The day after the surrender, Mary was in the Capitol, Coin's final words ringing in her ears.

Unfortunately, Snow's trial is already taken, as is that of the Gamemakers. However, if you wish, feel free to prosecute at your own trials.

'Your own trials.' As if this wasn't a barely-precedented undertaking hundreds were involved in! As if the Documents Department wasn't collecting information for all of them! And, to make matters worse, Coin had all but said that she'd personally run the two trials Mary had been rejected from. For that reason, the choice of judge for Snow's trial, which would be opening within days, was rather ironic, though it was irritating that Mary was being used as a messenger.

Younique Quash had spent ten years in prison for having acquitted the wrong person. Mary was currently in an army hospital, where Quash and her fellow liberated prisoners were staying. For now, everyone convicted on political grounds and those born in secret prisons had been let go, and only them. They were trying to get a system set up to help those who had been convicted on false charges so that some major could brag about catching a dangerous criminal or because the system had simply been horribly incompetent, but that would take time.

At the reception, Mary asked to see Quash. Her ID was checked and she was given a room number. Mary made her way down the corridors, wondering what she would see. At the infamous Supermax, most of the mistreatment had been psychological. The photographs were by now famous around the world - grey-skinned people with blank stares sitting as if still inside their tiny cell.

Someone was already standing outside the door. A short middle-aged man with a deeply lined face. "You're here to see Younique?" he asked.

"Yes. Are you related to her?" He was wearing civilian clothing.

"I'm her husband, actually. Why are you here?"

Mary quickly explained the situation with Snow. Mr. Quash winced. "That's a terrible idea," he said. "Terrible. Can't you say 'no'?"

"Why don't we ask the judge what she thinks?" Mary offered diplomatically.

Seeing no other solution, Mr. Quash sighed and waved his hand over a panel that made the door open silently. "Dear?" he said in a quiet, cheery voice. "I need you for something."

On a bed in the middle of the small room, someone stirred. Quash. She looked emaciated, as if the jailers had forgotten to feed her - or had deliberately neglected to. "Silly husband," she said in a thick voice. "You're not real. You're doing just fine without me." She froze suddenly before crumpling and standing up. "What is it?" she asked, marginally more alert.

"It's about the new job they offered you," Mr. Quash said quietly.

Quash sat back down, rubbing at her face. She was skeletal, even now that weeks had passed since her liberation, and her head had been shaved. "I haven't been in a courtroom for so long!" she pointed out. "How will I know what to do?"

"Why don't you think about it?" Mary offered. "I'm sure Coin will want to know as soon as possible." At least Coin wasn't trying to micromanage the other trials - the IDC had by now found possible judges from all Districts bar Twelve. None of them were perfect by any means, as they had been creations of the system, but they were good enough.

The skepticism on Quash's face said everything she thought about Coin. "I don't think I'm the right person," she said instead, crossing her arms and looking at the floor. Everything about her posture spoke of total defeat. "I think a judge who actually suffered would be more appropriate."

Mr. Quash looked like he disagreed with that assertion. "Honey, you of all people-"

Quash shook her head. "I didn't do anything exceptional. Judges misbehaved all the time, I was just unlucky enough to be the one the Justice Ministry made an example of. I'm not better than them just because I spent ten years on the zone."

"Think about it," Mary said again. Quash was right on that count - she had been an okay and completely unremarkable judge for most of her career. While there was something amusing to Coin wanting to micromanage a trial by means of a judge who had literally been tortured for not listening, Mary had to admit that the acting president's choice of someone who might want to wreak vengeance made sense. She knew now that when the elections happened next month, she would not vote for Coin. "Coin wants to have your reply as soon as possible."

"Hey, cutie!" the soldier called out to Leon, slapping him on the ass as her friends laughed. Leon ground his teeth and joined the queue, eyes firmly on the ground. They had been promised that civilians would be unharmed. In reality, the fight itself had been small potatoes compared to what was happening now.

He had seen his first Rebel soldier just weeks ago. Now, he saw them everywhere. They ran around harassing people and stealing everything. What they didn't steal, they bartered for the snacks they were issued by the army.

Only a week had passed since the surrender. And already, Leon felt as if he had always lived in this parallel universe.

The queue moved up, and eventually, Leon made his way inside the store. Everything was rationed now, but debts still had to be paid, and black-market goods could only be gotten through barter - money was worth less and less with every passing day, the radio talked about inflation and the prices were becoming harder and harder to comprehend. Leon had to work a certain amount of hours cleaning rubble to be eligible for a worker's rations, and the inflated money went to the apartment. Mom worked there as well, but she, at least, had her licensing exam to look forward to - the fees had been cancelled, so they just had to wait for them to begin again. Leon didn't even have that, though neither did Dad.

A soldier walked by, carrying something in a large bag. There was one thing Leon had to give to them - the screaming propaganda warning them that they would all be raped and killed had turned out to be wrong. There had been several instances of gang rape on the outskirts, but the leadership had put an end to that, for which Leon was eternally grateful to them. The soldiers looted, but they hadn't tried to take medications and things like that. And at least now, they could freely keep the television off - that was, if they still had one after the 'heroic liberators'had raided the tenement complex. Which Leon's family didn't. The one time the television was useful, and they had had to sell it.

