Omar Beatriz-Calvert, District Ten male (15)

The Capitol had everything anyone could dream of. From anywhere in my room I could pull up a computer screen on the wall and just type in anything I wanted, anything at all. I could read about ancient history or fashion or engineering or any form of science that had ever existed. It was just all right there. Of all the things in the Capitol that must be the most magical. I wondered if the people here appreciated this universe of knowledge at their fingertips. Back in Ten if I wanted to learn something I had to hope the library had a book on it. Probably a single book, all tattered and thumbed over by a thousand readers before me. The words on the page were the same every time and they were all I had. Whatever facts the book had, that was all I got.

I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how the Capitol hadn't accomplished even more. Thousands and thousands of people with all the collected knowledge of human history. How was it they hadn't come up with a way to make food for everyone yet? Why didn't we have cities on Mars yet? I couldn't imagine that every single person in the Capitol was either uninterested or unable. There had been great advances in genetic tailoring but there were so many other disciplines that were just stagnant. Maybe the authorities quashed advancements. I knew the world wasn't perfect but I didn't believe this could last forever. Innovators have always found a way to change the world.

"Computer," I said. The screen on the wall flickered in recognition. "When were Clydesdales first bred?"

Words appeared on the screen instantly. The Clydesdale breed of horse was developed in the early 1700s by John Paterson and and the 6th Duke of Hamilton. Just like that I knew something I'd never known before. We had plenty of books on horses in our tiny library but none happened to have that specific information. I'd grown up my entire life occasionally wondering where Clydesdales came from and fully expecting that I would never know. Did Capitolites have questions like this? Or did they grow up fully expecting they could get the answer to any question but never actually asking them?

"Computer, can you show a video on how RNA is manufactured?" I asked. I'd been studying it lately but it had never made sense to me. The screen blinked again and then filled with tiny pictures, each labeled with a video title. I pointed at the first video and it started to play. I followed the narration and the infographics but at the end I still didn't get it.

"Is there a virtual teacher program or something like that?" I asked. The screen blinked and a woman appeared on the screen standing next to a whiteboard.

"Hi! I'm Dr. Science! What would you like to learn about?" she asked.

"Are you real?" I asked. Did the Capitol just have experts on-call for anyone who had any questions about anything? Talk about a dream job.

"I'm a real artificial intelligence," Dr. Science said brightly. I had an uneasy stirring in my mind as I wondered whether I was looking at a CGI image or if some Capitolite lady had served as a model. But the mouth matched the words, so either she prerecorded everything imaginable or this was an entirely artificial figure that looked as real as anyone I'd seen on the street. I knew the Capitol could make flawless manipulated footage but it was still uncanny in real life.

Thoughts of genetics left my brain as I was distracted by this entirely new-to-me technology. "So you're artificial. Are you alive? Do you have thoughts?"

"I think I do," Dr. Science said with the same perky smile.

"Do you have a soul?" I asked.

"That's really hard to measure! What do you think?" Dr. Science said, in what I found to be a neat cop-out.

"What kind of things interest you?" I asked. Things were getting weirder every minute. Dr. Science looked and sounded like any other woman. It was just her unnatural stillness when I wasn't talking to her that marked any of this as anything abnormal.

"I love teaching people about science!" she said. I don't know what I expected...

"What if you couldn't do that? What would you do if you didn't have this job?" I asked, trying to find some metaphysical question that would separate a machine from a being.

"Maybe I'd be an exterminator. Computer bugs, you know," Dr. Science said, and laughed. Was it pre-scripted? Did she have AI complicated enough to construct jokes? I didn't think the Capitol appreciated at all the world they lived in. Back home my world was limited to a few words on a single page in a library encyclopedia. In the Capitol you could talk to a machine like you would talk to your friend.


Culter Spring, District Eleven male (17)

Tomorrow I could die. I had one last night in the Capitol and when morning came I was going to the Games. Harvest said it would be pretty early. I'd set my alarm an hour early so I had time to wake up and mentally prepare, not that I could really prepare for this at all. I should have already been asleep but I didn't think any of us could sleep tonight, even the Careers- they wouldn't be scared but they'd be too excited to get started. What a thing to think about. Somewhere in this building, maybe directly above or beneath me, six people were getting ready to kill me. It was entirely possible one of them was specifically planning to kill me. If I was a Career I'd want to have a plan and organize our efforts to take out particular threats. I wasn't the strongest non-Career but I might make the top six. All it took was a single one of them to think that.

