Baer finished her objection and sat down. Rye wished she would shut up for once. Slice's lawyer was always ready with yet another hairsplitting argument about the definition of a conspiracy. Had Rye been in a charitable mood, she would have recognized that all of her objections at least made sense, unlike a few of the others who seemed to just want to have the trial go on forever, but Rye was not in a charitable mood. She was bored.

If Baer stood up to complain, Low did so sitting down, because she couldn't stand without legs. The prosecution did not interact with the defense, they even sent discovery requests through intermediaries, so Rye was unsure which of the two was the leader. She saw the lawyers travelling in groups from time to time - Alli, Verdant's lawyer, stuck like a burr to Wreath, who was defending Best. Rye had heard stories about the former military judge who wore his uniform even now. He was reputed to be very well-versed in maritime law, though he hadn't had any opportunity to show it so far.

What he definitely was, though, was a magnet for audience and journalists alike. It was not only because of his uniform - his fellow counsel for Best, Teck, also wore a Peacekeeper uniform, and nobody looked twice at her. Unlike him, she did not cut a fine figure in that uniform. Many an eye was drawn to the handsome middle-aged man, but he was either extremely professional or simply not interested in relationships.

After him, Baer was perhaps the most noticeable. She was certainly the most skilled, but Rye suspected that she was not the leader and that Low gave the instructions behind the scenes. It only made sense that the leader of the defendants would have as lawyer the leader of the counsel.

Rye rested her head on her fist as a prosecutor explained the intricacies of the NCIA hierarchy. She could see Kirji pretend to be going through documents - she was actually reading a newspaper, like always. Next to her, Lee was probably drawing. Rye had seen a guard selling one of his sketches for good money - the former minister was an excellent artist.

The subject of the presentation sat blank-faced, passing on a note to her lawyer from time to time. Rumour had it that both Aichele and Gupta, who defended Krechet and Talvian respectively, were not too happy about their jobs. Both had taken the post of counsel to have a roof over their heads, both had once lived in terror of their now-clients.

There were a few other political lawyers on that bench - Grass' lawyer Jamieson, Pollman's lawyer Hopkins, and, most of all, Blues' lawyer Fisher. Looking at Fisher, Rye found it hard to believe that he had managed to keep clients alive in Lophand's courtroom. Even in her town, everyone had known that in the judicial realm of Komal Lophand, the prosecution got what it wanted thanks to Lophand's telephone consultations with 'above'. But this mousy man had managed to get him to back down. It was a shame Fisher and his fellow onetime political lawyers were wasted on the defendants. Rye would have liked to work with someone who could defeat the almighty telephone.

Irons stood up to argue against the objection by complaining about the defense's stalling tactics. The judges sat as if hypnotized. Sanchez was clearly using all of his willpower to stay awake. Meadowcreek was slumped over and running her pencil against paper.

Some of the judges had been straightforward Rebels - Xia had blown up railroads, Chatterjee had spent years in a secret prison, Sanchez had fled to Thirteen fearing for his life. Others had been mute objectors and took up arms when the fighting went into the open. Still others were simply good judges. Rescu from Ten was just odd. Rye had read contradictory material about her. What was certain was that she followed the strictest letter of the law no matter who was in the dock in front of her - an attitude that explained her ability to follow the defense counsel's hairsplitting with ease. She took careful notes as Irons spoke.

Once Irons was done, the judges looked at each other. A few notes were passed to Sanchez. If the issue was contentious enough they would go to their chambers to discuss, but clearly they were in agreement here. Sanchez sustained Baer's objection and told the prosecutor currently at the lectern that the document they had been trying to read into evidence was irrelevant.

The prosecutor didn't seem too worried. She set that paper aside and continued her presentation. Jinwe had shared her plan of how the conspiracy case would go. They had already dealt with the Hunger Games themselves, the armed forces, and were now finishing with the NCIA. None of it had been sensational. The prosecution had danced around explosive topics, only focusing on establishing who had been in charge of what and presenting complicated charts. Some criminal orders had been read, yes, but none of them had been surprising. Now, that was changing.

"...the meeting was also attended by the following defendants: Oldsmith, Lux, Blatt, Thread, Coll, and Pollman." Why had Pollman, a deputy minister, been at such a conference? "I quote from page 47 of your document books, fifth line down. 'In the event of any such unrest, Twelve must be wiped from the face of the earth.'"

The audience was shocked. Rye wondered why before remembering that they didn't have the document books. Glancing at the dock, she saw that Dovek looked annoyed - most likely by the fact that he hadn't been there.

