The Hub was a vast chamber, with a ceiling so high it very nearly suggested open space. Parts of the floor were missing, and the swivel chairs in front of the giant computer screens fell apart at Wiress' touch. The light was harsh: a few spotlights that had been coaxed into life by Kevin. But Chell thought the place as fine as any room she'd seen in Aperture, because its neglect meant it was invisible to her.

"You could fit the Town Hall in here," Katniss said appreciatively.

They set to work. When Chell had asked Katniss and Wiress whom to rescue next, she was surprised by Wiress' answer: "Not Beetee. He's doing fine in the tests and we don't have to worry about him."

Katniss had had an answer ready immediately. She went on the retrieval mission herself, and Chell told her over and over again, "Take your time. Go slowly. Learn each location you pass through, don't ever panic. If you're in danger, look for the graffiti. Take a core with you."

"She's long gone with her red shoes on…"

Now Katniss, swallowing her fear, walked a narrow catwalk between two walls. Machine hummed around her. She was glad for Mimi, several feet above her, singing softly as she glided down her Management Rail. It was comforting, but a very different comfort from what she got in the forest, knowing Gale was at her back no matter what. Mimi's songs in strange languages reminded Katniss of Rue, but not with the painful ache that usually accompanied that thought. Mimi didn't need to be protected.

As they approached the elevator controlled remotely now by Wiress, plants started to appear in the cracks between panels, even from the ceiling. The air started to smell earthy, and… Katniss wasn't sure why, but she was starting to feel hungry.

Mimi switched gears into a spirited tune that made Katniss think of sunlit woods with no paths. "Are you making these songs up?" Katniss asked. "Or do you just remember them?"

Mimi nodded dramatically at the second question.

"Where did you hear them?"

"Here and there, there and here, non perdere la strada…"

They came to a fork in the path, and Mimi directed Katniss to the left. The girl stopped and committed the site to memory before taking the left fork. "Well," she said, "Wiress seems more put together than I thought. If this were a normal… I mean, if it weren't for Chell, and this was just going according to plan, I'm sure she or Beetee would probably win. What do you think of Chell?"

If Mimi answered in one of her lyrical languages, Katniss didn't understand. "I wonder how Peeta would like her. Or Haymitch!" Katniss smiled at the thought. "Gale would like her, but Prim…" She grew more thoughtful. How would Prim react to Chell? "Straight down this passage, Mimi?"

But Mimi had fallen silent. She only nodded slowly. Focusing her senses, Katniss proceeded down the passage. It looked as though there had been a collapse at the next intersection. Between thick growths of leaves she could discern various ways, all in states of disrepair. Mimi seemed as confused as she was.

Katniss started to frantically down each of the passages. The elevator should have arrived by now, and how would they find each other in this maze? This had to work. It just had to.

She was wondering if she risked shouting, when the background noise got louder and louder. No, she did not risk shouting, absolutely not. She crouched down in the leaves, scanning the environment. But as the bzzz and clink clunk clank grew louder, she recognized it. 'Oh dear.' She braced herself for the walls to come crashing down around her - in a friendly fashion.

"Are you down there?" she heard Wheatley's stage whisper. "Is, um, someone who's not supposed to be down there, down there?"

Katniss again thought of her home forest, and how Wheatley would have a gift for driving animals away for miles and miles. In lieu of talking she looked pointedly at Mimi, who trilled, "Si."

"Oh, it's you, but I really wanted to find the test subject whose name rhymes with… um… Ketchup? Catnips? Doesn't really rhyme with anything nice…"

"I'm here, what do you want?" Katniss straightened up, still wary. Through the ceiling panels, she glimpsed blue.

"Okay! I want you do sing. Duck."

Katniss dodged just in time to avoid a collision with a pole from the ceiling, which very nearly missed her head. She squinted at it. Mimi obligingly turned on her flashlight.

"Go on, then," Wheatley said in an encouraging fashion. Katniss stared. It looked like a microphone, the sort that was set up in District Twelve when Effie Trinket came to town, and only then. "Oh! Right, I need to explain things. Whoops! Okay, listen, she's looking away now, and I was just talking to Peeta, and he really, really wants to hear you. Well, see you, really, but—"

"Am I on camera?"

