Sarah, reading from a database. "It should have been created in the 1980's, but I see no mention of it here."

"Neither do I," said Calle. His mind was beginning to tire. He and Sarah had been at it for hours.

He yawned. She looked up at him. "Tired?" she asked.

"Yes," said Calle.

"Sex?" she asked, looking at him inquiringly.

"Here, in the bookshelves?"

"Or my apartment. Whichever you prefer."

"I thought we were on an assignment."

"We can take a break," said Sarah. She frowned.

"To have sex?"

"Haven't you ever taken a sex break?"

"We should get back to work," said Calle. He returned to the database he was studying. There was something here, he sensed. Something about an Act of Congress, passed in the 1980's....

"You know you will, sooner or later," said Sarah. "So why not sooner?"

"Anticipation," said Calle, even as he continued to read.

"What?" said Sarah.

"So I have something to look forward to," said Calle. He thought that would please her, but he was wrong.

"We're time travelers. We can look back at things as easily as we can look forward to them," said Sarah.

"What is this really all about?" said Calle. "I mean, you've slept with all the men on the base, right?"

Sarah got a faraway look. "Most of them...."

"So what will one more matter?"

"I am attempting to catalog the experience of sex with every male I can, to study standard deviations in sexual technique and arousal."

"Or, to put it another way, you get bored very easily," said Calle. "I'm not going to be simply another notch on your panties."

Sarah was silent for a moment. "We have a lot in common, you know."

Calle looked up. "Name one thing we have in common."

"We get along very well," said Sarah. "In fact, I'm your best friend at CS, aren't I?"

Calle looked back down at the database he was studying.

"John, I believe I asked you a question."

"Pornography," said Calle.

"Will that help get you in the proper mood?" Sarah asked.

********

"The Common Decency Act of 1982," said Calle, speaking to his fellow CS officers in the conference room at their underground base.

"What is that?" asked Major Reynolds.

"I'll answer that question in a moment," said Calle. "Originally, the internet was a military and educational network connecting universities. In the 1980's, it expanded and the broader public got access to it. At least, that's what happened in our timeline, as we know it. But in the new timeline we observed, Congress passed a law in 1982 which made it illegal to transmit pornography over interstate networks."

"So?" said Reynolds.

"The internet's growth in its early years was based on pornography," said Calle. "There were websites like Pornhub, Pornshoe-"

Sarah picked up on it,. "Pornbush, Pornsuck, Porntits, Pornfuck, Pornfuckfuck, Pornfuckfuckfuck-"

"We get the idea," said Strayker.

"Without pornography, the internet would never have had the explosive growth as it did in the 1980's. For every user going to popular websites like Amazon.com or America Online, there were ten users going to sites with names like 'Tittiesrus'," said Calle.

"And so someone got this legislation passed which crippled pornography, and crippled the internet," said Sarah.

Strayker considered. "It sounds like the work of the Luddites," said Strayker.

"Luddites?"

"The same people who tried to sabotage the Varonkov drive," said Major Reynolds. "They feel technology is the bane of human existence."

Sarah and Calle exchanged glances.

"What is it?" Strayker asked.

"Well, sir, when we went into the outside world, we noticed something more than just the absence of global data networks," said Calle. "People were friendly to us."

"So?"

"People actually looked us in the eye and said hello as we walked by," said Calle. "People struck up spontaneous conversations with us. They weren't busy checking their datastreams. Everyone was aware of everything going on around them. I imagine it was much like that before the internet got started."

"So?" said Strayker.

Sarah spoke up. "It was... nice."

"Nice," said Strayker, frowning. "We're not in the business of supporting nice, Sarah. We're the Continuity Service. We leave things as we found them. Did we find the world like this before today?"

"No," said Sarah.

"Then let us have no more talk about how nice the world would be without the global data networks," said Strayker. "Now, how are we going to reverse this incursion in the timeline?"

Everyone exchanged glances with each other.

********

Calle was in the year 1982 in Washington DC. He had been sent back with Daniel Acton, Erica Green, Sarah Chambers, and several other team members in an effort to lobby them against voting for the Common Decency Act of 1982. Right now Calle was knocking on the office of Senator Susan Reid of Maine. But no one was answering. Perhaps she was out for a vote... or for lunch? But then, where were her staffers?

"Are you looking for Senator Reid?" a dark haired woman in a snappy business suit and skirt asked. She had an infectious smile that somehow reminded Calle of....

"Yes," said Calle.

"She's in Maine, meeting with constituents. She won't be back for another two days," said the woman.

"Thanks," said Calle. He turned to go-

"But you're wasting your time, though."

Calle turned back to the woman. "Wasting my time?"

"She's already said she's going to vote for the Common Decency Act. That is what you're here to lobby about, aren't you?"

"How did you know?" Calle asked.

She reached out and touched the fringe of his suit. "A cute guy I've never seen before, wearing a brand new suit... you're probably here to lobby her to vote for it."

"Actually, to vote against it."

Disappointment graced her lovely features. "That's a shame. I was hired to lobby for it." She smiled at Calle. "Have you had lunch yet?"

She's a lobbyist for the other side. She could have valuable information.

"Actually, no," said Calle.

********

Her name was Donna. And while she had dark hair like Marion, she didn't really look like Marion. But when she smiled, somehow, the smile was pure Marion. Maybe it was just because Calle missed Marion so very much. Or maybe because Calle was simply lonely.

"Don't you want to keep smut off the internet, John?" she asked, innocently enough, as she took discrete nibbles of a turkey sandwich.

"I'm not a fan of smut," said Calle, biting into his own sandwich.

"Of course you are," said Donna, batting her eyelids at him. "You're a man."

Is she flirting with me?

"How long have you been a lobbyist?" she asked.

