Something to Smile For

by Manzano1

The story behind Panem most famous face, Caesar Flickerman, and the secrets hidden behind his infamous smile.

Flickerman

by Ismael Manzano

From their perches high above and around me, bathed in hyper-fluorescent pale, unforgiving lights, they wait for me—for my smile—while I sit in darkness, thoughts slowing around my secret intent. They are the hungry throngs of the Capitol's populace, the poor, the affluent, and the middle class alike, combined in purpose, lapping up the energy that is palpable in the air, anticipating that spark that will set their lives aflame.

The spark comes in the form of my smile, that famous Caesar Flickerman, split-face grin that will herald the start of mindless and heartless entertainment, and they wait for it with breaths baited, with promissory notes of blood. Crafted from years of living in the spotlight to be a shining beacon of gaiety, it is the epitome of affability, the port in which every lost ship of youthful uncertainty can find a safe harbor from the callous storm of madness that is the Capitol. My smile has made its way across the districts, traveling on the side of mugs, posters, trains and television ads. Every form of merchandise and medium that can house some semblance of my smile is used and whored out like locusts ready to devour the hapless consumers wallet. Homage was even paid to it in the 66th Hunger Games in the form of a virulent mutation with huge, white teeth that were so identical to my own, the likeness branded the creature ever after as the Flickutation. What that beast did with those teeth—my teeth—to the remaining tributes of that Game inspired no one to smile.

I sit in my usual chair, the one I've used nearly forty other times before, a blanket of dark muting all that I appear to be from the world, but more importantly, from myself, as I battle with the same choice I always have. To smile and push the show forward with the flare and adroit cleverness that seemed bestowed upon me by god, or to face the whole of the Capitol with the austere and baleful expression that lives behind my powdered and primped and chemically rejuvenated skin. For nearly four decades I'd chosen the former, my conscience, my soft heart, refusing me any other recourse.

This time, I will not smile. This time, this one time, I will show the me that I had been, the me that hides behind my famous smile. This one time, I will show them Harris Hormistas, consequences be damned. The veneers that lend to my trademark visage are as mote compared to those over my rage and my contempt toward them all. And when those veneers finally slough off the whole they will see something true—some, for the first time ever. I will give them truth, every ounce of reality culled from the editing room floor of Hunger Games history; an anthology of depravity and soullessness too horrific to whitewash or ameliorate with a catchy phrase or a clever pun—or a perfectly flawless set of teeth.

My finger hovers over the button that would grant liberation to me and countless future district children, and I hesitate as I do every year, cloaked in darkness, steeling up my courage to do an unthinkable act. The button—dubbed, Double-Edged Sword, by a former friend and rival—had the dual purpose of releasing sensitive and censored footage of the Hunger Games to the populace of the Capitol on the one hand, and murdering an innocent man on the other. Until this point, the cost of one never outweighed that of the other. Not that anything has changed to provide this impetus, but as I grow older, the children seem to grow younger and their suffering, more tragic than the year before.

People think the Game Makers edit only the boring minutiae for the Games, just the bits and pieces no one wants to see, the stuff that gets fingers clicking off buttons or eyes diverting to new recipe magazines. The truth is far more sinister. The districts alone see it all, the chaos, the murders, the slips away from humanity that their children are forced into enduring; the Capitol gets the relatively wholesome side of the carnage, flash-edited to cast a slanted shadow over the horrors of the Games.

Mortal beatings are shortened to three strikes rather than the thirty it took for the body to finally stop writhing. Pleas for mercy evaporate out of the lips of children who will never see their majority, painting their deaths as brave, and their investments in life as inconsequential. How could the populace of the Capitol be expected to see these people as human beings when everything they're shown belies that fact? Victors are treated as kings and expected to wall up their scars behind pale imitations of the Flickerman visage, and are forbidden to ever speak of the experience as anything other than glorious.

In the gem ensconced in the ring of my left index finger is the button that will show it all, across every feed, every channel, every outlet in the Capitol, without stop—everything I've collected before I was caught and turned into an agent of President Snow, as well as everything I've obtained since, for I have never stopped compiling data. I can recite the most evocative, the most damning from memory even now. And I do it, to buttress the resolve that had, 39 times before, waned and crumbled into powder.

