Can we just pretend that six month *cringes* hiatus never happened?
By the way, I made up Penhaligon's Spiral. Handwavy Capitol technology and all science beyond O Level.
The cornucopia stood at the centre of the ring of circles like a lion observing a plain, waiting for prey to wander straight into its jaws. Its maw gaped empty, but that was not the treasure Morgan sought. What he desired lay welded under the ground, under the dark metal platters like dishes at a feast.
Even fire feared the blackout. He dwelt on that as he remembered how the flames of their fire had shivered and fled when they lit it, a few hours ago. A blackout had just passed; and they were shivering too. Its smoke was visible from here. Good. The fire-luring trick worked almost every year, mostly because, to the Careers' credit, it usually meant cold tributes whom they had to seek out. The audience gave them no choice. If they turned away from an obvious sign of life, questions would be raised, the kind of questions Careers don't like.
They wanted to keep all tributes away from the cornucopia for as long as possible. Morgan couldn't see any sign of a camp around here, but perhaps it was further out. Experience watching the Games told him that a Career camp was never usually too far from the horn. In time, he thought, we will all be drawn here. The Games would end here on the seventh day, he was sure, the way the arena shrunk symmetrically made him almost certain.
"Okay, let's get cracking." Matt rubbed his hands together. "Tools?"
"You've got them," Lynna reminded him, pointing at his backpack with a knife.
"I know, I just like to check." He knelt and spread them out across a large rock. Blowtorch. Pliers. Wire. Screwdriver. The silver cog Shayen kept clutched to her heart. "Morgan?"
The District Three boy turned from his silent vigil over the landscape.
"You up for this?"
"As much as any of you."
"Just sayin'.You and Specs are the only ones who can pull this off. I haven't a clue. All I'd see is a pile of wires and gears."
"Speaking of seeing," Morgan sat down next to Shayen. "Lynna's gonna guard, right? She has the best eyes for it. Lynna guarding, Shayen and I working."
"And Matt will... be Matt." Lynna snorted.
"What's that supposed to mean?" The boy's green eyes narrowed defensively.
"Well, she can hardly expect you to be anyone else, can she?" Specs piped up and Morgan darted a quick smile at her.
"Yes, I will be Matt. And a better Matt I will make than any of you here."
"What kind?" Lynna had picked up the gauntlet. "Door mat? Bathroom mat? Table mat?"
"Right now, I could do with a mouse mat," Morgan muttered a bit too loudly. Mat- I mean Matt, glowered in reply.
"I'll have you all know, I can throw almost as well as you, if you'd only put a knife in my hand." he snapped at his partner.
"The first time we met, I almost did," she retorted. "Want it again? Then come and get it!"
"I can't concentrate if you're arguing!" Morgan's voice rose clear above them. "We are not children bickering the playground!" He realised the implications of what he had just said. "Not any more! We can't afford this. You want your last day to be spent- spent niggling, whinging, nagging, bickering at each other?"
Silence spread between the allies.
"Now. If you'll excuse me, I have a device to be working on. Shayen?"
"Yes." Specs was quick off the mark. "Look where the seams are." She ran her finger around the metal plate of the pedestal. "There are strips of metal edging them- very small- but different to the rest of the pedestal. We can't melt off the whole plate- we'd be here until next week and besides, we'd probably only damage the delicate mechanism right underneath. Anyway, watching us slowly blowtorch off a metal cap is probably on the same page as watching paint dry in the Capitol's book. So, we melt along the seams and then lever off the top to expose the workings. I might need a hand with this." She grabbed the blowtorch out of a pack and pulled down her goggles. The ribbons on her top hat slipped in the way, so she knotted them around the hatband. "In the unlikely event that my hair catches fire, do let me know." Her tone remained casually distant.
Morgan jumped when the sparks began to fly. Damn- they would be noticed. Such bright flashing lights would easily be spotted for a long way off. Damn damn damn.
"Lynna?" He was cautious of tempting fate. "Umm... we're having to make quite a scene here. Be even more alert than usual. Any sign- we must be ready to fight, if it's only one, or flee if more. Fleeing should be our last option, not our first. If we flee, we may not ever have the opportunity to resume our task here. Any enemy discovering our project would likely be smart enough to destroy it as best they knew."
