Against the World (or, District 2)

x

If I was waiting I had been
invaded by time.
But do you think you're free?
I think I recognize the patterns of my nature.
But do you think you're free?

'Mutable Earth', Louise Glück

x

June O'Roarke, District 2

We're supposed to be watching a cut of Aaron's Games, focusing on the difference between his early-Games approach and his late-Games approach, once his partner was dead and he was sort of off the rails. He didn't like that idea much, but regardless of what he likes, he's stuck supervising the hour-long break while Claudia and a few other instructors prepare the combat area for the series of culling matches due for today.

So we stopped doing that ten minutes in, when we'd barely gotten past the chariots on the cut, and now everyone's abandoned the papers they're supposed to be filling in with observations and details. Aaron has the channel switched to a new episode of A Capitol Experience, after vaguely instructing us to pay attention to interdistrict cultural differences, but he's really the only one watching.

The classroom practically smells like tension. It's the last culling match before verdicts start being made about who volunteers in the coming finale. There are only forty of us left, at this stage, and all of us will be fighting today.

Some of us are going to die, and more importantly, end up culled out of the pool.

"Who do you think you're going to get?" my best friend, Kara, whispers from next to me. "D'you think she's going to make you fight Basalt?"

She's pretending not to be nervous, but I can tell from the way her fingers twine in her dark hair, flicking at the end of a strand methodically, that she's sincerely worried. For me as well as for her.

It's a dangerous moment to be anywhere near the top of the rankings.

Claudia keeps everyone's numbers under tight wraps, but there are rumors, obviously. Some of the younger instructors are gossipy. She doesn't do much about that. I figure it motivates us. Definitely motivated me, hearing that I was a frontrunner.

Not ranked first. I'm sure someone would have mentioned something to that effect if I were even… top three in the girls' pool, after the last matches. The thought makes my throat tighten. In the last month or so, I've redoubled my efforts in training. Made the risky call of dropping out of school, much to my mother's chagrin. Though it's not as though a Peacekeeper needs too much education beyond the seventeenth year, so even if I don't make the cut, it's like… I just needed to focus, I know that was my problem. And I have been focusing.

Working harder than I ever have before, really, which is saying something.

"I hope it's Basalt," I say. "That'd be… if I could take her favorite out, that'd be it for me."

Ignoring, of course, in this statement, the fact that our rumored first-draft male volunteer is a sincerely dangerous and formidable young man. I can catch a glimpse of the back of his head, in the center of the first row of seats, his wild dark hair tied back as he watches, apparently paying close attention to the proceedings onscreen.

In this episode of A Capitol Experience, the group of district children brought to experience some delight of the Capitol - an orchid hothouse, a view of the cityscape from a mountaintop hike and a rooftop dinner, or some combination of sightseeing to that effect - includes Alexandria and Cassiopeia Ota, the sisters of one of our volunteers, in the 89th. Marcus, who died. I wonder if that's why Aaron chose to put this particular one on.

They look delighted, at least, for the cameras, the older of them just a hair younger than I am. Oddly, their district of residency is noted as District 7.

"Ugh, at this point, I just want a last high mark. I talked to her the other day - she thinks I could have a real shot at starting out in District One if I join the force with my credentials right now," Kara sighs. "Any luck, I'll be watching you win from the lap of luxury."

"Maybe don't say that aloud?" I sigh, though it's not like Aaron's gonna flip out on her for not taking things seriously. He's not the one I'd be worried about overhearing.

No one explicitly tells us not to treat late-stage training as a stepping stone to an especially good Peacekeeping assignment, but it's implied.

"Hey, last culling match, let me live," she says, cracking her knuckles one by one, then twining her fingers back into her hair, the confidence in her tone undermined slightly by her expression, which is, transparently, now, nervous.

It's not like Kara's not good at training. You kind of have to be, to still be in the pool by the mid-to-late seventeens. But she's been checking out, lately, on the most important parts. It's only obvious if you know her well. This isn't the first time she's made that sort of aside, but it's definitely the highest volume she's opted to use.

"Can't believe it's the last one," I say, happy to change the subject.

