As normal the tube was late, the TerrorHurtz mid-tunnel scanners were always going on the fritz and the alert was pegged at Severe, this meant that the tube door secondary gait scanners were being extra-anal. As I entered the carriage I got a non-friendly spine tingle B-Aware ping; like all I’m going to do if I see a unattended package is huddle as close to it as possible – I cleave to the red-mist-is-better-than-triple-amputee mindset. I sub-vocalised a fuck-you at the monitoring child-AI but nothing got as far as my lips – I may be a dissenter but I’m not a moron.
Gabriel’s lockup was in the old Olympic village and crowd density in the carriage was light, at this time of night most people are Westbound, heading to central update zones for mandatory Skin upgrades; you can dodge a few of these a month but Wednesday attendance was good form, a school night schlep across town sent good vibes to Whitehall. I shared the ageing, rattling carriage with only three others. A weary Bangladeshi med-tech out of St. Thomas’; he was leaning into the foetid, faux wind at the carriage interstices, maybe remembering a surgeon’s career in Dhaka. The other two were interchangeable fifth-gen emo clones; sharing both a smokeless pipe and earphones – they’ll miss their stop, enjoy Epping douchebags.