PRESENT DAY- A WEEK LATER
4:00 AM
Khhhhhhhh.
Maybe once the klaxon had worked, but now it only spit the characteristic white noise of an electrical fault. Still, the noise sufficed to wake Alec up, it seemed.
Squalid concrete cells in squat concrete buildings, he had discovered, existed within the Capitol; but as a Capitolian, he had never gone far enough into his city to find them. He had realised he had watched Quint run through them in the Games, chased by mutts- but back then he had never realised that the purpose of these run-down buildings were to house the considerable Avox population that existed to serve the people that had so created them.
He knew all too well now. He slept among them on the hard floors, a swaying bulb casting awful shadows on the wall. He wore grey. He felt grey.
The Avox stood before their supervisor, a harsh Capitol Guard who was more than a little lenient on the whip, could enter the room. Alec had just about learned to match them now, and today spared himself the pain.
Each of them were handed brooms, each of them regarded with a disgust and distaste becoming of their being.
A labyrinthine inner city of Avox scurried out from the ashen cells they lived in, Alec now amongst them; ready to clean the streets of the revelry of the previous night.
Once, when drunk and newly a couple, Alec and Ganymede had stayed up early enough to watch the Avox clean the streets. The two of them had absently hurled their bottles of alcohol at an Avox's feet, leaving the Capitol's servants to clean it up while they watched the sun rise.
Alec looked up at that same sun, still infuriatingly the same.
Mouth stretching open, his fury and fear and crushing injustice swirling to a point, Alec hurled a completely soundless scream at the morning's cruel light.
Around him, his fellow Avox started to clean what the Capitol had left behind.
5:30 AM
Dewdrops shimmered on the stalks of wheat, dampening Robyn's clothing as she waded through the golden sea. Tomorrow was the harvest, and Robyn could feel the pressing, damp cool of sunrise that always heralded a turn in the seasons. Winter would soon come; and then she would watch the hunger set into her people again.
The cold was dispelled from her home, but it wasn't for others. The cool sunrise reminded her of her mission.
Robyn was on foot today; she only used Cinder in the dead of night, when the light wasn't betraying them. A final dispatch had been given to her early in the morning, and while she knew her absence would be noted by her parents, she had promised Rufus she would do all that was required of her.
A simple address, a well-guarded one. Robyn reached the border fence for District Nine. She found the well-cut and well-concealed hole she had made, in a section her fellow messengers had rerouted the electricity from. Mud and dirt clung to her as she shimmied under the slim gap, one hand protecting the message in her jacket as she did.
She had been told the letter was more important than herself, and she believed it.
Soft now, quiet in the crunchy undergrowth of mid-autumn. She heard the whistle and took her place amongst the undergrowth, facing onto the railway tracks.
She had learnt by now what to do.
Screeee-
The train rattled past her, sucking the air past it in a cavalcade of wet leaves and dust. She grimaced, coughing, before setting her mind again to her task.
The supply trains came past District 9 every two hours, on the dot; an enforced punctuality that made the trains groan and creak under the strain of what was asked of them. They took grain rations from Nine to Six, and then to Seven; but by then, she would be long gone from the train.
While the trains were moderately well-designed, and performing well despite being a decade past retirement, the train stations had been built a long, long time in the past; the lines had been in use ever since the Dark Days. As such, the train was too long for the station, and its end stuck out into the forestry behind it.
It was here that the messengers of District 9's Rebel Alliance, and now Robyn, took advantage of the poor infrastructure of their home. Sprinting from the concealment of the undergrowth, unseen by the Capitol guards so carefully guarding the carriages that fitted onto the station itself, Robyn leaped up, grabbing onto a handrail and wheeling her legs to gain purchase on the sheer surface of the train's metal, before yanking on a heavy-duty door latch and scraping the corrugated iron aside just enough to slide inside.
She dragged the door shut, looking around quickly to make sure she was alone.
She was not.
A man, short and stocky, perhaps in his late fifties and covered in soot, was midway through loading a sack of grain into the carriage she had jumped into. He stared at her, her muddied and young face, her too-large leather jacket, her hand clutching something in her pocket.
He put down his sack of grain, placed three fingertips to his mouth, and silently presented them to the air.
Robyn had seen this action being passed around in propaganda leaflets; in conferences, by word of mouth. It hadn't been Rufus' idea, but it had spread nevertheless.
It was a sign of respect; it was saying goodbye to someone you love. This man was both exalting her and mourning a sacrifice not yet made. While it was slightly morbid, Robyn still felt a swell of pride. This man, who could be punished by death for aiding rebels, did so without hesitation. It was a sign of the changing tides that his own wellbeing was something he no longer seemed to ally to.
She repeated the gesture, and then neatly gestured for her to conceal herself behind a pile of grain sacks. The man aided her in clearing a space, before covering her with a sack jammed between the piles of grain and the corrugated iron. She was concealed better than she could have done alone, and had been left a big enough space to comfortably wait out the next two hours.
And so she would.
