On Saturday morning, Mary woke up at four-thirty without even needing the alarm. For the first time in who knew how long, her day wouldn't be spent in a courtroom or writing in her office. No, this weekend was going to be special. She, Reed, and Isabella were going to visit a local trial up at a former secret prison outside the Capitol proper. And tomorrow, they'd go skiing there, thanks to an early snowfall in the mountains.
When you had something to look forward to other than endless boredom, even getting out of bed was easy. Mary got dressed quickly and went to meet up with the others at the post box, which was roughly equidistant from their houses. She and Isabella had to wait for Reed for a minute or so, and then for the taxi to arrive. They were taken to the closest train station, Isabella now lightly holding on to Mary's elbow.
"Watch out, six steps here," Mary said.
Isabella reached out her cane, searching for the first step. She found it and stepped up. She then found the next one, and it was easy from there.
They bought their tickets and waited for the train. They were bound for a small town close to the border - or rather, where the border had been. Now that they were being demilitarized, there were arguments over how to divide up the wide strips of land that had once separated Districts.
According to Joe, the town had always been known for its good skiing - and for the fact that there had been a secret prison in the environs. Now, locals claimed they had thought it was an ordinary prison where no untoward things had happened, but that was unlikely to be true - Joe himself, who had family in the town, had heard plenty of rumours about what really had gone on there.
The former prison was the site where many trials, very different from the IDC ones Mary was in charge of, took place. They were for the most part group trials of prison (both conventional and secret, but mostly secret) personnel of all ranks, similar to the Peacekeepers' trial, from prisons all over the country - Redcreek simply had the best infrastructure. Those were conventional military tribunals, presided over by officers and much quicker than Lodgepole. Mary had heard different things about the integrity of these trials - one of the reasons why she had decided to go there and see for herself.
The train managed to reach the town with no breakdowns or delays. It was about half an hour before the morning session of a trial would be starting. Mary had called the chief prosecutor in advance and she had said she'd be able to not only see a trial day, but also a sentencing, as that would happen immediately afterwards, though in a different courtroom.
The town was almost unrealistically nice after the rubble of Lodgepole. It hadn't been shelled or fought over, and so the low-rises had no bullet holes pockmarking their walls and there weren't any carcasses of buildings. And since there was no rubble, there were no rubble-people. Mary and Reed described the surroundings to Isabella as they waited for the bus. She had read that trials were a very popular destination, because they offered free lunch, but she hadn't expected to be surrounded by a mob of locals at the bus stop.
The locals were mostly forlorn and irritated, hats pulled low over their brows. They stood silently, grimacing and shifting from foot to foot. Mary wasn't naive enough to expect that this day in court would fully re-educate them, but it was certainly a good deal better than empty galleries. Even this brief reminder of what they had been living to all these years - the prison had been built about thirty years ago - would hopefully stop any nostalgia in its tracks. The prison had drawn most of its personnel from this exact town, but it'd have been easier to wring blood from a stone than get one of the locals to admit to having worked there.
The bus, a military vehicle, pulled up, and everyone climbed on. It was surprisingly accessible, as the ramp that had been made to make loading heavy equipment easier now made it easier to get into the bus. Being relatively young and healthy, the three of them elected to stand instead of fighting for a seat with what Joe called classic Capitol tenacity. Nobody recognized them, or chose not to say so if they did.
"That was a much shorter ride than I expected," Isabella said, feeling her watch as the bus bounced off the unpaved road and onto a gravel path. "We can't be already there."
Mary looked out the window - the fence was maybe a hundred metres away. "The outer fence is not too far away."
"You're right," Reed said. "That's closer than I thought."
The person next to them glared at Reed. Their thinking was obvious - if the prison was close to the town, how could they not know anything about it?
The bus rolled over gravel, driving through the open gate that still proclaimed 'DANGER - NO ENTRY - NO WARNING SHOTS WILL BE FIRED' (not quite 'All hope abandon!' but the message was the same) and into what seemed to be a parody of the town they had just left. The buildings here were low and dilapidated, and the paths were all gravel - an accessibility nightmare for one of the passengers, who inquired icily if he was being expected to hover. He ended up having to be carried by someone.
