A/N: Hi! To answer a question received from two different readers: Yes, this entire story, from beginning to end, is being told from a single point of view. Jaqueline's is the only point of view throughout. Enjoy!

Chapter Three – The Catacombs

"The arenas are historic sites, preserved after the Games. Popular destinations for Capital residents to visit, to vacation. Go for a month, rewatch the Games, tour the catacombs, visit the sites where deaths took place. You can even take part in reenactments.

They say the food is excellent."
Katniss, Chapter 10, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.

~oOo~ ~oOo~ ~oOo~

Bolting into the darkness of the catacombs, I don't think my feet touch the ground for the first hundred yards. I keep yelling "Vic, she's alive!" My heart is singing.

Quickly the light from the main chamber and the noises of the throng, still jostling for position, fade. My right hand is out to my side the moment the darkness envelops us. Training has long taught me this key. I've automatically put on my tracing glove, and my fingers now glide along the tunnel wall, feeling its grooves and ridges. The wall reads like a map, letting me know what is up ahead. It is a sign language, a braille, known by those of us who live in the darkness below the arenas.

The tunnels are completely unlit. They are built the same throughout: dirt floor and cement walls. Above us the ceiling is vaulted. But this area is filled, often entirely, with the cabling needed to run the televised production of the Games. Bundles of cables that look like endless snakes are stapled to the ceiling. They contain power and data lines for microphones, cameras and sensors. We are not to touch any of it. Ever.

The two meters at my waist gleam and sparsely light the area immediately before me. As I once again grow accustomed to the darkness their glow will become the only light I need and the only light I will see for days.

My bib helps, but barely. Its freshly painted "TF5" illuminates as far as my arms and hands but little else. It will fade in about a week. But for now it is like a siren announcing my presence to anyone whom I approach in these dark tunnels.

Not hearing Vic anymore I worry, slow and then turn to see if he is still with me. Mistake! He crashes into me. The distance between us was too little. We tumble to the hard packed dirt floor, land on each other and come to a bruising stop. As I hit the ground I protectively curl myself around my already wounded left elbow. This time I am lucky and am not racked with pain. Instantly we scramble back to our feet but are laughing out loud.

"She did it! She ran away from the bloodbath," a grinning Vic declares.

I hug him in response.

Then I look down at my meters and spin myself around so as to locate where she is headed. Thus far she's been running off in a straight line. Yet she is slowing.

"She's about 100 yards off to our right," I say. "We're going to need to take the next right branch."

"Sure thing."

The tunnel system surrounding the cornucopia is densely connected. We refer to it as The Downtown. In contrast, the tunnels that radiate away, out towards the perimeter of the arena, are far less frequently connected. Out there you can lose track of your tribute if you are not careful. But here in The Downtown tracking is easy.

"Is she hurt?" I'm talking to myself more than to Vic but he leans in to join me at examining my green bio monitor.

To my horror I find she is. My heart comes to a screeching halt. I'm not medically trained, but I know the signs of a body suffering from injury. And my tribute is showing them. Despite my initial glee of having a live tribute, I am confronted with the real possibility that she might be seriously wounded. Everything might fall apart over the next minutes.

"Her endorphin levels are very high!"

I start to fear the worst. I back up against the tunnel wall and get into checking out the metrics. The tracking chip in her arm feeds everything I ask for into my bio monitor.

"Okay, okay, she's got a buildup of lactic acid," I tell him while my fingers dance over the monitor's dials and touch screen controls.

"What does that mean?" asks Vic.

"It means she, um, her metabolism is running way ahead of how well she can process the physical effects of running away from the launch plain."

"But we haven't come that far!"

"I know. But I think … I think if she is stopping here then it might be out of fatigue and muscle burn." I check my orange monitor and verify that she has been still for the last half minute.

"So, what does that mean?" asks Vic again.

"Most likely, she's not much of a runner. Plus she's been in a panic state since, likely, when she stepped onto her launch platform." We both remember her expression as she rose before us, scarcely three minutes ago. "She's exhausted. I'll bet she's right now trying to rub muscle pain out of her legs."

Vic ponders this and we continue to watch the two monitors. She remains still and neither meter shows anything new.

"Do you think that's all that's wrong with her?"

"Right," I say in agreement to his suggestion that I should check for more. I know there's more. My instincts are telling me she's hurting. I start to tap the green monitor's interface with a new direction of inquiry. Again her embedded tracking chip feeds back responses. My first discovery is that her blood oxygenation is poor. But this might be further evidence of the lactic acid build up.

