"Good evening," Stephen said, waving at his computer screen. It was afternoon in the Capitol, but back home, it was already getting into evening thanks to the two-hour time difference.

"Good afternoon!" Dad said. The image was clear and the sound good. They had been reluctant to do so, but Stephen had managed to prod his parents into moving out into an above-ground apartment. Odd, how much they had resisted the idea - they were farmers, they had spent more time outside than anyone else in Thirteen. And now, they didn't have to commute to work, they lived in a cluster of buildings and individual houses right by the fields.

"How are you doing?"

Mom smiled. In the background, Stephen could see bare walls and a lone cupboard. He'd have to go buy them some art to hang on the walls. "Oh, we're fine. It's a bit strange, waking up with the sun. Good thing we got those thick curtains."

It was good, that they were so cheerful. "And the routine is fine?" The inked schedules had been a thing in Thirteen for over sixty years, it would not be easy for someone that age to adjust.

"Oh, yes." Dad held up his arm, showing that he had notes jotted down on it with black marker. "We get together in the mornings and write down important things." He shook his head slightly. "Nevermind that, how are you doing, Steph? We read the newspapers this morning."

"Everything is alright."

Mom raised her eyebrows. "Do elaborate."

That had been an endless back-and-forth his entire life. Stephen could report to higher-ups, but telling his parents about his day? Too difficult.

"The key criminals have just been presented with their indictments," he said, "and I hear that the same will go for the Peacekeepers in the immediate future." The names were already known for certain, but he'd need to ask Reed Zvi for when this immediate future would occur.

Mom nodded. "What about those Gamesmakers?"

"I already said, the Gamemakers are not within my jurisdiction. I heard rumours that they are going to resume soon, but nothing more definite than that."

"That's good," Dad said. There was a pause. "Have you met anyone?"

Stephen wanted to throw his hands up in despair. How was he supposed to meet anyone when he only went off-duty to sleep, and even then he could be awoken at any moment to deal with yet another crisis? Right now, he was on duty, albeit officially dealing with paperwork. If a guard were to burst in that moment and say that he was needed, Stephen would have to cut the call short. "I don't have the time to meet anyone," he said. "Maybe once the trial gets underway, I'll have more time," he added honestly.

"Steph, you really need to hurry up," Mom chided him. "At your age, all the good men have been snapped up already. You'll be limited to widowers."

That was not where Stephen wanted the conversation to go. "And how are you doing?" he asked. "Are the raccoons still bothering you?" The people he had interrogated would have died laughing at watching him talk to his parents.

"Oh, yes," Dad said, rubbing at his face. "They eat from the garbage bins, reach the size of the bins, and then lie around everywhere. Mom discovered a whole nest of babies in a tree right next to the building - no idea what to do."

Stephen nodded along sympathetically. In the Capitol, the former nuisances had mostly been eaten by now, but he had heard about their impressive intelligence and uncanny ability to pick locks. "Have you told the building supervisor?"

"I told Dad we should make a nice coat out of them, but he didn't like the idea," Mom whispered conspiratorially. "The supervisor called in someone who's going to relocate them."

Dad sighed. "It just seems too easy, when the prey sets up a home in your own home."

Stephen didn't understand that sentiment, so he simply nodded. "I'm glad I don't have to deal with that," he said.

"How are the prisoners?"

Stephen knew from experience that they didn't actually want to know the details about who was mentally unwell and who just missed their children. "Fine," he said. "Just yesterday, we got an important witness. Quint's thirteen years old, so I put a tracking anklet on him and let him go." Before they could ask if Stephen was sure he wasn't secretly dating someone and already had the adoption papers signed, he told them about the newest struggles with Dovek.

He had always been the one to watch out for - the unquestioned leader of the key criminals. Some of the others, notably Coll and Talvian, rolled their eyes at him, but it was clear who was in charge. Just that morning, Dovek had tried to refuse to wash the floor. Stephen had put him in his place, but some of the guards encouraged such insubordinate behaviour, finding it to be amusing.

"They need to give you better guards," Mom said indignantly. "We've still got conscription here in Thirteen - where are all of them going?" Overnight, conscription had been changed to cover only those nineteen years old and not pursuing higher education. Nobody underage could enlist anymore, but those already in uniform had been grandfathered in.

"They're going to inter-District patrol," Stephen explained, "and to watching the borders. Since most of mine are content to stay where they are, I don't get anyone new." He glanced at the book he kept on his desk. At least he didn't have to worry about replacements.

Mom nodded sympathetically. "It's a shame they don't care about you."

"Well, at least you'll get some experience with teenagers," Dad said optimistically.

"What did you think of the indictment?"

Their faces fell. "It's so horrible!" Dad said, putting his hand on Mom's. "I wish we had done something earlier. It's just-" He stopped and ran a hand over his head.

