A/N: Same disclaimer as last time: this was edited while watching the news from the front, please forgive any errors.

"And how is your granddaughter?" Miroslav asked, putting down his pencil and shaking out his hand.

"She's doing fine," Sae Davidson said. There was a pause. "Actually, she's calling me right now. Do you-"

"Of course, of course," Miroslav said. "Till next week!"

"Have a good one, Doctor Miroslav!"

Miroslav ended the call, dropped the phone on the receiver, and sighed. What he wanted to do most of all was throttle that idiotic judge who had thought that sending a mentally ill teenager to the ruins of her home was a good idea, but there wasn't much he could do now. The judge had thought she was doing Everdeen a kindness by allowing her to go home - Miroslav's description of her as a traumatized teenager who needed help and support had backfired there.

She still wasn't responding to his phone calls. Fortunately, Sae checked up on her regularly, and could report to Miroslav. Things weren't going too well. They were stable, which was the best one could say for them. There were therapists in Twelve, but they were already overloaded. Miroslav would need to go complain again. This was an outrage. He reread his notes a few times before filing them. Not much he could do, when he was being dragged around from juvenile court to the key criminals and back.

Sighing again, Miroslav rubbed at his face and checked the time. Seven in the morning. He took a sip of long-cool coffee and stared out the window, wondering if he should call his parents. One glance at the paperwork he needed to do convinced him of the wisdom of that decision. He picked up the phone and dialed.

"Hello?" That was Dad on the line.

"Hey," Miroslav said.

"Miroslav! How nice of you to call us!" Miroslav winced. He had been meaning to call for ages, but something had always come up. "How are things?"

"Things are fine. How's Biljana?" Miroslav supposed it didn't say anything good about him that he could forget about his own child for days at a time. He really needed to do better.

Dad chuckled. "Grew another five centimetres since your visit. When are you going to call her? Rhododendron at least calls every day."

"Rody doesn't have to work sunup to sundown," Miroslav tried to defend himself. His wife was also a psychologist, but she worked on a military base in Two, and her schedule was slightly saner than his. "It's seven where I am, and I've been up for hours!" He paused. "Enough about me. How are you doing?"

"Mom and I are doing fine," Dad said. "Same old, same old. Biljana's outside. How are your charges?"

"Fine."

The door opened, and Mallow walked in. The psychiatrist from Eleven looked, as always, exhausted.

"Uh, sorry, I have something I need to do," Miroslav said.

Dad sighed. "Of course. Bye."

"Bye." Miroslav put down the receiver. "How are things?" he asked his colleague. The psychiatrist from Eleven had her bag slung over her shoulder, as always.

"Do you mind if I give you an IQ test?" she asked. "I haven't done one in ages, and I need to test the key criminals."

That was far from the strangest request he had heard so far. "Of course." Miroslav pushed aside the papers crowding his table - the two of them kept careful notes on the key criminals, planning to write a paper on them eventually - and motioned her over.

Instead of writing about Krechet's personality as he had planned, Miroslav ended up spending the morning getting his IQ checked. "One hundred and twenty-two," Mallow eventually said after finishing calculating the score. "That's in the ninety-second percentile."

Having a university education did tend to be good for one's IQ. Back during that conference in Iqaluit, he had met a researcher from Kazakhstan who studied how much one could improve their IQ scores. Dr. Yehya Sabri had actually called Miroslav yesterday, making him feel like a real researcher with connections all over the world.

"Good to know," Miroslav said. "Did you adjust it for age?"

"You're only forty-two."

"True." He paused, trying to think of something to say. "I'm going to go on my rounds in the witness wing now. Who are you going to start with?"

Mallow shrugged. "In order of indictment. Simpler that way."

Thumeka often forgot how big the Capitol was - until she wanted to go to a town on the outskirts, and realized that it would take literal days to cover that distance on foot. She sat on her bunk, ear protection on, and scrolled through a map on her computer.

What she wanted was to get mood reports from different parts of the Capitol and compare them. The city proper was different from the villages and the various municipalities were like cities unto themselves, but the mood reports currently being published mentioned only 'the Capitol.' But it was not what Thumeka was supposed to do today.

Thumeka had two tasks this week. One was an article on the Institute for Genetic Research. There was a new spike of interest in the institution after the publication of the indictment - deliberate manipulation of embryos to give them birth defects? Kidnapping people with no loved ones from prisons and hospitals to experiment on them until they died? The mind boggled at the list of crimes being laid at Cotillion's feet, and that was just a small sample. But that would be later. Today, Thumeka was to go with two others to a prison and write about the changes in the penitentiary system.

Thumeka checked the weather forecast. Decent temperature, overcast, slight wind. The new arrivals thought that ten degrees was by no means 'decent', but Thumeka was used to it by now. She got off her bunk and pulled off her ear protection, and was immediately assailed by the chatter in the room. Thumeka got dressed for the weather - thin shoes, a sweater, and a windbreaker. She made sure her phone was charged and set off for the porch to wait.

