"This is unreal," Rose Web groaned, looking at the list of names in front of her. "I cannot believe that this is the total number of kids that we have eligible for the Events. There's, like, four of them."
"There's a few more than four of them," cautioned Neelee. "But you're right, it's not like we have the biggest pool of people to work with."
"So does that make it easy or hard to choose?" asked Riley.
"Well, kind of both, I guess. It's easy because it means we have a very small pool, and I fully anticipate that other districts will struggle to choose because they have such a big pool. But it also means that we're going to need to think very carefully to figure out how our pair fit our value of ingenuity."
The three of them spent some time brainstorming. Ingenuity was a hard trait to pin down, they agreed, and they needed to find a way to isolate that trait in their prospective competitors. They batted some ideas around – the marshmallow and spaghetti challenge, maybe, or some sort of MacGyver challenge – but none of them felt right to the mentors. Until suddenly, something clicked for young Riley.
"I have a question. If we're having trouble pinning down how to detect ingenuity, why don't we leave it up to the competitors?"
"What do you mean?"
"All we need to do," Riley suggested, "is ask the competitors how they consider themselves to represent ingenuity. Their guess is as good as ours. The two people who give us the best answers are the two we present to Ruby."
"Huh." Neelee and Rose looked at each other. "That's a very very good idea. It also means that we could put forward competitors who we think are the safest bets, as long as they give us halfway-decent answers. Well done, Riley," Neelee said, patting the child on their head. "I think what we should do is pick two kids first and see what they say, and if we don't like their answers, we can always ask a few other kids. It's just best to make this as small of a deal as possible. Sound good?" The other two nodded. "Great. So now we just need to choose the two people from this list who we think will be the safest bets."
There was very little that Paisley Burrell loved to do as much as draw. The girl could spend hours just sitting with her drawing pad, a luxury she'd gotten used to having during her family's two years back in Seven. Whenever she got a chance, she would steal away to seek out the few flowers that poked through the concrete cracks of the pavement in Eight so she could draw them; they were her favorite things to draw back in Seven, but she especially loved to draw them now in the industrial jungle that was Eight as a break from all of the grey and black and smog. Although, flipping back through the notebook revealed that the flowers were slowly becoming more and more industrial as Paisley continued her life in Eight.
The problem when she drew was that she often lost track of time. It was only now that the August sun was setting that she realized just how late it was, and just how close to curfew she was cutting it. And she was all the way on the other side of the district.
Paisley needed a way out of this. And fast.
As Paisley headed towards home, she ran right into a wall of white. Paisley was pretty tall for her age, at five foot nine, but most Peacekeepers were way taller.
"Miss Burrell," said Peacekeeper Thrope. "This is not the first time I've seen you so far from home, so close to curfew."
"That is correct."
"I'm quite surprised that you haven't received a curfew strike yet. I doubt you can make it all the way back to your home in time; this is, after all, quite far from your home."
"Well, I am, in fact, a fairly fast runner. And I think I would have made it home in time; after all, I have done so before. But, I was intercepted by a Peacekeeper. And, if I've read the Peacekeeper's Handbook carefully enough, doing something that causes a citizen to break a minor infraction law, such as breaking curfew, would give a Peacekeeper a strike, but not the citizen. And considering your personal sympathies, I doubt you want to get on Head Peacekeeper Thread's bad side with a strike."
"So if you're caught out past curfew now, I also get a strike?" processed Peacekeeper Thrope pensively.
"Correct. But, if you were to escort me home, neither of us would get a strike, as a Peacekeeper escorting a non-rebel citizen home, no matter how far past curfew, is considered an act of protection."
"And how do I know that you are a non-rebel citizen?"
"My mother is the mayor's assistant."
The Peacekeeper thought for a moment. "Fine, I don't want to take the risk." Paisley smirked as Peacekeeper Thrope escorted her back home.