Mom patted him on the shoulder. "We watched all of the movies they're showing, but this is worse. Everyone's calling for their blood."

"They'll have to wait."

Slice looked very different than in the photos he had been shown - although that went for nearly all of the key criminals. She was bald, and Miroslav wasn't sure if her haggardness was caused by her treatment or simply by the fact that she wasn't wearing any makeup, unlike in the official photographs. Miroslav waved her over to the short row of empty chairs next to the supplies being taken to the Capitol, and she hesitantly sat down. Slice was uncomfortable in the large open space, that much he could tell immediately.

First, though, the formalities. She was still reading her indictment, so Miroslav left her to it as he read his own book and turned on the recorder discreetly. It made for depressing reading. The legalistic approach being currently done was only possible thanks to the international support Panem was receiving. Beyond that, the best that could be hoped for was democratic rebuilding and a brushing of the past under the carpet.

Once Slice was done reading, she wrote 'I am not guilty of any of this' on his copy.

Remembering something Dr. Nurbeko had said once, Miroslav smiled. "Strange," he said. "I thought you'd be more unsettled by the charges of conspiracy."

Slice ran a hand over her head. "I think that there was some sort of conspiracy," she said. "I just had no part in any of that. It's absurd to imagine me conspiring with the leader of the NCIA and the Head Engineer of the Hunger Games."

"Interesting." She did have a point there. Miroslav thought for a few seconds about how to best respond. "Now, what do you think about the charges against your co-defendants?"

"I don't quite understand that bit about aggressive war," Slice said. "I get why they think that what happened after the Dark Days was an unprovoked invasion and occupation, but that ended long before any of us had any sort of meaningful role. Why did they include it when the Rebellion already fits the criteria?"

Miroslav didn't understand it himself. He closed his book, marking the page with a finger. "One of the legal historians working on the trial actually wrote a pamphlet on it," he said as he dug around in his bag and took out a small stapled booklet. Good thing he hadn't thrown it out. "Would you like to read it?"

"Of course," Slice replied, taking the pamphlet. Both of them continued to read as the hovercraft flew on. Miroslav glanced at the indictment lying next to him, wondering how everyone would react once this was released.

"A trial of the vanquished by the victors cannot, by definition, be just." - Dovek

"Revolutions always devour their own children." - Oldsmith

"This is a lie from the first word to the last." - Bright

"I was never aware of the so-called crimes I am being accused of." - Lux

"By what right am I being tried for having done my job in accordance with the law?" - Cotillion

"I had nothing to do with any of this." - Blatt

"It is preposterous to accuse a District person of crimes against the Districts." - Verdant

"I cannot believe it has come to this." - Best

"To indict someone of my rank sets a worrisome precedent. Is every NCO now liable for the orders they carry out - and is obedience now a capital crime?" - Krechet

"There are people with my former position in every country, and by putting me on trial, the new government will discredit its own internal security apparatus." - Talvian

"How can a businessperson be liable for having run a business?" - Chaterhan

"I see reason behind all of these accusations." - Blues

"There is not a single word of truth in this document, and I refuse to give it legitimacy by engaging with it." - Lark

"For a soldier, orders are orders." - Thread

"Is this some kind of bad joke?" - Ledge

"This is preposterous. I was just a deputy. A deputy cannot be held accountable for the actions of their boss." - Brack

"This is a mere attempt to pretty up summary justice. The verdicts and sentences are already known." - Dijksterhuis

"To accuse us of deeds that had been de facto legal for seventy-five years violates the most elementary legal precepts. How can one raised in a society turned upside-down know which way is truly up?" - Pollman

"It does not bode well for society if a legitimate job becomes a crime the very next day." - Toplak

"The accusations against me are fabrications, pure and simple. There is no proof of any of them." - Kirji

"Each accusation is more absurd than the previous." - Lee

"This trial is necessary." - Coll

"To accuse us of unlawful punishments and then cook up this is nothing but hypocrisy." - Grass

"I am not guilty of any of this." - Slice

Miroslav wondered if he was perhaps seeing things. He had always kept abreast of the developments in the Capitol, he had known about some of these people for years and years, and now - this? Was he hallucinating? Or did he need hallucinogens to gain a proper understanding of the situation? He put the indictment in his bag and focused on his book, wondering if his own book about this would even be believed.

Sometimes, Leon was sent to do other jobs around the archive. Today, he was shelving documents. He walked back and forth across the large room, placing labelled folders on labelled shelves. He pushed a cart across the carpeted floor, wincing when it squeaked.

It was insane to think about what kind of country he had lived in this entire time. Leon had flipped through the indictment and nearly dropped dead from horror. Famine killing millions because the regime did nothing to help anyone? The new government should have just lined all of them up and shot them. The Districts would probably just use it as an excuse to blame the Capitol for everything. Everyone had stopped discussing the hyperinflation (three hundred percent in a week was a new low), focusing on the atrocities instead.

