Day three: time to show them what I'm capable of.
…Nothing.
I almost laugh at the absurdity. Pallas meets with me this morning before I go down to the Training Center.
"You don't seem to have any discernible talent, do you?" he says, cutting to the chase. "I suppose we should have spoken before now, then." His sarcasm offends me, but I inwardly concede that neither Rig nor I have behaved very cooperatively.
I glare at his whitened eyebrows and lashes, try to think of an insult about what talent he could possibly have that isn't related to pulling slips of paper out of fish bowls. "I have been able to talk to Rig, though."
"Seriously?" I'm unable to keep my surprise to myself.
Pallas gives a small smile, nodding. "Yes. Indeed I have. He has a masterful plan that will eventually get himself killed."
"I gathered that," I say, disappointed, thinking of our time in his room. No new developments there, then.
"You didn't choose to train apart, so I feel I'm crossing no boundaries sharing this with you," Pallas says.
"Alright." Our escort seems uncertain about what he's about to say next, but he speaks, haltingly.
"There's something he's not saying, and it's not simply sharing his feelings—he's keeping something close to the vest, like all tributes in one way or another, but in a significant way, nonetheless. One that might end up affecting our strategy."
"What does this have to do with me?" I ask, bored, almost, with Rig's constant brooding. "To play the game, one of us has to die anyway. I simply won't count him out as a threat. I won't even consider what his talent could be. I'll steer clear." I don't want to see him die anyway—whether by his hand, or another's.
Pallas gives a solid nod, and stares into my eyes with his dark gray ones. Like Rig's, but with more compassion, less desperation. "Before you go in there—I want you to think of what comes most naturally to you; even if it's not a skill. Even if you think it is the most useless reaction to a presentation to Gamemakers in the history of the Games."
"Okay." I can think of nothing else to say. My mind is a blank; for speech, for answers, for ways to keep myself alive.
"Remember: think of your District, and think of you."
I nod as though this means something to me.
For the morning, we train, some of us swinging round the stations we missed, trying to pick up last-minute tips. The rest pick something and stick to it. District Four seems to be an expert at climbing ropes, vines, and anything else that hangs down to where her long arms can reach. Shatter stays near the knives.
As for me, I kill the rest of my time at the basics station—an area that looks like a campsite with pieces pulled from all types of regions. Still frozen by my uncertainty, I pick up a piece of flint, sit cross-legged on the ground. In the workshop, we use a spindly metal striker, but the premise is the same. I knock the flint against a nearby rock and create a tiny spark.
If the fire were big enough I could heat a weapon of some sort in it, I muse. A spear, a flaming roll of grass that I could shoot or drop on someone. Both those tactics would need advantages, though—of height or proximity. Unless I set the whole arena on fire, I guess.
For some reason, the ideas sticks…
Unless I set it all on fire.
Suddenly, after what seems like hours of dead air, my brain picks up a signal. I'm sure I don't know enough about twigs and grass, so I get the trainer to show me how to build a fire with supplies from a wilderness. It seems slow, but by the time I've created a small smoking pile of debris, I'm convinced I could do it in a pinch.
My eyes dart around the vast room, filled with different tools, supplies, and weapons. What I'm looking for should be easy to find, and just as I'm about to make my way over to it, the Tributes begin to be called.
I don't know what Rig has been doing for our time here—he simply looks as despondent as usual, and didn't even practice while we await our turn with the Gamemakers.
No one reappears after their performance, and I can't see any trace of what Rig might have done to display his talent, whatever it is, if he even tried.
It seems I have a fixed amount of time to accomplish this, so I set to work at once, shaking Rig and his lurking pessimism from my thoughts.
Quickly, I hurry to the station I spied last during training this morning, grabbing my instrument of death. I dart back to the weapons area, choosing a knife at random, making certain only that it is sharp, and I head over to one of the soft blue mats that have been laid out every day for us to practice combat on.
Ignoring the Gamemakers, I crouch low and find the seam on the plush mat. With one swipe, I dig the knife into the threading and pull with the strength of someone who has worked over an anvil for five years. Once the insides are visible, I pull the small iron cooking pot to my side, angle it, and flip the piece of flint against it until a spark catches at the wooly intestines, causing the mat to smolder from the inside out.
In the following moments, I destroy the seams of the rest of the mat, leading the fire into a perfect rectangle of burning, melting plastic and stuffing. My very own, miniature arena.
Dinner that night is especially tasty, almost as if I had cooked it myself. Still on a high from my breakthrough, and from the added bonus of destroying a bit of Capital property, I eat a tossed salad filled with chopped carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, and other vegetables scarcely even dreamed about in the vast furnace that is Six. I recognize some of the ingredients only from the smuggled magazines that sit home beneath my mattress.
I share briefly what transpired in my session with the table, the guests of which mutter appreciatively, glad to know that I was able to form some sort of strategy, at least for the time being. Rig remains silent, and I drop back into my own thoughts as his silence spreads. I munch my salad slowly, savoring the coolness of the carrots and cucumbers. For a minute, I wonder about the advice Pallas gave me, about remembering my district and myself.
Fire is only one element of life in the plants, but I realize that I've kept the presence of that burning iron and chrome close to my heart, and somewhere deep in my subconscious, to have pulled it so quickly to my imagination. The design that the fire took—no matter that it was a simply shape—was all mine. You have to think quickly when playing with molten metal, and raw fire is no different, I think.
I know that this may be my best chance. I just wonder what Rig's is.
That night, my score from the Gamemakers is a 7, and honestly much more than I expected, thrilled as I was at my discovery. Valencia pats my shoulder. "Above average. Very good."
Rig's face appears next, and it seems we all wait with bated breath for his score to show. Only he is unmoving, unemotional. The screen lights:
A 10.
As a group, Pallas, our stylists, even Torch and Singe look over at the boy Tribute from District Six. He betrays no emotion—not even an indication that he knows we're watching him. Just like when we watched the recaps on the train after the Reaping.
We all must be thinking the same thing. For someone that intends to obliterate his own chances, his odds are unusually favorable.
What did he do in that room?
I study his carefully rigid face in the glare of the tributes from District Seven as they flash across the screen. What is he playing at in this one?
And then it comes to me, at the breakneck speed of what is obvious cutting through what is absolute stupidity: He's playing the Game.