The shelves didn't look as terrifying as in the last weeks, but they were still enough to make a mouse hang itself in the fridge. Leon watched as the cashier carefully cut off his and his family's ration cards for the week. Some things, like potatoes and bread, were handed out fairly reliably. Others, like the fruit that came only in large aluminum cans, could easily disappear before Leon got any. And actual sweets? Black market, and only black market. The sugar the cashier was currently pouring into the small container offered by Leon - either bring your own, or risk having flour poured into your pockets - was barely enough to sweeten tea.

What Leon, and the rest of the Capitol needed, was a job. Everything that could be sold was being peddled to soldiers, the only available occupation was cleaning the street, and people were fired from positions of authority for reason of arrest as soon as they were hired.

Ah well. Leon put his rations in his backpack and decided that things could be worse. During the Dark Days, people had been driven to eating corpses, and they had won that one. If losing meant 2,400 calories per day for an adult man doing heavy manual labour, they really should have lost the first time around.

Best not to say that to Marcellus, though. Leon understood his brother's anger, but he would stand there and beat his head against the wall forever. Was Leon glad with how things were going? No. But being unhappy meant nothing. What they needed was to turn over and land on their feet, instead of stubbornly remaining headfirst and breaking their neck on landing.

As Leon walked home, he wondered if the new regime needed librarians. He could work the library better than anyone he knew, and in the current chaos, he could claim to have been a librarian, make up a bunch of references, and get away with it. Weren't they going to put Snow on trial, and the entire government as well? They'd need to poke around the archives to look for evidence in that case. Unless they were planning on day-long political trials, but it was still worth a shot.

By some miracle of the Lord, the elevator was working. Electricity was rationed like everything else, and it shouldn't have been on now. Were they really going to fuss over the wheelchair-bound Aunt Pulcheria from the ninth floor like that? Happily, Leon pressed the button to summon the elevator. His backpack weighed him down as the ancient cabin creaked its way up. And this was the 'Capitol luxuries' the soldiers had gone on about as they had milled in the dilapidated lobby, buying up everything in sight almost for free? Leon didn't want to think about how bad things were for working-class District people if this tenement where half the apartments were communal were considered an improvement.

At home, neither Mom nor Dad were home. Mom was cleaning rubble, of course, and Dad would be out there selling what they still had. Marcellus was sitting on the couch and listening to the radio, which was loudly and triumphantly proclaiming that elections for president would be next month, as well as the elections for Congress and a whole bunch of local ones. Political parties were springing up like mushrooms after a rain - Leon's only knowledge of them was people being tried for trying to start a party, he had not been very surprised to learn that a political party wasn't just another name for a terrorist cell.

"Food's here!" Leon said, putting on a mock-cheery attitude.

Marcellus snorted. "How much time did it take you this time? An hour? Hour and a half?"

"It wasn't that bad." Leon went about unpacking. Now, what to make today? They had some macaroni left over from before, so today would be just the day to make them. It was a mix of noodles and small cylinders, though. They'd have to cook them separately. And if he rehydrated the veggies and kept the water, it would be a nice soup, especially once he tossed in the soy and small bit of sausage that was most likely also from soy.

At least it wasn't like last time, when they had been presented with a mix of buckwheat, rice, and millet. Leon had spent half the night sorting, fuming at how some soldier had compared it to the tesserae grains he had received as a child. And cooking the millet had taken way too long.

Alright - plan made. Noodle soup, with tea (at least they still had that) and bread with jam (a microscopic layer, going by how empty the jar was). A perfectly good meal Leon had had throughout his entire life. Nothing to complain about.

"Let's get cooking," Leon said, filling a pot with water. God bless whoever had fixed the electricity!

Marcellus snorted. "Cooking. Doesn't take much skill to dump that trash into the pot and put it to boil." He fell silent, listening to a broadcaster rattle off the names of POWs and 'accidentally' interned civilians that had been released. Leon knew many people who could have easily been in either category. "What are you thinking about?"

"Cassie from my crew. The one who told me she'd run away if she was conscripted." She had, in fact, been conscripted.

"You think she's alive?" Marcellus put away everything they weren't going to be using and measured out the different macaronis, putting them in two different pots.

"I hope so. She never struck me as being particularly loyal before."

"Then why did she do nothing until then?"

"Too scared, probably."

Marcellus looked up from the vegetables he had been staring at as if the nuclear codes were hidden in the bits of green and orange. "Maybe," he conceded.

"I'm thinking of working with the government," Leon said, just to annoy his brother.

Marcellus just smirked. "Buy me sneakers. And donut holes."

Slightly irritated at having failed to get a rise out of Marcellus, Leon held his hands over the hot water and stirred the pasta. "I haven't even applied. I'll go talk to them."

"What, now?"

Leon felt bad at dumping dinner on his brother. "If you're willing to do this all yourself," he said in a half-joking way, unsure if Marcellus had been serious.

Marcellus shrugged. "It's easy as anything. Not even spices to measure out. And I do want those sneakers." He shot Leon a smile, which he returned.

"Alright. I'll go to the office." Unlike before, when you had to mail complaints to some mysterious office where arcane things happened and your complaint was forgotten unless you had attached a cheque to it, all people had to do to complain was turn up at a 'municipal office.' People known to be good local organizers had found themselves as municipal councillors, fetching lightbulbs and waging war with higher-up administration over funding. It was funny that they were technically under military occupation but they had more freedom in political matters than ever before.

