The trial of the Peacekeepers began quietly. There were nowhere near as many journalists in the much-smaller courtroom, though the air conditioning was on and the visitors' section was full. Stephen stood by the enlarged dock, which held over fifty people. Today, the defendants wore numbered cardboard signs on their necks. The prosecution was going to call its first witnesses.
The presiding judge wasn't of the same calibre as Sanchez over at the trial of the key criminals, but she tried. Over the past few days, she had done a good job of keeping the prosecution and defense from going overboard. Since all levels of the military were represented, the prosecution had to rely on documents for some and witnesses - for others. The first one was being sworn in. Karen Mund would be giving testimony against a lower-ranked defendant who had allegedly been the one to rape her. The defense would try to prove that someone else had been the rapist and the witness was misremembering.
The direct examination was mostly cut-and-dry, with some major mistakes on the inexperienced prosecutor's part. Defendant number 29, or John Baxter, sat calmly, occasionally whispering to his neighbours. The witness did not look in the direction of the dock.
The lawyer for Baxter began the cross-examination. "Your Honours," she began, "I will ask the Witness some very sensitive questions. I believe it would be prudent to ask the audience to leave."
The Chair shrugged vaguely. "I believe it is the Witness who should decide that. Witness, do you want the audience to leave for the cross-examination?"
"No," the young woman said. "It's alright."
"Very well, then," the lawyer said. "How were you raped?"
Mund looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"How were you raped?"
"I have no idea how to answer that question."
Stephen heard the defendants whispering to each other. One of them, Holder, was leaning over the side of the dock, looking completely overwhelmed. He had, once again, been deemed mentally fit to stand trial, but that did not make him capable of sitting in the dock. Stephen had deliberately placed him in a back corner, but the middle-aged man was still struggling.
"Walk me through the assault on you. You were selling buns off a tray at the barracks-"
"When someone grabbed me, yes." Mund wrung her hands and stared at the floor. "He pushed me against the wall-"
"You are certain it was a man?"
Mund made an angry sound. "Of course it was a man! He put his penis inside me!"
Stephen realized where this was going - even he could tell that the prosecution had massively dropped the ball here. He felt sorry for the witness. The lawyer nodded. "Your Honours," she said, "according to Defense Exhibit 29-2, my client does not have a penis. He lost it to cancer as a teenager." She turned back to the witness. "Are you sure that nobody else came into the room?"
Mund looked much less sure now. "I didn't see or hear anyone," she said, "but maybe I'm misremembering. I wouldn't have mistaken a finger for a penis, and I know it was Defendant 29 who dragged me into the room."
Next to Stephen, several of the defendants whispered to each other crude jokes about whose penis could have been mistaken for a finger. The psychologist on duty glared at the loudest one and jotted something down. The higher-ranking defendants, too, were unimpressed, thinking themselves above what they considered to be 'juvenile escapades'.
The lawyer proceeded to cross-examine Mund about how sure she was that it had been Baxter dragging her into the room. She had been able to easily identify him from a lineup, and even now, she had managed to pick him out of the group unprompted. In the end, Stephen remained quite convinced that she was remembering correctly and it had been Baxter to attack her in the barracks corridor - but then who had raped her? Stephen was of the opinion that Baxter had called in a friend to share in the 'fun', and she had forgotten most of the actual rape as a defense mechanism.
Stephen glanced to the other side, where the audience was sitting. They watched the proceedings with horrified fascination, so unlike the staid boredom of the trial of the key criminals.
Mary did not show it, but on the inside, she was seething. Was there really no documentary evidence about what had happened to the survivors of the Hunger Games? Capitol Rebels were claiming that the birds had chirped it from the rooftops, but everyone else claimed to have known nothing.
"We're launching into Count Two tomorrow, and we have nothing but witnesses for that part," Mary complained to Joe as they sat in her office in the Justice Building. "A pity Coin didn't interrogate Snow. I do not understand why he had wanted to keep this of all things in his mind only."
"Defendants still stonewalling?" Joe asked, looking up from his computer.
