Barry shook his head. “I really don’t know. All I know, he was panicked.”
“Don’t you panic now,” Laughton said.
Barry shook his head, but his eyebrows were knit in fear.
“Worst thing you could do would be to disappear.”
Barry nodded.
“Jesse,” Kir said with the polite sternness that said he had something that couldn’t wait and couldn’t be said in public, but before Laughton could respond, a text came through on his phone, and then it began to buzz almost immediately thereafter. He pulled it out, and his eyebrows frowned, the commissioner’s office. Barry’s cell was ringing now too. What happened?
“All our friends from Washington just hit the news,” Kir said as Laughton accepted the call. His stomach felt as though it had been pulled through his feet. “Laughton,” he said.
The commissioner’s secretary said, “One moment,” and then the commissioner was on. “Chief Laughton, I need you to come in now, please. The federal authorities are not happy about the delay. They want to speak with the man in charge of the homicide.” His tone was chummy, but stilted. He was not alone.
The sound of another text coming in. Barry rushed into the kitchen, talking breathlessly on the phone.
“Um,” Laughton stalled. “I’m onto something.”
“When can you be here?” the commissioner said with a big smile in his voice.
Laughton was eager to get to the Sisters. Knowing that McCardy was looking to make contact with them, he wanted to get there first. “Say at least an hour. Tell them I’m all the way on the other side of the preserve.” He knew they’d be too busy to bother to GPS his phone.
“Two hours?” the commissioner said, trying to buy him extra time. Laughton felt an unusual surge of warmth toward the man. “We’ll see you— What?” the commissioner said to someone who was with him. His voice grew even more pinched. “It’s got to be now,” the commissioner said to Laughton, “twenty minutes.”
Shit, Laughton thought. Shit, shit, shit. “Then I need immediate surveillance on two locations.”
“Send them to me.”
“Okay,” he said.
The commissioner hung up.
Chief Laughton looked at the texts he’d received, both from Betty. The first, “They’re coming!” and the second, “You promised!” And then a third came through right then. “Get back here now.” This was followed with a series of emoji, crying, screaming, fuming. If he didn’t call her, she’d have a heart attack.
“Betty?” Kir said.
He nodded, texting the commissioner Barry’s address and the location Barry had given them for the Sisters’ home base. Then he called Betty. She picked up before it had even rung once. “I knew it. I knew they’d never let us alone. They just wanted to get us all in one place so it was easier to wipe us out.”
“Betty…”
“Don’t tell me I’m overreacting. You know your history.”
“Okay,” he said. The panic in Betty’s voice was frightening. He didn’t know what she would do, and he couldn’t get to her, and now he had this meeting with the very robots freaking her out. If he told her that, she’d think he was going to be killed.
“You need to make this better,” she said.
“I’m trying.”
“No, you need to come here, and make this better.”
“Betty, they’re not taking over the preserve. They’ve got to look into the sims connections to these robot deaths, and that happens to be on the preserve. They’re here as guests.” He heard himself giving the official spiel without even having been briefed, and it made him sick. Is this how it happens? We all just keep fooling ourselves until it’s too late? “Listen, I just got a big break. I need to work on this, and I might be able to get the feds to leave before they send more robots in.”
“Are you just saying that?” Betty said.
“No,” he said, hoping it sounded true. The click of a call waiting came through. He pulled the phone away from his ear to see who it was. His mother.
Bringing the phone back to his ear, he heard Betty reply with a small “Okay.”
“Let me go,” he said.
“Promise me,” Betty said.
“I promise,” he said without either of them detailing exactly what the promise was. He hung up, switching to his mother. “Mom, I can’t talk right now.”
“But you’re okay? The news says there are robots on the preserve. They’re going to shut it down?”
“Mom.”
“What’s happening?”
“Mom!”
“A mother gets to worry about her son.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“How’s Erica?”
“She’s with her mother. Call them. I really need to go.”
“Be safe,” she said. “I love you.”
“Take care.”
“Bye-bye.”
He hung up. The two calls back-to-back left him feeling drained and off balance.
“Ready?” Kir said, thankfully not prying.
Laughton nodded. He went over to the door frame leading into the kitchen. Barry was talking into his phone with his free hand pressed against his forehead, like he needed to hold his head in place. “We’re going,” he said to Barry.
“Good,” Barry said without taking the phone away from his mouth. “ ’Cause I’m done. I’m just done.”
Laughton watched the frazzled young man, and it made him feel helpless. He turned and walked away.
* * *
In the truck they had the radio tuned to the Charleston PD. There was a lot of chatter about the metals moving in, a lot of things said that shouldn’t have been said on an open channel. He’d never tolerate that kind of unnecessary traffic on the radio from his officers, but everyone was in a panic. People were talking about rumors of a blockade in the harbor. Just the idea made Laughton’s throat squeeze tight, and he brought both hands to his forehead, rubbing the top of his head in panic.
Kir turned off the radio. “They won’t have any kind of real blockade in place until tomorrow,” he said.
“You guessing?”
“I’m listening,” he said, indicating that part of his system was taking updates from official channels. “Narcotics and the Coast Guard. Not us.” Laughton’s face must have appeared stricken, because Kir said, “I know. But I swear I’ll protect the preserve.”
“Just like I promised Betty you metal bastards would stay off our land?”
Kir said nothing, and Laughton felt guilty immediately for having grouped his friend, using the slur. “Look,” he said, “we’ll hit the Sisters. Sounds like Sam’s running from Titanium. Who would know better than the enemy?”
“Keep following the distribution line,” Kir said.
“Won’t end your robot deaths.”
“If we kill the supply and pick up some scapegoats, I promise you I will get robot forces off the preserve. I promise.”
“Yeah. Okay. First let’s catch a killer.”