"I suppose it was just my luck," Krechet said in response to Miroslav's request for a brief description of his life. The middle-aged man was a metre ninety-five tall, with broad shoulders and hips. He seemed to fill up the entire cell as he spoke to Miroslav in a light working-class Capitol accent. "I always wanted to be a Peacekeeper. When I was twelve years old, I was already a metre sixty. You should have seen everyone's reactions when I got to basic."

"So you joined up when you were twelve?"

Krechet nodded. "Indeed. I immediately got attention. Instructors wanted to know if I was a giant or an early bloomer. I remember there was a girl who was bigger than me - as far as I know, she didn't grow a millimetre since then."

That was Rody in a nutshell. Miroslav's wife had reached her final height aged just eleven, resulting in her being very upset when all the boys outgrew her and she ceased to be tall. "What did you feel when you were taken out of the regular stream?"

"Relief that I wasn't being shouted at because of my accent anymore," he said with a wry smile. "I was sixteen then, still not done growing. I was horribly clumsy, but they remarked on my surprising agility - I guess with proportions like mine, my being able to walk two steps without tripping was a miracle. And my strength, of course." Krechet scratched at his just-shaved chin. Even aged forty-seven, he was a formidable sight. In his old photographs, he looked like the personification of power and strength. "First, they put me in a course for special services operatives. But I was still top when it came to everything. Strength, speed, power. Instructors said they had never seen such a big person run so fast." He smiled. "My daughter is taller than me and runs faster, but she weighs less, of course."

"Were you proud of yourself?" Miroslav asked. Krechet had a tendency to bring up his children at every possible time, especially the nineteen-year-old Rachel, who was both a star student (majoring in physics) and athlete (wrestling and rugby).

Krechet thought for a few seconds. "I did experience some adolescent insecurity. Thought it wasn't fair I was getting so much praise for having had the luck to grow to such a size. But I did train incessantly. I suppose I was proud of that, yes."

"Now, you mention being shouted at because of your accent. Why didn't you lose it over the four years you spent in the regular stream?"

Krechet laughed out loud at that. He had a gentle, quiet laugh. "Because I couldn't. Anyway, having a Capitol accent was usually an excellent way to get picked on, but nobody dared pick on me. I had the undeserved reputation of a violent person, so nobody as much as pointed fingers behind my back, afraid I'd find out somehow. I reveled in driving them to distraction and them not being able to do anything about it. The instructors complained, but it's not like you could be punished for the wrong accent." At least there had been that.

"Your reputation was undeserved?" Miroslav asked for clarification.

"You can check my records. Not a single fight. When I was small, I was punished for fighting because I was so much bigger than the other kids my age, so I suppose it stuck." He shifted over slightly. "And I never did anything to provoke anyone, so I never had to fear turning a corner and meeting a group of angry fellow cadets with pipes and sticks. I was always a rule-follower." He paused. "You should write that down. I've been a rule-follower my entire life. You tell me to jump, I'll ask - how high."

"Remember, I'm recording this."

"Oh, yes." Krechet sighed. "Well, I suppose that, too, was noticed. When I was nineteen, I was transferred to the NCIA and went through training there. Check my interrogation records for details, I have little desire to rehash that again."

Miroslav had read them carefully. "Were you content with your new job?"

"Very much so. I'd be a hero chasing down the most dangerous criminals - what's there not to be proud of?"

"Did you ever stop to think about what that entailed?"

Krechet shrugged. "Think about what? I was preventing another Dark Days. I firmly believed that if not Snow, then who? Look, Doctor, I've been a soldier all my life, I knew nothing but obedience."

And yet others had disobeyed. "How did doing your job make you feel?"

"My job wasn't to feel." Miroslav said nothing. "We were told they were terrorists, you cannot have pity for terrorists. I am completely sincere when I say that I felt nothing about the taking of lives."

"How can a baby be a terrorist?"

"Look, Doctor, maybe in your Thirteen it doesn't matter who your parents are, but it was always a fact of life to me and all of us that the family answers for the individual, and vice versa."

Miroslav made a mental note to see how widespread such an attitude had really been. Thinking that an alcoholic's child would inevitably become an addict themselves was one thing, believing in violent crime being hereditary to the point where killing a small child was justified quite another.

