Twelve – The Current
The Training Center – Division Three (4.3)
"Tell us everything!" Jovan says eagerly.
Radia and I look at each other for a way out of it.
"I need to use the bathroom now." Radia excuses herself. Genius.
"Alright." says Jovan. "H, what did you do?"
"I need to go too." I lie.
"Oh, okay." Jovan says defeatedly. I almost felt sorry.
"Was the food bad?" asks Martinus, but I'm already quickly following Radia down the corridors to her room. It's left in a slightly messier condition than mine but everything else looks the same.
"That was clever." I tell Radia.
"That wasn't really an excuse." she says. "I actually need to use the bathroom."
"Oh."
After she returns, we sit on her bed and talk.
"I talked to Connie at slingshots, and we stayed together for fire-making, and she helped me with axes."
"Did you ace the slingshots?" I ask.
"Yes, I was an expert!" responds Radia.
"Woah, really?"
"No." she says bluntly. "The point is, Connie is open to working with us, 100% percent."
"That's good." I say. I trust that Radia has got Connie, and that's good news. "How about Ringo?"
"Don't think so." she says. "Looks like he prefers to be left alone. Poor kid."
Honestly, I'd also want to be left alone like Ringo after doing all this work. "I also saw you talking to the girl from District 5. Is she okay with us?"
Radia shakes her head. "Not close enough yet."
When she asked who I've talked to, I respond with the tributes from District 9 and Greig.
"I really like the girl and Greig." I opine. "More Greig."
"Are they open to working with us?" she asks, but I respond with the idea of the anti-Career alliance first.
"Have you been told about it?" I ask.
"No, not at all." Radia says. She's telling the truth, due to the surprise on her face. "Connie told me nothing about it either. Can I be a part of it?"
"Yes, I want you and Connie to be." I say honestly. "I don't know how big they want it to be, but since I'm in it, you must be too. It must not have passed down to all the tributes they want yet. It's only the start of it."
"Go on."
"But Greig knows about it," I say. "I've talked to him, and he's made it really clear that he wants to work with us."
"That's good news." says Radia. "And he isn't close to anyone else?"
"I don't believe so." I reply. "He isn't close with his partner, and he doesn't even remember the person who told him about the alliance. He said we're the only ones he's talked to."
"What about the kids from 9 who told you about the alliance?" Radia asks.
I'm not at all close with the boy, but it seems I am with Steffi. So I try to hide how close I am with Steffi to Radia for two reasons. One, to make sure Radia trusts the alliance. Having Steffi who is potentially close with her district partner, who seems very close with District 10, won't allow that trust. The second is for my benefit. To make sure I have more people outside of Radia, Connie, and Greig, who I can count on.
"No, they just came, told me about it, then left." That's the truth about the boy but a lie about Steffi.
"Okay." Radia says. She looks deep in thought. "The only people we know who are in the alliance are you, Greig, District 9."
"Probably District 10 too." I add. "And probably someone else, the one who told Greig. But I also don't see why District 11 and 12 wouldn't know."
"Right, if anyone hates the Careers more, it's them." Radia says. "So tomorrow, Connie and I will try to get in the alliance."
"Don't mention me." I cut in.
"I won't." Radia says. "And we will have to get Connie talking to you and Greig and Greig talking to me and Connie so we become closer."
"Agreed." I say, surprised that I deciphered her sentence. "This is so exhausting. I'm glad we got it out of the way."
"I know." Radia lies down. "I just want to take a nap now."
"Same, but Beetee and Jovan are waiting for us." I say. "Come on."
We leave and head for the dining room, where our usual crew are making small talk about the weather, along with the stylists who've decided to come for some reason.
"About time." says Jovan. "Did you both have really bad stomachs or something?"
We apologise and tell Beetee, Jovan, Martinus and our stylists everything we'd discussed as well as our performance on every single station we've tried.
Martinus squeals in jubilation. "They're doing well!" he exclaims.
"You two are doing extremely well." Jovan agrees. "An alliance or two forming already? A lot better than we've expected."
"A fight against the Careers would be very interesting." observes Tiberius.
"I'd love to see that!" gasps Tatiana. "A change in power. The underdogs succeeding. What a story that would be!"
