Chapter Thirty-Two: Same Old, Same Old
Still Training Day One
Vick Even, District Four Male
Lunchtime feels like it came far too soon.
This place might have almost exactly the same hours as the hospital that I work at, but time appears to move way faster here because it barely felt like ten minutes before the trainers called for a lunch break. Pretty soon, they're bringing our a buffet table, and I'm guessing we're supposed to form some sort of line and serve ourselves.
The Careers get in front, but behind that, it's just a mess that resembles a blob more than a line. Eventually, it gets sorted out, leaving me somewhere in the middle of the line. In front of me, the scrawny girl from Eight stands so perfectly still I'm half-tempted to push her just to make sure she's alive. Behind me, the boy from Ten absentmindedly drums his fingers against his leg, eyes unfocused.
Finally, it's my turn to get food. Every plate starts with two pieces of weird, circular bread on it, with a piece of meat that matches in shape sitting on top of one of them. I take that, deciding to add only the things I recognize to it. In the end, it doesn't look that much different from when I started. After that, there's another table filled with things that I have no idea what they are but smell amazing, so I take some of those too. Finally, there's a cooler filled with canned drinks, so I grab a blue one and make my way back to the tables that have been haphazardly set up in the center of the arena.
All the Careers are sitting together, to no one's surprise. They're all talking animatedly as they chow down on whatever this is supposed to be. There's a couple of other clusters, but besides them, the boy from Twelve and his District partner sit as far away from each other as possible, not speaking a word. A handful of kids sit alone, poking at their food. A few push away their trays, not hungry either out of overindulging at breakfast or through simple nerves. Not even bothering to look for a table with no one at it, I plop my tray down, wondering how I'm supposed to eat this stuff.
I take note of how the Careers do it- except for Sienna, they seem to pinch everything between the bread and try to eat it that way. I do the same, and then take a bite of the thing.
I don't quite understand what this is made of, but it's amazing. Within a minute or two, the stuff is gone and I've turned to the small pile of brown rings and yellow pseudo-rectangles. They taste even better, and I've eaten it all before I realized I haven't even touched my drink.
Now, most of the Careers are done, and they're all talking far louder than most rational human beings would. The girl from One starts off with, "so, where do you guys plan to go after lunch?"
To which the girl from Two loudly replies, "More weapons! Every little bit counts, right?"
As their conversation continues, the outliers all noticeably move away from them, finding new seats at tables that don't get them lambasted with noise.
Soon, my table has two temporary residents- the petite girl with a doll's face from Three, and the grim-looking, silent boy from Seven. Neither of them says a word or even acknowledges the existence of either me or each other, but they're here, and I'm going to have to live with it for a few minutes.
Suddenly, someone calls out, "Five minutes to finish lunch, then we're starting training back up again."
That's when I notice the blue can full of liquid has remained untouched. It takes a bit of struggling to figure out how to open it (to the amusement of the girl from Three) but I eventually manage it, the thing opening with a hiss.
I tip the can back and take a drink.
Then proceed to immediately spit it back out.
Not only is the liquid obnoxiously sweet- I wouldn't be too surprised if I'm drinking liquid sugar- it starts up this weird bubbling sensation in my mouth that I'm not quite sure how to describe. I'm just going to stick to water from now on.
"Lunchtime's over, folks," Cutter says. "Back to Training you go!"
I don't bother trying to finish my drink, but I almost feel guilty throwing the can of liquid in the trash. That is, until I catch a glimpse of the ingredients label. The drink is revealed to be made almost entirely with stuff that I can hardly read, let alone pronounce. Not sure if there's a recycling bin in sight around here- or even if the Capitol cares about such a thing- I dispose of the can, although I start feeling kind of guilty about it.
Everyone begins getting up, heading back to training. Not wanting to start falling behind, I do the same thing. As I do, I say the mantra that's gotten me up to this point over and over again.
Mom, this is for you. If I can do this, we can be together and happy again.
Thomiah Marshall, District Eleven Male
I'm curious as to what the scenario simulators can do.
I haven't seen anyone enter or leave, let alone heard even the slightest bit of conversation directed towards it. Partially out of wanting to be well-rounded in training and partially due to being bored of just hitting survival stations, I practically drag Odysea away from the edible plants test, saying, "Come on, we have to see what these things are. They could be really useful."
She replies with "More useful than finding stuff to eat?"
"If we get killed in the Bloodbath, we don't need to worry about eating, Odysea," I say.
