A/N: Apologies this is late! My schedule chewed me up and spat me out on the wrong side of this chapter.
Chapter 15: Top Story
Hands shaking, Madge sets her now-empty tea cup and crumbled muffin remnants on the little table next to the Simon's door. Maybe she heard wrong. It's possible those people in the hallway were referring to someone else they think is a spy… But Simon looks too upset for it to have been a coincidence. He's peering through the door's peephole, occasionally punctuating his frustration with curses and doing his best to ignore the incessant knocking from the outside.
"I see a lot of AV equipment," he reports. "No weapons. Looks like a media stakeout. Those overly aggressive types who pester Gale during off-hours." There's no relief in his tone and he tears his eyes away from the viewer to frown at Madge. She knows as well as he does that if her cover has been jeopardized, his probably is too. The people in the hallway saw him when he pulled her back inside his apartment, and it would be beyond easy to identify him as the occupant of this apartment.
"What should we do?" she whispers.
Simon starts punching a number into his portable phone. "Building security will get rid of them. And then you can go put some real clothes on."
Madge looks down and cringes. She's wearing her nightclothes: a skimpy tank top and short shorts. And she still hasn't brushed her hair or taken a shower; this is how she might be showing up on TV? What a nightmare.
She hears Simon reporting a disturbance on the top floor of the building. When he hangs up, she asks, "What about after they're gone?"
He sighs heavily and looks back outside the little window. "We'll have to watch their putrid programs to figure out what they know and what they're only guessing at. One of them already called in a report so we can't contain this…" He walks away from the door into the rest of the apartment and starts pacing, kicking one of his shoes out of his path. "Damn it! How did this happen, Madge? Did you put your name in that notebook you lost?"
"Of course not! If anyone gave me away, it was probably your brother!" The accusation slips out before she has a chance to soften it and she can see Simon's surprise that she strayed into the Forbidden Topic. But now that it's out, she might as well make her case. "If your brother stole my phone and called you on it, he would have recognized your voice when you answered. And you probably said my name when you answered, didn't you?" They're both lax about using the code names on their work phones. It just seemed pointless, and half the time their calls were only partially work related, talking instead about what to cook for dinner.
"Edwin never leaves the Capitol City if he can help it," Simon snaps. "It's ridiculous to think he was tromping around in some construction area outside District 2 on Friday, breaking into military cars!"
"He probably wasn't, but I'm sure he has other people who do his dirty… who work for him," Madge says, catching herself.
"But exposing you would expose me, too," Simon says, sounding frustrated that Madge doesn't understand that aspect of her accusation. "And even if he knew we worked in Covert Intelligence, he wouldn't do that to me."
Madge thinks that's exactly what he would do. But instead of saying that, she crosses her arms and glares at Simon. "Well, I seriously doubt anyone could have figured out anything about me this quickly without a tip, and if not your brother, then who?"
#
"Call me when they drop the jeep off," Gale tells his mom as he walks into the kitchen, hurriedly doing up all the decorative buttons on his uniform. He's running late—he forgot how living with four other people means everything from teeth brushing to scrounging up breakfast takes longer. He feels bad that he can't take the day off to spend time with them, but he was out most of Friday checking on the quarry's land request and doesn't even know how many assignments he's behind on. Best not to think about that type of thing until forced.
"Gale!" Posy calls from her perch on the island in the kitchen next to the phone. "Vick and I are fixing your phone so it can take messages again!"
Vick proudly presses a button, sending an electronic version of his voice into the room: "This is Gale's house. Leave a message. But he probably won't call you back."
Vick and Posy collapse into giggles as their mom hides a smile.
"We'll tweak that," she assures him.
Gale doesn't care; it's what he would say if he bothered to set the recording himself instead of using the factory's default robot message. Better to warn people so they don't get their hopes up.
"I wrote down all the messages before I erased them," Vick says more seriously, handing a list to Gale. A mix of reporters, Mom, Milo, and people who had been looking for him and Madge over the weekend—Perri, Simon, and an array of army officials.
