The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (50 page)

A
premonition is just a memory.

Of
the future?
No, it’s a lie! She doesn’t remember the
future. How can she? She’s got no special powers. She’s just an anonymous Chinese
woman. She only remembers her past, the life she’s lived like everybody else.

She
steps away from the window, and alphanumerics pulse in her peripheral vision.

“You’re
going home,” Muse whispers, “to 2496. Tonight at midnight.”

“The
t-port is done, then?”

“It’s
done.” Muse downloads a file, and
Muse://Archives/Zhu.doc
displays in
her peripheral vision. Thirty-eight GB.

She
wants to sigh and forget about it. This isn’t the same file, it can’t be the
same file. It’s not the same size, it’s never the same size. But irritation and
fear kindle in her heart.

“Go to
the intersection of California and Mason Streets,” Muse says. “They’ve
installed a shuttle under the Grande Dome. The site has changed in some physical
characteristics, of course, but the intersection is still very much the same.
You should be fine.”

“The
Grande Dome?”

“You’ll
see. The private ecostructure over Nobhill Park. Quite mega. Four luxury
hotels, refreshed air and water, on-site vegetable gardens and fruit trees. The
works. Always was a fancy spot.”

Zhu
thinks about the location. “Why, that’s across the street from where we went to
the Artists’ Ball.” She smiles. “Are the LISA techs arranging a hotel room for
me tonight?”

After
all she’s witnessed of the San Francisco of 1895, she’s seen very little of the
San Francisco of her Now except for the EM-Trans station, the Institute’s
hydroplex bobbing in the bay, and the Japanese Tea Garden Museum in New Golden
Gate Preserve. She feels deprived. And entitled. How well she can imagine the
luxury and comfort of her Day!

“Oh,
I doubt it,” Muse says. “You’re accused  of attempted murder. They’ll debrief
you at the Institute, then take you back to jail, Z. Wong. You’ll be officially
charged and stand trial within the week.”

“What?”
Her irritation and fear spark into anger, and she finds herself on the verge of
shouting. “You mean all this has been for nothing? I’ve earned no clemency? No
credit?”

“Credit
for what?”

“For
risking my life. For t-porting to the Gilded Age. I agreed to a deal. Chiron
promised me he’d arrange for a new lawyer, leniency, reduced charges.”

“You
must be mistaken. The Luxon Institute for Superluminal Applications makes no
deals, no promises.”

“No
way am I mistaken! Why would I t-port to this godforsaken time in the first
place?”

“Because
you were required to.”

“No,
I was never
required
to. I agreed to, I made a deal. I demand my rights
after all I’ve done.”

“And
what, exactly, have you done for the Gilded Age Project?” Muse’s tone is arch.

It’s
a controversial point, and Zhu swallows her anger. But what has the monitor
done for her except berate her and confuse her? To the point that she’s
wondered whether Muse is malfunctioning, defective, or programmed by someone to
sabotage her and the Gilded Age Project. But by whom? And why?

“I
found the girl at the designated rendezvous.” Apparently Muse needs reminding.
“When she was kidnapped by the hatchet men,
you
advised me to let her
go. And I found her again at Selena’s, arranged for her rescue, and took her to
the home.”

“But
she’s not at the home anymore,” Muse reminds
her.

“No,
she’s not, but that’s not my fault. She’s a human being, right? With thoughts
and feelings of her own? Was I expected to become her fulltime bodyguard? You
didn’t advise me to. So how would that have worked out, Muse? Huh?” When the
monitor doesn’t answer, she adds, “Anyway, she didn’t have the aurelia. She
never
had the aurelia, not that I can see. So the Archivists were wrong, wrong,
wrong.
You’re
wrong, Muse.”

Muse
is silent.

Which
infuriates her. “
I
have the aurelia.
I
do. And it’s no accident
that I found it in a joss house dedicated to Kuan Yin, is it? That eventually I
would go inside that joss house? Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, he knew I’d find
the aurelia there. Didn’t he?
Didn’t
he?”

“Who?”
Muse whispers.

