Interview With the Mockingjay -- Chapter 5

In which our hero and his photographer review the evidence to prepare their case

With the editors gone, Archer and I break for lunch. When we return to the video room, we review the videos. Katniss being interviewed. The highlights of the 74^th Hunger Games. Archer reacts to it as if it’s live and in progress. “Look at that guy go,” he yells, pointing at Cato as he slices up Tributes at the Cornucopia in the first few minutes.

I’ve seen enough gore for one lifetime. I fast-forward through the battle scenes. Then we look at the Mockingjay’s propaganda segments, some of which I’ve also seen in training and base camps.

There she is, in her armored uniform, bow and arrow at her side, in District 8, filled with fury. “President Snow says he’s sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?” The camera shifts to a wrecked Capitol plane. “Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!”

“Very powerful,” I say.

“Yeah,” Archer answers. “She may not scare the audience, but she scares the hell out of me.”

I remember Gus Lewis using that quote once, attributing it to some famous general from history.

A knock at the door: Kae Lyn peers in. “Can I come in?”

“Aren’t you going to District 1?” I ask. “Come on in.”

“The train doesn’t leave until this evening,” she says, sashaying into the room. She plunks herself down in a chair next to me, and waves a greeting at Archer. “Hi, Ace.”

“We’re watching some of the Mockingjay’s propaganda pieces,” I say.

“I remember them,” she says. “I think this is the one she did in District 12.”

On the screen, Katniss stands in the ruins of her old house, staring up at the sky. The tape jump cuts to her walking through the ashes and ruins.

“Look at that,” Kae Lyn says, pointing at the screen. “Decomposing bodies. Nobody cleaned them up.”

“The Capitol was sending a message,” I say. “You remember something Gus said once? ‘The Capitol waged this whole war in terms of propaganda.’”

“I remember him saying that,” Kae Lyn says, her weaved hair bobbing as she nods. “Their strategy was entirely based on psychological intimidation of us. They didn’t use much military sense.”

“Are you talking about Augustus Lewis,” Archer asks. “I heard about him. They tell me he was an incredible guy.”

For a moment, I have a flashback of Lewis. Stocky, mustached, short, ferocious. He would walk slowly through Peacekeeper fire, to show his contempt for the enemy.

“He was a character,” I say, as Katniss’s image is replaced on the screen by Gale Hawthorne silently striding through the remains of his house. The style is similar. “He knew how to lead people.”

Archer’s voice drops a decibel level. “Were you there, too? At the bridge?” he asks Kae Lyn.

“I was there, too,” Kae Lyn says evenly.

“What was it like,” Archer says, his voice pleading.

I’m going to be stuck with this guy for a week, maybe two, maybe a month, on this bloody assignment. I can’t even open up my father about the war, and this 19-year-old kid wants to hear about it? What do I tell him? Maybe I can disabuse him of the idea that it was fun.

“It stank,” I say. “It smelled of mud, filthy people, cordite, and unburied corpses.” It’s the first time I’ve described the bridge to an outsider since I wrote my story about it.

Archer chomps on his gum, slowly. He wasn’t expecting that.

The silence in the room is broken by, of all things, Katniss Everdeen singing. On the tape, she’s standing in some woods, singing a strange song:

“Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”

We watch the tape. Katniss continues to sing the song, with mockingjays providing a backup.

“Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where the dead man called out for his love to flee.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”

“That makes no sense,” Kae Lyn says. “What’s going on here? What’s she singing about?”

I scribble in my pad. “Here’s another exciting line of inquiry,” I say.

“She can sing pretty well,” says Kae Lyn, the music fan.

Katniss continues. Her voice is sweet and clear.

“Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”

“This is weird,” Archer says. “She’s singing about a hanged murderer wanting his lover to join him.” The kid is smarter than he looks, I think.

“Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”

“Maybe she is nuts,” I say.

“I don’t remember ever seeing this,” Kae Lyn says. I reach for the list of video segments and scan down it.

“There’s a good reason for that…they didn’t air it. This section is raw, unedited footage.”

“Good thing they didn’t air it,” Kae Lyn says. “It’s creepy.”

“Fucking bizarre,” Archer says.

I return to the pile of paper that George has left behind. “Well, the next thing that happened was that the rebels made that big raid on the Capitol that pulled Peeta and some other prisoners out of the Capitol’s torture chamber,” I say.

“I didn’t know about that,” Archer says.