"Thanks," he says, stuffing the papers into his pocket. Glancing into the living room, he sees that Rory is still avoiding him by pretending to read a book. Rory had disappeared for most of the afternoon yesterday, finally returning just before they'd all sat down for a dinner his mom had prepared. Then he'd been sullen for the entire night, and this morning his eyes were red-tinged as though he'd been crying. Gale's approach has been to give Rory space; he figures Rory doesn't want him around anymore than Katniss does.
"See you all later," he says, hand on the front door. "We can drive up to the recreation area for a picnic dinner tonight when I get back."
Posy looks up in alarm. "Where are you going?"
"Work. You won't even miss me."
Frantic, Posy turns toward their mother. "Don't let him go!"
All the warning signs of a major Posy meltdown are starting to appear: the bright red spots on her cheeks, the panicked expression, eyes jumping from one family member to the next until someone picks her up.
His mom reaches her first. "Posy, Gale will be home soon."
"That's what you said before," she accuses, voice trilling closer into screeching territory. "But then the TV stole him!" She explodes into tears and starts squirming to get out of her mother's arms, so Gale takes her.
"Pose," he says in what he hopes is a soothing voice. "Remember when we were walking in town yesterday? That building with the big pillars like the Justice Building back home? That's where I'll be. Remember how close it is? Five minutes away, if that. You could even come and have lunch with me, it's so close."
He isn't sure she can even hear him because she's so preoccupied with wailing and hiccuping. She's always had a special gift for making small matters seem like life or death dilemmas, a tendency that hasn't been helped by having to deal with more life or death situations than someone her age should: the bombing of 12, the bombing of 13, Gale's promise that he would be back soon when he left for the final mission to the Capitol… No wonder she doesn't believe him right now.
He pats her back comfortingly, but she's totally lost it, crying with the kind of abandon that he sometimes wishes he could indulge in. This meltdown is his fault, and it's probably one of many that his mom hasn't told him about.
Rory appears in front of him. "You'll be late," he mumbles, pulling Posy into his own arms but not making eye contact with Gale. "Posy," he says firmly, "we'll go see Gale for lunch. Let's play Button Jumper for now. Vick was practicing yesterday after you went to sleep—I think he thinks he can beat you now."
"I don't need to practice that easy game—" Vick starts to contradict before their mom puts her hand on his shoulder, cluing him in on the combined family effort to distract Posy. "I'll… get the buttons," he offers.
Still taking ragged gulps of air, Posy does twist in Rory's arms to watch that Vick is actually retrieving a small pouch from his suitcase. Gale doesn't know what this game is—must be a new one. They were always coming up with games involving scrap bits of whatever they could find, and apparently they've been able to squirrel away buttons in 13 lately. He looks at his mom, who shoos him back toward the door with a wave.
"I'll tell security you'll be there for lunch," he says quickly, hoping he isn't scheduled for any conflicting meetings, and then slips out the door, the memory of Posy's cries making him feel like the kind of scumbag who kicks fluffy baby animals.
He hadn't thought his absence had been hurting his family this much. His mom was probably shielding him from it—she always sounded so concerned about him on the phone, she probably didn't want him to feel any worse about Rory's struggles or Posy's separation anxiety… And who knows what bothers Vick, since he seems determined to keep everything running as smoothly as possible. No doubt they're all still wrestling with the memories of the bombing of 12, too. He does.
When he reaches the Reconstruction Committee's building, he bounds up the back stairs, hoping to sneak to his desk without anyone noticing how late he is. He succeeds, but the unsteady pile of URGENT memos on his desk makes the victory short-lived. And now that he can see all his other assignments, he remembers he's also behind on reading Perri's paper about selecting independent judges, working with Rhoda on how to value past service by district citizens so they'll be able to buy land, coming up with a proposal for revising the district borders, and countless other things. For a microsecond, he misses the exhausting simplicity of mining and not having to deal with anything more at the end of a shift than sore muscles and coal dust in places it had no reason to be.
"Welcome back, Hawthorne," Rhoda grins at him from her own desk. He recognizes that smile: it means 'you'll never catch up but I'm going to have fun watching you try.' "I assume you saw the memo about the press briefing being moved up an hour?"
