PART I
"THE GRIND"
1
I'm waking up. I can tell by the dull ache in my chest that quivers the dry lump in my throat. The house is empty, a single story with four rooms and a bathroom, lavish in District 11, but horrifyingly empty.
There's that ache, now gnawing away behind my still-closed eyes. The return of purpose should follow soon. His haunting, crooked smile captivates every waking second, sometimes fades the colors of this world into an unrecognizable slurry of gray.
Every day is a struggle and this one begins like any other, like they all have lately. I urge my eyes to crack open, groaning at the dim walls. Before the sun emerges from a mere glow on the horizon, my feet drop out onto the worn carpet. They're weak again, always are. I take a deep breath and hold it. I have to start the routine. If I don't, there isn't a chance of leaving the house today.
Come on, Kippen Silvernale, time to start another day. My conscious thoughts try to convince my body to move. I don't toss about in my sleep, these days. Excessive stillness stiffens the joints. In response to my mental will, my stomach just aches, not for breakfast; for something, anything. Anything other than what this life has given me, what others have taken away. I stand up from the bed and lean against the wall to steady myself. My knees are shaking a little. That usually goes away after ten minutes or so. At 42, I'm too young for this incapacity.
Sauntering down the hall, I can hear Meyla, already in the kitchen. A rich scent of coffee seizes my attention. Meyla has a fire going in the cast iron stove, a rarity in District 11. She pours a mug of the brew and sets it down on the table. It's strong and draws out the last of my fatigue as soon as the first sip warms my throat. Even still the quirky jitter in my knees remains so I sit down.
My wife is beautiful, even disheveled from sleep. In the faint light of candles, her slim form exudes grace with every movement. Meyla has the softest eyes, like those of a fawn. Her light brown hair would see a brush soon today and her gentle image will be complete.
Beneath her eyes, I can see she's been crying already this morning. I wish she wasn't depressed, although the truth is, no one can't help her with this; not even me. When my wife looks at me, she only sees Mason's eyes. He got his quirky lip expressions from her and as ashamed as I am to say it, Meyla's beautifully bereft face burns simmering coals in my stomach, though she used to stir excitement in my heart. Truthfully, we're past that now, past seeing Mason in each other. It's just the excuse I have to tell myself whenever circumstance is called into question. This is the cost of the hand we got from the deck and I have to play it out.
Mason was my son, my only child. Of course, he had become a young man by the time the "accident" happened. He had endured his very last reaping without being selected and subsequently dedicated his efforts to learning my trade and chasing pretty girls. I remember the last time we had spoken, not because it was special. It was just everyday Mason. My son was a riot, telling stories of the crazy things he and his friends would do.
That afternoon he and I were eating sack lunches in the plaza when he told a group of people a story of how he had tried to impress a girl. "Sandrea wasn't even paying attention so I thought it'd get her attention if I jumped to a branch just near her and barely catch it." I remember his arms reaching for the sky and his mouth twisting out his humorous, slow-motion self-impression.
"And I jump and at first I just see her rushing up nearer but then I start to drop too early." He laughs, mouth tilted to one side. At this point, everyone at the table is already chuckling, myself included. "All I see is this branch just zipping out of my vision!" His face contorts with shock and panic. "I'm reaching for the sky and have nothing but the long quick way to go. Whoosh!" His fingers no longer reach, they brace for impact.
"Luckily, a few branches broke my fall on the way down to the irrigation ditch." Mason looks at his hands and I wince at the scars that have shown up over his short years. "And it actually worked. Splashing in the mud got Sandrea's attention, but not the sort I was looking for!" Raucous laughter pounds over the table. Even one of the Peacekeepers, listening a table over from us, breaks an amused grin.
My boy was a delight and not just to his parents. More than a few people had given the kindest words of consolation at his funeral. The fact is, without Mason, it's a struggle to find any meaning, any drive to draw breath. I still haven't come up with the reason I got out of bed. Habit, I suppose. But why had I formed this habit, again?
