“Upgrade.
I want to upgrade my ticket.” The clerk, Peters, according to the nameplate, jerked awake so fast he nearly toppled from his stool.
His eyes darted left and right, checking for supervisors, before settling on the man before him with practiced professionalism.
“Upgrade, sir?
Yes, of course.
Second class would be an additional seventeen pounds.” Luca suppressed a sigh.
Seventeen pounds.
In 1912, that was real money, a month’s wages for a working man.
But compared to spending four more minutes in that stinking hole downstairs?
Worth every penny.
The mission the system had dumped on him was still settling in his mind like a stone in his gut.
Blow up the Titanic.
Not exactly the heroic debut he’d imagined.
But between mass murder and soloing Godzilla, the lizard that treated nuclear warheads like Tic Tacs… the choice made itself.
Priorities first, get out of that cabin.
The smell alone was a health hazard.
He’d found the cash tucked into his jacket pocket earlier… two hundred pounds in crisp notes, apparently his starting funds from the system.
In this era, with the pound dominating global currency, that was serious money.
Enough to start a business.
Enough to live comfortably for months.
Enough to buy his way out of steerage.
In the movie, Jack Dawson had won his third-class ticket in a poker game.
Three pounds.
That was all it cost to chase the American dream.
The guy was basically broke in a way that made Luca’s previous-life poverty look comfortable.
Different tax brackets, Luca thought.
Same struggle.
“Seventeen pounds, you said?” He reached into his pocket.
Peters’ eyes tracked the movement with the focus of a hawk watching a rabbit.
Then his gaze shifted upward, landing on Luca’s face, specifically, on his Asian features and something shifted in his expression.
“There’s no space,” Peters said flatly.
“You should go back.” Luca’s hand paused mid-reach.
Ah.
There it is.
He’d been in the workforce long enough to recognize that tone.
The assumption that someone who looked like him couldn’t possibly deserve equal treatment.
Britain in 1912 was still the world’s hegemon, ruling waves and empires, and people like Peters had learned long ago that certain faces belonged in certain places.
Luca pulled out two ten-pound notes.
Folded them once.
Laid them on the counter.
“I think there might be space after all.” Peters looked at the money.
Looked at Luca… looked at the money again.
The bills disappeared into his pocket with practiced speed.
Then he smiled, all teeth, no warmth.
“Second class will be an additional seventeen pounds, sir.” Luca stared at him.
“You just—” He stopped himself.
Took a breath.
“I already gave you twenty.” “Handling fee.” Peters shrugged, utterly unbothered.
“Administrative costs.
You’re lucky I’m helping you at all.” Seventeen pounds for the upgrade.
Twenty pounds in Peters’ pocket.
Net cost to Luca, thirty-seven pounds for a cabin that should have cost seventeen.
This guy is charging me twenty pounds just for the privilege of being overcharged.
“If you don’t have the money,” Peters added, crossing his arms, “you can go back where you came from.” “Don’t hinder my work.” The implied back to your cabin, back to your place, back to where people like you belong hung unspoken.
Twenty pounds.
Nearly a year’s wages for someone like him, and this low-class had just handed it over.
Peters barely suppressed a grin.
The man’s English was surprisingly fluent too, strange, that.
Most of them could barely string two words together.
Not that it mattered.
Complain to whom?
The captain?
The officers?
They’d laugh any such complaint right out of the room.
In 1912, discrimination wasn’t acceptable… it was expected.
Politically correct, if that phrase existed yet.
“Second class,” Luca said flatly, placing two more ten-pound notes on the counter.
The words tasted like ash, but he forced them out.
His hand itched for the Beretta tucked beneath his jacket, but that way lay madness.
And probably a firing squad.
Calm down, four days.
This fat bastard has four days.
Peters tossed a key and ticket across the counter without looking up.
“Cabin 27.
Find it yourself.” The twenty pounds disappeared into his drawer.
No change for the overpayment.
Luca took the key.
Walked away, didn’t look back.
I’ll buy you a nice coffin, he thought.
The least I can do.
The mission had been sitting heavy in his chest since the system dropped it, mass murder dressed up as historical preservation.
Even knowing this world was fictional, a story made real, the idea of killing thousands sat wrong.
He’d been a law-abiding citizen for forty years.
This wasn’t him.
But… After three minutes walking through the ship, he was starting to reconsider.
“My God, what’s that doing here?” “A third-class passenger?
In second class?” “Must be Japanese.
Look at the eyes.” Every step brought fresh commentary.
The gentlemen in their tailored suits.
The ladies with their parasols and poison smiles.
They stared at him like a zoo animal that had escaped its enclosure without the slightest concern that he could understand every word.
Gentlemanly demeanor, Luca thought bitterly.
Victorian manners all goes out the window.
He’d read about this era.
The books made it sound abstract, a historical footnote about discrimination and empire.
But living it was different.
The stares followed him like flies.
The whispers buzzed in his wake.
Every face he passed wore the same expression… You don’t belong here, Low-class Scum.
By the time he found Cabin 27, slammed the door behind him, and leaned against it, his hands were shaking.
He took a long breath.
Forced his shoulders to relax, his jaw to unclench.
Four days and none of this matters.
The cabin was nice.
Genuinely nice, a far cry from the stinking hole downstairs.
Decent bed, small desk, even a porthole showing gray Atlantic water.
Second class on the Titanic was better than most first-class accommodations on lesser ships.
Luca dropped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Now, the problem.
Sinking this ship.
In the movie, it looked simple.
Iceberg hits, ship sinks, drama ensues.
Simple physics with a hole in the hull, water rushes in, down she goes.
But standing inside the actual Titanic, feeling the massive engines thrum through the floor, understanding the scale of what he was supposed to destroy…
This was a two hundred seventy meters long fortress.
Thirty meters wide.
Nine decks.
Sixteen watertight compartments designed to keep her afloat even with multiple breaches.
A moving city of steel and rivets and human ingenuity.
And he was supposed to sink it.
With what?
Two pistols.
Four magazines.
Three gold bars.
A fruit knife.
Right.
Even if he had grenades, which he didn’t, they’d barely scratch the paint.
The Titanic was built to withstand punishment.
You didn’t sink something this size with small arms fire.
You needed…
What did you need?