The block held its breath while the fourth cart waited on one.
"River Bits," Sofia said, "you are on record. No personal names. Steps and times only."
"Consent," the voice said. You could hear door chimes somewhere behind him, the kind that belong to afternoons.
"Device," Ava said.
"Handheld," he said. "Label says 'River Bits' on the tape."
"Low-cost item," she said. "On my count, press pay once. Read the code if it lands. Read the token if it approves."
"Ready," he said.
Sofia raised the tablet so camera phones could read the header without being invited nearer than the rope of space security kept with open hands. She wrote RIVER BITS on the corner and boxed the time.
"Three," she said.
"Two," Tariq said.
"One," Ava said.
The press of a thumb made a sound that did not try to be dramatic. The error face appeared because habits take time to unlearn.
"Read," Ava said.
"R-Route-Alias-014," he said. "Alias conflict."
"Token tail," Elias said.
"Four two zero five," he said.
"Assigning," Elias said, voice even. "New channel. New label. Flushing the edge."
Sofia wrote while he spoke. "Alias split posted," she said. "Items stay. Button refreshes. Time thirteen thirty eight."
The device grayed, then remembered its job. The button returned.
"What now," he said.
"Proceed," Ava said.
Approval arrived with a printer's soft chatter. Little numbers learned to be tokens.
"Read the last line," she said.
"Approved," he said. "Token four two zero six."
"Posted," Sofia said. She drew two squares around the token so it would not pretend to be anyone else.
Elias tapped his headset. "Appendix alias line updated," he said. "Add 'neighbor carts require unique channel IDs, no shared storefront tags'."
"Mirrored," Sofia said. "Caption stays plain."
Security watched the mouth of the block. The sedan that had wanted to be a documentary decided to be a parked car instead.
The small speaker breathed. "Comms," the voice said. "Investors are quoting the alias split as a process. Some finance blogs are using the word optics."
"Keep that off the pin," Ava said. "Air only."
"Copy," Comms said.
Elias lifted two fingers without moving his shoulders. "Corner deli kiosk tried a blue," he said. "Bezel cut. Source cut. Posted with time and origin."
Sofia added the cut in small print at the bottom of the ledger page. "Panels clean," she read. "Work continues."
The taller Ivy seller squared the taped receipt beside the photo of the dog in the sweater and stepped back. The second seller aligned the edge because order is a language even when you do not call it that.
"Thank you," she said. "People will stop pointing at our door like it is a trick."
"It is a door," Ava said. "It should act like one."
The speaker ticked again. A new voice arrived in a hurry and then remembered it could slow down.
"River East kiosk," she said. "Consent on record. I am getting R-Route-Alias-016. I am two bends down. Can you fix me without walking."
"We can fix remote with consent and a test," Ava said. "Low-cost item. On my count. Read the code or the token. We will post numbers, not names."
"Ready," she said.
Sofia wrote RIVER EAST and boxed a small space for the time.
"Three," she said.
"Two," Tariq said.
"One," Ava said.
The sound this time suggested a system tired of itself. The report arrived in a voice that had learned to be competent.
"R-Route-Alias-016," she said. "Token four two zero seven."
"Assigning," Elias said. "New channel. New label. Flush edge."
"Plain," Ava said.
"We give your cart its own door," he said. "Your items stay. The button will return."
"It did," she said. "Proceeding."
Approval printed on her end where they could not see. The room inside her voice changed shape. Relief takes up space when it gets invited.
"Read the last line," Ava said.
"Approved," she said. "Token four two zero eight."
"Posted," Sofia said. "Mirroring photo only if consented later. For now numbers."
"Thank you," the voice said. "I will tape this next to my aunt's picture. She says numbers behave when you write them slow."
"Your aunt keeps teaching the city," Ava said.
The dog at the truck lifted one ear and then decided no alarm was required. The person in the truck wrote something on a small pad as if hand-writing the world would keep it from retreating.
