Decius was glad to be back in the classroom. He set down the box in his hands and looked around the small room. A fourth-year course called Genocide Through the Ages wasn't likely to get much interest, that much he knew from Thirteen, so the fifteen people he saw were a good enough contingent.

"Lovely weather we're having today, aren't we?" Latreya asked to some hesitant nods of assent. The weather was, indeed, great. The sun was shining brightly through the open window - one advantage of a small class, these tiny rooms at least had windows. Outside, students and locals were working in a large vegetable field. With how destroyed the rural regions were, everyone needed to chip in. Even faculty had to help out.

Faculty. Finally, Decius was back in his university, though the courses he was teaching now were somewhat different. Besides having been roped into teaching this one with Chee and Latreya, he also taught two more courses from the same field - International Law From the Early Years to 'Tokyoberg' and Beyond, and its second half, International Law After the Cataclysm that he would be teaching in the fall. Additionally, he had several courses at the law school and was, against all reason and logic, one of the professors teaching the general-overview course about twenty-third-century history. He had this tiny course, one with forty-odd students, three with two hundred, and one with nearly five hundred.

That overview course was going to be a nightmare, Decius would have rather lectured on tax law, which he was only familiar with from the student's perspective. No such history courses had been offered in the big country before, of course, which meant that Thirteen professors were being spread thin. Decius wasn't even in the faculty of history, he was in law, but after a lengthy fight that had ended in the respective chairs still not talking to each other, he had been authorized to teach a course given by the history department. He was absolutely not qualified for it in the slightest, he had only ever looked at the preceding century from the legal side of things, but since he had taught courses that were technically under the history umbrella, he had been tapped for the job. Latreya and Chee were luckier, all of their courses were either like this one, both history and law simultaneously, or simply at the law school.

Decius busied himself taking out the course kits from his box. The university had been generously supplied with paper, though with nothing else. He would be teaching his other international law class in a room with a tarp instead of one wall. Other buildings had been so destroyed, they were unusable. But the students had wanted to come back, and so had the faculty.

"Well, then," Chee said somberly. "Welcome to History 482. I do not know what kind of education you have received before this, but I assure you that the only prerequisite for this course is a highschool diploma." One of the students exhaled in relief. "All you need is the ability to read these readings and write papers based on them." They looked around the room. "Since we have such a small contingent, why don't we introduce ourselves to the class? Give your name and why you chose to take this class." They smiled slightly. "Do not be ashamed to admit you picked this course at random. We've all been there."

"I'll go first," Latreya offered as Decius handed the course kits to the closest student and gestured at them to pass them on. "I'm Dr. Latreya Blueroot, and as you can tell from my accent, I'm from Thirteen. I'm a legal historian specializing in pre-Cataclysm international law. Right now, I'm working on a monograph about Talaat Pasha - someone we'll take a look at this semester. Do not fear, I'm not going to force you to read my books."

There was some scattered chuckling. "I'm Dr. Chee Nurbeko," Chee said, "and I'm from the same background as Dr. Blueroot here. And I must admit that this course is going to be very difficult for me to teach." They sighed, looking much more somber than usual. "Today, we're going to take a look at the definition of genocide. You will notice that an event that happened just a year ago in our own country fits the definition. One would think that I, being an expert in such crimes, would be the most resigned to the fact that such things happen.

"On the contrary, I felt more wretched than most anyone else I interacted with. I was an expert in this. Shouldn't I have been able to do something? Why couldn't all my training help me put an end to these horrors, instead of poking around the ashes like a scavenger?" They ran a shaking hand through their hair. Decius had never suspected his friend was so badly affected by what they studied. "Despite all of my knowledge, I am completely powerless. I watched Twelve burn, and all I could offer to the survivors was the knowledge that we have not punished genocidaires for three hundred years."

Chee smiled sadly. "So you may come away from this course with a renewed feeling that all is futile. Or maybe you will come away feeling that maybe now you can go out and change the world. I suppose that depends on which way the judicial winds blow not too far from this classroom."

Decius wondered what he could say. "Er, I am Dr. Decius Lee," he said. "I'm actually from here, so I'm glad I'm teaching here again. I ran away six years ago, so I'm glad to be back. I also focus on pre-Cataclysm international law - is anyone taking History 475?" Six hands went up. "If you take Hist 476, we'll focus on our post-Cataclysm world. In any case, I know this is a tough topic, especially now, so I'm glad to have you all with us. Now, why don't you go first?" he said, pointing to the closest student.

The students were a mixed bunch. They hailed from all over the country and represented a variety of social demographics, including a farmer from a small Capitol town who was the first in her family to attend middle school, let alone go to university. Most were around twenty with one woman around Decius' age and a man in his sixties. One of the young students wore a Peacekeeper uniform.

Three people already had some knowledge of the topic thanks to banned books, others picked it because it 'looked interesting', or because they needed a humanities course. The young veteran was in the latter group. He had enlisted partway through the last summer semester on a patriotic whim and now regretted it. "I picked the course at random," he said, poking through the course kit. "Well, this should be interesting."

