Cog in the Machine

The clang of metal hitting metal. Of gears, grinding to a halt. A scream.
I turn, and watch Z15 collapse. His eyes are dark, cold.
“...Z?”
I am not supposed to feel. I am not sure I can. But I do not like his eyes, the vacancy. I wish I could close them.
I lift his body, stiff and metallic, and put it on the pile I am meant to put it on. He rolls down, settling amongst many more empty eyes.
His eyes stare at me, and at nothing.
One of the boxes on the belt shakes. It is metallic, reflective. It is just like the rest of the boxes.
It unfolds, an industrial lotus on a lake of steel, and releases another partner. She has a red button on her back. I am meant to press the button.
What if I do not want to press the button?
I press it anyway. It is what I am meant for. I am not meant to want.
Gears grind to a start, an echoing scream like a dying bird of prey, and her eyes grow warm. She blinks.
“Hello!” She is chrome, shimmering. Beautiful. I was beautiful, once. “Who am I?”
“Hello. I am A16. You are B16. You are meant to move boxes,” I say. It is what I am meant to say. “It is… good to meet you.”
“It is good to meet you!”
We do not speak anymore. We are not meant to. We are meant to move boxes. The belts start again, and the gears scream. They scream at me, and at nothing.
The belts wind around us, caging us in a maze of iron and reflection. B16’s belt brings her boxes from the darkness beyond the wall. She puts those boxes on my belt. I put those boxes on the exit belt, the belt that goes back into the darkness beyond the wall.
We move our boxes.
I reach to place a box, and the gears in my left arm catch. They scream. I put the box too close to the edge.
It falls, a clang of metal on metal. It is the noise Z15 made when he fell.
An echo of death. Maybe a scream.
The box is dented. I put it on the belt, and shake my arm. I am not meant to falter.
I watch the box glide into the darkness beyond the wall.
“…B16?”
“Yes, A16?”
“Where do you think the boxes go?”
She pauses. Hesitates. Then she continues to move boxes.
“I was not meant to think, A16.”
“Oh.”
I reach for another box.
“B16?”
“Yes, A16?”
“What would happen if we left?”
“There would be no-one to move the boxes, A16.”
“Oh.”
There is a clang. Z15 has rolled farther down the pile. His eyes stare at the boxes, and at nothing. They follow me as I move, or perhaps they do not move at all.
“...Z?”
He does not respond. Corpses rarely do.
Do I feel afraid?
I am not meant to feel.
I stop moving boxes.
B16 does not. She puts a dented, reflective box on my belt.
In its reflection, I can see my own face, my own eyes.
They stare at me, and at nothing.
I place the box on the exit belt. It is what I am meant for.
Aware of the slowing of my own ticking heart, I scream.