Hail the Conquering Hero

Chapter 7 The Letdown

They scored one more trophy before the night was over. It was the girl from 8, and actually she lent herself to it. She built herself a campfire that night, apparently unaware that, in the absence of any other light source on the ground, it could be seen for kilometers. And when they reached her clearing, she had no weapon ready for defending herself, not even a branch that could be used as a club. She just said "No! Please don't get kill me!"

Clove stabbed her in the stomach.

They rummaged through her supplies. It was a long-standing rule in the games that the gifts from the Cornucopia belonged to the Capitol and could be claimed by any tribute who could put their hands on them. But it was slim pickings. Matches ( which turned out to have been her undoing, because it had tempted her to make the fire), a couple of food items, an empty bottle. All stuff that they had already.

They were wandering back to camp when somebody realized that the cannon hadn't gone off, which implied that the girl's tracker was still picking up her heartbeat. They bickered about that for a minute and the boy from 12 volunteered to go back and administer the coup de grace.

His departure sparked an irritated argument about his usefulness. He only had one purpose in life as far as the other Careers were concerned: catching his district partner with her mysterious 11 score. So far not only had they failed to find her, but he had kept the secret of how she had gotten the score. Maybe he thought that was the only thing keeping him alive.

The cannon went off and the boy returned. "By the way, does anybody remember her name?" In the dark, nobody could see his expression as he asked that.

"Why?" asked Glimmer.

"I just want to know."

"I think her last name was Paylor," said the boy from 3.

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The next few days were somewhat of a letdown. The five surviving non-Careers -the girls from 5 and 12, the boy from 10, both tributes from 11 – were keeping their distance. No cannons went off, there were no pictures showing at night. Cato even wondered if some of his fellow Careers were enjoying the situation. They had food from the Cornucopia and water from the lake. As long as there were "enemies" out there, they had an excuse not to fight each other and risk their lives. Glimmer, irritatingly, seemed to be treating it as a picnic. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. And as the urgency ebbed, they were less likely to follow Cato's orders.

Clove managed to end it. "The break can't last forever. The Gamesmasters want fights, and if they're not getting them, they'll find a way to force us together." Just by saying so, she apparently brought it about. Their conversation must have been heard in the Capitol, and somebody – maybe even President Snow – must have pressured the Gamesmasters to carry out her prediction. The next day, the other side of the forest caught fire.

The Careers were too far away to be endangered by the flames. But the arena was of course enclosed by some sort of dome, and the smoke started drifting in their direction. They were trying to figure if there was a clearer spot to escape to – nobody, not even the boy from 3, knew how the air circulation worked – when they spotted HER, the girl from 12. Part of her jacket was burnt and it had even singed part of that weird one-sided braid she wore. But she spotted them and summoned up some energy to flee. She found the tallest tree in the area and shimmied up. From high up in the branches Cato heard her call: "How is it with you?"

Cato stared up for a moment, wondering if she had gone crazy. Then he realized that she was putting on an act for the Capitol audience. Joking in the face of danger would really impress sponsors. On an odd whim, he decided to play along. "Well enough. Yourself?"

"It's been a bit warm for my taste, The air's better up here. Why don't you come on up?"

Wow, she's got nerve. "Think I will."

He grasped the tree trunk – and then suddenly found that there was nothing that he could use for leverage for pulling himself up. How on Earth had the girl managed it? She must be an expert at climbing – and at fending off Clove's knives, and at keeping cool in danger. Cato was starting to see how she had dazzled the Gamesmasters.

"Let me try," said Glimmer. She bent back and tried to shoot an arrow at the girl. But, of course, bows and arrows were not designed to work vertically. The arrow was badly aimed, and it lost momentum as well. The same would happened if Cato tried to hurl a sword or spear, or if Clove threw a knife. Not only was it likely to miss, but it might end up handing the girl a weapon.

"Maybe we could build a fire and smoke her out," said Marvel.

"Yeah, and maybe smoke ourselves out as well," Clove said disdainfully, trying to wave aside the smoke from the forest fire.

It was infuriating. They had their adversary treed like a squirrel, but they could DO nothing about it.

"Oh let her stay up there," said the boy from 12. "It's not like she's going anywhere. We'll deal with her in the morning."

"He's right," said Clove unexpectedly. "I had a teacher who studied fighting techniques before the age of gunpowder. She considered it relevant to the Hunger Games because we're not allowed to use guns in the arena. This is like a siege situation. You surround the quarry and starve her out. She only has limited food and water up there, whereas we can always get extra supplies back at the lake."

"There's a problem though," said the boy from 3. "She has the advantage of gravity. She could drop something from up there, and by the time it hits the ground it could build up a lot of momentum. Even if it's just a block of wood hacked off a limb."

"We'll just be careful not to stand directly under," said Cato. "Deploy ourselves to block all the escape routes instead. Take turns watching so that if she starts climbing down, somebody gives the alarm."

And so they set themselves up for the night. Cato took Clove aside to whisper.

"I'm worried about Loverboy. He could secretly be on her side. Besides, we don't need him anymore now that we've found HER. We need to kill him."