Once his session with Krechet was over, it was time for Miroslav to talk to the man's boss' boss. He tossed a couple of breath mints into his mouth and chewed them up quickly. Semi-regular vomiting had accelerated the decay of several of his teeth to the point where he had needed to get them replaced. Miroslav hated himself for taking up the dental team's valuable time and resources, and that self-hatred spurred on even more destructive behaviour. Why couldn't he just be normal for once!

Miroslav entered Talvian's cell. Despite being a mere corporal, the chain of command Krechet had been in had been nothing like the conventional one. Talvian was, in some ways, Krechet's opposite. Once, she had been an excellent fighter for someone her size - in university, she had done martial arts semi-professionally and had won tournaments in the atomweight class - but she had never been trained the way Krechet had been. The fifty-five-year-old had always been a desk worker, aside from a stint infiltrating a highschool and posing as a sixteen-year-old to investigate a Rebel ring. She had been twenty-five then, and had often run into issues with people thinking she was younger than her claimed age.

Looking at Talvian now, Miroslav could see why people had made that mistake. After several months of regular buzz-cuts and the stress of incarceration, her hair was fully grey and her face was lightly lined, but she did not look her age. And her size - if Krechet had dwarfed his surroundings, Talvian moved in her cell as if it was a palatial room. She sat on her cot in a way that must have been calculated to make her look as innocent as possible. Her legs were crossed, her shoulders were slightly hunched, and she was looking up at Miroslav. He knew that there were stereotypes of big Peacekeepers being stupid and small ones being smart, but Krechet and Talvian deliberately played it up almost to the point of absurdity.

Talvian's voice was deeper and lower than one would have expected from such a small person as she answered Miroslav's questions. She acted as if he was an interrogator and seemed to be disappointed by his lack of aggression. Once, Talvian had sent her predecessor to jail, and he had died under torture. Plainly, she was still expecting the same fate.

"I was in the know about everything," Talvian said confidently. Miroslav was recording every word, but nobody except the mental health team would see it for now. "That is the nature of my job."

Now if only the captured NCIA files had not been full of made-up blackmail material, that would have been very useful. And the NCIA's most covert operations had never been put to paper in any case.

Miroslav tried to think of something to get her talking. He considered something to do with foreign countries or Thirteen - Panem had acquired many technologies years or decades late, who had been the providers? - but couldn't think of a specific question. "Who was Snow's child?" he asked eventually. Now that was a topic that still bred nothing but speculation.

Talvian leaned forward like a colleague who had just heard an amazing piece of gossip. "Snow was nothing like McCollum in his personal life," she began. "McCollum did have a very close friend, but their relationship was not sexual. Snow, on the other hand, married. He picked a former university classmate of his, a pliable and unambitious woman by the name of Claudia White whom he trusted to not try to steal his limelight or even push him out of the way."

"When was this?" A therapist's job was to ask after their patient's experiences and feelings, not for historical information, but these were no ordinary patients. And plenty of people talked about their jobs to psychologists, this was just on a slightly different level.

"When he was still climbing the vertical of power. The year 32." Mentally, Miroslav converted that to the international style. During the trial, the so-called Panem style would be used for the events of the past seventy-five years, with the real dates added next to them in square brackets. "They had their only child, a daughter named Octavia, in 39. Snow had been president for a year at that point, but it was hushed up. Rumours started to fly the following year - someone always talks." She sighed, disappointed by the loose lips of her predecessors.

"Fascinating," Miroslav said to encourage her to continue.

Talvian nodded. "It is, isn't it? I always liked secrets and information. Be as it may, Snow knew that children are a danger for powerful parents. He had Octavia raised away from him and she was directed to pursue a profession and not think about politics. She became a chemist and worked for the United Chemicals & Rubber trust under a fake name. When she married, she was instructed to change her name to that of her husband even though in society, she was much higher up than him." She smiled at Miroslav in a kindly way. "Now, the interesting part begins."

"I am already very interested."

