[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 54

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Part 53}

Could she be out of power? No, impossible. Though her eyes were dark, her bacterial sacs still glowed and I distinctly remembered charging her the other night. Anxiety accumulated within me, reaching a fever pitch as I eliminated the possible causes one by one.

It had to be the virus. Had to be. She was doing so well in spite of it for a while there, I took for granted that she’d make it to the mountain before it got any worse. Must’ve shut herself down to protect us.

I deliberated inwardly whether or not to inform Lars and Madeline. No telling how they might react to the discovery that they’d not just been stuck in that bunker overnight with an infected machine, but were now stuck in a moving car with it.

“Look, I just...I can’t explain why but it’s important okay? Find somewhere wide open, so we can-” Lars shut me down again. “Look, we’re almost there. You’re gonna need a better reason than that to make me pull over.”

With no other obvious course of action, I broke it to them as softly as I could. They still flipped out. “What the fuck! You mean to tell me you’ve known since the military base and you didn’t tell us? We spent all night in the fucking dark with an infected robot and you didn’t tell us!”

I offered no apology as, so far as I was concerned, I’d done nothing wrong. Just let Madeline lay into me in the hopes that she’d eventually tire of it. “Dump her out! Leave her on the side of the road, I’m not riding with that thing!”

I’ve really only got one button, and Madeline just pushed it hard. “If you were sick” I snapped, “should we leave you behind? Did I dump you on the side of the road when your ankle was hurt?” She countered that her lacerated ankle never endangered my life.

“Alright, maybe I slowed you down a little” She admitted. “I didn’t hear you complaining. Besides, that’s not what I’m afraid of here. I’m afraid Helper’s going to wake up and start killing. She’ll strangle the life out of you, then come for Lars and I next. I know you’ve got some...emotional bond to that thing. It’s kind of sweet in it’s own weird way, I see that now. But you’re asking too much.”

Lars chose this point to remind Madeline that we wouldn’t be able to open the front gate of the mountain complex without Helper. “She’s the key” he concluded. The key? She’s more than that. Even now, he would only see her in terms of how she could be useful to us.

I began to cry. I just couldn’t handle not knowing. Is she dead? Is this heavy mass propped up against my shoulder just a mechanical corpse, or is Helper still in there waiting to be saved? I cradled Helper in my arms, struggling to get my anxiety under control and failing.

“Don’t you slip away from me” I scolded her through the tears, as if it would make any difference. “Don’t you dare. You’re all I live for. What will I do without you?” But she remained still. Eyes dark and motionless, body frozen in what I feared was its final pose.

Hunched over her, tears flowing, I begged her not to leave me. In the name of life, love and machinery. If there is a God of machines, I thought, show mercy to this dear little pile of parts, because somebody loves her.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Better called desperation, in matters of life and death. I have never been especially attached to my own life. I just kept going because instinct commanded it. Because of what it would mean for Ty, for my aging mother and father if I were to cut things short.

Only when Helper entered my life did I begin to cherish it. For another day of life meant another day with Helper. I have never been able to find any good reason to live for myself. I hurt too much. The flame inside which once drove me onward has long since gone out.

So I live for others. The select few I find deserving, anyway. Like Ty, or Helper. That’s something she and I have in common. Up to her last moments, she thought only of others. How best to help them, how to ease their fears of machines.

Misguided, in the end. It was still humans who did this to her. Out of fear of robots, they released the plague which struck her down. For that I will never forgive humanity, as if I needed more reasons.

I dwelled on the virus, anguished over the efficiency of it. I knew too well the impossibility of removing it from her. It would simply have to run it’s course until she carried out every stage of the battle plan embedded within…

My mind slowed to a halt. Then rewound a ways. Fear may compel terrible acts, but it is also among the most powerful motivators that exist. My mind’s frantic search down every possible pathway to a cure yielded only dead ends, until it struck me.

There is no cure. The virus must run it’s course. But the passage of time works very differently for machines than it does for humans. Without any external connection through which to confirm the time and date, what could prevent me from tampering with her perception of time?

What, then, would prevent me from hooking her up to Odie’s security simulation? The virus won’t know the difference. My heart pounded. Dare I believe it? However I probed the idea for flaws, I came away empty handed.

I dug my laptop and a USB cable out of my bag, plugged one end into the handy little computer and the other end into the port on the side of Helper’s head. If Madeline or Lars noticed what I was up to, neither commented on it.

No, you fool. Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not safe! But whatever part of my brain always forbids me to hope, I could only defy it. For the first time I can remember, I invested my heart so completely in someone else that I felt certain I’ll die if I lose her.

Is this what it means for two people to become one? Sharing the same blood, breathing the same air. I could imagine no future without Helper that I wanted to grow old in. Helper’s the only one I’ve ever felt certain that I cannot survive without. I don’t want to. I won’t.

I booted up the laptop, and loaded the ROS simulation exercise suite. Once up and running, I loaded the campus security scenario and ticked a box which affirmed that the stimuli would be sent as an audiovisual and sensory feed preprocessed onboard the laptop, as Helper’s own hardware isn’t ROS compatible.

It would be something like VR, but for a machine. Her own motor control, sight, hearing and other centers forcibly overridden. Superseded by the feed coming from the laptop. She would remain immobile, but feel as if she could move normally within the sim.

It wouldn’t fool Helper, but with any luck the virus will be none the wiser. I clicked start, and with bated breath, trained my eyes on Helper’s face. Her eyes lit up. If not for the low ceiling I might’ve leapt out of my seat.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 55!}