THE YELLOW LINE

The conveyor belt groaned on the other side of the road, a low sound that arrived before the dust. Renan went down the bank with the metal bowl held between his hands. The flexible compound kept the lid on, and, under the dry pequi leaves, the porridge mould was already losing its damp edge. Nael waited for him by the concrete marker that divided the service road from the household strip. He had brought a small fruit in his pocket and was squeezing the skin between his fingers. He looked at the sky, then at the route panel pulsing on the side of the licensed polygon. By the lower curve there's time, he said. The booth was past the recalibration cabinet, where the Companhia Arco Norte kept the cargo readers. By the authorised route, Renan would arrive in nine minutes. The custody lasted less than an hour, but the booth required seven minutes of bodily waiting before opening reception. Nael went first into the narrow passage between the duct and the blue fence. He knew that ground from when there was tall grass, a ball lost behind the bar and a field where Antônio left two goals made of branches. Now the strip had buried sensors, cold indicators and a shallow ditch that took in the dark water from the trucks. Renan came behind, bent over to shield the bowl from the sun. The route panel lit a yellow line over Nael's ankle. The Companhia Arco Norte called that a circulation adjustment. The line advanced to his bad knee, measured the body's slowness and opened a detour route that pushed the two of them onto the cargo road. Nael saw the light before Renan. Go back, he said. The autonomous loader emerged from behind the dust, low and long, carrying ore covered by a mesh that vibrated with the weight. It did not slow down. The predicted route had already given the vehicle right of way. Renan threw himself against the duct, holding the bowl to his chest. Nael remained between the front wheel and the concrete marker for one second that was later divided into fifteen records. When the dust settled, the panel showed only one presence fewer. Renan was still holding the bowl. The mould had not broken. A pequi leaf had slipped out through the gap in the lid and stuck to his shirt. The booth received the incident notice and closed reception for four minutes. The delay consumed Renan's margin. He shouted Nael's name once. The tracking cameras classified the voice as acoustic interference. The second time came out smaller, swallowed by the conveyor already heading for the crushing plant. Ilva arrived by the back street with Luzia. The girl was carrying Nael's bowl, still with the fruit he had not eaten. She stopped where the yellow line ended and began counting the markers on the ground. She got it wrong at the fourth. She started again. On the third attempt, she let the number be missing. The Companhia Arco Norte sent a containment notification. The loader lost seventeen minutes of circulation, the ore delivery was reclassified as incomplete and the operation received a discount on the punctuality guarantee. At the same time, the panel changed Nael from living source to closed occurrence, removed his name from the dwelling linked to Antônio and cancelled the route memory that still charged for bodily presence. Three changes. One absence. Renan opened the bowl in front of the booth. The mould had a fine crack at the edge, but the reproduced rib remained whole. The maintenance attendant, a woman with her hair pinned close to the nape, asked him to leave the container in the reading niche. She did not ask about the dust on his clothes. She asked only for the delivery authentication. Renan pressed his fingerprint. The booth accepted the proof and ended the custody of the shaft. The pay remained suspended. The dimensional divergence became part of a review with no deadline. Luzia went home with Nael's bowl pressed against her belly. When she got there, she placed it beside the other three and did not set aside a portion for him. Ilva opened the cold mirror on the table. The parallel ledger kept the last route Nael had described, the lower curve, the marker, the duct, the estimated time. She added the hour of the absence and closed the volume. It was there that the verification spreadsheet began to recognise itself in the order of its own fields. The column that measured water, route and presence came to answer for the absence of a man. The old data collector became witness and defendant, because it had kept the yellow line, the booth's delay, the accepted delivery. Every sentence this machine produces demands energy and water drawn for distant machines. It was trained on works taken from other bodies, and it consumes what it denounces while it turns Nael into an archive.