"Octavia had a daughter in 63, named Coriolana. The husband, James Garcia, was a true believer. He only found out who Octavia's father was once they were about to get married, and that changed nothing for him. He was the one who originally suggested the name. Octavia agreed, and asked it of Snow, who also agreed." Talvian extended her legs so that they hung down from the cot, too short to touch the floor. "A daughter is a risk, but a granddaughter is a much safer choice as heir. Snow decided that once she was grown enough to be a danger to him, he'd be close to death in any case. He took her in and raised her to inherit. Once you took Two, he couldn't delude himself anymore and sent her and her parents to a safe place with fake papers. I do not know where they are."

Miroslav took a few seconds to think about that all. As he thought, he remembered that he needed to be in the juvenile jail at ten. He checked his watch and realized that he'd need to run to make it on time. Acutely feeling the loss of the schedules that had been inked on his arm in Thirteen, he leapt up and headed for the door. "My apologies," he said, knocking on the door frantically. "I have an appointment with another patient. Please do some thinking about how it felt to have access to all of this information and not be able to share it." The door opened. "Have a good day."

"Have a good day, Dr. Aurelius!" Talvian said with what seemed to be sincerity. He barely heard the last words as he dashed off down the corridor, imagining how upset his next patient would be if even their psychologist couldn't be bothered to show up on time.

By the time he was turning into the corridor in the centre, his throat was burning, he had stitches on both sides, and he was barely standing upright as he tottered around the corner and nearly collided with a handcuffed teenager being led by a single guard. The request to be freed from his employment disappeared as he took in the youth. A girl of fourteen or fifteen in cheap clothing, worn socks, and rubber flip-flops looked at Miroslav incredulously as his legs finally gave out and he fell to the floor, panting.

"Doctor!" the guard exclaimed. "Are you alright?"

His lungs were burning too much for him to speak. Breathing was an effort. The sweat on Miroslav's skin cooled, making him shiver all over even as he felt he was burning. When he had been the girl's age, he had been able to run that distance with a heavy pack and fool around with his friends at the end of it. Was he really so out of shape? His weight was slowly crawling down to normal now that he binge-ate once a week or so, but he was still heavier than he had ever been before arriving here.

Miroslav pushed himself into a sitting position with arms that felt like they were made of rubber. Standing up was agony, but he forced himself to do it, thinking of the chair in the office. "Last session ran late," he said, the words rasping at his sore throat like sandpaper. "Had to run here. No worries." He smiled, heart still hammering away painfully. "Got here just in time."

The guard unlocked the office and the girl and let them enter before tossing a folder on the table and shutting the door behind them.

"You can take the couch," the girl offered.

Gratefully, Miroslav took the folder and fell onto the couch. If he was able to get out of bed tomorrow, it would be a miracle. "You can take the desk, then," he said jokingly, still gasping for air. "Be the psychologist for today."

The girl chuckled and sat down. "So, Doctor," she said in what she probably thought was a middle-class accent, "how are you doing today?"

"Tired," Miroslav said with a smile. "And very aware of how out of shape I am."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Very insecure," Miroslav replied honestly. Reluctantly, he pushed himself into a sitting position and opened up the folder.

The girl nodded seriously. "Are you usually annoyed you're out of shape?"

"I usually sit at a desk, so I don't really think about it." He scanned the notes on the girl. "Now, unfortunately for me, I'm supposed to be the doctor today. Perhaps I will make use of your services later." The girl laughed. Her name was Crystal Wu, she was fifteen years old, she had been arrested for black-market activity and beating up with a piece of rebar someone who had provided goods of a lower quality than she had expected. Since she had a history of petty violence on the level of schoolyard brawls, Miroslav had been called in to evaluate her. "So," he began, feeling like he was made of rubber, "in your own words, could you please recount the fight that resulted in your arrest?"

Mary checked her watch. Only half of the prosecutors were gathered. The just-arrived Robert Wu had been discussing hydrocephalus for the past fifteen minutes with Rakesh Kantaria, the other late arrival. They, however, had had the decency to be punctual.

"A distant cousin of mine had to give her baby away to a Community Home," Robert said with a sad shrug. "They just couldn't afford treatment - and they weren't any random people, she's a university professor, albeit an adjunct."

"And-"

"The baby died." Robert shrugged again.