Leon placed binders on a shelf one by one. Paper records from a District Peacekeepers HQ, each binder ordered. Out of idle curiosity, Leon opened one to a random page. It was a list of hostages executed after someone had defected from a border town in One.

14/01/72 security operation (the disappearance of Azurite Cortes, 20)

Glimmer Capriles (18)

Juana Castiles (20)

Claudia Gonzalez (19)

Angelina Mendez (19)

Angela Pilar (21)

Maria Rask (20)

Maria Rodriguez (21)

Rosa Shaverin (20)

Ana Smythe (19)

Ruby Vaughn (18)

Who had this Azurite Cortes been, to not have any loved ones who could be taken hostage? Had these girls and women been her friends? Colleagues? Total strangers who had had the bad luck to be from the same town as a defector who had nobody?

Feeling uncomfortable, Leon closed the binder and put it on the shelf. Reading this kind of stuff made him feel guilty for some reason. He hadn't killed or hurt anyone, he was as nice to District people as he was to anyone else, and he hadn't even known about the hostages, but he still felt bad. Gritting his teeth, Leon took another binder and put it on the shelf. None of this was his fault. If anything, he had had more in common with workers in One than with the government that had been behind all of these crimes!

He hadn't even known about it, but he still felt guilty. This was so stupid. Leon opened up another binder. As luck had it, it was the records of another execution.

28/07/74 Liquidation of Rebel cell

Tamara Yulai (77)

Vincenzo Flores (56)

Rebecca Flores (54)

Shine Flores (34)

Walter Lehman (34)

Angel Lehman (14)

Esperanza Lehman (10)

Diamond Lehman (7)

Jade Lehman (2)

It didn't require much thinking to realize that an entire family had been wiped out in the course of minutes. Yulai, her child and child-in-law, granddaughter and grandson-in-law, and four great-grandchildren. Gone. Leon wondered how their relatives had found out. Did Yulai have other children? Did her child's spouse have siblings? Did Walter Lehman have parents still living when their son had been shot for alleged rebellion?

Leon wasn't sure if finding out that none of them had been rebels at all would have made it easier. What was worse - a two-year-old child murdered for no reason, or a two-year-old child murdered because their parents had printed leaflets, or because their sibling had drawn slogans on fences?

At the time of the execution, Leon had been at the factory. How could anyone blame him for this? He hadn't ever done anything other than live his life. He hadn't benefited from the regime - hostages had been taken at the factory and he had seen executions. But wasn't he from the Capitol? But so what that he was? There had been no difference between him and the executed youths from One. It had been all the propaganda saying that there was a difference. Still, though, hadn't life been easier in the Capitol? But for whom? The rich? The rich lived easily everywhere. Maybe his life had been easier than that of an average unskilled worker. And so? That wasn't something to be happy about.

What a mess.

And his brother dared say that the IDMTs were kangaroo courts. When the trial began, he'd slap Marcellus over the head with this. Yes, there had never been justice in Panem. Yes, the usual regime change had been by show trials. But it did not have to be this way. It would not be this way this time. The people who would be taking their seats in the dock within a matter of weeks would be just where they deserved to be. Marcellus really needed to readjust his priorities. They needed to stand together with their fellows, not stick up for a tiny handful of formerly powerful people who had only ever spat on them.

Even the lesser criminals were all aware of the text of the indictment by now. Janie could hear them discuss it in low voices as they ate. Not like she could blame them. Snow had basically just been accused of the Games, and the same had gone for the Gamemakers. But the key criminals were being full-on accused of literally everything. No wonder they were stressed.

Rumour had it that the Peacekeepers would also be indicted very soon. Several of them were sitting in a bunch close to where Janie was standing.

"Invasion?" one of them asked. They were all wearing grey prison jumpsuits. Unlike the civilians, they looked natural in the shapeless outfits. "How's that make any sense?"

Another one nodded. "Not for us, it doesn't. Whoever it was to order those firebombs - yeah, screw them. But we didn't invade anyone. We were attacked!" He waved his spoon around. "They were the ones who rose up in the first place!"

Janie had actually had the entire thing explained to her by a guard who liked to read history books. A long-ass time ago, the president who had been there before Snow and a bunch of other countries had promised each other that they wouldn't attack anyone. So when the Districts rose up and were basically occupied, that was technically going against that promise. According to the historians, the Districts hadn't been officially occupied, but they had been treated that way. On top of that, the firebombing of Twelve was an unprovoked act of aggression, which fell smack into the definition of crimes against peace, according to the books.

In the meanwhile, the Peacekeepers moved on to complaining about the weather. They should have been grateful they were even allowed outside. The key criminals would probably have danced with joy if they were allowed to stand in a downpour.

"This is such bullshit," the first Peacekeeper sighed. She was a broad-shouldered older woman. "I know the military higher-ups don't like it any more than we do. It's all hypocrisy, pure and simple. As if they never had to do anything bad!"

