Big Bang

"Cover!"

"Five, four, three, two, one . . . "

Oommph. The silent blast rumbled deep in the earth beneath us. Time held its breath as we waited for . . .

AWHAM! BIP! BIP! BIP! BIP! BIP! The sound came seconds later, then an aftershock and a blast of hot air. Shine stood, watching the blast and feeling the aftershock he had caused.

Actually, Groves had caused this one. Shine set it up, but he let Groves push the small yellow button that remotely detonated the ammo demolition. At breakfast Shine had asked if anyone wanted to come and "blow off some steam" and Groves had volunteered.

My back was up against the lead-filled barrier. I had stopped writing so that the jolt wouldn't cause me to scratch my pen across the paper, but as soon as the aftershock was over I went back to making an inventory of the stuff we were taking below.

"Sarge! You should've seen that one!" Shine never got tired of disposing of old ordnance. This one had included a couple of unexploded bombs we had found on L5 and a bunch of ammo found in various residential units.

"Seen one big bang, you've seen them all." I didn't look up. I knew he would have an ecstatic gleam in his wide eyes behind his blast glasses.

"No way. That one went up thirty feet with first gray smoke, then white. Then the little stuff started going and there was this awesome streak that scythed up through the middle. Groves – wasn't it great?" He was laughing. Sometimes I worried about him.

"Amazing." I looked at Groves and our eyes met. He meant Shine's reaction, not the blast.

"So, ready to head back?" I grabbed my stuff and headed over to our jeep.

We drove over to the demolition site, packed up the debris then went back to the Base for more meetings.

Shine was still hyper on the ride back, but Groves was quiet. He was never much of a talker but lately he seemed to have completely clammed up. I hated that I was now wondering if he could be trusted. About two weeks ago he had gotten an urgent phone message letting him know that his newborn baby was in the hospital, getting tons of tests since something wasn't right. Of course, he'd been tense since then. Maybe he was just worried about his family and that was why he wanted to come blow some stuff up. But what if there was more to it than that? I didn't know much about District 7. Could someone there be threatening his child if he didn't do . . . something? I wished I had time to find out more about what was going on there.

And Shine. Clearly the guy was a little nuts about blowing things up - which worked out well for a boomer. He was good at his job, careful, methodical up until he went into ecstasy over the actual blast. And he was smart. He and Mercurius had invented a better remote detonator using a bunch of old Communicuffs. They had rigged up a way for one to trigger the other that could be fired by pushing a simple yellow button. Brighton had made them include a safety mechanism on it, but it was a good idea.

Now I was wondering why he was so manic today. He was another one I wasn't sure about. He was from District 1. They had always been cozy with the Capitol. Even though I had worked with him in GDU, I really didn't know much about his background, his family, why he had become a rebel. He spent his leaves in the Capitol. I knew that he loved to bet on anything and everything and was a mean poker player. Could he have gambling debts?

He'd been very disappointed that Paylor's media rep killed his idea of bringing the President out here to let her blow up some old ordnance. That had been one of the only highlights of a long and miserable meeting yesterday.

President Paylor's media lady, Mica Rutilus, had arrived Wednesday evening. Her short hair was stop sign red. We'd be going into the Nut on Friday and she seemed to think she would need to lecture us until then. We were just annoyingly talkative props whose suggestions weren't welcome.

"Any equipment needed for the mission will be taken in the day before, only necessities, nothing extra."

"Should we take our gear to basecamp or do you want it taken to L5?" I asked.

She paused and glared at me.

"Everything goes to L5. No soldier should be carrying anything once the president joins your squad, including guns."

"Sorry, it is squad policy to have control of our firearms at all times. We can carry them unloaded if you like, but we can't send them down ahead." I was trying not to enjoy tweaking her.

"Are you telling me that you are armed right now?"

"Yeah. But on base, firearms can be kept locked away. We just can't ever let them be out of our personal control."

"Alright, you may carry unloaded firearms as long as they stay in their holsters. You will all wear full blast gear and helmets. Now, as I was saying the equipment . . . ."

