The Preserve

by Ariel S. Winter

  “No other species built their replacement.”

  Laughton gave up trying to see outside. He closed his eyes, and the faint hiss of the tires on the pavement was the only thing that let him know they were still moving.

  “Head?” Kir said.

  “Just tired,” the chief said without opening his eyes. Kir remained silent, and Laughton tried to empty his mind. Instead of feeling anxious about not knowing where he was or being able to see, he tried to focus on his breathing, something Betty had tried to teach him years ago that he continued to attempt but never found to work. Instead, feeling the presence of his partner, he said, “I’m not asleep.”

  “I know.”

  “You better not be reading my heartbeat.”

  “How long have I known you? I know not to read your vitals. I was just giving you a chance to rest before we go do this thing.”

  The interchange was so familiar, it comforted Laughton in a way he didn’t know he needed to be comforted. Maybe he’d made a mistake when he decided to move to the preserve instead of the Department of Health and Human Services. Maybe this wasn’t the best way to serve and protect. But his mind always came around to Betty’s work, and Erica’s well-being, and he figured he could make do with drunks for them.

  Laughton opened his eyes, and rubbed his face with both hands. He sat up. Still an envelope of shadow around them, although there was a scattering of stars visible now. The sight of them caused a small leap in his chest. He’d never seen stars before the preserve, and they still got to him with a little boy’s excitement. Erica would have that. Erica did have that.

  “There,” Kir said.

  Laughton looked off to the right and saw the eerie glow of electric lights in the distance. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The truck turned off on a narrow, two-lane road, its pavement a network of cracks and fault lines, the asphalt a loose puzzle that made a street. A sign read “Lake Marion Country Club.”

  “Someone’s out here, and they’re not making an effort to hide it.”

  As they got closer, the lights differentiated into a handful of buildings. The largest was an oversize rendition of a traditional southern plantation house with white columns, and a front porch that stretched across both wings. Most likely built in the twentieth century, its other anachronism, besides its enormous footprint, was plate glass windows between the columns, which afforded a view straight through the opulent lobby and its crystal chandelier to another set of floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows that must have looked out on the enormous lake behind the clubhouse. The smaller buildings looked as though they had served as storage sheds, garages, and powerhouses in the distant past.

  The GPS announced, “You have arrived,” and Laughton took manual control to guide it into a parking space across from the main entrance. The lot was full of a wide variety of cars. Clunkers with rusty gashes and missing hubcaps were parked next to squat, angular sports cars worth more than Laughton made in a year.

  No one was out front, nor could anyone be seen in the part of the lobby that was visible. “Seems awfully quiet for so many lights,” Laughton said.

  “There are humans here,” Kir said, using his thermal vision.

  “Freaky metal bastard,” Laughton said.

  “Flesh face,” Kir shot back.

  “ ‘Flesh face’? Really?”

  Kir shrugged. “You turned it personal.”

  “But ‘flesh face’?”

  They headed for the front entrance. If anyone here was worried about security, their truck had no doubt been spotted the second they turned into the drive. There was no reason to sneak in. As they started up the few stairs to the porch, a figure walked into the lobby from the left. The bend of his shoulders made him human. He must have caught some movement out of the corner of his eye, because he looked their way, and Laughton, stunned, recognized Jones, the missing sims runner. Jones made him at the same time, his eyes going wide. He began to run.

  Laughton jumped up the remaining steps, and pulled open the glass door, which was much lighter than he had expected. It banged back on its hinges, but he was already through, Kir right behind him. The robot didn’t know why they were running, but the partners worked together so closely that they moved as a unit.

  The wide hallway Jones had gone down had a scattering of people, standing and talking, or going from one doorway to the next. Jones was gone. Laughton went to the closest doorway, and looked in. A robot on a couch was plugged in to a charger, his system shut down.

  Laughton’s pulse seemed to fill his chest, running across his shoulder blades. They were still on the preserve, weren’t they? What was a robot doing here?