"There are twenty three other pedestals," she gestured to them. "If one gets b******d up, we open up another."
"True. But I'd rather not have to bank on that. After all, once we leave here, our pursuers may settle to prevent our return. Anyway-" he wasn't quite sure how to put this "there are certain... advantages, to finishing off intruders."
Lynna understood. "I know all about throwing knives at people who try to take what doesn't belong to them," she said pointedly loudly.
Matt ground his teeth. "Yes. Yes you do."
"Quiet everyone!" Shayen bit her lip as she peeled off the melted metal and gingerly slid in the lever, carefully moving her small fingers out of the way of the hot metal. Burning them might cause her to lose concentration. There was a loud thook sound as she knocked off the lid. She quickly pulled off her goggles as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. When she realised that the contents was just as Morgan had expected, she clapped her hands with delight.
"As you can see, this is clearly based off Penhaligon's Spiral!"
"Of course!" Morgan enthused.
"Of course," Matt echoed, almost sounding convincing in pretending that he had any idea what was being discussed. Besides, Penhaligon sounded like some kind of cold medication.
Lynna rolled her eyes, but as she was facing away nobody noticed. Matt moved deftly away in silence, watching the land in the opposite direction of Lynna's gaze.
Eagerly and yet carefully, the two from Three were unhooking the pedestal's mechanism and lifting it out. Once they had done so, they rested it reverently upon the flattest, driest rock they could find.
"So what's supposed to happen again? Once you've done your... techy thingy?"
"With any luck, once we've connected the tracking mechanism to the light projectors, a rough sketch of the location of the living tributes will be projected. We can do some tests to figure out the scale of the projection and east, west, so on. Then we'll know where the others are, where they're going, how far and how fast." Morgan answered her question.
"Light projectors?" Matt was confused. "Why would there be lights underneath a pedestal?"
"In case urgent repair work was needed in the middle of the night, when this arena was being built. After all, the mechanism-once fitted inside the pedestal, is quite deep. In poor daylight you might not be able to see the way to the bottom."
Matt gave up on trying to figure out what the two of them were doing. The number of times they uncoupled and recoupled and uncoupled wires, moved and slotted pieces, seemed to be moving into double figures. It seemed the device was almost finished when Specs ground her teeth in frustration. "Great!Now we can't reach the cog that connects to our silver one because all these wires are in the way!"
And they had to start all over again.
But after that, it was not too long, it felt, until the thudding of plugging wires was replaced with the tapping of buttons and twisting of dials. There was a pause after that, during which Matt tensed, expecting another cry of frustration and return to square one.
"Guys! We did it! Come see!"
Matt had been expecting some dramatic configuration of overlapping lights to form little people projections, complete with terrain and a compass perhaps, but instead he saw about ten or twelve fuzzy blue numbers projected into the air.
"Okay," Shayen frowned and twisted a dial. The numbers grew fainter. "Nope, nope, don't want that." She twisted it back up again. "Okay, so that's as bright as it will go. Never mind. Right. I'm going to list off the districts, I want us all to spot their numbers."
It turned into a perverse kind of roll call; and it made all of them remember the schools of home.
"One."
"There; and there."
"Two."
"Both dead." Shayen thought of Bif's decapitated head; and shuddered.
"Three."
"Well we have absolutely no idea where they are, do we?" Matt laughed at Lynna's sarcasm. Specs carried on without comment.
"Four."
"There's one... there. The other's dead."
"Five."
They scanned the projection. "There. With Twelve."
"Six."
"Both dead."
Matt frowned, his head tilted.
"There's two sixes there."
"That's us," Lynna's voice was sharp with derision. "Upside down."
"Ooohhh..."
"Seven."
"Both dead."
"Weren't they the-"
"Yes." Morgan didn't want her to finish her sentence.
"Eight."
"There he is. Girl's dead."
"Nine."
"Look at that, Districts 3 and 9 right next to each other. Hmm, wonder why?" Lynna smirked at Matt's sarcasm.
"Ten."
"Both dead."
"Eleven."
"I can only see one."