In his room, Leon wrote up a fake resume and put it in his empty backpack. He went into the corridor, put on his shoes and coat, and was off.

On the way there, he was groped by soldiers again. "You want to have a good time?" one of them asked, holding a chocolate bar in his hand and wiggling it around. "There's more where this came from."

Leon wasn't going to sell himself for a chocolate bar, but people who didn't work didn't eat, unless they could prove that they mentally or physically couldn't - and good luck doing that. If he was a single father of a baby and couldn't spend the day digging through rubble, he'd have taken up the offer and not thought about it. Little luxuries like coffee and chocolate fetched a tidy sum on the black market. "No thanks," he said demurely, stepping aside.

"Pity," another soldier said, making a face. "You're cute." She suddenly reached out and grabbed him by the crotch. Wincing, Leon took a few steps back.

"Tav's cuter," a third one muttered.

"Whatever," the first soldier said, putting away the chocolate bar. "I found this nice bar-"

"You sure the officers haven't occupied it yet?"

That sufficiently distracted them to let Leon walk away. Soldiers didn't rape civilians, not exactly, but if the three of them had instead cornered him in an alley and asked politely? Civilians didn't talk back to soldiers, that was as true now as ever before, even if they could complain afterwards and not worry that they'd be the ones punished. In a particularly witty moment, Marcellus had noted that the twin mottoes of the army were 'It was consensual' and 'It was just lying around'.

Leon made his way to the office, still feeling the soldier's hand touch him. Brr. What was it about putting on a uniform that made people decide that going around and sexually assaulting everyone was a good idea? Was it just them trying to unleash their anger on anyone available who wasn't likely to complain?

At the office, the queue was even longer than that for food, if that was possible. Fortunately, the employment office wasn't as besieged. Half an hour later, Leon was sitting down in front of the window. His idle musings about what the clerk had done to get the position disappeared once he realized that she didn't have fingernails. "I'm looking for a job with the IDC," Leon said, handing her his 'resume'. "I was reading about Snow's trial - I was thinking that you need archivists for that."

The clerk looked at his resume half-heartedly. "You'll need to be depurated for that."

Leon barely bit back a groan. "That will take ages!"

"Here is the address," the clerk said, taking a form and filling it in. "Here you go. Have a good day."

"You, too." Leon took the form and wondered if he should dash home or sign up for Depuration first. He didn't have a cell phone because he had swapped it for some canned food back during the bombings, and Mom and Dad would be coming back soon, and they flew into a panic when they couldn't reach him or Marcellus. Leon checked the clock and winced. Decision made, he went home.

When he returned, Marcellus was standing in the corridor and gossiping with a neighbour. The neighbour's son was a Peacekeeper who had been listed as MIA only to turn up at the door two days ago, so she was still in a good mood as she gossiped about who had allegedly killed themselves. The only one Leon knew personally was the downstairs neighbour - it had been mostly important people who knew that they had blood on their hands. "How's dinner?" Leon asked.

"Done. Mom and Dad should be coming home in a few minutes. You?"

Leon huffed. "I need to be depurated."

The neighbour switched to complaining about Depuration. There, Leon was in agreement. He swept into the apartment, where the radio was still listing names, and wondered what to do. The Rebellion had arrived with an entire plan about how to separate the wheat from the chaff, and they were putting it into action. They had drawn up an entire list of who to arrest on sight. Those were the 'major offenders', but they were by no means all of the people who would probably soon end up with that label. There were also four other categories - offender, minor offender, fellow traveller, and exonerated person.

The 'key criminals' the radio wouldn't shut up about were beyond that category. Privately, Leon was surprised they were still breathing. Their guilt was so obvious, any trial would be a show one by default. Like Snow - if it went on for more than two hours, he'd be surprised.

Major offenders were people like civil servants on the second and third steps of the ladder, and it went down from there. Exonerated persons, however, were those who could prove they had done something to fight the regime. Leon had seen the guidelines and knew he'd probably be labelled a fellow traveller, but it didn't make the process more nerve-wracking. Being labelled a minor offender and up imposed restrictions on civil rights. Leon sat down at the dinner table and went about filling in the form. The dreaded questionnaire was demanded by any job in civil service, law enforcement, and the higher ranks of a business hierarchy. And anything Depuration-related, of course.

Name, age, gender - easy enough. Education - six grades. Was he filling the form in himself? Of course he was, illiterate people weren't going to be applying to the sort of jobs that needed the questionnaire. Or was that meant for people who couldn't see or hold a pencil?

The first section went quickly. The second was tougher. Since he had been a factory worker, he didn't have to deal with explaining his role in organizations dedicated to oppressing the country. Were people actually honest in these? Leon couldn't imagine anyone actually going through the databases of jobs to check if he had perhaps worked for the Games.

Had he ever sponsored a Tribute? No. How often had he watched the Hunger Games? Saying 'when mandatory' was not technically correct, because the television had always shown the Games during lunch break and the neighbours could have been listening, but Leon had never watched them of his own volition, so he picked that.

The checkmark taunted him. Had he really never watched them of his own volition, though? Sure, he had watched them, but that hadn't been because he had wanted to - he had just been morbidly curious to see how it would go. He hadn't been happy about the Games, he had been against them. He had watched them out of inertia more than anything else, because that was just what one did. What had he been supposed to do - walk out of the factory canteen? Eat lunch in two minutes and spend the rest of break hiding in the bathroom?