"Yeah," the second one agreed. "Like those bombs they dropped on the kids. Coin was no better than Snow."

Given what the indictment had written and given that they were under arrest waiting for trial, Janie could only laugh at that. Usually, when people said bullshit like that, she got angry, but the more wrong the prisoners, the funnier it was. Go ahead, spew your nonsense! We'll see who's laughing when you're being taken to the gallows!

A third Peacekeeper leaned towards them. "Yeah, right," he said. "That's bullshit. Nobody ever went hungry in Thirteen."

The first one seemed to crumple at that. "Then why'd they do nothing for so long?" she asked quietly, poking at her food. "I wouldn't have enlisted if my family had been able to feed all of us."

Janie wondered if she would have enlisted, had that been an option. She probably would have. Peacekeepers hadn't needed to grind and nixtamalize their own corn. And if Snow had been overthrown when this Peacekeeper was fifteen, would she have been one of those underage veterans nobody blamed for their crimes? Or what about the other way around? If it had taken fifty more years for the Rebellion to win, would those adolescents have become mass murderers and shoo-ins for the noose? It seemed like it was all a question of timing.

The conversation had by now shifted to everyone's health problems. They sounded like her relatives. Would they have been like her relatives if they had been born in Six?

Thinking about that just made Janie feel weird. Was being good or bad just a matter of where you were born? It didn't seem very fair.

But no. There had been deserters and defectors in the Peacekeepers, a whole bunch of them in fact. They had been born in the same place and time as these ones, but they hadn't been willing to commit crimes. That made Janie feel a little bit better about herself, but now, she wondered why some people went along with things and some didn't.

On his walk around the Justice Building perimeter, Stephen saw a disturbing sight he still wasn't used to. Two of his fourteen-year-old guards were strolling along with sloppily made up civilians of the same age on their arms. Fourteen-year-old soldiers hiring fourteen-year-old prostitutes was wrong on so many levels, Stephen couldn't count them.

"...And that's how I took out that machine-gun nest," one of them finished bragging. She had a large scar on her cheek.

"So brave," her companion said breathily, his voice cracking.

The kids tried to imitate their older comrades in everything, including sex. Stephen worried about how these sorts of transactional relationships would affect their later relationships, but there was nothing he could do. Getting the key criminals to stop hamstering away anything they could get their hands on would be easier than convincing adolescents to stop having sex, especially when it was so easily available.

Stephen winced as the other prostitute leaned over to kiss the boy-soldier on the cheek. He knew full well that this sort of clientele was a much better option than the sort of adults who liked to prey on children, but the mere fact that fourteen-year-olds were selling themselves made him want to tear out his hair by the roots.

Hold on a second. The two guards had duty in a few minutes - they must have been coming back from their break - but the way they were walking betrayed the fact that they were not sober. Stephen slipped out of the shadows and stood in front of the foursome. The guards saluted, if a bit unsteadily.

"What is the meaning of this?" Stephen asked evenly. "Are you not aware that you have duty in seven minutes?"

"Um, we're back in time, lieutenant," one of them replied.

"That is not what I meant and you know it. Report to my office once your shift is over." They would be in the yard watching the witnesses take their exercise, so if they could speak clearly, it would be better to just have them do their job.

"Yes, lieutenant!" they chorused sadly.

Children. Individuals under the age of sixteen could not be prosecuted for war crimes or crimes against humanity, which meant that a disproportionate amount of Peacekeeper witnesses would be of that age. Unlike their older counterparts, they were willing to volunteer information about acts of mass violence they themselves had participated in. And one was running down the street towards Stephen right now.

Quint stopped and saluted.

"You're not in the army anymore," Stephen reminded him.

Quint shrugged. "I'm back," he said. "When's dinner?"

When Stephen had been told he'd be promoted to warden of the Lodgepole Justice Building jail, he hadn't thought that would involve babysitting. He checked his watch. "Half an hour."

"Thanks!" Quint dashed off up the stairs.

Stephen resumed his perimeter walk.

After finishing talking to her family, Rye trudged upstairs. The house was becoming more decorated every time she looked up - already, there were cheap paintings hanging on the walls. Who had found them and where was a mystery.

In her room, Hudson was already sitting on her bed, though the other prosecutor wasn't sleeping. "What do you think about my new socks?" she asked.

"They look warm." The house was very poorly heated. Rye and Hudson were both wearing thick socks, sweaters, and tracksuit bottoms.

Hudson nodded. "They are." She closed her laptop and sighed. "Did I tell you I've never used a laptop before?"

"Multiple times." Team members from more rural regions had never seen computers before at all.

"How's your family?"

Rye kicked off her slippers and went through her shelves, looking for clean clothing. "My siblings are fretting."

"Older siblings' prerogative."