She knew of both journalists. Tabara Salaam was a Kenyan renowned for her coverage of hot spots, and Omar Soumba was from the CAR, an international authority on Western Europe, and had won international fame with his book recounting how he spent two years in a concentration camp before an agreement was reached to free him. Thumeka felt an acute case of impostor syndrome as she greeted them and they set off for the streetcar.

"Makwetu, how good is your English?" Salaam asked with some trepidation in Swahili, the language they had in common. Both journalists were about her age. Salaam wore her hair in short braids and Soumba had his cropped as short as Thumeka's, but he was starting to go bald.

"Fluent. And you can call me Thumeka." They boarded the dilapidated streetcar and crammed themselves against the wall, wary of the pickpockets who would have been drawn by the foreign language.

"That's great," she said with some relief. "And same - call me Tabara."

"Ditto," Omar said. "I've picked up some French and German here and there, but I don't know any English."

"English overlaps with both."

Omar smiled slightly. "That's how I convinced my superiors that I was the person for this assignment." He looked out the window, face lengthening. "It'll be nice to cover things getting better after the war."

"It's thanks to our governments that they're getting better," Tabara said sourly. "I've read your articles, Thumeka. Can't believe you spent twenty years demanding aid for Panem only for them to have to liberate themselves."

Thumeka wanted to protest that she was only thirty-five but then she remembered that her activism had begun in her early teens. "I'm flattered you know so much about me," she said uneasily, cringing at the thought of her first 'published articles', page-long rants posted on the early Web.

Tabara shrugged. "Anyone who not only knows that Austria and Switzerland exist but doesn't mix them up is somebody worth looking into, in my book."

Thumeka chuckled at that, feeling a little bit more comfortable. They continued to talk on and off as they arrived at the train station, took the train to a town three hours on the beaten-up tracks away, and hitched a ride in a horse-drawn wagon to the prison when it turned out the bus was broken and couldn't be repaired even with a bribe.

"This always happens," the driver (or whatever the correct term was) said phlegmatically. "Last year, during the spring mud time, the ambulance couldn't get through the mud, so I had to take a woman giving birth in the place you're going to to the paramedic-midwife station on my cart. We would have used a tractor like we usually do in such cases, but it so happened that we couldn't get one quickly enough."

"That's horrible," Thumeka said.

"It's life. Always been this way." The driver was missing half her teeth and had a badly weather-worn face. "We just make our way through it, bit by bit."

"And all this, so people back home can read an article and be glad they don't live here," Omar muttered as they walked through an even smaller town where Thumeka suspected there were only two large employers - the fields, and the prison she could see not too far ahead. The small houses without plumbing or electricity looked like tumbledown shacks, but even that was better than what she had seen in rural Eight.

"It looks much the same as in the photographs," Thumeka remarked. She had never seen photos of this prison, but she had seen photos and drawings of others, and it looked much the same. Granted, prisons were prisons everywhere, but something about this setup was much more oppressive. Perhaps it was the large yellow signs with black lettering warning of mines hanging on the most exterior fence.

A group of children ran up to them, demanding candy. The three journalists handed out a couple of Panem cents, resulting in much joy. They made their way to a door in the corrugated metal and pressed the buzzer.

The door opened. "Huh," a male guard said in a heavy accent. He had handcuffs on one side of his belt and a short club - on the other. "You're journos?"

"That is us," Thumeka said. Their foreignness was evident from their clothing. "Your warden agreed to a meeting for the purposes of an article about how the penitentiary system is being fixed."

"Oh, great, so now half the world will rake us over the coals." Thumeka said nothing. "I'll go tell them."

The door closed. They waited for a few minutes before it opened again. "We have no interpreters," another guard, who seemed to be more senior, said.

"No problem," Thumeka said. "I am fluent in your language, and they are not going to be entering the prison."

"Alright. Come in."

"Have fun in the camp," Omar said with a slight smile. "Don't ask me to go in, my parents will kill me."

"This is a normal prison," Tabara said.

"They won't care."

Thumeka went in and was led through a short corridor painted stark-white. Then, she was issued a pass on a lanyard and had to step through a scanner.

"No photos or videos without asking."

"Of course," Thumeka said.

She was then taken to the warden's office. The warden was a fairly unremarkable-looking woman maybe a few years older than her, with brown skin, slightly narrow eyes without epicanthic folds, and buzz-cut hair starting to go grey. "You're the journalist?" she asked in a heavy accent. Her nameplate said 'Warden Henriette Lopez'.

"Yes. Thumeka Makwetu, Blue Flower Press, Zimbabwe." In English, the name of the agency always sounded a little bit absurd. "May I record our conversation?"

"Sure." Thumeka started the recorder. "Well, then, journalist, why are you here?"

"I am the author of several publications on the old regime's use of prisons as an instrument of terror," Thumeka said. "For that reason, I was asked to conduct an investigation into how the system is currently being reformed."

The warden looked skeptical. "Publications? What kind?"

"Around ten years back-"

"People wrote about Panem ten years back?" Lopez sounded shocked.

"Warden Lopez, I have been studying your country since I was eight years old."

"Why?"

"Because I thought it was fascinating."

