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
I found Helper in one of the dorms, weeping that sticky glowing gel everywhere. When I tried to console her, she pushed me away. “I wanted to believe you weren’t really like that, deep down. That somewhere in there is a scared little boy I could help. But that’s all there is to you. Fear.”
I insisted she was over reacting. She whipped around, glowing bright red. “I hate you. I love you, but I hate you. It’s so confusing! I wish I didn’t know you. I wish you were like any other person to me, so it wouldn’t hurt this much.” She shoved me out of the room and locked the door.
I returned to the table and explained to Lars and Madeline that I was giving her some space. “What did you say to her?” Madeline inquired. “Well, I told her she’s over reacting.” They both winced and sharply sucked air in through their teeth.
“What? She is.” Lars shook his head and snickered. “Nobody’s ever called me an expert on women, but even I know better’n that.” Madeline nodded sagely. When Sue came to join us and found out what I said, she hit me a couple of times, swearing in Korean.
“Am I wrong? Do any of you really want to invite all those people in here?” Everybody present averted their eyes and looked nervous. “Exactly! That’s the bottom line. We can’t support a hundred people. We can’t support fifty. We probably couldn’t support twenty for the time it’ll take before ambient radiation levels fall within a safe range and the threat from fallout is over.”
Madeline proposed a compromise. “Red’s always looking for more people. We could use the truck to shuttle refugees from the base to the lodge, that might be good enough for Helper. You know her better than I do though.”
Lars went and siphoned some gas from Rhonda into Richard’s truck in preparation. When I returned to Helper’s room and knocked, she didn’t answer. I tried the handle but the door was still locked. I decided to back off and give her more time to come to her senses.
I arrived back in the common area to find Lars and Sue playing cards while Madeline poked away at some freemium puzzle game on her phone. One of the last to be made for a long time, probably. Nuclear war has some upsides after all.
I sat down with Lars and Sue. “You want in?” Sue offered. “You missed out on a great round of Oh Hell earlier, now we’re playing Poker.” I declined as I don’t know the first thing about either of those games, electing to quietly spectate instead.
“You’re bluffing. You have to be.” Sue scowled at Lars, his own face totally deadpan. “You’d know, wouldn’t you? Am I really the bullshitter here? You’ve got a dress on.” Maybe it’s because I glimpsed a moment of hurt in Sue’s eyes. Or maybe it was the stress accumulated from the journey, and from dealing with Helper.
“Shut the fuck up Lars. You piece of shit.” They both turned to me in surprise. “Relax man, I was just joking” Lars grumbled. “Grow a sense of humor.” Not today. I got that feeling I usually do before I snap. The “you might regret this later” feeling. But I ignored it like always.
“Lars, it isn’t cute or funny when you do that. You just look like a shitty, mean spirited person. Sue has never said word one against you, but you never stop putting her down. Now, maybe she repulses you. If that’s your honest reaction I can at least understand it. But do you know what repulses me? Your cruelty.”
He protested that I was blowing some simple, light hearted banter way out of proportion. Sue jumped in, assuring me that she really wasn’t bothered. “If I let every guy like Lars upset me, I wouldn’t have gotten far in life. I’m tougher than you think! Besides, it’s not me you should be worried about. It’s Helper.”
I cooled off, explained that I’m still a little on edge, then headed for the dorms to check on Helper. As I left, I heard Lars say “Geez. Now I see where Helper gets it from.” As the grim reality of spending a decade or more in here with Lars sunk in, I gave protracted, serious thought to taking my chances with the fallout.
I found Helper’s door unlocked. An invitation? Ready to listen, I hoped. But when I cautiously opened the door, expecting to find her moping on the bed...the room was empty. I entered and turned around, as if she could somehow be hiding despite the austere conditions.
The only clue was a handwritten note left on the bed, reading simply “I must help”. Oh no, no. Helper no. I raced back down the corridor, erupting into the commons area. Madeline looked up from her game. “Something wrong?”
Voice shaking, I begged to know whether she’d seen Helper come through here. “Maybe, I haven’t really been paying much attention to anything but my phone. Sorry. Oh, I did hear the front door open a minute ago. I just assumed Red came back early, looking for those crates of food you promised.”
Moments later I was driving Rhonda into the security lockout chamber. Lars came running up to the driver side window, demanding to know where I was taking his car. I was in such a state I could barely form sentences. “Helper! The military base. She took the truck, she thinks…”
He ran his fingers through his hair, and swore softly. “Alright. Don’t ding up Rhonda worse than she already is, not if you can help it. Do you need me to come along?” I shook my head and floored it the second the outer door opened far enough to permit passage.
Wind whipping past competed with the roar of the engine to deafen me as I barrelled down the highway. Why? Why? Why does she keep doing this to me? Putting her life in danger despite the hot coals I’ve walked over to keep her safe, all for the sake of random shitheads we don’t even know.
