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  The Gilded Age, A Time Travel

  Lisa Mason

  This is an ebook adaptation of Lisa Mason’s classic Bantam New York Times Notable Book, The Golden Nineties.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Bast Book

  Copyright © 2011 by Lisa Mason.

  Cover art and logo © copyright 2011 by Tom Robinson.

  All rights reserved.

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Bast Books e-book edition published September 2011

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address:

  Bast Books

  [email protected]

  Thank you for your readership! Please visit me at my Official Web Site for more about my books, ebooks, screenplays, stories, and forthcoming works. Enjoy!

  Lisa Mason

  Praise for Books by Lisa Mason

  The Gilded Age, A Time Travel

  A New York Times Notable Book

  A New York Public Library Recommended Book

  Sequel to Summer of Love, A Time Travel

  “A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Should both leave the reader wanting more and solidify Mason’s position as one of the most interesting writers in science fiction.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Rollicking…Dazzling…Mason’s characters are just as endearing as her world.”

  —Locus

  “Graceful prose… A complex and satisfying plot.”

  —Library Journal

  Summer of Love, A Time Travel

  A San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book of the Year

  A Philip K. Dick Award Finalist

  Prequel to The Gilded Age, a Time Travel

  “Remarkable… .a whole array of beautifully portrayed characters along the spectrum from outright heroism to villainy… .not what you expected of a book with flowers in its hair… the intellect on display within these psychedelically packaged pages is clear-sighted, witty, and wise.”

  —Locus

  “A fine novel packed with vivid detail, colorful characters, and genuine insight.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Captures the moment perfectly and offers a tantalizing glimpse of its wonderful and terrible consequences.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Brilliantly crafted… .An engrossing tale spun round a very clever concept.”

  —Katharine Kerr, author of Days of Air and Darkness

  “Just imagine The Terminator in love beads, set in the Haight-Ashbury ‘hood of 1967.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Mason has an astonishing gift. Her characters almost walk off the page. And the story is as significant as anyone could wish. This book will surely be on the prize ballots.”

  —Analog

  “A priority purchase.”

  —Library Journal

  THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA

  Lisa Mason’s urban fantasy, THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, is also available in affordable installments as THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA TRILOGY: Book I: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3: The Right Road.

  “So refreshing! This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

  TENETS OF THE GRANDMOTHER PRINCIPLE

  [Developed for tachyportation projects approved by

  the Luxon Institute for Superluminal Applications]

  Tenet One: You cannot kill any of your lineal ancestors prior to his or her historical death.

  Tenet Two: You cannot prevent the death of any of your lineal ancestors.

  Tenet Three: You cannot affect any person in the past, including aiding, abetting, coercing, deceiving, deterring, killing, or saving him or her (except as authorized by the project directors).

  Tenet Four: You cannot affect the world in the past.

  Tenet Five: You cannot reveal your identity as a time traveler to any person in the past, including yourself.

  Tenet Six: You cannot reveal the future of any person in the past, including yourself.

  Tenet Seven: You cannot apply modern technologies to past events or people, except when the result conforms to the Archives and, in that case, you cannot leave evidence of modern technologies in the past.

  The CTL Peril: You are capable of dying in the past, including your personal past. If this occurs, the project is transformed from an Open Time Loop (OTL) to a Closed Time Loop (CTL).

  You cannot escape a CTL.

  Contents

  July 4, 1895 Independence Day

  1 Fortune Cookies at the Japanese Tea Garden

  2 A Toast to the First and Last Chance Saloon

  3 Miss Malone’s Boardinghouse for Gentlemen

  October 12, 1895 Columbus Day

  4 Up and Down Dupont Street

  A Premonition

  5 Strolling Along the Cocktail Route

  6 Absinthe at the Poodle Dog

  November 2, 1895 El Dia De Los Muertos

  7 Nine Twenty Sacramento Street

  8 A Miraculous Cure at Dr. Mortimer’s Clinic

  December 5, 1895 The Artists’ Ball

  9 Prayers in the Joss House

  A Premonition is Just a Memory

  10 A Shindig on Snob Hill

  February 22, 1896 Chinese New Year

  11 Kelly’s Shanghai Special

  June 21, 2495

  A Premonition is Just a Memory of the Future

  February 22, 1896 Tong Yan Sun Neen

  12 Gung Hay Fat Choy

  March 17, 1896 Saint Patrick’s Day

  13 Woodward’s Dancing Bears

  14 High Tea with Miss Anthony

  July 14, 1896 Bastille Day

  15 The View from the Cliff House

  Out In Frisco

  There is lots of time to burn

  Out in Frisco;

  Native customs you will learn

  Out in Frisco;

  In the famous French cafés,

  With their naughty little ways,

  That’s the place where Cupid plays,

  Out in Frisco.

  ***

  The red light is contagious

  Out in Frisco;

  The ladies’ conduct is outrageous

  Out in Frisco;

  When the bloodred native wine,

  Mixes up the clinging vine,

  She will call you “Baby Mine,”

  Out in Frisco.

