A foul stench thickened the air.
Beneath a wall shedding its old, cracked plaster, a tattered green sofa sagged in defeat. Half draped over its armrest lay Luca León, his body limp and lifeless. Pale-yellow vomit seeped from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his throat and across his bare back before pooling beneath him.
His body convulsed suddenly. The sour liquid slid back down his throat with a wet gulp.
He stirred, eyelids fluttering open. His mind felt wrapped in fog. A strange, bitter taste lingered in his mouth—thick and rotten, impossible to ignore.
Overhead, a three-bladed ceiling fan rotated lazily, slicing the air in slow, mocking circles. His vision blurred and doubled; the spinning blades seemed like hands slapping him again and again.
"Luca León! Open the damn door! Don't you dare play dead in there!"
The furious pounding came from outside, echoing through the cramped, dimly lit room. The entire place shuddered, as though it might collapse under the noise.
Luca blinked hard, his mind clearing a little. He pushed himself upright, back aching, and glanced around. Everything looked utterly unfamiliar.
His heart skipped. The last thing Lee Kai remembered was the roar of gunfire—a flurry of bullets—and the searing pain before collapsing beside a patrol car.
He had been one of the few Chinese officers in the Los Angeles Police Department, proud of his lightning-fast response record. When a citizen reported a gold shop being looted in broad daylight, he was the first on the scene—charging straight into a firefight.
"Tatatata!"
The robbers were monsters, armed like soldiers—AK-47s blazing. Lee Kai fought hard, managing to take down two before a bullet found him.
Then, blackness.
Now, a storm of alien memories stabbed through his skull like shards of glass. He clutched his head, groaning.
"Nineteen seventy-three…"
The truth sank in. Somehow, impossibly, he had been reborn—thrown back to 1973 Los Angeles, decades before his time.
And his new body belonged to a young Mexican man named Luca León.
Fragments of memory came together: the man had drunk heavily on an empty stomach, passed out, and died from acute alcohol poisoning.
For a long moment, Luca sat motionless, torn between confusion and disbelief. Then he let out a shaky breath and accepted it. Compared to dying outright, waking up again—even like this—wasn't the worst fate.
The pounding at the door grew louder, the voice outside sharper and more impatient. Irritation prickled through him.
He forced himself to stand.
"Ugh!"
Pain shot through his gut. The hangover was brutal. His stomach clenched violently, and he vomited again—splattering the floor amid the chaos of empty bottles: tequila, whiskey, brandy. The stench burned his nose.
His limbs felt weak and watery. As he stumbled toward the door, his foot knocked over a half-empty bottle. Liquor spilled through the crack at the threshold, forming a small stream that seeped outside.
This body was a ruin, Luca thought grimly—ravaged by drink, fragile to the core.
He cracked the door open a sliver.
An old woman's face appeared instantly, creased with anger. She grabbed the doorframe, her knuckles white, as though afraid he might shut her out again.
"Damn it, boy! You spilled that filthy booze all over my feet!"
She peered past him, taking in the wreck of a room. Her expression twisted in horror.
"Jesus Christ, Luca León! What have you done to my house?! You still have money to drink, but it's been two months—two whole months—and you still haven't paid me! When do you plan to stop leeching off me?"
Luca steadied himself against the wall, bits of memory aligning. She was his landlady—the widowed owner of the White Dove Apartments, surviving alone on the rent she collected.
His predecessor had moved in three months earlier, renting this dingy, mouse-ridden box of a room. But for the past two months, he hadn't paid a cent—always drunk, always making excuses, narrowly escaping eviction each time.
The last of his money had vanished the night before, spent on liquor. Now, Luca was completely broke.
Realizing his situation, he cursed his predecessor silently. He put on his best attempt at sincerity and said,
"Please… just give me a few more days."
The old woman scowled, unconvinced. They went back and forth for a while before she finally threw up her hands in disgust.
"You say that every damn time! Enough! This is your last chance—five days! I want two hundred dollars for what you owe, plus a hundred for this month. If you don't pay, I'll have the police send you a summons!"
A summons. Luca almost laughed. There wasn't a man alive who knew that process better than he did. The irony wasn't lost on him.
Once the old woman stormed off, another voice floated across the hall—low, smoky, and tinged with lazy amusement.
"You've got a decent face, Luca. No need to rot away in this dump. With your looks, you could find proper work—flipping fries, washing cars… or better yet, find a rich old lady to take care of you. They say Mexican men are good with their hands, right? There's always a way out."
