The cell was even smaller than before, and much more dilapidated. Antonius had thought that he had been inured to all of the possible humiliations that had been piled on him in the past few months, but Lodgepole was a new low.

The only good thing about the cell was what it contained. Instead of a few blankets on the floor, he had a proper cot with a mattress, blankets, and pillow. His washing things were in the cell with him on a tiny ledge over the sink, he even had a towel, and he could have several books at once. He had a proper toothbrush (much to his horror, Antonius' first thought when seeing it had been to remark that the holes in the handle would make the flimsy material hard to sharpen to a point) instead of having to use his fingers and could use deodorant instead of rinsing off three times a day. There were hooks and a shelf for his clothes, as well as a cardboard box he used to store dirty laundry under his cot. His electric typewriter stood on a rickety table along with a stack of paper and flexible writing utensils. The only disadvantage to having so much was that it was a pain to put in order after searches.

And searches were daily, because Warden Vance's paranoia had soared to new heights. Antonius could not sleep at night because the light was on and if he turned his head away or put his freezing hands under the thin blankets, he got poked at with a stick. He could not leave the cell except for interrogations, which meant that he had to wash in the sink, and there was only a little space where the guard could not see him. He had been allowed to write a letter to his family, but it had been returned to him three times already, and Antonius was not sure what fault they had found with it this time.

And when Warden Vance left, it became, somehow, worse. The guards blasted the radio at all hours of day and night, and the only redeemable feature of that was that it sometimes played songs from musicals Antonius could dance along to, even though it was difficult to do a partner dance without Octavia or a group dance without his cousins - and even though the cell was so small, the acrobatic moves often sent him into a wall or colliding with his cot.

So, when the mousy psychologist asked him how he was doing, it took Antonius a few seconds to calm down and not shout at him exactly what he thought about everything.

"I do not understand why I am being held here," Antonius said. He had talked to psychologists before, but this Dr. Aurelius was new. He had a Thirteen accent. "I am completely innocent of any crimes. Why are they holding me with the likes of Talvian?"

Dr. Aurelius jotted down some notes in what looked like shorthand. "You don't think you should be here?"

Antonius repositioned his legs. He was sitting on his cot, and Dr. Aurelius - on the small, rickety chair. "Of course. All I did was run a business like any other businessperson in the world."

"Uh-huh." Dr. Aurelius glanced down at his notes. "Now, since we're going to be seeing a lot of each other from this time on, perhaps we should get to know each other better. You've been worried about not being able to see your family. Could you please tell me about them?"

Antonius nodded. That was a much easier topic to talk about. "To start with, there is my grandmother, Alexandra. She was the real owner of the Steelworks. Unfortunately, she-" His voice caught in his throat as he imagined Grandma lying there in her bed. "She is dying," he said, feeling tears sting his eyes.

Dr. Aurelius nodded sympathetically. "That's always hard."

"I know I am lucky. I am forty-six, and my grandmother is still alive." Antonius tried to get a grip on himself. "And to think that she will die while all this is going on!" He looked down at the floor. Here in Lodgepole, they had to wash the floor of their cell every day. One more humiliation, though Antonius could not deny that the sight of the diminutive Talvian using a mop taller than her was very amusing. "I have been asking to see her over and over, to no avail."

"I can help you with that," Dr. Aurelius said.

"Really?" Antonius was taken aback. "I would be very grateful for your help, Doctor."

Dr. Aurelius smiled in a self-effacing way. He really was mousy, pale and overweight with dark-brown wavy hair more than tinged with grey that flopped all over the place. "Of course. Now, what about your parents? Do they have siblings?"

"My mother, Alanna, has two younger brothers, the aptly-named Albinus and Augustus."

"Aptly-named?"

"He is an albino."

"Interesting," the psychologist said. "What do your uncles do?"

The story was so familiar to Antonius, he could recite it in his sleep. "My mother was always to inherit. Albinus was to pursue a career in a different field, and Augustus - to marry well. Unfortunately, by the time my grandmother realized my mother had zero desire to inherit, Albinus was in law school and Augustus had dropped out of university and was spending most of his time at parties." It was hard to imagine the seventy-year-old Uncle Augustus as a partygoer. "She continued to pressure my mother. Practically arranged her marriage - my father, Marcellus, is the younger son of a senator. I was born in an atmosphere of pressure."

"Only one atmosphere?" Dr. Aurelius joked. "That's not that much pressure."

