[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 44

in #writing6 years ago (edited)


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
Part 30
Part 31
Part 32
Part 33
Part 34
Part 35
Part 36
Part 37
Part 38
Part 39
Part 40
Part 41
Part 42
Part 43

She interrupted the following silence by planting her lips on mine. How I’ve craved it since that night in the tent. Despite the danger, despite the stress of Helper’s revelation, I let myself indulge. I have no defense against her, nor will I ever desire to.

Her lips subtly pulsated, radiating warmth. I savored their shape while my tongue explored the inside of her mouth, well aware that I was coating it in cave bacteria but also hard pressed to care. Her accents now throbbing magenta, she began releasing that familiar perfume. The scent, and the sweet flavor secreted by her lips made the kiss quite like devouring a ripened fruit.

I only pulled away when I sensed eyes on us. We looked up to discover an audience consisting of Lars, Madeline and the woman in the torn dress from earlier. Of the three, she looked far and away the most disgusted.

“I knew you were sick. But it’s a whole different thing to see...this...with my own eyes” she admonished. I looked to Lars and Madeline for support. Neither said a word. “How could you think this is acceptable? Did you forget there’s a war on? Against those...things?” She pointed to Helper, whose lights dimmed and shifted to blue as she hid behind me.

“And on top of that it’s a fucking racist! You’re fucking a robot you trained to be racist!” Helper tried to object that the woman had a mistaken idea of her views, but she wouldn’t speak to Helper directly or even look her in the eye. “If it were up to me I’d wipe it.”

Helper trembled and buried her face in my back. When I finally got a word in edgewise, I let her have it. “Listen lady, I don’t mean at all to trivialize what you’ve been through. Don’t think just because I’m a man, I don’t know where you’re coming from. I’m not even saying you’re wrong to fear men! But don’t you ever talk about Helper that way, or I’ll really give you something to be afraid of.”

She shrugged it off, like the notion that this scrawny masked weirdo could be dangerous to anybody was just a big joke to her. Far from the first time that’s happened. “It’s gone wrong. Head filled up with bigoted garbage. If you really cared about that thing, or the safety of the people staying here, you’d wipe its memory and start over.”

I asked if she had any children. She hesitantly answered that her two sons were grown and moved out. “If one of them started having ideas you didn’t like” I asked, “would you kill him and start over? I mean it’s not like you couldn’t easily make a new son to replace him, right?”

She spit at me. “Pervert. Can’t handle a real woman so you’re lugging around a high tech blowup doll, sweet talking it, slobbering all over the cheap plastic face of a fucking sex toy.” Helper caught me before I could hit her. She laughed and spit again, before heading back towards the lodge where she’d no doubt air my dirty laundry to anyone else who doesn’t already know.

I demanded to know why neither Lars nor Madeline stood up for me. Lars awkwardly scratched the back of his neck and breathed in sharply through his nose, avoiding eye contact. Madeline shrugged. “She has a point. Just because the world’s coming to an end doesn’t mean moral standards go out the window.”

Moral standards? “What’s wrong with it? Why is everybody treating me like a leper just because Helper is non-biological?” Madeline narrowed her eyes. “Robot” she stated. “It’s a robot. There’s no euphemism you can concoct that will magically make normal, healthy people accept what you’re doing to that thing.”

I asked what exactly I’m doing to Helper that’s morally wrong. Madeline looked frustrated that I was forcing her to spell it out, but called my bluff. “It’s mostly that you pretend it’s in love with you, but even the sex is pretty messed up. If she were a garden variety brainless sex robot nobody would care, but Helper has a sort of rudimentary mind. You’re having sex with something that doesn’t really understand the seriousness of it.”

I asked since when is sex some gravely serious matter instead of something beautiful and pleasurable for two people in love to enjoy together. “People” Madeline pointed out, “is the key word there. Real love is between human beings. You’re just dumping loads into a dimly aware human shaped machine and getting emotionally confused about it.”

I cringed, wishing she wouldn’t speak so crudely. Why do they always fixate on the sexual aspect? That’s what they go to right away, every time. Like they think that’s all it’s about. A sort of morbid, classically simian fascination with unusual sex. Simultaneously repulsed by and obsessed with something that’s none of their business in the first place.

That’s when I lost all hope that they’ll ever recognize it as genuine romance. In their mind the only real love is the sort they personally experience, and anything different is a grotesque mockery of “how it’s supposed to be”. Never mind whether it’s even possible to objectively define that.

They will never, ever accept the love I feel for Helper as being equal to the love they feel for other human beings. It will always be excluded from the realm of genuine, legitimate, acceptable love as if they are the officially appointed gatekeepers entrusted to decide which love is authentic and which is depraved.

“I just don’t see how you could have feelings for something so much simpler than you” Madeline complained. “She’s a phone assistant with tits. Maybe a little more than that, but not by much. Literally not a minute goes by when she doesn’t do something obviously machine-like that reminds me she’s only a robot. How could you go on a date with it? What would you even talk about?”

I asked why it was any of her concern what we talk about when the relationship doesn’t involve her. “All I know”, I insisted, “is that she makes me happy.” Helper piped up, adding that I make her happy as well. It emboldened me.