Nothing here had changed since the liberation, aside from the presence of the armed forces. There were still former prisoners walking around the grounds, doing maintenance work or simply enjoying the nice (though frigid) weather. They looked much healthier now, but many were still in their old clothes.
Mary couldn't imagine living in such a place. The barracks looked like they were going to collapse at the slightest touch, and despite everything, there were still puddles on the ground. Before, it had been endless acres of mud. Mary had seen photographs.
"Good day," someone said behind them, a captain of around thirty. "You're the-"
"We are," Mary said, turning around.
The captain saluted. Mary remembered that she was an officer and returned it, as did Reed. "He's a captain," Mary whispered to Isabella, who also saluted.
"Oh - are you blind?" the captain asked, face falling.
"I am."
"By how much?"
"My eyeballs were destroyed by shrapnel," Isabella explained. "I can't tell light from dark."
"Oh, that's a pity," the captain said. "If you want, we've got people who can narrate for you."
"No thank you," Isabella said. "My colleagues seem to enjoy doing it. And in any case, most of a trial is auditory."
The captain nodded. "I watched your cross-examination of Dovek. Masterful work. Just - masterful. Our trial format is a bit different, but brilliant work is always brilliant work."
"Thank you."
"Well, then. I'm Captain Subraveti, one of the investigators here. You don't know how glad we are to have you here."
"Budget issues?"
"Of course."
"I'll put in a good word for you," Mary said, "but even we are struggling to pay for heating in the jail."
Captain Subraveti sighed. "Of course. Well, there's still some time before the trial, and there's no fun in sitting in the courtroom and watching locals pretend they knew nothing about anything." Glancing at Isabella, he added, "Even just hearing the shuffling and awkward throat-clearing must be unpleasant."
"Is it all locals here?" Reed asked.
"Not at all," Subraveti said, starting to walk. "Why don't you follow me and I'll take you on a little guided tour?"
They set off, Isabella holding on to Mary's elbow.
"We've got people from these parts, mostly," Subraveti said as they walked through a tiny alleyway. "Free trip plus free lunch - nobody can pass that up." They came up to a fence. Subraveti took out a key and unlocked the door. "Now, this is the section where we keep the defendants, hostile witnesses, and anyone who will hopefully end up in the dock."
There was a queue of people in uniforms being guarded by MPs. They wore boards with numbers on their necks, same as in the Peacekeepers' trial. "That's some defendants up ahead," Mary told Isabella. "They're mostly in their old uniforms, but with no decorations or insignia. Some are in civilian clothes. They have numbered boards. There's about fifty or sixty of them. Two I can see are on crutches, they're missing legs."
"Fifty-eight, two missing a leg," Subraveti said. "Those are the ones you'll be watching, I presume."
"They're in a messy queue, two to a row. They are guarded by four MPs. They seem to be waiting for the command to march. They vary in age from about twenty to about sixty."
"Youngest are twenty, oldest is sixty-two," Subraveti confirmed. "By the way, who came up with numbering them? It's genius."
"One of our historical consultants."
"Consultants? No kidding. Wow." He looked at her, surprised. "Does this mean we're not the first to have a process like this?"
Mary wondered where to start - Andersonville or Dachau. "We're not," she confirmed.
"Then why don't other countries do this? This trial thing - it's a stroke of brilliance, in my opinion. I thought we'd go in and shoot everyone, but this way, we can find out so much about what happened and who's really at fault for what."
Mary noticed that his accent wasn't quite Thirteen. He had picked it up very fast, but under that, he was obviously from rural Eight. "Because it's expensive. We're getting humanitarian aid because the Great Powers feel bad for abandoning us, which means we aren't starving and focused on just surviving one more day."
"Huh. But why can't they help other countries, too?"
"Because that's not how the world works. Countries don't help each other. We're an exception."
"That doesn't sound very fair."
"It is what it is," Mary said. "Perhaps our example will inspire others."
"That would be nice." He looked around the open lot. Mary wondered how many people had died here. "There's a couple of defense lawyers over there. You want to go talk to them?"
"Very much so."
The defense lawyers turned out to be three middle-aged people in well-worn coats and hats. "Chief of Counsel Irons!" one of them exclaimed. "What a pleasant surprise."
