With thanks to Glassgift for your review of the last chapter.
Y 184-09-02 T 00:00:00
Day 3
Seneca was woken up by Lexus, who had apparently been woken up by Josiah, who had apparently been woken up by his ever-present live feed in his quarters flickering from darkness to sudden light. Seneca could tell something was very wrong very quickly, because Lexus' ever-primped silver hair was sticking up in every angle, and his ever-present piercing blue contact lenses were absent, leaving only fear-stricken hazel.
At first Seneca followed Lexus through the arena's administration corridors slowly, but when he passed by a group of Josiah's spin doctors almost in tears on the phone to President Snow's spin doctors, he knocked past Lexus in his haste to get to his post. He raced through the labyrinth, turns and left turns and corners he bashed his shoulder against until he came to the Gamemaker's Pit, eyes wide, cheeks flushed from exertion. The Gamemakers hastily stood, and he waved a furious hand at them.
"Keep your goddamn seats," he yelled as he came to Plutarch's side. The Deputy Head Gamemaker was staring at the camera feeds with something akin to awe.
"What in the hell is happening?" Seneca gasped, doubling over to try and regain his breath. Lexus came up behind him, almost knocking into the group in his haste to get into the room. Plutarch absently shrugged.
"Sponsor gifted some matches; I guess they didn't know the mansion is clad almost entirely in wood. It'll make some good highlights for tomorrow."
Seneca wasn't a political spin doctor like Plutarch, but he had enough experience with their type to recognise when they were being evasive. He stared down his older deputy as he spoke.
"Gifted the matches to who?"
Plutarch didn't answer for a moment; perhaps in an effort to seem nonchalant. He shrugged again.
"Theon."
Seneca blinked. "Theon and Elizabeth Theon, you mean? The rebels? And you didn't veto that?"
Uncomfortable silence fell in the Gamemaker's pit. Seneca felt a hand on his shoulder, and his long-time assistant tried to pull him back slightly.
"Sen- ah, Mr Crane- boss- Maybe we should deal with the-"
Seneca respected and liked Lexus, as a colleague and as a friend. But he knew that Plutarch wasn't stupid enough to just allow such a gift to go to such rebellious tributes, and he couldn't let that pass.
"Is Josiah here yet?"
"Right here." The Games Head of Communications waved at the top of the pit, standing next to his own deputy.
"You and Lexus get debriefed. Lexus, when Mr Heavensbee and I come back in, we'll be wanting a predicted destruction radius, death rates and any possible logistic solutions. Josiah, get ready to brief the President and Caesar on reasons why Elizabeth got hold of matches, and if any of those reasons are incompetence I'm going to fire you. Everyone else- make sure you get everything on camera." Seneca pushed Lexus' hand from his shoulder and roughly led Plutarch from the Gamemaker's pit, into a small meeting room with a one-way mirror inset into the wall and showing them the Gamemaker's pit.
Plutarch seemed to sense now the sheer rage emanating from Seneca's countenance, and raised one hand in a conciliatory gesture, backing around the meeting table. "Seneca-"
"-Don't bullshit me, Heavensbee." Seneca growled, stalking around the meeting table to match his deputy. "You're not dumb and you saw Elizabeth's handiwork at the chariot rides, so where the hell did you get the idea to give them the matches?"
"Seneca, I understand, but if you'll let me-"
"-Explain? Sure, Plutarch, I mean, we're all friends here," Seneca said with a sadistic smile. "I mean, it's not like I'll take the rap for this mess if the rebels got hold of enough matches to destroy not only the symbol of Panem's power but the supporting column of the arena that's right alongside it, huh?! It's not like you stand to win something from that?!"
"Seneca, I think you need to understand-"
"What, Plutarch?! What do I need to understand?!" Despite the soundproofing of the meeting room and the fact that the one-way mirror revealed nothing to the inhabitants of the Gamemaker's Pit, he was still loud enough to draw the surprised gazes of the workers within.
Plutarch's voice was calm and slow, sonorous- the voice of a trained politician. "Seneca, you need to understand that while your expertise with the technical aspect of the Games is a great boon to them, and a major reason for your instatement, you don't have the requisite political understanding to deal with the rebels."
