It was two days before he was visited. They'd been feeding him three times a day, but apart from that nothing. Even the other prisoners in the jail wouldn't talk to him. It was Anna and Felix who visited him; they walked into his cell together, while two rebels stood outside with their guns trained on him ready to shoot should he attempt anything. Atticus just sat on the hard slab of concrete bolted into the wall with a thin mattress on it they called a bed.

"Who are you?" asked Felix

"Atticus Dyson, from District 2" he answered truthfully

Felix nodded, and then Anna asked "You're a peacekeeper?"

"I was, not anymore"

"Why not?" asked the mayor

"I saw the atrocities they committed. The Capitol, the peacekeepers. I want to join the rebellion"

"How did you know about the rebel code phrase?"

"A fortnight ago we arrested a rebel spy by the name of Marcus Weston. He was tortured until he revealed the code to us"

"You tortured him?" asked Anna, evident anger in her face.

Atticus shook his head, "No, I just kept guard of the room, but I heard everything. Including the code phrase"

Anna's anger seemed to have disappeared, though she still looked at Atticus mistrustingly.

"What happened to Marcus?" she said, almost begging for an answer, though her face showed no sign of it.

Atticus paused before answering, it wasn't because he didn't know, it was because he did. The silence must have been answer enough for them because Anna's face fell, but Atticus answered anyway.

"He's dead. He was executed by a peacekeeper named Nero Fitzpatrick, he's the Head Peacekeeper in District 2".

"We're well aware of Commander Fitzpatrick and his tactics" said Felix, because Anna looked as though she might cry if she said anything more. She then promptly left without saying a word.

"I take it you've guessed by now that Anna and Marcus were close" said Felix.

Atticus nodded and said "Siblings? Married?"

"Engaged" replied the mayor.

Engaged to be married. Anna looked to be the same age as Atticus, 23; many people he knew were already married by that age. As a peacekeeper he wasn't allowed to marry until he'd served for twenty years, and he became a peacekeeper at 19, so he couldn't marry until age 39. But he wasn't a peacekeeper anymore.

"Am I free to go?" asked Atticus.

Felix looked him over one more time before saying "If you were a Capitol spy you wouldn't have given us the information you just gave us. So it looks like you're a rebel now, Mr. Dyson"

Relief flooded Atticus so suddenly it felt like adrenaline, warming his body and relaxing his muscles he didn't even know he'd been tensing.

"Follow me" said the mayor of District 3, and Atticus did as he was told.

The two rebel guards put their guns down but still stayed behind him as the mayor led Atticus to another building just a few doors over.

"This is the barracks" said Felix, gesturing to the building with his hand outstretched.

"You will stay here and change into something a little less" he looked at a loss for words as he examined Atticus' peacekeeper uniform, "conspicuous"

Atticus nodded, gave his thanks, and walked inside the barracks. It looked exactly the same as the one he'd lived in in District 2. He imagined so did every other barracks in Panem. The Capitol did like to remove all sense of individuality from the peacekeepers. To make them into drones who obey every command given to them no matter how horrible it was. Up until the rebellion Atticus had lived a quiet life in District 2. His main duty was to patrol the various villages of District 2 and keep the peace. Never had he been ordered to execute someone, nor had he engaged in any of the other violent punishments the other peacekeepers engaged in, such as floggings or beatings. But if he was ever told to, he was sure he'd refuse, and refusing meant death. So he stayed under the radar, performing his average duties and hoping to God that he was never ordered to hurt someone else. It wasn't until the day of the massacre that he realised he had to get out, and quick, before someone noticed that he wasn't participating in the shootings or the beatings. Hadrian. The name struck his mind from nowhere. Hadrian, his best friend since childhood, the man who had once faked a beating by Atticus to get the sympathy of a local village girl, named Jenny. The man who Atticus had left for dead in the hovercraft back in District 2. Hadrian was like Atticus, he didn't like the violence that came with being a peacekeeper, but he put up with it, because he knew that if he didn't he would be labelled a traitor and executed. The remorse he felt for Hadrian engulfed him until he could barely walk, but he pushed it down, he couldn't appear weak in front of the rebels. Inside the barracks were numerous beds, each one with a small bedside table and a trunk at the end for storing personal effects. There were maybe ten people in the barracks, all of them men of various size and age, though most seemed to be between 17 and 40. The oldest of them looked twenty years older Atticus, and gray was starting to show in the hair at his temples, giving him a distinguished look. The youngest looked like he was barely out of his teens, and he had patches of stubble growing in various places on his face. They all, however, noticed Atticus and his white uniform synonymous with peacekeepers. He didn't know where to go, which beds were occupied and which weren't. Luckily the older man with gray temples walked forward, hand outstretched in greeting. Atticus took it and said "Hi, I'm Atticus Dyson"

