Isaiah thought of the complaints.
Passengers being questioned because they looked “inconsistent” with premium profiles.
Maybe employees were not just biased.
Maybe someone had monetized suspicion.
Certain passengers could be flagged as easy targets.
Others as valuable.
The system designed to smooth travel for wealthy clients might also reveal who they were, where they were going, whether they had security, and what they carried.
Useful information.
Dangerous information.
Park looked toward Isaiah.
“What now?”
He picked up his coffee.
Still untouched.
“Now we find out who Anthony Voss thinks he works for.”
Emily Cartwright was not arrested.
Not that day.
She was suspended.
Her union representative arrived before noon.
A company attorney instructed everyone not to speak with her directly.
She left through an employee exit with her badge deactivated.
The businessman’s phone video reached social media before sunset.
That was unavoidable.
Isaiah learned about it from his younger sister.
He was sitting in his hotel room when his phone rang.
“You’re trending.”
Isaiah closed his eyes.
“Hello to you too.”
His sister laughed.
“Do you know what you look like?”
“Tired?”
“Expensive.”
“Good.”
“The jacket is carrying the video.”
“I bought that jacket because you said it looked ridiculous.”
“I said it made you look like a wealthy substitute teacher.”
“Still rude.”
His sister became serious.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“The federal-man answer.”
Isaiah looked toward the dark hotel window.
City lights beyond.
“I’m angry.”
“Good.”
“Embarrassed.”
“Why?”
He did not answer immediately.
That surprised him too.
He had done nothing embarrassing.
Yet humiliation often traveled backward.
Someone treated you like you did not belong.
Part of you wondered whether you had failed some invisible test.
He hated that.
“She made me explain ownership of my own ticket.”
His sister’s voice softened.
“I know.”
“I keep replaying whether I sounded arrogant.”
“Isaiah.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He rubbed his forehead.
She continued:
“You were standing there.”
“She tore your stuff.”
“She moved your bag.”
“She told you to try economy.”
“You are not responsible for making her prejudice comfortable.”
He became quiet.
His sister had always been better at cutting through him than colleagues.
“Mom saw the video?”
“Yes.”
“Damn.”
“She wants to call the airline.”
“Absolutely not.”
“She already did.”
Isaiah sat upright.
“What?”
“She asked for the CEO.”
“Oh God.”
“They did not give her the CEO.”
“Thank God.”
“She said she would keep calling.”
Isaiah covered his face.
His sister laughed.
Then:
“Dad would’ve loved this.”
The sentence changed the room.
Their father had died six years earlier.
Heart failure.
He had worked thirty-three years as an elevator mechanic.
Union man.
Quiet.
Precise.
The kind of person who fixed things correctly even when nobody would see the inside of the machine.
When Isaiah was twelve, his father once took him downtown in work clothes.
A building manager assumed he was delivering something and directed him toward the freight entrance.
His father calmly showed his contractor badge.
Used the service entrance anyway.
Later Isaiah asked why he had not corrected the man more strongly.