collected some of the tiny, rubberized bits that fell on the table, putting them into a small container for the lab to analyze; maybe they could get some idea where this had been. Sensing she might only get one chance, she pulled out a rarely used item from a hidden space in her kit, a pen-scanner. This device did not officially exist, yet she had one; there might have been a handful of them in the Enclave total, she guessed. She slowly laid out the first flimsy cardboard scrap, then another, until she had all seven of them. They showed exposure to weather, yet a faint scribble could be made out on a few of them, some - times in a bluish ink and other times in black, with one entry in quickly fad - ing purple. Using the pen-scanner, she slowly let the orange-ish light dance across the scraps, one after another. Since she had no viewer, she did it again in the hopes the device got everything while also concerned it might fail, since it was very temperamental in her experience. As a foreign bit of tech - nology (aka “fortek”) she was given it by a mentor, told to use it ONLY in the direst circumstances. Frankly, she could be in great trouble for having any fortek, merely possessing it was a problem although verboten, it remained extremely useful. She took stock of the cards: one consisted of unfamiliar symbols, three cards looked like children’s drawings of big insects and spiders and the other three were blank, perhaps meant to protect the other ones. THE FIRST CARD Mildred mused about the symbols on the first card; she had an idea what they were, having seen them in the forbidden places where derelicts gath - ered. She consulted with an old, recorded interview transcript in which an unscrupulous street urchin offered to give up the so-called “pieman’s scratch” for a price. Now she had the cipher, more or less – yet there would always be a need for interpretation. She noticed the cards all seemed to have faint notation of “RV-DS” which meant these were old altpapier ration packaging for dried (desiccated) root vegetables; “MAKI,” which was shorthand for fish-cakes made from mackerel or similar; or “PDG,” which meant pain de guerre or very dry long-shelf
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