Dora watched Gale Hawthorne enter. He was very young, the same age as her oldest grandchild Jonathan, and walked with a military precision.

"I haven't seen him in a while," Rose whispered to Raymond, studying him carefully. "He looks good."

Gale looked at the bench and his eyes widened in recognition. He nodded to Rose, who ignored him to avoid accusations of bias. Rose had contemplated doing a Delfin Jaranilla and sitting out this one, but in the end, she decided against it.

"Did you know him before?" Raymond asked. There was some sort of problem with the microphone in the witness stand, so they had some time to chat.

Rose shook her head. "It was a town of ten thousand. I knew of him - you couldn't not know one of the poachers. He was a minor town celebrity. Most of us didn't dare do more than gather this or that in sight of the perimeter fence even if we owned guns, and here were these kids running around the deep woods with bow and arrows of all things."

"How odd," Taylor said. "In our set, everyone hunted." The same had gone for Dora - she herself was not the biggest lover of traipsing around the forest for hours on end, but she had gone on many a hunting expedition with coworkers.

"Not in Twelve," Rose said with a shrug. "By the time I was an adult, hunting made you noteworthy."

After all the propos, it was hard to think of Gale as a small-town celebrity. It was hard enough to imagine this boy as an elite soldier.

"Ah, small-town life," Drexel said. "I'm glad I was born in Centre."

"You missed out," Rose said. "Imagine my surprise when I get to Thirteen and find out that two people getting into a fight isn't newsworthy and that marriage scandals fade away within weeks."

There were some weak chuckles at that. Today would be the presentation on the reason why Rose had ended up in Thirteen. She had never talked about it in any detail, but Dora had read the testimony of others.

Since the microphone still wasn't fixed, the prosecution asked to show the footage before the testimony. Sanchez agreed, and a brief clip of the firebombing, taken by one of the tiny handful of Peacekeepers who were left behind once the force pulled out, was shown. It was absolutely horrific. The coal-covered town went up like kindling, and not just the screaming but the fire itself could be heard from kilometres away. Dora had never known that fire could be so loud.

The microphone now fixed, Gale could take the stand. After Gale was sworn in, Irons stepped up to conduct the direct examination. She went through his background and early years, pausing to get in a jab at Thread.

"How did things change with Thread's arrival?" Irons asked. Thread glowered; the other defendants seemed to be having the time of their lives.

"There was a crackdown," Hawthorne said in an oddly-accented but even voice. "People were whipped or even executed for breaking minor laws. I myself was given twenty-five lashes for killing a wild turkey with a stick through the barrier fence - Thread said he believed me but still had me whipped for poaching, even though, by definition, poaching meant that the person had gone beyond the boundary, which Thread assumed I had not."

It was certainly something to watch Thread wriggle like a worm on a frying pan. "I knew he was lying," he hissed loud enough for Antonius to hear.

"Maybe you should have called him out, then," Lux said.

Antonius was glad he had never had anything to do with Twelve. He listened to the recital of various atrocities in Twelve and wished he could be anywhere but there. It was absolutely infuriating to be hated for something he had not done.

"Now, witness," Irons said, "let us skip ahead to the Quarter Quell. How did you know that something bad was going to happen?"

Hawthorne tensed, glaring at the dock. "In hindsight, the first sign was when Thread and most of the contingent left early that afternoon, but we assumed that they had simply been reassigned. Someone saw the others going into the woods towards evening. That's when I began to really worry, but I expected them to wait for us to do something they didn't like and then swoop in and crack down harder. Then, the Arena got blown up." He was staring right at Thread. "People realized then that that would not end well and ran. I tried to help out, but the hovercraft appeared just minutes later. I was later told that they had been stationed in a base very close to Twelve in anticipation of the attack." Thread glared at Lux. "In the end, only about a thousand people made it out alive."

"What happened once the hovercraft arrived?" Irons asked, drawing out damaging testimony.

"I saw them flying in the sky. I saw the bombs come down. And then the world burned. I could feel the heat from inside the forest. The sky was light as day, but it was burning. And the screaming. The flammable houses went up like torches, and I could hear the people screaming. For months, I constantly heard them screaming."

"Did the forest catch fire?"

"Of course. I thought we'd all burn to death in the inferno, but then water began to pour. More hovercraft were putting out the forest fire - I later found out they were afraid of the bases being reached. A few days later, a few people went inside Twelve to see if anyone was alive. The Victor's Village had been surrounded by a massive strip of concrete and no bomb fell on it, so it survived by accident, and a couple of people managed to get there. Other than that, there were only the dying."

