"So, we're going to be getting into the Capitol today; once we all debark, you two will be sent off to your stylists in preparation for tonight's brilliant opening ceremonies parade. While you're there, don't forget that they know the specifications of…"
Sam tried to pay attention to what Augusta blabbed on about over breakfast, but found herself more interested in rubbing sleep out of her eyes and trying new beverage concoctions than listening to word after word about "glamorous stylists." Where was the fun in that, anyway? Picking over cranberry juice – good luck getting that in District 10 – secured Sam's attention much more in revealing exciting new sensations to her taste buds. Sweet rolls, buttery custards, slices of pink meats, and bright, tropical fruits served over bowls of ice comprised a breakfast that mad up for the lack of sufficient sleep the night before.
"We're actually ahead of schedule," Augusta finished her sermon, pulling out a gray metal tablet sporting an interactive electronic screen that she frantically dabbed away at. "We'll be pulling into the station in under an hour…now if only your other mentor would show up to join us."
Cheyenne had, as seemed to be the standard, failed to arrive at breakfast on time. To Sam, that made things far better than the alternative – Laredo appeared subdued without her to goad things along, and Dallas and Augusta shared a good back-and-forth rapport. The Capitol escort's clothing was another matter. To complement Augusta's already hideous lemon-yellow hair, a tangerine-orange outfit that hung to just above her knees contrasted her light blue skin and shocking hair like a bad sibling.
"So," Dallas turned to Sam and Laredo, letting the pleasantries end. "Did either of you have any final questions or things to think about? Once we pull in, Cheyenne and I aren't going to be able to talk with either of you until the opening ceremonies are over, by which time things will be speeding along."
"So what's the gameplan?" Laredo barked out between bites as he inhaled a slab of ham. "How do I play training, interviews, all that?"
"We'll figure that out once we see what the stylists have for you two," Dallas held out his hands as if motioning to slow things down. "Then we'll all have a better idea of how the crowd's gonna see it and where we can go from there. That's a good point, though – do either of you have any sort of skills you know off the bat are gonna help you inside the arena? That you have down pat?"
"Just go for the weapons, right?" Laredo smirked.
"If you wanna get killed maybe. The Cornucopia's an invitation to a quick death."
"So what do we do there?" Sam looked up from her plate. Laredo had conveniently given her a good in to picking Dallas's brain on survival tactics.
"Grab whatever's ten feet around you at most, and then hightail it," Dallas answered patiently. At least Sam had figured she needed some information to have a chance. "Any further towards the Cornucopia and you're risking not making it out of there alive. The Careers will have it on lock-down – so weapons are probably a no-go for the most part. Are you good with anything else?"
"I'm okay with a rope," Sam figured she could try to impress with one skill, if nothing else. "It's everyday stuff for herding cattle back home."
Dallas nodded, taking a bite of a scone. "Don't underestimate that kind of thing. If you get lucky in an environment like a forest or woods, a rope can let you make your own tools, weapons, shelter, you name it. Something like that can usually be found on the perimeter of the Cornucopia as well. It's all about using what you have, rather than relying on getting what you don't."
Sam wasn't done with questions, however; she wanted to know as much as possible. The realization that she didn't have much of a chance had settled, but she figured she could at least put up as much of a fight as she could before going down. Anything less would be giving up right now. "You mentioned yesterday you were gonna talk about the Gamesmaker…"
"Yea, why's he sound so creepy?" Laredo piped in, shocking Sam that her fellow tribute had actually given her credit for a question.
"'Cuz he's a freakin' sadist."
Right on cue, Cheyenne finally moseyed her way into the dining car to Augusta's admonishments, slumping down in a chair and grabbing buns. Sam shifted to her right; the mentor reeked of tobacco.
"That is rude," Augusta nearly yelled at Cheyenne, startling Sam with her animation. "And where have you been? We're nearly at the Capitol!"
