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As the room fills, I brace myself for a less congenial reception. But the only people who register any kind of<br />
negativity are Haymitch, who's always out of sorts, and a sour-faced Fulvia Cardew. Boggs wears a fleshcolored<br />
plastic mask from his upper lip to his brow--I was right about the broken nose--so his expression's hard<br />
to read. Coin and Gale are in the midst of some exchange that seems positively chummy.<br />
When Gale slides into the seat next to my wheelchair, I say, "Making new friends?"<br />
His eyes flicker to the president and back. "Well, one of us has to be accessible." He touches my temple<br />
gently. "How do you feel?"<br />
They must have served stewed garlic and squash for the breakfast vegetable. The more people who<br />
gather, the stronger the fumes are. My stomach turns and the lights suddenly seem too bright. "Kind of rocky," I<br />
say. "How are you?"<br />
"Fine. They dug out a couple of pieces of shrapnel. No big deal," he says.<br />
Coin calls the meeting to order. "Our Airtime Assault has officially launched. For any of you who missed<br />
yesterday's twenty-hundred broadcast of our first propo--or the seventeen reruns Beetee has managed to air<br />
since--we will begin by replaying it." Replaying it? So they not only got usable footage, they've already slapped<br />
together a propo and aired it repeatedly. My palms grow moist in anticipation of seeing myself on television.<br />
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<br />
anything better? Individual screens slide up from the table, the lights dim slightly, and a hush falls over the room.<br />
At first, my screen is black. Then a tiny spark flickers in the center. It blossoms, spreads, silently eating up<br />
the blackness until the entire frame is ablaze with a fire so real and intense, I imagine I feel the heat emanating<br />
from it. The image of my mockingjay pin emerges, glowing red-gold. The deep, resonant voice that haunts my<br />
dreams begins to speak. Claudius Templesmith, the official announcer of the Hunger Games, says, "Katniss<br />
Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, burns on."<br />
Suddenly, there I am, replacing the mockingjay, standing before the real flames and smoke of District 8. "I<br />
want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I'm right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a<br />
hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors." Cut to the hospital collapsing<br />
in on itself, the desperation of the onlookers as I continue in voice-over. "I want to tell people that if you think for<br />
one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there's a cease-fire, you're deluding yourself. Because you know<br />
who they are and what they do." Back to me now, my hands lifting up to indicate the outrage around me. "This is<br />
what they do! And we must fight back!" Now comes a truly fantastic montage of the battle. The initial bombs<br />
falling, us running, being blown to the ground--a close-up of my wound, which looks good and bloody--scaling the<br />
roof, diving into the nests, and then some amazing shots of the rebels, Gale, and mostly me, me, me knocking<br />
those planes out of the sky. Smash-cut back to me moving in on the camera. "President Snow says he's<br />
sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to<br />
the ground, but do you see that?" We're with the camera, tracking to the planes burning on the roof of the<br />
warehouse. Tight on the Capitol seal on a wing, which melts back into the image of my face, shouting at the<br />
president. "Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!" Flames engulf the screen again. Superimposed<br />
on them in black, solid letters are the words:<br />
IF WE BURN YOU<br />
BURN WITH US<br />
The words catch fire and the whole screen burns to blackness.<br />
There's a moment of silent relish, then applause followed by demands to see it again. Coin indulgently hits<br />
the replay button, and this time, since I know what will happen, I try to pretend that I'm watching this on my<br />
television at home in the Seam. An anti-Capitol statement. There's never been anything like it on television. Not<br />
in my lifetime, anyway.<br />
By the time the screen burns to black a second time, I need to know more. "Did it play all over Panem? Did<br />
they see it in the Capitol?"<br />
"Not in the Capitol," says Plutarch. "We couldn't override their system, although Beetee's working on it. But<br />
in all the districts. We even got it on in Two, which may be more valuable than the Capitol at this point in the<br />
game."<br />
"Is Claudius Templesmith with us?" I ask.<br />
This gives Plutarch a good laugh. "Only his voice. But that's ours for the taking. We didn't even have to do<br />
any special editing. He said that actual line in your first Games." He slaps his hand on the table. "What say we