"Of course. They knew we've got no proof other than the allegations of former subordinates. Kirji will tell anyone who listens that we've got no proof against her." The problem was that Kirji had been picked because of her title. After Finnick Odair's allegations had been broadcast to the world, it had appeared logical that Kirji, because of her position, had played a role in that. Kirji was claiming that she had been in charge of a tiny sub-department mostly concerned with public relations, and none of the surviving Victors recalled her mentioning the sex slavery to them. Mary was of the opinion that she had done the behind-the-scenes work when it came to the forced prostitution of the Victors, as well as the murder of friends or family members when they did something to displease Snow. Some of the Death Squad members were willing to testify to the latter.
"Ouch," Joe said sympathetically.
"We will have to offer a sequence of events that cannot be plausibly disputed," Mary said. She looked at her computer screen, where she was working on the schedule of who would present what for Count Two. "And I suppose we should be grateful so many are willing to testify."
Joe nodded. "Shame we had to hold back during the interrogations."
"Not at all. Denial is better than semi-coherent admissions to everything in the world."
"I guess." Joe tapped his fingers against the table. "Did I ever tell you that I used to be a Games fan?"
"No," Mary said, taken aback. Nobody admitted to that.
"Well, I was." He smiled ruefully. "I guess those crowds were all me."
"Why admit it?"
Joe shrugged. "You've got people queued up to testify about massacres. Watching television is nothing by comparison. And everyone's acting like they were Rebels for grumbling in the kitchen. Everyone grumbled. But they believed that nonsense about how it was either Snow or another Dark Days."
Mary's opinion of her secretary rose several orders of magnitude. When confronted with so many passive bystanders who claimed to have been mute opponents - and the categories were separated by a very blurred line - it was refreshing to have someone admit to being an accomplice. "I'm glad you told me that," Mary said. "Out of curiosity, what did you think of the Victors?"
Her colleagues had shared their old beliefs with her. The Capitol defectors, of course, had hated the system. The ones from the Districts that had trained volunteers were split - some had disapproved or even been Rebels, others had tried to pretend the entire thing did not exist. And for the rest, the Hunger Games had been like a natural disaster that might strike in some other county any year. Many had believed the propaganda line about glorious sacrifice when young, but that went away once one was old enough to realize how young eighteen really was.
"As a teenager, I admired them. When I got older, it was like watching something about heroic soldiers. You're impressed by their bravery and skill while being acutely aware your own kids are that age and would never have been able to do such a thing."
"And when they appeared on the arms of politicians?"
"I didn't think twice about it. They were all of age by that point." The underage had been prostituted out in secrecy. "I mean, that's what models do, too, or anyone whose job is to look attractive. Or secretaries." He paused. "You know, you're not like my old employers."
"How?" Mary asked, knowing the answer.
"They always hit on me - I was the secretary for several people in the firm, and they always called me 'Joey' or 'sweetie' or whatever, and groped me. All the other young secretaries said the same thing. You know, if you ever want to-"
Mary almost choked. "Even when I had not been in a relationship, I would have never tried to pressure a subordinate into sex. This endless workplace harassment is one of the most disgusting aspects of the culture here." Even many of the prosecutors thought nothing about sexually assaulting a secretary and insisted they were not doing anything immoral. "It's absolutely vile how there is an entire cycle of abuse going on in most power structures, to say nothing of how people in subordinate roles were constantly victimized."
"I wouldn't put it that way," Joe said. "Plenty of people did it voluntarily to get ahead."
"The fact that it was even an option and acceptable to boot says everything I need to know about the big country," Mary retorted. "And what did people say about, say, junior partners who slept their way to the top?"
"Insulted them," Joe conceded. "If you had no connections or weren't useful for some other reason, the only way up was through the bedroom or the sauna. But everyone acted like these people were less competent than those who had made the right friends in university."
"Proves my point exactly."
Joe nodded and said nothing for a few seconds. "It's interesting that we don't have any photographs of the defendants going out with Victors," he changed the topic.
