The minute changed and the clock took sides.
Sofia set the finance printout beside the legal pad so the word QUEUED would keep staring at them. Security braced the desk phone between shoulder and ear. Elias from Systems stood with his hands behind him, eyes on a screen only he could see through the call.
"Comms," security said. "Stand by on cut."
"Standing," came the small voice that belonged to a console four floors below.
Sofia uncapped her pen. "Caption line ready," she said. "You dictate; I post to the pin via runner."
"Say the sentence we promised the street," Ava said. "Then say where the cut lives."
Sofia wrote cleanly, no flourishes. "We kill any screen that contradicts the letter, in public, while you watch," she read. "Blue band at top edge indicates a cached promo. Cut sequence: bezel, then source."
Elias looked up. "Band is present on two panels," he said. "Glass Sixteen and the lobby repeater. Ready on both."
"Time," Ava said.
"Twelve thirty," Sofia said.
Security listened to his own silence. "On your mark," he said.
Ava held the legal pad at chest height so a camera that was not supposed to be here could still read it if it tried. She nodded once to no one. The room on the other side of the door held its breath or pretended to. The hallway breathed for itself.
"Cut," she said.
Elias's shoulders did not move. His eyes did. "Bezel," he said. "Lobby band down. Sixteen resisting. Cutting source."
The desk phone speaker made a sound that belonged to rooms that use cables like muscles. Comms breathed into the line and did not swear because Comms is a discipline.
"Sixteen down," Elias said. "Band dead. Waiting for reassert."
Sofia finished her caption. "Posting," she said. "Runner."
The runner materialized, palm out. She slid the page into his hand with the top line visible and the time circled. He ran. He did not bounce. His feet made the minute sound like a thing with edges.
Security listened again. "Lobby shows contact slide," he said. "Sixteen shows contact slide. Comms is pushing a still of the signed letter at Orchard in the corner."
"Postmortem draft," Ava said. "Elias, two lines. Short and human."
"Legacy path dead since eleven oh one," Elias said. "Cached header attempted at twelve thirty. Manual cut at bezel and source. Posting with names."
"Spell check names," Sofia said, already writing. "We are giving the street a vocabulary."
The door moved half an inch. Counsel set a glass on the side table that already had a glass. He had not expected there to be a glass. He left it anyway and vanished.
From inside came the low murmur of a person reminding a room that time is money. From the other side of the hallway came the soft slap of a runner's soles on polished floor.
"Riverlight window," the runner said, holding a fresh printout like a messenger in a painting. "Owner confirms Twelve Thirty One. Consent to photograph checkout. They ask that we bring a bag."
"A bag," Sofia said, smiling with half of her mouth.
"Paper bag," the runner said. "With the word Nearlight written small on the bottom. For their archives."
"We bring two," Ava said. "One to keep, one to use."
The runner nodded as if bags were a kind of truth.
"Post," Sofia said, writing as she spoke. "Riverlight Books checkout at twelve thirty one, consented. Bring a bag."
Security pivoted toward the phone. "Comms wants the river route," he said. "They can color the pin map if we tell them which streets to avoid."
"Straight to Riverlight," Ava said. "Then Ivy Square call on speaker from their front door. Back through Third Street. Do not let the map look clever. Let it look like work."
Sofia boxed the route with a thick line. She added arrows that pointed the way arrows should point when you mean to be believed.
The door eased open enough to allow a person to exist in it. Noah stepped into the seam, shoulders squared as if that had always been their shape. His eyes found Ava's left shoulder without needing to hunt for it. He shifted a fraction closer. She did not step back. The hallway let proximity be ordinary.
"Status," he said.
"Kill executed," Sofia said. "Lobby and Sixteen down to contact. Postmortem drafting. Riverlight window holds. Ivy Square two o'clock callback on speaker."
He nodded once. "Board asked cost," he said. "I gave the footer when we hit ten."
"What did they ask next," Ava said.
"Why ten," he said.
"What did you say," she said.
"Because the street can feel ten," he said.
She let one corner of her mouth be a compliment.
"Instruction," he said.
"Do not answer adjectives," she said. "Name receipts."
He did not smile. He did not need to. He touched the corner of the legal pad where Sofia had written KILL and then looked where he was supposed to look.
"Inside," counsel said.
Noah went back in. A hinge remembered to mind its manners.
The Systems man held up two fingers without moving the rest of his hand. "Two more panels attempted the band," he said. "Both on the CFO floor."
"Cut," Ava said.
He nodded, listening. "Cut," he said. "Posting names."
Sofia finished the postmortem lines and added the time. She drew a single square around Elias's name so the credit would not vanish into the feed.
"Ledger footer," she said. "We should show a sum now that we've reached five entries. Even if it's small, it teaches the eye."
"Do it," Ava said.
Sofia wrote the numbers neatly, subtraction and addition that looked like they belonged in a window chalked by a person who likes honesty. "Fees and today's lost trade posted to date," she read. "Three hundred and six."
"Put it on the pin," Ava said. "Let the street see real arithmetic."
A new runner eased out of the elevator bank and held a badge out as if identity could be borrowed properly. "Vivian's aide," she said. "The Chair asks for a one-liner for the vote handout. No adjectives."
Sofia lifted the page she had already written. "Do the work," she said.
The aide looked at it for the length of a blink. "Good," she said. "Time."
"Twelve thirty three," Sofia said.
The aide nodded and went back into the world where rooms get to pretend they do not need air.