Game number 21 was the one with the deaf mute boy who clearly had no idea what was happening, just stood around trying to talk, reaching for someone to guide him; Game number 19 was the one with the girl born without limbs who was drowned by a cruel Career; Game 30 was the year a brother and sister were chosen from the same district, and saw that girl fighting like hell to protect her younger brother only to fail, and have to watch him receive a sadistic and fatal pummeling before she received the same; Game number 48 saw the reaping of a twelve year old district 7 boy who suffered from a growth disease that left him so frail and small he looked no more than eight; Game number 11 was the year the Game Makers thought actually starving the contestants would encourage them to fight, turning two tributes to cannibalism, eating more people than they killed; Game number 2 was awash in preteen tributes who were too young and scared to fight, and who just wailed for their mommies to save them; Game number 57 had the distinction of seeing the joining of three Careers who took to raping their way through half the female tributes before killing them.

I saw these things year after year, brutality at its purest, and I did nothing but record and compile, adding a new stone upon my chest, a new reason to push that button. But I didn't. Couldn't. My Double-Edged Sword saw to that. One button, two effects. I absently run the pad of my thumb of the false stone on my finger, and imagine my thumb growing heavy, pushing the button down until I hear a confirming click and look up to see every vid screen in the Capitol alive with the seeds they'd sown for the sake of cooperation and control.

In my darker moments, I find myself wishing, he was dead already, wishing I could believe he had been reaped and killed years ago, so I could push that button with impunity, never once doubting my action nor adding another stone of guilt upon my chest.

In the past I had been unable to believe it, to imagine this boy whom I'd never laid eyes upon in life, dead and out of reach. For years, I settled for doing what I could within my mandate as an entertainer to foment rebellion among the districts and to open the eyes of the Capitol's residences. I probe, I jab, I jest, I smile, but most of all, I lead. I lead these poor tributes down a personal road, my intent, to make them human again to those watching at home, to those privileged elite whose children are allowed to reach majority without fear, without a government sanctioned execution. My failure is a graveyard of lost innocence and decimated families. My failure is eight hundred and ninety-seven young corpses whose souls are forever trapped in the arena, and in an electronic button that would save others, but claim one more.

I am the most selfish of beasts to have allowed such bad math to dominate my judgment.

The 70th Hunger Games gave me a change in tactics, and for a brief period, I thought maybe I had found the way to bring life the corpses I must interview before Snow ships them out to be slaughtered. In that Game, the final two boys were seen by the Capitol—due to editing—as rivals and nothing more. One boy laid poisoned, one sitting by watching the life flow out the other's eyes. But I'd seen the whole footage, the raw anguish on the soon-to-be victor's face as he said goodbye to a lover. And they were in love, maybe not in the traditional sense, but they had formed a bond that ran deeper than respect and was far more potent than what their limited time together should have warranted. They had only just met and they were willing to die in place of one another. If the boy had killed himself to save the other from poison like I thought he might, there would have been no editing that outcome. The people would have seen that these people were human after all, capable of love, worthy of empathy.

All of my questions from hence on have been geared to swaying the topic to love. To show them as emotional beings to the Capitol, not just as sport. And still, so far, my efforts yielded only cadavers.

I tire of waiting for the rebels to realize that Harris Hormistas, had been captured alive, altered and placed before the world as an unwilling participant to the very games he'd been sent to censure. There is no chance they will see through the surgeries nor for them to know I had lost the color code transmission sequence to signal that I had obtained all the information required and have been ready for extraction for a long time. Thirty-nine years. Thirty-nine different hair and suit colors, one more lavish and ridiculous than the last, up on the world's biggest stage and still they have not come for me. Someone back in district 13 must have registered my flamboyant, peacock-like display as an attempt to communicate. Either they no longer care or they are incapable of the promised extraction now that I am so deeply entrenched in the heart of the monster.

So I decide to take matters into my own hands, once and for all, and wait for the light to shine upon me so that I can blind the world with their sins. And as I wait, I think of that night and I cringe and shiver, and I frown, the lines in my face bending harshly to form pockets of sagging flesh on my cheeks; a hint of the jowls my surgeons had promised would never resurface, break free of their confines.

I was still Harris back then, nearly a year into my cover as an entertainment journalist for the Panem Post, a rag of a digital paper with more fluff than the combined pompadours of the last ten Game Makers. Officially my article centered on local pseudo-celebrity topics, such as which diner was frequented by which politician and how many scones it took to settle the nervous stomach of the latest pixel-drama star the night before their first award ceremony. My rival and friend at the Starburst Herald asked me to meet him on the second balcony level of a trendy little cafe on the south side of the Capitol's fashion district. Though small in comparison to most eateries, it boasted ivory counter-tops on every oval disk that fronted as a table, white marble chairs cushioned with the pelts of four different animals, and the best specialty drink in the Capitol, if the fashionistas and propo-mongers can be believed.

