I. The New Colossus.
in which a bargain is struck, a secret uncovered, and a twist presented
xxx
Flashing neon lights illuminated the Capitol streets in an uneasy glow. Bright strobe lights pulsated over the grimy underbelly, casting shadows over the dirt and grime that layered the street.
Mikhalis Blue trudged down the dim sidewalks, his head facing the pavement and hands tucked firmly into the pockets of his coat. The walk was familiar, each step automatic. Not many from the highrises made journeys down to the undercity, but to Mikhalis this was as much a home as any place else.
Dark blue hair came into focus each time he stepped under one of the flashing lamp posts, revealing the hidden features of his hooded figure. Aside from the striking, spiked-up hair, he was unremarkable. Dark brown eyes sat above a narrow nose and thin lips, supported by a sharp jaw that clenched in concentration. Beneath his gray trench coat laid an unassuming outfit, gray t-shirt, jeans, and shoes camouflaging him against the dull shades of the alleyways.
His olive skin was unaltered, with no piercings, tattoos, colorings, or augmentations of other varieties. Out of sight, buried in his coat pockets and clutched in the palm of his right hand, was a bright orange tape recorder.
A group of teens raced down the street, laughing as they staggered down the sidewalk outfitted in multi-colored mohawks and freshly applied burn-marks. Mikhalis lowered his head even further, ducking against the shop windows as they passed by him without seeming to notice his existence.
He slowed his pace to a meticulous crawl, and as soon as he was sure they had left sight, he swiftly ducked into a narrow alley. The dim neon lights of the walkways gave way to complete darkness in a moment and he took a light-ball from his pocket, gave it a shake, and rolled it onto the floor in front of him.
The weak blue glow faintly illuminated the sewage-stained floor. Mikhail kicked the small metallic ball along, closely examining the ground. It didn't take long for him to find his mark, a faint yellow X spray-painted onto the concrete.
Mikhail picked up the ball and slid it back into his pocket. He made for the door beside the mark, but the door opened before his fist could rap away at the rusted metal. A chain held the door in place as it slipped open a crack, a pair of eyes peering through the gap. Recognition flashed over their pupils.
The door slammed shut, the chain was undone, and the door opened fully. Mikhail stepped in and the door slid closed behind him, light flooding into the room a moment later. The warm orange light was a sorely missed sight and Mikhail took a moment to bask in it before turning to the woman in front of him.
"You're late." Katerina Rayous folded her arms over her chest. Despite her living quarters, it was easy to see from just a cursory glance that she belonged to the highrises of the upper city. Various flowers and symbols were etched into her skin in the form of tattoos and burn-marks, her eyes shone a bright yellow, and her hair was dyed a vibrant pink and blue. Her dress was the only unassuming thing about her, a baggy jacket and pair of slacks that did little to hide her identity.
Mikhail shrugged, walking over to the kitchen and cracking open the fridge. "There were complications."
"What kind of complications?" She asked, stepping up beside him.
He dug around the woefully understocked collection of beverages, eventually settling for a lemon liqueur that he plucked out greedily. "The complicated kind."
She snagged the bottle from his hands just before he could bring it to his lip. She reached into a cupboard, slammed a glass onto the table, and began pouring. "I need more than that."
"Our friend Vassilis was. . . shall we say, less enthusiastic about our ideas than we anticipated?"
She finished pouring but held firmly to the glass, not letting him take it. She gave him a hard look. "How much less enthusiastic?"
"Things worked out fine if that's what you're worried about," he said. That was enough for her to release the glass and he took it in hand, quickly downing the glass and handing it back to her for a refill. "He just took some enticing. A few thousand Drachma transferred to his account and he was more than willing to squeal to his heart's delight."
Her lips pursed, but she poured him another drink regardless. "You could have contacted me before handing out my money so freely."
He shrugged, unbothered. "There wasn't exactly an alternative. Money's money, I'm sure your accounts will manage. His information was invaluable."
"I hope that's true."
"It is," he said, smiling as he took a more tempered swig from the glass. He set down the drink and dug into his pocket, then tossed her the bright orange recorder. "Give it a listen. Sensitive Games information, Panemian Operations Department and Capitol Intelligence Division black records, and enough dirt on the Aeturnus family to bury them."
"I don't want them buried," Katerina said, venom in her voice. "I want them burned, their history and future set ablaze, reduced to ash."
Mikhail smiled, another swig of his drink. "And you aren't alone in that wish. There are plenty more in the undercity that would gladly see Ulric Aeturnus," he spat out the name, "and the rest of his ilk gone from Panem."
She palmed over the recorder in her hand and nodded her head. She took a heavy swig of the drink and slid the glass to the side. "Then that settles it. This year."