"Have any of you got an idea on what to showcase to the gamemakers?" asks Beetee.
Radia groans sadly. "Not yet."
Don't worry." Says Beetee. "You have more time to figure it out. We're also going to watch my Games after this, and hopefully it gives you some ideas."
"How about you, H?" asks Jovan.
"Um..." I consider just doing a bunch of survival tests once I have completely mastered them, but after knowing about the grenades, I lean towards the one the gamemakers would find more impressive.
"The explosives, maybe." I say, unsure.
"You're throwing the grenades?" Martinus asks, like he doesn't believe I'd be able to. Well, he's right.
"Rewiring them." I correct. "Is that bad?"
"That reminds me." Beetee says. "A possible plan for you in the arena."
Jovan groans jokingly. "Here he goes like one of his new inventions."
"I had the idea a few years ago when the boy from District 6 dug up a hole to bury his supplies." says Beetee.
"That was my Games!" says Jovan. "How was that a 'few' years ago?"
"And I thought, what if somebody dug up the landmines around the starting positions of the tributes, and rewired them in a way to reactivate them?" Beetee continues. "They could put it back in the ground and anybody who steps on them would be blown. It would be a great weapon to target the movers and those who hog the Cornucopia. Alas, nobody knew how to rewire those mines until you, Henry."
"He can dig up the mines, activate them, and place them somewhere as a trap for the other tributes." clarifies Tiberius. "It sounds neat."
"It sounds dangerous." I reply. "I might blow myself up, accidentally. Even if I don't, wouldn't the Capitol hate me for outsmarting them?"
Beetee shrugs. "As you will see, I won the Games by outsmarting the Capitol. I think the spectacle will be even greater than a little mischief. What do you think?"
"I think he should try it." says Jovan.
"I can definitely consider it." I confirm. It's honestly a clever idea. If I can pull it off, it's going to be amazing. "But won't I amaze the gamemakers enough if I rewire some explosives at the private training session?"
Beetee shakes his head. "No, they won't like you fidgeting with the grenades when they're expecting a throw and an explosion." he explains. "They'll probably manipulate the Games so it makes it harder for you to win, like not providing any grenades. Risk the mines in the arena and they probably won't hate you."
I'm not convinced. The gamemakers have not been known to be impartial in the past. But they have only targeted to kill the tributes that truly crossed their line, such as sending a fireball towards the boy from 12 one year for going insane and shouting profanities about the Capitol live. I don't know if digging a couple of mines would warrant an action, especially when it seems the crowd would love it. I listen to Beetee.
"How about you?" Radia asks the adults. "What have you been doing while we were busy training?"
They tell us they have been trying to talk to people around the city about how entertaining we will be, but there's only so much to say when the only time we have appeared in public was during the tribute parade.
"And we're a bit worried telling people information that would set you back if the tributes knew. Some of the other mentors might receive Intel by listening in to the people we've told." says Jovan. "It's competitive. So we can't really hype people up about how you're doing in training and all the alliances, even though that would really win them over."
"All we were able to share to the people was Radia's absolute people-pleasing skills and Henry's kindness and love of music!" says Martinus. I wonder what he would've said about us if Beetee and Jovan hadn't told him. Our supposed lack of manners?
After all points of discussion were covered, Beetee reminds us that we will be watching the video of his Games in a few minutes, which should last until dinner.
Jovan invites the stylists to watch with us, but they leave to make progress on our interview outfits. I'm a bit relieved to not have them. It's a bit nervous knowing they're there to remind me that they are looking up to me too. I didn't know the stylists would stay with us very often, either.
When we make ourselves comfortable on the couches in the sitting room, Beetee enters with his own copy of the tape containing the film of his Games. It was labelled with the iteration of the Hunger Games, '37', and the victor, 'Beetee Latier'.
"Even though it's old, relatively speaking, there's so many copies around!" notes Martinus. "The people love Beetee!"
Beetee warns us the film is going highly graphic, but not as much as other Games we have witnessed before, so we should be fine.