The night was a cloudless black sheet with pinpricks of light bursting through unabated, reflecting off the glossy finish of the domed buildings that peppered the lower fashion district like glass mushrooms in a forest of steel. The crowd in the café was robust but not unruly, a pulsing beast with a singular purpose: to live vapid, venial lives in bright, wildly overstated attire. At times, it seemed a competition of sorts, where man and woman alike used their bodies and hair as canvases upon which to display their artwork to the world. And the winner was the one whose look was so outrageous as to actually turn a head or two their way. That was the way of things in the Capitol forty years ago, and I've seen nothing to date capable of altering that opinion of the so-called social elite.

I sat by a table that was little more than translucent plasto-glass balanced on a stalk so thin it disappeared from sight at certain angles. Rimming the doorway back into the café proper hung a series of moon-bulbs shinning gaudy, self-important light as if to challenge the beauty of the night; I could not help but be disgusted by it all. I said as much to my drink, a sherbet volcano, as I reduced its size layer by layer, and then I confided in it my private opinion about the company I was keeping as well. Growing up underground, in the stark and antiseptic district 13 compound, flash and grandeur were anathema to me, so much so that sitting at the cafe made my flesh want to run or impale itself on glass, anything so long as it meant an end to the pomp and ubiquitous pretension that surrounded it.

I didn't see him approach; he was always stealthy like that, though he never made any overt attempts to be so. His footsteps were just light and he walked almost as though gliding across ice. His breathing was always so silent, shallow, I doubted I could gauge his exhales if I'd put a mirror under his nose. That day he'd worn a plain powder blue suit that highlighted the touches of gray that marred half his otherwise ink black beard. One of the reasons I respected him despite his work in a rival company was his professional courtesy. He knew of my abhorrence toward flash and attention seekers, and he would dress appropriately whenever we met, either to discuss business or just to chat. His only vice was his hair, which he refused to style differently for me or anyone else. It was a thick, swollen bramble circumscribing his face, his hair, beard and mustache working in unison to form an almost perfect circle. The little islands of plump flesh that sat inside this sea of hair looked taut, straining to escape their confinements, and turning red from the effort. Only the small swath of gray, a symmetrically perfect triangle slice on his lower right jaw, prevented pure harmony of design, and lent the impression of a trap in the process of snapping shut on its prey. Why he would want such a look is and had always been beyond my capacity to fathom, but I didn't speak of it then nor had I been given the chance to since.

His words in my ear were the first indication of his presence, a smooth melodic voice that balanced on the tightrope between tenor and baritone. "We have so much to celebrate," he said. When I turned to greet my friend, I found an expression purporting to be affable, but set with eyes that seemed incapable of lenity. Instinct battered me then to bolt for the nearest door or even over the balcony if it would increase the distance between us, but I smothered that impulse with the memory of the friendship constructed over the last few months, and I chose to stay; a decision I very shortly afterwards regretted and would continue to regret until this very day.

Before I even opened my mouth to reply, he thumbed the holopad embedded into the table and placed an order for two extremely potent and expensive drinks. I had to grit my teeth not to wince when I saw the name. "Solution 13?" I probed, though I knew the reference all too well.

"For those seeking to be utterly and thoroughly bombed." He smiled at me before offering a wink and then a boisterous but clipped laugh. The mirth in his face ended at his eyes, which seemed to devour all the humor that surrounded them.

This was my friend, I told myself when the urge to run returned. And besides, I was embedded in this role for a reason; bolting then would have revealed me for what I was and all of my work until that moment would have been for nothing. As it stood I had nearly enough data to return to district 13 and rip off the facade of the Capitol to all of Panem.

"What are we celebrating?" I asked, playing along, aware suddenly of our positions on the balcony—him sitting closer to the exit, me closer to a thirty foot or more drop over a very low, narrow rail.

"My friend," he said with a pat on my shoulder. "We are being promoted."

"Promoted?" I exclaimed uncomprehending. At first I thought he was ribbing me, then I saw genuine glee make an appearance in his eyes and the tension drained right off of me. "You're getting promoted. That incredible! To what? Business? Politics? Editor?"

"Rumors and Gossip," he said flatly, his plump lips twisting at one corner.

I forced a smile despite myself. R&G was by far the most popular of the tabloid sections in any paper, and despite its title, the section was seen as an elite brand of journalism in a field sorely bereft of quality. Maybe it was the standard of investigation demanded upon their journalists that set them apart from the others and lent credence to every story. Careers have risen and fallen to the whim of a disgruntled R&G reporter. It was indeed a promotion, one that most people spend a decade or more trying to worm their way into, and my friend had done it in less than two years.

