My stylist's name is Valencia. A top-heavy woman with bouncing brown curls piled high around her head, the make-up she applies makes her eyes seem to appear out of clusters of stars. Her skin is the loveliest shade of ivory I've ever seen on someone. So many people back home have been burned or maimed in the factories that almost none is scar-less.
When we descended from the train sometime around midday the next morning, Rig and I were ushered by Pallas into an elevator, and propelled upward to the sixth floor of the Training Center. There, a whole team was waiting to transform us from members of the poor District rabble to true Tributes of the Capitol.
Valencia is assisted by two other stylists, an Avox named Tullia and a man, Theo. Tullia buffs my nails as her partner finishes waxing all the hair from my legs. He doesn't have much else to remove-the hair on my arms has been burned off from working around open flames and scalding steam.
I wonder how Rig is getting along, and what he's been subjected to by his own team. I hope they're working the miracles I've seen performed on myself, as he's getting ready for the most spectacular suicide in history.
His face flashes in my mind, angular, with messy brown hair. The determined look in his eyes when he said he was going to take care of the death part himself.
Pallas hasn't talked to him since last night on the train. I think he's disturbed as much as he is frustrated. I didn't even see him give Rig instructions before he was taken off to the stylists. What advice do you give to someone who isn't going to fight?
Torch and Singe seem to know something is wrong with him. I saw Torch watching Rig plaintively this morning at breakfast, and Singe patted his hand as she walked by the table. (She doesn't eat much.)
I'm a little wary of what Valencia has in store for me; I've seen the absurd costumes that are popular in the Capitol, and the even stranger getups that the tributes are placed in for the interviews and chariot ride. District Six is hard to design for, I imagine. Transportation. A lot of the tributes have been lit up with headlights, or strapped into metal contraptions resembling shells of vehicles.
Beauty Base One looks like me on a very good day, perhaps having just gotten out of bed. Tullia's made my skin clearer by applying a kind of salve that shrunk the blemishes on my jawline, and polished the drier parts of my cheeks. My face is more open, now, my eyebrows shaped by plucking.
Valencia clicks into the room atop her porcelain colored heels. Behind me, in the mirror, she smiles radiantly, dark eyes crinkling. She's a popular stylist in the Games, mostly because of her beauty rather than her contestants'. Her voice is smooth when she asks me, "How much are you willing to lose?"
The question stumps me. Willing? I'm pretty much going to lose just about everything. It's not my choice. Then it dawns on me that she's referring to my hair.
"Oh." I sound like I don't care. I really don't, though. "However much."
Her mouth quirks to one side. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
I feel the locks of hair fall against my shoulders on their way to the ground. In no time at all, my scalp is lighter, and I have the sensation of having become more aerodynamic. Although I've been staring at my reflection, I haven't been seeing-my vision comes into focus with snips of Valencia's scissors.
The Chrome that looks back at me doesn't come from the District Six I know. She hails from some other, dreamlike Six that the Capitol wants to promote, romanticize. My oval face is framed by long pieces of hair that point just below my chin, with a thick fringe covering my forehead, highlighting the new eyebrows Tullia created. The rest has been chopped off at the nape of my neck, giving me a helmet of sleek, brassy-brown hair that pays homage to my normal bob.
Valencia sprays my head with a long can of something metallic, and I look like I've been caught in a shower of golden rain.
A highly uncomfortable dinner follows my remaking. We have a floor to ourselves, which equates to a suite including a dining room, television area, and rooms for every member of our team. I arrive to the dining area having been proceeded by our mentors, Pallas, Rig, Valencia, and a blue-haired man that sits next to her.
"Chrome, dear," she calls out to me as I sit down-we're at a long wooden table lit by candles and covered in rose petals. "This is Numen, my partner. He's styling Rig."
Numen nods to me, and I see pearly flakes sheen where they're inlaid at the corners of his eyes. Reflexively, I check Rig's appearance, as if they might have done the same to him. None such changes. He looks up at me and away, displeased at my scrutiny. His hair has been gelled into a spikey plume.
Valencia and Numen exchange small smiles.
Various delicacies sit before us, spread out in what would be more than four courses at home. Although I'm intrigued by some of the desserts, most of the entrees scare me with their alieness, and I stick to what I recognize.