"It's very good to meet you," Mary said. There was a round of handshakes, and they introduced themselves as Griffin Bury, Jessica Hound, and Ivo Gunner - amusing names for war crimes defense lawyers. "Are you satisfied with the work conditions?"
"I'll step aside," Subraveti said, walking away until he was out of earshot.
The lawyers turned serious. "You have to make the investigators follow the rules," Bury complained. "They threaten suspects with guns to make them sign confessions! I protested to the court that their confessions were identical, Prosecutor Wang said that they had been given formulaic statements and allowed to alter them if they wanted, and the judges believed her!"
There was no rule against giving suspects formulaic confessions to sign if they were allowed to alter them, especially given that many of them were being charged with identical crimes - beatings, rape, murder. There weren't very many ways to state that defendant X routinely beat prisoners. Threatening with guns, though? "Do you have any proof of the threats?"
"One of my clients confessed to a crime he could not have committed due to it happening before he arrived at the prison," Hound said.
"And what happened there?"
"Judges ruled that he must have mixed it up with something else."
"I'll talk to the prosecutors," Mary said. If this was what the average person thought crimes against humanity trials were like, it'd discredit the entire process.
"Thank you," the lawyers chorused, sounding as if Mary was an emissary from Above.
"How are things besides that?" Isabella asked, waving Subraveti over. "Supplies, food, lodgings?"
"Everyone struggles with supplies here," Gunner said sourly. "You'll see what the courtroom looks like, it's something to behold. Food's good. Defense is billeted in one of the barracks next to the prosecution. I suppose if both are suffering equally, there's no point in complaining."
"We'll try to get your budget improved," Reed reassured them. "Is the workload bearable?"
They looked at each other and laughed. "Nothing to complain about," Hound said.
Subraveti came back. "Done complaining about how the evil prosecution isn't letting you mend the roof?"
Gunner rolled his eyes. "As if your roof leaks less."
"You seem to be getting along well," Reed said. "We barely interact with the defense outside the courtroom."
"We're too crammed here," Subraveti said. "Everything's much more informal, there's little media attention. And we're all here for the same purpose, aren't we?"
"How many defendants are you defending right now?" Isabella asked the lawyers.
"Eleven, but we share."
"What? Why?" Mary asked. "Why not split them up?"
Bury shrugged. "We're a triad. Since we're together so much, might as well pool our efforts."
That made it even crazier - Mary couldn't imagine working together with Rithvik, they'd have killed each other on the second day.
"Oh, wow," Reed said. "I know my wife and I could never do that."
Hound shrugged. "Maybe we're just crazy."
"We know," Subraveti said lightly. "Did she tell you she once got a serial killer acquitted on a technicality? So don't listen to her complaints about the lack of qualified defense lawyers."
"Nobody up there demanded immediate execution?" Isabella asked.
Hound shook her head. "The case flew below the radar - probably because the victims had all been marginals. The defendant had run an unlicensed shelter of sorts out of her house - this was in the outer suburbs of the Capitol proper." Those were the semi-rural and very poor outskirts. "One day, the neighbour reported a body being buried in the middle of the night. Turned out the entire yard was a graveyard. I argued that they had died of disease, and the defendant had been unwilling to report the deaths because she was afraid she'd be punished for running an unsanitary unlicensed shelter. There was some evidence that the poor health had been deliberately induced, but that evidence had been gathered with violations. I was lucky the case went unnoticed and the judge was strict - the evidence was dismissed and the defendant wasn't executed. Still, she wasn't exactly young, so even a few years in a prison sweatshop were enough to kill her. Typhus, if I remember correctly - there was an outbreak."
Mary felt like she was talking to someone from a parallel world. Evidence gathered 'with violations' - that was likely to mean torture. And typhus outbreaks? Normal countries had practically forgotten the word. "Well, we're glad to have someone with relevant experience."
Gunner chuckled. "Trials of maniacs aren't quite the same as this, but I suppose it's close enough."
"I'll let you go now," Subraveti said. "I know you're busy."
The three lawyers gave him an informal salute and walked off, gravel crunching under their feet.
"What interrogation methods do you use?" Mary asked Subraveti.
