Chapter 38: 75th Hunger Games: Final Strike
[Summer in the year of the 75thHunger Games]
It was getting difficult to find sleep with the progress of the games. Yes, they had made it into the final eight at least, but even if they managed to kill the three other tributes left in the arena, how were they going to proceed? Were they going to have a lottery to find out who was allowed to survive, or were they just going to separate and hunt each other? Were they just going to sit and do nothing and wait for further nasty surprises from the gamemakers? My dreams were certainly not pleasant, and I was glad when I eventually woke up just before sunrise. Carefully I moved Prim out of my arms and went down to the kitchen for a quick breakfast, while the first sun rays pierced the clouds and brightened the kitchen and also my mood a little.
Later on, the others also got up, and soon we assembled in the living room again, to watch the start of the fourth day in the arena.
The review from the night showed that the lightning had hit a tree at midnight, but not much else happening, and soon we got to see the start of the new day in the arena. Our group slept in a little, but there was not much to do for them. They collected a few shells for breakfast and got some more water from trees, and while they ate, Katniss mentioned while shuddering:
"When I woke up this morning, I had to think about the recordings from our wedding night again. This is so sick!"
She had said this to he husband, but Finnick was close and heard it. He looked at her and said:
"You know, at least you could spend the night with the person you love. This was different for me..."
Katniss looked up and asked:
"What are you talking about?"
The tall man from Four looked at her and replied:
"I won my games when I was a young teenager, just 14 years old. I was already quite tall and athletic at this time, with muscles built from fishing, and for some reason adult women swooned over me. Starting barely a year later or so, President Snow auctioned me off to them several times a year."
Katniss did not get it right away: "Auction off? For what?"
"To spend the night with them and please them, of course."
"What?" Katniss was visibly shocked, and so was Peeta.
"It's true. Annie knows about that, of course, and she also knows that it is not my fault. I had been hoping that we could get married and this would stop, but now I am going to die in the arena, and Annie will have to raise our baby on her own..."
His voice broke, and the big tribute actually started to sob.
In the bakery we looked at each other, and finally Mabel Everdeen said: "And I thought that recording a wedding night is as sick as it gets. Clearly I was wrong."
My father nodded and added: "You are right about that, my dear. It really is about time that somebody comes up with a plan to stop all of this."
A little time later Katniss pulled Peeta towards the water, telling him:
"Come on, I will teach you how to swim better."
My brother followed, and his wife practiced with him for some time. During a break Katniss told him:
"The pool of tributes is down to eight, as you know. We need to start thinking about what to do. I think it's time we took off. If I stay close to Finnick, I will go soft on him and will never be able to kill him."
Peeta nodded, and he said: "Yes, I see your point. Killing Finnick eventually will be very hard. But, please, let's wait at least until Brutus and Enobaria are dead. I believe that Beetee may be preparing some kind of trap for them. When we got them, we will go, I promise."
"All right" his wife agreed. "We will stick together with the others until the remaining Careers are dead. But then we'll separate from them."
They shook hands and Peeta promised. Katniss and Peeta also found out that the repeated contact with the water had helped their blisters from the fog during the first night, and they stayed in the water for some more time. Beetee, Johanna, and Finnick came closer now; they all applied more layers from the special tree sap on their remaining blisters and red spots to further alleviate the skin irritation, and when they all sat together on the beach, the tribute from District Three stated:
"I think we all agree about our next task, which is to kill Brutus and Enobaria, right?"
They all nodded, and he continued:
"I do not expect them to attack us openly, as they'd be two against the five of us, and four of us are formidable fighters. We could track them, but that might be quite dangerous and exhausting."
"Yes, I agree," Finnick nodded, "but what else can we do?"
"Have they figured out about the clock?" Katniss asked.
"They have probably noticed at least that the dangers are rotating, but probably they have not yet collected as many details as we have" Beetee replied. "I think it would be best to set up a trap of our own."
Beetee came up with a quite fascinating plan. He suggested to connect the long wire he had to one of the trees which was going to be hit by lightning, while the other end was in the water of the lake.
"The water has a lot of salt in it and thus it is highly conductive. When the lighting strikes, the electricity will travel into the water, and everybody and everything in the water and on the surrounding wet sand will be electrocuted instantly."
"You think that this is really going to work? Can this wire really take the energy from a lightning strike?"
"Yes it will" Beetee confirmed.
"How do you know?" Johanna wanted to know.
"Because I invented it" was the prompt answer.
"What if the Careers are not around the beach when this happens?" Katniss wanted to know.
Beetee has an answer for this question, too: "What is the safest place in the arena?"
