Disclaimer: The Hunger Games and its characters are all property of Suzanne Collins. No profit is being made from this piece of work. No copyright infringement is intended.
4
My stomach is churning as I wait outside Plutarch's office. The secretary in the lobby of the building was very surprised to see me here. She even complimented on how well I was looking. I may have shaved and washed my hair but the bags under my eyes and the shame of what I am about to do are never going to be removed fully.
"Fin!" Darcy Williams cries as she sees me. She's a fellow cast member, known for playing the parts of glamorous mothers and desperate single women. I used to think her sketches were funny but now the memory of laughing at them makes me feel sick. "What are you doing here, darling?" she asks. "Juxton's been down, you know, I think he's looking for fresh blood."
"Is he?" I ask wearily, remembering his panicked voice over the earpiece at the interview a few weeks ago. I haven't heard nor seen him since.
"Yeah, I told him you would come back once you came to your senses but he was having none of it," she goes on, taking a seat on one of the waiting chairs next to me. "I mean, I know you're smitten with this girl, Fin, but you're only twenty-one. You've got your whole career ahead of you, sweetie."
If only you knew, I thought. Darcy made it sound so simple, so easy. When Plutarch had dragged me to the President's office of the Television Tower, my worst fear had been I'd have to give up my career for Britney. I was prepared to do it too but had felt relieved when I had realized it wasn't what they had wanted me for. I wish more than anything that they had made me give up my career instead.
The way I saw it, my career was as good as dead anyway. I'd have to put in all my efforts into taking down Paylor's idea. Still, Plutarch's idea of the Tribe's people not being real people and Britney saying that they would do anything to get out of the poverty stuck with me. I don't even know what I think anymore. On one hand, I would be encouraging people to cheer on the Hunger Games once again. But on the other, I would be giving one of the Tribal families a chance to win a better life.
"Sweetie?" Darcy gives me a gentle shake of the shoulder to get my attention. As usual she's dressed to impress in an aqua blue suit with a tight bodice that emphasizes her chest area. On any other day I'd have made a comment or taken a sly look to which she would shoot down with a witty remark.
Now all I want to do is cry on her shoulder.
"Come on then," she says, "Tell me about this lady friend of yours. I never even knew you were straight."
"You said," I smile, remembering all the guys she offered to set me up with. "I was just being respectful," I tell her, deciding not to add about the part where I was too embarrassed to bring a girl home should I fall asleep, have a nightmare and cry.
Britney had been very understanding when I awoke with tears streaming down my face the first time. Images of the last time I saw my mother were less frequent when I slept since I'd been with her. Now my mind was plagued with scenes of me dying in the arena. Thankfully the murderers were now strangers rather than people I knew. I never told Britney about her appearance in the first nightmare; she probably thought I was too much of a baby anyway.
"Respectful?" Darcy scoffs, standing back up. "Women don't need respect, kid." She pats my hair before walking off down the hall. Her platform shoes clink against the oak floor.
Alone again, I sigh and put my head in my hands.
"Fin!" A few minutes later, I look up to find Plutarch looking down at me, beaming. "It's good to see you again! To what do I owe the pleasure?"
I scowl. "You know why I'm here," I hiss.
He looks uncomfortable after that, shifting from foot to foot and looking both ways down the long corridor. "Come on then," he says, opening his door. "Let's talk."
He lets me in first and then locks the door behind me. I raise an eyebrow at him as he walks across the large room and takes his seat behind a large desk. He interlocks his fingers and places them on the dark wood.
"Have a seat, Fin," he says though it's more like an offer as though we're here to discuss the odds for the Mutt Races.
"No guards?" I ask, voicing the first thing I had noticed when I came in here. I take a seat in a large blue armchair opposite the desk. The blue represents District 4 as does the green fishing net hung up on one wall. Plutarch has a little of every District in his office ranging from the decorative ornaments of District 1 to the coal stones from District 12 which line a shelf in the bookcase. The coal mines are ancient history now but when I pointed that out to Plutarch upon seeing his office three years ago, he'd told me he was very interested in ancient history. The Capitol is represented by the view behind him. One wall is dominated by glass and – being on the 90th floor – the view of the Capitol stretches on for miles.
"I'm afraid only President Paylor has the authority for guards," Plutarch smiles. "I'm not important enough clearly."
"Okay, enough chit-chat," I say, unable to stand being civil for any longer. I'd never looked at Plutarch as a friend – we may have been on good terms but he was still just my boss. Now just being in the same room with him makes me angry.
"You've decided to say yes," Plutarch says for me. "It only took you three weeks."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, gripping the arms of the chair so as not to shout, cry or hit him.
"Nothing," Plutarch replies, holding his hands up as though he is surrendering. "I think you are making the right choice," he adds gently. "If we send this out to the Tribes then they will stop trying to get into the country. Hundreds of lives will be saved."
"You could just try to help them," I say, "Instead of sending them back, shooting them or killing their children."