"About six months," said Calle, not sure what to say.

Donna wrinkled her nose. "I can tell you're new at this."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because you're practically a walking billboard for the Continuity Service."

Calle fumbled in his jacket, but, as with Sharice, Donna was quicker, and he saw the snub nose of a mini compression pistol poking out from just above the tabletop. "Relax," she said. "Relax!" she said again, waving the pistol slightly.

Calle removed his hand from his jacket.

"That's better," said Donna, smiling.

"How did you know?" Calle asked.

"We have our sources," said Donna.

Sources? Inside the Continuity Service?

She smiled at his discomfort. "John Calle, is it not?"

Calle nodded.

"My name really is Donna," said Donna.

"How charming," said Calle.

"I think so," said Donna, giving him another warm smile. "You're here to try to prevent the Common Decency Act from passing, are you not?"

Calle paused, then nodded.

"You're wasting your time," said Donna bluntly. She picked up the sandwich with her free hand, and took another bite.

"Why do you say that?"

"My boss has bigger pockets than your boss," said Donna. "We've bought off all the politicians. For once, you're not going to win this one."

Calle just stared at her silently.

"You're much more handsome in real life than you were in the image I was given of you."

"Who gave you an image of me?"

Donna only smiled again, taking another bite of her sandwich. "Tell me, John, have you ever considered playing for another team?"

"You mean the Luddites?"

Donna dropped her sandwich and gave him a look of disgust. "Is that what they call us?"

"You don't know?" Calle asked.

"I don't care. John, think about all the good we're trying to do here," said Donna.

"By preventing the creation of the internet."

"Precisely," said Donna. "Have you been in present day reality since we made the change?"

Calle nodded.

"And how are the people?"

Calle had noticed a difference. People were friendlier. More talkative. Everyone wasn't looking down at the data stream on their wrists. They were living in the present. Andy Kowalski, who rarely ever called him, commed him... just to say hello!

"They're a lot more vibrant, aren't they? Focused on reality and other people around them," Donna said.

"Yes," said Calle.

"Wouldn't that be a much nicer world to live in?" Donna asked.

"That aspect of not having an internet would be beneficial," said Calle carefully. "But so much is lost without the world data networks. Collaboration. Scientific development. Economic development-"

"All of which means nothing if it takes us away from being who we are. To be truly human," said Donna. "In ancient times we all lived in small villages. We knew every other person in the village and talked with them. We existed as communities. Tell me, John Calle, where are our communities now?"

"Our community is... global."

"Precisely," said Donna. "And we both know there is no such thing as a global community. You don't know the names of two billion Chinese people, nor do you want to. It's face to face, people to people contact which makes us human. What we're doing now. Incidentally, our conversation now, it's the high point of your week, isn't it? Be honest, John Calle."

"Yes," said Calle immediately. Even if Donna hadn't had Marion's smile. She was still interesting and engaging, and more entertaining than staring at a screen or attending a briefing at CS headquarters.

She reached out and touched her hand. "Then join us, John Calle."

John Calle. Marion used to call him that.

He looked into her earnest and sincere face, and bit his lip. Finally, he shook his head.

Donna sighed. "I was afraid of that. So now I'm going to have to shoot you. Are you ready to be shot, John Calle?"

"I'd prefer if you didn't."

Donna sighed theatrically, as if her plans had just been thwarted. "All right, then. As long as you pay the bill." She got up, winked at him, and walked away, seemingly confident that he wouldn't shoot her in the back.

Calle didn't. As he watched her walk out, she turned and gave him a sultry stare, and he felt... confused.

********

"I don't want to hear what you can't do," said Colonel Strayker, glaring at them in CS's underground headquarters. "Every incursion should be reversible."

"Oh, it's reversible," said Sarah. "If you blew up the Capitol with a nova bomb right before the vote, I guarantee you the vote wouldn't occur."

Strayker glared at Sarah, as he accepted a cup of atomic coffee from the Indian woman with the juicy buttocks. "Practical suggestions, if you please." He turned to Daniel. "Doctor Acton, you're the historian."

"Yes? Yes, I am," said Daniel.

"How can we reverse this?"

Daniel paused, and looked thoughtful. "I don't know."

"We have to reverse this legislation, or prevent it from happening," said Strayker.

"Do we?" said Calle, getting a glint in his eye.

"What are you thinking, Captain?" Strayker asked.

"Well, sir, I'm not sure," said Calle slowly, as he struggled to piece the idea together in his mind. "We all know that the internet grew largely because of the presence of online pornography. The Common Decency Act of 1982 outlawed the transmission of pornography over interstate lines."

"Yes. Well?"

"Well... what if there were a way to transmit pornography... without violating the Act?" Calle asked.

********

Calle and Sarah were in a computer lab in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982, shortly after the Common Decency Act had been passed into law. They were talking to a group of young, male graduate students who looked like they had never dated a girl, much less ever kissed one.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" said one of them, a tall curly haired man/boy named David Spielsvogel.

"Trust me," said Calle.

"All right," said Spielsvogel. He sat down in front of a terminal, and picked up the phone, and dialed a number. "Hello, Hal. Yes, are you ready? All right... transmit now!" At that moment his friend pressed a button at his terminal in the University of Ohio. A moment later, an encrypted message appeared on Spielsvogel's terminal. Spielsvogel clicked on it.

The computer "thought" about the message for a long, breathless moment. And then, suddenly, the moving image of a nude woman with enormous breasts appeared on the screen. She was riding up and down on a man's penis. "Uh... uh... uh... uh..." she said, in a discrete four second loop.

"Titties!" Spielsvogel roared. The other graduate students picked up his cry, slapping palms against each other. "Titties! Titties! Titties, we did it, we did it!" They acted like they had just landed the first man on the Moon.