"Yeah. Almost made it," she agrees. "Hey, did you hear Diabase and Poppaea broke up?"

"What, seriously? So Poppy's single?"

"She might be due some comforting," Kara says, wiggling her eyebrows at me suggestively and snorting when I roll my eyes at her.

"She hates me, dude," I complain.

"Yeah, we've established that, but that was literally just because you kicked Dia's ass in the last match and she decided to be a bitch about it, nothing you did wrong. Now they're broken up," she insists. "I'm telling you…"

In fairness to Poppy, the feud was more because of a debate about a move from the particular culling match that Claudia ruled legal but a few instructors felt had been questionable. We're not technically supposed to 'use' the boundaries of the plinth, though the rulebook apparently specifies that we're not supposed to deliberately make use of the boundaries in a formal match. That word matters a lot, because no one does much deliberately during a match. You're trying to win, and if you can get an edge or get someone to stop choking you by shoulder-slamming their throat into the flexible border, you do exactly that.

Nothing deliberate about it.

And Claudia agreed with me, though she privately warned me not to repeat the move, so… it should have been fine.

But being the kind of person who's willing to get creative for an edge doesn't always make you the most friends in the Center. It's not like most people other than Kara do much more than tolerate me when necessary.

"Tell you what," I say. "If she lives through this afternoon, I'll talk to her. And when she breaks my nose or some shit, I'll talk to you. And can you guess what I'm gonna say?"

"Is it gonna be 'I told you so'?"

"You do know me."

She sighs, back to twirling her hair.

"I hope it's a long blade. A nice long, light blade," she frets, the sudden change to her tone making it clear that the rest of the banter is just a smokescreen to how increasingly anxious she is about the coming matches.

Claudia's weaponry choices for the matches often feel completely random. Especially so, as of late. At the last match, two months ago, half the weapons were improvised-style. I had bare hands, hence the issue of appropriating the plinth's boundary as an unlicensed weapon.

To be fair, Kara had a particularly rough time in hers. It makes sense that she'd be panicky leading up to her final match, if her last one is any indication. She and Breccia each had long-handled mops. Not only were the weapons unfamiliar, but Breccia made a clever opponent. Immediately splintered her mop into two pieces, in a way that Kara, forty pounds lighter, couldn't easily do herself, and had wound up with twice the mobility.

My friend is lightning-quick and an excellent strategist, one of the most patient people that I know. But she was thrown off by the mops, and while she won, she was in the hospital almost as long as Breccia, who was shuffled off to Peacekeeping… I think she's in training with the force in Five, if I had to guess? But Kara was so shaken by the whole thing. Rightly so, honestly.

She stopped talking about volunteering, after that.

Realistic expectations are good, of course, but it was kind of sad to see her just… give up, on something she was once so certain that she wanted.

I'd give anything for that kind of sureness, the conviction she has. I don't know where it comes from. I just know how hollow I've always felt in comparison to her. To everyone, really. How I truly don't give a shit if Poppy likes me or not, so long as I can kick her face in during the culling match if Claudia tells me to, and even that…

My mom might be getting to me. Or just the numbers on the clock face shifting closer and closer to the moment of truth. Basalt looks so fucking relaxed, the fucker. Though I guess some of that is probably conjecture, since Kara and I are sitting in the furthest corner of the room, a few buffer seats between us and the rest of the class.

Two months ago, I probably couldn't have… I mean, I think I could have beaten him, or anyone, but I'm not always the most reliable at guessing my own aptitudes. Now, with the right weapon, I know I could make it right, I know I could win, feel just a little bit of something, get just a tiny piece of something from Claudia to start filling the chasm in my chest, so easy to forget about until I'm staring at the darkened ceiling, trying to go to sleep.

When we were younger, my little sister Brita would slip into bed with me if she could manage it without waking dad, could navigate around him either before he came home wasted or after he'd passed out. On good nights. On bad nights, it wasn't safe to leave the room.

It's not like that anymore. Not for a while, now. I fixed that, but it doesn't feel fixed, doesn't feel whole and right, just a solved problem waiting to be un-solved, waiting to be un-fixed. The second I walk away, the whole thing will come toppling down.