"That's a Capitol name, are you from the Capitol?" asked the man, half-jokingly and half-serious, though a smile began to creep up his face.

"No, District 2"

The man nodded, and then said "I'm Richard Abernathy, from District 12" District 12, which mined coal for the Capitol. Poor, dangerous, and dirty. It had good reason to rebel against the Capitol.

"That bed over there is free, and there are some clothes in the trunk that might fit you" said Richard, pointing to the bed right next to wall, near the entrance to the barracks, "the last guy who occupied that bed was killed in combat. He was about the same size as you."Atticus couldn't tell if he was joking or not, so he thanked him and moved to the bed as Richard went over to three more men more or less his own age and began to talk with them. Atticus opened the trunk at the end of his bed and saw it was full of clothes, nearly all of them ragged or dirty with dust. He took out a black long-sleeved shirt and trousers the same colour, but kept his white boots on seeing as how there were no shoes around for him. He quickly dressed into his new clothes and moved to the closest bathroom to examine himself in the mirror. He was dirty from three days without bathing, and he needed to shave, there was a layer of stubble growing around his face, framing his jaw and sideburns. His dirty blond hair had grown out; his last buzz cut was before the rebellion. He left the bathroom and went back to sit on his bed. He just sat there, staring at the wall, thinking about everything and nothing. An hour later, Felix entered the barracks accompanied by the same two guards who'd escorted him before.

"Atticus, please follow me" said Felix and they all leave the barracks, heading to the same building that they used for the meeting between the various rebel leaders when Atticus arrived two days ago. Inside the building is Anna, along with eight different rebels, the same ones who discovered Atticus in District 2, along with the man from the hovercraft who'd tried to shoot him. They all sat down at a crescent-shaped table.

"Okay, now that we're all here we can begin" said Felix.

"Atticus" began Anna, her curly red hair looking dishevelled, but good nonetheless, "you will be joining my team, Squad 129. We are a special ops squad, we conduct top secret missions, mostly sabotage."

"That's why you were in District 2" stated Atticus.

"Yes, we were supposed to capture the largest village and stop all hovercrafts filled with peacekeepers, however we underestimated the number of hostiles" answered Anna. That was why her squad had to leave District 2, they failed. Then Atticus remembered something else that had been bothering him.

"You have hovercrafts" he said matter-of-factly.

"Yes" answered Felix, spreading his hands wide as he did, "we stole a dozen of them from District 7 a fortnight ago"

"We never heard about it" said Atticus. The Capitol didn't tell them much; they tried to restrict as much communication as possible between the districts, even between Peacekeepers.

"Atticus, this is Davin Monroe" said Felix, gesturing to the rebel who had tried to shoot Atticus back on the hovercraft in District 2.

Davin waved at him, then stood up and went to the front of the room.

"We have a new assignment" said Davin, "Squad 129 is to infiltrate the Capitol and extract a high-ranking military leader by the name of Commander Decimus Korin. According to him, the Capitol is planning an attack on District Thirteen. As you all know, thirteen was the first district to rebel and is orchestrating the whole thing. If we don't stop this attack the rebellion could very well be over in less than a week. Our job is to make sure he is safely extracted to back here so he can provide us with all the details of the upcoming attack".

There was some murmur around the room; Atticus heard words like suicide and failure.

"Okay Squad 129, get ready because we leave or the Capitol at 0900 tomorrow morning. Dismissed"

It was going to be a long night.