"We can meet after class to discuss this further, if you want," Latreya offered.

"Professors?" one of the students asked once the introductions were over. "Why are there three of you for such a small class?"

"We're secretly one professor," Decius joked. "We split one salary between the three of us, that is." More seriously, he explained, "We are close personal friends and all have a stake in this topic. Drs. Blueroot and Nurbeko make a career of studying specific genocides, and I'm just along for the ride."

Latreya checked her watch. "Let's go over the syllabus now. Turn to the first page of your kits." Paper rustled as everyone complied. "As you can see, you have a midterm paper due in the sixth week and a final paper, worth thirty and forty-five percent respectively. The other twenty-five will be participation marks. Every week, you will receive a short homework assignment. Whether you do it or not is your choice. You can do zero assignments and still get the full mark if you regularly speak up and contribute in class. Conversely, you can never speak and still get full participation marks if you do all the assignments. Attendance is not mandatory, but if you miss many classes, your participation mark will suffer." She held up her own copy of the course kit. The off-white paper looked ready to fall apart. "For your next class, you will read the definition of genocide on page four and write half a page to a page of what you think about it. After that, before each class, you will have a reading of background material and a primary source, and you will be asked to answer a specific question. There is also some suggested reading, in case the topic interests you."

A hand went up. "Yes?" Latreya said.

"Do we need to do additional reading for the homework?"

"Not at all. If you use additional sources, we will grade you more strictly on the presumption that you already have a certain level of knowledge and need to be further challenged." She smiled. "And no bonus marks for citing us. Though my ego will appreciate it."

Chee glanced down at the cheat sheet they were using for the introduction. "Now, about the papers," they said. "One of you's a first-year, so I'll warn now that you will need to go do independent research. The library offers master-classes on how to look for print and Web sources, and we'll give you some pointers in the weeks to come. Since you'll be in the library already, we expect papers to be typed. Homework can be handwritten, but we want your papers to be properly formatted in accordance with the standards you'll find on page five. And we don't want to deal with papers that look like they're ten pages but would have been twice that if not written in handwriting we need a microscope to read." The students giggled at that.

"This is not a good time to be doing anything," Decius took it from there. "Even we had issues with finding housing. Is everyone here registered at an address? The dorms count." Nods all around. "That's one less problem," he said, feeling relieved. He had already had some of his students in his other classes come up to him and say that they were staying in a basement with ten other people and cleaning the streets for eight hours a day, so they would have problems with having enough time to study. When he had taught here last, working-class students (who had made up three percent of the student body) had often had terrifying excuses such as 'I missed class because two bandits in favour started a shootout and I was afraid to go outside' or 'I couldn't finish the assignment on time because my neighbour in the communal apartment has TB and was coughing too loudly for me to sleep, so I was too tired'. Now, 'I missed class because I was collecting firewood' was universal.

After the class was over, the three of them stayed behind for a while. "I didn't know you were struggling," Latreya said to Chee.

Chee shrugged. "Just wondering what new sorts of horrors will be unearthed during this trial. Or old ones. That'll be enough."

Decius thought about his books. Things did tend to repeat, over and over. It was enough to make anyone snap.

One thing, at least, was clear to Miroslav. The self-proclaimed 'apolitical professionals' were, in reality, political creatures of the highest sort. Cotillion claimed she was just a researcher, but the others fell over themselves explaining what sort of intrigues she had been involved in. Nobody claimed that Blues had been involved in intrigues, but at the same time they pointed to her meteoritic ascent up the career ladder and claimed she had won the favour of Snow himself.

Miroslav sat at his computer and typed up his observations. He was becoming obsessed with the question of what separated these people from the rest. Why did one engineer build sewers and bridges and another - the Hunger Games Arenas? Blues claimed that she had only kept her head down and done her job, having chosen to work on the Games because of the prestige of the position. But how could anyone work on such a horrific thing?

Consciously or unconsciously, Blues presented herself as what people expected to see when they heard 'engineer'. She discussed the intricacies of force-field setup with interrogators, but became rapidly confused when they asked her about the others, coming across as a vapid airhead who could talk only about chemical formulas and mathematical equations. Miroslav, however, was starting to notice that she had an astonishing memory for conversation. Just this morning, she had managed to recite a short speech she had heard once three years ago.

Miroslav had no idea what Rody had said to him during their last videocall, and here was Blues reciting entire speeches, albeit short ones! Dovek, too, had an astonishing memory. Unlike Blues, he wasn't limited to words. He could say who had been at which meeting twenty years ago and when exactly it had taken place. Talvian was at a similar level, but she tried to conceal her abilities. By comparison, Coll couldn't remember what year he had been promoted in or whether he had been at a certain meeting or not. And Best struggled to remember precise years, but the former admiral had seventy-six years to keep track of.

