Word traveled faster than the trains ever had.

By the second morning after the field test, Shropshire Station was crowded—not with passengers, but with railway inspectors, magistrates, reporters, and men who smelled more of ink than coal. The villagers who had witnessed the first telegraph message stood at the edges, retelling the story with increasing confidence, the way people do when they know they watched history happen.

Phillip arrived at the foundry yard just as Henry rushed toward him holding two letters. Not envelopes—sealed dispatches bearing wax crests.

"London sent riders through the night," Henry said, breathless. "Two messengers. One from the Railway Board. One from the Home Office."

Phillip opened the first. The wax broke easily under his thumb.

Lord Wellington,

We require immediate attendance in London for examination of the electric signaling apparatus tested between Shropshire and Bradlow Village.

Your invention may alter the national rail network. You will demonstrate it before the Board.

— Sir Charles Wentworth, Chairman, Royal Railway Board

Phillip opened the second.

You are summoned to appear before a joint committee of Parliament regarding matters of public safety and national infrastructure.

Bring the apparatus.

— Home Secretary Robert Ashton

Phillip folded both beside his coat. Henry watched him carefully.

"They want the telegraph," Henry said. "All of it."

Phillip nodded. "Then we bring it."

Henry didn't move. "Phillip… these men aren't like the naval engineers or steelworkers. They don't build anything. They judge. They argue. They tear apart ideas."

Phillip tightened the strap on the telegraph case. "Then we give them something they cannot tear apart."

By noon, Phillip, Henry, and three apprentices boarded a railway carriage—one of the few still permitted to run so soon after the recent disaster. The telegraph apparatus traveled in a reinforced crate. A second crate held poles, insulators, copper wire, spare coils, and the newest improvement Phillip designed at dawn: a dual-coil sounder for clearer signals over long distances.

The carriage rattled along the rails. The countryside rolled past in muted greens and browns. Every new mile reminded Phillip why he was doing this—why wires now stood beside the tracks like new sentinels.

Henry watched him. "You're quiet."

Phillip didn't look away from the window. "We built a system that sends information faster than anything alive. But the men we face today… they will ask what that speed is worth."

Henry exhaled. "Worth lives," he said. "They should already know."

"Knowing and admitting," Phillip replied, "are different."

London — Parliament Square

By late afternoon, London greeted them not with applause, but tension. Rumors had already reached the capital: Instant messages sent between stations. Wires that carry warnings. A machine that clicks faster than men can run.

Outside the committee hall, clusters of reporters waited, though policemen kept them at bay. Inside, the room was full—rail directors, Members of Parliament, and men who had never touched a locomotive but controlled every rail line in the kingdom.

The Home Secretary raised a hand. "Lord Wellington. You may present your device."

Phillip set down the crate, opened it, and revealed the telegraph: the key, the twin-coil sounder, the battery cell, and the copper line coiled beside it.

Murmurs rippled through the room—confusion, skepticism, curiosity.

Sir Charles Wentworth leaned forward. "This is the instrument that allows instant communication?"

"Yes," Phillip replied.

"How instant?"

"Instant."

Wentworth frowned. "Prove it."

Phillip nodded to Henry, who stepped to the second crate and removed a separate telegraph unit. The apprentices carried it to the far end of the hall.

"We will string a temporary wire," Phillip said. "Not miles—only the length of this chamber. The mechanism will behave the same."

The officials watched with mild impatience as the apprentices fastened the wire across the room, clipped it to both machines, and placed the battery cell between the terminals.

Phillip stood before the committee and pressed the sending key.

Click. Click. Click-click-long.

The sounder across the room responded instantly, matching perfectly.

A few men startled. Others leaned in. One parliamentarian removed his spectacles, blinking.

Phillip tapped again. Henry read aloud the received pattern.

"It says: TEST ONE SUCCESSFUL."

The Home Secretary leaned back. "And you propose this along every railway?"

Phillip kept his voice even. "It will give stationmasters immediate knowledge of train positions. No waiting for runners. No guessing at delay. Warnings sent instantly—accidents prevented."

One board member, older and red-faced, scoffed. "Do you want the kingdom strung like a spider's web with copper wires?"

"Yes," Phillip said.

The bluntness silenced the room.

He continued. "The rails failed because they could not speak. This gives them a voice."

Wentworth folded his hands. "And the cost?"

Phillip did not hesitate. "Less than the cost of a single collision."

A long pause followed.

Members whispered among themselves. One pointed at the battery. Another at the coils. Another inspected the wire with a skeptical scowl. But none denied what they had just witnessed.

Finally, the Home Secretary spoke.

"Lord Wellington, what you are proposing would change not only the railway, but communication across the kingdom. Messages to police, to garrisons, to ports… if this works as you say, it is a national infrastructure."

"It is," Phillip answered.

"And you can build it?"

"Yes."

Wentworth raised a brow. "How soon?"

Phillip glanced at Henry, then at the telegraph.

"We begin expanding from Shropshire immediately. By spring, a full regional network. By next winter, the first inter-city line. Within three years—London to Edinburgh."

Silence again.

Then murmurs.

Then questions.

Dozens of them.

Hours Later — Outside the Hall

Phillip stepped out into the evening cold. The sun had set. Parliament Square glowed with lamplight. Horse carriages rattled over cobblestones. Life moved as it always had.

But Henry said it first.

"They believed you."

Phillip inhaled slowly. "They believed the sounder. Not me."

Henry grinned faintly. "Is that a bad thing?"

Phillip shook his head. "No. Machines don't lie. And men trust what they can hear."

A young constable jogged toward them. "Lord Wellington! Message from the committee."

He handed Phillip a sealed paper.

Phillip opened it. A single sentence stood inside.

The Crown authorizes construction of a national telegraph network under your direction.

Henry let out a low whistle. "So that's it. The whole kingdom."

Phillip folded the paper.

"No," he said quietly. "This is only the beginning."

He looked toward the north—toward Shropshire, toward the crash site, toward the iron rails waiting for a new line of copper to run beside them.

"Tomorrow," Phillip said, "we return. There's work to do."

Henry nodded. "A lot of it."

Phillip lifted the telegraph crate.

"And the railway," he said, "must never be silent again."

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