Suddenly our radios come to life. Arieson's voice crackles, "TF5. Transfer to Artemisin." She's run from the launch plain and into the woods far enough that she's left behind the part of the arena controlled by Arieson. It's a small relief to know the Gamemakers consider her as separated from the action at the cornucopia.

I grab my microphone and reply. "TF5. Transfer to Artemisin."

Hurriedly I switch the radio comm channel over to Artemisin.

"Artemisin. TF5. Transfer." I say.

"This means she's into the woods," I tell Vic.

"So, we're under the woods now?" asks Vic.

"Yup."

"TF5. Artemisin. Welcome," Artemisin announces on our radios and then continues immediately with "TF5. P3."

"TF5. P3." I reply. My left hand adjusts the broadcast strength knob of the primary battery pack on my belt. Then I put in, "Artemisin. TF5. Tribute showing metabolism exhaustion. Anything visual?"

I wink at Vic. If Artemisin replies she might provide a clue on what our tribute is doing.

I am certain that what I just said didn't make sense. Metabolism exhaustion?

"TF5," Artemisin replies, "Tribute is winded and in pain. She has a knife wound on her lower right arm."

I turn to Vic, not knowing how great a worry this might be. It's probably bad.

He doesn't say anything. I can tell he's thinking the same thing and running through the same worries.

"What if she's badly hurt and can't stop the bleeding?" he finally asks.

Our radios speak again, but this time the message is not for us. "TF3 Retire," says Athenin.

"That, I say." to Vic, "that's what will happen."

The bloodbath must be winding down. The female tribute from District 3 has died. While I think it would be more appropriate to say that outright, that's not how it happens. Instead we get a broadcast message announcing that a tracker, TF3 in this case, is done. Meaning her job is over – and such would only happen if her assigned tribute has died. She can return to the Green Room and turn in her equipment. Her accompanying valet, that would be VF3, would do the same.

Vic and I look at each other. We all like Kalia, but her task as tracker is over for this year. More importantly, a girl, probably much like us, is dead.

Athenin continues, pausing between each pronouncement. "TM4 Retire. TM5 Retire." I catch my breath, knowing this means Chris is done. Chris – the one who tried to elbow me out of line back in the Green Room, the one who took a sucker punch to the stomach from the main Peacekeeper, and the one who lifted me back up after the gunshot in the main chamber – is done already for this year.

"TF6 Retire. TM6 Retire." Her voice, which I have always found to be beautiful, remains clear of any edge. It is not musical. Instead it is a steady, measured speaking tone that conveys a sense of confidence, one that I wish I could find in myself.

"TF7 Retire. TM7 Retire. TM8 Retire." I could listen to her all day. Yet what she is saying is in absolute contrast to that beauty.

"TF9 Retire. TM9 Retire. TF10 Retire." Then silence.

"That was eleven in total," says Vic. Eleven tributes are dead. Eleven tracking teams are finished for this year.

"All those kids are dead, Vic."

"Yeh."

"They're -" I begin, but I am cut off. A gunshot blast erupts down the passageway from where we just came.

I scream.

Two more gunshots follow in rapid succession.

By now I'm cowering on the floor with my hands over my ears. Vic, I find, is doing the same. As with the gunshot we endured in the main chamber the retort is unbearably loud. The tunnel walls magnify the sound.

"What is going on?" he asks.

We wait a minute, fearing more blasts. But there are none. I sit up and reach about until I find him.

"That must have been from the main chamber," I say.

"Are they coming after us?" He's holding my hand like there's no tomorrow.

"I hope not."

~oOo~ ~oOo~ Katniss ~oOo~ ~oOo~

"She's on the move!" I say to Vic. My orange tracking monitor shows our tribute has left her resting spot and is headed towards us, overhead.

My announcement interrupts the little meeting Vic and I have been having. We've been sitting on the floor of the tunnel for the last minutes pondering our fate. Vic and I cannot figure out why the Peacekeepers were using their guns. There's no reason to hunt us, the trackers. It doesn't make sense. We're on their side; we help with the operation of the Games. So why would they have fired more gunshots? We can't figure it out. Vic keeps saying "They're going to come and shoot us, aren't they?" But I can't figure out why that would happen.

As best we can, using the tunnels of The Downtown, we trail behind our tribute. I come to realize she's on a course that is roughly counterclockwise about the cornucopia.

