on television. What if I’m still awful? What if I’m as stiff and pointless as I was in the studio and they’ve just given up on getting anything better? Individual screens slide up from the table, the lights dim slightly, and a hush falls over the room.
At first, my screen is black. Then a tiny spark flickers in the center. It blossoms, spreads, silently eating up the blackness until the entire frame is ablaze with a fire so real and intense, I imagine I feel the heat emanating from it. The image of my mockingjay pin emerges, glowing red-gold. The deep, resonant voice that haunts my dreams begins to speak. Claudius Templesmith, the official announcer of the Hunger Games, says, “Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, burns on.”
Suddenly, there I am, replacing the mockingjay, standing before the real flames and smoke of District 8. “I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I’m right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors.” Cut to the hospital collapsing in on itself, the desperation of the onlookers as I continue in voice-over. “I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do.” Back to me now, my hands lifting up to indicate the outrage around me. “This is what they do! And we must fight back!” Now comes a truly fantastic montage of the battle. The initial bombs falling, us running, being blown to the ground—a close-up of my wound, which looks good and bloody—scaling the roof, diving into the nests, and then some amazing shots of the rebels, Gale, and mostly me, me, me knocking those planes out of the sky. Smash-cut back to me moving in on the camera. “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?” We’re with the camera, tracking to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse. Tight on the Capitol seal on a wing, which melts back into the image of my face, shouting at the president. “Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!” Flames engulf the screen again. Superimposed on them in black, solid letters are the words:
IF WE BURN YOU
BURN WITH US
The words catch fire and the whole screen burns to blackness.
There’s a moment of silent relish, then applause followed by demands to see it again. Coin indulgently hits the replay button, and this time, since I know what will happen, I try to pretend that I’m watching this on my television at home in the Seam. An anti-Capitol statement. There’s never been anything like it on television. Not in my lifetime, anyway.
By the time the screen burns to black a second time, I need to know more. “Did it play all over Panem? Did they see it in the Capitol?”
“Not in the Capitol,” says Plutarch. “We couldn’t override their system, although Beetee’s working on it. But in all the districts. We even got it on in Two, which may be more valuable than the Capitol at this point in the game.”
“Is Claudius Templesmith with us?” I ask.
This gives Plutarch a good laugh. “Only his voice. But that’s ours for the taking. We didn’t even have to do any special editing. He said that actual line in your first Games.” He slaps his hand on the table. “What say we give another round of applause to Cressida, her amazing team, and, of course, our on-camera talent!”
I clap, too, until I realize I’m the on-camera talent and maybe it’s obnoxious that I’m applauding for myself, but no one’s paying attention. I can’t help noticing the strain on Fulvia’s face, though. I think how hard this must be for her, watching Haymitch’s idea succeed under Cressida’s direction, when Fulvia’s studio approach was such a flop.
Coin seems to have reached the end of her tolerance for self-congratulation. “Yes, well deserved. The result is more than we had hoped for. But I do have to question the wide margin of risk that you were willing to operate within. I know the raid was unforeseen. However, given the circumstances, I think we should discuss the decision to send Katniss into actual combat.”