  “What is it?” Kir said behind him.

  “A robot.”

  “No, the guy we were chasing?”

  Laughton turned to Kir, raising his voice. “It’s a goddamn robot,” he said, pointing. “Are we still on the preserve? You said we were on the preserve.”

  Kir looked at the inert object sitting on the couch. “Shit,” he said.

  “You think? What’s going on here?”

  “But the guy we were chasing just now was human.”

  “That was Jones, the trafficker who I let go.”

  Kir scanned their surroundings. “Come on. He’s over there.”

  Laughton could smell the room from several feet away. It showed a sign on the door, the silhouette of a man and a woman, separated by a line: the bathroom. It wouldn’t take long for the john to acquire such a reek of nauseating proportions, just a day or two, but the plumbing to the place must have been off since the founding of the preserve, possibly before that if the place had already become a robot establishment. Nine months of human waste, even if it was only a few humans and for part of the time, could only be withstood by desperate people. As long as it wasn’t raining, Laughton figured people went outside and used the lake out back whenever possible.

  “I don’t know if I can go in there,” Laughton said.

  Kir considered this, then understood. “It smells,” he said.

  “Damn right it does.”

  “I’ll get him.” The robot put his hand to the door.

  Laughton put a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Wait. The asshole can take his medicine. He won’t last long in there.”

  They took up posts on either side of the door, their backs to the wall, as though they were bodyguards waiting for someone of importance to do his business. As they stood there, Laughton began to realize that many of what he had taken to be people when they came in were actually robots, recent models, no plastic old-timers, no anthropomorphized toasters. These were designer models with wheels, jewel-encrusted faces devoid of simul-skin, even one with electric jet thrusters, an enhancement so expensive that Laughton had never seen one in person. That same robot had three memory sticks plugged into exposed ports on the top of his head. Laughton just hoped he didn’t fly when he was fucked up, although a metal piece of shit crashing out here wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

  When he passed, Kir said, “Can you believe this shit?”

  “Looks like the preserve might be the best thing that’s ever happened out here. At least somebody’s profiting.”

  “Metal pieces of shit,” Kir said.

  Laughton laughed at his partner echoing his own thoughts.

  “Hey, I can say that,” Kir said. “I’m a metal piece of shit too.”

  “Bleeding heart,” Laughton said.

  Kir held a finger up to his lips. His sensors picked up the movement just before the bathroom door opened. The wave of skank made Laughton gag and his eyes water. How the fuck had Jones stayed in there that long? Kir threw his arm across Jones’s shoulder before the dealer even had a chance to register they’d been waiting for him.

  “How did you stay in there for five minutes?” Laughton said.

  Jones looked at Kir, who still had him in a tight grip as though he was a distant uncle overjoyed at seeing his little nephe
w all grown up. “You think you could ease up a little?”

  Kir just grinned.

  The dealer’s eyes darted around them. He was still anxious as anything. Maybe not as agitated, but still panicked. That didn’t make sense. If he’d hauled ass out here, wouldn’t it be because it was a safe haven? Was he scared of Laughton, of the cops?

  Two women went by with their arms around each other. The heavy skin under one of their eyes made her human. Laughton couldn’t get a handle on what this place was.

  Jones addressed Laughton. “You saw what was happening on the TV. The robots are coming.”

  “It seems you picked a place where the robots already are.”

  Jones’s eyes wandered away. “Yeah, well I didn’t realize K-B had let all of this mess in.”

  “K-B?” Laughton said. “Did you fucking say K-B?” Kawnac-B had been the number one supplier of human recreational drugs in Baltimore: heroin, mylos, juice, cocaine, all the ways people liked to waste their lives. It was lucrative, but Kawnac-B didn’t do it for the money. He liked the power it gave him over the addicts. They were like his slaves, and whenever one of them turned up dead, which was often, the case ended up on Laughton and Kir’s desk. It was always ruled an overdose—the addicts did it to themselves, didn’t they?—but Laughton remained convinced that Kawnac-B took a more active role in helping those overdoses along.