  ***

  When you finally cash it in

  Out in Frisco;

  And you end this life of sin

  Out in Frisco;

  They will gently toll a bell,

  Plant your carcass in a dell,

  There’s no need to go to hell,

  You’re in Frisco.

  ***

  Anonymous

  Circa 1895

  July 4, 1895

  Independence Day

  1

  Fortune Cookies at the Japanese Tea Garden

  Out of a tense and arid darkness she steps, her skirts sweeping across the macadam. Her button boot wobbles on the bridge over the brook in the Japanese Tea Garden. “Steady,” the technician whispers. The shuttle
embraces the ancient bridge in a half-moon of silver lattices. The air is susurrous, tinged with menthol, cold. The shuttle hums. High overhead, the dome ripples in a fitful gust. Zhu Wong listens for final instructions. None come. Dread quickens her pulse. She closes her eyes and waits for the moment it takes to cross over.

  And then it’s happening—the Event sweeps her across six centuries.

  Odd staccato sounds pop in her ears. The Event transforms her into pure energy, suspends her in nothingness, then flings her back into her own flesh and blood. And she stands, unsteadily, her button boot poised on the bridge over the brook in the Japanese Tea Garden. A brand-new bridge. The scent of fresh-cut wood fills her senses.

  “Muse?” she whispers to the monitor. Fear stains her tongue. Tension gathers behind her eyes. Her skin feels fragile. Her heart batters her ribcage, her lungs clench. Now she feels the Event just like they said she would. Again, “Muse?”

  “I’m here, Z. Wong,” the monitor whispers. Muse nestles behind Zhu’s left ear between scalp and skull. “We’re here.” Muse automatically checks for points of reference. Alphanumerics dance behind her eyelids. Coordinates are confirmed. “We’re fine.”

  But she’s not fine. The tension moves to Zhu’s sinuses, and a soft ache starts to throb.

  She opens her eyes. Dappled sunlight shocks her, an azure sky dazzles. Birds cheer, foliage rustles. Sights seem magnified, sounds amplified as if she’s returned from the dead. The herbal scent of eucalyptus infused with a floral perfume nearly overwhelms her. The tension, the ache turn into fullblown congestion. She sneezes once, sneezes again violently. Her eyes spurt tears.

  Bang, bang, bang! Odd staccato sounds? Now earsplitting blasts and the stink of gunpowder.

  Zhu drops to her knees, evasive action instinctive at the sound, the stink of gunfire. Her breath rasps in her throat. Her fingers twitch, reaching for the handgun she kept strapped beneath her right arm for so many years it was like another limb. Its absence now, an amputation.

  She fights panic. Damn! No gun, no decent cover. What a sitting duck she is, perched on the bridge. She blots her eyes on her sleeve and tries to rise, but her feet tangle with the skirts. She stumbles, moving as if hobbled. The ankle-length layers of silk and cotton cushion her knees against abrasion, but not impact. Pain shoots through her kneecaps. There will be bruises.

  “Stay calm, Z. Wong,” Muse whispers. “The loud abrupt sounds suggest combustible explosives, not projectiles aimed at you.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the Fourth of July. Independence Day, United States of America.”

  Zhu crouches, uncomprehending.

  “Those are fireworks. San Franciscans always celebrated the Fourth of July in Golden Gate Park. The park was public then. Correction. The park is public now.”

  “Independence Day, of course.” Zhu has never celebrated America’s Independence Day. She’d never been to America at all till she was conscripted for the Gilded Age Project.

  “This is long before private cosmicist interests acquired the parkland and installed the dome.” Muse’s whisper calms her. Confirmation coordinates continue matching up like winning lottery numbers.

  Well, all right. She glances up, squinting. How well she recalls the milky PermaPlast dome rippling overhead as she stepped in the tachyonic shuttle. How wonderful to see the sky with no dome!

  “But the dome is old, too, isn’t it, Muse?”

  “In your Now? Oh, yes. The dome has been in place since the 2100s when the stratosphere had thinned so dangerously that undomed lands were ruined by excessive radiation. Z. Wong,” Muse says patiently. “This is 1895.”

  1895. Zhu bows her head, struck with awe. Then it’s true. They did it. She has t-ported six hundred years in the past.

  “Please, Z. Wong,” Muse says. “You haven’t much time before the rendezvous. Get up. Walk around, stretch your legs.”

  Zhu frees her skirts, managing not to rip the delicate fabric. How did women ever tolerate such constrictive clothing? Lurching to her feet, she sneezes violently again. “Muse, what’s the matter with my sinuses?”

  “Unknown. An allergic response.”

  “I’m not allergic to anything.”

  “Pollen?”

  “No, never.”

  Muse pauses. “Perhaps a response aggravated by the Event. I will analyze. In the meantime, you’ve got a handkerchief.” Helpful Muse is becoming impatient. “Please, you have less time now.”

  Zhu finds the embroidered square of cotton in her leather feedbag purse. Her hands shake. She can’t get over the impression someone was shooting at her as she stepped out of the tachyonic shuttle. She looks around, alert and wary.