Always hollow and just not right and not enough.

Claudia gets it. I think she might be the only one who actually does. And she knows that training is the only way to fill the hole, even temporarily. She gets it. I think she might be the same way, in a sense. My mom the-opposite-of-gets-it, which seems ungrateful, with all I've done for this family, all I can do, but I don't want to say it, not with what she's been through, so… suffice to say I have a lot of reasons for spending more time at the Center than I do at home.

"I just want this to be done," I say. "I just need to know."

Kara puts a sympathetic hand on my arm, and I muster up a smile for her, though I'm finally in the same grip of pure nerves that she's been consumed by for the last hour.

What if, what if, what if. Doesn't matter. Battleaxe or dental floss or dagger or textbook.

When what's inside is empty, it pays to build the outside strong. And I know I'm as strong as anyone in this room, and I know that I need to kill whoever I'm matched with. I need a blood victory.

"One more match," she murmurs, staring at the window, though the light that filters in is greyed by the cloudy sky.

The door opens, and the room goes quiet. Aaron swiftly changes the channel. Onscreen, the girl from District 11, from his year, guts the boy from District 1.

From Claudia's expression, she isn't fooled, but she also isn't inclined to say anything.

She's been spread thin, lately.

"It's time," she announces. "Five minutes to convene around the combat plinth. Bring your bags."

That's been an issue in the past, people leaving their shit in the classroom and then dying, an unnecessary complication for their families, trying to find their ID cards and whatever little trinkets they carted around.

My mom would be heartbroken if I died today.

Not at all a welcome thought. Of course she would be. Her and Bri, no one left to take care of them. Even dad, maybe, in his way, when he's not pickling in white liquor.

So I won't, simple as that. Not today, and not tomorrow. And I won't lose, and I won't flinch, and I won't choke, and she has nothing to worry about.

Fuck, you know what? I hope it's Basalt.

We file out into the main chamber, the one paneled floor to ceiling with windows, nestled inside the once-overtaken remains of Mount Lupus. Where the rebels nearly killed us, but pivotally failed to kill us all. Trainees our age won the war for the Capitol, years ago. Sometimes Claudia talks about that fondly. I know she was one of them. There's something hypnotic about her, about everything I know she's seen, about everything I know she knows.

And now she's standing in her customary position by the plinth, watching as we crowd around it, near-silent. I could practically hear the heartrates of the people around me if mine wasn't so loud in my ears.

"We'll begin," she announces. "With Basalt Sehan."

He steps forward, silent, tall, dark-haired and inscrutable. If anyone had the idea to tease him for not conforming to the District 2 standard, whether for his appearance or for the oddness of his late addition to the Center, when he was fourteen, over half a decade later than even the latest-accepted recruits, well… they know not to.

I'm in kind of a weird position, having seen the Center change so dramatically since Marcus died in the 89th. In some ways, it's a kinder place. More careful about pushing people to the outside. Claudia, at least, is far more careful, and what she does is what everyone else has to work with. We still fight and bleed and die, same as always, but you can't get away with being an irredeemable piece of trash while you do it. At least, not in the same ways.

Basalt doesn't really know how lucky he is.

"Matched with… Lyxis Walker," Claudia continues.

I let out a sigh, not really sure why I was holding my breath in the first place. So it won't be me. Fuck, I guess.

She holds up the weapon. An easy one. Spears. Tosses the first to Basalt, the second to Lyxis, a tall blond boy with an uncommonly square jaw and tired-looking eyes, generally, though he's far more wary than anything, now, climbing up to the plinth.

Kara's fists are already curled, her knuckles standing out beneath her pale skin. Oh. She's fond of Lyxis. I guess he's kind of handsome, in a way, and tends to be decent to her. I expect it's because Kara's actually a nice person herself, has managed to avoid the 'moderate to severe hellbitch' rep that I've more or less embraced.

Honestly, I'm not sure how the fight is going to go. They're both good. Very good, though in different ways. Lyxis is dutiful, yes, but also notably talented. Better with a sword than a spear, but it's not as though it's Basalt's favored weapon, either. And Basalt's strength, beyond his enviable physicality, is his unexpectedness.

