Part 2The Entitled Passenger and the Smashed Cure

The train hummed along the tracks. I kept my eyes closed, just wanting to survive this agonizing ride in peace.

But the man next to me was relentless. One minute he was manspreading, driving his knee into my space. The next minute he was violently bouncing his leg, shaking the entire row of seats.

And every few minutes, he would let out a deafening, wet snore that made it impossible to relax.

Driven to the edge of my sanity, I finally grabbed my sample box and fled to the café car to find some quiet.

As soon as I found an empty booth, my phone rang. It was the Director of the National Laboratory.

"Dr. Vance, is your transit proceeding smoothly?"

I gave him a brief rundown of the absolute circus I had just experienced. When I mentioned the sample box being dropped, the Director's voice turned lethal.

"Hold your position for another hour and a half. I am dispatching a federal security detail to meet you directly at Union Station to escort you to the lab."

"I will handle the situation with Amtrak administration. Your only priority is protecting that sample!"

"Understood!"

I had just hung up when a terrifying, guttural howl echoed from the direction of Car 3.

Remembering my suitcase was still at my seat, I clutched the sample box and sprinted back.

As I entered the car, I saw the seat-stealing man standing in the middle of the aisle, looking absolutely frantic:

"Where is my bag?! Did anyone see my bag?!"

"That bag has the medicine to save my kid's life! I fell asleep, and now it's gone!"

He grabbed the arm of the conductor, who had just rushed over:

"Officer, you have to help me find it! My kid is waiting for me!"

A wave of panicked murmurs swept through the car.

Passengers immediately started checking under their own seats and in the overhead bins, but the man's bag was nowhere to be found.

In the midst of his panic, the man's eyes locked onto the metal sample box I was clutching to my chest.

"It was you! You stole my medicine to get back at me, and you hid it in that box!"

He charged at me like a raging bull, reaching out to snatch it from my arms:

"Give me my stuff back!"

I scrambled backward, instinctively shielding the box with my body.

"Your things are not in here!"

"Bullshit!" The man's eyes were completely bloodshot.

"You've been holding onto that metal box like your life depends on it since you got on!"

"You were conveniently gone exactly when my bag disappeared! You definitely stole my medicine while I was asleep and hid it in there!"

The conductor marched up to me, his face a mask of severe authority:

"Ma'am, return this gentleman's property immediately, or I will be forced to place you under arrest!"

I stared at the conductor, absolutely appalled:

"Which one of your eyes saw my box magically swallow his bag?! You can't accuse someone of theft without a shred of evidence!"

The conductor frowned, leaned in close to my ear, and hissed menacingly:

"Do you have any idea who this man is?"

"He is a senior researcher for the National Laboratory! He is on a highly classified federal mission to D.C.! You stole from him—are you trying to get yourself thrown in federal prison?!"

My brain completely short-circuited.

He was the researcher?

Then who the hell was I?

While I was paralyzed by shock, the conductor violently ripped the sample box from my grasp. He spun around, holding it out to the man with both hands like he was presenting a sacred artifact:

"Sir, please inspect the contents. Is your property inside?"

"DO NOT OPEN THAT!" I screamed.

If the internal climate seals were violently breached, the consequences for the biological sample would be catastrophic!

But the man ignored me completely. He grabbed the heavy latch and violently ripped the lid open.

Seeing the contents, his face froze.

"It's not in here!"

He glared at me, and with a roar of frustration, he hurled the metal box directly onto the hard floor.

"Where the hell did you hide my stuff?!"

CRASH.

My heart completely stopped beating.

I watched in slow motion as a splash of pale golden liquid erupted from the shattered glass inside the casing.

The sound of that shattering glass felt like the sound of thousands of dying children taking their final breath.

I shoved my way through the panicked crowd, dropped to my knees, and stared at the glittering shards and the golden liquid rapidly seeping into the floor mats. I was shaking so violently I couldn't breathe.

"Do you have any idea what you just did?!"

I lunged upward, grabbing the man by the collar of his shirt.

He didn't back down. His eyes looked like a rabid animal's:

"You have the nerve to yell at me?! So I broke a stupid glass tube! I lost the medicine that's going to save my child's life!"

"Are you completely insane?! That is federal—"

Before I could finish the sentence, a massive force wrenched my arm behind my back, and I was violently shoved face-first into the passenger seat.

As the pain of a dislocated shoulder blinded me, I heard the conductor screaming into his radio:

"Car 3 needs backup! Car 3 needs immediate backup! We have an active assault on a protected federal target! Get here now!"

The agonizing pain radiating from my shoulder made my vision swim, but I didn't care.

I just stared at the puddle of golden liquid on the floor, my eyes burning with tears of absolute devastation.

"Open your goddamn eyes and look at me—"

I screamed at the conductor with every ounce of strength left in my lungs:

"I AM THE RESEARCHER FROM THE NATIONAL LABORATORY!"

The backup security officers who had just rushed into the car froze, looking at each other in confusion.