"Wait, you three!" the guard hissed under her breath. "Paylor got re-elected." The elections had happened two weeks ago.

"Of course she did," Blatt said bitterly. "What were the results?" They were still walking, but at a snail's pace.

"She won fifty-two percent of the vote. Move along now!"

The guard didn't even say how much the other candidates had received. "That's much lower than before," Blatt pointed out. Paylor had first come to power with over sixty percent of the vote.

"Still the absolute majority," Grass pointed out. "If only we knew more about the candidates! It makes a huge difference if she had any serious competition. Especially if they actually go through with that idea of term limits." Grass' tone said exactly what she thought of either it or the chance of it happening.

The little knot split up, and Donna continued walking with Blatt in the direction of their gym. "She didn't have any serious competition then, and she won't now."

"She lost ten percent, though, that's a lot," Donna argued. "The question is if it mostly went to one specific candidate or split up more or less evenly."

Blatt shook her head. "You'd do better to think about the parties, and not the candidates. Individuals don't count for anything anymore, only the organization does."

"The candidate is the face of the party," Donna said. "At least, that's what the books say," she amended her statement. As if she knew anything about what was going on outside the walls. Hopefully Livia and Dancer would write soon.

In the gym, the election results were the main topic of discussion, beating out even Verdant's cluster headaches, the reason for his absence. "I am curious to see what happens during the next elections," Li said. "Since Paylor won't be running and all."

"Are you so sure about that?" Katz asked.

Li nodded forcefully as he started the collar of the sweater he was making. "They practically hung up a sign saying 'don't overstay your welcome or else'. They'll have to follow the will of the people."

"And if the people will otherwise?" Katz remained unconvinced.

"Well," said Li, "I have read about dictators who first gained power legally, some by being elected and some - not. I suppose there's always a danger of that." His voice was pitched to carry to the entire gym, but only barely.

In a much quieter voice, Strata asked, "How can someone come to power legally without being elected?"

"If they were, say, the vice-president and the president died, they would end up in charge without being elected. There was also this one weird incident I'm reading about, but I have no idea what's going on there, and half the books I ask for get rejected."

"Huh." Strata resumed crocheting.

Donna made a final stitch and went up to ask for a new ball of yarn. Joining was sometimes difficult and sometimes not, depending on what part of the sweater she was making. Since she was making a single crochet panel at the moment, it was easy. She made the loop larger, drew the new yarn through, pulled it tight, and resumed crocheting, using the new yarn. The first stitch looked a little bit off, but once she went over it with the next row, it would be invisible.

"That's why I'm sticking to older literature for now," Theodosius was saying. "That doesn't have any forbidden topics, though how something written during the twentieth century can refer to the Games is beyond me." That was their consensus so far, that something that had happened back then was too similar to either the Games or the regime in general. That made no sense, as they all had read plenty of books on the time and there was no implication whatsoever that the Games or something similar to them could have happened. The only other option, however, was that the forbidden books contained information about their trials, and that made even less sense, as the events described had happened several hundred years ago.

"I'm still hoping I manage to find something," Li said. "The problem is, I have no idea what I'm looking for. There were all sorts of atrocities, but nothing even vaguely reminiscent of the Games." He blew on his hands to warm them up. It was freezing in the gym; Donna was wearing gloves and two pairs of socks, and her toes still felt cold. Li had his jacket partially unzipped at the top, revealing a soft-looking scarf sent in by his parents. He constantly fidgeted with it, pulling it up to almost cover his mouth, then pushing it back down.

Theodosius looked like he regretted not having worn his own scarf today. He sat slightly hunched over, trying to hide his chin in his collar. Katz, however, looked perfectly comfortable in just the uniform sweater. "I wonder if that relates to the reason we can't get some books about military matters," she mused. "I just realized that the more general a book is, the bigger the time period it covers, the more likely it is that it won't be allowed."

