Mockingjay: Chapters 6–9

It took the whole of this morning for him to convince the others of my limitations. That I can’t pull it off. I can’t stand in a television studio wearing a costume and makeup in a cloud of fake smoke and rally the districts to victory.

Both my voice and body have a jerky, disjointed quality, like a puppet being manipulated by unseen forces.

I want everyone to think of one incident where Katniss Everdeen genuinely moved you. Not where you were jealous of her hairstyle, or her dress went up in flames or she made a halfway decent shot with an arrow. Not where Peeta was making you like her. I want to hear one moment where she made you feel something real.

The idea of sending me into combat is controversial.

If I perform well only in real-life circumstances, then into them I should go.

Find the least dangerous situation that can evoke some spontaneity in you.

The TV crew consists of a pair of burly Capitol cameramen with heavy mobile cameras encasing their bodies like insect shells, a woman director named Cressida who has a shaved head tattooed with green vines, and her assistant, Messalla, a slim young man with several sets of earrings.

The thin shafts of sunlight provide the only illumination, and as my eyes adjust, I can make out row upon row of wounded, in cots, on pallets, on the floor because there are so many to claim the space.

I begin to move, clasping the hands extended to me, touching the sound parts of those unable to move their limbs, saying hello, how are you, good to meet you. Nothing of importance, no amazing words of inspiration. But it doesn’t matter. Boggs is right. It’s the sight of me, alive, that is the inspiration.

My ongoing struggle against the Capitol, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not been undertaken alone. I have had thousands upon thousands of people from the districts at my side. I was their Mockingjay long before I accepted the role.

“Our Airtime Assault has officially launched. For any of you who missed yesterday’s twenty-hundred broadcast of our first propo—or the seventeen reruns Beetee has managed to air since—we will begin by replaying it.”

My palms grow moist in anticipation of seeing myself 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?

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.

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.

Flames engulf the screen again. Superimposed on them in black, solid letters are the words:
IF WE BURN YOU BURN WITH US

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.

The decision? To send me into combat? Then she doesn’t know that I flagrantly disregarded orders, ripped out my earpiece, and gave my bodyguards the slip?

“But the general consensus was that we weren’t going to get anything worth using if we locked her in a bunker somewhere every time a gun went off.”

“Well, let’s be just a little more judicious with her exposure. Especially now that the Capitol knows what she can do,” says Coin.

We’ll focus on Katniss interacting with the patients, particularly the children, the bombing of the hospital, and the wreckage. Messalla’s cutting that together. We’re also thinking about a Mockingjay piece. Highlight some of Katniss’s best moments intercut with scenes of rebel uprisings and war footage.

Praised Fulvia for what is, in fact, a really good idea, and cleared the way to continue her own on-air depiction of the Mockingjay.

We laugh a little about the cover-up. Gale says no one wanted to look bad by admitting they couldn’t control us. I’m kinder, saying they probably didn’t want to jeopardize the chance of taking us out again now that they’ve gotten some decent footage.

“It’s an alternative audio unit that locks around your skull and under your chin until it’s opened with a key. And I’ll have the only key. If for some reason you’re clever enough to disable it”—Haymitch dumps the head shackle on the bed and whips out a tiny silver chip—“I’ll authorize them to surgically implant this transmitter into your ear so that I may speak to you twenty-four hours a day.”

The bombing, the fiery plane crashes, the faces of the wounded who no longer exist. I imagine death from all sides. The last moment before seeing a shell hit the ground, feeling the wing blown from my plane and the dizzying nosedive into oblivion, the warehouse roof falling down at me while I’m pinned helplessly to my cot.

The rebels air the “Because you know who they are and what they do” propo that Messalla edited. The footage is intercut with short studio clips of Gale, Boggs, and Cressida describing the incident.

Don’t be a fool, Katniss. Think for yourself. They’ve turned you into a weapon that could be instrumental in the destruction of humanity.

If you’ve got any real influence, use it to put the brakes on this thing. Use it to stop the war before it’s too late.

In a minute, people will be here to do damage control on Peeta’s condition and the words that came out of his mouth. I will need to repudiate them.

Clearly, Snow did not buy the story that Peeta and I knew nothing about the rebellion.

And his suspicions have been reinforced, now that I have come out as the Mockingjay.

Peeta can only guess about the rebel tactics or make up things to tell his torturers.

Don’t tell her about Peeta’s propo because it might make her sick, and it’s hard enough to get a decent performance out of her as it is.

Today, I discover, we will be returning to District 12. Cressida wants to do unscripted interviews with Gale and me throwing light on our demolished city.

“That’s what makes it so effective,” says Plutarch. “Straight from the heart. You’re all doing beautifully. Coin could not be more pleased.”

I straggle behind the film crew and the bodyguards, feeling their presence to be a violation of my beloved woods.

Conscious of being filmed, I stand quietly until I hear Cressida call, “Cut!”

I take Cressida to the rubble of the bakery and ask her to film something.

He highlights the damage done to key infrastructure in various districts, and as he speaks, parts of the map light up, showing images of the destruction.

We watch the official presentation deteriorate as it’s peppered with choice shots from the propos.

Snow plows forward, saying that clearly the rebels are now attempting to disrupt the dissemination of information they find incriminating, but both truth and justice will reign.