Dimensional Research Station

Two copies of Francesca.

Below on this page is Chapter 5 of the science fiction story Time Portal, the events of which take place in 1922. Francesca and Aetha have completed their work on the electrical circuitry that embodies Francesca's mathematical model of the two temporal dimensions. However, Francesca remains skeptical that the circuits can make it possible for people to travel through time.

The completed Time Portal control circuits are ready to be taken to the field station which is close to the banks of the Swan river, at the place where Dr. Twissell opened a Time Portal in the year 2040 (see Chapter 1). 

After Twissell uses the time circuits and departs for 1814, R. Nyrtia meets with Frankie, Francesca and Aetha and hints at her plans to make a duplicate copy of Francesca who will be sent back through time to the 1500s where she will live out her life the past, becoming known as a mystical seer of the future.

Chapter 5 of Time Portal. (Chapter 1)(Chapter 2)(Chapter 3) (Chapter 4)

Late in the afternoon of the day after their wedding, Twissell and Frankie arrived at the workshop. Acting on Twissell's orders, workmen had taken out the frame of the door that connected from the workshop to the hallway.

Inside the workshop, Francesca was tutoring Aetha on the differential equations that describe the structures of the universe's two time dimensions. 

Francesca's time circuits.

The two women sat close together, their legs touching. Through the wonders of Nyrtia's invisible nanites, that physical contact allowed Aetha to maintain a telepathy-amplifying synapex link to Francesca, which greatly accelerated her ability to learn the mathematics that Francesca was explaining. 

The only problem with this system was that Francesca and Aetha were kept constantly aware of each-others beautiful bodies and they had to take occasional breaks during which they would slip into the supply closet where they could hope for privacy while they relieved each-others sparking sexual desires. Aetha had taken it upon herself to try to make Francesca forget about the dreary fact that her husband, Kevin, was going to Sydney by train and would not return home to Perth for two long weeks.

With her telepathic mind operating at high efficiency, when Twissell and Frankie came through the doorway, Aetha could telepathically sense the name "Twissell" in the mind of the man she knew as her advisor and mentor, Dr. Thompson. Aetha turned her head and saw Twissell. She jumped up and took him by the arm saying, "Dr. T- Thompson, come look at the completed circuit network!" 

Frankie and Francesca began discussing their pregnancies while Twissell carefully examined the alterations that had recently been made to time control circuits. Aetha whispered to him, "Is your name really Twissell?"

Twissell laughed and told Aetha, "It is a good thing I'll be leaving soon. I can't keep any secrets from you." Twissell had used a false name while living in his past. By doing so, he hoped to avoid the creation of temporal paradoxes.

Aetha had assumed that Dr. Thompson and Frankie would be going on a honeymoon, so she was surprised that the professor was there in the workshop. Now curious about what she had sensed in his mind, she asked, "Why did you change your name?"

portable time circuits in a box

Satisfied by the work that Francesca and Aetha had done on the time circuits, Twissell started to fold up the hinged wooden panels that the circuits had been built upon. Soon, the circuits were boxed up inside what looked like a large coffin. While he worked with Aetha's assistance, Twissell explained some of his personal history. As they finished their task, Twissell told Aetha, "So, when I came to Perth I wanted to disconnect myself from my previous life and I changed my name". No longer in physical contact with Francesca, Aetha could not at that moment see into Twissell's mind. Now, she was excited that the time had finally come to test the circuits and she dismissed from her thoughts the mystery of the professor's double identity.

Twissell went to the supply closet and brought back a long pipe which he slid into brackets on one side of the box. With a grin on his lips, he told Aetha, "There's a mysterious pink object in the closet."

Aetha, Francesca and Frankie were now excitedly discussing possible names for the two babies that were growing inside Francesca and Frankie. The three women paid little attention to Twissell's small mystery. Twissell went back into the closet to get the second pipe. He returned with both the pipe and a delicate pink bra which he tossed to Aetha. She caught the undergarment said, "Oh, I forgot to put that back on." She held the pink bra up in front of her chest. She'd been hoping for another steamy make-out session with Francesca inside the closet before the end of the day.

Just then, Dean Wilson entered the workshop and tried to ignore the fact that Aetha was holding her bra. He spoke to Twissell, "Dr. Thompson, now that you are married, you can't continue as the thesis advisor of Frances."

Aetha in the supply closet.

Twissell nodded and stepped into his office. Frankie suggested, "The equations that I'm studying for my thesis project were devised by Francesca, so she should direct my project."

Twissell returned from his office with the thick manuscript that Francesca had corrected. It was just back from the typist with a new title: "A Mathematical Model of Time" by Francesca Maurolico, Patty Bekom and Laban Thompson. Twissell handed the manuscript to the Dean and said, "This work qualifies Mrs. Maurolico for her Ph.D. She can supervise Frankie's thesis research."

Dean Wilson read the title page of the manuscript and then asked, "Who is Patty Bekom?"

 Twissell explained, "She is a student who played a small role in the development of Mrs. Maurolico's theory of Time."

Dean Wilson shook Francesca's hand and said, "Congratulations Dr. Maurolico. We are lucky that you arrived in Perth just when we needed you." He told Twissell, "I'll push the paper work to appoint Mrs. Maurolico as a professor in the Mathematics Department." Wilson turned and began to depart, but he stopped and pointed to the crate. The Dean asked, "Are you finally ready for the experiment?"

Twissell nodded and explained, "We are ready to begin the calibration tests that I told you about."

Wilson suggested, "I can send a photographer to the field station." The cost of constructing the field station had put the Dean's budget into the red. He was eager to have photographs of research activity taking place at the field station.

Twissell wanted no publicity. "Wait until we get the equipment set up. You don't want pictures of an empty room." Dean Wilson grunted stoically and strode out of the workshop. He would have been satisfied to have a picture of Thompson and his co-workers standing in front of the field station.

Dimensional Research Station

As soon as the Dean was gone, Frankie pointed at the bra that Aetha was holding and asked Francesca, "You've been playing with Aetha in the supply closet?"

Francesca nodded. "I suspect that she intentionally wore that cute bra just to attract my attention today. It worked. I'd never seen her wearing a bra before."

Frankie said, "With her perky little breasts she does not need a bra. I bought this one for her and got it with extra padding."

Aetha pointed at Frankie's big breasts and said, "I can't imagine how you haul Babs and Babette around all day without getting a sore back."

Frankie put an arm around her husband and said, "You can guess my strategy, I'm sure; I try to spend as many hours as possible each day on my back with a stiff penis inside me."

Twissell had now finished preparing the circuit box for transport and was waiting for Aetha and Frankie to complete their banter. He gestured towards the pipe he was holding. "I need your help, ladies." Aetha draped the bra over one of the pipes and then they each took one end of one of the two pipes and lifted the "coffin" off of the table. Working as a team, they carried the box out of the workshop; it just barely fit through the now frame-less doorway.

In the hallway, they set down the box with a loud thump. Dean Wilson looked out of a doorway that was thirty feet down the hallway. That door led to the office of the chemistry professor, Dr. Benson. Seeing that Thompson had the three women helping to move the crate, Wilson came down the hallway and asked, "Dr. Thompson, do you need help?"

Twissell shook his head, "I think we can handle it."

Dr. Benson called down the hallway, "What's going on, Laban?"

Aetha in the science building.

Twissell had not explained his plans to the chemist. He called back, "To avoid burning this building down, we're testing the analog computer circuits at a field station."

The Dean said, "Carry on! By the way, I got the first utility bills from the field station last week." Wilson asked, "Do you expect to use much power for these experiments?"

Twissell shook his head, "No, but in the future, with two pregnant women working there, you can expect that the water bills will certainly start to climb."

Dean Wilson had attended the wedding and the beach party. "Two?" He looked at Aetha and Francesca.

Francesca told the Dean, "I just found out that I'm also pregnant."

"Well! Congratulations, again." Wilson looked back at Aetha and said jokingly, "Careful, there must be something in the air." He turned and returned to Dr. Benson's office. Benson and Wilson stood there muttering and looking down the hall as Twissell, Frankie, Francesca and Aetha again picked up the box full of circuitry, went down the hallway and exited through the double doors at the front of the building. After hauling the crate down the sidewalk, they loaded the box onto the trailer that Twissell had hitched to his car.

The field station was at the site where Twissell's laboratory would be located, more than a hundred years in the future. When Twissell had requested a field station for potentially dangerous electrical experiments, the University was already into the process of making plans for expansion into the Swan River site. Unpaved roads were already in place along with an electrical distribution system and telephone poles. The Dimensional Research Station became the first structure hooked into the newly-built power grid. 

The city inspector had insisted that any university building have a water supply. Twissell had argued that the field station was not actually a building, but in the end a shallow well had been dug, a pump installed and there was running water and a toilet for the field station and even a telephone line.

Nyrtia at the field station.