  “If you take an animal’s food source, it’s going to follow the food,” Kir said.

  “But these are robots here.”

  “Nah, there’re more humans,” Jones said.

  “What the hell!” Laughton said.

  “How many bodies we seen that pointed to Kawnac-B?” Kir said.

  Laughton scoffed, falling into the routine. “Once a week.”

  “Twenty-seven,” Kir said. “You see, I know that exactly.”

  Jones was trying to hold his head as far from the robot as possible.

  “You know how hard it is to find twenty-seven humans in some places?” Kir said.

  Jones seemed to be considering it, and then he pulled away from the robot, twisting his way out of the grip and then rubbing his shoulder. “Can we get away from this shit?” He nodded toward the bathroom.

  It made Laughton realize that the pulsing under his eye wasn’t the stress of the interview, but a nausea-induced headache. “Come on,” he said. The three of them returned to the lobby. There was a clutch of upholstered armchairs toward the back of the room around a squat round table. They sat, Jones taking the seat that put his back to the wall. He seemed more comfortable, as though the little walk had given him a chance to collect himself, and figure out the situation.

  “How’d you find me?” Jones said.

  “In the shitter,” Kir said.

  “What’s a robot cop doing on the preserve?” Jones said, addressing Laughton, and making a point of not looking at Kir.

  Laughton held his hands out to either side to take in the whole club. “What’s a robot drug joint doing on the preserve?” he said.

  “I’m—” Jones started, and then cut himself off, wise enough to know when saying nothing was better than trying to be right.

  “This is Kir,” Laughton said.

  “Department of Health and Human Services,” the robot added.

  “He’s here as a favor,” Laughton said. “I’m trying to close this homicide, before Congress decides the preserve isn’t really working out and Kir’s bosses close it for us. This shit here doesn’t make me feel like things are working out.”

  “You think people are going to stop getting high?” Jones said. “Of course K-B’s going to come in!”

  Preserve drug laws were more stringent than those in the outside robot world. The thinking had been that the druggies would just stay off the preserve, and if Laughton could count his blessings, it was that none of it had turned up in Liberty so far.

  “What do you want from me?” Jones said.

  “Believe it or not, we’re not here for you. We came because we learned that sims were leaving the preserve out this way. Frankly, I’m surprised as hell you’re here. I figured you’d disappeared into Charleston.”

  “Thought I’d be safer here. I’m of value to Kawnac-B.”

  “Kawnac-B’s dealing sims now? I thought he stuck to human drugs.”

  “Drugs for humans, sims for robots, nobody knows he’s out here. Import and export,” Jones said.

  “I thought you said the Sisters already had their trafficking chain.”

  “Look, I don’t run anything like that. What do I know? K-B’s under the radar, and has security.”

  “Sorry,” Kir said. “This time tomorrow, this is a ghost town again.”

  Now Jones’s eyes really went wide. “You can’t do that,” he said, his voice a mix of petulance and panic.

  “Don’t worry,” Laughton said. “You’re coming with us.”

  “You can’t protect me,” Jones said, almost beside himself again, like the first time.

  eyebrows raised and pulled together, lower eyelids tense—genuine fear

  “You hear the off-the-preserve news?” Kir said.

  Jones looked down, turning his head away. “Those robot hot shots, right? I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  No one had said that he had. No one said it now.

  The dealer huffed. “Fucking figures. You’re not here because some orgo got done. Metals supremacist bastards. Heaven forbid some metals get deactivated.”

  Laughton couldn’t help but agree. He knew Kir wasn’t like that, that he really was here to try to prevent robot presence on the preserve, but any human knew that they were little better than chattel to some metals.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with those hot shots,” Jones said. “Why would I kill my customers? How stupid is that?”