"I remind the Tribunal that this conference took place in 2353, or 73 by the Panem style. I would like to draw your attention-"

Sanchez cut in. "What unrest was referred to?"

"I decided not to read that in the interest of time. It's on page 45 of your document book."

"Please read it."

"It begins with the defendant Thread saying, and I quote, 'In the event of widespread attacks, the harvest still needs to be gathered. I am forced to keep my reprisals small-scale to not affect the national food supply.'" The cameras all turned to Thread, who had been Head Peacekeeper of Eleven at the time. "The defendant Pollman then complained about reprisals being bad for production and said, I quote, 'Why do we even have Twelve? It produces nothing. We should put the village out of its misery.' There is then an exchange between Lux, Coll, and Pollman about how much punitive actions affect output and whether they'd be able to cope with widespread resistance before Snow breaks in with the line I previously quoted. He goes on to say, I quote, 'That, Pollman, is where you are wrong. The first time around, we made the mistake of destroying what we ourselves needed. This time, we will make an example that will strike fear into the people's hearts, but will not hurt us in the long run.'"

The prosecutor turned a page and continued reading. "Next, I would like to quote from Document 00-394, an e-mail from the defendant Pollman to the defendant Di-Dij-" She put her hand on the page, struggling to make sense of the name. "Dij-k-s-ter-hu-huis." Dijksterhuis sighed visibly, the other defendants laughed out loud. The audience chuckled nervously. "In which he informs her of the conference. I quote, 'We have achieved a workable solution to the terrorist problem. Instead of major reprisals that will hurt the economy, we'll put Twelve out of its misery.'"

A conspiracy to commit genocide, then. That was what Irons had called it. In Rye's opinion, this was enough to hang Oldsmith, Lux, Blatt, Thread, Dijksterhuis, Pollman, and Coll. They were tense; Coll looked almost ashamed. He usually looked quite youthful, but his face was now twisted in a grimace that made him look older than he really was. With a start, Rye realized she was older than the former minister. It was hard to think of him as a peer, but he was one.

She looked around the table they shared with Ten and Eleven. Rakesh was there, for once, staring glumly at his computer screen. The chief prosecutors had divvied up the individual defendants yesterday. Whether that would continue for the cross-examinations was doubtful - everyone knew that Irons was very eager to get her hands on Dovek and Lux, and the latter had been assigned to Four. Two had demanded Verdant and Thread, so that the formerly in favour back home saw what even the highest-ranked among them got, but they would be dealt with by Ilhan Dadin from Three and Carver. For now, that was all beside the point. Count One was looking like it would drag on forever, and even the presentation Rye would have to make on Lee was in the distant future.

The prosecutor was still going on about how the annihilation of Twelve had been planned. This Saturday session was probably going to last for half the day. Judge Meadowcreek sat perfectly calm, and Rye thought about that book Dr. Lee had given her before his death. The young judge had two options - stay, and face accusations of bias, or be like Delfin Jaranilla when the Bataan Death March was being discussed, skip those sessions, and face accusations of bias.

Thinking about bias made Rye wonder what kind of bias the judges would show. Would Smith of Two be harsher on his fellows? Would the others react to atrocities committed against their people more harshly? Rye was by now deeply aware of how lucky she had been to be born into an upper-middle-class urban family. And on the matter of class - if it came to it, would Krechet's accent doom him? Rye could not remove the Nine from her speech, so she felt more kinship with the hulking NCIA operative than she should have.

Other than him, Bright was also Capitol working-class and Verdant and Thread had been from poor villages in Two. They, however, spoke like officers and were indistinguishable from Lux and Best, who were from well-off military families in the Capitol. And Slice's parents were, much to Rye's shock, a construction worker and an elementary school teacher.

Of course, that probably did not matter. This proceeding was for the sake of due process, not because there was a chance that someone was not guilty. If the judges irrationally disliked Slice more than Lark or Krechet more than Talvian, that would hardly matter in the end.

Immediately after lunch, Tiller walked into Antonius' cell as he tried to put it into some semblance of order after the search. "You will now be taken to see your grandmother," she said.

That was unexpected. He had not thought they could be so prompt. "Thank you."

Tiller tossed a mesh bag at him. "Put this on."

Confused, Antonius shook out its contents. It was an orange jumpsuit with the letters 'DOC' stamped on the back. "What is this?" he asked, indignant. He had thought he would be allowed to wear his suit.

"You cannot be taken outside the jail in civilian clothing."

"But why is it orange?" In movies, prisoners always wore grey.

Tiller shrugged. "New rule in the jail. Great powers sent in their castoffs, and I guess up there couldn't think of a better use for a truckload of orange jumpsuits."

