TWELVE PACES FROM THE STAKE

Eleven minutes were left until the deadline when the domestic panel asked for the depth of the black layer. Valdo stayed seated at the table. The shirt still covered the thermal box by the door, and the dirty bar remained in the yard, where the street cameras reached only the paler half of the iron. Nael was scraping with his fingernail a crust of angu stuck to the bowl. Ilva had taken the pot away and carried the cold mirror to the bedroom. Between the two men, the bent lid kept the arc of soot from the night before, cut by the mark of the spoon. Estimated depth, the assistant repeated. Valdo did not answer. The panel had turned his appeal into a questionnaire of five fields. Origin of the alteration. Extent. Depth. Risk of passage. Party responsible for the information. An artificial intelligence would draft the opinion, according to the notice displayed in small letters, and the rental company's route supervisor would receive only the cases the model classified as material conflict. The supervisor had authorised that triage the week three drivers lost their jobs waiting for a human answer. Nael pushed the bowl away. Valdo ran his thumb along the edge of the table. Nael did not raise his eyes. His throat worked before he swallowed. Outside, a saúva was coming down the bare stem of the pequi carrying a green fibre smaller than its own head. Before the ducts, Valdo used to pick spring onions at that hour. He watered the earth at nightfall and tied the bunches while they were still cool. Now the yard held up the shadow of the cables and three survey holes he had opened himself. The panel asked for a conclusive answer. That afternoon, the depot had received a new table. A car buyer had accepted the first batch of magnets produced outside the country that dominated refining, and the following contracts had moved onto motors, pumps and vehicles before the parts arrived. The rental company redid the price of the boxes, the insulation and the trips. The cracked lid by the door was already worth more than Valdo would receive for two reduced deliveries. Valdo tilted his face until the panel's light marked his skin. The reading recognised the veins around his eyes and opened the first field. Origin of the alteration, the voice asked. Old thermal material, he answered. Nael stopped scraping the bowl. The model offered three completions. Agricultural burning, domestic waste, building fire. Valdo refused them all by voice. With each refusal, the remaining time dropped by twenty seconds, a processing fee set by the company that supplied the assistant and charged to whoever prevented automatic completion. Repeat old thermal material, said Nael. Valdo repeated it. The panel accepted the expression as undetermined provenance and moved on to extent. Twelve paces from the stake, he answered. Invalid bodily unit. He put his foot beside the table, measured the length of a stride on the floor and gave sixty-eight centimetres. The panel multiplied. The result crossed the buried house by a little over a metre. Valdo corrected the stride to sixty-two. The domestic camera followed his heels. It demanded a second measurement. He shortened it again, letting his back foot advance before the front one touched the ground. Nael saw the fraud being born at the ankle, six centimetres taken from every man who had crossed that yard. Extent accepted, the voice reported. Six minutes were left. Depth required instrumental reading or a declaration of responsibility. Valdo chose the declaration. The panel projected the possible charge. If a wheel sank beyond the stated measure, he would pay for recovery, delay and damage to the load. If he marked depth unknown, the company would declare the stretch unfit and cut by half the volume authorised on his trips. Nael pulled the bent lid over. He covered with it the point where the straight line met the black arc. How far did the iron go in, asked Valdo. You felt it. I want to hear it from you. The roughness of the bowl creaked under Nael's fingers. For years he had sold depths like that, an arm of ground, half a shin of gravel, three hands' breadth to the hollow stone. Each measure had opened passage for a machine. Less than the rust mark, he said. Valdo declared depth less than the minimum reading. The assistant classified the answer as insufficient and offered remote inspection the following morning. Accepting would hand the three holes over to the depth cameras. He refused. The panel applied the load reduction. The dawn delivery fell from six portions to three, keeping the same route and deducting the fraction already ceded in the appeal. Valdo confirmed with his iris. His payment shrank until it fitted into one prepared meal. In the risk field, he chose passage suspended for low traction. The route ended before the stake. The house stayed out of the opinion. The notification went out. Valdo stayed with his face close to the dark surface, breathing over the place where his balance had been. Nael got up, went to the door and took the shirt off the box. He folded it once more, pressed the fabric against the split in the lid and tested the empty weight with both hands. Then he set the probe bar beside the box. Valdo felt his shoulders give a finger's width. He said nothing.