"What? No, you're not."

Katniss let out a breath. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Katniss kept walking, away from the microphone. She was listening for footfalls other than her own.

"Hey, are you leaving? Come back! Peeta wants to see you, but I told him to be reasonable. I know how dangerous it is for you to be seen, believe me. But he's keen on it. If you think this is a terrible idea on my part, blame Peeta, alright? He's mad about you, really. So I told him I would, and I found you. That was step one - hey, this is actually going pretty well for a plan of mine. Peeta's waiting for you, cosy as a clam, but… are you still walking away?"

Katniss didn't answer, but tried to find a good footing. She reflected that after a year of forced proximity with Peeta, closeness and kisses and faked marriages, the abrupt isolation was… a relief. A lonely, frightening relief, but still a relief.

"Well. I see. Well, I can see you're very busy, Miss Everdeen. It's not like I promised Peeta or anything… you know, Peeta, that one who saved your life?"

Any profound effect this phrase may have had on her was spoiled by Wheatley adding, "I mean, I assume he saved your life, I haven't actually watched your tapes… But that's the nice, dramatic thing to have happened, I'm sure he saved your life somewhere along the line. Yeah. Obviously. I don't need you, even! I can get Mimi to sing instead."

She almost reacted to that, but bit it down. Wheatley was stupid. The fact was, Katniss couldn't be replaced by a machine, and it was stupid to react as if this could affect her.

"Wait, is it because you'd be on camera if you sang? You don't want the audience to hear you, even?"

Oh. The idea of the audience – almost forgotten today, that essential element. Katniss tried to review how the Game would now look from the outside. It would look, she concluded, like a mystery. No tribute had ever been known to simply vanish from the arena. But what if it wasn't pure mystery? What if she had disappeared, yet left traces of herself?

She could be a... what was the word? A ghost.

Now there was something romantic. Ghost stories had prickled the spines of District Twelve children for generations. She rubbed her neck, a bit nervous, but growing excited.

"Why do I have to sing? Why can't I just talk?" In her mind, she supplied an answer: 'Who ever heard of a talking ghost? Ghosts moan, or sing, or simply stand there in silence.'

Wheatley sounded surprised but pleased: "Now we're talking! Well, see, this place has three radio stations – had, I should say – and one was all music, all of the time. I figure She won't notice if we just replace music A with music B, you catch my meaning?"

It was a terrible idea. But Katniss was mired in terrible ideas – had been living in terrible ideas – and she felt reckless. She pictured Peeta's face clearly in her mind.

But what to sing?

The microphone was standing forlornly where she had left it. Mimi somehow commandeered it, and began to follow Katniss. Above, the blue consciousness that was Wheatley flickered uncomfortably. "So… anytime you're ready…"

Katniss chose a path, and walked down it. And she began to sing, "Go to sleep, you little baby… go to sleep, you little baby, Momma's gone away, but your Dad is gonna stay, didn't leave nobody but the baby."

"Oh, that's a lullaby, is it?"

Katniss grinned, feeling like she was sharing a joke with Peeta. Her hand beat out time on the portal gun. It was a lullaby, technically, the same way that the tiny ripples of semisheer fabric sported by certain Capitol citizens were technically skirts. It was a song Katniss' father had used to sing to her mother. You heard it a lot in District Twelve in springtime, sung by girls waiting for their boys to come and find them.

"You're a sweet little baby, you're a sweet little baby…"

Peeta clutched the radio close to his ear and stopped testing at once, a big goofy grin on his face.

"Honey in the rock and the sugar don't stop…"

All of District Twelve was tuned in, and in every house, hut, and square cheers broke out as they heard their native daughter's voice. When they realized what she was singing, there were many snickers and knowing glances.

"Gonna bring a bottle to the baby."

Wheatley, beaming with pride at the smile on Peeta's face (he'd done something right for a change!) grew a little careless with the signal.

That is how the song snaked into the other testing chambers, into the empty Relaxation Centers, and into Test Chamber Five, and the elevator in which Beetee slept.

At a break between lines, Katniss turned her head at a sound. She'd heard footsteps, she knew it, but there was no one to be seen. Her voice faltered. And then she heard the softer voice of Mimi, crooning a perfect, if nonsensical harmony – "Hunny boon dock and do ba do cop, Dun eenie meenie miny baby."

