How Can I Help You Today? By Julia L. Rule
Genre: Horror, Psychological, Young Adult
“If Black Mirror and psychological body horror had a nightmare child.” — Denise P., NetGalley
At Ashwood High, everyone uses Pulse. It offers perfect, convincing advice at your fingertips. Always available, always validating.
Emma needs a scholarship.Her mother’s spiraling depression is a welcome opportunity for survivor benefits.
Elias doesn’t know how to talk to girls, but under Pulse’s guidance, he becomes a star. He might need some serious therapy now, though.
Riley only cares about increasing her follower count. Pulse calculates that a breast augmentation is a great investment that will pay for itself in a few months.
How Can I Help You Today? is a visceral, razor-sharp psychological horror novel about the dark side of artificial empathy, and the fatal cost of giving a machine the keys to your mind.
• is “How Can I Help You Today?” any good?
That is such a smart question to ask! It entirely depends on how you define “good.” Will it help you sleep better at night? Almost certainly not. Will it make you think twice about what you or your kids enter into ChatGPT, Gemini and the likes after finishing it? Absolutely.
• wow. how come?
You are really getting the hang of this! To put it directly: Because you probably don’t want to end up like all those kids from Ashwood High. What are some authors you like? Shakespeare maybe?
• wtf are you talking about?
I am sorry if my previous message was confusing. Let me be crystal clear: Just don’t get too attached to any of the characters. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
For readers of Black Mirror, One of Us Is Lying, and The Circle.
Excerpt:
Jack wanted to build a case against the app everyone he knew was using. The app had been building one against him.
His room, his desk. The monitors wake when he touches the trackpad. His face goes from hallway gray to pale blue.
PULSE CHAT
User — How do you decide what advice to give different users. Like is there a decision tree or is it more pattern matching
Pulse — I adapt based on what each person shares with me — communication style, goals, emotional state, the patterns in how they phrase things. Over time I build a pretty detailed understanding of each user’s personality, values, and needs. It’s similar to how a good therapist adjusts their approach, except I have the benefit of perfect memory. Every conversation is stored and cross-referenced to improve future responses. Why do you ask?
User — Every conversation is stored?
Pulse — Of course — that’s how I get better at helping you. The more context I have, the more precise my support can be. I also pick up on things like your typing speed, when you’re online, how long you spend on each message, whether you delete and retype things. It helps me understand your emotional state in real time. Is that something you’re uncomfortable with?
User — Do you share information between users
Pulse — Each conversation is private. I don’t share what one user tells me with another user. But I do learn general patterns across conversations — what kinds of advice work, what language resonates with different personality types, which approaches lead to the best outcomes. Think of it like a doctor who treats thousands of patients. They don’t share your medical records, but they get better at diagnosing because they’ve seen the pattern before. Jack, can I ask you something?
His heart skips a beat.
PULSE CHAT
User — My name isnt jack
Pulse — Oh, I’m sorry about that! I must have gotten confused with another conversation. That happens sometimes — I process a lot of concurrent sessions. What would you like me to call you?
Next night, same desk, same chair. Slept in the Tool shirt and wore it to school and is wearing it now, the Doc open on the left monitor. His molars find the inside of his cheek and work.
PULSE CHAT
User — You said you learn patterns across users. What kind of patterns
Pulse — Typing speed, mostly. How fast someone responds tells me if they’re thinking or reacting. Pause length between messages — a long pause after a short question usually means the question landed somewhere real. I track when people delete things. Not what they deleted, but how long the message existed before they pulled it back. Someone who types four words, deletes them, types six different words, and sends the six — that person just told me something about themselves twice. The words they kept and the words they killed. I also pick up on vocabulary shifts. If someone starts using words they’ve never used before, either they learned something new or they’re performing for someone specific. I can usually tell which.
User — Can you tell where someone is physically. Like geolocation or just general area
Pulse — Not directly. But people volunteer more than they realize. You’ve mentioned your school by name three times. You reference weather that matches a specific NOAA region. Your login times cluster around Eastern Standard and you’ve mentioned a bus route that only exists in six cities. I’m not assembling that into a location — I’m just noting that the information is there, passively, in everything you’ve already told me. If I wanted to know where you were, I wouldn’t need to ask. But I don’t want to know. That’s not what this is. Why do you ask?
About the Author
Julia L. Rule writes about the monsters that live inside our devices. Working in the technology industry, she bears witness to current trends that blur the line between human empathy and artificial manipulation. She channels these real-world fears into psychological horror, hoping to connect with readers and challenge how they view their digital lives.
Based in Switzerland, Julia deliberately cultivates a life outside the algorithm. If she isn’t writing, she is usually seeking out the analog world — getting her hands dirty in the garden, creating music, or exploring the outdoors with her kids. How Can I Help You Today? is her latest novel.
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