"I never realized that," said Strata. Stein tapped a finger on his yarn, lost in thought.

"You've all read Issues in Cooperation, right?" he asked. The small group nodded. That was practically the definitive text on modern international politics. "Have any of you tried to get books on international cooperation before the Cataclysm?"

"I've read one or two," Donna said. "I can see why it took a long time for everyone to try again." As far as she could tell, everything that had happened in the decades before the Cataclysm was viewed with the deepest cynicism by the world.

Katz stopped crocheting. "I see what you're getting at," she said abruptly. Her voice was barely a whisper, and Donna struggled to hear her even though Katz was sitting right behind her. "Remember when that one warden from Four joked that we were giving the world hope? I'm willing to bet that at some point, the nations united to defeat...something. Something like the Games. I bet that they're not telling us everything about that war." Donna wasn't sure if she was following the logic of that statement.

"You're saying that something like the Games happened but the way it was dealt with caused the Cataclysm?" Theodosius asked. He likewise looked confused.

"Something along those lines," Stein agreed. "In any case, I think that it wasn't defeated correctly, or something, and the international organizations they had in place couldn't deal with it. Like how that United Nations thing was unable to prevent all those wars."

That still left the question of what exactly had been that Hunger Games-like event or situation. That point had been argued and re-argued endlessly, with the guards silently looking on. Was it because they didn't care or because the inmates were completely wrong? Donna had no idea.

"I wonder how Paylor fits into this," Li said, apropos of nothing.

"What do you mean?" Strata asked, speaking for all of them.

"If the world thinks something of us, that means that Paylor is also going to be heavily prominent."

"If you've been reading newspapers recently, kindly share," Katz asked acidly. "Otherwise, there's no point in speculating. I bet she's being held up as a symbol," she speculated. That was likely. The little news they received clearly showed that the Mockingjay and all the rest of the figureheads of the Rebellion never appeared in the public eye, which left precious few options for a symbol of international magnitude.

Li disagreed. "Don't amuse my slippers," he spat. "A head of state who gets re-elected with fifty-two percent of the vote is unlikely to symbolize anything." Katz looked like she was wondering if she should be offended by someone who had been lower in rank than her speaking in such a way. "If anything, the international community would be leery of any head of state who put her predecessors behind bars."

"I'm just worried about District cohesion," Theodosius rushed to change the topic before it could go down the predictable path. "First they're practically walling themselves off, and now they're all agreeing on this? I am seriously confused about that."

"That's what I was saying," Katz said. "Paylor symbolizes unity. She's the one who took the helm after things fell apart, and now, like it or not, people associate her with that."

"Then why only fifty-two percent?" Li was insistent. "Perhaps you're partially right, but that would mean that the system is fraying at the seams. I am not looking forward to what will happen when there's a minority government."

As always, Strata asked the expected question. "What do you think will happen then?"

"Fourteen independent countries, that's what will happen." Li sounded completely confident. "They're already on the way there. Remember what happened when Nine and Ten nearly came to blows over boundaries?"

That had happened months ago, though, as always, the inhabitants of the Supermax only found out after the fact. Over the past few years, the District boundaries had been slowly torn down, the pods removed. The issue of new borders was contentious, though. In the far north, the people of the Wilds were allowed to remain as was, the territory not under the control of any particular District, but the issue over how the narrow strips of land that had once divided the Districts would be dealt with was apparently still not settled. Nobody could agree on where borders would lie, and the nomadic groups living there were worried that District encroachment could affect them adversely.

"What happened?" Donna echoed Li. "The directors shook each other's hands with more enthusiasm than usual at their meeting, that's what happened." The guards could be trusted to say that much, if not give the context.

Katz gripped her hook with more force than necessary. "They could only work together when defeating us," she said. "This won't last long. They'll realize that they're all completely incompatible and abandon this idiotic idea."

