Greed

The machines clattered along as he sat. Their quiet hum filled his ears as they had every day for the past 20 or so years. In fact, now that he thought about it, this coming Wednesday would be his 20th anniversary of working the factory. Not that he remembered what he did before the factory. He glanced out at the other workers. Each minded their own machine. He didn’t know what any of the other machines did. They were mysterious. He wondered to himself if the others knew what his machine did. Most likely not. After all, he barely knew what his machine did–only how, no, that he had to run it. “This manufactures frontal bypassers,” they had told him. Then, they had simply told him how to operate it. “Always run a diagnostic when you get on shift,” they instructed; “the machine will run through its checks itself. Don’t touch it.”

His deep train of thought was suddenly broken as the lights darkened to an inky black and the machines stuttered to a halt. A hushed silence enveloped the room.

A tiny clank as metal struck metal. One red light in the darkness. The Inspector made its way over to a terminal. Green symbols flashed up on the screen as the ray scanned across the glass. He couldn’t tell what they meant. It wasn’t his place to know, anyways. He looked away–he shouldn’t have looked in the first place. The bright red fire in the eye of the Inspector–always watching–scanned the room. It could see what they could not.

Nobody had ever seen the Inspector. The room was always darkened. All they could see was the lamp, ever-burning. They knew its sound. The sound of the metal on metal, its steel appendages striking the floor and striking terror. The strange, garbled noises that sometimes emanated from it. They knew its feeling as the red eye passed over you. You could feel its cold yet hot, indifferent yet angry, unfeeling yet hateful gaze as the light blinded you, and you would have to shield your eyes. This is what he did now as the judging sun glared at him.

But then it was past. The terminal shut off, and the eye disappeared as the sound of the Inspector walking resumed, and then ended, with silence and pitch-blackness returning for a few moments before the machines whirred back to life and the lights turned back on.

It was the end of his shift before he knew it. He locked his terminal. It remained visible, but unalterable. Whoever would take over this machine for the next shift–he didn’t know who they were–would be able to unlock it without any issue. It worked on fingerprint recognition. They were all given fingerprints that would work with their assigned machine when they took the job.

His plastic heels clacked against the harsh linoleum as he walked towards the set of opaque double doors that led into the facility. It was the loudest he ever felt. His coworkers paid him no heed as he walked behind them–they remained totally consumed by their work and their machines, generating the only other sound he could hear: their low, ever-present hum. It filled his ears as he approached the doorway, and silently, the doors swung open as he pushed them, and as they swung shut behind him, he left the hum behind.

The floor here was made of the same material as the workroom. Ceilings were low over his head as a hard light was cast by fluorescent  bulbs, invisible to the naked eye. He passed more opaque doors as he walked down the hallway, following the arrows on the floor. He took a left. The lights flickered for a second. They didn’t again. He took a right. His legs took him where they would–by now, it was instinct. In any case, the arrows showed him clearly where to go. He took another right. A quiet, lower-pitched hum than the last one became audible. A left. He stopped in his tracks. Another set of opaque doors sat in front of him.

CAFETERIA

The sign was simple, utilitarian. A black word on a white background. He pushed the doors open.

The cafeteria was silent. He made his way over to his assigned cubicle, the backs of the others turned to him, and took a seat. A small gray tray slid out from a slot in the wall. His food was already on it. Potatoes and beans, with a slice of bread and vitamins. The usual. He wolfed it down, and before he knew it, it was completely gone. It wouldn’t be until the end of his next shift that he had another meal, but it’d be enough. The tray, empty, was put back into the slot it came from. A soft hiss emerged from the hole, and then it was quiet once again. Dinner.

He left out the other end of the cafeteria, though a similar set of doors. A sign hung from the ceiling, detailing directions to various parts of the facility. Most of them meant nothing to him; after all, the whole of the installation was totally unknown to him. He saw but a small fraction of it–he knew that. He had no idea what any of the other sections of it were. Every day, he simply scurried between his station, the cafeteria, and his sleep chamber, like a rat.