"Where we are now, on the beach" Peeta responded promptly.
"So, why aren't they on the beach right now?"
"Because we are here."
"Exactly" Beetee nodded. "So, where are they going to be right now?"
"Probably not far in the jungle, as close to the beach as they can without being detected, so that they can observed us." Finnick suggested.
"And that would also help them to escape from any potential new dangers" Peeta added.
Beetee nodded again: "Yes, I think so, too. And, when they see us retreating deeper into the jungle, they will most likely claim the beach for themselves; that's the best place to be, after all."
He got a point there. In the bakery, we looked at each other, and my father had to admit: "This man from Three is as smart as the get."
It did not take our group long to agree that this was the best plan and in mid morning they went off to inspect the lightning tree. After a strenuous uphill hike they reached the tree, which stood out from the surrounding foliage, and Katniss picked up a few nuts and stones, throwing them ahead of her a few times to make sure that they did not run into the force field around the arena by accident.
Finnick stayed with Beetee who examined the tree, while Johanna got some more water, Peeta gathered nuts, and Katniss went hunting. The camera zoomed out for a few moments, and we could the ten o'clock tidal wave striking, but it was in another section.
While Beetee was still busy checking out the tree, the others were preparing a fire and roasted the few rodents Katniss had killed. Once they had all eaten, some clicking noises were heard from a sector next to them, right at eleven o'clock.
"This is not mechanical" Beetee stated.
"Insects? Maybe beetles?" Katniss guessed.
"We need to get out of here anyway, before the lightning strikes" Johanna insisted. The others agreed, and they moved on again.
Finnick picked up a few more oysters, and in one of them he found something. We asked Peeta over and showed him, and his hands were hidden from the cameras. Peeta walked over to Katniss and presented what he had to his wife, and she beamed for a moment. Peeta held his hands open, and the cameras finally got a closeup view – there was a nice large pearl.
"Wow, this looks nice; I had not clue that one can find those in oysters!" Prim shouted.
"Well, you know," I replied, "we do not have that many oysters around in our district, I think."
"No, we haven't" my girlfriend responded. "What a pity that we are not allowed travel between the districts. Wouldn't it be nice to walk along the beach and find a few of those, too?"
After dinner on the beach, Beetee and Finnick hiked up to the designated tree again and connected the wire to the trunk, cutting deep into the bark, while Peeta guarded them. Katniss and Johanna took the other end and pulled it towards the water.
At that time, it was getting dark, and the viewing for the day ended.
The usual review on the next morning showed that the prepared trap had not worked. The wire had been connected all right, but the Careers had failed to show up at the beach, for a reason unknown to our group. The cameras, though, showed the truth – they had observed from group, noticed the wire in the water, and suspected foul play, although they probably did not understand the concept.
"We'd better not get too close to that wire" Enobaria suggested to her district partner, Brutus.
"Do you know what that's supposed to be?" he asked back.
"No, not really, but whatever it is, let's keep our distance."
After our breakfast at home the live viewing started for day five in the arena. Finnick, Beetee, Johanna, Katniss and Peeta discussed what to do, while having a breakfast of their own on the beach.
"Is there anything we can do to lure the others to the beach?" Johanna asked.
Nobody had a good idea, and they just decided to vacate the beach again and see if this would work until noon, when the next lightning was going to strike.
There was a break in the viewing right now, and an announcer told us that the interviews related to the final eight tributes were about to start. And indeed, a couple of minutes later there was a loud knock at the door.
Three people dressed in Capitol garbs were outside, one of them with a camera and microphone, one of them, just like last year, and a young lady with pink hair, and she asked:
"Family interviews! May we come in, please?"
"Of course – please step inside!"
The lady smiled when she found all of us in the big living room and she stated:
"Isn't that nice? All of you together – this makes work easier for us."
Some of the question were similar to last year; she asked about the super high training score both Katniss and Peeta had achieved, and all of an answer she got was that they must somehow managed to impress the gamemakers a lot.
"Look, we were not there – how should we know what they did?" my father made clear.
When they were asking about how we felt about having our two loved ones in the arena once more, Mabel Everdeen provided the answer:
"Have you seen how the audience in the Capitol reacted during the tribute interviews? Have you heard that a lot of them shouted and demanded to stop the Games? If even non involved people think and react like that, how do you expect we feel about it?"
That was a fair and safe answer, and the next one came right away:
"How do you feel about your daughter getting married so quickly?"
Mabel Everdeen pondered that for a few moments and then replied: "Our two families have been getting quite close anyway, and we have all realized that Peeta is a good match for my daughter, specifically after the way he treated her during last year's games. There is only one thing I am really unhappy and furious about."