Subraveti grimaced. "Whatever works. We sent for a seasoned interrogator to deal with the deputy commandant of Stonehelm, because nothing's working on her, but they didn't send anyone." Stonehelm had always been the place where prisoners were sent to die, and it was also the site of the most horrific massacre - only two survivors from it could be found.
"The defense lawyers mentioned threats," Mary said in a severe tone.
"Nobody as much as slapped them," Subraveti said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"And the admission to a crime that the suspect could not have committed?"
Subraveti threw his hands in the air. "What do you expect us to do? I know full well people admit to everything under the sun under pressure, but I really don't know how to interrogate people. You'd have to be particularly bad at lying to have me trip you up. We're lucky most of them don't need to be interrogated - they admit everything as if it's something to be proud about."
Mary had read a few bits of transcript - the amount of 'orders are orders' and 'but I had no idea rape isn't allowed' surpassed even the Peacekeepers' trial. "We have that, too," Mary said, eager to find common ground with Subraveti. Arguing with him about whether threatening suspects was productive would be pointless, though she made a mental note to demand experienced interrogators. "Is there anything else you need?"
"Officers with legal training," Subraveti said instantly. "We lost a case on appeal because the tribunal had none."
These trials were being carried out by straightforward military tribunals - a panel of officers with at least twenty-five years' experience, with at least one being trained in law. The rules of evidence were even more relaxed than at Lodgepole. Theoretically, that should have benefited both sides equally, but so far, that one appeal was the sole case the prosecution at Redcreek had lost.
"The one of the town pathologist who came in to do dissections?"
"That one." Subraveti sounded upset by the loss of his perfect record. That original conviction, in Mary's opinion, had been a travesty. The pathologist had simply cut up bodies and told administration what the person had died from. She was about as guilty as the truck driver who brought food up to the prison, which was not very.
"What do the locals think?"
Subraveti chuckled. "Long as they can blame everything on a few bad apples, they don't mind. And the bonus lunch helps, too."
The column of defendants began to march away, civilians struggling to keep pace. "Should we go in, too?" Reed asked.
"I suppose there's no time for anything else."
Subraveti led them out of the enclosed area and down what passed for a broad street in the former prison. The trials happened in the building that had housed the sweatshops, since the rooms there were big enough for the purpose. The building itself was quite dilapidated. In what passed for the lobby, someone was handing out tea from a bizarre contraption that looked like a half-oval with legs with a teapot on top. A sign nearby proclaimed that not putting the cups in the recycling was practically tantamount to terrorism.
The three of them took cups and followed Subraveti down the corridor. Everyone from locals to military personnel milled around. There were also former prisoners going about their duties. Many of them, especially those with legal training, had stayed on to work on the trials.
"Here we are," Subraveti said once they reached Room 14. It was easy to see that this was a former sweatshop. The walls of the rectangular room were covered with peeling paint, and the ceiling definitely leaked when it rained. Folding chairs were set up for the audience, which had already mostly arrived. They whispered quietly to each other or else morosely stared at nothing.
The front row was for VIPs. Here, that meant local town councillors and the like. To the side, there was a small press section with a couple of journalists. Two were obviously foreign, going by their clothes, and the third one looked like he had been forced to go here, which was quite possible.
Up ahead on a slight elevation was a very shabby courtroom. The judges' table was a random table covered with a tablecloth. The defendants would be sitting on plain benches to the side. Counsel were already sitting at tables too small to fit their books and computers - Mary wondered if they had problems with connectivity so far out in the middle of nowhere - and the stenographer was sitting on a backless chair. The witness stand was a tattered armchair that looked more like something from a psychologist's office.
The defendants marched in and sat down on the benches. There were seven defense lawyers for the fifty-eight of them, and they were opposed by the five people at the prosecution table. A very different ratio than Lodgepole. Due to the age breakdown of this trial compared to Lodgepole, some of the defendants were stunningly attractive.
"Number 22 could have been a model," Mary said to Isabella, taking in the man's chiseled face, upright bearing, and soft, gentle expression.
"Best not let your husband hear you say that," Reed said.
"Had he been here, he'd have agreed."
