The countdown learned our breath and tried to sell it as a rule.
"Thirty," Comms said. "Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight."
The lounge POS blinked a harder red at its edges and then pretended it had always meant to be gray. The donor at the table lifted her phone and did not apologize for hands.
"Driver skin heavier," Elias said in the speaker. "Tracing. Watching for hidden hooks."
"Controller holds wording," counsel said. "Nearlight-only if safety actually requires."
Sofia angled the mic toward the donor without making her feel like a stage. "Consent on record," she said. "No names."
"Consent," the donor said. She had a coat folded over her arm like a vote that would not change itself later.
"Fifteen," Comms said.
Noah's knuckles rested near Ava's pad. Left and a little behind. The open collar had taught the room to stop trying for adjectives. Do not flinch.
"Ten," Comms said.
The lounge screen lifted a caption with the flair of a gossip magazine. ESCROW LOOK.
"Five," Comms said.
"On our count," Ava told the donor. "You won't be first to panic."
"I don't panic," the donor said, smiling for herself.
"Three," Sofia said.
"Two," the donor said.
"One," Ava said.
Seventeen twenty-two landed without permission.
The lounge POS tried to become a policeman.
"E-Review-302," the liaison read from the corner of the screen. "Escrow look. Buttons dimmed."
The phone offered its useful little box. "C-Donor-Flow-202," the donor read. "Soft path."
"Cosmetic lock," Elias said. "No payment route. Cutting bezel. Cutting driver skin."
Counsel's tablet waited for nouns it could respect. "Origin," he said.
"Hotel POS driver skin," Elias answered. "Name credited. Posting small."
The lounge POS remembered buttons exist. The donor looked at Ava with the patience of a person who has taught children to tie shoes.
"On count," Ava said. "Phone first."
"Three," Sofia said.
"Two," the donor said.
"One," Ava said.
The phone hummed with dignity and behaved. The printer at the liaison's elbow fed a slip into the hour.
"Approved," the liaison read, pleased. "Token 8293."
Sofia mirrored under the lounge slice and slid a slip to the aide up at the seam. The aide set it square on minutes where rooms go to lose bad habits.
"POS now," Ava said.
The liaison tapped with a politeness that insulted no one. The screen sighed. The printer did what it had been built to do.
"Approved," she read. "Token 8294."
Sofia posted both with the neatness of a person who lends out calm and does not ask for it back.
Ava printed a third tent in block letters cameras like: ESCROW = LOOK, NOT PAY. She set it beside DECLINE vs HOLD and the Counting Method card. The three cards read like grammar.
The reporter from the lobby stood in the second row, mic at her hip. She watched the tents instead of eyes and wrote down numbers before she wrote any other word. It made the room better.
Partner Metrics tried a tile on the hotel video feed again, glossy and wrong-sized.
"Graphics," Elias said. "Bezel cut. Source cut. Names credited."
Comms placed the words under the ledger line in small type where useful things go to be useful.
CFO's aide slid into the door's shadow and did the professional version of throat-clearing. "Prudence note," she said. "Room-only posts while escrow items circulate."
Ava touched the edge of the new tent with her index finger. "Under that," she said.
The aide obeyed, sliding the paper beneath ESCROW = LOOK as if the card were a paperweight with opinions.
"Harbor on the five," Sofia said. "Consent on record."
"Run it," Ava said.
"Three," Sofia said.
"Two," the donor said from a different block that had decided to help.
"One," Ava said.
Click. "Approved," the Harbor lead read. "Token 8295."
Sofia posted. The aide put the slip on minutes where math stops pretending to be shy. The lounge loosened a notch in its shoulders.
Noah's thumb touched the underside of Ava's wrist for exactly half a second and left, not recorded by any lens that mattered, recorded by the hour.
"Riverside kiosk just copied the skin," Elias said, tone flat with competence. "Cutting bezel. Removing driver overlay. Source credited."