"This year," he said, smiling as he raised his near-empty glass. "We set our city free."
xxx
On the 147th floor of the Eternity Highrise, Lucia Aeturnus gazed out at the stars. There weren't all that many to see and those that were visible were hardly impressive. Dim shadows of a vast infinity that they caged themselves from seeing.
But it was a better view than the one that laid below it. Their elegant highrises connected to each other through skyways, interconnecting their world and leaving the one below to its own devices. The streets just below Eternity weren't a sore sight. They may not have had the glitz and glamor of the world above, but they had more than enough to get by and enjoyed the fruits of sitting in the shadows of excess.
But the farther one ventured from this beating heart of Panem, the less brightly the lights of their city shined. Far enough away, near the tall walls that boxed their city in, it was hard to tell one was in the Capitol at all, the streets seeming closer to those of District Six or Eight than those of the shining beacon of Panem.
It was a necessary evil, her father had told her time and time again. Panem was in decay, it had been for a long time. There wasn't enough to go around for the entire nation to live in excess and comfort. It was either let the many suffer so that at least a lucky few could reap the benefits, or let the whole world sit in squalor in unison. Misery did love company, after all.
That pill was a hard one for Lucia to swallow, but whether she accepted that pill mattered not. There was a long line of inheritance standing in front of her. She would spend the remainder of her youth as an interviewer. Then once the prime of her days had passed she would be quietly pushed aside, and the cycle would continue.
For thirty years the Aeturnus family had ruled in name, and for seventy more years before that they had ruled in subtler ways. They led Panem through crises that would have crippled nations ruled by less capable guiding hands. The Great Blight of 187, the Undercity Riots of 195, all the way to the more recent District Revolts of 218.
"Enjoying the view?" A voice called out in a light lilt.
Lucia smiled giddily, pushing off the railing of her balcony and spinning to face her brother Remus, who stood leaning against the half-open sliding door. His face was older than the last time she had seen him, a fresh stubble making a patchwork across his cheeks and chin. Any dye was missing from his hair, the long, wild locks of dark brown falling messily over his shoulders and forehead. A dirtied beige shirt and cargo shorts were complimented by a dark brown backpack whose straps seemed to be struggling to hold in place.
She leaped towards him, enveloping him in a hug that sent him staggering back into the living room before he caught himself and steadied her, returning the gesture. When she did finally peel away, her smile had grown twice as wide, a teasing glint in her eyes.
"I see they don't have showers in the jungle."
He laughed, throwing his backpack to the ground and stretching out his arms. "No, I suppose they don't, but that's not where I've been."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Father said that you were–"
"What father knows and what is reality rarely align," he said, laughing. "Come on, I'll tell you all about it, just grab me a drink first."
"There's water in the fridge," she said lightly.
He mocked offense. "I don't know why you would imagine I want anything else."
She laughed as he rounded the corner into the kitchen, quickly clearing off the cluttered dining table covered in journals and notes and photographs. "Father was right, you really have changed, haven't you?"
"Yes, well," he said, rounding the corner with a glass, his expression dropping to one more hesitantly serious. "My trip wasn't the touristic, meaningless sightseeing that he scolded to me that it would be."
"What do you mean?" Lucia asked. She stood up from her chair. "Are you okay? Do you need–"
He waved her down and took a seat opposite her. She hesitantly followed suit. She looked him in the eyes and noticed for the first time how much older he truly looked. Two years ago he left The Capitol, halfway his own machinations and halfway father's eagerness to be rid of him. A small Peacekeeper escort and a hovercraft was his departing gift as he set off to explore the uncharted jungles south of District Four.
"We didn't head south," he said, shrugging nonchalantly as he swished the water around his glass. "That was where father told me to go, so knowing me, I'm sure you can figure out where we went instead."
She sighed. "North."
"Naturally. North of District Seven is a whole lot of nothing, a frozen wasteland in the winter and a melted wasteland in the brief summer." He paused, glancing around the room nervously.
"What's wrong?" Lucia asked, leaning in closer.
"Nothing," he said, waving her away. "It's just. . . it's just, well," he interrupted his train of thought, looking at her uneasily. "Can I trust you, Luc?"
"Of course you can," she said softly, worry seeping into her voice. "Why would you even ask me that? You know you can."
"I know, I know, it's just. . . it's been a while since I left, I don't know."
She smiled weakly and reached across the table, taking hold of his hand. "I'm still me. You know what it's like here. Not much ever changes."
"Right, well, that's sorta the thing," he said, swallowing a lump in his throat. "North of District Seven was empty, not a single thing, person, hardly even any animals and plants. But out west, by the ocean, we found a shipwreck, and I found this in the wreckage."
