It felt very strange to use a giant saw to harvest zucchinis.

"Careful," Theodosius said. "I think you almost cut the actual plant there."

Trying to adjust the saw's position was almost impossible. Donna pushed the fat vine out of the way as much as it would go, and tilted the saw even more. Using small motions, she managed to cut off the zucchini. Theodosius crouched down to pick it up, sweeping his sleeve along the vegetable to make sure there were no prickly hairs that would be painful to touch. "It's massive," he breathed, holding it out away from his body.

"Are you harvesting all of them?" Li asked, looking up from his radishes. He was squatting at the edge of the patch, and the three could talk easily.

"No," Donna said, "some of them are still quite small." While a few of the zucchinis had reached a length of nearly half a metre, others were about the size of a large cucumber.

Li brushed dirt off a radish. "The smaller ones taste better, though." That was true. Baby zucchini could be made into salad without even removing the seeds, but the giants like the one Theodosius were holding would have their seeds removed before being made into stew.

"The bigger ones are bigger," Theodosius said with a shrug as he gave Donna the zucchini in exchange for the saw. "How are the radishes?"

"Normal." Li held up a radish to the light, inspecting it. "I think something ate this one already, though." He tossed it into the trash bucket.

"That's a shame." Donna spun the zucchini in her hands. It was very light for something of that size. Theodosius walked around the path, moving the large leaves out of the way. They hid very well, but not so much that they were hard to find. He got on one knee and began to saw away.

Holding a second zucchini in his hands, Theodosius asked Li, "So what was in that letter you got?"

"You got a letter?" Donna asked, surprised. He had never received one before.

Li nodded, smiling shyly. "My parents wrote to me. They're going to come visit soon."

"That's amazing!" Theodosius called out from several metres away. "I didn't even know you have a family."

"Well, I also thought I didn't have one anymore." Li placed several radishes into a bucket. "But if you read between the lines, it's clear they're campaigning for my release." Had this letter even been sent through the official channels? "I'll have to tell them to join forces with the rest of them. There's no way I'm getting out before the rest of the lifers."

In Donna' opinion, there was no way he was getting out, period. Not when increased tensions between Two and Seven, which had been the result of Two refusing to yield on something to do with extradition, had resulted in the director from Two treating the others to an even better meal than usual at their weekly meeting and loudly announcing the respect he had for Seven's representative. None of the inmates had even found out about the incident until over a week after it had happened, as all of the guards had kept on acting as if nothing had happened, and they still knew none of the details. She didn't bring it up, though, not to Li. "That's nice," she said instead, focusing on the zucchini plants. "How is your family?"

"They're alright," Li said happily. "They were too scared to write for a while, they were worried someone might want to harm them because of me, but they're not anymore. What should I write to them?" he asked. "I don't know what to tell them."

Hearing that, Theodosius walked over to where Donna was and sat down next to her with an armful of zucchinis. "Keep in mind the forbidden topics," he pointed out. "I'm sure they'll be more lenient with you, as it's your first letter, but they'll still take away your pen and paper if you persist in writing something they don't like."

"I wasn't planning on writing about the past. It's the present I'm worried about." Li reached over and dug up another radish. How did he manage to stay squatting for so long? Donna's knees would have been in agony by this point.

"You've heard us complain time and time again about restrictions on topics," she pointed out, crumbling a clod of dirt between her fingers. "I'm sure you'll do fine."

Li shook his head, staring at the radish he was holding. "But what do I write about?" he asked with a tinge of desperation in his voice. "The weather? The crochet? Nitza's tomatoes? My parents aren't going to understand what's going on in here."

"Say it between the lines," Theodosius said. "'I'm enjoying work, the directors have praised me for my crochet skills, one of my acquaintances has reached a yield of fifty tomatoes per plant.' Well, maybe not the part about the directors," he conceded, "but tell them you're doing fine. Remember, they've heard nothing but inaccurate gossip for years, they'll be happy you're happy."

"'Happy' is an overstatement," Li grumbled. "And they'll think I'm doing the same as I did in the Academy, where I told them things were fine when they were very much not fine."