I rest my head on Jovan's shoulder as we lose ourselves in the world of the 37th Hunger Games, which seems like a totally different world from now. The resolution is not as high definition as the broadcasts now. After all, this is twenty-nine years ago, before Beetee provided new advancements for the Capitol.
The movie starts with a cut of the reapings, focusing mainly on when Beetee's name was called by a man who doesn't look at all colourful like Martinus does now. The reapings in general looked less formally organised, and the tributes from wealthier districts don't look as excited about being reaped. There were no volunteers.
When Beetee appeared on stage, Radia and I teasingly point out over how young he was. He had longer, darker hair, and was actually quite a handsome seventeen year old boy with glasses, but other than that, his signature, expressionless resting face essentially remained unchanged.
Beetee comes through with commentary while we watch, about who some people are and what they're doing to help us understand. He tells me his mentor was the late Teleca Brown, the first victor from District 3. How she was mentored, he has no idea.
The film proceeds with the opening ceremonies, where Beetee and his district partner, Tevolga, wore the reliable scientist costumes. Everybody rode on chariots as usual, but the costumes were a lot less stylish in the past. District 10 just wore patterned shirts with jeans.
They still had training scores at the time, at least, and Beetee impressively scored an eight, transcending the immediate expectation that he was a dead man just for being from District 3. Beetee tells me he created an impressive, elaborate trap that was very novel and complicated for the gamemakers to even understand.
Then it's time for the interviews. The host is not Caesar Flickerman who is the current host 25 years and counting, but the host then was Lucky Flickerman, Caesar's uncle as Beetee notes. There's not enough time for all of the interviews, but the longer snippets appear to go to the tributes who will be significant in the arena, like the boy from District 2 and the girl from District 7. Of course, the longest segment goes to Beetee, who answers Lucky's questions nervously and with a couple of stutters, yet intelligently with his use of complex words.
The tributes are then placed into position in the arena by peacekeepers, blindfolded. Then they're allowed to take them off before the countdown begins. Nowadays, we would rise underground in tubes to end up on tribute plates.
The arena was a little on the average side, one with a glade for the bloodbath, a small body of fresh water, plenty of trees, a large escarpment in the distance, and another clearing that had uneven terrain. Even the Cornucopia looked old and lacks the usual glimmer it has today.
"We were very close to getting a totally different arena." Beetee notes. "The following year, they had the Games at an amusement park."
How the gamemakers would manage that, I have no idea. But an amusement park would have been interesting to see. The most atypical arena I remember viewing was an absurdly large stadium, the hosts claiming it was a 'classic'. A close second would be woodland but all the trees had no leaves on them.
The countdown ends, and they show every brutal murder. The one that disturbs me the most was the girl from District 7 slicing the boy from District 11 clean in half. I thought I'd be used to these scenes, but it pains me to witness another batch of tributes succumbing to death. Just how many children have died in the Games alone? I will be about to witness the next batch of sacrifices, number 66.
They particularly focus on Beetee and his first kill, which was strangling the girl from District 8 with a thin coil of wire. The scenes surprised and disturbed Radia and I.
"Wow." yelps Radia. "I never knew you had such a violent bone in your body!"
"You really love wire." is all I manage to say, before the movie cuts to the surviving tributes escaping to their hiding places.
Unfortunately Beetee's partner, Tevolga, was among the ten tributes killed in the bloodbath. Beetee explained before that his Games were one of the ones where the alliance of Career tributes had started to become a thing. It had naturally been happening for a couple years, but only the Games two years prior to Beetee's were the term 'Careers' coined when the alliance started calling themselves that for some reason. The Careers are apparent in these Games, but not as strong, as the girl from District 1 and the boy from District 4 were some of the early fallen.
Even though District 3 barely last long in the earlier Games, Beetee was a high favourite for District 3 at the time, so it came as no surprise that Beetee managed to escape the bloodbath unharmed. We watch him head towards the escarpment, where the water was scarce but tributes were as well.
He remained there, living out the booms of the cannon, mainly at the hands of the Career alliance. At night, they show the cornucopia, lit up with bright floodlights. It's large, reflective metal base only made it brighter. The gamemakers somehow removed the moon, so the cornucopia served as the only universal point of reference during the dark. Unlike today, Beetee and the other tributes were not able to see who had died during the day, so he wouldn't have known who was left alive.