The second "floor" of the field station was a platform on hydraulic lifts. After opening up the box of circuits, Twissell, Frankie and Aetha had ridden the platform up into working position. Francesca had remained on the ground floor to use the toilet. When she emerged from the small restroom, there was a knock at the door of the station. Francesca opened the door and saw a woman who asked, "Is this Dr. Thompson's research station?"

The woman was quite similar in appearance to Frankie, but much taller. Francesca sensed something familiar about the woman, but she asked, "Who are you?"

Twissell's voice called from above, "Who is down there?"

The woman said, "I'm Joan Sharkey, reporter for the West Australian. Dean Wilson told me that there is some sort of experiment being done out here today."

Francesca said, "Follow me." She led the way up a ladder to the second floor and told Twissell, "Some news reporter... sent out by Wilson."

Twissell shook his head in dismay. "Just what we don't need."

Jean looked at the circuitry and asked, "What's this all about?"

Twissell looked back and forth between the reporter and Frankie. He tried to remember the appearance of his wife, who he had not seen for four years, then realizing that Jean was well over six feet tall, he gave his head a quick shake and then replied, "We are about to do our first test. It is going to be a long process of trail and error to get everything correctly configured." Twissell was none too certain where the Time Portal actually was. The circuit board was now on a movable surface that could slide left and right. The whole platform they were standing on could move up and down. Twissell watched the reporter as she walked around the circumference of the table, the heals of her boots popping against the oak floor boards. Twissell thought there was something oddly familiar about her. "There's no point in you wasting your time here."

Angelique Fermi's atomic clock.

With a storm of strange thoughts flitting through her mind, Aetha said, "Oh, come on, Dr. Thompson! Tell her about the time circuits. This is your chance to get publicity and funding."

Twissell was quite annoyed that Aetha had spoken out and mentioned Time.

Joan was actually Nyrtia in disguise. She was there to make sure that Twissell went through with the experiment. It was growing dark outside and in the future that Nyrtia had Viewed, Twissell had retired for the night without even activating the circuits. Joan said, "Time circuits? This is some kind of clock, like Professor Fermi's microwave device?"

Twissell replied, "No. Angelique Fermi's ammonia clock uses a high-voltage microwave source. Everything here is low voltage and low power. What you see on the table is an analog computer."

Joan asked, "What are you trying to accomplish?"

Twissell decided to lie and try to get rid of the reporter. "Our computer circuit is low power and sensitive to stray signals, even from Earth's weak magnetic field. We'll begin by tuning the circuit to the local environment. In essence, we have to tune the circuitry of this computer to the local electrical and magnetic fields so that they will not interfere with calculations done by the computer. It is going to be slow, careful, boring work. So, you can leave and let us get on with our task."

Joan laughed. "Are you trying to get rid of me, Dr. Thompson?" She approached Aetha and ran a hand over the girl's red hair where it cascaded over her shoulder. "Introduce me to your co-workers. Who is this lovely young lady?"

Aetha, completion of Masters
degree thesis project, 1926.

Aetha had felt a strange sort of disequilibrium upon seeing the reporter. Aetha could not explain to herself why she had blurted out mention of time circuits. And now, in physical contact with Joan, a series of images from the future flashed through Aetha's mind.

Francesca's mental apparatus was also effected by Joan. Now, with Joan there in the room, Francesca was "seeing" what appeared to be a faintly glowing ball of mist, three feet over the central dodecahedron, hovering above the middle of the circuitry that was there on the table. Francesca had followed Joan around the table and she noticed that the glowing ball of sparkling mist was not directly over the dodecahedron, but was actually off-set, about two feet too far to the southeast.

While Twissell methodically introduced Frankie, Francesca and Aetha to Joan and told the reporter about their backgrounds, Francesca placed her hand on Aetha's cute bottom. Suddenly, Aetha was telepathically linked to Francesca with the linkage amplified by developing minds of both Sarah and Anny. Aetha was distracted by the swirl of flashing images from her future, but while seeing what was in Francesca's mind, Aetha could tell that the dodecahedron was out of position. With her thoughts focused on the time circuits, she went to the table position controls, a set of hand cranks, and started adjusting the table top towards the side.

Twissell asked Aetha, "What are you doing?"

Aetha replied, "Getting the circuits lined up. The table has to go up some more, also."

"Lined up with what?" Twissell had never told Aetha about the Time Portal and his uncertainty about its exact position.

But Aetha could now see into Francesca's thoughts. Aetha put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. Even with her eyes closed she knew the position of the Time Portal. She replied, "The Time Portal." Aetha pointed at the location of the Portal. She asked Twissell, "How far above the dodecahedron do you want the center of the Portal?"

Twissell demanded, "What's going on?"

Francesca now had both of her hands on Aetha and now she muttered, "I didn't believe all that Time Portal nonsense, but..." After a pause, she continued, "The Time Portal must a source of senquons. I can sense them..." She also closed her eyes. The glowing sphere floating there above the table was not effecting her eyes. "And Aetha can look into my mind... she must be seeing what I'm seeing. Err, not seeing, but sensing somehow... I see it in my mind!"

Frankie asked Twissell, "What are they talking about?"

Twissell put his arms around Frankie and told her, "I expected it would take weeks to find the exact location of the Time Portal, but maybe not..."

Frankie asked, "Time Portal?"

"Listen, dear, I'm from the future, the next century." Twissell gave Frankie one last hug, then he moved to place a hand on Aetha and one on Francesca. Now partially linked into their telepathic mind network, his mind filled with a new memory: of what he knew was his destination, the wilderness where Perth would be founded in the early 1800s.

Francesca repeated, "I never believed it. I thought he was delusional." Francesca laughed. "But now... " She waved a hand towards the center of the Portal. "I think we are all inside some sort of powerful senquon field. The source of the senquons is right there, above the table."

Twissell told Aetha, "I want to position myself close to the core of the Portal... I think that will improve the accuracy of my trajectory through time. When I used the Portal in 2040, the center of my body was about two or three feet above the center of the dodecahedron."

Abigail Longfellow 1815

Aetha went to the hydraulics controls and raised the floor about a foot and half. She asked Twissell, "This time you plan to be seated on the rotating platform, right?"

Twissell replied, "Exactly." Turning the hand crank wheels, Aetha made one more small adjustment to the lateral position of the circuits on the table and then she nodded to Twissell. Now, Twissell hoped that the circuits were correctly positioned. He gave Frankie a long wet kiss then pulled himself away from her and looked up. A small rotatable platform was there, hanging from an over-head beam. He connected up to the power cord to the overhead winch and then stepped backwards into the corner while looking at the arrangement of the time circuits. He turned around and opened a small cabinet that was there in the corner. Inside was an antique suit of clothes that he had obtained by placing a want-ad in the newspaper asking for old clothing from the 1800s. He started changing his clothes.

Looking up at the rotating platform, Francesca giggled and said, "I've never seen a sillier contraption." She asked, "How can spinning in circles control travel through time?"

Twissell was having uncomfortable memories of the first time he had traveled through time. He still had no understanding of how time travel was possible. In 2024, Patty had been wildly enthusiastic about using the Time Portal. In contrast, there in 1922, the idea of Francesca seeing senquons was making Twissell feel nervous and there was no way he wanted a story about himself in the newspaper. However, what else could he do but go ahead with the experiment?

Now, dressed in the old clothes from the previous century, Twissell took a Navy surplus life preserver down from a hook on the wall and strapped it on. This time, Twissell hoped to avoid broken ribs when he was tossed into the past. Next, he pulled a step ladder away from the wall. He climbed up the step ladder and seated himself, cross-legged, on the rotating platform. Aetha used the winch control to lower him a short distance.

Aetha 1922

Twissell tossed one end of a rope down to Aetha. She pulled the rope and the platform moved out over the circuits until Twissell's body was positioned directly at the central core of the Time Portal, above the central dodecahedron of the circuits. Aetha asked Francesca, "Is he centered?"

Francesca replied, "He's very close to the center of the senquon field."

Twissell told Aetha, "Start the rotation. Set it to 23 rotations per minute, clockwise."

Aetha activated the rotation motor and Twissell began to spin. He asked, "Who wants activate the time circuits?"

Frankie cried out, "You're going?"

Francesca was mesmerized by the sparkling cloud of mist that now surrounded Twissell. She still had her eyes closed.

Joan stood there with a sly grin on her face.

Aetha went to the control pad for the circuits and flicked on the power switch. All of the other settings had been adjusted by Twissell long ago and needed no further attention. Now the smell of burning insulation filled the room and the indicator lamp of the rotation counter turned green as Twissell reached the desired rotation rate. Aetha said, "Good luck!" And she pressed the final button that allowed electric current to accumulate on a set of eleven large capacitors, one at each of the exposed faces of the dodecahedron. 

 Twissell kept spinning for a minute, but nothing happened. Finally he told Aetha, "Turn off the motor."

 Five minutes later, Twissell was recovered from his dizziness and he had taken off the life preserver and changed back into his regular clothing. Joan had already departed with Aetha and Francesca, offering them a ride back to town. Frankie put her arms around Twissell and she said, "I'm glad it did not work."

