It took me a few moments to register that the lights flashing before my eyes weren't a sign of my imminent demise, but were instead a sign of solidarity faintly emanating from the fingertips of the young Chinese-American woman standing on the other side of the thick bullet-proof glass from me.

"It h-hurts... like h-hell..." Jubilation Lee gritted her teeth through the pain inflicted by the inhibitor collar, "But... if you... try h-hard enough... They s-still work..."

She continued straining - the light casting back on her features with an eerie glow - and watched me expectantly.

I realized what she was waiting for.

I held my fingers up to the glass so she could see them, and I focused my thoughts on the power - the 'gift', the curse - running through my veins. My mutation, which normally manifested itself reflexively; I'd never really had to think about it before.

A sharp stabbing pain suddenly shot into the base of my neck and down my spine.

"It's o-k-kay..." She whispered hoarsely, as I winced and jerked against the sensation. "You c-can do it... B-Bobby..."

My brain hollered at me to stop, stop, please just stop. I ignored it as best I could, fighting back, willing my body to do what it knew it could do.

And that's when a few rogue ice crystals prickled out from my fingertips.

But I couldn't take it any longer. I had to stop.

The water-formerly-known-as-ice trailed down my hand, complemented by a few stray and salty drops that leaked out from the corners of my eyes.

Jubilee lowered her hand then, but I saw a faint smile on her lips before the darkness again swallowed everything up.

"So... You're an elemental..." She said, contemplating. "That's... pretty cool."

I huffed out a laugh. "Not a very good one though, by that sorry little display."

"Are you kidding me?" She huffed back. "You've seen what I can do, and I've had way more practice than you... I mean, I've been in solitary confinement for, like, 10 hours..."

Of course. She was the mutant tribute from California. Their reaping in downtown Los Angeles had kicked everything off at 6:30 on Saturday night, and then it was almost a half-day trip by train to Portland, for Oregon's reaping.

My reaping. Where my reaping took place.

"You'll be hanging icicles before we even get to Seattle." She lamented aloud, and I could hear her weight drop down onto her own thin bed mattress.

As if on cue, the train lurched into motion. And that was it.

Goodbye, life. I won't be coming back.

I stretched out on my bed and sighed.

"You can cry if you want to... I won't tell anybody." Jubilation said after a few moments of silence. "...Huh, I guess that's another advantage to being the first in your train car."

"What's that?"

"Nobody sees you being weak... I mean, unless you're already blubbering when Emma Frost reads your name out on stage. Then you're pretty much screwed."

I hadn't really thought of it like that. Here I was, just going along for the ride - albeit the worst ride of my life... But Ms. Jubilation Lee obviously had been thinking and practicing strategy since the cameras found her in the crowd. Maybe long before that.

"I wonder how I looked..." I started thinking now about all the stats from the past five years, about how the tributes that lasted the longest in the Games were always the ones who racked up the most sponsors - from the very beginning.

"Mm... Stunned, a bit sleepy..." Jubilation admitted, then explained, "There's a projector thingy in here. It showed the official feed of your reaping. I guess we're gonna see everyone's."

"Another advantage of being first..." I suggested dryly.

The official coverage of the reapings and the Games themselves was practically mandatory viewing - as it was covered by every media outlet anyway, it was almost impossible to escape - but I had always looked the other way during the reapings; muted the TV, or took a week off sick from the firm where I worked. It was always bad enough watching the Games themselves; I never had the stomach for the survivor's guilt from seeing and hearing all the back-stories and the buildup in the weeks leading into the main event. The less I knew about the mutants killing each other on-screen, the easier it was to detach, pretend it was just television.

But now it was my reality.

"Hey, I wouldn't worry..." Jubilation continued her train of thought. "You'll totally get some interest from your reaping footage..."

"...Really?" I tried to think back on what was all just a blur. I couldn't remember doing anything that would excite anyone to put cash on my life.

"Uh, duh. Beautiful wife yelling out your name, holding your adorbs little baby... They'll be replaying that every time your name gets mentioned." She sighed wistfully. "Everyone will want to bring you home to your family in one piece."

Opal.

"Aw man..." I groaned. "Except none of that's true. She's just my girlfriend... And... her son..."

"He looked just like you." Jubilation said quietly.

"I know, but..." I shrugged in the darkness. It was complicated.

"Omigosh... They're not X-Genes, are they."

"...No." Neither Opal nor her son were mutants. It was definitely complicated.

I heard Jubilee sit up on her bed; I could feel her staring at me. "But she knew, right...? Before you got reaped?"