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I watched the window open on the laptop, forlorn, as the sim played out far too rapidly to understand any of it. Yet nowhere near fast enough! I clocked down to 2x briefly to see what virtual Helper was up to now.

Slaughtering security guards in a mall. Should’ve guessed. It sort of resembled an old video game I once played about stealing cars and evading police. Except that had filtered textures at least! The textures in sim were a chunky mess of big, raw pixels.

Something stirred in the back of my brain. Like I was close to an important realization. How maddening that some vital piece of information often occurs to us when we don’t need it, but is then totally irretrievable when we do!

On a whim I opened up the program settings and clicked on the video tab. The “software mode” box was checked under “renderer”. I clicked “use 3D acceleration” so the real time view at least wouldn’t look so nasty. A little footnote under that option caught my eye in the process.

“GPU assist settings can be found under hardware options.” I blinked a few times. GPU...assist? Oh. Ohhhhh. Fuck me, I’m stupid. I struggled to contain my excitement as I tabbed over to “hardware options”. Sure enough, an unchecked box read “GPU assist: Use your integrated or external GPU to assist the CPU, increases sim acceleration cap.”

Hiding there, tucked away in the options this entire time. I tried to slap my forehead but hit the mask, painfully flattening my nose for a moment. I cursed loudly, attracting Lars’ attention. I explained the situation as best I could.

“Well shit, I coulda told you that” he boasted, to my supreme annoyance. “Well then why didn’t you!?” He claimed that this entire time he figured I already had the sim configured to fully utilize the laptop hardware.

With that troublesome little box checked, I could now increase the program’s own acceleration to 100x. I whooped and hollered, Madeline looking confused as to what merited all that excitement but too indifferent to find out.

“Can you get the gate open or not?” Madeline inquired. “It’s getting cold.” I called back that I could open the gate in a little over a day. She balked. “That’s the best you could do!?” Lars also seemed unimpressed.

“Is there really enough gas to keep the engine idling for that long? I’m down to a third of a tank.” I hadn’t thought of that. “We could always go back to the lodge for some gas.” He rebuked me. “Are you nuts? You think they won’t figure out there’s something wrong with your robot if we show up and it’s vegetating in the back seat, wires and tubes everywhere? They’ll turn us away for sure.”

I proposed leaving me with Helper and making the run either alone or with Madeline, pointing out that I still had Richard’s truck to seek refuge inside of should any unwelcome visitors appear. Lars stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Yeah, alright. Not tonight though, I don’t wanna make that trip in the dark. Looks like we’re sleeping in the car until we can get this shit sorted out.”

So I carefully stacked the cooling kit and laptop on Helper’s lap, then with Lars’ help, heaved her into the back seat. He and Madeline once again occupied the front. The sun was now finally setting, sky ablaze with oranges, yellows and reds.

Difficult to appreciate when packed into the same car you spent hours in earlier, temperature quickly bottoming out. Lars agreed to run the heater but just long enough to get the interior comfortable so we could fall asleep.

“We could sure use a blanket up here. You didn’t happen to bring one, did you?” I looked down at the three little machines snugly wrapped up in the blanket that I did, in fact, remember to take along. “Nope. Sorry, wish I could help.” I smiled warmly at the trio of little fellows and stroked Eric’s head.

The back seat was finally the place to be. I alone could lay down, though only with my knees bent. My head rested on Helper’s lap. I wrestled with her uncooperative arms until her left hand lay on my shoulder and the right one on my head.

Still stiff as a board. The bacteria just kept chugging along regardless, so her glow remained undiminished, but the heaters which normally keep her gel sacs at average human body temperature are electric. Which is to say that her thighs made for a very cold pillow.

I didn’t care. I just wanted to be close to her for as long as possible. That’s all I’ve wanted since we met. If the end of the world couldn’t stop me, what chance does the virus have? I drifted off, and soon enough dreamt that Helper recovered completely.

Dreams which show us what we wish for most desperately are the cruelest of all. Because of course, they do not last, and when I awoke it was to the feeling of Helper’s lukewarm thigh stuck to my cheek.

I heard a thump. Then a scratching sound. Must’ve been what woke me. I ignored it, assuming Lars was outside working on the engine or something, until it grew irritating enough that I looked up to identify the source.

There was Lars in the front seat, still sleeping. Madeline too, slumped against the dash. Outside, all around us, a crowd of beat up looking domestic robots clawed at the windows and door handles.

I immediately stopped breathing and couldn’t make myself start again for several seconds. As if that would help us evade notice somehow? That ship sailed before I even woke up. “Lars” I whispered. “Lars!” He didn’t so much as stir.

The sky was the same color I remembered falling asleep to, but the clock in the dash confirmed it was a sunrise rather than a sunset. When did they all show up? One at a time maybe, the noise gradually increasing until the first of us awoke.

“Madeline” I whispered. But I had no more luck rousing her than I did Lars. I moved as little as possible for fear of what the robots might do if they discovered one of us was awake. Would that make a difference?

Finally I reached up, grabbed Lars by the shoulder and shook him until he snorted, gasped and awoke with a start. “Don’t scream” I whispered. I repeated myself a few more times as the grogginess wore off and the reality of our situation became apparent to him.

He stared back at me with wide, bloodshot eyes. I returned his expression, for all the good it did with my mask on. “What the fuck do we do” he whispered back. I shrugged and shook my head.

“She’s going to fucking freak.” I agreed, but knew she’d wake up sooner or later anyway. So I advised Lars to pin his hand to her mouth until she was fully awake and understood the need to stay quiet.

On three, he reached around her head with his right hand and clasped it firmly over her mouth. She awoke, easily more startled than Lars was, struggling violently at first to break free from his grasp. That is, until she saw the robots.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 58!}