Chapter 40: Negotiate With Terrorists?
The only aspect of District 13 civilian life that cannot be described as quiet, orderly, efficient or frugal are mealtimes in the common mess hall.
With the hundreds of thousands of people who live here belowground, it is impossible to feed everyone all at once. So it is accomplished in shifts. Just like everything else about a typical day here.
In the morning, the alarm goes off in Danny's and my apartment (Rye and Jonadab are bunking together in a flat of their own) at a certain time. You are then expected to stick your arm into a socket in the wall, where your daily schedule is then tattooed onto your skin. It's not really "tattooed" onto your skin – the ink fades off by the end of the day, in time for the whole process to start all over again – but it's the best way that I can describe it.
Breakfast is always at 8:00 AM sharp for my cohort. Thankfully, that includes my husband, my two eldest sons, my best friend and her kids. Johanna, Finnick and Annie are also part of our breakfast group. Oh, Proximo is also among our circle of friends; he and Belle have become close as colleagues over these past two months. They always walk with each other to the medical ward, after the morning meal, with Primrose – now a young medic in training – scampering to keep up. The medical ward is where these three spend much of their day, broken up only by lunch and the evening meal before bed.
On this particular morning, Belle and Proximo are debating the finer mechanics of morphling withdrawal. A robust contingent of refugees from District 6 managed to reach the other side of the no-man's land about a week and a half ago. They were robust in numbers, but not much else – very few of them were in any shape to fight, and a majority was addled with morphling addiction, on account of the drug prices on the black market being so cheap there. I only ever had experience watching two of their Victors – Maeve Collins and Mitt Compton – struggle with their dependence on the stuff.
"…. But how do you know that a patient won't become dependent on the minor dose you administer to them as you try to wean them into withdrawal? That's the key!" Proximo is telling my best friend, who is watching him almost in rapture. Based on the advice I received from him in the Training Center – advice that I later always encouraged my tributes, including Katniss and….. Peeta, to seek out – I've always known that Proximo has a very deep and scientific understanding of the human body, especially in how it can react to certain phenomena. I wonder if Proximo and Beetee – who has since been released from the ward and is now working in Weapons Development – have ever met; if they have, I imagine the conversations would last hours.
Next to me, I feel my husband nudge my shoulder. I glance to him, my eyes briefly dipping to check the tattooed schedule peeking out from under his shirtsleeve. Apparently, he has to report for duty in the kitchens at 8:30. Danny's talents as a baker have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. Quality food outside of the usual rations can be hard to come by, and President Coin is apparently always looking for ways to better our nutrition, provided that it is affordable. Focusing on him, I can see him smirking into his bowl of oatmeal. "I've seen that look before." His expression is dry and almost whimsical with amusement, as I follow his gaze to where it is resting on Belle. She has hardly touched her food, for all the time she is devoting to Proximo and his lecture that she must just find fascinating. As I watch, she nods eagerly and then jumps in with another point, which Proximo takes with a smile full of admiration. Seated between the two of them, Primrose is trying to eat but also glancing between the two adults curiously, trying to figure something out.
I turn back to my husband. "Where?" But Danny just shakes his head, though it is accompanied with a wink. Tuning out Belle and Proximo's deep conversation, I check my own schedule. The morning hours are the same as they have always been – MOCKINGJAY TRAINING. For the past couple of weeks, this has entailed Katniss and I walking to the Digital Studios and filming what Cressida refers to as 'propos' – abbreviated from 'propaganda videos' that will someday soon hopefully be hacked into regular, mandatory Capitol programming to advance the rebel cause. I understand that Beetee is currently working on how to game the Capitol's broadcast system. Then she and I are to report to HIGH COMMAND just before the lunch meal for a meeting with the President.
I've been grateful to have my schedule so closely synchronized with that of my goddaughter's. It's allowed me to keep a careful eye on her. Much of her crying over Peeta has stopped, to be replaced by a gloomy and quiet melancholy. She tends to eat just enough, what she knows she can keep down, and has been tending to her duties as the Mockingjay like a good and well-oiled robot. She very rarely speaks outside of being directly addressed. Yup, she is definitely in mourning. I am hoping that as time goes on, and we fall into a rhythm with these propos, her enthusiasm will grow, and she will see that the rebels are the best mechanism through which we can recover Peeta.
