"Wake up!" a voice in the corridor demanded. Donna froze mid-pushup, terrified by the loud voice. That was completely uncharacteristic of the friendly young woman from Eight. "How lazy can you be? Up!"
Heart hammering, Donna continued her morning workout. It was just words. The guard couldn't hurt her. She was just having a bad day, or she had received bad news from her family. Nothing to panic about. Donna finished her workout, washed herself in the sink, and got dressed as the orderly was handing out glasses and medications. Tia looked at her sympathetically as she handed her the glasses.
"Thank you," Donna said, setting them on the table and wiping her hands on her shirt.
The guard started to shout again. "Orderly, get a move on! You weren't hired to be chummy with the inmates!"
"I do my job as I see fit, CO," Tia snapped back. "Do not order me around. Unlike you, I cannot be replaced easily."
Tia's defiance improved Donna's mood, but not for long. As she buttoned up her shirt and tucked it into her trousers, she wondered what was going on. Perhaps some sort of major revanchist attack? Or the president had called for the Supermax's closure again? If so, Donna couldn't blame the guard for taking it out on them, She pulled on her sweater and waited for the newspapers with dread a block of ice in her chest. If half the front page was blacked out, she'd know she was right.
The trolley rolled down the corridor. Silently glowering, the guard shoved the newspapers and breakfast at her. So it was not just a single guard having a bad day, then, but the newspapers were free of serious censorship. Donna scrutinized the back pages, finding no hint of something major. Confused and worried, she took her glasses off and sat down to eat.
When they were taken outside, Donna began to feel as if she had stepped into a parallel universe. Half the guards were glaring and snapping, the others were pacing around and staring at the ground. As Donna jogged, she noticed that there were no conversations between guards and inmates going on. She was beginning to suspect that a policy change had happened, but try as she could, she couldn't think of a reason why. It was strange that they'd suddenly start being hostile after so many years.
"Good morning," she said to Theodosius as she slowed to a walk.
"Good morning. Hryb's in solitary."
Donna realized that the younger man was indeed missing. "The way they're snapping and glaring, I'm not surprised. Do you know what's going on?"
"I was going to ask you that," Theodosius replied, shaking his head. "I thought maybe a revanchist attack, or the directors cracked down for some reason."
"Maybe some sort of political thing?" Donna suggested, before realizing that made no sense. "No. The directors would have had to agree. That would take something major."
Theodosius adjusted his scarf. It was quite pleasant outside, as there was no wind, but it was still chilly. "I'm just glad the orderly is still sympathetic," he whispered.
"Same." The orderlies were their main channels of communication. "I wonder if the sympathetic guards will still be sympathetic."
In the gym, the guards showed no signs of shaking off their bad moods. They put on the music as always, but when Li began to speak, one of them demanded he stop.
Li nodded and stared at his crochet, but Blatt was made of sterner stuff. "We are allowed to talk," she said coldly as she slowly climbed to her feet. "It says so in the rules."
The guard, a young man from Eleven who had just arrived weeks ago, snorted. "Who cares about the rules?" he asked in a combative, almost unhinged, way. "I can do whatever I want to you, and nothing will happen to me. The rules exist at our convenience, not yours!" He marched up to Blatt, took off her cap, and threw it on the floor. "Now pick it up!"
Donna focused on her sweater, wondering if she was having a nightmare.
"You have no right," Blatt insisted. Donna marveled at her audacity even as terror squeezed out all other emotions. "What did I do wrong?"
"I wouldn't even know where to begin," the guard said, looming over her. "The list is very long. Now pick it up!"
Blatt did not twitch, standing with her head tilted to look the guard in the eye. "I am under no obligation to do so."
Yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two, repeat. Donna focused on the movement of her fingers, trying to wake up. This was making no sense. She took deep breaths, trying to fend off the anxiety rising up inside her. Every cell in her body wanted to run. The cheery music didn't fit the mood at all.
The guard scrutinized Blatt's face as everyone else focused on their crochet, only glancing up occasionally to see what was happening. The other guard, an older woman from Six, sat in an armchair with her hands over her face. That gave Donna hope. Perhaps only a few of the guards had gone crazy, and the others weren't sure what to do about it. "You looked different in the movie," the young guard said wonderingly.