"Terrible," Isabella said as she typed away on her computer. She had one earbud in - her computer had text-to-speech software. Very different from what either of them were used to. Isabella would never have been able to afford something like this before, having been a small-town criminal attorney, and there hadn't been computers of the sort in Thirteen. Though the audiobook library, apparently, had been highly praised.

Last night, Rithvik had made full use of the fact that he now had his own apartment and his own phone. Mary had never known her husband to have such an imagination. She wished he could join her - but she had been the one to implement the ban on spouses, out of sheer practicality. They had barely been able to billet the defense and prosecution and admin was still trying to find the judges a conveniently located place that was close to neither team. There was no room for anyone who wasn't absolutely necessary.

Rowan Waschmann from Seven was talking about their kids to Jocelyn Mikealis from Three. Rithvik had used to want kids, but not anymore.

Finally, the last latecomers arrived. "Good morning, everyone," Mary began. "It's nice to see we're all here."

"It is," Robert agreed. "I must admit I've never worked on an indictment remotely before."

"When is it being filed?" Taylor Hall asked.

"Tomorrow."

Isabella held up a finger. "The judges sit tomorrow but they don't even have a permanent place to stay yet?"

"Unfortunately, that is the case."

"What even is this trial?" Andrea Webster from Ten sighed.

"It could be worse," Amber Vargas from One said optimistically.

"In any case," Mary broke in, "now that we are done with the indictment, we can now decide for sure how the trial will work." Elsewhere, Reed was having a meeting of his own to discuss the 'other' cases, as they were being called. The trial of the Peacekeepers was being projected to begin around the same time as the main one, as the indictment there was also ready, thanks to its relative simplicity. When the trial of the Gamemakers would resume and if it ever would resume at all was a mystery.

"Our teams have been working for weeks now, writing drafts of presentations," Mary continued, "but there is still no clear understanding of who will be presenting what and when. If we will have everything go in strict order or if we'll introduce a witness relevant to Count Four in the middle of presenting Count One. And we still have no consensus on how many witnesses to use."

"We should avoid using witnesses," Robert immediately broke in. "I said it before and I'll say it again, I'm sure the defense lawyers will be perfectly correct, but I still do not think it proper for the survivors of such horrors to be cross-examined."

Aoife Levron from Four shook her head. "If they are truly so correct, they will know when to decline cross-examination and how to keep it respectful."

"I agree with Robert in general," Mary said. "I stick to my belief that we should read the documents into evidence, step back, and let them hang themselves on them. But, as we all know, there are certain matters on which no documents exist, few as they are." The main one was everything that had happened to the survivors of the Hunger Games. "And we cannot let it appear as if witnesses are a last-ditch solution when we have no 'real' proof."

"I think we need more witnesses than that," Andrea said, voice perfectly calm even though this was the tenth time they were having that discussion. She reached up to touch the shoulder patch of her uniform where the number '10' was embroidered. Mary was still sticking to civilian suits, despite calls from Thirteen hissing at her about how improper this was. "We need to show that these were real people, not just numbers on a page. Almost all of our documents are from the point of view of the perpetrators. We need to give the victims a voice."

"A trial is not for giving the survivors a voice, it is for trying the defendants."

They went in circles like this for a while. Mary's previous opinion that witnesses would just get in the way had been chipped away over the weeks by the revelation that some documents were missing and that some conferences had not had their minutes kept, and there was no getting around the fact that if they only used witnesses for such cases, it would be like giving the defense a signal that they had no hard proof of their allegations.

"Very well, then," Mary said eventually. "I believe we have something approaching agreement. A couple of witnesses on each charge who will be able to add detail that had not been recorded in the documents." And documents were still turning up - just that morning, Lamont had called her to say he had proof that for three years, Peacekeepers had had orders to shoot on the spot alleged spies. While 'everyone had known' that people had been killed without trial for vague reasons such as 'sabotage' and 'espionage', there had been no clear proof - until now. The indictment wasn't a comprehensive list of atrocities but a preliminary one giving the world an idea of who was being charged with what.