That was, unfortunately, a very likely prospect. For months, the tabloids had passed off interviews with off-duty guards in bars as the truth, resulting in some truly out there rumours circulating. Occasionally, particularly juicy bits were shared with the inmates. Apparently, the basement was haunted by the ghosts of the political prisoners who had been murdered there. Someone had even claimed to have personally talked to one.

"It's worth a shot," Donna said, "especially since they'll be visiting you. I'm sure they'll trust you over some newspaper."

"How old are your parents?" Theodosius asked. "I'm just curious."

"Sixty-seven and sixty-six." Since Li himself was forty-seven, that made them very young. "Yeah, they were young when they had me," he said, noticing their looks. "People married as soon as they were out of the Reaping back then"

"My own parents are a bit older than that," Donna said.

Li stared off into the distance. "Shame they won't see you freed. If you're not released early, that is."

Donna didn't like to think about that. "My father was sick for a few months during the trial, but he's perfectly fine right now. There are no hereditary diseases in the family, and all of the relatives I know of met or beat the life expectancy. I think we'll have a few years together." She chuckled nervously. The topic made her feel anxious.

"I forgot you all live until you're ninety," said Li with a smile.

"'You all'?" Theodosius asked. "You're the one who's supposed to be receiving the best Capitol healthcare until your dying day."

"You know, if you had told me that just a few years ago, I'd have assumed you thought I was going to retire in the Capitol." Li held up a handful of dirt, letting the wind blow it out of his palm. "Funny thing is, I'm actually living like a poor retiree. Growing food, handcrafts, library books, exercise. Shame only about the lack of freedom."

"That's a really nice way to look at things," Donna said impulsively. Fortunately, Li took it in a good way. He shrugged, adjusting his cap. Like Theodosius, he had tucked an undershirt into the back of his cap to protect the neck from the burning sun.

Theodosius shifted to a crouch. "Would you like some help with the radishes?" he asked. "I think the rest of the zucchinis should wait a few days." He placed them on the ground between himself and Donna, who also put down the one she had been holding.

"That would be nice," Li said. The two moved over to his patch. While it would take Li no time at all to harvest them by himself, even a short time spent harvesting was better than just weeding. "You really think I should just tell them about my life?" he asked. "Nothing happens here."

"Then say that nothing is happening," Donna said. "That's what I do every week, and my husband still wants to know what's up in the next letter he sends." Theodosius made noises of assent.

"Look at that guard!" Donna hissed to Theodosius, who looked up from the cabbage he had been hoeing to stare at a guard, a man from Thirteen, who was happily eating a tomato. Nitza, the proud grower of the tomato, looked to be basking in praise.

"Lucky him." Theodosius leaned on his hoe, watching the guard pick another tomato and walk off. "Nitza looks happy, though."

"Maybe he counted how many tomatoes there are," Donna hissed under her breath, not wanting anyone to overhear. Nitza was always pleased when someone counted how many tomatoes there were on her plants.

Theodosius chuckled, not taking his eyes off Nitza, who was carefully picking the ripe tomatoes and placing them into a bucket. "I want one," he said.

Shuddering internally at the memory of the week spent in total solitary, Donna shook her head. "No thanks. I'm good."

"Come on, the guards aren't going to punish us for doing something they themselves are doing," he insisted in a slightly pleading tone.

"I'll come with you," Donna compromised, "but I'm not going to eat anything until I'm certain." They put down their hoes and walked in the direction of Nitza's tomatoes. While there were many other tomato plants in the yard, Nitza took care of only her own section.

"Good day, Mrs. Nitza," Donna said. The older woman greeted them in return. "We saw a guard eating a tomato just now, did he say anything interesting?"

"No," replied Nitza, inspecting an orange tomato. She shook her head slightly and reached for a different one, red in colour. "Just told me they're good. Said he can't wait to be demobilized, so he can eat fresh food whenever he wants. You want one?" She offered the tomato to them, and Theodosius took it eagerly. It was much smaller than the tomatoes that were sold in stores, but still sizable. Theodosius could have hidden it in his hands, but barely.

"You want to split it?" he asked Donna, who shrugged. Theodosius carefully bit off half and chewed with a blissful expression on his face.

