Julian Vance felt the shift in the air before he saw it.
The moment Coach #404’s front tires rolled past the primary anchorage of Old Ferry Bridge, the world behind them was cut off.
The distant emerald flare of Toll-Booth #04 vanished into the mist. The amber streetlamps of Industrial Boulevard were swallowed by a dense, suffocating wall of newsprint-grey harbor fog.
“Look at the rear glass,” Elena Rostova said from the wheelchair bay. “The city is gone.”
“Not just gone,” Lin Mei added, peering out the passenger window. “The shoreline disappeared completely. There’s no water below us. Just fog.”
“Keep your eyes inside the cabin,” Julian warned. “Staring into the gray mist causes visual drift under Sheet 4A.”
Outside the coach, the eighteen-inch steel suspension cables hummed in the river gale. The wind vibrating through the wire ropes hit a mournful pitch—fifty-eight hertz.
The acoustic vibration locked into perfect harmonic phase with the Detroit Diesel engine idling beneath the floorboards.
