They Just Fade Away
Chapter 4 The Man with No Name
"That corpse is an imposter!" - Arsenic and Old Lace.
Vera Kratich had a very cushy job. It was just being a file clerk, but being able to say "I work in the Hunger Games" was enough to impress people. It was also safe. Occasionally the Gamesmasters would mess something up and heads would roll - literally – but she was too far down in the hierarchy to get Snow's attention.
Even when the blackout happened, Vera was not too worried. The Games hierarchy still need files, and somebody to clerk them. She was a little puzzled, however, when Paula Femus called a series of meetings, talking to entire shifts of the workers when they went off duty.
The meetings were held in one of the Games warehouses, the one where the dead tributes were currently being stored until it was time for them to be shipped back to the districts.
The Gamesmistress quickly summarized the blackout mystery. She added "What some of you may not know is that an extra body has been found in the arena. A man who apparently infiltrated the arena while all the surveillance tools were down. Apparently he fell, or was pushed, from one of the hills later and fatally banged his head when he hit the ground. Presumably he knew exactly when the surveillance would be down and planned to be gone or in hiding by the time it came back up. So solving HIS mystery may solve the mystery of the blackout. Yes?"
One of the technicians asked "If he was pushed, couldn't we question the tributes and find what they know?"
"The tributes are out of our reach. It could be one of the seven missing tributes. If it's one of the ten remaining tributes, nine of them are going to be dead very shortly. If we're lucky the, ahem, pusher may be the Victor of the Games. We're trying to devise away to question him or her without arousing suspicions. But meanwhile we have another approach."
"It seems unlikely that the intruder simply came in from outside. More likely, he scouted out the entire Games infrastructure, in and out of the Capitol. If so, he might have been seen."
"We've put him in one of the Tribute Preservation boxes. I want everybody to walk past his box and have a look. If you recall seeing his face before, report it immediately. I assure you that simply recognizing him will not get you in trouble. You may have had no way of knowing that he was a threat. Now queue up."
The queue slowly filed into the cold room. Vera was starting to get the willies. There were 23 boxes in the room , destined to hold all the Tributes but the surviving Victor. 10 were already sealed up, presumably holding the Tributes who were already dead. One box was in front, and the Gamesmistress directed everyone past it. Vera recalled that 7 of the other boxes were going to remain unused, because the tributes were missing. Sooner or later outsiders would notice that, and the Gamesmistress was going to be in big trouble.
When it was Vera's turn, she looked in the box, and had a severe shock.
She knew this guy. Or to be precise, she HAD KNOWN this guy, in an anonymous Capitol sex club.
She careful froze her expression, trying to look bored. Nobody was near enough to her to notice her momentary surprise. She had to act as if she had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Once she got back to her workplace, she found an unoccupied file room and stayed there until she got over her jitters.
One hour later, she was summoned to the Gamemistress's office.
-0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0-
She found herself facing half of a dozen high-reanking Gamemakers.
"What do you know about the intruder?" demanded the Gamesmistress.
"Nothing at all. I don't know why you've called me in."
The Gamesmistress raised her eyebrows and pressed a button on her desk. A hologram of Vera's face sprang up, magnified and shot from an odd angle. Vera's eyes were wide and she was gasping in surprise. "Your expression at his box says otherwise."
"How-?"
"Oh, come now, Ms. Kratich. How do you think we get all of our Games footage? We learnt how to make cameras undetectable decades ago. We had one planted at the box, just in case somebody like you tried to conceal something. So, who is he?"
"I don't know."
"You obviously recognized him, but you don't know who he is?"
"No. I – I encountered him at the Brief Encounters club. You go there for pick-ups, but the rule is everybody's anonymous, going under pseudonyms. It avoids scandals, or getting entangled in relationships."
"I never heard of such a place."
"Excuse me, Gamesmistress," spoke up another woman at the desk, "but I have. Her description is accurate."
"Thank you, Dirce. Do you know a way of getting around the anonymity?"
Dirce blushed, as it became obvious that she had sought pick-ups there herself. "The management insists on seeing everybody's ID on entry, in case something goes wrong – a fight breaking out, or a disease spread by the sexual contact. But of course their success depends on keeping the promise not to divulge names. If the Peacekeepers were to show up and demand information –"
"We can't involve the Peacekeepers," said the Gamesmistress. "We've discussed that." She glared back at Vera. "So, Ms. Kratich. You refused to speak up when you recognized the mystery man. We're rather tempted to dismiss you, unless you give us good reason not to. Can you suggest a way out of the impasse?"
Vera bit her lip nervously until she had an idea. "The man had two friends with him. Presumably they're still alive. If I went back to the club and saw them again –"
"Then we'd have a new lead," concluded the Gamesmistress. "Dirce, I suggest you and Ms. Kratich pay another visit to the club. You can work on screwing information out of management, and Ms. Kratich can try to find the mystery man's friends. We need to find those missing tributes before it's time to ship their bodies home. If you succeed in doing that, well, feel free to avail yourself of the pleasures of the place."
Vera and her interrogators left the office and entered the central control room for the Games. One of the technicians signalled the Gamesmistress. "Milady? While you were in your meeting, a fight broke out in the arena. Four more tributes dead. We shot the cannons, but we need you to authorize the hovercraft pickups."
"Authorized." The Gamesmistress looked stressed out. "Six tributes left. Dirce, go tonight. We need to find the missing people before the Games end. Or Snow may be tempted to ship US in those coffins!"