SIX CENTIMETRES OF COPPER

Twenty-six minutes were left when the tap lost half its stream. The pump kept turning, but the utility company had lowered the pressure to push Antônio into touching the offer before the deadline. Luzia set the bowl under the spout. The water took forty-three seconds to cover the bottom, fourteen more than at the last measurement. Antônio opened the itemised bill. The readiness fee took up two meals, four hours of cooking and the energy set aside for a long message. Industrial priority would take the yard for eight cycles. The occupant's stay would be bound to the water passage, as if his body were a bend in the pipe. Ilva stayed near the entrance. Since the news about Nael, any word of hers reached Antônio with the roughness of an overdue bill. In the service cupboard there were three load limiters, reconditioned parts the utility company had been handing out for days. They had turned up in quantity after the datacentre owners, shielded by public incentives, pushed the price of peak energy onto household addresses. The part accepted the industrial surplus and cut the kitchen first, then the pump, and finally the non-priority communications. It cost little because its function was to make bearable, for the company, what grew dearer for the house. Antônio removed the panel, which had no screws. The new rotor vibrated behind the grille, cooled by an air none of the four received. Below it, the adapted ring kept the joint sealed. Two cables left the household line. One fed the bar. The other ran to the technical load billed since the rotor was installed. If I put the limiter before the branch, said Antônio, the Company loses its case for ready capacity. And how much does the house lose, asked Luzia. The kitchen at night. The pump at peak hour. Long messages only with purchased credit. She looked at the bar's panel, where the indicator tied to his son's presence was still dark. Antônio had already composed three messages during the journey. None had got past the voice rehearsal. The deadline dropped to nineteen minutes. The occupant held up the cupboard panel while Antônio loosened the upper clip. The reconditioned part had a copper strip narrower than the slot. They would have to take the conductor from the cooking line and use it as a bridge. That would leave the bar without electric heating even outside cut-off hours. Ilva brought the household terminal closer. Her intervention remained suspended, and the algorithmic optics erased the instructions at once when it recognised her face. Antônio turned the screen towards himself. His iris opened only the sequence authorised for the account holder. First he requested by voice command the null band for the counter load. The light above the sink died. Then he shifted the clip with the cracked-handled spoon, took six centimetres of the cooking conductor and fitted the copper into the limiter's opening. The spoon slipped once. No one caught it before he did. The utility company detected the alteration. The panel reported that refusal of industrial priority could be processed upon enrolment in eight cycles of household containment. The tariff board had authorised that exchange. The datacentre consortium would receive load stability, the Company would keep the yard strip only as a suspended project, and the house would pay the difference in hours without the pump. Eleven minutes remained. Antônio fitted the limiter between the household intake and the technical branch. It still had to be authenticated. Before offering his palm, he chose on the panel who would answer for the containment when he was away. The occupant's outline appeared without a name. If I accept, you're bound to the cupboard for eight cycles, said Antônio. You can't leave during the cut without bringing another responsible presence. And after. After, the house decides again. Ilva turned her face away. The occupant brought his face to the reader. The conditional line changed to load custody. His debt grew by two units of energy. In return, he no longer depended on the occupancy review until the end of the eight cycles. Antônio authenticated the containment. The offer of industrial priority disappeared. The yard strip became a suspended project, with no works permit. The readiness fee was partly written off. One meal remained, charged for the interval in which the capacity had been reserved. The limiter closed the circuit with a dry snap. The pump stopped. Luzia counted to ten, the bowl still under the tap. Not a drop fell. The panel marked the first containment period, two hours and twenty minutes. In the kitchen, electric cooking was blocked until the next morning. Antônio put the cupboard panel back. The bar would have to cook on the old furnace, with what little fuel was left. The long message to his son lost its energy reserve. He opened the channel anyway, saw the dark dot and closed it before recording. Luzia carried the bowl, its bottom wet, to the counter. She divided that thin film among four containers, getting the sum wrong so that Antônio would have to correct it. He didn't. The occupant watched the new bond pulse above the entrance to the corridor. Eight cycles. Antônio reopened the channel, marked the three rehearsals for preservation and let the dark dot pulse until the panel went black.