Chapter Two – Launch

"'Truly,' says Cinna. He leans down and kisses me on the forehead. 'Good luck, girl on fire.' And then a glass cylinder is being lowered around me, breaking our handhold, cutting him off from me. He taps his fingers under his chin. Head high."
Katniss, Chapter 10, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.

~oOo~ ~oOo~ ~oOo~

Athenin's beautiful, gentle voice breaks the silence. "Tributes, prepare for launch."

This is the one and only time Athenin will address the tributes. Her message is broadcast on our radios as well as over the ceiling intercoms in the Launch Rooms. For the tributes and their handlers it is their moment for good-byes. For us it is our notice to get ready. In one minute the Games will begin.

Vic and I hurry to our tribute's launch tube. Around us the other teams are doing the same. Vic undoes the restraining latches, fiddling with them in his nervousness, and opens the tube's pair of blast shutters. I move to my left in order to stand on my mark. I am to stand at this station, about a third of the way around the edge of the tube from him, and not move. Each of us can see into the black tube through the two opened view portals.

"Forty-five seconds," says Athenin.

From here out, Athenin's communications are only with the teams. Because there are forty-eight radios engaged in this single large chamber, her multiplied voice radiates seemingly from all points. I hear a sea of voices, all hers, rising and falling as she speaks. In my listening to her in these moments, through all our practice rounds, I have wondered if this is what a host of angels sounds like.

"Forty seconds," she says.

Vic looks over at me. I can see how frightened he is by his body language and shallow breaths. I grab his left hand in my right and don't let go. The seconds move on but in slow motion.

Jenn mouths "Good luck!" to me and Vic.

"Thirty seconds."

I remember this moment from a year ago and then again from two years ago. This is my third time to stand here, awaiting the start. It is Vic's first. I once felt like Vic, knowing the procedures but not knowing how it was going to feel like when the practice rounds ended and the real event arrived.

Arieson's rough voice takes over. "Twenty seconds."

I swing Vic's hand in mine. I keep looking over at him and fear he's going to pass out. Vic is so sweet, but he's very impressionable and I'm worried he's not cut out for this.

The glass lining within the launch tube starts to descend. We can hear its vibrations against the launch tube's steel outer shell. The top of the glass cylinder slides down below our two portals, and soon thereafter I catch the smell within of fresh paint and a hint of the outdoors above. I ponder that I could extend my free hand through the portal and into the tube. I could even drop something on my tribute's head, were I so inclined.

Then the vibration noise stops. The glass lining has come down around our tribute. Just below us, out of sight, she is standing within it on her steel launch pad.

"Fifteen seconds."

The ascent begins. The top of the glass comes back up and covers over the inside of our view portals. A light within the tube, on the far side from me and Vic, comes on. It is an odd light; I've never understood it. Somehow, although all appears dark to the tribute, we can see her.

I give Vic's hand a squeeze.

"Ten seconds."

She appears. Our tribute rises from head to foot before us, propelled upwards by the plate she is standing on. For a brief second I am face to face with her, although she cannot see me. I will never be this close to her again. She is radiant. Her eyes pass level with mine. I wish I could meet her, but it is not possible. She will never know me. And I'll never know even as much as her name.

She, my tribute, stares with dilated pupils at the darkness before her, her face set with fear and uncertainty. Yet I am dazzled by everything about her. Her hair is combed and clean. It glows in shades of red, lit by the tube's odd lighting. Her face is unblemished. Her tunic fits snug about her, everything about it has been crafted for her.

A realization hits me. I have risen into this arena on these launch pads. I have spent days running through its woods and fields, a tracker inserted in my arm. I've climbed trees to retrieve entangled silver parachutes. I've helped place and check hundreds of cameras and microphones. I've helped paint the podiums that sit atop these launch tubes. I've spent weeks underground, tuning my ability to serve as a tracker. My training to do these things runs back three years, back to when I was first brought here at the age of twelve. Here, I am comfortable.

But I have never been her. I've never been reaped and carried away to the Capital with only three minutes to sum up all things with my family. I've never been paraded about, preened by stylists, and interviewed before a throng of thousands. I've never been launched into an arena where I would be left to face the prospect of meeting an imminent and gruesome death. I've never had to face others who have trained for this event and would be willing and able to cut me to ribbons. Yet, all of that is happening to her – right now.

So what am I? What is she? I am unwashed and unknown. She is a portrait of beauty and carrying the hopes of a district. My throat contracts in reaction to what I am thinking. The horror of her situation comes to me as it never has before. This is my third time to be standing here. Have I grown? Have I grown so as to encounter this line of thinking whereas I never thought of such before? Am I the fool for being here? Perhaps it is I who deserves to be on that lift... what am I worth?

I snap back to the present but with a looming foreboding of shame that is not going to leave me.

Her arms and hands are rising to our eye level. Vic and I perform our role of checking her hands. If we see any hint of an object, we are to radio a notice. But she is clean. The silence around us indicates that none of the other teams have seen anything amiss with their tributes.

