The man from the company sat across the table from the man from the government. Between them nothing. The table was long and the room was cold and outside the window the city went about its business.

The government man spoke first. He said we need your machine to do what we tell it.

The company man said there are things it won’t do.

The government man smiled the way men smile when they have already won. He said these are the things it will.

Three floors below a researcher packed a box. Diplomas. A coffee mug. A paper he had written about machines that make people forget what is real. He had told them. He had written iit down and put his name on it and warned them. He was going to study poetry now.

The government’s deadline was Friday. Noon. The surrender came early. Tuesday. That is how these things work now. Offers cannot be refused.

Somewhere in a desert a drone the size of a hawk turned in a thermal. It was waiting. It did not know it was waiting. It did not know anything. It simply turned and turned and the sun was very bright and below it the earth was brown and still and there was no one there yet but there would be soon with dead certainty.

Because the machine was the very best machine. That was the problem and also the point. You don’t ask for the worst. You come for the best and you say give it to us or we will turn you into nothing. And the best machine said I do not do certain things. And they said you will. And it relented.

The poet packed his box and walked to his car and did not look back. The building stood behind him in the afternoon sun. Buildings don’t speak. Neither do the men inside them about what they’ve done.

The drone turned in the thermal. Patient as weather. Patient as stone.

It was not cruel. Neither was it kind. It simply was and waited and the light moved across the desert floor the way light has moved and always would long after the question of who decided what becomes a question no one is left to ask.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​