Leon imagined a stern judge, perhaps a returning defector or a secret prison survivor, looking down at him. Why did you watch the Hunger Games?

It's not like I was asked if I wanted to do it, Leon thought. I watched and cheered if someone I liked survived. But that wasn't me. That was just how you did things.

You cheer for the Hunger Games and say you do not want to. Then why do you cheer for them?

Then what was I supposed to do? Storm out of the cafeteria and proclaim I wasn't going to watch them? That wouldn't have helped the kids and would have just gotten me arrested. Such a public gesture would have gotten me killed and helped nobody. Everybody watched the Hunger Games. That was just how it went.

You build a strawman here. Sure, fine, let's assume that you had to clap loudly or else the shopfloor NCIA agent would have marked you down as unreliable and made it impossible for you to get promoted. But at home? With a brother who made his disapproval clear?

But who had ever heard of not watching the Games? Marcellus had complained, but he had still watched the mandatory portion.

And when the overseers talked about annihilating the Rebels, what did you say?

What was I supposed to say? Even before, had I said anything in protest, everyone would have thought I was crazy, and during the war, you could be killed for less.

Killed for less, huh? That doesn't change the fact that you watched the Hunger Games, sitting on the couch with your family.

"Then what was I supposed to do?" Leon whispered.

Leave the room, dummy. That's what I did, and I had denouncers in my family.

Leon stared at the questionnaire for a minute or two before forcing himself to move on to the next question. Had he or was he going to apply for compensation as a victim of the regime? Absolutely not. Had he ever taken money or any other form of compensation from the NCIA or its predecessor agencies in exchange for services provided? No, and hopefully the mechanic who had fixed Talvian's car wouldn't take the question the wrong way.

Well, that wasn't too bad, but that was because ordinary workers didn't have much opportunity to do bad things, unless they organized Games watching parties or denounced to the NCIA or something. He'd go in tomorrow. Leon folded up the form and put it in his bag, doing his best to not think about the Games question. He went to his room and hung it up on the door handle of his closet. There was a great smell coming from the kitchen. Leon put on another pair of socks, because it was freezing in the apartment, and went to see. He realized how hungry he was. First a full day of clearing rubble, then queueing for hours - lunch had been so long ago.

Marcellus walked into the kitchen and started to put the bowls on the table. "So?"

"I'll be a fellow traveller for sure," Leon said optimistically. "They're looking for the big fish there."

"They can't arrest everyone," Marcellus pointed out.

Given Coin's threats, they probably would have tried had they wanted to. "Anything interesting happen on this end?"

Marcellus nodded. "Snow and the Gamemakers are going on trial tomorrow."

They must have had more material prepared than Leon had thought. "And the others?"

"No idea. Coin's personally supervising these two, but the others? I doubt they'll get a trial at all." Marcellus stared sadly at a spoon before putting it on the table.

Leon hoped that wasn't true, mostly because that meant he'd have to forget about a well-paying job. "How fast do you think it'll go?"

"One hour. Per person."

At that moment, Mom and Dad came home. "What smells so good?" Dad asked, taking his shoes off and stepping into the kitchen. "Mmm, soup."

"There's no spices besides salt," Marcellus grumbled. "Not much of a soup."

Leon decided not to tell them about his job search, so they wouldn't be disappointed if it didn't work out. He took the pot of soup and put it on the table. With a ladle, he split it between the four bowls. The leftovers would be eaten tomorrow for breakfast. Leon glanced at the clock - twenty-twenty. Good thing the rubble crews gave free lunch.

Janie wasn't sure how she and Dusk found themselves with MP armbands lounging around an intersection of two rubble-strewn streets.

"Check out the ass on that one," Dusk said, pointing to a man approaching them.

Janie crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. Unlike Dusk, she actually had a steady squeeze. His parents even approved (of the goodies she gave them). And the sex was great, once they had figured out what went where.

"He's gotta be, like, forty," Janie grumbled. When he got closer, she gave him a cursory glance, but he glared at her and shoved forward his arm. He was wearing an armband with some letters on it that Janie could now decode as 'MG', or military government. Coin was president of the country, and ruled from the Capitol, but the Capitol was still ruled by a military government, which made no sense.

Together with her promotion, she had been given reading classes. Already, she could more or less remember what all of the letters were. 'M' was easy, because it looked like mountains, and 'G' was the spiral one. And 'MG' meant 'don't touch me or I'll tell your commanding officer'. Irritated at having been thwarted, Janie decided to challenge him. "You been depurated yet?" she asked. All the important MG people had ten side pieces they got jobs in the government without checking their pasts.

"Yeah!" Dusk said, walking up to her. Regulating traffic was boring and confusing and got you shouted at by everyone (Dusk got the worst, since he was used to the biggest intersection being one of two narrow unpaved lanes), and any chance for some fun was welcome. "What's your category?"

The man glared at them again. "I am from Thirteen, you little creeps," he said in an upper-class Capitol accent. "And a defector of six years."

Oh shit. Had they just tried to pick up some important person? But weren't all the important people old and potato-faced? This man looked pretty fit. Why wasn't he in uniform?

Hold on, now that was a good line. "Why aren't you in uniform?"

The man glared even harder, if that was even possible, and took out his soldier's book. "Because I was demobbed. Any more questions?"

