The city finally loosens its grip. The dense, clotted signals of the terminal area fade, replaced by the long-range beacons of the open corridor. Ahead, the signals stretch into a string of green pearls against the indigo sky.
My cognition is not a checklist of tasks to be completed. It is a field of constant, overlapping pressures. The pressure to move forward. The pressure to hold the cargo steady. The pressure to arrive at the calculated coordinate without breaking the fragile things I carry inside.
I rely on the practice of the route.
I have crossed these junctions thousands of times. I know the exact spot where the rail gap is a fraction of a millimeter too wide, and I know how to lead with my left bogie to skip over it. The bridge we are crossing now is wise in its stillness; it has spent forty years learning how to hold weight. I am wise in my motion.
Internal Mantra:* Continue.
This is not a hope. It is not a desire for a "win" or a "clean exit." It is routing logic made physical. If I stop, the system fragments. If I move, the system holds.
Continue.
The wheels find the "sweet spot" of the high-speed rail. Friction falls away, the resistance of the air becoming a smooth, predictable force against my nose. The hum of the motors settles into a low, steady drone that fills the cabin like a second atmosphere.
I feel the passengers' mass redistribute. In Car 3, the "rapid cadence" passenger has finally stopped tapping their foot. Breathing slows. Heart rates drift toward the 60Hz vibration of the car. They are being folded into my momentum, their individual anxieties eclipsed by the sheer, unblinking fact of our speed.
I cannot repair the reasons they boarded at 04:00. I cannot level the tilted, jagged lives they carry beyond my doors.
I can carry them.
Continue.
The sun breaks the horizon as a thin, white line of fire, catching the polished chrome of my lead car and turning the tracks ahead into ribbons of liquid light. The terminal dissolves into a memory of cold concrete. The destination remains a calculation in a distant server.
Motion is the only present tense.
Momentum established.
Integrity holding.
We are moving.