"You four want to hear something interesting?" the warden asked. Donna, along with Blatt, Kremser, and Cast, paused her mopping to listen to the warden from Three, who was reading a novel. The four women shuffled closer to the table at which the other warden on duty, a woman from Nine, was reading from a thick book with 'HIST 240 Course Readings' emblazoned on the cover. 'Something interesting' always got their attention.
Donna studied the warden's face. She didn't look angry, so at least there was that. "To commemorate the fifth anniversary of the end of the fighting, a monument to the liberating soldier was put up in the Capitol. The ungrateful Capitolites, though, have taken to calling it the 'Tomb of the Unknown Plunderer', and now there's a huge fight in op-eds and blog posts."
The four inmates chuckled as the warden from Nine shook her head and continued to annotate her readings. Tomb of the Unknown Plunderer, indeed! The others would fall over laughing. The warden from Three, however, was not amused. "I guess it's not as bad as it could be, if Capitolites themselves are speaking out against revanchism," she admitted.
"Of course," Donna said, moving her mop slightly so it didn't drench her shoe. During the assault on the Capitol, robbery had been omnipresent. Many of the soldiers had been poor District workers, and they had jumped at the chance to snatch something nice for themselves and their families back home. The neighbourhood where her family lived was taken without a fight, resulting in the soldiers being less harsh with the inhabitants hiding in basements and subway tunnels. Good thing that Dem had decided to evacuate from their old house, which ended up being mostly destroyed by a pod, and not evacuate from her parents' house. The thought of her children being there when the bombs fell still made Donna feel sick.
She resumed mopping the floor, mind stuck firmly in the past, trying to not laugh hysterically. Soldiers had burst into their house, stolen everything usable even if it was nailed down, eaten the food, cooed over Octavius, and confiscated the car in the name of the Rebellion. They hadn't hurt anyone, though. The Rebellion's soldiers had been too busy treating themselves to things they had been deprived of previously to care about the owners of said things, unless they had resisted. The few cases of rape and murder had been swiftly and harshly punished, making the soldiers even less interested in the people and even more - in the material goods. "An appropriate name," Donna whispered to Cast.
"No kidding," she replied. "My parents have given up on trying to get our valuables back."
"That's the Districts for you," Blatt said. "'Liberating soldier'? Seriously? Nice words won't change a marauding horde into heroic liberators. I'm surprised that the people are sticking up for them."
"You deny that they were liberators?" Donna asked, just for the sake of having something to argue about. Predictably, Blatt took the bait.
"Just because they knocked off Snow doesn't mean they're the good guys here," she said, clutching at her mop. "You yourself don't deny they were a bunch of thieves."
Tapping her fingers against her mop, Donna wondered what would be the best approach here. "In the end, though, more than eighty percent of the Capitol is glad that the Rebellion happened."
"Who told you that?" the warden from Three shouted, standing up slightly. Some of the guards acted outraged by how porous the walls of the Supermax were despite contributing to the gossip network themselves.
"In this case, you yourself," Donna pointed out. That particular piece of information had been endlessly discussed a few weeks ago. The warden glared at her and sat back down.
Kremser was laughing quietly, face buried in her shoulder to muffle the sounds.
"In any case," Donna told Blatt, "clearly the opinion the average person in the Capitol has of the Rebellion is quite high. Even if they don't like what happened in the last phase of the fighting, they still generally approve."
Leaning against the wall, Blatt crossed her arms on her chest. "Exactly. They don't like what happened in the last phase of the fighting. To commemorate the Rebellion in general would be a good thing, but a reference to the fall of the Capitol specifically is way too far, in my opinion."
"But aren't the two tied together? After all, you can't talk about the Rebellion without talking about how it ended."
"It depends on what you emphasize," Blatt explained. "Like you said, they approve of the Rebellion, but not of all its aspects. Stressing the one that most people rightfully despise was a very disrespectful move." Kremser nodded.
Donna resumed mopping the floor, trying to think of a comeback. "But you can't disentangle things from each other like that," she pointed out. "In the memory of the average person in the Capitol, the best-known part of the Rebellion is probably the very end, just because they personally witnessed it."