"If you have something important to do, you can go," Reed said to Subraveti as Mary explained what the courtroom looked like to Isabella.
"Oh, no, I was given the day off to accompany you." He said that in a tone that made it clear he would regret it if the visit did not result in improvements to the conditions in Redcreek.
The judges filed into the room, and everyone who could, rose. Mary recognized a few of them from Thirteen. They sat down, and the process could begin.
This was the trial of the personnel of Penal-Correctional Colony 3-2, near Tehachapi, in Three. Very convenient for locals to not have to think about what they enabled, with the trial being halfway across the country. As it was, there were plenty of citizens of Three in the dock. The desk workers were all Three, as were nearly all of the guards, and two prisoner overseers who had used their privileged position to abuse others.
It was the former prisoners that were being dealt with today. Their defense lawyer, who had been a prisoner himself, passionately argued that conventional rules did not apply to someone who lived in a position where no such rules existed. Mary thought that was a bit weak - the very worst of the overseers had been picked specifically to avoid that charge, there was practically no situation where someone had no choice but to rape another person - but the lawyer spoke well. He stressed the fact that one of the overseers had been born in the prison and thus had never been imbued with a moral compass.
"Your Honours," he said, "the name of Samuel Brooks was never in the Reapings. This is how far from conventional society he was. He grew up in an environment where those with power abused those they had power over, who then turned around and abused anyone who was weaker than them. He did not know the meaning of right and wrong. He grew up in an institution dedicated to upholding lawlessness, and so he imbued these ideals as he grew up. A child's brain is like a sponge, soaking in everything it sees, and every stage of Brooks' development was skewed."
Brooks, or number three, sat staring at the floor as the lawyer spoke.
"Brooks was abandoned at the age of four months when his father was transferred to another prison and his mother was released without him. He was left to lie on the ground in the children's barracks, never receiving even a hint of kindness. The fact that he is still alive is a miracle. He should have starved to death before he could even walk. But he did not. Once he got big enough to toddle around the colony, all he could see was brutality. Everywhere he looked, people were cruel to each other. He regularly saw beatings, rapes, and murders. Even at that age, he knew that it hurts when someone hits you. Since there were only two options he could see, he decided to be the one doing the hitting instead of the one being hit. Since the guards were the only providers of good things, he decided to get in favour with them."
"Small children in the colony would play at prisoners and overseer, a game that was more often than not a messy and vicious group fight. If we recognize that and pity the children who think that inflicting pain is part of life, why do we not pity the adolescents whose only understanding of intimacy is that it is something that must be taken by force? To Brooks, the only authority was the guards - and small wonder that it was, with the power they had over him! - and they raped. Note that all of the witnesses that the prosecution called were people who had been sent to the colony later on in life. Brooks never hid that he beat and raped people. But those of his victims who had grown up in the prison do not consider themselves to be victims of his and thus did not come forward, because they do not understand that what he did was wrong. Just as he does not understand that what he did was wrong."
"Your Honours, Brooks is the most unsavoury kind of victim - the one who became a perpetrator in his turn. But do not overlook that, on the whims of the administration, he was left an orphan at the age of four months. That he worked for sixteen hours a day in the sweatshop since the age of six. That everyone he looked up to did not have his best interests at heart. Your Honours, Brooks does not know what freedom is, because he has never felt it. By executing him, you would make it a crime for a twelve-year-old child to want to escape the sweatshop by any means possible. By putting him in prison, you would make it a crime for a person to live by the rules of the only society they are familiar with. Your Honours, I ask you to acquit Samuel Brooks."
Very interesting - and not too far from Aichele's defense of Krechet. The other overseer, Dana Tolzer, would be an even closer comparison, as she had already been in her late teens when she was arrested.
Brooks took the stand, or the couch, and was briefly examined by the lawyer, who sat on the table with his laptop on his knees. The prosecutor stood up next. She was a very small army captain in her mid-twenties.
"Prosecutor's standing up now," Reed whispered to Isabella. "She's so short, I'm surprised she got into the army."
Subraveti chuckled quietly. "That's Gloria Wang. She got turned away twice. Finally got in, helped liberate this place in fact, and then they put her in charge of Redcreek - she never prosecuted a trial until getting here." So that was the one who had threatened suspects with a gun? Mary had to admit that at her size, that was the only way to appear threatening.
