Reaping Day always made Ruby a little bit nervous. After all, even with the Statutes system, choosing the wrong tribute could mean a massive uprising in any district. And while she much preferred to not watch and to give the tributes the benefit of the doubt, she knew that watching the Reapings would make her much saner and more prepared for what she would need to deal with. It would be much better, after all, to know beforehand whether or not she was dealing with a pure psychopath. Additionally, watching the Reapings gave Ruby more time to figure out which two tributes to tell Sami to rescue from the Arena. So, she and Amethyst sat in the Head Gamemaker's office in the Gamemakers' Complex, anxiously watching the Reapings unfold.
There was also something bittersweet about watching these Reapings with Amethyst. A few weeks prior, Amethyst had let her sister know that she would be stepping down as Head Gamemaker at the conclusion of the 135th Games. Amethyst had served as Head Gamemaker for more than 40 years, and was instrumental in streamlining the process of planning the Games to allow for both the Games and the Events to be planned at the same time. She also had been incredibly valuable through the transition to the Statutes system, helping the President to flesh out the idea and working through all of its kinks. As Amethyst and her assistant, Sami Rolo, had been working together carefully for many years, the transition of Sami into the role of Head Gamemaker would be mostly smooth. But Ruby would miss the quality time with her sister that working together for such a long time had given to them.
For the most part, things went about as could be expected: Eight reaped two children on rebel statutes, two tributes from One volunteered, there was the obligatory one tribute who was already in jail, et cetera. Eventually, it was time for Two's Reaping, which often took place later in the day because of how close Two was to the Capitol. Things started innocently enough; Two read the Treaty of Treason, presented its fourteen living Games Victors, and introduced their escort. (Ruby had been in close contact with Two about whether or not to present Chloe during the Reapings, but they all agreed that the further away the girl was from the Games, the better.) But as soon as Ruby looked at the Reaping bowls, she knew something was wrong. Two had kids on statutes, but they didn't have nearly as many kids on statutes as the number of slips in the bowls would suggest.
Instantly, Ruby pressed the button that indicated that the cameras in Two had gone out, as a method of stalling the Reaping. Instantly, the cameras cut to the seal of Panem, and a surveillance camera still rolling in Two showed that all action had stalled.
"What was that for?" asked Amethyst.
"Amethyst, I think something went wrong with Two's slips."
"What do you mean?"
"Look at the bowls."
Amethyst studied the bowls carefully. "Yeah, you're probably right."
"So what do we do? I don't want to embarrass someone who isn't under a statute and call them up, and I'd rather be over-cautious than have the possibility of a mistake."
Amethyst thought for a second. "I think we can call Two and confirm with them that they have volunteers, which they will, because they're Two, and then give them permission to ask for volunteers before the slip is drawn. And once the Games Fairness Council member brings back the slips, you can check them yourself."
"Yeah, that works."
A quick phone call to Two set the Reaping back onto the right track. After receiving confirmation from Delphine that she understood Ruby's instructions, the camera hold was lifted, and two volunteers promptly took their places on stage to represent Two. For the time being, Ruby had avoided crisis.
When the slips returned to the Capitol, Ruby intercepted them and brought both the bags of slips and the Games Fairness Council representative to an emergency Council meeting. She aggressively set them down on the table, sifted through the bags, then pulled the name Myranda Lidano out of one and Plato Antoni out of the other. "Can one of you please explain to me how the bags of Events slips ended up in Two instead of the Games slips?"
"It's very simple," Lavender, whose had never looked more frazzled in her life. "We do not have enough capacity as a council of fourteen to manage two large-scale competitions in one year. It is simply too much work because we monitor everything from the get-go. We're just lucky that the mistake happened in Two instead of in Eight."
"Yes, because if one of the four kids in Eight not under a statute had been Reaped, my head would be on a pole in the middle of the district."
"So it's in all of our vested interest to find a better solution. I really can't see us handling both the Games and the Events at the same time. You need to make a separate council for the Games and the Events. The logistics of each and the things to be worried about are so different and both so overwhelming that I don't see us being able to do both anymore. I would certainly rather have more than an hour and a half of sleep a night."
"OK, I'll see what I can do," Ruby nodded. "I recognize that this was probably an oversight on my part, but we should all be glad that nothing went badly, or there would have been serious repercussions."
It turned out that the slips mishap was just the tip of the iceberg of bad from Ruby's perspective.
During training, Ruby met with Sami Rolo to determine who they would aim to rescue from the Games, if possible. They usually liked to have more than two options so that they would be guaranteed to get two out. In their conversation, they agreed that their first priority was the girl from Twelve, Alexandrina Cresta. She had been Reaped on a very unusual statute, one involving some sort of violation when her family moved from Eleven to Twelve. But, Twelve had the lowest number of children eligible under the statutes, and as they had chosen to combine their reaping bowls, they were forced to reap two kids. Clearly, the girl from Twelve was the best choice. But the second tribute who was to be saved was still up in the air as far as both Ruby and Sami were concerned; they decided to wait and see how the Games unfolded before making a final decision.
