Lucent Saccharyn, Head Gamemaker:

Gil stares down my Gamemakers, who all instinctively shrink back a little. He's perched on the edge of my desk while Jess and I stand alongside, trying to figure out what to do about the situation with the District Three pair and District Nine girl. Not only did they take out one of our cameras, they figured out a way to bypass the security of the private training rooms. "What do you propose we do with them?" he asks coolly.

"Punish them, of course!" Pyramus is livid. The soundproof doors were his suggestion, but there was no possible way to get rid of the tiny gap at the bottom. Any other microphone wouldn't have picked up the noise, but the ones we had installed were especially powerful so they could deliver the clearest audio possible. He's obviously upset that the tributes found a way to exploit it, and is probably blaming himself for it. "They took advantage of the things we provided!"

"Forgive my boldness sir, but I disagree," says Cassus. "Their actions had very little impact on us. We had plenty of other microphones installed. They didn't interfere with our ability to hear them. Frankly, I found their ingenuity impressive. Managing to outsmart experts really is quite something, and the strategy they employed of spying on their competitors seemed to work out well for them. What message do we send by punishing them for being sneaky? We all know that craftiness is going to be useful later."

"Excellent point," Gil says. "Who agrees with him?"

"I do, sir," says Pinky. "We also should take into consideration that if we punished them in a noticeable way, the other tributes would become aware of their deception and might deliberately target them. How else could we accomplish that? Rigging their training scores? Killing them with mutts the second they set foot in the arena? We can't impose any consequences that will both remind them that they can't mess with our equipment and encourage them to do that same exact thing while competing in the Hunger Games. We should just bring them in and ream them out a little. Say not to do it again or there will be something worse."

"Very true," Gil concedes. "Lucent, in the end, they're your tributes. Whatever you say, goes. Give me your orders." A few of the less experienced members of my team look surprised that he's deferring to me, but Gil has faith in me to do my job properly.

"I'm sending Chris up to scold them," I decide. "Nothing more will come of it, but a lecture will hopefully get the message across that they shouldn't repeat their mistake." Gil takes his departure, offering to tell Chris his directions for me, and I turn back to my Gamemakers. "So what are our notes about the competitors? Who are the strongest contenders? What conflicts are we witnessing so far?"

"Well, all six of the Career tributes are near the top, including Trey. Jenna, Zea, Radley, Elle, and possibly Ardledge are also up there. All of the tributes below the age of fourteen, with the exception of Soya, are doing very poorly. We all witnessed her clever little trick of stealing Damon's token and making it look like Trey had taken it to incite a confrontation."

"What he said, miss, but let's not forget that Harry performed extremely well in both of the mandatory activities. His running time was exceeded only by that of Oscar. Thys, although doing poorly in the tests, proved to have apt skill with a sword, and she picked up some of the more advanced techniques remarkably quickly."

"Yes, Pinky's absolutely right, we need to discuss how the tributes performed in those. Soren, despite the stunt his alliance pulled, isn't looking very promising. He refused to participate at all, including walking off the track for the mile and jumping off of the agility course at the very first obstacle."

"Very good, Pyramus. That's a keen observation you've just made," I say. "Now, we're all acutely aware of the power struggle occurring within the Career Pack this year. Which Careers do you believe will fare the best, and which excelled in their compulsory exercises today?"

"Between Livi and Rafe, they did equally well with the running, but Livi's got an edge when it comes to agility. She was one of only a few tributes to complete the course, as you may recall. Eliza finished first in her heat for the running, but she wasn't as fast as the others in her alliance. Like Livi, her agility was also pretty good, but not nearly as much so. Lyra-Rose made an early mistake on the course, and she fell behind in the running too, so I find myself questioning her capability. Oscar, of course, smashed the mile out of the park. Although we heard him telling Zea that he has a six minute mile, in actuality, it was five minutes and nine seconds, which is quite the difference. He's certainly someone to watch, evidently having both speed and endurance, and although Trey wasn't necessarily bad, he was still the weakest out of his group. I wouldn't fault him for that though, since he didn't originate in One, Two, or Four, and he of course didn't have any formal training. Compared to most tributes, he was on the better side."

"That's a fair assessment. Tomorrow we will evaluate them further, and hopefully get a better idea of some hidden skills that the tributes might be hiding. For now, I want you to put the tributes' top speeds and agility responses into the system. When you're done, you're free to go home. Tomorrow I want you in here bright and early for the second day of training. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," chorus my team. As they scurry off to their monitors, I sit heavily in my chair as I buckle down and pull up the holographic model of the arena. Tonight I set up the traps, and no tribute will be safe.

Hey y'all! The next chapter of training will be out on Monday. In the meantime, I still have my latest poll up if you'd like to fill it out. See you next time!

– LC :)