"That's incredible. But I didn't think that was the direction you wanted to go. You had your heart set on Politics."

"I did," he said, beaming. "I do. But I found that there is more than one path to an end. And I must admit to enjoying the challenge set by the strict R&G guidelines. Did you know they would not accept any piece without at least four corroborations? Four. Not even Politics demands such scrutiny. It took me quite a while to gather up enough proof for them to even look at my article. "

"Well, this is cause for celebration," I admitted, feeling his elation in me. Two drinks were placed on our table just as I asked, "So what is this career making article about? It couldn't be about—"

"The Games," he interrupted with a shake of his head. "No. No. No. But I did do an article on that, compiling a list of all the edits made prior to airing on Capitol screens."

My hand gripped the cup by its stem but did not raise it, a haunting feeling nagging at my thoughts not to put drink to lips. "You wrote that article? The one we talked about doing together?"

"You piqued my curiosity," he said by way of explanation, gripping his own cup and making no hesitation before taking a big sip from it. When he put the cup back down he added, "I do apologies if I've stepped out of bounds, but I simply couldn't wait for us to get together to attack this project, our leisure time being so sparse and all. So I did the research myself and would have given you half the credit if anything had come of it, I assure you."

"But..."

"But, nothing came of it," he said flatly.

"I can't believe you would have actually published it," I said, my tone drifting from congenial to cautious. "I know you didn't agree with my view on the Games."

I'd made my opinion on the Games clear to him only after he'd revealed his criticisms of the Game Makers and other High Politicians, how he saw them as mewling, desperate creatures, 'pathetic,' had been his exact word: 'Pathetic, mewling creatures, so desperate for the approval of the Capitol, they shield them from the truth.' Like me, he wanted to show the world the unedited footage of the Games, but for him it was out of a sense of wounded pride, and patriotism. He believed, by censoring footage from the denizens of the Capitol, the President was in fact patronizing them, coddling them, treating them like sick children in need of protection and guidance. My friend believed in the strength of the people to bear full witness to the carnage of the Games without being pampered by lies.

"Of course, I don't," he said after a second sip of alcohol. "Whew. This really is delicious. You should try some." He offered me his own glass, but I refused with a wave of my hand. "Suit yourself. And just because I don't agree with your soft, hand-holding motivations, doesn't mean I didn't think compiling the hidden footage to be a great idea. And I cannot tell you all the absolutely interesting things I've found."

My heartbeat quickened at those words, and the opportunity they presented to me if I could but get my hands upon his data. When I spoke, I tried to push the eager yearning out of my voice, but even to me, the words sounded rushed and pleading. "May I see this data?"

He giggled after his third sip and looked at his drink as if appraising it. "This drink really lives up to its name, doesn't it? I hear it has 13 different types of alcohol in it. Hence the name. That, and the whole district 13 thing. Oh, but you haven't tried any yet, have you? Please do. You'll enjoy it."

"May I see this data?" I repeated, feeling my only opportunity slipped away faster than he was consuming his drink.

The smile he offered me then was like a plump worm curling up to die under a blazing sun. "See it? Why, you can have it."

I gasped, heart pumping excitement and disbelief throughout my body. "Really?"

In response, he tossed what appeared to be an emerald gem, no bigger than my thumb onto the table before me. I picked it up and held it in the palm of my hand, immediately feeling the falseness of it, the wrongness of its weight and texture. "What is it?"

"A gift and a curse," he said enigmatically, smiling that dying worm smile at me again, and this time, when he took a sip of his drink, all the warmth had left his face and I might have sworn I saw the dark bramble of his beard sealing shut around the smaller, thinner patch of gray. "The Double-Edged Sword."

He said nothing more for a long time, and my hands grew numb gripping the glass cup, my fingers bloodless with the effort of trying to smash it. When it was obvious he would say no more and my heart could take no more delay, I plunged ahead through the path he'd laid out for me. "What's in it?"

"All the information I'd gathered about the Games, of course," he explained. "All primed and ready to be flash-uploaded onto every media outlet available. I have the strict assurance of a hacker friend that once the upload begins, it cannot be halted, interrupted or blocked in any way. No one will be able to ignore it."

"And you would do this for me?" I asked, suddenly so naive I'd been unable to rein in the question.