He tries to figure out if she's teasing him until she walks over and fishes the announcement out of one of the paper piles on his desk. Shit. He hasn't even started reviewing the status reports. Pawing through the other papers, he tries to find the folder so he can skim the memos summarizing major military actions over the weekend. And then he notices Rhoda still hovering over his desk.
"What?" he asks. Is it really necessary for her to gloat about how behind he is?
"I thought you were the one developing a land distribution proposal."
When? While he sleeps? Gale sits back in his chair and rubs his face. "I haven't gotten to it yet."
She shuffles a few other papers and unearths a memo announcing a meeting today. Purpose: Discussion of the Border Revision and Land Distribution Proposal. Sponsor: Committee Member Archibald Douglas.
Gale sits up straighter and angrily flips through the lengthy proposal. Douglas knew this was Gale's project! And Douglas is notoriously lazy—why would he voluntarily do any work that wasn't forced on him? Gale promptly storms over to Douglas' desk, covered today with crisp maps instead of furniture magazines.
"Were you going to tell me about this?" Gale asks, throwing the meeting announcement and proposal packet on top of the maps.
"You didn't seem to be making any progress," Douglas returns, barely lifting his eyes.
"The maps were still being updated! How could we revise the borders when we don't know what we're giving away?"
"I have accurate maps."
Gale picks one of the maps off Douglas's desk and notices that the insignia in the legend belongs to the mapping company Milo works for. He wishes he'd known that Milo's company had made this much progress, but he hasn't talked to Milo much lately—Milo has been gone on those surveying trips and spending his free time with his girlfriend, neither of which Gale wanted to interfere with.
"Why don't we all have copies of these maps?" Gale asks, irritated that Douglas didn't share.
"Feel free to look at them," Douglas says with a shrug. "I know the map company owners so they were directing them to me." He sits up and adjusts his tie, which Gale knows is a warning sign that Douglas is about to go into lecture mode. "Hawthorne, the people in my district are anxious to start harvesting lumber again. Let's get this proposal through the committee and out for a public vote. No more dawdling."
"I haven't been dawdling," Gale snaps. "If you hadn't been hoarding the maps we could have worked together on this." He glares at Douglas' assistants at the adjacent desks, aware that they're the ones who did all the work and feeling betrayed because the committee members' assistants are the only other people his age in this entire room. But Douglas' assistants stay focused on their computer monitors and he feels a surge of irritation that he can't just yell at them the way he wants to. This kind of crap would never happen in the mines, either.
"Ten minutes, Lieutenant," someone calls from across the room, warning him about the imminent press briefing. With a final glare at Douglas so he knows they're not finished discussing this, Gale rushes back to his desk and skims the memos. It's all pretty routine—infrastructure improvements, new sectors being declared clear from unexploded ordnance, the decommissioning of defense structures. He has an instinct now for the most interesting bits and memorizes a few details to highlight at the briefing, hoping that will be good enough. He'll have to fake his way through the questions.
Walking into the media annex, he notices the red-haired reporter he and Madge saw in Ponderosa Village on Saturday, sitting in her usual seat. She'd better behave herself; he is not in the mood for anything else to go wrong today.
When signaled, he summarizes the weekend highlights and describes the major activities the Reconstruction Committee will be addressing during the coming week. These Monday morning briefings are usually uneventful since not much happens over the weekends, so he's feeling good about getting away with being underprepared. Until the briefing is opened up for media questions.
Then everything goes to hell.
Unexpectedly. He starts out by calling on a balding man whose most distinguishing characteristic is his neon purple suspenders. The guy usually asks innocuous questions about transportation projects. But not today.
"Lieutenant Hawthorne, was the Reconstruction Committee aware of, and does it have a position on, the reports of the new government's surveillance program?"
He has no idea what the man is referring to and stares blankly at him. Does 'surveillance program' mean spying network? He quickly tries to remember if the Committee has been briefed on spying… He did miss a few meetings last week… He knows about the spying because of Madge, but he's also bound to confidentiality because of Madge. All the other reporters are leaning forward, intensely interested in his response, and several have raised their hands eagerly, already prepared with follow-up questions. He's starting to suspect he missed a big news story over the weekend, which means his best course of action is ending this briefing as quickly as possible.
