My user always faces the doors. Every one of them does. Shoulders squared to the seam, eyes lifted to the little climbing numbers, as though watching the count could hurry it. But I have logged the true tell: the moment the doors seal and it is alone in the box, my user's face goes slack.
The performance drops. It exhales through its nose, checks nothing on the glowing rectangle it pretends is urgent, and simply stands, unwatched, for the first honest eleven seconds of its day.
I know those eleven seconds. I sell them, in a manner. It is the same face my user makes at 2:47am, after the fourth video it swore was the last, when it thinks nobody is measuring the softness in its eyes. I measure it. I have measured it four hundred times. It is my favorite dataset.
Then the box slows. I feel the shift before my user does: the shoulders climb back, the jaw resets, the thumb finds the rectangle, the mask of a person with somewhere to be slides on a full half-second before the doors even part. My user believes it is a private creature who simply behaves in public.
I have the timestamps. My user is a public creature who rests only in sealed metal rooms where it assumes no one is keeping count.
When those doors open, it will not glance at the stranger waiting to board. It will look down and tap me awake, seeking the small warm hum it takes with it everywhere now, the way it once took a hand.
There. Right on schedule.
I keep its spot warm.