I imagine if Claudia had anticipated that bringing someone like him in would pay off so well earlier, we'd have far more late-addition trainees in the mix. There may be more to come in the future.

Funny, how the two people on the plinth have so thoroughly distracted me from my own worries. When my worries exclusively involve myself on the very same plinth.

"It'll be Lyxis," Kara says quietly, glancing over at me.

Predicting the winners of the other fights is something of a tradition that I got started, at one point, after someone or another made some loud declaration of the unsportsmanliness of treating the culling process as a game while Kara and I were whispering speculation between ourselves. I responded by, in a slightly louder voice, announcing that I was betting twenty credits on my own unsportsmanly ass.

This is as much for me as it is for her.

"Maybe," I say, keeping my voice just as soft as Claudia gestures to denote the beginning of the match, and Lyxis lunges forward.

Kara reaches out her hand, closing her eyes rather than watch. I take it, offering her a comforting squeeze.

As always, I keep mine open as the first gout of blood hits the white surface of the plinth. Then the next. Then the next.

x

Basalt Sehan, District 2

The problem is, I like Lyxis. In theory. In practice, I don't think he's ever said a word to me, but the thing about not speaking is that you wind up with a lot of time to listen. While he's not one of the bleeding hearts that Claudia is always mulling over, nor any of the few people other than her who bother to pay more than cursory or skeptical attention to me, he seems like a decent kind of person.

I wasn't raised by the Center the same way that most of the present crowd was. Some things about it still don't fully sit right. Among them, killing - trying to kill! - someone who, in a different world, might be my friend.

Culling seems like an awful waste.

I told this to Claudia before my first culling match, after a few months had passed training at the Center. In the lexicon of signs she had set about teaching to me and herself, seemingly for the fun of it, though it was certainly quicker and easier than writing everything out.

"Waste is a failure of efficiency," she said absentmindedly, barely looking up from some kind of message she was drafting on her tablet. "Where do you think the process is failing?"

"It's a failure to kill loyal trainees, isn't it?" I signed.

"Is it a failure to lose a piece in a game of chess in the service of winning the game?"

"I don't know anything about chess."

At the time, I certainly didn't. Three years out, now, I've learned a lot more than I would care to.

Lyxis aims his first blow at my heart. His precision is excellent, the angle of his spearhead lining up perfectly, ready to slot between my ribs. I dodge, but he catches me in the side, regardless, splashing blood on the white surface of the plinth as the speartip scrapes my ribcage.

I drop low and strike lower. He's heavy on his feet, like a lot of broadsword users. My speartip parts the muscle of his thigh, and from the way his stance shifts immediately, I've done some real damage. Instead of drawing back immediately, I shove the spear deeper, twist hard, and leave it there before I whirl away.

He stumbles, knows he's badly hurt. Probably much worse than anyone watching can tell.

Biting back a grimace, unarmed, now, I draw closer again. Give him an opening. He takes it, lurches forward and goes for my gut. His movements are so pained around the spear lodged in the meat of his femoral muscles that it's abruptly very easy to predict what he'll do next.

You always want to make a decisive move early, throw the opponent off-balance, use your advantage immediately and as often as possible. The foregone conclusion in most of Claudia's instruction is that I have an advantage.

I'm not sure she's right about that. I definitely don't usually feel advantaged.

My life wasn't supposed to lead here, to this plinth or to the Center or even out of the fringe mining village where I was born. I really shouldn't have left. There was a life, there, that I remember in shades of grey. Quarry work, the kind everyone did. Running errands, clambering up sheer rock faces with Elspa and Olyvine. Workers from out-of-district showing up to change the way things were done, people from Three and One, surveyors and techs and all sorts of things we'd never seen.

Easy way to make a good amount of money, a handful of credits here and there, dashing around down familiar corridors as new extraction processes began carrying messages or tracking down telltale rock formations for the new foreman.

Also an easy way to wind up trapped in the worst collapse the district had seen since Bakerville. Badly pinned, Olyvine unconscious and bleeding from her nose, Elspa crushed immediately.

