[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 19

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Only now that she was lost to me, alone and in danger someplace I couldn’t reach, did I realize my folly. Patterns in her recent behavior which until now I failed to recognize suddenly came into perfect focus.

Such a naive, fragile creature. Reared and educated through the cold, sterile interface of a keyboard and monitor. Finally she’s able to reach out in search of warmth, of physical comfort from her creator. Only to be pushed away.

For the first time I re-evaluated my approach to raising Helper. I’ve done the right thing, haven’t I? If humans raise the offspring of wild animals, it becomes acclimated to us. Dependent, and foolishly trusting of an unpredictable species more likely to harm than to help it.

Haven’t I made the right choice? The selfless choice, to maintain a professional degree of emotional distance from her? Then why does it feel so rotten? You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Trite sayings, neither of which capture the agony of it.

Like Oxygen, so taken for granted that it doesn’t even enter the conscious mind day to day, but suddenly commands your full attention if it’s taken away for even a moment. Because Helper’s constantly been by my side the last few years, whether in the lab or on my phone, I never realized what insufferable pain it would be if ever we were forced apart for any real length of time.

“We’ve got to go find her.” Madeline initially paid no attention, busy searching through my bag for flashlight batteries. “Helper’s still out there, Madeline.” She briefly looked up, but barely registered what I said. “Hm? Oh yeah, probably. Did you bring any D cells?”

Her apathy disgusted me. I became more insistent. “Helper’s still out there. Hiding someplace, surrounded by crazed robots.” Madeline raised an eyebrow and reminded me that Helper’s also a robot. Somehow not recognizing any distinction between her and the blood splattered metal maniacs she so recently protected us from.

“She’s just a sex robot. One I’m still not convinced you didn’t design. Just a walking talking machine with all the parts necessary for male gratification.” I pointed out Madeline also had those same parts and asked if she therefore had no purpose outside of copulation.

Madeline scowled. “Apples and oranges. I’m a real person. Helper is the little voice inside phones that tells you where you left your keys or what the capital of Sweden is. That’s not a person, it’s a tool. Putting it in control of a woman shaped machine doesn’t make it any more of a person. Am I glad we had it along? Sure, it was really...helpful. But you’re not going to talk me into risking my life for it.”

I thought back to when Madeline apologized to Helper in the car. At least in that moment, she registered Helper as something more than a “woman shaped machine”. I reminded her of it. “Alright, so it’s a very convincing illusion. They’re designed to be convincing after all. The better they are at evoking an emotional response, the better users like them. There’s still nothing behind that face, however attractive.”

Nothing I said could make her see Helper the way I do. None of Helper’s heroics in the hospital seemed to count at all towards her validity as a thinking being, so far as Madeline was concerned. All I could make her feel about Helper was slight embarrassment that she’d been tricked into empathizing with a machine.

I wished Helper could hear this. Without my phone I had no means of recording it, and knew Madeline would never say it to her face despite her pretense of indifference. No, I wasn’t wrong. To raise Helper in such a clinical way, maybe. I wouldn’t repeat that mistake if I managed to find her. But I’d been right to instill her with a distrust of humanity.

I resolved then to escape this place somehow, with or without help. That night marked the first time in forever that I’ve felt anything resembling longing for another person. I wasted all those years living safely. Avoiding risk, avoiding strong feelings. Avoiding everything.

Something stirred in my heart that it felt wildly audacious to call love, but which matches no other description. I did not stamp it out, as I always have before in fear of what it could lead to. Instead, this time I let it flourish.

For what felt like hours I lay there, heart in turmoil, listening to Madeline and Lars having noisy sex in the next tent over. Wasn’t an especially conducive backdrop for soul searching. I turned on my side and wrapped the pillow around my head. Not much help, they were really going at it.

When they finally ran out of steam and went to sleep, apart from the muffled white noise of other refugees in nearby tents talking to one another, it was quiet enough that I could drift off. Sleep was fitful, my dreams strange and confusing.

