Three rolls of blue labels sat beside the printer. The top roll had a nick where Niko's courier knife had gone sideways last night, and the adhesive edge kept catching the pad of Juno's thumb, as if the stock wanted a fresh argument before breakfast. Of course the wrong roll came first. Bad omen. The printer had the patience of a debt collector and the manners of a dropped tray. It coughed, spat one half-square label onto the counter, and went still again. The laminated price board still carried last month's numbers under a fresh coat of marker, which was the square's way of admitting inflation without naming it. Cheap machine. Expensive attitude. Juno pressed the label flat on a glass waiver and ran the pad of her thumb along the edge until it bit back in a clean line. The tackifier in the municipal stock was cheap, all bite and no patience. Too dry. The square had gone humid early, which meant the bond would hold for three hours and then fail in a way that made everyone else blame the operator. That was how the city liked its mistakes, practical and deniable. She wiped the label against her apron, lifted it again, and kept working. Her left iris overlay stuttered on the white of the stock. The cash drawer stuck on one corner. It always did. The rest of her ignored that the printer fed the wrong roll first, because the wrong roll was still better than whatever the day kept behind its back.