Katniss slept uneasy on the boat that had brought them to the island. Part of her missed the hovercrafts that would have gotten them to the island sooner, but Plutarch thought that a cruise to the island was more beneficial for the other Gamemakers. They had been at sea for almost a week. While most of the other Gamemakers fared the trip rather well. Katniss was glad to finally see land. She was tired of the constant sea sickness that she was overcome with.
"It will take us five hours by hovercraft to get the tributes here," He said gleefully as he pointed to the island from the deck of the ship as the Gamemakers.
"We can we depart for the island?" Katniss asked.
"Ah, our little wild one is tired of being confined to such small quarters.
"I will just be glad to have solid ground under me!" A small hover craft was parked on the deck of the ship when they arrived from breakfast.
"Over there is where we are setting up the control center," Faustus said as he pointed to a very tall cliff that dropped off to a very rocky seabed. "We will build the control center into the cliff, so that the tributes will have no idea where we are, and we will have a very nice view of the ocean! We can also use the cliff as the starting point of the games.
"Let's start there then!" Plutarch said. The pilot just nodded and took off in the direction of the cliff. Once they landed, and all of the Gamemakers got onto the ground, Faustus continued.
"So my plan was for the tubes to open up here." He said as he was pointing to the edge of the cliff. They will have only direction that they can run, he pointed into the forest behind him.
Katniss walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The fall was far enough to kill anything. Add the sharp rocks that looked up at her. A shutter ran through her body. Faustus was right; there was only one option for the tributes to go. Away from the cliff."
"May I explore alone?" Katniss asked in the direction of Plutarch.
"Here take this!" Plutarch said as he tossed a water bottle in her direction. "And Darius needs to stay with you at all times; I do not need you getting lost out there. He has a communications device that will alert us if you need help." Katniss just nodded. Darius was the Peacekeeper that had followed her everywhere since she was named to the Game Keepers. She really did not mind him. He reminded her of home. He was one of the few Peacekeepers that she liked back in District 12. He would flirt with her before she was picked to be a tribute two games ago. Since she returned from her games, his flirting had been kept to a minimum. He was the one that had told Peeta about the fence last year, which saved Gale from doing something stupid. For that she would always be grateful.
"So where are we going Catnip," He said using a nickname that she had picked up from Gale.
"I want to understand this arena, from my perspective."
"You can't save them all!"
"I know!"
He pulled a map from his pocket. "We are here," he said pointing to the mark on the map.
"So that would mean that they want to put the Cornucopia right at the tree line," She said pointing to the trees about 500 feet from where she was standing. She began to run to the tree line. Darius followed without a word. She stopped when she reached the tree line. A jungle of deep vegetation was in front of her.
"They are going to need a machete or something to get through this with ease. Just look how this is. How are we going to get through this?"
Did you really think they were going to have the game makers go through this by foot?" He said with a smile." I need a personal hovercraft for Gamemaker Everdeen please."
Within a few moments a small hovercraft was making its way from the ship and in their direction. Darius escorted her onto the small craft. "We can get a bird's eye view of the island this way. Katniss just nodded.
For days, Katniss spent as much time as she could in her personal hovercraft familiarizing herself with the island. She spent hours walking through the lush vegetation on the south part of the island. She feared that many of the tributes would be killed there. If they planned on getting out the jungle safely, they would need a machete or sword. In many places the vegetation was just too think to get though without cutting it back.
Once the tributes made it out of the jungle they would come to the mountains that isolated the western part of the island from the eastern. The mountains themselves were not much of a fight. They were an easy climb, a few steep cliffs and scattered vegetation. Most of the tributes would not bother with them. She hoped that none of the tributes would head west of the mountains. They blocked rainfall, and caused the western part of the island to be a barren dessert. Lava rocks scattered the landscape, a few rugged trees had sprung in various places. There were few places to hid, water was scares. The coastline was just one long cliff after another. If the tributes kept to the east of the mountains they would come to the abandoned town. The buildings reminded Katniss of the building near the lake near District 12.
North of the town was fertile fields. Katniss could tell that this was where the natives of the island grew rice, pineapple and sugar. The plants now grew wild and were unmanaged. It was here that she got an idea of the animals that lived on the island. Wild pigs, a few types of deer, wild cats, and birds were everywhere. They populations were rampant, which told her that there the cats and the pigs were probably the top of the food chain.
"We should get back to the other Gamekeepers," Darius said on the fourth day on the island. He had not complained when Katniss asked is they could camp out on the island, versus sleeping on the ship.
"Yeah, they will want an answer about what is going to be the most ideal of places to kill tributes."
The next morning Katniss met with the other Gamekeeper on a beautiful beach near the abandoned town. Katniss could not help but find the entire island extremely beautiful. Its natural beauty was not easily matched anywhere, not even her beautiful lake outside of District 12 did not compare to this island, that would become a death trap for 23 tributes.
She found herself at a table filled with beautiful fruits that were picked from the island. A pig was roasting over an open fire not far from the table. She took her seat besides Plutarch and Faustus.
"Well I hope that everyone has enjoyed their trip to paradise!" Plutarch said with a smile. Many of the women talked about how they spent their time sunbathing on the beaches near the pineapple fields. Others talked about the breathtaking snorkeling. It seemed odd that they would spend so much of their time here on this deserted island, almost as if it was a vacation for them."
"I think that this will become one of the Capital's favorite vacation spots after these games," Faustus said to the cheer of the other Gamemakers.