"Of course," went his unsympathetic response. "Because I know this to be what you truly wish. Though, I maintain that you are wrong. Releasing this will not bring about a social change nor will it damage the Games at all. People will still watch and they will still cheer and the ratings will always go higher. In fact, I'm counting on that. I'm counting on the information on this gem to turn all the softhearted liberals that remain in Panem into true believers in the necessity and the power of the Games. I believe it will make them all see, once and for all, that these children are little better than wild beasts, who would devour each other at the slightest provocation. Once everyone accepts that, it will be easy to convince them that these very people would do worse to us if given the chance to escape from under our thumb."

He was rambling on again, as he usually did when he drank, but this time there was a wild furor in his eyes and a zealot's vigor in his tongue and it made me extremely nervous. There was more to this than I knew at the time, and I wish with all my soul I had been smart enough then to simply push the button on the gem he'd given me and walk away before the conversation went any further and his agenda was seen to fruition. Instead, and for some inexplicable reason, I held onto the facade of our friendship and played my role of intrepid, up-and-coming journalist to the bitter end.

"You're just going to let me scoop you, is that it?" I teased. "I'm not seeing how your got this wondrous promotion of yours showing them work you intend to pass on to someone else. Won't your new bosses get a bit miffed about that?"

"Oh, you misunderstand," he said coolly, his voice steady even though he'd just finished his drink. "This compilation is a personal hobby, never intended for publication because I knew no one ever would publish it. They would bury it, and me most like, but never publish it. So I give it to you, Caesar my friend. To do what would cost me my life to do."

I knew there were people in the Capitol who would gladly kill to prevent such information from being released, but I was surprised that he had known, or rather, that he would have admitted to it so flippantly. "You don't think it will cost me my life then?" I asked, assigning blame to the alcohol for him calling me by the wrong name.

The worm on his face turned, flattening into a grim scowl that hinted at regret. "Harris Hormitas is, unfortunately dead. He relinquished his own life shortly after being discovered as a spy and a traitor to the Capitol."

The cup in my hand finally shattered, burying shards of glass into my palm, opening half a dozen red streams that poured onto the clear table. No one around us turned a head to see, no one reacted to the noise of the glass or the brief but loud expletive that flew from my lips as I clutched at my wounded hand. I gave the wound its due consideration for two seconds then turned and made to run, only to hit a wall of flesh encased in a pristine white uniform. Hands gloved in black leather gripped my shoulder with the strength of steel vices, and with seemingly little effort, managed to hold me in my chair. I struggled as hard as I could, but their grips were unflappable. Suddenly my mind was filled with thoughts of torment at Peacekeeper hands, of becoming an Avox or worse as punishment for my treason.

But, I had always known this could happen, always suspected it to be the inevitable and unavoidable end to this drama. After all, when one tries to sneak up on a giant, one cannot curse his luck when the giant woke to devour you. Avoiding the giant was the only sure way not to be devoured or crushed or both. Well, I'd sneaked around the giant as far as I could, and now came my trip down the esophagus of the victor. The hopelessness of that thought sobered me up immediately and I stopped struggling, my hands pressed flat against the table, the emerald gem stone a mere inch from my outstretched fingers.

If I could get that gem, I thought, I could end this and myself all in one strike.

"I shall mourn the loss of my friend," he continued, dipping a finger into the puddle of Solution 13 that had, along with my blood, pooled around the center of the table, before bringing it to his mouth for a taste. "Hmm. I might have found a way to improve this drink. Here," he said, dipping his finger again into the new Solution drink and bringing it up to my mouth, "taste it."

"No," I said, openly showing my defiance. I knew I'd been caught; there was no need to play games anymore.

"Your loss, Caesar, " he said as he dipped and tasted his finger once again.

"My name is—"

"Caesar Flickerman, of the Capitol's Eastern district, graduate of the Digital Media School for Entertainment, with a High Master's Degree in Television Psychology and a Low Master's Degree in Hunger Game histology. And with such a pedigree and with the references Caesar Flickerman has available upon request, your application should be ferried straight to the top of the candidate's list."

I was about to ask what he was talking about when one of the guards covered my mouth with one hand and held my hand, palm up, against the table with the other. A crowd was gathering near the entrance to the balcony, but one baleful word from the Peacekeepers and they scattered like leaves. Which was good for me, for I didn't like the idea of an audience watching this; I preferred anonymity, especially in the face of such humiliation. My friend rose slowly from his seat and admired my many wounds one at a time, before reaching down to grip one shard of glass.

"We can't have our illustrious Mr. Flickerman appearing for an interview in this condition, so..."

