“Assuming you didn’t burn them out,” he said.
“Chief Laughton,” Jenny said. “South Carolina is our home and it always has been. You do what you need to do, and we’ll be back. But right now we need to do what we need to do.”
“I’m going to believe that what you need to do is go to your farm, and if we need you and you’re not there, you might not have a farm to come back to.”
“Listen, asshole—” Lysee started.
But Marcy stopped her with a raised hand. “Do your job, Chief, and it won’t come to that, because if it did, it wouldn’t be good for you.”
They all let the counterthreat hang in the air. After a moment, Laughton held up his phone. “I need to be able to contact one of you.”
Jenny pulled her phone out of her back pocket, and they tapped them together. “Good enough?” Jenny said.
Laughton didn’t feel at all that it was good enough, certain if the Sisters didn’t want to be found again that he would never find them. But if things played out in their favor, and the preserve went on, it would be better to have the Sisters as a source than as enemies. “Sure,” he said.
Kir looked at Lysee. “Next time they better be electric tips,” he said to her.
“Fuck you, metal.”
“Ladies,” Kir said with a nod of the head and a casual two-finger salute. He headed out the door.
Laughton watched the whole operation for another minute, yearning for the right question to ask, feeling like there must be something to glean here, but in the end, he turned and followed Kir through the broken door frame and into the daylight.
Outside, the chief crashed from the adrenaline comedown as it fully registered that shots had been fired. He brought his hands to his head, and then rubbed them on his thighs, taking a deep breath and exhaling.
Kir patted him on the back. “I’m the one who got shot,” he said.
You don’t have pain receptors, Laughton thought, but was too shaken to voice. He remembered Betty’s call, and felt guilty for ignoring it. If things had gone another way in there…
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…”