Even though it was past curfew, Paisley knew that she could just walk right through the door of her house and face no consequences. And she was right. But it took Paisley a moment to register why that was the case on this particular occurrence. Sitting in her house was the commander of the rebels in Eight. Paisley was used to being surrounded by rebel ideas; her family was one of a subset of undercover rebels in Eight, those who kept their rebel ideals on the down-low as to infiltrate high government positions. But normally, rebel commanders didn't visit the houses of undercover rebels, for security purposes for all involved.
"Hi Dad," Paisley said. "What's going on?"
"Oh, hi Paisley," her father said. "We're just talking with the commander about some plans for the next few months."
"I actually had some ideas for how we can…"
Jude turned back to the commander of the rebels. "So I think the strategy we took of getting more kids on rebel statutes… actually kind of worked. It made it more likely that a rebel would get reaped from here and from Eleven, so they could ally up and stick it to Ruby."
"Yeah, it's been incredibly successful to create that counter-alliance to the Careers, even though none of the mentors have encouraged it. I think if we can keep getting rebel kids reaped for the Games, and we keep having them ally, I could see us really making a dent in the whole Games system. Maybe if a ton of rebels win, Ruby will just stop them once and for all."
"So we want to make as many kids who are rebels as eligible as possible for the Games."
"Because that also dents into the Events."
"Exactly."
"Dad, I had an idea about the…"
The front door opened, and Paisley's mother, Penelope, bustled into the room. She suddenly stopped, alarmed, and quickly shut and locked the door. "Jude, you didn't tell me the commander was coming!"
"I didn't know either, but he wanted to discuss some things with me."
"Actually," the commander spoke up, "I was equally interested in you and in the information your wife bears."
"Well, it's an honor to welcome you to our home. Can I offer you a cup of tea or something?"
"No, I think I'm OK."
"Hi mom! How was work?"
"Oh, it was nice, Paisley." Paisley's mother took a seat next to the commander. "So I managed to get my hands on that list of Events-eligible competitors you wanted."
"Fabulous! Show it to me," commanded the commander. Paisley's mother procured a piece of paper from her briefcase, and passed it over to the commander. "I'm glad I don't recognize most of the names on this list. As you know, I know the names of every rebel family in the district."
"We know," Paisley muttered to herself.
"And I see only, like, two rebel names that aren't undercover. So that's a very good thing; it means people are listening to me."
"Are we interested in getting our undercover names on the list as well?"
"We'd need to do that more slowly. It would look incredibly suspicious if suddenly so many people went on statutes. We'd need to make it happen slowly, and then we run the risk of those families losing their influence. So I think we could aim to get some people who aren't rebels onto statutes to help us out."
"But there is an advantage to having rebel kids eligible for the Events," Paisley posed boldly.
The commander and her parents turned to look at her, a little bit surprised that she was even there. "What do you mean?"
"With mom's influence, we could rig a kid into the Events. Like, I'd volunteer! We can strongly encourage them to put me into the Events and that way I can infiltrate the…"
As usual, nobody was listening. The three of them turned back to each other, as if Paisley hadn't even started speaking, and kept figuring out whatever plan the commander had come over to discuss. Everything in Paisley wanted to go up to her room, but she knew that, as long as she stayed downstairs, she would be able to gain little bits of information from the goings-on downstairs. And every little bit of extra information would help her, eventually. All she had to do was get into those Events, and then the information she bore could finally be put to good use, one which would certainly get her parents to notice her.
"What if we did find a way to infiltrate the Events?" suggested the commander. "Getting a rebel into a rebel-proof enterprise would certainly be a way to stick it to Ruby."
"That's exactly what I said!" Paisley exclaimed.
"No need to shout, young lady," chastised her mother.
"Hmm. I like that idea, actually," said her father. "We were successful during the Games with getting rebels in, and it had the effect we wanted, so I bet doing the same for the Events will work. But who do we pick? Anybody who is a public rebel is on statutes, so they're ineligible."
"So it would need to be an undercover rebel. If they can do rebellious things without being noticed, it could undermine Ruby's authority just as well."
"But who is good at just… not being noticed?"
"I mean, I could do it," Paisley suggested. "I'm good at being quiet and unassuming but gathering a lot of information. And then I can act quietly without people noticing me."