"The system will not change because they dyed the clothes different colours," Antonius warned as he took off his shirt and trousers and pulled on the jumpsuit, which fit as terribly as everything else that had been issued to him. Tiller looked away as he did so, discussing a soccer match with the guard at his door.

"Turn around."

Antonius turned around, hands behind his back. "Why do I need to be cuffed?" he complained. "I am not going to run away dressed like this." Perhaps this was another reason for the change, besides the association between Thirteen and grey uniforms.

"Do I need to get Warden Vance?"

That made him fall silent. Antonius said nothing even as his ankles were cuffed, in addition to his wrists. He was forced to shuffle down the corridor, chain between his feet dragging on the ground. Grandma would be horrified.

He was taken down the usual route he took to get to the courtroom, but when entering the administrative building, he was instead taken to a desk and handed over to two guards who led him outside and to a windowless van. Antonius did not even get to fully appreciate being properly outside for the first time in so long before the door was slamming shut and a guard was fastening his seatbelt for him before attaching him to the floor.

When the van finally stopped following a long and bumpy ride, Antonius was hit by a flood of memories as soon as he stepped out, chains jangling. His arms were stiff, but there was not much he could do about that as he looked around the parking lot of the hospice where his grandfather had died nearly twenty years ago now.

The place was not too different now. Unlike the neighbouring buildings, it showed no signs of looting. However, there were far fewer expensive cars parked, and the people entering and exiting appeared to be far shabbier.

"Go on, man," a guard said, making the word sound like 'thing'. The two young people grabbed him by the upper arms and walked with him to the entrance.

With a start, Antonius realized that everyone was trying to avoid him. They looked down when he approached, and stepped away as if he was dangerous. When he tried to look one person in the eyes, he got a disdainful, haughty glare in response. Embarrassed, he looked at the floor instead, not lifting his eyes when they reached the reception.

"He's here to visit his grandmother," one of the guards said.

Someone behind him was whispering, "Poor woman, to have someone like that in her family."

"Do you know the room number?"

"Yes."

"Go on, then."

As before, the place was painted soft, soothing colours. Even the tiles on the floor were the same. Antonius was taken to a small room where Grandma was lying on a bed and listening to music. She had always been an imposing presence, but now she looked like a ragdoll lying there under the thin blanket. A nurse who had been writing something looked up and nearly jumped into the air. The music stopped.

"You must be the grandson," he said.

At that, Grandma opened her eyes. "Toni?" she asked in a faint voice.

Antonius tried to run to her, but he was being held tightly. "I am here, Grandma," he said, tears coming to his eyes. She had always been so strong, it hurt to see her so weak and vulnerable. "Sorry I could not come before."

"Oh, Toni," she said, reaching out a weak hand to pat his cheek. Antonius wanted to take it in his own, but he was cuffed. "What have they done to you?"

Maybe it would have been better if she had been barely lucid, like Grandpa had been in his last months. Then, she would not have had to suffer through this. "I am alright," he sniffled, sitting down on a chair, guards flanking him. "It will all be fine." Mercifully, his hands were uncuffed, and he was able to clasp her hand between his. Her skin was so papery, he was almost afraid to touch it.

Grandma had always been a rock in Antonius' imagination. Even in the old photographs, she was strong and sturdy. "You look so handsome," she whispered, smiling. "You looked so tired before. But you look so much better now!"

Antonius decided not to tell her of the strict diet that had resulted in him shrinking a size. "Thanks."

"You look just like your grandfather at that age." She smiled. "I cannot believe I will finally see him now."

With his free hand, Antonius wiped at his eyes. Like him, Grandma had been raised to inherit. Unlike him, though, she had always been first in line. She had always worked so hard for the good of the family. Grandpa had been practically foisted on her, but the 'Steel Queen' and her politician prince-consort had been very happy together - Antonius remembered how close they had been. "I am sure you will," he said, patting her wrinkled hand lightly.

"The end of an era," Grandma sighed. "Take care of the corporation, will you, Toni?"

Antonius opened his mouth to lie to her, but to his horror, he found himself crying instead.

"Oh, Toni, do not cry for me," she sighed, putting her small palm on his.

"They are going to hang me, Grandma," he sobbed, feeling the reality of the situation choke him like the rope he realized there was no way he could avoid. He should have known. No matter their pretensions, they didn't care if he was innocent. "You will see me sooner than you think."

Grandma sat up slightly and took his face in her hands. "Toni."

"Yes?"