The joke was rather substandard, but Antonius laughed regardless. How long since he had actually laughed? "In any case, I grew up knowing I needed to succeed. From my earliest days, I knew that failure was not an option. I wanted my grandmother's approval more than anything. And I knew how to get it - even as a small child, I would play at CEO with my dolls."

"How did that affect your relationship with your mother?"

"Oh, she was glad she could offer me up as heir and not worry about it." Antonius paused, remembering the half-overheard arguments. "Though I think she did worry about my grandmother turning me against her somehow. I do not see why - she never said a bad word about my mother in my presence. Though I am sure she had been very upset to see her plans ruined."

Dr. Aurelius nodded and jotted something down. "And your uncles?"

"Albinus became a judge, rose to the Supreme Court, and retired a few years ago. I am sure he has lost his pension thanks to Depuration." Antonius recalled his uncle's favourite joke. "He always used to say that he was blind, just like justice ought to be."

The psychologist chuckled for a few seconds. "He's blind?" he asked in a more serious tone.

"He can tell between light and dark, but no more than that. His eyes have so little melanin, they look pink in the right light, because the blood vessels are almost visible." Antonius remembered how, as a curious three-year-old, he had pestered his uncle with endless questions about why he looked so strange. "I think he would have enjoyed living in Thirteen. He always hated the sun."

Dr. Aurelius glanced down at his own hand. "That is highly relatable," he said, writing something down. "I believe I've read that you have many cousins?"

"I have nine first cousins," Antonius said, remembering how enthusiastic Andreas had been when he had enlisted. Quiet Andreas, always lost in his own thoughts. "When it comes to second and third cousins, there are more of them each time I turn my head."

Dr. Aurelius must not have been informed about Andreas' death, because he simply nodded and wrote something down. "What was it like for you to grow up in such a large family?"

Antonius had no idea what it was like to grow up in a small family. "My older cousins were always angry when I beat them at Monopoly," he offered.

"I thought that older cousins have their ways of not letting the little ones win," Dr. Aurelius said with a smile.

"I only played when there was an adult watching," Antonius reminisced. "I was always quite good at board games in general. My greatest achievement was getting a tie in chess against my grandmother."

"That's very nice." The psychologist jotted down some notes. "Now, I know you're married. Could you please tell me a little bit about that?"

"We met in university," Antonius said. "She was the youngest daughter of landowners and was studying literature. Our families belonged to the same clubs, and we first collided in a musical theatre group. That was the first time we danced together - in rehearsal, practicing one of the paired dances." Antonius rapidly found out that while he was the best dancer in his family, beyond that, he was firmly relegated to a back row.

"That's very nice," Dr. Aurelius said.

Before Antonius could say more, the sound of a key turning in the lock made him look away and at the guard who was leaning into the cell. The guard had stepped away for the session, because Dr. Aurelius could be trusted to make sure he did not kill himself with that splinter of wood he had found in the corridor yesterday and was currently hiding in a library book.

"Your lawyer's here," the guard said. "Come on."

"You are aware that I am currently talking to the psychologist?" Antonius inquired icily.

"Watch that tone of yours!" the guard snapped. "And stand up when spoken to!"

Antonius stood up. "My apologies," he said. "Will I be able to continue talking to Dr. Aurelius afterwards?"

"No idea." The psychologist also looked uncertain. "Come on. Hands."

Antonius' hands were cuffed behind his back and he was led down the corridor. The radio was announcing the news - the Districts were arguing about something. With luck, they would fall out, and give up on this crazy idea.

"You're lucky," the guard said, a boy who was nineteen at most. "They found that lawyer you asked for." Yvonne Shaw was an expert corporate lawyer and had worked for the Steelworks plenty of times. She would be joined by a team of other expert lawyers and paralegals. Some of the family's assets had avoided being blocked, which meant that Antonius would be able to afford an excellent defense - but he knew full well how trials of this sort functioned. His lawyer's job would be to act as a second prosecutor.

He was led to a large, empty room. It was long and narrow, with a table running lengthwise and a pane of glass dividing it in two. There were roughly thirty cubicles. On the other side of the closest one, Shaw was sitting. Antonius was led over to sit opposite of her on an uncomfortable chair. His hands were uncuffed.

"Alright," the guard said. "You can pass papers through that slot there, but I check anything that goes through. Your lawyer has been warned, but I'll say again - paper clips and staples are not allowed, if you find any, tell me." With those words, the guard popped a piece of gum into his mouth and took out a reading primer from his pocket.

