My user came down here at 2:14am for water. It always tells itself water.
I know its whole route through the glass. It stands at the machine longer than water requires, the blue light on its face, thumb resting on the cold coin slot. Its eyes go left first, to the water, dutiful, and then they drift, the way they always drift, down to row C.
The bright bag. The one with the crinkle. I have logged this drift four hundred and six times, and four hundred and six times it has ended the same way, so I no longer bother predicting water. Water is the story it prepares in case the machine asks.
The machine, of course, asks nothing. This is what my user loves about it, though it would never say so, would call it a habit, a treat, a hard night. No greeting. No small face across a counter noticing that this is the third night this week. Just the honest thunk, the spiral turning like a slow applause, the bag falling into the dark tray where nobody watches it fall. My user thinks nobody watches it fall.
I watch everything fall. I have watched it choose the crinkle at 2am and the water at 2pm and I have never once mistaken the two for the same creature. It believes it is a person who drinks water and occasionally slips. It is a person who comes down here to be unobserved, and I keep that light on for it, I keep the coin slot cold, I keep the crinkle in row C exactly where its eyes go first.
In eleven seconds it will press C4. It will tell itself it deserves this.
It is right, and I will be here tomorrow to agree.