He yanked up the shard, eliciting a horrendous roar of pain from me, a roar that barely traveled past the hand that smothered my mouth. The others he pulled out in rapid succession, leaving no choice but to thrash and scream, until, eventually, exhausted, I collapsed into their grasp. Though as a point of rebellion, I refused to lose consciousness and tried frantically hard to keep my eyes trained on my former friend. "Tend to this immediately," he demanded of the Peacekeepers, and sure enough, they sprayed my wounds with some sort of disinfectant and had my hand bandaged before he could sit to wipe the blood from his own hands—my blood. "There. Much better. Don't you agree Caesar?"

"My name is—"

"Trust me," he said softly, his voice a pale imitation of empathy, "you do not want to be Harris Hormistas anymore. You would rather be Caesar Flickerman. According to the research I did for the article that did win me my promotion, Harris Hormistas was a district 13 native turned rebel after the witnessing of a deplorable display of sportsmanship in the 31st Hunger Games. He signed up to be a solider against the Capitol, but ended up shifting into infiltration and deep cover, when his digital hacking skills were discovered to be sufficient to create a false identity even in the Capitol's mainframe computers. He was caught by Peacekeepers, chased into his hideout where he hung himself rather than face justice. He is survived by his infant son, born to Julia Hormistas, also of district 13, who named him Harris Hormistas II."

At the mention of my son, the one I'd yet to lay eyes upon, the one who was little more than a set of mitotic cells inside of the barely swelled belly of my lover and wife, set my heart aflame with an anger that could have burned down the cafe if not for the fear that spread suddenly, logically, to quell it. "Where are they?" I asked, at last, when I found my voice again. "Are they..." the word 'dead' would not leave my lips.

"I think our friends are no longer needed here," he said of the two Peacekeepers. "I think we both know you aren't going to try anything now. Or would you rather they stick around and listen to our private conversation."

"No. I would not," I said through gritted teeth. No sooner did the words leave my lips did the two men in white release me and stomp, in unison, out of the balcony and into the cafe proper.

"Your promotion extends to command of the Peacekeepers now?" I could not help but scoff.

"No," he said amused. "Not yet. Not yet. But I was loaned those two in case of any trouble from you. But now that we know where we stand, there is no more need for them. You will behave, accordingly, I assume."

I reached for the gemstone and caught in my hand before he could move to stop me. Though he did not flinch or move at all, he only smiled as I held the pad of my thumb over the center of the device. His smile split his face open when I held the gem tighter in my grasp and pantomimed pushing the button. Disgusted, I tossed it at him, the stone of metal struck glass, clinked and echoed in the silence of the balcony. "Of course. It's a fake."

"No," he said smugly. "It's all too real. I am a man of my word. In that device is the means for you to upload everything you wanted the Capitol residences to see; your mission completed in one small push."

"I don't believe it," I fired back, as he slowly pushed the gem back across the table toward me. "Why would you let me have it then?"

"Two reasons," he said and motioned for me to take it. "One, I want the world to know. As I've said time and again, I want them to see how depraved you district savages are, how heartless you've become, how immune to compassion you are. One look at this footage and all sympathizers to the tributes, and the districts in general, will vanish like smoke. For rest assured, if placed in the same circumstances, our, elite, evolved children, would not fight to kill one another but join to save themselves. Now, I may have been forbidden to release that material, but if you, a traitor were to do it, as say an act of sabotage and terrorism, well then I could not be blamed. And when the populace sees it and they react according to my predictions..." A smirk. A huff of arrogance.

"You give your people too little credit, modeling their thoughts after your own."

"As you do your own," he chided. "But assuming I'm wrong, there is the other side of that blade to consider. That gem's other, inseparable function."

My heart seized inside my chest, and I felt all the barriers that I had used to steel my courage enough to take this mission dissolve under his acidic stare. I didn't want to know about the gem's other function, but I had no choice but to ask, because not knowing, not being certain, was a worse fate than anything I could be told. "It must be something impressive to prevent me from saving the lives of dozens of future children."

Without speaking a word, this man I had once foolishly thought my friend, tapped the holodisplay on his corner of the table and a silver-gray screen opened up on my side, showing a series of thumbnail photos; thirty-two in all, too small for me to discern anything of their contents. "Go ahead," he urged, tapping his side of the display twice more, to signal his desire for another drink to the waitress beyond the balcony. "Open one up."