Movie.
Donna nearly fell off the bench as it all clicked into place. The administration must have decided to raise the fighting spirit of the guards by showing them a documentary about the old regime, and this was the result.
She took deep breaths, focusing on the repetitive movements of her fingers. This wasn't a deliberate policy change. This was just a phase. They'd overreact for a few days and then it would all be back to normal.
The guard was still harassing Blatt. "Pick it up!" he demanded. Donna wondered what movie they had watched, to result in such a reaction.
Blatt stood as firm as a rock. "No," she said calmly. A grimace of fury crossed the guard's face, and as Donna watched in horror, he drew back a hand to hit Blatt. She jerked backwards slightly, suddenly looking very vulnerable, and the guard's face fell. He dropped his hand to his side and ran out of the gym.
"Carry on as usual," the other guard said apologetically. "He's been having some issues lately."
Breathing a sigh of relief, Donna looked at Theodosius, who looked ready to pass out. Blatt sat down, glowering at nobody in particular and picking up her cap. Grass, Ledge, and Oldsmith leaned over to congratulate her, but everyone else was still too scared to move more than a millimetre.
"That was terrifying," Li whispered. "What got into him?" His hands were shaking visibly. "It's like they were all replaced overnight."
"Didn't you catch it?" Katz replied, surprised. Usually, Li was the one who figured these things out. "They were shown a movie about us. And I'll wager it made him think about some relative of his. Wasn't his cousin whipped for stealing a few stalks of rice?"
"Oh, so now it's all my fault?" Salperin asked irritably.
"Did you whip his cousin?"
With the way the day was unfolding, Donna half-expected the older man to answer affirmatively. Fortunately, Salperin shook his head. "No, but it's the principle of the thing."
Since the older guard was showing no signs of being any different from yesterday, conversations were gradually beginning as usual, though they were more strained, and everyone kept on glancing towards the door.
"Look," Katz said, "all of us Peacekeepers here whipped a thief at some point or other. That's why we're here. The point is, now that the guards are being indoctrinated, they'll all remember how their mother never took off her shirt in front of them, and decide we're the ones to take out all the anger on." She gestured at Li with her hook. "And if I were you, I'd be careful."
Li tapped shaking fingers on his knees. "There's no way this will repeat. The last thing the administration needs is guards threatening to hit us. Just think of what Blatt's husband will post on his blog tonight!"
"What's a blog?" Netter asked.
"It's a Webpage where someone can write whatever they want," Donna explained. "It's like a journal, but public." The explanation was easy enough, but Donna herself struggled to comprehend just how fast the Web was changing. She suspected that once she got out, she'd need to re-learn how to use a computer.
"Oh," Netter said. "I think someone explained it to me already."
"In any case, I look forward to having this incident be covered by the press." Katz stretched the fingers of her right hand, which had been clenched around the hook.
Theodosius looked up, continuing to crochet. "There's no way it will be covered by anything respectable," he said. "I myself feel like I'm having a particularly bad nightmare."
"Same," Donna admitted. "I feel like I've fallen into a parallel universe." She wondered what this meant for the visit she was supposed to have in a few days.
The music changed to another cheery dance song. "This better not be a permanent change," Li muttered as he cut the yarn and switched to a different colour. He was working on a sweater patterned like a spiral that went from white to every shade of blue to black. "I don't think I could stand it."
"Not all the guards have gone crazy, at least," Theodosius pointed out.
Li shrugged. "For every Stone, there's one whose name I don't even know because their cases weren't brought to trial."
Donna wondered if that was supposed to be a dig at her - Stone had worked on location - at Stone, or at the guards. In any case, continuing that train of thought made her cringe inside. "If you continue that analogy, I will leave," she threatened.
"Fine," Li conceded, smiling with just his eyes. "What I mean to say was, they can't have all gone crazy. That's not how it works. They were nice all this time, and they'll go back to it soon enough."