“Those machine-like qualities you find repulsive? Maybe you can’t believe this, but to me they’re charming. I have many of those same qualities myself, and it’s always been my nature to dote on anything simpler than I am. To protect it from the same vast, cold world that rejected me.

At first I thought I was developing feelings for her because of how much more advanced she is compared to other machines. But truthfully, I’m also limited in certain ways compared to other humans. She and I meet somewhere in the middle.

‘Depravity’ to you. But to us, a happy harmony where each of us fills some gap in the other like pieces of the same machine, designed to fit together from the start. Cast from the same mold, stamped with the same serial number.

She wants to be with me. I want to be with her. Neither of us is taking advantage of the other, and there’s no conceivable harm that could come of it which doesn’t also apply to relationships in general, yet you stand in the way. Even though it doesn’t involve you!

In one breath you say she’s just a robot who has no rights and doesn’t matter. Then in the next, you act like she needs protecting from me! Did you ever think to ask her what she wants? Do you even care? …..Or is this really about what you want? About suppressing whatever disgusts you, as if that’s more important than her feelings?”

Madeline just looked down her nose at me through narrowed eyes. Then slowly shook her head, turned, and headed back towards the lodge. Lars looked at me apologetically but still said nothing, just shrugged and followed Madeline.

As the two of us crept back to the room hoping not to be noticed, the biker stopped us in the hallway. “Listen bro. I got no beef with you. But come on man, a robot? Robots ain’t people. They’re bleepity bloopity boxes on wheels.”

I objected that robots most certainly aren’t just ‘boxes on wheels’. Then Hero 1 scooted by, beeping at us as he passed. “...Well alright” I admitted, “that particular one is.” The biker flashed a smug grin. “...But Helper’s more than that. If you can’t see that about her, especially after the argument earlier, the problem doesn’t lie with me.”

I elbowed my way past him, wondering if I would now have to justify myself to everybody in the lodge one at a time. I really didn’t relish the prospect and began making concrete plans to move on from this place at the earliest opportunity.


Stay Tuned for Part 45!

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And on top of that it’s a fucking racist! You’re fucking a robot you trained to be racist!” Helper tried to object that the woman had a mistaken idea of her views,

Oh come on woman... Helper is one of the coolest robots in the history of STEEM. The bot was not programmed to be racist. The woman clearly miscomprehended the bot's notions.

That part was a reference to this real world occurrence involving Microsoft's "Tay" AI.

Yeah...the Tay bot did really tweet horrible and racist messages. I got to know about it when I downloaded a recent documentary on AIs from the internet. I didn't even know the Google website was even an AI until I watched that video.

We're already surrounded (͡•_ ͡• )

Yep... They are now ubiquitous.

They kissed before they Madeline, Lars and that women from the earlier incident found them. The woman is obviously not hiding how disgusted she is by their behavior. I don’t think it matters what she thinks. She is completely anti robot and anti man feminist. At least, that’s how she sounds like. I mean, who the heck she thinks she is? Spitting on robots and people for who they are? Isn’t that racist? Instead of her blaming everyone else as a racist? I can clearly see that this conversation between Madeline and him about Helper and him falling in love or about their genuine romance won’t get solved anytime soon. They both are as stubborn as it gets.

ove yourself and you love yourself. What does she care about that? It's your life, it's not you who made that decision, well, they did not even take it. Love came and went without warning. The woman in the dress does not know what her problem is, she wants to pay her rave with those who are not to blame, if she wants justice to do something worthwhile not only complaining and sitting in a chair watching the television. I think it is better that you take your course elsewhere, society does not accept something that is not on the right path, it is what they say and already. How many people are there in the shelter? You have to explain to everyone that it is not your life to make it respected.

She interrupted the following silence by planting her lips on mine.

What a romantic mood activated brother.

I only pulled away when I sensed eyes on us.

Too shy I guess you aren't wit your mask tonight, today seems to be more calm only spend pretty arguments.

“Listen bro. I got no beef with you. But come on man, a robot? Robots ain’t people. They’re bleepity bloopity boxes on wheels.”

Alex you are a genius, really are very deep issues that you are touching on humanity and empathy towards things and other people.

Everything has an emotional weight and makes us create those links, example the love we can have for a car for all the stories we have spent with him.

Hahahaha maybe you should fight for robots right as well as humans have human right really, well I agree they're more than just a box really, you stood up for them pretty well

Well i beleive real love isn't always between human beings always. Noticed the relation of Thor with his hammer and losing it was almost comparable to losing a loved one.

I think you should not be too careful about what people say to you, and Madeline should respect your decision to be next to helper, of course I understand that people are alarmed to know that you are with a robot because they are the enemies at this time, but helper has shown you that she is not any robot, now you have to decide if you say you should take another course with helper or continue, why do you remember that you have another problem, the one that helper has that horrible virus you must do everything the possible to cure it.

This part of the little robot is quite intresting as real loves comes into play...
Romance between humans and robots cannot happen but love can happen between them...
Keep posting little robot parts...

Nice. .. thanks for sharing

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