"She's staying about a half mile away from the area of the bloodbath but is circling it," I tell him.

He walks along silently behind me. He too has his right hand gliding along the tunnel wall. The terrain here is flat but it is always good practice to keep your hand on the wall.

A minute later our radios simultaneously come alive with Artemisin's voice. "TF5. P2." This is not good.

I reply "TF5. P2." At the same time I increase the broadcast setting on my battery pack from P3 to P2. I notice Vic's alarm and agree with him. A rise in priority is seldom a good thing. Something is about to happen.

The Gamemakers assign a priority to each tribute and they change that value throughout the game. Priority Zero, or P0 for short, is the highest. P5 is the lowest. When a tribute is at P0, it means she or he is in a life-or-death situation. The televised coverage of the Games is surely focused on your tribute during such times. As trackers, having the broadcast setting on our gear likewise set to P0 ensures that the Gamemakers are receiving all that can be sent from the tribute's tiny embedded tracking chip. I am told that the battery packs and radios we carry on our belts amplify and rebroadcast the emissions from our tribute's tracking chip as much as by several dozen times.

As you might guess, since most of us trackers want to our tributes to survive we fear being handed a P0.

On the other side of things, a Priority Five is the lowest. P5 means your tribute is far from any action and there is little likelihood of any action taking place for them in the near future. The cameras may from time to time show your tribute, but they are far from center stage.

Obviously us trackers like to see our assigned tribute assigned to P5.

The first clue to our P2 assignment appears as a faint, moving glow in the tunnel ahead of us. Down here that can only mean one thing: another tracker.

"Hi, it's Jackie, TF5," I call out.

"Hey!" replies a voice from the darkness ahead. "It's me, Jenn!"

I take off at a run towards her. So does Vic. Soon we can make out her TF12 bib clearly in the darkness. Right behind her we can see Curtis' matching VF12 bib.

Yet, for as happy as I am to find Jenn it means our tributes might be about to encounter each other. And that could mean a battle. Jenn and I bump fists as we meet up. Then we each concentrate on our monitors. They show the same thing, in the woods above us our tributes are moving almost directly at each other. As we watch they slow and then stop. The distance between them reduces to barely a few yards. All four of us hold our breath. Will there be a fight? But then we see their blips separate and move away, both running further into the woods and away from each other.

I have so many questions to ask Jenn, but there's no time. Perhaps she knows something about the gunshots. I'd love to hear what her tribute looks like. But she and I must stick with our assigned tributes.

"Bye Jenn!" I yell over my shoulder at her retreating form.

"Bye Jackie! Bye Vic!" she and Curtis yell in return. I can only hope to meet up with her again soon.

As before our tribute runs but a short distance. Checking the bio meter I find it is for the same reason.

"Vic," I say, "our tribute is not a runner. She runs out of breath really fast."

I can tell that this worries him. It worries me too. If she's going to remain this close to the cornucopia she had better be very careful. Tributes who stick around the cornucopia had better be Careers or else allied with them. I doubt a 5 is going to be in the Career pack and all her actions so far indicate she is not.

"I hope she's good at hiding," Vic says. Even at a half mile distance, she is not safe.

"Yes. If not, they're going to hunt her down before nightfall." It's a grim thought.

And I know how much Jack would like for that to happen.

~oOo~ ~oOo~ Rue ~oOo~ ~oOo~

For an hour our tribute does not move. I work at reading her bio metrics but learn nothing. At one point the Gamemakers take over my bio monitor remotely. I watch as they browse through its readings. By observing how they navigate my bio meter's control menus I learn both that she has been losing blood and how I can check this on my own.

I presume she is on camera fairly often, given her P2 status. Vic and I, meanwhile, relax and have a snack. We use supplies from his backpack and sit on the tunnel floor awaiting her next move.

"Why haven't they moved her off P2?" he eventually thinks to ask.

I don't have a reason for that. We had overheard Artemisin assigning Jenn to P4 shortly after we separated from her and Curtis. But there had been no similar call for us.

"Is she dying?" he asks me.

That gives me a start, but in checking her meters anew I find she's doing well. Better than before, in fact. This is a bit of a surprise, having been told by Artemisin that she had a knife wound. She must have stopped the bleeding and stabilized the wound.

Seizing on an idea I tune my orange tracking monitor. I had left it set up to center on my tribute. But now I ask it to show me any nearby tributes. A second blip immediately appears.