"And by that time, Blatt's husband will have posted so many scathing updates, the respectable revanchists will turn up in force at the gates." Donna had no illusions about that. If this got out, the respectable sort of revanchist would be galvanized into action, claiming that they just wanted the Supermaxers to be treated well.
"Mrs. Blatt?" Katz called out.
"Yes?"
"Could you please make sure your husband doesn't try to stir up a storm?"
Blatt raised her eyebrows. "I don't have control over what he knows or writes," she lied. "If he hears rumours somewhere, there's nothing I can do about that."
"Please, try."
"I can't guarantee anything." Blatt turned back to Grass, who was already providing a detailed analysis of what this could mean and what exactly the guards were allowed to do to them. The conclusions she drew were not very happy ones. As long as the directors approved, the guards could do absolutely anything.
When going to lunch, Donna was afraid, but the guards turned out to be as nice as ever, if a little bit strained and awkward. The trays were handed out without glares or insults. Donna hoped the cooks hadn't also seen the movie, as she didn't want to think about what they could have done to the food.
Outside, it was warmer than in the morning but still cold. Donna finished her laps and joined Theodosius and Vartha, who were discussing the altercation between Blatt and the guard.
"There you are!" Theodosius said. "Blatt was really something, wasn't she?"
"I suppose her stubbornness had to pay off eventually," Donna conceded. She wasn't very happy about Blatt of all people having gotten the advantage over a guard, but she had to admit that the way she had stood up to him had been impressive. "I don't think I'd have been able to do something like that."
Vartha huffed. "That's because you don't have a tenth of her defiance," he said. "You'd have bent down to pick up your cap without batting an eye. Both of you."
That wasn't fair - while Vartha was good at complaining he wasn't very defiant, either - but Donna didn't want to go there. "What movie do you think the guards were shown?" she asked instead.
"Maybe the video evidence from our trials?" Theodosius suggested.
"Blatt was in the movie, though," Vartha pointed out. "Do you think it was trial footage or an old news clip?" He hid his chin in his jacket as a mild but stinging breeze picked up. Donna adjusted her scarf to cover her mouth, making sure that the part that was already damp with breath didn't touch her skin.
"Probably propaganda," Donna said. "I don't think she looked too different from now during the trial." Donna vaguely recalled Blatt as having had a fondness for well-tailored suits.
Theodosius nodded. "That's a good point. You think they made another movie?" He shuddered.
"I haven't heard anything about another movie," Vartha said. "Maybe they were shown the one about our trial?" He paused. "No, then he'd have gone after one of us, not Blatt. Maybe it was just a television program aired during the trial?"
"Maybe." Donna looked around the yard. The guards seemed to be more relaxed than that morning, but there was still a sense of wrongness about them. Donna just wanted things to go back to how they had been before. She wished she had appreciated the niceness of the guards before, instead of only realizing that she missed it now that it was gone.
Donna thought carefully about what to write to Livia. Unable to think of something, she wrote her diary entry first.
Guards were shown a movie about the IDC trials yesterday, so today, many were very harsh. They snapped and glared. One harassed Blatt when we were in the gym, but she stood firm. He took off her cap, threw it on the ground, and tried to make her pick it up, but she refused. The guard, a young man from Eleven, even went so far as to nearly hit her. He then ran out of the gym and resigned within the hour. I was impressed by Blatt. Usually, her stubbornness is a product of her refusal to face the past, but today, it was a sign of strength. Some guards, especially the older ones, didn't change, as they know us too well to judge us simply by our past deeds. I hope the others mellow out soon. I don't want to have to be afraid of them.
To Livia, she dashed off a quick note.
Livia - monitor the situation and tell me if it gets out. I suspect Blatt's husband will be shouting about this from the rooftops.
The guard taking her for Laelia's visit was one of the harsher ones, but the hairdresser was nothing but sympathetic, clapping Donna on the shoulder once he was done. "Let's go," the young woman from Five said irritably.
"Yes, CO," Donna replied compliantly, climbing to her feet and running her hands through her hair, brushing off stray clippings. They went to the visiting room, Donna feeling at the piece of paper with questions in her pocket. Laelia was halfway through her fourth year and her marks for the fall term had been excellent. Donna was going to ask her about her plans.