"We can't wear blast gear on the lifts." Across the table, Chervil hid his mouth behind his folded hands, but I could see his shoulders shaking.

"Excuse me?"

"Blast gear takes up a lot of space, especially for the boomers. There isn't room on the lifts." Marik in his blast gear would take up an entire lift by himself. I didn't mention that blast gear was uncomfortable and incredibly hot to wear all day. Our comfort wasn't high on her priority list.

"Full gear isn't needed then. Body armor will suffice, with helmets. The President will require . . ."

"She'll look like she is surrounded by robots if we all wear helmets." At this point, I was being obnoxious, just trying to help my squad stay awake. "I thought you said we were chosen for our district diversity. We don't look very diverse in helmets. Except for Marik." He looked at the table, suppressing a grin.

She didn't get my joke. I didn't think she knew about jokes.

"I will let you know when and if we need diversity, otherwise - helmets."

"Is the President going to get to do anything fun?" Shine jumped in, apparently heartened by the fact that I had survived.

"Fun?" I thought she might need a dictionary for that one.

"We saved an ammo blow for her."

"The President's schedule does not permit any additions. Now, as I was saying, your normal gray uniforms are unacceptable. I want everyone in the black body armor. I will be going below with you to ensure . . ."

No detail was left unturned.

The meeting went on for 4 hours. The headache I had gotten two days ago was building again. We went over every step the President would make. By the end I strongly suspected that Mercurius had found a way to sleep with his eyes open. Meanwhile, I had been hoping to get a phone call in to Katniss, to at least let her know I had gotten in to District 2. No chance.

Then as we were leaving, Rutilus called me back – "Hawthorne, a word." I watched enviously as the rest of the squad left. "Your helmet stays on whenever the cameras roll."

"Excuse me?"

"This mission is to spotlight the President. We do not need to clutter the message by having a recognizable face visible."

"Fine. Look, if that is why you want helmets, just have me wear one. The President will look more human if she is with real soldiers and not helmeted automatons."

"You and one other."

"Who?" Was anyone else on the squad recognizable?

"It doesn't matter. It'll look better to have 2 soldiers in helmets instead of one. But not any of the obvious Capitol types. We need to show that they're part of this effort."

Instead of going straight back to the barracks I stopped by the kitchen to grab some coffee. Tonight I needed to go over the security files buried deep in the stack of reading the Captain had handed me.

Beetee was just leaving with a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. "You're back," he said when he saw me. At first I thought I had startled him, but then I realized he was just wide-eyed and wired from too much coffee or too much nervous energy, something.

"Yep, just in time for all of the fun," I answered.

Beetee ran his fingers through his hair. "Be careful down there," he said as he took off down the hall. I sighed, hating all this vague worrying stuff.

On the way back to the barracks I saw Mercurius walking ahead of me. Wherever he had been he hadn't gone straight back after the meeting either.

"Taking a midnight stroll?" I asked.

"Just tried to visit somebody," he said. "Not in."

"Lady friend?"

"Several of them." Yeah, sure. There weren't very many women on base and he had a dejected air about him.

"Anything to report from Nick's?"

"There is a cook from 8. He told me about Paylor's bodyguards, the two who're probably coming with her into the Nut."

"What are their names?"

"In 8 they called them 'Tweedle Mean and Tweedle Mum.' Their real names are Horrock and Batton."

"Yeah, those are the two listed. They must be her regular bodyguards."

"More than that. They've been with her forever. Tweedle Mean, Lea Horrock, is a huge lady, fanatically devoted to Paylor. Now she is her Chief of Staff, but she still acts as a bodyguard because she won't trust anyone else with the job. Tweedle Mum, Hank Batton, is a small guy, but tougher than nails."

"Thanks for the heads up. Anything else?"

"It might be a bit personal, but . . . ." He'd never seemed to care much about other people's privacy before. "Chervil's been spending a lot of time over there, drinking a fair bit."

"Anything bothering him?"