"It's so juicy." Donna took the other half and stuffed it into her mouth. It was, indeed, juicy, as well as almost sweet. How long since she had eaten a fresh tomato? Years, surely. She licked at her teeth, trying to get at those last bits of flavour.

"It is juicy," she echoed Theodosius.

Nitza smiled. "Thanks. I've got so many, I could probably hand them out by the handful and still have most left." The large plants, a metre or so tall, were covered with the tomatoes.

"Last year, there was a catastrophe - no tomatoes. This year, another catastrophe - too many tomatoes," Donna joked.

Still smiling, Nitza shrugged. "One problem is easier to solve than another, though." She gestured to Fourrer, who was approaching them, drawn in by the promise of a tomato. "As long as the guards don't take offense, that is." Donna and Theodosius slunked back to the cabbages, not wanting to be in the epicentre of a potential storm.

As they removed weeds, the director from Thirteen appeared in the yard. Donna continued working, but kept one eye on the director, who approached Nitza and told her something in a voice too quiet for Donna and Theodosius to hear. It was obvious what the man had said, though. Nobody tried to ask Nitza for a tomato after that.

"I don't get it," Theodosius said, bending down to pick up a weed. "Why can't we eat any of this now?" While the food they grew would eventually end up in the meal trays, the lack of fresh vegetables was irritating to people who spent their entire day surrounded by the vegetables.

"I have no idea." The cabbage by Donna's feet wasn't growing very well. She crouched down and tried to push it lightly, but it held firm. Perfectly fine, then, just small. It wasn't even that undersized, though, but the one next to it was very large, skewing her perception.

Noticing her action, Theodosius asked, "Is there something wrong with that one?"

"No, it just looks small next to that other one." Donna pointed it out with her hoe. "Well, it's also just small, but being next to the huge one does it no favours."

"Ah, so it's a Donna-cabbage." Donna chuckled at that. Her height was a perfectly average metre sixty-five, but she did feel small next to Theodosius, who was closer to a metre eighty. A better analogy would have been the metre forty-five Talvian and two-metre Krechet, but Donna didn't want to bring them up.

"I don't think I'm purple, though," she joked instead. "And that cabbage has way more anthocyanin than I have melanin." Biology was much more fun when you weren't being tested on it.

Theodosius looked sceptically at the cabbage. "That analogy does fall apart rather fast, doesn't it? I don't think albino cabbage even exists."

"You'd need a cabbage that had pigment only in its outer layer," Donna pointed out. Theodosius did have dark hair for now, even if he was starting to go grey at the temples. "That's way more complicated than just a certain amount."

"Not for long." Theodosius self-consciously touched one of his temples. "At least I'm not going bald. Yet."

That was one problem Donna didn't have to worry about. "I had a coworker once, he got a hair transplant, but it got infected. He showed me photos later, it was gnarly."

Theodosius cringed slightly. "It's all downhill from here, huh?"

"Not if you never got uphill in the first place." Donna picked up the bucket of weeds, which was mostly full. "You want to go throw this out?"

Putting down his hoe, Theodosius followed her. "I'm not sure if I want to take a break or not," he said. "Depends on the company."

The "company" turned out to be three of the later arrivals. Xu, Zelenka, and Koy were discussing Thirteen as they stood by the compost pile with empty buckets in their hands.

"They're crazy," Zelenka was saying. "Can you imagine anyone actually wanting to live like they did?" Donna realized they were talking about a recent survey done among everyone born in Thirteen. According to one of the wardens from Thirteen, they had been asked various questions on what they thought of Thirteen before and after the Rebellion, and if they lived elsewhere now, then why. "I understand being nostalgic for the past, but really?"

It wasn't that hard to wrap one's mind around, though. For seventy-five years, Thirteen had clung to the illusion that they were heroically surviving in the face of the Capitol onslaught, the epicentre of organized Rebel activity. Now that the majority of the discourse was more along the lines of 'but why didn't you do anything earlier?', the people of Thirteen were naturally unhappy with their new position in Panem. The radical reforms carried out after Coin's death had also played a role, despite the fact that democratization, reconstruction, and openness had all been eagerly greeted in the beginning. When Donna brought that up, though, Zelenka just shrugged.