"Did you see that yourself?"

"No, I heard it second-hand. I only returned weeks later."

"Once you were in the forest, what did you do?"

"We made our way to a lake not too far away and lived there for a few days - a few of the older people said that someone would find us. I didn't see any locals, but Thirteen sent in hovercraft."

Irons nodded, seemingly satisfied, but then she shifted to getting Hawthorne to describe what Twelve had been like and how undefended it had been. He spoke with indignation - not that Antonius could blame him for being angry his home was destroyed. He just wished that he was not lumped in with the likes of Lux and Thread.

The rest of the day was taken up with deadly-dull bickering over the definition of aggression. Antonius wrote a letter to Octavia and Achilleus, tried to solve a crossword before giving up and passing it to Kirji, and read two newspapers cover-to-cover. That took him to afternoon break. On the way back from the bathroom, the guard slipped him the day's copy of 'The Daily Worker', which had a massive article on why the black market was a scourge. There, for once, Antonius was fully in agreement.

Not having anything better to do, he read the paper, even though it infuriated him more than the prosecution's attempts to make up new law to sentence them. Antonius had been indicted under Count Five, but his name had been mentioned exactly once, to speculate that he had known about the impending attack, which he had not.

The one good thing about the rag was that the political cartoon was great. It was yet another one of the before-and-after variety. In the top panel, Komal Lophand demanded of an unseen defendant how they were pleading, and in the bottom one, a meek Lophand told an unseen judge 'not guilty'. The caption read 'Judge Lophand finally takes his rightful place in a courtroom.' Antonius smiled inwardly.

"The Tribunal will now recess until 8:00 tomorrow," Sanchez said. At once, everyone sagged slightly. Antonius stood up and stretched before gathering his papers and leaning against the barrier to wait.

"I wonder what's for dinner," Grass said.

One by one, they left the dock. The relative darkness of the corridor was a welcome relief after being under those bright lights. Antonius stood just behind the door as a guard cuffed him to himself.

They were taken to their cells to take off their court clothes and eat dinner, which consisted of beans and rice, as well as canned apples and warm tea. Krechet was still officially banned from tea after the throwing incident, but Antonius was certain that he got some poured into his cup while Warden Vance was harassing someone else over their untidiness.

Not wanting to be that target, Antonius cleaned up in his cell before eating. He had not hidden anything that day, so the warden simply looked at him and went on his way. The beans and rice were completely tasteless and the beans had the texture of soggy paper to boot. How could they ruin even such a simple dish?

Antonius polished off his dinner and grabbed a few sheets of paper from the table. Since the prosecution had already said all it could about him and Count Five, he could now focus on preparing to take the stand. As he was led down the corridor to the visitors' room, he could hear Lee selling his sketches for a promise of food for his family.

In the long and narrow room, Antonius was shoved towards one of the seats at random. There was not even the pretense of confidentiality here; Antonius had long given up on complaining. Shaw caught sight of him and walked over from where she had been standing by the wall.

"Good evening," Antonius said.

"Good evening. I think emphasizing that you were always in your grandmother's shadow is something you need to seriously consider."

Straight to the point as always - it was already past six. Antonius winced as he thought over Shaw's proposition. "I do not wish to hide behind my grandmother," he said, not for the first time.

Shaw shook her head. "You do not need to hide behind her, only tell the truth. Who was the sole proprietor, the true decision-maker?" Noticing Antonius' reluctance, she pressed further. "They cannot hurt her. They can hurt you."

Absurdly, Antonius imagined Grandma looking down from heaven and disapproving. "I suppose," he conceded. "Nevertheless, I do not wish people to say that I am hiding behind a deceased relative."

"That does not matter. What matters is who the judges deem culpable for what."

They sat in silence for a few seconds. Antonius could hear Blues arguing with her lawyer on the other side of the flimsy partition.

"Look, you already sit in the far corner," Fisher insisted. The drab, mousy middle-aged man sat next to Shaw. "That bears with it a certain implication. If you go on about that responsibility nonsense, it'll draw attention to you. Why do you want to help the prosecution?"

"I don't want to help the prosecution," Blues insisted. "I just-"

"I was talking to Dr. Levy," Fisher cut in. "One person doing these sorts of stunts is bad enough. Two will look like you're trying to make a mockery of the court."