Inside, she was still steel. "Nobody is going to hang you," she said in a firmer voice. "We are the foundation of Panem. They cannot afford to alienate us. They will have to let you go." She kissed him on the forehead. "Stay strong, Toni."

"I will try," he said, feeling like the little boy peeking into the big office that he had once been. "I always did try to make you proud. I cannot let you down now, can I?" He tried to smile, but his lips trembled and he pressed them together to prevent more sobs from escaping his throat.

"Oh, Toni." Grandma's voice was as soft as a petal. "I do not have the words to describe just how proud I am of you. The day you took over my duties for the first time was the happiest day in my life. You always make me so proud." She reached for the cup of water on the table next to her. Antonius rushed to hand it to her. "Thank you."

To his sides, the guards flanked him, looking like timid statues.

"Toni? Are you alright?"

"No," he replied with a weak smile.

"Lean over."

Obediently, Antonius leaned over to let Grandma kiss him on the forehead. He tried not to think about how this was the last time she would do it.

"I am so bored," Bright complained. "I agreed to let Kirji teach me how to read newspapers discreetly, because I can't focus in that courtroom."

Miroslav understood that feeling. The media was full of complaints about how the trial of the century was in reality a citadel of boredom, and, for once, it did not exaggerate. Miroslav spent every other day sitting in a chair for eight hours and idly taking notes. Soon - whenever soon was - the prosecution would enter into evidence atrocity films, so both him and Mallow would have to be present that day. Morbidly, Miroslav looked forward to the defendants' reactions.

"What do you think of the news?" Miroslav asked. Bright was standing in the middle of the cell - she had always been active and a sedentary life was difficult for her.

"Certainly interesting. Reading foreign news, I understand less and less of why we are on trial at all. Other countries wage war in the exact same way."

Just because one criminal was caught while others went free did not make the trial of the first illegitimate. "They do?" Miroslav prompted.

"They deal with guerrillas in the exact same way, and they bomb cities and commit genocide, too. I don't see why we get the noose and they get medals."

Bright had gotten plenty of medals for her actions - the holes in her uniform tunic showed where they had been. "Perhaps this will set a precedent for other countries," Miroslav suggested.

"A precedent?" Bright sounded offended. "Of the victors trying the vanquished? Wars should be left to the military, not to lawyers and judges. I can't believe Thirteen's armed forces are fine with this." She then launched into the usual complaints - Coin's false-flag bombing of refugees and her plan to hold a final Hunger Games. The fact that Coin was dead and that Paylor had been the one to make all of that public was not mentioned by Bright. She finished her rant off with a final "I still have no idea what they're playing at with this trial."

Miroslav decided to go a step too far and see how Bright would react. "Perhaps they want to set a precedent that being a dictator's enforcer is the path not to laurels, but to the dock."

"Enforcer? I was a soldier!"

In the corridor, the radio loudly announced that someone had scored a goal.

"I never hurt anyone," Bright insisted, now with less righteous indignation. "I performed my duty. I kept the peace, I caught criminals. I'm not the child-killer they're making me out to be!"

"And the Hunger Games?"

Bright's pacing intensified. "That was not within my jurisdiction. And in any case, it's not my fault I was raised to believe it was right."

"Tell me more about that," Miroslav asked. "What is it like to consider the Hunger Games a normal part of life?"

Bright looked out the window, where the sun was brightly shining. She had just returned from her walk in that concrete cylinder. "It was normal," she said quietly. "I only saw the edited daytime bits when I was a small child. When I went to Two, we were told, over and over, about why we need to be grateful to our Tributes for their sacrifice. I never thought twice about the Games. If someone had told me they were bad, I would have reacted as if they had said that the sky is made from cheese. It was just a fact of life."

"It was just a fact of life?"

"It was presented almost like going to war - heroic death and so on. War is an evil, but it is a necessary one. The same went for the Games, in our understanding."

"And when you were deployed?"

Bright stopped pacing and thought for a while. "After completing officer school, I was sent to a mid-sized town in Seven to command my task force. Was transferred to Eight less than a year later, to Centre. I only ever knew of a single Tribute - a neighbourhood beggar who wouldn't have made it to nineteen in any case."

"Once you were promoted to Head, what did you think of the Victors?"

"I respected them, but we seldom interacted. I always had the greatest respect for the Tributes. It is no easy thing to die."

Miroslav nodded, jotting down a few notes. His recorder was on as always, but sometimes, he had thoughts he needed to write down before he forgot. Bright was one of those who did not know she was being recorded, but she had consented to note-taking, so it also set her at ease. "Did you perhaps feel a kinship with Eight, after two decades there?"