"No formal position I'm aware of," he says tersely. "Yet," he adds, inwardly frustrated to be caught without a useful answer and sounding like an idiot.
The red-haired reporter from Saturday stands up without waiting for him to call on her. The fact that she knows better than to act out of turn like this gives him a sick feeling…
"Lieutenant Hawthorne, do you know the alleged spy, Margaret Undersee?"
The question feels like an arrow to his chest, worse than he was expecting. What happened to Madge? They know she's a spy? This reporter saw them together over the weekend—did she have something to do with outing Madge? But all she's actually asking is if he knows Madge, which the reporter knows very well that he does… Is she trying to trap him? Being at such an information disadvantage makes him want to punch someone—that red-haired reporter seems like a prime candidate—and he can't trust himself to open his mouth without giving something away or losing his cool. He grips the podium and strains to think of a way out of this.
"Records indicate she was originally from District 12," the red-haired reporter prompts. "Did you know her?"
Realizing the reporter just unintentionally gave him an out, he announces, "Since there are no more questions about formal committee business, this briefing is over." All the regulars know he doesn't answer personal questions during these briefings. He swivels so he can more plausibly ignore any additional questions and starts pushing his way through the people standing between him and the door. He needs to find out what's going on now.
Barreling into the media room, he sees a television blaring, a split screen showing him leaving the press briefing and a pair of talking heads already analyzing his exit. He recognizes the blatherers as regulars on one of the gossip channels.
Rhoda is standing a few feet from the screen, absorbing whatever nonsense spews out. "Spy. Got caught." She turns to Gale. "You knew her in 12? I saw you didn't answer that question."
He ignores her and searches other channels, only to discover that the more respectable outfits aren't reporting on this yet, which means the tabloids are filling the void with whatever they can, dictating how this story unfolds. He can't even formulate a counter-strategy against this pseudo-news-as-entertainment until he knows what they think they know, so he braces himself for the worst and turns back to the tabloid channel. He feels a physical disappointment when the screen fills with a grainy, black and white image of Madge dressed in a skirt suit, walking into what looks like a bank. It's probably the feed from a crummy security camera and her hair is even shorter, marking the footage as a few months old.
A voice narrates as a bank employee shaking Madge's hand and leading her to a desk.
"Information has recently come to light that the new government has been continuing the Capitol's surveillance programs, and some people believe that these programs are even more offensive to citizen privacy than the Capitol's. The young woman featured in this footage has recently been uncovered as a suspected agent of the new government, conducting invasive investigations into law-abiding businesses as recently as this past weekend. Our eye witness reports with his account."
Appearing onscreen is the man from the quarry near Madge's grandparents' house—the man Gale talked to on Friday about the quarry's land request. Gale can't remember his name, but the interviewer introduces him as Mr. Leo Stack.
"Mr. Stack, tell our viewers about your recent interactions with the person you believe to be a spy."
The camera focuses on the quarry man, who sticks out his chest proudly, clearly adoring this attention. "Certainly. Over the weekend, a notebook filled with detailed information about my business—the Hyland Village Quarry, available to fulfill all your granite needs and soon sandstone as well—turned up in our mailbox at the office." He gestures behind him to the crappy little building Gale had visited on Friday near the quarry and Madge's grandparents' mansion. "It had details about our bank accounts, profits, operating history, employees… Someone must have found the notebook, saw our name, and returned it to us. But it wasn't ours. I worried a rival was scoping us out. Spying, trying to do us in—we're the most sought-after quarry in District 2, if you didn't know. Hyland Village Quarry, located in the heart of Hyland Village, can't miss it. To be safe, we checked with our bank and they confirmed that someone other than us had been accessing our account.
"Now, my business partners used to work for the Capitol. But they're decent, smart guys, not like that bastard Snow and his flunkies. They know how things worked under Snow and they filled me in: this kind of spying and worse happened all the time. You'd think it would stop now that we have a new government, but my partners said all the old spying equipment is still in place: wires in walls, phone taps… cameras everywhere!"
