Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games and am making no money from this.

This story, like most Hunger Games stories I've read will be told from various points of view. As normal, I'll note when they change.

Finnick

It wasn't hard to see that Johanna and Enobaria don't care for the weather in 4. I can't blame them, either. Spring isn't a terrible time of the year here, some years. Summer is oppressively hot and humid, but spring is usually better. Reasonable temperatures, low humidity, it's actually pleasant. This year is not such a year.

In bad years you get rain, a lot of it. Weather systems come through one after another, and before each one the wind comes up off the ocean, and that south wind brings miserable humidity. Sometimes the storms move fast and we only get a half inch of rain each time. Another time over a foot of rain fell in a day. I don't know how wet this year is yet (we haven't even been here for a day, after all), but I do know this is a humid year.

Even having lived here all my life, that first wave of humidity takes me a bit to get used to. I feel the air is heavy and wet, I sweat more than I first expect and get tired a bit quicker than I did in the winter. Really, nothing huge, and I know it's coming every year, so no big thing. But I can only imagine what it must be like for Enobaria and Johanna. Both are trying to hide it, but I can tell both are a bit off their game.

It happened in the night. Sleeping when it's so humid is hard. What sleep you do get is fitful, as much tossing and turning as actual sleep, and when morning does come you're covered in sweat. Hardly a refreshing way to greet the day. Really makes me miss my air conditioned house.

"All right, we'll be heading further west today," I announce over breakfast. "We'll check out that street we were on last night, if it looks safe we'll follow it for as long as we can. Sooner or later though,we'll see signs of other people, and when we do it'll be tougher going, probably in the woods or swamps."

"4 is really just one town? Like, the whole district is just a single town?" Johanna asks.

"Yeah, just one town," I answer. "It doesn't seem like much, but you'd be amazed how much fish this one town can catch. I've read in old books where fishermen would go out and come back with nothing, but I've never heard of that actually happening to anyone in 4. Ever.

"The ocean's bounty is vast, people say, and it's true. You can catch fish in the bay, fish off the beach, catch fish that run near shore, but the real prizes are further out. There's this deep trench that's thirty or so miles off shore. All these fish from the deep ocean thousands of feet down follow it. The trench narrows and shallows, so all the fish get concentrated and forced closer to the surface, and that's where all the serious fishermen get their catch. Big fish, hundreds of pounds each.

"You can catch them with just a few people on a boat if you want, and some people do. But mostly it's bigger boats, large crews, lots of lines and nets. Actually there's one boat that stays out all year; it's huge, a few hundred feet long, and it just stays out and catches nonstop. It's big enough that the fish are gutted and processed on board. Little boats ferry supplies and people out to it and bring the processed catch back in. The only time the thing comes back in is winter so it can be dry docked and worked on, then it's back to work offshore."

"You sound like a god damned tour guide," Johanna mutters.

"2 is much larger, many towns over a wide area," Enobaria comments.

"4 is technically huge, just the vast majority of it is in the ocean. There's buoys and markers for it though. Not a literal fence, but go past the markers and you'll get a hovercraft on your ass," I state.

"7 has one big town, it's where families live and the mills and woodworking shops are, but most of the people work in the woods, cutting trees, you know, lumberjack shit. The mountains have these logging camps all over the place. After the trees are harvested we replant them, but it takes years and years for a forest to regrow, so the logging groups just make huge multi decade circles through the mountains, from one camp to another. People live in them for months at a time," Johanna explains.

"I guess in a way we're lucky we picked 4 then," I look at Johanna. "Just one town, not a lot of area we need to claim and liberate and stuff."

"Yeah, but there's no room to work either. In 7, we should operate in the woods in unused camps for as long as we wanted, attack, then just disappear into the woods."

"We can disappear here too, if we find the right people."

"Who are the right people?" Enobaria demands.

"I have someone in mind," I answer. "A friend, if he's still around he'll help us."

"He isn't beholden to 13?"

"I'm sure he works for them, assuming he's still alive. I hope he is. Anyway, he'll help, I've known him basically my whole life. We just need to get into town and find the guy."

Glimmer

Night jumps are the least fun sort of 's still flying, but it's in a void. Just a few lights on the ground, but most of what I see is in that display Beetee made. A target, a reading for how high I am, indicators for where the others are, and a few little wireframe things to indicate where some buildings on the ground are. It feels like playing a simulation of jumping as much as actually being in the air over a district.