Wang showed no signs of inexperience as she expertly cross-examined Brooks about the acts of brutality he grew up seeing and how normalized it really was. Mary nodded along as she elicited an admission that he saw plenty of overseers who were not cruel. The line here would be that Brooks' exceptional and sadistic violence was beyond what could be explained away by growing up in a penal colony.
"I feel like I'm at a theatre," Reed suddenly said.
"This is still the defense case here," Mary chided him. So far, the sentences in the Redcreek trials were roughly five-sixths death, a rather odd statistic brought on by the fact that murder was punishable by death and the typical defense was that the killing had been justified, not that the defendant hadn't killed that person.
Reed shook his head. "I'm not disparaging the proceedings. I'm just saying that the physical set-up looks like a theatre. Random bits of shabby furniture, that one tablecloth that probably predates the civil war, everyone's facing the audience-"
He was right, Mary realized. The trial had an odd quality to it that reminded Mary of the mock trials back home. It was cozy and with an informal air to it. Homey. Even the presence of the massive audience only served to further the impression that everyone was having lots of fun and that once the show ended, they'd smile and take a bow as the audience applauded. But this wasn't for fun. Every single one of the defendants could end up executed.
"That was very well-argued on both sides," Isabella said once the cross-examination ended.
"We lucked out with a few lawyers," Subraveti said. "None of us are anything special, but it'll do."
"You don't need to be special," Mary said. "You just need to be competent. Which you are."
Subraveti smiled with the corner of his mouth. "Thank you."
The case of the next defendant, a perimeter guard by the name of Pulcheria Kun accused of shooting prisoners who had not actually been trying to escape, was next. In a case of particular dramatic irony, the former prison commandant had actually been shot while trying to escape, which was why he wasn't in the dock but in an ICU fighting for his life and giving incriminating testimony while at it, clearly convinced that he was not long for this world.
After a small portion of that case, it was lunch break. The three of them ate with the investigators, listening to various complaints. Then, it was time for the afternoon session, which was followed by the sentencing from another trial. The audience here was particularly gloomy - they had stayed for that extra half-hour because they had been promised coffee and donut holes, not because they wanted to watch people be sentenced to death. Privately, Mary worried that having an audience would be counterproductive. Watching the defendants suffer as they were sentenced to death invited one to sympathize with them, which Mary did not want. When she shared her worries with Subraveti, though, he just shrugged. "Anyone who's going to an execution will have been at trial before. The only bus to here is in the mornings."
Mary was still skeptical, but she nodded.
The judges solemnly filed in. This courtroom was a little bit different from the one Mary had just been in - it was much smaller, and the furniture was slightly different - but the shabby, improvised quality was still there. The presiding judge was a brigadier general Mary had seen in Thirteen once or twice.
"Redcreek Military Tribunal 2, Panem vs. Aleksandrios et al., day 70, Brigadier General Keira Bardim presiding," read the marshal, who doubled as the stenographer.
70 days for fifty-four defendants, so roughly a day and a bit per defendant. Not too bad. This was the case against the personnel of a task force that had operated in Four and Eleven - or to be more specific, the perpetrators of the Hill-342 massacre in which several villages (Hill-342, Hill-345, and Agua-43) had been razed with a total of four survivors.
Mary went through some notes on her phone as the defendants were brought in and sat down. Most had typical military expressions, but their anxiety was palpable as they waited to learn their fates. In Mary's opinion, having them sentenced in front of each other was a massive mistake.
"Defendant number one!"
A man of around thirty got up from the front row and marched towards the judges, snapping to attention in front of Bardim. He was wearing his uniform jacket with insignia and decorations removed and a pair of civilian trousers.
"State your name."
"Ronald Aleksandrios."
"Ronald Aleksandrios, Redcreek Military Tribunal 2 has found and adjudged you guilty of a common plan or conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, of murder, and of rape." Aleksandrios had been a particularly brutal junior officer. In the context of a unit operating practically on its own, junior officers planning a massacre were certainly entering into a conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity. "Ronald Aleksandrios, Redcreek Military Tribunal 2 hereby sentences you to death by hanging."