“We were briefed on it by Gus,” I say. “He said it worked well.”

On the screen, Katniss’s visit to her home district is replaced by her work in my home district. I watch this part closely. I recognize people in the segments – stone-cutters and quarry workers with thick hands, the scattered villages, and the town, divided and shelled. I feel a little sickened when I see my old school, with a side of it ripped apart by a bomb.

“Were you there when this tape was made?” Archer asks.

“We were fighting in another area,” I say. “When they destroyed the Capitol’s headquarters in the mountain, we were preparing for the attack on the bridge. I missed this part,” I say. Or maybe my bosses didn’t want me fighting in my home district, possibly against my friends and neighbors, I think.

There’s footage of Katniss visiting a hospital full of civilians, trying to boost morale by her mere presence. I lean forward and study the wounded and bandaged people, whose eyes and faces are brightening up at a few words from the Mockingjay.

Suddenly I hit the freeze-frame button on the remote control, and point at a black woman about my age lying on a stretcher, with a heavily bandaged arm. “I don’t believe it,” I say.

“Not Meredith,” Kae Lyn chirps. “I love being right all the time.”

“You’re right, it’s not Meredith. It’s Helen Goosby. She was my first…”

Archer spreads his mouth wide into a huge smile. “Your first what?”

Kae Lyn starts laughing. “Your first sister, right?”

I feel a hot flush in my face. Both of them are laughing hard. “What is it with you?” Kae Lyn asks, for only the 150^th time.

“You only date sisters?” Archer says. “I wanna hear this.”

“Something wrong with my choice of girlfriends and lovers, Mr. Archer?” I retort.

“Hell, I don’t care, I’ll chase anything in a skirt,” Archer says. “I just never met a guy who restricted himself like that.”

“And I want to hear this story,” Kae Lyn says.

“Can we go on with this video,” I say, hitting the play button.

Archer grabs the controller, and hits freeze-frame again. “I want to hear this.”

I turn to Kae Lyn. “You opened the door,” she says.

I sigh, take back the remote and fling it on the table. “Yes, she was my first. Back in school. We were both 16. She came over to my lunch table and asked me out. I said yes.”

“She asked you out?” Kae Lyn says. “That’s pretty forward.”

“She later told me her buddies dared her to do it. We went out for a few months.”

“And you never looked back,” Kae Lyn says.

“I never looked back,” I say.

“Did you do her?” Archer asks.

I lean into Archer’s face. “That, at least, is none of your fucking business, pal. I don’t kiss and tell.”

Archer throws his hands up again. “Sorry, sorry. I just…”

“Yeah, I know, you’re Ace being Ace,” I say. “Just drop it.”

“What happened to Helen?” Kae Lyn asks.

“As far as I know, she became a clerk for the Peacekeepers,” I say. “I guess her barracks was hit in the fighting.” I hit the play button on the remote control. “Let’s move on.”

The chip continues. Now it shows Katniss standing in front of District 2’s Hall of Justice, making a speech, standing before two huge TV screens, urging the remaining Capitol loyalists to surrender. She tells them that the real enemy is the Capitol. She says, “The rebels are not your enemy! We all have one enemy, and it’s the Capitol! This is our chance to put an end to their power, but we need every district person to do it! Please! Join us!”

We watch the video, sipping coffee and orange juice. Katniss turns toward the screens on the Hall of Justice.

“Looks like she wants to see how her audience reacts,” Kae Lyn says. I nod.

Someone in the audience reacts by shooting her. Then chaos reigns, as rebel troops swarm all over the loyalists, clubbing and bayoneting them. The loyalists get the point, and hurl their guns down and put their hands up in the air.

“What happened to the guy who shot her?” Archer asks.

“I have no idea,” I say. “But I do know that after this incident, District 2 was firmly in rebel control.”

The chip plays out, and Archer throws in the next one. It starts with Katniss in an undefined hospital bed somewhere – probably District 13 – showing off stitches and bruises, congratulating the Districts on their unity, and warning the Capitol that the united Districts are coming soon.

“That was to make sure everyone knew she was alive and well,” I say.

Next comes another piece of rebel propaganda, from the assault on the Capitol. Kae Lyn and I were both in this grim battle. With the Black Devils decimated, the outfit was broken up. We were assigned to cover a light infantry unit, which called itself the “Stonewall Brigade,” for reasons I never learned. There are shots of tents, rebel troops moving cautiously through damaged streets, artillery and mortar bombardments, and Katniss and her pals from what the film calls a “special squad” firing at buildings, intercut with buildings collapsing.