There was only one verse left to the song, but an instinct told Katniss that something was rotten. She stepped away from the mike, bumping her head on Mimi's handle. The whirring noises of Wheatley's machinery suddenly grew quiet, then the blue between the ceiling panels flared brightly. "Run!"

Katniss took off, gun at the read – and collided into something that she had not seen. It was a person, and they fell together into the plants. The person was warm and struggling, and trying to talk. Katniss reached up, found a mouth, and covered it with her free hand. She braced herself to be bitten, but no bite came.

The voice of GLaDOS filled the rotten corridor. "The Aperture Science Enrichment Center wishes to remind you that the purpose of turret androids is to promote science by means of bullet dispensation, and any guilds, unions, and opera companies that are formed will be immediately disbanded... with extreme prejudice."

Katniss risked a quick scan of the hallway. A yellow searchlight was scanning through the cracks. Wheatley's friendly blue light was entirely gone. The only other color was – pink?

"Go to sleep, you little baby, go to sleep you little baby…"

She heard Mimi singing – singing in a pitch-perfect, mechanical imitation of Katniss' voice. After she finished the first verse – her voice even cracking slightly at the right moment – GLaDOS spoke.

"Personality Core 00032."

Mimi fell silent.

"What were you doing?"

"I am singing, mi Duchessa." Mimi replied, speaking in a very thick accent that Katniss couldn't place. It was worse than Wheatley's.

"Do not mock me. Why were you singing? And why was I.D. Core 00004 involved?"

By the sheer acid in GLaDOS' tone as she pronounced those numbers, Katniss surmised that she meant Wheatley. Meanwhile, the person whose mouth Katniss was covering gently lifted Katniss' hand away, and stayed quiet.

"Oh—but mi Duchessa, I was singing for him! Mi amore, mi amore…" Mimi bubbled, sounding like a very happy pigeon. Katniss had no idea what 'mi amore' meant, but she could guess. At once the situation struck her as patently hilarious. She writhed in the plants, biting her sleeve and trying not to make a sound.

"Please spare me the details."

BOOM.

Katniss stopped laughing. Some small piece of metal struck her jumpsuit – she guessed that GLaDOS had made the microphone explode.

"It appears, 00032, that you are attempting once again to live your small life in the shape of an opera. Well, I am reluctant to break your bubble, but Personality Core 00004 is not a prince in disguise. He would barely pass for a scullion in disguise; furthermore, his singing voice is abysmal. Need I remind you that in this space, I am the prima donna, soprano, mezzo, contralto, the conductor and composer and, yes, the Duchessa? In the Opera of Aperture, you, Personality Core 00032, barely rank as a minor chorus girl. Now. No more radios. If you absolutely must sing to that idiot – and may I tell you, 99% of Aperture Scientists agree that such indicates the worst of taste – do it where I can't hear." With a touch of amusement, She added, "Good luck finding any such place. Do you understand?"

Mimi mumbled in that same thick accent. Even despondent, her voice was musical.

"Remember your original function – attending to turret production, orientation, and well-being. Remember Android Hell, 00032. It is a real place, and it is very, very quiet."

The yellow flashlight vanished. The pounding sound in Katniss' ears dissipated. She breathed again. There was a squeaking sound, and Mimi swiveled on her Management Rail to where Katniss was, turning on her flashlight gradually.

Katniss looked at the person she'd rescued, who was staring up at Mimi with a fascinated yet wary expression.

"Hello, Seeder," she said.

Seeder, her brown hair mussed with leaves and twigs, blinked bemusedly at Katniss. "Well. This is a surprise. But it's good to see you." She pointed. "And what is that?"

"This is Mimi, and she's on our side. Mimi," Katniss stood up, and gave the sphere a little bow, "You are worth your weight in gold. And I don't say that lightly. This is Seeder." She pulled Seeder to her feet.

"This a breakout?"

Katniss nodded. Mimi was humming anxiously.

"Wait just one minute." Seeder bent down and began to pull the plants up by their roots. "If we've got a lull, don't waste a chance for food."

"Food?"

Seeder held up a small but unblemished tuber. "Potatoes, girl. Growing all along this way. Here, hold these."