"Woah! Vic, she's not alone."

"What?"

"The girl tribute from eleven is right nearby."

"Where?"

I point all this out to him. The two tributes are about 20 yards apart. Neither is moving.

"Well, her tracker would be Amandla," he says.

"Uh, right."

This means we cannot be alone.

"Hi!" I call out into the darkness, feeling a bit foolish. "It's Jackie and Vic! Are you there Amandla?"

"Hi!" we hear in reply.

Feeling really stupid we get up and figure out where she and her valet have been hanging out. It turns out they were around two corners from us. Small world. Fortunately they too didn't realize how close we were together. If anything I'm glad I figured it out first.

The four of us have a good laugh and then set up camp in one of the tunnel intersections below our two tributes. I agree to keep an eye on both of them, using my orange tracking monitor and the others settle down on the tunnel floor.

"Do you know why the Peacekeepers were shooting?" asks Sean, Amandla's valet partner. He means the three shots that happened right after Athenin's retirement announcements.

"We don't." Vic answers.

"I can't imagine anything louder," says Amandla, and we all agree.

"You should see my tribute!" she continues. "She's so young. It's not right that she's in there. All the others have to be twice her size. What about yours?"

"She's beautiful," says Vic. I turn, surprised. This is not what I was expecting, not from Vic anyway. "She's about as tall as Jackie," he continues, "but her hair is different. It's orange or red."

"Red, I think," I add, "shoulder length."

"Sounds like yours is older than ours," says Amandla. She's looking at me, comparing me to the size of her tribute.

"Probably."

In the distance the cannon fires. It's nowhere near as loud as the gun yet its sharp crack travels clearly through the tunnel system. In reaction, Amandla and I simultaneously check our bio meters. Both meters show that our respective tributes are alive. It's a natural reaction. Anytime we hear the cannon fire it's a learned reflex action to check our assigned tribute's health.

"The Gamemakers are marking the deaths from the bloodbath," I tell them. Amandla, Vic and Sean are first-year crewmembers. While I figure they would know that the cannon is delayed until the bloodbath is settled I remind them anyway.

We listen in silence as it booms ten more times. It has a chilling effect on the four of us. We sit together for some time. None of us feel like talking. Despite the months of training, to know this is for real, with real lives being lost above us, creates a somber mood.

"Jackie," Sean asks, breaking the silence, "what happened back at the Green Room?"

"I did something dumb," I confess. I'm never one to lie, and this is true even when I have to admit something I'm not proud of. "When it came to be my turn to get my tracking inventory, the first thing I told the Peacekeepers was that my name was Jacqueline."

I have to tell him because Sean and Amandla would have been at the far end of the Green Room, back near Jenn. They wouldn't have been able to see what was happening at the front of the line.

"Seriously, she did," Vic confirms.

"They didn't take too kindly to that. The main Peacekeeper grabbed me."

"He grabbed your face. I thought he was going to do worse."

"But instead, once my belts and equipment were put on, he shoved me out into the passageway."

"And then I did the same thing."

"You did?" asks Sean.

"Yes. That too was dumb. I shouldn't have done it. But I was the next in line and the first thing I said was 'Victor, Valet. Female District 5.'"

Sean and Amandla stare in amazement to hear this.

"I got punched." Vic points out where, raising his hand so that his fingers touch the bruise on his face and along his split lip.

"And then next was Chris, TM5. The Peacekeepers punched him before he said even one word!" says Vic.

"Guys, you are lucky to be alive," says Amandla.

"Turns out you're right," I reply, "but we didn't really mean to cause a problem.

"I wouldn't have done it if I had known how Orcusin and the Peacekeepers would react."

"Orcusin was angry," says Amandla, "just as she likes to be."

"That gun was so loud!" says Sean, referring to the first gunshot, the one fired in the main chamber.

"I know!" I say. "I was right next to it when he fired." I hold my hand up to my ear without thinking about doing so. I had thought my ear would be ringing but, no, it simply hurt. Maybe the ringing is something that happens later. "It knocked me right over."

"Me too," agrees Vic.

That's news to me. I remember being on the floor but then being picked up by Vic and Chris.

"I landed on you, don't you remember that Jackie?"

"No, I don't."

"Wow, you must have been out."

I don't like the idea that I was knocked out. Yet, remembering that moment brings tears back to my eyes.

"So what do you think they're doing?" Sean asks, interrupting my thoughts. He is pointing at the ceiling, indicating our two tributes.