"And the worst thing is, I can't complain, because I'm fretting worse over my own children."

Hudson laughed out loud. She put away her laptop and reached for a book on the history of international law. Since so much of the trial was being cribbed off ancient international processes, it made sense to brush up on that. "And how are the little ones?"

"Not very little. Billie's chomping at the bit to get back to university, Mitch hopes that school will take a very long time to resume, and Flora is more interested in watching soccer."

"She'd fit right in with Carver, Feng, and Jinwe." During Rye's videocall, she had had to put up with Carver shouting at the players that she could have done a better job. And Jinwe actually played soccer, so she had tried to analyze the situation despite being unable to understand what was going on, because the commentary was in Swahili.

"Only if they agree to not discuss their spouses when she's in the room," Rye said, grabbing a T-shirt at random.

"Did you know that the first international tribunal was in 1474?" Hudson asked.

"Unfortunately, yes." The trio of historical assistants were in truth historical nuisances.

"And did you know that-"

Rye fled to the bathroom as Hudson laughed.

The bathroom was the same as the ones in her own house, if maybe a hair bigger. Rye hung up her clean clothes on a rack with two towels, undressed, and tossed the dirty clothes into a hamper. The washing machine was in the basement.

Rye turned the water to hot and leaned against the wall, waiting for it to heat up. This bathroom was not accessible - Carver would have needed to learn to fly to get into the tub. The one in the basement, however, was. Jinwe said it was because the old owner had had mobility issues but only one bathroom could have been converted for free.

The water heated up. Rye stepped under the hot stream, wondering what her family had thought about the indictment. They had danced around the issue when she had asked, probably not wanting to talk about such things in front of Mitch and Flora. She'd have to call Barrow directly and ask him how things were going.

"'Vengeance is not our goal, nor do we seek merely a just retribution.' How does that sound?" Mary asked Joe.

Joe took a sip of tea and shrugged. "Sounds like a quote to me."

"That's because it is." A while back, Mary had asked the historians for three key concepts or phrases from previous trials of such malefactors. Dr. Nurbeko had offered that line. Dr. Blueroot had told her to warn the tribunal that if justice failed, vigilantism would appear on the scene, and Dr. Lee had just told her to avoid purple prose. "What do you think of it?"

"What do you seek, then?"

"We ask the Tribunal for one thing - to affirm the right of people, regardless of their background or place of residence, to live in dignity and to not have their rights limited because of where they happened to be born." It had taken some effort to wrangle that quote into contemporary relevance.

Joe nodded contemplatively. "Might need some polishing. Did you just add that?"

"It took me a while to figure out where it would fit." With some difficulty, the prosecutors had managed to agree on who would be presenting what. Mary would simply cover all of the charges in her opening statement, leaving for the others only brief introductions when they began to present their material. "I'll rephrase it some more, of course, I'm not going to plagiarize."

Joe took another sip of tea. They were in her 'home office', a small room in the house that had been used as an office by the previous owner, a prosecutor of some fame, who currently resided in the basement and did most of the chores around the house. "My family read the indictment," he said.

"And?" His family had been fervent 'if not Snow, who else?' and 'terrorists want to bring back the Dark Days' pessimists.

"They say we're wasting time when we should have lined them up and shot them."

Mary chuckled. There was no trust in the legal system in Panem. Despite all of the effort that was going into making Depuration tribunals as fair as they could be, there was still that innate desire to solve problems violently. Like an abused child who solved all of their conflicts with their fists.

A country, however, could not be placed in therapy. Mary wished the trial could start as soon as possible. Wounds needed to be cleaned and bandaged immediately. This delay would let them scab over before ripping them apart all over again.

"Unfortunately for them, Norris isn't Coin, and neither is Bensoussan." Willow Norris, Thirteen's new governor, had spent decades feuding with Coin and had never been afraid to be open about it.

Joe shook his head. "No, they hate Coin, for the most part. It's that nonsense with those final Hunger Games that did it." Mary still wondered why Coin had been so willing to alienate people like Joe. "My uncle is moving to Eleven, by the way."

Keeping track of Joe's family was impossible. People had large families in the Capitol. Mary and her three siblings were considered a large family back home and an average one here. "Is that the widower of the aunt who thought the Games were a good thing?"

"No, he was her brother-in-law."

Mary tried to imagine that family tree and failed. Did he mean that aunt had been an aunt by marriage? Or was he using 'uncle' to refer to an older male relative who wasn't actually his uncle? "Why Eleven?"

Joe shrugged and looked inside his mug. "Offered a position that pays well. Plus I think he hasn't gotten over my aunt's death yet."

He wasn't the only one moving around - the population of Twelve was already an order of magnitude bigger than before. "Good for him," she said. She checked the clock - almost time to go to sleep. Just enough time to go through that paragraph and see how it fit in with the others. Spotting a minor grammar error, Mary corrected it in pencil before reading the segment to Joe for the tenth time that evening.

