Lucent Saccharyn POV:
"The Hunger Games are such a fabulous sports event, don't you agree?" The dressmaker's nimble fingers wrap the measuring tape deftly around my ribcage. I'm being fitted for a new dress collection for the holiday season. I will need at least two dozen new, bold, Games-appropriate looks ready by Opening Day, which is just three short weeks away. Only three weeks until the Reapings! In the meantime we still have lots of pre-season coverage with interviews of previous victors, and there are parties nearly every night.
"They really are, aren't they! Such a glorious celebration of traditional Capitol values…" I trail off wistfully, thinking of my first Hunger Games. I was a little girl, just seven years old, in a pink satin suit I had picked out myself. I was holding my older brother's hand as he led me through the clusters of people clad in bright colors and glitter all the way to the betting booth. He held my ice lolly while I dug out a five-dollar note from my pocket with sticky fingers and handed it to the bet taker. The District One female, please! I had asked. I had taken a liking to her because she was fashionable and pretty and liked the Capitol almost as much as I did. Every morning, my brother and I sat down in the betting parlor to watch the Games on the big screen as people exchanged money all around us. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, cheering in high-pitched squeals as I tracked the girl on the screen with my eyes. When she made it to the final six, the bet attendant handed me seven dollars. I was hooked immediately as I took the translucent envelope from him, tearing it open to reveal shiny new banknotes. I had shoved it in my brother's face, bragging about how I had bet well and gained money. The girl ended up losing, but I vowed to make a better wager the next year. That's the appeal of the Games, they reel you in. There's so much to love: the competition, the betting, the violence, the strategy, the beauty of the arenas, the clever mutts-I could go on and on. That first year, I dreamed of being in the parade crowd or at the platform, greeting the tributes. Now I'm taking my rightful place as Head Gamemaker of Panem, ready to organize the best Games in history.
The dressmaker finishes taking my measurements. "Miss Saccharyn, you're all set for today. Is there anything else you'll need?"
"No thank you, Nadine. Have a good day, yeah?"
"Thanks! You too ma'am." She smiles and I whirl out of her studio into the corridor, beginning to make my way towards the exit. The 398th Hunger Games were fabulous, the best ever done. I must give credit where credit is due, Langston Arquette really outdid himself. He was a great man and a great mentor, and always took a liking to me. I was the lowliest Gamemaker in the room, put in charge of the soil texture. The soil texture. But Langston always treated me like an equal, often letting me make important decisions on mutts and such. He valued my opinion, but last year, we disagreed on much more than we had the previous year. He pulled rank, I pulled away, the Games flopped, and the President took notice. Having helped organize the greatest success and opposed the greatest failure, President Gilbert Mikhail asked me to take on the responsibility of being the new Head Gamemaker. It's a particularly difficult task, because it's a Quarter Quell: the 400th Hunger Games. It'll be the biggest Games in all of our lifetimes, so it obviously has to be a spectacle to rival all that have come before it. It's not unmanageable though, since I'm sure I'll have a great team. I walk briskly along the sidewalk to a waiting car. I ignore the paparazzi that follow me and duck in the backseat, ordering the driver to speed off. We ride past a dozen marvels of architectural engineering on our way to the building I work at. We reach the building and the chauffeur parks by the curb. I step out of the car and the driver escorts me across the lawn into the building. I reach the elevator and the driver presses the "up" button with a single white-gloved finger. There's a ding. We step in and go up to one of the higher floors. I pause for a quick outfit change at 69, then pause to grab an iced coffee on 77, pop out to floor 84 for a cheese pastry, and arrive at my final destination on floor 100. When I stride confidently into the Gamemaker Staff Room, everyone snaps to attention. They leap into action, frantically typing in passwords to sleeping computers, stashing packets of chips and takeout bags under desks or tossing empty soda or booze bottles in trash bins. Magazines and tablets disappear in favor of notebooks and pens. People sit up ramrod straight and blink away the bleariness caused by their morning naps. I'm disgusted by this lack of professionalism. It's unbecoming of the best-respected people in Panem.
"People!" I snap. "Get out! No employee of mine can pull this crap and get away with it!" Some instantly jump to their feet, shoving their things into their bags. Others are slower to empty out their desks, griping about mean, demanding bosses and people who don't care about their labors. That's funny, I saw you reading comics while eating a prepackaged donut. Labor? What labor? I march off to the elevator, disgruntled employees in my wake. I pop over to floor 92 to see my secretary. I check the clock, it's six minutes past nine.
"Chris," I ask, "Could you please go through the gamemaker applications? I need one hundred fifty people to be lined up in the choreography studio on floor 88 by nine forty-five." Chris looks awfully nervous.
"Ma'am, that's such short notice. I'm not sure I can do it?" He phrases it like a question, and for good reason. Nobody else would dare tell me they can't get something done. But Chris is my very best worker, and he's known me for a long time.
"It's okay, Chris. Take until ten, then go for a quick break. You deserve it." While Chris is working on getting that done, I make my way to one of the cafeteria floors and order the chefs to prepare crudités for brunch in the form of small scones, tarts, and puddings. I then visit the choreography studio and begin tidying it up to my liking. I grab a few assistants out of the hallway and instruct them to help me. One sweeps the white flooring, another dusts the white walls. I run a long line of neon tape along the length of the studio. I locate the wall-length whiteboard, pick up a light blue marker, and write a single sentence: Stand on the green line, please. I usher the chefs in after thirty minutes of cleaning and polishing, instructing them to set out the brunch snack buffet off to the corner, along with a stack of thin ceramic plates and some disposable napkins. A custodian wheels in a few strategically placed trash cans and I return to my office. It's five to ten and I'm pleased to see Chris is directing applicants to the choreography room. After a few minutes of waiting, I walk through the double doors to the studio, one hundred fifty nervous potential hirees waiting expectantly. Most of them are spread out along the green line, but a few are investigating the desserts or milling about uncertainty. My voice rings out across the room.
"There are one hundred fifty of you in this room. I will be hand-picking only fifteen of you to be Gamemakers. Those who are selected must be respectful, competent, and organized. You must learn to take direction and follow orders at all times. For this reason, we will proceed by process of elimination." I clear my throat. "If you are not standing on the green line, please exit the room." A dozen or so people do so, leaving with heads hung in shame of blowing their chances so early on. I run through a series of quick questions: Do you have powerful family members? What have you had in the way of education? I work down the line until I have eliminated more than half of the original applicants. I delve deeper into field-specific questions. I eeny-meeny-miny-moe my way through until we're down to thirty. I conduct mini interviews with them, asking questions about ideal hours and duration at the job. What benefits they want. How their skills would lighten my workload. At last, I select fifteen of those and walk them into a storage closet, passing out sleek green-and-white uniforms.
"You're hired," I say. "You start tomorrow at eight."
Hey y'all! As you can probably tell, I'm starting a new story, and it's an SYOT. This is going to provide an in-depth view of the Hunger Games from a Gamemaker's point of view, and most or all of it is going to be from Lucent's perspective. Being an SYOT, you can submit your own tributes via PM. The tribute form is available in my bio!
~LC