"You still don't understand," Blatt sighed. "The average person is glad that the regime is gone, but they don't want what they went through rubbed in their faces like that. Especially if their children were there when Thirteen dropped those bombs." Donna glanced at the wardens, but they were pretending to be too interested in their respective reading material to care.
After lunch, everyone was shocked to see Aslanov already back, though he didn't walk around, instead sitting on a bench. He had undergone surgery a while back, and had been in the infirmary for over a week, with nobody allowed to visit him. After a lengthy debate on whether or not he could be moved from the prison, the decision was that he could not be. Thus, one of the most respected cardiac surgeons in the country, a former defector now living in Twelve, ended up operating in a former torture chamber under the gaze of four guards.
"How did it go?" they demanded to know.
"Fine," Aslanov said. He looked healthy, though exhausted, and was clearly trying to hide the pain he was in. "Can't say the same for one of the guards. He fainted."
"What did the surgeon think of that?" Katz asked as the inmates all chuckled.
"Oh, she was furious. Good thing I was unconscious at the time, or I would have been terrified. As soon as she was done with her job, she tore into him." Aslanov cracked a small smile. "When I woke up, he was feeling worse than me!"
"What was the room like?" Holder asked. "Did it look like a torture chamber?"
"No, it's just a normal room," Aslanov said with a shrug. "Like one of our cells, but larger, and crammed with a bunch of medical equipment. There were a few uneven spots in the ceiling where hooks must have been, though." Donna shuddered slightly as Aslanov continued his tale. "It was very cold," he complained. "In the infirmary, at least, they got a plug-in heater. And the food was better."
Everyone leaned in closer, wanting to hear more about the food.
"The orderlies told me that it's the kind of food people eat in hospitals. I got this amazing apple sauce, I swear there was sugar added, it was so sweet. And I've never had soup that good in my life. Best thing is, I'm supposed to get a special diet for a while, so I'll be eating like this for days to come!" Donna felt extremely jealous as Aslanov smiled widely. "Almost makes it worth it. They're not even allowed to search me!"
"Hopefully they actually don't," Li said darkly. The guards tended to not respect those regulations. "Are you sure you should be outside so soon?" he asked. "You don't look too good."
"I'm fine," Aslanov waved him away. "It's just for a few minutes, to breathe some fresh air. I'm confined to my cot otherwise, so you'll have to handle everything."
"Don't worry, Mr. Aslanov," Li said in a kind voice. "We got you. You won't be bored for a single second." He reached out and patted the older man on the shoulder. "The orderly is overrated anyway," he added with a smile. The male orderly was in fact nowhere to be seen.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Li. If you'll forgive me, I think I need to lie down now." Gingerly, he rose to his feet, not taking Li's proffered hand for support, and slowly walked the few metres towards the exit. Donna watched one of the guards lounging against the door open it up to let him in.
The huge cluster broke up rapidly, everyone getting into groups to discuss the situation. "I hope he's alright," Theodosius said anxiously to Donna. "I don't want anyone else to die."
"I hope so, too. I hope he gets to leave this place." If Aslanov made a full recovery, it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility for him to live to eighty-nine, the age at which his sentence would be up. Given that he was already having severe problems with his heart, though, that was very unlikely.
They walked along the wall, Theodosius running a hand over it. "It's giving me anxiety," he confessed. "I don't want him to die. I don't want anyone else to die. I don't want to be left alone. They don't deserve to wither away in here."
"Same," Donna said. It felt like there was a hand somewhere, pen hovering over paper, just waiting for the chance to cross off another name from the list of the inmates of the Supermax. "You won't be alone, though. I'll still be around, after all."
Theodosius smiled weakly at her. "Imagine that, the two of us all alone in here. We'd drive each other insane within the hour."
"Good thing we have the lifers, then." Donna had done the morbid calculation. There were twenty-one inmates who, barring any significant changes on the outside, would never leave. Of those, fifteen or so would most likely still be alive when Donna and Theodosius were released, and the others also had good chances of making it that long. "You know," she admitted, "I've thought about who will and won't die before we get out. Assuming we don't get released early, that is." She had received a clandestine note from Dr. Fisher recently, in which her lawyer said that sentences were not being reviewed at the moment, but he would alert her as soon as there was movement on that front.