But we do watching his Games now. The remaining four Careers were intact, and a second unlikely alliance appeared to form between the girls from District 7 and 11. Beetee remained in the shadows as a tribute from the technology district usually does, except he does something different. He finds a broken camera in the trees, and follows the wire attached to it all the way in the folds of the tree trunk, under the ground, to a central node in a tree root. He removes the thick, fifty-metre-long wire and keeps it for himself.
"Uh oh." says Jovan. "Beetee has a plan. Better stay away."
I guess this was the beginning of his dramatic electrocuting trap. The cameras seem to focus on the cornucopia during the nights a lot, so I deduce that would be the site of the trap. The metal base just screams of electricity conduction.
After a few days, the Games narrowed down when both the tributes from District 5 had died, one from falling out of a tree and breaking his neck on impact with the ground and the other by staging a bloody suicide. Interestingly enough, the girls from 7 and 11 had managed to join the Career alliance, but it didn't matter, since it was only the six of them and Beetee remaining.
That meant Beetee was the next target before it was time for them to turn on each other.
How Beetee would manage to survive a group of six murderous tributes would be a miracle. Radia and I do not dart our eyes of the screen thereafter.
At the cornucopia, the alliance's plan was formulated, and then enacted. Four tributes sprint off into the woods at dawn to find and trap Beetee while the other two, the boy from District 1 and the girl from District 11 in this case, stay behind to guard the supplies. The four return for a meal break when unable to find Beetee, who is sneaking around the border of the clearing. The quarter set out again.
The guards were a problem for Beetee. He tells us he could take one of them in a fight, but not two. He also says he didn't know they liked each other. Then the cameras catch them talking sweet nothings to one another. The love at first sight catches not only Beetee then, but us watching now, off guard.
However, they both run off to investigate a close fire Beetee had made, while he sneaks in from the other side of the cornucopia clearing to execute his plan. He has his wire, and gets to work. He finds the high potential unit that has the wires branching out to the floodlights. He successfully replaces them with the wire from the broken camera, ensuring the electric current would wholly direct to the wire. However, he knew that at any moment the Careers could return and his life would end. He still has to route the wire and securely connect them to the lower potential side of the cornucopia.
"I had nothing to lose." Beetee says to us. "I put everything into this plan, except for a small escape route."
Two-thirds of the way through his wiring, he notices his fire had been extinguished. It is only a matter of time before the two would return to the cornucopia, attacking whoever had driven them away. I mean, Beetee isn't to blame for the couple not staying where they are. But the bigger problem is that it is getting dark, and if the floodlights would turn on, Beetee would be dead. An even bigger problem - the group of four have made it to the cornucopia. Watching this now, I have no idea how Beetee made it out of this. This is the climax of these Games.
"He's there!" shouts the girl from District 2. Her district partner aims a spear at Beetee, but it lands short.
"Where the hell are they?" asks the girl from District 4.
"I had two choices. Risk death and finish the wiring off, or flee and fail the plan I've been coming up with for days." recounts Beetee.
"What did you do?" asks Radia.
Beetee instructs her to watch his younger self to answer her question. He doesn't leave the cornucopia!
"You're brave and crazy." shrieks Radia, as the alliance approaches Beetee who is frantically securing the other end of the wire to the cornucopia metal base.
"I wasn't sure whether it was attached." explains Beetee. "Somebody could have easily knocked the wire out and the base wouldn't conduct a thing."
The boy from District 2 is the first to reach Beetee, and he knocks Beetee down on the base, pointing a spear straight at his abdomen.
"Beetee!" I shout at the screen in panic. "No, there's no way you get out of this. You're basically dead!" I turn to the current Beetee. "Are you really alive right now? Are you a clone?"
"I'm very much alive and I'm not a clone." he answers nonchalantly. "That boy from 2 really hates me. I bumped into him in training and he had his sights on me ever since."
"I've been waiting for this moment." says the boy tauntingly. The crowd viewing at the time would have been up on their feet. "Any last words?"
Oh, great. The over-the-top monologue for the audience. That's how he dies and Beetee survives.
