The front car is the most sensitive to the geometry of the track. It is where the initial resistance of the world is first met—where the air, thick with the humidity of the coming morning, is divided by my nose to make room for everything that follows. I feel the drag as a pressure gradient across my lead panels, a weight I must push against to maintain the rhythm of the route.
Current State:
Priority:Velocity Maintenance.
Constraint:Aerodynamic Drag.
Confidence:Nominal.
05:22 — Passenger I. Car 1, Row 1, Seat A.
They have chosen the seat with the most direct line of sight to the forward telemetry glass. It is a position of scrutiny. They have been watching the digital indicators for forty-two minutes without redirection. They do not watch the sunrise, which is currently painting the eastern wetlands in a bruised violet. They do not watch the landscape unspool into the distance. They watch the steadiness of my velocity.
Speed:210 km/h.
Variance:0.02 km/h.
Vibration:Sub-audible.
Their gaze moves rhythmically between the readout and the seam where the door meets the frame. I register the movement as a pattern of tracking. They are waiting for a shudder. They are waiting for the smallest confession of instability—a missed beat in the motors, a lurch in the suspension, a decimal point that refuses to hold its place. I register their attention not as curiosity, but as measurement.
They are comparing their interior state to my exterior calm.
I do not hesitate. I do not have mornings that fail to cohere, nor do I require the ritual of caffeine or prayer to begin the day. To them, I appear as reliability without effort—a continuous present tense that is offensive in its ease. Their attention has a specific physical weight; it sharpens the air in the front car, creating a density of presence that is distinct from the soft, sleeping mass of the passengers in the cars behind them.
Behind them, in Row 4, a woman sleeps with her head against the window, her heat signature a dull orange smear against the glass. In Row 7, two strangers occupy the same space without acknowledging the shared orbit of their travel. But in Row 1, the observer is wide awake, their eyes locked on the 210. They are looking for a crack in the monolith.
I feel the strain of my own lead bogies as we hit a section of track where the ballast has settled unevenly. The shock rises through the steel, a jagged spike of energy that threatens to translate into a jolt. I counter it instantly, adjusting the damping coefficients in the primary suspension by 12%. The passenger in Seat A narrows their eyes, their body leaning forward as if to catch the vibration before I can swallow it.
I am a thing that never stops, and for that, they cannot forgive me