The peacekeepers surrounded the terrified villagers in District 2. They had been rounded up by the District's Head Peacekeeper, a man named Commander Nero Fitzpatrick. There were maybe forty peacekeepers compared to the twenty five villagers who'd been rounded up. Of the villagers, over half of them were women and children, with only about six men in the group. Fitzpatrick was the only peacekeeper without a helmet on, showing off his dark skin and brown eyes, along with his buzz cut hair.

"ON MY ORDER!" yelled the Head Peacekeeper. As he did all the other white-armoured soldiers raised their assault rifles, aiming at the villagers. There were cries of terror and fear from the villagers as they realised their fate.

"FIRE!" Shots were fired as the peacekeepers obeyed their orders and killed the villagers, men women and children, all dead. Except for one peacekeeper, that is. He was unremarkable when compared to the others; he wore the same armour, the same black featureless visor. The peacekeepers name was Atticus Dyson, and he was not like the others. He didn't fire when ordered to, but nobody noticed. He, like most of the peacekeepers in Panem, was from District 2, the district that provided masonry and weapons. He was born, recruited and trained in District 2. And now he was killing his own kind. He had no choice, disobeying meant death.

A hovercraft appeared in the sky above them, Atticus looked up to see the flag of Panem on one wing, and a registration number on the other. The hovercraft landed and all the peacekeepers entered and took a seat, with Fitzpatrick last. The revolution had started just three months ago, and so far all but three districts had rebelled against the Capitol's tyrannical rule. At first, Atticus had been surprised that the districts rebelled, then, after seeing the Capitol's way of dealing with its citizens in other districts, he'd seen why they did it. The Capitol had no remorse for killing its own citizens if it meant they got their own way. Even people suspected of being rebels were swiftly tortured then executed without a fair trial. That was why he was going to defect. He'd been planning it for weeks; how he was going to get away, get to a rebel district. District 2 was still loyal to the Capitol, but the villagers they had just massacred were rebels, they had been secretly supplying food and resources to other rebels in District 3. So he had to get to 3 without being captured or killed by any other peacekeepers. That was hard; as soon as he left he'd have only a couple of hours until they realized he was missing. They'd send out search parties with hovercrafts. If he was lucky they would kill him quickly, or else he would become an Avox. His tongue would be cut out and he'd be forced to serve the rest of his days as a slave for the people of the Capitol. On foot he'd make it less than halfway to District 3 before he was captured by his former comrades. So he was going to steal a hovercraft. Easier said than done, if he did somehow manage to steal a hovercraft he'd have to get past District 2's anti aircraft weapons, then if he by sheer luck made it to District 3 he'd have to convince the rebels not to shoot him down. The entire plan relied on luck, something Atticus wasn't used to having.

"Atticus, you okay?" the voice came from the peacekeeper next to him, a man named Hadrian. They'd both been born in the same village in District 2, both joined the peacekeepers together, both trained together. For all intents and purposes they were best friends since childhood. Atticus could only guess that he was staring into space and that Hadrian had noticed him, so he answered with

"Yeah, I'm fine"

Out of the corner of his eye, Atticus saw Hadrian nod. It was another five minutes before they reached the largest village in District 2, the one that housed the barracks and the Hall of Justice. Around the outskirts of the village was the quarry where the stonework which made District 2 so prominent came from. Each district provided a different service or product to the Capitol. District 2's was stonework, weapons, and peacekeepers. It was one of the three districts that remained loyal to the Capitol, the other two being Districts 7 and 4. Even though 2 was still loyal, he knew there was dissent for the Capitol, he'd heard it enough growing up there. Almost everyone he knew from 2 firmly hated the Capitol, which surprised him so much when they decided to stay loyal. Maybe it was because they were afraid of the Capitol's destructive powers, or maybe they wanted to stay on the winning side. Even though it had only been three months, it was clear the Capitol had the upper hand. They had the only fleet of hovercrafts in Panem, making it so much easier to deploy peacekeepers in rebel-held areas. But the rebels had their own anti aircraft weapons capable of shooting down hovercrafts that got too close. As far as he knew these AA guns were deployed in every rebel district. So the tide might turn against the Capitol in favour of the rebels, it was entirely possible that the rebels could succeed and bring freedom and democracy to Panem, after all, the bad guys couldn't really win could they? Of course they could, Atticus was twenty-three, old enough to know that the good guys don't always win, that the world was unfair no matter how hard you wanted it not to be. After all, he'd just come back from a massacre, where children had been killed in cold blood by the Capitol because they were supporting the rebels. Looking out the window, Atticus could see that the hovercraft was making its way towards one of the dozen landing pads located just outside the barracks.