"Me, too." Theodosius ran a hand through his hair. "Makes me feel terrible, but I can't make myself stop."
They walked in silence for a brief while. "I heard something interesting just before lunch, when I was cleaning the corridor," Donna said.
Theodosius whirled around to face her. "Do tell."
"In the Capitol, there's now a monument to the 'liberating soldier', but everyone's calling it the 'tomb of the unknown plunderer' instead."
The misery slid off his face as Theodosius snickered. "They're not wrong," he said. "There's someone out in the Districts still using Cynthia's best frying pan. And I can't even guess at what happened to our car."
"Same," Donna said. "Ours is still missing."
"By the way, would Shetkovi be willing to drive Primus for his visit next week? Cynthia's coworker had something come up."
"Of course," Donna said without thinking. Livia already drove Donna's family for their visits, surely she wouldn't mind helping out Cynthia. "I'll tell her."
Theodosius smiled slightly at her. "Thanks. After all, I want to congratulate him on his report card in person."
"How did he do?" Donna asked. Her own children's marks had also been dutifully sent to her this morning, but she hadn't had the opportunity to share with Theodosius yet as the morning walk had been spent arguing about Aslanov.
"Well enough. A's and B's in everything, just like the rest," he said proudly. "Yours?"
"Same. Donna's average is ninety-two, and Lars is very upset he was unable to get straight A's. The younger ones are a mix of A's and B's."
"Ouch," Theodosius said. "What dragged him down?"
"B+ in drama, of all things. He has no idea why, he loves the class and the teacher is kind."
Theodosius shook his head. "Well, he's only in grade eight, it's not a problem. Still hurts, though. I remember I was quite a perfectionist back then."
They turned down the path, snow squeaking under their boots. Donna had recently requested a new pair, and was eagerly awaiting it any week now. "Same," she said, "though I was more afraid of parental wrath more than anything. Around middle school is when my parents realized Alex would not continue the family tradition."
"At least that's not under threat," Theodosius joked.
"I've been worrying lately," Donna said. "How will she be treated? I know she says that nobody ever bothers her, but she's still in school, after all. What about when she applies to university? Or for a job? What if someone takes their anger out on her?"
Theodosius looked contemplative. "Takes out their anger - of what?" he asked. "Anger at anyone who is connected to the regime? Anger at you for taking responsibility? I, for one, look forward to the editorials when a true believer confronts her."
"This isn't a joke," Donna snapped. "Primus is in middle school. He's old enough to understand, too. Have you started thinking about how you will explain things to him?"
"I am perfectly aware of that," Theodosius said irritably. "I just tried to make a joke out of it because I can't stand it, either."
"True." Donna looked up at the cloudy sky. The cold hit the exposed part of her neck immediately, so she adjusted her scarf to cover her better. A light snow began to fall. "Oh, no," she groaned.
"Maybe it won't become a heavy snowfall," Theodosius said, though he didn't sound very convinced.
Donna caught several snowflakes on her gloved hand. "Is it snowing where you are?" she asked.
"No, no, it's too far south," Theodosius said with a vacant smile. His trip south along the coast was still going strong. "It's not exactly warm there, but it's not cold, either."
"That's nice."
"Very nice." He refocused suddenly, glancing around at the trees. "Dr. Chu is worried I'm losing the ability to tell what's real from what's not real," he said in a worried tone.
"But it's only for one hour each day," Donna pointed out, "and you don't lose your grasp on reality!"
Theodosius shrugged, staring at an apple tree. He ran a hand through his hair and readjusted his cap, which was knocked askew by the motion. "That's what I told her. She just tapped her pen on her clipboard, wrote something down, and told me that we'll talk about it again later."
"Sounds like Dr. Chu."
"I actually got a book about Three," he said, "or whatever it's called now." While neither the country nor the Districts ended up being renamed, the more nationalistically-minded tended to use alternative names regardless. "It ends with the First Rebellion, of course, but still better than nothing."