The three adults began to list out any kid they could think of from the undercover rebels. Even when listing the other five Burrell kids, though, they didn't say Paisley's name. But then, finally, after quite a while, Penelope offered, "Oh! Paisley! She's usually quiet and out of the way, and because her mother works for the mayor, there's no doubt that she'll be accepted."
"Oh, I forgot about Paisley," Jude admitted. "That's a good idea, Penelope. Let's bring her in and ask her. Paisley!"
"I'm right here!"
"Oh, there you are. I didn't notice you there. I have a question for you. Would you be interested in taking on a rebel mission?"
"What kind of mission?" Paisley played dumb.
"We're thinking of rigging you into the Events. You'll be able to get information from the inside and pass it back to us, and maybe you can also mess up the Events in the process. It's a bit of a risky mission if you get found out."
"Hmm." Paisley pretended to think for a minute, to try to make it seem like it wasn't her idea in the first place. "I'll do it. It's risky, but it's what I have to do for my – for our cause."
"Probably the safest choice would be the child of someone who works in high-up government," suggested Rose.
"Won't Ruby not like that we're picking people who already have opportunities to excel?" asked Riley.
"Maybe. But it isn't like we have many people lower on the totem pole to choose from. I think if we pick one person from a higher-class family and one from a lower-class family, she'll have to be fine with it."
"That's fair." The three turned to their list and began talking through every name on it, trying to identify the jobs of their parents and sorting them between higher class and lower class families, to make sure they got one of each, and also thinking through who was least likely to actually be a rebel. It was a tedious process, but it was what they had to do to make sure that they made good, safe, picks.
Eventually, Rose pointed to a name near the top of the alphabetical list. "How about Paisley Burrell? I'm pretty sure her mom works for the mayor."
"I'm not sure," Riley piped up. "I think I heard my family talk about the Burrell family as like an undercover team."
Neelee shook her head. "Burrell is a pretty common name, and there's no way the mayor would hire someone who's a rebel. I'm pretty sure that, as long as she has a halfway-decent justification for how she fits the value of ingenuity, Paisley is a very safe bet."
"OK," replied Riley nervously. "So is she the higher class or the lower class one?"
"I'd consider her to be the higher class because her parents are technically of a pretty high status," Rose offered. "So let's rule out all the other clearly higher class options. Now, who's a good safe lower class bet? Do you guys recognize any other names on this list?"
Riley skimmed the list. "Oh! I know this name. Jacobus Tailleur. He's the one who made those Vac-Bot things – did you hear about that?"
Jacobus Tailleur sat at his desk at school, bored as usual. It wasn't that he disliked learning, he just… disliked learning in school. Everything was either too easy or not engaging, and he much preferred to zone out and think about other things. Today, Jack was working on solving a problem for one of the grocery stores near his apartment. That store happened to only employ fairly short employees, and they only had one ladder tall enough to reach many of the shelves in the store. Jack was trying to figure out a way to make it easier to restock those upper shelves. Of course, the store hadn't exactly asked for help with this particular problem. But Jack was sure that this time, he could come up with a solution that would actually work and wouldn't go up in flames like that one time last year when…
"Alert, alert, alert," said a voice over the intercom. "There has been a factory fire in Sector Six. There were two casualties, four people were airlifted to District Twelve for treatment, and sixty-five people were taken to local hospitals. The cause of the fire is still unclear, but reports claim that a spark from the machinery in the factory landed on some scraps of wood that had fallen on the ground and lit them on fire. Those with affected family members will be notified according to standard procedures: first, the families of those who passed and the families of those lifted to Twelve will be notified and immediately dismissed. Then, the families of those who were taken to local hospitals will be notified, and they will be dismissed after lunch. All other Sector Six students will be dismissed once the all-clear is given by the first responders. Anyone who does not live in Sector Six will be dismissed as normal in the afternoon."