So far, District 13 spies have come up with scant intelligence regarding the fate of my son. They know he is alive, and that he is being held with other high-profile prisoners in the former Training Center. When I was told this, I had talked Proximo into taking some time out of his medic shift to come and meet with President Coin and offer a presentation explaining why he thought a rescue mission into the Training Center would be feasible. Knowing the building as intimately as he does, Proximo had stated he thought we could pull the mission off, and even volunteered to lead it, should it be authorized. Alma Coin had listened patiently, but so far, no further word on the proposal has been handed down from her.
"Were you educated in a Capitol University?" Belle is asking Proximo with a small smile.
"Partially," Proximo is bashful. "But most of my early education was conducted in District 5."
"Five?" Primrose lifts her head out of her oatmeal bowl, inserting herself into the conversation with Mommy's new friend. "Why Five?"
"I'm from Five, originally. You can't tell now, Primrose, with all the gray hairs, but back in my day, I had the finest set of fiery locks you've ever seen. Ask your Aunt Maysilee about it; she'll tell you."
I snort. "Egoist."
"You wound me," Proximo claps a hand over his heart. "Anyway, I started my education in the District 5 Lower School. But our children in Five are tested very early on to measure aptitude, and I was one of them. Achieving an above-average score, I was fortunate enough to be admitted into the Peacekeeper Academy in the Capitol for basic training. I excelled in the Intelligence Exams, but unfortunately failed the physical, so they couldn't deploy me on a tour of duty into one of the districts. I was thus assigned to coach tributes in the Training Center; that's where I met Maysilee, and your daughter."
I could swear Belle is blushing. "If you knew Maysilee when she was a tribute, you must be around our age."
"Or, maybe just a little older," Proximo winks at me. "I'll be turning 47 next year, should the war go well."
Belle cocks an eyebrow, her deep blue eyes making a quick sweep of the man. "47? You certainly do not look as old as 47!" Is she actually… flirting with him?!
The pair of them study each other for a long moment; Primrose still peering between them and frowning. Face bowed into her oatmeal bowl, Katniss doesn't notice any of this.
Proximo finally tears his gaze away from my best friend to check his tattooed schedule. "Oh, look at the time! We'd best be off!" Standing, he offers Belle his arm, which she happily loops through his and they stroll out of the mess hall towards where their work in the medical ward beckons. Primrose has to clear her plate in record time and scamper to keep up with her mom.
I check the clock, then my own tattooed schedule: if Katniss and I run, we'll still make it to the Studios in time for filming. "Katty," I call softly. "Time to go meet Plutarch, dear." She morosely nudges her tray down the table in response and stands up. Sharing a look, Danny is wincing in concern but I just shake my head.
"Kitchens for you?"
"Yup. See you tonight, silly woman."
I smirk, stooping down to chastely peck his lips in a hurried kiss. "Love you." Rounding the table, I join Katniss, and we jog side by side through the labyrinth of corridors towards the Digital Studios.
"And….. ACTION!" Plutarch barks from the soundbooth, in that annoyingly serious voice he has developed in his role as 'director'. Out beyond the Plexiglas in the next room, Katniss hoists a staff above her head and shouts at the top of her lungs:
"PEOPLE OF PANEM, WE FIGHT, WE DARE, WE HUNGER FOR JUSTICE!"
"And…. CUT!" Plutarch calls, glancing over Cressida's shoulder to study the screens where she is already implementing special effects into the footage. Instead of the milquetoast black backdrop where Katniss has been filming, it is now colorized to project a digital battlefield, my goddaughter standing on a pile of rubble, pockets of fire (an intentional and deeply symbolic motif) flaring up around her. Even the flag of the rebellion is generated using computer animation. At least when this airs, Katniss will be holding something more meaningful than a staff that I am fairly sure Plutarch salvaged from somewhere in the Training Center.
Once Cressida is done mocking it up, everything about the 15-second propo is flashy and glorious. Except for one thing:
Katniss.
"We can't print this, much less air it," I convey to Plutarch.
"What are you talking about? It's marvelous!" he wrinkles his nose at me.
