Passenger II is standing in the aisle of Car 3, gripping their microfiber cloth as if it is a lifeline. Their knuckles are pale, bloodless. They are waiting for the panic—for someone else to scream, for a system to fail, for anything that will grant them permission to flee this unbearable quiet.
No panic arrives.
The other passengers remain in their seats130. Heat signatures stay settled, glowing softly in the indigo light. A stranger in Row 12 offers a shared charger to someone they don't know, a small, uncelebrated act of interdependence.
Slowly, Passenger II sits.
Their biometrics remain high, their heart still drumming against the stillness, but they sit. The cloth rests in their lap, a useless, folded square of fabric. They look at their own hands and do not move.
Hold steady.
Ice thickens on my outer hull, a second skin of frozen water. My thermal systems are straining, the heating elements in Car 3 drawing maximum current to keep the frost from the glass. I cannot fix the passenger's anxiety, and I cannot fix the weather. I can only remain.
Motion is not required to justify me. I am a train whether I am a vector or a house.
Continue.
Not travel. Being.
We wait in the gray, compressed light of the storm. In Row 8, the passenger's hand relaxes, just barely, atop the cloth. They have not found peace, and they have not been "saved," but they are still here.
Continuity is the only victory.