Los Angeles. The final hours.
Charlie was a Londoner at his core. Beneath the mask of a Hollywood star, the urchin from Kennington had awakened—the boy who knew the underbelly of the Imperial waterways better than I knew the bus routes of Kyiv. He navigated schedules and port docks by memory, sensing the rhythm of ocean liners like the beating of his own heart.
"White Star Line is no longer an option, John," he said, his voice devoid of even a shadow of his usual comedic flair. "Too much noise, too much scrutiny on the passenger manifests. Cunard Line. The Mauretania or the Aquitania. Reliable. British starchiness is the best camouflage. No surprises."
He helped me secure the tickets that same day. Second class. The perfect gray zone, where a lone man in a tweed suit dissolves among hundreds of others just like him. Charlie reached that conclusion on his own; I merely gave a silent nod.
I had decided against using the portals. Too unpredictable a variable. A jump could hurl me either into the Thames of the Victorian era or straight into the arms of Wong’s containment squads. The ocean was longer, but it offered me the luxury of silence.
We didn't make a scene. Hollywood already has too many fake goodbyes.
We simply drank coffee in a small shop that smelled of roasted beans and salt wind. I checked the straps of my rucksack and adjusted the case containing my "antiques."
We stood up at the same time. Charlie extended his hand. We shook—briefly, until the bones creaked.
Each of us walked in opposite directions without looking back.
He went to the studio to craft the great magic that would make the world laugh through its tears for another hundred years.
I went to do the dirty work.
The Los Angeles–New York Express
The train rolled for four days—an endless ribbon of dust, steam, and faded landscapes. I sat by the window, hands laced behind my head, simply absorbing the rhythm.
The Wild West receded reluctantly, clawing at the sky with the jagged edges of red cliffs and the flat summits of mesas. Dusty towns with a single main street, where time had frozen somewhere in the era of sheriffs and Colts, drifted past, leaving behind nothing but the scent of coal smoke and isolation. Then came the infinite prairies, eventually giving way to the dense forests of New England. Old America—with its white church spires and small timber stations where the express would slow for a few minutes, as if paying homage to the past. No one boarded. No one disembarked. Only the wind chased dry leaves across the platforms.
The train could have gone faster. If I’d tossed a couple of thermobaric briquettes into the firebox, I could have pushed it to 88 miles per hour. But I didn't have any. And why make the extra noise?
"Drive fast, die young... long is your road..."
In this era, speed was measured in patience. And as if to confirm my thoughts, I almost saw a sign on the embankment—a wooden plank with two words painted in black:
"POINT OF NO RETURN"
Or perhaps it was just a trick of the dust and steam.
I drank wretched, burnt coffee from a tin mug and tried to think of nothing. Around me were ordinary people with their ordinary worries.
Here, in this carriage reeking of cheap tobacco, there was no room for sentiment. What awaits me isn't just a "sequel." It’s a second chance.
New York Harbor. Pier 54.
The Mauretania loomed over the pier like a steel precipice. Charlie had been right: this liner was a perfect ecosystem. Four funnels belched coal smoke into the gray Manhattan sky, while three distinct worlds flowed up the gangplanks. First Class—top hats, furs, and the blinding magnesium flashes of reporters. Third Class—knotted bundles and shouts in a dozen languages.
I chose the Second. The world of merchants, mid-level lawyers, and teachers. People too preoccupied to peer closely into the face of the man in the cabin next door.
The line at the port customs control moved with agonizing slowness. When my turn finally came, I didn't wait for the officer with the heavy gaze to point at my case. I opened it myself, with a smooth, deliberate motion.
Inside, resting on a velvet lining, lay the sections of the disassembled shaft and two predatory blades held down by leather straps. In the dim light, the steel cast a cold blue shimmer. It looked beautiful. And terrifying.
The officer—a seasoned pro with a ginger mustache and a badge that had seen better days—stared at the weapon with the curiosity of a man accustomed to seizing illegal Colts but rarely encountering anything like this.
"Chinese ceremonial. Eighteenth century," I said. "Taking it to a buyer in London. A major, and very impatient, collector."