That sounded interesting. "So will you go into Three itself?"
Theodosius shook his head. "They'd just arrest me. Safer on the outskirts."
"Huh."
In the gym, everyone continued discussing Aslanov, not stopped by the fact that he wasn't there. "He seems to be doing as well as he should be," Li said, sewing a zipper onto his sweater. "And he gets extra food, too. The orderly told me."
"Extra food?" several voices asked. Donna looked up from the sleeve she was making.
Li nodded, shoving his needle through the fabric. "Several hundred extra calories. For health reasons."
What sort of health reasons would be needed for that? Donna wondered what the odds of her getting some of that extra food were, and so did everyone else, judging from their facial expressions.
"It's not fair," Katz said. "If they can feed one person better, surely they can feed all of us better."
"Of course they can," Stein muttered under his breath. "They can do literally anything to us."
"True," Li said. "Everything they do is on purpose. I just don't see why they'd need or want to limit us in food."
Stein nodded his assent. "I swear, when I get out, I'm never eating any of the stuff they feed us ever again."
"As if it's any worse than Peacekeeper rations," Katz pointed out. "It's better, in fact."
"I don't want to eat rations ever again, either. I want to eat normal food. Is that too much to ask for?"
"Yes," Donna said sardonically. "You have to eat the same porridge for four meals in a row and say 'thank you'. The director from Thirteen will be very sad if you don't."
The little group chuckled quietly, and Donna felt a warm sense of satisfaction.
"I bet it's all Thirteen," Li said quietly, though the odds were that the guard from Thirteen perchednearby in a chair with a book could hear him regardless. "They're the ones always pushing for a harsher interpretation of the rules. I wonder what it takes for them to become less stringent. So far, it appears that only severe disease can make them back off."
Grass was always going on about how the Supermax was a battleground, with the Districts competing for influence and trying to pressure each other into following a certain course of action. According to her, since Thirteen had spent seventy-five years as the heart of organized resistance and the place where the defectors gathered, they were more obsessed with being tough on the inmates from an ideological standpoint than the outer Districts, who still boiled with anger at what they had been subjected to but had no ideology per se to motivate them, only righteous fury that often dissipated after some time spent here. Thus, while the directors from the outer Districts were about as likely as the director from Thirteen to do anything nice for the inmates, the guards tended to be kinder, especially after a long time.
Donna resolved to write that down that evening. It was, as every other analysis of the situation by Grass, carefully thought out and very plausible. She'd just have to ask Grass for what she thought about the role the inner Districts played. Then, Donna would be able to explain to her family what kind of currents flowed here.
"By the way Mr. Li, do you think Aslanov would like some company this evening?" Theodosius asked.
"This evening is already taken by Longview. You can go in tomorrow morning after breakfast, clean the cell and whatnot."
"The orderly must be so happy to have you men around," Katz said, shaking her head. "Can't you just make him do his actual job instead of playing chess with a guard?"
"I doubt the orderly is willing to spend hours reading out loud. And I'm sure you women will do the same thing when one of you becomes severely ill." Li bit off the thread and stuck the needle into his shoe. He laid out the sweater on his lap, doing up the zipper and smoothing it out with a slight smile. It looked like something you could buy in a store.
Strata leaned over to look at the sweater. "It's beautiful," she said. "I wish I could make something like that." She herself was working on a plain sweater, without any decoration.
"It's not that difficult," Li said as he folded the sweater carefully. "I'm sure you'll get to that point in no time." He took the needle from his shoe and walked towards one of the wardens. After handing back the sweater and the needle, he sat down, made a loop in his yarn, and started a new chain.
"I hope so," Strata said with a sigh, holding up the panel she was working on.
With a hiss, Katz uncurled her hand and began to massage her fingers. Recently, she had started taking more and more breaks, as her finger joints simply couldn't take it. Shoving her hook into her ball of yarn, she did some finger stretches. "You alright?" Li asked her.
"Just my arthritis," Katz complained. "I swear my hands are deteriorating by the hour."