"Those were more likely to kill themselves, having been involved deeper with Snow." Some observers had been surprised by the fact that the defendants were happily married. That made perfect sense to Mary - someone happily married and with children was less likely to kill themselves. "They were too closely involved to deny. These ones - they claim they knew nothing about the exploitation of the Victors, and if they can plausibly deny one thing, they can deny others."
Joe huffed. "I refuse to believe that Blues of all people had no idea what happened to the people who left her Arenas. She spun in the right circles."
Blues may have spun in the right circles, but she also sent endless requests to see her massive family. "Perhaps," Mary said. Blues, Thread, Bright, Slice - they had been in a position to close their ears to gossip and ignore what they didn't want to hear. "But when all the prosecution has to offer is witnesses, any capable lawyer can tear that apart."
That worried Mary. Count One was almost over. In her opinion, it had gone well, establishing the foundation for the next four counts. However, they had left many threads dangling. They needed to follow up on them, or else risk the trial slipping away from their control.
Grandma was dead.
Antonius sat on the uncomfortable seat in the windowless van and wiped his face with a shoulder. He had known it would happen any week now, but it had still hurt like a punch to the chest. Grandma was dead. She had always been a constant in his life, and now she was gone.
She had always planned everything out, and her own death was no exception. Grandma had left behind precise instructions about when exactly she should be euthanized, as well as a program for her funeral, which contained the instruction that Antonius give the eulogy. Most of the will was extraneous now. She had not owned these properties and bank accounts for months.
The van bounced to a stop. Antonius wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit. Grandma would be turning over in her casket. A small smile came to Antonius' face at that mental image. He opened up the cardboard folder and flipped through his script for the eulogy. Warden Vance had agreed to letting him attend the funeral, on the condition that he be shackled even at the lectern.
When Grandma had planned the funeral, she could not have imagined that most of her associates would be behind bars. Their families remained. Antonius would be able to see his family for the first time in months. Some of the others had been envious. Others claimed the humiliation would have been too great for them to agree.
Antonius was taken out of the van and his hands cuffed behind his back, making it tricky to hold the folder. It was boiling-hot and sunny, and he wore no hat. Fortunately, the ceremony would be taking place indoors. Antonius had only been allowed to give the eulogy, he would be marched straight back immediately after the last word.
It was hard to walk in shackles. The short chain between his ankles dragged on the cracked asphalt of the parking lot.
"Officer, what's this convict doing here?" one of his parents' old friends asked the guards. Antonius wanted to snap at him - he had not been convicted of anything.
"He is here to deliver the eulogy for Chaterhan," the more senior guard replied.
The old man paused, taken aback. "Sorry, young Mr. Chaterhan," he said softly. "I did not recognize you."
Antonius wanted to sink through the ground. He said nothing, feeling his face burn. The man, too, looked uncomfortable. He backed away and went inside the funeral home.
"'Young' Mr. Chaterhan?" one of the guards hissed. "You're, like, middle-aged."
He did not need that reminder. "I am young compared to my grandmother," Antonius said quietly, "and I was always compared to her. Besides, he remembers me as a small boy."
The younger guard giggled. "I can't imagine you young."
Antonius had no idea what to say to that, so he remained silent. He was led into the building, which was still stiflingly hot but at least there was no sunshine, and into a large auditorium through a side door. He would not be allowed to properly say goodbye to Grandma. Her body was somewhere in the building, lying in a refrigerator. She would be shipped off to the University and used for research. Grandma had always given large donations for the pursuit of knowledge, and even now that she owned nothing but her own body, she would still manage to give.
His family was in the auditorium, but Antonius could not meet their eyes as his hands were uncuffed. Someone else would have been able to take it in stride, or turn it into a joke. Antonius was not that person. He stood at the lectern, checking to see that the projector was on. Grandma had requested he explain who she had been, as so much of her life was barely within living memory. Antonius had tried to write something he thought worthy of her.
