THE QUEEN UNDER THE CHAIR

Entry available. Eight minutes. The light came down over the threshold and reached the folded lid, where Antônio's portion was beginning to crack under the sun. The collector kept one foot in the street. The lens man brought his face closer to the food, and the empty chair cast a short shadow over it, not enough to protect it. Nael stayed in front of the two of them. Valdo, sitting on the porch, held his injured index finger over his thigh. Ilva had stepped back to the table, leaving the corridor to the yard clear. If they came in, they would find three places used and one prepared for someone who was not there. If they stayed outside, the rental company would keep Antônio's name tied to the buried layer with the convenient precision of a paid error. The first saúva climbed the edge of the lid. Nael watched it reach a crack in the corn. Another appeared by the leg of the chair, then five, then a dark strip that came from the yard, crossed the kitchen and went out through the door. The ants had abandoned the pequi seedling. They carried green fragments, bits of the rusted screen and grains of damp earth held in their mandibles. The collector moved her boot away. There's an anthill inside, she said. Underneath, answered Nael. The difference made the lens man lean in. The saúvas were not following the dry side of the house. They were emerging from a crack between the door sill and the adobe, where the shade had kept enough moisture to soften the ground. One of them pulled at the dough. Two came to help. The portion meant for Antônio began to walk in crumbs into the house the team did not yet have authorisation to call his. Valdo stood up. When he grew cheiro-verde behind his own house, he could recognise an anthill moving by the time of day. Before the pump was taken away, they came down at dusk and cut the beds during the night. Now they came out under the sun, fleeing the earth heated by the ducts and the dry strip opened between the mine workings and the datacenter. They're moving the queen, he said. Where, asked Ilva. Valdo pointed with his good hand. A larger saúva appeared in the crack, surrounded by smaller workers. Its wings were gnawed and its abdomen covered in mud. The whole group changed direction when the light of the lens touched the ground. Instead of going on to the kitchen, it turned by the blue cloth and began to work its way under the basin. Nael moved the chair out of the way. The collector took half a step forward, but stopped when hundreds of ants took over the threshold. Seven minutes, warned the façade. Pick up the lid, said Ilva. Nael lowered his hand. Valdo held him by the forearm. If you lift it, they'll scatter. If you leave it, they'll eat it. It's his food, said the collector, looking at the occupancy line lit on her body panel. Nael turned to her. It was. The word released Antônio from the portion and bound him more tightly to the house. The woman accepted the correction by half. She logged food of an absent titleholder, an entry that allowed the company to treat the bar as a residence maintained during abandonment. The name gained a bed without needing a body. The saúvas dragged most of it under the cloth. The basin vibrated. A scraping sound ran across the floor and ended near the yard. Valdo crouched, touched two fingers to the ground, then pulled his hand away quickly. The heat was coming from below. When he played ball there with Antônio, the earth gave way under their feet after the rains. The two of them filled the hollow with corn husks so the ball would not swerve. Mining had deepened the cut in the land, the cables of the intelligence infrastructure heated the shallow layer, and that old depression survived as a passage for insects. The buried house breathed through a colony. Nael looked at Valdo. You knew about the crack. I knew about the old anthill. And you didn't say. You didn't say anything about the upper curve either. The line of saúvas thickened between them. Valdo took the empty chair and set it on two legs, making a bridge over the trail. Nael held up the other side. For the first time since the stake, they were both carrying the same weight without hiding the direction. The collector stepped back into the street. The lens man tried to go round by the yard, but the ants were already crossing the corridor in three lines. The queen passed under the chair. Then came white larvae, carried one by one, and Antônio's corn, reduced to splinters. The entry expired while the team waited for a way through. The woman informed them that she would come back with biological containment and that Antônio's occupancy would remain under review. Nael did not answer. Valdo lowered his side of the chair. Nael kept his raised until the last larva had passed. Then the two of them crossed the kitchen, carrying the chair to the yard.