They Just Fade Away
Chapter 2 DAMAGE CONTROL
Paula called the highest-ranking members of her team into her office and made sure the anti-surveillance machinery was working suitably.
"First," she said, "what will be the consequences if the current situation leaks out?" She stared at Dirce Tribonia, the legal expert.
Dirce looked uncomfortable. "There's no entry in the law code that exactly covers this, and no precedent. There IS the old military principle that if a guard lets a condemned man escape, the guard can be punished in his place and by the same method."
Sybil Cumming, the communications expert, looked puzzled. "Put us in the Hunger Games?"
"Maybe. Or they may decide that "Hunger" is the operative word and use death by starvation."
(NARRATOR'S NOTE: Dirce's analysis is apparently accurate, since this principle was applied to Seneca Crane after the 74th Games)
"We're saying "us", said Sybilt. "Will it really be us, or just – " she glanced at Paula.
"If I'm condemned, I will try to take people with me," said Paula. "Particularly those I think were insufficiently helpful." She looked out at the dismayed expressions of the others. "Let's look at this another way. How can we create the illusion that nothing is wrong and that this is a normal Games? We can't just say that the seven died during the blackout. The President ruled that out. He wants footage."
"We've got lots of footage from 59 years of hunger games," said Sybil . "Substitute it in-"
"Viewers will be able to tell it's different people," said Luke Livio, the archivist. "Their fellow district citizens will know what their tributes look like, even if nobody else does."
"Fuzzy up the film," said Sybil..
"We can't," said Paula. "Our job is to provide the spectacle of the Games. Not fuzzied-up spectacle."
"Given time, we can use some CGI and make the historical images look like the currently missing people."
"Do we have a list of the missing ones?" asked Dirce.
"Yes," said Luke. "I've got the names, and their pictures should be easy to obtain." He punched some buttons and caused a 3D list to appear in the middle of the table.
Robb Seldon, District 3 male
James Calvin District 5 male
Millie Sandy Bailey, District 6 female
Peter Marlowe, District 8 male
Callie Harding District 8 female
Lee Anna Darell, District 11 female
Catelyn Palver, District 12 female
"Hmmm", hummed Sybil. "No Careers."
"Do you think that's relevant?" said Dirce.
"It might be. Suppose the missing tributes had some choice in the matter? A Career would probably opt to stay in the arena and aim for the glory of winning. Somebody else might simply want out of the Games."
"I'll better get images of all 17," said Sybil. "Fake 7 fights with the appropriate faces on the winner and "loser"."
"We're missing something," said Luke "Faking images won't cut it. We're supposed to ship bodies back to the Districts in coffins. And we're short seven bodies."
"We can ship something else, as long as they don't open the coffins," said Paula. "Which districts have open-coffin funeral customs?"
"I can look it up," said Dirce.
"And if a District has an open-coffin custom," said Sybil, "maybe we can persuade the mentor to prevent the opening."
"Prevent how?" asked Paula.
"Give them an advantage in next year's Games."
"Or maybe we can devise an excuse not to send the bodies," said Aphrodite Anderson. "Like, set the morgue on fire."
"Aaaarrggh!" shouted Dirce. "Everything that we propose just gets her deeper in trouble. Rigging the games, and arson? Why don't we just solve the disappearance, and give Snow the problem and the solution at the same time?"
The participants stared at each other.
"Oh," said Aphrodite. "I never thought of that."
TO BE CONTINUED
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Since I'm terrible at names, I took the tributes' last names from Asimov's future history and the first names from GAME OF THRONES.)