"I was just waiting for you to finish getting dressed," Cheyenne sneered back at the escort's flamboyant choice of clothing.
Dallas headed the argument off before it got worse. "Anyway, the Gamesmaker, Rex, tends not to like natural deaths in the arena – at least the conventional ones that usually get at least one tribute, like dehydration, sickness, or hypothermia. The guy he replaced, man named Seneca Crane who had been around for a long time, got canned for the 'repetitiveness' of his works and Rex took over last year. I don't know if either of you really remember last year's outing…"
Sam did – the same one she'd recalled before the Reaping, the one where the Careers had made hash of the other tributes before tearing at each other. It had been an uncompetitive affair, but a lot of blood had been spilled over the snowy terrain that made up the arena of the 97th Hunger Games. One particular tribute, the boy from District 4, had shredded three of his fellow Careers by himself with a harpoon after their alliance had fractured near the end before being taken down.
"He's a big fan of you killing off each other," Cheyenne broke in with her mouth full of biscuit. "If you don't, he will."
"Phaeston used to chair the Capitol's science and research department," Augusta added, feeling that bit of trivia necessary. "Not many stepped up after Seneca's firing. He was an unusual choice, but brought his scientific insight into the construction and orchestration of the Games."
"In short, he's high on mutts," Dallas confirmed. "Anything from happy little ones like tracker jackers to things that will rip you apart in seconds. He probably figured out half of them himself. Rex's personal goal he expressed when hired was to not go more than a day without a new death. He's ambitious and likes to play fast with the rules. Stocks the Cornucopia with an overabundance of every type of weapon there is – that's part of why it's so bad to go into that trap. The Careers will quickly be able to find whatever suits their taste. Rex's strategy favors them heavily in the beginning."
"Why just the beginning?" Sam posed, looking for an opening.
"Because if you can survive whatever he throws at you and they do, you've got a chance at outlasting the Careers. They don't do so good when their food runs out, and I've got a hunch that Rex will be looking to spice things up after last year's one-sided affair - which is good for you guys."
"So get to somewhere defensible?" Sam countered, thinking things through. What she lacked in physical brawn, Jake had been correct in one area – she didn't lack for smarts. "Just stay alert and moving around an area?"
Cheyenne set down her biscuit and looked her straight in the eye for the first time, trying to get a better look at the tribute she'd dismissed – perhaps prematurely. "You have a brain to go with a pretty face?"
"I guess?" Sam raised an eyebrow.
"Then yes," Cheyenne looked back to her half-eaten plate. "Maybe you won't die right away. If you sit in one spot, people in the audience get bored and Rex chucks a mutt at you or diverts a Career your way. On the other hand, if you try to get to know the whole arena, you'll end up not knowing any of it."
Sam felt a leap of hope. The malcontent mentor had actually given her a compliment – and while that wasn't much, she'd take whatever she could get at this point. Underneath her aggressive, abrasive interior, Cheyenne seemed to hold a sharp, keen mind for tactics. After all, she'd won the 76th Games somehow…and it clearly wasn't by her warm, friendly personality.
"If you've got the sponsors to go with that," Dallas backed up on Cheyenne's words. "You can help push off any issues outside of food or water, as well. Something like a knife or a sheet of plastic can save your life inside the arena. Make them like you, and you've got another weapon. Not quite as blunt as a sword, maybe."
"A sheet of plastic?" Laredo looked skeptical.
"You could use some of the brains to go with the muscles," Cheyenne coughed. "If you get stuck in, say, a dry craphole, that's an easy way to find a little bit of water if you have time. Dig a pit, stick a sheet over it. Wait a while and stick a rock in the middle of the sheet so condensing water can flow down into a container or something. Welcome to science. It's called a solar still. Won't keep you going forever, but it might stop Rex from noticing you dying from dehydration."
