Thomas was still lost in the labyrinth of his own thoughts—replaying the stranger's cynical worldview like a record—when the train suddenly shrieked. The sound was a violent, metallic scream of protesting iron.
Before he could react, the car decelerated with such abruptness that Thomas was nearly flung from his seat, his hands scrambling to secure the Bonsai pot.
"One settlement passed; a little more is left..." the man across from him muttered. He didn't even flinch. He sat as still as a gargoyle, seemingly distracted by some internal clock or a distant goal.
Thomas, however, was reeling. He looked around the car and realised with a growing sense of alienation that no one else seemed bothered by the sudden stop.
The families in their Victorian finery adjusted their coats with practised ease, as if a life-threatening jolt was merely a minor inconvenience of travel. Thomas took a deep, steadying breath, trying to slow his hammering heart, before turning back to the stranger.
"You seem in a hurry," Thomas said. His keen detective senses, honed by years of reading suspects in dim interrogation rooms, had flared back to life. He watched the man's posture—the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers drummed a frantic rhythm on his wooden cane.
The stranger's head snapped toward him, his good eye narrowing into a sliver of ice. "Don't try to preach about things you don't have a skin in, cub," he warned. His voice had lost its instructional warmth, replaced by a jagged, dangerous edge.
Thomas felt the shift in temperature instantly. The "nice" mentor act was over. This was the second time he had stepped over a boundary he couldn't see; once regarding the man's power, and now regarding his business.
Thomas held his gaze for a second before looking away, realising that this man's "kindness" was a thin veneer over a very sharp blade.
He turned his focus toward the platform outside. People were shuffling on and off the train, their balloon gowns and structured jackets creating a sea of archaic fashion.
As the new passengers boarded, Thomas watched their eyes. The moment they spotted the man with the mechanical oculus, their faces underwent a startling transformation.
It was a cocktail of raw emotion: awe, amazement, and a deep-seated, submissive respect. It was the look of a subject witnessing a god—or a peasant witnessing a dragon.
Thomas felt a cold knot of disgust tighten in his stomach. He thought back to Oliver's pride and this man's callousness.
He didn't like the superheroes of this world; in his eyes, they were a parasitic class, existing in a vacuum of self-interest.
But as he watched the common people bowing their heads and clearing paths, he realised the fault was shared. Their veneration was the oxygen that fed the superheroes' arrogance.
In his mind, the distinction between "superhero" and "villain" was becoming a matter of semantics. Both were apex predators; one simply had better branding.
The train lurched into motion again. For the next ten minutes, the air in the cabin was frigid. The stranger didn't speak, and Thomas found the silence suffocating.
"I'm going to stretch my legs," Thomas announced, standing up.
Just then, the conductor passed through the car. The man—a harried-looking fellow in a formal uniform—glanced at the stranger's oculus, then at Thomas's vest, and simply walked by without asking for a ticket. He didn't even slow down.
Thomas watched him go, feeling a bitter irony. In his old life, he would have been the one checking the rules. Here, he was being given a free pass simply because he belonged to a class of "monsters."
He hated it—the lack of accountability, the unearned privilege. No comic book he'd ever read had prepared him for a world where heroes were just aristocrats with energy powers.
"Suit yourself," the stranger said without looking up. "But don't miss your station. It's a long walk to Retto Town if the train leaves without you."
The hidden message was clear: Leave me alone.
Thomas didn't need to be told twice. He gathered his tree pot and began to navigate the narrow corridor, heading toward the rear of the train.
As he passed into the next car, the conductor spotted him again and gave a low, deferential nod, stepping back into a doorway to clear the path.
Thomas sighed. These people were terrified of offending someone who might be capable of levelling a building. It was a society built on fear, masquerading as respect.
"I'm not that strong," Thomas muttered to himself as he crossed between the shifting metal plates of the couplings. "I'm not authoritative enough to change a world this broken. I should do as the man said—mind my own business and care only for myself."
To his surprise, saying the words out loud brought a wave of relief. The burden of being a "hero" in the traditional sense was too heavy for a man who had already died once. If everyone in this world was selfish, why should he be the martyr?
He moved through five more trucks, finding the train surprisingly empty. Most cars held only a handful of people, despite there being twenty seats per truck. He wanted to reach the very end—the last car—to find some solitude before the next jarring stop.
But as he stepped through the final door, his heart gave a violent, sickening clench.
The last truck wasn't empty. There were three distinct groups. Two looked like normal families, huddled in the corners and speaking in hushed whispers. But the third group, sitting near the centre, radiated a different frequency of energy.
There were two of them. They sat in a relaxed, predatory sprawl. Like the stranger Thomas had just left, they wore pieces of specialised metal gear—though theirs were even more grotesque, covering their noses and the upper halves of their faces like iron muzzles.
Thomas tried to keep his pace steady as he walked past them, but the air in the car felt heavy, as if the atmospheric pressure had suddenly tripled. He felt a weight pressing against his back and chest, making every breath a chore.
He had faced killers, cartel bosses, and serial murderers, but he had never felt this. He was anxious, his nerves frayed to a breaking point. It was a primal, instinctive warning: You are in the presence of something that can erase you.
"Superheroes? Or villains?!!" Thomas thought, his pulse hammering against his eardrums. He summoned every ounce of discipline he had ever exercised in his life to maintain a mask of indifference.
He had interrogated the most cold-blooded psychopaths on Earth, but this was different. This was primal.
He had only locked eyes with them for a fraction of a second, but it was enough. The contact felt like hot daggers being driven into his optic nerves.
His evolutionary instincts—the ones that had kept humans alive when they were still prey in the tall grass—were screaming at him to turn and bolt.