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7<br />
The hovercraft makes a quick, spiral descent onto a wide road on the outskirts of 8. Almost immediately,<br />
the door opens, the stairs slide into place, and we're spit out onto the asphalt. The moment the last person<br />
disembarks, the equipment retracts. Then the craft lifts off and vanishes. I'm left with a bodyguard made up of<br />
Gale, Boggs, and two other soldiers. The TV crew consists of a pair of burly Capitol cameramen with heavy<br />
mobile cameras encasing their bodies like insect shells, a woman director named Cressida who has a shaved<br />
head tattooed with green vines, and her assistant, Messalla, a slim young man with several sets of earrings. On<br />
careful observation, I see his tongue has been pierced, too, and he wears a stud with a silver ball the size of a<br />
marble.<br />
Boggs hustles us off the road toward a row of warehouses as a second hovercraft comes in for a landing.<br />
This one brings crates of medical supplies and a crew of six medics--I can tell by their distinctive white outfits.<br />
We all follow Boggs down an alley that runs between two dull gray warehouses. Only the occasional access<br />
ladder to the roof interrupts the scarred metal walls. When we emerge onto the street, it's like we've entered<br />
another world.<br />
The wounded from this morning's bombing are being brought in. On homemade stretchers, in<br />
wheelbarrows, on carts, slung across shoulders, and clenched tight in arms. Bleeding, limbless, unconscious.<br />
Propelled by desperate people to a warehouse with a sloppily painted H above the doorway. It's a scene from<br />
my old kitchen, where my mother treated the dying, multiplied by ten, by fifty, by a hundred. I had expected<br />
bombed-out buildings and instead find myself confronted with broken human bodies.<br />
This is where they plan on filming me? I turn to Boggs. "This won't work," I say. "I won't be good here."<br />
He must see the panic in my eyes, because he stops a moment and places his hands on my shoulders.<br />
"You will. Just let them see you. That will do more for them than any doctor in the world could."<br />
A woman directing the incoming patients catches sight of us, does a sort of double take, and then strides<br />
over. Her dark brown eyes are puffy with fatigue and she smells of metal and sweat. A bandage around her<br />
throat needed changing about three days ago. The strap of the automatic weapon slung across her back digs<br />
into her neck and she shifts her shoulder to reposition it. With a jerk of her thumb, she orders the medics into the<br />
warehouse. They comply without question.<br />
"This is Commander Paylor of Eight," says Boggs. "Commander, Soldier Katniss Everdeen."<br />
She looks young to be a commander. Early thirties. But there's an authoritative tone to her voice that<br />
makes you feel her appointment wasn't arbitrary. Beside her, in my spanking-new outfit, scrubbed and shiny, I<br />
feel like a recently hatched chick, untested and only just learning how to navigate the world.<br />
"Yeah, I know who she is," says Paylor. "You're alive, then. We weren't sure." Am I wrong or is there a note<br />
of accusation in her voice?<br />
"I'm still not sure myself," I answer.<br />
"Been in recovery." Boggs taps his head. "Bad concussion." He lowers his voice a moment. "Miscarriage.<br />
But she insisted on coming by to see your wounded."<br />
"Well, we've got plenty of those," says Paylor.<br />
"You think this is a good idea?" says Gale, frowning at the hospital. "Assembling your wounded like this?"<br />
I don't. Any sort of contagious disease would spread through this place like wildfire.<br />
"I think it's slightly better than leaving them to die," says Paylor.<br />
"That's not what I meant," Gale tells her.<br />
"Well, currently that's my other option. But if you come up with a third and get Coin to back it, I'm all ears."<br />
Paylor waves me toward the door. "Come on in, <strong>Mocking</strong>jay. And by all means, bring your friends."<br />
I glance back at the freak show that is my crew, steel myself, and follow her into the hospital. Some sort of<br />
heavy, industrial curtain hangs the length of the building, forming a sizable corridor. Corpses lie side by side,<br />
curtain brushing their heads, white cloths concealing their faces. "We've got a mass grave started a few blocks<br />
west of here, but I can't spare the manpower to move them yet," says Paylor. She finds a slit in the curtain and<br />
opens it wide.