“You
know damn well who.” Zhu clutches the hardware at the base of her neck, wishing
she could rip Muse right out of her skull. Out of her life. “So the aurelia is
a time enigma, isn’t it? The old anonymous green-eyed Chinese woman gives it to
Chiron in 1967, and he takes from her, takes it back with him to 2467. Then an
anonymous green-eyed Chinese woman finds it in a joss house in 1895—that would
be me--so I can give it to Wing Sing. Am I getting this right?”

Muse
is silent.

“And
Wing Sing will give it to her daughter, the green-eyed daughter she’ll have
from her fling with Rusty the sailor-man. The Archives support the existence of
the green-eyed girl-baby, half Chinese, half Caucasian, right? It doesn’t
matter that Rusty will desert Wing Sing, go sailing off to India or wherever.
It doesn’t matter that the girl is a child out of wedlock, the child of a
prostitute, a child who will never know her father. Donaldina Cameron and the
home specialize in girls like her, and all that matters is that she gets born
and lives to be seventy-one when, as a servant wheeling Cameron’s wheelchair,
she’ll hand the aurelia to Chiron, and the whole goddamn cycle starts all over
again. Right?”

Muse
is silent.

“So
where does it all begin, huh?” Zhu goes to her dressing table, picks up the
aurelia, carelessly tossing the precious object back and forth in her hands. “What
really is the true object of the Gilded Age Project? Tell me, Muse. Why spend
all that money? Why assemble another tachyonic shuttle when the t-port program
was shut down because the technology was too dangerous? Why another t-port
project when the danger of spacetime pollution is so terrible? When there’s so
much potential for error? For a thousand violations of the Tenets of the
Grandmother Principle. Why trap me into this t-port with promises of leniency
that the LISA techs have no intention of honoring if and when I return? Answer
me!
Why?
”

“The
aurelia is a fine hand-made brooch in the Art Nouveau style with two carats’ worth
of diamonds. . . .”

“Oh,
shut up, Muse. I’ll
tell
you why.” Zhu’s anger tightens into fury, a
vise around her heart. She slams the aurelia down on her dressing table, nearly
smashing it to pieces. “I’m just a courier for a goddamn enigma. Right? That’s
all. Oh, how Chiron moaned and groaned over his own t-port to 1967, to the
Summer of Love. Where he ate forbidden food, enjoyed forbidden love. The truth
is, he made a mistake, didn’t he? What happened, Muse? Did he forget that he
took the aurelia from some old Chinese lady, just another cool thing that
happened in the park that summer, tucking some insignificant freebee into his
pocket?”

Muse
is silent.

“He forgot
he had the aurelia in his jacket pocket when he t-ported back to his Now,
didn’t he? So he accidentally created another CTL. Didn’t he.
Didn’t he?
”

Muse
is silent.

“Yeah,
that’s exactly what I think happened. That’s the secret the LISA techs have
kept from me. And a CTL is an artifact of tachyportation, isn’t that what
Chiron was trying to tell me?” She holds this thought clear and steady—
the
file Zhu.doc is different each time Muse downloads it. The holoid of her
interview with Chiron, it’s different each time, too.
“A CTL always exists
in the One Day of spacetime,. Without beginning, without end. But it’s
artificial, a human construct. CTLs don’t exist in nature. They’re unstable.
And t-porting, it’s not natural, either. What happens, Muse, if a CTL
once
ascertained
by the t-porter caught in it starts to unravel?”

Muse
is silent.

“I
mean, under the uncertainty principle, the observer affects the observed,
right? That affect must be magnified a thousand times if the thing observed is
unstable, like a CTL. And what if the observer herself is unstable, too? Troubled?
Accused? In love? What then?”

Zhu
picks up the aurelia, finding—thank goodness--nothing of the brooch is broken
or loose. She’s stronger than she appears, the tiny golden woman trapped in a
butterfly’s wings. Tonight’s the night, then. The t-port is over. She’s
accomplished nothing. But before she leaves the Gilded Age behind forever, she’s
got one last vital task to do as the courier covering up Chiron’s blunder.

She
goes to her wardrobe, pulls out her pearl gray silk dress. She was going to
lend the dress to Wing Sing, as Jessie had suggested. Now the dress is too
tight even to slip on. How did she ever fit into it?