"Overwatch 2 this is Phoenix 2-4, we are coming in for landing, please respond" it was the pilot; he was trying to reach the barracks for landing confirmation. There was no response.

"Overwatch 2 this is Phoenix 2-4, come in" silence again, then, "INCOMING!"

Something hit the hovercraft and the entire thing shook violently, a couple of unrestrained peacekeepers were thrown from their seats, one even broke his neck on the bulkhead.

"What was that?" asked Commander Fitzpatrick

"Someone fired a rocket at us, they took out our left wing" said the pilot, "It must be the rebels, they've taken the village".

"There's another rocket inbound, hold on tight" but it was too late. The second rocket hit and the hovercraft began to spiral out of control towards the surface. The last thing Atticus remembered was the sharp pain in his head as he was knocked against the back of his seat, then blackness.

He woke up to a scene of horror. The wreckage of the hovercraft lay around him, there seemed to be fire everywhere he looked. More than half of the peacekeepers in the hovercraft were dead. Fitzpatrick was unconscious or dead, he couldn't tell, and next to him, Hadrian was still in his seat, his head was slumped against one side but with his helmet on Atticus couldn't tell if he was dead or alive. Atticus removed his helmet then, with great difficulty, he unbuckled himself from his seat and walked, not steadily, to Hadrian and took off his helmet as well. Hadrian had a swollen eye and blood ran out of his nose, but he was still breathing. Just as he was about to unbuckle Hadrian a group of about seven rebels entered the hovercraft from the mangled wreck that was the entrance ramp. At seeing him they raised their guns, just about to fire, and then he said

"Stop don't shoot, I'm one of you"

"Bullshit" said the lead rebel, a woman with curly red hair, freckles and bright green eyes, she stood at about 5'10, compared to Atticus who was 6'1.

"I can prove it" said Atticus, the fear rising in his voice.

"Go on then" she said, her gun and the guns of the other rebels still trained on him.

Searching his memory banks, he tried to recall what the secret phrase was given to them by a rebel spy under torture. It had been about two weeks ago, the rebel had been endlessly beaten and harmed until he gave them a phrase that was meant to be spoken to other rebels to prove that they were allies. Atticus hadn't participated in the torture; he'd just been guarding the room when it took place. After about ten seconds of searching, he remembered the phrase.

"The jade owl hunts at night, unless his slumber is disturbed" As Atticus said it, he realised there might be a chance that these rebels didn't even know it existed, or maybe it had been retired when the rebel spy was captured by peacekeepers, either way, the next couple of seconds were tense for all involved. Finally, the woman lowered her gun, and the other rebels followed suit.

"We have to leave before anymore peacekeepers come" she said.

Atticus nodded, then the rebels began to leave and Atticus followed when a voice behind him caught his attention.

"Dyson, don't you dare leave" it was Fitzpatrick. Evidently he'd only been unconscious, though not anymore; he looked at Atticus with hatred in his eyes.

As Atticus turned to leave Fitzpatrick yelled again,

"DYSON, GET BACK HERE OR I WILL HAVE YOU EXECUTED!"

