Kyiv. A park. 2026.
Sunlight fights its way through the clouds. A bird sings on a branch. Overhead, a downed Shahed drone shrieks as it veers toward the city center. Today, someone’s luck is about to run out.
I’m sitting on an old bench, a compass resting in my palm. The park is empty. It’s a familiar place. A favorite. But I wasn't thinking of it when I stepped through the portal in Wick’s world. That means the portal chose it for me. It doesn’t always return you to the same place, but it always returns you to the same time. Only a few minutes have passed since I vanished.
I’m back. My trained body and the skills I honed are left behind in the space-between. Here, I have only my memory, and that’s unlikely to help. Then again, in another time or another world, I’ll be a harder man to catch.
Everything I was looking for wasn't found in fists or bullets. I wanted to trigger a killer instinct; instead, I walked away with the name of an enemy and the names of those who can be saved.
The House of the Returned. A structure that inflicts suffering, divides, and breaks. In all likelihood, everything we’ve endured over the last six years is the result of their "corrections." Your average Joe doesn’t want war. He wants a liquor store, a job, a woman by his side, and the sound of his kids laughing. War is for the elites. The ones the House directs.
Do I want revenge?
More than anything.
For every day lived like a prisoner while someone else built a fortune.
I was sixteen when the Soviet Union collapsed. I don’t remember the speeches from the crowds. I remember the television. Swan Lake—over and over again. The adults stared at the screen with faces awaiting a death sentence. Then a neighbor said something I’ve remembered my whole life:
"If no black swans show up, maybe we’ll be okay."
We weren't okay.
A "Black Swan" is the thing the system cannot foresee. Not because the system is stupid, but because it builds its models on what has already happened.
The House of the Returned manages history. They calculate everything—except for one man with a compass in his pocket. I can’t break the system head-on. But I can become the unforeseen variable.
The Black Swan.
Because I stopped being predictable a long time ago—even to myself.
But what exactly is the move?
Suppose I return to the past. What can I actually influence? One man cannot prevent a war. But he can change the destiny of one person, or a few. You could convince a young Hitler to remain a painter, but World War II would happen anyway because someone else—Himmler, perhaps—would lead the party. War isn't the decision of one man; it's a gear in the historical process. If there is a demand in society, a Führer will be found to fill it. To destroy the Nazi Party, you’d have to eliminate not just its members, but the critical mass of people who would consume that ideology.
And for that... you’d need another war.
Not one "displaced" traveler, but an entire army.
History has inertia. To change it, you have to shift the entire historical context, and I don't have the resources for that.
But what about a precision strike?
Anna and Charlie.
Their connection is no accident. Their potential love is the key. If I destroy the obstacles in their path toward each other, they will ignite a cultural revolution. That’s what Eva said. It will shift the mindset of a multitude of people at once. It will force the House to react.
But it requires a sacrifice. My own. I dreamed of seeing her, and now that the opportunity is mine—I have to give her to another.
Because the world is more important?
That, too. But a dream is only good fuel when it’s unattainable.
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A voice snapped me out of it. Calm, almost polite.
A dark-haired man in a mishmash of gear. A French jacket. German trousers. British army boots. It looked as though he had never belonged to any one army. He gave a nod of greeting—not a salute, but dignified.
"I am Agent Wong," he said with a soft British accent. "Usually, we save those who get lost. But you... you find your own way. All the better."
I stayed silent. Watching.
"The name is Wong. The House of the Returned."
He pulled out a small business card and set it on the arm of the bench. On it was a broken serpent biting its own tail.
"We bring back those who discover the secret of the crossings. You aren't one of us. But you could be. We have an organization. We have goals. Do you need a goal?"
I stood up slowly. The seconds stretched. But Agent Wong didn't attack. He just spoke.
"What surprises us is something else." He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "How do you travel without a remote? The first jump should have torn you apart."
He produced something that looked like a car key fob, pressed a button, and a portal tore open in the air. No lightning. No flash. Just a hole in space.
Wong turned, stepped toward the breach, and looked back for a split second.
"You'll come to us eventually. The only question is when, and how."
And he was gone.
I remained on the bench. In my hand, the card. Blank, except for the emblem. In my heart, a cold dread.
They know. Not everything, but enough. They think I need "direction." If I go to them, I’ll have to show my hand. Freeman, Issa, Wick. And they won't reveal a thing. They found me by chance, and the odds of a second fluke are slim.
If they need me, they’ll find me again. We’ll see how soon. That will tell me exactly what they’re capable of.
A portal without thunder. No flash. Just a hole in reality and a key fob in a pocket.
Issa didn't know everything.
I headed for the flea market where they sell relics of the past. I need to get to the turn of the century. But what year? What country? How to act? That will depend on the object I find to use as my anchor.
Kyiv. A makeshift market. It stretches from the Kurenivka district all the way to the Pochaina metro station—the place they used to call Petrovka.
The wind drags dust and a cocktail of stenches across the pavement: old plastic, dry tobacco, scorched electronics. It’s a graveyard of forgotten things that no one values. But I know better: every object is a bridge. If it was born in another time, it remembers.
I walk slowly. Tracksuit. Darkened lenses. The compass in my pocket vibrates softly whenever it nears something "warm." It’s hunting for a new token. I came here for a story. And if the House wants me… let them find me. Just not in my own time, where I’m vulnerable.
I stop at the stall of an old man in a moth-eaten fur cap.
It’s a pile of junk. Everything bled together: a Soviet soldier’s belt, an "Expo 2000" badge, an old doll with bulging eyes. A framed photo of a couple who are almost certainly long dead. Pocket watches. And then—a small hairclip with a French inscription worn thin by time.
The compass shudders. I trace the faint, eroded engraving. “1907 Belle Époque.” Paris? But why is it stamped Made in USA?
This scrap of metal remembers a century that has ceased to exist. If a vortex opens anywhere nearby, I can use this to get there. But where is "there"? Paris? America? And is it really 1907?
I pay the man.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a patrol. I pocket the clip and start moving—slowly, no sudden gestures.
The main exit is blocked. A roundup.
"See an agent, run," the thought flashes through my mind. I need to cut through the construction site. But the pursuers are definitely here for me; they’re closing the distance, picking up the pace.
I accelerate. They do the same.
I snap the hairclip into the compass casing and dive through a gap in the steel gates. The compass needle jerks upward. An unfinished high-rise. I’m going to have to climb. My luck with portals is holding steady—as in, I have none.
— Стій! Стріляю! (Stop! I’ll shoot!)
A burst of gunfire hits the air.
— Хапайте цього ухилянта! (Grab this draft dodger!)
They’re armed. They’re flanking the building. I scramble up the concrete skeleton of the unfinished floors, rebar clawing at my skin.
Another burst. A ricochet off the concrete. A bullet grazes my leg—just a hot sting, a warning.
Faster.
— Злазь, сцикло, будівля оточена! (Come down, coward, the building is surrounded!)
— Вогонь на ураження! (Fire to kill!)
Police, recruitment officers. At least fifteen of them. I guess hunting an unarmed man is easier than volunteering for the front.
But there’s no way out. Where is that damn portal?
The air cracks with static to my left. The compass points straight into the shimmer.
A vortex.
I throw myself into it just as a second burst of fire stitches the air inches from my ribs. My last thought as the world dissolves: If I come back without changing anything, I’m a dead man.