The officer reached out, hesitated, but finally picked up one of the blades. He turned it over, catching the glare of the electric lamps. His thumb cautiously brushed the edge.
"Sharp," he noted, a sliver of suspicion creeping into his voice.
"Ceremonial weapons are usually sharp, officer," I replied with a faint, almost condescending smile—the look of a man tired of explaining the obvious to amateurs. "Otherwise, it’s just a stick. And my employer pays for history steeped in blood, not for garden tools."
The customs agent stared at me for a second longer, weighing the blade, then carefully tucked it back into its slot. In 1925, the police were interested in Prohibition, bootlegged whiskey, and Thompson submachine guns. Cold steel—especially something so exotic—seemed like the eccentricity of a wealthy oddball.
The hollow thud of a stamp on my documents signaled the end.
"Move along, Mr..." he glanced at the passport. "Vei Lin. Good luck with the trade in London."
I nodded, snapping the case shut. I headed up the gangplank, feeling the deck of the Mauretania vibrate faintly beneath my feet.
I had six days of ocean ahead of me.
Aboard the Mauretania
The stifling air of the Second Class was palpable. It clung to the skin along with the scent of fried bacon and fuel oil. The portholes, bolted shut due to their proximity to the waterline, turned the cabins into tin cans where the fates of people intermingled—people who did not yet know that their freedom was a historical anomaly soon to reach its end.
I became a part of the white noise. A mid-level merchant. Gray suit, a dull gaze, a book in hand—the perfect camouflage for a man who doesn't want to be remembered. I ate according to the schedule, nodded politely to the steward, and apologized mechanically in the corridors.
But inside, a different process was unfolding.
The wild, primal simplicity of 1925 was killing me. Five seconds of inspecting blades—and then a stamp. No digital trail, no biometric data, no presumption of guilt. The world had not yet gone mad with fear of itself. In this time, a man was still the master of his own path, not an object in a database.
I stood at the railing, staring at the endless gray silk of the ocean, thinking about my own time. I thought of the metal detector frames, the retinal scans, the endless forms where you must prove you aren't a terrorist, a virus carrier, or an enemy of the system. We, the people of the future, had voluntarily traded the sanctity of private life for the illusion of security. And what did we get in the end? A world bristling with missiles, where every passerby is a potential threat and trust has become an atavism.
People on the deck laughed, argued, and embraced without looking back for surveillance cameras that simply didn't exist. They possessed, unconsciously, that terrifying freedom that allows a human to be both a hero and a monster. In fifteen years, this world will explode, and these same people will go out to kill each other with the same passion with which they now drink tea in the lounge. But for now… for now, they were simply living souls.
But had I ever trusted myself?
That question was sharper than my blades. Did I consider myself a product of the very control I despised? Was it worth it—all this development of civilization that led us to total paranoia?
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There was no answer. Only the low, visceral hum of the Mauretania’s turbines, the vibration of the deck under the soles of my boots, and the salt spray freezing on the leather collar of my coat.
Ahead lay Cherbourg. France—old, not yet trampled by the boots of the Wehrmacht, smelling of coffee and anticipation. If the House is already here, on board, they will reveal themselves before we enter the English Channel. Professionals don't like leaving work until the last moment. But super-professionals… they don't show themselves unless they have to.
Could I ever live without my paranoia?
The Technical Deck of the Mauretania
It wasn't meant for passengers. Two ladders, neither with signs. A hatch at the end of a corridor with a warning no one bothered to read. Beyond the hatch lay an open platform nestled between the massive foundations of the funnels. There was enough room for maneuver, and the observers' gondolas couldn't peer into this blind sector.
I found it on the second day. I came after midnight, when the decks emptied and the ocean in the darkness ceased to be a backdrop, becoming instead an abyss—neither frightening nor beautiful, just infinite. The wind here was different: not the gentle breeze of the promenade, but a dense, salt-laden flow.
I needed to domesticate the steel.
The blades. Interchangeable, double-edged, with a dull blued finish. The spring-loaded catch engaged with a dry, predatory click. I checked the locking mechanism every time—in 1925, the price of a failed stopper was your own artery, severed by momentum.