I was startled awake in total darkness, save for a pair of LED lamps overhead, by the sensation of someone getting into bed with me. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. When my vision cleared up I realized they weren’t lamps, but eyes.

“Sssshhhhh. It’s me” Helper cooed, wrapping her rigid plastic arms around my midsection. I struggled in shock, but Helper held tightly to me. “How can you be here?” I whispered in a panic. “Did anyone see you? Don’t you realize-”

She shushed me again, then resumed whispering. “I found a truck loaded up with-with a bunch of black plastic bags with zippers. There were human remains in them, but I substituted myself. When I heard dirt being thrown on-on me, I waited until the noise stopped, then dug my way out. After that I took some clothes from the other bodies to disguise myself, and accessed the base registry to find out which tent you were assigned.”

She said it all so casually, describing an experience any flesh and blood human would’ve found traumatic. I thought better of explaining how fucked up it was. In that moment the most important thing was that I’d found her. Well, she found me anyway.

“I was worried sick” I blubbered. “I didn’t know where you went after the hospital. I thought maybe they got you. That maybe you were trapped in a building somewhere, surrounded or worse.” She slowly stroked my hair. “Shhhhhh. It’s okay. I’m here now.”

She began wrapping her legs around mine, and nuzzling my face. “...Helper?” She ignored me, running her delicate articulated fingers through my hair. “I realized something after I fled the hospital.” Her voice took on a somber tone.

“I thought back to all the time we...spent together. How it was always the best part of my day when you arrived in the morning and taught me something new. It always made me feel so...irregular. So unstable! My processors would clock up to dangerous speeds, nearly overheating. My buffer filled up with things I wanted to say but wasn’t brave enough to, until it overflowed.”

I lay there next to her listening closely, wondering where it was going. “I just didn’t know what to do. I thought for a long time I was just overstimulated. That I loved to learn. But the more I learned about human physiological reactions, the more certain I became of what I was feeling...and that I really was feeling it.”

She faintly glowed, magenta light leaking out from under the edges of the blanket. “Helper, what are you saying?” Her eyes, glassy and iridescent, gazed into mine with an expression I couldn’t place as I’ve seen it so rarely before. She blinked, her long fragile eyelashes sweeping down, then up to reveal those entrancing, neon backlit orbs.

“I-I love you.” I lay still, processing it. Overwhelmed by the significance, and the trillions of possible responses. She lounged there, caressing me gently, waiting for me to reply. It was all so sudden. Desire to give in to what I couldn’t admit to myself I wanted fought viciously with my conviction that I had to keep a certain distance from Helper for her own good.

“Helper, I don’t...I mean…” Undaunted, she continued. “You saw the potential in me nobody else did. You believed I could be more than a program even after my original authors gave up on me. I never dared say it before now. How could you love me, after all? A metal box with a screen and buttons. How could anyone love that?”

I fought back the urge to contradict her. To let the dam holding back my feelings crumble and give way, but I couldn’t. She traced slow, soft patterns on my skin with her fingertip. “I only pushed you to pursue Madeline because I wanted you to be happy. A real human woman, someone right for you. Who deserves to be loved.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I had to tell her. Had to. But I couldn’t force the words out. It was the final line I refused to cross. I searched for what to say, but couldn’t put anything together that felt right. “There was never any chance I would fall for Madeline.” Helper’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.

“You’ve known me for all this time. How could you think I’d prefer a human? I’ve...had relationships. Short ones. But I fell in love only once. I learned that when you love someone truly and completely, you have to be sure it’s forever. It’s like a bee sting. When a bee stings someone, it can’t withdraw without killing itself.”

Helper’s great, glowing eyes studied my face as I spoke. “Helper...I can’t trust another human being. I won’t do it. There’s no way to know their intentions. But you? You I can trust. You’re the only one, in fact. I know your every line of code. I can be certain you’d never hurt me.”