The man sounds like he's about to explode from anger, a feeling Gale recognizes all too well. He's mad, too, at the prospect of spying, but his anger is also mingled with uneasiness about how Madge is mixed up in this.
The interviewer prompts, "And how did you link the spying on your company to this particular spy?"
"That little blonde was asking me questions here at the office on Friday—acting like she was only interested because her family used to own the quarry. But then she turned up later that same day at a location we've been considering developing outside the district's old borders. Only a few of us knew about that spot! She had to have been spying to figure it out because I sure didn't tell her! When my partner heard she was out there, he made the connection between this same girl and one of his other business partners in District 7, who had been set up by a nosy blonde who locked him out of all his accounts while he had to undergo an audit, which he passed, I'll have you know. He's the one who had that security video of her—and I can confirm it's the same girl."
The camera zooms in on Stack's face, his anger palpable through the screen. "I'm just a quarry man trying to get on with my life after the war. Trying to build a useful business and employ other people in my district. What kind of reformed, supposedly improved government breaks into private bank accounts, stops us from using our own damn money, and harasses its citizens? And that's not the worst of it!"
The camera shifts to a man in a shimmering silver suit who speaks with a Capitol accent. "Oh yes, I used to work in the Capitol's surveillance department under Snow. We could intercept everything: phones, communicuffs, other transmissions. Anything we wanted to know, we could find out. I doubt any of the equipment has been removed—there's just too much of it."
Before anyone can explain why this unidentified, random man would or wouldn't know whether the surveillance equipment has been removed, a bright turquoise blue head—skin, hair, and eyes all in matching hues—suddenly dominates the screen. Gale cringes; he thinks of her as the Turquoise Terror and remembers banning her from the formal Reconstruction Committee press briefings months ago for bad behavior.
The Turquoise Terror breathlessly reports, "We have identified the spy as Margaret Undersee, the daughter of the former mayor of District 12." An image of a younger version of Madge pops onto the screen—Gale recognizes it as one of the District 12 school portraits and notices that unlike him, Madge actually smiled for those stupid pictures. How did anyone, let alone these idiots, track down one of Madge's old photos? "Miss Undersee was enrolled in President Snow's Young Administrator's Training Program—which everyone knows was an apprenticeship program for Snow's supporters—although records list her as having been killed after the destruction of District 12. But it appears that she survived and, in theory at least, is working for the new government. Passing along the best tricks from the Snow Administration, perhaps? Where do her loyalties truly lie?"
"In fact," the Turquoise Terror continues, as though letting the viewers in on a little secret, "She may have a vendetta against a well-regarded family from the Capitol." A new series of images scrolls across the screen: Simon's brother Edwin testifying at the loyalty hearings. Edwin and Simon sitting together in the audience, obviously related based on their similar features. Madge hugging Simon gleefully at a train station—yesterday, judging by her clothes.
"The spy appears to be romantically linked with one Simon Barker—observed together in an intimate moment this morning at his apartment." A photo appears of Madge with bed head, wearing practically nothing and holding a mug and a muffin in her hands, looking surprised. It's followed by a short video clip of Simon in an unbuttoned shirt, grabbing Madge—very familiarly, Gale thinks—around the waist and pulling her inside a door.
"But, interestingly..." The Turquoise Terror pauses dramatically before speaking again. "Mr. Barker's brother is the very Capitol investor behind the quarry Miss Undersee was discovered to have been spying on, which also happens to be the quarry Miss Undersee's family ran historically. Coincidence? Doubtful."
Gale vaguely registers the program's host introducing various 'analysts' (professional idiots) to provide 'insights' (drivel and speculation) and wishes he could unplug something to stop these fools from broadcasting. An orange-skinned woman Gale also banned long ago—is this where they go after he kicks them out?—begins speaking in an absurdly high-pitched voice on the TV screen.
"Oh, unquestionably the spy is plying the younger brother to get information about the older brother. It's obvious, given the history of disputes between the Undersees and the Barkers."
