Chapter 21: The Complete Propo Disaster!
I walked down the corridors to Beetee's lair, having being told he had my Mockingjay outfit and a new weapon, making me feel like some superhero or something, next thing they'll be having me wearing a mask. Although I am pretty sure the Capitol would realise it was me. Tilia, the person who dressed Adric for his games, greeted me.
"Hello Aria, how are you?" She smiled, lots of people seemed to ask that, like I had a massive sign above my head saying 'Watch out! She's mentally unstable!'
"Fine," I replied, I always replied fine. Tilia didn't seem put off by my attitude and turned to show me a guy, who was very tamed in comparison to the pervious capitol people I had encountered.
"Aria, I'd like you to meet Cinna," Tilia introduced him.
"Pleasure to meet, Mockingjay," Cinna smiled, he had a very honest aura about him, that kind you get where you can instantly sense that someone is a good person, it was strange, as I'd never encountered someone like that before.
"I'd prefer it if you called me Aria," I said and extended my hand, he shook it. Plutarch entered, having also been informed about the meeting,
"The plan is to launch an airtime assault," He said upon entry. "We are going to make a series of what we call propos, which is short for propaganda spots, featuring you and broadcasting them to the entire population of Panem." That shocked me,
"The whole population?" But it seemed my question wasn't as important as Cinna's,
"How can we do that? The Capitol has sole control of the broadcasts?"
"But we have Beetee," Plutarch replied,
"Wait, the whole population?!" I asked again, they ignored me.
"About ten years ago, he essentially redesigned the underground network, that transmits all the programming, he thinks there is a reasonable chance it can be done." Plutarch continued, "We'll talk about the details more later, give Aria the book."
"Book? What book?" I questioned. Cinna handed me a book, shocker I know, which had a heck of a lot of designs for my outfit, or super suit as I was now calling it, "Wow."
"We just need to fine tune it and then you should be ready to party," Cinna said, "Beetee is still working out your bow."
"Well, now that this has all been sorted out, Coin has called a meeting, you must attend Miss Smith," Plutarch accounted, and walked out the room, I followed after him.
Coin calls the audience to attention and tells them I have agreed to be the Mockingjay as long as Snows prisoners are given full pardon for any unintentional damage they do to the rebel cause, unless they continue to supply information for any reasons. I resisted the urge to remind her that the second part was not in the agreement. The crowd on the other hand seemed outraged by this all the same, angry shouts could be heard. It seems like these people just expected me to be the Mockingjay, without any thought for Snow's prisoners, without any thought of Adric!
They continued to express their unhappiness about my terms, I stood indifferent about the hostile looks that were thrown my way, Coin allowed this to continue for a few moments then continued, "But in return for this unprecedented request, Soldier Smith has promised to devote herself to our cause. It follows that any deviance from her mission, in either motive or deed, will be viewed as a break in this agreement. The immunity would be terminated and the fate of all the prisoners determined by the law of District 13. As would her own. Thank you." She finished, I stood in shock.
Coin was the first, but not the last, to publicly brand me as a threat, it was her way of telling everyone to not trust me. To tell them that the only way I would help them would be to protect the people I loved and cared for, and what made me feel the most terrible, is that she was right.
I left the room quickly and made my way to Beetee's lair, to collect my bow. When I arrived, he took me to the special weaponry area in his wheelchair, Beetee could walk, but he'd get extremely tired when he did. In the hall was one thing about the special weaponry area I'd always remember would be the scans, the mass amount of pointless scans. There were: retina sans, they scanned this thingy on our arms, DNA scans, finger print scans and metal detectors, and that was the first door! We then had to go through another round of scans at the end of the hallway, just to make sure our DNA hadn't changed in the 20 meter walk. But after that, we were finally made it into the weapons area. Inside there were rows upon rows of firearms, launchers, explosives and armoured vehicles? How'd they get those in here?
"I'll be right back," Beetee said. He pressed a code into a panel and a small doorway opened, he vanished through it. He came back with a tall, black, rectangular case,
"Do we really need all those?" I questioned,
"For you." I took the case and opened it up. There was maroon velvet lining the case and sitting on top was a stunning black bow.
"It's lovely, but why is it vibrating?" I asked.