Instantly, the tension in the room went up, a few kids becoming visibly nervous and gravitating towards their closest friends. Everyone in his class lived or had families who worked in Sector Six, so more likely than not, everyone in that room either had a family member who was hurt or knew someone whose family member was hurt. All they could do was sit and wait for someone in the administration to come in to break the news.
A few moments later, the vice principal came in. They walked past Jack's desk, giving him a pat on the back before approaching a girl who sat next to him and leading her out of the room. A few moments later, he came back in to pull out another girl, as well as the teacher. Once the door closed, the entire class breathed a big sigh of relief; the only people to be airlifted over to Twelve were people in critical condition, so the rest of their families were, if not unharmed, at the very least not at death's door.
"I can't believe this!" exclaimed one of Jack's classmates. "This is the fourth fire this week and it's only Wednesday."
"And I think all of them were caused for this reason, too – stuff on the floor of the factories catching fire. There has to be a way to prevent these because it's costing the district more money when factories keep burning down."
Suddenly, Jack got an idea, a way to solve the problem of the factory fires. He turned to a new page in his workbook and began to scribble down an idea, drawing diagrams and piecing together his initial idea. He was so busy working that he barely noticed that his class had been dismissed. Carefully, he gathered up his stuff and hurried home.
Later that night, Jack took a seat at his desk and picked up where he left off. He spent some time drawing some more detailed diagrams, and other times fiddling with the machinery he had in his room to try to see if what he thought was possible was actually possible. He wouldn't be able to know for sure until he built a prototype, but Jack was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to do that all on his own. He would need to get one of the factory owners on his side so they could build a prototype and then start actually marketing and selling it. The problem was finding a factory owner to whom Jack could market his product. Jack thought he remembered hearing his friends, Greg and Valerie, say that their father or relative or something owned a factory; maybe he could use that connection to get him into someone's office.
The next day, Jack, Greg, and Valerie met up after school and headed over to one of their favorite secret spots in the district. Greg and Valerie both lived in another sector of the district, pretty far away from where the factory fire happened. But they were both concerned for Jack; as soon as they were alone, Greg asked, "Is everyone OK after what happened?"
"Well…" Jack contemplated how exactly to answer the question. "My dad…"
"Oh! I hope he's all right!" Valerie exclaimed.
"I think he'll be fine."
"Is there anything we can do to help?"
"Well, I had an idea so that we can prevent something like this from happening again. But I need to talk to a factory owner to get a prototype made and so we can price it out and whatnot."
"I bet we can talk to cousin Oli. Doesn't he own a manufacturing plant?"
"Yeah, and I even think he even works with mechanical whatnot. Would that work?"
"That would be great."
Over the next few days, Jack worked with his friends to finish his design, refine his sales pitch, and practice for his big day. Finally, it came time for Jack to present in front of Oli Maccalister, who was one of the biggest technology manufacturers in Eight. Dressed in his nicest clothes, Jack nervously brought his armful of diagrams and drawings with him to Maccalister Manufacturing, LLC. He was escorted directly to the owner's office.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Maccalister."
"Good afternoon, Jacobus. I understand from my niece and nephew that you have quite the product to show me. I'm interested to hear what you have to say."
Jack unrolled his papers on Mr. Maccalister's desk. "Over the past week, no fewer than eight of District Eight's factories have caught on fire. Many of these fires were caused by the same thing: sparks from the machinery falling to the ground and lighting pieces of wood, paper, or other fire hazards on fire. This tragedy struck very close to my home, as my father was injured in one of those fires. He is looking to make a speedy and full recovery in the hospital, but I want to make sure that both of my parents are safe and stay safe. I spent some time thinking of a way to fix this problem, namely how to do a better job of cleaning up the floors, and I think I came up with a good solution.
"These are Vac-Bots," Jack explained enthusiastically, gesturing to the papers in front of them. "Each robot is about the diameter of a frisbee and runs on battery power. They work autonomously to navigate the floor and suck up all of the particles to keep the floor clean. They each have their own charging port, and can even navigate on their own back to their port. You can set parameters for when they're out on the floor and parameters for boundaries for each individual Vac-Bot. They even automatically redirect themselves when they hit a wall or a chair leg or any other obstacle! Most importantly, by making these Vac-Bots out of recycled materials and certain metals, we can make them both cost-effective and affordable. Most importantly, by making a small investment in this method of fireproofing, factory owners can prevent themselves from having to spend what would certainly be a larger sum of money to rebuild their entire factory.
