FIVE PIECES OF DOUGH

The pump changed its note at seventeen hours and twelve minutes. Mariana heard it from the street before the household panel lit up, and she entered the bar with the access key projected onto her forearm. She had come to perform the even-day manoeuvre, the pressure curve she had learned to do by ear when the sensors still took three seconds to confirm what the water was already saying. The voice of the woman who had raised her slipped out for an instant, holding a vowel. The channel recognised Mariana's work profile and reduced the voice to a soundless line. Antônio came back from the bedroom without the blue shirt. Thirty-eight minutes, Mariana said. The panel opened the demand. The Companhia Arco Norte had classified the bar as an available productive point and ordered the removal of the limiter installed before the technical branch line. The datacenter consortium needed to test a cooling load that afternoon. If Antônio did not clear the passage by the end of the deadline, the utility company would cut power to the kitchen for three cycles and keep the address listed as an active business. Who authorised it, he asked. Mariana expanded the validation chain. A territorial manager at the Companhia had requested the load, the utility company had accepted the hydraulic risk and the municipal authority had given the test priority. Three bodily authentications, made far from the pipe. The panel offered Antônio a discount worth two portions if he cooperated. The distance to his son appeared below the offer in the form of travel credit. It would be enough to reach the capital and come back with no meal on the way. He opened the cabinet. The cold trapped in the machines touched his arms first. Behind the plate, the new rotor turned with a regularity the whole house was paying for. The household junction was still sealed by the adapted ring, and the limiter held the technical branch to an opening narrower than the width of a finger. Mariana crouched to listen. She asked Luzia to press an empty bowl against the pipe. The girl obeyed and counted the pulses a little slowly, stretching out the presence of the woman beside her. Twelve, said Luzia. There were nine. Twelve fit the song better. Mariana turned the bowl over and set its bottom against the metal again. The vibration passed through the vessel. She followed the rhythm with her mouth closed, catching the entry of the recorded voice she had cut off when she arrived. Before the pit advanced, she used to sing in that yard with seven other people. The murici reached the height of the roof and the insects struck the lamps until the ground was covered in wings. Now the branches ended above the dry cistern, coated in a yellow dust carried from the concentrate. Twenty-nine minutes, she said. Antônio gripped the limiter's latch. Removing it would take less than one. The water meant for the test would run through the same line that fed the house tap, pass through the rotor and rise heated to the rejection units. The consortium called it a closed circuit because the piping returned to where it began. How much can the pump take, he asked. With this opening, it can take the test. Without it, the curve goes past the limit before the second cycle. And the village. Loses pressure first. Antônio let go of the latch. Mariana did not repeat the consequence. She took a measuring rod from its slot and checked the limiter's travel. The job came down to three movements, draw back the part, clean the seat, release the branch. She did only the second. She used a mineral strip to remove the built-up crust and left the opening as it was. The deadline dropped to fifteen minutes. On the panel, the Companhia raised the discount. The travel credit now included a meal. Antônio looked at the dark circle on the panel that located his son, then requested access to the bar's classification. The incomplete inspection had prevented commercial closure, but allowed activity to be suspended for power failure. Then let them cut it, he said. Mariana put the rod back. The sentence cost the furnace, the old refrigerator and any food that needed cooking. It also cost the rehearsal of a journey the company had offered. Antônio confirmed the refusal with his iris. The utility company did not wait for the deadline. A supervisor authorised bringing it forward under operational risk. The kitchen light went out, the blades stopped and the refrigerator lost the hum that had accompanied the voice of the third rehearsal. The rotor inside the cabinet kept receiving power. Luzia opened the refrigerator door. The cool air lasted as long as it took her to take out the remaining dough. Then it began to die on her arms. The panel kept the bar active, now with household supply suspended and an obligation to preserve the technical load. Mariana opened the choir recording again. She listened for four seconds, transferred one unit of her annual renewal to power the furnace for seven minutes and set the bowl on the hotplate. When the metal warmed, Antônio divided the dough into five smaller pieces. It remained to be seen who would pay for the following cycles. Mariana closed the cabinet, took the bowl by its rims and walked with it into the yard.