The prose of the cabin tightens as the passenger's mental debate intensifies. They are looking at the man in Row 6 who has spilled crumbs on the recycled fabric of the seat, and then they look at my telemetry glass as if seeking an ally in their disgust.
Current Logistics:
Status: Straining.
Constraint:Kinetic Feedback.
Confidence: Nominal.
They see my consistency as a weapon. They think, If you committed to succeeding, what would happen? They answer the question with a vision of a world scrubbed of friction, where every hand is a mechanical grip and every decision is a calculation. They mistake my silence for agreement.
I do not agree. I do not have the architecture for "commitment" as a moral choice; I only have the practice of the route.
The tracks here are rough, the steel worn thin by decades of use. I feel the jar in my secondary bogies—a sharp, metallic ache that vibrates through my primary chassis. I am not "dominating" the landscape; I am negotiating with it. I am sacrificial valves and wearing bearings. I am a system that knows its own breaking point better than the passenger ever will.
They look at the child in Row 2 who is crying—a jagged, acoustic signature that breaks the calm of the car—and they wait for me to do something. They expect a broadcast, a correction, or a removal. I provide none. I only increase the white noise in the ventilation system to help the child settle.
The futurist sees this as a failure of my "intent". They do not realize that my "intent" includes the crying child, the crumbs in Row 6, and the "hesitant shuffle" in the rear. They think success is the elimination of people; I know that success is the system where they are still necessary.