"In order to produce these Vac-Bots, I need a partner, both for financial support and someone who knows how to manufacture stuff. There is no better person to turn to than you, Mr. Maccalister, as you have more experience in manufacturing gadgets and metal products than anybody else in the district. Would you take this step with me towards keeping our factories and workers safe?"
Mr. Maccalister looked at the diagrams that Jack had brought with him. "Did you do all of this yourself?"
"Yes, sir."
"This is very impressive, Jack. I think it's a great idea, but I'm wondering what differentiates these from traditional robotic vacuums."
"A slightly larger vacuum opening," Jack spitballed, "and one that can withstand sharper objects better."
"And you did all of this diagramming and drawing yourself?"
"Correct."
Mr. Maccalister thought for a moment. "I'm very impressed, Jack, with your ingenuity and your problem-solving skills. As we already manufacture a robotic vacuum, I'm not sure if it's totally worth reinventing the wheel, but I certainly don't object to working with you to create a lower-cost alternative that is more suited for an industrial setting. Let me bring in a neutral third party so we can write up a contract."
Mr. Maccalister paged a woman, who came in and drew up a contract between Jack and Mr. Maccalister. In addition to working out the details of how exactly Jack would work for Mr. Maccalister, the services each provided for the other, and the exact way in which Jack would be compensated. Intelligently, Jack made sure to stipulate that he was to keep the original blueprints and designs and that Maccalister Manufacturing could only keep watermarked copies of those designs. Eventually, both sides were satisfied with the contract, and Jack excitedly signed it. He collected his copy of the contract and the blueprints and excitedly made his way home.
"Hello?" called a voice from inside the house.
"Oh, hi, Dad! I didn't expect you to be home this early! How was work?"
"Jacobus's Vac-Bots were, incidentally, also instrumental in thwarting rebel plans," revealed Riley. "Rebels would occasionally intentionally bring pieces of flammable stuff into the factories and drop them on the floor underneath machinery that they knew would spark, hoping to burn down Capitol-sponsored factories to stem the flow of goods to the Capitol. The Vac-Bots managed to really confuse those plans, saving lots of people lots of money, and also lots of lives."
"So what I'm hearing is that Jacobus had an ingenious solution to a problem, and as a byproduct, he managed to not only avoid rebel interaction but also to thwart them," Neelee processed.
"Correct. And if I'm not mistaken, his parents are both factory workers, so he's definitely someone who's lower class, or at the very least a lower class than Paisley."
"Well, that's a safe bet if I ever heard one. Do either of you oppose to sending Paisley and Jacobus to the Capitol?"
"I'm confident in that," said Rose. "Riley?"
"It's good with me."
"Cool! So our competitors for the Second Events are Paisley Burrell and Jacobus Tailleur."
Jack sat in Mr. Maccalister's office, reviewing the twelfth Vac-Bot XL prototype of the day. After the success of the Vac-Bots, Jack and Maccalister Manufacturing had expanded the line to mini Vac-Bots first, and now they were working on a third, larger prototype for after-shift cleaning.
"I like this design," Jack smiled, handling the prototype, "but I wish it had a bit of a harder shell on the top for more protection. If something falls, I don't want this thing to get crushed."
"Well, I don't know if there's a way to do that without using plastic, which we want to avoid for environmental reasons."
"What about rubber?"
Mr. Maccalister thought for a moment. "That's certainly an option. Let me explore that and get back to you tomorrow, all right? You should head home – I'm sure you have schoolwork to do."
"Yeah, you're right. I'll see you after school tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow, Jack."
