The door opened and the corridor gave their minute back to the city.
Security took the long angle. The carpet sighed under shoes that had learned not to hurry. The small speaker in Ava's palm carried a lobby voice that wanted to be important.
"Media here," the liaison said. "They are calling your briefing optics."
"Speaker stays on," Ava said.
Noah fell a half pace behind and to her right. The left-shoulder cue settled where it belonged. The elevator arrived with good manners. They rode down one floor because stairwells have other uses.
"Lobby kiosk is flickering," the liaison said. "It looks like paint."
"Paint is cosmetic," Elias said through the line. "Bezel cut ready. Tracing source."
The doors opened to marble that remembered other eras of theatre. A mic on a stick stood near the desk like a person that had learned posture. The kiosk by the ficus tree blinked and then pretended it had not.
"Consent to be on record," Ava said to the cluster of cameras without raising her voice. "No names."
A few nodded. One reporter kept her mouth professional and her eyes sharp. "Consent," she said.
"Hotel," Ava said to the desk. "We post a small card at the table with the Counting Method."
The liaison slid a laminated tent of paper from a drawer with the ease of someone who likes helpful objects. Ava wrote in block print: Counting Method adds approved receipts with tokens and vendor credits; excludes unverified estimates and adjectives. Updates on each posted receipt with time. Nearlight signs the math.
She set the card on the table where a room learns to look first. Security made a ring of ordinary space with open hands. Sofia's voice came in clean from the seam across town.
"Harbor proof ready at fifty-five," she said. "Consent on record."
"Paint arming," Elias said. "Freeway stripe at the lobby display feed."
"Bezel," Ava said.
"Cut," he said. "Source flagged. Postmortem pinned small."
A reporter lifted her mic until it behaved like a pencil. "If the vendor says safety window," she said, "isn't this just optics."
"Countersign at fourteen eighteen," Ava said. "Scope posted. Charity-cap channel at source, other caps unchanged. Counting Method box says what we add and exclude. We post receipts, not adjectives."
The kiosk blinked again and remembered shame. Noah's hand found the table's edge beside her pad and stayed there. The open collar did its quiet work.
"Harbor," Sofia said. "On your count."
"Three," Ava said.
"Two," the donor said, a hint of winter in the vowel.
"One," Ava said.
Click. Relief landed as arithmetic.
"Approved," the Harbor lead said. "Token 8278."
Sofia mirrored at once. The liaison set a fresh card beside Ava's method tent that read APPROVED in neat block letters. Cameras zoomed because cameras love nouns they can film.
The reporter kept her face neutral, which is a kind of honesty. "How do we know this lobby is not a stage," she said.
"Because doors are not stages," Ava said. "You can prove it yourself."
A woman in a gray coat stepped forward with a card and the kind of bravery that belongs to people who do municipal tasks in public. "For the clinic," she said. "Consent."
"Consent on record," Ava said. "No names."
"Three," Sofia said into the air.
"Two," the donor said, and she smiled for herself, not for the room.
"One," Ava said.
The kiosk softened, then tried to stall, then chose to be useful. Elias eased a stutter at edge with the kind of skill that lets the minute keep walking.
"Approved," the seller at the desk read from the slip. "Token 3126."
Ava posted the number where eyes would meet it before they met opinions. The reporter's mic dipped an inch that meant yes.
"Paint again," Elias said. "Cut. Source two. Names credited."
Comms arrived with board weather at a volume that respected marble. "Vendor float shows 'Gateway Hard Window 17:00' staging," the voice said. "Language suggests regional holds unless partners accept a menu. Nonbinding until timer."
"Scope," Vivian said from a room above them, her voice carried by the seam like a trivial miracle.
"Charity and micro-merchant," counsel read on her side of the wire. "Holds of short duration. Partners may acknowledge."
"Controller," Ava said. "We will not accept vendor language. Draft a Nearlight refusal that affirms our countersign and states we keep receipts live. We will not acknowledge a menu."
"Drafting," the Controller said. "Chair flag required."
"Flag will set if safety requires," Vivian said. "Not before."
Sofia's tone smiled without changing shape. "Starting a two donor queue for a proof at seventeen hundred," she said. "Phone and kiosk."
"Media," the reporter said, eyes on the method tent. "If the window lands, will you freeze posts."
"No," Ava said. "We cut holds as paths inside sixty seconds, post origin and time, and keep the pin live. Proof every five. The lobby is not optics."
A man in a cap stood back near the ficus and gave a small thumbs up as if he had grown one extra citizen neuron today. Noah saw it. He did not smile. He let his jaw relax by one notch.
"CFO's aide," the liaison said, quiet at Ava's shoulder. "He asked me to hand this to you on the record."