Mallow had tested Coll and determined that he did, indeed, have a bad memory. Since he forgot things that were good and bad for his case in equal measure, it was unlikely it would have any impact on the trial. Lee tended to forget the unpleasant, but whether he was lying or had actually blocked it out was unclear.

Compared to most of their codefendants, Coll and Slice appeared lost and confused. They would use it to their advantage, of that Miroslav was sure. Slice looked perplexed every time Miroslav saw her. The former propagandist was actually nearly a decade older than Coll and Blues but looked younger than them, and they weren't old-looking by any means. The two, however, were family people and seemed more mature than Slice. Miroslav chuckled as he realized he was thinking that the ones with children looked older than the childless one.

Miroslav ran a hand over his face and tried to stop thinking about random things. What was he writing about? Blues and her memory. A thought came to mind, and he quickly jotted down a few lines about her age-mate. Coll seemed to be unable to decide whether he wanted to claim to have been a puppet or not. Sometimes he stressed that he had been picked by Snow personally at the age of twenty-nine, and at other times, he was offended by the suggestion. And the one time Miroslav had brought up rumours of his promotion having taken place in a sauna, he had convincingly said that was nonsense. Coll was generally not very convincing, which meant that the rumours were, in fact, nonsense.

Why couldn't he just focus? Miroslav glanced over at the notes he had made while talking to Pollman. Now that was a stereotypical high-ranking civil servant in many ways. Depending on temperament, the key criminals were still expecting to be either executed or released in the immediate future. Pollman was the latter. He burned with indignation.

The phone rang. Miroslav picked it up. It was a journalist, so he put it back down. He had tried talking to the press, but they had taken his words out of context, so he wasn't doing it anymore.

Where was he? Pollman. Pollman rejected the proceedings utterly. Yesterday, he had realized that Miroslav had a Thirteen accent. Fortunately for Miroslav, he had considered it to be an amusing piece of dramatic irony. He did have an appreciation for those sorts of things. The mouse-like older man told Miroslav exactly what he thought about his co-defendants, even though he would have never dared say that to their faces.

The phone rang again. It was the same person. "Stop calling me," Miroslav said. "I'm trying to work."

"Could you please comment on what Dr. Mallow said?"

Mallow had said something? "No." He put down the phone.

Rye took a sip of water, wishing it was coffee. One look at the witness, however, was enough to stop any self-pity in its tracks. The young woman's mouth had been slit at the corners, the scars forming a twisted sort of smile. Her jaw was wired shut and she was in a wheelchair. Carmen Maiolo was actually lucky. She had tried to assassinate Snow.

"Good morning," Rye said. There was nothing good about the morning. She had been told to take Maiolo's deposition on short notice because someone had fallen ill.

"Good morning," Maiolo replied. Her speech was a little bit slurred but understandable.

After the usual things that had to be dealt with, the interview could begin. The stenographer, a paunchy older man with sloppily cut short hair, put his hands on the keyboard, ready to type. Back in her town, that would have been the extent of it, but here, the keyboard was connected to a laptop that showed the transcript practically in real time. This meant that if something went wrong, it could be immediately fixed. The transcript would be made available to the defense.

"For the record," Rye said at her usual pace, "state your name, age, and place of residence."

"Carmen Adam Maiolo, thirty-one years old. I don't have a permanent address, but I'm currently staying in the Rehabilitation Hospital #3 in the Capitol."

"When did you start to disapprove of the regime?"

Maiolo sighed and scratched her head. Her buzz-cut hair, black with streaks of white, grew in patches. "I don't know. I definitely remember being confused when I was twelve years old and watching the Games. I couldn't imagine myself in that situation. But since everyone was acting like it was normal, I couldn't put two and two together. I just couldn't conceive of disapproving. When I was seventeen, my great-uncle moved in with us. He was quite open about his disapproval - to me, that is."

"Do you know why?"

"He was terminally ill. Said that he just wanted to talk freely to someone before he died. Everything I had been too afraid to even think about was suddenly out in the open. He died several years later and left me some banned books. My parents never talked about politics, but they let me keep them."

"What kind of books?"

"Political science and history. I read them and became a mute objector at first, but I felt terrible about my inaction." She huffed. "What could I do? I was just an office worker. Worked in the same place as my parents, in fact."

"When did you decide to kill Snow?"

Maiolo thought about it for a few seconds. "My great-uncle always joked about how only a sniper could save Panem, but I never imagined myself pulling the trigger. I always thought that if I killed him, it'd end up even worse than before. I was always drawn to the story of Georg Elser, from one of my books. He tried to kill a pre-Cataclysm dictator to stop the war the dictator had started. I also found out about John Brown, who tried to start an uprising against slavery even though he hadn't actually belonged to the slave caste. I thought we needed someone like that, who was willing to fight even though his life was alright, by general standards. And then eventually I decided it would have to be me."

"When did you make this decision?" Rye asked again.

"When I was twenty-four, I saw a news piece about the capture of an armed terrorist group - the second one in a month. I realized that there would be a war if nothing was done. It was just too much. Anything that happened after Snow's death couldn't be worse.

