Chapter 21

Beetee's point of view:

District 3, Reaping Day of the 37th Hunger Games

I was sitting outside the Justice Building with my fellow Victors, Sora Petford, and Neil Osmo. We were waiting for the whole thing to begin. I was less worried about overreacting from the deaths of the District 3 tributes this year because most of my friends that I knew from school were over 18 now. I did still know a few, but not many.

For the past six months I have been working with Wiress Polson, in my lab. It is rather refreshing to bounce intellectual ideas off of each other in a scientific differential. She is so smart! Never before have I ever had a another human being that I can match wits with in the laboratory. I think she has some undiagnosed mental problems, because, though absolutely brilliant, every now and then she would sort of space-out and start muttering to herself in gibberish, but when ever she wasn't doing that, she seemed focused and clear headed and a faster thinker than me. And now I see her face in the crowd with the 15 year olds her name in the bowl 4 times as the children's home feeds her well enough that she doesn't need to sign up for tessere. I tried to invite her to live in my house in the Victors Village with my family, but the Head Peacekeeper said I wasn't allowed. I did offer her several meals a day while she was working in the lab, and my family adored her.

Also as I looked out over the crowd I saw my sister Lori, standing among the twelve year olds. She had her name in the bowl once. She was as safe as you can be. She had gained a lot of weight and look very healthy.

The Mayor stepped up to the stage. he opened up a small stack of papers that were paper clipped together. The Treaty of treason.

"150 years ago," spoke the mayor into the microphone as he read the paper, "our world engaged in a war that destroyed this earth. The polar ice caps melted causing much of the land to recede into the oceans. The sheer population of the Earth reached an insurmountable ten-billion which quickly decimated the Earth's resources. Nation fought against nation for the Earth's meager reserves of resources. Man fought against Man, brother turned on brother, until nothing was left. Then out of the ashes of what was once called North America came the country of Panem. A shining Capitol, ringed by 13 districts, and for many generations the country prospered. Then came the Dark Days, the rebellion of the Districts against the Capitol. The Capitol fought and the first 12 districts of this nation were defeated, District 13 completely destroyed. Then both the surrendered rebel leaders and the president at the time vowed that none of us would ever know this treason again. As an act of penance towards the Capitol the 12 districts of Panem decided to offer the vast majority of the fruits of their labor to the Capitol in exchange for the Capitol's protection, as well as offer up two tributes, one boy and one girl, between the ages of 12 and 18 that would compete together in a pageant of courage, honor, and glory. The winner would be permitted to return to their home district and be bathed in riches as an act of the Capitol's generosity and forgiveness. This annual event will forever be known as, The Hunger Games.

"In the 36 years of the history of the Games, District 3 has had 3 victors, Neil Osmo, who won the 10th Hunger Games, Sora Petford, who won the 21st Hunger Games, and Beetee Latier, who won the 35th Hunger Games."

The Mayor then put down the piece of paper, stepped back from the microphone and took his seat.

Our escort, Nelly Electra, had been formally retired as she had served as the District 3 escort for many years, and even though Nelly Electra wasn't that old, the Capitol wanted to go with someone younger. Our new escort, who was wearing a light purple wig, and a very frilly blue dress, stepped up to the stage in front of the microphone.

"Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor. My name is, Deborah Lionheart. It is an honor to be here as the escort for District 3. And now the time has come to select which brave young boy and girl will represent District 3 in the 37th Annual Hunger Games. And now, let us begin."

Deborah Lionheart, reached into the girls ball and pulled one random slip off of the top then went over to the boys bowl and pulled a random slip off of the top and then went back to the microphone. She unfolded both pieces of paper and read both of them at once.

"Penny Masters, and Norman Maxwell."

The two that were picked were a 13 year old girl, and a 15 year old boy. There were no volunteers.

Me, Sora, and Neil, went straight to the train station and we waited for an hour until the tributes arrived. The train was then under way and left the station. I didn't know the tributes very well. The girl I didn't even know at all. The boy, my photographic memory told me I had seen once in the market, but never talked to.

The tributes were underfed so they gorged themselves on the feast in the dinning car. I decided to mentor the boy. Neil, took the girl and decided to give Sora a year off of mentoring.