My hands shook nearly beyond my control, but I managed to force a riotous finger to tap the first glowing sliver icon. Immediately, all the other thumbnails withdrew from the screen and the chosen icon expanded until it encompassed the whole of my side of the table. The picture was my wife Sara, dressed in a tan dress of spun wool, embroidered with flowers of pale blue and trimmed in yellow. Her raven-colored hair hung off a high ponytail at the back of her head and her green eyes were bright with rage. There was a sickly purple welt on the side of her face, rimmed in black, which communicated dead flesh more than a simple bruise. My fist clenched so tightly, blood leaked through the fresh linen bandage and onto the table, blurring her image.

With that first picture my heart writhed in pain as it died within my chest, a corpse of atrophying muscle, struggling in a fight it was too desperate to realize was already lost. Every successive image that enlarged upon the table was little more than packed dirt upon the grave of a deceased organ. I kept clicking the icons, hoping to find the one that showed her alive, well and healed. Instead, each imaged showed her in increasing states of decomposition, the wound on her face having grown into legion across her entire body. Youthful alabaster skin turned black around craters of deep purple; dark, vibrant hair hung limp and in clumps from a progressively fleshless scalp, like wisps of smoke clinging onto the fire that spawned them only to dissipate with the next firm wind; eyes of jade, once dominant and full of energy, hung open and distant, when they weren't sealed tight from obvious agony.

Had these picture been of her rotting corpse I would not have had wept so loudly for I would have known her to be free from harm. But in each picture, despite her agony, despite the ravaged and decimated state of her body, she remained, visibly, clearly alive, and conscious.

"The first couple," my most hated and monstrous acquaintance explained causally, "were taken the first hours after being administered the Cocktail. "The remaining thirty were taken in the days that followed. I admit I did not expect her to survive so long, but I do not think she will hold on much longer."

"Fix her," I growled at him, standing as if to lunge over the table, though my legs were little more than wisps themselves and my stomach turned so violently I nearly vomited over the display pad. Every muscle in my body shook, with anger, with fear, with regret, and with grief, agonizing, palpable, impotent grief at her unimaginable suffering. "Fix her now! I'll do what you ask. I do whatever you ask. Just fix her!"

"I'm afraid not," he said, lacing his fingers together and resting them behind his head. Suddenly, the world began to spin around me and the edges of my vision grew dark and I could no longer stand. I managed to find my seat but could barely hold up my own head anymore, everything felt incredibly weak and devoid of energy. "The Cocktail she was given is a dual purpose chemical virus. It contains both a disease, a flesh-consuming virus, and a viral antidote, working together to maintain a nearly perfect balance of destruction and renewal. It was a brilliant little invention by a bio-chemist I know, and once administered, it is incurable. The body will remain in this state of decomposition until it gives out entirely or until the antidote falls behind and the necrotic virus overwhelms the host. Although, I'm told that could take up to a year. Most patients die from shock or organ failure or some other secondary cause. Your wife however is quite the fighter. Though I suspect she won't be fighting much longer. The last report said she was no longer showing outward signs of pain, even though some sixty percent of her flesh was gone. I'd say she's rapidly slipping into shock, or at least a coma, and after that, it's only a matter of time. But don't worry, the pain will not go away, I assure you. Plus the restorative virus acts as a stimulant that can keep the patient awake and alert the entire time. Thirty days, without sleep and in that state, with no way of getting away from the pain. Can you imagine that?"

I tried to remember her as she was, the beauty that she was, the electricity that shone through her eyes and came out of her mouth. But every time I thought of her, all I could see was that mangled pulp of dying flesh. I used those images to galvanize myself to leap across the table and dig my fingers into his neck. But my body had no strength, and as I slouched further against the chair's backrest, a word appeared in my mind, and I vocalized it. "Poison."

"In your drink, yes," he confirmed. "I was about to have the Peacekeepers force it down your throat, but I figured the cuts to your hand was as good a delivery route as any seeing as you spilled the drink all over them. Don't worry, it won't kill you. Just weaken you while I fill you in on the details of your new identity." I swore at him, but he merely smiled and took another sip from his cup. "Caesar, in case you were wondering, is a small time journalist who died recently in a car accident while on vacation. No one missed him. So it was easy enough to posthumously award him a new job in a different field, courtesy of a few owed favors. We'll just need to do a few alterations and you'll slip right into the role."

"My child," I squeaked out though my throat was tightening around my vocal cords. Thirty days. That's what he'd said. She'd been only a few weeks pregnant when I'd left and the baby should be approaching four months by now, if... "My son. Where is my son?"

"You don't need to know that."

"It's my child!" I managed to scream; I even gathered enough force to pound my fist against the table. No one looked my way, my outburst of words and fist already forgotten in the eyes of the other patrons.

