A/N: Ave, two chapters in one night. Pretty pleased with that.
"Mr President, it's time."
The President nodded. This was it.
He gathered his papers and made his way down the hallway, flanked by his two ever-vigilant bodyguards. Their footsteps echoed loudly off the cold steel floor.
They walked past the operations room, and the comms centre, making their way further down to the heart of the complex. They descended a flight of stairs, going ever deeper down. The President did not speak a word. His face remained blank, as if it had been carved from stone.
They left the stairs on floor 50 and marched down a long corridor, at the end of which was a pair of giant steel doors, emblazoned with the presidential steal, a proud eagle with its wings outstretched. The party stopped just in front of the doors. One of his guards pulled a card from his pocket and held it against a panel on the wall.
"Access granted." A cold computerised voice emanated from the panel.
The doors opened with a groan and a screech of metal.
"Thank you. You stand relived." The President said. The guards saluted and left back the way they had come.
Before he entered, the President took a deep breath. The freezing air was like a knife in his throat. He would never get used to the cold.
The room was rather understated for such an important place. It held only a large table and a few computers. One wall was adored with many different screens, each showing a different picture. At the far end of the table, on the largest wall, was a large map of the country.
The men and women seated around the table stood up imminently upon his entrance and saluted. The President waved a hand in dismissal and they sat down again.
He took his seat at the head of the table and addressed the assembled guests. He fumbled nervously with his papers. Although the words were there, he found them hard to say, like they were catching in his throat.
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I thank you all for coming here at such short notice. Many of you are probably aware of why you are here, but I will read you the report one more time to ensure all of you are up to speed."
The President retrieved the file from his stack of papers and began to read.
"This morning, at 0200 hours, our communications picked up a broadcast from an unknown source. We picked it up quite by accident. A bug in one of our computers meant that it switched to monitoring a different frequency, one we do not usually monitor. We are still looking into the origin of the transmission, but we estimate it came from a broadcast station in the West."
"What did it say? Is it another attack?" Asked a man in a military uniform.
"I am getting to that colonel. Please." Said the President. He understood the confusion and fear his people were feeling, but he knew they must remain calm and allow him to speak.
He continued calmly. "The content of the message was…well…it is hard for me to find words. I think it is better if you all see for yourselves.
The President pressed a button underneath the table and the screens on the left wall changed, showing an image of a forest clearing at sunset. In the middle of the clearing was a strange object that looked to be made of gold. The red glow of the sun reflected off its sides, bathing the clearing in blood-red light. Surrounding the object were twenty four empty podiums, evenly spaced.
"Play video." The President commanded.
The video began.
For a while, it looked as if nothing was happening, but then then something moved. The podiums sank into the ground and then, several minutes later, rose back up. But they were not empty this time. Each one now held a child. Some were looked to be in their late teens, but they were all clearly no younger than nineteen.
A booming voice resonated around the clearing.
10…
9…
8…
7…
6…
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
"Let the thirty ninth annual Hunger Games…begin!"
Then everything went mad. The children leapt of their podiums and ran. Most ran for the golden object, but others ducked into the trees, disappearing in the dark forest.
The camera changed, showing a close-up of the centre. Only now did everyone realise that it was full of weapons.
Everyone in the room let out shocked noises and mutters of confusion. The President waved for them to be quiet. The worst was yet to come.
The first child to reach it was a tall girl with wild, fearful eyes. She picked up a spear and wheeled around to face the others. A small boy attempted to duck past her, but she saw him. And speared him through the stomach.
The President could not keep the meeting quiet this time. Everyone started talking at once.
"What the fuck?"
"She killed him!"
"That was a child!"
"Dear God."
The President paused the video.
"If anyone would like to leave the room, you are welcome to. I am afraid this only the beginning."
No-one stirred. Morbid curiosity had overtaken everyone.
"Very well. Continue video."
The girl pulled her spear from the corpse of the boy and launched herself at a muscular girl. This time, she was not lucky. Her quarry avoided her strike and threw herself to the ground. She jumped back up holding a curved sword. The first girl stabbed again but the other knocked her spear aside and drove her sword through the neck of the spear-girl.
The video went on for half an hour, with ever more killings, before it cut out in a haze of static.
The room was silent for a long time. The enormity of what had been seen hung in the air. Finally, the President spoke. His voice was shaking, either from rage or fear, even he could not tell.
"As…as you can see the broadcast was…shocking. Barbaric. Children…murder. And yes, it is real. We can tell. As I said before, we are not as of yet sure of who sent it. But, what we do know is that was broadcast on a television channel. These children were killed on television."
The room exploded with shouts and screams.
The colonel stood up and pointed a shaking hand at the screen.
"You realise what this means Sir. This is proof, there's life out there, society. And it's insane. This isn't what we planned for!"
He's right. Thought the President. That worried him. He always privately thought that the surface had been repopulated, but he had assumed that it would be civilised, like it was before. When he was still the President. But these 'Hunger Games' showed that something had gone very wrong. He needed to find out what was going on up top.
"Please, everyone, your attention." The President said. "First and foremost, we need to find out who was responsible for this. Secondly, we need to access more of their communications. I want us to monitor every single broadcast these people make. We need to act, and we need to do it now. We've been silent for too long. America needs us.
A/N: After reading this you might be thinking 'oh Caesar, what are you doing revealing the twist so early?'. This isn't the twist. It is very important to the story though. I hope you like it.
A question
Do you like how I am handling the whole America thing? is there anything you'd like explained or changed to do with the Old World?
Next up is the interviews then, at long last...the bloodbath. I am excited. And also a little reluctant to choose tributes to kill off. I love them all.