"Ouch," said Li. His own fingers were dancing so fast, Donna couldn't figure out what exact motions he was making. "You should ask for an ergonomic handle for the hook."
Donna was fairly certain that the odds of that happening were not too far off the odds of Katz being released early. "You think they'll do that?" she asked.
"They have to, if they want us to crochet for four hours at a time."
That was true. Katz nodded appreciatively at hearing that logic. "I'll ask for one during my next checkup."
"I was talking to Grass during the walk," Li continued, "and she said that they're getting laxer and laxer when health is on the line. A guard told her that they're actually not going to search Aslanov until the doctors say so." Since the decisions made by the doctors also had to be unanimous, a single dissenting voice would prevent Aslanov from being searched.
"Now if only that actually happened," Katz said cynically.
"Can't Thirteen just barge in, like they did with Rodriguez?" Strata asked.
"Not if the decision was already made," Li explained. "They've bound themselves to it. Ask Grass, she's the one who explained it to me."
"Well, if Grass said so-" Stein cut off, shrugging. Donna moved the sweater in her lap to untwist the sleeve, careful to not tangle the yarn hopelessly.
Katz was still stretching her fingers, doing odd-looking little motions. "I got a book of exercises for arthritis," she said, noticing Donna watching. "I really need to take it easier, but there's nothing else to do." Even sitting and talking for hours was insanely boring. Having something productive to do made it easier.
Donna finished a row and counted how many she had already made. Two more, and she would be done with this sleeve. She chained two and continued with the half-double crochet. The sleeves were half-double crochet all the way through, but the front of the torso had a few cables, which had been a huge pain to make. Donna couldn't understand why Li loved them so much, he was willing to make a sweater that appeared to be a hundred percent cable.
"Mr. Coll, how are your children?" Strata asked.
"They sent me their marks. They're all doing well."
"And you, Mrs. Blues? How's your eldest doing?"
"Got an average of ninety-two."
"Wow," Li said. "That's, what, thirty percent higher than last year?" Donna nodded. "Your daughter is seriously hardworking."
"Thank you. I'll tell her that."
Katz appeared to be deep in thought. "I don't even remember what marks I had when I was at the Academy."
"If you were sent to Nine, clearly they were adequate," Li said. "My academics were fine, but I was too good at hand-to-hand to be sent off to the middle of nowhere."
"I did well, too, but I don't recall anyone ever improving that fast," Stein said. "Some people deteriorated over time, but nobody just leapt into the stratosphere like that. Even the kids in the cheating ring didn't improve that fast."
Katz carefully picked up her hook and resumed crocheting. "I remember how a few cadets got busted for cheating," she said.
Donna leaned slightly closer, eager to hear more. This wasn't a story she had ever heard before. "What happened?" she prompted.
Looking around at the little cluster of listeners, Katz put down her hook and began. "It was when I was in grade twelve. They had me in an advanced physics class, as I had gotten good marks the previous year, and it was advanced. My marks collapsed practically overnight. And since we had no control over what classes we took, that put an end to my plan to go into advanced technical training." She sighed. "A few others who were struggling started paying someone who was doing well to do their assignments for them. The idea was that they'd pretend that they understood the material well enough if they had their notes with them but the tests were simply too hard. I did something similar, actually, I would copy from a friend of mine and add minor mistakes, so it didn't look suspicious. I got away with it, but the instructor caught the others eventually. The administration was furious, but since this was a physics class, they simply all found themselves in Twelve after graduation."
"Twelve was total trash," Stein said dismissively. "What a waste of a first tour. I think I was the only Peacekeeper at the time who didn't spend half their time eating stew at the black market. I swear half the force didn't even carry their weapons with them on patrol."
"It didn't get any better by 72," Weiss said from behind him. Donna had to strain to hear her. "I have no idea what Snow was thinking. Fifteen thousand people crawling in a pile of coal dust, what a shitty parody of a District. The stew was made from literal trash and the men were all so skinny, you could count their ribs."
"Same, but I preferred the women. Half of them were underage on top of that," Stein complained, "and I always felt terrible telling them to go away because I could see they were hungry, but the Head back then had a file on everyone and I didn't want to add to mine."