But before that, they'd shoot all of the inmates in their cells. Donna had no illusions about that. "They seem to be working together quite well, though," she said, mostly to reassure herself. "I'm still convinced that they will hold on to this one thing no matter what."


When they stepped outside, the elections were quickly forgotten as the even numbers rushed to share the news. Rodriguez had experienced a heart attack, and his condition was "bad", though no precise explanation was given.

"We all knew it was coming," Theodosius said as the two set off down the path. Despite his words, he sounded extremely upset. "I hope he'll be okay."

"I hope so, too. He has less than four and a half years left, it would be terrible if he died in here."

Theodosius nodded sharply. "They didn't let Townsend go when he was dying, and they didn't let Lamay attend his daughter's funeral." The former Gamemaker assistant's daughter had recently died of breast cancer, at the age of just twenty. "I don't see them reversing their decisions now."

While the administration had at the very least agreed to hand over the bodies of deceased inmates to their loved ones, Rodriguez's family needed Rodriguez, not his corpse. "I don't see why they're so tough," Donna said. "What good is a dying old man to them? Not as a symbol, surely, that'll just backfire as soon as his family finds out." She wasn't so sure of her words, though. There had been complaints when Townsend died, and nothing had happened. The campaign had long since petered out, though the incident became one more weapon in the arsenal of sensationalist reporters and the relatives of inmates who hurt their relatives more than helping them by raising a fuss.

"I doubt his family has enough influence for that," Theodosius pointed out. That was another important aspect. The former Peacekeepers, except Li, had veterans' organizations that constantly stuck up for them, while the civilians had to pin their hopes on family members and perhaps ex-coworkers, who ranged from the very influential to not at all. "I remember how a close relative of his got purged, and he was only able to survive because of his closeness to Snow. He had to pretty much repudiate them."

Donna scuffed lightly at the ground, kicking up bits of snow. "I can't believe we lived like that."

"I can't believe Paylor never mentioned us," Theodosius said, changing the topic. "I don't understand it. First they make it sound like we're at the forefront of every policy decision, but then, when all of the important issues are being discussed, total silence."

"Maybe they did talk about us, and we were just never told." But in that case, what did Livia and Dancer's silence mean?

Theodosius screwed up his face. "Maybe the world ended out there, and we were just never told," he spat.

Now that was an idea to haunt her dreams. "I wonder if there were people who only found out about the Cataclysm after it happened."

"Maybe," Theodosius said, looking utterly terrified. He glanced around the yard, then looked up to the overcast sky. "I wonder if they lie to us. They'd be able to say whatever they wanted, and we'd have no way of telling what the truth was."

Donna was about to shrug it off, as she had her clandestine notes, but then she realized that it was the guards who carried them for her. How did she know that they were even real? She doubted she'd be able to tell from the handwriting, and they were too short for her to notice if something was off. She realized that her heart was hammering and her hands were sweating. "Uh-huh," she said.

"Are you alright?" Theodosius asked, worry evident in his voice.

Taking a deep breath, Donna pretended that everything was fine. "Not something I want to think about," she explained.

"Same," Theodosius said. "I know logically that it doesn't really matter, but the idea of being deceived like that terrifies me." He didn't look good either, tense and hunched over. "How do I know that anything they tell us is true?"

"You don't," Donna said with a shrug. "What good is worrying when we have no chance of finding out anything, anyway? Either accept what they say, or go insane wondering." It was easier said than done, though.

Theodosius shook his head. "I wonder if this is what the people in the Districts felt when they watched the news."

That was a comparison that didn't bear thinking about. "You know," she said, "maybe we should complain to Dr. Chu. They're not trying to mess with us on purpose, after all. Maybe they'll stop being so strict about information if they find out how badly it's affecting us."

"Maybe."