Security listened to the phone and frowned with his eyes so the rest of his face could remain useful. "Comms hears chatter about the cut on a finance Slack," he said. "Someone used the word censorship."
"Use the word receipts," Ava said. "Post a line that says band cut because it contradicted a signed letter on a door. Link the photo, the case number, and the time."
"Already drafting," Sofia said. "I'll stamp it with the Orchard photo in the corner."
The runner with the Riverlight note returned with a brown paper bag and a Sharpie that had already lost its cap once today. "Bag," he said. "I wrote Nearlight on the bottom. It bled through a little."
"Let it," Ava said. "Paper should remember names sometimes."
Elias glanced sideways down the hall the way a person looks at weather. "The CFO floor band attempted again," he said. "We cut it. Source origin points to a local console with override rights."
"Name," Ava said.
"Posting as CFO console," he said. "No personal names."
"Good," she said. "We do not hunt people. We hunt bad paths."
Sofia added a line to the postmortem. "Third attempt cut at CFO console," she wrote. "Source blocked. Names of teams credited."
The door opened and did not close. Marcus stepped into the hall with the kind of calm that is only ever acting. He put one hand in his pocket and held the other near his tie as if ties shared secrets with people who touched them often.
"You are making a religion out of cutting pictures," he said. "The market prefers growth."
"We prefer receipts," Ava said.
"When the vote is over, you will prefer governance," he said.
"We already have governance," she said. "It just learned to use a door."
He smiled. It did not reach his eyes. "He will sign the letter you want him to sign," he said, conversational, as if discussing lunch.
"Leave of absence," Sofia said, writing the words tiny in the corner of the pad so they would exist somewhere that was not a rumor.
"The company needs room to breathe," Marcus said.
"Then stop trying to choke it with bands," Ava said.
He looked past them to the elevator as if movement could be called into being by a glance. "Good luck at Riverlight," he said. "Try not to buy the whole store with apologies."
He went back inside. The door closed gently enough to be a lie.
"Time," Sofia said.
"Twelve thirty six," security said. "Car standing by."
The runner with the bag bounced once because runners are allowed to be young. "Do I write the bag line in the pin," he said.
"Yes," Sofia said. "Tag it with a tiny smile without emojis."
He grinned and ran because contradiction is a habit that improves speed.
A thin envelope slid under the door as if paper could learn to crawl. Counsel opened the door an inch and made the envelope a formal object again. "For Ms. Chen," he said. "From Legal."
Ava accepted it without opening. Paper in this building did not appreciate being opened in public if it belonged to a room that liked to think of itself as private.
"Do you want a summary," counsel said.
"Not yet," she said. "We are in a sprint."
He nodded and vanished with the dignity of a person who has arranged a life around no verbs.
Elias listened to his invisible screen. "No new bands," he said. "CFO console quiet."
"Post the postmortem," Sofia said. "Then add a footer that says if you see a band, tag it with time and location. We will cut and log."
"Already on," Elias said.
Sofia wrote a line under LEDGER and spoke while she wrote. "Ledger at six if Riverlight clears," she said. "Footer sum updates."
"Call Ivy Square at the curb," Ava said. "If the door opens before we reach the elevator, we do not move. If it doesn't, we walk."
Security touched his earpiece the way a person touches a coin they forget they are holding. "Copy," he said.
The elevator dinged in a way that had nothing to do with narrative. It was simply doing its job.
Noise shifted at the far end of the hall. Shoes that knew they were expensive approached without hurrying. Heads turned because humans are still animals. The person in the dark suit did not hurry and did not smile.
CFO.
He walked as if he had always owned corridors and they had just remembered.
Sofia stopped writing because sometimes the right move is to let silence belong to the person who wants to fill it and see what they choose to put in.
The desk phone buzzed. Security answered and listened without speaking. He hung up and looked at Ava.
"Comms asks for one more line for the pin," he said. "A sentence to sit under the Riverlight window while the board meets."
Ava looked at the legal pad, at the bag, at the door, at the man in the dark suit who had almost reached them. She did not raise her voice.
"Write," she said.
Sofia lifted the pen.
"Receipts before rooms," Ava said.
Sofia wrote it, boxed it, circled the time.
The CFO stopped two paces away, precise enough to be a threat, polite enough to be plausible. He glanced once at the legal pad with LEDGER at the top and once at the brown bag with Nearlight bleeding through its bottom.
"Ms. Chen," he said, voice level, like a person who has practiced sounding level.
"CFO," she said.
He touched two fingers to his tie knot and then to the place where a lapel pin might live if you built a world that needed one. "You are very busy," he said.
"We are working," she said.
He looked at the door, then at the phone, then at Elias's hands. "The board is meeting," he said, as if that were a new sentence.
"And the street is measuring," she said.
He smiled without pleasure. "I need Mr. Sterling inside this room, not at your errands," he said.
"He is inside," she said.
"I need him to remain inside," he said.
"Then stop trying to pull him out with bands," she said.
He looked at Elias and made a small motion with his chin that meant nothing and was designed to mean something. Elias did not move. He looked at Sofia and made a different motion. She did not move.
He looked at Ava and tried one more sentence. "This is governance," he said, as if to a child.
"This is a ledger," she said, as if to a person.
The door handle turned. It did not open yet. Counsel cracked it a fraction and slid a note toward the light.
"Ms. Chen," counsel said, keeping his voice in neutral, "the executive session continues."
The CFO set his hands in his pockets like a man putting birds back in a cage.
He took one step closer.