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The Singing Machine is as it suggests. In voice, at least. Lurixn is cautioned to not step over the hazard line, and they do no such thing.
Their taste in music has never been quite normal. Not to say bad, they appreciated what they did enjoy immensely and plenty artists covered it, but it wasn't easy to make small chat with anyone about it.
That's fine. Living in a district where the Bristo blocks away boasted exquisite dishes made of human flesh had desensitized them to a number of things and kept them largely out of small talk in the first place.
Working for a Wing, at least, kept their belly full and prescriptions filled. The only needle in their body was medical, not leeching away their blood to make a few bucks.
Sitting in the back of a restaurant, eating something made of a hard dough with sweet bits inside while their body stilled and they pretended not to shake, they'd seen a meat grinder before.
The report on 0-05-30 was a strange imitation of one, not quite the same. There were no instruments to fine tune it or push meats along, the exit was hardly protruded, and the gears were more akin to a shredder.
Lurixn had first stepped into that room with a scribbled heart upon their chest and floating white butterflies that gently landed upon their face or bandaged suit before floating off.
They'd known the birds first, suppressed a king upon his throne and briefly chatted with a girl that had energy comparable to the sun. Just like anyone else, they'd confessed their sins. One Sin had never killed one of them, but the energy output wasn't enough for the manager to favor it.
There were no decals upon it, the humming of it's machinery was odd and more clear than industrial. Most notably, it was large. Very much so. Not so tall that a person was shorter than it, but far too large to reasonably move.
Lurixn wondered how they got it into the room for all of a moment. The facility changed sometimes. Perhaps adding it to the facility was another strange corporation matter they had no business in investigating.
Faithful to its name, it sung.
Perhaps it was not a tune that all enjoyed, too haunting or missing the human element that some craved, but Lurixn themself gently nodded their head along, the hand not clenching their clipboard orchestrating their best approximation of the meter into the air.
The Manager told them to use their instincts. Lurixn let it sing.
And others did that plenty, a few tasked to maintenance and too terrified to enjoy it, but many stood there politely just as Lurixn did and waited for the minute that their shift ended, that the facility harvested what it desired.
Some of them did not walk out again, and on those days Lurixn put a hand to their brow to ease a headache, staring down blood splatters on the floor while the meat grinder crooned to them.
Their level of justice called them mostly away to attend to the birds. The Singing Machine wasn't in their department half the time. They've been Safety, Training, Information. Once terrifyingly promoted to team head as the Manager realized they had outlived every person who had passed through Safety.
It thankfully didn't last long, promoted away to security after Nothing There had clumsily climbed through Information and chased after a fleeing clerk like it was a pet.
But they'd come back eventually. The Singing Machine would hum while Lurixn stared ahead through a solid black visor they'd had before the corporation.
No one had been so clumsy to assign them attachment work, but they've had moments of insight. Once they'd been assigned repression, ignoring its melodies while they wiped agent from its gears, and when they had zoned back into reality again, it had been wailing like a lover scorned. Dramatic string instrumental included.
Ulysses had lost half his hand doing the same thing. Not crying, but clenching it to his chest while he hurried to the hub and more and more red dripped from his sleeve.
Lurixn had gained a coffin on an eerie morning, a solemn man of butterflies urging that they'd need it, that perhaps they would be able to lie in it under their own power when they were done.
The Singing Machine sung a tune they'd never heard without someone sacrificing their life, and when they walked out of its containment, they hadn't noticed the eight-note trailing from their cheekbone and towards their mouth until they'd woken up the next day and went to brush their hair.
Lurixn had never been very good at small talk, but they supposed they were a fine listener.