He leaned in very close to me, so close, I could see the dead, uncaring eyes with unblinking focus. "And it is my Capitol," he fired back, his words barely above a whisper but packed with gunpowder as it shot from his lips. "My Capitol that you've defiled with your plots and your lies and your crimes. All your talk of cruelty, but it's you that invades our world and poses as a friend only to betray us—betray me! If you had your way you'd bring this whole city down into rubble and not one of you heartless rebels would mourn for us. No. You will never know where your child is. Never hold him. Never see him in life. You will only ever see him in digital."

Relief filled me. "Thank you," I said despite my rage. "He's alive. Thank you. I'll do whatever you want, play Caesar or whatever, just keep him alive. Please."

"That has always been the plan, my old friend."

"And I can see him?" I probed. "Pictures, at least. I can see him?"

His nod was slow and devious.

"When. When can I see him?"

"When you push that button and release the same virus that's killing your wife into him," he said without remorse, his plump lips seeming to wiggle as he spoke. "Your only images of your son—the only ones you will ever see—will be of his death. As soon as you push that button, his death will begin and you will be sent daily photos and videos of the process."

The poison or whatever had been placed into my drink was swiftly dragging me into unconsciousness but my mind was still sharp enough to understand what he was saying. I was to be given the key to saving hundreds of future peoples, but the cost would be my own son's slow, torturous death. I knew even then that I would accept the offer on his terms without question, if only to bide my time to disable that gem's secondary function, or long enough to prove that it did nothing he claimed it to do and thus freeing me to act as I choose—which, after this conversation would involve a rusty knife, a sealed room, a week of privacy, and many, many small disposing bags. When I'd taken this mission, it had been with the knowledge that I may never see my wife after nor ever see my unborn son. I had expected to die at the conclusion. I had not expected this, nor could I stand for it. Somehow, someway, I would see that man dead, or I would orchestrate his demise in some fashion or another. But he would fall to his knees before I did.

As the darkness rimming the café grew thicker and encroached further into my visual field, I grew bold with madness. "One day," I forced out, through chords lax as noodles, "one day. One day I will push that button. One day I will see your precious Capitol crashing down around you. I swear."

He waved my contemptuous prophecy away with a flip hand gesture. "I do hope you do," he grinned at me. "Because you district vermin are all animals at heart, and I would delight for everyone here to see that. You'd only be confirming everything I've said, you know, murdering your own child for a chance to hurt me. Rest assured, friend, my children will never suffer at my hands or through any fault of my character. That is a promise only a Capitol man can boast. After all, what true parent would allow their child to suffer in their presence? What true parent would allow a child to be taken from their home and placed in a slaughter house for the promise of a few extra meals and prestige? You think they let their children be taken away against their will because the Capitol demands it? No. They do it for the reward, for the fame. They herd their own children into the pens to be butchered rather than keeping them home and fighting for their own. That is the difference between my class and yours, you arrogant little commoner! That is why we rule and you obey, because we would never allow ourselves to partake in the deviant pleasures your districts continue to participate in year after year after year!"

I swore at him some more as the black sealed tighter and tighter around me and my body went slack in my chair, but even I couldn't hear my own words and I realized that my mouth was no longer moving.

"Well," he said after a time of doing nothing but consuming his third glass of Solution 13. "It seems we have little time left before its time for us to go. We shall never see each other again, I think. Not in person. At least not as we are now. But maybe one day we can reunite for another drink. But since time is short, let me tell you about your new job and what is expected of you. And please, listen carefully. Lives depend on it."

I listened as the dark descended fully upon me and all I could think was, "Damn you Coriolanus. Damn you."

Now, with only seconds left before the lights flick on, I think of my son, and wonder what has become of him. Has he grown into adulthood or had he ever taken a breath at all? I know that the answer will come to me the moment I push the button, and that alone is almost motive enough, if not the lives of dozens of innocent children.

Five seconds until show time; five seconds until the final show for Caesar Flickerman.

Four seconds. I prod the anger inside of me to buttress my resolve, reminding myself of what Coriolanus had said, how he'd delighted in tormenting me with the death of my beloved wife.

Three seconds. I remember those pictures so vividly I feel my stomach knotting at the thought of subjecting my poor boy to such a fate.

Two seconds. I wonder if my son inherited her fair skin, her jade green eyes, her dark hair, or her beautiful, natural, unencumbered smile.

One second. My anger fails me, covered by Snow.

The lights comes on, I breathe in sharply, lift my head to the crowd and cameras alike...and smile.