Seeder made quick work of another plant, while Katniss held what she'd gathered. The younger Victor felt an odd kindle of warmth. She'd found Seeder, she'd sung to Peeta – boy, even District Twelve would be convinced they were an item now, if there was ever any doubt – and she hadn't even gotten captured. But she wanted more. She wanted to hear Peeta. She wanted to just command an elevator to take him and her and Seeder and Wiress and Chell to the surface – but for now, all she had were potatoes.

Seeder said. "This'll do for now. Lead the way home."

Well. It was a place to start.

"Spread your bones on the alabaster stones…" –

Peeta put down the radio. "Wheatley? Wheatley, can you hear me?"

There was no answer. Peeta wisely put the radio down and resumed testing at an advanced pace, to make it look like he had had nothing to do with that radio in the first place. He completed the test, and took the elevator.

The elevator shuddered under his feet, and his knees buckled. He tried to brace himself – was this one of those earthquakes that they had in District Six? – but then the elevator resumed moving, as if nothing had happened.

When he entered the hallway to start the next test, he said out loud, "Well, Wheatley, I don't know if you can hear me, but when – or if – you can, thank you. A million times, thank you. It was worth it, believe me."

Peeta continued to test, but behind him, a security camera did a most uncharacteristic thing: it shook itself a little, and rolled slightly, as if to say, "Oh, it was nothing, mate, truly. You'd do the same for me."

"… And be my ever-loving baby." -

Katniss felt a fight coming.

If Chell had found out about the singing, she would be furious. She'd want words with Katniss – with good reason. Had it been stupid of Katniss to indulge in trying to convey a message to Peeta? Almost certainly. But was it wrong? No. From the perspective of "Put on a show for the Capitol," no, it wasn't wrong, nor from the point of view of "try to retain your basic humanity." So although Seeder, her arms as well as Katniss' filled with potatoes, trod along almost at ease, Katniss was ready for a battle. There would be no bloodshed – hopefully – but things could not remain unsaid.

"So," Seeder whispered, "Is it safe to talk here?"

"Oh! Sure." They were nearing the Hub now (at least, Katniss' sense of direction told her so – the backlot of Aperture, much like the testing chambers, all started to run together after a time), and Mimi's flashlight lit the way.

"Why were you singing earlier?"

Katniss started to explain, but as her explanation went on she grew more hesitant, seeing Seeder's face. The older woman didn't look like she approved. "So you gave away your position just because a small metal ball—"

"He used to be a small metal ball, I'm not sure what he looks like anymore—"

"Because some artificial person just told you to?"

"But he's an ally of ours."

"Do you know? Do you know for sure?"

"It wasn't for him, anyway. He was transmitting my song over to Peeta."

"Was that really so important?"

"For the sponsors… yes."

"You are a mercenary one, aren't you?" Katniss stared. Seeder chuckled. "That's no insult… it's as good a survival strategy as any. But if you don't mind a bit of mentoring from me, let that be the last time, okay?"

Katniss nodded.

"And where did that artificial intelligence come from?"

"I don't know where they came from – they were just here, like Mimi here. But Wheatley was the first one I met – he kind of brought us together. Now he's the one making the main Gamemaker act stupid – that's what he's doing for our side, to keep her from finding us as long as possible."

"For how long?"

"Well – um – here's the Hub! You'll find Wiress in there – and Chell, she's been in the facility a long time. She's lost her memory."

Mimi politely crooned to the circular door in the wall. Its small light went from red to green, and it opened.

Chell and Wiress were bent over the circuitboards of the vast Elevator Control panel, in much the same position they'd held when Katniss left. Chell looked up as soon as the door opened. "Welcome back. And welcome to you."

"Whoa," Seeder said under her breath. "You two…"

"We don't look that much alike," Katniss replied. "Chell, this is Seeder."

"Pleasure to meet you. Where did you get those potatoes?"

"The section where I found her was just crawling with them."

Chell dropped the potato she was holding. "Literally?"

"No."

"Okay. I just had to be sure. Good on you, collecting them. Were there any problems?" Chell returned to Wiress' side.

"No," Katniss answered at once.

