We arrive early.
For most people in Panem, the Hunger Games starts the day of the reaping. For the citizens of the Capitol, it starts two weeks before the reapings begin, with a lot of fanfare on their TV screens and in their shops and bars.
For us, the Hunger Games starts a month before that. Our official job title is "Keeper of the People". We are the unseen employees of the Capitol who keep track of everything and everyone. We are, perhaps, the only citizens of the Capitol who see things exactly as they are. We see past the glamour of our city, and we see past the evil outliers who once rose up against us.
In the Capitol, jobs usually fall under four categories. Entertainment is the largest, and everybody wants to be some sort of famous actor or TV personality these days. Then you have food and leisure, and you have shopping. Fairly self explanatory. Lastly, there are Capitol Employees, nearly all of which are hand selected by the President and his closest circle. They are the Gamemakers, the head Peacekeepers, the administrative officials of the city, and the liasons between the districts and the Capitol. I fall under this category, but myself and my peers are the only Capitol Employees who have much sympathy for the Districts. We are personally and bluntly confronted with them every year.
A regime so controlling needs to keep tabs on each and every citizen. That is where we come in. The Keepers of the People are divided into thirteen sections, and as soon as you get the job, you are assigned to your section. That's where you work for the rest of your life. The largest section by far is the Capitol section, and they're just as clueless as most of the Capitol is. They keep track of things there and never visit the Districts.
I, however, was assigned to District 12. I've been working this job for sixteen years, and it has hardened me in ways I had never expected. Every year, one month before Reaping Day, we get on our trains and we travel to our districts. Once we arrive at 12, we're usually ushered to the Victor's Village to stay in the empty houses. There are plenty enough beds, considering there's only one living victor in that district. I hear in the others, my coworkers stay in hotels assigned to them each year. It's not like that in 12, and I expect it will never be.
First, we go to the hospital. We take down the names of every baby born in the year since we've been here last. We go to these babies' houses, disrupt their families for the day as we perform a health check and draw a vial of blood. Every citizen of panem must have their blood type and their DNA logged. It's one of the few rules that is applied to everybody… My DNA exists in our database just the same as any of the Seam kids.
Once we've done that, we take a census. This is lengthy and difficult in 12 in particular, as there are always a few dozen families who will try to hide a child from us. If a child escapes the census, they don't show up on the list next year at reaping day, and they won't be missed. This is absolutely not allowed to happen. The only time it has ever happened, the Keeper of the People who missed the child was taken to a city square in their home neighborhood in the Capital and hung. Tickets were sold. I knew him personally.
Of course, we have to mark down in our logs which families try to escape the census. We hand these books over to the local Peacekeepers so that those families may be punished and their children's names added twice more into the pot. We are always invited to watch as this is done publicly, but we refuse. We always refuse.
There's more official business, and a lot more record keeping, but I won't bore you with the lesser details of my job. The worst part of it for me is living in the district for that month. My clothes give me away even faster than my clean and well-kept hair. The citizens of District 12 very rarely have new clothes, and it's completely unheard of for any of them to own deep purple colored clothing, or royal blues. Reds and yellows are easier to come by, but are usually old and worn - donated castoffs of wealthier districts. Dyes are expensive and nobody in District 12 has much money. Even the Mayor's household would be considered poor in some of the higher districts.
When I walk in the streets, my shoes are easily muddied and starving eight-year-olds follow me with wide eyes. Officially, I am not allowed to help them. I am not allowed to give them food or speak about The Games. But I am the record keeper, Keeper of the People. I am the person who puts such transgressions in the books in the first place, and I certainly would never report myself.
I know that a loaf of bread once a year isn't going to help anybody in the long run… but it feeds a child for a night and it soothes a miniscule amount of my guilt, which is ever deep and abiding. Most of my coworkers don't allow themselves to do this for fear of being spotted by local Peacekeepers, but the Peacekeepers in 12 are almost as starving as the citizens are, and they're much more relaxed than in many of the other districts.
Our last duty during our stay in the Districts is the Sign-In of the Tributes. We are the faceless people who sit calmly at desks, prick your children's fingers, and watch them walk past to go wait in line after line, anxious to know who will be slaughtered this year. Despereate to return to their families wholly, rather than six months later in undecorated urns.
Many of the younger ones cry. They are twelve years old and trying desperately to be grown up, no longer children and nowhere near being adults. The stress gets to them anyway, and many of them are afraid of needles considering they probably haven't seen one since they were babies and my coworkers drew their first blood. Residents of 12 simply don't have the money to have their children looked after in doctor's offices.
I am not allowed, officially, to show emotion to any of the Tributes. But I can't help squeezing any crying twelve-year-old's hand, just for a brief moment, after I make them bleed.
By the time they're about fifteen, nearly none of them cry. They glare at us, they look at the ground, they flinch. They're always very lanky and pale, obviously malnourished, and I feel much guiltier for taking their blood then. It's barely enough to make a mark on the DNA-sensitive paper files before them, but they don't look like they have any blood to spare in the first place.
A few times, they are distracted. I notice these children. They're usually older, have siblings. I look at each and every tribute's face that comes through my line, and sometimes I can see the resemblance. When they are distracted, though, I always notice. It was because of this, that I raptly watched the Games for the first time in my adult life this year. My work was over by the time I got back to my comfortable Capitol home, feeling ashamed and breathless as usual after our busy season, and saw her. Our days of travelling in the trains had cut us off from much of the proceedings so far, but as soon as I got home, there she was. The distracted girl, with the braided dark hair. There she was, and she was rated an eleven. Just asking to be targeted by every Career in the Arena.
I fell onto my couch and wept. I had been the most recent person to draw that girl's blood, but I certainly would not be the last. We are the keepers of the people. We have an important job. We are silent partners of monsters and murderers, and we would never forgive ourselves. Our districts would never forgive us.
Just as well. We don't deserve forgiveness.