"But if we kill an ally without provocation," objected Clove, "the other four will try to kill us. That's how alliances work."

"I know. So we'll take turns keeping an eye on him. If he does anything suspicious, we accuse him and THEN kill him. The others will accept that."

"Okay."

The announcements from the Capitol came about a couple hours later. The boy from 10 was dead, probably killed by the fire. Aside from the people around the tree, that left the girl from 5 and both tributes from 11.

For several hours nothing happened. Then in a single second, while Cato was watching "Loverboy" and the boy from 3 was watching the tree, all chaos broke loose.

There was a cracking sound behind Cato, then a weird buzzing sound. The boy from 12 shouted "Jackets" and started running away. Cato ran after him, at first simply to keep him from getting away, but a sudden agonizing sting on the back of his neck made him realize what was happening. The bitch from 12 had dropped a hive of deadly trackit jackets on them.

"The lake!" shouted the boy from 3. "Water – they can't track—"

Cato forgot about following Loverboy and concentrated on getting to the lake. Even so he felt two more stings. It was like the agonizing punishment of running-the-gauntlet in the Academy: you ran between two lines of people who tried to hit you with straps, belts, and outright whips. You couldn't fend them off; ending the ordeal was a matter of running and reaching the end.

Cato reached the lake and dove in. He stayed below as long as his breath held out, then allowed his head to surface. There were no signs of the trackit jackets, just a few other heads bobbing up. "Are they gone?"

"Looks like it," said Marvel.

"Trackit Jackets operate by scent, body heat, and movement," said the boy from 3, as if he was giving a lecture instead of floating in a lake. "When that all disappears, they give up the chase. Being mutants, they don't have instinctive behavior to fall back on."

"As long as they're gone," said Cato. "Let's get out."

Four of them got out. Cato, Clove, Marvel, and the boy from 3. The others looked a sight: standing in soaked clothes with hair plastered to their heads, with ugly swelling where the jackets had stung them. Cato knew he looked little better. And, unfortunately, they were probably visible to everybody in Panem. And there was no way to neaten themselves up.

There was no sign of Loverboy, Glimmer, the girl from 4. They may have missed hearing the death-cannons while distracted or underwater.

Cato had to appear to the people of Panem as the heroic leader who was on top of the situation. "Our quarry has escaped, possibly killing two of our people. Come on, we need to track her down."

"Track her down?" mimicked Clove. "I can't even see straight!" She was trying to straighten out her uniform. It was plastered against her breasts like a wet T-shirt, and she was probably mindful of the fact that the whole Empire was probably gawking at her on TV at the moment.

"Then I'LL track her down," declared Cato, heading back into the woods.

The venom was a problem, of course. Cato called on his Insensitivity Training. This helped to clear his mind a little, but it wasn't perfect: it was designed to control moods, not to counteract chemicals that were affecting his brain. He felt numb and a bit dizzy, and it made the whole situation feel unreal. He had to concentrate on his goal: killing the girl from 12, avenging her attack and thereby impressing the sponsors. But he thought his resolve looked impressive to the audience.

Something up ahead. Glimmer's body, very dead. The sexy body that he had lusted over was now swollen in various place, her pretty face almost unrecognizable. Her bow and arrows were gone, something he didn't register until later.

Voices ahead. "Run! Run! What are you waiting for?"

In the distance he saw Loverboy and the Girl from 12. She looked disoriented, probably having taken several stings herself, but she was holding Glimmer's bow and quiver of arrows. Loverboy was closer and had his back to Cato, but it was obvious that he was urging her to flee. His claim that he had wanted revenge on the girl who had humiliated him had clearly been a pretense.

Cato hated the Girl from 12, but he hated the boy a lot more. Killing Glimmer and taking her weapons was at least the sort of thing that was expected in the Games. But the boy had BETRAYED THEIR ALLIANCE. As the girl staggered away, Cato drew his sword, shouted "Traitor!" and charged.

It should have been a well-executed execution. But Cato's body wouldn't cooperate, and he stumbled. Maybe his heart beat faster with his anger and that had spread the venom more. What he did know was that he had performed a pratfile with all Panem watching.

Loverboy picked up a limb that had been dislodged from the tree. When Cato tried to slash at him again, the boy parried with the limb.

All the attempts Cato made to stab him were blocked by the limb and Cato's own poisoned reflexes. Finally Cato remembered a concept from his training: FEINT.

Cato aimed his sword at a high angle, causing Loverboy to raise the limb. Then Cato swung his sword in a quick arc, and aimed for the genitals. He didn't manage to castrate his opponent, but he did inflict a deep cut on the leg.

Loverboy screamed and tried to club Cato. Cato dodged and the limb struck him a glancing blow. On top of the venom in his system, it was enough to make him thoroughly dizzy. Another blow could finish him off. No matter how humiliating it might look to the viewers, Cato had to run.

A few dozen meters through the forest, Cato blacked out altogether. If Loverboy was still capable of wielding a weapon after that slashing of his leg. Cato was dead.

TO BE CONTINUED.