"But the light there's brighter. They're probably just, I dunno. Right next to each other." The number 11 seemed to separate into 111 and then 1111 and then two elevens. "See? Moved apart."
"Twelve."
"And... there's Twelve. With Five. So that brings us to a total of twelve."
"Perfect."
"We should also be able to figure out who's allied with whom," Lynna pointed out. "See? Eleven obviously aren't about to kill each other."
"True, but we could have figured that ourselves." Specs countered, trying to appear balanced regarding their creation. "Besides. District partners don't kill each other, usually."
"Oh, I don't know," Lynna's irritation was growing again. "Some might be tempted."
Matt pretended he hadn't heard that.
"The two from One obviously aren't allies either." She pointed at where numbers 1, 1 and 8 were converging. While 1 and 8 remained almost stationary, the other 1 was moving rapidly in the opposite direction.
"They did try and kill each other in the bloodbath," Morgan said, not taking his eyes off the projection- none of them were. "Not exactly conducive to friendship, trying to stab someone."
"I wouldn't be so quick to judge," Lynna muttered to herself.
The four of them stared down at the little blue flickering numbers. The 1 and 8 remained still, while the second 1 was gathering pace and moving in a broad semicircle, changing direction as well as speed.
Their eyes were so intently fixed upon 1 and 8 that they did not have the thought that they were in the arena, watching the tributes' progress while the Gamemakers watched them watching the tributes' progress while they themselves watched their progress.
"What do you think is going to happen?" Morgan asked.
"Maybe they're allies?" Specs sounded almost optimistic.
The number eight started to flicker and stutter, faster and faster until it vanished completely. They stared at the space where there had been Eight, but there was now just One. The cannon fired.
"Ah," Specs said quietly. "Maybe not."
"And then there were eleven," commented Morgan, equally as quiet.
"Eleven?" A thought suddenly occurred to Lynna. "That would mean thirteen cannons. I don't think we've heard thirteen cannons."
"One person probably won't on their own hear all thirteen," reasoned Matt. "We were all probably at some point asleep when at least one went off."
But she wasn't convinced. She ran through her memories of all the pictures in the sky so far. The first seven on the first day. Then the three on the second day. That would mean ten cannons. She had been awake pretty much all day, so far. She had heard exactlty two cannons, one earlier that day (must have been for Two) and one for Eight, just now. That came to twelve cannons, not thirteen.
"We've missed someone." She realised. But who... she scanned through the faces from the end of day slideshows.
"What?!" Panic made Morgan's voice jump three octaves. "That's not possible! We can all count! One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten! Eleven! Eleven numbers! Eleven tributes!"
The answer was upon her. "Anyone remember seeing the girl from Six in the sky?"
"Maybe her cannon was earlier today," suggested Specs.
"Two cannons," Lynna said. "And one was for Eight. That means either Two or Six is still out there."
"Of course." Matt sighed and ran a hand through his hair and then regretted it. Both his hand and his hair were considerably grubbier. "Of course the only two people who aren't trackable are the two craziest ones. Of course. Of f-ing course."
"Two got an eight in training," Specs remarked. "A Career Tribute too, I'm sure of it."
"I hope it's not her," Matt winced. "She was WAY too close to killing me."
"She's wounded though," Lynna reminded him. "I stuck a knife in her hand. When she got too close."
"What score did the girl from Six get in training?" Shayen wondered. Once in the arena, facts like that tended to start slipping from your mind. When the blackout was blacking out all the light in your head, in your mind, your brain, statistics were the last thing you were going to be able to remember.
"Maybe a three or a four. Wasn't there a two?"
"That was Eight's girl," Morgan felt his stomach squeeze. "The pregnant one."
"Six got a nine," Lynna said slowly, letting that sink in. "So she's at least as dangerous as Two."
"Maybe it was a six upside down."
"Oh shut up."
Morgan was in no mood for jokes. "We should pack up and go," he said finally. "We've hung around here long enough. We're lucky not to have been found"
There was no vindication in his tone of Lynna's and Matt's sporadic guarding. But his face was set. Whoever was out there, they were dangerous.
But his allies could be dangerous too.
As could he.
Where's Daisy... it's kind of like Where's Wally, only if you lose she comes along and kills you. 'Cause crazy Daisy :)