Oh, yes, a violent storm is approaching. That's right. A new wave of things to sweep through. I do have a purpose, even if it requires me to pen up my anguish for another day. Maybe just a few more.
There is a broad triangular plaza in the center of our city for which the municipality is named, Three Corners. It's always alive with people if daylight is around or approaching. More so than usual today as teams move about, setting up the decorations for tomorrow's reaping.
Even though it's easier labor than working in the fields, few volunteer. No one wants to be involved with those… events. Jobs are assigned to people and festivities are dispersed around the plaza according to a plan created by some bureaucrat in the Justice Building, a forced effort futilely trying to disguise the squalor and misery of District 11 with some meager banners and flower wreaths.
None of it really matters to us, we residents of the districts. The elaborate decorations are all for the people in the Capitol and sometimes I wonder whether we have to use them so the Capitol citizens really believe that we enjoy the Hunger Games. As if we would have ever agreed to their Treaty of Treason. We never had the option to agree or disagree.
My breath huffs out in disgust. I wrap my fingers tighter around my equipment bag's handles. Harvest trucks don't come through the plaza since it's usually flush with vendors. Instead of huts, today I have to weave my path around all the busy sections being cordoned off with shiny ribbon to separate children into age groups during the ceremony tomorrow afternoon.
Work has been tough lately and the upcoming reaping makes my lack of focus even worse. It's bad enough to have to go to the Peacekeeper Main Office in District 11 every single day, the unyielding surface of Capitol's hammer. The Office is a four story building on the edge of the plaza, running up one main street quite a way.
The Main Office isn't just a precinct for the Capitol's police force. It's the center of all Peacekeeper operations in District 11 and with 17,000 residents to oversee and press in the fields, the Peacekeepers have plenty of duties to direct. They also have all their local training centers located in the sub-level. The two wings in the rear of the building are bunk housing compartments for Peacekeepers: one for those who haven't opted to apply for officer's training, and the other, nicer wing for officers and enlistees selected for officer's training. The building itself is one of the largest in District 11, massive by our standards, though dwarfed by the Capitol's skyscrapers. I know because I've been there and seen them.
I push my way through a group of young Peacekeepers leaving a side door. They're wearing the mandated minimum for Peacekeepers, off duty uniforms, looser fits of the grays and greens. A few of them scowl at me as the rest shove on by, refusing to acknowledge a native, despite my slightly taller than average frame. Peacekeepers don't generally care for residents of our district. I count as nothing more than a resident, even though I was appointed to my job by the Capitol.
The guard at the door recognizes me, yet still demands to see paperwork documenting my responsibilities, duties which permit me access to the Main Office. Stepping through the doorway, I immediately hike the heavy equipment bag down a maze of hallways, passing more checkpoints, finally arriving at a sublevel stairwell which leads down to the Office's foundation.
I spent two years being educated in a sequestered section of Capitol City. It was a designated a university with a special program for those district residents specially selected. As a teenager, my testing showed high aptitude for comprehension and problem solving so I was required to apply for special training. My assignment was structural engineer, a new post in District 11, created by the Capitol.
Most of the buildings in Three Corners were built well before the Dark Days, seventy some odd years ago. During the rebellion, many of the structures had been damaged and only superficial maintenance had been carried out. The Capitol doesn't want to spend any more resources on the districts than necessary, so even the Peacekeeper building was subject to inspection and repair, rather than replacement. My job is to inspect, identify possible problems, and repair all of the Capitol's stone-facade buildings.
The sublevel is a more traditional grid work of rooms, dissimilar to the maze-complex on the above-ground levels. I pass by several classrooms, a number of large storage warehouses, a close-quarters firing range, and a massive gym.
Finally, I arrive in a great atrium with an open view of circular balconies all around the floors above. Twelve massive pillars are spaced in an enormous circle around the expanse, reaching to the roof, thinning ever so slightly near their peaks. The gigantic, stone columns are secured to a steel lattice concealed within and holding up the roof.