When the footage starts, I grip my mug of coffee a little tighter. The footage takes me straight back to the stuff that gives me flashbacks and nightmares. I want to leap up and tell the rebel soldiers on the screen to hit the dirt, and then dive under the table myself. Kae Lyn grabs my left arm. “I’m okay,” I say.

Archer doesn’t notice. He’s riveted to the battle scenes. I nudge Kae Lyn. “He’s fascinated,” I say.

“He thinks it’s cool.” She points at a building as it collapses. “Didn’t we take out that department store?”

I nod. I’d rather not remember helping to place the explosives around the building that killed 40 or so Peacekeepers. The Mockingjay was nowhere near that particular firefight. I guess the propagandists on our side wanted to give her credit for something she didn’t actually do.

“Another promising line of inquiry,” I mutter.

There is more raw footage of Katniss and her squad in what appears to be a battle against Capitol pods, on a residential block. One pod unleashes a spray of gunfire, and the other nets invaders. Katniss and her crew methodically defeat the two pods.

“That doesn’t look right,” I say. “That was too easy…there were no Peacekeepers supporting the pods, and there were only two of them.”

“They didn’t bring up any anti-tank missiles or machine-guns in support,” Kae Lyn says. “But listen to the sound – you can hear machine-guns. And look, they hit the dirt, get up, and hit the dirt again.”

“It’s like they staged this battle,” I say. I lean forward. “Isn’t that guy on the left Gale Hawthorne?” I hit the freeze-frame button.

“That’s him,” Kae Lyn says. “And there’s Peeta over on the right.”

“Yeah…what’s he doing there? I thought he was a mental and physical wreck.” I make more notes and hit the play button. “Another line of inquiry.”

Kae Lyn grabs my arm. I look back up at the screen. There is a blinding explosion on the screen. When the smoke clears, one of the soldiers is lying on the ground, legs blown off, in agony. He appears to be the squad leader. On the video, Katniss kneels beside the wounded man, who seems to be working his Holo device. I’m having trouble watching this footage. I feel my lunch rising in my stomach, an urge to vomit. I hold it down.

Archer is still riveted to the action. “Holy shit,” he says.

“He’s turning command over to Katniss,” Kae Lyn says.

“Yeah. The street must have been mined.” Katniss and a soldier drag their wounded buddy along the street. Then Peeta races out towards Katniss.

“He’s going to kill her,” I say. I recognize the look in Peeta’s face.

Another soldier tackles Peeta and pins him to the ground. Peeta gets his feet under the soldier’s belly and launches him further down the block.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Archer asks. “That guy is attacking his own buddies.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” I say. “It’s like Peeta went nuts.” One of the block’s pods snaps, and four cables, attached to tracks on buildings, break through the stones, dragging up a net that encases the soldier who tackled Peeta. The soldier is trapped inside the net, which appears to be full of barbs.

Two of Katniss’s soldiers shoot open a front door lock on a corner building, and fire at the cables holding their trapped buddy’s net. It reminds me of some of the pods I fought in the battle for the Capitol, which were equally hideous. Katniss and another soldier drag their now legless squad leader into a house, followed by two more soldiers who are hauling a writhing Peeta. The tape cuts to black.

“Well, that makes no sense,” Kae Lyn says.

“Sure, it does,” I say. “They thought the block was easier than it was, and they paid for it. The only thing that’s baffling is what Peeta was doing there and why he turned on his own troops.”

“What happened next?” Archer asks.

I return to George’s presentation. “The Capitol quickly announced that Katniss had been killed, and apparently everyone believed it, because Coin cut in to the Capitol’s broadcast to announce the same thing. She said, ‘Dead or alive, Katniss Everdeen will remain the face of this rebellion. If ever you waver in your resolve, think of the Mockingjay, and in her you will find the strength you need to rid Panem of its opponents.’”

“I never heard that speech,” Kae Lyn says.

“Neither did I. We were too busy fighting,” I say. “We were too busy digging them out with satchel charges to care about a speech.

“Then the Capitol changed its tune and admitted that Katniss’s body had not been found, and offered a huge reward for her whereabouts. She pretty much disappears from the battle, until…that big battle at the presidential mansion.”

“Were you at that?” Archer asks.

