He pulled out his phone. She picked up before it had even rung on his end. “Where are you? Are you okay?” she said.
“I’m fine,” he said. He wasn’t fine, but Betty’s own panic was too big for him to tell her what was happening.
“What’s wrong? You don’t sound right,” she said, knowing him too well to be fooled.
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
“My phone is exploding. People are saying the army is invading the preserve. What’s happening? I’m freaking out.”
“Betty,” Laughton said, speaking deliberately. He knew the best thing was the truth, but he didn’t want to panic her more than she already was. “There are governmental delegates here. That’s it.”
“Why? Where are you? How do you know that’s it? They’re saying they’re closing the roads out of the preserve.”
“Betty, I’m telling you. Everything is okay.”
There was a pause while Betty tried to gauge if she should believe him, rallying her inner resolve. He knew wherever she was, at the school, at the clinic, that she was the rock, the one who was no doubt reassuring everyone else, but she now needed someone to reassure her. “I’m scared,” she said, the panic gone from her voice.
“Listen,” he said, “I’m taking care of it.”
Her voice grew sharp. “How are you taking care of it? What is happening?”
He tried to think how to explain it in the simplest way.
“Jesse?”
“Yes. I’m here. All right.” Kir had walked back down to talk to the officers in the unmarked car. “You know we were concerned the government would use the murder to come in to the preserve?”
“Isn’t that what’s happening?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head even though she couldn’t see him. “There’s a sim going around out there that’s killing robots, and they think it came from here, from our dead hacker actually. They’re looking for anyone who helped, and an antivirus.”
“But they’re closing the roads.”
“No, they’re not,” he said, hoping it sounded authoritative. They’d promised him they wouldn’t, but he honestly didn’t know if it was true.
“Jesse, where are you? Come home.”
He sighed. “I’m in Charleston. Kir and I think we might be able to find the antivirus. We’ve got leads.”
“Oh. All right,” she said, her voice withdrawing. “Do you want to say hi to Erica?” She lowered her voice. “She’s scared too.”
Of course she is, Laughton thought, if you’re in a panic. “Put her on,” he said.
“Hi, Daddy,” Erica said. She always sounded nervous and far away on the phone. She never wanted to put it up to her ear, worried that she would accidently hit something on the touch screen with her cheek, so speakerphone it was.
“Hey,” he said.
“We’re at the clinic. There are a ton of people here.”
Laughton tried to picture that, but his mind stayed fuzzy. “You okay? You know why people are excited?”
“The robots are coming?” she said.
“No,” he said, his heart breaking at the resigned way she said it. “No. I’m taking care of everything. The robots are not coming. This is the preserve.”
“Okay. Here’s Mommy.”
“Erica, wait, you know I love you, right?” But it was Betty again. Erica, rushing off the phone as soon as possible, as usual, hadn’t heard him. “Is she okay?” he said to Betty.
“She’s nervous, but okay.” Her voice grew louder as she took it off of speaker. “Jesse, are you coming home tonight? Are you safe?”
He looked at Kir, the tattered hole in his side. “I might not be home tonight,” he said, ignoring the second question. “I’ll call you when I can. Just stay calm.”
“Okay,” she said, and now she sounded a million miles away.
He felt the sorrow in a ball on top of his stomach, the sickness of being an organic man in a robotic world.
“I love you,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Be safe.” She ended the call.
Laughton went down to join Kir by the unmarked car.
“Okay?” Kir said as Laughton approached.
“Yeah,” Laughton said, but it didn’t sound very convincing to his ears.
“Charlie and Graham are going to follow the Sisters when they finally take off,” Kir said.
“They know you’re out here,” Laughton said to the men in the car, “so don’t go out of your way to not get spotted.”
“He told us,” the officer in the driver’s seat said.
“And call me, if you have anything to report,” Laughton said. “Don’t talk to anyone else.” He held out his phone and they exchanged info.
“Right,” the driver said. Laughton didn’t know if he was Charlie or Graham.
“Docks?” Kir said to him. Laughton was still distracted by his conversation with his family, and it must have been apparent, because Kir said, “If they were taking it out by boat…”
Laughton nodded, and they started walking toward the truck. The chief couldn’t help but feel that he had failed in his duties as a husband and father, that he hadn’t been there for them. “Erica asked me the other day why they made the preserve.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her it was easier to feed everybody if they were close together. That it was easier to repopulate, better for her to have human friends, just, I don’t know, the things that everyone talks about.”
“Don’t forget, so that we can get you all in one place and wipe you out once and for all,” Kir said.
“I left that one out,” Laughton said.
“Look, I can’t believe anyone thinks it, but there are a lot of robots that are angry that you were given so much land, and right on the East Coast,” Kir said.
“We were here first,” Laughton said, cringing for echoing the right-wingers.
“You were,” Kir said.
“It kills me to say it,” Laughton said, “but we made you.”
“You did.”