"Not that I know about."

"Thanks for letting me know. Keep an eye on him, okay?"

"I'm your spy. Not a nursemaid." He didn't know I was looking for spies. He was kidding around, but it threw me. To be honest, I didn't trust him. I had trouble looking beyond the fact that he was from the Capitol. And he was a bit too slick for his own good.

Classified documents shouldn't have been so boring. I was struggling to stay awake as I poured through the same forms I'd filled out to get clearance. There wasn't much new in them. And there wasn't any sign that anyone had verified any of the information.

There were some interesting tidbits buried in the dross. Walker's forms were thoroughly and carefully filled out. He had been part of an elite group of young soldiers chosen for an advanced training program. He was very bright and motivated. But he had been nominated by Commander Coin herself. What did he think about her assassination? He'd never said anything to me, but that was hardly surprising.

Chervil's file was small. I guess filling out forms and paperwork hadn't been a priority in the underground. But most of the other files had sections completed by former supervising officers. It seemed that only one of Chervil's supervisors had been found. Did that mean all the rest of them were dead? Or that he hadn't been supervised? Or that he hadn't given their names so that they couldn't be tracked down?

I expected Mercurius's file to be more interesting, too. With his mouth and his interest in paraphernalia from the Capitol I was amazed that his record was as clean as it was. Had he just never gotten caught? Or had someone scrubbed his records?

I hated being suspicious like this.

I finally gave up around 3 a.m. I had one more night to look at the rest.

The next day when we got back from the ammo blow I sent Shine to turn in all the paperwork while Asher and I checked the equipment that was going down into the Nut. It wouldn't look good for Paylor to be surrounded by soldiers carrying tons of equipment while she carried nothing. But they didn't want to make her carry anything. So we had to make an extra trip into the Nut to take all our equipment down ahead of time. This garbage drove me crazy.

Asher, Walker, Redstone and Shine took our stuff to the Nut. What with clearing security and going all the way down to L5 and back it would take them most of the day, but for once they weren't complaining. The rest of the squad and I went off to another marathon meeting.

Why we all had to be there I had no idea. Rutilus briefed us on the layout of the Nut. Who did she think had updated the map her assistant was pointing to on the wall? I rolled my eyes at Captain Brighton, who had to join us for all of the meetings, but he just shook his head. There were so many better ways to spend this time.

She also covered the other personnel who would be joining us, but Mercurius had given me more useful information on them than she did in one tenth the time.

Dinner was a welcome break. Unfortunately, it was just a break. We had to go back for more briefing afterwards. Rutilus had wanted to just have food sent in but, thankfully, Brighton had intervened.

I ate quickly so that I could squeeze in a phone call before heading back. I wasn't the only one with this plan. Nearly the entire squad lined up to use the phone. The group that had been over to the Nut had gotten done before we did so they were in the front of the line.

Asher was already on the phone. I wondered who he was talking to. Something about his expression said it was a girl. I couldn't remember him talking about anyone special lately. He'd turned out to be a good choice as Assistant Squad Leader and when I left at the end of the month, he'd take over as Leader. He seemed pretty loyal to Paylor, although he hadn't actually known her back in 8. I still had to look over his file and see if he had any baggage I didn't know about.

Walker was leaning on the wall, next in line. I looked around for Redstone. He wasn't there. There was nothing suspicious about not wanting to make a phone call. I knew his family still lived in 2. He went home to see them whenever he had a leave. He had his issues with Onyx, and he had fought for the Capitol, but his change of heart seemed genuine to me. Shine wasn't around either, but he never called his family.

Marik was next to me in line. He would be calling his mom and grandpa in 4. Out of the whole squad he was the only one I trusted completely. It was partly because we had worked together for more than a year and a half now. Partly because he was an incredibly decent guy. I looked over at him. His face was screwed up into a puzzled frown.

"Walker? Is that smell you? You smell like . . . moonshine." Marik was right. Something around here reeked of Haymitch.