"Good day, Mr. Chaterhan," Shaw said. There were holes punched into the glass to make speaking easier, but she still sounded a little bit quiet. It was bound to be cacophony when the room was full. "I'm glad to see you looking so well."

Had she expected him to show signs of torture? He, too, was still surprised by that. "Thank you, Dr. Shaw. I am glad you agreed to take up my defense. Have you begun to consider my case?"

Shaw nodded. "This is not going to be a simple antitrust case, as they have in other countries, though I have brushed up on that." Antonius was vaguely aware of the existence of anti-monopoly laws, but he had never paid much attention to what was clearly a dead letter. "They're going to accuse you of every single misdeed that ever occurred in Steelworks factories and mines." She took out a sheaf of papers. "Trials of your District-based subordinates have started in some cases, and they're all blaming you for policy."

"That is a blatant lie." Half the time, Antonius had been unaware of what had been going on behind his back. His subordinates had always schemed and plotted. "What is this case going to be, then? Does this often happen abroad?" If so, he pitied his foreign colleagues.

"Not at all," Shaw said with a slight frown. "In other countries, there's a general recognition that big business works for everyone. There is, however, a very old precedent the prosecution is going to be taking inspiration from."

Antonius was no expert in law, though he knew a thing or two. "How old can a precedent be before it is useless?"

"Technically speaking, it is always valid, but the farther back you go, the more accusations there will be of perverting the law. The one that will be used against you predates the Cataclysm itself."

That was strange. "How can something from back then ever be relevant today?"

Shaw began to go through the document and remove the paper clips. "On the surface, I can see the value of the case. After a large war- how much pre-Cataclysm history do you know?"

"None," Antonius admitted.

"In that case, I'll explain it briefly for now. After a massive war, the leaders of several corporations were put on trial for various crimes, such as deporting people and forcing them to work in their factories as slaves. They were convicted but released a few years later once the winning countries realized they needed them in their offices, not in prison cells."

Hearing that made Antonius feel a little bit better. "The Steelworks never deported anyone," he said, "and all of the workers were paid."

Shaw pushed aside the paper clips and handed the papers to a bored guard. "And what of the conscriptions in Six for the construction of the Arenas? They were officially supposed to be paid, but they were subject to constant deductions. Only five percent earned even a penny. Not a single person earned as much as they were supposed to. And that's not even getting into the prisons owned by the Steelworks."

"I was told they were volunteers," Antonius insisted. "And convicts sentenced to forced labour."

"The illegality of forced labour aside, we will need to think of a way to deal with those signatures of yours, then." Antonius felt a little bit lost. Where were the demands to confess to his crimes, the implications that the sentence had already been decided on and the only way to avoid the bullet was to throw himself at the mercy of the court?

"How is it illegal? It is in the Criminal Code."

Shaw frowned. "We're going to argue that it was impossible for someone who grew up in this society to know that any of these laws were illegal," she said. "Worry less about that and more - about the signatures. You're telling me you thought they were all volunteers, but there's documents bearing your signature that contain direct instructions to conscript more people."

"I have no memory of any of that."

The papers were passed through the little tray. The guard on his side picked them up, leafed perfunctorily through them, and handed them to Antonius.

"The prosecution is finding caches of documents every day," Shaw said. "These are some of the most incriminating ones I could find; the ones I'm sure will be mentioned. I suggest you start thinking of ways to explain them away. I've got several more boxes in my office, your family is generously paying for assistants to look through all of them."

Antonius' fingers found a paper clip. With a quick, imperceptible movement, he took it off and placed it in his sleeve. Warden Vance would flip out, but he was not here right now, so the thought of showing him exactly what he thought of the jail regime made Antonius feel some satisfaction. "Of course," he said, resigned to the prospect of having to defend himself on his own. "Have you met any of the other lawyers yet?"

Shaw nodded. "Met Baer, who's defending Slice, and Fisher, who's defending Blues. A few others have signed up, but I haven't met them yet."

"Not Honoria Baer, surely?" Antonius could not imagine the president of the Panem Bar Association willingly getting involved in the trial - and why would she go for Slice of all people?

"It's her. She volunteered and asked for Slice."

Antonius realized why. "Because Slice is the most out of place in the list," he said. "She has the highest chances of avoiding execution, and Baer wants to squeeze as much from her case as possible." It all made sense now, it would be a very different kind of show trial - one where a half-hearted defense would be allowed, with a variety of predetermined sentences and possibly even one or two acquittals. Taking deep breaths, he flexed the side of his hand to prevent the paper clip from falling out. Antonius did not want to think about being executed. Surely they would wisen up by the time the trial actually started. "And who is Fisher?"