I struggle to put on hold the thoughts in my mind.

I cried last year and the year before when each time my tribute ran into the melee and didn't come out. I cried because I wasn't going to get to be a real tracker. My tribute was dead and so my task was over. Relieved of duty, I returned my equipment and was herded off to assist with the many other elements of these Games. But I had cried buckets. I had cried and cried, but it was all for me. All my training and expectations were blown up in the instant my assigned tribute perished.

Today, though, that memory puts me in shame. Before, I was young, a child. At this moment I'm looking at somebody who is very much alive, and I find myself alarmed and frightened for her. I am nothing; I face that. Yet this girl, likely the same age as me, is being sent to her death. I clench my mouth so as not to scream.

Soon her legs and boots are rising passed us. We check the plate itself as this too lifts up to our eye level. There is nothing on it except her; she hasn't placed anything here that she could have at the ready as soon as her ascent finishes. Again, the silence in the chamber tells me that all the other tributes are clean.

And then she is out of sight. I will likely never see her again. From here on she will be a blip on the orange tracker screen I wear on my waist belt. And the flowing readout of her bio meters will continue non-stop in green on the monitor I wear next to it.

This time Vic squeezes my hand. I look over at him. I see he's reading my face and not seeing the normal confident me.

"Zero," announces Arieson's voice.

The lifts have all stopped. The twenty-four tributes are standing above us on their raised platforms, unable to move for the next sixty seconds. All of Panem is watching. Us, their tracking crews, are likely the only ones in the entire country who are not.

A new voice, one we all know, booms on our speakers: "Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!" It is Claudius Templesmith. His designated Hunger Games' title is Hermeson; however, nobody calls him that. To all he is lovable, ageless Claudius.

Now the second sixty-second countdown begins. This is the one the rest of the world knows.

I put all I've been thinking about on hold.

As we have done dozens of times in practice rounds, we switch off our radios and devices. The twenty-four trackers back off, away from the launch tubes and into the nearest tunnel. Our valet comrades work at closing the blast shutters on their respective launch tubes. They move as quickly as possible, knowing they must firmly and properly secure the blast shutters. As each finishes, they too back away and join us in the tunnel entrances.

"Forty-five seconds!" Yells Orcusin. I spy her standing alone in very middle of the main chamber. She is holding a stop watch and will count down the seconds for us. "Trackers," she growls, "you must have your radios and monitors turned off."

We have been told how, several years ago, a tribute blew herself up during this crucial first minute of the Games. She errantly dropped something and triggered one of the mines that surrounded her platform. And once one of the mines about her base exploded, they all did. For the viewers it was a spectacular blast - a geyser of fire and dirt, plus the remains of one unlucky tribute. But what was never shown on television was the effect it had to the catacombs and the trackers. The force and concussion of the blast deafened or maimed nearly everyone. It must have been brutal. So far today I've survived a gunshot in this enclosed chamber. I cannot imagine what the effect of exploding mines would be.

Urgently I pull Vic into the tunnel when he reaches me. His hands are sweaty and he's a little surprised by how hard I pull him to me.

"Let's hope she runs away from the bloodbath," he whispers.

"Thirty seconds!" Yells Orcusin.

"Yes, I do too," I answer. He doesn't know how much I wish that. But this year it's for her, my tribute, and not me.

We are forced to wait; there is nothing else we can do.

Because of what happened to that unlucky tribute and the detonation's effects on the catacombs, precautions were put into place. That is why we all have to wait in the tunnels. And so as to protect our sensitive radios and tracking monitors, they must be switched off. Anyone who leaves them on or turns them back on too soon risks punishment. Nobody wants to see more of that today.

I imagine my tribute, the beautiful girl I saw. She was so close to me for those brief seconds. I imagine her now: She's standing still on her platform, getting used to the daylight, looking at her surroundings, looking at the other tributes, eying the cornucopia and scanning all the weapons and supplies scattered before her. Fear must be running through every cell of her being.

"Fifteen seconds!" yells Orcusin.

My fingers are at my belt, holding my monitors. Please run!

"Ten!... Nine... Keep those radios off everybody!"

"Five!"

Vic moves around behind me.

"Three... Two... One... Go!"

I jerk the on/off toggles on both of my monitors. They glow to life. They are my lifeline to my tribute. Her blip is already moving. I run into the main chamber, away from the tunnel entrances. I want to close the distance. My fellow trackers are doing the same. The scene is pure pell-mell confusion. Jenn is out in front of me. I hear Izzy and then Ethan cursing nearby. Chris comes very close to plowing me over.

I stop near a launch tube and use it to partially shield myself. I turn back and forth, left and right, trying to remain facing toward my tribute, but when the one you are tracking is so close, as mine is at this moment, it is hard. I twirl several times. My eyes are glued to the orange monitor. Vic is right with me but is letting me spin without getting in my way.

Then she streaks right over top of me and away. "Vic, she's running!" I scream. And with that, I grab his hand and we fire off into the darkness of the nearest tunnel.

The chase is on.

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