"Yeah, all of us stink. The guys at security on the way out of the Nut gave us hell."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Little Miss Don't-Take-Anything-You-Don't-Need, what's her name, Rutilus, had a bottle of some sort of homemade booze in her bags. A glass bottle. When I threw her bag down in the office it broke and got all over everything. We cleaned it up as much as we could, but that was strong stuff."

Great. She was the kind who liked to make rules for others to follow, but couldn't be bothered with them herself. There was nothing I could do about it. She wasn't Army; she didn't work for me.

Just then Mercurius came up. Mercurius's face was pale, almost green. "I'm not feeling too good," he said.

Doc was just behind me in line. He perked up. "Hey, I'll take him over to the clinic to get checked. Might be a couple of hours."

"Sure. Let me know what you find out. I'll you know if anything important happens in another few hours of meetings."

Finally, I got my turn on the phone. And I got to listen to it ring and ring and ring. Where could they be? There was always someone hanging around in Annie's house. Katniss might be out in the woods - I had reminded her to check the snares - but where was everyone else?

Back in the meeting room I kept running through places Katniss could be where she wouldn't hear the phone. They wouldn't go into town on a random night when Davy and Jonah had to work the next day. Maybe they were swimming. I wished I was. I couldn't shake the feeling that my whole visit to District 4 hadn't really happened; it was just some happy hallucination. Had I really been swimming and hunting and kissing Katniss just two days ago?

Doc came in at some point and slipped me a note: "Mild food poisoning. Sent him to barracks to lie down. Should be fine by tomorrow." All I could do was be jealous of Mercurius that he'd gotten out of this meeting. At least when I was badgering Rutilus earlier it had kept me awake. I looked around the table; almost everyone was in a stupor. Brighton was filling out some sort of paperwork, not even bothering to try to look like he was listening.

As Rutilus went over emergency procedures for the Nut, again, she suddenly paused and stared at her Communicuff. "Excuse me. It's the president. I need to take this."

A couple of minutes later she returned and said "I'm sorry, but I have some business that I need to take care of for the President. Go through the notes I've given you and I'll meet you all tomorrow at 8 a.m. to go over to the Nut."

It was all I could do to suppress a cheer. Freedom! Well, sort of. Anyway, I could try to call District 4 again and maybe get some decent sleep tonight. Everyone else headed back to the barracks.

There was another line at the phone. There usually was. I was leaning on the wall, half-way asleep when Walker called from the end of the hall "Sarge, come quick. There's a fight in the barracks."

We sprinted over. As I walked in I could tell that the fight was over, for now. Marik was standing in the middle of the room, separating the two warring parties. Chervil and Shine were talking to Mercurius, who they had backed up into a wall. He wasn't protesting too much, but his face was hard and his fists were still clenched. His lip was also bleeding.

The surprise was that Asher and Groves were wrestling with Redstone, but they couldn't get a good grip on his arms. He wouldn't stop thrashing, still wanting to have another go at Mercurius. He already looked like he was going to have a shiner. He was insane if he thought he could take Mercurius on, even if Mercurius was sick.

"Redstone, Asher, Groves, in my quarters," I said. "Nobody else leaves. Where's Doc?"

"Went to get some ice packs."

"Are you nuts?" I asked Redstone, who had finally stopped struggling and was sitting on my bed with his head in his hands.

"He was going through my stuff. I walked in and saw him digging in my trunk."

"Obnoxious. But you thought you'd handle it by attacking him? That's crazy." Redstone wasn't usually a hot head. I couldn't help wondering what he had in his trunk that had him so wound up.

I talked to Asher and Groves and they pretty much agreed with Redstone.

"Need an icepack in here?" Doc asked, peeking in.

I nodded. "Go get your ice. Send the other three in."

I wanted to talk to all three of them too, both to keep them out of the barracks with Redstone for a bit and to see if they backed up Mercurius.

Mercurius leaned up against the wall, arms crossed. He had refused an icepack for his lip. Chervil and Shine lined up next to him.

"So were you going through his trunk?"