Lopez did not seem happy at being called 'fascinating'. "Huh. So, journalist Makwetu, welcome to PCC #21, recently nationalized from Flick."

Penal-Correctional Colony #21, formerly held in private hands by the owner of the fabrics industry. "This was a sweatshop," Thumeka said. "Medium security."

"Ah, so you looked into it," Lopez said, looking a little bit happier. Thumeka had done no such thing, she had just noticed the folders on the shelves labelled with barracks numbers, and the outdoor barracks people associated with Panem secret prisons were also how medium-security regular prisons were run. Maximum-security prisons had single or double cells, and lower-security ones had large rooms in the building proper. "Yes, a sweatshop, making shirts. I have to say, not the worst one out there, at least the prisoners got out knowing how to use a sewing machine, which is more than they could before."

"You must be recently promoted."

"Of course. I was chief guard in one of the shops. Everyone thought I was nice. No idea why, I certainly did not come here to be nice, but I did not abuse anyone, that is true."

"You did not go with the flow."

"No. I went in here a bit of an idealist. Thought I'd fix these people so they'd contribute to society. Burned out almost immediately, of course." She sighed. "The epidemics here alone convinced me that there was no fixing anything. But now there's room for idealists again."

Generally speaking, 'fixing prisoners so they contribute to society' was a harshly pragmatic reason for rehabilitative programs, but Panem being what it was, even that counted as idealism. "How did you stop epidemics?"

"Vaccinate everyone where we do have vaccines - in our parts, kids didn't go to school much and often missed theirs. Feed the prisoners food that isn't rotten, improve sanitation, treat the sick with the medications they need. Mortality rate has gone so steeply down, even I don't believe it. But then again, before, we had people with TB being forced to work in these crowded rooms."

"On that note, what is the state of the work programs now?"

Lopez straightened up somewhat, clearly proud of herself. "Oh, we kept the workshops, of course, though we made the conditions better for work. We did add some programs so that inmates can learn other skills in the garment trade, and classes where inmates who work in the administration can teach others school-level classes. I made an elementary-school diploma mandatory, I'm sick and tired of illiterate bums who can't even sign their names going in and out of prison. Workers are paid federal minimum wage, of course, so they can repay their debts and child support and whatever else they've been shirking before they got in here. Now that the inmates aren't slaves working for the personal profit of Flick, it's not advantageous for us to keep them here until the end of time. Having them get out and live a taxpaying life is."

Panem idealism in a nutshell. "So you see your job as making your job redundant."

"Very much so. I would rather manage a private security company, and the guards, I'm sure, would rather guard rich people and shopping malls rather than babysitting a bunch of criminals. But for now, that is our job, and we will do it."

"On that note, how has the way the guards treat the inmates changed?"

"I fired all the sadists, of course, and quite a few quit once I took away their guns. As soon as I made the new rules clear, the random killings, beatings, and rapes stopped. Before, the inmates had to meet quotas, now, they've got an eight-hour workday and thus cannot be whipped for not making quotas." Sometimes the casual references to brutality were still enough to take Thumeka's breath away. "No more public executions of recaptured escapees, in fact, no more corporal punishment, as it was a sadist's paradise."

"What do the inmates think of this?"

"Violence has gone way down - doing honest work instead of being a slave has a curative effect." Thumeka would have put more stock in the curative effect of treating mental illness and providing nutritious food. "We released all the politicals, which reduced overcrowding, and are currently going through the pile of people who claim they were falsely convicted so a major could get a new star, which to be honest they probably were."

"You believe the system was corrupt before?"

"As anything. I myself just drifted along, staying out of politics, but I constantly saw people bribing their way out of prison. An outrage. The gang culture, too - my hope is that once recidivism declines, it'll fade away."

Thumeka nodded. "I believe we agreed I would be able to interview prisoners."

"You may."

The prisoners turned out to be a mixed group cleaning the courtyard under the supervision of a mixed pair of guards. They wore light-green shirts and trousers, brown sweaters and hats, and black running shoes. Small ID badges were clipped to their fronts. The clothing was clean, in good repair, and was more or less of the correct size, though it appeared that all genders wore the same outer clothes, going by how the shirts looked ugly on everyone. On their backs was 'Department of Corrections'.

"It's an improvement," one of the inmates, a man whose full set of teeth was thanks to the administration getting him implants the other month, said when he noticed her looking. "Before, it said 'Property of Flick conglomerate'. I mean, I couldn't read back then, but that's what everyone said."

"Could be worse," another inmate, a woman of around sixty whose teeth were also the result of the administration wanting to improve employability, chimed in. "At the secret prison I was in for a couple of years, we were branded." She pointed to the rectangular scar on her cheek. "Like cattle."

"Yeah, well, wasn't there that SP where everyone was lined up and shot once admin knew the war was lost? It can always be worse." The young person half-heartedly swept some debris. "I wonder if we'll get any of the commanders in with us. That'd be funny."

Miroslav sat at his computer and typed up his preliminary notes. After some contemplation, the idea of writing a book did appeal to him a great deal.