"My grandmother, Alexandra Chaterhan, was from a different era," he began, ignoring the guards flanking him. There were several photographers in the auditorium - the guards would certainly provide him with the photographs tomorrow, or perhaps even today. "There is no living person who remembers the day Ravi and Jaming Chaterhan announced the adoption of their first child." Antonius picked up the first photograph from the stack and put it on the projector. Grandma as a baby. "Alexandra Chaterhan was the child of the owners of a company that owned twenty factories in District Six. Her parents were two company directors amongst many, though they were among the most successful. When Ravi and Jaming died in a car crash, the fourteen-year-old Alexandra inherited one of the largest steel-producing corporation in the country." When was the last time that anyone had been able to openly say that Grandma and even Mom had been born in Six? When Grandpa's illness had progressed, he had often blurted it out in company (the most unpleasant incident had been with Six's most recent Victor), or gotten confused and thought he was in Six himself, and Antonius had often been the one trying to reassure him and get him to stop saying such things.
Antonius had been warned to not talk about the corporation in general or the history of Panem - the Dark Days had ended when Grandma had been thirty-one. It was hard to follow these instructions when Grandma had been synonymous with the Steelworks for so long, but Antonius had done his best. He placed another photograph on the projector, one of a teenage Grandma. She had been a stripling of a youth back then, wearing the shirt and trousers workers had worn in those days. When Antonius had spent his teenage summers working, he had worn company overalls and jacket.
"The board of directors took over the company. Alexandra's job was to learn. Besides attending school, where she had the highest marks in the class, she also pursued an apprenticeship in tool-making. She then went on to university, studying mechanical engineering - once again, with top marks. And all this time, she sat in at board meetings, read reports, and went along on inspection tours. When she took over the corporation, she was ready to not only measure up to her parents' dreams, but to exceed them."
"But it was not all work in Alexandra's life. As soon as she finished her formal education, she married George Laymon, a senator's aide." Antonius replaced the photograph on the projector with one of Grandma's wedding. She had been resplendent in a beautiful white gown. "The newspapers wrote - the Steel Queen has found a prince-consort. Thanks to the foundation laid by Ravi and Jaming and the ceaseless hard work of Alexandra, the Steelworks grew to be synonymous with heavy industry just as the family itself grew and prospered."
Antonius launched into a description of Grandma's initiatives. It had been hard to keep general history out of it, but the guards he could see out of the corner of his eyes did not drag him away the moment he mentioned armaments, so it must have been satisfactory. He had not been sure how much of the immediate past it would be appropriate to mention, so he kept that part brief. He placed the final photograph on the projector - the last family photograph they had taken. Grandma sat in the centre, with him on her right and Mom - on her left.
"My grandmother requested I make the eulogy today," Antonius said, choking up. "but there are so many just as deserving of the place. To outsiders, Alexandra Chaterhan may have appeared to have a lump of stainless steel instead of a heart, but we grandchildren know that was not so. All lives end. Money and property can disappear in the blink of an eye. It is what we are to others that endures, and Alexandra Chaterhan was not only a businessperson the likes of which we will never see again, but also the person I had only ever wanted to emulate and my beloved grandmother, and I will never forget that. Thank you."
Antonius could not bring himself to look at the crowd. He knew Octavia and Achilleus were down there, as were his parents, but he could not look up and risk meeting someone's eye. The guards handcuffed him in full view of his relatives and people who had once bent over backwards to impress him and Octavia and led him back outside. Antonius realized he was soaked in sweat and there were tears trickling down his face.
Unexpectedly, the older guard climbed into the van with him. Antonius sat on the uncomfortable seat, attached to the floor by wrists and ankles, and waited for her to speak.
"That was a great speech," she said eventually as the van sped off. "I could tell you loved your grandmother very much. I never got to meet any of my grandparents, so-" She fell silent and looked around the van. "You know, I used to work for the Steelworks. Until my family defected."
That explained the Thirteen accent. "I was not aware of the day-to-day decisions your managers made."
"The prosecution thinks otherwise. In any case," she went on before Antonius could protest that those documents proved nothing, "there was a newspaper article this morning about you. It's all over the Web, so I got a printout. You know who Gaius Friedlander is?"
