The metallic echo of Conductor Zero-Zero’s first punch rang up the wet cobblestones of University Heights Avenue.
CLICK.
Fifty yards down the grade from the Oakhaven North Gate Bus Shelter, the avenue dropped toward the Old Tannery Viaduct. There, the seven-foot figure in the soaked 1968 woolen greatcoat stood motionless beneath the orange sodium lamp.
With that single snap of his twelve-hole iron ticket-nipper, a wave of cold electrostatic pressure rolled up the hill through the yellow sulfur fog.
Behind the plexiglass partition of Coach Number Four Hundred and Four, Mac Cole eased back on the Bendix air-brake lever. The forty-foot Gillig Phantom rolled across the final ten yards of the North Gate turnaround apron.
The brake shoes bit against the sixteen-inch drums with a deep, pressurized hiss: Pffft-shhhh.
Julian Vance braced his boots on the granite loading curb beside the shelter frame, adjusting the strap of his canvas shoulder satchel.
Pinned to the heavy lapel of his coat gleamed his two active credentials under the amber curb lights:
