Even before Donna was fully awake, she was leaping out of bed and tossing back the blankets. She couldn't quite see anything, though. The searchlights outside made it bright enough to see by, but not enough to detect bloodstains. In any case, she could definitely feel that she was bleeding. Donna hated being caught unawares like that. She was forty-two, after all, how could her own body surprise her like that? She cleaned herself up in the darkness, sticking the wrapper from the pad in her pocket. Now that they were waxed only on one side, they were perfect writing material.
The light suddenly turned on just as Donna was trying to feel if there was any blood on her trousers. It turned out that there wasn't, fortunately, which meant that the sheets had also escaped. Sighing with relief, she put the trousers back on. She finished getting dressed, brushed her teeth, and combed her hair as guards marched down the corridor. After making her bed and doing her morning workout, she had to wait until her door unlocked. Donna read a few pages until she finally heard the sound.
"Good morning," she said to Grass. "How are you?"
"Fine. You?"
"Alright, I suppose," Donna conceded as they joined the queue. "Nearly got blood everywhere, but I woke up just in the nick of time."
"The joys of being young," Hope said, turning around to face her. "I wake up feeling like I lost a fight with Li, but at least I don't do so in a puddle of blood."
"I'm not exactly spry in the mornings, either," Donna pointed out. Hope gave her a bemused look and turned back around, craning her head to see the guards entering with the food cart and mail.
The food turned out to be the exact same as yesterday, and the day before. "I'm sure you already get bulk discounts as is," Donna complained as she took her tray, "is it really necessary to get so much it takes days to eat it?" The letter, she placed in her pocket.
One of the guards chuckled but said nothing. Donna walked back with her tray. Vegetable-and-bean stew, a very sad-looking apple, dark flat bread, and an empty cup. For a second, Donna thought she could hear Holder screaming with frustration over in the men's wing. "That's it," Grass said, glaring at her tray. "I'm complaining to my wife. I'm sure she'll be able to read between the lines."
"I tried that already. He wrote back saying he was very glad I was eating a balanced diet." To make matters worse, that had been a clandestine message, and she had spelled everything out in detail.
Grass chuckled. "Maybe I'll get my wife to spread the word." Donna glanced at a nearby guard, but she didn't react. "Enjoy your meal!"
"I'll try," Donna said as she stepped into her cell. The door was left wide open, and she could see the others walk by. Donna filled her cup with water and dug into her meal without much enthusiasm. While she was hungry, she was also feeling some mild cramps, and that pain added to how sick she was of the stew was just barely outweighed by her ravenous hunger. To add insult to injury, the bread was stale and the apple was mushy, as if one was meant to compensate for the other. Donna longed for one of Dem's snacks. Even his vegetable stew would have been preferable. Donna drank some more water to get the taste out of her mouth, rinsed off her spoon and tray, and went to exchange them for a broom, cloth, and dustpan. The letter, she left on the table. She'd read it in the evening.
As she swept the dust into the corridor, Donna heard two guards whispering to each other. She hovered by the door frame, pretending to be busy.
"Barl just told me Hryb's refusing to get of bed."
"What, again? I swear, that man lives to antagonize us. Did they toss him on his ass?"
"Yep. Took away his mattress, too."
The second guard sighed audibly. "I thought they'd never agree."
"Well, that's Two for you. If they can be contrary, they will be."
"At least they agreed in the end."
"And a good thing they did. Just because Hryb's the youngest by ten years doesn't mean he can act like a child whenever he wants."
"I swear, if I wrote a book about this, nobody would ever believe me."
The first guard giggled.
"What is it?" the second guard asked.
"Not where the inmates can hear."
The guards fell silent, so Donna finished sweeping the dust into the dustpan and carried it to the bucket. What had the first guard been giggling about? As Donna got dressed for the walk, she tried to logic it out, ignoring the possibility that it was something completely unrelated, which was, of course, a possibility. The second guard mentioned writing a book. Donna hadn't heard of anyone writing books about the Supermax specifically, although that was one hypothesis.
She focused on the phrasing as she pulled on her nice new boots and did up the laces, running it over and over in her mind as she went outside. If I wrote a book about this, nobody would ever believe me. Maybe she had been thinking about an article in a newspaper? Those still came out from time to time. Maybe one of the interior guards or wardens had given an interview, and the second guard still hadn't been able to find out about it.
Outside, she made a beeline for Theodosius. "You don't have to tell me," she said. "I overheard the guards." Theodosius looked slightly disappointed at not being able to share the news, so she rushed to reassure him. "I'm sure you have more details, though."
"What did they say?" he asked as they set off down the path.
"Just that Hryb got tossed out of bed and got his mattress taken away. Apparently, the directors argued a lot over whether they should do it and Two was against."
Theodosius nodded. "Interesting, that bit about Two. And you're right, that is what happened. He tried to insist that he didn't need to follow the rules, but the guards didn't take kindly to that."
"There was also something interesting I overheard," Donna said, pulling up her scarf so that it covered her mouth. "One of the guards said that if she wrote a book about this, nobody would believe her, and the other guard laughed. When the first guard asked what was so funny, the second one said that she couldn't say it where we could hear."
"Interesting," said Theodosius. "You think there's a book out there about us? Besides the one by Aurelius and Mallow."
"That's what I was thinking. Either a book about the Supermax, or a newspaper article, or something along those lines. Maybe one of the wardens gave an interview or something."
Theodosius squinted as he looked past her at the snow-covered field. It was relatively warm, but still below zero. "I don't think that explains the laughter on its own, though. Maybe the way it was received?"
"That would fit with the bit the guard said about not being believed. Do you have any other hypotheses?"
"Maybe a book or article not about us, but a similar situation?" Theodosius looked like he didn't quite believe his own words.
"What similar situation? Irons herself said we're unique." The Chief Prosecutor from Thirteen had said in her powerful opening statement that this kind of national tribunal had never happened before.
"She didn't say we were unprecedented, though," Theodosius argued, sounding more and more convinced. "Remember how they referred to a whole bunch of cases? Maybe some of them had been similar in some way."
"Then why don't we know about them?" Donna pointed out. "I'm sure the newspapers would have said that our trial is just like something from the past. Or the guards would have jumped to tell us about our predecessors."
"That's true." Theodosius unzipped his jacket slightly and spread out his scarf so that it covered more of his neck. "In that case, we would already know." He fell silent for a while. "Interesting, that the directors had a whole argument about the mattress being taken out. We had no idea."
"They do a good job of pretending that their house is united within itself as never before," Donna joked, quoting Irons.
Theodosius laughed. "What was it she said? 'It is said that a house divided against itself cannot stand, so for the Districts to stand united as never before', something about staying the hand of vengeance?"
"That was Paylor," Donna clarified. "Irons just said that 'for the Districts to stand united together as never before, having thrown off the shackles of bondage, and to treat their oppressors with the fairness they themselves were denied is a sign that the new Panem will be built on a foundation of justice and integrity, rather than terror and cruelty.'"
Shivering slightly, Theodosius shook his head. "You know that all by heart just from hearing it once?"
"I recall one word, and then I recall the next, and the next." Donna reached up to adjust her scarf, which went around her neck and then looped up around her ears to protect them as well. "I don't know much more than that, though. There was something like 'No matter where you hail from, there will be evidence shown that will shock you to the core of your being.'"
"She wasn't wrong there," Theodosius said sourly. Donna nodded, remembering the footage from the famine of 31-32. It wasn't just the famine, though, it was Twelve during the firebombing, the Special Prison in Two from where just two survivors emerged, the endless shootings and beatings from coast to coast. And, of course, the witnesses testifying about what had seemed like every possible atrocity. "There was also something about the international community."
Donna tried to remember what he was talking about but could recall nothing. "I don't remember that."
"I don't blame you; it was at the very end. I think she either called them out or advised them."
"Those are very different things." Donna tried once again to link the words to something in her memory. "Was that when she talked about creating a precedent that others could follow?"
"Maybe?" Theodosius took his hands from his pockets, rubbed them together, then shoved them back into his pockets. "My memory's nowhere near as good as yours."
Up ahead, there was a section of the path that was covered with pebbles. The other day, they had covered the icy sections of the path with them, and now, they creaked under her new boots. Donna's feet were very warm. They continued walking in silence, listening to Best and Verdant argue a few metres behind them about submarines and Hannah Bronstein's escape from One.
"It was because of the lack of funds that the patrols had to be reduced!" Best said. "And where did the funds go, if not to line the pockets of the paper-pushers?"
"So what that the patrols were reduced?" Verdant argued. Donna could hear his foot drag on the tightly-packed snow. "Smugglers had been helping defectors since before your time, and the pods were so thick in the water, the non-patrolled areas were impossible to cross except in one case. One." He emphasized the last word strongly.
Best was not impressed by that line of reasoning, Donna could tell that without turning around. "The blow to the prestige of the Coast Guard caused by Bronstein-"
"Oh, don't amuse my slippers, what prestige? If it could be destroyed by a single eighteen-year-old's feat of long-distance swimming, it wasn't much of a prestige. I had to pick up the pieces after you."
Donna leaned over to Theodosius and whispered, "I have to agree with that." They sped up slightly so that they could talk a little bit louder.
"Me, too," Theodosius said. "Who could have even imagined that it was possible to swim across the Divide? It took her, what, fifteen hours? If such an exceptional case can have such a tremendous impact, surely something deeper is wrong here."
"I still can't believe she did it. It says a lot about Snow that someone was willing to do that just to get away - and someone in a position of relative privilege on top of that." If the child of two doctors living in One had been so desperate to leave she swam all the way to South America, what did that say about the lives of everyone else?
Back in her cell, Donna hung up her jacket and scarf, put on her thin shoes, and held her hands close to the radiator to warm them up. She didn't as much as glance at the letter, wanting to leave it for the evening. Her hands prickled slightly, and it was impossible to bend them quickly. When she went off to the gym, she rubbed her hands together and blew on them as she walked down the corridor.
"Cold?" Katz asked.
"No," Donna lied. "My hands are numb, though." They walked into the gym and took their seats on their benches, picking up their projects.
"Hey," Theodosius said, sitting down next to her. "Aslanov's back to work today, though only for an hour or so."
"That's great!" Donna said.
Li agreed. "It's nice to have someone actually get better, instead of worse."
"Is he going to go outside after lunch?" Donna asked.
"No," Li said, "but I can pass on a message."
Strata spoke up. "Tell him we're all glad he's getting better."
"Of course," Li said, readjusting his grip on his yarn. He was making a sweater fit for a toddler. Donna imagined a little orphan somewhere out in the Districts being gifted the sweater. She glanced down at the rectangle she was working on. Her sweaters as well were probably being worn at that exact moment, and she would never find out.
"So," Katz asked, "what do you all think about Hryb?"
"There's no way he's faking," Donna said. "Nobody can pretend to act like a six-year-old all the time."
Theodosius shook his head. "If Yark can pretend to be catatonic, he can pretend to have no self-control whatsoever."
"That's different," Katz pointed out. "She's doing it to save her life. As far as I know, nobody's considering releasing Hryb for reasons of insanity."
Li froze. "Wait a second," he said. "What if someone does go insane, or they develop dementia? Surely they can't keep someone in prison when they don't understand why they're there."
How had she never wondered that before? Donna stopped crocheting and tried to remember if anyone had ever mentioned anything like that.
"It's less of an issue than you think," Theodosius said. "By the time the person gets to the point where they do not remember major events in their life, they probably need round-the-clock care anyway."
"So you're saying that if I develop Alzheimer's, they'll just move me to the infirmary and tell me I'm in a hospital," Li said. He rubbed his face with his hands. "Well, as long as I get the necessary care, I'm sure I won't see a reason to complain. I hope the orderly feels awkward when I ask why there are locked gates everywhere," he added darkly.
Theodosius looked as shocked as Donna felt. "You never told us you have a family history," he said quietly.
"My mother is starting to decline," Li replied sadly. "I wasn't sure how to deal with it. And there's nobody on the outside who'll stick up for me."
Donna did the calculations. Assuming none of them got released early, Li would start showing symptoms right around when she and Theodosius left. "Maybe the administration will release people who legitimately don't understand what's happening around them," she tried to reassure Li.
"But by that point, I will be too far gone to benefit from it!" Li said, looking utterly devastated. Several of the guards looked to be listening carefully to the conversation.
Strata tried to console him. "Who knows what can happen in twenty years. Maybe they'll close down the prison before then!"
"That's the hope," Li said with a sad smile. "That, and hope that I didn't inherit it."
"That it is," Katz echoed him.
Lunch proved to be buckwheat with vegetables, several pieces of canned pear, a tiny loaf of black bread, and lukewarm tea. Finally, something else! Donna placed her tray on her table and dug in enthusiastically. Everything was very warm. The buckwheat was warm, the pears were warm for some reason, the bread was warm, and the tea was warm. Donna clutched her cup with both hands, trying to heat them.
Ignoring the letter was almost impossible, but Donna forced herself to not touch it. She could see that there was a photograph inside. Was this the updated family photo? It took all of Donna's self-control to not pick it up and look at it. The more time she could spend this evening just reading the letter and looking at the photo, the better. Some of the others were of a different opinion, though. Donna could hear them discussing their letters as they went for their afternoon walk.
"I can't wait to see the photo," she told Theodosius. He wasn't wearing his scarf, and even had his jacket slightly unzipped.
"You'll have to tell me tomorrow, then," he said. "I can't wait for mine to arrive."
"Mrs. Blues?" Melton called out from behind them. Donna and Theodosius reluctantly stopped to let him and Oldsmith catch up. They hated having to talk to Oldsmith.
"Yes?"
"Were you present at the planning conference for the Seventy-Fourth Games?"
"Which one?" Donna asked warily, unsure of what Melton wanted from her. "I wasn't there at the preliminary one, that was before my promotion." Arenas had taken about five years to build. "I remember one of the first things I did after the promotion was attend a progress report for the Seventy-Fourth."
"Was it the one we were both present at?" The four of them resumed walking, Theodosius staying with them even though he had nothing to do with the topic being discussed.
"Yes," Donna said confidently. Of course, she didn't remember who exactly had been present, but she did know that various technicians and industrialists had been there, which meant Melton, the head of the Games department at the Electrical Works, and no Games conference could have happened without a representative from Snow, which guaranteed the presence of Oldsmith, his secretary.
"Do you remember the speech Crane made?" Oldsmith asked. "We have a bit of a disagreement on the details of what he said, and you're the only other person who was there."
"It wasn't much of a speech," Donna said, confused. Had they gotten the date wrong? It's not like there had been a shortage of meetings and conferences. "He just told us to not slack off just because the Quarter Quell would be next." There had been a real worry for several months that a large portion of the landscaping would have to be scrapped (fortunately for Donna, it had been easy as anything to pin it on her predecessor), and the Gamemakers had been justifiably anxious.
Melton leaned towards her slightly. "Yes, but what exactly did he say about the Quell?"
"Directly? Not a word. Indirectly? Implied it would be something to behold. What does it matter, really? All of us there were working on the Games, we knew all about it already."
"I told you," Oldsmith said, pointing at Melton. "He was in favour pretty much up until the last moment. It's not like he said it on television."
"Fine, fine!" Melton exclaimed, raising his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. "That will teach me to argue about Snow with his secretary. I'm still shocked that it happened so quickly, though. I've never heard of anyone else falling out of favour overnight like that."
"Well, it was an exceptional scenario," Theodosius pointed out. "Who came up with the rule change, anyway? I think Snow realized it was the end as soon as it was announced. Even if it so happened that it wasn't used, the people would still be aware that maybe the Games aren't as absolute as they thought."
Oldsmith shook his head. "It was a mistake, turning it into a show like that. Back before I was born, a bunch of overeager youths with not a drop of sense between them wouldn't have been able to influence the Games. I told Snow many times, but he said it was too late to reverse the process."
"You know what I can't believe?" Donna asked. "That we took the Games for granted. That nobody up there ever said that hey, maybe we should stop forcing children to murder each other on live television. Why was it that McCollum even thought it was a good idea?"
Oldsmith sighed. "The first Games, I could call justified. It was a good idea that went too far, because we got used to it."
"No, we did not," Theodosius said, his voice almost a hiss. "You heard the records during the trial the same as us. In the Capitol, the youth mostly didn't care, with a few enthusiasts and a few rebels, mostly not organized. The average adult preferred not to think about it. They treated the Games like a fiction movie where the deaths were fake, even though they knew full well were not. Even at the highest level, the word 'dead' was barely ever used to talk about the Tributes!" That was true. They had only been referred to as the 'losing Tributes'.
"Sounds like 'getting used to it' to me," Oldsmith pointed out, "if everyone had coping strategies."
Melton was rubbing his head with gloved hands. "You know, sometimes this all seems like a particularly bad nightmare. Thank you for your input, Mrs. Blues," he said, and led Oldsmith away, clearly not wanting to be caught in the middle of the argument.
"I hate that man so much," Theodosius muttered. "Justified? How were they justified? It's illegal to take hostages, they all knew that! Not to mention the sheer immorality of it all!"
"I don't think they cared," Donna pointed out. "Like with the Peacekeeper field manual."
Theodosius shook his head. "You know, I've been seriously thinking recently about this. I get that before the First Rebellion, they had competitions where people often died. But how did they cross that barrier between 'competitors may die' to 'competitors must die'?"
"People had been forced to participate, though, despite the veneer of written consent," Donna pointed out. One of the myriad of reasons for the First Rebellion was the fact that political opponents had regularly been forced to compete in these fighting bouts and lethal obstacle courses. There hadn't been televisions back then, and the proto-Games had been recorded on film and shown in movie theatres. "And children often participated, too."
"Still, though, there's a gap. Look at it. Before the First Rebellion, you would have the odd young teenager pressured into participating into something where there was a good chance of survival, if they were careful. Just two years later, children are forced into a situation where there will only be one survivor, no matter what." Theodosius was running his hands through his hair over and over, cap on the brink of falling off his head.