Antonius nodded. "He used to work at one of our properties. Cleaner. Started work there when he was six, he is sixty-four now."
"When he was six? Didn't kids go to school here?"
"He worked in the afternoons and on the weekends," Antonius explained. "Everyone did that on our properties - the parents were happy their children would learn discipline and earn some pocket money to boot. In fact, my first memory is of being three years old and having a child my age doffing their cap to me."
The guard nearly dropped the paper. "That explains a lot," she muttered.
"What?" At that age, he had had no understanding of social hierarchies, and even as a teen, his first romance had been with a groundskeeper. When he had finally learned that some people were just not supposed to mix, he had relocated Jerry Park to another property, where he still worked.
"Nothing. Friedlander's still there, except he's a cleaner at a shelter. In any case, he gave an interview. Here."
Antonius took the paper hesitantly. He skimmed through the article. Before, nobody would have dared write about their employer like this. Friedlander had not said anything critical, but it just did not do to give so much detail about an employer's personal life. Antonius wanted to sink through the floor when he read about himself.
A: Oh, no, old Chaterhan didn't let just anyone touch her precious grandbabies. George interviewed nannies and whatnot as if they were going to be given nuclear suitcases. During the summers, all of the kids would go to the Big House, for a few weeks at least. Once young Chaterhan got a bit older, he was the one minding the little ones at informal family parties. I can still hear her saying - 'Toni, what are you doing? Mind the cousins!' And then Antonius would toss aside whatever book he had been reading and race after five toddlers, all of them running in different directions. Old Chaterhan used to say it built responsibility, though I myself have six, and when they were little, I used to think running the Steelworks would have been easier. [Laughs]
Q: The heir to the largest corporation in the world, baby-sitting his cousins?
A: [Shrugs] Old Chaterhan had her own ideas about how heirs were made. He was a good boy, though. Studious, hardworking - though if any of my kids had acted like him, I'd have been worried I was pressuring them too much. When he was little, I thought he was like a hothouse flower, hidden away from the real world, but then old Chaterhan sent him to build tanks! [Laughs] I wondered how he'd react. Imagine my surprise when I see young Chaterhan walking from the streetcar the next evening, company jacket on his shoulders, looking like any other young worker! He was the size of a beanpole back then, and the clothes hung on him like a sack. But he was a good worker - never arrived late in all his time at the factory, not a single complaint, never docked even a penny. And so proud of earning money - I think he got one of old Chaterhan's advisors to teach him what to invest it in. Rather solitary, but I guess the heir to the Steelworks isn't going to have much to talk about with Newkilners. [Newkiln - working-class Capitol municipality where several Steelworks factories are located -ed.]
Q: Odd, that he spent time on the factory floor. Do you know what he's being accused of?
A: I can't really comment - all I know is that my own life was pretty good. I guess there's not much to accuse of when it comes to Capitol factories. I have family who works there, it's nothing like the horror stories coming in from the Districts. If young Chaterhan ever saw a whipping or an execution, he probably assumed it was with good reason, and may have even been right.
Q: Public whipping - justified?
A: [Shrugs] It's been that way since before I was born. Rules are rules. If they're unfair - well, nobody asked me what I thought. Old Chaterhan was consistent with the rules, that's all someone like me can ask for.
Antonius cringed as he imagined everyone reading this. He remembered those years when Grandma had told him to mind the cousins - as the eldest, his family was his responsibility. And Friedlander had not been wrong when he had described Antonius as looking like a beanpole when he had been a teenager, but was this really something someone could say about their boss, even one who had been arrested?
Friedlander had been correct on one count - Antonius had seen plenty of corporal punishments when he had worked at that factory. Every summer, at least one person had been executed in front of his eyes. He had never paid any mind to it. The rules were the rules. The only time a punishment had been arbitrarily imposed was when a worker was whipped, officially for slacking, but all the workers had whispered that he had refused to sleep with someone important. That had angered Antonius, but there was nothing to be done about such practices. That was simply how middle-managers were.
"So, what do you think?" the guard asked.
"It is interesting to know what my employees say about me."