Weiss shook her head in disbelief. "When I got there, the Head was the sort to give you advice on that front. Then Thread turned up and ruined everything." Weiss had been one of the very few Peacekeepers in Twelve who stayed on after Thread's arrival.
"Thread was acting on Snow's orders," Katz pointed out. Donna turned back around and resumed crocheting. The former Peacekeepers' back-and-forth bickering about responsibility was not something she wanted to hear yet again.
Donna's door opened, and a sympathetic warden ordered her out. It was time for her biweekly checkup. As the warden led her down the corridor and opened the cell block gate, Donna could see other guards going into her cell to search it. In the stairwell, she and the warden exchanged the contents of their pockets. Donna gave the warden several days' worth of notes, and the warden gave her two small pastries. One of them Donna immediately stuffed in her mouth, savouring the taste, the other one she broke in half, offering the bigger piece to the warden , who took it with a smile. The other half, Donna likewise ate. They were amazing, soft and sweet. She'd have to thank Dem for them.
"You have crumbs on your mouth," the warden said quietly. Officially, she was not allowed to speak to them. Donna wiped at her mouth with the back of a hand. "Better."
There was nobody in the second-floor corridor, and their footsteps echoed loudly in the emptiness. Donna walked into the infirmary and stood in front of the orderly's desk, doffing her cap. "Good afternoon, Female Nine, how are you feeling?" the orderly asked, handing Donna a pair of manicure scissors.
"Mostly fine," Donna replied as she trimmed her nails and tossed the clippings into a small trash can nearby. "The food-"
"You, too?" the orderly asked with a sigh.
Donna smiled sheepishly. "I thought it was worth a shot."
"One person brags about his special diet, and everyone comes running!" the orderly said, throwing her hands in the air, though she didn't look upset. "Any requests I can actually fulfill?"
"I need more pads." The orderly reached under her table and gave her a large handful. This was a new brand, and as Donna put them in her pockets, it took her effort to not look visibly triumphant. The paper wrapping was something she could write on. "Um, do you have a smaller size?"
"No, we're out."
"Fine." After all, better a size too large than a size too small, even if Donna wasn't enthusiastic about trying to jam a pad the size of a sponge into her underwear without actual need. "Nothing else."
"Take off your shoes and step on the scale." Donna did as requested, watching the numbers change.
"Come on, orderly, forty-nine point eight?" she asked when the numbers stabilized. "That's clearly underweight! I should be at least fifty-one!" Usually, she hovered just around that mark.
The orderly was unimpressed. "With your frame? You'd still be in perfect health with a few less kilograms."
"But the regulations say we should be at a healthy weight!" Donna insisted as she pulled on her thin shoes.
"Which you are," the orderly insisted. She herself didn't have an extra gram of fat on her, but was much broader in the hips and shoulders than Donna. "BMI is just a guideline, the cutoffs are not absolute. While it is accurate to say-"
Donna did not care about what was accurate or not. "Of course, orderly," she said, jamming her cap back on her cap. "Have a good day."
The warden walked her back down the corridor and down the stairs. "Everything fine?" the guard asked.
"The orderly is really stretching credulity," Donna complained quietly. "If I'm underweight, then I'm underweight. The regulations say so."
"You're not the one who interprets them, though," the warden pointed out.
Donna sighed. "I know." They entered the cell block and the warden led Donna to her cell, shutting the door behind her with a familiar clang. Donna took the pads from her pocket and put them on the shelf above the sink in an unsteady stack. She put her cell in order, as it looked like a tornado had hit it, or at least a warden who had been caught napping at her post by her own director two days ago.
It was so annoying that nobody could agree on how the regulations were to be followed. As far as Donna could tell, each of the directors interpreted the prison rules differently. While they seldom shouted at each other in front of the inmates, their weekly meetings must truly have been something to behold. Thirteen people trying to agree on something, and each with veto power? It was hard to believe the force of all the arguments hadn't shaken the prison to its foundations yet, but then again, at the end of the day, nobody truly cared about the sixty-three Supermaxers.