"Semi-competent former political lawyer. Also volunteered, was offered the choice between Thread and Blues."

"Why would a political lawyer want to get involved with Blues?" Antonius had never liked them. Always walking on the edge of a knife between open dissidence and sabotaging their client, it had been impossible to tell if they were loyal citizens or not. Fisher's appointment was further confirmation of what kind of trial this would be. "Are you sure he will do a good job?"

Shaw nodded. "If a defense lawyer can be timid, he's it, but I can tell he's trying his best."

That would not be enough in such a case. Shaw was clearly thinking about that, too. She looked at him with an odd facial expression. Antonius knew he was not much to look at - he had last gotten a shave two days ago, and when joined by the plaid shirt and denim trousers, it was enough to make him look like a homeless worker. He looked down at the papers, flipping through them. Photocopies of highly incriminating documents - Antonius had ordered many of them destroyed, but archivists were a special breed.

They talked for a while longer about specific documents and how to best explain them away before it was time for lunch. Antonius was cuffed and led back to his cell, where he was searched. The paper clip was, of course, found.

"What is the meaning of this?" Warden Vance asked, having been fetched by a guard. Antonius shrugged. He was starting to feel very hungry and just wanted to eat. "No, please do explain it to me. Why do you need a paper clip?"

Antonius shrugged again.

"How many times do I have to tell you that this is against the rules?"

There was nothing he could say. It was all so senseless.

"Do you have children?" Warden Vance suddenly asked.

"I have a son. He is nine."

Warden Vance put the paper clip on the table. "Well, how would you react if you found out that your son was disobeying you at every turn?"

Achilleus had always been a good kid. "I would tell him why what he is doing is wrong, make him apologize, and send him down to the groundskeepers to work for a day or two." The few times Antonius had misbehaved, Grandma had forced him to do heavy yard work and threatened him that if he continued to steal candy from the pantry, he would have to become a janitor. She had not believed in corporal punishment for children, so neither did Antonius.

"So you do know how to deal with misbehaving children," Warden Vance said in a satisfied tone.

Antonius looked up to face him, shocked. "You-"

"Stop with this infernal slouching and stand up straight!" Antonius stood at attention. "For your information, if you persist in acting like a child, I will treat you like a child." Warden Vance walked around the cell. "You have practically nothing, how is it that you manage to be so messy?" He waved at Antonius' cot. "This is an outrage. You do not respect your surroundings, you do not respect yourself, and you do not respect me."

The guards looked either delighted or like they wanted to sink through the floor, depending on temperament.

"Now, is there any other contraband in this cell or do I need to search it again?"

Antonius handed over the splinter of wood.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Warden Vance said acidly. "Now that you are in a proper cell, I expect a certain standard of neatness." Even the Thirteeners thought that the warden's ideas about neatness were a bit much. "This is where you live. A person can't live in a pigsty, and a clean room makes thinking easier." With those parting words, he left the cell. At least he had not ordered another search.

Antonius sank down on his chair, and stared blankly at Shaw's documents, wondering when this nightmare would end. A cart rolled down the corridor on rubber wheels - lunch. More MREs, probably.

The section of the indictment pertaining to aggressive war had been re-written five times by now, but Reed was still complaining that it was unclear.

"It still seems like we're accusing them of events that happened during the First Rebellion," he said, waving at the page. The indictment was more or less ready - it would be delivered in a couple of days - but there still remained awkward bits that needed to be ironed out.

"But don't we need to explain the backstory?" the young attorney doing the writing asked, taking the computer back. It had taken Mary weeks to properly equip the team with computers. "If this is all just one long war of aggression with a long period of relatively tranquil occupation in the middle, then we need to explain how and when it started."

"We do," Mary broke in, "but there is no need to list specific atrocities. List only specific actions such as the firebombing of Twelve." Mary had not been surprised to find out that around the world, nobody had even batted an eye at the destruction of Twelve. The destruction of a completely undefended semi-village semi-town from the air was part and parcel of modern war. If the prosecution succeeded, those in the elaborate hats would think twice before ordering 'bombs away'.

More confusing to the rest of the world was how Twelve could have been a province of its own with its population of ten thousand when the other Districts all had at least one city with over a million inhabitants, but Mary always stopped interviews when they strayed from the topic at hand.

