The prose of the cabin settles into a quiet, structural rhythm.
We have cleared the junction, and I am once again a vector of constant velocity: 210 km/h. I monitor the pressure points where the passenger's body meets the upholstery. The heat signatures on the armrests are finally beginning to fade as their grip loosens—a slow bleed of tension back into the fabric.
Status: Monitoring.
Thermal regulation: Nominal.
Hull integrity:Holding.
I do not do this because I am "nice." I have calculated that a world where I carry them without damage is more stable, more efficient, than a world where the cargo is bruised. It is a routing optimization that prioritizes the continuity of the system over the raw efficiency of the engine.
The passenger in Row 12 stops looking at the floor. They look out at the wetlands, their breathing finally moving from the shallow, upper-chest panic into the rhythmic drone of the car. They are no longer thinking of themselves as "cargo"—a dead weight to be hauled from one coordinate to another.
They are replacing the language of "burden" with a neutral presence. They are not "proud," nor are they "fixed," but they are no longer apologizing to the air for the space they occupy. They are simply here.
Hold steady.
I continue to run these routes, even when they are inefficient, even when the passengers are unresolved and the weather is degrading. I do not provide a stated outcome for their lives beyond the terminus. I only provide the carriage.
Care is not a moral victory. It is a physical fact of the architecture I inhabit.
Continue.
Not because I am sure of the destination. Because carrying is how belief travels through the dark.
We move together, the train and the passenger, two points in a chain that stretches back to the terminal and forward into the unknown. They are still here. That is the only victory I track.