With thanks to Glassgift and MidnightRaven323 for your reviews of the last chapter.
Y184-09-08 T 01:56:10
THE CAPITOL
"-I'm not saying there isn't untargeted unrest, sir, but the Hunger Games-"
Caesar resisted the urge to stage his own, right here in this meeting room.
"-Plutarch, it isn't the Hunger Games that should be blamed for this," he cut in with a lot less of his characteristic charm than usual. It was almost two in the morning and this meeting would never end.
"Oh, my apologies, Head Gamemaker," Plutarch growled with vitriol, "I wasn't aware that the arena hadn't been brutally destroyed on camera with seven revos responsible."
Caesar bristled at this, sitting up sharply and staring down Plutarch across the table.
"And I wasn't aware that your head was rammed so monumentally far up your-"
"Silence."
President Snow's voice was far from statesmanlike in this moment; his very being bristled with anger. Caesar and Plutarch, no matter their seniority, were conditioned to obey their President's voice; they fell silent. Anamaria Dimitri smirked subtly where she sat.
"I didn't call you to my meeting room for you to waste the privilege. Do not make me rethink who should be punished for treason."
The room's atmosphere darknened with the sky outside; the Capitol's nighttime parties had not yet resurged, the shadow of death still blanketed them all.
Caesar's sleeplessness weighed on him heavily. He supposed this was why so many Head Gamemakers either resigned or died; the stress of trying to fix his predecessor's mistakes was almost overwhelming. Add that to Plutarch's bloody-minded agenda to overturn his newfound throne, and Caesar was just about ready to hand the damn job to Heavensbee, title and all. He wasn't even sure why Plutarch wanted the job so much he was willing to kill Seneca Crane for it; he was the Secretary of Communications for the government, arguably a far more highly valued position.
The President sighed. If anything, he seemed more tired than Caesar; while he would never dare to say such a thing out loud, he reckoned it could be to do with the fact that Snow wasn't getting any younger.
And his only surviving relative was his granddaughter; she was so young, so easily replaced.
"This has gone on long enough, and none of you are any closer to solving the crisis. Anamaria, I want a progress report on the District riots by seven tomorrow, no later. Oh, and you were saying about the Avox?"
"We hit a milestone. 147 thousand now converted."
Caesar shuddered minutely; he had always despised the concept of re-education. Not only becoming a servant of the Capitol, but its slave? And to lose his voice, that which he treasured most? He couldn't imagine a worse fate.
"See to it that the centers are ready to recieve more. I'm intending to break the leaders as soon as you locate them."
Anamaria nodded sharply, bowed and left. President Snow gestured irritably to the rest of the room's inhabitants, and the room stood and left. Plutarch made sure to slam his shoulder against Caesar's on the way past, with a tiny, vindictive, 'sorry, man'. Caesar smiled in response like oil spreading on glass; smooth, immediate, unnatural.
Caesar, having been furthest from the door, took the longest to get to it.
When the President spoke, he wondered if the seating had been done by chance or design.
"Flickerman."
Caesar turned. "Yes, sir?"
The President stood, slowly but definitely. He stood upright with the posture of a king, but his hand brushed the table like a lifeline in case he fell.
Caesar spotted this tell. Caesar always looked for tells. Tributes and politicians were just the same; they all wanted something, and they were all lying, all the time. After a while, it was second nature to observe them, to find their weaknesses, to see their true self.
President Snow wasn't so much scared of falling over as he was scared that he wouldn't get up again.
"I'm not about to get rid of the Hunger Games, Flickerman, so you can relax."
Caesar exhaled with a little more showmanship than was perhaps necessary. He smiled sadistically at Plutarch's retreating form through the windows of the meeting room.
"Still don't trust your Communications Secretary?"
"That's beside the point, Flickerman."
Caesar knew a 'yes' when he heard one, and satisfied, dropped the matter to focus on the President entirely.
"Then what is, sir?"
"As Head Gamemaker, so far all you've been involved with is planning the Victory tour for Barkwater. Anyone can plan a Victory tour; I need to know you're right for the job of fixing the Capitol's interest back on the Games and away from the wrong Games. Do you understand?"
"You want to know what I'm planning for the 77th Games."
"Correct."
Caesar smirked. With no Plutarch to second-guess his motives, he could submit his own ideas for the Games without anyone suspecting him of anything treasonous.
"I'm planning that we do it this year."
Snow raised an eyebrow. "This year?"
"We move forward Quint's tour to next week. We spend the week after on the tour, moving back to the Capitol. And when he hits the Capitol-
"-We begin Reaping," Snow surmised with interest.
"The people need distraction, and what better distraction than what's already distracting them?" Caesar said, leaning back against the meeting table with a tiny smirk. Snow tilted his head.
"We can't build an arena in two weeks."
"With respect, sir- we can. Right here in the Capitol." Caesar leaned in with barely restrained excitement at his vision. "If they want to work together- let's let them. Let's make them. And this time, the Capitol won't want them to win, we'll make sure of that."
Snow tilted his head further, an eyebrow raised more. He gestured slightly for Caesar to continue.
"We reap in the outlier districts the most rebellious rebels, and in the career districts we reap the kind of awful, self-centred personalities that make good television. We make the Games a mix of the most disgusting Careers in the Districts, and the most dangerous rebels."
"And then?"
"And then we tell them that this year, they all have to work together. That killing is banned. Instead, we hand the Capitol that power."
"You can't let Capitol citizens kill in the Games."
"No, no, of course not, President Snow," Caesar said. "But we can do that for them. All they need to do is vote."
The dark gleam in the President's eye at that told Caesar that he was imagining the same thing he was.
"They'll tear each other apart when we set them challenges they can only confront as a group. They'll either be Capitol-hating or so objectionable they may as well be, and the Capitol will be baying for their blood." Caesar's smile was sadistic and sharp. "And then we'll hand them the button, and then we've not only sated their bloodlust- we've directed it."
The Capitol's lights for now were dark, but Caesar knew that soon they would be alive with the gleam of crimson red.
A short chapter? Yes, but I've written it in the scant hours between my film project finishing and then packing for a holiday to Norway. Actually, as I'm typing up my author's notes I've noticed I have to be up in 3 hours to get to the airport, so I'll make this quick.
Depending on wifi, I could be gone all week or not at all; regardless, the plane journey should give me opportunity to write a little more. I'll be back before you know it, so don't fret; with more new character intros, a few of the old, and the brand new 77th Hunger Games (finally! I hear you cry).
As ever, thank you for reading this far.