The replay of the reapings were uneventful.

The next day, we arrived at the Capitol. The tributes were taken to the Remake Center and I too was given a makeover by a prep team for the benefit of the cameras because Victors are usually on TV.

I met with the other victors and we greeted each other. The tall and broad shouldered female Victor only a year younger than me approached.

"Ezra Wolofon." I said in greeting to District 12's first and only victor. "It is good to see you."

"It is good to see you too, Beetee." said Ezra.

"First year mentoring?" I said.

"Yes." she said solemnly. "My two tributes don't show much promise though."

I then decided to tell her the same thing that Sora and Neil told me when I broke down after Lindsay's death last year. I told her that she will do everything right and that her tributes would still die, but that you had to keep going, and continue to hold out. I felt that brutal honesty would be best. Though I also encouraged her constantly. She smiled and thanked me.

Ezra was then led off by Peacekeepers and reporters for a TV interview.

Long story short, this year's Games were uneventful. Except for the winner in the end.

There was training for 3 days, and then the training score. Penny Masters, scored a disappointing 4, and Norman Maxwell scored a half decent 6.

There were the TV interviews which were uneventful.

Then the start of the Games the next day. The gong sounded on the TV screen, where both of the District 12 tributes died in the bloodbath along with Norman Maxwell. I was devastated! Which couldn't be helped.

Penny Masters, ran thirty yards toward the cornucopia to grab one random backpack, and then had the good sense to turn right around and run out of there. But the next day Penny Masters was found and killed by the Career pack. And There goes both of the District 3 tributes for the 37th Hunger Games, not 23 hours in.

The Games went on for 13 days where the District 10 boy had gotten away from the blood bath with a bow and sheath of arrows and he turned out to be quite skilled with them. He was tall and strong and seemed well fed. For most of the Games he managed to kill most of the Living tributes himself from a distance, one at a time. By the end of Day 13 his 'Kill Count Score' was up to 9.

In the end when he got into the top two. He had run out of arrows because he occasionally lost one or two every now and then and hadn't been able to retrieve them. He fought against the District 4 girl who was the last career tribute standing, and for a girl she was huge, kind of like Ezra Wolofon. But he was tall and strong himself and in hand to hand combat he held his own against the giant girl.

By the end of the fight they were both bloody and battered. In the final seconds of that year's Games the District 4 girl pulled a knife and jabbed at the District 10 boy, but, he managed to grab her knife hand and twisted her wrist around and pushed her on her back and put all of his body-weight on top of her hand, plunging the knife blade into her throat.

The cannon sounded and, Caesar Flickerman declared the District 10 boy the winner, District 10's second winner in the history of the Games.

I didn't watch as he was extracted from the arena.

I got back on the train and headed back to District 3.

For the next year, me and Wiress continued working on my Force-field technology. We had successfully managed to build an untested experimental prototype from high-tech custom made components that I was able to get from the tech factories. No need for recycling crude junk components. The Peacekeepers thought of my work as controversial to the both public and national security, because much of the stuff I use could be used to make weapons for rebels, but President Snow had told the Head Peacekeeper that my scientific work was very important to him and for the Head Peacekeeper to give me whatever I want.

The only thing I need now is power, and you can't plug the Force-Field generator into a wall socket. As I had predicted, the power requirements are exponential. I would have liked to requisition a small nuclear reactor but even the Head Peacekeeper's orders to 'give me whatever I want', I felt a small nuclear reactor was crossing some kind of line. I did try ordering a few high-output fusion generators, but my requisition was denied. I then took insperation from my Games, using custom made high tech components from the factories I constructed several high storage electric capacitors.

Me and Wiress, were in the lab ready to test the machine. The capacitors are fully charged and we were pretty sure that we would create a force field for at least a brief period. the head peacekeeper was there on President Snow's orders to observe the machine. he didn't understand our math and science talk but you didn't really care about that anyway.

"Are you ready Wiress?" I asked.

"Yep." said Wiress

"Throw the switch." I told her.

She threw the switch and the machine made a loud humming sound. There were a series of cylindrical crystals that started to glow, and then there was what looked like an odd static-like image around the area of the energy emitters. A moment later the emitters made some loud popping sounds as bright hot sparks and smoke came out of them and then the machine shutdown with a quieting drone. The cylindrical crystals on the emitters were charred black.

