THE THIRD FLAKE

Célia shared out the corn crust left on the rim of the bent lid. She scraped off three dry flakes, gave one to Nael and left the third on the stone, near the closed crack. Ilva refused her share with a shake of the head. On the other side, Antônio was moving forward with the sample held to his chest, but the earth kept them from hearing his steps. The wait lasted four minutes. Then five. The corridor panel closed the technical tariff and opened another charge. The utility company had classified the water diverted through the old channel as a water service provided by Antônio's property. The bar would receive a credit for preserving the seepage, less the remote assessment, the certification of the spring and the mineral custody. What remained was a negative balance equal to three meals. Célia read it in a low voice. Nael chewed the flake without looking at her. How much does he get, he asked. Nothing. He owes three. The previous tariff had consumed two meals. The reward for the water added the third debt. The datacenter consortium would buy the right to report a closed circuit, the utility company would charge for the verification, and Antônio would supply the land, the opened channel and the responsible name. The holders of the water-use concession called this environmental remuneration. The word remuneration fitted whole on the panel. In the mouth, it left dust. I write the charge before Antônio appears because that was how I had organised almost everything up to then. First his name, then what fell upon the name. That order granted him a kind of ownership over the disaster. Ilva touched the crack with the tip of her foot. The earth was still compact. She asked whether Antônio could hear. Nael pressed his face to the stone and waited. No answer. Célia opened the transmission to the newsroom. The sending band showed that the portal would accept twenty seconds of audio, as long as the story included the seal of the mining operation's advertiser. She recorded the charge, listened to her own voice and deleted it. She tried again. A property in the valley received credit for a water service and ended up in debt. She deleted that too. I know where the defect was. The word property drove out of the sentence the hands that had cleared the channel. Nael had taken out stone. Ilva had lost her band in the water. Célia had held up the contaminated food. Antônio had crossed the plate and received the negative value alone. The third flake of corn remained on the stone. A white insect came out of the crack, reached the crust and stopped. Nael pushed the food closer to it. Célia recorded again. Four people opened a passage for the water. One person was charged. This time she sent it. The newsroom's reply came in nine seconds. The portal's server was paid for by the operation's advertising, and the sentence should identify only the authenticated responsible party. If she kept four people, the submission would be classified as an account without bodily proof. She could pay the difference with her movement balance. The balance had been used up since the walk to the bar. I keep in the rejected file the version with four people. Then I remove the word property from the public version. The story loses priority, drops to the band with no image and stops generating professional credit for Célia. It was a small correction, the exact size of a name that would not go up on the page. Ilva noticed before she did. The panel projected institutional authorship, with no individual byline. Célia pressed her lips together and confirmed the submission with her iris. The newsroom accepted fifteen seconds. The charge appeared. The four pairs of hands did not. Nael knocked twice on the stone. The answer came from far off, a muffled impact, followed by another. Antônio was still moving. I remember the earlier order. It made him go forward alone out of courage, while the three waited behind the earth. I correct it now. He went forward because the utility company had fastened to his body the sample, the bar and forty days, and because Ilva had kept that load from passing to Célia. Each choice of the group had narrowed the corridor until only Antônio fitted. The guesthouse's power was reduced when the charge came in. Above them, the bank of units stopped feeding the preservation of the provisions. The panel calculated six hours until the loss of the two sealed portions kept in the bar. It offered to suspend the environmental debt if the responsible party authorised the consortium to use the old channel as water compensation. Antônio could not authenticate from there. Célia asked how much time was left. Ilva checked the projection. Eleven minutes to preserve one portion, twenty-three to lose both. Nael was already gathering the smaller stones by the crack. I saw what my first version favoured. Antônio occupied the opening, the son, the custody, the news. Behind him, three people lost food and authorship to keep whole the figure of the man going on ahead. Ilva crouched and moved earth aside with both hands. Célia put the remaining crust in her mouth, kept the device against her body and began to dig.