I'd like to add a quick warning here for going to the upper limits of the T rating.

Y 184-08-31 T 23:42:56

Day 1

The screens were crackling in and out of focus, but the audio was staying clear, and Coriolanus could hear the desperation in Seneca Crane's voice.

"Mr President, sir," Seneca said, his fast hand gestures making the image jam, "I can guarantee you that she had no suicidal notions whatsoever, none, the staffers vetted her file-"

"-And yet she stepped onto a landmine." Coriolanus intoned. As he had expected, Seneca's motions became more erratic, and the panic in his eyes, even from four hundred miles away, was tangible.

"Sir, she wasn't unbalanced, she wasn't-"

"-Then she was a rebel, Mr Crane? Do your staff check for that anymore?"

Crane began tapping his hand rapidly against the conference table. The motion blurred and juddered on the screen, but the thud-thud-thud of flesh against wood was picked up perfectly by the microphone.

"Sir," said Josiah Lyman where he leant against the wall, just beside Crane in the camera's sights. "She held no visible interest in rebellion. She wasn't allied with any known revo groups. She's an outlier, a desperate aberration, and we need to stop focusing on her and start focusing on the real threats- Elizabeth Adews appears to have been a pivotal member of a revo group in Seven, as was Chal Detria, and we've found some footage of Quint Barkwater-"

"-I've seen the footage, Lyman, and some barman handing over money to a tribute is far beneath my pay grade. Elizabeth is a concern, but only if you can't take care of her in due course. Subtly. But you, Lyman, are the Hunger Games Head of Communications, and the question on the Capitol's lips tomorrow morning is going to be why that girl jumped off her plate, and you will be the one answering."

Josiah blanched slightly. "Sir, with all due respect, isn't that Caesar's job?"

"Mr Flickerman is Master of Ceremonies, and he is commentating the Games. He does not have time to clean up your messes. You will address Capitol Beat tomorrow morning, at eight, and you will clear up the matter of the Nine girl. Permanently. Do I make myself clear, Lyman?"

Josiah dragged a hand backwards through his curled, messy hair. "Yes, sir. If I may?"

"You may."

"Files are easily edited, and an imbalanced temperament would be easier to sell to the public."

"Do it."

Josiah nodded. "Thank you, Mr President."

An aide came into the conference room silently, and murmured a few words in Coriolanus' ear in a manner so as to obscure his lips from the video link. Snow nodded curtly and waved the aide out of the room.

"I have other meetings to attend, and you have matters to clear up. See that I do not have to meet with you both again."

"Yes, Mr President." They chorused with the kind of mechanical precision that only a lifetime of conditioning could instill. Coriolanus stood, and the link cut out, the holograph shimmering into non-existence and the red light of the camera dying to black. Coriolanus stood, leaving the conference room; his silent shadows of security followed him, ever at the ready for threats. The night had drawn in, and the corridors of the Presidential Mansion were silent.

Mostly.

Coriolanus pushed open the double doors, walking with curt, sharp steps across the concrete floor.

"Have there been any advances on the last proposal?"

Anamaria Dimitri, Head of Security in Panem, stood from her half-crouched position to salute him. "No, sir, but I believe we are close to making a breakthrough."

"Excellent. Show me the work."

Anamaria stood back and let Snow inspect the concrete floors, the plywood table, and the man strapped to the iron chair. His face was obscured by the black bag that had been jammed over the top of it, but his hands were skin and bone, muscles and veins like ropes beneath his skin- he was old, certainly. Beyond that, the blood obscured most else, and the screams drowned out all sense.

"Remove the bag. And silence him." Anamaria was nothing if not efficient, and delivered both within seconds. An old man with a gag around his mouth moaned in his iron chair, and Coriolanus took the chintz-covered one opposite him, careful not to get blood on his crafted leather shoes.

"I dislike this form of information-gathering, Mr Warnke. I consider it to be distasteful. But you had every chance to be cooperative."

The man moaned limply through his gag. Coriolanus sighed slightly, tasting the ever-present blood in his mouth more than usual as he spoke his next words. "Anamaria, if you please."

The gag was removed, and Rufus Warnke looked up at Coriolanus as much as his bonds permitted him.