"And what would that be? Thinking about their wedding night and the recordings?"
"Oh, about that one," Wheat cut in, "can it be arranged that we get a copy, too? I'd like to ..."
"Wheat Mellark!" Dad admonished his son. "Forget about it!"
Turning towards our guests he added: "Please excuse my son's behavior."
They just smiled, and Mabel Everdeen got a chance to continue:
"Well, that one, too. But no, I really should have been invited to the wedding, together with Peeta՚s father. President Snow did not even ask."
After a few more minor questions the team left again, to wander around in the district and maybe find a few more people to ask about Katniss and Peeta.
When the viewing resumed, we first saw Enobaria and Brutus from Two. Unbeknownst to our group, Brutus and Enobaria had observed them, although they had not been close enough to listen in to the conversation. As in the night before, Beetee, Finnick, and Peeta hiked up the slope to the tree, and Beetee once again connected the wire to the bark and deeper in. Johanna and Katniss stayed close to the beach, close to where the wire lead down and into the water, to observe and hopefully see the two others.
Brutus and Enobaria, though, sneaked up to the tree, and with a smirk, Brutus got out a knife and cut the wire, about halfway between the tree and the lake, so that the lower section slid down the slope. Katniss and Johanna had placed themselves so that they were just at the bottom end of the slope, and when they felt the vibration and looked up, they barely had time to register the wire coming down. Katniss was directly hit, and although the wire was not heavy, it came down with significant speed and knocked her out fore a few minutes. Johanna was more lucky, and she moved away quickly.
Brutus and Enobaria came down, too, and when they saw Katniss on the ground, bleeding and unconscious, Brutus called out:
"She is as good as dead – come on, Enobaria, let's find the other guys"
The two moved up the slope again, to find that Beetee, Finnick and Peeta had not even noticed that the wire was cut. When the male from Three was behind the tree and out of sight from the others, Enobaria stabbed him with her knife. When she tried to stab again, Finnick had noticed and she had to run away.
Meanwhile, just a dozen meters away, Chaff had arrived and suddenly faced Peeta. Chaff, the District Eleven male, had not been seen a lot, and he had not joined an alliance. He looked pretty weak and hungry, and he told my brother:
"I am not here to kill you."
While Peeta pondered that, Brutus came out of the jungle, right behind Chaff, and killed him swiftly, only to be killed by Peeta seconds later.
"Wow, I did not know that he had this in him – killing another tribute that quickly." Wheat said.
"Maybe he understood that he did not have many options" Dad replied. "He needed to react quickly in order to survive, and he manged to do what he had to do. Of course it is really sad to see that my son is forced to think and react like this."
Johanna arrived at the scene only seconds later, surprised to see Brutus dead. When she saw Peeta, she told him that Katniss was injured by the cut wire, and while Finnick stayed up with the badly injured Beetee, Peeta followed Johanna downhill again.
A hovercraft appeared to pick up the two corpses, and soon Peeta found his wife, still unconscious.
After some time, Katniss opened her eyes again, and Peeta slowly told her what had happened around the tree. When his wife heard that Enobaria was still around somewhere, she insisted on going up, and with Finnick and Johanna supporting her, they managed.
The time was approaching noon time, and Finnick warned about getting away from then tree when the next lighting was going to strike. His comment got Katniss thinking, and despite the blood on her face, it was obvious that she had an idea.
"Yes, you get away from the tree. I need to do something, though."
Peeta insisted on staying with her, though, and while he looked that she did not know what her plan was, he helped his wife with preparations. Katniss connected the cut end of the wire to one of her arrow tips, making sure that there was a good connection and that the end was blank. Then she checked that the other end was still properly connected to the tree and stuck deep in the bark.
"Shouldn't she get away from the tree? The lightning will strike any moment!" Prim was getting concerned.
Her sister, though, seemed to have a plan, although I did not really understand what that might be. Nobody else in the bakery got it either, I guessed.
A small but thick cloud approached the tree, indicating that the lighting was imminent, when Katniss pulled back the string and released her arrow, heading upwards. A dozen meters or so above the ground the arrow seemed to hit something, flashed, and went ahead, although much slower than before. At the same time, the lightning came, struck the tree, and continued along the wire. The cameras clearly showed flashed traveling along the wire and disappearing somewhere, until suddenly there were more bright flashes and a series of explosions. Katniss dropped to the ground, and we were not sure if she had been hit again. Peeta was at her side, and she pointed upwards.
