[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 30

^{Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21
Part 22
Part 23
Part 24
Part 25
Part 26
Part 27
Part 28
Part 29}

I wanted to hold onto Helper but didn’t know where to put my hands. Her body was rigid white plastic for the most part, segmented and articulated like a fancy doll. But everywhere she thought women ought to be soft consisted instead of flexible, membranous silicone bulging slightly from the glowing gelatinous filling.

That included her breasts, thighs, hips, buttocks, stomach and lips. “You could’ve left the lips off though, surely?” I muttered. “What does a machine need lips for?” She fished around in her cloak and produced a black tube. “So I can wear lipstick” she answered matter of factly as she carefully applied some.

“Oh! There are other robots with you” Helper exclaimed upon noticing Eric, Ellie and Hero nestled at her feet in a bundle of blankets. I nodded. “That’s Hero 1, a recent rescue. That’s Ellie, and that’s Eric. Remember Eric? I’m sure I told you about him.”

Helper’s gel turned bright pink. “Oh you little darling, I’ve heard all about you! You look like such a little cutie, just how I imagined.” Eric yipped, tail vibrating noisily, and contradicted her. “No, I look like a dog!” Helper seemed taken aback but delighted nonetheless, cheerfully answering. “Oh! Well, I look like a whore.”

Lars stifled a laugh. Madeline hit his shoulder. She couldn’t have been too irritated though, as when I angled to get a better look via the rear view mirror Lars had his hand on her thigh. She said nothing but was smiling.

Helper also craned her neck to find out what I was looking at. She then took my own hand and placed it on her soft, glowing purple thigh. It turned magneta. I hastily withdrew my hand and crossed my arms. Helper frowned, her glow slowly dimming while color shifting to blue.

The hospital was guarded as before by a pair of domestic robots, more easily identified from a distance than the military models on account of ostentatious LED illuminated accents on the exterior of their shells.

It made life simpler for us, briefly anyway. Just shoot at the lights until they stop moving. I hid to one side of the parked car, its own heat signature a much higher priority target than my own on account of the mylar.

From this position I waited for any further robots to emerge, shotgun at the ready. Madeline crouched behind the hood, surveying the entrance with my binoculars. Not much to see as the only source of light on it came from the car’s headlights.

After a protracted silence, we formed up and headed for the double doors just below the darkened, shot up sign. “Turn your lights off” I whispered to Helper. “I can’t. They’re not electric. The stuff inside is bioluminescent bacteria harvested from the caves. Consumes less power this way.”

I didn’t really care for trivia just then and asked how she dimmed the output in the car. “Oh! Same way I change the color. The sacs which contain the gel are made out of a material similar to flexible color displays, just without the backlight. They control the amount of-”

I told her to keep her voice down. “I don’t care how you do it, just….glow less, okay?” A moment later the soft, stretchy parts of her body went opaque and we were bathed in darkness. I wondered how much of a difference it would make.

The robots outside the police station wouldn’t shoot at Helper. I assume because she’s a robot too. Must’ve wanted her for parts or something. Odds are good that even if she were lit up like a Christmas tree, any robots we encounter here wouldn’t shoot at her.

I didn’t relish the idea of hiding behind her, but I did hand her my shotgun reasoning that she’s likely to have much better aim. “Careful with this. Very high spread, it would be easy to accidentally-” She reminded me that she handled herself just fine outside the police station, so I left it alone.

Beyond the reception area, a pair of corridors to either side extended into darkness. Lars’ flashlight just didn’t reach far enough to reveal what might be hiding even twenty feet ahead. “Helper, can you see in the dark?” She confirmed it.

We tried letting her lead the way. But bumbling around in pitch black with only Helper’s instructions got old very quickly. Finally I threw up my hands and asked her to glow red as intensely as possible.

“But before you said not to-” I sternly repeated the request. She shook her head slowly, but complied. Soon the corridor around us was bathed in dull red light for about ten feet in both directions. Not enough to see any real distance ahead but enough to avoid tripping or running into things.

Red light would also not ruin our night vision. When our eyes adjusted fully to the dark, that plus the modest radius illuminated by Helper’s bacteria proved enough that we could find our way from the front desk back to the pharmacy with little trouble.

When the four of us came upon a stairwell, I immediately noticed a familiar boxy white humanoid standing at the top. “Helper!” I whispered in a panic. “Look out, it’s an ASIMO!” The squat little fellow, commonly employed in hospitals for basic tasks like ferrying medications around or leading patients to their rooms began to descend the stairs towards us.

It then seized up and tumbled end over end until it crashed in a motionless heap at the bottom. We all stood there stunned, unsure how to react. “Well...that’s...good, I suppose.” Got me all worked up for nothing. Helper prodded the white plastic wreckage at the bottom of the steps as we passed, making sure it wouldn’t get up again.

The door to the back area of the pharmacy was locked, but the door itself gave way after a few good kicks by Lars. I worried about the noise, but the absence of any medical robots so far besides that glitched ASIMO bode very well for our odds of success.

While Lars and Madeline rummaged through the shelves looking for antibiotics, Helper and I stood watch just outside the busted down door in case anybody decided to crash our party. All clear for the first several minutes. Then Helper noticed a faint, distant whine.

Something like the sound a blender makes. I didn’t hear it myself until a minute or so later. I called out to Lars and Madeline. The sound of rummaging abruptly stopped and they soon appeared in the doorway asking what the matter was.

“Don’t know yet. Helper heard something, I thought it was nothing initially but it’s getting louder.” The unspoken implication was that the source must therefore be getting closer. Lars shone his flashlight down the long corridor, back the way we came.

As ineffectual as before, only darkness beyond twenty feet. The whine grew steadily louder. “Helper and I got this” I reassured them. “Find Madeline’s meds.” Lars handed me his flashlight, then went back to searching through the scattered bottles of pills on the floor.

Louder and louder it grew. A raspy, grinding electrical whine I didn’t at all want to locate the source of, but which seemed intent on locating us. Helper and I stood side by side, her with the shotgun while I kept the light pointed down the hall.

What is it? What the fuck is it? I began to sweat, anxiety mounting as the sound drew closer and closer. Almost to the far corner of the corridor now. Any minute, it’ll round that corner and reveal itself. Any minute.

---

^{Stay Tuned for Part 31!}