Sofia wrote the appendix line aloud while she pinned it with her stylus: "Escrow look = graphics; overlays cut; payment path unchanged under countersign."
"Posted," she said.
A woman in a green scarf—the one whose mother had given earlier—held up her slip as if warming her hands at it. "So 'look' means 'look,'" she said. "Not 'take'."
"Correct," Ava said. "Escrow looks at accounts. It does not open doors."
The scarf woman nodded like a person who has worked in kitchens and wants labels to match jobs.
A hotel server set down glasses of water and walked away like a magic trick that respected union breaks. The table was a door; everyone had learned it.
We bind escrow review to minutes—skins cut, tokens posted—and keep the pin live.
The sentence joined the tents without ink.
A few heads turned at the back—late arrivals deciding how to be. The room showed them.
"Queue a double at thirty," Sofia said. "Phone and POS."
"Do it," Ava said. "Place the card where a lens can read PROOF AT 17:30."
The liaison slid a small placard with the practiced efficiency of hotels. It leaned below the tents like a chorus.
Comms gave the room harmless weather. "Rumor of a 'Gateway Close 17:30' banner," the voice said. "Portal-only chatter for now."
"Controller," counsel said. "Nearlight-only refusal stays drafted if something real shows."
"Hold it," Vivian said, the whole seam in three syllables. "We do not adopt menus."
The knit cap donor—now with a cup of water and the air of a man who has discovered a hobby—looked over the tents as if rearranging them would be a vote. He did not rearrange them. He stood straighter and let his face forget the cameras.
"Harbor can make thirty if you want a third proof," Sofia said.
"Greedy," Ava said, and the room liked the word in her mouth.
"Counting," Sofia answered.
The hotel video feed tried a clever little corner badge that said ESCROW HOLD TEST in letters that wanted an internship. It died at the bezel like most internships do.
"Source credited," Elias said.
The liaison gave the lounge POS a look one gives a teenager who has apologized for a lie and wants lunch anyway. The POS looked back with the innocence of a tool.
"Seventeen twenty-nine," Comms said. "Thirty in one."
Noah's jaw eased. His collar had become a character the room liked. He didn't play it. He let it be.
Sofia angled the mic toward the phone donor, a young man with paint on his knuckles and the posture of someone who carries things for a living. "Consent on record," she said.
"Consent," he said, happy to be used correctly.
"Three," Ava said.
"Two," he said.
"One," she said.
The phone hummed. The printer approved. "Token 8296," the liaison read.
"POS," Ava said.
The liaison tapped. The POS thought it might be time for mischief. It decided against it. It printed properly and found a little humility.
"Token 8297," she read.
Sofia posted both. The aide slid the squares; minutes accepted them like bread.
Security tipped his chin toward the ring, listening to a voice the room did not need to meet. "Quiet outside," he said. "Media obeying the line."
The reporter in the second row wrote the numbers twice for pleasure and only once for work. She did not ask for a quote. The tents had her.
Comms took one breath differently. "Heads up," the voice said. "Clinic kiosk across town. Vendor arming an actual E-Hold—code reads E-Hold-903. Chair confirm needed if we cut. Thirty just began."
The donor already at the lounge table put her phone to the link with the focus of a person willing to be the minute.
"Seller?" Ava said.
"Clinic," a voice said, small and tight but steady. "Consent on record. We've got a line. We'll be on speaker."
"Proceed," Vivian said into the seam, not louder, heavier.
The lounge donor did not look up. The POS looked innocent. The phone offered its little box. The clinic's air bled quietly into theirs.
Elias's tone shifted to the one that turns rooms into tools. "Hold path visible," he said. "Not paint. Named route. Chair confirm required to cut."
Noah's fingers found Ava's wrist, firm for a count that has saved hours before. She breathed into it once and then let the breath go.
The tents did not move. The table remembered being a door.
The second tried to get big.
The room did not let it.