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“Are you here for the knitting club?” a voice in the parking lot asked.

It was pitch-black out—not even a suggestion of dawn streaked the sky above. But the Wilmington Rec Center was suspiciously crowded with cars. It was not yet 6 in the morning, and the cars were not empty. Doors opened and shut, and people began to emerge, gathering into a semicircle. Still more cars crept into the lot and their headlights exposed a growing rank of silhouettes before the engines were killed and the lights cut and more people got out and joined.

I was not prepped on this passcode, the challenge everyone had to pass, and so I faltered: “I’m a journalist, with, uh, Slate magazine

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