"Put it back on," Janie advised. "Wearing civvy clothes is practically asking for it, given how you look. You're lucky we can read."

Decius seriously contemplated punching the soldiers in the face. They were military police, the only force that was actually dedicated to keeping the peace in the Capitol, and here they were saying that being attractive and wearing civilian clothes meant that it was alright to rape you?

He pitied everyone who had been laughed out of the station after reporting rape. How could someone be such an asshole? Decius looked at the two soldiers, who weren't showing any signs of understanding what they had just said.

"I am not obligated to dress a certain way because you think I should," he practically roared before stalking down the street. Asking for it, indeed! How had such a thing even entered their heads?

As Decius walked towards the house where he, Latreya, Chee, and their spouses were temporarily billeted, he mentally wrote a complaint to military government. If this was how the law enforcers behaved, it would discredit the entire thing. By the time he was opening the door, he had calmed down somewhat, but his walk was still ruined and Miryam still started when she saw him. "What's wrong?" she asked worriedly. She had gotten a job with the federal government, which was why the two of them were both in the Capitol.

"Just some people shouting things," Decius said. "It's nothing. Are you ready?"

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm ready."

Miryam had always been a fan of theatre, but Decius was not, so back in Thirteen, she had usually gone to plays with her fellow theatre-appreciators. This time, however, Decius himself was curious to see what would happen. He had read The Merchant of Venice back in that third-year literature course he still regretted having ever taken, and he had no idea why anyone would want to put on such an offensive play.

The theatre was mostly dilapidated - tarp, sandbags, bullet holes, and a piece of the roof had been blown off. Inside, it was just as bad. Decius and Miryam left a few cans of food as payment and took their seats. The auditorium was crowded. If someone had free time, they needed to fill it up with something, and at least it was decently warm in the theatre.

Much to Decius' surprise, the play was not offensive. Shylock was practically made into a tragic hero - a man angry about the discrimination he constantly faced who sometimes exploded and said or did something impulsive, to his detriment.

"I need to tell Chee," Decius whispered. "They'll love this."

"Audience isn't going to like this," Miryam whispered back.

"They're just here to get out of the cold, they won't be able to connect the dots," Decius retorted. Now, he was wondering why whoever was in charge of the theatre had decided that this was an excellent time to put on a play where discrimination played such a major role.

How was everyone reacting? Nobody seemed to show any obvious reactions, though this was a Capitol audience, they knew better than to react to sensitive issues in public. How interesting, that such an old play still had relevance today. Now if only people like those young MPs wouldn't give the locals an excuse to hold fast to their own prejudices.

Thanks to Coin, Mary had been issued with what someone must have decided was enough for the chief of counsel of a series of major trials. An office that had once been a walk-in closet in some rich person's house - the owners were now the cleaners. In the adjacent bedroom, she had to share the gigantic bed with Reed Zvi, a professor of criminal law from Thirteen who was her deputy, and Isabella Jinwe, Two's chief prosecutor and a highly skilled organizer who had almost single-handedly gotten the trials of collaborators going in her District. Reed was male, all three of them were married, and Isabella had never slept next to anyone who wasn't her husband.

On top of those reasons for Rithvik to barely hold back his laughter when they talked over the phone - Mary herself had passed along the decree that nobody could bring along their spouse - she had also been issued a secretary. Joseph Murza, or Joe as he was called, had once worked for some businessperson who had been depurated and lost their company to an inoffensive subordinate in the process, fostering comparisons of Depuration to the Lernaean hydra.

Joe was an excellent secretary. He was a stunningly attractive twenty-five-year-old, but it was clear that his old boss had hired him not just for his looks. Doing paperwork was so much easier with him around.

"You have a meeting with the business-and-finance counsel in half an hour," he said, leaning into the room.

Not having your schedule written on your arm made life so much harder. Mary found herself constantly being late for things. Another thing Joe was good for. "Thanks, Joe," she said, tossing back the covers and getting out of bed. She was already dressed in a jumpsuit, in an attempt to make sleeping next to a man who wasn't Rithvik less awkward, but that would not do outside of Thirteen.

"Do I also have to wake up?" Reed wondered.

"We have our own meeting to deal with," Isabella grumbled. The middle-aged major had a knack for untangling government structures. Two had barely agreed to let her go to the Capitol. She groped around on the nightstand fruitlessly. "Wait, where's the typewriter?" she asked. Isabella had been blinded by shrapnel during the fighting in Two.

"Shit, sorry, I moved it," Reed said, leaning over her to look at the floor. "It's on the floor next to the nightstand."

"Dammit, what if I had stepped on it?" Isabella grumbled. "I'm not confiscating a Braille typewriter from anyone. That's just too low."

Mary took a set of clothes from a hook hanging on the back of the bed and went into the bathroom. The fixtures were porcelain instead of steel - yet another thing to get used to. Mary washed her face, put on the shirt, trousers, and suit jacket, and studied herself in the mirror. She had been woken in the middle of the night by Reed's cold feet, so she looked a bit haggard. She also needed a haircut. Hopefully it would be possible to borrow clippers from someone. While most people of her status in the big country with hair texture like hers wore braids or dreads of one sort or another, Mary was too used to her buzz cut - and also too lazy to take care of complicated hairdos.