I remember that Cutter told us to look for Cherry if we wanted a scenario set up, but I have no idea what she looks like. However, the moment I see a woman in a trainer's outfit with unnaturally red hair, long pointy fingernails in the same shade, and hoop earrings with what appears to be real fruit dangling from them, I think you can figure out who I assumed she was.
"You're Cherry, right?"
She turns around once I say that. "Yes, that I am. Do you want a scenario set up?"
"Yes, please," I say before we change our minds. Do you know what options there are?"
"There's a list on the far wall," she says. "There are far too many of them for me to tell them all to you right now, but our most popular ones from the last few years are 'Fighting Alliances', 'Attack from Above', 'Fire Safety', and 'Catching Dinner'."
"We'll start with 'Fighting Alliances,' if that's okay," I say. When Odysea gives me a look, I tell her, "We can do the fire safety and dinner ones later. I know you're more about survival than combat, I'm sorry if I'm coming off as pushy."
She nods a little but still doesn't look too happy. Cherry, however, doesn't slow down for a second. "Which variant would you guys like: Desperate Outliers, Organized Raid, or Career Alliance?"
"Organized Raid," Odysea says. "I'm assuming that's the medium one, right?"
"Right you are," Cherry says. "This will take about three minutes to set up. Grab the weapons of your choice, stand in front of any of the three doors, enter when the light above the door turns green. Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," we both say. After that, we move over to the racks and racks of weapons. Odysea picks up a sharp knife that's so shiny, she can see her reflection in it. I almost take a knife as well, but then I see them.
I've worked with them all my life, so I'm no stranger to them, but them making their way here is something designed specifically to benefit field workers like me. I pass by the knives and take a scythe, its edge honed to perfection. Taking care to skirt around the Careers (all but two are locked in pretty vicious fights with trainers) we find a door. Soon, the light turns green and we go inside.
Once the door closes behind us, the room suddenly starts to shift a little. A few large, brown poles shoot out of the ground, presumably designed to resemble trees. The floor warps a little, changing to low, smooth bumps. And behind us, a pile of plastic supplies appears just as the same voice who called us down this morning begins to give us instructions.
"A group of three has set their sights on your supplies. Kill them if needed, but above all else, don't let them steal your bounty! Finally, make sure they don't kill you in the process. May the odds be ever in your favor."
For a few seconds, nothing happens. Then, a voice belonging to neither of us says, "They're over there! They have a ton of stuff!"
A hard, angry female voice follows it up with, "Well, let's take it!"
Suddenly, two orange silhouettes dart out, both armed with knives. The female one charges for me, while the guy goes for Odysea. As I move to block her knife with my scythe, I expect it to pass right through, but instead, it sounds with a pretty realistic clang and stops moving, forcing me to push off to force her to take a step back. Odysea proceeds similarly. We block our attackers a few more times and then gain the upper hand.
That's when we notice that a third silhouette has come out of seemingly nowhere, and is right next to the big pile of supplies. It suddenly stiffens up once we see it, letting out a high-pitched shriek.
"Oh, no you don't!" Odysea slashes at her attacker with enough force to make him stumble backwards, barely keeping his footing, and she takes the risk of charging the would-be thief. Suddenly, he appears to grab a single box of something and try to make a run for it.
I would see more, but my attacker is pressing with renewed force, and I have to turn all my attention towards her. Once her friend joins in, I'm now the one who's barely reacting fast enough to stay alive.
A piercing wail erupts from the far side of the room, and even my attackers pause for a second to locate the source. As I do, I see the would-be thief dissolving into orange particles as Odysea yanks her knife from his "body." Thankfully, the only thing about this that isn't one hundred percent realistic is that her knife isn't stained orange after stabbing him.
After that, Odysea charges back towards where I'm standing. Once they see her, they only make a few more half-hearted slashes towards me before running away and disappearing again.
The room is suddenly bathed in a pale blue light, and the voice from before tells us, "Congratulations. Your endeavor was successful. Calculating percentile rank…"
A few seconds later, that gets followed up with, "Your attempt ranks in the 82nd percentile. In case you do not know what that means, it means that 82 percent of the attempts of this simulation either went the same as or worse than your attempt."
After that announcement, I walk out of the room feeling pretty good. Odysea's smile is wider than I've ever seen it before.
However, there's only so long you can stand around and feel good about yourself before people start staring. Also, there's still simulations we have to cover, mostly for Odysea.
"Want to try the fire safety one now?"
"You bet," Odysea replies, and we go to hunt down Cherry again.
With luck, this one will go just as well as the last one.
Romeo Brady, District Eight Male
I've been trying to stay on the positive side of things, but this first day of training has been pretty horrible.
