Chapter 39: Gemma Royce
The Situation Room within the presidential mansion was crowded and boisterous.
After an ungodly early meeting with his National Security advisers, President Coriolanus Snow was ready to set aside the nation's business, if only for a day, and watch as just another spectator while the Games opened.
His trusted aides and inner circle were brimming with anticipation at the chance to watch the Bloodbath of the 39th Hunger Games from one of the most private, secure locations in all of Panem. Although, they still had to make sure their President was happy, comfortable, as the district's finest set about fighting to the death, so the White House staff now set about at catering to Snow's every whim.
Snow was polite, droll, debonair, seemingly relatively easy to please. Not at all temperamental – not the way President Ravinstill had sometimes been towards the end. President Chiron Udall had unfortunately not stuck around long enough before suffering an untimely death for anyone to develop an informed opinion about him.
But President Snow governed with a cool and steady hand…. and was making it clear, if not quite yet in his words so much as in his actions, that he intended to stick around for awhile.
"Scones, Mr. President?" his pretty blonde secretary approached the handsome young President, practically depositing herself along with the tray of pastries into his lap.
Snow merely smiled drolly and gave her tempting bum a pinch in reward. "Please, thank you, Cassandra. There's a good girl." She giggled and scampered away.
Cassius Phillips, Snow's Minister of Information, uncorked an expensive bottle of wine. "Sherry, Mr. President?"
"Why, Cassius! – wherever do you get such fine wine?" Snow laughed, holding out his goblet so that his underling could pour him quite the liberal glass.
"My dear Scarlet's liquor cabinet. Didn't I tell you she's quite the connoisseur?"
"You most certainly did not!" Snow chuckled dolefully. "You simply must bring her to the next Correspondents' Dinner, so I can pick her brain!"
"As you say, Mr. President," Cassius beamed, bowing low as he stepped away.
The blare of trumpets could suddenly be heard, followed by the presidential seal, across all fifteen TV screens, the world clocks above them all set to the Panemian time zone.
"Hush, all!" Snow shushed everyone with the ease of a mother gently scolding her wayward children. "The Games are starting!"
The opening shot of the arena looked out onto a undulating expanse of nothing but rolling hills. Snow fought the urge to tsssk. As arena landscapes went, it was entirely unimaginative; certainly, he would never have stood for such lack of boldness when he was Head Gamemaker!
If Lucky Flickerman and then son Caesar after him had become or were becoming the Face of the Hunger Games, then Claudius Templesmith had long since been its Voice, and Snow practically shivered as the famed announcer began the countdown. This had to be his favorite moment of the whole pageant – twenty-four individuals readying themselves to either prove their mettle… or not. Many of them would become stars. But there could only be one Victor.
A flash of blonde hair zipped by as the cameras briefly focused in on one rather striking tribute. Snow's eyes narrowed with interest and he beckoned an aide near with his hand.
"Jones…. Pray tell, who is that truly attractive looking tribute with the golden blonde hair?"
Jones, Head of the President's Secret Service detail, was seasoned enough by now in Snow's whims to patch a line through directly to Gamemaker Headquarters, ordering them to focus more attention on said blonde tribute. The screens obeyed at once. Jones listened into his walkie-talkie for a moment.
"Miss Gemma Royce, District 1, Mr. President."
Snow's eyes gleamed. "Place down a preliminary bet of… 500 sesterces on lovely Miss Royce with Tax Bacchus at Rolling Hills, my good man, if you would."
"Right away, Mr. President." And Jones had the mogul of Rolling Dreams casino on the line within seconds.
"3… 2…. 1…." Claudius's countdown ended. The two dozen souls onscreen sprung off their plates all at once, many of them with the gracefulness of gazelles. Gemma Royce was one of these; she seemed to all but float to the Cornucopia. Retrieving both a Spanish halberd and a saber, she turned with the controlled poise of a ballet dancer and proceeded to dice up first the girl from 10, and then the boy from 7 in rapid succession.
Snow grinned jovially. The boy from 7 had been a heavy favorite going in. "What a coup! Huzzah! Brava! A most splendid kill!" he called, offering up a round of royal applause. His eyes narrowed with predatory lust as Gemma Royce continued to cut her way through nearly a third of the entire field single-handed. By the time she had met up with her Career allies, the President had seen enough. He flagged Jones down again.
"Put in a word with Finis Valorum, the Head Gamemaker, and ask him to favor the District 1 female."
Jones blinked only once, but then nodded. The end, even while still at the beginning, had been decided. At this point, it was less a matter of how the Games were going to end, and more how were they going to get to that ending? "As you command, Mr. President."
Sipping the sherry from his goblet, muscling through the bit of blood from the sores in his mouth that now mixed in so well with the red drink it was hardly noticeable, Snow sat back and enjoyed the show, watching with intrigue as Gemma Royce stabbed, spun, laughed and flirted with her allies.
"Yes, my dear, I think you will do for me nicely…" he murmured around the goblet's rim. "Oh yes, indeed, you will make a fine Victor."
Weeks later, upon Snow requesting an audience with Miss Royce which resulted in him… making love to her in his private chambers, the President could say unequivocally that his instincts had been proven right.