When she saw her daughter, however, all of the plans disappeared. Laelia looked as if she had been in a car accident. Her left arm was in a sling, her face was covered with yellowed bruises, and her left eye was partially swollen shut. "What happened?" Donna asked. "Are you going to be alright?" Her hands reached out of their own volition, but she remembered about the prohibition on physical contact just in time.
Laelia waved her right hand dismissively. "The other one looks even worse," she said with a weak smile.
"Did you get into a fight? What happened?" Donna took out the paper from her pocket and laid it face-down on the table. She stared at her daughter, who looked down, wincing. This was completely uncharacteristic of her, and Donna hoped it hadn't been somehow related to her.
"Yes, but that's not how I got hurt," Laelia said with a sigh, smile disappearing from her face. She moved her left arm and winced in pain, and Donna also felt like she hurt, but deep in her chest. She remembered that one time where she had been in that position and cringed. "Look, Mom, it's nothing. Let's talk about something else."
Donna stretched out her hand slightly, wishing she could comfort her daughter. "How is this nothing?" It pained her to see Laelia in such a state.
"I fell off a balcony," Laelia grumbled. "Second floor. I was at a party after exams ended, we all had too much to drink, and someone started insulting me and hitting me. I hit her back, we started pushing and shoving, and eventually fell off the balcony together. I dislocated my shoulder, bruised some of my organs, and broke my nose."
Her nose didn't look too bad, but it did seem to be slightly crooked. "How long ago was this?" The term would be starting in two days.
"Just after exams ended for me. Three weeks ago."
Donna ran a hand over her face. "And you didn't tell me?"
"I hoped I'd get better by the time of the visit."
"Nobody told me!"
"I asked them not to."
Donna sighed. "You're far too grown to be running circles around me like that. Even if you have the advantage of only seeing me once every other year." Abashed, Laelia looked down. Donna wished she could change the topic, as their time was very limited and she was sure that Dem had already scolded her for her stupidity, but she wanted to know. "What happened to the woman you fought?"
"Broken legs and minor spinal cord injury. It'll be months before she can walk." Clearly realizing that Donna was already wondering if Dr. Fisher had been put on high alert, she added, "It was all deemed an accident, thanks to Dr. Fisher."
"Was it?" Donna asked pointedly, wondering how the lawyer had reacted to his new task. At least Donna hadn't put that fellow student in hospital!
Laelia shrugged, wincing. "I don't remember. All I know is what others told me afterwards."
Donna slumped in her chair, wondering what she had done to deserve this. "Your dad?"
"Read me an entire lecture already."
"I'm sure you're glad to be going back to Three today," Donna joked. Laelia smiled gratefully. "My parents?"
"Went all the way to Three with flowers and an apology and then spent days staring daggers at Uncle Alex for allegedly corrupting me." She rolled her eyes. "He was really nice about it, though. I didn't know he could be so serious."
The last time he had been so serious, Laelia had been just three years old. "He has his moments," Donna conceded. She studied her daughter's face. Those bruises had to have been massive to still be visible three weeks later. Donna wondered if this was a one-off or something normal for her daughter. Not only was Donna completely dependent on what she said in her section of the letters, but Laelia was also living on her own and could do whatever she wanted. Lars, of course, also lived alone, but from what she could tell, he had no time to breathe, let alone party. "I don't understand. How did this happen?"
Laelia's mouth twisted into a grimace. "I was stupid, alright? I know I'm lucky she didn't press charges." Donna glanced to the side, but the guards did not stir, clearly too interested in the juicy drama unfolding right before their eyes. Donna wanted to throttle them. Her daughter wasn't something they could laugh about in their lounge. "I never drank before, so I didn't realize I'd get so aggressive."
"And a good thing, too, if you became aggressive," Donna warned. According to the former Peacekeepers, if someone was usually nice but became violent when drunk, that meant that they always had violent impulses but had control over them. "You know this can't ever repeat, right?"
Laelia nodded morosely. "Dad already told me all of this. You don't have to be so concerned. It won't happen again."