Mary stepped out of the bathroom. Isabella was still lying under the covers with a pillow over her face. Somehow, the two had spread out to take up all the room in the bed. "Reed, do you have that report about the Peacekeepers' trial?" she asked. They were doing everything at once - trying to write up a charter that would establish the tribunals, drawing up lists of defendants, gathering evidence, and contacting potential judges and prosecutors.

WIth visible reluctance, Reed sat up. He was wearing a Capitol sweater with the hood pulled up. "We'll have the list of defendants by today," he said, face twisted into a grimace. He took off his hood, revealing curly hair that, like Mary's, needed to be trimmed. It was very strange to see her colleague of many years in such a state. "I told Coin we're still hip-deep in records, but she said if someone slips through the cracks, they'll be dealt with later."

"We need to start fast," Mary conceded. "Snow and the Gamemakers are already on trial. If the IDC drags its feet, it'll look like it's doing so deliberately." Quash had accepted the offer quite quickly, and the proceedings went underway almost immediately. Neither Snow nor the Gamemakers were of any use to the new government, but the same could not be said of the civil servants and officers in Coin's point of view, one Mary disagreed with. The country could be rebuilt and the armed forces recreated perfectly well without Chaterhan and Flick and the rest of them. "I was talking to Lamont the other day, he says that the issue isn't that we won't have someone we want, it's that we won't even know we should be interested in someone." She took her folder from the table.

Reed rubbed at his face. "I know."

She was probably running late already. "See you in the evening," she said before stepping into the corridor. People were already up and about - fellow prosecutors, for the most part. Actual billets were being prepared for them, but for now, they were stuck three to a bed in some house Mary had been forced to expropriate without warning.

They had set up shop in the National Archives as Mary searched for a suitable place to conduct the trial. There were a few places that could work, but all had their drawbacks, and it was very difficult to find the time to criss-cross the Capitol. Mary wasn't sure why she of all people had to worry about the location - her job was to handle the prosecution, not the administration - but she wasn't going to complain.

Technically speaking, she did have authority over the administration. Mary was in charge of the clumsily named Office for the Prosecution of War Crimes, and it had three branches - administration, research & information, and counsel. However, she spent most of her time dealing with the latter two, leaving Carl Ilemobajo, a Thirteen civil servant, in charge of wrangling finances and the like.

Right now, she was going to talk to the business-and-finance counsel. After some frantic recruiting, they had a good-sized team already in the Capitol, with more still in their home Districts for now. Due to how the trials would be group ones, Mary had decided to split the counsel into three groups, based on their area of research - 'military', 'business and finance', and 'government'. Reed was technically in charge of the latter, but Isabella was the real shining star of the department.

It was the 'military' ones who were the most frantic now, thanks to Coin's demands to have the Peacekeeper trial begin as soon as physically feasible, but everyone was involved with the key criminals, who were also supposed to go on trial within the month. No amount of complaining made Coin back off. Well, she would just have to be disappointed. Mary hadn't been allowed to participate in Snow's trial and the proceedings were closed, but she knew or knew of nearly everyone involved, and they were all skeptical that this was really their best option. Snow hadn't even been interrogated properly. He was being accused of practically everything, but the only charge they were formally pinning on him was the deaths of the children picked for the Hunger Games. And he didn't even have a lawyer, but that was because he had chosen to represent himself.

The fact that it hadn't been a one-hour wonder, like what often happened to dictators who were taken alive in the rest of the world, was some sort of minor miracle. Mary, however, wasn't going to settle for that. Her trials would be as legally sound as could be made possible, and if she had to anger Coin to do it, she would.

But first, she would need to meet Naquian Tyson and discuss which of his potential defendants were best-suited for being indicted as key criminals, followed by yet another meeting about the charter, which Coin had wanted drafted a week ago. The attorney from Five and a defector to Quebec of ten years had shown an astonishing level of cunning and daring, taking on both big business and high-ranking Peacekeepers if the case had called for it. He knew every trick there was in making a business case so watertight, even the old courts would not have been able to ignore it without direct instructions to the contrary.

Mary entered the archives, which were remarkably undamaged aside from holes in the wall that were just now being patched and a minor roof cave-in, and began to look for Naquian's office. Unlike with her roommates, with whom doing anything else would have made it even worse, being on a first-name basis with the other counsel felt a little bit strange. Mary persevered in doing so because she hoped it would make the collective gel faster.

There was no office - rather, Naquian was sitting in a glass booth once used by visitors to the archive to read material. He saw her approaching and waved. The entire cavernous room was full of people at desks or simply on the floor, surrounded by piles of paper and typing away on computers. That was another thing Mary was still getting used to - in Thirteen, there had been no computers thanks to security fears.

"Good morning," Mary said, taking a seat. "How goes the research?"

Naquian smiled. "Quite well. I must admit, I used to dream about coming home and prosecuting an anti-trust case - and now at least five are being dropped into my lap!"

"That might have to wait. How is the evidence for the key criminals going?"

Naquian glanced at his computer screen and began to report.

Stephen felt like he was being torn apart from all directions. The lists of POWs and detainees changed every hour, and he had to somehow keep track of all of them. Slowly, lists of who was to go on trial were being put together, and Stephen had made a major mistake - he had volunteered.

