California(92)

“I was just curious,” Cal said. “I mean, why here?”

“We were recruited,” Sailor said. “By Catherine with a C. We called her Catie.”

“Catie with a C,” Dave said with a little laugh. “She was awesome.”

“Are you sure that was her real name?” Cal asked. “I mean, I’m thinking it could be the same person who recruited Micah. Toni? Short for Antonia.”

“I doubt it,” Dave said. “It was Catie’s first year doing it.”

“They used a different recruiter every year,” Sailor said. “Cleaner that way.”

“‘Cleaner’?”

“As in harder to trace back,” Dave said. “The same woman coming to visit a bunch of boys at a weird school, year after year? That’s bound to draw attention eventually.”

“So Catie with a C was part of an ongoing practice, to get Plankers?”

“You bet,” Sailor said.

“What did she tell you?” Cal asked.

“What did Toni-short-for-Antonia tell you?” Dave asked.

“Nothing,” Cal replied. “It was Micah she wanted.”

“Then she wasn’t a good recruiter,” Sailor said. “They’re supposed to get at least two or three men interested.”

“Why Plank, though?”

“Why not Plank?” Sailor asked. “We know how to farm and how to cook and how to build shit. You need all that in this world. Plus, we’re intellectually curious.”

Dave laughed. “I guess they tried to get some off-the-land types first, but they weren’t focused enough or smart enough or were just too hard to find. They needed people with skills, and Plankers have them.”

“You’re talking about the Group, right?”

No answer.

He tried again: “Sailor, you said not everyone on the Land participates in the Group’s activities?”

That’s when Dave turned, binoculars falling around his neck. “Jesus, Sail. You’re worse than a teenage girl.”

“He’s at the meetings,” Sailor said. “What difference does it make if he knows?”

“Knows what?” Cal asked. Find out everything. “What did the recruiter tell you?”

“It was different for Micah,” Sailor said. “He’d never heard of the Group when he was in school. But by the time we were at Plank, we’d read about the stunts and Micah Ellis, the infamous suicide bomber, and even the encampment. The school was a month from closing when Catie showed up.”

“God, that was depressing,” Dave said. “Remember how classes kept getting canceled?”

“She talked to us about the projects the Group was undertaking to revitalize L.A., and she gave us books to read. She told us what similar organizations were doing in other cities.” Sailor paused. “I seriously had no idea where I was going to go until she came around.”

“But you didn’t go to a city,” Cal said. “This is nowhere.”

“We trained in L.A. first,” Sailor said. “The Group wanted to end senseless violence in areas with minimal population.”

“Can you be more specific?”

Dave raised an eyebrow. “Pirates, Cal. Bands of marauders. Sailor is babbling about how we were trained to protect settlers in this area from Pirates.”

Sailor’s voice pitched a little higher; he was excited. “The argument was, why should those criminals take and take from innocent people? They had no mission beyond greed. In some ways, they were a lot like the people who started the Communities, taking from the less fortunate, hoarding it for themselves. We came with about twenty others to make this area peaceful.”

Cal couldn’t find the words to speak, and Dave smiled. “That’s why you’re still alive, my friend. Because we eradicated the threat.”

“You’re welcome,” Sailor said.

Dave sighed. “Break.”

Sailor rolled his eyes, and stood.

Dave sat across from Cal on the floor. Cal reminded himself to be quiet, let them keep talking, let them lead him to the answers. The meek will inherit the earth: wasn’t that the phrase? He wasn’t even sure what that meant, even after the Sociology of Thought seminar at Plank. During that class, he’d almost wished his mother had sent him to Sunday school. The Christians, and the former Christians, they’d had a leg up during the lectures on Jesus.

Dave yawned loudly and Sailor, eyes to the binoculars, said, “The more Dave yawns, the better he is at this job.”

“Good thing yawns are contagious, then,” Cal said.

Dave laughed. “You’re witty, California.”

Cal winced. He’d noticed, over the last week, how every person he got close to on the Land turned into Micah, if only for a second. It could be a small, borrowed gesture or some phrase Micah had used the day before or his method of skating across an insult in such a way that it was barely detectable to the victim. Back at Plank, Cal had done it, too. Once, in a class, he’d found himself drawing goats with human faces in the margins in his notebook, the very same beasts Micah liked to doodle when he was bored. Cal had stopped midscrawl and even gone back to black out the evidence of his mimicry. Was he ashamed that he’d imitated his friend so brazenly? Or was it that he knew, in his heart, that Micah was inimitable?