The entire world was abuzz. After seventy-five years of silence, they finally knew the full truth about what had gone on in the world's most secretive country. Thumeka's stories were on the front page in Zimbabwe, and she wasn't the only one with that distinction.

"Strange, that we lived next door to this and didn't suspect a thing," Sokanon Rope said. The correspondent from Ottawa leaned against the balcony railings. The tiny handful of them who weren't interested in going out tended to congregate on this balcony in the evenings.

"I suppose we suspected," Thumeka conceded. She was sitting in an armchair with her feet on a cushion, scrolling through various space-related social media to remind herself that it wasn't all crimes against humanity in the world. There were also astronauts trying to play catch in space, a probe on Mercury, and the nigh-immortal Voyager 1 drifting away silently into the void, no communication possible. "The defectors' tales were horrible enough. But this is worse than all of the defectors put together."

"We should have done something."

"Done what?" Thumeka tapped her fingers on the smooth wood of the railing, which was already covered in carvings such as 'Iosif was here' and 'DM + SW' in all of the alphabets and writing systems of the world. "Attack Panem? Who's ever heard of attacking a country because of what it was doing to its own citizens? Especially when that country had nuclear weapons?" Thumeka said the last two words in a whisper. Even someone as worldly as her didn't like mentioning the topic.

Rope shook her head. "What about us? When I was little, all we talked about was if Panem would invade this year."

She had a point - the lack of support North American countries had received was an outrage. "If they had invaded, then they'd have been destroyed," Thumeka said confidently. "No country would have been willing to watch its economic interests attacked."

"Cynical," Rope said with a chuckle.

"If I was cynical, I wouldn't have volunteered for this assignment."

Rope chuckled again, saying nothing. As they stood there in silence, Thumeka did a mental calculation. It was ten at night here, which meant that it was five in the morning there. Yemurai would be waking up soon. Good thing her wife was a morning person - Thumeka didn't have that much free time for calls.

"This is completely crazy," Thumeka said. "Sometimes I feel that the entire last year was just a particularly strange dream." The indictment had revealed new depths to which humanity could sink to, but the fact that there was an indictment at all was a pleasant surprise.

"Same." Rope tapped her fingers against a carving of a heart. "Or that it was the past century that was a nightmare. Can you believe that Panem is a fledgling democracy again? After so long?"

Panem had once been a fledgling democracy; its death throes had been the beginning of the Dark Days as the various opposition movements had become violent militias out of a lack of any other options. The very last sitting of the pre-regime Congress, where it had voted 410-24 to dissolve itself, had been the signal for open war. There, Michael Ji had led the social-democratic Blue Party in a unanimous refusal to vote for the final nail in the coffin of democracy before managing to flee to Thirteen; Thumeka had learned English from his speech.

...You can take my life, you can take my freedom, you can wipe our names from history until nobody knows that there ever was a Blue Party. But as no amount of death can destroy life itself, you will never destroy freedom. Even as you detain and repress, it calls out - 'I am, I was, I will be!' Never think that you and what you build are immortal.

Ji had died forty years ago as a refugee. But he had been right.

"Stranger things have happened," Thumeka said with a shrug.

"She's here!"

For a second, Stephen had no idea who he was and what was happening, but by the time he had gotten out of bed, he was fully alert.

Slice was finally here.

"Thank you for alerting me," he said to Tiller, who had night shift today. Stephen checked his watch - four in the morning. He had slept fully dressed, knowing that he'd have to get up in a few hours in any case. From his table, he picked up his helmet, which was now shiny. He and Tiller had gotten their helmets covered in a layer of shellac someone had found somewhere to make them more distinctive. "I'm off."

Stephen made his way to the intake corridor, where a youthful woman who was probably in her mid-forties but looked fifteen or sixteen on first sight was standing cuffed to a guard. Slice was nearly bald and looked exhausted and hungry. She wore a Thirteen jumpsuit and stood stiffly; her posture made Stephen suspect that she had been placed in a torture cell. Stephen had talked to a few of his former coworkers, and they claimed that the practice was still in use, if being phased out. An outrage, that they still hadn't gotten rid of that completely useless practice.

There was something else that got his attention about the way she was standing. Stephen suspected that she was deliberately trying to look as harmless as possible, slightly slouched, head tilted up, feet together, hands folded in front of her. Or was that just instinct? If she had been taken here from a torture cell, she was probably expecting more of the same.

"Hello," Stephen said. "I am Lieutenant Vance, or Warden Vance to you. Now, we'll just get you settled in, you can have breakfast, and then you can go talk to your lawyer." At last, Baer would stop sending complaints to the judges, as if they had any control over bringing people in from Thirteen.