"Yes."

I waited for him to continue on his own, then glared at him and asked "Why?"

"I was looking for my magazines. Someone took them."

"Any reason to think it was Redstone?" Redstone had never shown any interest in Mercurius's smutty magazines. Wasn't Shine paying attention enough to know that Redstone wasn't into that kind of thing?

"Not particularly. I just glanced in there to see if they were on top."

At that point, Chervil cleared his throat. "I . . . um . . . I borrowed the magazines."

"Great. So what happened when Redstone came in?"

"He went nuts. Started cursing at me, then he slugged me. Look, I could have hurt him way worse than I did, but I didn't. He's usually a good kid. Why couldn't he just have talked to me?"

"Because he thought you were going through his stuff." Mercurius knew that everyone was a bit protective about their trunks. Maybe because there was not a lot of privacy in the barracks.

I studied him. He was right that he could have taken Redstone apart but didn't.

"Are you feeling better now?" I couldn't get over the feeling that his brief illness had been very convenient.

"I was, until I was attacked." I must have looked skeptical; he gave me a wide-eyed innocent stare. "Ask Doc or the nurses in medical, I was really sick. It just didn't last long."

"You can go back in the barracks. I'll let you know what your punishment will be in a few minutes."

The other two left, but Mercurius turned back around. He looked me straight in the eyes, almost as though he was trying to tell me something without saying it out loud. "I need to go on the mission tomorrow. Ask Brighton if you aren't sure." Then he went into the barracks.

I sat down on my bed, closed my eyes and tried to think. There were at least two questions here. The easy one was what was fair. I couldn't let them get away with fighting within the squad, but no one had been seriously hurt and neither of them was being a complete jerk. Usually trading their next weekend liberty for KP would be enough. Mercurius used to enjoy Kitchen Patrol, but since the one cute young cook had been transferred it had lost its appeal. A weekend peeling potatoes and washing pots should make the point.

But the other question was whether I wanted them to come on the mission, whether I trusted them. That might not have been fair, but with President Paylor there, the stakes were much higher than usual. Mercurius seemed to understand that.

I decided just KP for both of them. My vague prejudice against Capitol types wasn't enough to justify making Mercurius stay up. I sent Brighton a message regarding my decision and if he had strong objections I could change my mind later, but I didn't want to leave them hanging.

I didn't hear back from Brighton so the next morning, after a lot of introductions to the president and her "bodyguards," we all went over to the Nut. Security was cleared remarkably quickly, partly because we had already sent all of our equipment in and partly out of respect for the president. They did verify that all of our guns were unloaded. As requested, I wore a helmet. So did Redstone, which also covered his black eye.

Everything seemed fine until we got to the entrance of the Nut. Without thinking, I stopped. I did not want to go back in there. I'd thought my time away from the Nut would make it easier to handle going down into the lower levels when I got back. Instead I felt a physical revulsion to the whole place.

"Is there a problem, Soldier?" It was Tweedle Mean, Lea Horrock. She was right behind me, waiting to get in. She was almost as tall as me, dressed in some sort of blue bodyguard uniform and she seemed to be working to suppress a smirk.

"No problem," I said and forced myself to keep walking.

The plan was to go down the elevators in two large groups, then split into three groups for the smaller lifts. I'd be with the first group: Shine, Delmar and Asher. We took one fewer person since Delmar counted as at least two, but once we were down he could operate the lift for the rest of them. The next group would be President Paylor, Tweedle Mean and Tweedle Mum - excuse me, Horrock and Batton - Mercurius and Redstone. I had a flash of concern about having Mercurius and Redstone together. But being with the president should make them forget their quarrel at least long enough for an elevator ride. The final group was Rutilus, Doc, Chervil, Walker and Groves.

I found myself waiting in front of the elevator door with sweat running down my back. My stomach turned. I didn't want to get into that elevator; I didn't want to go down there.

I looked around, trying to think of a reason to stay up, to go down with one of the other groups. Tweedle Mean was standing in the front of the next group. Since I had a helmet on, she couldn't see my eyes, but she seemed to know the elevator was getting to me.