“It’s only right we have a place of our own.”
“I don’t disagree,” Kir said. “But…”
“What?”
“Most robots don’t realize it, but it’s still a human world. We may be the majority now, but America—still here. President, Congress, the whole thing. We’re robots, and we’re still running your government. Your government in which we were considered things, not individuals. We’re still speaking English, out loud. We’re like colonials after the empire recedes, still living under the empire’s rules.”
“Sure, by humans for robots.”
“Isn’t that better than a whole new world?”
“You realize here that we’re the indigenous people?” Laughton said.
“Right. You’re both. The occupying colonial government and the indigenous peoples.”
“Yeah. We have it all.”
There was a moment of silence, while each partner thought.
“Jesse, you know I’m on your side. That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m not sure there are sides.”
“Protect and serve,” Kir said.
“Protect and serve.”
“So are we going to the docks?”
“You really think an island?” Laughton said, the corner of one side of his mouth raised in skepticism.
“Got anything else?”
Laughton turned on the truck. “Damn.”
Laughton had to call the Charleston dispatcher to find out where the Marine Police Division was located; the GPS couldn’t find it. They occupied a small wharf on the Wando River next to a private yachting club. The rusted cranes of the Port of Charleston, like mammoth, long-necked animals preparing to drink, stood to the north. Away to the south, the diamond-shaped towers of the Ravenel Bridge cut peaks in the sky, as they had since they replaced the twentieth-century structures more than one hundred years before. A chain-link fence topped with barbed w
ire enclosed the police station property, but the gates were open, allowing access to the cracked parking area. Three fifty-foot police boats with sharp bows that were a cross between a shark’s snout and a tank sat on tractor trailers outside of a large boathouse.
Laughton and Kir headed for what looked like a bait shop, a small building built out onto the pier. There were two yellow, hard-shelled inflatable boats in the water bearing the word “Police” in large plain type, and another fifty-footer like the ones in the parking lot. The door to the station had a window in the top half, but a closed set of venetian blinds hid any view of the inside. The blinds swung to as Laughton opened the door, slapping back again with a clatter.
There were three metal desks crammed into the small office. They were all coated with the mess of electronics that could be found on every policeman’s desk—monitors, keyboards, desktops, laptops, tablets, e-readers—and the ensuing cables that dripped over the backs of the desks to power strips on the floor. One of the desks sported several model boats of a variety of sizes. An oversize photo, too large for the space, hung off-kilter on the wall, showing six men in front of one of the police boats with false grim expressions meant to make them seem imposing.
One of the men from the picture sat at the farthest desk, leaning back in a spring-backed desk chair, salt-and-pepper hair and a gray mustache, his skin the cracked leather of years spent on boats under the sun. Another man, not in the picture, sat in a metal straight-backed chair on the other side of the desk, black, with white hair and beard that formed a kind of mane around his face. “Gentlemen,” the man in the desk chair said. Then it registered that one of them was a robot, and both men’s expressions tightened for a fraction of a second, almost imperceptible to an untrained eye.
Laughton showed his credentials, and the policeman introduced himself as Chief Barston. The other man wasn’t police, but a maintenance worker at the yacht club, James. He seemed at home in the little police station.
“We want to ask you about sims trafficking on the water out here,” Laughton said.
James snorted. “Good luck,” he said.
“We get a lot of it,” Chief Barston said.
“That’s all we’ve got out here,” James said.
“You and I go fishing, and we’re not the only ones,” Barston said.
“Yeah, everyone’s fishing with a tackle box full of memory sticks.”
Barston’s eyes flitted to Kir before returning to Laughton. “We get some,” he amended.
Laughton pointed to his partner. “You don’t have to worry about him.”
“I’m not here to police you or anybody,” Kir said.
“We do our best,” Barston said, shifting in his chair.
“How many boats do you have out?” Laughton said.
Barston smirked. “None. Metals—no offense—Coast Guard shut down the harbor. Not supposed to have any boats out. I sent the boys home.”
Laughton exchanged a look with Kir.
“News said they shut the roads down too,” Barston said.
“I said no way they going to let us alone out here, just parcel off some land and give it to us,” James said. “People should read their history. Metals were made by people as much as they want to forget it, and you can see what people did when they started separating groups out.”
Kir said, “My channels are saying that they’re preparing for shutdown, but are holding for tomorrow, as we agreed.”
“Well, the Coast Guard sure as hell isn’t waiting,” Barston said. “But they can try all they want to blockade, I’ll tell you, someone wants to get through, they can.”
“Have you heard of people operating off any of the islands out here?” Laughton said. “An informant told us that there’s a new operation on some island.”
“A reason that pirates liked these waters,” Barston said. “I’m sure there are people on the islands out there.”
“Dewees Island,” James said.
“Dewees not part of the preserve,” Barston said.
