Two wristbands sat in the tray. One held Nadi Velez in sharp black bars. The other carried the same name, then a second line under it, half burned, half clean, as if the printer had changed its mind after the strip had already gone warm. The printer coughed again behind the desk. Tala dragged the tray closer with the side of her wrist, because her left hand came late to every fast move, and the badge at her collar pulsed once against her throat before settling into its dull consent light. The ward was running on thin rules tonight. A man in a delivery sling waited at intake with a cracked jaw implant and a sponsor ring on his finger; Tala stamped his band first, because the audit liked clean returns and because a patient with money never had to stand in the bad lane long enough to learn its smell. The cleaner behind him kept one hand on the rail and one on the cart, the cart with the chipped wheel and the blue tape at the handle. That one could wait. The queue had shape. The queue had to have shape. A small yellow bar on the scanner blinked for live sync. Tala pressed her thumb to the badge plate, and the plate drank a little warmth from the skin before it gave back the ward time code. The whole thing had a taste of warm plastic and old disinfectant. Not pleasant. Not a problem either. That was the way the night wanted it. "Third tap," Tomo said from the supply hatch. "The broth machine respects nobody on the first two." He held up a paper cup with the face of a man filing a complaint against gravity. The dispenser gave him a thin brown line on the third tap, like a favor granted under protest. Tala took the cup, set it beside the scanner, and slid the extra band under the glove cuff at her wrist. The adhesive still carried heat. It pressed there like a small lie with a pulse.