“Also understand that if you exit the grounds unauthorized, for any reason, your safety cannot be guaranteed. Not only that, but you will have jeopardized yourself and, just as importantly, you will have endangered your fellow residents. So, if you leave, your participation in the program will be terminated immediately, and you will be out there, on your own, in the outside world, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, can be an unforgiving place, especially for the type of people who end up here. That said, you are in this program voluntarily. So, welcome.”
At this prompt, the four people in the room eye each other, wondering how the other people came to be here.
Robinson goes on. “Beyond these three rules, we have a few other guidelines that I strongly suggest you take to heart. For starters, please respect your fellow residents. This is a community built on privacy and mutual trust. We don’t ask pointed questions of each other or try to speculate about other people’s pasts. We don’t try to pinpoint regional accents or ask about sports-team affiliations or the origin or meaning”—and here he nods conspicuously to the skinny shaved-headed ramrod—“of people’s tattoos. Whoever you were before, we are all now citizens of Caesura, located in Kettle County, in the great state of Texas, in the continental United States of America. Everything that happened to you before you got here has either been forgotten or is better off forgotten. Your new life starts today. Any questions?”
The young girl, the likely hiker, shoots up her hand. “Why Kettle County, Texas, of all places?”
“Kettle County is the third least populous county in the United States. The population of the entire county is, last I checked, about two hundred and sixty-eight, give or take a birth or death in the last twenty-four hours. That does not include the approximately forty-eight people, including yourselves, who live here in Caesura. Technically, we don’t exist. At least as far as the census is concerned.”
The hiker shoots up her hand again. “So why not situate us in the least populous county? Why third least?”
“Because the least populous county, which is also located in beautiful northwest Texas, seemed a little too obvious a choice, was the thinking, I believe.”
Hiker’s hand, again.
“What about the second least populous county?”
“The second least populous county in the United States is in Hawaii. Perception-wise, this was not deemed an acceptable location, since this is, after all, not a spa. And you are not here to work on your tans.”
Robinson lets the four people in the room contemplate the fact that they could, right now, in an alternate universe, be living in Hawaii, rather than here, in this universe, in a glorified trailer park fenced in under the hot Texas sun. He savors their disappointed faces. Then he continues.
“Let me stress that, despite the perimeter fence and the various rules, your residency here is not a punishment. You are not in jail. You are not in hell. You are in Texas.” He waits for a few dry chuckles; it’s a long shot, but the line sometimes gets a response. Today, no dice. Tough crowd. “Beyond the prohibitions I’ve outlined, every legal recreational activity is accommodated and even encouraged. Books, films, and television are all provided. We have a library. We have a gym. We even have a bar. We have a chapel, if you’re so inclined. We have a medical facility for onsite emergencies and treatments and a very good onsite nurse practitioner, Ava Breckinridge, who’s also available for therapeutic visits. There’s a well-stocked commissary that gets weekly shipments of goods, food, clothes, everything you might need. Though I’ll warn you, it’s not exactly Neiman Marcus.”
This gets a dutiful snort from the fortysomething woman. It’s something, at least.
“There is, however, no Internet access,” he continues. “There are no personal phone calls in or out, and no personal mail. You will not be in contact with anyone from your past under any circumstances. Because, simply put, if we have access to the outside world, that means the outside world has access to us. Which is exactly what we are striving to avoid.”
Now the goombah’s hand flutters up briefly from the desk in what Robinson decides is an acceptable concession toward hand-raising. He nods to him. “Yes?”
“Are we hidden?” the goombah asks, in a goombahish voice. Cooper, from the back of the room, determines upon further consideration that the goombah’s not Italian but from some more far-flung quadrant of Eastern Europe. His inflections, though, are pure American Gangster, probably picked up from a thousand Scorsese films. “You said we don’t exist,” the goombah continues. “Like, could people find this place on a map?”
“We’re as hidden as you can be in an age when every shopping mall employs facial recognition scanners and every citizen can call up satellite photos on their phone,” Robinson says. “But we’re not on any official maps and you need binoculars to even see this place from the nearest public road. And we’re a hundred miles from anything resembling civilization. As you may remember from your bus ride out here, we are smack dab in the middle of no-fucking-where, is the technical term, I believe.” A few more chuckles, from everyone save for the skinny tattooed one. “In eight years, we have not had a single incursion or breach of security.” That’s not technically true, thinks Cooper, but he gets the purpose of Robinson’s fib: Why scare the bejesus out of people on day number one, when they’ve barely had time to unpack?
“Now that we’ve got the rules out of the way,” says Robinson, “let’s talk about the more welcoming side of Caesura.” He turns to the whiteboard and uncaps the marker again. “Caesura is not just a new home but part of a holistic program designed to ensure both your security and your future well-being in a larger sense.”
He writes HOLISTIC on the whiteboard.
“As we like to say, we’re not a place to hide, we’re a place to flourish.”
He writes FLOURISH on the whiteboard.
He turns back to the classroom, then points to the badge on his upper arm. “You see this? It’s a river, in a desert. That’s how we like to think of Caesura. Like an oasis.”
The older woman pipes up now. No hand, which grates on Robinson.
“Has anyone ever left before?” she asks flatly.
“Yes. A few. Voluntarily.”
“And what happened to them?”
“Once you’re gone, you’re gone,” says Robinson. “You’re no longer our concern. But from what I understand: nothing good.”
The Tattooed Ramrod shoots an inked arm up, straight to the sky, like a parody of schoolboy obedience. As his arm rises, the sleeve of his loose shirt falls, revealing more tattoos of faces, from his wrist up his arm. “Excuse me, sir?”
“Yes?”
“What about pornography?”
Robinson stares at him flatly. Class clown. They show up occasionally. “What about it?”
“You said you have no Internet.”