“No one knows what’s part of the preserve out there.” James looked Laughton straight in the eye. “I’m telling you, there are people out on Dewees. Got lights on. Just in the past few weeks.” He looked back at Barston. “I don’t always stay on-preserve. What the hell you got a boat for otherwise?”
“Would you take us out there?” Laughton said.
Barston held his hands up in front of him. “I’m not breaking a blockade. They complain the Maritime Division’s ineffective as it is. I’m not giving them an excuse to shut us down.”
James said, “Don’t even look at me. I’m a civilian.”
Laughton pulled out his phone and opened the maps program. He held it out to James. “Can you show us where Dewees is and where you saw the lights?”
James took the phone. Chief Barston leaned over his desk so he could see as well. James pinched and swiped at the screen until he had the correct island on view, then pointed to the coast at the south end of the island. “There,” he said, handing the phone back.
Laughton put a pin there, and put the phone back in his pocket.
“Wouldn’t go out there in the daytime,” James said. “Coast Guard on patrol.”
“They use infrared,” Barston said. “Nighttime doesn’t matter.”
Laughton felt the anxious paranoia of life before the preserve closing around him, something he hadn’t realized he felt until he began to live without it. “We’ll be careful.”
“Got a boat?” James said.
“We don’t want to worry you,” Laughton said, thinking they’d steal a boat. That way no one else could be held responsible.
“Okay,” James said. “Yacht club might have some small boats just tied up over there. Maybe. They might.”
Laughton took his phone out again and held it out to Chief Barston. “If you hear anything…”
Barston picked up his own phone from the desk, and touched it to Laughton’s. “What are you looking for exactly? ’Cause really these waters are a free road for anyone, and we don’t get too worried about sims, though don’t tell anyone that.” He checked Kir for a reaction.
“You hear about the robots dying from that sim?”
“Something,” Barston said.
“We think the antivirus might be out on that island. Fix that, and robots don’t have an excuse to lock us in.”
“They don’t need an excuse,” James said.
“At least they won’t have one,” Laughton said.
Barston shook his head. He suddenly looked tired. “Good luck,” he said.
“Thank you for your help,” Kir said.
James snorted, staring ahead, not looking at them.
“Thanks,” Laughton said, and pulled open the door to the outside. The blinds swung again, and rattled as they shut the door behind them. “What do you think?” he said outside.
Kir looked up at the sky. The blue was growing washed-out. “Maybe an hour and a half until sunset.”
“And the IR?”
“Risk it?” Kir said. “Chances are good we won’t be anywhere near Coast Guard.”
“We hope.”
“Night is still better,” Kir said.
“Then I need to lie down. My face feels like it’s peeling off of my head, and my head feels like someone’s tightening a metal band around it.”
“Where to?”
“I’ll sleep in the back of the truck. But let’s move it somewhere. Don’t want to make things hard for these guys.”
“Right,” Kir said.
Laughton nodded. They were going to go off the preserve, and through a robot blockade. They’d have no authority and no protection, and while Kir could always call people in, it didn’t mean they’d always be friendly. His tired spread over him. What a goddamn mess.
* * *
The chief jerked awake and then stayed still, opening his eyes wide, waiting to remember where he was and why he was so damned uncomfortable.
“Jesse.”
I
t was Kir. Laughton sat up, wincing as his back realigned. They had found a parking lot with a charging station not far from the marine police station where they were mostly not visible to the traffic on the street. They’d plugged in the truck, and Kir too, and Jesse had hoped a power nap would clear his head for their river voyage by moonlight. It was dark out now. This part of Charleston wasn’t quite as empty as Liberty, but it was empty enough that there was not much by way of artificial light. The charging station was only still active because it was against the law to shut them off. The building it went with was dead.
Kir tapped him on the shoulder. “You ready?”
Laughton took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. Then he rubbed his face with both hands, and shook his head once to clear it. “Yeah,” he said, and pulled himself to his feet. He jumped from the back end of the truck and closed the tailgate.
Kir put his hand on Laughton’s shoulder, stopping him from going forward. “Jesse, don’t take this the wrong way, but when you die, would you want me to stay on until Erica dies?”
“Jesus,” Laughton said.
“Really,” Kir said. “Because I can. I can live through your grandchildren’s lives too. Forever.”
“Let’s just do this thing. No one’s going to die tonight.”
“Of course, sure. But seriously, would you want me to be alive to watch over Erica until the end of her life?”
Laughton thought about his father refusing to move to the reserve because of his love for the robot that had been in his life forever. Was the feeling mutual? “I couldn’t ask that of you.”
“I just—while you slept, thought about what we were talking about, who the world’s for, and what’s my point if I just go on forever? Why?”
“You’ve heard Betty talk about school?” Laughton said. “That humans still have great things they can do, and that school can help unlock those things?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s be honest,” Laughton said. “Who cares? They’re never going to grow up and go to work. What do they really need to learn? Why bother teaching them?”
“Why bother making more of them?”
“Exactly.”
The Preserve Page 18