11. Attack of the Mutts!
Bond did not know it, but Snow was on to him. Too many things were array. Despite Coin's insistence that Snow believed Clove's mention of Bond to be nothing more than bragging about a family member she knew little about, Snow had made good on his promise to monitor her closely. And things seemed odd to Snow. She was spending an awful lot of time in the District 1 room, yet no one reported finding any hint of romance between her and the male tribute there. Yet, the two were inseparable at practices. The two gathered together at the rooftop and whispered. The two whispered in the arena. And, there was the fact that every single one of District 1's room's bugs had not heard a peep. All of the cameras in that room were also conveniently obscured. And the massive number of drinks sent to that room. Snow had never known a tribute to drink so many vodka martinis or smoke so many cigarettes.
The night after the tracker jacket attack, Snow stormed into the room of the Gamemakers and shouted in an angry fit, "It's Bond! I'm certain it's Bond!"
"That tribute you've been suspicious of, Marvel?" asked Crane.
"Exactly. He must have used a Dream Machine. Only Coin could have one!"
"You should have dealt with 13 long ago."
"Now's not the time to play Monday morning quarterback, Seneca. We'll, deal with Coin once this Bond mess has been put out."
"So, you've come here to ask me to send muttations after him?"
"You know me, well."
"I'll get him. What's it you want this time?"
"Snakes. I have the perfect plan. Commander Bond has yet to check out the wheat field. He's bound to eventually. When he does, we wait until he gets as far into it as he can. Then, we strike. I want fifteen green anacondas. And, one other mutt. I thought of something particularly appropriate, one thing which will confirm whether or not this tribute truly is James Bond."
"What?"
"I want a mutt which looks like the reanimated corpse of his wife Teresa."
Time seemed to freeze as Bond saw the anaconda drag Clove away with her waist clenched inside its teeth. As soon as he processed this, Bond ran faster than he ever had in his life after the giant snake. When he was close enough, he chucked his javelin at it with all his might. It nailed the snake in the head. The snake let out a scream and then dropped dead to the ground, releasing Clove.
"Are you alright," called out Bond as he approached her.
"Yes," she answered, "nice shot."
"Yes it's…"
Bond could not finish his witty remark for two anacondas appeared behind him. Each grabbed him at the shoulder and tugged him back. Clove screamed "James" forgetting momentarily that he was supposed to be maintaining a cover. Then, she whipped out two knives and sent them flying Bond's way. Each one met its mark. The snakes died and released Bond.
"That's one to you, two to me," said Clove as she went over and found Bond unharmed.
"Yes," said Bond, "but who's keeping score. Oh, and way to blow my cover."
"Sorry."
"Although judging by this attack, I think the jig was up before you said anything. They seem to want us dead. Keep your weapons out and don't leave my side. We're heading back."
Clove and Bond walked back briskly, each focusing closely on hearing any unnatural sound. For ten minutes, nothing. Then, a scream! A giant anaconda charged towards both of them from the rear. Bond speared it in the head.
"All tied up," quipped Bond to Clove.
"Oh, James," she replied.
Before they took another step, both were surrounded by a wall of green. Six giant anacondas popped up from all sides. And all six looked bigger and meaner than any of the four they killed.
"Now we're doomed," said Clove.
Bond was about to resign to his fate, when he thought of an idea he thought was so hopeless and bizarre that he was almost too embarrassed to voice it.
"Sparks," said Bond. "You wanted to be the girl on fire, now be it. Do your knife trick you did for the Gamemakers. If you hit a grass patch dry enough and I time a blow exactly correct, we can create a ring of fire around ourselves."
"Say what?" said Clove.
"Just strike your bloody knives together as fast as you can before one of those lunges."
"Gotchya."
Clove manically struck her knives against each other. Two snakes lunged from both sides shrieking madly. They were only feet away before a small spark flicked out from the knives. It hit a piece of grass and Bond breathed on it. Much to his amazement, a fire started. Bond plucked that piece of grass and light a protective ring around the two just fast enough to burn the two attacking snakes to death.