“We were at that,” Kae Lyn says, her voice cold.

I don’t look at the video, which shows raw footage from the battle. I know it by heart.

We charged up a street, driving refugees and Peacekeepers ahead of us, until we reached the concrete barricades around the presidential mansion. Behind the barricades were hordes of Capitol children, being used by Snow as human shields, his last and most pathetic defense.

Kae Lyn and I tried to break past the Peacekeepers ahead of us, when a hovercraft with the Capitol’s seal swooped down and dropped silver parachutes onto the kids. They thought they were gifts of food. Kae Lyn and I knew from harsh experience that the parachutes had to be bombs. About 20 of them went off, and little children exploded into fragments in front of me. I screamed for medics, and a whole group of them ran by us into the crowd of bloody, maimed people, brandishing medical kits. As they charged in, the rest of the parachute bombs exploded, killing many more kids and many of the medics.

The force of the explosions knocked Kae Lyn and I off our feet, and flung me to the ground. I was temporarily deafened by the noise, but otherwise unharmed. I remember seeing what looked like bits of tinfoil fluttering through the air as I lay on the street, and then suddenly a bloody arm stump landed next to my right ear, drenching me with viscous red fluid. I jumped up and regained my focus. The explosions were stopped, replaced by filthy, oily smoke, and screaming and groaning people.

After that, Kae Lyn and I helped some of the surviving medics treat wounded people, and we also got quotes and took photographs of the scene.

As we worked, a rumor trickled through the square that President Snow had surrendered, and Kae Lyn and I ran into the presidential palace’s main entrance, just in time to see President Snow being flung to the ground by his captors. Kae Lyn took that classic shot of rebel troops shoving their rifles at the back of Snow’s head.

We stayed with the arresting party and the ex-President the rest of the day.

“Yeah, we were there,” I say. I’ll leave it at that. I will have trouble holding down dinner and sleeping tonight.

“And that was the end of the war,” Kae Lyn says.

“Not quite,” I say. “We have one more segment to watch.”

And there it is. President Coin announces the new Hunger Games, to involve children from the Capitol. As if not enough have been killed in the war and the bombing at the presidential palace.

“I really don’t need to see this section, either. We were there for this, too,” I say.

But we watch it anyway. The front doors of the presidential mansion. Coin standing on the balcony. Hordes of guards, officials, rebel leaders, and troops, most of them in District 13 gray. Dirty piles of snow. Out from a door appears Katniss, in her Mockingjay suit, complete with pin. I remember the crowd going nuts, chanting her name. She steps up to a mark, turns in profile, and waits.

Then out comes Snow from another door, under heavy guard, getting booed by the audience. Snake-like as ever. The guards tie Snow to a post 10 yards away from Katniss.

“She couldn’t have missed at that range,” Kae Lyn says.

“She didn’t,” I answer.

Katniss aims at Snow’s nose. She stares at him for the longest time.

“What we need to know is what was going through her mind at that moment,” I say.

Katniss suddenly points her bow and arrow up at the balcony, and releases her arrow. It flies up at the balcony and hits President Coin directly in the heart. She collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground.

“If the arrow didn’t get her, the fall did,” I say.

“It isn’t the fall that kills you,” Archer says. “It’s the sudden stop. De-acceleration trauma.” He laughs at his own joke. “I got a million of them.”

“I see that,” I say.

Chaos reigns on the screen. Gray-clad District 13 troops surround Katniss and try to carry her off. A face pops out of the squirming mass of gray – Peeta. Katniss twists her head and bites into his hand as he rips at a pocket on her sleeve.

“What’s that all about?” Kae Lyn asks.

“I’m going to have more questions for the Mockingjay than they did for the Minister of Education at his trial,” I mutter. “And he was only charged with 52 counts of capital offenses.”

Katniss is carried off into the presidential mansion, and the film ends.

“And that’s our entire video library of Katniss Everdeen,” I say. “They tried her in absentia for killing Coin, and as we all know, she walked on an insanity defense.”

“Yeah, and that doesn’t make sense to me, either,” Archer says.

We look at him, puzzled.

“They tried her, and she wasn’t there? I’m not the biggest legal scholar in Panem, but I think they were required to produce her at the trial,” Archer says. “It’s a term called ‘habeas corpus.’”

Long silence in the room. “It means, ‘you must produce the body,’” Archer says.

“How do you know that stuff?” I ask Archer.

