Marcus “Mac” Cole had spent thirty-two years gripping the hard composition steering wheels of the New Marrow Transit Authority.
He knew every cracked curb between the North Docks and the Mill District. He knew the distinct sound of every air-brake valve ever installed on a Detroit Diesel bus. But he had never seen a fare-box transform into a living navigation console.
“Turn the key, Julian,” Mac said, his gravelly voice low in the quiet vestibule. “Seat the tumblers.”
Mac looked down at his left prosthetic arm. He had lost his flesh-and-blood limb in October 1998 right here on the Terminal 9 turntable. When the ungreased gears caught his sleeve, Inspector Thomas Vance used a red grease pencil and an iron crowbar to pull him out alive. For twenty-eight years since, he had driven this route with steel cables and mechanical levers, watching rookie drivers vanish into backwards-spelled terminals.
“I never thought I’d live to see the day,” Mac murmured, his fingers tracing the cold iron of the twelve-hole punch. “Silas Vane ran this depot like a slaughterhouse.”
“If you were two minutes late on your headway, he docked your pay, and if your fare-box was five cents short, he sent you down to the pit,” Mac said. “And now he’s locked under my dashboard, counting change for our crew.”