The camera moved as well, showing the sky above the arena, but it looked different than before. All of the time there had been some flickering, caused by the force field around the arena, but in this part, at least, it was gone. Somehow Katniss had managed to have the energy from the lightning hit the force field and destroy at least a part of it.
"Look, a hovercraft" Peeta called out.
"Oh, who has died now?" Katniss asked.
"I do not know" her husband replied.
"Wait, this is not a hovercraft!" Wheat said in the bakery.
And indeed, the flying object we could now see approaching was not a hovercraft at all. It was larger, much larger, with a cylindrical body tapering off at both ends, and it reminded me of…
"Rye, this looks like the one we saw some time ago from our meadow!" Prim shouted.
At this moment, the screen went dark for a moment, and then one of the gamemakers was shown at a desk, announcing that they had technical difficulties in transmitting from the arena.
"You have seen one of those before?" Dad asked while we started at a blank screen.
I nodded and explained: "Quite some time ago, when I was with Prim on our meadow, was saw something which looked similar from far. We did not know what it was, and I guess that we still don't know."
"It did not look like it was from the Capitol" Mabel Everdeen suggested.
"How would we know?" Dad replied.
We waited for some time, and eventually the announcer came back to the screen, saying:
"The technical difficulties are going on, and we do not know when the transmission from the arena can be resumed."
"This must be a very serious issue if they are not transmitting any longer while the games are still on" Wheat said.
"Yes, and the Capitol residents will be quite furious, I guess" Dad added.
"What is going to happen now?" Prim wanted to know.
"I do not know" her mother replied. "This is the first time ever I can recall that such difficulties showed up."
After we had waited for some more time, we did not have a choice but to switch off the screen. Of course, we were all feeling very uneasy, as we did not know what had happened, and when we went to bed in the evening, sleep did not come easy.
Right in the next morning, when we were sitting around the table and had breakfast, all with bleary eyes and not looking rested at all, there was a knock at the door. When Dad went to answer it, Darius was there. He insisted on speaking with me, and when I went out, he told me that Mayor Undersee needed to talk to me urgently, and that I needed to go with him. I grabbed the remainder of my bread and hurried out, and when we entered the Justice Building, I was lead into the mayor's office right away. Darius left, the mayor shook my hand, and the told me:
"Rye, something odd is going on. The transmission from the arena was not only cut to the districts, but also I do not have real information about what is going on."
"Hold on, sir. The transmission was cut? Rather than technical issues?"
He nodded: "Indeed, son. The technical issues were just false pretenses to cover something. The transmission was ended deliberately, potentially to make sure that we did not see something we should not see."
"Do you think that this might be related to that large flying object we saw right before we were cut off?"
He shrugged his shoulders: "Possible, but I do not really know."
I told him that Prim and I had seen a similar object before, many months ago from our meadow, and he replied:
"That's really interesting. But anyway, I also need to tell you that the majority of the peacekeepers have left."
"What?"
"Yes, new orders came in yesterday, just an hour or so after the end of the transmission from the arena. Thread and most of the group have commandeered the train which had brought the interviewing team, and they took most of the heavy weapons with them; they left a couple of hours ago. The peacekeeping force in our district is now down to a small fraction of what we used to have, and I will have to assign a new head peacekeeper."
"Wow" was all I could say. I was happy to learn that Thread and some of his close followers had left, of course, but what was going to happen now?
"Also, there will be an announcement on the screens in about one hour, and we all need to watch that, of course. Let's meet again later today and discuss things further, all right? At this time, I do not have a clue what's going on; I just know that this is very odd."
I nodded and was dismissed.
As the mayor had said, the screen went alive soon after I was home again, and the same announcer as on the day before was shown again. He started to say:
"Good morning everybody, in the Capitol and the districts. Unfortunately, the technical difficulties in the arena are ongoing, and we still do not have visual coverage back; we apologize for that and will try to restore it as soon as we can. However, the actions of the tributes from the day before showed clear indications of rebelling against Panem, and thus..."
At that time the transmission was interrupted again. The screen flickered a few times, and we assumed that we'd be cut off once again, but suddenly a different desk was shown. A female person was sitting there, dressed in a kind of uniform unknown to us. There was a large flag with a big mockingjay on it shown in the background, and the number '13' was displayed in a corner of the screen. After a few moments of silence the lady spoke:
"Good morning Panem; this is the voice of the mockingjay."
[Author's Notes: From now on, events will deviate more and more from the books, as I have my own vision of how the story continues, specifically regarding some outside help for the rebellion and the special tasks and challenges Rye and Prim are going to find for themselves. I do hope that you, my dear readers and followers, still have fun reading on!]