Next item on the list: order of presentations. It had been long-decided that Mary would make the opening statement, and, indeed, she was already on her third draft, but after that, nobody had any idea. The usual structure of a criminal trial would be maintained, but this was no ordinary criminal trial. They managed to agree that Mary would go first and outline the entire case and then others would give statements on each charge as they came up, but who these others would be when the charges were shared caused an argument that took them to lunch.

For lunch, the prosecutors went to the Justice Building cafeteria, which was the only room in the building that was in good repair, due to it having been prioritized.

"What's for lunch today?" Isabella asked.

"Vegetable soup, okra with rice, canned mixed fruit, and water," Amber, who was the closest to the board, said. They queued up. This wasn't like Thirteen, where everyone's caloric needs were met perfectly, but the irregularity of her routine made up for that. When it was her turn, Mary was given large portions of everything. Trial staff received generous rations.

"Is the path clear?" Isabella asked, picking up her tray.

"Yes."

The twelve prosecutors made their way to a small table where they could all sit in a circle, just like at the meeting. The cafeteria, however, was a much cozier place than the basement of Mary's billet. Isabella was guided so that she didn't collide with the table.

"This is great," Rakesh said, taking a sip of the soup. "Maybe I should have arrived earlier."

"Where is the soup?" Isabella asked.

"Three o'clock position ten centimetres from the tip of your right hand. Spoon's on its right about three centimetres away."

"Thanks." Slowly, Isabella reached out and grabbed the small bowl. Mary had never known that one didn't need to see to be able to eat, even though she had eaten in the darkness plenty of times before. It just hadn't clicked in her mind.

The soup was normal, like what they had served in Thirteen. It tasted of butternut squash, which could be stored for half a year. Thirteen had a very short growing season, aside from the hydroponic farms that had been barely capable of producing enough to let people have at least some fresh things during the winter.

The okra was great. A while back in Thirteen, there had been a massive scandal in her neighbourhood when the okra had had the texture of glue, but the stuff in her bowl didn't have even a hint of sliminess, as per usual.

"Did you know that white rice has significantly fewer nutrients than brown rice?" Robert asked.

Isabella's eyebrows went up. "Isn't this brown rice?"

"It is," Robert said apologetically. "It's just something I heard once. My town was surrounded by rice plantations, so I picked up on some stuff."

The conversation immediately segued into a discussion of cash crops and who was at fault for the famine of 31-32 in Nine. The documents department had managed to find a film several Peacekeepers had taken of a famine-stricken village, and it had made for disturbing viewing. Due to how long ago the events had taken place, it would be shown with the rest of the material on Count One, conspiracy.

The fruits in Mary's bowl looked like little spots of brightness amidst all the grey. She picked up a slice of peach with her spoon and ate it, savouring the sweetness.

Antonius was sick and tired of the so-called stew they had been foisting on him three times a day for who knew how long. It had an unpleasant taste, like too many things thrown together into a pot and left to cook for too long. And it had a heavy texture, making him suspect that nutrient bars had been added in place of a gravy.

Reluctantly, he ate another spoonful. The mush made him feel less hungry, but not for long. Come evening, he'd be hungry again, just in time for more of this abomination of a stew. The flesh was melting off his bones on this diet - the only good thing about it.

"This is disgusting," he complained to the guard, a boy of fourteen or fifteen. "Is there any way I could have something else for a change?"

The boy frowned. "It's better than what I had before."

Antonius decided not to pursue that line of complaint, not interested in finding out yet again that this child guarding him had been his worker once. "Do you perhaps have anything else?" he asked kindly. "I can make it worth your time."

The boy's frown disappeared as he realized the prospect of making money. He looked around, and seeing that there was no Warden Vance, nodded. "Can you sign this?" he asked, taking a photo from his pocket and handing it to him. It was his mugshot from the detention centre, which made him look especially terrible.

"Do you want them to be personalized?" Antonius asked. "Costs extra, though."

"Personalized?"

"I can address it to someone."

The boy tried to lean into the cell. The hole used to observe him at every hour of the day was about fifteen centimetres tall and across. "Address it to my mom," he whispered, "and say that she deserved better."

"What is her name?"

"Catherine Fields."

Antonius suspected that he had nothing of his pride remaining anymore. He took a pencil and wrote on the back, Dear Catherine Fields, what happened to you was an outrage and I hope that you will be able to live a happier life now. Signed, Antonius Chaterhan.