For a wild moment I wanted to slug the witch. What did she know about elevators, lifts, mines and darkness? The door opened and I made a point of marching straight in, just to show her that I didn't care, that I could do it. I spent the whole trip with my eyes closed, forcing myself to think of the ocean.

When it was time to get onto the lifts I felt Horrock's eyes on me again. I entertained a quick fantasy about ditching her somewhere in a dark corner of L6, and again I went purposefully onto the lift. Then I closed my eyes and tried to remember the smell of salt water.

We were almost down when Asher asked "Sarge, do you smell gunpowder?"

I took off the helmet. "I might."

"We don't have any equipment with us and our guns aren't loaded. Where would that smell come from?" We all started looking around.

Then I noticed that Shine, who was in the front middle, wasn't looking around. He was frozen, staring directly ahead of himself into the door. We'd almost reached the bottom. My heart was pounding. Something wasn't right.

"When we get out I want everybody to line up, at attention." They all did as I told them. "Weapons." I demanded. I set down my helmet, went down the line and verified that each gun was unloaded. As soon as I was done checking Marik's I sent him over to the lift. Luckily I trusted him enough to let him out of my sight since he had to operate the lift.

None of the guns smelled very strongly of gunpowder. In fact, out of the closed space of the lift I wasn't even sure that I smelled it any more.

"Do you still smell it, Asher?" My eyes kept going back to Shine. He stood rigidly.

"No, Sarge. Not now." They were waiting for me to tell them at ease, but I didn't. I heard the lift being loaded above. The president would be in this group. It would be fairly easy to fake an accident on one of these old lifts. Why were the Capitol goons all worried about who should wear helmets and sending equipment down early, but fine with letting her ride in a death trap?

The air reeked of stale coal dust. The corridor was silent as I stood at attention myself, trying to decide what to do.

I walked around the two who were standing there with their hands straight at their sides.

The lift began to squeal and creak as it started its journey downward.

I stood behind Shine, trying to figure out what it was about the way he was acting that bothered me so much. I could almost see the tension radiating from his shoulders. His right hand flexed slightly at his side and I saw a brief flash of yellow. Without thinking, I grabbed his arm and yanked it back.

On the inside of his wrist, was a yellow detonator button.

Shine whipped around, but I didn't let go. His madly wide eyes confirmed my suspicion. Wherever the detonator's bomb was, I'd found our traitor. And given Shine's fighting skill I was - we all were - in big trouble.

"Asher! Help me!" I called. Asher was still facing straight ahead, at attention. He wheeled around and looked completely confused to see us struggling.

"Detonator on wrist," I grunted. Shine was strong. He was trying to bring his other hand around to hit the detonator. He didn't seem to have realized yet that he only had to hit it on anything.

Asher didn't pick up on that either. He grabbed Shine's other hand and held onto it. That left me free to clutch his right hand with both of my hands. I wanted to force his arm up into the air. I only had to hold on for a few minutes, just until the lift was down, and I could hear it approaching. I flipped around, turned my back to Shine and began to force his arm up, up where there was nothing he could smash his wrist into. He bit my shoulder; he was struggling insanely, but I didn't loosen my grip. Then just as I thought I might have it made, he realized what I had known before. He stopped fighting against me and instead smashed his wrist, up, right into my face.

There was a small pop, like a low-powered fire-cracker, like a small bit of explosive tape around a lift cable; then a scream, lots of screams. The lift hit bottom with a crash, but it had been almost down. They hadn't fallen far, just enough to scare everyone inside.

"Clear the lift!" I yelled at Asher who raced over to help them. I hadn't let go of Shine. I wasn't letting this bastard get away. I saw the President being hurried off of the lift. Marik detached himself from the lift rope and came over towards me, his . . . .

KABAMM!

My last thought was "I am not going to die in a coal mine."

Thanks for all your help, IrishLuck19. This bonus update is due to her extra efforts this week.

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