Granite and faux stone was all the rage among Panem's architects a hundred years ago when the government erected these buildings. The structures I looked at in the Capitol were superficially very different. On the other hand, the general engineering principles remain the same. With an echoing thud, the equipment bag dully hits the floor and my fingers stretch to open fully.
I haven't analyzed these pillars before. Most of the past two decades I spent working on the Justice Building, and could probably spend the next decade just restoring that structure, if it weren't too difficult to work there. My breath sighs out again, as my hands set about this task.
It only takes moments to assemble the crawler around the first pillar. Just a few screws and then attach the power pack and it's ready to climb. That is, it's ready if my batteries got enough charge while the electric was on last night for an hour. District 11 only has its power come on for a short period each evening, if that. Sometimes the power is out for a few days, almost as if the Capitol just forgets to flip on the switch now and then. I would rather not charge the batteries on the much more consistent flow of electricity that the Capitol grants the government buildings.
A faint light on the battery glows green; ready to go. I draw out a few dozen feet of power wire and lay the cable to the side. With a number command on a keypad, the crawler comes to life. The apparatus is simple: eight aluminum pipes with rubber wheels mounted on the inside. Telescopic struts extend until the wheels equalize pressure against the pillar and then ground-penetrating radar starts to hum quietly and the whole mechanism begins an agonizingly slow crawl up the pillar.
A typical cycle for the crawler takes around two minutes per foot of pillar, and this reading will only go halfway up. The memory chip in the crawler will run out of room so I will have to bring the device down to replace the chip. For now I decide to pour over copies of the floor plans that I have seen hundreds of times before.
Almost immediately, my focus fades. The quiet morning is getting to me. Back at the Justice Building was where it happened, on a fresh spring day when our agriculture countryside district was coming to life.
Mason was still ecstatic over his nineteenth birthday and had left early to install rigging for a scheduled replacement of several steel girders in the roof of that enormous, temple-like building. He went to work early whenever he could so we could occasionally quit early.
There was a crowd around the building that day when I got there. Peacekeepers had established a line across the wide front steps. As I was pushing my way through the throng of people, a Captain of the local Peacekeepers singled me out immediately, although I had never met him before. His face is fuzzy from that day. I really doubt I saw it. My mind probably fills in those details from later memories. All I remember is seeing my son's crumpled form was sprawled on the steps, crushed from the force of momentum and gravity.
I'm jerked back to the present when something hits my hand. The skin is damp with a lonely teardrop; another has stained the dusty ink, blotchy on a spot of the Main Office floor plans. My expression hadn't changed on my face, despite my weeping eyes.
I roll up the plans and dab my face with a shirt sleeve, swallowing the lump in my throat. It's doubtful anyone will care to notice me since I'm always in one of these buildings doing something that looks like engineering, for all anyone knows. Still, I would rather not be seen mourning nine full months after Mason's burial. It feels like just yesterday.
With concerted effort, I manage to center on the present and check where the crawler is; about six feet up from the floor, so far. This is going to be a long day, but tomorrow will be even longer. Mason had just escaped his last reaping when he died. My sister, Hannah, has a line six of children about to fall subject to the raffle. Rue, my oldest niece, turned twelve a month after Mason's fall. She sang a heartbreakingly beautiful song at his burial…
Hannah and Marek have been terrified for Rue especially because she took out six tesserae on her twelfth birthday. Meyla and I were so stricken with grief for our departed son, it never occurred to either of us to increase the sum of money we give the Amaranth family each month. We hardly need quite as much as I earn, without the expense of a child. Meyla and I were mortified to discover Rue's monthly exchange; low-grade grain and thin oil for six extra entries in the reaping, worsening her odds in the drawing.