"It's saying hello, it heard you voice," Beetee smiled.
"It recognises my voice?"
"Only your voice, want to try it out?" Beetee asked. I turn, a target range had already been prepared. I tried out the variety of arrows, some were razor sharp, some were explosive and some were incendiary.
"Goodnight," I said to the bow, which was as strange as it sounds and it went to sleep, waiting to be activated by my voice.
I was now standing in a room, a mass amount of camera's pointed at me, my first propo, oh the joys. It was weird, standing in the Mockingjay outfit Cinna had made. People had been adjusting my make up for hours, adjusting the lighting and smoke levels behind me. I no longer felt like Aria Smith, it was like another girl was standing where I stood. She had my dark hair, she had my eyes, but she wasn't me, because this girl was a pawn being used to start a war. Pawns always die first.
"They'll either want to kill you, kiss you are be you," Finnick said, seeing as he had nothing better to do, he'd been on set as long as I had.
"Kiss me?" I said shocked.
"Oh please Aria, why'd you think Adric would kiss you?" Because Adric is a strange human being and I don't understand what goes through his head, I wanted to reply, but I just shrugged. Someone shoved Finnick out the way and began to describe in detail the epic battle I had just supposedly been in, and how now all my comrades in arms were laying dead around me, this guy had a good imagination. But to rally everyone, I must turn to the camera and shout 'the line' oh god, that dumb line. People hustle me to the place I need to stand, there is a lot of moving around and I heard the shout of 'Action!' I held my bow over my head, and with all the anger I could muster I yelled,
"People of Panem, we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice!" There was silence, until Haymitch decided he couldn't hold it in any longer, and burst out laughing.
"And that my friends, is how a revolution dies," He managed to say, I glare at him.
Later that day, Haymitch called a meeting, to well, talk about the complete propo disaster, as I was calling it. He showed us the footage we had just shot, which was amazingly terrible.
"Alright would anyone like to argue that this is of use to us winning the war? No, well that saves time," Haymitch said. "Okay, I want everyone to think of a time, were Aria Smith actually moved you."
"At the end of her games first games," someone at the back said.
"The speech she said about Thresh," Another person added in.
"When she healed Adric in the Quell," Finnick added. People started to add their moments in, in no order: When I allied with Thresh, my supposed love for Adric, my refusal to give in under impossible conditions, my defiance of the Capitols inhumanity, when I fought off the beast (Steve), the fact I wasn't afraid to express my fears, comforting Adric about his scars (which I couldn't even remember doing) and a lot more. It was slightly overwhelming, the all made it sound so great, when all I was doing was being...Aria.
"So, what do all these have in common?" Haymitch addressed the class.
"No one told her what to say," Cinna chimed in.
"Unscripted! Yes!" Beetee smiled, "So we just leave you alone, right?"
"Well that's all very nice, and not very helpful," Leo spoke up, "Unfortunately her opportunities for being 'wonderful' are very limited here in 13, so unless you are suggesting we toss her out into the middle of combat..."
"That's exactly what I'm suggesting, toss her out into some combat and keep the camera rolling," Haymitch added.
"But she's pregnant," Leo said, with some disgust. I looked around the crowd, Adric's mother also looked pissed. Then it dawned on me, I hadn't informed them, I wasn't actually having a baby.
"I'm umm..not pregnant," Leo's head turned to look at me,
"What? How?"
"Well...you know that thing when a mummy and daddy love each other very much, me and Adric didn't part-take in such a thing."
"Oh...Oh!" Finnick said out loud,
"Then why would you...?" Adric's mother asked.
"It was Pansy's plan, to make people feel sympathetic toward us." There was a stunned silence, and Leo now spoke quickly, he suddenly seemed a lot happier.
"We'll spread the word she lost the baby in the electrical shock in the arena, very sad, very unfortunate." He said with a slight smile.
"What if she gets killed?" Coin asked,
"Well make sure you get some footage, because at least you can use that," Leo said, my brother was so caring.
"Well fine, but goes somewhere that is least dangerous, go to eight, there was heavy bombing this morning but the raid seems to have run its course, and I want her with a squad of armed body guards," Coin seemed the most concerned about my safety, probably because if I got myself blown up, I wouldn't be much use to her.