Julian Vance moved before the third burst of tapping finished. His boots hit the ribbed rubber floor beside the yellow standee line.
Under the murky amber glow of the thirty-hertz emergency lamps, the passenger cabin felt like the inside of a rusted iron bell.
Beside the fare-box, Lin Mei had already risen from her jump-seat. Her fingers reached out toward the glass of Window 8C.
“Don’t touch that glass, Lin!” Julian barked. His voice was sharp, cutting through the heavy rumble of the diesel engine.
Lin Mei froze. Her hand hovered two inches from the fogged acrylic surface.
“Window 8C is knocking,” Lin Mei whispered, her eyes wide behind her cracked tortoiseshell glasses. “It’s spelling letters in International Morse. It’s trying to communicate.”
“I know what it’s doing,” Julian said. “Rule 5 has an unwritten trap. If you wipe condensation with bare skin, the moisture transfers your heat signature to whatever is hanging outside.”
He remembered Oakhaven Dormitory #7 with painful clarity. In the basement washrooms, the shower mirrors had done the exact same thing during the midnight inspection cycle. A freshman named Tommy had wiped the steam away with his bare palm to comb his hair.