The guard chuckled. "Did you really babysit your cousins?"
"Of course."
The guard found his answer amusing. "When I was little, my older brother had to watch over me. He'll laugh so hard when he finds out he shares that with you in common."
Once, he had been this guard's employer. On the instructions from her manager, she would have spent hours scrubbing to make the factory look presentable when he came on an inspection tour. And now she wore a uniform, and he - handcuffs. "How old were you when you defected?" he asked, partially out of curiosity, partially to make her talk about herself instead of him.
"Seventeen. Parents bribed a Peacekeeper to get us to Thirteen - I don't know where they heard about it from. Probably the apron radio." That curious phrase meant word-of-mouth, referring to people gossiping as they prepared food. "In any case, we got to Thirteen. We had worked in a factory that made farm equipment, shovels and whatever, so they put us into an armaments factory." Thirteen had been known the world over for its high-quality weapons, which they had traded for what they needed. Little wonder that the fortress city had been able to equip an entire rebellion. "Once I got a bit older they tried to get me to join the surrogacy program, but I was like, no thanks. My younger sister did, though. I think something like twenty couples became parents thanks to her."
"Interesting."
"Yeah. It was nice there. Two of my siblings went to university - can you believe that? When my parents said we were going to be free, I thought they meant there'd be no curfew. It's only later that I realized that curfew had nothing to do with it. We could criticize the government. We had free time we could spend doing practically anything."
Antonius still did not understand how Thirteen's government had gotten all its citizens to put up with such a restrictive life, the guard's praises of it notwithstanding. Thirteen had not needed to shoot anyone. People had not spent most of their time complaining quietly. "I am happy for you," he said.
The guard reached up to touch her shoulder, where Antonius realized there was a patch with the number '6'. She also had some cloth squares pinned to her chest. "What do those signify?" he asked.
"Nothing, really. Campaign ribbons, for the most part, and a wound badge. They gave me a medal for bravery, but honestly, I just did what I thought was least likely to get me killed. Some important person thought it was brave, though, so I get a medal."
"You were wounded?"
The guard snorted. "Doesn't take much heroism to get shot. Stood up at the wrong moment, sniper got me in the shoulder. Lucky it wasn't my head." She rolled her shoulders backwards and forwards, wincing. "That was it for my soldiering, but I recovered enough for them to put me on occupation duty. My family moved back to Six, so they need the money."
"You said two of your siblings went to university?"
"Yeah. One studied philosophy - not sure what that's good for, but he knows when politicians are lying, so that's useful. The other studied agronomy, so they're now running around trying to improve yields."
Antonius could not quite get used to the idea of social mobility. It went against everything he had ever been taught. A person did what their parents had done, or at least something in the same field, and that was how it ought to be. He knew that some lower-middle-class and even lower-class people had been able to get an education, of course. They had gamed the system by taking out loans they could not repay and using them to pay tuition. Of course, that had been risky. High-ranking Peacekeepers had had control over loan sharks, so incorrigible debtors had often been pressured or even forced into enlisting.
In the dock, he sat next to two of these people. Blues' father had been an ordinary engineer, and while he did not know exactly who Slice's parents were, Antonius was certain that she had not grown up speaking the accent she used now. And, of course, Krechet, Verdant, Bright, and Thread were also not from the best families, but it was different with the Peacekeepers.
"Good for them," he said.
"Yeah." The guard massaged her shoulder. "They're smart. They put me in school, too, but I quit that as soon as it was allowed. Wasn't any good at that."
Small wonder, that. It was strange enough that two of her siblings had succeeded academically. Antonius had spent time with workers - as many of them were smart as in any other demographic, but it was a different kind of intelligence. Had one of them claimed their sibling was in university, he would have thought it was empty bragging.
Antonius was not sure what to say, so he said nothing. The van continued to bounce over the uneven road, hurting his wrists and ankles with every uneven motion.
