He tapped Send.
Either's fine - transfer is cleaner.
The message to Maya left and stacked neatly above the earlier thread. The HUD kept its manners at the edge of his sight.
[Calendar: 10:15 Library handoff - 11:00 Atrium Coffee][Travel estimate: 6 minutes on foot][Reminder: depart dorm 10:25; bring book + ID][Public visibility: LOW - maintained]
"Want company to the library?" Dylan said, chair tipped back two legs off the ground. "I can behave for six minutes. Maybe five."
Jack dried his hands with the seriousness of a surgeon. "Decide."
Alex spun the phone once in his palm, then set it face-up. "I'll solo the handoff," he said, keeping it kind. "Buyer's nervous about time. Cleaner with one person."
Dylan's eyebrows went into tragic arches. "I contain multitudes, including quiet."
"You contain narrations," Jack said.
"Fine," Dylan said, dropping the chair legs with a thump. "I'll remain in this domicile and practice my inside voice."
"Please send me a recording," Alex said.
Dylan's grin returned like a reflex. "Later, we test a parking meter. For science."
"No late experiments," Alex said. "No patterns. No noise."
"I hate how reasonable you are," Dylan muttered, not hating it at all.
Alex flipped to Do Not Disturb, checked the little crescent, and confirmed the lock-screen previews stayed minimal.
[Mode: Do Not Disturb - ON][Notification previews: MINIMIZED]
He patted pockets like a ritual - Visa front slot, backup card behind it, two fives, two ones, ID. The book's corners were still square; the pencil ghosts looked like someone had been considerate. He set the pack by the desk, then stood back and let his eyes run the morning route inside his head - door, stairs, hill, library doors, Atrium glass and plant jungle, window table.
Dylan pointed at the backpack like it had volunteered for service. "If the buyer flakes, we shame them affectionately."
"No shaming," Jack said. "Even affectionate shaming rots the boards."
"The boards?" Dylan said.
"The boards hold the day up," Jack said, which was the sort of sentence you couldn't argue with without making it worse.
The knock came as a knuckle rhythm everyone in a dorm learns in the first week - not friend, not parent. RA cadence.
Jack opened because he believed in answering doors like a citizen. Parker, their RA, leaned in the hallway with a stack of glossy flyers and the weary optimism of a man measured in bulletin boards.
"Quiet hours in twenty," Parker said, then softened it with a half-smile. "And - hey - Seaview Credit Union finally sent promo stuff. 'Offers Week.' Swag, cookies, probably pens that explode. They asked me to shove these under doors, but I prefer human hands." He dealt three flyers like cards. "There's a live demo at Atrium tomorrow."
Dylan took his, scanned, and slanted the paper toward Alex as if sunlight would help the words land faster. The header wore a cheerful blue that tried hard.
SEAVIEW CREDIT UNION - OFFERS WEEKTry our app's pilot Offers - merchant promos, surprise credits, boring bank magicLive demo - Atrium Coffee - Thursday 11:00 a.m.
Jack read without moving his face. Parker added, "They're doing some cash-back partner thing. Buy coffee, maybe you get something back. Or a cookie. I don't know. I get a shirt. You know how it is."
"Cookies are a governance model," Dylan said. "Thank you for your service."
Parker's grin admitted he was too tired for governance. "Don't burn popcorn, don't burn friendship, sleep at some point," he said, then moved to the next door in the long corridor of future flyers.
The hall swallowed his footsteps. The room shrank to three bodies and a piece of paper that had chosen a time and a place like it was doing Alex a favor.
Dylan's gaze traveled from the flyer to Alex, back to the flyer. He lifted it higher like a cue card. "It's literally at Atrium at eleven."
Jack set his on the desk. "Your legend just got legs."
Alex let the silence exist long enough to feel the shape of the choice. Avoiding the demo would look like avoidance. Walking straight through it with Ivy would make the pilot story heavy enough to hold weight - and invite more eyes. LOW visibility would blunt the edges, but you couldn't minimize a person looking straight at you.
"Option one," Dylan said, counting on his fingers like a man who'd always wanted to be a late-night host. "We go around - you and Ivy lurk on the side with the ficus, pretending not to notice the free cookies."
"Option two," Jack said, gentler, "you walk through like it's weather. Your story stays boring. You tip. The app does what it does. You do not help it perform."
"Not perform," Alex repeated. Performing taught rooms to watch. Watching made small things look like plans.
The HUD sat in his periphery without commentary, which he appreciated more the longer he had it. When it did speak, it was simple.
[Public visibility: LOW - maintained][Advisory: Consistency reduces scrutiny]
Dylan tapped the flyer at the line about surprise credits. "They used the word boring on a poster. I feel seen."
"That word saves lives," Jack said.
Alex considered the other gravity - Ivy's eyes on him across glass and ferns, her curiosity calibrated like a well-tuned instrument. The demo would give her a frame that matched the story he'd already told. If the app decided to act up, there would be an excuse sitting on a folding table with a branded tablecloth and a teenager in a polo shirt.
"I'm thinking we treat the demo like weather," he said. "We do not orbit it; we do not detour around it. If it rains cookies, we let it rain."
"Scientifically sound," Dylan said, pleased. "Also delicious."
Jack nodded once, which in Jack terms was a confetti cannon. "You keep your face flat," he said. "She'll decide you were telling the truth because you behave like you were."
Alex slipped the flyer under the laptop as if filing the day. His phone hummed - a cleaner, ordinary buzz.
[Message - MAYA_H]: Transfer tomorrow is fine - I'll bring ID. Thanks again.]
He typed Great. See you 10:15 at the doors. He let the period do the emotional labor.
Dylan leaned his chair back again, hovering on the border of balance. "And later we truly do a parking meter," he said. "Science demands a parking meter."
"At some point," Alex said, which meant no.
Jack picked up the spare hoodie Dylan had shed and folded it in four moves that made fabric into geometry. "You two going to pretend to sleep," he said, "or actually make it happen?"
"Pretend first," Dylan said. "Then we'll pivot to reality."
"No epilogues," Alex said. He slid the Do Not Disturb crescent to confirm it still glowed. He didn't love sleep as an ending; he liked sleep as a tool you used to lift a morning correctly.
The room settled into the low hum of machines and the little noises friends make when they stop performing. Somewhere a shower ran. Down the hall, someone laughed and tried three times to quiet down, meaning well and failing.
Dylan held the flyer up again and tilted it like a question. "It's literally at Atrium at eleven," he repeated, softer, not pressing - just naming.
Alex let his hand hover over the phone. He could text Ivy one line - Heads up - credit union demo at Atrium at 11. That would prime the legend, make the day look aligned, maybe make the coffee feel like an errand. Or he could let her discover it walking in and shrug like weather.
Jack's eyes flicked from Alex's hand to his face. "Decide," he said again, same word, less pressure.
The flyer's paper caught the room's light and threw a dull rectangle onto the ceiling. The plant jungle in Alex's head rustled like a stage waiting for actors to walk through it like a hallway.
He kept his thumb above the glass and held the beat where a choice becomes a plan.