District 3

Wiress Okamoto's hands shook as she dug her forearms into the greasy stack of parts currently commandeering her kitchen island. She had little use for the space according to its intended purpose, and besides, Beetee always did the cooking over at his place. It had been one of her many disappointments, to come home from the arena only to find that the Peacekeepers didn't outfit your home with whatever you needed for creativity. Just moved your stuff in. Originally, she had asked whether she could set up a workshop down in the basement. No, the officers had flatly refused. The basement had to remain the Telephone Room, equipped with a desk and red phone that gave the Victor a direct hotline to the Capitol. Every single mansion in every Victors' Village had to have one, but Wiress didn't know any of her colleagues who used it for its intended function. Beetee used his Telephone Room for storage; she almost never went in hers.

Although…. Gates had managed to at least house much of his supplies for his workshop (a tool shed he had woodworked in his backyard) in the Telephone Room basement of his mansion.

Wiress set down the hypo-oscillator she was tinkering on with a sigh. She had never known Gates. He had passed away just after the 47th Games, when she was still a young girl, before she won and came to the Village. District 3 had never seen a Victor after him for nearly two decades, that is until Beetee won forty years ago. Both men had been relatively young for Victors too – Gates was 15 by the time he was Reaped; Beetee turned 15 while he was still trapped in the arena. It was something she and her mentor had in common – she had celebrated a birthday (her 17th) while still fighting for her life. Over the years, the pair of them alone in Victors' Village, Beetee had told Wiress stories about their predecessor and the dozen or so years he and his mentor had spent together by themselves isolated in this little valley. The Victors' Village of Three was set in a valley, just like Two's was a mountain retreat, Four's was on its very own island, and Twelve's was set high on a hill. Beetee had been the one to find Gates, electrocuted in his bathtub. The epilepsy the eldest man suffered had been off and on for a number of years after that "accident" along the train tracks in District 6. And Gates' wife – a regular gold digger – had never lifted a finger to help, so the onus of care had always fallen to Beetee.

Wiress's front door opened without a knock, and Beetee came in, carrying a steaming tray of baked ziti for their dinner. The smile he sported was sad but sympathetic, the light from the ceiling fans reflecting off his russet bronze skin, making it sparkle.

The middle-aged, bespectacled gentleman craned his neck into the living room, taking in the darkened TV. "Did you turn it off right after?" he asked, praying that was the case and not that Wiress had dared to risk skipping mandatory programming entirely.

Wiress nodded, her tongue jiggling in her mouth as she parted her lips to try and talk. "Couldn't watch the… the…."

Beetee smiled gently. "The talking-heads?"

She nodded, pointing at him gratefully. Yeah, that.

He chuckled wanly and shook his head. "Me neither. Caesar can be as flamboyant as he likes; we're not learning anything new." He hefted up the glass dish of baked ziti, and Wiress politely cleared away as much space as possible so they could eat, at least without fear of motor oil getting into their marinara sauce.

Slicing the dish, Beetee took care of arranging the plates and glasses, and the pair of Victors ate in silence. If the Reading of the Card had been a shock to either of them, neither Beetee nor Wiress let on. There was nothing to be done about it now, and frankly even less to say. The Reaping would barely be a Reaping at all, with just the two of them onstage standing beside Kushner Barron, their escort for the past fifteen years. Just barely able to scrape up one male and one female Victor was a little embarrassing, and not for the first time, Wiresss wished Gates was still here. As soon as she thought it, though, she took it back – he would never have been able to withstand a second arena almost sixty years after his first. Not with his epiliepsy. It was probably just as well the old geezer wasn't around to see this.

It was such a shame, really – after this year, who would mentor Three's tributes now? 3 was due for another one this decade, if history was any guide – Beetee had won almost twenty years after Gates, and she had won almost twenty years after Beetee. Heck, who would mentor them this year? Probably some uncaring Career; Beetee had studied how, in the early days, a district without a mentor had to take one out on loan from another district.

And then there was what would happen once they were both inside…. she and Beetee, like Gates before them, had won with smarts and a little bit of luck, and even then had only just managed to eacape the talons of physically stronger tributes. There would be nowhere to hide or run, no one to outsmart, in an arena full of people who already knew all your secrets.

"The…. the pede…. Pede…."

Beetee lifted his head out of his plate to grin at her softly. "The pedestals?" She nodded, the tears threatening to invade. "Not to worry, my dear – even if I'm not placed close by, I'll find you if I can, and we'll try to get away." There seemed to be some kind of deeper meaning, emphasis, in his last phrase – get away – but Beetee's crinkly smile revealed nothing. Solemnly, he held out a hand. Grinning gummily, Wiress took it and squeezed.


Kushner looked put upon as he practically slouched towards each bowl that only had a single, solitary piece of paper in either.

"The female tribute from District 3….. Wiress Okamoto, yada, yada…."

Wiress shuffled forward into place, her eyes focusing more on the dapple patterns of sunlight glinting and glancing off the stone of the Justice Building.

"The male tribute from District 3….. Beetee Latier, yada yada, hooray everybody…"

Despite Kushner mailing it in, Beetee smiled good-naturedly and took his place beside his one successful pupil.

No one in Three cheered. No one even clapped. There was uniform silence as Beetee and Wiress were taken into custody by the Peacekeepers and boarded the train.

Entering the dining car, Beetee was unfazed to see the table empty when they arrived. He and Wiress wouldn't get their loaned-out mentor assigned to them until they reached the Capitol. No matter. Picking at their food, he and Wiress sat back and watched the replays of the other Reapings. Friends they had known for decades took the stage.

Upon arriving in the city, the crowds were raucous, cheering for him and Wiress, which made Beetee bristle. It wasn't like either of them had a real chance of winning – not with the field that had been culled.

Whisked away to the Remake Center, Beetee and Wiress were heartened to see that their assigned mentor had been plucked not from the Career districts, but was instead a tottering, sweet-faced gentleman – Jules Elmer from District 7, the oldest and earliest-winning Victor still alive in Panem today.

The Victor of the 7th Hunger Games, at 84 years old, smiled toothily as he embraced Beetee and Wiress.

"Hello, Jules," Beetee smiled welcomingly. "Didn't think they'd make you assume mentoring duties."

"Connor has things well in hand," Jules croaked, lifting his cane to playfully poke Beetee in the ribs. "Besides, I volunteered. Anybody But a Career, right?"

Beetee grinned softly, even as Wiress giggled. "Sure."

The satellite-independent phone he had invented suddenly buzzed in his pocket. Beetee smiled apologetically, ignoring how Kushner was glaring at him. "Sorry, Jules – gotta take this." He flipped it open and stole into one corner. "Hello?"

"The package has been delivered, Mr. Latier," the voice on the other end stated cryptically. "You will have what you need."

"Excellent," Beetee quipped. "And the girl? Is she amiacable?"

"I would advise you to put a feeler out to Haymitch Abernathy. Get to know her in training, but my advice would be let her come to you, if possible. Don't act too eager, and risk tipping anyone off, most of all her. One more thing: do not let on anything about what you know."

"Understood."

"And Beetee, I'm awfully sorry about this."

The bespectacled man shook his head. "It's not a problem. At least you have the heart to take risks." That was as vague as he could get – the Head Gamemaker had assured him he was on a secure, debugged landline, but one could never be too careful. "Thank you, Mr. Heavensbee."

"At midnight, then?"

"At midnight. We'll be there. Goodbye."