I'm following a little colorful line on my display (my flight path), and my display shows Katniss, Gale and Madge are on track as well. Below are street lights from 6 and just a few lights from the buildings. It's after midnight, so most of the district is asleep. The only places with people awake are the hovercraft factory (they run shifts 24 hours a day supposedly) and the Peacekeeper base. Both have a fair bit of lights on them, though I doubt the roof we're landing on is lit. Wonderful, not just flying purely on this little display, I won't even be able to see the thing I'm supposed to land on.

It might be dark, but it's a calm night, so it's easy to follow the flight path. My display shows I'm close to landing, I hear the slow down box thing Beetee made power up and I brace for landing. I still can barely see what I'm about to be standing on, so it's as much memory from my practice drops as anything.

I land and immediately start taking off my flight gear. The helmet is useless now, since I'm on the ground (ok, roof), and the others will all be landing in a few seconds, and the wing suit is hard to move in, not something to wear in combat. By the time the others have landed I've got the wing suit off and am ready to go. There's no Peacekeepers on the roof, so everyone has time to get ready before we head for the stairs.

The door is locked, but a steel lock doesn't stand up to our fancy blades any better than Peacekeeper armor does. Unfortunately, while the stairs were easy to find (roofs only have one door to them, duh), from here it gets harder. The radio antenna on this building is easy to see, but it's several floors, so no way to narrow down where their communication center could be. So we're going to have to sweep the place, one floor at a time, room by room until we find it. And of course we're trying to stay undetected, which gets pretty hard to do when you're looking in every room in a building.

We go down one flight of stairs and stop at the door. It's got no window, just a big solid steel thing. I'm about to open it when Gale stops me.

"No, this is stupid," he states. "The building is only a few floors; I can search each one while you three wait on the stairs here. I should have the power for my invisibility thing to search the whole building, if need be."

"What if you need the power later? If this goes bad and we need to bail or something?" I ask.

"You think one invisible guy will matter much if that happens? We'll all need to get out, so no matter what that's three visible people."

"Fair enough. Just try to make it as fast as possible, save at least some power for an emergency."

"I've got to be quiet, you can't rush while doing that," Gale explains.

"Just do one floor at a time then, come back to us on the stairs after each one, don't try and do the whole building all at once, ok?" Katniss asks.

"Ok, sounds like a plan then."

We get in position, with Katniss opening the door and Madge and I ready to check the hallway and if necessary shoot anyone that happens to be there and see us. It turns out to all be needless though; the hallway's clear. Gale activates his cloak and he's off.

We stand around in the stairway like that for a few minutes, just standing there being quiet. The stairs are metal so if we move around too much it makes noise and echoes off the brick walls of the building. And obviously talking's out, never knows who could open a door to the stairway and hear. It's actually really awkward; we can't even sit down because at any moment we might have to run or fight or something.

Finally, the door we're all standing around opens and we point our guns at nothing. A moment later the door closes and Gale reappears.

"Nothing on this floor, just offices and junk," He explains.

"Power ok?" Katniss asks.

"It's still fine."

"All right, down one floor," I order.

We head down and repeat the same procedure, the cautious opening of the door, the lack of people that need shooting, and then the awkward silent wait. Then, a few minutes later just like last time the door opens for apparently no one and Gale appears after it closes.

"Found it. It's on the right, third door down," he reports.

"How many people in it?" Madge asks.

"No idea, the doors are all solid wood, no windows. It had a little plaque next to it calling it the radio room though."

"Ok, then we all go and hope there's not too many people," I state.

"And hope that Peacekeeper radio guys don't carry guns," Katniss adds.

"Yeah, that would be good. Ok, Gale, you found the place, so you take point, then me, Katniss and Madge brings up our six." I wind up putting Madge on our six a lot, probably more than I should. It's not like the girl's bad or last in line, actually it's the opposite. She can shoot better than any of us, so if something is gonna sneak up on us she's the one I want to have the first shot. Still, probably should change it up, don't want the girl getting discouraged. Next time though.