She
relaces her corset so tightly she can barely breathe. “You know what, Muse? I
think I finally get it. This CTL is causing instability up and down the
timeline. That’s why reality has become so mutable since I t-ported to this
Now. Why things keep changing right before my eyes.”

“What
keeps changing?” Muse whispers.

“The
billboard on the cigar wagon. Eleanor Olney’s pince-nez. Wing Sing’s feet, are
they bound or unbound? My skin tanning, for pity’s sake, when I’m supposed to
be protected by Block. Your goddamn file,
Zhu.doc.
”

“I
don’t know what you mean.
Zhu.doc
is exactly the same as it’s always
been. How can it possibly change? It’s a file in the Archives.”

“Oh,
stop this ridiculous charade, Muse. You yourself keep changing. You’re supportive,
then you’re subversive. You goad me to fulfill the object of the project, then
give me advice directly counter to that objective.”

“I’ve
done no such thing.“

“Stop
it! Are you defective? Are you damaged? Would you know if you were? Would you
know if someone programmed you to sabotage me? And what about me?
I’ve
changed.”

“That’s
what people do, Z. Wong,” Muse says soothingly. “Unlike an Archive file or an
Artificial Intelligence like me, people change all the time. And you’ve had
quite a few novel experiences during your t-port, haven’t you?”

“You
mean Daniel J. Watkins?” She feels a sharp contraction in her soul and her
heart whenever she thinks about Daniel. “He’s a part of the disintegrating CTL,
too, isn’t he? One minute he’s courteous, charming, tender, loving, intelligent.
The next minute, he’s a monster. Physically abusive. Mentally abusive, calling
me a lunatic. He loves me, he loves me not. No, wait. He adores me, he reviles
me.”

“Daniel
J. Watkins is a shining example of the privileged male intellectual of this
period with his misogynist and racist views, Z. Wong,” Muse says, stern now.
“He would call you a lunatic even if you hadn’t revealed your identity as
t-porter. Which you were not supposed to do under the Tenets.”

“Yeah,
right.” But Muse doesn’t seem all that upset over her many violations of the Tenets,
so she leaves it alone. Of course, Muse is right about Daniel, but she mulls
over everything she’s seen and heard. “Views of this period. It’s as if the
views of this period are a part of the CTL, too, shifting from one extreme to
the other. Women are either angels or whores, neither and both. Men think women
are powerful, all-consuming, dangerous. And then they think women are weak,
objects to be consumed, beneath contempt.”

“Men
of this Now are confused about women,” Muse admits. “But you know very well
he’s a man of his times in other ways, too.”

“Yeah.
He’s succumbed to the temptations of hellishly strong drink, cocaine therapy,
and morphine relaxation.”

“It’s
a pity, I know—“

“It’s
a pity I can do nothing to help him under your goddamn Tenets.”

“Dear
me, Z. Wong, I do believe you’ve fully informed him of the dangers he faces.
You’ve stood by his side during his worst moments. That’s more than many other
women would do. I shall mention your patience and kindness at your clemency
hearing.”

Small
hope uplifts her for a moment. Then she inhales sharply. “Wait a minute. I
thought you just told me I won’t get a clemency hearing. That I’m going to
jail, standing trial for attempted murder.”

Muse
is silent.

She
feels stifled, nearly faint for a minute. Her gut throbs beneath the relaced
corset. She yanks the pearl gray silk dress on, and the dress floats over her,
a perfect fit.

“What
will happen if the CTL falls to pieces?” She spies a pulsing black dot in her
peripheral vision. Muse is very, very unhappy. Good. “What will happen if the
anonymous green-eyed Chinese woman never gives the aurelia to Chiron in the
Golden Gate Park of 1967? Will the impact disrupt all of spacetime the way the
Save Betty Project did? Only worse, much worse this time? Will the disruption
cause a massive dim spot in the Archives that jeopardizes Chiron’s Summer of Love
Project? Will that disruption unleash another alternate reality? If I don’t
deliver the aurelia to Wing Sing, and her daughter doesn’t deliver it to
Chiron, will I be the one to destroy the universe as we know it?”