"Clock starts now," Ava said. "Ten minutes."
Sofia's headset chirped. "Security confirms a brick - no breach."
"We use the noise, not the time," Ava said. She slid a legal pad in front of Noah, uncapped the marker, and printed in block letters:
HOLD - 3 LINES1 - We acknowledge harm.2 - Pause automation, review flags with affected sellers.3 - Publish criteria and redress steps by end of day.
"Read it," she said.
"Short," Noah said.
"Short reads as credible," Ava said. "Sofia, admin on all social - corporate, product, CEO, careers. Freeze autoposts for twelve hours. Queue nothing."
"Two-factor coming to me," Sofia said, already thumbing.
Marcus leaned an elbow on the glass. "We will not freeze the corporate feed. Partnership announcement scheduled - material to investors."
"We will not announce anything while your lobby is a drum," Ava said. "Freeze it."
"Legal will disagree."
"Legal can meet us in five," Ava said. "If the feed burps auto-cheer while a brick hits your door, plaintiff attorneys will bronze it."
Her phone buzzed under her palm. Once, then again. Not now.
"Access is not a plaything," Marcus said, tidy as a razor. "IT will hold credentials until Comms submits a request in writing."
Sofia's jaw ticked. "Submitted last night."
Ava looked to the red, then to Noah. "You hired me to stop blood loss," she said quietly. "This is a clamp."
He nodded. "Sofia, give her everything."
Logins slid down the table. Ava keyed fast. "Security phrase?"
"Orpheus," Sofia said.
"Cute," Ava said without smiling. "Freeze engaged. Autoposts dead. Draft clear."
Marcus spread his hands. "Let us not overcorrect."
"We correct to zero," Ava said. "From zero we rebuild."
She rotated the pad so the lines faced Noah. "This is the spine," she said. "Everything else is ribs. Don't improvise."
He studied the three lines, then lifted his gaze.
"Cadence," Ava said. "Line one - full breath, stop on 'harm'. Line two - soft on 'pause', hard stop on 'sellers'. Line three - confirm 'end of day', no time."
"Because a time is a promise," he said.
"And promises create plaintiffs."
Another thud traveled up through the building. Water bottles shivered.
We hold the table - not the door, Ava thought, and under the spine she wrote in red:
NO ADJECTIVES.
Sofia hovered at the threshold. Ava didn't turn. She spoke for the room.
"Glass Sixteen goes live only when I say the phrase. Until then - if anything auto-posts, it dies."
"Copy," Sofia said.
Ava planted the red upright on the table. "Red means listen," she said. "Upright - you're on deck. Flat - you stop. Two taps on the table - stop. My hand at my throat - return to the spine."
Noah tracked the bright cylinder rather than her face. "Upright - on deck. Flat - stop. Two taps - stop. Hand at throat - spine."
"Good." She nudged his chair two inches left. "Camera catches your hands, not your tells. Feet planted. If you lose the thread, pick any word from the spine and restart the line - it reads as care, not error."
Sofia passed a lav mic. Ava clipped Noah's jacket, smoothed the cable, pinned her own. She peeled the label off a water bottle until it came away clean. "No brands near an apology." She slid the bottle to Noah. "Half now, half later."
Security leaned into the doorway. "Crowd swell at the east door. Lane still open."
"Keep it open," Ava said. "If it closes, we do this in the doorway."
"Theatrics," Marcus murmured.
"Architecture," Ava said. "Posture, not poetry."
She rewrote the spine on a small card, block capitals, and slid it under Noah's right hand. "Your horizon is my left shoulder," she said. "Not my eyes - not theirs. If I step left, your focus follows. If I square to you, you read the spine."
He tested it - shoulder, marker, shoulder - a small nod. "Left shoulder."
Ava tapped the glass twice with the marker - a thin, bright sound.
He stopped mid-inhale, reset, and waited for the cue.
"Proof of harm," Ava said. "We show it. Riverlight first."
Sofia patched the call. The speaker clicked and a woman's voice arrived with bookstore warmth and a storm's edge. "This is Mara at Riverlight."
"Ms. Rivera, Ava Chen for Nearlight," Ava said. "We hurt you. I'm here to fix the consequences."
"You closed our checkout three times in one week," Mara said. "Payment-risk. We sell poetry and used textbooks."
Ava wrote as the woman spoke - checkout 3x, payment-risk, poetry, used texts - and lifted the pad so Noah could watch the words form in red.
"We're pausing automation and reviewing edge cases with affected sellers," Ava said. "We can confirm Riverlight is on today's list if you approve. By end of day we'll publish the criteria that hit you and the redress."