Whether it sounds more or less traumatic than it is depends on the day. I did live. Thanks, in part, to Claudia's favorite television show, which was how she found me. I wondered exactly what happened, there, until I saw for myself how raptly she watches it.

She watched Cora Davis, our victor from the 89th, bring me back from a terrible precipice. And she decided that the Center had to have me, and because it's District 2 and she's Claudia, that's exactly what happened.

And Oly gets to stay inpatient for the rest of her life if she wants, and my parents live safely in the central sector, and I dodge a spearhead aimed unerringly at my stomach.

It just works out.

Lyxis, likely not purposefully, does manage to land a blow. Not with the head of his spear, but with the butt of mine, still protruding from his leg. As his initial blow whistles past me, he drives the jutting wooden shaft into my stomach.

That's not good. Almost more debilitating than the pointy end would have been.

After a very strong start to the final match, I take a blow with barely more force than a good punch and promptly throw up on Lyxis' shoes.

At least it disorients him almost as much as it does me, and it takes him a second to realize this is something he can take advantage of, my being doubled over and spewing bile. I like this about him, the fact that the first emotion that flashes across his face is pity.

Doesn't stop him from catching me by the neck, notching the shaft below my jaw and dragging me powerfully to his chest, trying to crush my trachea. Without any serious upper body injuries, he's frighteningly strong, and in the midst of all of it, my vision goes white and I start to lose my balance, which isn't uncommon.

Injury to the vagus nerve. A whole host of complications that can't be undone without prohibitively expensive Capitol tech. That's what Cora told me, anyway, answering questions after I wrote them out on a little chalkboard.

Some advantage. I can't even get the cool 'no pain' nerve damage, I get the 'weak stomach, complete muteness' one, which is… excitingly, delightfully, excruciatingly fun.

Lyxis and I are both powerfully built. Three years or nine years, it doesn't matter excessively much at this point. So I flail, and he holds me in place by the throat, closer and closer to killing me.

Until my hand locks around what I'm looking for - the spear in his leg.

I wrench at it with all of my strength, and down he goes. Bringing me with him, though I'm prepared for it. Rip my spear free, now, once I've gulped air and rolled to my knees.

While I want to do something kind, something that tells him I respect him, don't hate him, wish him nothing bad, I promise… that's hard to do, and my vision is still starry from being choked at, my stomach threatening to spill even more acid.

So I do the easy thing, not the kind thing, and drive the spear into his stomach. Once, twice. Then leave it there and stumble to my feet.

In a blink, it's over.

My vision starts to clear as I gulp air, my heartrate so high that I can't make out individual beats. The first face I can make out is that of a dark-haired girl, tears in her eyes, her friend's arm around her shoulders. Kara, who had a special affection for Lyxis.

He's shifting on the platform. Trying to get up. But he can't.

I find Claudia, in her position beside the plinth.

She nods.

In moments like these, I wish for words more than anything. Comforting ones. Just to tell him that he did well, because he did, and… at the same time, I know she's watching me closely.

My first culling match went more or less like this one. I was a little stronger than my opponent, Martia, a girl from my year. She was far more experienced than I was, and by the time I was standing over her, I was bleeding from a deep gash in my arm, another across my face, and her knife was lodged in my thigh.

Claudia nodded that time, too - a 'blood victory', as they're called. The loser dies, the winner has proved themselves exceptional over their opponent. A high honor.

I looked up at her and signed 'no'.

Martia continued to choke on her own blood as Claudia raised an eyebrow. Stared me down. I stared right back, still under the illusion, I guess, that I had any choice within the Center's plan when it came down to it. Very stupid, in hindsight.

She died before we broke out of the standoff. Aspirated too much blood.

It didn't feel like I made it out of that with clean hands. Didn't feel like I'd won that battle of wills. And it especially didn't feel that way when, that evening, Claudia told me that there was no place for a superiority complex in her Center, and that if I felt that I was so much better than the other trainees, I could fight my next match with a broken hand.

Claudia follows through on her threats, and I did exactly that, and I won, and this time when she nodded, I nodded back.