The note was a sentence that liked itself too much. Prudence note: consider a temporary quiet on public posts during vendor safety communications.
Ava read it, folded it, and set it under the Counting Method card where useful paper lives. "We post receipts," she said for the cameras. "Not adjectives."
A child tugged at a sleeve and asked if he could push the green button. The parent whispered that he could not today and that he would someday. The lobby took a breath and decided nothing terrible was happening.
Sofia's timing arrived like a metronome that charges no one rent. "Harbor at fifty-five ready again," she said.
"Three," Ava said softly to the air and the marble.
"Two," the donor said miles away and right here.
"One," Ava said.
"Approved," the Harbor lead read. "Token 8279."
Sofia posted as the slip landed in the liaison's hand. The liaison set it by the tent like proof learning to multiply.
The lobby is not optics; it is a door, and we count out loud.
The reporter let the line stand. The cameras took it because cameras love useful sentences.
The kiosk blinked twice in a nervous rhythm. Elias cut quiet, posted small, credited names, did not explain how much skill looked like ease from far away.
Comms entered on the beat the way a good neighbor uses a side gate. "Vendor says Hard Window becomes live at 17:00," the voice said. "Timer one minute if they post it."
"Do they post it," Vivian said.
"Float only," Comms said. "Media has it off pin."
"Two donor queue ready," Sofia said. "Phone in the left hand, kiosk at the ficus."
The phone donor was a woman in a dark coat with a voice you could trust to close a shop and a year. The kiosk donor was a man with a knit cap and a grin that had decided to help.
"Consent on record," the phone donor said.
"Consent," the kiosk donor said.
"Controller," counsel said. "Refusal drafted and waiting under Chair."
"Hold it," Vivian said. "If safety requires, we will flag. Not before."
The reporter lifted her mic to the kiosk donor. "Why here," she said.
"Because she asked," he said, nodding to Ava. "And because it's my city."
The liaison set a second tent card under the method card that simply said PROOF AT 17:00 in letters you could read from the camera car. Security kept space comfortable, not dramatic. Noah leaned his knuckles on the table, eyes on the pad, jaw set. His collar stayed open. It calmed more people than anyone would admit.
"Timer," Comms said. "If they post Hard Window, it will show at fifty-nine."
"Edge ready," Elias said. "If a hold path arms, I will cut and name it. If the cut requires Chair, I will say so."
The reporter glanced at the wall clock and back to Ava. "If the kiosk freezes," she said, "will you call it live."
"Yes," Ava said.
The elevator exhaled a group of late guests with rolling bags that did not believe in the news. They looked at the table and at the mic and at the tents and chose to get their keys.
"Media blog is typing window now," Comms said. "Off pin."
"Keep it off pin," Ava said.
The wall display near the concierge desk tried a soft red border that thought it was a headline. Elias took it apart.
"Forty seconds," Comms said.
Sofia moved the phone donor a step closer to the mic without making her feel watched. "You will do it on our count," Sofia said.
"I will," the donor said.
The kiosk donor placed his card on his palm like a thing that belongs in light.
"Thirty," Comms said.
A corridor draft lifted the method tent and set it down. Ava put a fingertip on it and made it heavier.
A man in a suit that believed in its own adjectives approached the table with a courier's smile. "From the CFO," he said, and the aide behind him kept her face neutral.
"Leave it," Ava said.
He did.
The note said freeze. The card said proof. The city said stop being theatrical.
"Twenty," Comms said.
Elias tapped the edge of something only he could see. "Vendor hold service is awake," he said. "Window at the top of the minute. It may try the kiosk first."
"Phone donor stays on channel if kiosk stalls," Ava said. "We post whichever token lands first."
Noah's hand moved a thumb's width nearer the pad's corner. She did not look. She knew where he was.
"Ten," Comms said.
The lobby tightened by one notch and refused to look like fear.
"Three," Sofia said into the mic that had chosen to be a citizen.
"Two," the phone donor said, steady.
"One," Ava said.
The kiosk tapped first because the man in the knit cap wanted to go first.
The screen did not blink green. It stopped and thought about itself. Then it said a name Ava did not give it.
"K-Hold-901," the seller read. "Regional safety hold."
The phone donor's screen hummed and offered the useful little box that thinks it helps.
"C-Donor-Flow-202," she read. "Soft path."
Elias did not pretend. "Origin vendor hold service," he said. "Cut requires Chair confirm."
Vivian did not breathe into the line. She did not need to.
"Say it," Ava said.
"Chair confirm," Elias said.
The phone donor waited without apology. The kiosk donor kept his card in place as if patience were a duty.
The wall near the concierge desk tried a deeper red. The liaison kept her hands still. The cameras leaned forward because cameras are always hungry.
The second ticked.