Hey everybody, I'm an old SYOT writer with a new account, and I decided for the heck of it that I'd give another one of these bad boys a shot over the summer. I don't know if anybody's even still into SYOTs, but if you are, it'd be awesome if you'd submit! Or not, it's up to you. Whatever you decide, here's an introductory chapter to get the ball rolling. More info will be at the bottom author's note. Have a good one!

Prologue, Part One

Celeukos "Cell" Callas, 38

Peacekeeper, District Five

"Orders just came in," says Matrix, sliding into place beside me. "We're to give this man the full package. Interrogation, intimidation. Terror tactics, no doubt." She rubs her gloved hands together. "They think he's the one behind the graffiti."

I crush my cigarette between my thumb and forefinger. The heat is almost painful. "Name?"

"Vector Vasquez," she says.

"Shit," I say.

She looks at me sideways. "You know him," she says. It is not a question.

I lean against the lamppost until it digs into the spot between my shoulderblades that is impossible to reach. "Knew him," I tell her, scanning the street, fiddling with a button on my uniform. "Used to be neighbors. Guy was always a wackjob." Ash drips from my fingertips.

Matrix sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. "We can switch out on this one."

I jerk away from the lamppost; dig the sole of my boot into the concrete. "Nah. It was a long time ago." I scratch at the stubble on my chin. I should shave. "He probably doesn't remember me."

The amber light from above glows warmly on her cheekbones. "If you say so," says Matrix. "I'll allow it, Cell, but I'm not sure I like it." She glances to her right, where Kidd is slouched on the ground against the base of the lamppost in what is surely an attempt to chastise or humiliate us. "What do you think, Kidd?" she says, to the back of Kidd's head. "Should we switch out? Cell used to know this man."

Kidd lets her head swing slowly back, auburn bangs in disarray over her sweating forehead, and she says, "If he can't handle it, we can switch out." Her voice is low and disrespectful. She makes eye contact with me and doesn't look away for long seconds. She is limp and dangerous.

"I can handle it," I tell the air in between them. "It doesn't matter to me. It's a job."

Matrix presses her hands against her thighs and nods. "That's settled, then," she says. "Come on, Kidd." It's not a direct order, not really, but I can see the corners of Kidd's mouth twitching, her eyes adopting that familiar uncanny bulge. She clambers to her feet, the moment passes, she is herself again. As she presses the heel of her palm against her temple she takes a moment to glare flatly at Matrix, who rears back when she realizes the mistake. "I apologize, Kidd," says Matrix, "I forgot that your conditioning might construe that as an order. My mistake."

Kidd's nostrils flare. "Every word out of your mouth is an order," she says, in her measured way. "As my handler I figured that was something you'd remember."

"Cool it, Kidd," I snap, waving a hand in her direction. "It's not Matrix's fault that you betrayed your country."

Her eyes are grey and cold. "No, of course not," she says. "That was my choice." Again she forces the heel of her palm against her temple. "If it makes you any happier," she continues, "I more than paid for that decision."

Matrix clears her throat. "Shall we go on?" she says, glancing between me and Kidd. "The sun's setting."

"Sure," I tell her, and fall into step at her side. Kidd trails behind us, for all the world like an insolent child dragging its feet. In moments like these it's almost possible to forget what's been done to her, how they've scooped out her free will and replaced it with slavish, unconscious devotion to Matrix's every word. It is the kind of responsibility that only a person like Matrix might deserve, handling this person, this Kidd, this Smiler.

Smiler. It's an ugly name for these traitors, conditioned and shackled as they are. But it serves. And Smilers, at the very least, are much more useful than the Avoxes of antiquity.

I grunt, shake the hair out of my eyes, and fumble in a pocket of my uniform for a cigarette. My grasping fingers rasp up against unyielding cloth; I'm out. "Figures," I mumble.

We walk in silence. My footfalls feel unwieldy in my stiff new boots; the socks on my feet are swollen with sweat. Sunset streaks over District Five and cuts at our eyes with sharp orange aggression. I blink away tears and stare down the long thoroughfare at the people emerging from the electric plants, the people with their bent backs and dirty clothes and furtive glances. There is talk, but it is muted, and when we get close enough it dies away completely. Perhaps that's for the best.

I turn a corner and I am a child again. It feels like a punch in the gut. I slow to a stop and squint down at the block I grew up on, stare at the house where I was born and molded. Matrix pauses at my side and reaches for my arm before seemingly reconsidering and pulling away. "This is your old home," she guesses instead. "It's… it's nice, Cell."