___________

Later, after making love to Frankie, Twissell waited for her to fall asleep. Then he got dressed, slipped out of the dark and quiet cottage and drove back to the field station. Frankie heard the car engine as he drove off. She muttered to herself, "I still hope it does not work." Unable to sleep, she turned on a light and started reading a magazine. 

After a few minutes, the telephone rang. Frankie went to the telephone and lifted the receiver and asked, "Who is this? It's late."

Aetha said, "Francesca and Joan are bouncing around on my bed like two bunnies. I'm horny and feeling left out... can Babs and Babette come over and keep me company?"

Frankie tried to imagine Francesca making love to the tall, sexy reporter, Joan. Frankie heard a cry of ecstasy in the background. She giggled and said, "I'll call a cab and bring Babs and Babette over at once."

___________

When Twissell arrived back at the field station, he climbed up to the second floor and fed power into the time circuits. This time, he flipped the secret cut-off switch that he had installed on the bottom of the table, directly under the dodecahedron. Now the time circuits were fully functional. He got back on the rotating platform and positioned himself above the dodecahedron. As he spun, suddenly, there was a strange rustling sound and Twissell blinked out of existence. The ends of three ropes now hung down, no longer attached to the rotating platform that had also vanished. 

_________

Mysteries of the tryp'At.

Back at Aetha's apartment, by the time that Frankie arrived, Francesca was trying to catch her breath and recover from an intense orgasm. Now Francesca was watching the sexually insatiable Joan who was licking Aetha's erect clitoris. Francesca tried to warn Aetha, "She can make her tongue vibrate like a motor!" Arriving in the bedroom, Frankie was startled to find that Joan seemed to have two vaginas. She pushed some fingers into each of Joan's hot wet vaginas and said to Francesca, "Oh, my! Did you see this?" 

Joan pulled her mouth off of Aetha and said, "Give me just a moment and then I'll explain." Nyrtia held her hand against Aetha's crotch and used her nanites and direct brain stimulation to give the girl a dazzling orgasm. Joan told Frankie, "It's me, Nyrtia."

Nyrtia had also sent nanites into the brains of Francesca and Frankie, allowing them to begin remembering their past conversations with Nyrtia. She showed Francesca her allzaurish and said, "I enjoy using the body form of a tryp'At. I even have a penis, which is going to come in handy during the coming year." After showing the three women her penis, Nyrtia said, "If the three of you will behave for a few minutes, I'll explain my plans for the next year and then we can get back to making orgasms." Frankie and Aetha both had a hand on Nyrtia's hot erection.

Francesca found it hard to take her eyes off of Nyrtia's pretty penis, but she told Nyrtia, "I'm quite satisfied with Kevin's penis. His is significantly larger than yours."

Nyrtia said, "Kevin has Asterothrope gene patterns that make for a large penis, but you'll be pleased with the way I can make mine vibrate." Nyrtia reached out and placed a hand on Francesca's shoulder. "Sorry to break bad news, but Kevin is going to be caught up in an emergency draft and in less than a month he will go to Palestine as part of an international peace-keeping force."

With trepidation, Frankie asked, "And what about Laban?"

History of the allzaurish.

Speaking with ruthless bluntness, Nyrtia explained, "He's already gone."

Now realizing that the Time Portal had been successfully used by Twissell, Aetha said, "It worked! I really worked!" Now being allowed to think about what she had telepathically seen into his mind, she had adopted Twissell's belief that the time circuits could control the movement of a person through the Time Portal. She remained puzzled by his failure to slip into the Portal earlier that evening.

In one of many undesirable futures that Nyrtia had Viewed, Nyrtia had sent Twissell off to 1814 while the three women watched. For mysterious reasons that were not clear to Nyrtia, the shape of the next Reality was much more favorable in a timeline where Twissell's departure into the past was not witnessed by Aetha and Frankie.

Frankie asked Nyrtia, "Where did he go? Did he return to his home in 2040?"

Francesca shook her head and told Frankie, "I don't think so. He talked to me about the 1500s. I think he went further back in time."

Nyrtia giggled. Frankie reached out and touched Nyrtia's two lower breasts and wondered what she had meant by "tryp'At"... Frankie looked into Nyrtia's eyes and asked, "What's so funny?" Then Frankie shouted at Nyrtia, "I just lost my husband!"

Nyrtia shifted her appearance to the form she had used the previous day on the beach, the bodily form of the adult Anny, as she would appear in the future as a young woman. Using infites, Nyrtia allowed Frankie to experience a sub-conscious recognition of her daughter. Having distracted Frankie, Nyrtia proclaimed, "Good work, ladies... now we can turn our attention to the future..."

Frankie asked Nyrtia, "He really is gone... into the past?"

Nyrtia nodded, "Yes. Your husband completed his work here." Nyrtia placed a hand on Frankie's abdomen. "Your daughter Anny will carry his genes into the future. Now he has to do the same sort of 'work' in 1814 with another young woman named Abigail."

Francesca asked, "So he did not go to the 1500s?"

Nyrtia shook her head. "No, that will be your time travel mission, Francesca. You have to go back and be the Francesca Maurolico who lived in that century. It will be your 'predictions' about the future that will attract the attention of Abigail, inspiring her to write her version of the story Time Portal. But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. For the next year, the three of you need to devote your attention and efforts towards constructing the minds of Sarah and Anny. That will involve synapex linkages and lots of orgasms... the four of us will have a lot of fun working together on that project!" 

Having outlined the future for them, Nyrtia proceeded to provide Francesca, Aetha and Frankie with demonstrations of the special features of her tryp'At penis. Then, having completed that sexual orientation process to the complete satisfaction of the three woman, Nyrtia teleported herself out of the apartment.

Nyrtia as a tryp'At.

After Nyrtia's departure, for a few seconds, Francesca, Frankie and Aetha looked at each other and then they slumped and sprawled across the bed and passed out of normal consciousness. When they awoke in the morning, they found that they were experiencing the effects of an infite-generated memory lock imposed on their minds by Nyrtia and they could not talk to anyone else, including Dean Wilson, about Dr. Thompson having traveled into the past. Aetha invited Frankie to stay in her apartment, but soon they moved into Twissell's more comfortable cottage at the edge of town. 

Twissell's disappearance from 1922 was never officially explained. Dr. Thompson had departed from the twentieth century as mysteriously as he had arrived. Dean Wilson offered Francesca the opportunity to take over use the office and workshop of Dr. Thompson. Francesca began a long series of experiments that were conducted at the Dimensional Research Station with the Time Portal, eventually resulting in her discovery of the calibration curve that related distance traveled into the past to the rotational speed of the time traveler. After the birth of her daughter, Francesca was ready for her own journey through the Time Portal.

Coming Soon: Chapter 6 of Time Portal.

Next: illustrating the adventures of Lato Johns. See Lato Johns: Exobiologist.

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Synapex Time

Time Portal by Rylla

Below on this page is Chapter 4 of the science fiction story Time Portal. Previously, at the end of Chapter 3, Dr. Twissell was the recipient of information from the Sedron Time Stream. After four years of planning how to time travel from the 1920s back to his homewhen of 2040, Twissell is now intrigued by the idea that he must travel even further back in time, to 1814, in order to unravel the mysteries of time travel and complete a complex time loop.

Now working under primitive conditions in the 1920s, Twissell has assembled a team of mathematicians who are helping him construct new control circuits that are needed in order to access and use the Time Portal that Twissell originally opened up inside his applied mechanics research laboratory in the year 2040 (see Chapter 1). If that Time Portal remains open, Twissell intends to use it to move another hundred years deeper into the past where he can meet Abigail Longfellow, who in 1814, first imagined how to construct a Time Portal.

Time Portal by Patty.

 In the 21st Century. Born in 1979 and as a man obsessed with trying to understand the mystery of Time, Twissell became a physics professor and devoted every spare moment of his life to the task of discovering how to move matter through the Time Barrier. After four decades of bachelorhood, Dr. Twissell finally became a married man in late 2039 (see Becky). Then, in early 2040, upon opening the Time Portal, Twissell was surprised to discover that it only allowed for time travel into the past. Due to the fundamental asymmetry of the temporal equations, the Time Portal did not allow for travel into the future. 

Believing that Francesca Maurolico had unique insight into the dimensional structure of the universe, Twissell immediately used the Time Portal to travel into the past in an attempt to seek the help of Francesca to discover how to travel into the future. 

Abigail in 1814

Twissell's hope was that as the discoverer of the equations that describe the dimensional structure of Time, Francesca would know how to adjust the control circuits of the Time Portal, making it possible to travel into the future. Thus, Twissell expected to be able to return to his own time and his wife. However, in 1922, Twissell finds that Francesca can't take seriously the idea that the act of embedding her temporal equations in the physical structure of electrical circuits will accomplish anything.

In Chapter 4 of Time Portal, below, R. Nyrtia finally appears as a character in the story. Nyrtia is moving Twissell around through time because he has useful genes that Nyrtia intends to spread more widely through the human population on Earth. In particular, Nyrtia want's to include some of Twissell's gene patterns in William, the son of Abigail Longfellow.