We head out into the hallway. The door isn't far, a matter of yards only, but it's a long enough walk for us to get unlucky. Some guy in a uniform (not even armor) comes out of a room near the far end. We see each other at the same time; I don't know what he's going to do, but before he can figure it out Gale fires on him.

The suppressed gun is quieter than a normal one, like promised, but even muffled, it's still a gunshot. It won't bring the whole building running, but there's a chance people on this floor could have heard it.

"Fuck," Gale curses. "Secure the room, I'll get the body and move it in there."

"What about the blood and bullet holes in the wall?" Katniss asks.

"Nothing we can do about those," I answer. "We do like Gale said, get the room, get the body in there and hope no one notices before we've done our job here." Of course if they do notice we're stuck in a room that probably only has one door, isn't on the ground level and will have a lot of jerks with guns outside.

I rush to the room to the radio room. The door's unlocked, so I burst right in. "Hands up and step back from whatever you're doing," I order. Last thing I need is some idiot hitting some alarm button or something.

"Who the hell are you?" one of the three people in the room demands. My answer involves shooting him. I mean hey, people already had a chance to hear gunshots once, what's one more time?

"Someone better start telling us how this radio equipment works or you'll all get the same."

Finnick

We set out and started heading west on that same old road we'd been following last night. Now that it's light I can see how crumbled and decayed it is; I know I was worried about someone patrolling down it, but it doesn't look like anyone's driven down this thing in my lifetime.

Since we're still east of any of the forces I expect to find we walk on the road. It's easy and quick, so we do it, just sticking to the edge of the road so if we need to we can dive for cover. Granted cover is a ditch, which doesn't sound fun, but sooner or later we'll have to do it. Actually, we'll have to go through worse I expect.

We make good time through the morning, covering quite a few miles, we even manage to have a nice lunch in an abandoned restaurant (it seemed appropriate), but in the early afternoon the easy walking comes to an end.I call a halt to our little march and we all get down and just stay there silent for a bit, listening.

"Machinery," Enobaria states. "Hovercraft and heavy equipment."

"That sounds like bulldozers and crap. What the hell are they here for?" Johanna asks.

"From what I understand there's some cleared land here, old stores and parking lots and stuff, but the wilderness reclaimed a lot of it probably. So they need space to land hovercraft, mass troops, housing, all the military base kind of stuff," I answer.

"So what's the plan?"

"We leave the road and go through the rough stuff."

Rough stuff doesn't sound like a walk in the park, but I'm pretty sure Enobaria and Johanna had no idea exactly what it meant, but they learned fast. I've heard the surf in the distance now and then, so I'm guessing the road we've followed has been near the south side of the island. That means cutting north. Within ten yards of the road we hit swamp. For a little bit it's just swampy ground, wet, muddy, you sink ankle deep into the muck, but that doesn't last long at all. Ankle deep becomes knee deep, with some steps going as much as waist deep, and within a hundred yards we hit actual water that's between chest and neck deep.

Neck deep water is a real problem. It's right on the edge of too deep for me, but I'm taller than Enobaria and Johanna. Neck deep for me is too deep for them; as if the swamp wasn't slow enough already. Loaded down with all the guns and ammo and stuff we have, swimming just isn't possible, so we need to find a way around. The first thing we do is cut some small trees down for poles so we can get an idea of how deep the next step is before we take it. That saves us from going under, but testing each step, having to change course when every third or fourth step is too deep, it's slow as hell.

It takes well over an hour to even get close to the bay to the north. Once we're close, we turn back west, slowly making our way past the camp 13 has set up. Now and then we come across what's basically islands in the swamp, sandy patches covered in pine trees, but more and more it's just pure swamp.

13 actually has a big operation here; they're using every bit of dry ground they can find, plus some extra. They've used every parking lot and old building, clear cut trees on every dry patch and even are using sand to fill in parts of the swamp. Actually they're filling in enough that it's hard to get past. Getting a good look at their setup is good, but it's a lot more important to stay undetected. At one point, we're close enough to their people that we can hear muffled conversations not far off, all while we keep trudging through the swamp.

It's stressful, tiring, and the fact we can't talk to each other wears on us, but we keep going. By dusk we're heading back south, skirting around the edge of the Peacekeeper base and finally getting to the district's outer fence. I find some cover near the fence for us to stop under.

"We're finally here," I quietly announce.

"About fucking time," Johanna mutters.