"They love each other." Beetee says surprisingly calmly. "They've betrayed your orders and left to be alone."
"This was a total guess." says Beetee in the present. "I was just finding any reason. I should have messed up the supplies to make it more realistic."
"I see it." affirms the girl from District 4. "In the way they talk."
"No way they would betray us, though!" says the feisty girl from District 7. "Leaving us for each other? That's stupid!"
"How do I know you're not lying, huh?" growls the boy. "You could have distracted them! Why didn't they take any of our stuff and leave?"
"Because," Beetee gulps. "I heard them change their mind and come back to the Cornucopia. I made sure to get here first instead to defeat them."
It was a weak argument but the best one for Beetee under his circumstances. And he said it with such conviction, it became convincing. Fortunately for Beetee, the couple comes back just as he had predicted.
"Hold him." The boy pushes Beetee into the arms of his district partner. "And don't let him go."
The boy then aims his spear at the couple and the girl from District 4 points her trident. The boy from District 1 instinctively pulls back on his bow and arrow, and the girl from District 11 prepares her slingshot. The couple have not set foot on the platform yet. It's a standoff.
"At the time, I was just thinking, 'Go on the platform. Go on the platform.'" says Beetee.
"But you're also on the platform!" worries Radia.
Beetee and the girl from District 2 are at the far edge of the metal base, but he was being held firmly. The two factions argue, with the couple trying to maintain their innocence and the three, mainly the girl from 4, seeking to incriminate them. The girl from District 7 was on the fence, but eventually couldn't find an alternate explanation to the couple leaving the cornucopia, and became hurt by her ally's actions. Weirdly enough, the couple never mentions the fire that drew them out, which was the rational truth.
Beetee's plan is working, but not as much as he hoped. It is truly getting dark. The couple are slowly approaching the base to try calm the others down, but they have not stepped on it yet. At any moment, everybody except the couple would be fried and smoking.
"What's all this stuff anyway?" The boy from District 1 examines the wires on the ground as he walks a bit further forward. At the same time, the group of three back away. Almost there...
Then the boy sets a foot on the base, but not the girl. It's too late. We hear a click, and Beetee knows it's time.
Everything happened so quick that they have to replay the scenes for every person. Beetee knew how to escape a person's grasp and knocks the girl from District 2 away. He jumps off on the platform. So does she. Not anybody else.
It's a bloodless yet equally horrible sight. All four tributes on the platform convulse in a horrific dance, falling onto the ground with their weapons, sizzling and darkening.
The girl from District 11? She made the fatal mistake of touching her dying love interest, and she, too, was gone.
And while this was happening, Beetee had pulled out his blade, now slashing and stunning the girl from District 2, before proceeding to push her onto the metal base where she would also die in a similar fashion to her comrades.
Beetee backs away from the scene as quickly as possible, panting.
Me, Radia, and even Jovan are left with gaping mouths. Nobody speaks while Beetee is declared the victor. The screen goes dark.
"The ground was a good insulator that day." Beetee finally breaks the silence. "Dry. And it smelled terrible."
Radia and I find ourselves huddled with Jovan for safety and away from the killer who sits right next to us, but he doesn't seem to mind at all.
I can see why the Capitol loves these Games. Violent deaths, drama, a spectacular end. They're all sadistic psychos.
But Beetee's win was indeed revolutionary. Because he was so praised with his unorthodox methods, he was not punished. Instead, he stimulated the need for better technology within the Hunger Games and Panem in general. Beetee significantly helped with that. He became the face of the technological boom.
"I allowed a surplus of devices to be made." he explains afterwards. "It enabled the citizens of our district to keep some of the stuff they work hard to make."
My mom had told me that was the best time to have lived in District 3, before the banning of devices started.
But Beetee has set a high standard for us. No way I'd be as intelligent as he was by knowing how to wire. Who's to even say I can break a camera and retrieve the contents with the improvements nowadays? He stayed cool under pressure. I'm too emotional to do that. He got an 8 in training, and he showed that he can fight. I don't know if I will be able to learn up to his level in two days.
Watching the Games meant to help me prepare. It just made me lose hope.