Well, well, well. Now that was interesting. So Blues actually wanted to go ahead and throw herself on the tribunal's dubious mercy? And Coll as well? Antonius had come a long way from his original defiance - with Shaw's blessing, he was going to decry Snow and the Hunger Games openly. So was the vast majority of them. But what was possessing these two into sticking their heads in the noose? Antonius would have understood this sort of honesty from the military people, but not only did both of them have young children, they were going to go beyond honesty.

"Rest assured I am not planning on that," Antonius said with a nod at the partition.

Shaw smiled sardonically. "I do not envy the lawyers defending the Hunger Games personnel," she said in a voice loud enough for him and Fisher to hear, but not anyone else. As it was, Fisher rolled his eyes at her.

"What about those photographs?" Antonius asked. 'The Daily Worker' had delighted in publishing the prosecution exhibits from the presentation against him, together with dire predictions about his own fate. Photographs of Antonius at an execution or surrounded by obviously emaciated secret-prison inmates were published with the caption 'Antonius Chaterhan consults with workforce'. They did not publish the photographs of him doing things even the prosecution could not find fault in.

"You disapproved of the harsh discipline," Shaw said.

"Of course - a dead worker is one that cannot work anymore." Antonius had used to be under the assumption that a death did not matter because there was more where they had come from, but it would not do to say so out loud.

"We will emphasize that. You saw the executions and were outraged."

Antonius nodded tiredly and ran a hand down his face. Hopefully, that would work. He was going eleventh, so plenty of time to gauge what strategies worked on the judges and which ones did not.

The only advantage of getting sick was that it allowed Thumeka to not show up for boring sessions. How are you doing? she texted Mikola and Jiao.

The reply came instantly. Boring.

Even holding up her phone was tiring. Thumeka dropped it and burrowed deeper under the covers. She suspected she had gotten food poisoning, but from where was a mystery. Perhaps one of the street-food vendors was to blame, but both Mikola and Jiao had eaten with her two days ago, and they were both fine. Or maybe they just had better immune systems than her.

Thumeka rolled over to her side and half-heartedly poked her phone to text Yemurai. It was mid-afternoon back home. Her wife did not reply - she was probably in a meeting or something. Thumeka dug out her earbuds and got caught up on the news, lying down with her phone propped up next to her. It was strange to be reading about the ordinary news from back home while in a country ravaged by civil war.

By now, she was used to it. The over-chlorinated water in the pipes, the piles of rubble and shanties, the soldiers everywhere. Thumeka knew from her experience in England that coming home would be a massive shock. No queues, no omnipresent poverty, no homeless children chasing after her once they saw her press badge.

Thumeka lay back, arms flat by her sides. It felt strange to not be in the courtroom. Maybe she could use this opportunity to watch the other trials. Or maybe she could lie in bed and do nothing.

Doing nothing won.

Yemurai texted back. I'm fine, just got out of a meeting. You?

T: Got sick.

Y: Oh no! With what?

T: Ate something bad. Don't tell my parents.

Y: My secret is safe with you :) But really, are you alright?

Thumeka sighed. I will be.

Can I call?

Thumeka looked around the room, which was empty aside from her and one journalist sleeping off a hangover who would probably be up around noon, going off of Thumeka's previous experiences with her. She dialed Yemurai's number.

"Hey, honey," Yemurai said.

"Hey, sugar-stick. Where are you?"

"Just got home. How are you doing?"

"You don't have to sound like I'm dying," Thumeka snapped.

Yemurai made a soft sound. "I'm just worried. You've never missed a day of the trial before."

"Actually," Thumeka said with a laugh, "I'm milking this for all it's worth so I don't have to go to the trial. If some interesting witness was announced for half an hour from now, I'd go. But it's just boring, so I can lie around in bed."

"Still, I wish I was there with you."

"You wouldn't want to cuddle - I have puke on my shirt."

"I pity your roommates." Somehow, Thumeka could hear the smile on Yemurai's face.

"Aww, you don't pity me?"

Yemurai laughed. "I don't pity silly wives who buy food from homeless people and then complain when they get sick."

"Cheap shot."

"But accurate."

"Did anything interesting happen since the last time we talked?" Thumeka asked, eager to change the topic.

"Aside from my parents demanding grandbabies?" Thumeka rolled her eyes. Both sets of parents thought that them being thirty-eight and thirty-six and childless was a sign of the Apocalypse. "A book by someone from Panem just got translated, and it's a bestseller."