Plutarch smiled at him. Seneca smiled back.
And then Seneca Crane pulled back his fist and delivered it with all his might into Plutarch Heavensbee's jaw. Plutarch staggered back into the one way mirror, banging against it, and the Gamemakers looked towards the meeting room anxiously as Seneca began to yell.
"Deal with the- ARE YOU INSANE?!" Seneca could feel his hand throbbing with pain and barely cared. "YOU CALL THAT 'DEALING WITH THE REBELS'?! I LEFT YOU ALONE FOR THREE HOURS AND YOU LET THEM SET THE PRESIDENT'S MANSION ON FIRE! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, HELP THEM?"
Plutarch stared at the floor, cradled his jaw and did not answer. Seneca watched with burgeoning horror as his deputy silently took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth as blood began to trickle from the corner and still did not speak.
"Oh, my god," Seneca managed. "You are. You're helping them." His hand hurt and he was starting to notice it more. "You aided the rebels."
Plutarch looked towards the door and the one-way mirror as Lexus and Josiah began to approach. As Lexus reached the door handle, Plutarch casually flipped the lock on the door, leaving Lexus pulling uselessly at it. He looked back up at Seneca, crumpling his bloodied handkerchief in his hand.
"Took you that long, huh?" He crossed the meeting room slowly to the drinks cabinet, as outside the soundproofed room Lexus yanked helplessly and agitatedly at the door and on the live camera feeds the inferno raged higher. Seneca could feel ice running through his veins- a thousand propaganda pieces played in his mind, warning him about the conspiracies that happened in the Dark Days, about the rebels that could be anywhere, even now, even in front of your eyes.
"You're a rebel."
Plutarch poured out a scotch and chuckled lowly. "Oh, come on, Crane, I thought you'd understand, of all people. You've seen the memos."
Seneca said nothing. Plutarch looked up, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
"You naive, dumb son of a bitch. You haven't even read them, have you? Your security clearance went up months ago- you still haven't gone through the files you're classified to see?"
"-It was mostly about Games protocol, nothing I didn't-"
"-Snow's getting paranoid, Crane." Plutarch drained half his scotch, the backwash coming back bloody. "He's started rigging the reapings, based on those mandatory personality profiles. He's trying to kill every security threat. Elizabeth, Quint, Cesal, Emil- anyone who's a rebel, who has a history of rebelliousness, who just plain ticked the wrong boxes in their profiling tests-" Plutarch waved his glass in the air. "-Well, you get the idea."
"Yeah, no, I'm not getting what this has to do with that fire out there above our heads, Heavensbee."
"Seneca, you're a techie, but you're not dumb. Snow's losing his edge."
Saying such a thing was unthinkable, even if it was true. Seneca was more and more afraid of Plutarch as this went on.
"That's treason, Plutarch, you can't-"
"Seneca, I know you used to be part of the Technological Commission, trying to innovate our futures and all that, but for once in your life take a step back from all your ideals and think. Snow's upping security, he's tightening the tribute profiles, he's afraid of something. Something's gotten him on the defence, and this is the best moment to strike."
His mouth was dry. His voice croaked in his throat. His hand throbbed with the beat of his heart.
"Strike?"
Plutarch strode forward and put a hand on Seneca's upper arm. Seneca tried to pull back but his adrenaline had left him now.
"I pushed for the Capitol arena, Seneca. If Josiah Lyman's damn polling hadn't of pushed it out last year, it would've been the Quell arena. If the arena's full of rebellious figures, and I can just push them a little-" Plutarch gestured out to the one-way mirror, to the Presidential Mansion on fire beyond that.
"This is insane. This is dissent-" Seneca pulled back, to the door, but Plutarch yelled after him and stopped him in his tracks.
"This is survival, Seneca," Plutarch called furiously. "Snow's about to drag us all into something that even now he won't say a word about, not even to me- I'm his Secretary of Communications, for god's sake, when I'm not helping running this freak show, and he's still blocking me out!" Plutarch's hands waved wildly in the air. "I'm just trying to-"
"-Create chaos?!" Seneca screamed. "Kill people? A rebellion won't just stop Snow, it'll destroy everything!"