"How is it going?" Mary asked Reed, who had massive circles under his eyes. "Do you need to steal more associates?" The national government, especially the IDC, was fracturing more and more. Mary had known that rebuilding after a civil war was difficult, but she had not expected just how controversial every little decision would be. She had decided to push through with as many trials as possible, because if the IDC broke apart, that would be it for inter-District trials.
"No, I can grab them from somewhere else." Reed stared at something written in his notebook. "What I need is more experienced lawyers. We've got enough material on the Games cases, tentative lists of defendants, and judges who say they're available. The real bottleneck is that the prosecutors are overstretched and there's not enough of them."
The justice system was struggling to keep it together under the heavy load of Depuration proceedings, especially in the Capitol, where the national government and corporation headquarters had been located. "Go ahead and hire more, then," Mary said. "The budget will take it."
"Alright." Reed ran a hand through his hair. He looked exhausted and seemed to be swaying in his seat.
"Is something wrong or are you just tired?" Mary asked.
Reed shrugged. "I think I might be falling ill."
"Then go rest. You're of no use if you're sick, you might make mistakes."
"I guess." Reed stood up. "I'll go rest up, then."
"See you later."
"You, too." Reed left the office.
Mary tried to focus on her work. Count Two was beginning soon, and the prosecution was planning to have several of the survivors of the Hunger Games testify. Someone had already interviewed Enobaria Seemu, and Mary would be performing the direct examination.
As a Thirteener, Mary knew almost nothing about the Hunger Games. The occasional high-profile defector had given her an insight into the behind-the-scenes process, but she knew precious little about what it was like to actually be in that horrific pageant. Seemu had volunteered at the age of eighteen, replacing a thirteen-year-old stranger. That alone made her worthy of respect and pity. Still a child herself, she had gone to the slaughter, stuffed full of propagandistic phrases about the glory of dying for the District. But Seemu had not died. She had managed to survive, and now, she would shed light on what had happened after that.
Thanks to her colleagues, Mary knew what kind of image had been crafted for Seemu. She had been presented as a bloodthirsty maniac, even being forced to have her teeth filed down. In the photograph Mary was looking at now, she could just make out the implants that now filled Seemu's mouth. The woman was thirty-two years old and looked very ordinary, with light-brown skin, short straight black hair, and tired eyes, and also very handsome, with that chiselled yet delicate jawline. She didn't look like she could have been presented as a physical threat, but then again, Talvian was hardly someone Mary would have been afraid to meet in a proverbial dark alley.
According to her interview, Seemu had received clear instructions from another survivor from Two - play along or those she cared about would suffer. What had motivated Snow to control them like that was still unclear. Seemu had become an obedient doll, doing everything that had been asked of her. According to her interview, she had repeatedly slept with various people who had paid Snow vast amounts of money, but her recollection was bad - they had all blurred together by now and she had often used drugs before those incidents.
There was a knock on the door. "Come in," Mary said.
Joe dashed over to her desk. "Have you checked the news today?" he demanded.
"No," Mary replied calmly, inwardly wondering what could have gotten Joe so worked up. "What is it?"
In reply, Joe gestured at her computer. "You have to check it. Meersten found an old recording Snow made for the news before changing his mind and burying it instead."
So not a catastrophe, then. Out of curiosity, Mary opened up the Webpage of her favourite newspaper. The largest headline proclaimed 'Snow covered up sinking of submarine for years'. Mary wondered how Best and especially Verdant were reacting to this. She clicked on the link and watched the video, which was mostly a piece of heroic propaganda about the crew of the submarine, especially the captain, who managed to write a farewell letter and seal it against water. But the crowning moment came with a snippet of a journalist asking Snow a few questions.
"The families want to know - what happened to the submarine?" the journalist asked.
Snow replied with a small smile. "It sank."
Joe stood behind Mary with his hands over his mouth. "I still can't believe it. No wonder they decided not to air it."
"Have the families come forward yet?" Mary asked, noticing that the clip had been posted that morning, and it was already evening. Only checking the news twice a day meant that she missed out on things like these.
Joe nodded. "And even better, that songwriter who did Voices from the Zone already wrote a song about this, and released it. And even gave an interview." Now if only the prosecutors could work that fast.