  This was just a waste of time. It was like arguing with a child. Erica could get in moods like this, where she got focused on one thing in her mind, and wouldn’t let go of it, ignoring everything that was being said that might have superseded whatever statement she’d latched on to, talking over them louder and louder. No one had accused Jones of anything. They’d hoped he’d give them a little information, and if he didn’t want to come back with them, that was his problem. Kawnac-B would no doubt ensure that the body was never found.

  Laughton stood up. “Let’s find Kawnac-B,” he said to Kir.

  Jones sat up straight. “Wait, wait, what do you want to know?”

  Laughton ignored him. “Come on,” he said.

  Kir stood too.

  “Wait a second,” Jones said, getting to his feet. “I’m sorry. See. I’m saying it. I’m sorry for running. I’ll help however you need.”

  Laughton turned his back, and started across the lobby in the direction that Jones had been coming from when they’d arrived. He didn’t look back to see what Jones was doing, but he suspected that the dealer would follow them, too nervous now to be on his own. He was probably working out what Kir had said about the place becoming a ghost town. Meant the authorities were probably on their way.

  The opposite hallway was shorter than the one that contained the bathrooms. There were two lounges to either side, and then a bank of doors, the two center of which were open. Laughton and Kir went through the doors side by side. They were in an enormous dining room, round tables with white tablecloths, some intended for only two people, up to those that could seat ten. A large dance floor, in impeccable condition, defined one end of the room. The old-fashioned, very human space was like a time capsule of when humans were still the dominant life-form, and enough people would need to eat actual food to warrant a space of this size. Now there was a smattering of robots with a handful of humans spread out around the room.

  “This has to be the most boring illegal club of all time,” Laughton said.

  “Just for your little orgo brain,” Kir said.

  Laughton saw the bar in the corner, a self-serve vending machine that showed a multicolored array of memory stic
ks through the glass. He looked back at the tables and saw that most of the robots were using, some so far gone that sticks were still in their ports. The party was in their cpu’s. “We better get samples from the bar,” he said. “Is the department on its way?”

  “Hell, yeah. The department can come onto the preserve to clear out illegal robots, and come they will.” Kir rolled his eyes. “Just got a message from Kawnac-B.” He pointed to a window in the wall above them. It showed an expensive upstairs office with wood-paneled walls and a gilded ceiling. A tall stainless steel cylinder with a screen that wrapped around the top stood in the center of the window: Kawnac-B.

  “I hate that robot,” Laughton said.

  “There are stairs over here,” Kir said, heading toward the bar.

  Laughton followed.

  “Hey,” Jones called.

  “You want to come?” Laughton said without stopping.

  Jones hung back, and as the police reached the door to the stairs, Laughton saw Jones take a seat at one of the tables. Two identical robots got up from one of the other tables to go and join him. There was something familiar about them, but Laughton couldn’t place what. He used his body cam to snap a picture, and then pushed it aside to focus on the meeting ahead.

  When he and Kir had first come into contact with Kawnac-B years ago, the robot was still mostly humanoid. But as K-B toyed with people more and more, he found the idea of emulating such an easily destroyed machine beneath him. After modification after modification, he eventually settled on the cold metal cylinder as the ideal body. Like a Swiss Army knife, panels hid arms, blades, weapons, and more, each able to emerge instantaneously.

  The door at the top of the stairs opened onto a little anteroom. Fake plants stood in bronze pots in the corners. Kir pulled the office door open, but before Laughton could go through, the robot shoved him, just as the springing sound of wires uncoiling registered in his mind: Taser.

  Shaken, the chief rotated his shoulders and tried to sound unfazed as he stepped into the office, an opulent, wood-paneled room with an enormous rosewood desk, but no chairs. The large window that afforded a view of the ballroom made the space feel much larger than it was. A small elevator door was tucked into a corner. “Interesting choice, Kawnac-B.”