A/N: Written for the Caesar's Palace Nova Challenge Prompt: Technology. Involves an AU Victor from the 74th Hunger Games. Have fun guessing who these Characters are! :) -Jaclyn
Tick tock.
Her eyes flit between the clock and the door, half-expecting Peacekeepers to burst in any moment with guns drawn. There's a constant buzz of electricity in the room, and the noisy clinking of tools should be drowning everything out. But all she hears is the clock, softly ticking away the seconds to the Quarter Quell.
Tick tock, in a few days it's going to be boom boom, she thinks.
She runs her fingers under the table, sweeping for listening devices again. There're none, but the anxiety is so intense in her skin she just needs something to do with her hands to stop them from shaking. The man's taking his time to repair the machine, with his head stuck in the mess of wires, only coming out occasionally to put on the dark-rimmed glasses perched on his head and switch tools. In front of him, there's an empty space. Ominous, unwavering and invisible – save for a flickering square in the corner.
"Um, are you sure we won't…" she stammers.
He doesn't even look up from his work, raising a finger to motion for silence. If there's one thing she admires about him, it's his utter focus. She could never concentrate intensely for more than an hour, needing breaks to prevent her brain from turning into mush. But they convinced her she was smart, she was needed, and she could put an end to oppression. Frankly, she didn't believe them, and politics was never as much of a game to her as much as plain surviving was. But she saw in them a reflection of herself that she couldn't see in any of the other Tributes: the eyes that couldn't stay still, the smile they had when talking about Electricity or Gadgets and hands that found their purpose at the handles of pliers and wires instead of swords and bows.
The older woman seated away from her emits a throaty snore, confirming her suspicions that she had fallen asleep. She doesn't blame her though, it's late and she had tried her best to help. This is how I want to go, she thinks, peaceful and oblivious. She only hopes the points of the Career's weapons won't startle her too much from her sleep.
"That should do it," he says, closing the lid to the machine, "let's try it again with a lower voltage."
She stares at the elaborate contraption in front of her, and at her own trembling hands.
"S…sorry, how do you change the voltage?" She asks. Of course she knows how to change the voltage; she's just hoping he would help her because her hands are shaking so hard it'd be a miracle if she could even lift a pair of pliers.
"What?" He raises his eyebrows, "Didn't you build the Power Supply unit?"
"Oh yea, I'm sorry," she replies, trying her best to compose herself and not blow up his hard work. It's easy though, once she places her fingers on the warm metal a calm settles upon her hands and she begins disconnecting the extra voltage rails with ease.
"Let's try it out," she says, replacing the lid to her little creation and connecting the power. The capacitor emits an increasing hum as it charges itself with an enormous electrical current. She watches the needle climb steadily to the desired energy level, and switches it off. The man flicks a switch and with a sharp crack; the machine discharges a bolt of lightning into the empty space.
Nothing happens.
She looks over at the still-snoring woman and sighs. If a bolt of lightning striking less than a yard away can't wake her up, it's unlikely a blood-thirsty Career could.
"That's strange," the man grimaces, taking off his glasses and rubbing his chin, "what was the previous reading?"
She picks up her clipboard to write in the new value and slides it to him. He studies the long list of values they've been taking all night.
"Six-hundred Mega Joules. How high is the Arena again?" he mumbles without looking up.
"He said it would be 350 meters," she replies, thinking to herself, "It's a linear relation doofus, doesn't take a genius to figure it out." But she keeps quiet out of respect for the older man.
While waiting for him to finish scribbling in the margin of her clipboard, she keeps her hands busy wiring in the value she knows he'll arrive at. He completes his calculations and announces a new value to test – and she gleefully tells him that she's ready.
"Always knew you were a smart cookie," he says, patting his hands on her dusty red hair, "let's charge it up then."
She connects the power; this time the electrical switch produces a spark as it starts, and the Capacitor takes an eternity to charge up. The metal cylinder emits an ominous high-pitched tone, and it doesn't take three of the brightest Victors in Panem to know they're playing with seriously dangerous voltage levels.
His hands hover over the switch, hesitating on the dilemma between great success and catastrophic failure. She looks at him with a sly smile, knowing this was his idea and he would be feeling compelled to succeed.
"Oh well, we'll be dead in a few days anyway," he sighs, before flicking the switch.
She was never one to trust the odds; because if she did, she would've shielded her eyes in anticipation of the blinding light that ensued. The first thing she notices when her retinas readjust to the lighting of the room is the sight of the woman frantically patting out a fire which has caught in her hair.
"Goddammit, you two will be the death of me," she says, pulling away singed strands of her black hair.
He chuckles, putting down his tools and relaxing himself in the chair for the first time tonight. She cranes her head forward and squints at the empty space, still doubting that they've managed to pull it off. The last blossoms of light fading into nothingness confirms their successful experiment.
"I guess it works then," he says, scribbling down the last value with a flourish, "I'll tell Plutarch the good news tomorrow."
She was never one to hope for much either; but as the last sparks finish their descent from the ceiling – she sees the Capitol falling with them.