The speaker ticked once and the block learned to listen.
"River Avenue," Comms said, "you are on. Consent on record?"
"Consent," a woman said. Her voice had street in it and the habit of early mornings.
"Consent," a man said, a half beat behind, the kind of voice that has carried a counter bell.
Sofia lifted the tablet so the camera phones could read the header without being invited. "On record," she said. "Steps and times. No personal names."
"What are you seeing," Ava said.
"My orders hop to the stall across from me after pay," the woman said. "Customers think I'm stealing."
"My tips trail to her till," the man said, not angry, tired. "I hand cash back. It looks bad."
"Small test first," Ava said. "One low-cost item each. Do not press pay yet. We will count. Then we read the code and route."
"Ready," the woman said.
"Ready," the man said.
Sofia wrote RIVER TEST on the edge of the tablet in letters a passerby could steal with a glance and still understand. Tariq held the blank consent boxes open for the time stamps. Elias tilted his head a degree and listened to a console he carried in his ear.
"Probable cause," he said for the pin and the street. "Shared alias in the route. Two stalls using one storefront name at the last hop."
"Plain," Ava said.
"Both carts have the same door label," Elias said. "We will split the label and give each its own door."
"Count," Ava said.
"Three," Sofia said.
"Two," Tariq said.
"One," Ava said.
Two thumbs tapped pay. Both terminals answered with the same error face and the same small sigh.
"Read," Ava said.
"R-Route-Alias-012," the woman said. "Alias conflict."
"R-Route-Alias-012," the man said. "Same."
Sofia wrote the code clean. She drew a box around it so the hour could not pretend it had not seen it. "Posted," she said. "Time thirteen thirty."
"Tokens," Elias said. "Read the last four."
"Four one nine three," the woman said.
"Four one nine four," the man said.
"Good," he said. "We can track the split."
The dog in the truck sighed the way dogs sigh when people make rectangles on devices and then speak as if rectangles care. The person in the truck kept watching anyway.
"Fix," Ava said.
"Step one," Elias said. "Assign distinct channel IDs to each stall. Step two. Split the alias into two labels. Step three. Flush the cache at the edge."
"Plain," Ava said.
"We give each cart its own name and tell the street," he said. "The devices will get new buttons. Items will stay."
"Consent to change," Ava said into the speaker.
"Consent," the woman said.
"Consent," the man said.
Sofia added a line to the pin and read it while she wrote. "We are splitting the River alias and assigning a channel to each stall," she said. "Items stay. Buttons refresh. No adjectives."
Elias breathed the way people do when they make math move. "Assigning," he said. "Flushing. Stand by."
Both terminals flickered in the small way that says someone who knows how is touching the right wire at the right time. The buttons grayed for a count you could feel in your wrist and came back sharp.
"Describe what you see," Ava said.
"Button's back," the woman said. "Same cart. My name on top. Not hers."
"Same here," the man said. "My name. Not hers."
"Proceed," Ava said.
Two thumbs pressed pay. Two approvals landed with the little confidence machines have when they are allowed to tell the truth again.
"Read the last line," Ava said.
"Approved," the woman said. "Token four two zero one."
"Approved," the man said. "Token four two zero two."
Sofia wrote both and boxed them. "Posted," she said. "Photo will mirror with names masked."
"Appendix," Ava said.
Elias nodded even though she was not looking at him. "Short line," he said. "Alias route. When two sellers share a storefront alias at the edge, split labels and assign distinct channels. Preserve items."
"Post," Sofia said. "Caption: alias route fix at thirteen thirty one. Vendor will cite at close."
The small speaker carried a breath from Comms that sounded almost like relief disguised as work. "Chair acknowledges River fix," the voice said. "Request a single sentence for the room."
Sofia had it ready. "We split the shared alias and gave each stall its own door at 13:31," she read. "Two approvals, tokens 4201 and 4202."
"Sent," Comms said.
The camera from the sedan at the block mouth edged closer and stopped when security lifted an open palm. The mic did not try to perform this time. The receipts were doing the performing.
"Footer," Ava said.
Sofia did the math. "Six hundred and ten," she said. "Footer posted."
A text bled across the tablet from Comms. "Investor eyes stable," she said quietly. "They are quoting receipts, not opinions."
"Keep it off the pin," Ava said. "Air only."
"Thank you," the woman said from the line. Her voice had the weight of sleeves rolled up. "If it breaks again."
"The advocate line answers to a person," Ava said. "Tell them the code. We will read it to you."
The man exhaled a sound that had almost been a laugh before the last week. "Tell the board your door thing works," he said.
"They can read the pin," Ava said.
Elias tapped his headset. "Small band at deli," he said. "Corner again."
"Cut," Ava said.
"Cut," he said. "Bezel then source. Origin unmanaged kiosk. Posted."
Sofia added the cut line in small type under the River entries so the day would have both kind of proofs in one glance. "Panels clean," she wrote. "Work continues."
Ava looked up the block where River bent toward the next job. "Route Silver Harbor," she said. "Fourteen thirty window. Speaker at the door. Consent."
"Posted," Sofia said. "Queue shows Ivy fixed, River fixed, Silver Harbor next."
Tariq smoothed the consent sheet as if paper liked to be touched when it had done a good job. The dog in the truck chose to watch the sun again.
Do not flinch.
