A language barrier

I don't know the language. It was foreign. Which language, I'm not sure. But I knew some words, and some shapes, and the general layout of a few places. I walked the length of this main strip looking for the bookstore I enjoyed. I couldn't read them, but I liked the place, and the coffee shop nearby was good. Trams ran the streets  and some cars and buses, but I only ever walked this area, unless someone else guided. There were restaurants and museums and other things that were at least friendly to my language, and I didn't have issues with getting around.

I went to get a haircut, and walked into a tandem building. The other half sold cell phones and accessories, not for a particular carrier but a sort of low-cost aggregator reseller. The hair cut side was one I had been to before, but when I opened the door, the room was empty. It was now just a long living room type hall, with wood-plank floors and empty windows. A few were boarded over with tacky plywood to keep out prying eyes. It felt freshly vacated, like they just stripped it down that morning. But the hair on my next tingled, because it felt like people had just fled the room, and someone could still be watching me. I checked the front again, and the sign was illuminated. I walked to the back, and opened the back door to an empty dirt lot with a few tiny weeds. Cars parked next door for the cell store. The nagging feeling of people watching still sat on me, so I walked around the outside back to the main street and headed towards the bookstore. Some stores were changed or closed, but most looked the same. Less people though, and I sprinted to the coffee shop, worried about what I would find.

A Train Ride

My arrived at the south air field. Furthest from the hangers. Our group wasn't set to begin work in the waterfront glass building until 7pm that evening, so I had several hours to kill. I walked part of the air field with my boss, though he had to take care of other things so I decided to go sightseeing. So I walked back south to exit the field and hopped on a train.

Let me rephrase that, I and some others jumped on TOP of the train. It was a long freight and commuter train traveling around the edge of the bay. It seemed like the map of the area was a modified version of the San Francisco bay area crossed with Tokyo. It was a circular body of water in the middle with city ringing the outside. The air field was at the south portion of the water and reminded me of Moffet AFB, and I took the train around the east side headed north. Riding on top of the train with some others I didn't know was strange, but scenic. I had a camera with me, and as it got later in the afternoon the clouds turned wonderful red and orange shades with blue behind them.

As we passed the northeast corner of the city, I suddenly panicked. I knew I had just over two hours to get back to the air field, and there were lots of subway lines that ran from the north back to the south. But now I realized I needed the train to stop somewhere to drop me off for a transfer. I was going to jump off at 4th street because I knew there was a station nearby. But after climbing inside the train and talking to the engine driver, he recommended I stay on until we hit a specific transfer bridge, because I could get a faster line there.

Now things became stranger. The bridge was a series of three red-colored wood and brick tunnels. The color of redwoods, with a cream colored trim between bricks. On reaching the entrance, the train lines split, and a car path that had been to the left curved up and stacked above. These tunnels had stopping points for passengers and we stopped to let myself and some others transfer

(I woke up and then switched perspectives)
I was one of the conductors on the train line. Someone needed to get off here in the substations and transfer to take a southbound line. But this was not an area we were suppose to stop. The engine driver made the decision, but didn't clear it with the mages here. They practiced some sort of control magic, and bound golems to work in loading and unloading products. They were strange animal-like automatons. I passed by one of the cages while trying to run up the train to ask the driver. Their hunched forms watched me, bear, gorilla, and wolf shapes with stone skin and flat eyes watched. It was unnerving. I assumed they knew the train stopped, and that it wasn't suppose to. What I feared more was that the mages might be able to use these golems as enforcers, to ensure we kept moving. And as I ran to try and find the driver, hoped he was still alive.