"That makes sense, but that warden was biased," she pointed out. "She's going to move to Two when she leaves here, that says a lot about her beliefs."

That was a valid point. "I suppose so," Donna conceded. "Have any other Thirteeners said anything?" What the question meant, of course, was if anyone had managed to get some clandestine news. Anything said by a guard was immediately passed on to every other inmate within the hour.

And sure enough, Xu nodded. "Someone told me that the older generations, the people who lived in Thirteen for decades, don't support the reforms." The small group of inmates gathered around closer as Xu continued in a low voice. "Most of them prefer the almost total equality of those times. They'd rather all be equally poor than have some people be rich and others - poor. Apparently, many are reluctant to move out of the underground complexes, even though they used to make a huge deal about how they're fighting so they don't have to hide under the ground ever again."

That fit with Donna's point perfectly. "So you're saying that they're nostalgic for their 'heroic' past?" she asked.

Zelenka spoke up. "That does seem reasonable," she conceded.

"Thirteen makes no sense," Koy complained. "They're doing everything they can in here to make our lives more difficult, but who is most vehemently opposed to the presence of our military people in here? Not Two, but Thirteen." While Two's tendency to stick up for former Peacekeepers often came at the expense of the Supermaxers, there had been many military voices in the Rebellion who had thought that sentencing soldiers for following orders was an insult to the noble profession of arms. They had been particularly upset by the sentences of Best and Verdant. The occasional naval skirmish between the Coast Guard and Thirteen's trade convoys when one of the latter ventured too far south had left them with the impression that the Coast Guard had been uninvolved with the atrocities of the land and air branches of service. It made no sense after the parade of witnesses testifying about what had happened to defectors trying to flee by sea, at least to Donna.

"Like I said," Zelenka said. "They're crazy."

Theodosius shook his head. "I'm sure there's a method to their madness," he said with an odd intonation.

"Where's that one from?" Donna asked, catching onto the hint.

"Pre-Cataclysm literature."

"What era?" Koy asked with interest. He was very interested in the century before the Cataclysm, even though his book requests kept on being rejected for no reason anyone could figure out.

"Nothing you'd be interested in," Theodosius said apologetically. "It's from a few centuries before the Cataclysm, even the language is different."

"Maybe I'll still read it," Koy said. "That sounds like Smith, though. Her madness definitely has a method."

Theodosius looked slightly irritated at not being able to go on a rant about whatever book he was reading. "I suppose so."

The five glanced in the direction of Smith, who was working with Oldsmith, completely unaware that she was being discussed. "I don't think so," said Xu. "She's stopped humming, for one. Maybe she's just getting better."

"Or maybe she's realized that it isn't getting a rise out of us anymore, so she's stopped for now. Just watch, she'll come up with something else next." Koy was not convinced.

Zelenka looked around, searching for someone. "Hryb's still acting the same way as before, even though I don't recall his nonsense ever working."

"Hryb's thirty," Koy pointed out. Hryb was actually thirty-one, not that it mattered. "Naturally, he's taking it the worst out of all of us."

And so what? Donna and Theodosius were forty, which was pretty much the same thing in the eyes of the seventy-year-old Koy. They didn't antagonize the guards, though, or act like Donna's younger children when confronted with a particularly unwanted task. "I'm not that much older," she said, "and I don't think I'm taking it that badly." Too late, Donna remembered that Hryb was a lifer. Their cases were not comparable at all. Xu, Zelenka, and Koy likewise were in here for life; she scrambled to think of something to prevent offense. "Even taking into consideration our different situations," she rushed to defuse the situation, "I still think Hryb's behaviour is completely irrational. He is certain he'll be released soon, after all. He's not despairing, he's got no reason to act out."

The men remained unconvinced. "He behaves rationally when it suits him," Koy argued. "It's all calculated to annoy the guards. That's my opinion. There's nothing wrong with him, he's just immature."