"Oh, absolutely. I always supported the Tributes monetarily."

"But you thought that the people of Eight were somehow distinct from you?" Miroslav asked, going through his old notes to find the right one. He had one clipboard per each defendant who had consented to note-taking, it would have been too confusing otherwise. "You said before that you never questioned the fact that only the Districts were subject to the Games." Miroslav had a sudden idea. He jotted down a few words to remind himself to steer her in that direction.

"Of course not. I am a soldier, I follow orders. I do not ask why the sky is blue or why the Games exist."

Bright was not exceptional there. Millions of people all over the country were still trying to come to terms with the fact that criticizing the government was possible. "You've told me before that you fraternized with the locals," Miroslav said.

"They were all of age," the former general insisted. She was not on trial for statutory rape, but sexual misconduct was one of the few things nobody tried to justify, instead telling bald-faced lies about how it was consensual and the sex worker was of age.

There was, in fact, an affidavit from someone who claimed he had had sex with Bright the night before the Reaping and she had wished him good luck - a clear sign that she had been aware of his young age. "That is not what I mean by fraternization. You bought things to send to your family. You visited bars and restaurants. And you still thought that the Districts were somehow distinct from the Capitol?"

"Of course."

"What was this distinction?"

"I said before, it's hard to explain." She stopped pacing and looked at Miroslav. "As a child, everyone knew I was a worker. When I was deployed, I instinctively knew they were different."

That fit perfectly with what the rest of the team had gleaned from the other Peacekeepers. "For the first time in your life, you were the one in charge," Miroslav said questioningly.

"I don't agree with that line of reasoning, Doctor," Bright said. "I am an officer, not an insecure adolescent looking for someone to lord it over."

Miroslav jotted down a note to come back to this. The behaviour of Peacekeepers from upper-class versus lower-class backgrounds was an interesting topic. For now, he let Bright have a break from something she was clearly uncomfortable about and moved on to what he had wanted to deal with. "Let us move on to something different, then," he said. "You said that once, you recognized the face of a Tribute from Eight?"

"I did. A beggar."

Mallow had told him about her own experiences with the Reapings, as had the other psychologists and psychiatrists. It had been an odd kind of fear - on one hand, certain painful death if you were chosen, but on the other hand, the chance of you dying from cancer that year was much higher because two teenagers out of the entire District was nothing. Except for Twelve, that was, and now, everyone knew why Twelve had been kept around.

"So never anyone you bought from or had any kind of relationship with."

"Yes."

"Would you say that you were able to ignore the Games because nobody you cared about had ever died in them?"

Bright thought about that for a while, marching up and down in the small confines of her cell. "Yes," she eventually admitted. "I believed all that about honourable death, but they were just children. Doctor, I never supported the usage of child soldiers. I love children."

"I know," Miroslav said. "Now, are you up for a little thought experiment?"

Warily, Bright nodded. She was very literal and struggled with those of Mallow's tests that required creativity - it had taken lots of prodding to get her to see anything besides 'a blot' in the Rorschach test.

"Imagine that, when you were in Seven, your superior loathed you."

"Why would my superior hate me?" Bright asked. "I was a good soldier."

"This is why it's a thought experiment. Imagine that you were saddled with a corrupt, useless commanding officer who hated you because you once took a millisecond too long to salute them." Bright nodded along, understanding it now. "So instead of going to Eight, you were sent to Twelve."

Immediately, Bright's face went blank. "I had no idea about that meeting," she said.

"I believe you. Now, my question is as follows. Imagine that you were Head Peacekeeper in Twelve, a county seat-sized town of ten thousand where everyone would recognize by face a large percentage of the population. The chance of you knowing a Tribute or their close relative would be much higher. How do you think that would have impacted you?"

"I don't know."

"What was it like to watch someone you knew die in the Hunger Games?"

"I saw more brutal deaths all the time, and that one would have met a bad fate regardless."

Miroslav nodded and let the conversation drift to wherever Bright wanted it, which was her family. Once that session was over, he went to Coll, who was sitting cross-legged on his cot and crying.

"Dr. Levy thinks I can still wriggle out," he said, looking at Miroslav with reddened eyes. "I don't see how. I was at that conference. I knew it was going to happen. And I stayed in my position."

"Why?"

"I didn't think it would actually happen," he said miserably. "We all heard those same lines about dealing with the terrorist threat. And then it turned out the threat was real, and so were the threats." He, like the rest of the defendants bar Slice, had known about Thirteen but had assumed it knew its place. "It's on me that Twelve was bombed." Miroslav felt an emotion he could not identify. "On me," Coll repeated, licking his lips. He took a deep breath, fresh tears pouring from his eyes. "I'm going to have to take responsibility."