Aetha

 Wife #2. Arriving in 1918 (see Chapter 2), Twissell established a working relationship with the young and gifted mathematics student Frances "Frankie" McMartin. By 1922, Frankie has begun work on a Masters degree thesis research project with Twissell. Frankie has also developed close personal relationships with both Twissell and an undergraduate mathematics student, Aetha Louw. At the end of Chapter 3, Frankie realized that she is pregnant. Now, she and Twissell are making plans to get married. Twissell suspects that Frankie is the great-grandmother of his wife, Becky.

In Chapter 4 of Time Portal (below), it is revealed that Aetha has an interesting collection of genes that make her one of the most powerful telepaths on Earth. Frankie's unborn child, Anny, is a mindclone of Aetha. Aetha must use her telepathic abilities to help develop the mind of Anny who is destined to become the grandmother of Becky.

Chapter 4 of Time Portal. (Chapter 1)(Chapter 2)(Chapter 3)

The 1922 wedding reception.

Frankie's pregnancy disrupted all of Twissell's plans for quickly establishing a mathematical collaboration between Frankie and Francesca that would lead to discovery of a way to travel into the future. When it was established that Frankie was indeed pregnant, she and Twissell quickly planned their wedding which took place in town, but their wedding reception and party took place on the beach.

The wedding party was small, only fifteen people, among which Aetha was the only one who did not seem entirely happy with the match between Twissell and Frankie. 

Francesca had taken on the task of trying to console Aetha for having lost her lover, Frankie, to Twissell. As a side-benefit from that task, Francesca occasionally got to have a heated sexplay session with Aetha, either at her apartment or inside the supply closet at work.

__________________

During the week leading up to the wedding, Francesca and Aetha spent many long hours alone together in the workshop. Aetha had explained Twissell's method for representing systems of equations in physical form as electronic circuits. Gesturing towards the tangle of circuitry on the table in the workshop, Aetha told Francesca, "The professor calls this an analog computer."

Francesca tapped her finger tips on the panel of keys that rested on the edge of the work bench, "And this is the input system?"

Aetha nodded, "Those buttons control the amount of electric current that goes into the circuits."

"But what is the point?" Francesca waved a hand at the complex circuitry. "I can't take seriously the idea that this circuit will accomplish anything useful."

Aetha had no deep understanding of either mathematics or physics, only a vague intuition that she wanted to become an electronics engineer and build calculating machines that would be in demand by businesses, governments and universities. Aetha was amused by Francesca's skepticism and the cute way her pretty mouth twisted when she struggled not to say something rude about the professor's crazy ideas. Aetha explained, "Dr. Twissell claims that this analog computer is a controller... that it can control Time."

_______________

Now, a week after Francesca's arrival in Perth, she and Aetha had finally completed the task of modifying the circuits to exactly match Francesca's set of equations that she had developed for her Masters thesis. There had been some subtle but important differences between the circuit design advocated by Twissell and Francesca's equations. Now, after a week of work, those differences had been eliminated from the circuitry in the workshop.

Francesca still doubted that this analog computer could do anything at all. Whenever she fed electric current into the complex circuit, all she observed was the odor of burning insulation coming from the wires. 

During the past week, Twissell and Frankie had almost never made appearances in the workshop. They came to campus when they had to teach a class, but otherwise they were busy preparing for their wedding. Twissell himself seemed embarrassed by the "time circuits" project and had only told Francesca that he intended to use the circuits to send himself through time again. It was frustrating for Francesca that Twissell could not explain the physical basis of time travel, muttering only, "Look, you can't argue with success". Francesca often asked herself which was more likely: that Twissell was a time traveler from the future or that Twissell was deluded and only had fantasies about time travel.

Now, with a final look over the completed circuits, Francesca shook her head in dismay and turned her eyes back to rest on the very cute Aetha. "Well, we did it."

Aetha glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 3:24 AM. "You better get yourself home. Your husband is going to be worried about you." She went to the window and shut off the exhaust fan.

Francesca raised her long arms over her head and bent backwards, trying to un-knot her back muscles after so many long hours bent over the table. "No, he has been running all around town trying to buy land for the Army. He was after a Nedlands Park parcel, but now there is some deal over in Swanbourne. All hush-hush. He told me he'd be out working on that project all night."

Aetha asked, "Swanbourne?"

Francesca untied the scarf that had been constraining her hair, and her blond tresses tumbled down around her shoulders, "I guess you must know it as Osborne. They're changing the name."

For a moment, Aetha watched Francesca shake out her beautiful hair. "Really? I suppose I should follow the local news, but I'm so busy..." Aetha finished locking the window. She walked back across the workshop, took off her headband and gave her head a shake to send he own long red hair flying. Aetha passed close to Francesca, stopped suddenly and said, "I never see Frankie any more. Would you be willing to come to my apartment and keep me company?"

 Francesca reached out and ran her fingers through Aetha's long red hair. "I'd love to." 

Aetha's knees went weak and she felt dizzy. She'd been restraining herself from touching Francesca, telling herself she'd only be in for more heart break if she tried to develop a personal relationship with a married woman like Francesca. Ten minutes later they were inside Aetha's apartment and Aetha said, "I'll cook you breakfast." They started preparing omelets, but then while cracking an egg, Francesca made the egg explode. Aetha quickly moved to wipe some egg off of Francesca's clothing. When Aetha touched Francesca, she again felt dizzy and now she experienced a flashed vision in her mind of making love to Francesca. Suddenly her heart was racing. Aetha looked into Francesca's eyes and asked, "Did you feel that?"

Francesca put her hands on Aetha's shoulders and said, "I can see the future, my love. I've been feeling something since my first day in Perth... do you remember when we spoke on the phone that day? As soon as I heard you, I recognized your voice."

Aetha slid her arms around Francesca and asked, "You've seen our future?"

Aetha orgasm trance

"I've had visions... a few sweet glimpses of our future." Francesca gently kissed the tip of Aetha's nose. "I know we will become lovers. I've been patiently waiting for you to..."

"What?"

"Oh, I don't know...

Aetha's heart was pounding hard in her chest and she heard blood rushing in her ears. She nodded and with a broad smile told Francesca, "I just saw that future... you and I having sex... like a memory in my mind. What is going on?"

Francesca felt like she was falling into Aetha's hypnotic blue eyes. She had never previously felt that sensation with anyone but her husband. Francesca suggested, "Maybe you saw what is in my mind. Maybe you can read my mind."

Aetha pulled Francesca into her bedroom and the omelets were forgotten. An hour latter, Francesca and Aetha lay together with their arms and legs wrapped around each other. Francesca asked, "What just happened?"

The two women had both experience a shared orgasm trance during which their two minds had begun to telepathically synchronize. Aetha replied, "I was inside you."

Francesca giggled and said, "You can put your hot little fist inside me like that anytime you want. And I'm going to be routinely asking you to get your magical tongue back on my genitals... but as amazing as the sex was, I'm even more baffled by the fact that I found myself able to sneak around inside your mind and explore your memories." Sometimes Francesca felt like she knew what her husband was thinking, but she has never before looked into someone else's mind.

Francesca orgasm trance

"Me, too!" Aetha told Francesca, "I found one of your favorite memories... a memory of you on top of your husband, riding his hot, hard erection like an equestrian..." Aetha was thinking about the night spent in bed with Frankie and Dr. Thompson, when she had done the same thing with the professor. Suddenly, Aetha realized that she and Francesca were not alone. Aetha turned her head and saw someone standing in the dim corner of the bedroom. At first, Aetha thought it was Frankie, but then the woman came out of the corner and sat on the bed. Aetha stammered, "Who... what..."

The woman reached out her hands and placed one each on a leg of both Aetha and Francesca and then she telepathically spoke to them: I just allowed you two to experience a synapex link. I directly linked your nervous systems during that shared orgasm. Nyrtia did not bother to mention that she had been able to telepathically enjoy the pleasurable sensations of that orgasm. Both Aetha and Francesca were wondering if they could convince Nyrtia to link them again for another orgasm trance. Nyrtia explained: Yes, you'll be able to share more of these amplified orgasms in the future. Think of it as a gift, my payment for your services. But remember, you mustn't over do it. Only humans who grow up experiencing synapex linkages learn how to control them. Therefore, you two will find that you can only establish a synapex link to each-other on special occasions."

 Francesca asked: Who are you? The same thought was in Aetha's mind.

Nyrtia shrugged. There's no point in asking that question. Even if I told you the answer, you would not understand me. Please continue to think of me as a muse, working secretly to keep you going... as I did to force you two to complete that soldering marathon. Now, with that task complete, you two can take some time off from work and enjoy the wedding. Then after Twissell departs, I'll need you to help prevent poor Frankie from feeling abandoned.

 Francesca asked skeptically: Twissell is really going to be able to use the jumble of circuits in the workshop to travel through time?