"If you sound like Effie Trinket one more time, I will walk all the way back to my apartment for my naginata and decapitate you with it!" Feeling the tears coming on without warning, I have to turn my face away for a moment. I had been in District 13 for a couple of nights already when I woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night as I remembered: Effie! I, of course, hadn't seen her since the morning the Quell began. Once the Games begin, escorts aren't allowed to be in the Games Headquarters or the Mentors' Bar. The usual custom is that they take to the streets, pounding the pavement to rustle up sponsors. Effie and I had always kept in contact via my temporary cellphone, when she would report back to me potential incoming funds, but I had lost touch with her towards the end of the Quell's second day. She was probably out in the street when the Games were cut short and everything went to shit. I hope she's all right…
I get a hold of myself and turn back to Plutarch. "Yes, everything about it is marvelous, except for our subject. No amount of Cressida's magic can alter the fact that Katniss sounds wooden whenever she opens her mouth. She's not feeling what she's saying."
"Well, then maybe you can talk to her."
"I don't think a lecture from me can fix what's ailing her, Plutarch," I state sadly. "I think we should take the issue up with Coin."
The ex-Gamemaker shrugs. "OK." He checks his watch. "We're due in Command in about 10 minutes anyway. We'd best start walking over there now." Clicking the intercom, he speaks into a microphone so that his voice reverberates into the next room: "That's a wrap for today, folks! Thanks for all your hard work!"
Katniss deflates with what looks like relief almost immediately, reinforcing my theory that she really isn't invested in what Plutarch and the others are asking her to do. Can any of us really blame her? She's been conscripted once again into a role she doesn't want, to advance a cause she doesn't want to advance mostly because she's afraid her participation will mean others get hurt – a hypothesis that has tragically been borne out. Her family was threatened. Her home was bombed. And now the person she loves most in the world is being held hostage miles away, his safety uncertain…. after Plutarch and his ilk fucked up their own rescue plan and allowed Peeta to be captured. Why should Katniss assist a group of rabble-rousers who can't even get a rescue mission right and clearly don't recognize that Peeta's current state should be viewed as a hostage situation, to be remedied as quickly as possible? Katniss, more than anyone else, knows what she needs in order to be a true member of this team… and until she has what she needs, she isn't going to give us anything more than the bare minimum. I might be biased about the situation – after all, my son is the one who is a prisoner of war – but Katniss is communicating as clearly as she can that she can't be an effective rebel leader if Snow still possesses even one of the cards in her deck. My goddaughter is silently screaming at us that she can't be a revolutionary until she knows everyone and everything that matters to her is safe… oh, but Plutarch thinks that what she is currently delivering is up to snuff. We've all been sitting here with our thumbs up our asses. We've conferred onto Katniss our expectations without letting her level her own.
That is the farthest thing from fair. And when we talk with Coin in just a few moments, I aim to remedy that. Hopefully, at my prompting, Katniss can then get out of her funk long enough to express her own needs and desires.
As I enter the soundstage to fetch Katniss, I watch Pollux the cameraman approach her and bashfully express something to her in sign language, ending it with a thumbs-up. Katniss turns into herself shyly, her expression a little perplexed.
"Thanks," she mumbles, clearly not believing what Pollux told her, which was probably (I know very little sign language) that whatever she's been doing is great. Katniss crosses to me, frowning hard. I give her the best smile I can, and help take her bow off her shoulders and hang it on the rack.
"Time to go meet with the President, dear."
Katniss absently checks her tattooed arm. "Yes, well…. we mustn't keep the President waiting." By the State, even her voice sounds flat! Lifeless. I try not to watch her too closely and risk her catching me staring, but she is definitely carrying herself with less confidence than I have ever seen from her. She also appears thinner than she ever has; I think I can see the outline of her ribs. Behind us, I can hear Plutarch following with a deluded spring in his step.
When we arrive at High Command, punctual and right on time, a dark-skinned general named Boggs admits us into the Situation Room. He smiles at Katniss – a strenuous exercise for the consummately professional soldier – but even with his best effort, Katniss doesn't smile back. She and I, along with Plutarch, take seats around the gray conference table.
At the head of the room, President Alma Coin is as gray and drab as the rest of the district she leads. Were it not for her sharp, golden eyes, I would have pegged her as someone living in the Seam back in Twelve.
"I hereby call this national security meeting to order," she bangs on a gavel. Katniss slumps a little further into her seat, chin on her chest. I resist the urge to nudge her and force her to pay attention.