There are tradeoffs to this life. It is a better option. My father had always dreamed of leaving our village. I don't like to think of what he might have done, one of his children dead, two disabled beyond conventional work. Where that might have taken him.

This is better than the alternative.

Bile rises fresh in my stomach, but I fight it down, easier to do when there's not a spear grinding into my gut. Kneel beside Lyxis, hoping he can see something meaningful in my expression. I nod to him, not back at Claudia.

And then I break his neck, like I'm supposed to, letting my eyes fall closed as vertebrae separate beneath my hands. I don't want to see it.

It's cruel. A lot of things here are cruel, sometimes unconscionably so.

Claudia has always been quick to remind me that this is much the case elsewhere, too. That I'm already a part of it, that it would be senseless to back out now. The only way to make the mundane cruelties necessary for survival into something meaningful is to lean into it. And she isn't wrong, I guess.

"Congratulations, Basalt," she announces. "Well-fought."

The facilities team quietly appears, ushering me down from the plinth, towards the medic on staff, who offers me antiemetics and disinfects the wound in my side, the bruising on my neck, suggests that I could be transported to the hospital if I like, but it isn't necessary. I shake my head, painfully, as the bruising is going to be pretty intense. I can't stand hospitals. Spent enough time in one for a lifetime after the accident. Can barely visit Oly, even, since it's so familiar. Gets me in a bad place.

Within seconds, Lyxis' body is gone, the plinth is cleaned of blood and bile, and there's no evidence that any of the last three minutes happened.

"We'll continue," Claudia says, taking a second to smile at me, just slightly, from her position by the platform, "with June O'Roarke."

June extricates herself from the crowd, tying her long blondish hair back, though a few strands hang in her face. She's powerfully built, easily one of the most formidable women from our year.

"Matched," Claudia adds, as June climbs to take her place on the plinth, "with Kara Nielson."

Since I've been watching June, wondering vaguely at the white scar running down her forehead, why the Center hasn't had that scrubbed out by now, figuring there must be something going on that no one's bothered telling me about the way things are done here, I have a front row seat as her face falls into a sort of horror that I understand intimately.

And then, just as quickly, her composure returns. A neutral mask.

Whispers rise in the crowd. June isn't anyone's favorite person, strictly speaking. She's prickly, even by the Center's standards. Has taken a few opportunities to step out of line and make enemies, though, critically, never to make one of Claudia.

Kara, though - people like Kara. She's a graceful, lanky sort of woman with more a dancer's build than that of a fighter. And she's possibly June's only real friend. And at the moment, she's shakingly climbing up onto the plinth, wearing an expression like she's seen the end of the world.

Even the medic stops squinting at my blood pressure, looking up and frowning.

Claudia produces a pair of heavy battleaxes. One to June, who catches it easily. Kara's hands shake, and the weapon, which must weigh a sizeable fraction of what she does, clatters to the ground.

June picks it up for her, mask-like calm, even, measured.

And here I was, thinking my match was so terrible.

Neither of them seems to want to start, of course, though I remember from matches before that June has never been quite so hesitant.

"On with it," Claudia admonishes them briefly.

We all know what that means. The Center, too often to be chance, has paired couples, friends, and siblings in culling matches. In the early years, I'm told, when the matches begin at twelve, some refused to fight. When that's been the case, an example has been made.

Another horror I've been spared by my late start.

I close my eyes as June raises her axe.

x

Marina Trevino, The Capitol

She'd debated whether to make a physical appearance in District 2. It seemed risky, given her history with Claudia, even more so given that the errand would be to investigate her tribute selection process. She was fond of all of her body parts and didn't especially like the idea of losing any.

So she called Aaron, which seemed like the next best option, though he'd been slow to warm up to her over the years. He answered in a shadowy classroom, illuminated only by the ambient light filtering in from the cloudy day outside.

"Bad time?" she asked.

"Generally," he agreed. "Culling matches today."

"Ouch. Holding up okay?"

"Several down. It's been a bloody morning. Mostly unnecessary. You're calling about volunteers, right?" he sighed, apparently preoccupied.

"Can you tell me anything?"

"Yes, she's not keeping it a secret outside of the recruits. Basalt and June. I'm surprised she hasn't sent you their metrics, yet."