Jack rolled up the blueprints again and slid them into his backpack, then made his way back home. When he arrived, he checked the mailbox to see if either parent was home yet. As he expected, the mail was still there, meaning that both parents were still at work, as usual. Jack brought the mail into his empty house; ever since Sherri had moved to Six for school, coming home to a lonely house was the norm for Jack. He took a seat at the kitchen table and sorted through the mail, surprised to find that a few letters had come for him. Two of them had to do with his business, but the third was in a nice purple envelope that looked very official. Excitedly, Jack slid his finger under the flap and opened it out, pulling out a letter from D8's mentors and a questionnaire.
The mentors were considering him for the Events. They really were. Who would have guessed?
Jack began to carefully fill out the questionnaire. Most of it felt very self-explanatory, though not something he couldn't slightly embellish for sympathy purposes, until he got to the last question: How do you believe you fit the value of ingenuity? Jack spent some time debating exactly what to write, eventually deciding to write what the mentors probably wanted to hear: that he was a problem solver who had come up with the idea for the Vac-Bots. It was clearly the Vac-Bots that had gotten him on their radar. Giving them exactly what they wanted to hear was probably the best way to secure his spot. After reading over his answer, Jack slid the questionnaire back into the return envelope and walked it over to the Justice Building.
A few days later, Jack arrived home again and checked the mail, finding another purple envelope. His heart raced as he opened it up and as he skimmed the letter it contained. He could barely believe what it said.
They'd picked him. They'd really picked him!
Jack couldn't wait to tell his parents. If he could stay awake that long.
"I still don't quite understand why you want to do this," scolded Raime, Paisley's older sister and her roommate. "You're literally playing into the Capitol's hands."
"I know," Paisley replied, filling out the questionnaire she'd received from the mentors regarding her candidacy as an Events competitor. "But being that close to the Capitol is a great way to gain information, and to maybe even mess things up."
"Yes, but you would think that you'd at least be a little bit apprehensive about this. If you mess up, you're putting yourself in the direct line of fire, and it could have severe repercussions on all of us as well."
"Those are the risks we have to take for our cause," Paisley said solemnly.
Raime raised an eyebrow. "Alright," she said suspiciously before turning back to whatever she was working on.
Most of the questions were fairly simple to answer: name, age, family situation, grades in school, et cetera. But the last question on the questionnaire was way more difficult: How do you believe you fit the value of ingenuity? Paisley knew that she had to answer carefully; she couldn't say anything that would incriminate her in the face of the Capitol, but she also knew that the commander would be reading over her answers and that they would need to pass his discerning eye. After thinking carefully, Paisley wrote, "I am good at finding clever ways out of sticky situations." Then, she brought the questionnaire and the return envelope downstairs, where the rebel commander was waiting. He skimmed Paisley's answers, then nodded in approval and handed it back to her. In front of the commander, she slid it into the envelope and sealed it, then handed it to the commander to deliver to the mentors.
It wasn't even three days later that Paisley returned home from school to find her father waiting, holding a purple envelope out to Paisley. Eagerly, she grabbed it from the commander and tore it open. "They accepted my application!" she exclaimed, reading the letter as quickly as she could.
"Fantastic," Jude said. "This means you're going to start to come with me to 'physiotherapy' twice a week so that we can keep our cover and not arouse suspicion. The commander will give you all the information you need to know about how to execute your mission properly."
At dinner that night, Paisley tried her best to share her exciting news with the rest of her family. After all, this was her first mission! But, as usual, they ignored her, no matter how many times she interjected and tried to speak. Once the meal was over, Paisley rushed up to her room and closed the door behind her, knowing that Raime was working overtime. Finally, in private, she could really celebrate.
This was her chance. And Paisley wasn't going to mess it up.
So here's our pair from Eight, Paisley Burrell courtesy of later . glader and Jacobus Tailleur from TheAmazingJAJ! What do you think of this pair? Do you like Paisley or Jack better? Will they work together well?
Another quick reminder about the Discord server! Also, something I've been meaning to say for a while but keep forgetting: it will probably be beneficial to have reviewed every chapter of the story, or at least its content, for a reason to be made clear later ;).
That's really it for now. Obviously check out the blog, and I'll see you next week!