Mindlessly, he continued down the hallway, and took a left. The quiet hum from before returned. He took a second left. He was completely alone in the hallway. Now he stood in front of an elevator. The doors opened silently as he stood in front of them. No one stepped out. He stepped in. He felt a rush of air as the doors closed behind him. The walls were blank, and the elev​​ator was quiet. The floor began to fall beneath him, but he followed. In a few moments, the doors opened again, leading directly to his chamber. It was spartan, having only a bed just large enough for him, a table with a clock, a small compartment for the next day’s uniform, and a compartment to dispose of today’s uniform. The clock read 4:28.

He stepped out of the elevator and into his cell, and began undressing. He slept naked. He opened one of the compartments, put today’s shoes and uniform in it, and closed it. The white plastic bed was hard as stone, but it didn’t matter. At this point, he hardly even noticed as he pulled the sheet over him. The vitamins would kick in soon. A few minutes later, he lay still.

He woke up feeling refreshed as ever, and without so much as a yawn, rolled out of bed, and put his uniform on. He glanced at the clock again. 9:05. The elevator doors were already open and waiting for him. He walked in, and then walked out, back into his cubicle. The elevator doors remained open, beckoning him to step inside and go on with his day. He didn’t. Instead, he stared at the doors, puzzling over them, and puzzling over his own puzzling over the doors. Eventually he was brought to his senses by a loud beep from the elevator, bringing him back to reality, and he moved inside. Now when he walked out the elevator doors, he was not at his chamber anymore, and instinct returned to guide him down the hallway to his next shift. He took a right. The harsh lights illuminated an empty hall. Another right. The hard rustle of his uniform’s fabric. A left, and he was at the opaque doors to his workroom. Pushing them open, he kept his eyes away from the other workers and other machines. Coming to his machine, it was already on and waiting for him. He logged in and started up a diagnostic, as was his duty. The machine appeared to be in working order, as expected, and the familiar hum of the machine he had worked slowly ramped up.

Per usual, his shift passed uneventfully, and at the expected time, the lights darkened. Near-silence filled the room as the hard, metallic sound of the Inspector’s movement became the only sound. Once again, the burning flame in its eye lit the room. The terminal lit up again, filled with gibberish he couldn’t understand. It scanned it, did its job, and the intensity of the sound of its movement made it known that it had gone.

The lights flickered back on and every machine returned to being worked with, except for one left empty. The glow of the terminal still radiated from it as its gears spun. He glanced about him at each person focused on their own work. Then, he did something he knew was unacceptable: he left his station. He crept over to the empty workspace. The machine ran as if there was a person still there, attending to it. How odd that there was no one to fill the space of the missing worker.

Numbers and words sped past on the control panel’s screen. The quiet whirring of whatever was inside the machine continued. He had no idea what this machine did–it was not his business; at least, that’s what they had told him. He glanced nervously around, just to make sure no one was watching him. They weren’t. They remained absorbed in their machines, their work, their mundanities. Cautiously, he turned his gaze back towards the panel, and furrowed his brow as he peered curiously at it. Symbols flashed, serial numbers scrolled by, colors darted across. What did it all mean? What could it possibly be making? What–

It was no longer his business to wonder. The machine clattered to a halt. The room was once again plunged into darkness. He scrambled behind the empty machine as a familiar crimson light lit itself aflame. This was unexpected. The Inspector was supposed to make regular visits–once a night, around the midpoint of his shift. To come at another time was wholly uncharacteristic.

The hard clash of its steel apparatus of movement made itself heard. He saw the fire sputter out, but the lights remained dark. All was silent. His breath slowed until it was almost completely inaudible. He dared not move, lest he alert the Inspector of his wrongdoing. After a few moments, he still had not seen the Inspector’s light return, and he let out a long, quiet breath of relief.

The Inspector turned, and its blazing eye burned itself into his retinas; it burned with a hatred, an impersonal hostility, a detached animosity, unlike anything he had ever seen. He was frozen, ice-cold, as the Inspector advanced towards him. He was paralyzed. It came closer and closer. The flame grew. Now it filled his vision–up against his face–past his face.

The lights flickered back on. The machines whirred back to life. They continued their work, simply with a part missing.