The Preserve

A Novel

Ariel S. Winter

• Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781476797885
• eBook ISBN: 9781476797908
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature
• Index: Literature

The critically acclaimed author of the "bold, innovating, and thrilling" (Stephen King) novel The Twenty-Year Death and the "brilliant" ( Booklist, starred review) novel Barren Cove returns with a dark and compelling mystery set in the near future. Decimated by plague, the human population is now a minority. Robots—complex AIs almost indistinguishable from humans—are the ruling majority. Nine months ago, in a controversial move, the robot government opened a series of preserves, designated areas where humans can choose to live without robot interference. Now the preserves face their first challenge: someone has been murdered.Chief of Police Jesse Laughton on the SoCar Preserve is assigned to the case. He fears the factions that were opposed to the preserves will use the crime as evidence that the new system does not work. As he digs for information, robots in the outside world start turning up dead from bad drug-like programs that may have originated on SoCar land. And when Laughton learns his murder victim was a hacker who wrote drug-programs, it appears that the two cases might be linked. Soon, it's clear that the entire preserve system is in danger of collapsing. Laughton's former partner, a robot named Kir, arrives to assist on the case, and they soon uncover shocking secrets revealing that life on the preserve is not as peaceful as its human residents claim. But in order to protect humanity's new way of life, Laughton must solve this murder before it's too late. The Preserve is a fresh and futuristic mystery that is perfect for fans of Westworld and Blade Runner.

Sitting down, chief of police Jesse Laughton put his palms on his desk to steady himself, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He was exhausted. His headache, coupled with the chronic pain in his face, made it hard to focus. Life would be easier if I was dead, he thought, then opened his eyes and looked at the clock on the wall without turning his head. The thin red hand made its stuttering march through the numbers into the late afternoon. Only forty-three minutes left in his shift.

Then the phone on his desk buzzed, the vibration sliding it across the out-of-date calendar-blotter. He had it set on Do Not Disturb, and lying facedown. He knew that having his phone in Do Not Disturb mode during his shift was not only against the police department’s bylaws, but as chief was irresponsible. But this late in the day, he just didn’t care. Now it was ringing anyway, which meant that somebody needed to get through badly enough to call him more than once in two minutes. Still, he watched it buzz for another few seconds before working up the strength to turn it over to see who was calling. It was Mathews. That was bad.

He answered. “Chief Laughton.”

“Well, we won the lottery,” Mathews said without a hello.

Laughton felt his stomach drop, followed by a wave of nausea. He waited for it.

“Dead body,” Mathews said. “Taser to the neck.”

Laughton closed his eyes again. “Homicide.”

“Looks like it. First one on the preserve.”

Shit. Nine months since they opened the SoCar Preserve, and the first body has to show up in Liberty. Really, it’s amazing it took this long. The drop in violent crime since the preserve opened was something both the robot and preserve governments were touting as proof that the preserve had been a success that far exceeded expectations. Well, the honeymoon was over.

“It’s Carl Smythe. Body was behind Kramer’s Market, between the dumpster and the loading dock. I thought you’d want to come look.”

Chief Laughton could feel his left lower eyelid fluttering. The whole left side of his face began to tingle.

“Chief?”

“Anything I can’t get from the pictures?” he said.

“It’s just when they start asking questions,” Mathews said, “they’re going to be asking you.”

Why did it have to be in Liberty?

“Okay,” Laughton said. “I’ll be right over.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

Chief Laughton hung up, and held the phone a moment in a daze. He looked at the clock again. It promised thirty-seven minutes left in his shift, but that didn’t mean anything now. If only his head didn’t hurt. He opened his desk drawer and took out a bottle of Advil. Each pill cost a fortune these days, but if there was ever a time to use them, this was it, even if he knew they probably wouldn’t help. He swallowed four, dry, dropped the bottle back in the desk drawer, and looked at his gun sitting in the drawer as well. The way his face felt, he couldn’t shoot straight if he had to. There was no reason to make the first murder in preserve history also the first day he carried a gun since coming to Liberty. He slammed the drawer shut, stood, and strode out of the room.