"Nice is a word for it," I say. The houses are tightly-packed and dilapidated, with sloped crumbling roofs and windows so glass-thick that they are opaque. I realize, with a stab of disorientation, that I am not quite sure which one of them is mine, so strong is the similarity between them. Third from the right, I remember, and am relieved.

"He's in the seventh from the left." I find myself pointing at the offending house, with its dusty windows and crumbling doorframe. "He used to bring extra dough to my mother sometimes when he could," I add to myself, under my breath. "Not a bad man."

"Do you want Kidd to take point?" asks Matrix, staring ahead with the clinical focus of a bird of prey.

I toss my head. "No," I tell them, stepping forward. My uniform strains around me as I crack my knuckles. Each one is an illicit thrill. If you keep that up your hands will stop working someday, my mother warned in my childhood. I would crack them all the same. My hands still work fine.

I pause in front of the door, shift my weight, and drive the sole of my boot into the center. The door crumples like foil and I drop into a crouch, scanning the room beyond. I remember the dust, the old table in the corner, the couch with the shape and consistency of a handful of congealed milk. The room is plagued by shadow and the swirling dust is almost oppressive, but I can see him at the table, straightening out of a slump, both hands flat at his sides. He peers at me, blinks once or twice, and moves to stand, saying "Celeukos? Could that be you?" as he does.

Without much hesitation I swing my revolver from its holster and drop to one knee. "Vector Vasquez," I say, although I don't need the confirmation. "Get on the ground."

He stands for a moment; then he falls. As I get to my feet Kidd and Matrix file into the room through the ruined door, each stirring up swirls and waterfalls of dust as they do. Matrix coughs into her hand, Kidd covers her mouth and nose with the crook of her elbow, and both squint through the dust at the man facedown on the floor.

"Vector Vasquez," says Matrix, recovering from her short coughing fit, "We came here on suspicion of your propagation of illicit materials and symbols in the form of graffiti. To this end we intend on determining whether or not these suspicions are based in truth." She jerks her head, and Kidd and I respond to the unspoken command and gather up Vector's arms, hauling him to his feet.

He hangs between us on limp feet. He is not particularly heavy. At once he cranes his head towards me, fights to meet my eyes. "Celeukos," he says, "A Peacekeeper, you can't have done, your poor mother wou—"

Kidd grabs a fistful of his hair, tugs his head back until his bare trembling neck is exposed. "That's enough," she says. Her voice lacks any particular venom. Kidd might have been conditioned for her job, but no one conditioned her to enjoy it. Whether that was a mercy or a cruelty depends entirely on her own perception of the matter. I've never asked.

"You know what to do, Kidd," says Matrix, and as she nods I release Vector's arm and pull myself away from him. The sound of my feet against the cobbled floor reminds me of the sound of my father's heavy footfalls, before he was gone. Everything my childhood, all gone. He was one of the first to go.

I push past his rickety table and scan the kitchen. There. Black paint dribbles from the corner of the sink like a line of blood from an open vein. I swipe a fingertip in it to confirm, bring it to my nose. Definitely paint. Above the sink is a row of cabinets. I tear one open. Buckets of paint line the shelf, all opened, all dribbling color. I snort, swing the cabinet shut with a flick of my wrist, and turn to look at my partners. Through the dust they are vague silhouettes.

I return. "Paint," I tell them, jabbing a thumb in its direction. "Don't know what he'd be doing with paint if it wasn't graffiti."

In Kidd's grip Vector begins to tremble. So it was you, I think, remembering the mockingjays scrawled over various electric plants, the inflammatory "Down With the Hunger Games! Death to the President! Long Live Elise Janssen!" scrawled in blood red on the Justice Building, dripping onto the street below.

Matrix tilts her head back. "Alright, Cell," she says, "Work him a bit."

He turns to me. "Celeukos," he begins, his tone wheedling, his eyes desperate. "Don't—"

I hit him, closed fist, square on the nose. One hit and I feel it snap under my knuckles, feel the warm blood squirting out over his upper lip. He squirms, yelps, pulls back as far as Kidd's grip on his arm allows.

I hit him again. The throat this time. It knocks the breath out of him. It's a blow that feels like death. Tears spring to his eyes and he clutches at his neck with his free hand, bowing like a reed, and as he does I wind back and kick him in the stomach. He reels, curls into a tighter ball, spits bloody foam onto the ground. I reach down and grab a fistful of hair, dragging him back upright, digging my fingers into his scalp.

"Elise Janssen," says Matrix. "Do you know her?"