R. Nyrtia

Nyrtia giggled and replied: Of course not! However, I can't reveal to any of you the real method by which I can move people through time. It is convenient to allow Twissell to believe that he built a Time Portal. So, you don't need to worry about the means by which I can move people around through Time, and take pity on poor Dr. T-, uh, Thompson; I've allowed him to believe that he invented time travel. Nyrtia had almost used Twissell's real name. This was the danger of sharing orgasms with her agents. Nyrtia was now so relaxed that she had almost failed to refer to Twissell by the cover identity that he had adopted in this century.

Aetha giggled. Aetha knew that she would have to tell Twissell this truth, that it was the mysterious Nyrtia who had allowed him to travel through time. Well, now the cat is out of the bag.

Nyrtia shook her head slowly. No, not really. After we are done here tonight, I won't allow you two to consciously remember this conversation, just as you can't remember our previous encounters.

Francesca was struggling to understand her own reaction to Nyrtia's sudden appearance. Strangely, nothing that Nyrtia said seemed particularly surprising. Francesca asked: We've met before?

Nyrtia moved her hands and stroked the breasts of Aetha and Francesca. Nyrtia opened up a thin synapex linkage from her finger tips to Aetha's nipple, allowing he girl to look past her telepathic shielding and into the surface layer of Nyrtia's mind. She explained: Yes, many times. It is best to allow you humans to have brief opportunities to consciously understand your mission. Then, after you understand what is expected of you, I can remove conscious access to your memories of me, leaving you in an ignorant state, but still willing and able to play out your role as my agent on Earth.  

With Nyrtia's feather soft fingers tickling her nipple, Aetha giggled again and asked Nyrtia: I'm your agent?

temporal dodecahedron

Nyrtia replied: Yes, I needed a good telepath for this project. You are perfect for the role. For example... tell me Aetha, how many minds could you sense during your orgasm trance?

Aetha shook her head and tried to analyze the sensations she had experienced while telepathically synchronized with Francesca's mind. Aetha was temporarily distracted by the pleasing way that Nyrtia was playing with her erect nipple, then she replied by speaking out-loud, "Now that I feel the pattern of your mind, I realize that you were there, linked to our minds while we had sex... watching Francesca and I. And there was another mind there in that shared mind-space, also watching us. But it was a strange mind... not a human mind pattern."

 Nyrtia switched over to speaking. "What you felt was an endosymbiont. In this case, that endosymbiont is actually crafting an extension of your own mind, a mindclone. You could telepathically sense the forming mind of the embryo that is growing inside Frankie. That embryo is developing a brain that will be half tuned to you, Aetha, and half tuned with your mind pattern, Francesca. You two will be able to telepathically guide the development of Anny's mind during gestation."

"Anny?"

"That is what Frankie will name her daughter." Nyrtia had completed her mission. Aetha and Francesca were now aware of the little mindclone network that Nyrtia had crafted. Nyrtia teleported away and then both Francesca and Aetha slumped on the bed, in a deep nanite-induced sleep. When they awoke, they had no conscious memory of having been with Nyrtia. However, Francesca's thought pattern had been changed and she no longer worried about the absurdity of Twissell's belief that he had created a functioning Time Portal in 2040 by using a magical dodecahedron.

And Aetha's jealousy over Frankie having chosen Twissell also began to fade away. Subconsciously, Aetha knew that she had not lost Frankie and had also received the gift of an exciting new lover, Francesca. And more importantly, Aetha would play an important role in developing the minds of the two mindclones that were now gestating inside Frankie and Francesca.

______

Aetha and Francesca

Two days later, on the day when Twissell and Frankie were to be married, Aetha and Francesca were dressing for the wedding. Aetha had just met Francesca's husband, Kevin. Now, Aetha placed a hand on Francesca's warm arm and through her telepathic link to both Francesca and the embryo inside Francesca's uterus, Aetha experience a flash-like fantasy of feeling Kevin's penis inside her hot wet vagina. She asked, "How did you meet Kevin?"

Francesca was still not consciously aware that she was pregnant. However, now concerned about an irregularity in her endometrial cycle, she had taken the time to visit the campus medical clinic. Now, she finished the task of clipping her headpiece into her hair and reached out to place her hands on Aetha's shoulders. "We went to school together and we both worked at Macquarie Arms Hotel in Windsor before he joined the army."

Aetha asked, "You were married before the war?"

Francesca began fastening Aetha's headpiece to her mop of red hair. "No, I was only twelve and my parents would not let me get married."

"You wanted to get married when you were twelve?"

"Kevin and I became lovers when I was twelve. It was a perk of working at the hotel. Kevin and I could bounce around on the big fluffy beds. He joined the army when I was fourteen. We did not get married until he returned from Europe after the war." Francesca looked carefully at Aetha from head to foot. "You are quite beautiful." Francesca kissed Aetha on the tip of her nose and said, "It is time for the ceremony." During the wedding, Aetha almost managed to feel happy for Frankie.

After the wedding ceremony, the small wedding party drove to Mettams Beach. Before driving to the coast, Francesca and her husband stopped by the clinic and received the doctor's opinion. Based on tests of Francesca's cervical mucus, it was likely that she was pregnant.

Macquarie Arms Hotel

After sunset, all the other guests were gone, but Twissell, Frankie, Kevin and Francesca remained beside a fire on the beach. Francesca sat there on the sand, wrapped in Kevin's arms. She told Frankie, I did not want to distract anyone's attention from you today, but I have news."

Frankie was leaning back against Twissell's body and his arms were wrapped  tightly around her. She asked, "News?"

Francesca announced, "I'm pregnant, too."

Kevin said, "Now I wish I could break my plans to attend the party summit in Sydney. I should stay here with you."

Frankie began to offer her congratulations to Francesca on her pregnancy, but she was distracted by the arrival of Nyrtia who approached the four humans and sat down on the sand beside the fire. "Sorry, to interrupt, but now that all the players are upon the stage, we need to finalize our plans for the future... and the past." Nyrtia had nanites inside the brains of the four humans. In the case of Kevin, Nyrtia's nanites simply put him into a deep sleep and he slumped over on the soft sand.

Nyrtia's nanites now allowed Twissell, Frankie and Francesca to recover some of their old memories of Nyrtia. Francesca, having seen Nyrtia only two days previously, was the first to recognize her and she said, "We meet again."

Nyrtia nodded in acknowledgement to Francesca. Nyrtia was surprised at how quickly Francesca was able to access her old memories of past meetings with Nyrtia. With her daughter acting as a kind of telepathic amplifier inside Francesca's body, Francesca was now displaying increased access to the Sedron Time Stream and expanding her abilities into accessing information from the downwhen. Nyrtia then turned to Frankie and asked, "Well, are you satisfied with your wedding day?"

Frankie replied, "Yes." She explained to the others, "Nyrtia promised me I would get a wedding day..." She squeezed Twissell's hand, "...before you depart."

Nyrtia said, "I always like to keep my agents happy. Now, since this is my last opportunity to have you three together before Thompson goes into the past, I want to make sure that everyone is on the same page."

Frankie asked, "He's leaving soon?"

Nyrtia explained, "There is no good reason to delay." She left unspoken the fact that according to her analysis of the possible futures, any delay would produce problems. Twissell simply could not be allowed to remain within close range of the developing mindclone embryos that were growing inside Frankie and Francesca. Nyrtia added, "Anny and Sarah have started linking their telepathic minds to Dr. Thompson and that's a problem. It is linking their group mind into the Sedron Time Stream, providing him with more and more information about the past. That process, if allowed to continue, is going to create a temporal paradox. Dr. Thompson simply cannot know too much about his own future." She told Twissell, "So, tomorrow you must travel to 1814."

Frankie objected, "I expected to have a month or two with my husband."

Nyrtia sternly shook her head and reminded Frankie, "You two have been together for four years. Now it is important for Aetha to have constant telepathic contact with Anny and help guide the development of your daughter's telepathic mind."

Frankie asked, "Who is Sarah?"

 With his links to the Sedron Time Stream, Twissell had seen the answer to that question. He replied and told his wife, "That is the name that Francesca will give to her daughter."

Nyrtia added, "And then, after Sarah is born, Francesca will continue her mission in the 1500s."

Two copies of Francesca and Sarah.

Francesca asked mournfully, "Must I really give up my daughter?"

Nyrtia said enigmatically, "Only one of your copies will be sent into the past, so only half of you will suffer that loss. Sarah is needed here in the future. Your copy that goes to the past will have her own children, so half of you has that to look forward to." With that, Nyrtia got to her feet and wandered away into the darkness. She sent an extra set of memory control nanites into Francesca that would strengthen the locks on her conscious memories of Nyrtia. Twissell, Francesca and Frankie all fell over, unconscious on the sand. They slept while their memories of Nyrtia were altered by nanites.

Next: Chapter 5 of Time Portal.

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Senquon

The senquon mind link.