Tomorrow morning, the final portion of Count One would take place - a retired officer would testify about the Peacekeepers' involvement in organized crime. The former Peacekeepers in the dock would not enjoy the next twenty-four hours. Mary looked up the songwriter's name. Fortunately, the new song, called Captain Wheeler after the sunken submarine's captain, was the very first link.
Who will tell us honestly what it is like to die?
Pity there's no tool that tells what it's like to say goodbye.
Pencil breaks in shaking hands, it's freezing in the hold,
Captain Wheeler's writing fast, stiff-fingered from the cold.
Pencil breaks in shaking hands, it's freezing in the hold,
Captain Wheeler's writing fast, stiff-fingered from the cold.
Some of us could still be saved, will you recall our names?
Two compartments cold as ice, and three more up in flames.
No rescue comes, but you believe, if that is what you need
That there awaits another world and there we'll one day meet.
No rescue comes, but you believe, if that is what you need
That there awaits another world and there we'll one day meet.
Mary wondered for a few seconds why it was so horribly cold on a submarine, but then she remembered the testimony about omnipresent corruption. If the Coast Guard had built submarines the same way that the Ministry of Transport had built roads, then cold would have been the least of their problems. And that was what ended up happening - the Seattle suffered a catastrophic fire and went down with all hands. Some more hesitant searches, as Mary was still not used to the Web, cleared up the situation even further. The submarine might have been rescued, had Snow authorized an expensive operation. But soldiers' lives cost nothing to him, and so Captain Wheeler and her crew were abandoned to a slow and painful death. Their bodies, and Wheeler's letter, were only brought up months later.
The songwriter's interview explained even more of the situation, as well as making Mary shocked by the depths of callousness Snow had sunk to. It was odd to be surprised after months of going through documentary evidence and interviewing witnesses, but the submariners had been his own soldiers, and he had treated them like they were nothing. Perhaps this would convince the veterans that the government they had served had not been worthy of them. That smile of his, as if he had been telling a funny joke - that went beyond callousness. A callous reply would have been a curt 'There was an accident and it went down with all hands'. Mary had no words other than 'deliberate assholery' to describe Snow's reply.
Something that the songwriter said made Mary think.
In that moment, Captain Wheeler and her crew were as much victims of Snow's regime as anyone sent to a secret prison. They died because Snow willed it, simple as that. I don't know what the crew of the Seattle would've done had they survived, and that's irrelevant. What matters is that they got to do nothing, because Snow killed them.
That was exactly the attitude the IDC was trying to foster among former Peacekeepers. Mary recognized that turning perpetrators into victims was iffy at best, but if that was what it took to gain stability? Good thing she wasn't the one making the decisions.
"I can't believe that it's already been a year," Joe sighed.
The anniversary of the beginning of the Rebellion had been completely ignored. Everyone was still too focused on the present to worry about the past. The gallery was full in the morning and after lunch break, but most people left during the short breaks, if not earlier. Mary couldn't blame them, but it was certainly a disappointment. She had been wrong - the average person wasn't going to sit through a lengthy recitation of official documents. The live broadcasts were mostly used to lull babies to sleep.
Perhaps this bit of news would make people more interested in the trial, but Mary doubted it. They just had to go on and do their jobs. Trials weren't meant for audiences in any case, not if they were real trials.
A/N:
"You tell me, what happened to the submarine?"
"Она утонула."
Yes, that's a reference to the death of the submariners of the Kursk in 2000, and a sloppy translation/adaptation (only a couple of the lines are truly faithful renditions) of the song 'Captain Kolesnikov' ('Wheeler' is the English equivalent of the Russian 'Kolesnikov') by the group DDT. And, of course, the legendary 'она утонула' ('It sank').
Moving back a bit, I think I've made it clear before that Antonius' family is based on the Krupps, but with an extra generation so that the reference isn't so obvious. Here, I couldn't resist and gave Ravi Chaterhan (aka Fritz Krupp) a husband. Because that's one good thing he actually deserved but could never have.