Now that he had spent more than a few sessions with each of the key criminals - their subordinates were responsible for the rest of the prison - Miroslav felt that he knew, more or less, who they were. He glanced over at the transcription of one of his recordings, trying to figure out the best way to collate that information into paragraph form.

Dovek - Whenever the twenty-four are in the same place, everyone looks to Dovek as their leader, and he takes it as his due. He displays no signs of guilt or remorse and his complaints are usually the best thought-out. Claims he's perfectly fine with being executed, but I can tell he's as terrified as anyone else. No signs of suicidal ideation, but I'm worried he might kill himself as a statement. Doesn't talk about family unprompted, but when I bring them up, there is sincere affection in his voice. When I mentioned the rumours that the children aren't his, he became extremely upset and asked me how I would have felt if such things were being said about me. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'm infertile and that my daughter is adopted.

Was that too much personal content? This was the sort of thing the general public would be interested in, but it would be way out of line if this would be a strict academic publication. Miroslav decided to leave it in for now and discuss with Mallow what, exactly, they were planning to write.

Oldsmith - The rumours I heard that Oldsmith was one of Snow's alleged right hands appear to be disproven by my interactions with him. Not only does he himself claim that he was just a secretary instead of an advisor, but he shows no attempts to be a leader, preferring instead to nod along with everything Dovek says. He is sincerely angered by the charges against him and tends to explode when prodded one too many times. He caught on to my Thirteen accent but did not react to it, only nodding and changing the topic. He became quite maudlin when I asked him if he had ever wanted children, and said that he had always regretted not having any.

Bright - She is one of the ones most confused by the charges against them. Spent our first session begging me to understand that she wasn't involved in any of the atrocities. Then, she switched to interrogating me about military training in Thirteen, and was shocked to find out that we weren't taught unquestioning obedience in all. She constantly demands to be allowed to see her family, whom she hasn't seen since her last leave three years ago. Gets extremely defensive when I mention Peacekeeper crimes, even if they weren't under her jurisdiction.

Lux - Tries to justify the unjustifiable, and is deaf to rebuttals. Utterly convinced that everything he ordered was right, but folds when I mention secret prisons and claims he knew nothing. Joined up at twelve - he is from a military family and it was expected of him. Never saw active service and is touchy about it. Claims he lost touch with his family. Keeps on asking me when he's going to be shot. Reads various books on philosophy and cherry-picks arguments that agree with him. Complains to me about being made to clean his cell, but never to anyone else, and is meticulously neat and disciplined, to the delight of Lieutenant Vance.

Cotillion - Was shocked when she found out that non-consensual human experimentation is illegal.

That wasn't even the biggest problem with Cotillion. In the rest of the world, the editing of human embryos was an extremely controversial topic. Even deleting the genes that caused birth defects caused a scandal every time it happened - and here was Cotillion creating conjoined twins at will!

Claims that her experiments were all useful. When I asked why she couldn't use animal testing (I cited only the length of the human gestational period, as she is completely deaf to considerations of morality), she said that techniques learned by experimenting on humans can be applied immediately to hospital scenarios. When I asked what practical use is there for creating one hundred children with sirenomelia, as the condition is already very well-studied, she spread out her hands and said that the researchers were just having some fun.

Blatt - The first thing she wanted me to know was that she had no idea what went on in the IGR, even though it was part of her Ministry of Armaments. She then compared herself to a shopkeeper who had unwittingly sold a gun to a criminal. She proceeded to repeat that analogy several more times. Constantly tense and angry, except when talking about her family. Accepts that she was involved in something bad, but rejects any suggestion of regret or guilt. Once, she said that she couldn't believe she was the same person as herself from before, but she refused to elaborate. I think I will prod her there.

Verdant - One of the only two from outside the Capitol, he views himself as a victim of the government. Joined up at twelve to escape extreme poverty. I think he might be prodded into disavowing Snow eventually, but for now, he refuses to speak poorly of him to anyone except me. Claims he prefers talking to Mallow and that she understands him better - he knows she is from Eleven but not that her family is one of the richest in the country. Is willing to be open about his suicide attempt and says he wishes he hadn't done it, as the chronic pain is unbearable. Tries to be meticulously neat despite his disability; Lieutenant Vance feels pity for him for that reason.

Best - Confused about his indictment, as he was long-retired. The only Peacekeeper with a family of his own, he constantly talks about his children, who died in the Rebellion. Says he sees no point in continuing to live - I think he is a suicide risk. Despite his old age, he remains in excellent shape and cleans out his cell with no complaint. Hates Dovek but doesn't show it, prefers to stick close to Lux, even though Best was already retired when Lux was promoted. Likes to tell me stories from his childhood.

Krechet - Well-spoken and articulate, he softens his accent when talking to me. He is willing to have others think he is an idiot, but he finds it humiliating. Claims he considers that accent ugly, but after some prodding, he admitted that he hates how stratified society is and wishes the way one speaks didn't determine how they are treated. Reads books about labour movements and the like. He already has sympathy for Two, so I hope I can persuade him to extend his class solidarity to the Districts in general. He often cries when talking about his family and frequently brags about the successes of the children.