Was there just something wrong with her? Plenty of people had managed to figure out the truth while being fed only lies. Why couldn't she, then, tell if what was being told to her was the truth? Donna opened up the book she had just gotten. In the light of all this, a book where two opposing arguments were given equal merit could be helpful. Next week, she'd ask for something on critical thinking. The words sounded very insulting to her after having heard the phrase 'why didn't you think critically about what x really meant' thrown at her over and over, but the allure of being able to tell if an authority figure was lying to her was strong.

The book was quite thin, maybe two hundred pages or so, and as Donna read the introduction, she was glad she had picked such a fitting topic. It proclaimed to be a debate on whether or not the death penalty was a good thing. Donna herself wasn't sure, which meant that she could read the two viewpoints, weigh their arguments, and make up her mind. Easy. Now if only everything else was so easy to weigh - and she if only had access to all of the arguments.

According to the introduction, the authors of the articles were a wide variety of people, but none of them had ever been forced to fight for their life in court, which seemed like an oversight. Surely, that was a perspective that could not be overlooked. Donna herself had used to not care one way or the other, but now, she just wasn't sure. On one hand, she had been ready to receive the supreme penalty, but on the other, she wasn't sure if she wished those horrible hours before the passing of the sentences on anyone.

Donna resolved to read the book carefully and not accept statements as facts if they looked off. She wasn't sure how one was supposed to do that, but surely it wasn't too hard. And in fact, in the very first paragraph, she found a statement that made no sense given her experiences! The author said that nobody would choose death over life, but Best had made an official request asking to be executed. There was also the fact that plenty of people committed suicide, but Donna assumed that the author wasn't talking about people with mental issues.

The book went downhill from there. Donna felt sick when she read some of the arguments. They came too close to convincing her that she deserved to be dead.


A week later, Rodriguez was back in his cell, though he was allowed to sleep as much as he wanted and not work. He was not supposed to be searched, either, but Thirteen insisted. The director from One took offense, and ended up having a screaming row with the director from Thirteen in front of all of the male prisoners.

"It was terrifying," Theodosius complained as they set off down the path. "I honestly thought they were going to come to blows."

"They've never argued in front of us before," Donna said. "They must have been really taken by surprise to break their united front like that." Although, hadn't they had a few days to figure out what to do? Maybe this was just a particularly bad time for them. Donna shuddered slightly, wondering what sort of things were going on outside the walls. "Is he feeling better today?" She glanced at the old man, who was walking along slowly, supported by Li.

Theodosius shook his head. "Apparently he nearly died last night. Refused to stay in bed, though, demanded that he be allowed to go for a walk, even though I had to help him get dressed."

That was a reasonable demand. Nobody could stay in their cell all day without going completely insane, and the weather was quite nice, sunny, still, and just below freezing. "He seems to be walking fine, more or less. Did the directors say anything else? Have they decided what they're going to do with him?"

"Nothing, that's what they're going to do with him. A few of us are going to take turns fetching his meals, cleaning his cell, and whatnot, and Li will help him if he wants to go outside. Other than that, they're just going to monitor his condition and provide medication."

Donna glanced behind her. Rodriguez was talking to Li about something, who was nodding along. They looked like a grandfather and grandson out on a walk. "At least it's not icy today." There was a thin layer of compacted snow on the ground.

"Warm, too." As if to emphasize his words, Theodosius pulled down his scarf from his mouth. He said nothing for a brief while as they passed Williamson and Zelenka, who had stopped to argue about who was at fault for the failure of the Steelworks to meet a certain order in 6 that Donna had never heard about.

"It was a production bottleneck!" Zelenka was saying irritably, waving her hands around. She towered over the average-sized Williamson, who looked completely calm. "If you had been able to just hurry up and get everything into place-"

"But it was Five that took too long to send everything on! We did all we could, but you can't win with that kind of hand." Williamson refused to budge, craning her head up with her fists on her hips. "If there was a bottleneck it was in Five, not in Three."