At that, a flicker of surprise passed over Slice's face. Whatever self-control she must have had as a propagandist, it was all gone by now thanks to the work of his less discerning colleagues. "Wait, I'm getting a lawyer?" she asked incredulously as they set off down the corridor.

"Of course. Can't have a trial with no defense lawyers," Stephen said, trying for a little bit of levity. Her thin face gave her a childish appearance, one not evident in her older photographs. Slice had been starved. "Now, this is your cell block," he said as they passed through the gate. The guards were doing an excellent job of pretending they weren't wishing to be curled up under a blanket with someone attractive. "Someone will be around with breakfast soon. It'll be leftovers from yesterday, I'm afraid, it's still too early for breakfast, but I hope you'll find it satisfactory."

With that, Stephen went to go tell someone in the kitchen to bring up some leftovers for her. The senior staff had all received sweet buns for dinner - he'd have to send one up for Slice. An extra couple hundred calories would do her only good.

For over a week, at work, the only talk was of the indictment. At home, Leon avoided talking to anyone. For the first time, he dreaded his day off - and all of a sudden, it arrived.

Leon woke up a little bit later than his usual time and lay around in bed for half an hour until he was fully awake. He walked to the kitchen just in time to wave goodbye to Dad, who was setting off to go wash dishes in that restaurant where he worked. Since it was so close to the Lodgepole Justice Building, it was frequented by trial staff, so they now joked that both Dad and Leon were working on the trial.

Not having anything better to do, Leon turned on Mom's computer and checked the news. He tried to focus on the good news about the Panem dollar. The new Minister of Finance, a onetime functionary in that ministry and a defector of fourteen years, had been able to stabilize the exchange rate. It was a massive relief to have an end to the addition of zeroes to prices, even if Marcellus was complaining that the stabilization and redenomination had made everyone poorer. Leon had heard the neighbours joking about it yesterday.

Who made the dollar stable?

That was all Dr. Able!

Before, rhyming couplets and ditties about politicians had been insulting, and told exclusively in whispers where the neighbours couldn't hear. But things were different now. Ministers were actually doing their job properly. Leon wondered if Dr. Gaia Able was aware of how different she was from her predecessor, who was listed in the just-released indictment.

Unfortunately, Marcellus was right - Mom's salary was now worth less. Unable to make sense of his emotions, Leon instead half-heartedly poked through articles about the indictment, making sure to not check the comments. Surveys showed that 85% of the Capitol approved of the trial, but the other 15% did most of the commenting. Which part Marcellus was in was unclear. It seemed sometimes that his brother just wanted to complain about things.

Leon decided to read about something else and instantly regretted it. One of today's biggest stories was an article about a corner store in Whitewillow, a municipality not that far away, which had enslaved illegal migrants from the villages on the outskirts for ten years. Ten were still alive and had just been freed. Before, Leon had had a vague understanding that those who came from the towns and villages outside the Capitol proper without a travel permit did so at massive risk, but he had thought only of extremely low wages and the prospect of arrest or even execution, not of literal enslavement. Reading the rest of the article soured his mood further. According to the author, people had sold themselves into slavery or been lured in under false pretenses all over the country. Peacekeepers had taken bribes to ignore it or even supplied the slaves themselves.

There was a link to another article on a similar topic. A farmer in Eleven whose wife had died did not want to use hired hands to help him manage the household, instead putting out a false advertisement on the nearby latifundia, and when someone agreed, locked her up in an outbuilding and forced her to herd sheep for nearly twenty years with no pay. He now claimed she had voluntarily signed up to work for room and board, but the fact remained that when she tried to escape fifteen years ago, he had called in the Peacekeepers to bring her back.

A part of Leon wanted to shrug and say - well, that's Panem for you. Another was full of righteous triumph at the thought of Lux, Bright, and Thread in the dock. Maybe nothing would happen to the people who had preyed on the most vulnerable all over the country, but the organizers of the system would pay.

Seven in the morning - time to make breakfast. They had gotten into a routine. Mom and Marcellus picked up rations, since they had the time. Dad and Leon brought whatever they could from work. Yesterday, Dad had organized a carton of eggs from the restaurant, so they'd be eating that today.

Leon set a pot of water to boil. Hot water, so it boiled faster. Utilities had been fixed in their neighbourhood - buildings had been heavily damaged not too far away, but the underground pipes had escaped. Other neighbourhoods were completely unfit for habitation. Leon hadn't been to Lodgepole for a while now, but he doubted it was looking any better than before.

While the eggs boiled, Leon opened up a can of mixed vegetables and split it up three ways into three bowls. The most for Marcellus, because he was on his feet all day at work. Less for Leon, because this was his day off. And a smaller portion for Mom, who spent her day sitting around on top of having a lower caloric requirement.

The same went for the small can of meat, which he carefully split into thirds, careful to scrape out every last bit out of the can and then lick it clean. The empty cans went into the box with the other empty cans. The box was overflowing, they'd need to go sell it to the recycling soon. Even pennies counted.