"Why?" Miroslav prompted. Coll had been dancing around the topic for weeks, but now, he finally said the words. It remained to be seen what he'd do in the courtroom, of course, but Miroslav felt a little bit better. At least someone could recognize what was what. At least someone had a shred of a conscience.

"Because I remained in the government knowing that this was a plan. I aided and abetted genocide." His voice cracked on that last word, making him sound younger than his thirty-seven years. "It would have happened no matter what but by staying, I made myself guilty."

That word. "Guilty?"

Coll exhaled and fiddled with the sleeve of his shirt. "Yes," he said quietly.

Miroslav didn't need a crystal ball to know that Coll would be his usual slippery self when back in the dock, but this was a breakthrough. Oh, if only he could be convinced to proclaim his guilt on the witness stand! Revanchism would be dealt a powerful blow. Miroslav resolved to work on Coll so that he wasn't going to follow Dovek's united front strategy. It was obvious to Miroslav that it was a house of cards that only needed a single defendant pushing blame on another to collapse, but for now, the unanimous defiance was enough to convince most people.

"Guilty of what?"

"Of everything the government did while I was minister."

"Everything?" Miroslav asked carefully. "Even what you knew nothing about?"

Coll shook his head. "No. I am responsible for the conditions in the Districts. I am guilty of Twelve. There's a difference."

"What's the difference?"

"Legally, I am liable for both. If a boss does not know that the working conditions are bad, that is still on them." Chaterhan disagreed, and vehemently. "Morally? I'm not sure. But I think there is a difference."

Miroslav thought about that, wondering where to next. "If the working conditions are bad, that is always on the boss?"

Coll instantly got what he was implying. "Chaterhan's a liar," he said. "Didn't you see that photo? And half the country is laughing its head off at that song." Chaterhan was now signing CDs of the song in exchange for coffee. To Miroslav, he fumed at the indignity. "I'll say the truth about him even if it drags me down, too. My conscience won't allow anything else."

His conscience had lain dormant before the Rebellion, but it seemed that at least someone had found time to reflect in this past half-year.

Dora and Juan sat in the living room, sipping tea, eating honeycakes, and watching television. She had just finished reviewing the day's transcript, as well as a write-up about how much the conspiracy charge could apply to the Hunger Games her assistant, Austin Grybauskaite, had given her. He and Sarah Lai were both in their thirties, hard-working and hard-partying young people Dora found it a delight to work with.

In his memo, Grybauskaite had outlined the problems of putting a government that ruled for seventy-five years on trial as if it was a gang. He cautioned that it would be best to not use the old definition of conspiracy, under which practically everything was punishable. They would have to go back to an even older definition.

On the television, the newscaster described the projected harvest of oilseeds in apocalyptic terms. Juan sighed and nibbled on his honeycake, a circle about as big as his palm without fingers. "Looks like Heiko Laur's going to have to do some more begging," he said.

Dora didn't understand why everyone thought it acceptable to make fun of the foreign minister. "He's been doing great so far," she said, taking a sip of her tea. It tasted of strange herbs, even though she had lived not too far from here. "Most people are living better than they did before."

Juan shrugged. "That is a testament to how bad things were before, if people are living better bare months after the end of a civil war." He broke off a piece of honeycake and stared at it. "Have you finished reading that memo?"

"I have."

"Can I borrow it?"

"Of course."

They watched the television silently for a few seconds. "I already can't remember what the Games were like," Juan said quietly. "Though I suppose it never mattered for me. Even as a child I knew the odds were simply too good."

"How old are you?" Dora asked. During her early childhood, the only volunteers had been desperate children hoping their families would be taken care of, but by the time she herself stood in that field, One, Two, and Four had sent in someone trained more often than not. When her children were eligible, the Careers had been as trained as elite soldiers - capable of living off the land for months in any climate, skilled with any weapon or without one, withstanding cold and hunger and exhaustion as if it did not exist. By the time her eldest grandchildren had their names in their bowl, only the second and third characteristic had remained.

One year, half the eighteen-year-old candidates (including one of the designated volunteers) from Two had defected, using their survival skills to make their way to a free town and then to Yellowknife. Teaching candidates how to search for food became forbidden. And then a former candidate from One had swum to South America, resulting in a ban on teaching candidates to swim.

"Fifty-nine. The first couple of years were a crapshoot, but when I was eighteen, everyone knew we might as well not show up. Still did, though. It didn't enter our heads to not attend already back then."