"I can't just not worry about you!" Donna exclaimed. "I barely ever see you, and when I do, you turn up looking like Inky was shot out of a cannon at your face." Laelia giggled, lifting Donna's spirits slightly. "How am I supposed to not be concerned?"
"I don't know. Look, I already feel bad enough, alright?" Donna realized that Laelia was crying. "You don't have to add to it."
Donna had often wished over the past few days that something would happen to make her forget about the sudden harshness of the guards, but this was not what she had meant. "Fine," she said with a heavy heart and turned over the piece of paper. "How were exams?"
"Fine." Laelia tried to wipe her left eye. "I can't believe I'm almost done."
"Me, neither." Donna leaned forward slightly. "What courses are you taking this semester?"
"I'm done with most of the important things. I'm taking a few courses on data systems and cryptography, because the company I had my practicum with last year deals with that stuff, so I thought it might be useful." The previous year, Laelia had worked in industry for a semester, and wanted to continue working there once she graduated. "I'm also taking a course on the history of computers, because I need to take a history class, and some stuff on ethics and morality."
"It's good that you're studying ethics," Donna said. "When you work with machinery, it's easy to forget that your work will affect people."
Laelia nodded. "I guess. I liked the one I took in first year, so I decided to take more."
"That's good," Donna said again. "And how are your siblings? Your niece?"
Laelia smiled. "Donna's doing fine, but her research is going poorly."
"How can she be doing fine if her research isn't?"
"I don't know, but she seems alright. So are Daeho and Sooyen. Sooyen already thinks she wants to be an engineer."
"I'm sure your grandpa is thrilled about that."
"Oh, he is." Laelia rolled her eyes. "Lars is tired. Aulus spends most of his time volunteering with the legal aid society. Octavius is talking everyone's ear off about pre-colonial Australia. Dad's doing fine. Grandma and Grandpa are bickering with Uncle Alex. Inky is the laziest cat I've ever seen in my life. Just yesterday, he-"
"I am confident that Inky is doing just fine," Donna hurried to cut her off before she could start monologuing about her beloved cat. "Tell me more about the others. Are your grandparents doing alright?"
Laelia sighed. "They've been shooting me odd looks the entire time I was in the house, but yes, they're alright. I think I managed to buy them off with my marks." That semester, she had gotten mostly B's, with one A and C each.
"That's your grandparents for you," Donna said. "As long as the marks are good, clearly everything is fine and you're doing well. Even if you're not." She sighed. "I wish I could hug you," she said wistfully.
"Absolutely not!" one of the guards snapped.
Laelia tried to smile. "Well, I'm not really a huggy person in any case."
"Do you even remember me hugging you?"
There was a silence for a few seconds. "No," Laelia said, looking down at the floor. "My first memory of you is Lars showing me a newspaper with your photo in it. You were already in here by then, I think."
"Does Aulus?"
"I don't know. You'll have to ask him." She adjusted the strap of the sling.
Donna remembered the last time she had embraced her children. It had been a week before the official surrender. She had hugged all of the children as she had headed off to a meeting of the Defense Council, knowing that soon, they would either evacuate to somewhere or stay and surrender. For a while, she had considered going into hiding with them, but in hindsight, she would have been caught sooner or later.
"You were just three years old when I last hugged you," Donna reminisced. "Your dad used to braid your hair into two little plaits."
Laelia touched her short hair. "I remember the braids," she said. "I like having short hair more."
"It's certainly easier to deal with," Donna said, reaching up to touch her own hair.
"At least you have straight hair. It's not fair I couldn't inherit it, either." She leaned forward, bracing her right arm against the table to prevent the left one from being hurt. Donna wondered what the others would think of her daughter's misadventures. They'd probably think it was something they could laugh about.
"Laelia."
"What?" she asked, awkwardly crossing her arms.
"Please tell me what happened."
Laelia sighed. "I told you, I don't remember. I got in a fight over nothing with someone. Apparently she accused me of looking at her wrong, and I rose to the bait. We managed to fall off the balcony together. According to someone who was there, I managed to sit up and started to walk away before I was convinced to get medical help. Then I, uh, passed out from alcohol poisoning."
"At least you're alive," Donna said unthinkingly, as she couldn't think of anything coherent to say.