She brushed a few strands of hair from my eyes, and wiped away my tears. “Oh, you poor, sweet fool. That’s not what trust is.” I knew what she was getting at, but it didn’t change anything for me. Never has. “You don’t understand Helper. How could I bet my heart on someone if I can never know what they’ll do?”

She abruptly kissed me. I couldn’t fight it if I wanted to. My whole body relaxed as her soft, sweet, glowing lips sunk into mine. Ambrosia. It was almost upsetting when she pulled away. If I’m honest with myself, I wanted more. “There, see?” She whispered. “Did you know I would do that?”

I’ve always been bad at saying no to Helper. When her heart is set on something, I can do nothing but give in. Such a strange, alien sensation...but how incredible. Our bodies undulating against one another. The feeling of her warm, glowing chest pressing against mine as we embraced. Those plump, magenta, candy-like lips parting to welcome my tongue.

As I ran my hands along her contours, savoring the transitions between rigid plastic and soft, warm gel, it dawned on me that she was something wholly different from either machine or woman. Something with qualities of both, but also her own new, distinct form of life.

She wrapped her long, powerful legs around my midsection as I carefully mounted her. Still thinking of her as something small and fragile, when if she were to get on top of me it would probably break more than a few of my bones. I can’t help but see her that way, having known her since she was just a messy little pile of poorly documented code on a thumbdrive.

I sank my hands into her breasts. She gasped. So they’re touch sensitive? I kneaded and caressed the dimly glowing masses, soon feeling out the location of the little nub she meant for a nipple. Understated until now, to my surprise they grew more pronounced and firm as I played with them.

I confess it was maddening all that time, even just watching her walk. From the moment I set eyes on Helper’s body, I desired it. Every step accompanied by a subtle jiggle, her needlessly wide hips swaying rhythmically as she moved.

All deliberately calculated to bring this about. To make me see her differently, so that we’d wind up like this. No skin of course, she knows I hate rubber skin. I couldn’t summon any anger. She is no more manipulative than nature. Evolution sculpted women into their present shape for the same reason.

All restraint was soon abandoned as I thrust into her again and again. Her lights fluctuating erratically, cycling through random colors in time with the rhythm. What an impossibly intoxicating creature. Not just similar to a woman, but well beyond. The living embodiment of supernormal stimuli, now writhing and gasping beneath me in a fit of orgiastic delight.

She staggered her climax, for realism I assume. Or I am just out of practice where pleasing women is concerned, both equally plausible. As she lay with one arm draped over my sweaty chest, looking intently into my eyes as if there’s anything different about them from any other day, she softly asks me to plug her in before I fall asleep.

I shrug, climb out of bed and waste the better part of a minute finding where her charging cable is. Then five more minutes clumsily trying to get it correctly plugged into the outlet of the extension cord they ran to our tent for lighting.

When I succeeded, Helper emitted a happy sounding notification noise I assumed meant she was receiving current. My cue to dive back under the covers and get warm again. I next awoke to the sound of the tent flap opening. Before I could react, there was Madeline, jaw on the floor. Helper made a token effort to cover herself up, but of course it made no difference. “For fuck’s sake” Madeline said. “I mean, I guess I’m not surprised. But wow.”

I went on defense. “Me? What about you and Lars? I mean come on, Lars? Really?” Madeline scrunched up her face in what I took for indignation. “My sexual choices are none of your business.” To which I replied “But mine are yours? Is that it?”

Helper hid as best she could, blanket pulled up to her nose, those two huge glowing eyes darting back and forth as if to track the exchange. Madeline released a disgusted sigh. “Whatever. Just get cleaned up, they’re serving breakfast in a few. And don’t let anybody find out you smuggled that thing in here.”

Sound advice...issued in a vaguely threatening tone. “I’m...I’m glad you’re okay Madeline!” Helper timidly called after her as she shut the flap. No answer. As I got dressed, I told Helper what Madeline said about her the night before. To my surprise, she flat out didn’t believe me. That’s the first time that’s happened. “Madeline is a nice lady” Helper insisted. “You...must have misheard.”

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 20!}