One of the rolls of floor plans tears as I cram them back into the bag. The crawler is only nine feet up. Maybe an hour left to go before the chip fills up. I decide to walk up to the crawl space where the girders are concealed and see if I can at least refresh my mind. My flashlight glares off the polished pillar, confirming that it works until my finger presses the button again.
A few minutes walk and I'm back on the first floor, moving through the Main Office, avoiding areas where the guards would give me a hard time. Probably half of the building is off limits to without a work order designating specific times of work and a mandatory Peacekeeper escort to ensure that I stick to the order. I choose to sneak through back hallways I know only from repetitive poring over the layout.
"Good to see you inside, Kip." Captain Volente Covas' voice stops me short and I turn to see that I have just walked past his office, its maw of a door gaping open. Covas is ensconced behind his paperwork-laden desk, eyes to the grind stone. Did he see me in his peripheral vision? Covas has very good vision.
I step barely inside, nervously. Unlit candles adorn the shelves, as if the Peacekeepers would ever be denied power. The paint on the walls could use a thorough cleaning and repainting, a sickly brownish gray. I must have hesitated for a second because Covas' gruff voice calls out again, "Kip, how're things?"
"Alright, Vol... I guess." A plain lie. Life is a lie in Panem. We each wear it like an overcoat that's too snug, except we smile and pretend it's a perfect fit.
Covas at last sets down his pen and gazes at me, his robust frame leaning against the armrest of his chair. He has a nose bent from some long-ago break; Peacekeeping with violence sometimes draws backlash. His dark brown hair has faded to silver streaks here and there and crow's feet pinch beside his shrewd eyes.
"Good to see you inside for a change. It'll be getting cold soon." I spent recent months analyzing the exterior of the Peacekeeper's Office. It wasn't the warm weather that encouraged me to finish my exterior analysis. It was a coercive desire to stay out of this wretched, polished interior as long as possible.
My shoulders shrug rigidly. "Yeah, change is nice."
Covas nods thoughtfully, as though he understands what I mean. This is the part we all have to play, even the Capitol's dutiful engineer. Covas slightly arches his bushy eyebrows with almost genuine compassion. "How's your wife? She doing alright?"
You've torn her life apart! I want to blurt out. Since birth we are raised to be careful in what we say. A simple loose tongue in District 11 can bring down hard punishment and even vigilante repercussion from the Peacekeepers.
Thoughts race uncontrollably through my mind. You should have investigated more, talked to the people who watched my son fall, should have at least been honest about the whole tragedy, the murder. My better sense wins out and I decide to play the sympathy card since he's already offered it to me. "She's... Well, you know there's no... easiness, anymore. It's still hard. It probably always will be." I notice my fingers nervously fidgeting with the bulky, metal flashlight. I will them to stop.
Covas leans his elbow on the armrest and his hand against his cheek. He takes his time to reply, staring at me unblinking, and trying to see through my words. "Mason was a good kid."
My ears burn and I know my eyes are glaring at him. There's nothing I can do to stop my reaction. Covas was drawing me out. He had probably never heard of my son before he arrived at the scene as the principle detective assigned to investigate the case, the case he summarily closed upon discovering a Peacekeeper was the logical suspect. Covas declared the fall an accident only a few hours after personally dragging me away from the stone staircase. His only redeeming quality was that his firm hand had left me with a just few fleeting images of my son's broken body upon the Justice Building's granite stairs. Covas may have seen my son alive a few times. He never talked to him at all, or to me before the "accident".
Concern washes over me. Subconsciously, my mind urges me to explode, to vent my feelings honestly, grasping for the emotional satisfaction that I can convince myself such a release would bring. Instead, I look away from Covas and close my eyes, focusing all my effort on regulating my breathing until I can manage a few curt words. "Yes. Yes, he was."
Covas got the rise out of me that he was looking for so he changes the subject. "Listen, Kip. We should have dinner sometime. It might be nice to get to know you a little better."
Definitely prying. My eyes settle on the older man as I shrug. "Why not? Could learn something, right?"