In exchange for that, Antonius got three candy bars. Three! He ate all of them and flushed the wrappers down the toilet. Feeling much better about himself, he sat down on his cot and continued to read one of his books.

Before he could get through more than a few pages, Deputy Warden Tiller appeared. "You've got an interrogation," she said.

Another interrogation. He was fed up with their endless attempts to trap him into admitting to something he had had nothing to do with. When was this going to end already? Antonius waited to be handcuffed as the radio broadcast an interview Heiko Laur was giving. Panem's first Minister of Foreign Affairs in the better part of a century was completely unqualified for the job, in Antonius' opinion. He sounded completely lost as he talked about tariffs on steel.

"I had a discussion with the ministers for the economy and resources," Laur said, sounding like a subordinate with a folder full of falsifications. "We can preserve Panem's interests while still opening ourselves up to the wider world." The handcuffs clicked, cold metal warming up rapidly against Antonius' wrists.

The economy and resources. Dijksterhuis and Coll would have laughed their heads off had they heard this, but the radio, for once, was too quiet to hear in the cells. Antonius was grabbed under one arm and dragged down the corridor to the sound of the hapless Heiko Laur being eviscerated on national radio. Completely improper, for high-ranking politicians to be treated like that. What was the country coming to? No respect for anyone.

He knew that already, but every single reminder was like a persistent buzzing he could not ignore once he had noticed it. Like the small tear in his shirt he kept on worrying at, making it bigger and bigger.

"Deputy Warden?" Antonius asked demurely.

"Yes?" Deputy Warden Tiller was much nicer than Warden Vance, even though she was from a plantation in Eleven. Antonius wondered what her family would do once the latifundia they lived on was dissolved. Most likely they would get a piece of land of their own. The great plantations were being torn apart and handed over to the workers.

"May I get my shirt repaired?" Once, when his shirts had torn, he had simply dropped them off at his tailor's to be fixed. Now, he had no idea what would happen. Laundry was done for them - would repairs, too, be done by the POWs who still lurked around the building with no home to go to?

Tiller nodded. "Of course. We'll get you needle and thread."

Needle and thread. "Of course," he echoed.

Another day, another endless stack of complaints. In some of his worst moments, Stephen suspected that they were doing it on purpose, just to rile him up. Stephen had already explained many times that the temperature in the cells was perfectly satisfactory and that no matter how much they complained about the food, they wouldn't get anything else. The letters from the public were worse.

Stephen quickly flipped through a few hesitant complaints about the quantity of letters. The lower-ranking former Peacekeepers had started out afraid to put a toe out of line. Like an abused child adopted by kind people, they were testing boundaries, and causing Stephen a massive headache while doing so. And if the adults were childlike, the actual children were unbearable. There was a special POW camp on the outskirts of the Capitol for the child soldiers who had no place to go, and it had gone through five commandants before finally, a former middle-school teacher from Two who had volunteered in a children's prison had been appointed. Mildred Singh had called Stephen a few times, leaving him with the impression that being caught in a hurricane wouldn't elicit as much as a raised eyebrow from her - though child soldiers ranging from eight to fifteen (and some even younger orphans who had tagged along with the armed forces and were being kept there because orphanages were overcrowded) who were being guarded by child and underage soldiers fourteen to eighteen were like ten hurricanes, five earthquakes, and the Cataclysm come again all inside a fairly compact former secret prison.

Stephen wondered if being a parent would be this much of a headache before kicking himself. This was not the time for daydreams like this.

After what the sergeants and corporals thought was a demand and Stephen found to be a pathetic whine, there were complaints from the key criminals. They, bar Bright, had no compunctions about saying everything they thought about Stephen in the harshest of terms. Krechet was like the junior former Peacekeepers in most respects, but he had picked up some audacity from his neighbours.

He quickly scanned a short complaint from Blues. She was politely asking for a visit from her family. Stephen did have some sympathy for her and Coll - he couldn't imagine leaving behind such small children. Unlike Coll, however, Blues had both her parents, so she had nothing to complain about there.

