In Secret Machine, the protagonist encounters an antagonist that is studying her, measuring her body and comparing her to units of space and time. Clocks rush and her movements are calculated on a grid: the eye is observed augmented through lenses; under water her breath is submitted to a resistance rate; needles are used to quantify her reactions and pain: and storing machines capture voice and motion. For the scientist measurement is understanding. While human nature appears confined in the framework and efforts of rationality, the aspiration of trapping the soul conduce the antagonist to imagine the improvable. At the operation table she opened a small vivisection in the patient's body. With a flower stigma she proceeds to pollinate her, giving to nectar and blood the same flow.