That wasn't surprising. Here, everyone wanted to forget about the past, but abroad, everyone was fascinated with Panem. For the first time ever, knowing English was a major asset. "Who's the author?"

"I don't remember the name. One of the survivors of those 'Hunger Games'."

"I'll have to give it a read when I get back," Thumeka said. She had been there for all the testimonies, but that was a very different format from a book.

There was the sound of a phone ringing in the distance. "Crap, I have to get that. I'll talk to you in an hour or so, if that's alright?"

"Sure," Thumeka said, feeling slightly annoyed. "Love you, sugar-stick!"

"Drink plenty of water!"

Thumeka obediently took a sip from the bottle lying next to her pillow. "Done!"

"Bye, then!"

"Bye!"

Thumeka looked at her phone screen and sighed. She felt completely worn out from just that conversation. She fired off a text to her friends and lay down, intending to nap. Less than a minute later, her phone rang. It was Mikola.

"Did something happen?" Thumeka asked, sitting up so rapidly, her head swam. "Should I go in?"

"Did you read the investigation about Little Slovakia?" he demanded.

Little Slovakia? Thumeka racked her brains but couldn't think of what it was. "What's that?"

"Former Capitol slum inhabited by Romani."

"They're called Covey around these parts," Thumeka corrected him pedantically. Roughly a hundred and fifty years ago, a nomadic counter-culture had sprung up in North America amidst a series of border wars, with its participants often joining groups of Romani expelled from various Central and Eastern European countries. While the situation in Europe had improved by leaps and bounds over the past decades, the little Thumeka had been able to glean from her sources about Panem was far more depressing, with the situation being like at the heights of discrimination (though falling short of massacres). Despite Covey not being visible minorities, they had spoken with distinct accents and lived among their own, which made them easy to pick out. In current North America, they were long since integrated into mainstream society, but as far as she knew, in Panem, they either assimilated fully or were considered threatening elements. "Why is the slum former?"

Mikola sighed. Thumeka understood what he meant and was not particularly surprised. "Little Slovakia was a slum the likes of which you see in few places. No electricity, no running water, schools in nearby neighbourhoods refused to accept Covey children and hospitals did not treat them."

"Yeah, yeah, crime, children marrying, life expectancy of thirty, police only came when they wanted to arrest the first person they saw, I get it." Thumeka lay back down. "What exactly was the motivation to kill them all?"

"How do you know they were all killed?"

"It's kind of obvious from how you said it." Usually, such subtleties escaped Thumeka, but genocide was different. "Anyway, what happened?"

"Obviously, nearby neighbourhoods, which were slums themselves, had very hostile relations with the Romani-"

"Covey. It's a very important distinction, your understanding of the situation in Europe is not necessarily fully reflective of what happened in Panem and there are nuances-"

"Okay, okay, Covey." Mikola spoke quickly. "So, bad situation, Covey blamed for crimes and spreading STDs, frequent group fights, the usual." Thumeka had read an interview with an inhabitant of Suitcase Creek, a village in the Capitol, where he recalled a large-scale fight between 'locals' and 'Covey', who worked as buyers and sellers of used goods. In the aftermath of the fight, fifteen Covey were arrested and tried, six were executed, the rest imprisoned and could not be tracked down by the journalist. "Seven years ago, Peacekeepers surrounded the area, arrested everyone, and sent them to various secret prisons."

Thumeka's imagination had been summoning up ravines and special detachments, but that was also an option. "And what happened to the slum?"

"Still called Little Slovakia, but now it's where homeless people go. Governor's promising to improve the infrastructure but who knows when that will happen."

"I'll have to read the article, then. Thanks for telling me."

"You're welcome. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Bye."

"Bye."

Thumeka put down the phone, suddenly feeling exhausted. She didn't even try to look up the investigation. It really sucked when you were not tired enough to sleep, but too tired to as much as play on your phone.

Mary suspected that the only reason the trials hadn't fallen apart completely was because of the nightlife. After an endless day of interminable arguing, the defense slunk off to Uncle Ray's to eat donut holes and plan, the press hit the bars, the judges did whatever they did behind closed doors, and the prosecution commandeered the restaurant, and that gave everyone the strength to keep on going.