"Great," said Clove sarcastically, "now we're gonna burn to death in a ring of fire instead of being snake food."
"Give me your canteen," said Bond.
Clove handed Bond her canteen. He took both his and hers and threw them to his left. The water from both created a narrow fire-free strip. Both charged through it without either having to tell the other to run. Both had about a ten second window before the other four snakes realized what happened and began to pursue them. Bond told Clove to make another spark. She did, and Bond used it to create a wall of fire behind them. One snake mistakenly charged into it and died a fiery death. The other three darted away. Before long, Bond and Clove reached the wheat field. They took a breather by the well.
"There's at least three of them still out there," said Clove.
"Yes," answered Bond, "and we have a wheat field blocking our way back to the lake base. And Thresh is also out there."
"Is this the end?"
"No, this is where we show them what we're made of. Now let us get some water out of this well. I have a plan."
Bond and Clove each dropped a basket into the well. Both were surprised to find it extraordinarily difficult to get the baskets back up, however.
"Do you think we got them both stuck together?" asked Clove.
"I wish it was that simple," answered Bond.
As he said this, as expected two giant snakes came screaming their way out of the well. With mouths covered with purple teeth, Bond guessed that Thresh's poising the well had managed to turn these into poisonous anacondas. He wondered if they would be able to spit toxic. He wouldn't have to wait long as both spit out venom at Bond and Clove's faces. Luckily, both anticipated this and ducked. The snakes each zeroed in on a target and prepared to strike.
Bond thought quickly and yelled out, "Block yourself with your back pack!"
Clove listened and both jammed their backpacks into the anacondas' mouths. As the snakes tried to get them out, Clove slight each snake's throat with her knifes. Both dropped dead and released the chewed up backpacks.
"Let's try the well again," said Bond.
"Yeah," said Clove full of sassiness, "cuz' it worked so great the first time."
This time, both easily got water out of the well. Rather than putting it into their canteens, which would have been suicidal considering the poison, Clove just slashed the ropes and each took a bucket with them.
"Now let's hear this plan," said Clove.
"We do the fire trick again," said Bond. "We light the entire wheat field on fire behind us. Any snake that tries to follow us is fried pudding. If we get trapped, we have these buckets."
"And ahead of us?" asked Clove.
"Good old fashioned steel power. Spear and knives."
Clove and Bond walked into the wheat. After fifteen paces, they started a fire behind them. Clove made this one all by herself. Bond looked ahead with his spear. They walked forward thirty more paces this way before hearing the death scream of an anaconda.
"Going good," said Bond.
Nearly as soon as Bond said that, five anacondas approached from the front in a v-shape, each towered above the head high wheat. Bond guessed three of these were the three massive ones that got away earlier. He supposed they picked up two hellish friends from a dinner date. The screams of all five combined were strong enough to bend the wheat like the wind.
"And now we're trapped against a wall of fire," said Clove. "Remind me why we decided on this plan again?"
"Well," said Bond, "you weren't exactly the idea fountain, now were you? Fire ahead."
"Are you insane?"
Despite her doubts, Clove struck her knives together and created a fire in front of the two. None of the snakes anticipated this and each charged into the inferno.
"Back where we started," said Clove. "Once again, we're gonna get cooked instead of chomped."
"We just need to find a thin patch of fire," said Bond. "When I say throw, chuck your bucket where I point."
The two madly dashed as the walls of fire closed in on them from both sides. Each knew this was a race against time as before long the flames would engulf them. But then, Bond saw a thin strip of fire. He and Clove chucked their water at it and charged ahead leaving all flames behind them. Before they could celebrate, however, to their horror one snake still was alive. It wrapped around both and went in for the kill just as Bond and Clove each struck it in the head with their weapons. Finally, it was dead.
"Think that's the last?" asked Clove.
"Don't jinx us," said Bond.
Both continued forward led by Bond's spear with Clove covering their tracks with fire in the wheat. Just as both could sense that they were finally almost home free, a loud scream sounded ahead. Only this was no snake scream. It was clearly a human woman.