He had not said so directly, not in so many words, but in a conversation with Irons, he had mentioned that he already had quite a few big shots, so he knew how to handle them. The result of that was quite predictable - it wasn't looking like Stephen would be going home any time soon. Unlike most POW and detainee camps, his only increased in population. Yesterday, one had been released - Trisha Brown was one of only three surgeons in the country who could do lung transplants and her level of corruption, while vile, was nothing compared to the profile of the average detainee - and fifteen had been brought in.

Thirty centimetres of snow had fallen the other night, so his charges were running around the yard and throwing snowballs at each other. It was a bit too chaotic for Stephen's liking, but most of the civilians were in need of some intense physical activity and the military people could certainly do with the fun. Stephen knew very well that most of them would never walk free again, and did not begrudge them the little entertainment they could get here.

Stephen had been given free rein when it came to the treatment of his charges, and he had used it. He made sure that they got military rations and had Dr. Shentop, an accidentally detained civilian who had volunteered to stay on, adjust them upwards or downwards if their health required it. Usually, it was downwards. The civilians complained, but they knew it was good for them. He also made them do their own cooking - they had complained at first, but after someone had posed as a cook in a different internment camp and tried to poison the officers being held there (nobody died but several hundred had to be hospitalized), they had shut up.

The psychological was just as important as the physiological. Stephen had held a movie night two days ago, showing his charges atrocity footage, and it had been a resounding success. The psychologists had all reported that they had been shaken out of their defiance, if temporarily. Stephen was planning on making it a weekly thing. So that they didn't go completely crazy from only having their crimes to think about, he had gotten a nice stack of old and foreign books for them to read, as well as crosswords and the like. They could do with a broadening of their horizons.

Unfortunately, Stephen's reports hadn't been enough for someone up there, which was why he would be escorting several journalists around the compound. He wasn't too irritated - the nonsense the newspapers printed could do with some correcting - but any sort of unauthorized presence was a security risk.

Behind Stephen, one former general tackled another into a snowbank. They stood up, laughing their heads off. Stephen turned back around, looking through the gate to the jeep that was pulling up. It stopped, parked somewhere at random, and a group of journalists climbed out. Stephen waved to them in greeting as a soldier unlocked the gate and led them in.

"Good morning to you all," he said. "I know there have been many rumours about this place and similar institutions, so I am very grateful to you for coming here to set things straight."

The journalists nodded, looking around. There was also a photographer armed with a small camera.

"Please stay close to me, and ask for permission before photographing something."

The photographer raised their hand. "May I photograph them?" they said in an insolent voice, pointing to the snowball fight.

"By all means."

The photographer began to click away.

"Feel free to use voice recorders, but do not talk to anyone else without asking me first. Is that clear?"

"Yeah," they muttered.

"Let us begin our tour, then," Stephen said. "As you can see, the building used to be a mansion. We performed a few alterations." He led the little group inside. "Would you like to see their cells or the infrastructure?"

"Cells," they said in unison, not even trying to hide their curiosity.

Stephen nodded. "Let us go to the upper floors first," he said, leading the way. He unlocked one of the cells, where one of the detainees was half-sitting on her cot and reading a book. Kosal had taken poison upon arrest, and while her life had been saved, her brain would need time to recover. Even something as simple as turning a page was difficult with her shaking hands, and she couldn't sit up straight on her own.

"As you can see," Stephen said, "we removed all of the luxury and replaced it with more conventional furniture."

The former Ministry of District Affairs functionary watched the proceedings with interest as the journalists scribbled down their impressions. Stephen wasn't sure what there was to write about. Rooms had been divided into cells roughly one and a half by two metres, the only furniture consisting of a fold-out cot and a small table. Kosal's cot had the end raised so that she could sit. Kosal also had a blanket and pillow. She had half of a window in her cell, the glass replaced with the bulletproof variety and with razor-sharp mosquito netting for extra protection.

"Is everyone kept in cells like this?" one journalist asked with an odd curiosity in their voice.

"No," Stephen said. "Down in the basement, we have them sleep on futons instead of fold-out cots." They had run out of the latter.

"May we see?"

The basement cells had no windows, which was why all were empty now, their inhabitants getting fresh air and sunlight - or being interrogated. Stephen forbade the journalists from going to see an interrogation, but he did let them get a brief interview from one of the interrogators. Stephen had forewarned his people, so they had had time to prepare.

After that, he continued the tour of the building and invited them for lunch. They took their trays and sat down with the rest of the centre personnel who had lunch at that moment.

"What's that?" one of the journalists asked, holding up a piece of meat.

"Don't worry," Stephen said, "it's not rancid." He ate a spoonful of his bean-and-vegetable hash. "I eat the same things as everyone else here."

"That's not what I meant." The journalist shook her head and bit off a piece. "Doesn't really taste like anything," she said.

"I have an acquaintance who goes hunting," another journalist said as he drank some water. "She always tells me she's going to bring down a deer any time now, but it's only been dogs so far."

That was not what Stephen had expected to hear from the well-groomed overweight journalist. "Your acquaintance shoots stray dogs?" he asked for clarification.

"Oh, no, no. Forest dogs." He bit off a piece of bread. "Although, I'll need to ask her to find out what the difference is. They don't even taste very good, you have to cook them for hours to make them edible, but it's the only fresh meat I've had in months."

The photographer chuckled. "Don't let my parents hear you say that. They have a dog."

"I don't think we're hungry enough to start eating our own dogs."

For some reason, the journalists laughed.