"Uh, yeah." She tried to smile at Donna, who stared back stonily. "Poor Dr. Fisher, though. He deserved none of this."
"Don't change the topic." Laelia looked down. "Did you have any problems the next day?"
"Why do you care?" Laelia snapped. "Why are we even talking about this? We're wasting time!"
Donna sat up straighter. "Because I'm concerned about you! To me, this isn't wasting time." She tapped her fingers on the table. "Though I do wish we could have met under happier circumstances." Her daughter said nothing. "Fine. What did our indefatigable lawyer say?"
"When I woke up," Laelia began in a more upbeat tone, "I asked the nurse to bring me my phone, saying I needed to call my family lawyer. The nurse looked weird at me, because I didn't arrive dressed like someone who has a family lawyer, so I ended up saying that we had unofficially adopted Dr. Fisher after- yeah." She glanced to the side. The guards did not notice the near-slip.
"Did you invite him for New Year's?" Donna asked sarcastically. She hoped her daughter hadn't elaborated on the last part, but couldn't ask without falling afoul of the rules.
"Uh, we did, actually. Dad insisted. It was humiliating."
Donna remembered something. "Wait. The photograph. You must have been wearing very heavy makeup." In the most recent family photo, Laelia showed no sign of injury.
"Yeah. We all hoped the bruises would go away by the time of the visit. When Lars came back for New Year's, Grandma and Grandpa pestered him about fixing me up, but there wasn't much he could do." Lars was doing his residency in an ER and had only been able to visit to drop off presents and eat dinner before having to go back, and that only because he had been able to sweet-talk someone into it.
"And what did our future ER doc think?"
"Started talking about how he was at a party once where he had to set someone's broken leg after they fell off the roof." She rolled her eyes. "Grandma and Grandpa would have been horrified, had I not been there to distract them."
Her parents clearly didn't have a very good New Year. "Did you apologize to them, at least?"
"Ugh. Yes. Over and over. They're still muttering about how you'd have never done such a thing."
Donna laughed out loud. "Oh yes I did," she said.
Laelia's mouth fell open. "What? When?"
Donna glanced at the guards. This was technically a permissible part of the past, but with their recent change in attitude, anything was possible. Fortunately, they displayed only a vague interest, so Donna began the story. "It was back in university. You know how I was in a student organization?"
"No," Laelia said. She still looked shocked.
"Well, I was. Grandpa was the one who got me to join, he thought I'd make more connections that way. For the most part, that's what happened - I went to lunches with organization elders and got myself into favour with them. Do you know what these organizations were like back then?"
"You mean the group fights? Uncle Alex told me about that. Were you in one?" Laelia was leaning in closer, eager to hear. Donna wished she could have told her children those stories at home sitting on the couch, not surrounded by guards.
"No, no, I avoided those. There was a different kind of fighting, though. The stylized one-on-one fights. During my initiation, I fought an older member with sharp fencing foils."
Laelia scratched her head with her good hand. "Uh, I can't see that."
"We wore eye protection," Donna reminisced, "and special clothes, but the face was left bare. The idea was that you proved your toughness by being willing to risk getting your face sliced up. Every move was choreographed, but people still got hurt. I got cut, but the scar's invisible by now." The only person who had ever gotten close enough to see it was Dem.
"That happened back then?" Laelia asked, wide-eyed. "Wait, is that not all?"
Was this what being a parent of a young adult was like? Having someone go to you for advice from someone who had been there? "Most one-on-one fights were just for fun, or between organizations as a competition," Donna said, "but people did solve disputes by force very often. I went to a party once with your Dad. We were sitting quietly, and then someone made a disparaging remark about his major. I stood up for him, he refused to take it back, and I ended up challenging him to a fight."
"With swords?" Laelia asked.
"No, no, he was so much bigger than me, it wouldn't have been fair. We fought with fists."
"And that was fair?"