"We made a mistake opening up Panem all those years ago," he says. When he talks like this you can tell how old he is getting. Gray hair is quite popular in the Capitol nowadays but on Plutarch he looks like an old, weathered man. "Well, President Paylor made the mistake," he corrects himself bitterly. "Still, at least she is opening up to the idea."
"It was you who put it forward wasn't it?" I say, stating what I already know but feel the need to ask.
"I had to," Plutarch says. "President Paylor knows what she's doing when it comes to war but not when the enemy are defenseless Tribe's People."
"Why can't we help them?" I ask, feeling like a pleading child.
"Maybe we can," Plutarch shrugs. "Once we get the country sealed off for good, maybe we can find a way to help them help themselves."
"But not in our lifetime," I say, stating what I see in his eyes.
Plutarch smiles at me, his brown eyes sympathetic behind his thick-rimmed glasses as though I am nothing more than a little kid who doesn't understand what's really going on. "It takes years to set up an independent country," he explains.
I sigh and put my head in my hands again.
"Just tell me what I've got to do," I say, talking to the purple woven carpet from District 8.
"First, you will meet your team," Plutarch says, digging some papers out of his desk drawer. I stare at the pile he places on the desk.
"You knew I'd say yes didn't you?" I whisper, realization dawning on me.
"Yes I did," Plutarch says. "You're just like your father."
At the mention of my father, my eyes snap to his. "What do you mean by that?"
I see panic flash in Plutarch's eyes before he composes himself. "I mean he was always up for a challenge too."
"You call this a challenge?" I ask, bitterly before shaking my head. "Whatever. Just tell me everything."
"Like I said, first you will meet your team," Plutarch explains, leafing through the papers. "They're just like the team you're used to except for the soldiers."
"Soldiers?" I repeat, despite planning not to disrupt the flow of his explanation.
"You'll need protection," Plutarch tells me as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You'll have a guard with you at all times." He seems hesitant as though there's more to say but he's not quite sure how to say it.
"What is it, Plutarch?" I demand. In order to talk them around, I need to know everything.
"Nothing, I just need you to sign here so we can get you around the world as soon as possible," he says, handing a sheet of paper and a pen over to me. "You'll be visiting each Tribe individually and staying there for two days and one night. You're job will be to get the idea of Games across as positively as possible. This is a way out for them, remember that."
"Are there some people who miss the Games?" I demand suddenly. "Are you one of them? Do you miss seeing bloodshed on your television?"
Plutarch eyes me with distaste as he leans back in his chair. "I'm doing my best for the country," he says. "As far as I am concerned, this is the only solution."
"Yeah, yeah," I say to shut him up, "So you keep saying." I'm so wound up at this point that I grab my pen and scribble my signature furiously on the paper, almost tearing through it. "Let's get this over with," I mutter. In my mind, I tell myself over and over again that the Tribe's people are not real people. It's okay. I've never met a Tribe's person before – Britney has always been hesitant whenever I ask about meeting her parents despite the fact she's met Nurse Everdeen.
"Very well," Plutarch says. He's grinning now. It's making me nervous. He reaches across the desk and takes the paper from me. Looking it over, he says, "I'll read the small print for you shall I?"
I gulp audibly. My stomach is churning again. I hope there's nothing in that small print that is important because I've done it now. I've signed my life away. I wish Juxton was here. As annoying as the small man is, he knew how to handle contracts and the media. I was just a puppet in his world, just as I am now. Except this is much worse because I'm now the Capitol's puppet.
"The military soldiers are not just there for your protection, Fin," Plutarch says. For a second I wonder if he is actually reading the small print but I look up to find his eyes staring at me, hard and cold. "Speak out against this solution and you will be executed on the spot."
So there it is. The flaw in my plan. I cannot stop this now. Worse, I can't even refuse to do it anymore. They have me under contract and, if there's one thing I've learned in my three years in the television business, is that once they've got you under contract there's no getting out.
Plutarch must have seen my reaction because he gets up and turns his back to me, taking in the view of the Capitol. I wonder why he does this; is he waiting for me to digest the information? I realize how badly I want to kill him now and it scares me. I long for the strength to walk up behind him and snap his neck. If I was strong enough I could do it; I have the motivation to. In five minutes he could be dead but were would that leave me?
"Thank you for this, Fin," he says suddenly, surprising me. "You have no idea how much this will help…the country." I can tell he had changed his sentence halfway through but before I can even contemplate what he was going to say, his pager bleeps.
After scanning the incoming message and tapping off a reply, Plutarch looks up at me and I now truly see sadness in his eyes. "Like I said, Fin," he tells me, adopting a fatherly tone as he did that fateful night of the interview. "You will never know how much you are helping us, and I'm sorry to have to do this to you."
I'm about to ask what he is talking about when he goes and unlocks his office door. To say I am surprised to see Britney confidently stride in is an understatement.
"As I was saying before," Plutarch says, talking to his feet. Part of me hopes he is hanging his head in shame rather than just being uncomfortable with the scene, "You're just like your father. You never could resist the charms of a woman."
"I'm sorry, Fin," Britney whispers as a solitary tear falls down her cheek.