"Sounds like a tribute," said Clove. "Gotta be Finch, or Rue, or Katniss."
"I don't think so," said Bond. "I've heard that sound before. It's Tracy, my wife."
Sure enough, ten yards away sprawled on the ground was Teresa Bond. She was still in the dress which she wore on her wedding day and eerily still had a bullet wound in her forehead. Bond could not believe his eyes. He wondered if the Capitol had found some way to resurrect her. But why would they do it? he thought. Surely to torment me.
"Good lord, Tracy," said Bond, "are you okay?" He knelt down beside her and put her head in his lap.
"James," Tracy feebly said, "oh James. It's terrible. The shattered glass, the pain, the darkness, the light, the room with all those peculiar people. Pink and purple wigs I tell you. Not very posh if you ask me. They told me I was dead, but that they raised me. That they'd bring me to you. And they dropped me here in this musty wheat field. And that snake, he banged into me. Oh, it's all so very confusing."
"It's alright, Tracy," answered Bond. "I'm here. This is Clove, my granddaughter times twentyabouts. We're in the future."
"And which one of your lady friends does she descend from?"
"Tiffany Case."
"Before or after me."
"The first after you."
"Really? And how long did you wait. A whole month? Perhaps a week?"
"Two years."
"You, celibate for two years? That's hard to believe."
"Well… Anyway, we're in an arena now. The snakes are dead. At least I think I killed all of them."
"We killed all of them," said Clove correcting Bond.
"Right," said Bond.
Tracy looked at Clove with a crocked smile and said, "A little chip off the old block isn't she?"
"You'll love her, Tracy," said Bond.
"I don't think so!"
Bond could tell there was something off with the way Tracy said that last sentence. It was filled with cruelty and spite. Bond had never thought Tracy the jealous type before which was one of the reasons why he loved her more than any of his many other lovers.
Tracy stood up and pulled a sword out from beneath her. She marched over to Clove, slapped her, and knocked both knives out of Clove's hands before Clove could even react. Bond looked on horrified. He knew Clove was tough and could not have been disarmed so easily by a normal person.
"It's her or me," said Tracy to Bond. "You cannot have us both."
"What on Earth do you think you're doing, Teresa?" asked Bond.
"I'm not interested in raising one of your bastard children. If you want me, you let me kill this girl," snarled Tracy.
"James, no," yelled Clove.
Bond knew that this somehow could not be Tracy.
"The Tracy I knew would never threaten an innocent child with a sword. You're a fake," said Bond, "A phony. You're nothing more than one of Snow's cheap parlor tricks."
"I can prove to you I'm quiet genuine," snapped back Tracy. "You proposed to me in a barn. In the hay. How would I know that?"
"Blofeld found us the next morning. Obviously, Snow has access to some files about Blofeld."
"You saved me from drowning on a beach."
"He had access to Union Corse files then, too. Your father knew that."
"He's got you," said Clove, "you lying bitch."
Tracy spit in Clove's face. "He still won't stop me. Now, it's time for me to put you in intensive care." She knocked Clove to the ground and held her sword in the air preparing to swipe Clove's head off with it in one swoop. Bond hesitated for a moment… only so that he could aim properly and send his spear flying through Tracy's heart. She screamed and transformed into a hideous beast before his eyes. As the beast yelled in pain, Clove wiggled toward her knives on the ground and chopped its head cleanly off.
"Sorry I decapitated your wife," said Clove with a grin.
"I had that head on my lap," said Bond. "I think I'm going to vomit when we get back to camp."
Snow couldn't believe what had just unfolded before his eyes and only his eyes. None of the rest of Panem was privy to the fights in the fields. Everyone else was shown Katniss and Rue paling around by a fire and sleeping together in a tree. Crane's muttations had completely and utterly failed him right before his eyes and now were dead. Snow threw his remote at his television screen and broke it. He cursed Bond and stormed off to bed angry.