The skid vibrated through Julian Vance’s work boots, running up the bones of his shins like a dull electric current.
For five long seconds, forty thousand pounds of transit bus drifted sideways across slick porcelain as locking brake drums screamed at ninety-five PSI. Rubber fought wet tile until the heavy leaf springs groaned, the chassis leveled out, and Coach #404 came to a dead halt.
The Detroit Diesel engine settled into its deep, rhythmic idle: chug-chug-chug.
Julian did not immediately look through the windshield.
He did not let go of the vertical stanchion pole until he felt his balance return. His knuckles were sore from the violent descent, his palms coated in cold sweat. But his feet had never crossed the Yellow Standee Line. He had kept his heels anchored to the diamond-plate floor through every degree of the slide.
Outside, the air was thirty-four degrees.
Freezing subterranean vapor began seeping through the cracked rubber gaskets of the boarding doors. It carried the heavy, unmistakable stench of the deep municipal underground. It smelled of raw formaldehyde, bleached cotton wool, scorched calcium bone-dust, and ancient river silt dredged up from the forgotten culverts beneath New Marrow.
Julian turned his back to the windshield.
