On the battlefield, they direct Punchy with a headset, a little clip fixed to his ear which gives him commands. Some of them are direct, pointing him towards locations, making his feet move as if they are attached by strings to someone else's fingers. Others are more general, more toxic radiation and indoctrination. His controller listens in to a microphone attached to him and follows his tracked coordinates, but the body cameras have been saved for more untrustworthy Tributes.

Former Avoxes are easy, the party line goes. They default to programming. Just give them directions and they'll play along, so long as it's not anything too complicated. Punchy resists when they try to get him to kill, and since efforts have shifted from breaking the Tributes to utilizing them, that just means he's mostly been put onto non-lethal missions.

He comes face to face with Joan and he feels his heart bottom out. He can see his future taking two split paths here, one where she rescues him, where they're together again and supported if not happy, one where they both return to District Thirteen -- and he sees another where his controller issues him a command to shoot Joan, and the last strength he has to resist the Capitol bleeds out before him.

So he doesn't make any sound that could betray what he's seeing to his controller, but quickly reaches forward and puts his hand over Joan's mouth. He hopes he doesn't scare her. He hopes moving forward doesn't set her into the wrong impression of what his movement is for.

He points at the clip on his ear, like a cross between a bluetooth and the type of tag they'd use to keep track of a wild animal.