"Odds it was the fault of both of them?" Donna whispered to Theodosius as soon as they passed out of earshot. He chuckled. Bottlenecks and transport issues had always been a problem. If a product had to be made in two separate Districts, it could be taken for granted that any orders would not be fulfilled on time due to train delays or because something went wrong somewhere down the line, causing a ripple effect of lateness. Before the Rebellion, Donna had always managed to adjust for it, but when she was forced to re-qualify herself into a military engineer, the slightest holdup became catastrophe. Not that it mattered in the end, of course. Even if they had managed to acquire enough food and spare parts, there wouldn't have been enough people willing to use them. "As far as I remember, if they had spent half the time that went to blaming everything on each other onto actually doing something to improve production, they wouldn't have been anything to blame each other for."

Theodosius glanced back at the bickering duo. "As far as I can tell, that was all of production in a nutshell. The middle managers stole so much, I was forced to constantly up quotas so that enough would actually be produced." He glared at them for a while before turning back to staring ahead of him. "I'm willing to swear I had some run-ins with them, even if I don't remember it." His memory wasn't nearly as good as hers.

"I'm sure they must have all blended together by now," Donna said sympathetically. "I constantly have this issue where I can recall what was said in a speech, but I have no idea who said it or when it was said unless it provides context."

"Well, I know all of my speeches were the exact same, so you might have problems with that." The same exhortations to produce more, consume less, and work harder in the name of Panem and President Snow, over and over and over again until half the country was sick of it, and the other half simply didn't have the electricity to watch the speeches. Theodosius had never believed his own words, but it had never stopped him from saying them. "You're lucky, you know. You have just two speeches to your name, and one of them was two sentences long. Nobody's going to call you a liar for forgetting if you said something in 72, 73, or 74." He didn't sound upset, though.

Donna shrugged, pulling on her gloves. She always thought she wouldn't lose warmth as she spent time outside, and was always wrong. "I've got problems of my own to deal with," she said. "I suppose it must be hard for you when people start tossing around names and dates, though."

"Could be worse," Theodosius said, pulling his scarf back up to cover his face. "Rodriguez told me this morning he doesn't expect to leave here unless he's released early."

"Huh." That much had been obvious before, but Rodriguez himself had always seemed cautiously optimistic more than anything. "I guess we'll see if he gets better."

They fell silent to let Pitrock jog by, but the former Peacekeeper stopped. "Your friend thinks he's a home health aide now," he told Donna with a tinge of sarcasm. "Nearly jumped out of his skin to volunteer to work some more."

"Why don't you go harass Li about it?" snapped Theodosius, gesturing with his thumb at the two men who were slowly walking up the path. "Last I checked, he's the one who came up with the whole idea in the first place." Pitrock looked at Theodosius strangely, and resumed his jogging. "At least he can't needle me about this in the meal queue," he said to Donna with resignation. "That would offend the others."

"At least there's that," Donna said. "You're trying to do something nice for poor Rodriguez, and he thinks he can insult you over that!"

"Don't worry about it," Theodosius said. "Like I said, he's not going to harass me over it. Funny thing is, he also offered to help out, but we decided that Li should be the one to accompany Rodriguez everywhere, since he's so much stronger than any of us."

"That makes sense. Li could pick him up like a ragdoll. With one arm."

"Exactly. We mere mortals have to content ourselves with sweeping the floor and reading books out loud." He cracked a small smile. "If I can't speak tomorrow, that's the reason."

"Sounds like you men have gotten the situation under control," Donna said. "I'm sure Rodriguez will appreciate it."

Theodosius glanced back. "Well, if he's going to be forced to remain here, he deserves to be as comfortable as possible. I've never heard of anyone being treated like that. I've heard of sick inmates being released or transferred to hospitals, and I've heard of inmates being completely neglected, but never this odd middle ground. But that's politics for you, I guess." The administration wouldn't let him go, and it wouldn't mistreat him in any way, shape, or form. Odd, but Theodosius was right. The Supermax ran on politics.