Marcus Cole kept his right hand clamped to the ten o’clock position on the steering wheel.
He didn’t move it. He didn’t adjust his grip.
His left prosthetic arm, forged from aircraft aluminum and fitted with the five-hole brass transfer punch, pressed down on the Bendix air-brake valve handle. The pneumatic system hissed beneath the floorboards, holding steady at ninety-five pounds per square inch.
Under Sheet 4A, Rule 9, the driver’s hands were legally bound. If Mac pulled his right hand off the wheel while stopped at an active municipal checkpoint, Coach #404 forfeited its transit charter.
“Air pressure holding at ninety-five,” Mac said, his gravelly voice rumbling in his chest. “We’re parked six feet short of the drop-arm. Engine idle is six-fifty RPM.”
“Good halt, Mac,” Julian Vance said. Julian stood forward of the two-inch yellow standee line, his eyes fixed on the toll gate. “Keep that engine steady.”
“I’m keeping it steady, Kid,” Mac said. “Don’t you worry about the pedal.”
Through the heavy laminated glass of the front windshield, Old Ferry Bridge rose into the weeping clouds.