 One of my traditions here at the wikifiction blog is the annual "change challenge" in which I force myself to experiment with a new direction in my story writing. Most of my science fiction stories are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe for which I imagine that there are two families of fundamental particles that are as yet unknown to Earthly science: the hierions and the sedrons. Previously, I've utilized a type of hierion called a "t-particle" as a means of making possible a form of technology-assisted telepathy. Now I need to name a specific type of sedron that is important for time travel.

Near the end of 2023, I wrote Chapter 2 of a story called Time Portal. In Time Portal, there is a strange twist in time which makes it possible for Dr. Twissell to travel back in time. Time Portal takes place just before the end of Earth's Reality Chain, in the Buld Reality.

A vision of the past.

 Time Portal also includes the idea that some humans have large numbers of alien gene patterns which, along with their Phari endosymbiont, gives them the ability to access information that is inside the Sedron Time Stream. Time Portal introduces a type of sedron which is called the "senquon". Bard helped me come up with this name for a sedron that can allow humans to obtain information about the future from the Sedron Time Stream. 

In the past, I have made use of the Sedron Time Stream to move information from the future to the past. For my 2024 change challenge, I want to explore an alternative use of the Sedron Time Stream and explore the use senquons to get information from the past to Dr. Twissell in the 1920s. This will lead to Dr. Twissell going even further back in time, back to the year 1814 when Abigail Longfellow began writing her version of Time Portal.

Chapter 3 of Time Portal. (read Chapter 1)(read Chapter 2)

 Twissell and Frankie arrived early on campus, but the lights were already on inside what Twissell called his workshop. There was one of his undergraduates, Aetha Louw, soldering together circuit elements for the new Time Portal control circuit that Twissell was building. Twissell and Frankie stepped into the workshop and exchanged greetings with Aetha who lifted her head from her work and tossed back her long redish-blond hair. 

Aetha at the wedding.

Twissell began examining the newly finished part of the complex network of wires that grew out of a central dodecahedron. Every time he looked at this 1920s dodecahedron he felt a bit of embarrassment. This was a hollow Bakelite dodecahedron with eleven pentagonal faces held together by cellulose acetate and it contained none of the sophisticated micro-circuitry that had been used to create a functional Time Portal in the future.

Aetha went to the open window and shut off the industrial sized fan that had been blowing fumes out of the workshop. She hauled the fan out of the window frame and then closed the window. Turning back towards Twissell, Aetha met Frankie's eye and the two young women smiled at each-other. Aetha crossed the workshop and planted a hot kiss on Frankie's lips. She said, "I spoke to Francesca on the phone. She expects to be here at 8:00."

Frankie glanced at both the phone and the clock that were on the wall of the workshop. It was 7:25. Aetha continued, speaking to Frankie. "Francesca asked if you were here."

Frankie was still feeling a sweet after-glow from her recently-completed morning sexplay session with Twissell. She winked at Aetha, "The professor is an an early riser, but he couldn't get me out of bed this morning."

About two months previously, Aetha had the pleasure of being present during dinner when Francesca got Twissell drunk. Aetha got an invitation from Frankie to drive them back to Twissell's home and Aetha ended up spending the night in Twissell's bed with he and Frankie. For a few minutes Aetha and Frankie discussed the pleasing magnificence of Twissell's early morning erections and the benefits of starting a day off with a spine-tingling orgasm. 

Finally, Twissell looked up from the newly-added circuits and cautioned his students, "Please don't talk like that when Francesca is here. You'll scare her away before she even has a chance to teach you about her Time equations." He told Aetha, "You cross soldered two of the input and output nodes. I marked them with red tape."

Aetha's night with Twissell

Aetha said, "I'll fix that after class. I must have messed up when the phone rang." She gestured towards the mass of circuitry that had grown there in the workshop and complained, "I still don't understand why you insist that this network has something to do with Time."

Twissell went into his office which was separated from the workshop by a wall of windows. The two women followed along and Twissell flipped the switch that turned on the lights in the office. He and Frankie went right to the coffee brewing station in the corner. Speaking over his shoulder, Twissell said, "I've asked Francesca to teach Frankie the system of equations that she developed for her Masters degree project." Twissell told Aetha, "I know you are busy with your course work, but try to arrange your schedule so that you can get your own tutoring sessions with both Francesca and Frankie. Everyone has to pitch in and help push ahead work on Francesca's equations... her equations describe the dimensional structure of Time. Start exploring the equations, even if you don't understand them... yet."

Frankie told Aetha, "What I can't accept is the idea that there are two time dimensions and six additional spatial dimensions."

Twissell had never told either Frankie or Aetha that he was a time traveler from the future. "There's nothing wrong with trying to find physical interpretations for abstract mathematical constructs. Particularly when..." Twissell and Frankie had set up a fresh pot of coffee to brew in the corner of his office and now he settled into the comfortable chair behind his desk. Twissell was a bit weary, having been kept up most of the night by the sexually enthusiastic Frankie. He'd almost mentioned the idea of Francesca receiving information from the future, but he decided not to broach that subject.

For minute, Frankie and Aetha busied themselves washing dirty cups, spoons and the tea pot, preparing for the arrival of Francesca. Twissell allowed himself to enjoy watching the movements of the two cute women as they shuttled to and from the sink in the workshop with the dishes. Twissell noted that Frankie looked particularly gorgeous this morning, her lovely body moving with grace and playful little twitches that seemed designed and deployed to attract attention. 

For the past year, Frankie and Aetha had shared an apartment that was just a block off campus. Twissell was amazed that Frankie seemed attracted to an old man, himself, and seemed to prefer staying at his house rather than spend her free time with the cute Aetha. He gave his head a slow shake and told himself: There is no accounting for the ways of women. Now, while Frankie rinsed the tea pot with vinegar, Aetha had a hand on Frankie's shapely bottom as they discussed the fact that Francesca was married to a soldier.

When the two women returned to the office from the adjacent workshop, Twissell told them, "I don't think Francesca's husband is active military. He's apparently retired from active duty and is now some sort of civilian consultant."

Aetha kissed Frankie one more time and asked, "Are you ever going to come home again?"

Frankie pushed a hand into Aetha's pretty red hair and let the silky strands of the girl's hair slip over her finger tips. She said, "You get yourself to your 8:00 class and don't concern yourself with my sleeping patterns. But now that I'm back in town and expected to work with Francesca, I guess I'll be sleeping with you tonight."

"Oh, goody! I get bored when I have to masturbate and entertain myself." Aetha picked up her book bag and hurried off to class.

Frankie sat down in the office across the desk from her advisor and saw disapproval on Twissell's face. "Aetha's got quite a mouth on her. I really like the way she wields her tongue, so I'm very forgiving of her flaws."

Aetha with Babs

Twissell admonished, "I'm serious, Frankie. I really don't want you carrying on like that in front of Francesca."

Frankie was still struggling to understand the idea that Twissell had been waiting years for Francesca to appear in Perth. "Well, you know, it is one of the great things about working under you... and making love under you... and on top of you... the fact that you don't have any inhibitions about sexplay or talking about sex."

Twissell tried to adhere to the rather stuffy and conservative standards for the behavior of University faculty that existed in the 1920s, but in his private life, he deployed the sexual standards of the liberated future. "Just try to remember, darling, Francesca has a problem. She is a married woman. I don't want you treating Francesca too casually, the way you play with Aetha." Twissell was annoyed that Frankie still had a joyful lecherous grin on her face and her erect nipples were jutting out against the fabric of her dress. He asked himself: How is Francesca going to fit in with the lax conditions that are maintained in this mathematics research laboratory? "Promise me that you'll control yourself. Just try to behave. This is important."

"What's the problem?" Frankie looked down at her breasts and then rubbed her nipples with her finger tips. She asked, "I thought you enjoyed the sight of my breasts."

Frankie explains her
anatomy to Twissell.

"I do, but Francesca might not want to see you flaunting them."

"Why not?" Now Frankie held her breasts in her hands and bounced them around. "They feel different... have you noticed?"

Twissell had noticed a change in Frankie's body during their recent sexplay. Her vaginal secretions were particularly luxuriant. He nodded and said, "You surprised me last night, I thought you'd be on the cusp of a new ovarian cycle right now."

Frankie let go of her breasts and looked Twissell in the eye. He continued staring at her provocative nipples. "I seem to have stopped cycling. I might be pregnant. We ladies are supposed to way at least one more month before getting our hopes up. I'd love to me a mother."

Twissell grinned. "Yes, that would be wonderful. If you can confirm it then we'd better make quick plans to get married. And..." He could not completely give voice to his thought.

Just then, Francesca walked into the office and told Twissell, "Good morning, Dr. Thompson." She held out her hand to Frankie and asked, "Are you Aetha or Frances?"

Frankie got to her feet, took Francesca's hand in both of her own hands and replied, "I'm Frances McMartin, but call me Frankie. Very pleased to meet you."

 Francesca was staring with widened eyes at Frankie's large breasts and pointy nipples. With her free hand, Francesca pointed two fingers towards Frankie's breasts and asked, "And I'm very pleased to meet your two friends. Have you given them names?"