He pulled out a small copper coin, sliding it carefully against the table toward her. She eyed it curiously, flipping it over as she scanned over the inscriptions. "I don't get it," she said. "It's interesting, for sure, I bet the Museum of Pre-Panemian History would love–"
"It's not pre-Panemian," he cut her off. She gave him an odd look but said nothing more, so he continued. "At first I thought the same thing as you, or that it was a Panemian ship that somehow got very, very off course. Maybe some pirates or rebels, or deserters from District Thirteen, I don't know." He took a long gulp of water. "But then I noticed the date at the bottom."
He looked at her expectantly and she picked the coin back up, closely examining the bottom of the coin. On it, etched in small, faded writing, a few words could be made out.
Anno XXIV post adunationem
"What about it?" She asked, continuing to scan over the coin. Aside from the markings at the bottom, there was a grain of wheat on the back and a stern face under a bolded word on the front.
"It's Latin," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Year twenty-four, post-unification." He laughed humorlessly. "I've looked through every single database we have, there's nothing like this. And the coin itself? I have a friend in Rayous Labs who ran a test on it, the minting is only a decade old."
A chill ran down Lucia's spine, her thumb running circles along the edges of the coin. "So what you're saying–"
Remus nodded his head, smiling even as nervousness seeped into his voice. "Turns out we might not be as alone as we thought."
She bit her lip and her eyes went down to the coin. The big bold title at the top in capital letters stood loudly above the domineering gaze of the coin's face, a proclamation of a foreign world, an affront to everything that Panem was, everything it claimed to be.
Pax Romana
xxx
Ulric Aeturnus was not an old man. He had seen his days, that was to be sure, but his years were not so narrowly numbered that a countdown had begun. Yet it loomed over him that by the time twenty-five more years came to pass if death hadn't caught up to him, senility and decay almost certainly would.
He was a young man the first time had stepped in front of Panem with a bright smile to the sound of thunderous applause. The young girl that had handed him the golden envelope was now a woman with a daughter of her own. It was sobering how suddenly time advanced when one stopped to peer backwards.
So he would not do that this year. He would look forward to the promise that was held in the coming months. Ptolemy would be serving as Head Gamemaker for the first time, finally earning the chance to show that he was deserving of the keys to the kingdom. Remus finally returned home after two years of running from responsibility, which was sure to brighten the mood of the all-too-often somber Lucia, even if it would certainly earn himself a few more gray hairs. And Zeno would shadow his siblings for the year, taking his first step into the larger world the Aeturnus family commanded.
That was all ahead, however. For now, he had a more pressing matter. The crowd was rapturous as he stepped out on stage, explosive applause and cheering rumbling through the auditorium. He smiled and waved, waiting for the noise to start to fade before holding a hand up for silence.
The effect was near-instantaneous. Ulric smiled again and rested his hands patiently on the podium. He directed his gaze to the nearest camera, a somber expression taking hold as he did so.
"Welcome, Panem, to the card reading for the 225th Hunger Games. The last twenty-five years have been a difficult time for our nation, but thanks to the efforts of the brave patriots in each and every one of our districts, we are beginning to return to our prior might. Let us take this Quarter Quell as a reminder of the sins of our past and the danger of repeating them, yes, but let us also take this time to celebrate 225 years of peace and prosperity, under one single nation of Panem."
He motioned to the side and a young girl stepped out on stage, a gilded box held daintily in her hands. He struggled to remember her name, only knowing her to be some grand-niece or other. Still, he offered a warm smile and thanks as he accepted the box, then set it on the podium for all to see.
There was less tension for him than there was for his last card reading. He had decided blindly reading the twist without prior knowledge to be foolish, no matter how much he admittedly missed the suspense of mystery and the unknown. Just one more among many of the sacrifices a ruler must make. One further lesson he needed to pass to his children before his time came to a close.
He plucked a card from the front of the box, then slid it back shut. Slowly, he unraveled the envelope marked 225 and plucked the note out, careful to keep it out of view of the cameras as he brought it up.
"For the 9th ever Quarter Quell, to remind the districts that they were the ones that chose to send their children off to die, only parents with at least 2 children of reaping age will be eligible to be reaped. Once selected, the parent will have to choose which one of their children to send into the Hunger Games."
He wasted no more time for dramatic flair, waited for nor allowed any applause. He set the envelope down, nodded to the audience, and turned away, his footsteps the only sound in the room as all of Panem held its breath.
Well hello there everybody. It's been a while since I've dipped my toes into the syot fandom, but I was feeling nostalgic and upon finding the community to still be going strong, decided to try my hand at an syot of my own. To briefly summarize the quell twist, a parent (who has at least 2 kids aged 12-18, with more slips going to parents with more kids) is going to be reaped. Once they're reaped, they have to select which one of their kids to send into the games. Other than that, it's all up to you to decide.
All the rules, submission information, and of course the tribute form, is up on my profile. It's gonna be a partial, so only somewhere between 6-14 tributes will be accepted, I still have to decide. The form is super short and low-key so go check it out.