Besides getting hammered and either hooking up with secretaries or camming spouses (depending on temperament), there were plenty of diversions for the trial staff to enjoy. Some were in their narrow circle, and some were in the greater community. Isabella wasn't the only soccer fan among the prosecution, but she was the only one who played in a serious league.

Out of uniform, Isabella looked like a different person. Her meticulousness and control was replaced with an intense forcefulness. Mary, being Chief of Counsel, got front-row seats to everything, so she was able to clearly hear her colleague complain about a bad call.

"Even I can see that's not off-side!" Isabella shouted at the hapless referee. The referee and linespeople were the only sighted people on the field.

The referee did not back down. "Stop complaining," she said in a firm tone.

"It wasn't off-side," Isabella grumbled, but backed off.

"Typical," Jocelyn Mikaelis said. There were five chief prosecutors gathered to support Isabella - Mary, Jocelyn, Naquian, and Rowan.

The game resumed. Mary was not particularly surprised to see that Isabella was one of the best players on the field. She tried to shout encouragement, but the words stuck in her throat - Mary simply did not know how to shout. She had to settle for loudly clapping when Isabella scored a goal.

"You are the chief of counsel," someone said next to her.

Mary turned around and saw a person with a camera around his neck. "I am," she said.

"Interesting." He got up and left.

"Weird," Rowan said.

Mary put the photographer out of her mind and refocused on the game. Isabella was trying to grab the ball from an opposing player, and as Mary watched, she succeeded.

"Come on," she tried to say, but couldn't get any louder than her normal speaking voice.

A vendor appeared next to them. "Nuts?" she offered.

"No, thank you," Mary said instinctively, but her colleagues had no such compunctions about using the black market. They paid far too much money for a paper cone of peanuts.

"So," Naquian said, "are you going to that party with the Congressperson you were talking about yesterday?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Who's your plus-one this time?"

At this point, Mary had a list of plus-ones she went through over and over. Perhaps one day the military government would allow spouses, but this was not that day. "Congressperson's from One, so Rafael Aumbaev. Amber's taking Ashford Pulzer."

"On the plus side," Rowan said, noticing her unenthusiastic tone, "if they're inviting plus-ones, that means the entertainment won't consist of strippers."

All of a sudden, having to invite colleague after colleague to dinner parties sounded like a pretty decent option, all things considered.

"I wish we could bring spouses," Naquian sighed, munching on a peanut. "I don't understand what the issue is."

"Yeah," Jocelyn said. "My husband doesn't eat that much."

Mary, as the person who had officially distributed that piece of information, felt like she had to defend herself. "What would young parents do with their kids, then?"

None of her colleagues had very young children, but they still nodded. "That makes sense," Rowan agreed unhappily. "My kids all live with us, so the older ones can make sure my teenager does her homework, but with younger kids, it's leave them with someone or take them away from their home to a strange place for months."

"How old are your kids?" Jocelyn asked.

"Twenty-three, twenty-one, twenty-one, seventeen."

"Mine had long moved out when she was twenty-three," Naquian said. "I don't know why she was so eager to live in a leaky apartment with four people. Are the twins identical or fraternal?"

"Fraternal, and they take strongly after different parents to boot. One's got round eyes and dark skin, and the other's got narrow eyes and light skin." Rowan was the former. "We've had people doubt that they're siblings."

Jocelyn nodded. "My sister and I were similar. She's light like our parents, but I took after a more distant relative - everyone always said I look just like my great-uncle." She ate a peanut. "Thing is, my great-grandparents didn't look like that, so that's at least three generations these genes skipped. When I was little, I used to think I was adopted, as a teenager, I worried that my mother may have cheated, but I do have some traits from my parents. Just not the ones people are the first to see."

"Annoying, isn't it?" Rowan asked. "People think that skin colour is like mixing two cans of paint. When it was just me, people would ask if the lighter one was adopted."

Mary felt out of place in conversations about children, so she said nothing. The most she could contribute were pointless observations about her siblings, none of which applied here. Leaving the others to the conversation, Mary watched the game, following Isabella with her eyes. The list of who would conduct the cross-examinations had been drawn up - each District would take two and one person would do each cross, with others stepping in if necessary.

Reluctantly, Mary had given Dovek to Two, and thus Isabella. Oddly enough, watching her play made Mary feel better about the decision. Isabella could be aggressive if she wanted to, but always stopped short of earning a yellow card. If that transferred to the courtroom and combined with her skill with words (Mary had to admit Isabella's direct examinations had been better than hers), Dovek wouldn't know what hit him.

