nose and closes her eyes.
The remaining days go by in a whirl. After a brief workout each morning, my squad’s on the shooting range full-time in training. I practice mostly with a gun, but they reserve an hour a day for specialty weapons, which means I get to use my Mockingjay bow, Gale his heavy militarized one. The trident Beetee designed for Finnick has a lot of special features, but the most remarkable is that he can throw it, press a button on a metal cuff on his wrist, and return it to his hand without chasing it down.
Sometimes we shoot at Peacekeeper dummies to become familiar with the weaknesses in their protective gear. The chinks in the armor, so to speak. If you hit flesh, you’re rewarded with a burst of fake blood. Our dummies are soaked in red.
It’s reassuring to see just how high the overall level of accuracy is in our group. Along with Finnick and Gale, the squad includes five soldiers from 13. Jackson, a middle-aged woman who’s Boggs’s second in command, looks kind of sluggish but can hit things the rest of us can’t even see without a scope. Farsighted, she says. There’s a pair of sisters in their twenties named Leeg—we call them Leeg 1 and Leeg 2 for clarity—who are so similar in uniform, I can’t tell them apart until I notice Leeg 1 has weird yellow flecks in her eyes. Two older guys, Mitchell and Homes, never say much but can shoot the dust off your boots at fifty yards. I see other squads that are also quite good, but I don’t fully understand our status until the morning Plutarch joins us.
«Squad Four-Five-One, you have been selected for a special mission,» he begins. I bite the inside of my lip, hoping against hope that it’s to assassinate Snow. «We have numerous sharpshooters, but rather a dearth of camera crews. Therefore, we’ve handpicked the eight of you to be what we call our ‘Star Squad.’ You will be the on-screen faces of the invasion.»
Disappointment, shock, then anger run through the group. «What you’re saying is, we won’t be in actual combat,» snaps Gale.
«You will be in combat, but perhaps not always on the front line. If one can even isolate a front line in this type of war,» says Plutarch.
«None of us wants that.» Finnick’s remark is followed by a general rumble of assent, but I stay silent. «We’re going to fight.»
«You’re going to be as useful to the war effort as possible,» Plutarch says. «And it’s been decided that you are of most value on television. Just look at the effect Katniss had running around in that Mockingjay suit. Turned the whole rebellion around. Do you notice how she’s the only one not complaining? It’s because she understands the power of that screen.»
Actually, Katniss isn’t complaining because she has no intention of staying with the «Star Squad,» but she recognizes the necessity of getting to the Capitol before carrying out any plan. Still, to be too compliant may arouse suspicion as well.
«But it’s not all pretend, is it?» I ask. «That’d be a waste of talent.»
«Don’t worry,» Plutarch tells me. «You’ll have plenty of real targets to hit. But don’t get blown up. I’ve got enough on my plate without having to replace you. Now get to the Capitol and put on a good show.»
The morning we ship out, I say good-bye to my family. I haven’t told them how much the Capitol’s defenses mirror the weapons in the arena, but my going off to war is awful enough on its own. My mother holds me tightly for a long time. I feel tears on her cheek, something she suppressed when I was slated for the Games. «Don’t worry. I’ll be perfectly safe. I’m not even a real soldier. Just one of Plutarch’s televised puppets,» I reassure her.
Prim walks me as far as the hospital doors. «How do you feel?»
«Better, knowing you’re somewhere Snow can’t reach you,» I say.
«Next time we see each other, we’ll be free of him,» says Prim firmly. Then she throws her arms around my neck. «Be careful.»
I consider saying a final good-bye to Peeta, decide it would only be bad for both of us. But I do slip the pearl into the pocket of my uniform. A token of the boy with the bread.
A hovercraft takes us to, of all places, 12, where a makeshift transportation area has been set up outside the fire zone. No luxury trains this time, but a cargo car packed to the limit with soldiers in their dark gray uniforms, sleeping with their heads on their packs. After a couple of days’ travel, we disembark inside one of the mountain tunnels leading to the Capitol, and make the rest of the six-hour trek on foot, taking care to step only on a glowing green paint line that marks safe passage to the air above.