Aleksandrios stiffened, terror evident on his face, but he nodded sharply. Two MPs led him out. The former punishment barracks with its single cells was now being used as death row, with another barracks holding the ones sentenced to prison until they could be transferred.
"Defendant number two!"
That was one of the legless ones. A woman in her mid-twenties, one of the eerily attractive defendants, did her best to stand at attention while leaning on two crutches.
"State your name."
"Elizabeth Baldwin." She had been a private, and had not been shy about bragging about her deeds to her fellows in tapped cells.
"Elizabeth Baldwin, Redcreek Military Tribunal 2 has found and adjudged you guilty of murder, rape, theft, blackmail, and armed robbery. Elizabeth Baldwin, Redcreek Military Tribunal 2 hereby sentences you to death by hanging."
Baldwin whirled around and stormed out, MPs easily keeping pace with her.
One after another, the defendants were brought in and sentenced to death. Watching their faces made Mary feel ill. In Thirteen, death had always been treated as a horrible waste. If someone had proven that they could not live in society, they had been incarcerated for life, because the impulse against killing was so strong back home. And here was Bardim reciting death sentence after death sentence in a monotone.
Some defendants took it stoically. Others looked panicked or became weak-kneed. A few cried. After being sentenced to life imprisonment, the unit medic fainted straight into the arms of a MP, causing some tense chuckles in the audience. In the end, fifty-one death sentences were pronounced, and three life imprisonments.
"Dammit," Subraveti hissed as they filed out. "So close to a clean sweep!"
"They were all found guilty," Mary reminded him.
"They all deserved death, though." He looked at her oddly. "Don't you want to hang all of yours?"
"I don't want to hang them. I want to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law and let the judge decide. The prosecutor's job is to help catch criminals, not have random people found guilty to improve statistics."
"But you're the one standing there and calling for execution."
"You have a point there," Mary conceded.
On the bus back to the town, everyone was cheerful as they drank their free coffee. Mary couldn't feel happy, and neither could Reed and Isabella. This had been a stark reminder that not all justice was being done the same way. They'd need to ask for more interrogators, so that suspects weren't mistreated, and a greater press presence would also not be amiss.
The bus rolled through the gate. Sitting in the back, Mary watched the sign warning anyone who approached become smaller and smaller in the distance. Not quite 'all hope abandon, you who enter here', but not too far from it, in practice. Surely sloppy and flawed justice was better than just letting everybody go. But was it really impossible to make it more fair? Was there anything Mary could do? Or was it all a function of the military justice that was being done?
Those thoughts consumed Mary as the bus took them back to the town.
Mary woke up feeling horribly overheated due to Reed hugging her from behind, clearly thinking that she was his wife. "Reed?" she hissed.
No response.
Mary mentally cursed the hotel administration for overbooking the hotel and making the three of them share a bed.
"Reed?"
Isabella woke up. "Is it time already?" she muttered sleepily, reaching for her watch. "Huh, it is."
"Reed's hugging me," Mary complained.
Isabella laughed. "Reed?" she asked, shaking his shoulder.
"What-Aah!" Reed leapt backwards, colliding with Isabella. "I'm so sorry!" His eyes darted frantically around the room. "I swear I noticed that something was off, but I just wanted to believe it was Louise."
Mary laughed. "I think I'm about a head shorter than Louise."
"This is why we need to bring in our spouses," Isabella said pointedly.
Mary was tired of explaining that she had no authority over that. "So that they can put all six of us into the same bed?" Isabella laughed.
"I am far too old for this," Reed muttered, head in his hands.
"No harm done," Mary said, getting out of bed and stretching. It was quite early in the morning. They were in a little hotel and would be going skiing today. Mary and Reed had never done it before for obvious reasons, but a few others had explained that this was the kind of sport expected of people of their status. Mary was just amazed that it was possible to zoom down a mountain on two narrow boards with no vision whatsoever. It looked scary enough even with fully functioning eyes.
They got dressed, Reed still cringing every so often. Rithvik would definitely never let her live this down, and Mary shuddered to think of what her siblings would do. The three of them had managed to borrow waterproof jackets, gloves, and trousers from somewhere. After eating breakfast, they got a taxi to where the skiing happened. Mary was still not used to how mountainous the surroundings in these parts were.
