[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 34

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There was a brief but still tedious bit of paperwork. They scanned our payment chips, confirmed our identities and gave us all basic medical care. It was a relief to see Madeline’s ankle finally cleaned and bandaged. My ribs weren’t in much better shape.

Following our release from the overcrowded infirmary, each of us was assigned a tent, then brusquely hurried along to make room for more patients. There was at least some hot food doled out in the cafeteria before they sent us off to settle in for the night.

It was a immeasurable relief to have reached something resembling civilization. Floodlights illuminated every square inch of the base, every path, every road. An oasis of light, sound and living tissue adrift on a teeming ocean of cold, silent metal.

Just outside the perimeter fence, death waited. A thoughtless marching mechanism, set into motion like falling dominos, with the simple but all-consuming goal of extinguishing human life. How it pained me to view them this way. The way paranoid elements of the public always have.

Looking upon our tireless servants, guides, caretakers and protectors with one part gratitude, three parts suspicion. Vindicated by all this, unquestionably. I could imagine no defense of robots I might mount when this is all over which could persuade anybody that they are deserving of anything except a bullet to the battery.

Cold, creeping dread filled me. Certainty of what would be done with Helper after this strange, bloody war came to a close. What little trust, favor and emotional capital robots have managed to accumulate in decades of widespread, largely faultless service to humanity...burned to the ground in the span of a single night.

They’ll crucify her. Tear her to pieces, if they figure out what makes her different from the rest. What she represents. She will be all alone in the world. A world now united in fear and hatred of her kind, her only friend among those eight billion primates powerless to protect her from the rest.

If only I knew her location. If only I could be certain of her safety. That would be something. I’ve never been separated from her for so long. I’ve always kept her at arm’s length, fearing what might happen if she grew too attached to a human being. Wanting her to exist on her own terms, not ours.

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.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 35!}