District 6
The phone call came in the middle of the night.
Not like Chevy was in a deep sleep anyway. He had spent the past several hours staring at the ceiling, listening to the croaking of the bullfrogs in the bayous just outside his window.
District 6's Victors' Village had been built on old swampland, the mansions raised and their weight somehow supported by pylons. Rope bridges connected from house to house, so at least the district's champions would know and have easy access to their neighbors.
It wasn't like Chevy didn't know how to keep track of them, the way it surely was in the Career districts. For the past twenty years, he had only had two other neighbors… and he doubted if either of them had ever been with it enough to know his name.
Chevy had thought about calling for a Village dinner (he'd have cooked, as he always did) for them to lean on each other during the Reading of the Card. He remembered doing that, for the card reading of the last Quell – he'd been 40, and only had Maeve for company then. This time, around, though, he had chickened out. It was always a marathon whenever he did have either Maeve or Mitt over, like trying to parent two small children. Chevy had long ago given up on the hope that either of his two protégés could kick themselves off the morphling. At first, he had tried to be their substance abuse counselor, before eventually evolving into their supplier, paddling his canoe down the river to the general store to buy them their next hits.
The phone shrilled in his ear again, on one of its last rings, and interrupted Chevy from his thoughts. He almost rolled over and let it go to voicemail. Almost. In the nick of time, he picked up.
"Hello?" His voice was a weak whisper, and he could hear the intake of breath as the person on the other end consciously reminded himself to speak sotte voce as well.
"Chevy! Glad I caught you. I'm sorry, were you asleep?"
Chevy rubbed at his bleary eyes. "Yes," he lied.
"How… how are you feeling?" Aurelius Hickenlooper – District 6's escort for the past forty years – asked tepidly.
"Not great."
"You watched the mandatory programming?"
"Of course I did!" Chevy snapped, a little too harshly. Did Aurelius think he was a child?
"How did Mitt and Maeve take it?"
"Don't really know. They weren't with me when Snow read the card." He had gone two rope bridges over to Mitt's place immediately after, turning off the TV as soon as CGN had cut away back into the studio. Caesar and his merry band of idiots had still been chattering away on Mitt's screen when he got there, the man himself slumped in the couch cushions and sticking a needle in his vein. Chevy had let him finish his hit, then bandaged up where the needle had entered while checking that Mitt hadn't injected a potentially fatal dose (it had been a healthy amount) before easing the recliner back and draping a blanket over him.
Maeve, housed across a perpendicular rope bridge and then one more down, had been a different story. Her TV was still on, but the sound was muted, with Maeve herself staring dreamily up at the overhead lighting and remarking dazedly at how it refracted "all the pretty colors." Chevy had brought her a glass of water, patted her arm, then hid her entire stash of morphling in the Telephone Room (which, in the case of Six, had needed to be oriented in the attic instead of the basement as was apparently the case everywhere else).
Aurelius was back to talking. "Chevy? You there?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry."
"I…. I called to pass down a message. It's from the President."
Chevy sat up a little straighter, heart pounding nervously. This was clearly serious. "What about?"
"Snow and Flickerman have both discussed…. They're asking that you not volunteer for Mitt if his name is called at the Reaping."
Chevy's jaw dropped. "What?"
"You weren't thinking about volunteering, were you?"
"Uh…. I haven't given it any thought, actually."
"Well, good. Don't. The tributes from Six are going to need someone competent on the outside, and unfortunately, that leaves you as our only option to mentor."
Chevy's jaw clenched. He hated it when people talked down about his kids. Despite their decades removed from the arena – Mitt two, Maeve a little over three – they were still his kids, and they were here in the Village for a reason. But he couldn't exactly fault Aurelius for saying anything that wasn't true. Mitt had it worse because the 55th still lived in infamy – every time someone so much as mentioned it in Illythia Bitter's presence, she turned bright red. Whether from embrassment or sheer anger, Chevy wasn't in the place to say.
No, what really ticked Chevy off now was how the President himself seemed so casual in his decision to throw two morphling addicts to the wolves. Didn't he want the Games to be exciting? At 65, Chevy thought he still might have it in him, even if he had hated every bit of navigating the trainyard that was the 28th Games. If he had run the numbers right (which were abysmal) there would be one pathetic old-timer for every strong fighter. If the Gamemakers were looking for this Quell to have flash, they would only find it in so many corners.
"What…. what happens if you call my name first? I can't very well coerce Mitt into volunteering for me, can I? He can barely string a sentence together as it is!"
A long, telling silence on the other end. Chevy gulped. If Ambrosia Butterfield, Six's escort when he had first been Reaped, was still around instead of blissfully retired, she wouldn't have been so unfeeling. "Oh."
At least half of the districts had the same problem his did: a guaranteed shoo-in on one end of the stage, and a pick-your-poison coin toss on the other. The only drama Five would have in wondering who would get the nod was a duel between Matthias and poor old Emrys.
And now that was Twelve's problem as well, between Abernathy and the kind-hearted boy, Peeta….
Except in Six, they might as well have the certainty that would be afforded places like Three and Eleven. The fix was in. After twenty years, Mitt was going back into the arena no matter what Chevy did.
Unless, of course, he tried to volunteer, which Aurelius was explicitly telling him not to do.
"Do you understand, Chevy?"
He nodded numbly. "Yes." He clicked off the phone without waiting for an answer, rolling over onto his side as he tried to catch some sleep.
Snow clearly had a score to settle with Mitt Compton about the disaster of the 55th. And while Chevy knew Plutarch would have preferred to see him go in, he held out hope that he could signal to his two Victors what they needed to do…. and that they both would be competent enough to comprehend. The Quell twist would be a devastating blow to the Sixatrons, District 6's rabid fan base in the Capitol (almost every district had one, like their arch-rivals, the Fighting Fives), but they would move past it.
Chevy knew already he never would…. which is why he vowed to do something about it so that there hopefully would never be another Hunger Games in Panem again.
Mitt and Maeve were both stoned off their butts the morning of the Reaping. Chevy could tell just by looking at their enlarged irises. As an unofficial treater of morphling addiction for the past 31 years, Chevy had learned the signs better than anyone in the whole district, and maybe even the Capitol.
Maeve was selected without much fuss, and she had to be almost picked up and settled into her proper place.
"The male tribute from District 6…. Mitt Compton," Aurelius called out, staring right at Chevy as he did so.
In response, Chevy almost did it. He almost summoned the guts to volunteer, and send his own proverbial middle finger right up Snow's pompous nose. Because what could Aurelius do if he did? Make up some bullshit rule that volunteering wasn't allowed? When at least one or two other districts and maybe more might have someone step into the breach?
But no, Chevy kept his mouth shut, and Mitt took his designated place, a little bit of drool hanging out of his mouth. He swayed dangerously, and the moment it was permitted to step out of line, Chevy lunged forward and propped Mitt upright as they were escorted into the Justice Building.
Chevy wished he could have stepped out of line more, but for the sake of the rebellion, he couldn't.
And anyway, it was too late now. Once on the train, he wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.