Donna could still see a logic there. "I think it was because the executions were thrown into the mix. It became a weird combination of hostage-taking, potentially lethal entertainment, and an execution. And then it just continued to escalate from there. There was a gap, yes, but there was also a bridge over it."
"I can't believe we're still breathing," Theodosius said, readjusting his cap and shaking his head.
"I hope Oldsmith doesn't try to continue the argument," Donna worried. "Let's prepare some rebuttals ahead of time."
"Good idea," he said. "What was the last thing he said?"
"The Capitolians being used to it."
"Well, that's an easy one," Theodosius said grimly. "The NCIA mood reports, for starters."
Donna sat down on her cot, pillow propped against the wall, and eagerly opened up the letter. The photo was weakly attached to the paper with a bit of glue; she removed it carefully and held it in her hands in front of her.
Her parents looked the same, while Dem and Alex had more grey hairs but otherwise also appeared unchanged since the last time. The kids were, as always, unrecognizable, with the exception of Donna, who didn't look any different from a few months ago. The three youngest were especially hard to recognize, as they were still too young to visit. Aulus had clearly grown a lot, but then again, he was going to be turning eleven soon. Eleven! In just a year and a half, she would finally meet him. Laelia and Octavius were much harder to tell apart. With identical short haircuts and similarly dressed, Donna had to look at last year's photo and see where everyone was sitting to be able to tell who was who.
On Laelia's lap was a gigantic blob of black fur that glared at the camera with amber eyes. Donna smiled, looking at Inky. In every photo of Laelia, she was holding him, and at the rate they were growing, she wasn't sure who would end up bigger in the end.
Donna set the photograph on the table in the place of last year's family photo, which she put on the edge of the table. When the guards came around next, they'd see that there were one too many photos, and take it away. Slowly, she read the letter. According to Dem, the kids were back in school and doing well, the cat considered it his solemn duty to lie motionlessly in a dark corridor and wait for unsuspecting uncles to step on him, and he was probably going to get a raise soon. Finally, tell Coll his brood is also doing well and his photo is forthcoming. -Dem :))))))
Seven more brief paragraphs followed. Alex was glad to be back in Twelve where evil cats did not lie arrogantly in the corridors and then complain when they were stepped on. Donna had perfected Dem's lasagna recipe (just reading that made Donna hungry) and had successfully persuaded her boyfriend to read her new favourite book, Doctor Zhivago. Lars was busy with a history group project. Aulus rattled off a list of what he was doing in what class. Laelia wrote a funny story about how a teacher was mean to a girl in her class, and the girl shouted back (Donna shook her head, impressed at the audacity of the kids these days. When she had been that age, everyone had known not to openly disobey authority). Octavius was perusing pre-Cataclysm literature just like his eldest sister. Her parents were enjoying volunteering with an after-school program.
That's it for us. How are you doing? Are you reading anything interesting? -Mom and Dad
Reaching for one of her pieces of paper, Donna began to plan what she would say tomorrow to the others and how she would respond to the letter. Everyone would definitely have a good laugh about the cat, and they would likewise be interested in Donna's continued progress. She had written nothing about the academic side of things this week, but everyone would definitely overanalyze her choice of favourite book. She didn't recall anyone mentioning that book, but maybe someone had read it. Of course, she'd need to tell Theodosius to expect a family photo with the next letter. Donna wondered who would be holding the cat.
Donna drafted a quick reply, making sure to write down her main points, before picking up a book and opening it to the page marked with a small piece of rolled-up toilet paper.
Quiet footsteps in the corridor. The orderly was handing out medications and taking back glasses. Donna closed the book of number puzzles, reluctant to stop solving the nonogram so close to the end, but there was very little time remaining until lights-out. She got ready for bed, almost glad for the oversized pads that had been given to her. At least they wouldn't leak at night if she positioned herself the wrong way. She carefully rolled the used one into a cylinder and flushed it. If she threw it out the next day during cleaning, the guards might notice that the wrapper was missing, and ask questions, and in any case none of the women cared that you weren't supposed to flush menstrual products.
Donna sat down on her cot and took off her shoes. The wrappers were carefully folded and hidden in the side of her socks, so she hid her feet under the blankets quickly. While they were a less discreet hiding place than her bra, she needed to take it off to go to bed, so she made sure to transfer the papers to her socks beforehand. As she pulled the covers over her, a guard looked into her cell. The footsteps faded away, and the light turned off. Donna continued planning what to say to the others next morning. Eventually, she fell asleep.