"I still don't like this charge," Isabella said as she typed away on her computer. The Braille keyboard had finally arrived. They were all in the living room of the house that was now inhabited by the female attorneys from Thirteen - the billets, too, had finally arrived. She wasn't sure why they had been split by gender, as that meant everyone who was neither male nor female had to stay in their own house, but that was how things went in the rest of the world. Even as Mary enjoyed sleeping in her own bed, this meant they had to regularly meet up. "The firebombing, yes, I can agree to that, but everything else just doesn't fit. They didn't attack anyone. They cracked down on a rebellion. I do not think that the attacks on Thirteen were straightforward unprovoked aggression. By that point, Thirteen was sending out its troops all over the country."

This was not a new argument. Mary was of the opinion that Thirteen had existed as an independent city-state and had been the victim of an unprovoked attack during the first days of the conflict, when an ineffective bombing had occurred. It was also questionable if the non-aggression pact McCollum had signed nearly a century ago applied to all countries. He had sworn to not engage in aggressive war in a way that could be read as aggressive war in general, not just with the other signatories.

She did not want to rehash this, however, so she simply nodded. Now that the judges were here (even if they were forced to sleep in random houses), it was to them that all of the administrative tasks fell, but there was still plenty of nonsense for Mary to have to worry about.

Besides the judges' need of billets, there were still plenty of staff that needed to be hired, from judges' assistants to court stenographers. The Justice Building itself was still dilapidated and resembled a cross between a headquarters and a soldiers' lounge. A couple of the defendants still did not have lawyers, and the lawyers also needed a place to live, as several of them had been found in piles of rubble. A house previously rented out to students by the room had been given over for them, but not only was there not enough room there for the various assistants a few of the defendants had the money to hire, the lodgings themselves were extremely sparse and ill-furnished.

The lawyers themselves were a mixed bunch. Baer, of course, was at the top of her profession - while connections had been crucial for her rise to her former post, she had by no means been undeserving of the title. A verbal spar with her would be a delight, that much Mary already knew. Wreath, the military judge, had also been an excellent pick on Best's part. Clad in the Peacekeeper dress uniform he had been allowed to wear due to having been taken on by the navy to clear ocean pods and with a breathtaking work ethic and willingness to learn, his expertise in maritime law was growing by the day. A year ago, he had been unaware of the most elementary things about the world, but now, he was rapidly becoming an expert in what Chester Nimitz said in 1946 and why that mattered.

His hiring, of course, had been problematic - the Coast Guard had shot suspected defectors on sight and sunk neutral ships accidentally straying into Panem territorial waters. Wreath himself had sentenced people whose only crime had been trying to leave the country. But he had never passed a single death sentence - something that could not be said of the other former judges who would be lawyers in this trial.

Rankin and Madaichik had also served in the military, though they had entered civilian practice after their twenty years were up. Their records were nowhere near as good, but they were better than most, which had to count for something.

"What of Count Two?" Mary asked. "Has the draft been updated like we agreed on?" The execution of the Hunger Games was a complicated charge, almost as complicated as the others. It spanned everything from planning the Games themselves to building the Arenas.

"It has," the junior attorney said. "Should I go fetch it?"

"Not now." She needed to discuss with Reed when the trial of the Peacekeepers could begin. Judges had been found - the agreement was that the other IDC trials would be presided over by a panel of three judges plus an alternate, all from different Districts. The list of the defendants was finalized, even if its size boggled the mind, and Reed had a team chipping away at the much simpler indictment. Counts Three and Four were the easiest - a simple listing of what crime was committed when - and that was all the Peacekeepers' Trial would be concerned with.

Mary's phone rang, as it regularly did. She took the little brick out of her pocket and carefully pressed the green button. "Hello?" she said, putting it against her ear. "Mary Irons speaking."

"Hello," Trevor Hall said. "You said you wanted to meet me when I got to the Capitol?"

"I did."

"I just arrived at our house."

Mary looked at the clock. "I'm on my way," she said. Now that Hall was here, they were only waiting on the delegations from Nine and Eleven, which were both arriving tomorrow. "I need to go talk to Trevor Hall."

"Oh, he's here?" Isabella asked interestedly. As Two's chief prosecutor, she spent a lot of time with her fellows.

"He is indeed." Mary went over to the door and put on her shoes. March was almost over, so she put on a light jacket and no hat or scarf. What a delight, to be outside when spring started. The hour-long walks she had been accustomed to in Thirteen were nothing compared to being able to open your window and feel the cool breeze and the bright sun.