---

Liberty was the smallest of the three towns on the preserve outside of Charleston. The town had started out with a larger than normal human population because of two separate Southern Baptist churches that had attracted strong congregations. That gave it a reputation of being orgo-friendly, and the churches had advertised that all were welcome. Now that Liberty was overflowing with preservationists, the churches’ importance had waned. The town instead sported more bars than any other kind of establishment, and they were all lax with whom they served and how much.

Chief Laughton pulled his truck up to where Mathews’s cruiser was parked. The blacktop was cracked, green shoots growing where they could. A chunk of concrete sat beside the supermarket’s loading dock, a rusty bit of rebar at the edge of the platform showing where it had been. There were two dumpsters, both overflowing, and garbage bags neatly lined up on the ground all around them. A refrigerated box truck, its compressor huddled on top, was backed up against the loading bay with a crude painting of a cornucopia emblazoned on the side. The word “Sisters” was written in fancy script above the cornucopia, and stenciled block letters below it read “SoCar Preserve.”

Mathews and his partner, Dunrich, were talking to Larry Richman, the store’s manager, and some skinny, white kid, looked maybe fifteen. The kid had his arms folded high on his chest, hands in his armpits, like he was cold despite the early spring weather. A young black man sucking a vape leaned against the delivery truck. Richman kept peeking over his shoulder at the body slumped against the building. Jesus, Laughton thought. He put the truck in reverse, and pulled it back so that it blocked the view of the body for anyone who happened to be going by. They didn’t need an audience.

The chief willed his mind to focus, pushing the pain in his face and his head down as best he could to get through the job that needed to be done. He got out of his truck, and Mathews turned to meet his boss.

“The kid found him when he came out to receive the delivery,” Mathews said without bothering with a greeting.

Carl Smythe’s body was propped up in the corner formed by the loading dock and the back of the building. He was wearing cargo shorts and a three-quarter-sleeve baseball shirt for some team called the Cougars. His head was tilted back, his eyes closed. “You close the eyes?” Laughton said.

Mathews shook his head. “They were like that.”

Laughton nodded. The eyes hardly mattered. The real showstopper was Smythe’s left arm and leg. They’d both been cut open, jagged tears consistent with a dull blade. But instead of a bloody mass of flesh, the wounds revealed metal bones encased in simul-skin. “So he was a robot,” Laughton said. “Shit.”

“Cyborg,” Mathews said.

“You knew?”

“Nah. We did a scan when we saw the bones. Rest of him’s one hundred percent orgo.”

“Hate crime?”

Mathews shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t see it. Records search said Smythe was into sims.”

Laughton pulled out his phone and took a picture of the corpse.

“We got it on the 3-D,” Mathews said.

“A picture comes in handy,” Laughton said, checking it. “Black guy the deliveryman?”

“Yeah.” Mathews looked at his phone. “Barry Slattery. He doesn’t have a record.”

Laughton examined the area around the body, but there was nothing to find. It wasn’t like there would be footprints in the asphalt. “You said it was a Taser?”

“I didn’t want to move him, but you can just see it, back of the neck.”

Laughton stepped closer to the body. He saw the discoloration Mathews was talking about. “Give me gloves.”

Mathews pulled a pair of black latex gloves from his pocket and handed them to the chief.

After putting them on, Laughton tilted the head forward with great care, as though he didn’t want to wake the man, and there, in the center of the back of the neck, were twin puncture wounds, swollen like bee stings, reminiscent of vampire bites from old horror movies. “Good spot, Officer.”

“Could be a robot,” Mathews said.

“Or it could just be a Taser.”

“Weird choice of murder weapon.”

“Unless Smythe wasn’t supposed to die.”

Laughton ran his hands down to the pockets. “Phone?”