"I went to the library and looked at military manuals on bomb-making. There were a few instructions on how to make a bomb out of household materials, so I picked the easiest one. I made a timed bomb and put it in a flowerpot, swapping it with a flowerpot in a place where Snow was to stop his car when going to inspect a bridge. I also replaced all the other flowerpots, so everyone thought I was just a maintenance worker." She sighed. "I just wanted to avoid a war."

"How did you know where he would stop his car?"

Maiolo smiled. "It was published in the official schedule. I put down the bomb three days ahead of time. It blew up when intended, but I didn't realize the car was like some sort of tank. Snow just became annoyed." And Talvian, even more so. She had used the incident as leverage to gain even more power. "The cameras were checked and I was caught."

The stenographer didn't even bat an eye. "When were you arrested?"

"Within the same day. Someone finally looked at the camera recordings. I was grabbed and sent to a secret-prison on the spot. I guess they didn't want anyone to know that trying to kill Snow was possible." They had succeeded - Rye had only found out about this months ago. "They kept on demanding names. Eventually I started to denounce anyone I could think of, but they could tell I was lying, and they actually wanted the real names, they were convinced I could not have acted alone. That was why they didn't kill me. They were convinced one day I'd give them names."

After the interview was over, Rye was met by Carver, who had also been there to talk to a potential witness. "How did that go?" Rye asked. Carver had said she would be interviewing a young man who had worked in a sweatshop in Eight, making shirts.

"Alright." Carver tapped her phone. "Are we going to wait for Perry?"

"No, he said he's going to the archives."

Carver nodded and made a face. "Weren't we supposed to deal with Nine? I certainly didn't expect to be doing Eight's case for them."

"Nothing about this case is going as expected."

"True." They set off in the direction of their billet. "So, how was your witness?"

Rye wondered if she could even answer that. "I'd say I wish we could have had more of her in the Capitol, but she did more in a day than I've done so far in my life." Maiolo claimed she had been no hero. Under torture, she had denounced her own parents - just like anyone else who had ever been tortured. She had then been sent off to the IGR and experimented upon, at one point being poisoned with a nerve agent. She claimed she had been deliberately kept alive, but the best Rye could say after reading the files was that she had not been deliberately killed. Aside from her visible disabilities, Maiolo suffered from chronic migraines, agoraphobia, and panic attacks.

"Isn't that how it is," Carver agreed. She came to a stop at a curb. "Hold on a second." She quickly wrote a complaint to the municipal council before allowing Rye to help her down. "Isn't that just how it is," she said again. "Tried to assassinate Snow of all people, survived by accident, probably won't be able to use the stairs ever again, and then starts muttering about how privileged she was to live in the Capitol."

The Thirteeners on Nine's team were like that. They constantly understated their own heroism in running away while knowing that they would be executed if caught. Unlike them, Rye had never risked her life. "How was your witness?"

Carver inclined her head slightly. "Taciturn, but he gave good testimony. I am slightly horrified by how happy the implementation of the most basic health and safety standards makes him."

"Like what?" Rye knew that many factory managers back home were also standing trial, but she wasn't following that closely.

"He testified that before, there was nothing in the way of heating or air conditioning in the workshops. Children of six or seven forced to make the same quotas as adults. Pregnant women and the handicapped had to work standing up for twelve to sixteen hours a day, and their pay was docked if they took more than one twenty-minute break per shift." Carver chuckled darkly. "Just a typical Panem sweatshop."

Rye tried to imagine taking only one break in twelve hours while heavily pregnant. Even her desk job had become difficult in the later months - how could anyone have worked standing up? Bille and Mitch had been easy enough (a stroke of luck in the case of Billie, because the only way to get an exam rescheduled had been a large bribe), but when pregnant with Flora, Rye had spent the last trimester lying on a couch and demanding Barrow fetch her this or that. "We won't be able to dig up all of the dirt in time," she said, feeling sincerely irritated by that. She didn't want anyone to get away just because the junior associates weren't able to read through those mountains of documents in time. "Do we even have any testimony about modern Nine?" By some miracle, one of the people featured in that film of the famine of 31-32 had been found, but none of the key criminals had had any meaningful positions back then.

"I don't know, nobody tells me that."

Belatedly, Rye realized it was silly to ask someone who was technically her junior for information she herself did not know. "Have you seen Rakesh this week?" She had last seen him eight days ago, when he had been critiquing Irons' opening statement again.

Carver shook her head. "I was going to ask Anna Goldfield that. I heard Torres joking that Kantaria got lost in the archives, but I don't think he's set foot in there this entire time."

"That's why he's our almighty team leader," Rye said sarcastically. There was another curb up ahead, so she stopped to let Carver write up another complaint. The average Capitolian was terrible at complaining to up there, so it fell to Carver to fill in that form and demand for the obstacle to be removed as a hazard to public safety.

"Why can't hovercraft engines be shrunk?" the younger woman complained once they were over the curb. "The companies should really invest in that. I'd wait as long as I had to for a hoverchair."