Talvian - Still has something of the puppetmaster secret-police head about her. Hates Dovek utterly, but says she's willing to work together with him so that they can keep up a united front. Any attempt at bringing up atrocities results in her insisting that she did nothing other countries don't do and that it's all justified. Keeps on telling me random snatches of gossip about the others; however, it's never anything illegal due to the united front. Does not trust my claim that our conversations are confidential. She is the only one who accepts her position, but thinks that she is receiving the same treatment she meted out to her predecessor.

Chaterhan - At turns apathetic and enraged, he refuses to accept any wrong-doing on his part point-blank. He is very open and considerate with me, talking to him is a delight. With the guards, he is obsequious. Only traces of his former arrogance can be seen when I talk to him. Usually, he simply drifts, accepting everything that happens with a nod. It is hard to determine if he thinks he will walk free or not. He is the biggest hamsterer of the group - for that reason, he is a suicide risk, even if his current mental state is not a concern on that front.

Blues - I had high hopes for Blues when I read her reaction to the indictment, but I have had to temper those hopes. So far, the only thing she has admitted is that she supposes it is reasonable someone would suspect these things of her. However, she does repudiate Snow completely, and openly told me she wishes she had never taken the job. I think she might admit responsibility after some prodding, though it will probably be a vague and partial admission. Blues does not particularly care about how she is perceived - out of all of them, she is the most likely to throw herself at the mercy of the court. Despite how young her children are, she seldom speaks about them and does not like discussing the topic with me.

Lark - It was very amusing when Mallow told me he thought she was upper-middle-class Capitol, but his extreme prejudice is grating. I, too, managed to pass for Capitol, and for the first time in my life, I am unwilling to admit who I am. I am glad they do not get to talk to each other much, because I do not want Lark to find out I am from Thirteen. An unpleasant experience.

Miroslav realized he was writing about himself, not Lark.

He speaks mostly in propaganda slogans. Despite his reputation as the television screamer, he can speak quietly when he wants, but the slogans stay the same. It's shocking to listen to someone defend the Hunger Games as a necessary evil. Complains to me endlessly about being guarded by District people, but does not antagonize guards. Only stops throwing around propaganda slogans when discussing his family.

Thread - The other District person in the dock, his biting sarcasm is at odds with his orders-are-orders attitude. Talking to him of atrocities is like talking to a brick wall. Either it was justified or it was outside of his responsibility, which he considers reason enough to not feel any emotion about. He is painstakingly neat, much to the delight of Lieutenant Vance, and never utters a complaint, even to me. I suspect that deep down, he doesn't know how to complain. However, he is deeply ashamed by his position and is embarrassed when he is reminded that his photograph is in the papers. Once the trial starts, he might become a suicide risk.

Ledge - With me, Ledge is self-deprecating in the highest, but when with others, his quips are targeted at others. He accepts there were atrocities but utterly rejects any suggestion of guilt or responsibility. He is chatty and likes to tell me funny stories from his university days and snatches of gossip. Due to his sloppiness, Lieutenant Vance has taken a dislike for him, which he makes light of. He often starts arguing with someone before remembering that they have a united front. He constantly complains about everything, but he admits to me that he is just trying to annoy Lieutenant Vance.

Brack - Brack is one of those who is confused by their present situation. She repeats over and over that she was just a deputy, as if trying to convince herself. She is deeply prejudiced against the Districts, though when she figured out from my accent that I am from Thirteen, she just made a joke. The same happened to Mallow. After Lark, she is the second most likely to start slinging slurs when talking to me. If I say that is impolite and will win her no favours, she tells me to stop being so easily offended. Guards report that she often talks to the photograph of her husband she has on her table, though they can't make out the words.

Dijksterhuis - I can tell that a rivalry is already brewing between her and Ledge. They blamed each other during interrogations, which will cause problems for the 'united front' once that is read in court. At the moment, it is unclear which of them has the advantage. Dijksterhuis certainly tries that much harder - she talks to me as if I am her lawyer. Her cell is covered with the papers she uses to write her defense, which drives Lieutenant Vance to distraction. She constantly begs the guards for newspapers, and gets them.

Pollman - Currently suffering from depression. Refused to write letters to his husband, which resulted in him trekking fifty kilometres with their children to the courthouse to ask Lieutenant Vance if he is still alive. Now, he writes 'I am fine' and leaves it at that. Claims he is fully aware that he is not walking out of here alive, as this is all victors' justice and the Districts just want to see him swing. When I ask him why is it taking so long and why did they not execute them quickly like they did with Snow, he shrugs and says that political trials and sense do not go together. I prodded him some more, and got out of him a shrug of the shoulders and an explanation that this is just how the world works. I see some potential there.

Toplak - A constant worry for the mental health team due to her schizophrenia, she seems to be doing better now that she's gotten settled in. She didn't recognize my accent, but she did recognize Mallow's, and is extremely awkward with her. When I asked why, she explained that people like her couldn't afford medicine in Eleven. I think I might be able to work on her from that angle. If a civilian could plead superior orders she would be it, but she does appear to be sincerely horrified by the thought of having to live without antipsychotics. She is the only one who thinks that the lack of universal healthcare in the Districts was an outrage, which puts her at loggerheads with Lee. Not very organized, but tries.