On top of failing in every aspect in terms of using a knife, today I found out that I'm a sluggish runner, have no knowledge of plants, can't swim a yard, and can't climb with any proficiency.
Unless the arena is centered around sewing somehow, I'm probably screwed. Well, more screwed than I already was.
Right now, all I care about is avoiding the Careers and figuring out how to do the same in the Arena. As for my mentors, Tassel probably isn't the best option, since he fought most of the Careers head-on, but maybe String will have a few tips.
I've exhausted the available stations already, and I still have a few hours before we get sent back to our floors for dinner. With not a ton of stuff left to do, I scour the corners of the room for a while before deciding that maybe water purification is something easy that I could learn.
Unfortunately, that station is pretty small- one screen displaying options for what we'd like to try and clear out of the water, a small table with a stack of plastic cups to one side, and three rickety-looking plastic chairs. And one of those chairs is occupied, so there's even less space available than usual.
I grab my cup and take a seat next to the other occupant of the station, the boy from Twelve. He's currently staring at a cup of murky brown sludge with unidentified flecks floating at the top. Then, I pick my poisons- small rocks, something I have no idea how to pronounce but I'm guessing is some sort of disease, a gritty mixture of sand and dirt, and some crumbled-up leaves for good measure.
After a few seconds, a nasty liquid that looks bad and smells even worse pours into my cup, and I start moving to try and clean it up. Then the boy speaks, the first words I've heard him say since I got here. "You have to use a strainer to get out everything solid first," he says.
"Okay then," I say, grabbing one of the aforementioned strainers and pouring the contents of my cup through it. It's a painfully slow process, but soon enough, trickles of almost clear water begin dripping out from the mass of sludge on top.
Wow. This process makes watching paint dry seem exciting. Not wanting to just sit there and do nothing for five minutes while all the water trickles into the new cup, I decide to try and strike up a conversation, key word there being try.
"What's your name again?" I'm not sure if that's the best or worst way I could have started this, but at least it gets a response.
"I'm Maxxer, but just call me Max, please. District Twelve, about to follow the example of my forty-five predecessors since the Second Quarter Quell even though I desperately don't want to."
I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to be impressed with his advanced knowledge that these Games will probably kill him whether he wants it or not or annoyed by his profoundly defeatist attitude. Either way, it's not doing a great job of keeping my spirits up.
Time drags on as both of us wait for the water to finish drip, drip, dripping. If this stool wasn't so uncomfortable, I probably could have fallen asleep.
Max gives up the ghost and grabs his mostly-full cup, then goes hunting for a vial of iodine. From the tips I've seen plastered around the table, iodine is great for killing off bacteria in the water, but we have to wait for about half an hour after we use it to make sure everything in there is dead. Even worse, if you put too much of the iodine in the water, it could become toxic and you'd get poisoned anyway.
But never mind that, I might as well get this crap done too. I can't spend the rest of the day here.
Ignoring the slow, steady leaking of water from the disgusting brown mass on the strainer, I join Max in hunting for the iodine vials. It takes way longer than it should, but they eventually turn up- they were buried deep inside a box that was under the table.
According to the instructions, we're supposed to put only one drop in per thermos if the water is clear, and five if it's not. Staring down at what I have, I can't tell which to classify it as, so I just compromise and put in three drops.
As far as I know, that's it for this station. I couldn't find a way to test if the water is safe or not (besides drinking it, which is probably a bad idea), so it's probably best to move on. However, before I make it more than two steps, Max pipes up.
"Hey," he says. "Want to stick together for a few stations? Misery loves company."
"Eh, I don't see why not." It's not like I'd been whizzing through stations before I got here. What's the harm of adding a potential ally to the list?
It looks like he's about to pop the question, but instead, he swallows hard, shakes his head a few times, and begins to wander towards another survival station with a label written in such elaborate letters that they're hard to read.
Trailing behind him, I realize with a start just how little I've accomplished. Sure, I think I understand how water purification works now. But I can barely run, barely fight, and don't even mention my climbing and swimming ability (or lack thereof).
I'll see if Max is into allies. Then, just maybe, today won't be a total wash.
Sotia Vance, District Three Female
The stars and moon glow above me as I finally manage to get the fire lit.
It's silent and blissful for a few meager seconds. Then the sky vanishes from above me, a sudden blast of cold douses the flames, and I'm left in the same place I started in. Once that process is finished, a female voice is telling me, "Congratulations. Your endeavor was successful. Calculating percentile rank…"
As the door to the simulation room swings open, the voice adds on, "Your attempt ranks in the 63rd percentile. In case you do not know what that means…"
"I know what that means," I say to no one as I exit the room.