"So, how was the first day of school?" Leon asked as soon as he entered the apartment. It was just the two of them. Dad was at work, of course, and Mom had gone to take the streetcar home with him.

Marcellus was lying on the couch and watching the news. "Forty-two," he sighed. "It's all because of those firings!"

Leon kicked off his shoes and sat down next to his brother. "How many firings were there?"

"Principal plus two teachers."

"So-"

"It's all because of those refugees," Marcellus said angrily. "Can't they stay closer to home instead of coming here? I can't understand what they say half the time."

Leon ignored that. "How was the first day back?"

"They promised us new textbooks, but they haven't been written yet, so we're stuck with the old ones." Marcellus huffed. "And there's no air conditioning!"

Privately, Leon was more worried about winter. "That sucks," he said.

"Not to mention that there aren't any school supplies - a colleague and I had to buy pencils on the black market! Pencils! What is the world coming to?"

Leon remembered how Marcellus had bought school supplies before. He had bought the children food and winter clothes with his own salary. "And notebooks?" Leon had read a promise from the Ministry of Education to provide all schoolchildren with sufficient notebooks.

"We got those, at least." Marcellus looked at Leon as if noticing him for the first time. "Oh, shit, I didn't make dinner."

"No problem - I'll eat the leftovers from breakfast."

"Alright." He flopped back, visibly relieved. "Oh, and crazy story. One of my students is fourteen. She ran away to enlist when she was twelve, and I suppose she didn't care much for school during that time, so she only tested into grade six."

Leon had read endless panicked articles about how former child soldiers weren't easily slotting back into the roles they had had before. "How's she doing?"

Marcellus shrugged. "She showed up, so I guess not too badly. Most of them are running wild - they're as bad as the prison children there."

"You got any of those?" Prison children had been born and raised in secret prisons. Most had been released at some point, but they tended to end up back in the system. Leon had read about a man in his fifties who had spent his entire life inside the same secret prison. He even had children and grandchildren himself. How he was supposed to adjust to normal life was a mystery.

"Of course not. I'm not the one who teaches people how to read and write," Marcellus said dismissively. "I wouldn't want to have someone from an SP in my class. All they know is how to steal."

"It's not their fault they ended up in there," Leon protested.

"Did I say it was? I'm just saying that whoever they were before, they're thieves now."

Leon tried to not snarl at his brother. Was this seriously the man who had had a mental breakdown after one of his students, who suffered from tics, had been turned into an Avox for shouting 'Snow sucks!' at recess? "So half of Congress are thieves?"

Marcellus looked at him as if he was a particularly stubborn pupil. "No. Those are politicals, it's different."

"Javaria Peshmerga was convicted of murder," Leon pointed out.

"It's obvious they picked him to be the scapegoat because of that leaflet," Marcellus said dismissively.

"Didn't you read that article? He was treated like a criminal and spent time with criminals." It was the alleged crime and not what had really happened that had divided prisoners, mostly because everyone claimed to be innocent.

Marcellus sighed. "I don't want to argue with you," he said.

As if Leon wanted to - he wasn't the one who had started insulting people! "Whatever," he said. "Anything else crazy?" He was unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"There was," Marcellus said, visibly grateful for the olive branch. "Funny story. One of the students told me how once last year, her family's television exploded. Well, not literally exploded like a bomb, but it stopped working and began to smoke heavily."

"Were they watching Lark?" Leon quipped.

"That's the thing - they were!" Marcellus gasped with laughter. "I always thought he'd explode from rage one of these days, and it actually happened!"

Leon had heard of extrasensories on 'Unveiled Secrets' charging water through the television, but Lark's rage actually affecting the television was a new thing. "That's great."

"Yeah."

"Wonder what Lark would think of that," Leon said, and went to his room to take off his street clothes.

A/N: Delfin Jaranilla was the IMTFE judge from the Philippines. He was previously the Filipino JAG and survived the Bataan Death March despite being nearly sixty years old; when the death march was being discussed in court, he opted to not attend.

'Charging water through the television' is one of those memes associated with extrasensories from the nineties, along with Kashpirovsky hypnotizing people and weird cults.

The North Korean government practices a system of repression where entire families are arrested and imprisoned, with children being born and growing up behind barbed wire. 'Escape from Camp 14' recounts the story of one of those people, the only one from that background known to have escaped the country.