Chapter Text
Meanwhile
In the office of Head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee
While the door was locked, the white-noise generator was making it difficult for anyone outside the door to eavesdrop, and two bug-jammers were working hard, Plutarch was talking on the radio.
The radio that he usually kept hidden in his office.
Hidden, because this radio would get Plutarch a quick bullet to the brain if he were caught with it.
Why the extreme punishment? Because with this radio, Plutarch could talk to Alma Coin, “President” of District Thirteen. Which was no-shit treason.
Fortunately for Plutarch’s good health and life span, every day it looked more and more likely that the Ministry of Security was not concerned with Capitols spying for District Thirteen. Maybe the Ministry of Security believed, like the general public believed, that District Thirteen was dead?
Anyway, now Plutarch had his office holoprojector on (but muted), with the holoprojector set to the Panem News Network, while Plutarch spoke quietly with the aforementioned Alma Coin—
“Ma’am, I don’t know what to tell you, I really don’t. Five months ago, I was sure that after Snow’s and Everdeen’s meeting after the crowning, he had turned Katniss Everdeen into a Capitol spy. And—”
Coin’s voice was testy: “We had to rewrite a lot of Rebellion planning after you told us this. Are you telling me you were wrong?”
“I don’t know! If Everdeen is Snow’s secret spy, then Snow is playing a longer game than he ever has before. Because what Katniss Mellark has been saying on the Victory Tour has been just short of treason. I can’t imagine Snow would let ‘the Girl on Fire’ say those things if she were taking his orders.”
“Mr. Heavensbee, instead of you guessing where her allegiances lie, find out—”
Silent PNN interrupted itself then. Under a “BREAKING NEWS” banner-block, the scene shifted to the patio of some district’s Justice Building. Katniss and Peeta Mellark were being approached by two Peacekeepers, each Peacekeeper aiming his gun at Katniss. At the bottom of the holo-image was another text-block: “LIVE from District 8: Katniss Mellark, traitor?”
Plutarch blurted, “Shit, speaking of ‘Katniss the traitor’—I gotta go!” Right afterward, he turned off the radio and shoved it back into its hiding place.
Once Plutarch’s spy-radio was hidden, the bug-jammers were turned off, and the white-noise generator was turned off, Plutarch unmuted his holoprojector.
****
Meanwhile
In front of the District Eight Justice Building
Katniss had been facing the crowd, and talking into the microphone, when Romulus Thread had ordered her to be arrested for treason.
I expected this. I’ve planned for this, Katniss thought. She made her muscles relax.
Still facing the crowd, she said, “I tell you no lies. What I told you about District Eleven, I saw.”
A young, helmetless Peacekeeper appeared to Peeta’s right. He was pointing a pistol at Katniss’s face.
“Hands behind your back,” a male voice ordered, speaking behind Katniss.
Katniss ignored the order, keeping her right hand holding Peeta’s hand and her left hand holding the microphone stand.
Male hands grabbed both of Katniss’s hands and yanked them behind her back. Cl-cl-cl-cl-click! Handcuffs bit into the skin of her hands and wrists.
Katniss said, as calmly as she could manage, “You can’t arrest me. It isn’t allowed.”
“Oh yeah, bitch?” said the voice from behind. “Watch me!”
Katniss made herself speak calmly: “Peeta, my breast pocket. Grab the paper.”
The youthful, gun-pointing Peacekeeper said, “Mr. Mellark, I need for you to step away from your wife.” He spoke calmly, gently, not like a hardass.
Peeta said, “She has a paper you need to see: a note from President Snow.”
“Liar!” Thread yelled, ten meters behind Katniss. “Add forgery to her crimes.”
After a pause—the young Peacekeeper looked shocked at Peeta’s words—at last he said, “Very well, Mr. Mellark. But I don’t want to shoot you. Move slowly when you take the paper from her pocket, then slowly when you hand the paper to me.”
As Peeta was moving slowly, Katniss’s Peacekeeper growled, “This is a waste of time, Junior-Lieutenant.”
The non-hardass Peacekeeper replied, “If Mr. Mellark hadn’t mentioned President Snow, I’d agree with you, sir.”
Katniss’s Peacekeeper leaned close to her ear and murmured, “Whatever you and Lover-Boy are cooking up, I hope it includes running away. I want an excuse to shoot you both.”
As soon as the Junior-Lieutenant Peacekeeper was handed the note, he quickly backed away from Peeta and unfolded the note. Seconds later, he blurted out, “Holy shit.”
The young Peacekeeper had been pointing his pistol at Katniss or at Peeta for the last minute. Now he holstered his pistol.
Katniss said, “Junior-Lieutenant, please come to the microphone and read the note so everyone hears its words.”
Behind Katniss, her handcuffer snarled, “Quiet, traitor! You take orders now, you don’t give orders, got me?”
The Junior-Lieutenant shook his head. “Mrs. Mellark is right, sirs, I think you need to hear this. This note, I think it’s from Snow.”
The young Peacekeeper walked in front of handcuffed Katniss, her note in his hand and his back to the audience. Katniss had already seen that this man was one of the three Peacekeepers who wore no helmet; now she saw that he also had the plainest gewgaws on his armor of the three officer-Peacekeepers.
Amid his gewgaws was the name “Poole, J.”