The tablet chimed with the polite tone that means a room wants a sentence, not a story.
"Board aide," Sofia said softly. "Request a hallway line at thirteen fifty five. Runner window in four minutes if we want it to land on the dot."
"Draft," Ava said.
Sofia wrote while she spoke. "River alias cluster closed," she read. "Distinct channels assigned. Approvals posted with tokens. Silver Harbor at fourteen thirty. Pin live by Chair direction."
"Stamp," Ava said.
Sofia circled the time. Tariq lifted the page so it would be ready to run.
"Route," Ava said.
"Silver Harbor queue pinned," Sofia said. "Speaker at the door. Donor-link exception under thirty five mile rule."
"Consent line," Ava said.
"Consent to speak on record already captured," Sofia said. "They want the fix heard by donors."
Tariq checked the street with a runner's gut for distance. "Eight minutes with friendly lights," he said. "Six if the next green is ours."
"It will be ours," Ava said.
The second Ivy seller lifted her receipt and set it back down as if teaching the counter a lesson about property. "Do we keep the bag," she said, nodding at the paper with 12:31 in the fold.
"Keep it," Ava said. "Paper remembers."
Sofia's tablet carried one more soft chime from Comms. "Chair notes River closed," she said. "No freeze requests. Investor forums quiet."
"Good," Ava said.
She looked the length of the block and then back at the table where the ledger page had become a little city of times and tokens. Do not flinch.
"Post a plain line," she said. "River cluster closed. No names. No adjectives."
"Posted," Sofia said.
"Time," Tariq said out of habit. "Thirteen forty nine."
He already had the runner slip in his hand with the hallway line. He already had the legs ready for the elevator, the desk phone, the seam where rooms decide if sentences deserve to live.
Sofia checked the appendix slice and framed it under River on the pin so a reader would not have to guess how rules become actions. She added the footer sum with care because numbers notice when you handle them with care.
"Footer six hundred fourteen," she said. "We do not round."
"We do not round," Ava said.
Security touched the earpiece. "Finance blog just pushed a post," he said. "Headline calls this a pilot for optics."
"Keep it off the pin," Ava said. "Air only."
The small speaker clicked as Comms opened a channel for exactly one sentence. "Chair requests a single line to the room on the optics claim," the voice said. "Twenty words."
Ava did not look at the sedan or the truck or the dog or the sign or the people. She looked at the ledger.
"Write," she said.
Sofia held the stylus above the screen.
Finish River here. Then Harbor.
She wrote the sentence below it so the room would not have to argue with tone. "We posted receipts and rules, not a pilot. By six, on the pin," she read. "Time thirteen fifty."
"Sent," Comms said.
Tariq lifted the runner slip and the page with the sentence and trotted for the car like a person who knows the shape of floors he has not seen yet. Security opened the lane that is not a barricade. The driver learned the next green the way good drivers do.
The taller Ivy seller tucked his copy where it would not blow away in a gust and set a stapler on the edge because the world respects weight. The second seller checked the tape and nodded to no one because sometimes you sign your own day.
Elias listened to the edge. "No new bands," he said. "CFO console quiet."
The person with the handheld mic tried to lift it again and then looked at the page and put it down because voices lose against ink when ink is doing its job.
"Load," Ava said.
They moved toward the car in a line that made room for the city to keep being the city. The door opened. Sofia slid in with the tablet visible. Elias followed with Systems quiet. Security scanned the geometry that tells you where trouble hides. Tariq held the door with one hand and the runner slip with the other, ready to spring when the lobby swallowed him.
The tablet chimed in a new minor key. Sofia frowned with her eyes and not her mouth.
"Comms says one finance blog mislabels the fixes as a pilot again," she said. "Investors are quoting our sentence without it. The Chair asks for one more line to the room while the clock flips to thirteen fifty."
The dashboard clock turned its face toward the hour. The street made room for their car. The block that had been River let them go the way finished work lets people go.