We come out in the rebel encampment, a ten-block stretch outside the train station where Peeta and I made our previous arrivals. It’s already crawling with soldiers. Squad 451 is assigned a spot to pitch its tents. This area has been secured for over a week. Rebels pushed out the Peacekeepers, losing hundreds of lives in the process. The Capitol forces fell back and have regrouped farther into the city. Between us lie the booby-trapped streets, empty and inviting. Each one will need to be swept of pods before we can advance.
Mitchell asks about hoverplane bombings—we do feel very naked pitched out in the open—but Boggs says it’s not an issue. Most of the Capitol’s air fleet was destroyed in 2 or during the invasion. If it has any craft left, it’s holding on to them. Probably so Snow and his inner circle can make a last-minute escape to some presidential bunker somewhere if needed. Our own hoverplanes were grounded after the Capitol’s antiaircraft missiles decimated the first few waves. This war will be battled out on the streets with, hopefully, only superficial damage to the infrastructure and a minimum of human casualties. The rebels want the Capitol, just as the Capitol wanted 13.
After three days, much of Squad 451 risks deserting out of boredom. Cressida and her team take shots of us firing. They tell us we’re part of the disinformation team. If the rebels only shoot Plutarch’s pods, it will take the Capitol about two minutes to realize we have the holograph. So there’s a lot of time spent shattering things that don’t matter, to throw them off the scent. Mostly we just add to the piles of rainbow glass that’s been blown off the exteriors of the candy-colored buildings. I suspect they are intercutting this footage with the destruction of significant Capitol targets. Once in a while it seems a real sharpshooter’s services are needed. Eight hands go up, but Gale, Finnick, and I are never chosen.
«It’s your own fault for being so camera-ready,» I tell Gale. If looks could kill.
I don’t think they quite know what to do with the three of us, particularly me. I have my Mockingjay outfit with me, but I’ve only been taped in my uniform. Sometimes I use a gun, sometimes they ask me to shoot with my bow and arrows. It’s as if they don’t want to entirely lose the Mockingjay, but they want to downgrade my role to foot soldier. Since I don’t care, it’s amusing rather than upsetting to imagine the arguments going on back in 13.
While I outwardly express discontent about our lack of any real participation, I’m busy with my own agenda. Each of us has a paper map of the Capitol. The city forms an almost perfect square. Lines divide the map into smaller squares, with letters along the top and numbers down the side to form a grid. I consume this, noting every intersection and side street, but it’s remedial stuff. The commanders here are working off Plutarch’s holograph. Each has a handheld contraption called a Holo that produces images like I saw in Command. They can zoom into any area of the grid and see what pods await them. The Holo’s an independent unit, a glorified map really, since it can neither send nor receive signals. But it’s far superior to my paper version.
A Holo is activated by a specific commander’s voice giving his or her name. Once it’s working, it responds to the other voices in the squadron so if, say, Boggs were killed or severely disabled, someone could take over. If anyone in the squad repeats «nightlock» three times in a row, the Holo will explode, blowing everything in a five- yard radius sky-high. This is for security reasons in the event of capture. It’s understood that we would all do this without hesitation.
So what I need to do is steal Boggs’s activated Holo and clear out before he notices. I think it would be easier to steal his teeth.
On the fourth morning, Soldier Leeg 2 hits a mislabeled pod. It doesn’t unleash a swarm of muttation gnats, which the rebels are prepared for, but shoots out a sunburst of metal darts. One finds her brain. She’s gone before the medics can reach her. Plutarch promises a speedy replacement.
The following evening, the newest member of our squad arrives. With no manacles. No guards. Strolling out of the train station with his gun swinging from the strap over his shoulder. There’s shock, confusion, resistance, but451 is stamped on the back of Peeta’s hand in fresh ink. Boggs relieves him of his weapon and goes to make a call.
«It won’t matter,» Peeta tells the rest of us. «The president assigned me herself. She decided the propos