Across the table, Singe plays with a skewer, drawing designs on her plate with something Torch calls a strawberry, which she dips in a pot of melted chocolate. It's the first time our male mentor speaks, and it startles me to hear how feeble his voice sounds. He must remember the fruit for some special reason to break his silence.
Pallas sees my expression, and leans over on my left, saying quietly, "He survived in the arena for three weeks eating only strawberries and dandelion greens. There was no animal life in the Games that year."
My interest in the bright red food immediately wanes.
However, the dinner seems to enliven Singe and Torch in a way that breakfast and lunch couldn't. Perhaps their systems wake up with the ingestion of so much rich food to absorb the morphling. Singe begins to hum loudly to herself around six o'clock. I don't recognize the tune, but find it oddly pleasant.
The other tributes must be talking strategy right now. Planning how to hook sponsors and the best way to survive the free-for-all at the Cornucopia in a few days' time.
Meanwhile, here we sit, our drug-addled Mentors humming away, with an escort that won't even look at one of us. The boy sitting to my right is going to kill himself.
And I don't have any clear notion at all what to do to keep myself alive once I'm on my own...
The tributes from other districts will have all kinds of advantages on me. They'll have grown up fishing, or hunting possibly. Districts One, Two, and Four have trained for this their entire lives and will know how to manipulate weapons. The tribute from Seven years ago was a deadly axe thrower, thanks to growing up in the Lumber district. Some will have had survival training.
There are three days of training provided for us, before the Games. There we can show what we're capable of, or hide those qualities if that is our strategy (sometimes it pays to keep the other tributes in the dark about your skills). I drift off into my own thoughts, hearing utensils clink against plates every so often. Do I have any abilities?
Any useful abilities, is the real question.
I start with the factory. What I do every day to make money-they wouldn't pay me anything if I wasn't any good. I can stain wood-great. Heat metal enough to bend it-doubtful in handiness.
I can mold things to cast in metal: useless. I can design graceful lines to accent the curve of a train cab. Terrible. I can make wheels that are so delicate they seem to shiver with lack of integrity.
My chair screeches. Stupid. I'm standing at my place setting, shaking my head in consternation. I sense the looks on the faces of the people around me as they try and place my outburst. They must think I'm insane. Maybe Pallas understands, but I doubt he does completely. I have absolutely no practical skills at my disposal. There's no way I can learn enough during training to keep me alive.
I was right, on the train. I'm going to die.
I leave the table, walk down to my room, and lock the door. The bed is covered in a goose-down comforter, stacked with pillows in shades of pale green and rose. The rest of the room is white, all plush rugs and plump cushions. Furniture is unused and shiny.
I wonder if they change it out every year. Brand new amenities for brand new tributes. If I don't touch any of it, maybe they can use it again.
The silkiness of my hair occupies me. I twirl it in and out of my fingers, stroking the smooth strands. They gave me a haircut just so they could watch me die in it. I'll be a beautiful sacrifice, at least. I trace the newly unblemished line of my jaw, thinking of how I've never looked prettier than I do today. I won't even get to die as someone my friends and family recognize…
My gaze fixes on the hand that plays with my hair.
Another finely manicured set of fingers lay on my pillow. Tullia glued on acrylic nails when she saw how I'd bitten mine down so ruthlessly. The tips are painted titanium white, giving them an immaculate finish.
Incensed, I lift a nail to my mouth and try to pry it off with my teeth with painful results. I attempt it with a second nail for good measure, but it hurts too much. Defeated, I return to my original position until another idea comes to me. I hop off the bed, almost skipping to my bathroom. I rip open a cabinet contained in the mirror, finding what I'm hoping for.
For the next half hour, I methodically soak my nails in polish remover until the glue dissolves, and shimmy and pick each false nail from my real ones.
"I can't believe you've undone all of Tullia's hard work!" Valencia scolds me, inspecting my hand in her own. She pouts. "And it would be unhealthy to fix them, now."
"I would have had to remove them before I went into the arena anyway," I tell her. "At least these look like me."
She's turned away from me in frustration, and does an about face then, studying me. "We aren't going for a 'you' look," she says. "We're trying to intimidate. To create you into something more than just 'you'." She steps forward, taking my hand again, but gentler. Her dark eyes are actually a deep blue, I notice. And presently, they're stricken-looking.
"You're best chance of staying alive is making an impression. Whatever you're demeanor says to your competitors, makes a difference in how they will approach you."