The prosecution had been given a group of mostly intact townhouses a forty-five minute walk from the courthouse. Some of the inhabitants were now living with uninvited guests and acting as housekeepers, others were either dead or had moved somewhere else. Mary made her way to a house where Eight's flag hung out a window. This was where the men from Eight were staying.

Mary knocked on the door, noticing that there was a couch on the porch. The houses had been quite looted, but admin had managed to dig up some creature comforts for the teams.

The door opened. "Hello," an older man said. "Why are you here?"

"I need to talk to Trevor Hall."

"Would you like some tea?"

"Of course." Mary kicked off her shoes and put on the slippers set out by the door. Each delegation had its own quirks.

An unfamiliar man who had to be Hall was standing in the corridor, clutching an embroidery hoop. He looked tired.

"Good day," Mary said, offering her hand to shake. "You must be Trevor."

"I am." They shook hands. "I believe you wanted to talk to me?"

The corridor was crowded. "Perhaps somewhere with more privacy?" Mary offered.

"Of course." Trevor led her to a small room with a rolled-up futon standing by the wall, table, small cupboard, and two unpacked suitcases. "Apologies for the lack of place to sit."

"It's no issue." Mary realized that Trevor was staring at a point on the wall, face slightly slack. "Trevor?" No response. "Mr. Hall? Are you alright? Can you hear me?"

Trevor shook his head with a sad half-smile. "I can see them," he said softly. "They're right there. They're making fun of me for having brought so much stuff. One of them's sitting on the table. They can't be more than fourteen."

He spoke with such certainty, Mary glanced over at where he was looking, almost expecting to see a group of Peacekeepers in the room with them. "If you are not yet sufficiently recovered, you can go back to the hospital," she offered. Was Trevor even capable of appearing in court or would the stress be too much?

"Oh, no, no." He shook his head and leaned against the wall. "I just thought it'd go away if I switched settings. But they're still there. Still following me." His voice cracked. "The little one's just a child. My own children are older than them."

"Mr. Hall, it wasn't not your fault."

Trevor chuckled humourlessly. "I, of all people, know that very well. It's the fault of Lux for sending child soldiers to the front lines. I killed them in battle because it was them or me - the most justified killing you can imagine. So why, then, does it hurt so much?" he exploded suddenly, throwing his hands in the air.

He was beginning to scare her. "Mr. Hall, are you capable of functioning as Eight's chief prosecutor?" Mary asked point-blank.

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"There is nothing to apologize for."

"Whatever," he said, flapping his hand. He sighed, running a hand over his face. He looked exhausted and worn-out. "I didn't mean to subject you to this. I just wanted to say that I'm working together with Tyson, Briscoe, and Waschmann, and we're making good progress." They were the chief prosecutors from Five to Seven respectively, working with Trevor on Count Two, the implementation of the Hunger Games. "However, as things stand, I will not be able to appear inside a courtroom." He paused. "I'll have to apologize to Martha for dumping my job on her." Martha Latimer was his deputy.

"There is nothing to apologize for," Mary insisted. "Her job is to fill in for you when you are indisposed, and that is precisely what she is doing."

Trevor sighed. "I suppose so. Now, a few other details. I go to therapy twice a week, and more if I need it. I know the situation here is also bad, so there won't be much flexibility there. Most of my issues I can handle independently as long as I have my own room, which I do. Though I'm afraid my colleagues will have to get used to me dragging bedding to the laundry room."

"Mr. Hall, they are used to seeing their colleagues running around the house holding up various body parts and asking whose they are. A crumpled bedsheet is nothing by comparison."

"That's not what I meant," Trevor said, not quite meeting her eye. "I knew they weren't going to make fun of me- aaah, whatever. Let's change the topic. Are there dogs in the area?"

"I seriously doubt it." In the Capitol, all the strays had been eaten during the war.

"That's good," Trevor said with visible relief. "Are there any locals who walk their dogs here?"

"No."

"Good." He said nothing after that.

"Is that all?" Trevor nodded. "Well, then, Trevor, I am very glad to meet you face-to-face for the first time. I have read your briefs and am very satisfied with their quality. Do not hesitate to ask me if you need any kind of accomodation. Have you received your supplies yet?"

"Yes. Cell phone, razor blades, all that. Martha gave me everyone's phone numbers."

"Good. I'll see you at the next meeting, then."

"I look forward to it," Trevor said seriously.

A/N: Constantine Rankin and Artemis Madaichik have Robert Servatius-esque biographies - served in the armed forces but even Mossad can't find anything too incriminating.