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"Oh! Are the 6's coming in on a miniature train? That's clever!"
Cashmere looks amused at District 6's ridiculous ensemble, and smiles politely at Caesar's comment. It's far more effort than Johanna is putting into the commentating, but none of them are under any misgivings about what this is: this is Caesar's show, and Johanna and Cashmere are here to give people watching at home something to talk about. Oh, and it's a punishment, surely.
"Oh, and here's District 7. Johanna, what do we have here?"
Johanna, to her credit, looks sober, but Cashmere would bet money that she plans on changing that before attending the after-party later. "It's a similar look to last year," she says. "Modeled after the Douglas Fir, the District tree of 7."
"Hear that, folks? How many of you can name your district's tree?"
Caesar keeps up the jabber, and Cashmere is grateful for it. She watches the girl from 7 trip and fall and her district partner right her, but luckily the camera had already moved on to District 8. It's tedious, doing these kinds of commentary events, and it's also stressful. She needs to be interesting, but not controversial. It's just one more responsibility, on top of mentoring, on top of getting sponsors, on top of meeting clients.
There's a drone overhead, and Caesar pauses for a moment. They are onto District 10 now, nearly finished with the parade, but it seems he was not anticipating whatever this is. It fades and he continues, introducing the tributes. By the time he finishes, the drone returns, this time louder. Cashmere, Johanna, and Caesar are sitting in a media booth set up on the balcony of a building overlooking the parade going through the street, and Cashmere can see some of the crowd looking up and pointing at the sky behind them. Even some of the tributes are turned.
And in seconds, Cashmere sees it, too. It's a military jet, flying over the main street of the Capitol. There's the Capitol insignia on it, but there's no reason for a jet to be here. The hatch opens out of the back, and instantly everyone drops to the ground, anticipating a bomb, but thousands of pink papers fall out of the back, scattering over the street, raining down slowly. And then the jet is gone, the deafening noise fading again.
Cashmere grabs one of the papers where it has fallen onto the broadcast table, but before she can even read it, she hears gunshots. Or maybe something more — missiles? She feels a tug and realizes it's Johanna pulling her down under the table. She crawls behind Johanna out of the broadcast booth and back into the building, and they sit just inside, panting. Caesar follows, his usual gregarious self gone, and he looks ragged, afraid. "What the hell is that?" he barks at his assistant.
She holds a finger to her earpiece, her eyebrows knit in concern. "Initial reports are saying rebels stole a military aircraft and it has been shot down," she says.
Caesar drags his hand through his hair, which is now sweaty and unstyled. His mustache is askew. "First Seneca, now a rebel plan during the parade… what the fuck is this?"
Cashmere opens the paper in her hand, daring to read it while everyone else seems concerned with the tributes and the broadcast and apparently a jet that's just been shot down. It's unlike anything she's ever seen.
PANEM: YOU ARE SLAVES
FREE YOURSELVES FROM THE TYRANT SNOW
THE REST OF THE WORLD ARE GUTLESS
BUT YOU CAN DO IT — RISE UP AND SEIZE YOUR NATION
She closes the paper back in her fist, unable to look at it any longer. The third line is repeating in her head, even as she tries to distract herself by watching Caesar and listening to the chatter around her. The rest of the world. There are other places that are not Panem — well, she had realized that much yesterday, with Crane's morphling — and those other places had other people who had come here, presumably. The assistant is right, that rebels stole the jet. But if the paper is to be believed, the rebels aren't from Panem at all.