Peacekeeper Junior-Lieutenant Poole turned the microphone stand around, so that the microphone was facing him, and read the entire note aloud—
“ ‘74-12-20. Mrs. Katniss Mellark and Mr. Peeta Mellark are not to be arrested or threatened for anything they say or do during the Victory Tour. Even their most extreme words or actions are not to be censored. I make no exception to this order. Coriolanus Snow, President of Panem.’ ”
Poole even read-out the telephone number that Snow had written at the end.
After reading the note aloud, Poole again turned the microphone stand around, so that the microphone faced Katniss. After doing this, Poole turned and walked over to stand to Peeta’s right (so that the audience and the holo-cameras could see Katniss standing there handcuffed).
Poole asked, “Mister Mellark, why did you say that this note is from President Snow, instead of from someone else, or instead of saying that you did not know its origin?”
Peeta said, “I know Snow wrote it, because I saw him write it and hand it to Katniss.”
“Bullshit,” Thread yelled from behind. “You two haven’t been to the Capitol since the end of your Games. This note is dated five days ago.”
Katniss said, “Did Peeta say that the note was written in the Capitol? No, he didn’t. Get the wax out of your ears, Peacekeepers! Snow gave me this note in District Twelve.”
The man who had handcuffed Katniss said, “A likely story! You expect us to believe that President Snow traveled all the way to District Twelve to talk to two cheater Victors?”
“Yes, exactly,” Katniss said calmly, into the microphone. “I think you should call that telephone number now.”
“That’s not going to happen,” declared Thread.
“You heard him, traitor,” said Katniss’s handcuffer.
Poole said, “Sirs, I respectfully suggest that you reconsider. I think this note is real.”
Thread demanded, “Why would President Snow give you two cheaters and traitors a blank-check note like this?”
Katniss answered coldly, “It’s not your place to know that, Head Peacekeeper Thread.”
Thread said, “I should shoot you here and now, as a lesson to future traitorous Victors.”
A new male voice said, “Poole, would you read off the telephone number again?” The speaker’s voice cracked from nervousness.
After Poole read off the note’s telephone number, the new voice said, “Rom, I call that number all the time, and President Snow calls me from that number all the time! You need to call that number.”
Katniss said into the microphone, “I want Peacekeeper Junior-Lieutenant Poole to make the call—standing at the microphone so we all can hear. Him I trust to do the right thing.”
“Fine, whatever,” Thread said. “Do it, Junior-Lieutenant.”
Poole borrowed the Capitol Liaison’s pocket-picturephone and made the call. He did not reach President Snow, but he did reach Snow’s secretary. After she typed on a keyboard, she said, “Here is the president’s reply to anyone who asks about Mrs. Mellark’s note: ‘I wrote it. I meant it. Don’t you have more important things to do?’ ”
****
One second later
Katniss’s voice was as imperial as Snow’s: “Take off the handcuffs, Peacekeeper behind me.”
For several seconds, nothing happened. Then Thread said disgustedly, “Do it.”
Katniss’s handcuffs were removed. The Peacekeeper behind Katniss murmured, “You’re still a traitor and a cheater, note or no note.”
Katniss did not bother to reply. Instead she held her hand out to Poole. “Please give me my note back, Junior-Lieutenant Poole.”
When the note was handed to her, she pocketed it—as her mind raced.
Mrs. Katniss Mellark and Mr. Peeta Mellark are not to be arrested or threatened for anything they say or do during the Victory Tour. Katniss was angry at Thread and his minion, she wanted to insult them, to slap them, to kick them in the gonads—and she could! Snow’s note would let her do all these things, and the two dipshit Peacekeepers would have to take it. Katniss was so tempted!
But what would be the consequences if she did any of these things? Probably the Eights in the Square would attack the Peacekeepers in the Square—and whatever happened then, the blame would be all on Katniss.
Now Katniss got another glimmer of what Snow had meant when he had said, “With total freedom comes total responsibility.”
Time had passed after Katniss had pocketed the note, but nobody had spoken. She turned around and faced the Peacekeeper who still stood close to her. In a low voice, she said, “You are no longer needed where you are standing. Go back to the Justice Building ... Asher, P.”
“You can’t give me orders!”
“Do we need to call Snow again?”
Peacekeeper Asher glared at Katniss, then he walked away.
Katniss turned back to the microphone and said, “People of Eight, there are three Peacekeepers on stage with me. I have no thanks and no praise for Thread or Asher, but I praise and I thank Peacekeeper Junior-Lieutenant Poole. He did all the right things.”
Katniss began to clap, then Peeta clapped, then everybody in the crowd and everybody on stage clapped—as the young Peacekeeper officer blushed.
Katniss noticed that many Eights in the crowd held off clapping for a Peacekeeper till they had looked over at the Spool Paylor platform and had seen that Distaff Paylor was clapping. Seeing Distaff Paylor clap for Peacekeeper Poole, these other Eights clapped too.
After the applause died down, Katniss and Peeta went back to doing the Victory Tour in District Eight by its usual routine.
****
Meanwhile
In the office of Head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee
Plutarch Heavensbee shook his head in amazement as he turned off the holoprojector.
Plutarch said to the empty room, “Katniss has a ‘Get out of flogging, prison, Avoxing, and execution’ card from Snow? How did this happen? What does it mean?”