Sir,
The unrest in District 4 is reaching dangerous levels. We must do something or there could be another rebellion within weeks. Already our spies are reporting plans to assassinate Peacekeeper leaders. This must be stopped. With District 8's recent uprising, we cannot allow another revolt. Requesting permission to oversee the construction of our newest barracks personally.
Albert Westfield, Head of Peacekeepers, Capitol Division
Ah, District 4. Sun, sand, and surf. It's a lovely place, even after you take into account the gallows contructed right on the beach. It has the latest rebels against the Capitol hanging from them as a warning to anyone else with the same ideas, but despite all that, I almost want to dive into the water from the silenced hovercraft Caesar loaned us. I think someone would notice, though. Besides, I have to make a jump later tonight anyway.
Raven clicks her tongue impatiently at me. I turn away from the window, and suddenly I get the impression she's been trying to get my attention for a while. Too bad. She spent just as much time at the window yesterday, and she knows it. I smile at her innocently. She rolls her eyes and brings out a map. Not the paper kind I'm used to, but a hologram of the entire area. Caesar is sparing no expense for us to get Finnick's trident back, it seems.
"We're here." Raven touches a small building, and a green dot lights up. She pokes it a few times and it rises up several inches above the building. "Quinton Forest is here." she touches a much larger building, and it glows red. It's a mile up from where we are, and it's right on a cliff. I bet he has a great view. I sigh. Raven gives me a look. "Now, sometime in the past week, he managed to acquire at least one force-field projector. He's got a shield over that entire place." As she says that, she touches a few more spots, and I see a shimmer cover it. "Now, it's more or less a tight cover. Not like the arenas. As a result, it's a quite a bit stronger. Less susceptible to exploitation."
I nod. She looks over and smiles at me. "Now, here's the part I think you'll like." I perk up a bit.
"Oh? Why is that?" I'm trying to look less interested than I am, but Raven knows me pretty well. It doesn't work.
"A shield like that is going to have a heavy power drain. They're generally projected from somewhere else. A nearby building, for instance." I can get into a building with no problems. There must be something else.
"So, you think it's in one of the surrounding buildings? Which one?" I look at the map a little closer. Four buildings nearby. All relatively small. None of them look guarded or particularly secure from here. This shouldn't be too hard. "How do you deactivate it?"
Raven's walked over to a crate. It's been on the hovercraft since we left last week, but she didn't let me look inside before now. She's prying it open while she talks. "First of all, not it. Them. It's possible, even probable, that there's more than one projector hidden. Caesar's only certain of one, though." She pauses for a moment. "Anyway, there's two ways. The first one involves a long, complex shutdown code. Every projector has a unique code, and it could take hours guessing it." She throws all her weight onto the crowbar.
The top of the crate pops off. Raven gestures to me, and I come over and look at the contents. "The second method is a little less complicated." Yeah, I guess you could say that. The crate is filled with explosives of all kinds. Raven sees the look on my face. "Sound good?"
Late that night, things have already started to go wrong. There's suddenly a lot more Peacekeeper patrols in this area, and I actually had trouble making it into the first building undetected. To make things worse, the earpiece Raven is using to communicate with me is only working half the time. Something about this area is interfering with it, so now my eyes in the sky are out. I've got a lot of practice dodging Peacekeepers, but tonight it's more of a pain in the neck than usual.
At least the first building is abandoned. I find the projector, and my earpiece kicks in long enough for me to tell Raven I'm not dead. Of course, the job is far from over. I take one of the miniature charges off my belt and adjust the clock on it for noon tomorrow. Raven tells me that force-field projectors are very combustible, to say the least. This building isn't going to be standing tomorrow. Time to move on.
Second building isn't quite as abandoned. It's some sort of cold storage unit. Tons of crates marked CAPITOL are in there, ready to be shipped off the next day. I'd almost be curious what was in them, if the entire building didn't reek of fish. Nevertheless, I check around, find another projector behind some crates, pointing out a window. Great. Raven was right. There's more than one. Probably four, with my luck tonight. Peacekeepers patrolling everywhere. I have a dart gun to defend myself if necessary, but I'd rather not have to use it.
Unfortunately, I'm not destined for that tonight. I run across two sleeping guards in the third building. A dart to both of them ensures they stay that way. Of course, the earpiece had to start up again, and Raven heard me swear when I saw them. Now she knows they're in the building. Great. She's just starting her lecture on why District 4 civilians can't be casualties, and I roll my eyes. I don't know when I started listening to Raven's conscience, but after I find and rig the next projector, I spend the next forty minutes dragging them both outside to a safe area. I hope she's happy.
Fourth building is another cold storage unit. More crates. Suddenly I feel pretty lucky Raven and I don't care much for seafood, because I don't think the Capitol will have any for a while after tomorrow. Well, four buildings, four projectors. Four sets of explosives, rigged for noon tomorrow. I think my job is just about done for the night. I signal Raven from the top of a roof and start climbing the ladder she drops for me. I'm tired, but I keep picturing how it'll play out tomorrow.
Tomorrow, we're hoping the explosions will cause rioting from the citizens who now have nothing to lose, since they're going to be blamed for this anyway, thus providing a diversion. If that doesn't work, the plan is simple. Get in, grab the trident, get out as quickly as possible before the hovercraft is detected. I'll have about twenty minutes before they scan the skies. Better make it count.
Morning. 11:50, to be precise. The Peacekeepers are escorting the fisherman to their boats, lining them up in single file to give them their assignments for the day. None of them look happy. I guess having another small freedom taken away from them is taking its toll. I hear they used to be able to fish at their leisure, as long as the Capitol got a minimum amount of tasty fish shipped in every week. Now, everyone has a strict schedule, and a required daily quota.