A voice from the speaker that was not Comms and was not either River seller cut in like a neighbor who knew when to knock.
"Pop-up cart on River," she said. She sounded young and tired of being brave about it. "I am two blocks east. I am getting R-Route-Alias-013. Not twelve. Can you hear me."
Sofia looked at the tablet and then at the speaker. "Consent to be on the record," she said.
"Consent," the voice said.
"Describe your cart," Ava said. "What device. What label."
"Handheld," she said. "Blue tape with 'River Pop' on top because we thought it was cute."
"Cute breaks routes," Elias said softly, not unkindly.
"Do you have a low-cost item," Ava said. "We test once. Then we either walk or fix remote."
"I have a keychain," she said. The small plastic kind hit the mic like light. "Two dollars."
"Good," Ava said. "Do not press pay. We will count. Read the code if it lands."
"Ready," she said.
"Count," Ava said.
"Three," Sofia said.
"Two," Tariq said.
"One," Ava said.
A thumb pressed. The device sighed a different sigh. The code landed as if it had been waiting in the alley.
"R-Route-Alias-013," the voice said. "Alias conflict."
"Tokens," Elias said. "Read last four."
"Four two zero three," she said.
Sofia boxed the code and the token. "Posted," she said. "Time thirteen thirty five. Third cart. Pop-up."
"Fix," Ava said.
"Same recipe," Elias said. "New label. New channel. Flush edge. The cart will show a new button. Items will stay."
"Consent," Ava said.
"Consent," she said.
"Assigning," Elias said. "Flushing."
The handheld in the alley two blocks away grayed and then remembered to be a button again.
"What do you see," Ava said.
"My name," she said. "New button. Same keychain."
"Proceed," Ava said.
The button became an approval with a token that did not try to flirt with its neighbor's number.
"Read the last line," Ava said.
"Approved," she said. "Token four two zero four."
Sofia wrote it and boxed it. "Posted," she said. "Photo by the cart later if they consent. For now numbers only."
"Appendix," Ava said.
"Add 'pop-up carts require unique labels' to the alias route note," Elias said. "Short. No adjectives."
"Posted," Sofia said. "Caption the same."
The person with the mic near the sedan tried to look like surprise could be a tool and failed. He lowered the tool and filmed the street being itself.
"Footer," Ava said.
"Six hundred and twelve," Sofia said. "It will look odd," she added, "because the cart spent two dollars. We will not round."
"We will not round," Ava said.
The woman from River cleared her throat so the line would know she was still here. "Thank you," she said. "I will tape my receipt next to the dog in the sweater."
"Good museum," Ava said.
A different chime lifted from the tablet. Sofia angled it and did not let her face learn anything it did not need for the work. "Board aide requests a hallway sentence at thirteen fifty five," she said. "If we are still in motion, runner will carry."
"We will be at Silver Harbor," Ava said. "Write it now so the runner moves on time."
Sofia wrote while she said it aloud. "River fix verified," she read. "Alias split, distinct channels, approvals posted with tokens. Silver Harbor at fourteen thirty. Pin live by Chair direction."
"Time," Tariq said reflexively.
"Thirteen thirty seven," security said without turning.
The small speaker took one more breath. Comms spoke with the tone of a person who likes clocks because clocks are honest. "Board notes River fix," the voice said. "They continue in executive session. No freeze requests."
"Good," Ava said.
The truck's dog decided there was nothing more to learn and turned a slow circle. The person in the truck looked like someone who would tell a friend about this with half the details wrong and all the important ones correct.
"Route," Sofia said. "Silver Harbor is six minutes by car with this traffic if green favors us."
"It will favor us," Ava said. "Post the line. We are moving."
Tariq tucked the consent sheet. Elias checked the headset. Security made space with hands that stayed open even when the world tries to make hands choose other shapes.
Sofia mirrored the River photo into the ledger and pinned the appendix slice under it so a reader would not have to guess how facts joined. She added one more small line at the bottom because repetition teaches. "Panels clean," she wrote. "Work continues."
The pop-up cart voice came back, smaller now that money had moved. "Do I keep my blue tape name," she said.
"Keep it if you like it," Ava said. "Just make sure the label on the device learns that name alone."
"I will write it again slow," she said. "My aunt says words behave when you write them slow."
"Your aunt is correct," Ava said.
The dog sneezed. The person in the truck laughed into their sleeve to keep the laugh from being a performance.
Sofia lifted the tablet. "We have a runner window," she said. "If we push now, we make Silver Harbor with a two-minute cushion."
"Walk," Ava said.
They turned toward the car. The block let them go because the block had gotten what it needed.
The speaker ticked once more. A new voice, thinner, came through. "This is River Pop's neighbor," he said from somewhere between caution and a favor. "I just got R-Route-Alias-014. I am three doors down."
Sofia looked at the tablet and then at Ava. "New code," she said. "Same street."
Security measured the curb. Tariq measured the minutes. Elias measured the edge.
Ava looked at the car and then back down River. She did not raise her voice.
Each River cart gets its own door now.
"Consent," she said into the speaker. "Describe your label."
"'River Bits,'" he said. "We thought it was funny."
"Funny is allowed," she said. "Hold a keychain or something cheap. Do not press pay."
"Ready," he said.
"Count," Ava said.
"Three," Sofia said.
"Two," Tariq said.
"One," Ava said.
The block listened again.