Rye imagined Carver and Maiolo and all the rest of them slowly floating along regardless of potholes and curbs that hadn't been fixed yet. "That would be convenient," she agreed.

Decius stirred the pilaf, wishing he could keep stirring it forever. The past few months had felt like an eternity, and he had forgotten just how stressful teaching was. "How are yours doing?" he asked Miryam, who was working on her lesson plans. His wife had been stuck with a first-year survey course. Decius understood her plight. HIST 150 made him want to tear out his hair.

"They've stopped showing up, so that makes it easier." She sniffed the air. "Is it done yet?"

Decius blew on the spoon and ate the grains of rice that had been stuck to it. The dish had little in common with what his parents had made when he was a child. There were no spices aside from a small pinch of salt and the rice was of a much lesser quality. Besides that, all it contained was a tiny amount of chicken, carrots, and onions. As professors, they got desk worker rations, which were quite low. Decius had swapped a few days' worth of sugar for extra vegetables. "It's done," he said, savouring the taste.

The pilaf really needed to stand there for a little while, but Decius was too hungry for that. He gave it a final stir and dished out two portions. "Thanks," Miryam said, pushing aside her papers. They were close to the front of the queue for a computer, but were still waiting. "Mmm, this is good."

"Flatterer." The pilaf tasted like rice with a hint of carrot. "When do you have to leave?" Decius' classes were already over for the day, but Miryam had a lecture from nineteen to twenty-two today.

"Eighteen. I've got to do some stuff in the office."

It was currently seventeen-twenty. "You want a quick backrub before you go?" Decius offered. His wife looked very tense.

"That'd be nice," she said with a smile.

The pilaf was demolished quickly. It may have been a pale imitation of the real deal, but it was much better than eating plain rice. Then, they had some 'tea', which was in reality random herbs that had probably been picked by pensioners in the woods, with bread and a microscopic layer of honey.

"This bread is terrible," Decius said. "It's like it can't decide if it's flat or loaf." At least the honey made it sweet. Where had they even gotten the jar?

Miryam nodded. "I was just thinking the same thing. Where did we even get this honey from?"

"I was just thinking about that!" They collapsed into helpless giggles.

"No, really," Miryam said, taking a gulp of her tea. "I don't like the idea that food can just appear. If it can do that, it can also disappear." She looked at him with mock suspicion. "Or did you eat that apple?"

"I swear, I didn't!" Last week, an apple had disappeared from their cupboard, and the mystery was still unsolved. "Maybe one of us sleepwalks."

After dinner was over, Decius gave his wife the promised backrub. The backrub morphed into cuddles on the couch, and when she had to go to work, the apartment suddenly felt lonely and far too big. But maybe now he'd be able to work.

His class on the twentieth century, at least, had TAs to handle most of the usual work. In an odd twist, one of the TAs was dating the deputy warden of the Lodgepole Justice Building. And Decius had actually prepared his lectures ahead of time for the first time in his life, which was a lifesaver. His international law class didn't require him to grade homework, either. He just had to go through the ten homeworks from his genocide class. Ten pages about the Circassian genocide and whether it could be compared to the genocides of indigenous peoples during imperial expansion in other parts of the world.

The handwriting varied from print so neat it could have been typed to an incomprehensible script that resembled a squiggly line. The homework wasn't for marks per se, but Decius still wanted to give them some feedback that would help them with papers. Several of the students had clearly not done very well in highschool English class, going by how terrible their spelling and grammar were. At least one of the worst offenders had the decency to have the best handwriting in the class. Their teachers had clearly focused on the wrong thing, but at least it made finding mistakes easier.

Decius himself had forgotten much of that first-year course on grammar he had taken decades ago, but even he could tell that 'the soldiers' desaided' was wrong in several different ways. He tried not to nitpick grammar too much, he wanted to focus on the actual content, but academic writing had to meet a certain standard.

Once the grading was done, Decius put the folder in his bag and stretched out, wondering what now. The laundry, that was what. And then a walk to unwind before Miryam got home. He turned on the television and went to get the laundry from the bathroom to the sound of a group of people arguing about unionization.

As he sorted the laundry into light and dark, he kept on humming 'The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley', a pre-Cataclysm song Latreya had introduced him to and that was currently stuck in his head even though he absolutely hated it. The song defended a war criminal who had participated in a massacre; that massacre had only been stopped thanks to the intervention of three soldiers.

During this war, a hundred My Lais had taken place, a thousand. But where were the Hugh Thompsons, Glenn Andreottas, and Lawrence Colburns of Panem? So far, there had been no Peacekeepers coming forward to testify about doing anything other than participating. Latreya had offered the tentative hypothesis that the military ethos was completely different, but, as Chee pointed out, what about Kurt Gerstein, then? Where were the Gersteins of Panem? Would Hermann Graebe materialize out of nowhere to testify at the trial?