“One of the guys I used to shoot pictures for was a lawyer in the Capitol. He liked to talk about his cases.”

Archer surprises me. One minute he’s a brutish insensitive clod, the next minute he’s sharp and on-point. Maybe he just needs his brains sorted out. Or a good swift kick in the balls. I’m trying to decide which when George returns into the room.

“So how were the Katniss videos?” he asks.

“They took me straight back to the war,” I say.

“When are you going to give this newspaper a first-person exclusive on your war?” George ripostes.

“Sometime in the next century,” I say, putting together my notes. I look back up at George, meeting his eyes, firm. “I think we’ve discussed this a few times. My answer is still ‘no.’”

“You saw all the action,” George says.

“And then I got into combat,” I answer. “I have enough nightmares about that damn war. I don’t feel like re-living them to improve this paper’s circulation.”

The silence hangs in the room. George changes the subject. “Are you all briefed to go to District 12 tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, I think Ace and I have what we need, don’t we, Ace?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m good,” Archer says.

“Okay,” George says. “Not that I need to put pressure on you, but we have to get this story. You two stay out there as long as you have to. You don’t come back here without that interview.”

“Any other great words of advice?” I ask George.

“Yes: ‘Avoid the moor when the powers of evil are exalted,’” he says.

I laugh. “I hate to tell you, George, but I did look over the folder on District 12’s geography, and there are no moors in District 12. In fact, it bears no resemblance to Devonshire at the time of Sherlock Holmes, in any way shape or form. Got any better ideas?”

“How about this from your own favorite author, ‘This above all: to thine own self be true.’”

“That works for me,” I say.

“Good.” George turns briskly to Kae Lyn. “And you, get your highly professional ass on the train to District 1 forthwith.”

“We got more on that terrorist incident out there?” I ask.

“Yes, we do,” George says. “A manifesto was delivered to District 1’s Hall of Justice while you people were watching war movies. The ‘Defenders of the Hunger Games’ are demanding their reinstatement, under pre-war conditions, or there will be further attacks. The police haven’t released the entire contents of the manifesto yet, but they will be doing so in a short time.”

“Needless to say, I presume that the ‘Defenders of the Hunger Games’ are anonymous,” I say.

“Right first time,” George says. “The police have ordered a full alert. The president is making a nationally-televised speech on this subject this evening.”

“Shit,” Archer says.

I turn to Kae Lyn. “I guess we didn’t bring the utopia when we won the war,” I say.

“You can’t please everyone,” Kae Lyn answers. Then she grins. “I love being right all the time.”

George strides out of the room to work on the story, leaving us to react to the latest news.

“I think I know what’s going on out there,” Archer says.

“This I want to hear,” I say. “Tell me.”

“You have to understand what it’s like for guys and girls who grew up all their lives getting ready to be a Tribute,” he says.

“I know the type,” I answer. “I grew up in District 2. They all think they can conquer the world.”

Suddenly I get it. “They’re not traumatized by the Hunger Games. They miss them. They want them back. It’s all they know. It’s their whole world.”

“I guess they don’t like the new one we’re making,” Kae Lyn says. She glances at her watch. “I have to go.”

She digs into her handbag and produces some music chips and hands them to me. “This is the real reason I came in here. You’re going to be out in the boondocks a very long time, and I’m told that District 12 has no bars, no movie theaters, no nightclubs…”

“Oh, this is going to be fucking fun,” Archer blurts out.

“So I made you some extra music chips,” Kae Lyn says.

“What’s on them,” I ask.

“A mix of stuff…all your favorites, Sinatra, Springsteen, a bunch of others. A singer they just re-discovered…Vanessa Williams.”

I examine the chips and put them in my pocket. It’s a sad commentary that the nation of Panem has not developed any decent music in its 75 years of existence. With the disasters that have befallen civilization over the past 300 years, there hasn’t been much new music at all. All of our good music is centuries old.

Kae Lyn heads for the door. For the first time in a year and a half, we’re going on separate assignments. She turns at the door, and looks at us. Her eyes seem misty. “I guess we’re breaking up the team right here, huh?”

My lips feel dry. “It’s not forever, Kae Lyn. It’s just for one story.”

Kae Lyn can’t return my look. She just nods her head. “Go find that Mockingjay,” she says at last. “Maybe she can send us a message that makes a difference.”

Then she goes.

I feel like my right arm has been cut off.