Mathews shook his head. “Couldn’t find it.”

“Boss?” Dunrich called.

Laughton and Mathews turned.

“You want to talk to these guys?”

“Did he really just do that?” Laughton said to Mathews. He shook his head and rolled his eyes, and headed for the witnesses.

Larry Richman was in his familiar suit, the jacket over a black T-shirt with no tie. Laughton wondered if Bob Kramer required the outfit of his manager, or if Larry wore it out of pride. He had been the sole supplier of food to the human population back when Liberty was still named after some extinct Native American tribe, before its new residents rechristened it as an outgrowth of the upwelling optimism many felt at the creation of the preserve. The demotion from owner to manager had to sting, even if it had been Larry’s decision to sell his store to Kramer. It always struck Laughton as a bit ridiculous to see Larry restocking shelves or carrying boxes all dressed up.

“Hey, Larry,” Laughton said.

“Jesse,” Larry said.

The boy wore a Kramer’s collared T-shirt and black pants. His name tag read “Ryan.” In Baltimore, Chief Laughton had been the only human in major crimes, famous for reading lies on people’s faces that robotic facial recognition software could never match, but on the preserve, there hadn’t been much cause to call on his nearly fifteen years of experience. That’d been the point of the job, after all. It was supposed to be stress-free, or at least stress-lite, given the smaller population, but as he began talking to the boy, he immediately started to evaluate the muscle movement in the boy’s face, reading his macro-expressions while looking for any micro-expressions that might flitter by.

“Ryan,” Laughton said, turning to the boy, “you already tell the officers what you saw?”

“We’ve got it recorded, boss,” Dunrich said.

Laughton didn’t even bother to turn to give his officer the evil eye for interrupting. He could count on Mathews to reprimand his partner later. “Tell me,” Laughton said.

“There’s not much to tell, really. I came out of the back”—he nodded, indicating which door with his chin—“Barry was opening the back of the truck, and I looked over and just…”

nose wrinkle, cheeks raised, eyebrows down—disgust

“I saw the body.”

“And?”

“I told Mr. Richman,” Ryan said.

face neutral

“I thought I was going to throw up.”

Laughton felt that way too, but it had nothing to do with the crime scene. Trying to ignore his headache was getting harder. “Did you know who it was?”

The boy shook his head.

nose wrinkle softened, cheeks relax—relief

“Never seen him.”

“See any strangers around? Unfamiliar cars?”

The boy shook his head again. Consistent expression.

Laughton looked at Larry. Eyelids raised, rest of face passive—worry. Laughton couldn’t say whether it was for the victim, who was beyond help, or for how the event would affect his business. “Larry?”

“I’ve seen him around,” the manager said.

lower eyelids tensing—fear

“Came in maybe once a week or so, maybe. I didn’t know his name.”

“What about Barry?” Laughton said, lowering his voice. “How well you know him?”

lower eyelids relaxed—fear passed as he realized he wouldn’t be asked anything he didn’t know

“He’s been making the produce delivery for a while, before the preserve, maybe two years? I don’t know.”

“You ever seen him talking to the victim?”

frown, grooves flanking the lips, narrowed lower eyelids—answer in the negative

“Nah,” Larry said. “Barry doesn’t come in past the storeroom. He drops the stuff and pulls out.”

Laughton looked over at the deliveryman. His right leg was jiggling with nerves as he took another drag from his vape.

“Cameras back here?”

“No. No reason to waste the electricity.”

“What about inside? Or in the front?”

Larry shook his head. “Theft hasn’t been a problem. Mr. Kramer figures anyone stealing probably needs it anyway.”

“Haven’t I seen those tinted domes in the ceiling?”

“Just for show.” Even the worry was gone now, and no micro-expressions to counter anything the manager had said. Neither of them was lying, which wasn’t really a surprise.

Laughton looked at the body again. Why’d it hav...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• About the Author
• Copyright