Amazing Adventures

Frankie laughed and while laughing she made a special effort to make her breasts jiggle. "My girl friend calls them Babs and Babette. In fact, I have a whole collection of..."

Twissell interrupted Frankie to tell Francesca, "Frankie is an exhibitionist... she enjoys showing off her spectacular anatomical features. However, we actually do have work to do today." Twissell gave Frankie a stern look.

Francesca giggled and told Frankie, "I look forward to getting further acquainted with Babs and Babette under conditions when they are not hidden under cloth, but I suppose the professor would prefer that we talk mathematics just now."

Twissell could not keep a grin off of his face. As Francesca sat down, Frankie got her a cup of coffee and Twissell told Francesca, "I hope you are not going to be a bad influence on Frankie. I want you to concentrate on teaching her your system of equations, so don't get distracted by Babs and Babette or I'll have to impose and enforce a dress code around here. Maybe your husband can suggest a suitable code of behavior for Frankie to follow."

Frankie handed a mug of hot coffee to Francesca and told her, "Ignore him. He thinks he's in charge, but we ladies control our own wardrobes and dress... and undress. I hate wearing bras, except at parties when I can wear one on top of my dress as decoration. I don't mind if my friends stare at Babs and Babette... I'm not jealous of the attention they get. Occasionally it leads to me getting to enjoy an exquisite orgasm that I'd otherwise miss out on."

 Francesca told Twissell, "I can tell it is going to be fun to work with Frankie. And even more fun to play with her two pets." She sipped her coffee and looked over the rim of her mug to gauge his reaction the her comment about playing with Frankie.

Twissell breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently, Francesca was going to fit in just fine with the rowdy Aetha and Frankie's style of playful, sexually-charged banter. However, he was eager to discuss mathematics. Having waited for years, he now could begin learning just how much Francesca knew about time travel. With a half-embarrassed grin on his face, he said, "Two is an interesting number." He suggested, "Maybe you can explain to Frankie why there have to be two temporal dimensions."

Francesca again turned her gaze to Frankie's cute breasts and said, "Maybe there are dozens of temporal dimensions, but I'm sure there are at least two. Otherwise, I would not be able to receive information from the future."

Startled, Frankie asked, "You have visions of the future?"

"Yes." Francesca finally managed to lift her eyes from Frankie's chest to her eyes. "For example, as soon as I walked in here, I recognized your beautiful breasts. I know I've seen them before today. In fact, I seem to know that you have twelve hairs on your areolae. Let me guess... is that five on Babs and seven on Babette?" Francesca reached out and gently stroked one of Frankie's breasts. Or is it the other way around?" Francesca raised one hand and rubbed he forehead with her finger tips. "Or is it... more complicated?" Francesca suddenly had a puzzled look on her face.

Frankie shrugged, "I don't really know which one Aetha thinks of as Babs, but either she or he," Frankie nodded towards Twissell, "could have told you that I have some hairs on my areolae. I don't believe in visions of the future." She placed her hands on her abdomen an told Francesca, "It is more complicated-"

a vision of the future

Twissell interrupted Frankie and said, "Through all of recorded history there have been claims by some people that they could 'see' the future." He warned Frankie, "Most people like you and I can't see the future, but we should keep an open mind about the possibility of information flow from the future to the past." Twissell held up the index finger of his right hand. "As a starting assumption, let's adopt the hypothesis that there is some means of transferring information from the future to the past. Frankie, can't you see that it requires a second temporal dimension to make that possible?" Twissell now held up two fingers.

Frankie shook her head stubbornly. "No. Information can't flow through time the way that water flows through a pipe."

Twissell said, "I'm asking you to play a 'what if?' game. We need to test this hypothesis. Maybe we could even obtain objective evidence in support of what strikes you as a crazy idea."

Francesca nodded and told Twissell. "I agree that it is an interesting hypothesis, worthy of complete analysis, but I also agree with Frankie. When thinking about Time, we need to be quite cautious when making analogies between time travel and the movement of objects in space. People speak about a 'flow of time', but that is sloppy use of language. I think of it this way: all of Time exists; past and future. There is some rare and precious trick that allows a few unusual people like me to access information from the future. I can't imagine how that is possible, but since I experience the phenomenon, I have to accept it. According to the system of equations that I developed for my thesis project, there are collapsed spatial dimensions that are where that information about other times resides."

Frankie asked, "What do you mean by 'collapsed' dimensions?"

Francesca replied, "In my mathematical model, some spatial dimensions are extended but some are collapsed and we can call those compact dimensions. All nine spatial dimension are present everywhere in the universe, but six of them are compact and so small in extent that they have escaped the notice of physicists. So far."

Frankie complained, "That sounds like magic. 'Watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat'."

Twissell held up a hand and told Frankie, "We are being scientific." Again Twissell held up to fingers. "Here is our second hypothesis We can simply hypothesize that information about the future resides inside compact dimensions... somehow. To fit information about the future into a compact subspace, there must be fundamental particles that are far smaller than those we are familiar with. But, if some people such as Francesca can receive information from the future, then there must be some fundamental particle that can carry information out of the compact part of the universe and those particles must be able to interact with the matter that is in the human brain."

Francesca picked up a pencil off of Twissell's desk and made a small diagram on the back of an envelop. She handed the envelop to Frankie. "In my special notation, I use this symbol (ꗭ) to represent a theoretical particle that I call the senquon. I believe that my brain is somehow sensitive to the flux of senquons that leaks out of the compact subdomain of our universe."

Frankie handed the envelop back to Francesca and asked, "Why did you select this bilaterally symmetrical symbol for the senquon?"

Francesca explained, "Well, I've over-simplified things. Remember, in my theory, there are six compact dimensions."

Francesca's senquon (ꗭ) model

Frankie nodded and gestured towards Twissell. "I'm familiar with such models. Dr. Twissell handed me my Masters degree project which concerned an eleven dimensional manifold."

Twissell told Frankie. "The idea of extra dimensions is not something that I came up with. Going forward, I want everyone to credit Francesca for conceiving the system of equations that describe Time."

Francesca said, "Thank you Dr. Twissell, but I don't feel like I deserve much credit. The idea of the universe having eleven dimensions probably came to me from the future." Francesca told Frankie, "I can't even get my ideas through the peer review process and into print."

Frankie said, "When I completed my thesis, I sent an article off for review. It seems to be taking forever to get through the review process." 

Twissell told Frankie, "I warned you to expect your article to be rejected. This kind of mathematical analysis of high-dimensional models is too new to easily slip into the minds of old-school mathematicians."

Francesca continued with her account of how she devised the symbol (ꗭ) for the senquon. "Six compact dimensions is enough to form two complete and distinct compactified spaces that can each hold their own special types of fundamental particles. I call those two spaces H-space and S-space. To account for a flow of information from the future to the past, my equations suggest that the senquons flow spontaneously from S-space to H-space. Lucky for me, some of the senquon flow can alter my brain function and provide me with information about the future."

Frankie asked skeptically, "And that's how you know about the hairs on my breasts?"

"Exactly. I'm quite certain that in the future you and I will become lovers and I'll have the opportunity to count the hairs on your breasts." Francesca reached out and ran her fingers through Frankie's mane of silky hair. "I'm glad you're the kind of girl that lets her hair grow wild and free."

image source

Frankie gazed appreciatively at Francesca's golden blond hair. "And I must say, your hair is spectacular. I'd love to get you into bed so we can fully investigate each-others bodies, but right this moment I can start with..." Frankie let the straps of her dress slip over her shoulders. The top of her dress slid downwards, baring her plump breasts and she began examining her nipples. "I've never actually bothered to count the hairs..." Frankie and Francesca counted and quickly confirmed that there were only a total of five long black hairs on Frankie's two dark areolae: two on the right breast and three on the left.

Just then, Dean Wilson walked in from the hallway and gazed at Frankie's big beautiful breasts. Frankie pulled the top of her dress back up and told the Dean, "Just introducing Francesca to my two pets, Babs and Babette."

Twissell stood up and picked up Francesca's graduate school application from off of the desk. He handed the form to Dean Wilson and said, "Please set up Mrs. Maurolico as a paid research assistant in the Mathematics Department. She'll be working with Miss. McMartin and I on the 11-dimensional model of the universe."

Dean Wilson pulled his eyes away from Frankie's chest and took the application form. Twissell said, "It might be hard for you to believe, but Frances was just doing some important mathematics with Mrs. Maurolico."

 Wilson muttered, "Mathematics, eh? I begin to understand why the math department is becoming so popular." As Dean Wilson read the application, he told Francesca, "The one requirement of the research assistant-ship is that you teach a mathematics course each semester." He looked at Francesca and asked, "Is there a particular topic you would enjoy teaching?"

Francesca shrugged and Twissell said, "I'd like her to teach the third year differential equations course."

Francesca nodded, "I'd be happy to teach that topic."

Dean Wilson turned and departed, taking one last look at Frankie's chest and saying, "Sorry to have interrupted. Carry on."