There had been a handful of volunteers in Ten, mostly in the early years, before the act of stepping forward became heavily associated with the Careers. The last one had been a good twenty years ago. Dora knew full well that she would never have volunteered for anyone, and nobody would have volunteered for her. And her children would never have volunteered for each other. There had been a total of seven Victors from Ten. One had died from their injuries a few years after their victory, two had died in the Quarter Quell, and the other four had emerged from hiding over the past months. Their interviews were all over Ten newspapers.

"At least your children didn't have to be afraid," Dora said sympathetically. "Though, on the other hand, it's not like mine ever were. No judge's child was ever in an Arena."

Juan rubbed the piece of honeycake between his fingers, staring off into space as the crumbs fell onto his legs. Jack would have chided him for wasting food. "At least the kids were safe," he agreed. "But what kind of a lesson did this teach them? That they needed to celebrate the fact that someone else was going to die instead of them? The Tributes weren't marching off to war, they were marching to the slaughterhouse. Poor Sean, losing his sister like that. It's absurd."

During the interviews, the Careers had scared her with their matter-of-fact assurances that they were proud to die for the glory of their District. It was as if they were eager for death. "What did your children think of it all?" she asked. Juan had three children.

"Once I knew one part of the propaganda was a lie, the entire facade crumbled in my brain," Juan said. "Of course, it didn't make me into a good judge - I still became a rubber-stamper. I didn't talk about the Games with my family. We watched the mandatory portions, of course." There had always been that one person listening at the door for if the television was on. "But we never discussed it. Someone volunteered, now they're dead, it's a fact of life."

Dora didn't know what to say. She took a sip of her tea to cover up the silence and listened to the newscaster, who was now calling on everyone to work hard or face starvation. The backyard of their billet was now a vegetable garden, though Dora and Juan seldom got the chance to unwind there. "I feel so sorry for Rose," she said. "Didn't she know most of her age-mates?"

Juan opened his mouth and closed it. A few seconds later, he opened it again. "I just had a morbid thought. Twelve had as many Victors as some of the other Districts."

"Of course it did. Population size hardly mattered when it was just the twenty-four kids against each other." She paused. "Twelve had three, right?"

"Four. I remember we were forced to memorize all of them in school." Dora had, too, but she had forgotten it long ago. She wondered when the list had become too long for ten-year-olds to memorize. "Tenth Games. Everyone thought she had died young, but she actually went missing without trace."

"Proto-Death Squad?" Dora asked, surprised. There had been plenty of rumours about the families of Victors being murdered for a perceived slight, but never of Victors themselves being killed.

"Maybe. Or maybe she tried to defect and died along the way. I got curious and looked it up on the Web, it's all rumours."

Dora kept on forgetting about the Web. Even judges had had no access to computers in Ten. She kept on thinking about her laptop as if it was a glorified typewriter. "I wonder what they're saying about us on the Web," she said.

Juan shuddered. "I don't want to know."

"Let's look it up," Dora said, unable to stand the television for a second longer. "It'll be interesting."

"I suppose," Juan conceded, reaching over for his laptop.

For once, Dad was home at a decent hour. Before, Leon would have gone to his room to get away from the noise, but after spending so much time away from his family, he was pulled towards them like by a magnet. He sat on the couch, legs stretched out in front of him, and relaxed.

His hours would be decreased again soon, according to rumour. The flow of discovered documents had shrunk, they just had to get through the backlog now. The trial of the key criminals was crawling along, and a few more were due to begin soon. Leon was just glad that the moods were calming down. Hopefully, by the time the trials ended, nobody would be calling for blood anymore.

The more documents Leon read, the harder it was for him to stay quiet when his family discussed politics. It stung to think of himself badly, but there was nothing Leon could say when reading yet another list of hostages shot. Sure, he hadn't known. And? There were also lists of Capitol rebels executed or imprisoned or turned into Avoxes. They had actually done something. Leon had just lived as if nothing was wrong. It was almost unfair, how well his family was living.

It was as if everyone had collectively agreed to forget about everything. Everyone wanted the trials to hurry up, so that they didn't have to think about it. Leon couldn't fault the Districts for wanting to move on, but when Marcellus said he wished everyone would get over the Hunger Games, Leon couldn't help but cringe.

"Dinner's ready!" Marcellus said from the kitchen. Dad was dozing on the couch and Mom was working. Neither looked up.

"Great!" Leon said, standing up. The television was showing a foreign movie with subtitles. The news would be on in a few minutes, and this channel always began with a recap of the trial. A part of Leon still wasn't used to channels showing different things. There was one channel for one viewpoint, another - for another. Districts and even cities were now allowed to have their own channels. And even the bizarre Unveiled Secrets, where the truth about Thirteen had been snuck in between ramblings about mesmeric forces and aliens from outer space, was now openly criticizing the government.