"Maybe they're talking," says Vic.

"No, they're too far from each other," says Amandla. I think she's right. If they're trying to not reveal themselves to the Careers, which would make sense, then talking at their present distance would be risky.

"Maybe they don't know they're so close to each other," I suggest.

"Yeh, maybe they don't know the other is there," adds Vic.

"Or maybe they do but they're both resting," says Sean.

"Is yours injured?" I ask.

"No. Is yours?"

"Artemisin said ours has a knife wound on her arm," says Vic.

"Is it bad?"

"She's lost some blood, but she's stopped the bleeding," I say.

"She's lucky."

Right, she is. I wonder what our tribute did in order to help herself. Maybe she picked up something near the cornucopia that she could use to help stabilize her wound.

"Jackie," Amandla asks me, "have you ever lost track of your tribute?"

"No, I don't think I ever have. Guess I've been lucky at that. I've come close at times, especially when I was in my first training runs. But my mentor, Brenda, showed me how to keep a watch and how to anticipate moves that would put my tribute out of range."

"So, you've never been shocked?"

"Fortunately not!" I've heard how the Gamemakers can send a sharp electrical jolt to our neck collars but such has never happened to me. "The signal from the chips that get embedded in a tracker's arm is good for about a half mile. If you're paying attention you can keep yourself in range. You just have to be ready to move and move fast."

"Oh." She draws several short breaths. "I electrocuted myself at home once on a bare wire. I really don't want to get shocked again."

"Me neither."

For a while we all sit. Sean and Vic start a conversation about their food supplies and how long it might take in the days to come for us to run through our initial supplies. But my mind is elsewhere. I'm tired and find myself thinking about my mentor Brenda and other trackers who have moved on. I lose track of the time until I notice Amandla acting oddly.

"Amandla," I ask, seeing a second confused look from her, "what's wrong?"

"My tribute is moving but the blip isn't changing position on my monitor."

"Let me see," I say and help her look at her orange tracking monitor.

"It says she's getting farther away from me. But the blip isn't moving! Jackie, don't let me get shocked!"

"Amandla, don't worry. You're a long way from getting shocked. Your tribute is only about 40 paces away."

All four of us stare at her tracking meter until I figure it out.

"You know what? She's climbing!"

"A tree?" she asks.

"Yes! She's going up. That's why the monitor says she's getting farther away and it explains why her blip isn't moving."

"She can climb trees!" says her valet partner.

"Oh yes!" says Vic.

Amandla, wiping tears from her eyes, produces a smile. "I get it. Thanks."

We then watch, spellbound, as the most unbelievable thing follows: her tribute starts to move away from us.

"How is she doing that?" asks Sean.

"She can move like a tree squirrel!" yells Amandla, all smiles.

Soon Amandla and Sean realize we have to separate. They're going to have to move on in order to stay with her. They hastily repack the supplies that had come out of Sean's backpack. Amandla and I exchange hugs. Sean gives us a thumbs-up and they turn to go.

An alarm goes off, causing us all to jump. I realize it's from my orange tracking monitor. Vic and I stare at it in disbelief. Amandla and Sean as well come over and look. They see the same thing - there's only one blip showing, and it's Amandla's.

My tribute is gone.

# # #

A/N: In The Hunger Games (the first novel of the series) Katniss refers three times to there being "catacombs" beneath the arena. Yet I don't think the term, as used by her, is meant to indicate that there are burial areas or bodies to be found. That means these catacombs are not like those found beneath, say, Rome or Paris. I think Katniss is simply saying there is a system of tunnels. That seems right, since the novel also says several times that deceased tributes are transported back their home districts. I can't imagine that anyone is going to be buried on the grounds of the arena before, during or after the event. So, I've taken Katniss' references to "catacombs" to mean there is a fairly good sized set of tunnels beneath the arena. It was this thought that gave rise to this entire story.

A/N: Yes I borrowed a scene from the movie. Couldn't help myself. Otherwise I'm following the novel.

A/N: As noticed in the Review posted by 'goldie031', yes there is a name key to the tracker's names. But this is just for fun and because this is fan fiction! XD Hopefully by now you know why trackers are needed and what role they play. As for the purpose of the Valets, you'll have to wait ... sorry!

[2012-12-29]: Edited to remove typos and make minor corrections.

[2013-07-10]: Added the paragraph "The tunnels are completely unlit..." to provide a description of what the tunnels look like.