every cobblestone merely a distraction meant to keep attention away from what was really happening? Or were they in fact a real concern? She sensed the growing societal rot and sometimes she swore it had a smell, like old sweat, musty spaces and stale kvass. She had taken more precautions of late and slept on a cot at work instead of going back to her spartan flat. Every trip to the canteen for a morsel meant whispered scuttlebutt oozed from colleagues who seemed likewise perplexed but unable to speak outright for fear of swift punish - ment. She counted the reliable on one hand, and the rest represented the poten - tial threat or group-think sheep consum- ing the steaming, stewed kompott (thinly sweet fruit juice) without bothering to ask which “fruit” was really the source (or if it was even fruit at all).
Her eventual report would establish if the find was significant or just some rubbish that came from an investigation, like a blackened banana peel as - signed too much importance. She held some small vestige of power and with it the responsibility to protect, as it should be – or maybe how it had been. In a society where the slightest thing was controlled, words were obviously pow - erful, but information – particularly illicit, foreign or otherwise uncontrolled information – reigned supreme. The more she looked at the poncho it reeked of a lousy Frontschwein, some filthy grunt crawling through the mud knowing at any second the enemy might vaporize them without a second’s thought. Unfolding it carefully, the formerly rubberized material meant to hide the user’s heat signature from threats began to disintegrate. After considerable effort, she got it open to where she noticed a brownish altpapier edge, then another, rather like a short stack of flimsy cards pressed tightly together. She
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