The telescopic shaft was secured vertically under my arm. The blades—in sheaths at hip level. This was the transport position. Outwardly, I was just a gentleman in heavy leather.
Close-quarters contact meant working with two short swords. Unsnapping the left blade—one motion. The right—a mirror image. Forward grip, reverse grip. This was for tight spaces: corridors, dead ends, crowds. In those places, a staff was a crutch; the swords were a surgeon's scalpels.
I ran through a series. Slowly, fixing the blade at the points of hypothetical contact. Then faster. Then—in the jagged rhythm of a fight.
Geometry. That was where the chasm between worlds lay. Issa’s vibro-blades were merciful. Quantum sharpening forgave a blurred angle; they "bit" into matter where ordinary steel would slide uselessly off on a tangent. With them, you could afford a touch of sloppiness—the high-frequency vibrations did the work for you. Their mass was greater, and inertia turned the blade into a sledgehammer, perfect against heavy terminators.
Here, there was no mercy.
This steel demanded a flawless angle of entry. If I turned my wrist just a couple of degrees incorrectly, the blade would ricochet, leaving me open to a counter-strike. The geometry of the strike wasn't just a skill; it was a physical law of survival.
Time and again, I made the same mistake: the left blade, in a reverse grip, drifted slightly above the axis of my forearm. In a training spar—a trifle. In a fight—a slit throat. I repeated the series until my muscles began to "burn" that error out of my memory.
Assembling the staff took seconds. The half-meter duralumin baton clicked, ejecting its telescopic sections. Three locking positions. But if I attached the blades to the ends, I transformed into a two-bladed windmill. The length of the shaft plus a meter of steel. This was for open spaces. For the times when I needed to keep my distance.
I moved through several forms. The Mauretania’s wind interfered, creating drag on the long arcs, shifting the familiar balance. I didn't fight it—I factored the air resistance into the equation of the strike.
But the ritual of disassembly was just as vital. Unclick, hide, wrap the coat shut. Faster. Faster still. With my eyes closed, navigating only by the clicks and the coldness of the metal.
I stood by the railing, catching my breath. Hands dry, no tremors—good. Shoulders loose. My knee throbbed, but it quieted down when I found my rhythm. The key was the warm-up, if you knew when. Or—in the first seconds of a fight—not putting an explosive load on the joint.
I thought again of the blades of the future. Of how they hummed faintly in the palm, like living creatures. Of how they forgave my imperfections. Here, there was no forgiveness. Only 1925. Steel forged by human hands, leather sewn by hand, and a mastery that was either seared into your neurons or wasn't.
I preferred it when it was. Because there, in London, I would have to face those who do not forgive mistakes.
Night. The Storm.
The ocean in a fury is nothing like a movie set. It is a primordial soup in which the ship’s iron is mercilessly boiled. I gripped the railing until my knuckles turned white. The wind tried to tear me from the deck, but I stood my ground. It was a form of meditation—a confrontation with an element that knows no mercy.
I thought of the Titanic. Of those who believed in the unsinkable nature of progress, unaware that the "House" had already arranged the pieces on the board. Too many opponents of the Federal Reserve on a single hull. History isn't a coincidence; it’s a series of precise nudges at the right moment. But I was a nudge directed the other way.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which I’d been reading by day, felt strangely relevant. The yellow brick road leading to an Emerald City that turns out to be a sham, a fake managed by a frightened old man behind a curtain. Isn't the "House" just another Wizard? A booming voice from the void, hiding nothing but cold calculation and a fear that humanity might slip out of control.
Anna… my childhood dream of the impossible. I saw in her not a woman, but the very idea of flight. But now, with only hours remaining before our meeting, I asked myself the ultimate question: what matters more—my dream, or her right to her own destiny?
Loving a phenomenon is easy. Loving a person who might not recognize you, who might be terrified of your leather coat and the scent of steel—that is the real challenge. Giving her over to Charlie means admitting: to the porcupine, the porcupine’s lot. But that was the highest form of mastery. To save her not for myself, but for life.
And then, the song came.
Wick sometimes sang a lullaby that struck terror into his enemies. I, however, needed absurdity elevated to the rank of a nightmare.
“Donald, Where’s Your Troosers?”
