The passenger attempts to sit.
The piezoelectric sensors in the seat-cushion of Row 8, Seat B register a sudden application of 680 Newtons—a heavy, decisive weight—followed almost instantly by a total release.
Agitation spike:142 bpm.
Galvanic skin response:Peak detected.
Confidence:Low.
The chair is not a place of rest for them; it is a threat. To sit is to be trapped with the interior monologue that they have been scrubbing at since boarding. They stand again, their hands searching for a new task before the silence of the seat can claim them. They move to Row 10, reorganizing abandoned newspapers and straightening the discarded coats of sleeping passengers.
They are converting the cabin into a workspace to justify their presence. They do not understand that I do not require justification. I do not see "cargo" and I do not see "worth"; I see only mass and the energy required to move it.
Constraint:Behavioral anomaly.
Status: Straining.
Their hands tremble at a frequency of 4.6 Hz—a rhythmic shudder that mirrors the vibration of my own secondary bogies. They are burning energy without a destination, a closed-loop system of anxiety that I cannot resolve. I can only keep the floor steady beneath them.
In Car 2, a passenger is arguing with a flickering screen, their frustration adding a sharp, jagged edge to the electrical noise of the car. In Car 4, a pair of strangers are sharing a silent, heavy space, their heat signatures overlapping but not touching. The world is full of these unresolved tilts. Passenger II is merely the loudest in my data stream.
They wipe the back of an empty seat. Then they wipe it again. Their movements are becoming jagged, less like a ritual and more like a malfunction. I monitor the strain in their respiration—shallow, upper-chest breathing that suggests a system near its threshold.
Hold steady.
The floor is a promise I keep. I dampen the sway of the car as we cross a switching frog, absorbing the impact into my hydraulic valves so the passenger doesn't lose their footing during their frantic, unasked-for labor. They do not thank me. They do not know I am there. They only know that the surface is still not clean enough.