"Before we begin the day's agenda, is there anything pressing that must be reported?" Coin asks. I have come to understand this question is mostly a formality, to be answered with silence more often than not, so the President is surprised when I speak up:
"Plutarch and I have news to report on the Mockingjay propos."
Coin purses her lips tightly but gives a deferential nod. "Ah, yes. How are those going?"
"Very well."
"Terribly."
Plutarch and I share a look at our diametrically opposed answers. Coin frowns harder; if she's amused by our dysfunction, she doesn't show it in the slightest.
"Which is it?" she presses.
"The special effects are going well. And Katniss is giving a very… forceful performance…." Plutarch starts babbling.
"Can it, Heavensbee. You're deluded." I am suddenly quite thankful that I wasn't as deeply involved in rebel plans in the lead up to the Quarter Quell plot, as Chaff was. If I had been, I probably would have killed Plutarch a long time ago, then made it look like an accident. I turn to Thirteen's leader. "Madame President, my goddaughter is not up to the task we've set before her."
This gets Katniss's attention, and she whirls to me, looking hurt. "Auntie Maysilee…"
I move to quickly explain myself, lest she thinks I am betraying her again. It took some time for me to convince her that I wasn't overly involved in the plot to break her out of the arena, to the point that there was pretty much nothing I could have hidden from her. Since then, my goddaughter and I have been actively working to repair our relationship.
"By that I mean, that she is largely unable to function." If I thought this clarification was going to help, it doesn't; Katniss is still gaping at me. Yes, the truth is sometimes hard to hear, but I still could be going about expressing it better. "Without my son, she doesn't have the passion that she needs to be an effective mouthpiece for your cause. And she doesn't think she should be if she is the one bearing all the expectations when we aren't listening to what is expected of us… from her." That explanation could have been a little more artful, but there it is.
My goddaughter is now blushing beet red. For her part, Coin hasn't moved a tick.
"What do you suggest?" she asks.
I am heartened when Katniss answers before I can. "I…. need Peeta." Her face blooms even more aflame and she glances down into her lap. "I need him rescued and here, with me."
Studying her, Coin sneers. "So you mean to tell me that you can't effectively play soldier because your little boyfriend isn't here to help you keep house?"
My forehead creases so much, my eyebrows nearly stitch together. If I've always felt I never particularly liked this woman before, I like her even less now. "Listen, bitc…."
"I have other conditions," Katniss interrupts us both, her voice the strongest I have heard it in a long time. She turns to Boggs, just off her shoulder. "Can I have some paper?"
A little flustered, at least for him, the commander runs to fetch some, presenting it to my goddaughter with an accompanying pencil. Slowly, methodically, Katniss begins to write, in big, block letters. I try not to side-eye the paper too much, but I can decipher around her hand some of what she is proposing. At last, Katniss pushes the piece of paper into the center of the table, turning it so Coin can read. Tilting my head, I read sideways the following terms and conditions:
1. MY SISTER GETS TO KEEP HER CAT.
This first point actually sets off a pretty heated argument, Coin insisting that District 13 doesn't believe in "comfort animals," to which Katniss replies that clearly, Madame President, you have never owned a pet. Cressida looks like she wants to let out a long "Ohhhhh….." at the perceived burn, but holds her tongue. Finally, Coin agrees to make an exception on behalf of Primrose and Buttercup, but warns my goddaughter that if the Devil Cat scratches anyone or is discovered to have rabies, it shall be released aboveground and into the wild immediately. I think that Primrose is probably going to have to lock Buttercup in the Everdeen apartment and potty-train the little beast for this to work.
2. PEETA MELLARK IS TO BE RESCUED AND GRANTED IMMUNITY AT THE EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY.
Another argument erupts over how exactly we should view and treat my son. "We don't negotiate with terrorists," Coin states.
"Terrorists?" I holler at this cold-hearted bitch. "Who has my son terrorized, exactly?"
Still, no matter what Coin thinks Peeta has or hasn't done while in the Capitol's custody, Katniss has clearly remembered how Brutus Barsetti is currently being treated: locked in a jail cell miles below us and suspected as a Capitol spy and with only strict visitation rights for comfort. Should Peeta ever be recovered, she is trying to pre-emptively ensure that her lover avoids the same fate. It is unclear whether or not even Brutus deserves such treatment. Peeta most definitely does not. On this condition, Coin hedges, claiming she will "think about it, and discuss it with her advisers." She better not believe she can just table this indefinitely, like she did Proximo's rescue proposal.