Kirji - Every time she is asked what she was responsible for, she has a different answer. She clams up when I talk of her previous job, so I have been speaking only of the distant past and family with her, to set her at ease. She is the most skilled complainer - Lieutenant Vance says that she always has a point. Kirji is convinced she has nothing to regret, and says that she knew nothing about the atrocities in the Districts. When I asked her about atrocities in the Capitol, she clammed up for a few seconds before adding that she knew nothing about that, too. She has no memory of anything that happened before she was nineteen. That should not affect the trial, but it worries me greatly.

Lee - Never answers a question with 'yes' or 'no'. Evasive even when I ask about his marriage. In Lieutenant Vance's estimation, one of the biggest whiners. Needs very little sleep and spends most of his nights drawing, as he is an excellent artist. Once, told me that every single one of his six siblings except for him as well as both his parents suffer from an alcohol addiction, attributes his exceptionality to pure luck - claims he read a book on the subject at the age of four and it scared him into never drinking. Works out every day in his cell, hates having guards see how bad he is but it's that or no exercise.

Coll - At first, I was delighted to have one of my patients talk about responsibility of their own volition, but I doubt he will keep that up in the courtroom. Coll says that as a minister, he bears responsibility for the actions of the government he worked for. I brought up his extreme young age - he is only thirty-six - but he waved me away and said that his signatures could not be so easily explained away. Claims he is not afraid of death, but I can see that the prospect terrifies him. I suspect his admission will be an attempt to gain public favour and that his real defense will be his constant denial of knowledge of atrocities. Coll has the youngest children of all the defendants and keeps me updated on their progress.

Grass - Very true to her profession, she speaks to her lawyer like an equal and is planning to pick apart the Tribunal bit by bit. Grass rehearses her arguments on me. I must admit I find them convincing and cannot argue with them, but I still reject them utterly. A psychologist cannot quibble about jurisdiction with a lawyer. Grass writes lengthy letters to her wife and children, throws them out, and sends off a note of the 'everything is good' variety instead. She teaches the basics of law to the guards, infuriating Lieutenant Vance, who does not like it when guards and prisoners fraternize.

Slice - Mallow is certain that she is on the autism spectrum. Slice herself does not appear to be aware of her condition. She knows that she is different, but she has adapted over the decades, and thinks nothing of it. Like Holder, she is upset by the noise and light at night, but to a much lesser extent. Despite being in her mid-forties, she looks the youngest of all the defendants. She is the only unmarried civilian and complains that she can't keep a relationship going for more than a few months. Out of all of the defendants, she is the only one I believe when she says she did not know about the atrocities in the Districts, though she is lying when she says she knew nothing about how the NCIA worked. She is extremely perplexed by her indictment.

Miroslav shook out his hands and looked at what he had written. It was too inconsistent. He mentioned family for some, but not others - he'd need to even it out, make it more formulaic.

Suddenly, Miroslav realized he was hungry. He sat back in his chair and thought about what to do. Mallow wouldn't be back for a long time, and it was not good for him to restrict his food intake. Go alone? Only to the official cafeteria, then. Miroslav grabbed his notebook and went off, hoping his brain wouldn't make him go to an entirely different place.

It was nice under the shoddy lean-to in the yard. Janie sat on an empty barrel and read a newspaper. With her was Dusk. Any duty was easier when Dusk was with her, but sitting under a piece of corrugated metal in the yard and not watching the lesser criminals walk around became downright fun.

"Anything interesting?" Dusk asked. He wasn't much for newspapers.

"Someone tapped the Chief of Counsel's phone and tried to blackmail her with 'personal conversations.'" Janie chuckled to herself and folded the newspaper to be able to read that article better. It was really short. "That's code for phone sex."

Dusk's eyebrows met his hairline. "Isn't her secretary living with her?"

If Irons was willing to get off to her husband's disembodied voice, she probably wasn't interested in the major hottie literally working for her, which said a lot about the Chief of Counsel. "Nah, he lives somewhere else - and she was chatting with her husband. Dunno what the blackmailer was thinking. I mean, what's so blackmail-worthy about phone sex with your husband of twenty years?" It wasn't like with her. If someone had gotten a video of her and Tav having sex and threatened to send it to her parents, she'd have paid anything. Too awkward.

"When I'm married for twenty years," Dusk declared, chewing his gum, "I hope my wife still wants to sleep with me."

"Yeah. That Irons is lucky." Janie studied the little article, wondering who the husband was. Back home, prosecutors mostly had stay-at-home spouses, to show off how much money they made. It was different in Thirteen, though. Was Mr. Irons also a lawyer? Or maybe a civil servant, or something?

"So, what did Irons do?" Dusk asked, standing up and leaning over the newspaper.

Janie offered him the newspaper, but he shook his head and sat down. "Says here she called their bluff and the recordings were posted somewhere, but then they were deleted because the IDC wasn't going to let the Chief of Counsel be made fun of."