She gently flickered her fingertips over the crackling paper message in her pocket.
The address read 'District 6'.
8:00 AM
Ding.
Velarius Eppoxe, the new Master of Ceremonies, poked his head up blearily from underneath the covers, rubbing his eyes.
Ding.
He winced. The alcohol from last night had made its way to becoming a hangover, and his throat burned from soma.
Two women, pretty models both, also poked their heads up from underneath the covers.
"What's that, babe?" One crooned.
"Is that for you?" The other added.
"Ladies, ladies," he grumbled, "One at a time."
"That's not what you said last night," The first model supplied with more than a little overt teasing.
Ding.
Velarius growled, wincing at the piercing sound.
"DOOR!"
A clatter and a click as his Avox unlocked the door with haste. Sighing, Velarius absently pushed his way past his two companions of the evening before and made his way to the door.
It didn't really occur to him until Plutarch Heavensbee jolted and turned away with a yelp that he might not be entirely clothed.
Or, indeed, clothed at all.
"Morning," Velarius said with a begrudging sigh, gesturing for his Avox to get his clothes. He wasn't exactly a man without pride, and his body was certainly something to be proud of; still, he wasn't exactly pleased to be caught without clothes twice by his superiors.
"Yeah, morning." Plutarch grated the words with a tone of stress, his back still to Velarius.
"Not seeing anything you like?" The comment was more a half-hearted attempt at trying to get Plutarch to leave than anything else; Velarius had never really been one for the guys, and especially not for Plutarch Heavensbee.
"I'm more here on business matters, Velarius."
Oh, how he hated it when assholes like Plutarch pretended he was on a first-name basis with him.
"What a shame," He said, lacing his words with a large amount of honey. "I have two expensive girls just going to waste right now."
"You can get back to them soon enou-" Plutarch started to turn, realised Velarius was still standing there and completely without clothing, and turned hastily away again. "-Do you not have a dressing gown or something? They're in fashion right now, I hear."
Plutarch, Velarius mused as he traced his silver tattoos with one finger, wouldn't know fashion if it shot him in the head.
"Oh, but of course," Velarius said courteously, ripping the clothes his Avox offered him out of their hands. "I've just been too exceedingly busy to think about fashion; you understand."
The closest he could come to outright stating his opinion of Plutarch's clothes, and the Secretary of Communications knew what he meant full well, although he seemed less personally affronted as he did faintly annoyed.
A feeling of each other that was mutual, then. Velarius had only ever seen Plutarch as a harried bureaucrat, who could probably pass for a District citizen if he rolled in the mud a little more.
Plutarch stepped inside as Velarius dressed himself, which wasn't really what Velarius wanted, but he couldn't exactly tell the Secretary of Communications to leave his house.
"There are certainly more pressing matters. I'm given to understand you are the new Master of Ceremonies?"
"Ah, so news has reached you." Another jab at Plutarch's current state as the vilified member of government, but one he couldn't resist. "Do you have an assignment for me?"
"Two, actually." Plutarch pulled out two folders from his briefcase, but didn't hand them over. He observed Velarius carefully "But it depends on you which ones I give you."
Velarius blinked. So the rumours were true; Heavensbee really is working his own agenda.
"How so?"
Plutarch's eyes flickered around the room, seeming to check for anything that could be used to record conversations. Velarius almost wished he did have something recording right now, but bygones were bygones; besides, he valued his own home's security more than taking down Plutarch Heavensbee.
Satisfied of his security in this room, the Secretary of Communications then spoke in an obsfucating thread of lies and truth.
"Listen, we both know Flickerman is working his own agenda. He's a traitor to the state; he's going to use his position as Head Gamemaker to destroy the foundation of Panem and President Snow. You've never been a friend of your television rival; if you work with me, you can eradicate that rival."
Velarius blinked. It would be a good pitch, he thought, if I was more naive.
It was true he was no friend of Caesar's, nor of the superiority he had always lauded over Velarius' show. Caesar Flickerman was certain to only ever be looking out for himself; he held little loyalty to the state unless the state rewarded him. In many ways, Velarius and he were the same in that they were ruthless, independent but utterly capable of being charming, the masters of propaganda.
But Plutarch Heavensbee was /unpredictable. He was a man ever searching for power, for some reason that Velarius thought unusual. He didn't have the characteristics of someone power-hungry; the Secretary of Communications was in fact a tired and weary man, in public and in private. And yet, he always strived towards power, closer and closer to Snow.
Velarius prided himself on knowing secrets, but Plutarch evaded his every attempt to understand him; and for that, Velarius considered him dangerous.
He did not like dangerous men.
"What does Flickerman wish of me?" He asked, and face falling Plutarch handed him only a single folder. Velarius only wished he had the means to cheat Plutarch out of whatever was written on the second; it might help explain Heavensbee's motives.
Still, the first- ah, the first was interesting regardless. A broadcast, tonight of all nights; for the first time, he was taking Caesar Flickerman's evening spot on Capitol TV, side-by-side with his rival.
And it was going to be marvellous.