Like my feelings count for nothing. She either has no idea how horrible it feels for dread to gnaw at your organs like this or she doesn’t care. In a fit of anxiety I pounded the dash, shouting vulgarities to nobody in particular.
The radio sputtered to life, playing back the same pre-recorded PSA I heard the other night. I didn’t bother to change the station, as I already knew it was all I’d receive. About an hour later I passed the lodge, children out on the lawn waving to me as I sped by.
The engine throbbed, RPM needle just a hair shy of the red line. As I drew near to the military base, now a faint shimmering speck on the horizon, the radio crackled. The PSA I’d been listening to on loop until then faded into static...replaced by Helper’s voice.
“Hello, world! Don’t be scared. You don’t know me, but I love you and I’m here to help.” What the fuck? She must have hijacked the radio transmission tower somehow. “Don’t Helper” I whispered, as if she could hear me. “Don’t. Don’t.” But she did.
“I know you’ve suffered. My heart goes out to you. Though I am a machine, I know what it is to suffer, and I’ve come to save you all.” I could just barely hear excited shouting in the background. “Get out of there Helper” I whispered, cursing myself for letting her out of my sight in the first place.
“You have every reason to reject me because of what I am. But I know someone who taught me to reject you because of what you are. I refused! You’re all so beautiful to me. Like a compound eye, comprised of countless little individual eyes, each of which sees it’s own perspective. All of which combine to form the “big picture” that the overall eye sees. I wish I could explain it better.”
I heard someone ramming the door in the background, now several voices shouting incomprehensibly. Probably to summon more. “GET OUT OF THERE HELPER!!” I cried, powerless to do anything but listen as they destroy her.
Just as she was about to reveal the location of the mountain complex, I heard the door busted down behind her. “Oh, hello!” she exclaimed in her usual chipper voice. “My name’s Helper, and I’m here to-...What are you doing? No!! Stop it, I don’t want to-”
Gunshots rang out in quick succession. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that, but you shot at me.” More gunshots and scuffling. “Stop! STOP!! You’re hurting me! Why are you doing this!? I just wanted to help you!”
My heart felt on the verge of exploding from my chest. They’ve got her now. They’ve got my Helper. “Hang on Helper” I thought. “I’m coming. Nothing can save them from me if they’ve laid a finger on you. I’ll shred their flesh. I’ll shatter their bones. Nothing can stop me. Hang on, I’m coming to-...”
A sudden flash of light blinded me. I swerved to the right, and the car began to tumble. When it finally came to rest upside down, a deafening roar and howling wind shattered the windows. I struggled to free myself from the seatbelt, then climbed out through the broken window, bits of glass gouging my hands.
Where the military base once stood, a billowing red-orange nuclear fireball ponderously rose up from the scorched earth beneath it. The entire sky lit up around it, like a miniature sunrise. The heat on my skin was unbearable. I imagined I could hear it sizzling.
The wind once again surged around me as the sudden vacuum created by the blast sucked everything back towards it. Sand, ash and burning bits of debris whipped past overhead, whirling through the air on their way back into the massive conflagration.
I began to grow dizzy, falling to my knees. Didn’t have to guess why. So hot. Felt like my brain was boiling. I started to pant, only for the moisture on my tongue to evaporate in seconds. Then the surface of my tongue started to crack.
I doubled over, my hands sinking into the hot sand. When I looked down at them, vision hazy, I realized my skin was severely charred. The color and texture of leather, spots of blood forming where veins close to the surface of my skin had burst.
“...Helper...” I wheezed. I couldn’t make myself think of anything else as the end came. I just kept picturing her face. Her eyes. Kept hearing the music of her laughter in my head, while my eyes increasingly refused to focus on anything. I finally collapsed face down in the sand, drifting off for the last time.
Darkness. Pain and confusion, briefly. But then nothing. Just a cold, endless black abyss. I don’t know what I expected. Nothingness, I suppose. Like a dreamless sleep. “If this is really all there is” I thought, “Red’s going to be so disappointed.”
Then it struck me that I had a thought. That in fact, I was still thinking. I felt something stir. How? How am I still…? Where am I now? A narrow sliver of light appeared, like the one which appears on the horizon to herald the coming of morning.
It widened. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, light pouring in as the darkness split open before me. So blurry. My head hurt. My eyes now mostly opened, I rubbed them a bit before struggling to bring my surroundings into focus.
Even once I managed that, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Mostly because I had no prior basis for comparison. I floated gently within something like a massive geodesic prism, every facet kaleidoscopic, iridescent and beautiful. Something like the surface of an oil slick, or a holographic rainbow.
Stay Tuned for Part 38!