The tourism industry was not doing very well right now, so every customer was welcome. "Hello," Mary said to the person at the counter in a little building. "We would like to go skiing for the day."
"Uh-huh." The person handwrote some tags. "Do you need to rent equipment?"
"Yes."
"Anything else?"
"I need a guide," Isabella said. "I'm fully blind."
"Uh-huh. Have any of you gone skiing before?" Mary paid up, unsure of the significance of the price. She still wasn't used to buying things.
"I have," Isabella said.
"Alright. Go through that door, take what you need, and come back to sign it out."
"Go through - what door?"
"Go left, second door on the right."
That took them to a storage room of skiing and snowboarding equipment. Isabella told them what size skis and boots she needed, and Mary and Reed found it for her. Following her instructions, they got themselves skis, boots, helmets, and poles. The boots were so rigid, it was hard to walk in them.
"I'm still not used to outside," Reed grumbled, trying not to trip over his feet as they stumbled back down the corridor. "Oh, Isabella, that's your guide up there!" The guard was a thin man wearing an elastic vest labelled 'GUIDE'.
"Hello," Isabella said, taking another vest from him. It was labelled 'BLIND SKIER'
"Hello to you, too," the man said warmly as they went outside. "I'm Marquis Wu, I'll be your guide today." It was not very cold, maybe one or two degrees below zero and still. "Now, have you done this before?"
"No." Isabella put down her skis and somehow managed to put them on, boots clicking into place. "I've often gone skiing before, but I went totally blind during the fighting, and obviously I haven't had time to go ski after that." She laughed, the man joining in.
"Alright," the man said. "This is going to be quite an adjustment."
Isabella laughed. "I know. I won't be able to tell if I'm about to collide with a tree. You know, I was so worried about adapting to reading and writing, but it's sports that's tripping me up the most."
The two of them walked Mary and Reed through getting the skis on and walking in them. Mary soon gave up on doing anything other than pushing herself with her arms, which was exhausting but at least didn't threaten to trip her with every step. They went to a small hill and learned how to go up and down. Mary fell over every time - good thing she had her soft jacket to cushion her.
Going down was surprisingly fun, if scary. Once they were allowed onto a bigger hill, Isabella managed to ski circles around them, Wu in front of her and calling out instructions. Mary struggled to make turns and often toppled sideways. Reed didn't even try, speeding down like a bullet.
"I want to try doing stunts," Isabella said after a few hours.
"I do not want to try stunts." Mary tried to shake the snow from her sleeve.
"Me neither," Reed joined in. He looked at Mary, cringed, and looked at the ground, hands clenched into fists. "Can we stay on this little hill?"
Wu laughed. "I think I know who decided to go here in the first place. Or was the plan to go exercise your colleague?"
"I heard from some people about how skiing is fun," Mary explained, shaking out her glove and putting it back on. It was cold and damp. "Isabella said it's great. I agreed that we need a break. So here we are."
"What can I say?" Isabella said in a light voice. "I require regular exercising."
Fortunately for Mary, Isabella didn't try to make them go down the stunt hill. It was nerve-wracking enough to watch her do it. As Mary watched her colleague go side-to-side on the half-pipe, she hoped this wouldn't reach the newspapers. This wasn't what she wanted to be famous for.
A/N: 'All hope abandon, you who enter here' is, in Dante's 'Inferno', the inscription on the entrance to Hell.
Andersonville (technically Camp Sumter, but it's usually known by the name of the nearby town) was a POW camp during the US civil war. Conditions there were so bad, the commandant, Henry Wirz, was executed after the war. The United Daughters of the Confederacy had a monument built in his honour, because of course they did, and from what I can tell, it's still there.
The Dachau trials were proceedings against personnel from several concentration camps.
Mary's reaction to the attractive defendants is inspired by how I once saw a Youtube thumbnail showing a very handsome man, thought 'wow he's hot', and then realized what the board he was holding in his hands said - this was the mugshot of, of all possible people, Joachim Peiper, one of the lead defendants in the Malmedy case.