What's it like to die? Most people my age had never thought about it. In Eleven some of us had. When we got sick it wasn't like in the Capitol. Many of us were so thin and frail that there was no such thing as "just a cold". It usually didn't happen, but the smallest virus had the potential to kill us. When a little kid got a stomach bug their parents would walk around tight-lipped and anxious for a week. Or there was the chance that any day at work the water might be late or tainted. Dehydration and heatstroke were hard to recognize until someone just fell over, and sometimes they didn't get back up.

I'd been hungry most of my childhood but I'd never been actually close to death. Since I lived in town and most people had urban jobs I'd never lost any friends, either. My grandmother died when I was seven but that wasn't the same. I was sad about it and all but I was too little to be that affected and also, she was old. Old people are supposed to die, even if it's sad. People my age aren't.

I didn't know what happened when someone died. I'd always thought there was something more. It didn't make sense to me that we'd be able to think and learn and work toward a future if everything was just for nothing in the end. Humans were something more than animals and I thought that went deeper than just our bodies. But while I was sure there was something, I had no idea what it was. It certainly seemed like it was entirely separate from life, since no one ever came back to tell us about it. Maybe that meant we were all cut off from not just this world but everyone in it. Would I never see my family or Summer again? But sometimes before they die people say they see dead relatives. Maybe this world and the next occupied the same space and we could only see across when we were almost dead. Then dead people could stay around and see what we were up to. Not in a "ghosts always watching us" sort of way- that would be creepy. More in a metaphysical way.

It made it even more complicated that I volunteered for all of this. If I died it wouldn't just be me. I would be leaving a legacy of failure and stupidity. Basil would say he was right about me all along. Summer would... hopefully she'd find someone else. I didn't want her to pine after me. I wanted to be with her. I wanted to be home with her and this seemed like the only way.


Morty Sonym, District Twelve male (17)

"Are we going to die?"

The thing about being Bess' ally was that I couldn't just say the first thing that came to mind, which was "gosh I hope so". No, I felt obligated to at least pretend for a while that I wanted to be alive. I didn't have to pretend that I wanted Bess to be alive. She was a sweet, vivacious girl and she deserved so much better than this. She had a life to go back to and a future to live. She wasn't all burned over like me.

"Are you kidding? Who would want to fight someone as strong as you?" I asked. We were in the Ten lounge trying to have one last fun night before the Games. I hadn't had a fun night in a long time and Bess couldn't seem to muster up the enthusiasm either. Halfheartedly nibbled food covered the coffee table as we huddled on one of three couches in the room. I wasn't used to being so close to other people. Bess was clearly seeking contact and reassurance and I wanted to help but it was just weird to get used to.

"Someone else strong," Bess answered. True, the Careers were both physically strong and specifically trained for the Games. It was also true that Bess was one of the bigger targets for them. It was unfortunate that I, who actually wanted to be targeted, was so thin and sickly-looking that I hadn't noticed the Careers ever looking at me. I could just sacrifice myself for her and then at least I'd die first, I mulled over. Then something good would come of my life.

"Let's just run away while they're all going in to get weapons. Then we'll have a head start," I said. And if I happened to lag behind, some people are just slower than others. And if Allure should happen to shoot me in the back while Bess was ahead of me and couldn't see it, some people just aren't lucky. If I looked around during the countdown I could see which station Allure was at and try to run in a direction that put me in her path.

"If I die, say a prayer for me," Bess said, and her voice cracked. She wasn't looking at me, but out the window that overlooked the sun setting over the metal skyscrapers. Someone like her could probably see the beauty in it. Someone like me was past things like that.

I tried to think of something to say that would make her less afraid. When I failed I came up with just "I will."

Bess got off the couch and walked toward her bedroom. "Come see this," she said. I followed her and she crouched down on the floor. She wriggled herself under her bed, her huge muscles barely able to fit. I scrunched in after her, far more easily since I was as tall and thin as she was short and stout.

"I came under here once because I just wanted to hide for a while," Bess said. "Look at this." She pointed at some scratch marks in the bed's wooden headboard.

Pickett Blum was here, they read.

"She was from four years ago. She starved to death," Bess said. She took a table knife from her pocket. "I guess I shouldn't mess with other people's stuff but I think they can buy more. I watched as she carved in one letter at a time.

Bess Carver and Morty Sonym were too.

"There. Now we'll live forever."


I think that's everyone! Almost at the good stuff. Time will tell how it compares to everyone else's Bloodbath... (I think I might have missed like one person so I'll check again and if so I'll add them to the tubes)