"No, that's precisely what we've always been told to-"
"No, it's the truth, because I'm not just some idealistic techie, Plutarch goddamn Heavensbee, I'm the Head fucking Gamemaker and I know a hell of a lot more than you think I do!" Seneca snarled at him, bunching his painful fist again. This time Plutarch tried to block him but Seneca was younger and faster and he punched Plutarch this time in the nose, smelling the heady iron of blood as he connected hard with it. Plutarch fell back and hit the ground hard, and Seneca stood over him with a bloodied fist and eyes lit with fury.
"You know what? Snow's not going to live forever. Panem's not going to survive forever. But trying to encourage chaos to break it apart quicker? All you're doing is killing people. Maybe the Districts would rise up, maybe the Capitol would rise up, but you know that would do? What usually happens when people without guns go up against people with guns. The Dark Days aren't just propaganda, Plutarch. The Dark Days happened. People died in their hundreds of thousands. And what kind of twisted god do you think you are, playing with children's lives for your own agenda?"
Plutarch looked up then. "So what are you doing with those children's lives?" He managed, pointing upwards to the arena above them. Seneca's mouth shut with an audible click.
Not for the first time, he was reminded just how much he had never wanted to be Head Gamemaker.
Seneca walked to the door, flipped the lock and watched as Lexus jolted forward from the sudden lack of resistance at the door. He pushed past Lexus, pointedly ignoring both his questioning and Josiah's horrified gaze on his bloody fist. Explanations would come later.
"Officer Fitzgerald," Seneca snapped to the uniformed officer at her post in the Pit. "Requisition a hovercraft back to the Capitol for Deputy Head Gamemaker Heavensbee. He ran into a wall, and requires a medevac back to the city."
Officer Fitzgerald looked from Seneca's face to his balled, bloodied fist. She halted, and Seneca stared her down as her hand hovered above the control panel.
"That's an order, Officer." His voice was smooth as silk and sharp as steel.
Officer Fitzgerald paused a moment longer, before flicking a few command prompts on her control panel and putting her hand to the transmitter in her ear.
"Border-Niner, this is Alpha-Charlie-Seven-Six, requesting medevac. Over."
She paused a moment. "Roger. Wait one-half." She looked up to Seneca sharply. "Injuries?"
Seneca clenched and unclenched his fist weakly. "Broken nose. Maybe other injuries. I don't know."
The officer turned back. "Border-Niner-"
Seneca turned around and walked back down into the bottom centre of the Gamemaker's pit, this time alone and with a throbbing and bloody hand. He turned, observing the screens of the fire, the wary team behind him.
Lexus was the first to break the silence.
"Seneca," he said, "You okay?"
Seneca blinked slowly. He flexed his hand, hissed in pain, and turned slowly to the Gamemakers.
"Well," he said, "Let's work."
Josiah, unusually, seemed as concerned as Lexus, and united in it. "You sure? We could-"
"-No," Seneca snapped, before realising his countenance had tipped him onto the knife-edge of anger. He felt like he was on the brink of the end of the civilisation he knew. He couldn't let everything he had ever known slip between his fingers, like sand in an hourglass.
"No," he managed again, trying to salvage what he could. "Quint and Glace are in the mansion, right?"
"Right."
"Okay." He sighed. "Okay. Let's get what we can on camera, and try to prevent the destruction of the central column if we possibly can. Get to work."
The Pit buzzed to life around him. Seneca tried to flex his hand again and found he barely could. He wondered if he had broken something.
An inferno raged on the screens in front of him, and raged for real above a trench of concrete above his head.
I've been around and about all week now, and will be tomorrow too- and the day after. So I edited and broke up part of the big chapter that didn't tonally fit with the rest and put it here instead, so you're not waiting all week for a new chapter.
And you know what? I've just passed, if I'm correct, the 100K barrier with this chapter. Woah. That's way loads, and yet people are still here and reading. Thank you so much, guys- I promise, this won't hit more than 120K. ;)
Next one is the next big chapter- unless a miracle happens it won't be uploaded tomorrow as I'm in Westminster again.
But as ever, thank you for reading this far.