As the sound of the Dean's foot falls reseeded, Francesca told Frankie, "I don't think we finished counting your hairs."

Frankie said to Francesca, "This is my experience with people who claim to have telepathy or future vision. They just keep talking until they get things right, using clues provided by their marks. That's why I'm skeptical about so-called visions of the future."

 Francesca closed her eyes. "There is something else in my mind, in addition to Babs and Babette... but it makes no sense. I'm talking about two more nipples... maybe a man's nipples." Her eyes popped open and she look at Twissell and asked, "Do you have a hairy chest?"

Twissell replied, "Yes."

Frankie elaborated, "He's a hairy ape. But let me show you this..." Again Frankie once again pushed the straps of her dress off of her shoulders, but this time she stood up and pulled the top of the dress further down, revealing not only the bouncing Babs and Babette, but also the white expanse of her abdomen where there were two more small areolae, each punctuated by a stiff little brown nipple.

Francesca leaned close to one of the nipples on Frankie's abdomen and commented, "Ah, I see on dark hair beside this nipple..." Now the two women carefully examined all four of Frankie's areolae.

When the count was complete and double-checked, Frankie said to Francesca, "Five on the top row and three on the bottom row for a total of eight, not the twelve hairs that you so confidently predicted to be here on my areolae."

Francesca shrugged. "I don't know the precise time in the future from which I received my information and that count of twelve hairs. However, I now understand why I had a future-memory of two pairs of nipples. Until today, I've never seen someone with extra nipples."

While pulling her dress back up, Frankie complained, "See, that's the problem with people who claim to know the future. When their prediction is falsified, there is always an excuse."

 Francesca suggested, "You're a young girl. I'll bet you will have more hair in the future. And your breasts, while already large, are going to become even larger." Francesca tapped the side of her head with the tip of her index finger. "I've seen it. I have a memory from the future, I've seen you pregnant... we just have not gotten there yet."

Frankie gasped and then exclaimed. "Do you know what this means? I really am pregnant!" She jumped up and rushed to throw her arms around Twissell. After a long hug and an even longer kiss, Frankie pulled away and ran off, calling over her shoulder to Twissell, "I'm going to the clinic for a Remak test."

Francesca asked, "Remak test?"

"It is an examination of cervical mucus that can detect pregnancy-associated changes in a woman's body." Twissell sank back into his chair, somehow certain that Frankie was pregnant.

Francesca asked, "Are congratulations in order, or condolences? I notice that neither of you wears a wedding ring."

Twissell sighed. "To be completely honest, I am married, but remember the request that I made yesterday. You are the only person here in the past who I have told the truth... that I'm from the future. I have, or will have, a wife in the future... but technically, she has not been born yet, so..." Twissell fell silent, again thinking about the idea that Frankie might be the grandmother of his wife, Becky.

Francesca suggested, "So you are free to impregnate your student, Frankie?"

"It might be more complicated than that." Twissell rubbed his chin. "There is a possibility that Frankie is the grandmother of my wife."

Francesca let out a long, slow whistle. "Wow, is that some kind of temporal paradox... the grand-mother paradox?"

Twissell suggested, "Maybe there are no temporal paradoxes." For a minute, Twissell and Francesca were silent, both busy with their racing thoughts. Then Twissell opened a drawer of his desk and pulled out a thick type-written manuscript which he handed across the desk to Francesca. She saw on the cover page the title "Mathematical models of Two Temporal Dimensions" by Francesca Maurolico, Patty Bekom and Laban Twissell. Francesca quickly looked through the article, seeing what looked like an adulterated version of the system of equations that she had assembled for her Masters thesis. Twissell said, "Please correct this article. I only had access to a rather garbled account of your model."

Finally, after giving Francesca about five minutes to look through the article, Twissell said, "While I have you alone, let me explain what I hope to accomplish here in the past." He took Francesca into the workshop and showed her the maze of circuitry that was gradually being assembled. "This is a copy of the Time Portal circuitry that I used to travel here to this time from the future. However, I came here to get your help in finding a way to travel back to the future."

Francesca giggled. She muttered quietly, "That seems paradoxical."

 Twissell explained, "In the future, nobody understood your equations." He did not bother saying that only he and Patty had ever cared about the equations. Now he decided to tell Francesca something about her future. "Without me here in the past, you abandoned your mathematics and quietly lived on a farm. The only surviving record of your mathematical model of Time was in your diary."

Francesca looked up from the array of circuits and said, "I still can't believe that you traveled through time. How can a bunch of electronic circuits open up a Time Portal?" Francesca ran the tip of her finger along several of the wires in the circuit that was there on the table in front of her then she continued, "Dr. Twissell, when I moved to Perth, I planned to buy a farm and raise sheep. I'd given up on the idea of a career as a mathematician. I was surprised to learn that there is a new mathematics department here at the University. Then Dean Wilson told me about your work. I still find it hard to believe that I've done a 180 and I'm quickly forgetting about sheep." She slipped the manuscript into her bag. "I'll edit this article, but I find it hard to accept the physical interpretation that you have provided for my equations."

Twissell nodded. It all made sense. By coming to the past, he had apparently altered the historical timeline. Twissell waved a hand towards the jumble of circuit elements. "The patterns in these circuits are inspired by the structure of your 11-dimansion model, which in the future, where I came from, only existed in the long-lost diary of a woman who lived on a sheep farm. A student in my laboratory discovered the diary and we built a Time Portal." He picked up one of the junction boxes off of the table and said, "As for how this electronic network allows for time travel, I don't really know, any more than you can explain how you knew about Frankie's hairy breasts."

Francesca's diary.

Francesca asked, "So in the future, you can't use a Time Portal to go into the future, you could only go into your past?"

Twissell nodded. "In the future, I could not solve the mystery of the asymmetry of the time equations. Using the Time Portal that I built, I could only travel into my past. But now that I'm here, I can get your help to solve that mystery. We'll modify this circuit network and then I'll be able to return to my home in the future."

Francesca shook her head. "No. Think about it. I never will solve that mystery. You are from the future. You know the future and in that future, where you have already lived, I will become a sheep farmer and... and you won't even know the reason why I abandoned my career in mathematics."

Twissell persisted and suggested, "No, no! Now I'm here with you. I can change the past. With my help, you will solve the asymmetry of the time problem. With your help, I'll return to my wife, in the future."

Francesca suggested, "It would be a temporal paradox if you came here to the past, learned how to travel to the future and then returned to the future, where you don't know how to travel to the future."

Francesca 1922

Twissell threw his hands up in the air. "I don't know. I'm grasping at straws... maybe I will return-" At that moment, while gazing at Francesca's pretty face and her wavy blond hair, Twissell had an experience of déjà vu. He muttered, "Mary."

Seeing a strange and distracted expression on Twissell's face, Francesca asked, "What?"

Twissell shook his head and tried to express his thoughts, which were suddenly cluttered with new ideas. "I just had a flash of... memory. A woman named Mary." He smiled lamely. "I'm too suggestible. You have me seeing ghosts!"

Francesca giggled, "No, no! That's exactly how the senquons effect the mind... suddenly you know something that you should not know... that you can't even explain how you know. Who is this Mary?"

Mary in 1545

Twissell objected. "No, it cannot be..." He closed his eyes. "I'm imagining things, just because you are cute and have powers of suggestion..."

Francesca insisted, "Tell me about your vision."

Twissell opened his eyes, carefully looking at Francesca's face, comparing what he saw to a memory that had appeared in his mind. With wonder in his voice, Twissell said, "I don't know how I know this, but..." He closed his eyes again and saw in his mind's eye the Mary in his 'memories'. "She was the daughter of Thomas More." Twissell carefully examined his memory of Mary. "No... Mary was More's grand-daughter. And she knew you... I can see..."

Francesca waited for Twissell to finish his sentence. As the silence continued, finally she asked, "A grand-daughter of Thomas More knew me? That makes no sense."

Twissell opened his eyes. "Well, maybe... a copy of you. Your name-sake... the Francesca Maurolico who lived in the 1500s."

Francesca shook her head. "Well, do I know about her... my 'name sake'. She was the daughter of a mathematician, but she is known for her book of prophecy."

Twissell asked, "Are you related to that other Francesca Maurolico by blood?"

"I don't know. When I learned of her existence, I investigated the little that is known about her life. I was not able to trace her descendants."

Francesca and Mary, 1545

Suddenly seeing through the confusion, Twissell asked excitedly, "What if you travel back in time and become... ?" He could not believe what he was suggesting. It did not fit with what he knew in the future, a future in which Francesca lived on a sheep ranch.

 Francesca asked, "What are you suggesting, Dr. Thompson? Are you telling me that I do not live and die here in this century? That I'll become like you... a time traveler... I'll go back to the 1500s?"

The truth was, Twissell had never gotten a coherent account of the life of Francesca from her grand-daughter, Patty. But now, somehow, Twissell knew all he needed to know. His time travel mission, his bumbling into the past, was not over. He mumbled, "I'm going to have to go even further back."        

Next: Chapter 4 of Time Portal.

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