"Agreed; miserable terrain," Enobaria adds.

"Yeah, I can see why there hasn't been some big decisive battle yet," I comment.

"So what now? That's the fence right? Or what's left of it?" Johanna's right, the fence has large sections missing, from the look of them where trucks or something like that just ran the thing over to breach it.

"Now we go inside and go find a friend of mine. It's late, so he should be at home."

"And how do we do that without getting noticed? Big black bullet proof armor isn't going to blend in, is it?"

I have to think about that. Johanna's right that all this armor will really stick out. Maybe we can get there unnoticed, but it's a long shot. Odds are someone will see us, maybe they say or do something, maybe not, who knows. Given that it's been weeks since I was here and that was before war broke out, I can't really say I know what to expect inside 4 anymore.

On the other hand, we could take the armor off, just carry it in our packs and we'd blend in, but if we come across a Peacekeeper we're sitting ducks; no protection against their bullets. Still, it's probably safer to try and blend in. I'd love to find a hat or something, try at least some sort of disguise for myself though; I'm pretty well known around town after all.

"I think our best bet is to take off the armor and just walk around like we live here."

"And if we're recognized? Or there's a curfew? What then?" Enobaria looks at me.

"Then we're kind of screwed. We keep our guns ready and hope we're lucky in a fire fight."

"Not an encouraging plan."

"The alternative isn't any better. Anyone who sees us will wonder what's going on, and we've got no control if they call someone and report us or what."

"At least we'd be protected from stray bullets."

"She's got a point bout that curfew thing," Johanna agrees. "We've got no way to know if there's regular people even around."

"All right, how about this. We go in like this, sneak around and see if we can see people around. If we do, we take the armor off and try to blend in. Try to steal a hat or something so I won't be so obvious. Oh, and either way, we need to find a garden hose or something, we smell like the damned swamp."

Haymitch

Just waiting around on the hovercraft, that's all I'm doing. Me and sweetheart's little sister, standing around a holographic table watching a tiny little holographic train go down its holographic track towards 6. We're basically committed at this point. I mean, theoretically we could radio the train and stop it and then everyone on the train would get off and um, run or some shit like that.

Fact is, we don't have any escape or withdrawal plan for them; there's way too many to transport on any sort of good schedule with the hovercraft we have. So basically, even if it isn't 100% true, we're committed to this shit.

We haven't heard from the kids, but that's expected. Considering the radio jamming they got here last time, we all figured radio silence was best. So the first time I expect to hear from any of them is either to say things are good and they're ready to go with the Peacekeeper radio bullshit, or that things got fucked up and they need to bail.

"How long until we hear from them?" the little girl (ok, not that little, she's a teenager and pretty grown now) asks.

"No idea. They should have landed by now, but who the hell knows how long it'll take them to find the radio room."

"And if the train gets there before they find it?"

"Then they take the train station, cut the uplink so the district can't call for help and then… um, well, then we get creative, think of plan B or some shit."

"You don't have a plan B?" she glares at me.

"I'm not the only one here; you're here too. So if you've got some brilliant pearl speak up."

"Oh, I have to help run this war now, not just pick up the pieces after?"

"Hey, you know what we've got to work with; it isn't shit for what we want to do, so yeah, you help here too. You should know that by now. This whole bullshit plan is because we don't have anything better or even reasonable. Hell, we've got the other three over in 4 with nothing but a damned smile to work with. So yeah, you're always saying how you don't want to be treated like a kid, fine. We all have to do a lot more than we should be expected to or should have to and all that crap. Welcome to the grown up club."

The kids can all fucking yell at me later, whatever, but sitting here and getting bitched at by the little girl over this crap is just not gonna happen. Seriously, she should know by now the sort of operation we run here. We've got fucking teenagers running a war, trying to rule the world for god's sake. How the fuck can anyone look at that and think it's a normal, well run operation? We dumped three people on a beach and expect them to beat two armies. I mean, what the fuck. The girl's smart, she's a doctor for fuck's sake, she should know we make this shit up on the fly, and yeah, if she's going to talk she should contribute, not just talk shit. And if the girl wants to yell, well, fuck her. I can't be expected to just sit here on a damned hovercraft waiting around being a punching bag for the little girl.

"Hey Haymitch," Princess' voice comes over the radio. "We're here."