Dusk screwed up his face. "Why would anyone want to listen to fifty-year-old people talking dirty to each other?" He sighed. "Why couldn't they steal her secretary's nudes or something? Like in the tabloids before where they'd stick in pictures of celebrities' asses. That would have been cool." That wasn't allowed now, because it apparently violated people's dignity. You had to buy porn mags to look at naked people now. Not like Janie needed to do that - Tav was hotter than any pornstar.

"I thought you were still dating what's-her-face with the giant scar?" Dusk talked less about sex when he was actually having any.

"I am," he fired back, sounding offended. "Has your Tav finally finished milking you dry and moved on to greener pastures?"

"Milk me dry? We're literally going to sell a truckload of canned pineapple today, how's some Capitolite supposed to milk me dry?"

Dusk rolled his eyes. "You're literally planning to buy him a computer."

"His family never had one, and his birthday is coming up," Janie said defensively.

"Whipped," Dusk declared before blowing a bubble.

Janie wanted to protest, but there really wasn't anything she could say. "As if you wouldn't," she grumbled. She took the newspaper and continued to read it. There was a giant article about unionization, which she read carefully. Her family was joining a trade union, which basically meant that if working conditions were bad, they could complain to the union and they'd have their lawyers kick the boss' ass, all for the small price of union dues. Kind of how like now, you paid taxes and got that money back when you had some horrible disease but got treated for free.

"Anything else interesting?" Dusk asked.

"You want to read about how corn is doing on the Dar es Salaam stock exchange?"

Dusk shuddered. "I grow corn, not sell it." He sounded almost scared by the suggestion. "Is there anything about pineapples?" he joked.

"Everything's still rationed," Janie pointed out. "We don't have that stuff."

One of the lesser criminals, an irritable Steelworks functionary, walked up to them. "May I please have some gum?" he asked demurely.

"Sure." Janie reached for the packet in her pocket.

"Do you ever have mood swings?" Miroslav asked the boy. Jack was currently awaiting trial for having shoved someone off a tall curb for no reason at all, resulting in her death when she landed wrong and hit her head.

"I guess," the fifteen-year-old said. "Like, sometimes I'm fine, and sometimes I'm like-" He clenched his fist, trying to find the words.

"Empty?" Miroslav suggested. Inwardly, he was in a decent mood. On his way to the jail, he had managed to ignore a vendor selling candy, but he had still cracked and bought a giant apple. He now felt disgustingly full, but he told himself that at least it was something relatively low in calories.

"Emptied," Jack said. "Like I'm a balloon, and all the air was sucked out of me."

"Excellent metaphor." Miroslav noted that down.

Jack continued. "And sometimes, I'm just so fucking angry. Like, someone cuts ahead of me in a queue, or I was gonna eat pasta but it turns out we're out - little shit like that, and it makes me so angry. And then I explode." He paused, running his fingers over the smooth tabletop. "Are you really working on that trial? I heard a guard say you are."

"I am."

"But you're here every day! How do you have time for this?"

Miroslav often wondered about that. "I manage to make time," he said, "and you are changing the topic. You explode. And what happens then?"

The restaurant was like a different world. It was lunchtime now, and trial staff were sitting at tables and eating or perched on a couch, waiting for their takeout to arrive. Leon let go of the door and watched it close slowly, shutting out the locals shooting envious glances at him as they stood with their faces pressed against the glass.

Theoretically, anyone could enter the place - during the winter, a special section had been designated for people who needed to sit around and warm up. But only trial staff could eat here, for security reasons.

Leon wasn't the only exception. Two small children were sitting at a corner table and either doing their homework or pretending to do so. Leon remembered back to when he had homework and shuddered. His current insane hours were better than that. He got home and could do whatever he wanted, and his days off were his.

Right now, he was trying to dodge Marcellus, who seemed to be annoyed about the upcoming trip to buy shoes. Leon had tried asking him what was wrong, but had gotten only shrugs in reply, like when they had been teenagers.

A waiter was walking past with a tray of dirty plates. "Excuse me," Leon said, "do you know when Salman Shim goes on break?" Dad joked he had taken on Mom's name exclusively because of how funny the alliteration sounded. In reality, they had flipped a coin.

"Not during the lunch rush," the waiter snapped before hurrying off.

Point taken. Leon sat down in a random out-of-the-way seat, bored. He got along with his coworkers while they were at work, but they never talked outside of it. His old friends from his old job or the library didn't contact him, either, and Leon felt weird about calling them out of nowhere.

Leon took out his phone - a new acquisition for which he had to thank the foreigners interested in buying the photographs he sold to Meersten. He texted Nilofar, with whom he was probably the closest of them all.

How's life? They had the same day off.

Unexpectedly, she replied. Boring. You want to meet up or something?

Leon grinned. That was bound to be loads better than sitting here waiting for Dad to go on break. Where are you?

Lodgepole market.

Leon got up and headed for the market.

"How is it going with the witnesses?" Mary asked her team. They were gathered around a table in the basement for their daily meeting. Reed complained she was micromanaging, but that wasn't the right word. Her team made the decisions they thought right. Mary just liked to know exactly what was going on.