The eggs finished boiling. Leon turned off the stove and fished the eggs out of the pot with a spoon. There were five - two for Leon, two for Marcellus, one for Mom. He put them in a bowl in the middle of the table. Then, he got the cutlery. Before, Leon had never liked sitting down and eating breakfast with his family, because it took precious time that could have been spent sleeping, but it was nice to spend some time with Mom and Marcellus on his day off.

The sound of a door opening meant Marcellus was awake. A few minutes later, they were sitting around the table, eating. "Have we paid for utilties yet?" Leon asked Mom.

"I did, yesterday." She finished peeling her egg and bit off half. "This is so much better than that powdered stuff."

"You got any plans for this afternoon?" Marcellus asked him.

Leon nodded. "I was thinking we could get you those shoes you need."

"That'd be nice." His brother sounded sour about something, as always. Even the good things annoyed him for some reason. Marcellus cut up his eggs with his spoon and mixed them together with the meat and vegetables. He then placed the mush onto a piece of bread and rolled it up.

It felt strange, to have nothing to do. After breakfast, Marcellus went to work. One of his classes had a test today, so he was looking forward to having that hour to sit around and relax. Mom went to her computer and started hopping between the code she was writing and soccer news.

If only they had another computer! But even with no more inflation (and what a relief that was, Leon had almost forgotten what it was like to be able to save), it would take a very long time to save up for it, and Leon didn't want to pay for a computer cafe. The weather was good, so he got dressed and went to scout out the black market. Shoes cost a massive amount of clothes cards, and Marcellus needed something to wear other than his heavy boots.

At the market, Leon walked around the cluster of shoe kiosks for a while. While goods had resurfaced in shops almost overnight once the currency was stable, plenty of vendors couldn't afford to rent a real place, and thus were stuck squatting on street corners like they always have. He found a few possible options before his legs began to get tired. He really needed to sit down, but there was nothing for him to do sitting down. He had nobody to talk to and nothing to do, and at the rate things were going, it would be months before he could afford a black-market computer.

Leon took the streetcar to the Lodgepole Justice Building. Documents were often sent for photocopying by the boxful, so he had the chance to get copies of photographs Meersten would hopefully appreciate. Leon only had two today, he had been meaning to save up more, but it wasn't like he had a better use of his time until Marcellus got off work. Plus, the Lodgepole black market was much better. The fleet-footed Hermes by far overshadowed Themis in that municipality.

On the streetcar, the conversation was exclusively about the indictment. Everyone could agree that the noose was too good for them, but they didn't agree on the details.

"Only twenty-four?" one person behind him said. "And what about everyone else? Those crowds cheering the Games?"

Leon grit his teeth. What did this person think he should have done - drop dead?

"You can't indict a crowd," someone else parried. Leon noticed that they had the same accent. "And didn't you notice how democratic everyone is now? No revanchism, no anything. Guess the crowds were more interested in getting the NCIA off their backs."

The first person huffed. "So they just switch over to being good citizens and everything is forgotten?"

"Exactly," the second person said. "That's how it works. Most people just go with the flow. As if we ever did anything to fight back!"

"You can't compare the two-"

"Yes I can," the second person said as Leon mentally cheered them on. They weren't exactly right, but they were definitely more right than the first one. "You were literally a civil servant. And you know as well as I do that kids missing a leg were never Reaped. Do you really think you were in any way, shape, or form worse off than a working-class Capitolian?"

The first person huffed for a while. "Still doesn't seem right with me to let the Capitol off the hook," they grumbled.

In front of Leon, a different conversation was taking place. Three people were discussing the charge of aggressive war. Leon didn't really care one way or another there, so he listened to it without feeling anything. Up ahead, someone was haranguing the driver about victors' justice.

Arguing politics on the streetcar. Before, that would have been suicide. It was crazy, how things changed Leon had never imagined could be any different. People liking the government. People speaking their minds openly.

Before, Marcellus had whispered in the kitchen and bit his tongue when anyone was around. Now, he freely argued with anyone and everyone. Maybe that was a good thing, too.

A/N: Apologies if this is rough, I edited this while listening to news from the front (I'm originally from Belarus, so very concerned about Ukraine).

The three historians' instructions for Mary are as follows: Chee, of course, decided to quote Ben Ferencz - that line is from the opening statement at the Einsatzgruppen trial. Latreya is worried about a situation like with her 'problematic fave' Talaat Pasha, who was killed by an Armenian. She doesn't want vigilante attacks because it's a total mess and could result in an innocent person being killed by mistake or for personal reasons. And Decius just doesn't want Barry Keenan-style purple prose.

'I am, I was, I will be' is a famous quote penned by Rosa Luxemburg shortly before her murder.

Whether the crowds were really only motivated by getting the NCIA off their backs is very doubtful.