Johanna shifted, trying to get a better look at the figure of President Snow. He looked just like he did in television interviews, which she suspected was what his likeness was copied from. That would explain why parts of him which would only show in brief distance shots, like his feet, seemed somehow fuzzy compared to the rest of him. Then there was the back. She couldn't be sure, and she certainly wasn't going any closer to find out, but it looked like there was a hole in his back. "Let us go," Gale said. "All we want is for you to let us go."

"But we cannot do that," Snow said. "We are here to provide you with health, peace and happiness. If you are unhappy and want to leave, then we have failed and must redouble our efforts. If you resist, even threaten to prevent us from giving health, peace and happiness to others, then we have little choice but to discipline you."

Johanna hurled a vase, which broke against a shield that cut off the end of the hallway from the living room., trapping everyone but the little girl "That's the kind of thing the guy you made your puppet from used to say," Johanna said, "right before he tortured and murdered us."

"We present ourselves in whatever likenesses will draw the appropriate emotions," Snow said. "My responsibilities require me to be feared and respected, therefore I take this shape." He leaned down to talk to the girl: "Rosanna... why don't you go play at Aunt Twill's?" The girl scampered out.

Gale pointed a finger at his father. "What about him?" he said. "I never respected him."

"Oh, but you respected me just fine, boy," said his father. The man looked like an ogre out of a fairy story, tall yet very stout, with coarse stubble all over his face, a hatchwork of scars and a patch where one eye had been. He removed a huge belt. "I just had to learn you to mind."

Gale tensed. Johanna stepped closer, discretely slipping a hand inside the crook of his arm. "He can't hurt you. He's a part of this Place, and the Place won't let us be hurt," she said. She spoke directly to the Mutt. "You can't let us hurt each other, so you can't hurt any of us. So what's the point of this?"

"To be sure, we cannot hurt you," Snow said. "But we can hurt them." He pointed to Prim, and another, a boy who couldn't be more than 14. The newcomer was gangly, with a faceful of freckles as well as a rash, but there was no mistaking his identity: It was Gale, as he had been when he came to make a wish at the Hanging Tree. The boy quivered at the very sight of the belt, yet he did not run from the lash.

"I'll teach you to mind, boy!" his father snarled. The belt lashed again and again, and Johanna could feel her Gale quiver every time. The boy was silent, at first, but the blows came faster and harder, until he whimpered. Then the force and tempo redoubled, until the boy was screaming and weeping, and still the blows came harder. Johanna held her eyes on the profile of the grown man, trying to discern what was happening in his psyche. It was not only the lashes but the boy's cries that made him wince. She knew that this was not just remembered pain, but enduring humiliation, and rage too, at being unable even to deny his father the pleasure of a cry. As she watched his teeth clench, she realized that he was not just feeling old wounds, but a fresh and selfish hurt at having his most secret pain witnessed by a rival he had lost a girl's heart to, and her.

"You were a boy, and he was a grown man," Johanna whispered. "No, I take that back: He was a nasty little boy who happened to grow himself a man's body."

Peeta put a hand on Gale's shoulder. "You endured worse than this for the Rebellion, and Katniss, and me," he said, "and we never gave you anything but honor for it. Nothing will change that."

But Gale only stared, murmuring: "No, please, not this..."

The boy was reduced to sobbing, and his father raised the belt for more whipping. Then another figure materialized, whom Johanna recognized as Gale's mother Hazelle, almost ten years younger and very pregnant. She tried to restrain her husband, and he countered savagely, directing several blows against her belly before the boy cried out, not in pain but sudden defiance: "Stop! Stop it or I'll kill you! I swear I will! I'll wish you dead!" Then the man Gale dropped to his knees and then his face.

Johanna dropped to his side. "Holy hells, Gale," she said, "you blame yourself for that? You know it wasn't your fault, but who could blame you? I would want to kill him myself. No, I take that back: I would have." She looked to Victoria, who was checking doors to either side and a window behind them. The mole woman shook her head and reached for an open door. Her hand was blocked by a force field.

"You don't understand," Peeta said. "Ligeus Hawthorne died in a mining accident. A lot of people did. One of them was Katniss' father..."

Two more newcomers appeared, and Peeta stiffened. One was a boy who could only be his brother. The other was Katniss, and it was clear at a glance that this was not the same "edition" that had been given to Gale, but a far more faithful likeness. Johanna herself felt a moment's satisfaction at this, the surest proof that Gale never belonged with her. But Peeta stared in utter horror. "I remember this," he said, "I can remember it and it's not shiny! I think it happened! I give up! I'll be good, I'll do anything, just don't make me see it!"

"I'm afraid that will be insufficient," Snow said. "Your infraction was worse than the others'. They only wanted to leave and take others with them. You wanted to destroy us, and deprive all the world of the peace and happiness we can give." As he spoke, Katniss smiled, and as she smiled, a metamorphosis began. Her skin became pale, and broke out in something like a rash. Her lips stretched back, her chin grew longer and her brow receded. Her hair fell in patches and then sloughed off like an unsecured wig. Limbs, neck and torso stretched and narrowed. Her skin became white, and the rash became irridiscent scales. Clothes came off at a few swipes of a clawed hand, revealing the full form of Ophis sapiens, the perfect melding of humanity and serpent, yet still an unmistakeable likeness of Katniss.

"I think I knew it," Gale said. "The Mutts Snow sent to kill Katniss in the Capitol were cloned from her. His idea of irony, or maybe it was his way of sending her a message about herself..." He pushed Peeta to the wall, just as the Ophidian struck with distended jaws and the double of his brother screamed, a shrill shriek that went on and on. When the body finally thudded to the floor, the Ophidian smiled, and its smile was Katniss' smile as it advanced on Prim.

"You stinking Mutt!" Johanna snarled. The Ophidian paused and looked at her like a snake might look at a baby mouse dancing at the mouth of its hole. "You say you don't want to hurt us, but why else would you do this?"

Snow held out his hands. "So we can make everything better..."

Everyone stared in incredulity, but Victoria looked thoughtful. "I have another theory," the mole woman said. "The intellects of the Ancients were far beyond ordinary humanity, if they were truly and fully human. But higher mental faculties do not come without the price of sensitivity and volatility. A racoon might be hard-pressed to open a can, but it does not make a noose to hang itself. The Ancients could have been subject to emotions, stresses and outright psychoses as far beyond our comprehension as their science. It would follow that they would have developed means to treat their disorders. I would postulate that this place was built for that very purpose. It was, to use succinct colloquialism, their insane asylum."