The Circassian genocide was half-remembered at best. The Holocaust was better-studied than most pre-Cataclysm genocides, thanks to the fact that after that war, at least, a handful of the perpetrators had been punished. Would the destruction of District Twelve be forgotten, or would it be remembered for years ahead as one of the few times that the guilty received a rope around their necks instead of a medal ribbon?

Rye was doubtful of the wisdom of partying where the journalists could see, but Anna Goldfield had insisted that she needed a break, and the senior counsel had agreed. Rakesh was still missing, and the juniors were chained to their desks sifting through documents.

"ID?" someone asked Torres.

The diminutive twenty-seven-year-old took out his ID from his pocket with no complaints. At upscale places like this, certain niceties had to be observed. It was a bar, but Anna Goldfield claimed it had been of the more expensive sort.

"Well, then," Husk Goldfield said. "Where do we sit?" The place was already somewhat crowded. Rye recognized quite a few of the people - prosecutors from other Districts, journalists, and other trial staff. All here to unwind after a long day. Tomorrow would be another long day, but Rye found herself not particularly caring about that.

"There," Perry pointed out. He looked around worriedly. "I don't think I like this." The older man had spent twenty years in Thirteen.

They managed to sit down. Rye ended up between Feng and Hudson. Her roommate was anxiously pulling on her ear - she was supposed to be helping Rakesh write his presentation on war crimes and crimes against humanity in Nine, but their chief kept on disappearing.

"Alright," Anna Goldfield said, taking out her phone, "what does everyone want?"

Nine was the centre of the alcohol industry, so they knew a thing or two about it, except for those who had spent the past twenty years in Thirteen. "What beer do they have?" Feng mused out loud as she scanned the blackboard hanging on the wall. "Hmm, that looks good," she said, and named her choice.

Rye also decided to get beer - she had to be up at six-thirty tomorrow. Torres got vodka even though he was so small, that one glass would probably be enough to knock him out. Others opted for more exotic choices. "Have any of you tried tequila before?" Carver asked. Head shakes all around. "I'll get one of those."

Five minutes and one argument about beer later, the orders were placed. It didn't take too long for the drinks and a large platter of snacks to arrive. Rye took her glass and tried it. Not exactly what she had expected, but still decent.

"The hell is this?" Husk Goldfield quietly said after taking a gulp of his wine.

"Wine?" his wife suggested.

Husk Goldfield rolled his eyes.

"So, what does that taste like?" Feng asked Carver, who was sipping her drink out of a small glass with a straw.

Carver made a face. "Well, it's as strong as it said. Lope, could you please pass some bread and a pickle?"

Her orderly sat next to her with a glass of fruit juice she had gotten for free. "Of course." Once the food was in Carver's hand, she could eat it independently, though it took some contortions that made Rye feel very lucky to be able-bodied.

Rye reached out and took some shredded dried squid. She had her suspicions about whether this was squid at all, but it did taste fishy, so at least it was from the same ocean.

"Wow," said Torres. "These peanuts are so salty. I'm going to go get some water." The young man's face was bright-red, despite the fact that his skin was usually medium-tan.

"Oh no," Perry said, clutching his beer glass with his hands. "I just remembered I forgot to do something."

"Can we not?" Feng begged. Her glass was already half-empty. "How's everyone doing - aside from work, that is?"

"Are we even doing anything outside of work?" Anna Goldfield asked as her husband stole her beer.

Rye tried to think of something. "You want to see new photos of my husband's kitten?"

"Yes!"

Rye took out her fancy new phone and opened up a new photo of Bao. The striped kitten was curled up on top of a large book. "Here you go," she said, passing it to Hudson.

"Aww, it's so cute!" Hudson exclaimed. "What's it sleeping on top of?"

"Tax code."

There was much laughter at that. Rye took a few plain peanuts and munched on them as the phone was passed around. "Can I scroll around or should I not?" Smith asked.

"Go right ahead."

Smith giggled. "It's so small! And look at the glowing eyes! It looks like a demon hiding under the couch."

"That's her favourite place," Rye explained. "My youngest is not quite ten."

"How's she doing at school?" Anna Goldfield asked.

"Great," Rye bragged, drinking her beer. "How's your grandson?"

"Oh, don't ask," the Goldfields said in unison. "How's your eldest? Enjoying university?"

Rye nodded happily. "She's doing great. Though I do wish she didn't spend so much effort into wooing one of her classmates with pie."

"Pie?" Carver asked.

"My husband somehow convinced her that is the one true way to win someone's affection, so she's gotten into baking. No idea where she gets the ingredients from."

Anna Goldfield raised her eyebrows. "Did your husband bake for you, by any chance?"

"He did." Back when they had been dating, Barrow had loved to bake all sorts of fancy desserts. He seldom had the time for anything more complicated than apple pie now.

"That explains it."

"I'm glad I don't have kids," Torres said. His face was still extremely flushed and his eyes were slightly unfocused.

Husk Goldfield chuckled. "You need to find a spouse first for that!"