"And you'll say you were wrong?" Mara asked.
"We'll say it hurt the wrong people," Ava said. "And show the repair."
A quiet breath. "You can quote me," Mara said. "If you lie, I staple your release to my door."
"Fair," Ava said, cutting the line. She circled Riverlight - on record.
"Silver Harbor Aid," Sofia said, connecting.
A tired man's voice: "Jamil Hassan."
"Mr. Hassan," Ava said. "We hurt you - your donation link in wildfire week."
"You had our trucks on the road," he said, bone-tired.
"We're pausing automation, reviewing flags, and publishing criteria and redress by end of day," Ava said. "May we acknowledge Silver Harbor Aid on record?"
"On record," he said. "But I want a call with someone who can change code, not copy."
Ava raised two fingers with the red upright.
Noah read the spine - no adjectives, stop on harm, soft on pause, hard on sellers - and stopped clean.
"That's the first sensible thing I've heard you people say since Tuesday," Mr. Hassan said. "Send me the engineer."
"We will," Ava said.
Sofia glanced at her screen. "Third case queued - boutique owner open to talk off record first."
Heat prickled across Ava's skin. "Hold boutique," she said evenly. "Give me a hardware shop for category spread."
Marcus's attention sharpened. "Problem, Ms. Chen?"
"Sequence," Ava said. "Bookstore, charity, hardware."
Sofia patched Ivy Square Tools. The speaker popped and a breathless voice came through under a clank of metal. "Luis."
"Mr. Alvarez," Ava said. "We hurt you. We're pausing automation, reviewing flags, and publishing criteria and redress by end of day. On record?"
"On record if my account's back by lunch," he said. "Payroll's due."
"We start now," Ava said. "Thank you."
She capped the marker, uncapped it again. Red dots on the pad made a rough constellation.
On the wall, the lobby feed jumped as someone jostled the camera; the crack held. Security's voice came thin through Sofia's set. "Lane open."
Marcus's phone chimed. He didn't look. "Board wants a preview," he said. "Send the statement."
"No time," Ava said. "They'll get it live - like everyone else."
"That is not governance," he said.
"That is a burning building," she said.
She moved to the doorway and set her palm against the glass. The front row of the press corral felt the pressure release - phones dipped a fraction; mics tilted like flowers toward light.
She looked back at Noah. "Last adjustments. Sit. Shoulders low. Hands visible - no steeple, no fist. If they interrupt, I take it. If I point with two fingers and the red upright, you read the spine and stop."
He sat. Shoulders dropped. Hands open. He kept his eyes on her left shoulder like a pilot on a horizon line.
Sofia eased the doors open a hand width. Air slipped in - warm with camera heat, dusty with chant.
"Mic flags?" Ava asked without taking her eyes off the lane.
"Five majors, three locals, two trades," Sofia said. "Poles killed."
"Good."
Ava lifted the hand mic, felt its weight settle, then spoke the sentence that turned the room on.
We are ready to be measured.
Red tally lights bloomed down the line. The corral breathed in.
Ava raised the marker a centimeter - upright.
Noah leaned to the card under his palm and began, voice leveled to the spine.
"We acknowledge harm."
The in-room panel blinked. A new banner crawled across the bottom - white text on corporate blue:
INTERNAL - CFO DIRECTIVE: SCHEDULED CONTENTS TO PROCEED - NO EXTERNAL FREEZE AUTHORIZED.
Sofia swore under her breath. "That memo wasn't circulated to Comms."
Marcus's smile showed only his top teeth. "Governance," he said softly.
Ava's thumb rose to her throat - spine - and she tapped the table twice, a sound too thin for cameras but bright enough for Noah.
He stopped mid-breath, let the stop read as care, and set for line two.
"We are pausing automation and reviewing flags with affected sellers."
Phones in the corral vibrated as the banner's screenshot hit inboxes. A reporter's eyebrow winged up. Another shifted weight, new question loading.
Ava held the lane with her body and her tone. "Questions after the statement," she said, calm. "Lane stays open."
The panel blinked again, as if it had more to say.
Marcus's phone face-down on the glass thrummed once, then again, then settled like a satisfied cat.
Noah's eyes stayed on Ava's left shoulder. "We will publish criteria and redress steps by end of day."
Ava swung the marker flat for a heartbeat - stop - then upright again - on deck - and lifted her chin a millimeter toward the speaker.
"Ms. Rivera from Riverlight has agreed to be named," she said. "We'll confirm her case in our publication today."
A flurry of thumbs flew. The banner at the bottom of the panel did not vanish. It crawled on, implacable blue.