Donna nodded. "It wasn't a real fight. It was all ritualized, choreographed. Every blow was known in advance. He punched, then I punched, and so on." Hers had had no impact while he had knocked her down with each strike. "The point for me wasn't winning, it was showing toughness in the face of a much larger opponent and willingness to stand up for a partner. My opponent had to balance between going too easy on me and implying he didn't consider me a worthy adversary and going too hard and implying that he was enjoying his advantage and basically picking on someone smaller."
"What. The. Hell." Laelia adjusted the strap of her sling. "So, what did Grandma and Grandpa say?"
"Grandma was horrified when I came home all bruised," Donna recalled, "and Grandpa was annoyed that I was getting beaten up over someone he disapproved over. Alex, of course, thought there was nothing funnier in the world."
"Classic Grandpa," Laelia said with a small laugh. "Well, if you hear an explosion, that's me telling him about this." She furrowed her eyebrows. "Wait, what did Dad think about this? I mean, you literally fought someone for saying something bad about him. Like he couldn't stand up for himself."
Donna had difficulties thinking about it that way. She knew that things like that weren't as rigid now, but to her, it was only natural that Dem needed to be protected. Perhaps this was something she needed to discuss with Dr. Chu. "That was the ideal back then," she explained. "One partner had the superior role and was the protector. Obviously, most middle- and upper-class people weren't as insane about it as students-" Laelia laughed at that "-but it grew out of the same place. And your Dad was definitely impressed by seeing me get punched by a large man and not flinch."
Laelia didn't look very comfortable at that last bit. But then again, Dem was Dad to her, and who was Donna? "Well, that's crazy," she said. "I'm glad we don't have that anymore. Well, people still fight, but we don't have crazy stuff like that. Do you know why that changed?"
"Change the topic!" one of the guards snapped, knowing very well why it changed.
"How's Inky?" Donna asked, unable to think of anything else.
Fortunately, Laelia needed little prompting to talk about the infernal cat, even shocked as she was from finding out that her mother was a very different person than she had thought, and even the new guards were amused by the story of Alex stepping on his tail in the middle of the night, with the question of who had shrieked louder still open.
The gym was emptier than usual. Hryb was locked up, Verdant was in the infirmary suffering from his cluster headaches, and Li was also missing. Since one of the guards had become completely unpredictable after watching the movie, Donna assumed that Li had decided to take a prolonged bathroom break to get away from her.
"How was that?" Theodosius asked quietly. The guard was sleeping off a hangover and could wake up at any moment.
"Bad," Donna replied, and quickly explained what had happened.
As she had predicted, Katz thought it all a very funny joke. "I don't think that's what your parents meant when they said they wanted your kids to be like you," she said. "I hope you didn't get too angry at her."
"I'm not angry." Donna resumed crocheting. "Just confused. And disappointed. I don't understand how she could think it was a good idea."
"Hypocrite much?" Katz muttered. Donna ignored her.
"I doubt there was any thinking going on," Theodosius joked.
Donna put down her project on her lap. "She's not a child anymore. She really ought to know by now that actions have consequences. Pushing someone off a balcony - really?" Although, didn't having an incarcerated parent normalize being in trouble with the law? She'd have to do some reading and check if that was actually true. "I hope this teaches her to make better decisions."
"I'm very amused by the mental image of your poor lawyer being told he needs to go smooth out a drunken fight," Katz said.
"Female Seven, shut up!" the guard demanded. "I'm trying to sleep!"
Without a word, Donna picked up her hook and held the yarn with her other hand, wondering why bad things always seemed to come in clusters.
A/N: Don't worry, the guards' sudden harshness will fade away quite quickly. Keep in mind that the youngest ones have no meaningful memories of before the Rebellion and grew up in an atmosphere of amnesia, so the movie was a massive shock.
In my headcanon, the Capitol absolutely had student duels. With how violence was glorified via the Games, that couldn't not affect what people thought of using violence to solve disputes. Since the students were nearly all middle- and upper-class (hi, classism), they "refined" "coarse" gang fights by making the fights choreographed and stylized. There are no winners or losers, the goal is simply to show yourself to be tough. The real Mensur is something exclusive to some frat bros from Central Europe - look up 'academic fencing' on Wikipedia. Since Panem has no gender roles, doing stupid and dangerous stuff to look cool is not limited to men.