"I get enough of that from my parents," the young prosecutor muttered. "How am I supposed to find a spouse here? I don't want to go after someone I work with, that'd be too weird, and I don't want to chase after locals."

That was a much easier line of conversation. Rye joined in on the teasing as she sipped her beer, wishing she didn't have to wake up early tomorrow all over again.

Tiller was annoyed she was the one Lieutenant Vance always dumped everything on, that much Janie knew. The second lieutenant was way nicer than her boss, both to the guards and to the prisoners. Janie was currently tagging behind her, measuring tape and clipboard in hand. The trial was starting in three days, so the prisoners needed decent clothing. Lieutenant Vance didn't want anyone to feel sorry for them.

The radio was currently blasting Don't Lock Me Away - the NCO on duty loved that one. Vance would have imploded, but Tiller wasn't her boss. She understood that nobody could watch someone sleep for two hours without going insane.

"Let's start with her," Tiller said, gesturing at the first door. She glanced pointedly at the radio. "You do know how the boss will react, right?"

The NCO, a twenty-three-year-old man called Lepp, smirked as the chorus poured out of the radio. "Decent odds I won't be there to catch his shit," he said. He was right - they were all being rotated like crazy. Yesterday, Janie had spent all day in the building itself, shouting at people to show their passes.

"Turn down the music!" Dovek demanded imperiously, face pressed against the slit in his cell door. "Are you trying to deafen all of us?"

He wasn't exactly wrong - the music was blasting. They didn't complain when the news was being played, though. "Tone it down a decibel or ten," Tiller said. "I'm going to have to do some talking."

"Sure thing, second lieutenant!" Lepp said. The music became quieter.

"Thank you for your infinite kindness and cooperation," Dovek snarked before stepping away from his door. The guard watching him giggled. Janie also couldn't help but like the former interior minister. He was funny, at least.

Tiller unlocked the door they were standing in front of. "Hello," the second lieutenant said, not bothering to try pronouncing Dijksterhuis' name. Janie just called her 'the economics minister.' "Does your family have clothing they can send you?"

The former minister scratched her head. "I doubt it. Last I heard, the house isn't habitable. All the clothes are probably long since in Ten or someplace else."

"Measure the neck, chest, and hips," she said to Janie. Tiller took her clipboard, where there was a chart showing what dimensions corresponded to what clothing size, and studied it. "And leg length." Foot size had already been recorded, and none of them had lost enough weight for that to change.

"Fancy," Dijksterhuis said as Janie began to measure her and call out numbers. The former minister looked so ordinary, Janie might as well have been measuring her great-aunt for a new suit. Ready-made fancy clothing had been unaffordable, they had had to make their own.

"Not really. We can't have you showing up for court in too-short trousers."

The former minister chuckled. "Or whatever this is supposed to be," she said, indicating the shabby outfit she was currently wearing. Once, Janie had worn similar clothes to the Reaping, but now, she knew that this was practically rags.

Janie finished measuring and coiled up the tape. Tiller penciled in the last number and looked at the chart. "You're a size medium."

"Really? I thought I'd have shrunk to a small."

"I guess you have a broader frame, then." Dijksterhuis did, in fact, have wide shoulders and hips, so that made sense. "You'll get your clothes hopefully next evening." When the trial started, Janie would spend the afternoons in the courtroom. Lieutenant Vance had strictly vetoed the presence of underage guards anywhere visible, so it was looking like she and Dusk would be spending the next who knew how long standing around looking impressive.

Next up was Chaterhan, who managed to look down on her even though he was sitting. "My wife can send something in," he said with an elegant wave of his hand. Janie wasn't intimidated. Underneath all of that bluster, the formerly almighty industrialist was a middle-aged uncle who took the group showers probably the worst of all, according to the male guards. This morning, the men hadn't been shaved, which made Chaterhan look even less impressive.

"Of course," Tiller said, noting that down. Hopefully it wouldn't be something too ostentatious. Janie remembered the suits people had worn on television and shuddered. But in his photos, Chaterhan had always looked pretty normal, aside from the fact that he had worn makeup only the factory manager would have been able to afford.

The next few went fine, but they collided with an issue they should have expected when Krechet apologetically said he had worn custom-made clothing ever since he had been able to afford it. "My wife has a suit of mine, but no shoes. You might have some issues with that." Janie had heard about how much of a pain in the ass it had been to find him the ones currently standing by his cot.

"You can't be the only one with giant feet," Tiller said optimistically. "We'll raid a warehouse."

"But - dress shoes? For feet thirty-five centimetres long?"

Janie imagined him showing up to court in these worn-out combat boots and a suit.

"Of course. You can't be the only one," Tiller said, all friendly-like. Lieutenant Vance would have pointed out that he had never gone barefoot before and he wouldn't have to start now.

Krechet smiled, which made him look like a very large plush bear. "That's nice."

With Talvian, they had the opposite problem. "You will get me something appropriate," she half-asked half-commanded as Janie measured her.