"You're in? You found the radio room?" I ask.

"No, we found the candy machine," the kid replies. "Of course the radio room."

"Oh, I want a candy bar," the little girl giggles and sticks her tongue out at me. Next time I let her answer the radio and I take a fucking nap.

"Good, train's about to get here. You get in clean?"

"Not exactly. We got spotted in the hallway. We shot the guy, but there's bullet holes in the wall and blood on the carpet where he was,"

"We moved the body into the radio room though," Sweetheart adds.

Shit, not the news I was hoping for. "Anyone noticed the mess or raised an alarm yet?"

"Not yet."

Even if no one noticed, it's just a matter of time. Even just a missing guy would be bad, someone will notice he's not at his post, but blood and bullet holes too? They'll know they're compromised and raise a ruckus, and they don't need a damned radio room to do that.

"All right, whatever, we'll deal with that shit when it comes up. You all know how to work the radio?"

"Yeah, we got a basic run down from the guys who use it. We've got them tied up in the corner now."

"All right, girlie, you're up. You're the voice of Peacekeeper Central tonight."

"Hmm? Why me?" girlie asks.

"Because most Peacekeepers are guys, and guys like hearing a female voice. And princess and sweetheart could get recognized. Besides, you've got a nice voice, it'll be soothing and all that shit; make them relax and do what they're told and not be suspicious."

"Huh, is that Haymitch sweet talking a girl? With lines like that, how can he still be single?" the kid shit talks.

"He's kind of old for Madge if you ask me," Princess piles on. "I mean, she's young and good looking, she can totally do better you'd think."

"Yeah, yeah, real fucking funny. If you're done being comedians try and get all the Peacekeeper units in the field to check in so you know where they are. Our people should be hitting the station soon, so you'll probably get reports about that, and I want to know where the hell these assholes are so I can figure out how to set them up."

We've been flying around and we can see some Peacekeeper trucks and I've made a note of them on our little holographic map, but no way is this all of them, and no way can I set them up if I don't know who's where. We're outnumbered at least two to one here, so every single encounter has to work or we're fucked.

Johanna

So there's no martial law in 4. Not because Peacekeepers aren't assholes, I just figure they're too busy doing war shit to enforce martial law. Sneaking in wasn't super hard either; the outer part of the district is deserted, houses blown up, craters, burnt ruins and crap like that. Once we got past that we started seeing people. Not that we could get that close; we'd been walking in a fucking swamp all day long and we really smelled like it, so a garden hose was priority one.

Stowing the armor sounds good, but we needed civilian clothes too. Of course we didn't exactly bring those, so we had to rummage through abandoned houses for stuff that would fit. Fucking ridiculous, having to rob the dead. This is our fucking rebellion? But hey, it could be worse. At least I'm not wearing this ridiculous big straw hat Finnick has on. The guy looks like a damned cartoon character. Ok, sure, no one will recognize him, but they sure as fuck will laugh at him.

Not that going through the district carrying packs, armor and guns all while trying not to stand out is easy. People have got to be noticing.

"Hey, Finnick," I get his attention.

"Don't use my name, damn it; we're trying not to be recognized."

"Yeah, well about that, I'm not seeing a lot of people with huge packs full of crap besides us. We're getting a lot of looks, and sooner or later someone's going to call the Peacekeepers on our ass."

"I said this was a poor plan," Enobaria frowns.

"Look, it'll be fine. No one knows who we are, so if we disappear no one knows where to look for us. Besides, as long as we don't look like an immediate threat we won't be a priority for the Peacekeepers."

"That's not going to be good enough for long, damn it," I complain.

"Relax already, my friend's house is just ahead."

Finnick leads us through a little residential area to a house; it looks basically just like any other house here, pretty colorful and all, that tile roof, flowers out front, all the normal house crap. But so what, it looks just like any other house here to me.

"Let me take the lead here," Finnick requests. "Actually, hang back a bit, this probably will work better that way."Yeah, I'm really filled with confidence here.

Finnick walks up to the door and rings the bell. A little bit later a guy answers the door with a rifle pointed at Finnick's chest. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Author's Notes:

Sorry this is so late. Just hasn't been the best of times here in real life. Anyway... Thanks to that-fan, like always. And of course thanks to people who read and review also. I appreciate it.