So far, I've just been trying to pick up knowledge on every survival skill that I can. If the arena is harsh, to contrast last year's, those skills will be a gold mine. Even if it's an ordinary arena, they're bound to come into play in the endgame.
There's almost nothing left survival-wise at this point. I have basic knowledge of how to swim (should I need it), I can start and put out fires, have made progress on building a rudimentary shelter, can purify water, and know what plants to avoid at all costs. At this point, the best thing I can do for myself is to learn how to counteract poisons. The last thing I want in the Games is to survive everything the Gamemakers throw at me and then drop dead from poisoned food.
The place I need to go is a pretty small table- not much there except for two plastic chairs, a screen that displays tips every now and again, and about two dozen vials containing a rainbow of liquids.
As I plop down into one of the remarkably-uncomfortable chairs, the screen gives me some basic tips to start off. In general, darker-colored poisons are faster-acting than lighter-colored ones. Most poisons used in the games are potent enough that one vial will almost certainly kill whoever ingests it. Most weaker poisons can be stopped with a common antidote, but stronger ones require an antidote specific to what was used. Said antidotes tend to be similar, slightly more cheery colors than the poison they match. Touching any poison you get is a bad idea because it could literally melt your fingers.
Using this knowledge, the screen instructs me to first separate the poisons from the antidotes and then match them properly. After it gives that instruction, the screen goes blank.
It's not that challenging, to be honest. Within a few minutes, all but two of them have been placed into categories. The reason I'm having trouble deciding with the last two is that yellow is such a grotesque color to begin with that it's impossible to tell which shade is supposedly "lighter." I'm so focused on staring at these things and trying to tell the difference that I barely notice when the other chair gets filled.
I set down the vial I'm holding and get familiar with my new company. She's not that much taller than me, and her skin is way paler than I'd expect for any human being ever, but she has enough muscle on her that I immediately assume she's a Career. When I lean back (without much subtlety, unfortunately for me) to take a look at the number on her back, my theory is confirmed- a gigantic '2' is stitched into the back of her shirt.
We haven't talked, fortunately enough. The first words that come out of her mouth are, "I'm doing this now. Okay?"
"Fine," I say. "Just let me finish my turn first."
The girl rolls her eyes with practiced efficiency. "You realize that I'm a Career, right?"
Wow. She walked right into one of the easiest traps in the book. Rolling my eyes back at her, I say, "And you realize that I don't give a damn, right?"
Her expression morphs into a snarl for a second before returning to the calm demeanor it used to be. "Seriously? That's the best you could come up with? I've heard better comebacks from preschoolers."
"Says the person who doesn't even have one prepped for what I just said, instead having to resort to changing the subject. Just quit now, I could do this all day."
The girl's face then changes into a shade of red my science teacher would have called "ruthenium chloride." If this was one of the stupid cartoons we got back home, her face would have exploded on the spot. Instead, she just looks like she dunked her face in the fake blood from the first aid station.
"I am so going to kill you once I get the chance, you do know that," she says.
"Well, good luck with that," I respond. "I guess basic social skills aren't part of the training curriculum for Careers."
She moves her arms like she wants to grab me, but stops at the last second. "Are you seriously making fun of the Academy? I trained my whole life for this-"
I don't even give her the chance to finish her sentence. "You trained your whole life to try and fail to intimidate the most innocent-looking fifteen-year-old on the planet in a glorified fitness center? Wow. You must feel so proud of your life choices right now."
The girl fails to form a coherent sentence after that. Sure, she says plenty of things, but most of them are words that would make my father explode if he heard them in public. Then, she gives me the finger, pantomimes slashing my throat, and stalks away.
Whatever. If she wants to kill me, she wants to kill me. Chances are, I wasn't sticking around for the Bloodbath anyway. Anyone who shows even a hint of skill with electricity or technology has a gigantic target on their back once they enter the Arena.
As soon as that thought finishes, a voice announces over the intercom, "Five minutes until dinner. All tributes, please report to the center of the room."
I slam down the last two into random spots and have them evaluated for accuracy. I got everything correct- except for the freaking yellow ones. Of course. No time to fix it now.
As I hurry to the center of the room, I take care to avoid the still-fuming girl from Two. The last thing I want is for this to turn into a fistfight two minutes before dinner.
Cutter starts saying something to us, but most of it gets blanked out. One thought, however, echoes prominently in my mind.
One day down, two more to go.
Author's Notes:
-And so, the first day of training winds to a close. And so does 2019! Happy New Year to all, and I hope to see you again next chapter!