3. I GET TO HUNT ABOVEGROUND.
This point surprisingly requires little debate, with Boggs floating the suggestion that Katniss be granted hunting privileges once a week in her daily schedule, as long as a security detail also goes up to shadow her. My goddaughter looks like she wants to fight on this stipulation and ask for hunting privileges once a day, but Coin makes it clear this is as much leeway as she will allow. The President also states explicitly that if Katniss does anything while aboveground that she, Coin, views as reckless to the cause, these hunting privileges will be revoked.
4. I KILL SNOW
The strongest objection to this point comes not from Coin, but from me. "No way! I have a score to settle with that bastard!"
Katniss just stares at me resolutely. "In that case, Auntie, you'll have to get in line." Then, completely unexpected, she smirks. I actually smile back.
Coin dips her head in Katniss's direction. "Very well. I agree. And in return…." She eyes my goddaughter hard. "You will be our Mockingjay." A conciliatory smile comes over the President's face. "I think in coming to me with your concerns, you and your handlers have raised a very good point. It would seem that your performances are languishing because you are delivering them cooped up on a soundstage. In the interest of realism, I think a change of scene might be in order. That is why, I think it would do Miss Everdeen good if we were to film these propos with her actually out in the field…."
I turn white. "That's not what I was suggesting at all…."
Just then, a young cadet bursts into the Situation Room. "Madame President! There is Capitol programming coming in through our airwaves. It's playing in the mess hall!"
"Have Beetee shut that fake news down immediately! I can't have it brainwashing my troops!" Coin snaps.
"With respect, ma'am…. you're going to want to see this. Peeta Mellark is live on the air."
Katniss's grey eyes go wide with thrilling fear, even as a bit of color returns to her cheeks for the first time in weeks.
The meeting breaks up and we race down to the mess hall, where Katniss and I were soon due to have lunch anyway. The common mess hall is for once eerily quiet, as I take in the sight of my youngest son – looking handsome in a white tuxedo (I oddly find myself recalling Beech Berryhill, my fallen district partner, on the night of our interviews, in this moment).
Caesar Flickerman is interviewing my son. The questions mostly concern the ending of the Quell and the subsequent reports of the rebels' war effort. Peeta is pointing to maps showing the Capitol's superior position over rebel forces. That the dots indicating suspected rebel strongholds are half the time in the completely wrong place grants me little comfort as I take in my baby boy.
On the surface, he looks like himself, but a few critical things are off. His cheeks are sunken in, there is less color in his face. And his brilliantly blue eyes no longer sparkle when he talks.
At my side, a hand to her mouth and her eyes swimming with tears, Katniss has noticed the change – however miniscule it might be to everyone else – too. "Oh, what have they done to you?" she gets out in a choked whisper.
Most disconcerting of all, however, is that the confidence with which Peeta speaks is now gone. More than once, we catch him glancing towards something out of frame, off-camera, as if he is being cued or coached to say the words he is speaking.
Then, suddenly, the passion comes back – at the completely wrong time – as Peeta insists to Caesar and to the world that a ceasefire must be called immediately.
"The Capitol and Thirteen each have the firepower to obliterate each other, Caesar!" Peeta insists, the game show host across from him looking a little flummoxed, like this somehow isn't part of the script, to suggest that Thirteen is evenly matched to the might of the Capitol. "I am asking everyone, no matter which side you are on, to call an armistice!"
The mess hall responds with boos and catcalls.
"Sell-out!"
"Traitor!"
"Capitol plant!" I see more than one pair of eyes hostilely glaring at me – the traitor's mother – and at Katniss – the traitor's girlfriend.
Averting my gaze, I find myself looking at Coin. She catches me staring and sends me a strange, little 'Told-You-So' smug smile. My blood chills: if she was ever considering even bothering to recue Peeta and grant him immunity, that option is off the table now.
My disquiet only grows as I hear Peeta say my name:
"Mom. Katniss: do you really know the people you are working for? Do you even know if you can trust them? And if you don't…. find out."
The image winks out, and the TV screens go dark.