In the kitchen, Marcellus was draining the potatoes and opening up a can of vegetables. Leon joined him, ladling out the portions. They had been saving up their portions of dried fruits for a while now, and Marcellus had boiled them to create stewed fruits. Leon poured the juice into cups and set the table. It was always nice to eat as a family, as long as nobody mentioned politics.

"Honey-bun?" Dad asked, getting up from the couch. "Let's eat."

Mom looked up, confused. "Oh." She got up and went to wash her hands.

"How was work?" Leon asked Marcellus as they dug into their potatoes and vegetables.

Marcellus shrugged. "Alright. They can't wait for summer break. Not like I can blame them."

"Same," Leon said. The fruit juice tasted great, but it was warm, which added to the extreme heat in the apartment. "I wish we had aircon. The place is like an oven now that it's summer."

"Wonder where our old unit is," Marcellus said. They had sold it during the winter.

"Probably Four or Eleven or somewhere else down south," Mom spoke up. "They've got it even worse than we do."

Leon shuddered at the thought of it being any hotter.

"Leon, can you lend me some money? I need to buy Rashida a birthday present."

By 'lend', he meant 'give'. "How much?"

Marcellus looked uncomfortable. "I want to buy her a pair of shoes. She's been walking around in the same work boots for months."

Black-market shoes weren't cheap, and Marcellus knew that very well. The shoes he wore to work now had been bought by Leon. "Sure," he said with a sigh.

"Why don't you invite her over?" Dad offered. "You've been with her for so long, and we haven't even met her yet!" Leon had met her a few times. She was the sort of person to always keep her head down and complain only in the kitchen. Despite that, she had a great sense of humour. Mom and Dad both approved of Rashida, so it was strange that she hadn't been over yet.

Marcellus shrugged. "I don't want her to feel uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable?" Mom asked sharply. "Half the country's got some kind of deformity or another. What does it matter if her face is crooked?" Leon agreed. Rashida did look rather ugly because of the extensive damage to her face - a homemade firework had destroyed it when she was a teenager - but Leon didn't see why that changed anything. Marcellus was definitely lying about something there.

"I don't want to talk about it," Marcellus said mulishly. They continued eating in silence. Leon quickly polished off his portion, washed his plate and fork, and made himself a jam sandwich with stale bread. He settled down on the couch, watching as the movie finally ended and the countdown to the news began. The melody of the ticking clock was oddly depressing.

The newscaster was a man with a face as destroyed as Rashida's, or maybe even worse. Despite that, his voice was clean and clear as he introduced the evening news.

"At the Trial of the Key Criminals, documents proving that the destruction of District Twelve had been planned out years in advance were read into the record."

"Wait, what?" Marcellus asked. "How did they know to target Twelve?"

The television cut to a recording of the prosecutor explaining just that. Marcellus watched open-mouthed.

Leon watched the recap every night. So far, he was just confused. The prosecution danced around topics, hinting at atrocities before moving on to something else. Leon wasn't sure if he just didn't understand trials or something. He had thought he knew how political trials worked - the defendants were marched out, recited a pre-written confession, and were sentenced. If they didn't plead guilty, then their lawyers would join the prosecution in harassing them and asking loaded questions about why they had decided to commit treason.

Here, nothing of the sort was happening. The defense counsel were going on and on about some irrelevant nonsense and the presiding judge let them! He even censured the prosecution when they started talking about irrelevant things, though everything they had said so far seemed pointless to Leon. The prosecutors weren't calling the defendants traitors or hurling insults, even though some seemed to be close to it.

Another thing that made no sense was how the defendants were treated. Approaching the average Capitolian with an open hand instead of the fist at least made sense - the new government was all about patching over divisions. But why treat the key criminals well? Leon remembered well what defendants in political trials had looked like before - exhausted, trembling, with shaking hands and darting eyes. These ones just looked like they hadn't slept too well the other night.

The recap ended, and the newscaster moved on to other topics. Leon got up and grabbed some stewed fruits.

A/N: This is what the suburbs of the Capitol looked like not after the war, but after 75 years of McCollum's and Snow's 'stability': imgur DOT com SLASH a SLASH V3jEZZM 75 years of 'rising up from our knees', and the results were…ehh. (photo is of a town in eastern Russia after 22 years of Putin's stability)

Miroslav thinks Slice hadn't known about Thirteen. Miroslav is wrong.