11:55. The Peacekeepers are slow today. Only one boat has a crew so far. A red-faced old man is yelling obscenities, and it looks like everyone is tensing up. Everything's going according to plan so far. Raven's voice crackles in my ear, telling me to get ready to run.
11:58. 11:59. The second the lead Peacekeeper decides he's had enough and swings his rifle at the old man, the clock hits noon. I cover my ears. I can still hear the explosions, even from up the beach. I take off running and I'm at the door of Forest's mansion by 12:01. I don't have time to waste picking it, but fortunately, it's made of wood. It takes a few kicks, but it breaks pretty fast.
Inside, I draw my dart gun. The sounds of the mob attacking the Peacekeepers, the gunfire, the screams... All of them start fading away inside the house. Forest has got to know I'm here. Sure enough, two men are running at me down the stairs. I lose two darts before I hit the first one, and he drops like a rock. The other one goes down seconds later. Something about it seems far too easy, though. For one, they're both carrying swords. Only swords. No guns. It makes my job a lot simpler if I'm the only one with range, but something about this seems suspicious.
A chandelier falls, and I just barely dodge it. Forest, I bet. Probably has the place rigged. If he's anything like Caesar, I bet he's taping this. Capitol citizens always love a good show, after all. However... if there's traps in the building, wherever Finnick's trident is being kept will have a lot of them. I better go get my buddy Forest to show me the way to it. I bet he'll make it a lot easier to access if he's the one retrieving it for me.
Miniature land mines on the stairs. Spears in the walls. Spikes rising from the floor. Quinton Forest would've made a great Game Maker. I'd probably be dead already if not for the gadget Caesar let me borrow. Fabulously expensive. Extremely useful. It only works at close range, but it messes up video cameras. Covers them in static somehow. Too bad I don't know how it works. I'd build my own in a heartbeat. Only downside is that Forest has a general idea what room I'm in at any given moment.
However, even that downside isn't too much of a setback. He's got an itchy finger. Since he can't actually see me, he keeps setting off his traps before I actually go near them. Lucky break for me.
I'm wandering through the remains of what was once a kitchen, and suddenly I hear the crowd outside. I'm not sure if it's my earpiece for a minute, and Raven's not responding. Then it dawns on me.
Great. The rebels we just got to divert the Peacekeepers have decided to follow me in here. It occurs to me that they just might be helpful. Better they set off Forest's traps than me, as far as I'm concerned.
I hide in a closet for a while, listening to the sounds of them running past, the occasional explosion. Screams. Eventually all of those die down. Then there's the sound of a cheerful mob, which is never good. I guess the force-field surrounding the house marked good old Forest as a Capitol person, and right now I don't think they care if he's a Peacekeeper or a civilian. I peek out of a window after the noise gets far enough away, and I see them dragging him towards the gallows on the beach for some swift justice.
Raven's voice comes in, covered in static. From what I can gather, she's rearranging our escape plan. Ten minutes, window on the east side. I search as many rooms as I can, but Finnick's trident appears to have vanished.
Five minutes remaining. I decide to check two more rooms. First one has nothing. A quick glance through it shows that it's probably never been used by anyone. Dust everywhere. No one has hidden a trident here in the past week, that's for sure.
Second room has something different in it. Or someone. There's a girl in there, wandering around clutching her head, talking to herself. Every few seconds she'll stop, pace around, and mutter something about "Come back to me". She reaches behind an overturned couch and lifts up a very shiny silver object.
Finnick's trident, of course. When the mob appeared, I had a feeling someone else would beat me to it. Didn't think it'd be a lunatic, though. She turns around, and makes eye contact with me. Her eyes are green. Very green. We stare right at each other for what feels like ages. I've seen her before, but I don't know where. She clutches the trident like her life depends on it. Too bad. I think my life actually does depend on getting it back to Caesar intact.
I raise my dart gun, and she gets a look on her face. It's anger and sadness and determination, all at once. I pull the trigger. Nothing happens.
My dart gun is jammed, and I'm facing down a crazy girl with a weapon that's proved it's worth in combat several times. And since she's from here, I bet she knows how to use it. I'm standing there surprised for several seconds, and she doesn't ram the trident into my chest. Instead, all she does is stand there holding it. She's started murmuring Finnick's name over and over, and I don't know what to do.
Raven's voice snaps me out of my trance when she tells me we're almost out of time, and something about this girl is keeping me from simply attacking her for it. Something aside from that she has every advantage that I don't have at the moment. So I make a decision. It's a stupid decision fueled by instinct and gut feelings. Raven is going to be so proud, I can already tell.
I leave her in the building, and run as fast as I can to the east window. There's a ladder hanging outside, and I make a dive out the window for it, catching onto a rung with one hand, then the other. Both feet find a hold on it, and the hovercraft is flying away at top speed with me hanging off it.
I'm at the top few rungs of the ladder when two pairs of arms reach down and pull me up and inside. Uh-oh. I have a bad feeling about this.
Four men in uniform are flanking a woman with graying hair. The two that pulled me in join them. They aren't Peacekeepers, though. Raven is off to the side looking paler than I've ever seen her. The woman takes a sip of her tea. Smiles at me. Looks right into my eyes, and my insides feel like ice. Something is very wrong with this woman. The look on Raven's face tells me she feels the same way.
"Marissa Ellis. Alma Coin. And I think we're going to be working together very closely in the next few months."