The words didn't stop him; he was a traitor and a rebel now, no matter what he did. He left the hovercraft wreckage and caught up to the rebels. After walking for nearly five minutes, there was a large explosion and Atticus looked backwards with the others. Fire and smoke rose into the air as the hovercraft exploded. He didn't know if Fitzpatrick or Hadrian made it out in time, but the odds were that Hadrian was dead.

"Come on, we have to get to the extraction site before we're surrounded" said the red-headed woman. They walked for another twenty minutes before reaching a large plain with no trees in sight. Within another couple of minutes a hovercraft filled the sky and began to descend on them. Peacekeepers! They'd found them, now they were going to die. But nobody else seemed panicked, in fact, they all seemed calm and collected. The hovercraft landed and the ramp opened, revealing a single man standing inside, facing them. Upon seeing Atticus in his white peacekeeper armour, the man raised his rifle at him before the woman reassured him that Atticus was a rebel.

"Are you sure?" asked the man, still eyeing Atticus suspiciously, but keeping his gun down.

"He knew the code phrase. Only rebels know them" she said, trying to calm him down. After a couple of seconds the man nodded and sat down in one of the many seats.

How on earth did the rebels get a hovercraft, they must have stolen it. Maybe they had others as well, if so why didn't he, or any other peacekeepers know. The Capitol wasn't exactly known for sharing everything. They must have kept it a secret, if the public knew the rebels had hovercrafts then who knows what might happen.

"Where are we going?" asked Atticus, hoping it wasn't too obvious for fear of being found out as a traitor.

"District 3" said the man who had tried to shoot Atticus before.

Good. That was the district he originally planned to defect to until the rebels attacked.

It was an hour before the hovercraft crossed into District 3 airspace. Atticus knew this because suddenly a man's voice came over the hovercraft's radio,

"Unidentified hovercraft please identify" said the voice

The pilot responded with "This is Reaper 4, repeat, Reaper 4. ID number is 81104"

There was a moment of silence as the rebels on the ground ran the ID number through their database, and then the voice came over again and said "Confirmed Reaper 4, you are cleared for landing"

The hovercraft landed on a landing pad and everybody made their way out down the ramp. District 3 provided technology to the Capitol, making the televisions, computers and other devices for them. They were a wealthy district, and also one of the first to rebel against the Capitol. Their wealth was obvious when looking at the district itself, a large town with buildings and clean, paved streets, although some of it had been reduced to rubble, Atticus could only guess that was from the mortars fired by the loyalists, citizens of a district who remained loyal to the Capitol. Atticus followed the rest of the rebels to a small building, and then inside which contained a large table, around which gathered many people. Atticus recognised some of them, leaders of the rebellion. He saw the mayors of Districts 3,5,10 and 12, and a few others he couldn't place who he guessed might be high-ranking soldiers. As they saw his peacekeeper uniform they stiffened, just as he thought that he really needed some new clothes.

"Who is this?" asked the mayor of 3, a man named Felix Anderson.

"A rebel spy" answered the red head, then, "he knew the code phrase" then she repeated the phrase to the people gathered and Felix stood up, anger evident in his features.
"Arrest him" said the mayor of 3, and two soldiers moved forward to put Atticus' arms behind his back.

"What's going on?" asked the red haired woman.

"That code phrase has been leaked to the Capitol, Anna. One of our men gave it to them under torture"

The woman, Anna her name was, looked shocked and angry that she'd been in the company of a traitor and liar for the past hour and a half.

"I'm not who you think I am" said Atticus, pleading, "I was a peacekeeper but I wanted to defect, and you would have killed me if I didn't give you the code phrase. I want nothing to do with the Capitol; I want to be a rebel".

"Take him away" said Felix. The two soldiers who'd put Atticus' arms behind his back half-shoved half-led him to another building with jail cells in it and then threw him in one of the empty ones before locking it and leaving. Atticus got up and looked around, there were maybe a dozen other cells like his, less than half had people in them. Now what? he thought.