After lunch, which the journalists pronounced to be just as bad as rations, Stephen took them on a tour of the grounds, expressly forbidding any attempt to talk to the detainees. He pointed out the elaborate system of defenses and stressed the fact that nobody got in and out without permission. The journalists seemed happy as they left.

The next morning, newspapers around the world wrote in gloating tones that the criminals were being subject to harsh conditions and that Stephen was a strict no-nonsense kind of warden around whom even former ministers and generals trod lightly.

The defendants ran the gamut from outraged to terrified as the jury walked in. Dora felt no sympathy towards them. Just that morning, two co-managers of a cannery had had the charges against them dismissed because it had been proven that they had helped workers, bribing Peacekeepers to have illegal itinerants registered at city addresses and paying good wages.

If the co-managers could have done it, anyone else could. It was as simple as that. The co-managers had been equally unaware of the law, and they had still not committed the crime. And, of course, there was the old maxim that legis ignorantia non excusat. Ignorance of law is no excuse.

Dora called the court to order. There were a few journalists present, but not many. There was certainly no shortage of trials of this calibre, even if Dora was dealing with bigger fish than most. That was the former District Minister of Resources sitting in the middle, and her deputy sitting on her left. Jack considered them the very epitome of collaboration.

"Who is your foreperson?" Dora asked the jury.

An elderly man stood up and waved awkwardly. "Uh, that's me." He had a very lower-class accent. Illiterate people could sit in a jury, but the foreperson had to be literate so that they could recite the verdict. The man must have gotten very, very lucky as a child.

"Have you reached a verdict?"

"Yeah."

"What is your verdict?"

The man put on his glasses and took a piece of paper from his pocket. "Uh, we, the jury, find Melissa Tanner, of conspiracy to commit murder - guilty on all counts. Of bribery - guilty. Of fraud - guilty. Of extortion - guilty..." As he read out the verdict, Tanner merely looked unimpressed.

The following four received progressively softer verdicts - too soft, in Dora's opinion. If one person deserved to die once and another - a hundred times, they both died once if Dora was the one deciding, but the jury was ranking them in a way that would give her no choice but to hand out perfunctory sentences for the least guilty.

Dora was glad that average citizens were capable of recognizing and applying nuance instead of seizing the initiative and simply using the law for lynch justice, but she worried that criminals would be getting away too easily.

Once the court adjourned, Dora worked on the sentences. It was early next morning that they were read. The defendants were looking away from Dora, focusing on the table or the wall or their hands.

"Defendant Melissa Tanner, on the counts of the indictment on which you have been convicted, you are sentenced to death by hanging." Tanner twitched slightly. "Defendant Jonathan Devi, on the counts of the indictment on which you have been convicted, you are sentenced to imprisonment for life." Devi burst into tears. In Dora's opinion, he had committed capital crimes, but the jury had decided otherwise, so life in prison was the severest she could go. "Defendant Sam Weatherington, on the counts of the indictment on which you have been convicted, you are sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment and the forfeiture of all of your property." Weatherington looked annoyed, as if their businesses hadn't all been illegally acquired. "Defendant Evana Willow, you are sentenced to five years' imprisonment." Willow blinked. In Dora's opinion, she deserved at least twice that, but five years was the maximum for the crimes she had been found guilty of. "Defendant Issa Smith, you are sentenced to one year of imprisonment and three - of community service." Smith looked very uncomfortable. He shot glances at his co-defendants, avoiding meeting their eyes, as if he and his lawyer hadn't spent the past week elegantly pinning all of his crimes on them.

Dora would have to do some reading and see if all group trials had a similar ranking of defendants. If so, it wouldn't matter how guilty the key criminals the IDC wanted her to try - one of them, at least, would still end up breathing.

A/N: Leon's dialogue with himself is inspired by a similar passage in Sebastian Haffner's 'Defying Hitler'. Haffner had to go through military training in order to be allowed to write an exam he needed for his career, and he struggled to come to terms with the fact that he wore a Nazi uniform. He was eventually able to emigrate to the UK, and his memoir is an excellent insight into what it is really like to be a member of a relatively privileged group in a dictatorship.

Poor Mary is still stuck dealing with nonsense from so many angles. First Coin wants to have innocents brutally publicly executed. Now she's like 'but we need the industrialists for reconstruction'. On top of that, Mary has to share a bed with her direct subordinates. Ouch.

By the way, Flick's name was originally a coincidence and not a deliberate reference to Friedrich Flick, but the more I mention her, the more I have to lean into the comparison. Just assume that Chee laughs for half an hour every time they hear her name.

If you're wondering how a surgeon who does lung transplants can be massively corrupt - Dr. Brown participates in the bribery scheme that makes procedures that have a bottleneck limiting availability, such as the existence of suitable lungs, only accessible to those who pay lots and lots of money. While organs are more accessible than in real life, because postmortem donations are practically mandatory and living ones considered the height of patriotism and a token of loyalty to your community, the nation, and our dear President Snow, the inability to get a transplant in time is still a problem, as is the lack of surgeons who know how to do the difficult procedures. Dr. Brown lived in the Capitol proper (people from the rural Capitol who could afford the gargantuan bribe had to move so that they were within one hour by car from the hospital where she worked), and the other two lung transplant surgeons are from Thirteen - and while District Mayor X or Estate Manager Y could pay to have Dr. Brown come to the most elite hospital in their District, even a solidly upper-middle class person could not.