"You never know what you might learn. Bring the wife too, why don't you? It's good to see you." Covas leans forward to his paper work, his eyes cemented on me.
"You to, Vol." Months ago he insisted I call him Vol, saying that even the junior Peacekeepers get away with it once in a while. Just sounds like a field rat to me, which frankly, suits Volente Covas just fine.
Hustling away from the Captain's office, I grit my teeth to regain my composure. As I round a corner to a wide stairwell, a large group of Peacekeepers approach from another direction. The timing couldn't be worse. If Covas hadn't bothered me I would have been long gone by this time. They curve into the stairwell, also. There's barely enough room for the whole pack to ascend as one mass, yet right in the middle of the pack is Jura Penrose.
Someone had pointed him out to me once, one of the witnesses who privately swore that she saw Penrose push Mason from the scaffold, sixty feet up. Mason didn't slip at all. He had worked on scaffold for a decade and never once fell.
Two people who were in the plaza at the time it happened told me what they saw; thinking similar testimony to Covas would be part of the official investigation. Mason was working near the top of the scaffold when he turned to the plaza and waved to someone far below. Jura Penrose, contempt on his face, leaned out a window and bumped Mason's calves with his side. Before Penrose stood up on the scaffold Mason had plunged halfway down.
Penrose doesn't notice me like the rest of the Peacekeepers. The current of bodies propels me up the stairs, ever nearer to my son's murderer. Suddenly panicked, I shoulder my way through the bunch to the edge of the staircase and lean against the railing as the young enlistees pass. The stifling atmosphere draws my breath short with a claustrophobia I almost never experience.
A Peacekeeper near the back glances quizzically. I point down the staircase. "I lost my way." The kid rolls his eyes and continues up the stairs. Yes, the structural engineer can't figure out where he's going. "Genius cover, Kip," I mutter, shaking my head.
After a minute of waiting, I resume my hike up the stairs. Working here, surrounded by Peacekeepers who despise District 11, might not be that much better than working in the Justice Building. At the top of the stairs, a narrow door provides access to another small set of stairs through which I access the crawlspace above the top floor. I'm halfway up those stairs before the feeling of claustrophobia vacates my skeleton.
Dust pervades the stale air since ventilation in this buffer zone was never considered necessary, nor lighting. I click on the flashlight and swing the beam around the vast space to make sure I remember it correctly. It's really not a crawlspace at all. That's just the proper term. I can stand fully upright with a dozen feet to spare and walk along steel girders which are covered with wide walkway boards.
With the complete absence of walls, the pace is quick and in moments I'm at the massive steel hub that is supported by the twelve columns, massive stone cylinders stalagmiting up from the sublevel basement. Sliding just a few boards aside gives me a good view to examine the hub's joint with one of the pillars. Deep red rust absorbs the milky blue pallor from the flashlight and lower than that, the faux granite glued on to the base of the steel hub is covered with settled grit.
As far as I can see, some grinding and rust-sealing paint may be all that's necessary. Also some dusting, except that's not a job for an engineer. Visual inspections on something this massive are mostly a waste. If time or stress damage from the Dark Days had taken any sort of real toll on such a main support for the building, it probably would entirely fail. It would certainly implode much more quickly than a routine inspection would catch, much less have an opportunity to do anything about impending catastrophe.
If the hub were to be found deficient or failing, the Main Office would certainly be evacuated and the men would be bunked into other buildings such as my house. The residents of Three Corners would all be thrown out into the streets without recompense. And even with an empty building, I don't have the equipment or logistical manpower to repair or replace something like this. Many girders and beams can't be replaced by one person with the equipment I have been granted. A large team would have to be dispatched from the Capitol to refit a new hub, taking probably months to organize and months more to complete.
Everyone, not just the Capitol's toady Peacekeeper force, everyone would be infuriated with me. Scipio is right. Things are precarious as can be. I'm not the only one on the edge of an abyss.