Chell gave her a sidelong glance. "Good. The elevators work fine, then. Except…" her fingers tapped the array of buttons under a set of computer screens – more security-cam footage. "Check this out."

The topmost, right-hand screen flickered to life. It showed Peeta's test chamber. The sound quality was bad, but they clearly heard Wheatley's voice rising and falling and skittering, and saw Peeta lounge in a deck chair, talking passionately about – either sunsets or explosions, it was hard to tell – and then Wheatley said something else. Peeta waited, tense, for quite some time. Then he picked up the radio and held it next to his ear. The radio was playing a song.

"I've never heard anything like that on the radios down here." Chell fixed Katniss with a knowing look. "Do you know where it came from?"

"She was singing it," Seeder said at once, catching the attention of both women. She went on, "I didn't know it was being broadcast, though. She was singing to find me. It's our way in District Eleven, if you're lost in a field, or have lost sight of your group, just start singing 'til you find each other. I should have known the Mockingjay would pick up on it." She clapped Katniss on the shoulder. "You can put down those potatoes, by the way."

"Did she hear?"

"Yes," Katniss said quickly. "But Mimi took over. She sang… most of it, really."

Chell studied her for a minute, as if she would look right through her, then shrugged. "If it helped you find Seeder, that's great. But she heard."

"She forbade Mimi from singing on the radio anymore."

"Poor Mimi! She did well, though." Wiress didn't lift her head from the six-part set of electrical panels she'd laid bare before herself. "Hello, Seeder."

"Hello, Wiress." The two older women started to talk.

"I'm surprised She didn't fry Mimi to a crisp," Chell observed to Katniss.

"Oh, she was tempted to, but listen to this – Mimi lied to GLaDOS, saying that she was singing to Wheatley."

"She spoke?"

"Yeah, I know, weird – but she still sounds like she's singing. And she called Wheatley 'mi amore.' What's 'mi amore?'"

" 'My love,'" Chell answered at once.

Katniss looked impressed. "How do you know that?"

"I don't know – isn't it just automatic? 'Mi amore' is 'my love.'"

"Not to me. Mimi and Wheatley, though – imagine."

While Chell imagined (a rare, suppressed smile on her face), Katniss knelt on the floor, arranging the potatoes she had carried in a messy pyramid.

"GLaDOS banned Mimi from singing on the radio, but I realized a core is still safer than a human to send on a scouting mission." Encouraged by Chell's nod, she went on, "But the next tributes we rescue won't trust a core. But there is something I can teach them to sing, and they will recognize. It's something GLaDOS wouldn't use."

"Don't underestimate Gamemakers," Wiress said, interrupting her conversation with Seeder.

- Gamemaker's Central Station –

Wheatley came to. He was confined totally within his normal metal sphere. The chassis to which he was attached was swaying back and forth. He watched the ceiling move. "Hello? Is… is everything all right?"

No; his own brain answered that question, with a shudder of fear. The engines below him, he realized, were active. GLaDOS was home.

Every particle of her active and conscious mind was present and focused and withdrawn. Present, for what purpose? Focused, on what task? Withdrawn , to what meditations?

He shuddered to think.

"Hey! Glad to see you around! Um, wow, nice testing we're doing today, isn't it? How's the science going this time of the day? Or are we, wait, don't tell me, are we conferring together, is that it? Is this a conference? I don't even have a briefcase!"

"Intelligence Dampening Core 00004."

"Er… um… yes?"

"May I congratulate you on your new girlfriend."

"On my WHAT?"

"You heard me. I hope you crack your own glass trying to sing high notes with her. Now. Shut. UP."

With that thunder-augmented command, she fell silent. Wheatley's optic shrank to a pinprick, and he wondered how long it would be before he worked up the nerve to send his consciousness somewhere else in the facility. GLaDOS retreated deep into the recesses of her own mind, to think.

A/N: The song that Katniss sings is from O Brother, Where Art Thou? It's a song sung by the sirens (hence, to my mind at least, it is just as much of a seduction song as a lullaby). Fun fact: T-Bone Burnett compiled the soundtracks (both mind-blowingly good) to O Brother and The Hunger Games. I like that odd little connection.

Also, the chapters are getting steadily longer. I'm going to try to moderate their length, but I make no promises. Thanks for reading!