"She was a kid, she was a kid, Christ, Christ, she had a broken arm and she knew she was gonna die and she just jumped and I didn't tell her, I didn't tell her to do it, I didn't-"

Coriolanus nodded at Anamaria. She picked up a steel hammer, twirled it to see the glint the overhead lamp cast on its surface, and then brought it down sharply on Rufus Warnke's wrist. Coriolanus waited impatiently for him to stop screaming.

"I didn't tell her to do it!" Rufus screamed, his voice frail, cracking and breaking under the pressure of stress and pain. "Please, please, I didn't-"

"-Then why did she do it?" Coriolanus cut in sharply. "Are you saying that children fearing for their life decide to end their life? That, Me Warnke, is a logical fallacy."

"You think kids weigh up the goddamn logical fallacies of being stabbed to death versus being blown up?! They're kids! They're-" Rufus tried to flex his wrist and gasped, his words stolen from his throat.

"-Kids." Coriolanus finished for him. He observed Rufus as he might observe a report on his desk. He decided to do some editing.

"Mr Warnke," Coriolanus said, standing and pacing the room as he would before a speech, "You were told that I would not abide any treasonous activity. You were warned to keep your District in line."

"I'm a mentor, not a dictator! When they go in the aren-" Rufus broke off, gasping in pain. "-When they go in the arena, I can't do anything, I can't, I can't, I-"

He kept babbling, kept gasping and breaking for air, and Coriolanus found it distasteful. He nodded to Anamaria, and Anamaria made Rufus stop. He whimpered and ran out of air. Coriolanus had seen many videos of the old, proud Victor of District 9; he had inspected him as he did every Victor, every major player in the political game. But now, Rufus was diminished; age had broken his body, and now Anamaria was well on the way to breaking his spirit. Coriolanus stood victorious above. As he always would.

"Our medical teams can fix whatever Anamaria does. They can make the pain go away." Coriolanus disliked torture, but that did not mean he was not an expert in it. "Tell me what you did, and this stops, Rufus."

Coriolanus was not honestly certain Rufus would yield anything- that he had anything to yield. Warnke was proud, he was clever; he was a Victor.

Rufus shuddered and stayed silent. Coriolanus considered his options and took a different tack.

"We could always ask Holly. I'm certain she might be-"

"-NO!" Rufus was almost eighty, aged and injured, but he strained his restraints trying to sit up and defend his daughter's name, his breaking, frail voice turning to a savage, primal snarl. Coriolanus smiled at having elicited the response he wanted.

"There's the Victor I was looking for," he murmured.

"I didn't hear that. I don't care." Rufus managed. "Don't touch Holly, I can- I didn't think anything would happen, anything-"

"What did you do, Rufus?"

"I said to her-" Rufus gasped. "The girl. The tribute girl. I said to her- that she wasn't going to make it. That she wasn't going to make it."

"You told her she would die?" Coriolanus mused. "Not the words a mentor should instill, surely."

"I didn't know what to tell the kid! She had a broken arm, she was gonna die, I was drunk-"

"-You were drunk." Coriolanus said. Here was his entry point. Here was his spin. "You had a lapse of judgement. You told a girl with an- imbalanced temperament- that she was going to die, and she decided to hurry it along. Nothing of any revolutionary nature happened."

"No, no, god, no." Rufus gasped. Snow nodded, dusting off his jacket. Officially, that would be the truth. Now this exchange had happened, Rufus would likely believe it- it was as close as anyone would probably get to the truth, anyway. And Rufus would tell it to the Districts, and the circle would be complete.

Coriolanus tasted blood in his mouth.

"Anamaria, take Mr Warnke to East Bank hospital. It appears there was a horrible accident."

"Sir."

Coriolanus left the room, his security following carefully behind. He was starting to hate this Nine girl. Rufus had done little more than tell her the truth, his staff could find nothing to suggest her actions; she was truly just a desperate aberration, distracting from Elizabeth and her little one-man revo group. Snow had bigger problems to deal with than this.

His steps faltered just slightly as he walked to his quarters. His mouth tasted of blood.

As ever, thank you for reading.