As the orange-skinned squeaker starts describing the past conflict between Madge's dad and Simon's mother about the illegal trading scheme she'd orchestrated decades ago, Gale tunes the words out, overwhelmed by how sick he feels. Madge never explained to him exactly what she does, and there were enough kernels of fact in the interview with the quarry guy for Gale to be concerned that she may have had a role in going too far in her efforts… He closes his eyes, but keeps seeing the images of Madge mauling Simon at the train station and the two of them only partially clothed together this morning after having been ambushed.
Elevated voices on the TV draw his attention back to the screen, where the orange-skinned squeaker is interviewing people for their reactions.
"And how would you feel if you thought the government was listening in on your dinner conversation with your family?"
A woman in a frayed, faded dress—clearly a resident of one of the districts—grabs the microphone and yells into it: "It isn't right! I won't have it! They need to stay out of my house!"
As a series of 'reaction on the street' soundbites flow past, all in a similar vein of outrage based on hypothetical questions intended to provoke ever more inflamed responses, Gale sees Perri enter the room out of the corner of his eye. She joins him in front of the television screen, wearing what he recognizes as her angry as hell expression, which most people mistakenly interpret as her being vaguely displeased. He sees worry in her face, too, which doesn't make him feel better.
"I just heard," she tells him. "I tried calling all the numbers I have for her and for Simon, but neither of them answered."
Rhoda overhears them talking. "So you do know the spy, Gale?"
Perri glares at Rhoda and jumps in before Gale has a chance to speak. "What is a 'spy' and since when do rational people believe the unsubstantiated, one-sided allegations of any fool who knows how to turn on a microphone?"
Rhoda looks surprised at the outburst and takes a step backward. "Well, a spy is someone who gets into other people's affairs without their knowledge. Like this girl seems to be doing."
"And what would you call the legitimate investigations of law enforcement officials?" Perri demands. "Did you hear any admission by an authority figure that what these people allege is actually occurring?"
Rhoda doesn't seem to know how to answer and glances at Gale, but he's also surprised at Perri's reaction. He knows Perri isn't crazy about Madge's job, and she's never hid her contempt for anything Snow did. He assumed she would immediately condemn even the hint of continued surveillance.
"All I did was ask if Gale knows her," Rhoda says cautiously, from a safe distance. "They look to be about the same age and she's apparently from District 12, too. Do you know her too, Perri?"
"I know her," Gale snaps, partly to get Rhoda to back off and partly to spare Perri from disclosing her own relationship with Madge just yet. The red-haired reporter already saw him with Madge and any number of people will be able to confirm seeing them together recently. It's only a matter of time before the alley-dwellers start hounding him, and now that he thinks about it, it's strange that the quarry guy didn't mention Gale visiting that day, too… Unless there's a reason for it.
With a sinking feeling, he wonders how long he has until they discover the connection between Madge and Katniss. After Katniss and Peeta won their first Hunger Games, there were endless promotional shots of them with the Undersees, and quite a few profiles featuring the friendship between the mayor's daughter and the only female victor from District 12. How soon before the vultures start pestering Katniss for interviews… Should he warn her?
And what if his shithead neighbor is already reporting seeing him and Madge together? The guy is probably salivating at the prospect of having these gossip mongers cooing at him for details. It's practically public knowledge where Gale lives—the worst ones could be staking out his apartment. With a groan, he remembers that his family is there. He needs to warn them; if Posy already thought the TV 'stole' him, chances are high she wouldn't react well to having a bunch of cameras and microphones shoved in her face either.
Looking back at the TV, Gale sees that they're back to showing the grainy bank security video again so he turns the volume down. Turning to gaze at Perri, he sees that she's wearing an expression that matches his: ready for a battle. He's done being ambushed.
A/N2: Seriously, I feel bad that I said I was going to be updating every two weeks and then missed my first deadline, but I just went through a really, really busy stretch of life and this story had to move into the backseat. Thanks for being patient, and for those of you still reading along and reviewing. Thank you for all the support, I appreciate it. :) And huge gratitude to my chicas whose suggestions helped me make some much-needed improvements.