She didn't say that, though. It wouldn't placate Reed, so she let him think whatever he wanted.

"Same as yesterday," Jane Miller muttered before curling up with a hiss. For the past few days, the assistant prosecutor had been complaining about feeling unwell, with the rest of the team providing unhelpful advice. "Look, Mary, if there was something new we'd update you, alright? How much can we get done in a day?"

Jane was clearly in pain, so Mary ignored that. "Has someone interviewed that hovercraft pilot yet?"

"The one that parachuted out over Ottawa?" Reed asked, half-heartedly scrolling around on his computer. Mary suspected he was playing solitaire.

"Yes."

"Tomorrow."

Always tomorrow. Mary was already in a bad mood because of that absurd blackmailer, and this wasn't making her feel any better. Rithvik had called that morning, sounding like a cat that got its tail stepped on as he complained about his parents getting mad at him for becoming what he thought was a national laughingstock. Mary had retorted that he was too old to be scolded like a disobedient child, and what did he even have to be ashamed of? There was nothing surprising or worthy of notice about a married couple having sex.

She must have been too harsh there. Rithvik had slammed down the phone and not called back since then. Too late, Mary had realized that with his shyness and dislike of the limelight, this situation was a nightmare. The recordings were gone (unless someone had downloaded them), but the damage was done, at least in his opinion. Her siblings made the situation worse with their teasing and suggestions on how she could spice it up with Rithvik, as if she needed any help in the matter after over two decades together.

Mary, however, was forced to concede that had this happened to one of her siblings, she would have made fun of them mercilessly for at least a decade.

"Fuck," Jane hissed, rubbing at her stomach.

Mary was so wrung out, she asked, "What's wrong?" instead of suggesting she leave the meeting and rest.

"Ate something undercooked, it gave me tapeworm. I'm waiting for the meds to kick in."

That sounded unpleasant. Xander Mendel, another prosecutor, winced visibly. "I remember I had a tapeworm once, that was terrible," he offered.

"When did you have tapeworm?" Jane asked Xander. In Thirteen, food had been washed and cooked with an almost fanatic thoroughness.

"Survival exercise when I was in the army," Xander explained. "We caught some fish and decided it would make for a great dinner. Thing is, we undercooked it."

"That's why I don't eat pork," Lior Diekmann said. "It's hard to tell when it's cooked but you need to have it be perfectly cooked."

"Lior, you're a Muslim," Reed reminded him tiredly. Irritation flashed over his face - he must have run out of moves. "You don't eat pork at all."

Lior shrugged. "I only started eating halal once I found out about tapeworms when I was thirteen or so. Since 'I'm too scared to eat pork' would make me sound like an idiot, I suddenly discovered within myself the desire to follow the dietary laws. My grandparents were thrilled, at least."

And then they wondered why Mary insisted on frequent meetings. When they insisted on getting sidetracked by discussing raccoons, their sex lives, the economy, or tapeworms every single meeting, they needed to have more meetings to make up for it.

Jane suddenly leapt up from the table and ran away.

"Are we going to get any work done this meeting or are we going to discuss tapeworms?" Mary asked.

"Tapeworms," Lavanya Harris said, closing her laptop. "So, Xander, what happened to you?"

Xander shrugged. "We all caught it. Took weeks for us to notice. I thought I just had an upset stomach from eating something bad when I was outside, but then it turned out I was anemic. Fucker was eating all of my nutrients. Doctors were confused, but then I noticed I was shitting segments. Then they figured it out. Shitting out the worm was not fun, let me tell you."

"Good to know," Mary said neutrally. A while back, she had read a newspaper article about cysticercosis prevalence in rural Panem. Diagnosing it was a pain in the neck.

"Wait," Reed said, "you didn't even notice?"

"Of course not," Lavanya said. "It's a parasite. They need to avoid killing the host."

"Then why did we end up with vitamin deficiency?" Xander grumbled.

Since nothing of importance was being discussed, Mary began to plot how to reconcile with Rithvik. Her silly husband really needed to stop stressing over little things, but she wasn't going to tell him that. Mary was also furious at the leak, but she understood very well that this was simply the risk she took when she accepted the position. If anything, they were lucky - the IDC suffered no prestige blow from something like this. Oh, people would giggle for a while, but then they'd forget about it. Had the blackmailer uncovered a cheating scandal, that would have been very awkward.

Still, though, to think that someone could listen in on her conversations! Mary understood now what her defector colleagues meant when they talked about the inability to be open on the phone. The situation was a little bit amusing - while Rithvik was still a stunner, Mary was rather average-looking, and the blackmailer probably didn't enjoy that mental image - but it was mostly irritating and humiliating. Mary wished Rithvik would just forget about it. She didn't want to think about the blackmailer for a second more.

A/N: Mary may be an excellent prosecutor, but she is not a good manager. The solution to unproductive meetings isn't more meetings, it's less meetings, so that everyone feels pressured to actually provide useful information because the next chance to do so is far away. Or just sending an email with a quick update or request for something.