Theodosius nodded along. "You haven't seen him in the mornings, so you just don't get it." He glanced around them, probably checking to make sure Hryb wasn't within earshot. "If he's ignored, he snaps back to normal immediately. Always. Remember how a few days ago, they took away his mattress and left?" The women had to accede to that point. Apparently, Hryb had been unceremoniously dumped out of bed by two wardens, who then proceeded to immediately leave with the mattress. Something about the incident had motivated Hryb to join the meal queue with no further complaints, but Donna thought there was a different reason.

"Remember when your kids refused to get out of bed in the morning?" Donna asked. "If you dragged them out often enough, they'd eventually listen to you, but that didn't remove the underlying laziness, it just made them a bit more disciplined when it came to getting out of bed. And if the motivator is something other than normal laziness, it won't be removed with any amount of discipline."

Xu was looking around cautiously. "I think we'll have to agree to disagree for now," she said, pointing out two guards who were walking in their general direction. Donna and Theodosius slunk back, intending to work.

"I've been thinking of measuring the yard," Theodosius said as they walked down the path.

"Measure it how?" Donna asked. "Along the wall?" Now that he had mentioned it, she was also curious to find out how big the yard was. The path only encircled a part of it. There was, however, a problem. "Won't the sentries forbid it?" Anyone coming too close to the wall was liable to be shouted at by an irritated sentry, who was also pointing a machine gun at them.

"Not if we don't go too close," he pointed out. Theodosius looked around the yard, standing on tiptoe. Then, he took out his pen from his sleeve, which was rolled up to the elbow. He must have taken it from his cell that morning. "I'll count the number of steps in the length and width of the yard, and I'll write it down on my arm. Then, I'll convert that to metres when I get back." He hid the pen back up his sleeve. "And since they don't actually do much more than a patdown, they won't find the pen. What do you think?" His eyes were shining.

The guards had recently received orders to search the inmates when they came back from the yard, but predictably, the searches became cursory patdowns shortly afterward. Theodosius could have probably gotten away with keeping the pen in his pocket. "Sounds like a plan," Donna said. "Do you want me to do something specific?"

"Oh, no, no. You can talk if you want, but I won't be able to respond, since I'll be counting." They reached the far edge of the meadow, took a few more steps, and put down their buckets. Donna glanced hesitantly at the closest guard tower. Even from that distance, it was obvious that the sentry was bored. They were pacing back and forth, staring at the forest that lay beyond the prison, the trees none of the inmates could see. Donna looked back at Theodosius, who began to slowly walk in the opposite direction, heel touching toe.

"I finished reading Crime and Punishment yesterday," she said. Theodosius didn't reply, as he had promised. It was a bit odd to not have him immediately jump into the conversation, but maybe this way, she would actually be able to express her thoughts without having him distract her into an unrelated tangent. "I have no idea why you'd want to read such a thing," Donna complained. Theodosius had recommended the book to her, but it ended up just making her feel utterly miserable. "The censors probably laughed their heads off at the thought of us reading it. I mean, he ends up in prison in the end! Don't you think that's a bit too on the nose?" Theodosius did not reply, though he did crack a small smile.

"I think I understand what drove him to confess, though." That part had been uncomfortable to read, as it had reminded her of the trial. "You think that something was the right thing to do, but then you realize it wasn't. Except that what we did was considered normal at the time. He just made up a justification for something he knew was wrong. And what he did was a crime of desperation. Not a conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity." Donna shook her head. Thinking along those lines always brought with it an odd, sucking feeling of revulsion. The psychologist called it shame. Donna didn't want to call it anything. "Dr. Chu is going to have a field day with us. I wonder if she likes literary analysis." A strange thought came to her head. "I'll have to tell my grade twelve Lit teacher about this. I told her once that I'd never need to read anything beyond technical manuals, so why bother with all that stuff about themes and whatever? She'll laugh her head off when she finds out I read literature nearly every day. And analyze it. For fun."

They walked down the path, gravel digging into bare feet. Theodosius whispered under his breath as he counted steps. Walking so slowly was a chore, so Donna also adopted the heel-to-toe tread to make herself slow down. Several of the others shot them curious looks, so Donna explained what Theodosius was doing. "I should have thought of that myself," was the general reply.

