TEAM 13 : THE WILDS
George : Conor
On the Lam
George didn't dare to breathe.
He could hear the soft whir of helicopters above him, tracing the ground with giant beams of light.
He hadn't expected to get very far, but had pushed his luck anyway—had snuck onto a truck headed to the edge of the Seam and then out of the District entirely using a hole in the fence that a friend of a friend of a friend had found for him.
And then he was off.
For five days he'd made good progress, staying low and covering his tracks just as the friend of a friend of a friend had told him to, and for two days no one seemed to be on his tail.
This, he already knew, was inaccurate.
The only true advantage he had was that his town had bordered the fencing leading to the northern lake; when he was found to be missing (which he would quite quickly, because his brother was one of the competitors) they would be expecting him to leave there.
This was especially true because he had his brother had, three years ago, been selected to take part in the excavation of a downed ship. They'd had no one small enough to get to some of the 'trinkets' the Capitol wanted, so rather than turning around to get a handful of small enough District 4 residents they'd just coopted the twelve healthiest boys they could find nearby.
Conor and Sean among them.
They'd been taught how to swim as quickly as possible, and, unsurprisingly, were the first to catch on.
They'd then dived, and dived, and dived, in ill-fitting suits many feet down.
The ship hadn't even sunk there—it had gone down far further out to sea, and then been dragged closer to land to (according to the District 4 sailors) be used as a Capitol tourist attraction. The first tour had happened, the Capitol realized that the well-over-a-century-old ship wasn't *exactly* in mint condition, and they'd ordered District 4 to remove anything interesting from the vessel instead.
Fred and George had spent nearly a month diving to the vessel, picking up any bits of metal, glass, pottery, gems, or less deteriorated plastic they could find—anything, really, that could be 'prettied up'.
It had been exhausting work.
But now that work was paying off.
The Capitol had it in their records that he was one of the few District 12 residents who could not only swim, but swim well.
They had it in their records that he had in fact swum in the northern lake, that he knew, generally, what to expect.
They also knew—and likely (correctly) guessed that it may have been mentioned to him in passing—that the District 4 sailors knew of the land beyond the northern lake, land made so toxic in the wars nearly two centuries ago that Panem still left it unused today—and that, going west, the toxicity dropped off so much that that land (while nominally a part of District 7) was instead used for the Games.
"There's a giant canal, see," their swimming instructor had explained, "and we couldn't figure out why they made it—it having to be so long. But then—technically the canal cuts through District 7, 'cept we never really see much of anything going south, but we see lots of helicopters and the like going north. So we figured it out—that's where the arenas are. I mean, mostly. I'm sure they're other places too—it's chilly up there, even in May."
So, in total, the Capitol knew that he knew how to swim, what to expect both out of the lake and the lands to the north, and that the arenas were on those lands.
It, apparently, therefore took them five days to look anywhere but north.
Here's the thing: given the Capitol's technology, he would be genuinely shocked if they didn't have heat sensors. Really, really specific heat sensors. The kind that could make out the shape of a body.
So he'd improvised.
The deer, he'd figured, were his best bet, so he'd spent the four days following one of the does around constantly, one of the ones without kids, and getting her used to his presence while continuing to nudge her in the right direction. It was hard work—she'd flee at any sight of danger, which meant he spent a lot of time tracking her in not-even-close-to-the-right directions—but at least she wasn't afraid of humans from the get-go.
When the sound of helicopters neared, then, he grabbed her and forced her below a nearby outcropping and then down, where he curled into a ball next to her—ideally looking enough like a fawn to evade attention. She seemed alert, but content to stay in one place—the helicopters, she apparently knew, were no danger to her, and while the outcropping blocked direct line of sight from the choppers it also wasn't nearly enough cover for any other animals to bother with.
The doe's stink—deer, unsurprisingly, weren't the most considerate of their odor—was hard to stomach, but George didn't want to twitch, to face the other direction, to do anything… until the helicopters were gone.
He listened with bated breath as they passed above him, kept going until nearly out of earshot, and then… came closer?
George stayed frozen.
His deer friend decided to take a nap.
Had they spotted him? Not from that distance, surely. But then, why were they turning around? He'd gone a far from linear path to get where he was, which meant he could easily be well over a day's travel further.
Which meant.
While most of District 12 seemed to be, if not actual believers, then agnostic about the continued existence of District 13, George couldn't think of any other reason for them to turn around when there was so much land left to search.
The helicopters were nearly above him again.
George stayed in place, breath bated, as he waited for their sound to disappear in the other direction.
It looked like he and Fred's plan would work after all.
They passed.
They kept going.
He waited a few minutes after he couldn't hear them anymore, then took off at a dead sprint.
If the remnants of District 13 really were out there, then he was going to find them.
If they weren't… well, no one would accuse George of not being innovative, and Fred had his moments too—they hadn't exactly spent the last thirteen years doing nothing.
