The Survivor

Everything from the way the space opens up toward the turnstile—after which you've paid, so even if you turn back it's no big loss—to the striplight brightness reflecting off of every tiled surface is designed to trick your brain into thinking you're not, in fact, a single structural flaw away from being buried alive. There are signs and countdowns everywhere, the sense of being in a hurry condensed to single digits, and any space that isn't dedicated to that distraction is filled with a poster for a Broadway show.

The air, though, is something they can't control. They can clean and sweep and polish every surface all they want, and it will never overcome the smell of the earth, the draw and push of the air moved by the trains as they pass, or the constant heat of the place: the collective effort of seven thousand air-conditioned trains venting constantly into the tunnels as they run. It's hot up on the sidewalk, but down here the heat mounts up against you like a wall, making your skin prickle with sweat.

There's a train heading north on the 1 that's due to pull out almost right this minute, and while he doesn't want to have to book it down to the platform Ben has a dim sense that if he hustles now, then he'll make it. The prospect of a victory—even a small one—puts the closeness of the ceiling (and the feeling that it is getting closer) to one side and he puts his head down and steps forward, hitting that perfect moment of flow where the crowd in the station seems to part and let him pass.

The rush of it carries him all the way down the escalator, the people ahead of him in a hurry, too, but a little too slow taking the steps to do anything but hold everyone else up. The people behind him huff and bump up against him, as though it is his fault they have had to stop, as though their disapproval will somehow magic the way ahead clear. He doesn't do anything about it. The voice in the back of his head tells him to angle his briefcase back, fake a stumble and swing the corner of it up at crotch height, but he refuses to acknowledge it. No point in risking his day getting any worse.

The conductor is leaning on the buzzer to let everyone know the doors are closing, and while Ben would normally aim for the middle of the train to improve his chances of getting a seat, there's just enough time to duck into the second car from the back.

Once he's on, though, the doors hang open almost twenty seconds longer before they close and the train gets rolling.

Ben doesn't pay it much mind. There's plenty of space in the car, even if he didn't need to rush to get on. It's a little over half full, and there are still enough places to sit. He plants himself on an empty seat in the front quarter of the car, and it occurs to him that half full feels plenty busy for the middle of the day. All the way through college he'd asked himself what kind of people had the time to walk around campus or sit on the subway in the middle of the day. Weren't they busy? Didn't they have other places to be?

The answer—for him, at least—is simple. He doesn't have anywhere else to be. Not now, and not for the immediate future, anyway.

Ben takes a deep breath and spreads his palms on the briefcase that was going to carry his future, and him along with it.

Fired on your first full day at work, he thinks. So much for that fresh start, cowboy.

The train shudders forward, jolting him in his seat, then picks up speed as it heads off out of the station and, without pause, into the darkness of the tunnel.

CHAPTER TWO

BROOKLYN

It is an immutable fact of the Universe that if you press the Snooze button more than one time when the alarm goes off, your day is destined to sit somewhere on the spectrum between shit and worse.

Even though she knows better, Detective Kelly Hendricks hits hers three times before deciding that enough is enough.

The resulting hustle to get out the door on time—eating breakfast so fast that she almost donated half to her shirt, drinking a whole cup of coffee hot enough that her teeth and gums would have grounds to sue, and her hair not so much styled as, simply, present—is enough to keep her from dwelling on it until it's too late. Down on the street, Hernandez is sitting in his beat-up Hyundai waiting to give her a ride. She steps down onto the sidewalk and he pops the passenger side door for her, and all at once she wonders, Why the fuck didn't I call in sick?

"You look peaky," Hernandez says. He has the engine running, but waits for her to pull the door closed and to hear the click of her seat belt before he starts driving. Kelly knows this, so she waits a beat, just long enough to annoy him but not so long that he'll feel the need to comment, before she sets the seat belt home.

"It's the suit," Kelly says. "Sales guy said I'd be getting men lined up round the block." She sniffs. "Didn't mention they'd all be morticians."