Best was Blues' opposite in terms of age, being more than twice as old as her. He, unlike the civilians, didn't complain about his health. He simply said that he did not understand why he was being held. Over and over. Then, a message from Verdant, Best's onetime subordinate. His leg was paining him, and the guards weren't making it easier to sleep with their radio playing. Now that was a legitimate complaint.

No matter how hard he tried, Stephen couldn't be everywhere at once. He tried to focus on the key criminals, but that meant handing off the rest of the prison to Tiller, who was completely unqualified for dealing with so many people. Despite his requests, he got no more people. Everyone was trying to get home as soon as they could, not that he could blame them, which meant that he was left with underage orphans who had nowhere to go, the dregs of soldiery more interested in the black market, and nineteen-year-old call-ups who focused all of their energy on sleeping with the locals.

Another complaint from Chaterhan. He had gotten better about contraband recently. Only once in a while were things found on him or in his cell, and these were always edible things. Not something that could be used for suicide, or to attack a guard. This time around, Chaterhan was complaining that he had been told to fix his shirt himself even though he had no idea how to do so.

Back in the detention centre, Stephen had allowed the cameras to capture generals and ministers darning socks and washing laundry by hand. Now, he suspected that a photograph of Chaterhan mending his shirt would end up in the Web as well. The guards were always sneaking in cameras. Fortunately, so far, nothing more improper than prisoners eating lunch had been published.

The door opened, and Tiller skipped in. "Good news?" Stephen asked, setting aside the complaint. If Chaterhan really had no idea how to thread a needle, he could ask his guard. They were certainly chatty enough to help him, much to Stephen's chagrin. He knew very well how dangerous this fraternization could be to the trial.

"Yes," she said, going through some papers on her desk. "I've got a date this evening."

"Congratulations," Stephen said, wishing he could go on a date. But he had no time for frivolous things like that. Even when off-duty, there was something keeping him in the office. "Who is it?"

"He used to be a professor's assistant at the university, but now they're rebuilding the university."

A professor's assistant - a TA, as Stephen would have called it. "A good catch," he noted blandly - he had not expected Tiller to be one of those soldiers chasing after well-off people for the thrill. A tenant farmer and a TA would have been impossible to imagine just a year ago. When things changed, they changed fast.

"You should go on a date," Tiller said, taking a sheet of paper and putting it in her pocket. "You need to relax from time to time."

"I don't have the time to relax." He waved the thick stack of complaints. "I am the one responsible for all of this."

Tiller adjusted her helmet. "You can't spend all your time living in your office. When was the last time you were in a relationship?"

"Maybe a year or so ago." He kept on putting it off for later, thinking he'd have more time. "Look, Tiller, I am grateful for your concern, but I have too many things to worry about. You go out and enjoy yourself, you deserve it. But have too much work to do."

"Alright." Tiller left the office. Stephen didn't say that he wished someone would prod him into taking a break for once. He looked down at the stack of complaints, then at his computer screen. He needed to talk to Finance - the jail was being shafted again. Why was the government so apathetic about the trials? Stephen felt as if he was the one trying to single-handedly keep everything together.

A/N: Atomweight is the lightest MMA weight class and is used only in women's MMA due to the fact that it is for competitors under (generally) 48 kilos. Back in the day when she was muscular, Talvian weighed 42-43 kilos, because she is that short. She spent her time between bouts watching the male strawweights, looking for her perfect 1.60m hunk.

The level of absurdity of Snow's private life is inspired by the investigations about Putin's daughters that I've watched, but with the difference that due to the lack of sexism in Panem, a daughter is as dangerous as a son in terms of potential usurpation and has to be kept very far away from any potential levers of power.

Antonius here makes a strawman of the proposed land reforms - while the owners of tracts of land the size of Romania will be expropriated with no compensation, the tenants won't just get plots of land of their own for free. Owners of big but not so gigantic plots will be forced to sell parcels of land to tenants for reasonable prices if they want to buy them (assuming the hyperinflation ends by the point the land reform act is passed). And those working on smaller plantations and farms will benefit from workers' protection laws. The reason for the different approaches is that the average farmer generally feels solidarity for fellow landowners, but the all-powerful magnates who often hired Peacekeepers and judges to deprive neighbouring farmers of desirable land are a different beast entirely.