Leaning against her doorway stood a woman with long golden hair, her curves framed by the dim light. A thin wisp of smoke curled from the cigarette at her lips. Lola Kelly, a Broadway dancer—and Luca's neighbor for several months.
Every morning, she stood there exactly like this, smoking idly, her voice slow and measured as if time itself couldn't rush her. But when night came, she would vanish into the city's neon lights in her crystal heels.
Luca met her eyes—hollow, hazy, unreadable. He couldn't tell if she was teasing or mocking him. Still, her advice wasn't wrong.
"Thanks, Lola. But I'm not quite desperate enough to sell my ass yet. Doesn't fit my style."
"Heh."
Lola chuckled softly, exhaling smoke toward his face as she handed him the cigarette.
"Take it. Might help you sober up. The landlady's been patient—anyone else would've tossed you out weeks ago.
"And by the way," she added, smirking, "you still owe me fifty bucks for the booze. So, noble Mexican, better figure out how to get your act together."
Luca watched her retreat into her room, hips swaying, and shook his head. Barely a few minutes into his new life, and he was already neck-deep in debt.
His predecessor had been a drunk and a freeloader—a miracle he'd lasted this long here.
He drew deeply from the cigarette. The nicotine burned his throat but cleared the haze in his head.
Then, squaring his shoulders, Luca stepped out of the White Dove Apartments and into the light.
Watts District.
The moment he saw the sign, Luca felt a chill. As a former cop, he knew the name well.
Watts—the most chaotic, crime-ridden corner of South Los Angeles.
Back in 1965, racial tension, poverty, and unchecked police brutality had ignited a full-blown rebellion—the Watts Riots. The city had burned for days. Scores dead, hundreds injured. It had shocked the entire nation.
Every LAPD officer knew the story. It had been a devastating stain on the department's record, ripping away the mask of America's so-called "civil rights progress."
Even after the 14,000 National Guardsmen restored order, the damage was done. Police withdrew, leaving a vacuum behind—and in that void, gangs flourished.
Watts became a breeding ground for violence. Murders were daily occurrences. People got gunned down in broad daylight, and the cops rarely bothered to intervene. Even if they opened a case, it was usually written off as "gang conflict." Every white family with money had long since fled.
Luca stared down the filthy, windblown street. Trash and old newspapers skittered across the cracked asphalt. The people here looked drained, hollowed out—some standing blankly on corners, others slumped against walls. The air stank of decay and dead leaves. It felt like a place abandoned by the living.
Still, he wasn't entirely without resources. His predecessor's identity came with one advantage.
By some strange twist of fate, Luca León was also a member of the Los Angeles Police Department, assigned to the Organized Gang Division—OGD.
The unit had been founded after the riots to counter gang violence. It would later evolve into the notorious CRASH Unit—the so-called Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums—infamous for corruption and brutality.
Even now, OGD operated with near-unchecked power, crossing precinct lines without permission, seizing resources as they pleased. Other divisions mocked it as a "nation within a nation."
As a Mexican, Luca had already faced discrimination in joining the force. Breaking into OGD had been near impossible. In 1970s Los Angeles, skin color was a class in itself—and the police world was still a white man's kingdom.
Minority recruits existed mostly for appearances. Behind the scenes, favoritism and corruption ruled.
Without powerful backing, a man like Luca would never have worn the badge at all.
Fortunately, after he'd graduated high school and earned his GED, a senior figure in OGD had approached him—handpicked him, even—and pushed him through the police academy.
But everything came with a price.
After graduation, he'd been assigned as a probationary officer, with a very specific condition: he was to infiltrate the Watts gangs, posing as a criminal, feeding OGD information from within.
In short, he was a mole—an undercover informant.
Luca gave a humorless smile. At least he wasn't as hopeless as he looked. There was still a way forward—if he played his cards right.
But first, he needed cash. Fast.
Three hundred and fifty dollars—half a laborer's monthly pay in 1973. For a penniless drunk, it might as well have been a fortune.
Five days. That was all he had.
Short of pulling a "zero-dollar purchase"—a straight-up robbery—he had no idea how else he'd get the money.
"Yo, Luca! Been looking for you for two days, man—I thought you were dead! Got a job for you!"
A deep, booming voice echoed from the corner.
Luca turned to see a black man striding toward him, dressed head to toe in blazing red—like some urban elf from the underworld—grinning from ear to ear.