This stirs a thought. "What is Numen doing to Rig?" I ask.
Valencia leads me over to a corner of the dressing room and pulls aside a curtain, revealing my outfit for tonight. "You won't exactly be matching; but you'll be complimentary."
I'm not sure how to judge the thing before me. It takes me a moment to see what it reminds me of...a stewardess dress. It could just as easily be an improvement as well as a step down from our district's previous costumes. I look at my stylist, and want to know how such an impeccably-dressed woman could manufacture such a monstrosity.
"Don't look so perturbed. It won't look as kitschy on as it does on the hanger. I had Tullia try it on." She takes the dress down, and motions impatiently for me to undress. Poor Tullia. And what does 'complimentary' mean for Rig? I reluctantly slip into the dress, which feels alarmingly comfortable, and she zips me up.
Valencia takes a breath, and pushes me towards a long mirror. "Now, what we're going for, is ladylike." As I catch sight of my reflection, she continues. "I know the stewardess thing is a bit dated, but I needed womanly. Smart, but feminine."
My toes swish beneath the delicate fabric that skims them. It's a cream sheath, enclosing my body in skin-tight pleats that fishtail out just below the knees. I consider it. It does look womanly. I look womanly. The collar of the dress sweeps along my collarbone, accenting my slim neck, and my face looks like a moon dusted by the shimmering powder she applied earlier.
What makes it look so like a stewardess is the row of buttons that runs down my front, just over my heart all the way to where the dress billows out. The sweep of the neckline is created by a fold in the fabric, like an abnormally large collar wrapping around my shoulders.
My stylist eyes me approvingly, and just a little bit smugly, now that she can tell I'm not completely put off by her design. "We'll put your hair up, and we'll be done. Well, except for those nails." She clicks her tongue, waving me away from the mirror and beckoning me back to the prep chair.
Rig awaits me in the lower level of the Training Center, standing at attention in the chariot we'll be paraded around City Circle in. I catch myself gazing at him as I step carefully into the base of the metal basket. He's almost blinding with the ceiling lights above and behind him pushing his silhouette forward.
As I study him, I begin to see how we complement each other. Whereas I am the lady chosen to augment your travel experience with my presence, he is the conductor, the man in charge of your welfare on your journey.
He wears a jacket that could have been fashioned from molten metal, the buttons from polished silver like one of the dining services Streak and I pilfer from the trashed train cars. His pants are cream like my dress, tucked into boots the grey shade of smoke. They match his eyes.
"All aboard," he says under his breath to me. "First chariot to glory and oblivion."
A suggestive pronouncement, one that, along with his new look, nudges me into the present, and the gathering storm we're riding into. I grip the rounded lip of our vehicle. Oblivion is right.
"You tore off your nails," he observes, surprised. I'm embarrassed, feeling suddenly like a small child found out doing something immature. The warmth of a blush creeps across my cheeks and nose. He's younger than you! I assure myself.
"Yes. I couldn't do anything with them on." I qualify anyway.
"Uh huh."
The eleven pairs of tributes take their places in line with us, and we observe the pairs from Five, Ten, and Four queue in front. A tall girl in a golden swimsuit, finished with a gauzy train gets into the chariot alongside the boy from Four. Her face is impassive, strong. The boy is comes only to her shoulder, but is stocky. They're careers, I remember.
I also remember the girl's face when Finnick Odair shook her hand, and how dizzy with excitement or dread she had appeared.
Trumpets blare, and the anthem is played before the first tributes start out of the holding area and into the street. There is a crowd of hundreds of thousands waiting for us. They'll be watching from balconies, and stands, and the huge screens set up in the Districts' town squares, the antique sets some people will have in their homes. My mother and brother, I think. Streak and Titania. What will they think of my transformation?
Right before Rig and I pull out into City Circle, Pallas runs over and gifts me with a handful of silk. At closer examination, I see two delicate wrist-length gloves—Valencia's solution to my bit of rebellion. I pull them on, sensing the familiar numbness seep into my bones with the roar of the audience. The horses begin to move without provocation and I curl my fingers over the rim of the chariot. For a split second, I glance up at Rig, and wish we weren't forbidden to touch; I want to hold someone's hand.
Instead, we steady ourselves the best we can as we are drawn into the startling light.