“Is that something?”
“Virus scan,” Jeremy said.
The bar finished filling. “That was fast.”
“Must be a small file,” Jeremy said.
“Should we run it?” Zach said.
“Do it.”
The cursor on the screen moved over to the file name, and clicked.
Instantly, a satellite map of the preserve appeared on-screen. Then an overlay of lines traced out roads. The camera followed one of those roads out to the western edge of the reservation. The camera then panned back east until it had reached Charleston and the harbor. The line continued over the water. Then the screen went black.
Zach started typing, but the screen remained blank. “What the hell,” he said.
“You get that?” Laughton said to Kir.
“I’ve got it,” Kir said.
“What the goddamn hell,” Zach said.
“It fry your computer?” Laughton said.
The screen flickered back to life. “No,” Zach said, the relief audible as he exhaled.
“You waiting out here?” Laughton said.
“Commissioner said to wait for you, then whatever you want.”
“Go home,” Laughton said. “There’s nothing more out here. Thanks for your work.”
“You need anything else?” Zach said. “Like this.” He handed the memory stick back to Kir.
“I think we’re all right,” Kir said. Laughton wasn’t sure if they had tumbled to the fact that Kir was a robot.
“All right,” he said, opening the passenger-side door to the car.
Laughton and Kir stepped back. As the car pulled away, Laughton said, “I saw one of those routes went out west, past here.”
“Santee.”
“Santee? Where the fuck is Santee?”
“Resort town off of Lake Marion.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Laughton said. “Is that even on the preserve?”
“Right on the western border.”
“There’s no one out there. Liberty’s as west as you get.”
“If there’s no one out there, that seems like a good place to be smuggling sims.”
“Shit,” Laughton said. It felt like the net was widening instead of tightening. At this stage in an investigation, even if he had no idea about what happened, he had usually identified who was involved, but with this, it seemed to just be going farther and farther afield.
“You can sleep on the way there,” Kir said, assuming that was Laughton’s hesitation.
“Who needs sleep?” Laughton said.
“I certainly don’t, meatbag,” Kir said.
“Just wait. I’ll put you to sleep,” Laughton said. Sleep would be nice, but it was the least of his concerns at that moment.
“We’ll see who’s asleep when we get there.”
“I guess we will,” Laughton said.
Darkness coated them. They were out on one of the old county highways. Kir had entered the destination based on what he’d seen on Crisper’s map, and the truck was driving.
“You know where we’re going?” Laughton said.
“Checked it on satellite.”
“And?”
“Someone’s out there.”
“Great,” Laughton said.
The undercarriage lights that lit the guidelines on the road so the truck could stay on track cast an aura of light on which they floated. Everything beyond that thin halo of blurred pavement was shades of black. It was oppressive, like being caught in an out-of-service elevator. What Laughton knew must be beautiful South Carolina fields was a great unknown. Back in the day, there must have been some electric lights visible, streetlights or isolated farmhouses, barns, but now it was just void. No wonder the robots had turned this land over to the humans. It was of no value to them. Robots were hardly a rural race.
As though reading his thoughts, Kir said, “So how’s this great preserve experience really going? As a human, living on the inside.”
“Dull.” Laughton thought more on it. “Depressing. Everyone here’s just waiting to die, drinking their way through. Only crime I have to deal with are drunks, and that’s all day every day. It’s like I’m a principal in some giant outdoors high school.”
“If you’re the principal, then I’m the superintendent.”
“Fighting for us lowly humans so we can drink ourselves to extinction on our own land.”
“Something like that,” Kir said.
“Betty’s doing the real important work here,” Laughton said. “If you think perpetuating the human race is important. I don’t know.”
“Yeah.”
“Evolution’s supposed to be survival of the fittest. We’re no longer the fittest.”
“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.