At once he begins to shake his head, sweat flying from the ends of his short hair with every shake. "No! N-no!" he blubbers, "We never met, I have nothing to do with the Underground, never even met any of them—"

Kidd's lip has curled back. I wonder how long it took to break her. Maybe she remained steadfast until they cut her skull open. Until they Smiled her. I wouldn't be surprised. In any event, seeing this man breaking so easily must revolt her.

Before Matrix can prompt me, I move behind Vector and grasp his skull in both of my hands, thumbs up against the corners of his eyes. "I'll pop your eyeballs out," I tell him, "With my thumbs. I've done it before."

As Vector screams and squeals and repeats that he doesn't know anything about the Underground, never met any of them, Matrix moves close enough to him that every breath she exhales blows the hair on his forehead back. "We're going to kill you," she says, as he sobs, "Unless you can give us some useful information." She straightens up, drums a hand against her hip. "We were directed to you by information leaked by one of your coworkers," she says, "Who saw the paint on your uniforms. He was barely interrogated and he spilled everything." She steeples her finger in front of her nose and rocks back on her heels. "There's no need to die for this," she coaxes, "If you know anything at all, you might as well just say. No one has any loyalty to you." Her eyes flicker to me, and back to him. "Celeukos doesn't," she says. "Your coworker didn't. You are utterly alone."

I press down lightly with my thumbs and Vector whines. "P-please," he gasps, "I—I don't know, read my mind, can't you do that, can't you see that I'm telling the truth, please!"

Matrix raises an eyebrow. "Regardless," she says, pacing back and forth, three steps in either direction before a sharp swivel, "The graffiti alone is an offence punishable by death." She shakes her head. "Elise Janssen is a traitor to our country," she says, picking at something underneath a fingernail. "And until she is apprehended, the Hunger Games will continue. The longer she lives, the more our children suffer. If you abhor the Hunger Games as much as you claim, you should pray for her death."

Vector's lower lip trembles. "You could stop them whenever you want," he says, pulling against Kidd's grip, "The Underground'll never give up Elise, the Games don't have to keep happening, they can stop—"

"For the Games to stop, Janssen must die, and the Underground must be dissolved," says Matrix. "It's necessary for the safety of this country. Surely you can understand." I flex my fingers against Vector's face, and his eyes roll in their sockets. "When the Underground is finished the Games will be disbanded. That is the promise our President has made to the Districts."

Vector's mouth opens and closes. Again his eyes roll towards mine. "Celeukos," he says, in a whisper, "I don't know anything, I swear, I don't have anything to tell you about, I'm not lying—"

I press my gloved thumb against his sclera, he howls, and with a violent twist he tears himself away from me and Kidd and drops onto hands and knees on the cobbles, clutching the short blunt knife he's managed to wrestle from his clothes. I reach for my gun and Matrix pulls away from him with a shout. And, as usual, the both of us are too slow.

Before I can raise the gun, before Matrix even pulls hers from its holster, Kidd has lurched after Vector and wrestled him to the ground, grasping at the knife with fingers that know no pain, even as they are cut and sliced. When he spits in her face she dips her head down and pulls away a moment later with a scrap of flesh caught between her grinning white teeth. And she is grinning. The last hallmark of a Smiler, the origin of the name, that hysterical lip-tearing grin, those bulging bloodshot eyes—she's wearing them both, as she does whenever Matrix gives her an order. It's a compulsion that, of yet, has not been cured in them. They follow orders, they Smile.

In the dim light Kidd is frenetic and inhuman. Her smile grows when she darts down and tears more flesh with her white bared teeth. I can see the hysteria in her grin, know from her own account that the compulsion can be agonizing, that she's torn the corners of her lips from Smiling many times. I imagine the terror of seeing that bloody grimacing face over my own, those haunted bulging eyes. Vector howls underneath Kidd, closes his eyes, looks away as she finally wrests his knife from his hand and grasps it between both of her palms.

I look away, across the room, so similar to my childhood home, while the thud of Kidd caving in Vector's skull with his own dull knife beats wetly into my brain. The dust displaces as Matrix sidles up to my side and puts a hand on the crook of my elbow. "I'm sorry," she says, while Vector screams. "This can't have been easy."

"Don't be," I tell her, as something splatters against the back of my boot. "He was a traitor. Long live Panem." My temples buzz with pain. My eyes ache. "Happy Hunger Games."

Behind us, with great finality, Vector stops screaming.

How was it? I hope it wasn't trash. Anyway, if you want to submit to the story, check out my profile where the submission form and available spots will both be found. To submit, please PM me the form. If you review it I'll delete it because I think reviewed forms are illegal and will then come down upon me with the long arm of the law and delete my story, which would be a real bummer. If you don't feel like submitting, thanks for reading this far regardless! Toodles for now, friends.

~Fisher