"You can't go in." The guard's voice was flat, practiced—like he'd said it a thousand times and wanted to say it a thousand more. He glanced at me as if I were a minor nuisance: polite, dismissible, a splinter on a polished hand. The StreamWave logo glared above the revolving doors, chrome and confident. Cameras in the lobby tracked flashes of the red carpet arrivals. People in cocktail dresses and tailored suits flowed past. An assistant hustled by with a clipboard. A cluster of interns hovered near the valet, phones already up, fingers twitching for the first viral clip. "I'm on the list," I said. I held the envelope—a metallic invitation with my name printed in a serif I hated. It was glossy, obligatory stuff. The guard's earpiece crackled. He pointed past me to the crowd. "Orders." "Whose orders?" I asked. Short. Public. The word "orders" in an elevator-voice building always meant someone higher-up wanted optics, not fairness. The guard shrugged. "Security. Protocol." His eyes flicked to the glass doors and then to the staff entrance where a procession of StreamWave suits funneled in. "You can wait by the concierge." People stopped. The hum in the lobby shifted from practiced attention to something more like curiosity. Phones shifted, cameras found me. The interns edged closer, the kind of small predatory motion you learn to see after seven years in this city. When your face is currency, it’s the smallest things