AN: A soulmate AU, but with a twist. Ships include Odesta, Clato, Everlark, and Gadge.
April 3, 2016, 74 years earlier
"The population is getting listless," President Snow stated, in a cold, matter-of-fact tone. "Dr. Crane, that idea of yours must be pure genius."
"Well, y-yes, I must say that my plan – our plan, really – is a work of genius, if I d-do say myself," the man stuttered as he swirled his coffee. He melted beneath the president's cold, piercing stare. "Sir, allow me to introduce to you – the Soulmate Games!"
The president's lips folded into a cruel, unforgiving line. "Crane, do not tell me that years of research led to this sappy nonsense. If this is the best you can create, you're fired."
"No wait!" the scientist leapt to his feet, knocking his coffee cup to the ground with a crash. "President, sir, this plan w-will revolutionize the country as we know now! It will put an end to this silly discontent; it'll keep the people… docile and obedient!"
"Go on," President Snow ordered, narrowing his eyes.
"Sir, the people have been fighting tooth-and-nail, and they hate us – the government. And we need to give them a reason to rely and depend on us," Dr. Crane swallowed, feeling more confident with each and every word he uttered. "Now, what is the thing that our people care the most about? Love. People they love. We can't control who they love, but we can control who they think they love."
The president tapped his foot impatiently. "Get on with it, Crane. I want a solution, not a useless and tiring speech."
"Sir, what if I told you that I knew your soulmate? What if I told you that I know the person who could make you happy, the person who could make you smile, the person who you would want the spend the rest of your life with?" Dr. Crane asked, with a glint in his eye. "Well, I can't. But I can convince you that I can."
"So here's my idea," the man continued, "we tell everyone that we know who their soulmates are. We tell them, that after years of study and research, we have discovered and proven that everyone in the world has a special person who is perfect for them. A soulmate. We tell them that we have the technology to study every individual's brain and their qualities."
"So we get all the children, and we start the process on them. At the age of fourteen, we tell the children that we have narrowed down their soulmate to a small pool of… about a hundred people or so. We ship them away to a far-off boarding school, where all the possible soulmate candidates are. Their parents won't say a word against it – who'd say no to finding the love of their life?"
"Go on," Snow said, dropping his disinterested façade.
Seneca nodded. "Their parents won't be there, of course. We can teach them what we want them to know and make them see what we want them to see. We can make them bend down to our wills. And at eighteen, we make them special tattoos that show the names of someone in their class at the school. Now, they think that the name on their hand is the name of the soulmate, but it's really someone randomly picked from a list of students at the school."
"But how exactly will the people believe or agree? How will we make people docile?"
"First of all, sir, not everyone will get a soulmate. Who, you ask? The ones who seem rebellious, the ones who don't adhere to our plans, the ones who are different, won't receive a tattoo. These people will be exterminated. We will tell citizens that people who do not have a tattoo are dangerous. These people have no soulmate, and no room for love in their small, pathetic hearts. But what about the people who don't agree to live with their soulmate? Simple. By the age of twenty-two, all pairs of soulmates must be married, or risk extermination."
"And sir, we don't need to make them believe. They already believe it themselves. People cling on to the thinnest, weakest of hopes. They want to believe in the silly thing called love, even if it doesn't exist. They're too blind to see the reality washed in every corner of the world, and they live in skies filled with unattainable fantasies. They're so willing to believe, that even the tiniest sliver of hope can make them stop seeing what's really in front of them. They'll regard us, the government, as heroes. They'll learn to love us as they learn to love their soulmate," Dr. Crane declared.
President Snow folded his lips into a thin smile. "Well done, Dr. Crane," he said, as he shook the scientist's hand. "Well done, indeed."