Cheyenne successfully shocked the two tributes into silence – she did know more than she was letting on; much more. Suddenly, capturing her favor seemed just as important to Sam as maintaining anything she had with Dallas. While he was certainly the one to go to with anything general, Cheyenne seemed to know what to do and when to do it. Her victor status no longer seemed so strange.
"And there's the Capitol now, right on time," Augusta broke the quiet pallor that had come over the room. "Absolutely magnificent."
Laredo caught a glimpse from his seat at the table, but Sam couldn't help herself but nearly run up to the window. The stories about how it shined in the sun like some great God, about its grandiose construction that struck wonder into first-time visitors – the Capitol was all that and more as the train crossed the mountains. Great geometric buildings sporting white columns radiated power and strength. Long, broad causeways sported hundreds, thousands of people going about their days; from the train, they seemed little pinpricks of color, buzzing like overactive insects between the cars and vehicles that were so ubiquitous to the Capitol, yet so rarely seen by District 10. The sight of the great city, the heartbeat of Panem, sparked a fighter inside Sam's soul. To head home victorious from the Games, to tell Clay and Jake and anyone who would listen about this sight, about the butterflies that leaped about her stomach – she wanted to do it now. This wasn't a sight to take in alone.
"Finished building that fancy tower?" Dallas spoke up behind Sam, his question aired at Augusta.
"Oh, yes, several months ago. It stands on the presidential manor itself. Speaking of Phaeston, he was one of the planners of that design – between that and his prior duties and now as Gamesmaker, what doesn't he do? Next he'll succeed President Octavian whenever he decides to retire."
Sam caught what they were referencing – and what quickly stood out as the most magnificent, the most imposing sight amongst all these other wonders of architecture. A gold-plated obelisk rose into the sky like a watchful sentinel over the entire Capitol. The official eagle of the Capitol symbol marked each side of the obelisk. A stylized eye, seemingly designed to symbolize the Capitol's view over Panem itself from this mountain stronghold, lay inlaid into the pinnacle of the obelisk on all four sides. It was an odd choice of art – etched with an eyebrow and two long, curling lines that took the appearance of eyelashes.
"What's the eye thing on top?" Sam looked back to Augusta, puzzled.
"Oh, something the historical society threw up there," Augusta finished off a cup of wine; Sam figured it was probably a little early for alcohol, but maybe things were different here. "Just trivial art, really. It's become somewhat of a fashion statement, though."
It certainly didn't seem that way to Sam. The eye atop the obelisk outshone the entire tower itself – and whatever said "historical society" had intended, it clearly was meant to fly over the heads of the populace.
A wall of black abruptly cut off the grand view, shrouding the entire car in merely the artificial white light from the hanging chandelier. Sam stepped back, turning to the table and feeling like too many sets of eyes were on her.
"This is it, isn't it?" she said, confirming what she already knew.
"Yeah," Dallas nodded, sighing and sitting back in his seat. "Welcome to the Capitol."
The tunnel flared back into light from the outside, but no longer did the train's window shine onto a sky-lit scene of the great city. Outside the train station's interior blossomed like an opening flower, giving rise to hundreds of flocking citizens desperate for a first look at the new tributes to come in.
"It's like a barn," Laredo remarked with a hint of scorn.
"And one of those barnyard animals might sponsor you," Dallas rebuked. "In this case, it's good to tell them what they want to hear."
Sam didn't hear anything of what they were saying, however. The scene overwhelmed her with the sheer scope of it all – that all these people so eagerly wanted to see her arrival, to find her face amongst the millions of others who called this city home. This was the Capitol, these swarming crowds lusting for bloody entertainment. To her shock, it didn't fill her with dread or dismay or pain – on the contrary, seeing all these smiling, giddy expressions waving and shouting her district as the train came to a stop filled Sam with something she'd never figured on feeling after leaving District 10: energy. If only the people of the district could see through her eyes now.
They had come to see her!
Truly, the time for preparation was over. The niceties, the initial understandings, they had come to rest. The Hunger Games were officially on, and Sam could see who the real winners were for the first time.