The Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman

Author:Keren Landsman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Watkins Media

24

A text from Aurora came in the following day, around noon. Reminder – today at five. Yoyo.

Daphne was at work, and Dimitri and I were standing alone in the kitchen. “I’ve got to go out,” I explained to Dimitri.

“You’ve got to stay,” he repeated for the third time. “Sherry’s orders.” He put his syringe back in its box and folded the tourniquet. I knew vaguely about how the Soviet Union kept its damuses loyal to the country, and that it had to do with addiction from birth. In one of her rants, Ivy told me about the different policies countries had regarding damuses. In the Soviet Union, kids diagnosed as damuses were injected with substances that rendered them unable to use their powers, and the older the kid got, the more injections he had to receive, otherwise his power would drown him. There was an entire movement dedicated to smuggling damuses out of the Soviet Union, and a lot of them fell apart after leaving their homeland, because the substances in other countries weren’t as pure as those administered back home.

“Sherry knows, as do you, that I don’t die until the rally.” I tried keeping my voice steady and calm. I pierced my fork into the last piece of lettuce.

“No.” Dimitri closed the box with a thud. “Sherry knows, as me, there are enough ways to hurt you before rally.”

I chewed silently. I wanted to go out. I wanted to meet Gaia and see how she was coping. I wanted to feel like I was doing something meaningful, like I used to do.

“In five futures there is pyro waiting for you at bus stop.” Dimitri raised a silencing finger before I managed to answer. “Each future, different bus stop. Even though you think you get away, he waits.”

“Pyro,” I mumbled at my plate. “What’s their obsession with pyros?”

“Active force, quick strike, hardest to combat, effective deterrence, keep going even after pyro is neutralized.” Dimitri sounded as if he were reciting.

Ages ago, during my military service, we attended a course in which we had to memorize the pros and cons of each force on the battlefield, but I was never in the mood, and Daphne kept choosing the future in which we managed to dodge the exam.

“And what do we do, other than sit on our behinds and keep me from meeting my commitments?” I pierced the last piece of tomato on my plate.

“We? You and me? Or we, Sherry and entire force, who for years been trying to prevent exactly what is happening now? You think is so easy to keep country safe? Ask Daphne how bad futures are we not in,” he said breathlessly.

“Sherry’s just one person,” I muttered.

“One person with right vision, and many damus on her side.” Dimitri drummed his fingers on the table. “I not flee Soviet Union for little sun and beach. I follow Sherry because I see what she doing, and I want be part of it.” He was almost talking to himself. “If she do what she promise, if we help her, few more years and it all be better.

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