FIVE SECONDS AND EIGHT TENTHS

Eleven minutes separated the first rehearsal from the second, though Antônio had produced them on the same afternoon. The interval was full of erasures. The voice channel had kept the opening of the mouth, the refused breath, three syllables of his son's name and the noise of the conveyor that would later strike Nael. The cold mirror preserved what the network had received already diminished. Antônio held the spoon before Ilva. Erase the first one, he said. She rested the data collector on the counter. The bandage on her hand had dried crooked, binding two fingers, and the heat built up under the fabric made the skin itch. Luzia came closer to see the screen. The man stayed seated by the grey box, his foot raised, responsible for a load that pulsed behind the cabinet panel. The rehearsal was fifty-two seconds long. Ilva opened the source layer. The device showed the file, two backup copies and the link to other household records. One of them was tied to the measurement of the pequi's death. Antônio's voice ran beneath Luzia's audio, almost inaudible, saying he would come back before the earth hardened. If you erase it whole, it takes a part of her with it, said Ilva. Luzia pulled her own bowl away from the device. My voice stays. Antônio tried to reach out, but the burned fingers would not open far enough to reach the screen. He rested his fist on the counter. Then separate it. The data collector did this work without asking permission from the holders of the water-use concession. Separating cost time. The old machine had to go through each second, distinguish the overlapping frequencies and rebuild two tracks where there had been only one. The optical reader recognised Ilva's iris and released the reading. The collector heated up at the base. Outside, the pale dust from the mine settled on the leaves of the murici. Two caterpillars that had escaped the flour gnawed a darkened edge and stopped before the part covered by the mineral powder. Further down, the grass ended in low tufts beside the strip opened for the datacenter's cables. The trench was wide enough for a body lying down and no insect crossed its hot floor. The first separation left Luzia with a metallic voice. The second preserved her breath and brought back Antônio's sentence. In the third, the conveyor swelled until it covered them both. Ilva lowered the bass band. The noise lost weight. The girl's voice reappeared with four gaps. It's bitten, said Luzia. It's what was left, answered Antônio. She looked at him. It was left because she spoke along with me. The household panel brightened above the sink. A tracking camera had detected acoustic activity with no synchronised origin. The utility company offered authenticity analysis upon submission of six seconds. In exchange, it would attach a timestamp proof to the house's registration. Antônio read the offer and ran his tongue over his teeth. Six seconds were enough for the company to recognise the voice he had never sent to his son. They were also enough to prove that Ilva had kept the rehearsals after the request for their return. In the blocked kitchen, the tool appeared for free. I want the proof, said Antônio. Ilva chose a stretch without the son's name. There were seven seconds of breathing, hinge and motor. She cut the first. She cut the last. Five seconds and eight tenths remained. The panel refused. She added two tenths of his voice. An open vowel went into the package. The utility company accepted the sample, recognised Antônio as probable origin and created a custody record. The panel declared that three derived files remained in Ilva's local possession. From that moment on, he could demand formal deletion, and she had lost the right to claim she kept only measurements. Antônio asked for the breakdown. The record showed duration, time and an indication of inferred recipient. The son's name appeared without anyone saying it. The presence dot on the bar's screen lit up. Luzia counted to four. She miscounted to five. The dot stayed lit. Ilva went back to the collector. She separated the girl's track with the four gaps and placed it beside the pequi record. Then she selected Antônio's rehearsal. The deletion function required three passes over the memory. In the first, the shape of the voice lost its outline. In the second, short blocks remained. In the third, the collector filled the space with sequences of no origin. The work took nine minutes. Antônio followed each pass without sitting down. At the end, the file no longer opened. The copy tied to Luzia's voice held only the girl, the breath and the four bites. Ilva showed the empty screen. Antônio checked the zeroed duration and pressed his fist to the panel's optical reader. The utility company attached the deletion to the custody proof. The son's dot remained lit. Now he could request the two remaining rehearsals, because the sample had revealed they had been meant for him. Ilva closed the cold mirror and stored it in the low volume. The man raised his head. Antônio kept his eyes on the lit dot until the kitchen darkened around him.