Sofia's voice was a whisper in Ava's ear. "Our freeze is holding on public channels. The memo looks like an intranet post - finance board."
"Keep it held," Ava said, still not looking away from the lane. "If a post slips, kill it."
"Copy."
A reporter tried to cut in. "Ms. Chen - is Nearlight's CFO overruling you in real time - "
Ava didn't look at him. "Statement first," she said evenly. "Then process."
She pointed with two fingers, the red upright.
Noah repeated the spine - all three lines in a single, measured unit - then stopped. The stop felt chosen.
Ava let one beat land on the room - then the second - calibrating silence like a tool.
"Now we take your questions," she said.
Hands launched. A major network, a local, a trade. She chose the trade first.
"Criteria," the woman said. "Can you say what flagged Riverlight and Silver Harbor?"
"We can say the types," Ava said. "Today's review focuses on edge-case payments, fraud heuristics in low-volume sellers, and conflated donor links during surge events. We'll publish specifics by end of day."
"Follow," a local said, sharp. "Is your CFO's memo accurate? Are scheduled posts proceeding?"
Ava didn't blink. "We froze autoposts. If you see a post with our mark in the next twelve hours, bring it to me and I will show you how it died."
Somebody actually laughed - quick, disbelieving - then stopped when the room didn't join.
A major swung hard. "Is Mr. Sterling stepping down before the IPO?"
Noah's jaw moved, then stilled. Ava lifted a finger - not the cue - and spoke first.
"We are focused on customers first," she said. "Mr. Sterling will address governance at the appropriate time."
"Which is - "
"When we have done our job," she said.
The panel flickered. The blue banner hiccuped - someone in IT had found a wire - then it smoothed back into crawl. Not gone.
Sofia murmured, "Still intranet. Still finance."
Ava felt the room tilt toward the blue. She set the marker down flat for half a second - stop - then took it up again and raised it vertical, slow enough for Noah to see it, quick enough that cameras didn't decide it was theater.
"Process question," she said to the network anchor. "You'll get a PDF of today's criteria and our contact line by end of day. In the meantime, Riverlight Books and Silver Harbor Aid are willing to confirm they were contacted this morning - on record."
"Can we speak to them now?" the anchor said.
"You can speak to them when they say yes," Ava said. "We just got consent to name them. We'll protect their time to fix their sites before we fix our reputation."
That landed. A reporter lowered his mic as if it had gained weight.
Marcus's smile thinned by a millimeter.
Ava took one more question - an honest one about edge signals in wildfire zones - and handed it to Noah with two fingers and the red upright.
He delivered the spine first - then added, precise, "Our engineering lead will publish the donor-link exception rule we're testing for surge events."
The room liked that - you could hear it in how bodies leaned.
A phone somewhere near the back pinged with the sound of a confident person. A hand shot up, high. "Ms. Chen - one more. Is it true Nearlight flagged a boutique on Orchard for 'payment risk' this morning - and that the owner received an eviction notice tied to that flag?"
Ava's phone hummed against her palm like it knew its own name.
She didn't look down.
"Bring me the documents after this," she said, level. "We'll review the case today. If it's ours, it's ours to fix."
"Name of the boutique?" the same reporter pressed.
Ava let one beat pass - not a stall, a weigh.
"We'll publish all names we have consent to publish by end of day," she said. "Next question."
The panel blinked twice, fast. The blue banner changed tone - a new line appended:
CFO OFFICE - PARTNERSHIP POST TO PROCEED AT 11:00 - BRAND CALENDAR UNAFFECTED.
Sofia exhaled through her teeth. "That's new. Ten minutes."
Ava smiled with no teeth at all. "Sofia," she said, still facing the room, "if the partnership post fires, kill it mid-flight. Then post a plain text that reads 'We froze automation at 08:17. Anything else is error. We're fixing it.' Signed Nearlight Comms."
"On it."
The network anchor lifted her chin. "So the CFO and Comms are at war?"
Ava didn't blink. "Nearlight made mistakes. We're fixing them. You're watching it happen."
"Who wins?" the anchor asked.
Ava lifted the marker a hair - upright - and pointed with two fingers.
Noah looked at her left shoulder and said, calm as iron, "Customers."
The red tally lights held steady. The panel's blue crawl marched on, small and relentless, like a leak that hadn't decided how big to be.
Ava set two fingers on the table - tap, tap - stop - then looked straight into a lens and gave the room a sentence she knew she might need to eat later.
"Lane stays open," she said. "Measure us."
The microphones ate the line. The room reached for the next question. The blue banner did not blink.