Cassus Verona, Gamemaker:
All of the training uniforms are finished. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I stacked them all up neatly before giving them to Chris to distribute to the tributes' apartments. Tonight, the Gamemaking room is quiet and peaceful, a little reprieve before the flurry of activity that will come tomorrow morning. The week leading up to the Hunger Games is a busy one for us Gamemakers. Our tasks mostly include monitoring the tributes and compiling as much information about each one as we possibly can.
Now, the Capitol obviously collects data about all of its citizens, and the President has his own methods of extracting material from people, but the best way to learn how the tributes will interact with each other and perform in the arena is simply careful observation. How do the tributes behave around authority figures? Those who are older? Those who are younger? How do they change when speaking to allies in comparison to strangers? What are their usual mannerisms? What's their distinctive happy smile look like, and how does it compare to a curt smile given to be polite? What tells do they exhibit when they're nervous or apprehensive? Do they touch their face or smooth their hair when they lie? Are they manipulative?
These are the questions Lucent has told us each to ask ourselves, and it's up to me to find the answers. The tributes have been told that we will not be observing them in training. This isn't true. Tomorrow, we will be watching through hidden cameras, and Lucent will occasionally walk through for a brief conversation with the Head Trainer, Hortensia. The next day, we will be seated on our little alcove in the Training Center gymnasium, critiquing the tributes in person from behind a soundproof wall of glass. There are numerous microphones picking up sound in the main area of the room, so the glass will only result in the tributes being unable to hear us, with the added benefit of protection in the case of a stray arrow, and will have no effect on our ability to hear everything.
That's one reason we've been on such a time crunch these past few days. Most of my time will now be spent taking notes on the tributes, so Lucet wanted us to hurry and wrap up most of our responsibilities tonight. Pyramus has been doing a lot on the arena, Pinky's been handling the mutts, and others have been taking care of their own tasks, but my job was easily the best out of all of them.
I'm totally finished with the tribute outfits, both for training and for the arena, so I got to move on to my favorite thing of all: finetuning the weather. Lucent came up with a fabulously dramatic sequence of events that will be remembered for centuries to come as an incredible idea.
Idrag my fingers across a row of buttons on a special holographic display. On the popup screen, twenty boxes are laid out in four columns, each with a thumbnail and a label. Thunderstorm. Flood. Dust Devil. My thumb traces the outline of the one I'm personally most proud of. Hurricane, it reads. For the entirety of the Games, at dusk each evening, a storm will begin brewing in some area of the arena, a different spot each time. The storm will ravage the land around it, destroying the camps or supplies stashed nearby, and battering the tributes in close proximity to it with torrential downpours of rain, high-speed winds, or clouds of dust and snow.
The cruel brilliance of it is driving me insane. When I heard it, I thought it would be too harsh and immediately deadly, reminding Lucent that the people of the Capitol have a distaste for the bloodless deaths caused by our so-called natural disasters. Then, she explained that the weather would only kill maybe one tribute, and wasn't meant to be deadly. I assumed that would be rather inconsequential, boring, even forgettable, until she revealed the true purpose of the catastrophic events–controlling the tributes' behavior and directing their movements. The storms will cut off routes and paths for the tributes, trapping them in one place or forcing them into the path of another person, or a greater peril, like one of Pinky's mutts.
The storms will ultimately help us guide the tributes where we want them to go, and will even the playing field a little. Careers have an advantage when facing down strong animals or other tributes, but storms are unbothered by their weapons. A tornado can't be taken down by a pack of sword-wielding fighters just like it can't be taken down by a kid from District Twelve with nothing but a pocketknife. Outliers have the same chance of escaping as trained tributes do, and a conveniently timed storm that prevents the Careers from getting back to their base can cause the odds of the little girl who's been hiding near it and stealing supplies to skyrocket.
The Hunger Games are about luck, strength, and gaining favor, but they are also about probability. More experienced tributes are usually more likely to survive, but youngsters actually have the same shot when an avalanche is speeding towards them both. Nature doesn't play favorites.
Unfortunately for some of the outer-district kids, us Capitolites do. Betting and sponsorship play an integral role, and even small gifts can be life-saving, or at least life-prolonging. I'm not personally allowed to sponsor any tributes, but I know I'll have my preferences anyway.
I reorder the storms on the screen, swapping the positions around. The hurricane isn't even the worst thing that's in store for this new batch of children.
Oh, not in the slightest. There are far more threatening disasters, plus some genuinely terrifying mutts. Pinky convinced me down to the holding tanks earlier to see her progress, and I was so petrified I made her take me back upstairs after seeing the first creature. Sometimes it's easy to remember that I'm just barely an adult. At the age of eighteen, I'd be eligible for the Reaping if I lived in the districts.
That still doesn't interfere with my ability as a Gamemaker. I'm just as capable as Lucent herself, and I'm very satisfied about my storms, as cruel as it might seem.
I'm absolutely frothing at the mouth to see them in action.
Hey y'all! This is just a short little chapter to tide you over until Tuesday, when the next longer chapter will be out. I have a new poll up on my profile too, and I hope you have a great day!
~LC :)