"We'll get you something in an adult style," Tiller said consolingly. Talvian's hair was fully grey and her face was starting to show some lines, so it wasn't like with Slice, who looked like she was Janie's age even though she was as old as Mom and Dad.

"Thank you."

Janie finished measuring and peeked over Tiller's shoulder. Talvian wasn't off the charts, but she wasn't even at the first percentile, either. Tiller checked another table that had been given to her just for Talvian purposes. The former secret-police head was as tall as an average Capitol eleven-year-old. In Six, she would have passed for Reaping age, perhaps thirteen or fourteen.

Talvian stood in the middle of her cell. Janie realized that she was still hunched over, trying to get on her level. Talvian had that effect on everyone except Vance. Janie straightened out, but as soon as she met Talvian's eyes, she was hunching again.

Next up was Oldsmith, who would have been considered extremely tall if not for the existence of Krechet. "This is an outrage," he said angrily. "Am I to appear in front of the world in District castoffs?"

"They're not castoffs," Tiller said awkwardly. That was one disadvantage to being nice - she didn't know how to put them in their place. Lieutenant Vance could be kind if he wanted to, but there was always firmness behind that. Tiller was just the sort of person who was nice until she got pissed off enough, and then she decked you right in the face. "Your spouse can send you something."

In reply, Oldsmith went on a rant about District marauders who stole the sinks from his houses.

"Then, we're going to have to get you something new."

"Fine," Oldsmith said, glowering. Tiller ignored the glower, which just made him even more ticked off.

In the end, Tiller pushed off filling the forms on Janie. Janie had to go to the lounge with the clipboard in one hand, irritated at the extra work but a little bit happy that she was someone who could do paperwork. Before, she had only ever placed an 'X' when signing something, but now she was filling in forms! Like the secretaries and accountants at the steel mill!

Janie sat down in a squashy armchair, put her feet on a small table, and carefully made a tally of what exactly they needed. These would be cheap clothes - from where they'd get them, Janie had no idea. Shirts wouldn't be too hard to find and ties were just a scrap of cloth, but where would they get dress trousers and suit jackets and shoes?

The sizes were also pretty different. Talvian was tiny and Krechet was massive, but even without them, some would wear small and some - extra-large. According to the chart, Janie was probably a medium. Back home, she had been on the taller side, but here, she was just average. There had been kids in the Capitol going hungry, but nobody had ever starved to death.

The print on the forms was small, so Janie had to read it carefully to make sure she was ticking off the right boxes. Once she was done, she took a quick nap. Her last shift later, it was time to meet up with Tav.

Her boyfriend was already standing by the Justice Building - and attracting a lot of attention. Janie took him by the hand and they were off.

"Thanks for saving me," he said with a smile.

Janie kissed him on the cheek. "Anytime."

"So, are we really-"

"Yep."

She and a few others would be meeting up at the bar first. After a few drinks, they waved goodbye to the others. Thanks to her connections, Janie knew exactly where the jeeps were and how to get one.

Janie used the keys she had gotten somewhere to open up the door of a jeep, unsteady hands colliding with the door repeatedly. Finally, she managed to get it open. Tav climbed in, and so did she. The ignition was just as hard to deal with, but it only took a minute or so before a quiet purring indicated that the battery was running.

"You ready?" she called out to Tav.

"Yeah!" This wouldn't be their first ride. Tav really liked being in cars, since his family couldn't afford one, so she was treating him.

Janie pressed on the acceleration and they were off. She wasn't exactly licensed, but she could drive, after a fashion. Too late, she realized they had run a red light and nearly ran over a pedestrian.

"You're gonna make me puke," Tav said with a slight chuckle.

Fuck, that was a turn! "Sorry!" she shouted as she jerked the wheel to the side, barely managing to stay on the road. It was dark outside, and she wasn't exactly sober, anyway.

"Ugh."

Janie laughed. There weren't many cars on this road, so she relaxed slightly. "You wanna go fast?" she asked, before pressing down on the acceleration. Janie was thrown against the seat. She somehow managed to avoid crashing into a car that was going the wrong way and make a turn. It was all instinct. She wouldn't have been able to make that turn if she had stopped to think about it.

"You're insane," Tav said with a laugh.

"I try."

Why was it so hard to see? Janie felt exhausted, and her hands felt like they were going to slip off the wheel at any moment.

"Turn! Turn!"

Janie realized that they were coming up against a dead end. She made a sharp turn, wheels screeching, but they were still moving forward. A person suddenly materialized in front of them. Janie barely heard them screaming before she was flying through the air.

Decius had gone for a walk to kill time before Miryam came home. As he turned a corner, there was a sound of screeching tires, and a car suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Decius barely had time to scream before it hit him.

A/N: :(

Georg Elser was the person who, operating entirely on his own, came very close to killing Hitler in 1939 and was held in a concentration camp for years before finally being killed months before the end of the war. John Brown was a militant US abolitionist who participated in several raids and attempted uprisings, eventually being captured and executed.

The mysteriously vanishing apple was in reality eaten by Miryam, who then forgot about it.