"I'm not quite sure what I feel about the ending, though." They were close to the corner, or at least what passed for a corner. The yard was not quite a rectangle, and the corners were rounded. "He's not sincere when he confesses, but later-" she fell silent, unable to articulate the thought further. The situations were simply not comparable.

When they reached the corner, Theodosius glanced around before whipping the pen out of his sleeve and writing down the number of steps on his right forearm, just under the elbow. "Phew," he said, sighing in relief. "One down, one to go. By the way, I don't think that that entire thing about being a superior person is just an excuse he latches on to. I think he actually believes it at the beginning."

"I find that hard to believe. I think it's just something he tells himself to make himself feel better about his situation."

"No, no, that's only later. He starts out sincerely thinking it's the case, then he starts experiencing a breakdown, and then he eventually realizes he was wrong."

Donna could see where this was going. "So, in essence, you're saying he sincerely believed in a messed-up ideal, while I think he never actually believed it but still used it to justify his crimes."

"Um, yes?" Theodosius said hesitantly. He ran a hand through his hair. "Dr. Chu will be delighted to hear about this."

"You were the one who recommended the book to me," Donna pointed out, not unkindly.

"But did you like it?"

That wasn't a good word to use. "It gave me something to think about."

Theodosius sighed. "Why is it that we read all this too late?" he asked the nearby walnut tree. "I wonder-"

"Wonder what?" Donna asked, sharper than she had intended. "When I reread works I read back in highschool, I feel like I'm reading them for the first time. It's not that we read these things too late, it's that we understand them too late."

"I see what you mean," Theodosius said. "The stuff I'm reading, there's no way I'd have been able to understand it back then." He scuffed at the ground with a foot, drawing patterns in the sparse gravel. "I'm going to continue now, alright?"

As he resumed his slow, deliberate walk, Donna searched for something to say. It was much harder when she didn't have his responses to bounce off of. "We should ask the guards who have also read it what they thought. Maybe they've got some ideas we've missed." Theodosius started to count a little bit louder, so Donna thought it was more prudent to stop talking. She walked in silence after that, listening to Theodosius quietly count out loud. The grass was soft under her feet. They'd need to go through and pull it all up, as having grass grow right next to a vegetable bed made it look messy.

"Why did you stop talking?" Theodosius asked as he wrote down the number and hid the pen.

"You started counting louder, so I thought I was distracting you."

"Oh." He sagged slightly. "It's no problem." Theodosius untucked his shirt sleeves slightly to hide the writing on his arm.

"So, how big is the yard, do you think?" Donna asked as they began to walk back.

"Far as I can tell, something like six square kilometres, but that's a very rough estimate."

Donna did a quick mental calculation. Six square kilometres for sixty-odd inmates. Six thousand metres, sixty people. Six hundred metres, six people. "One hundred square metres per person," she said, "so two hundred for the two of us, even though our potato patch is nowhere near that. Although if you factor in the meadow and the empty bits under most of the trees, that's a bit more reasonable."

"I rounded up," Theodosius explained. "It'll probably shrink once I actually do the calculations."

Donna looked around the yard. Six square kilometres, more or less. Massive and nothing at the same time. "Cynthia's cottage doesn't come close, I bet."

"Two hundred square metres, and that's including the house. They're all going to be so jealous once I tell them," he said with a smile. "Even eleven children should be able to fit in here." That was doubtful. Children could make any space feel cramped.

"How will you tell them? The administration keeps plans and maps away from us like the nuclear codes, there's no way they'll let you write it in a letter." The answer to that was obvious, but Donna still asked it for the benefit of potential listeners.

Theodosius didn't answer the question. "Do you think that simile is still relevant, now that they're disarming?" Once the last nuke in Thirteen's arsenal was destroyed, there would be no more nuclear weapons in the world. For decades, Thirteen and the Capitol had been the only ones with nukes, the rest of the world unwilling to achieve parity because of what that had brought last time. An idiotic decision, but Donna could understand it.

"Alright," she said, "like the proverbial nuclear codes."

"That also works." Donna glanced up at the guard tower. The sentry waved slightly at them.