  The shuttle has been installed at the historic location they call the Japanese Tea Garden in New Golden Gate Preserve. Zhu smiles, secretly glad the shuttle has vanished from her sight. She never liked the photon guns aimed like assault weapons. The pretty calcite crystals that did unpretty things. The banks of blinking microbots slaved to vast offsite servers. Then there was the chronometer, the savage hook-like heads of the imploders. The whole thing was militaristic, foreboding.

  And the Event?

  Thanks to a fiendishly clever technology invented by the Luxon Institute for Superluminal Applications, the Event instantaneously transformed the matter of her body into pure energy and transmitted that energy faster than the speed of light.

  Flinging her body and soul from July 4, 2495 to July 4, 1895.

  Did the Event actually work? Oh, yeah. She honks into the handkerchief. The hard curving stays of her corset—slender steel strips covered in black satin—dig into her ribs. Quickly, before anyone notices, she stoops and flips up her skirts, examining her knees. No blood leaks through the thick black cotton stockings. Excellent. She starts smoothing back the slip, the skirt, the overskirt, the traveling cloak, all in shades of pale dove gray.

  “I beg your pardon, miss, but may I assist you?”

  Zhu glances up.

  A young man stands, startled, wringing his large mottled hands and staring openmouthed at her calves. His bright blond muttonchops and clean-shaven chin shape his face into sort of a peculiar square. He’s combed his yellow hair back over his scalp, lets it fall to the shoulders of his black frock coat. A scarlet polka-dot tie throttles his starched wing collar. He’s tilted his porkpie hat at a rakish angle, carelessly unbuttoned his vest in the afternoon heat. Quite the dandy with his bawdy grin and stink of gin. Has his way with the ladies, no doubt.

  But his concerned expression closes up like a slamming door when he glimpses Zhu’s pale golden complexion, her black hair and wide cheekbones. Her slanting eyes, the irises gene-tweaked green.

  “Why, thank you, sir. Yes, you may.” She extends her hand for him to assist her off the bridge. Gray lace mitts cover her palms, wrists, and forearms, leaving her fingertips bare.

  He doesn’t take her hand. No, he frowns, turns without another word, and strides away. He glances at her over his shoulder with eyes of ice.

  “Too bad, Muse,” Zhu says to the monitor. She pulls the veil down from the brim of her Newport hat and ties it beneath her chin, shielding her face from the sun. From other prejudiced eyes. “I guess he didn’t want to assist a Chinese lady.”

  “You’re not a lady, Z. Wong.” Muse says, the monitor’s tone as cold as the young man’s glance. “You’re a fallen woman.”

  *

  A fallen woman. She certainly was.

  It was June 2495 when her lawyer barged into the central women’s prison facility at Beijing and roused her out of an exhausted sleep.

  “A deal?” Zhu said warily. “What kind of a deal?”

  “I don’t have all the details, but they’re saying they’ll reduce the charges from murder to manslaughter,” the lawyer said and shoved a petition in her face. “If you do what they want.”

  “Attempted murder,” Zhu reminded her. “That would make it attempted manslaughter.”

  “Whatever.”

&n
bsp; “I didn’t mean to do it.” She was too tired to read the tiny print. “And he’s not dead yet. At least, no one’s told me so.” She rubbed her eyes. “What do they want?”

  The lawyer was court-appointed, since Zhu had no money. One of those bleary-eyed, pasty-faced public defenders perennially overworked and underpaid. A heart attack waiting to happen at ninety-three years old with an inflamed neckjack beneath her ragged crew cut. Theoretically the people had equal access to due process, but it didn’t happen much in Socialist-Confucianist China. The lawyer glared at Zhu, distaste curving her mouth.

  Attempted murder. The charge would be upgraded to murder if her victim died. Sick at heart, Zhu asked the guards every day after her arrest, “Is he alive?” No answer. “Tell me! Is he alive or dead?”

  It was just plain crazy. It was never supposed to have happened this way. As she lay in the prison cell, sick with forced detox after they took her black patch away, waiting to be charged with attempted murder, she had trouble believing the campaign could have gone so wrong. How she could have done such a thing? How could they? The atrocities, the Night of Broken Blossoms. She was a Daughter of Compassion, dedicated to the Cause. The Daughters of Compassion fought for the future. They weren’t murderers. She wasn’t a murderer.

  Or was she?

  She had trouble remembering exactly what happened that night. The door to the room, for instance. Had it opened to the left or to the right? Had there been one sentry or two? Sometimes she remembered a crowd in the room. Other times, only a few people. When had she pulled the handgun from beneath her right arm? And the astonished look on the sentry’s face. Because Zhu had a gun or because she was left-handed?

  Memories of that night would flash through her mind, vivid and horrifying, then abruptly grow dim and rearrange themselves. On the morning when the lawyer barged in with the plea deal, Zhu wondered if she was going insane.

  “What do they want?” the lawyer said. “Listen up, Wong. They want to send you on a tachyportation.”

  “A what?”

  “Yeah.” The lawyer rolled her eyes.