In the original, it’s a cheerful tavern ditty about a highlander shocking the ladies by lacking pants under his kilt. But here, in the roar of the storm, I shifted it into a minor key. Slow. Stretching the rhythm to the heartbeat of a dying man.
"I’ve just come down from the Isle of Skye..." I whispered. My voice barely pierced the howling wind. "I’m no' very big and I’m awfu' shy..."
That was it. A perfect hit. I am that very Donald. The little man from a Kyiv park, the porcupine whom life always swatted on the nose. The man people laughed at, the one no one took seriously. And yet, here I am. In the center of world history, with eighteenth-century blades, in a body that remembers the pain of three worlds.
"The lassies shout as I go by: Donald, where’s your troosers?"
My whole life was in that song. Ridiculous, absurd, and lethally dangerous to anyone who decided they could mock the "man without trousers" with impunity. It was a jeer at fate itself. Issa would have simply nodded, appreciating the irony. But now—her voice echoed as a chorus in my head. A distant, ghostly reverberation.
The storm slammed into the hull, drenching me in an icy spray. I licked the salt from my lips and smiled—nature was pulling me back to reality. After all, if not for reality, this world could drive a man insane.
The Mauretania. Second Class Restaurant.
The breakfast was drawing to a close. The scent of strong coffee and burnt toast mingled with the salty breath of the ocean. The pianist at the grand piano idly toyed with the keys in search of inspiration, but the room lived its own drowsy, measured life.
I sat by the window. Before my eyes stretched the Atlantic—cold, infinite, stripped of any marks of time. My hand instinctively checked my fasteners. A habit turned into a reflex.
She appeared out of nowhere. Silently.
In 1925, a woman in a man’s suit was either a scandal or a manifesto. She wore it like a second skin: wide trousers, a waistcoat, a jacket draped over her shoulders. A blue-black bob, held by a golden ribbon, emphasized cheekbones that could have belonged to an ancient statue. Her hands were clean, without a single visible scar, yet in the way she pulled out the chair and sat opposite me, there was the confidence of a predator that doesn't need to growl to be feared.
She lit a cigarette. A dark amber holder, a thin stream of smoke rising toward the ceiling.
"Are you occupied, mister?"
Her voice was low, throaty, with that specific accent that isn't tied to geography. It’s how those speak who have changed too many countries to remember the first.
"I saw you on the deck."
I didn't look away. In her eyes, there was no feminine curiosity. There was a void in which my own coldness was reflected.
"You’re certainly not a waitress," I said, pushing aside my empty cup.
She took a drag, studying my face as if reading a map of forgotten battles.
"Andy." Short and sharp, like the strike of a blade against a shield. "I’m interested in those who have survived more than they were supposed to."
"John." I threw the name out with an exhale of emptiness.
The corner of her mouth flickered in the ghost of a smirk. It was the smile of a soldier recognizing a comrade.
"You look as though you’ve returned from a war, and at the same time, as if it hasn't even begun for you."
"I want to start over," I said, watching the blue line of the horizon. "I'm convinced that you do, too."
In her profile, there was something biblical and, at the same time, frighteningly modern.
"For the first time in a long while, I’m curious how breakfast will end," she said, a metallic ring in her voice. "And perhaps, everything else as well."
"A long while? You certainly don't look it."
She didn't have time to answer. I stood up. Мой жест was calibrated to the millimeter—a polite tilt of the head, final and dry. I had no intention of turning this into an acquaintance.
"My respects, madame. I shall not intrude further."
By the piano, I stopped. The young pianist in the white waistcoat was shuffling sheets. I placed a banknote on the lacquered lid.
"Chopin. Nocturne in C-sharp minor. Lento con gran espressione," I said quietly.
The pianist blinked, looking at the indecently large sum for such a request, then at my leather coat. He touched the keys.
The first notes drifted through the hall like mist over a battlefield. It was the music of shattered mirrors and encounters that never happened. Pain, sealed into a perfect form.
Andy froze. Every bar of Chopin was my answer to her question. An echo of the lives I had left behind.
I walked toward the exit without looking back. The restaurant doors closed, severing the music.
But perhaps, for this woman, I too had become a point of no return.