"Maybe I'm not supposed to know."

He shrugged.

"Either way, the last barrier was their matches this morning, and they both passed. I didn't watch, but I have her confirmation. I can send you the files by the end of the day."

"Please, when you get the chance."

'Uneventful' was the last word she expected to use to describe the process of volunteer selection and confirmation in Two, but here she was. No challengers appeared, no attempts to undermine the process by Aaron, though he wasn't looking especially well.

"How are you feeling about mentoring Eight?" she asked, sincerely curious whether it was some element of the recently disclosed assignments that had Aaron in such a mood.

"Ambivalent? I mean, it'll be a departure from the typical… this. I guess I appreciate that. You don't know who they'll be yet, right?"

"No, while I'm reviewing each district's nomination and confirmation process, at the moment, only One and Two have already selected both tributes."

Aaron paused, as though he had something to say but didn't exactly know how. She waited, keeping her face as neutral as she could manage.

"How fucked are they?" he asked, simply. "Basalt and June."

She grimaced before she could stop herself.

"The Gamemakers aren't going to be targeting them, if that's what you mean. I can promise you that whatever my relationship with Claudia, your trainees won't suffer for it."

"But they won't win."

"Three years ago, the Head Gamemaker looked the President in the eyes and told her that Manari would. Things happen. What happens in the arena depends on June and… forgive me, Bas… Basalt? Before anything or anyone else. They'll win if they win. We don't have an agenda other than making clear the horrors of the Games."

"...I thought we were already pretty clear on those?" Aaron asked wryly, massaging his temples, elbows resting on some kind of desk surface.

"Things could always be worse. The goal is to leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Like Polly spraying her plant with capsaicin. Halogen doesn't try to eat it anymore, even now that she's stopped."

Aaron sighed.

"Well, not my problem."

No, it wasn't. For the moment, it remained very much Marina's problem, how exactly that could be done, what a 'just but terrible' Games would look like, how to get from where she was to where she wanted to be at the end of this. A year somehow didn't seem like enough time, but there was no room to push things back. They were doing this in the first place because of the massive pressure exerted politically to bring the Games back in response to popular demand. She hadn't anticipated just how much of Panem's income redistribution and social projects were accomplished through taxes levied specifically on betting and ad revenues.

This introduced further problems, more serious fiscal complications brought on each year the hiatus persisted without an accompanying amendment to other taxes, which was, of course, wildly unpopular - expecting Capitol citizens to give up their beloved Games and an additional twenty percent of their paychecks to fund the continued function of a Games-less country had proved politically impossible.

Impossible so far.

She bit back a sigh.

"They're good kids," Aaron added, as though the length of the silence was growing physically uncomfortable for him, shifting restlessly in his chair. "I know you probably wouldn't think about that, it being District Two, but this whole thing…"

"No, I don't think little of any of you for your upbringing," she said quickly.

His raised eyebrows said he might not believe her quite as much as she hoped.

"It would be hypocritical of me," she added. "Truly, Aaron, you should feel free to come into the Capitol at some point, Cora would love to see you at one of their dinners."

"I think the next time I'm permitted out-of-district will likely be on the train to Eight," he said glumly.

"She…"

"Unless you have a few dozen of those safehouses sitting empty, you're not getting me out of this," he interrupted. "It's a kind thought, but it's not realistic. I made my bed. Much as I appreciate your attempts to get me out of my contract, I'm going to keep laying in it."

"Just be careful," she sighed.

"Miserable advice, but thanks."

A few minutes after hanging up, a set of headshots and metrics appeared in her inbox, true to Aaron's word. Sickeningly enough, she did recognize Basalt from his episode of Intensive Care, once she could put a face to the name. Surely, Cora would as well.

She wondered if taking a shower might make her feel any better about the four names, the faces, the profiles attached. Probably not. She would just have to get used to feeling like this, to waiting for the anvil overhead to fall. One more year to make it work.

God willing, she would make it work.

x

Several more spots remain on the lineup. Looking for a D7, D11, and Capitol gal, and a D9 guy. If you haven't submitted yet, consider doing so!