By halfway through the Games themselves, Ruby knew that they were going to be a disaster. The boy from Eleven, Abaddon Eastwood, had quickly formed an alliance of anyone who was reaped under a rebel statute, which turned out to only be him and the two from Eight, Riley Tamim and Synthia Ayres. It turned out that Abaddon was really strong; despite losing Synthia in the Bloodbath, Abaddon had emerged as potentially the strongest contender for Victory, with Riley just riding his coattails. The one silver lining during the first half of the Games was the successful rescue of Alexandrina thanks to a well-placed quicksand trap. Once the rescue was complete, Ruby made her way down to the rebels' headquarters to check in on her newest rescue and to notify the other rescued tributes of the new addition to the program.
"How's she doing?" Ruby asked Sami Rolo, one of only a few people who knew about the Capitol-sanctioned operation to rescue tributes from the Games and, at least for a little while longer, the head of the operation. The two had been in close contact since the announcement of Amethyst's stepping down, and had decided that Sami would continue to head the Capitol-sanctioned rebel group for her first year as Head Gamemaker so as to assist with the transition, before ceding control to another person who had already been carefully selected by Ruby, yet still acting as the person on the inside who would actually make the rescues happen.
"OK, from what I can tell," Sami replied. "She hasn't woken up yet, but I'm not sure whether to try to wake her up now or to let her sleep overnight."
"Did she actually knock out?"
"She 'suffocated' from the quicksand and we basically piped in anesthesia. So she would think she died so we could transport her easily."
"Well done. Let's tell the other tributes."
The first rescued tribute Ruby always told about the new rescuees was Sammy Coin, who had been Reaped under what was colloquially called the 13R statute. After the redistricting, when Ruby had attempted to resettle Thirteen, she had discovered an entire colony of people there, living incognito, whose existence her grandfather, President Snow, had conveniently neglected to tell her about. In response, Ruby put the entire population of Thirteen on a special statute; for five years, from the 130th through the 134th Games, every child from that group would be Games eligible both in the district in which they lived and in the special 13R bowl. It came to nobody's surprise that the first child reaped from that 13R bowl was Sammy Coin; after all, the Coins had been Thirteen's leaders for almost as long as the Snows, and from what Ruby understood, they had been almost equally as strict. But rather than let the child die, Ruby saw the opportunity that arose from rescuing them. They were the perfect person to give Ruby insider info on the rebels in Panem, as Thirteen had been in close contact with the rebels for a very long time. And so more likely than not, Sammy would never leave the Capitol, taking on important internal responsibilities just like Madaline Ohm had done.
Almost on cue, Sammy Coin appeared in the doorway. "I take it that we have a new addition coming?"
"Yes! Alexandrina Cresta, from Twelve."
"Interesting choice," Sammy smirked.
A pit formed in Ruby's stomach. "Why?"
"Alexandrina has rebel ancestry. Her family moved from Four to Eleven a while back to join the rebels."
"What?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure why they moved over to Twelve, though I'm sure Madaline could figure it out, but I'm sure they're related to the rebel branch of the Cresta family. Four was kind of a rebel-loyalist hybrid up until the near-rebellion around the Third Quell, but many of their rebels jumped ship when they saw that it didn't work; those who stayed rebellious either holed up in Four or were smuggled into Eight or Eleven."
"God damn it!" Saving a rebel was possibly the least ideal outcome of this whole operation; in fact, it was literally the thing that they tried most to avoid. Ruby needed someone who she knew would be unquestionably loyal, undoubtedly on her side. So, after shooing Sammy Coin out, she turned to Sami Rolo and said, "Rescue me a Career."
"What?"
"Rescue me a Career. Captiol, One, or Two, I don't care. I need a loyalist."
"But I thought we don't rescue tributes from those districts."
"I don't care. Rescue me a Career."
Luckily for Sami, the Career pack for the 135th Games had been a hot mess, so it was easy to pluck one of them out of the Arena via mutt. But when she met Brutus Trebonius in person, she could not believe that he was actually as dumb as he appeared to be during the Games. The tribute from Two couldn't follow all of the craziness of that year's Pack, and even a month after he was rescued, he still couldn't process that he was not, in fact, still in the Arena. But, he was loyal, just like Ruby wanted.
It turned out to be a very good thing for Ruby that she had saved someone who would be undoubtedly in her corner; predictably, Abaddon Eastwood continued his dominance in the Arena, and soon enough, he and Riley Tamim were crowned Victors of the 135th Hunger Games. All in all, as far as Ruby was concerned, the 135th Games were pretty much a disaster.
That was a great omen for a leadership transition.
Hmm, not all sunshine and rainbows in Panem, is it? Who do you think Ruby has tapped to take over for Sami? Will Ruby create an Events Fairness Council? Could this chapter just be random filler with no actual substance to it whatsoever?
We've got just over a month till subs close, so I'm excited to see what you all have in store. I'll see you in two-ish weeks!
-goldie031