"Was that supposed too happen?" asked the Head Peacekeeper.

"Well, actually we didn't know what would happen." I told him. "This was our first crude attempt with an experimental prototype."

I examined the machine. It was all nearly completely burned out. The super-conductant heat-resistant wire that I invented was unharmed. After further examination of the broken machine I found that a few of the other burned out components would have worked, but just required much more reinforcement than I had initially anticipated. And the crystal emitters seemed to produce much more heat than I thought they would.

"The computer recorded telemetry after I threw the switch." said Wiress.

We looked at the math equations that were on the screen that the computer automatically typed on it's own while connected to the machine.

Wiress's face grew into a smile with exaltation. "It worked! We did it! We successfully created a one square meter solid wall out of pure energy for 0.92 seconds!"

We hugged each other tight and bounced up and down on the balls of out feet in excitement and celebration.

"Is this what you're going to offer President Snow?" asked the Head Peacekeeper with disbelief.

"This is how scientific advancement works; this was a failure, yes, but, it is also a huge breakthrough, it's a first step." I reassured the Head Peacekeeper. "Plus, with this new data, and my examination of the now broken machine, I know exactly what went wrong and I know how to make it work."

Four months later

President Snow then showed up with some Capitol scientists and Peacekeepers. He had told me of his visit beforehand. I had presented the data to him and agreed to help me out with the power problem. He had some Capitol technicians connect my machine to some super special cables that they connected to the power-lines that lead out of the district. The machine then registered full-power indefinitely. President Snow said he was giving me direct access to the District 5 power-grid.

"Are you sure that nothing will go wrong, Beetee?" asked President Snow.

"Well, I covered everything that went wrong last time." I reassured him. "I reinforced the components that burned out last time and the newly reinforced components now should be able too withstand the heat of an industrial-incinerator. That was the easy part, the hard part was the energy emitter crystals. The standard crystal substance couldn't handle the high energy flow for more than one second. I have spent the last few months going hundreds of state-of-the-art space-age crystal-like polymers until I came up with this," I tapped the emitter crystals with my finger, "it will do the same job as the old crystals, but will not melt or burn."

I then explained the science of the machine to the Capitol scientists and then President Snow told me to begin.

"Wiress, throw the switch."

Wiress flipped the switch and the machine turned on. There was an odd looking static-like image in the spot where all the emitters converged.

"Success! The machine has created a one square meter solid wall out of pure energy!" said Wiress excitedly as she looked at the data on the computer.

"The machine is getting really hot." said Wiress in warning as she looked at the computer screen that was recording telemetry data. "But the components seem to be withstanding the heat without any negative effects."

She looked at the screen that was showing the fluctuating stats of all of the components and workings of the active machine, "And the force-field is stable...and stability is holding steady at 99% with minimal fluctuations."

President Snow then turned to the both of us and shook our hands. "This, is a huge scientific breakthrough. And I believe that this technology will change the world. I would like you to present this scientific find at the Capitol when you go to the Hunger Games this year."

I could hardly refuse him, but then presenting the science to the public was very thing that I wanted to do anyway.

"Yes of course."

Reaping Day for the 38th Hunger Games

The 12 to 18 year-olds of District 3 were assembled in front of the Justice Building. Myself and the other victors were sitting in our seats. The Mayor had just finished reading the Treaty of Treason, our escort Deborah Lionheart was stepping up to the microphone.

"Welcome, welcome!" she said in her strange Capitol accent. "Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor! Now let us put on our best enthusiastic faces for the selection of who will represent District 3 in the 38th Annual Hunger Games."

And without another word, she took one slip of paper from the girls bowl and went back to the microphone. Unlike last year, she didn't take one from both bowls and read them both at once. (She was probably instructed not to do that anymore.) She unfolded the slip and read.

"Lori Latier."

OH NOOOO! You got to be kidding me! How could this happen! My mind went numb with despair!

But less than one second later, before Lori could walk up to the stage, "I VOLUNTEER!" shouted a familiar voice from the 16 year-olds.

And it was Wiress, who had become like a second sister to Lori, ran up to the stage.

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