CHAPTER 9 – The Stampede

"Panem, come look!" Fingers pointing to a screen, the familiar feeling of repressing a flinch. "Look at that," says Snow's assistant, an elegant young creature. "The little one made it!"

There's a boy with a rock in one hand, his other hand clamped down on the wrists of an older girl. He's straddled over her body, the hand with the rock raised high and dripping blood. The girl spasms a little, as pink stuff leaks out of one side of her head, and the boy yowls in triumph, throwing the rock to the floor. In the distance a cannon booms.

"He's twelve. She's fourteen."

Panem has no emotions. He never did, did he?

"He's twelve. She's fourteen."

What Panem has is hope. Hope for a brighter future, one where the Districts can enjoy this special time of year just like the Capitol does. He hopes for the day when all the control is regained, hopes for the day when all can sleep without fear of an uprising.

"He's twelve. She's fourteen. Panem, are you listening? Panem? Panem?"

Panem's blankets suffocated him, he felt them clinging and desperately threw them off himself. They tangled in his legs, and he lifted his arms up to air out the sweat built up underneath them. It was always hard to sleep in the humid summers, and the sleep he did get…

"Panem-san."

Panem reeled back and felt the sharp edge of the headboard dig into his skull. "Shit!" It was dark. He checked the clock. "Three-forty - dammit… Paylor? That you?"

"You don't recall me?"

The voice and honorific were familiar, but there was a layer of cotton wool over any specific memory. A blurry image came to Panem's mind, one that felt as distant as the time before the Districts. "You're a nation." He jerked himself to full alertness – did this mean an invasion? If a nation broke into his house?Little fragments of images started to piece themselves together – dark, sombre eyes, straight choppy hair, snuggled on a sofa watching a horror film, chopsticks on a tray of half-eaten food in front of them. "Juh- Japan."

A figure in white stepped out from the shadows. Panem found himself desperately trying to remember all the things he needed to know about Japan – what the correct manners were, what subjects were likely to offend him, the last thing he'd seen him do. Alongside all the old, golden history of friendly sharing of cultures, and curious fascinations with each other, Panem could see Wei Yao in the desert. "It is good to see you re-integrated into the world, Panem-san."

Panem stiffened his shoulders, and folded his arms. "Not very polite to break into someone's house like that, Japan. I expected better."

Japan tucked a tendril of hair behind his ear. His left hand moved into view, gripping the handle of a very long sword, sheathed in gold-plated ebony. Panem forced his breathing to stay even. "I apologize, then, for my rudeness, but the door was unlocked, and I saw no need to refrain from meeting with you, however abruptly. I come with a message, and I decided I did not want the inconvenience of having all your ministers around. Or France." He smiled, icily. "I do not think that France likes me very much. I was only fighting a war with him a handful of years ago, you know."

Another war? What else did I miss?

"Which brings me to my message itself." Japan glided to the side of the bed. "You've only just rebuilt your system. Very vulnerable. I have the decency not to make a pre-emptive strike on a nation that's barely made contact with the rest of the world."

"Oh," Panem said, "I'm so glad. We good, then?"

Japan narrowed his eyes. "If you side with France and make any attempts to retrieve the Glucose Volanticus weapon, rest assured I will make no movements to stop my country's warmongers from raiding your districts. In fact, I will go further: I will guide them to your districts. I will furnish them with appropriate weaponry."

"Wait, hold up. Warmongers? They're in your country too?"

"They are in every country. It is simply taking longer in some places for them to develop." Panem's mind went to the great tracts of farmland in the western districts, and he wondered how many of those bent-backed loggers and agriculturists were latent criminals, how many itched to wreak havoc with a piece of wood and metal in their hands. "Like I said, I would never attack a country as politically weak as yours, but my people have minds of their own. I am sure you of all people can understand that."

Japan stroked the black sheath, traced the gold design with a forefinger. "It's not that I don't want you interacting with the world. But I have an agenda here, Panem-san. If I'm going to become ichi-ban, then I'm going to need you staying as much out of world politics as possible. Definitely out of the arms races." His smoky eyes met Panem's, cold. "France is not good for you, Panem-san. Do not be lured into his schemes. You do not want to end up as England did, I assume?"

Panem knew he was supposed to feel terrified. He could sense that Japan's tactics were effective, and he could picture in his mind's eye some other nation, cowering at the impassive face, knowing the power and destruction that lay behind it… But the fear did not seem to be getting to him. He had just woken from a dream where a twelve year old boy butchered a girl two years older than him – what was there to scare him anymore? And the callous mention of England sent a bolt of anger into him, pushing him into his response.

"You think I care whether your pathetic people come here or not?" Panem smirked. The confidence was securing his position with the upper hand. "In case you've forgotten, my country just withstood a huge rebellion, and we all seem to be coping fairly well. We've got nukes. I've personally witnessed the power some of our mutts have, and – " he suppressed a shudder here – "believe me, they are more than capable of dispatching a load of peasants with sticks."

Japan was paling, and a different expression clouded his face, one that made Panem uncomfortable. The distortion of features looked strange on Japan. "I would advise you not to take that tone with me." He turned his back on Panem, headed towards the shadows again.

"Don't like it, Japan?" Panem raised his voice. The panic in him sizzled, as he told himself to stop, apologise, look at his face, but anger pushed past all of it. How dare this nation barge into his home, start telling him how to live his life in the world? Was there no way that Panem could have just a glimpse of autonomy over his actions? "Well, maybe I don't like being woken up in the middle of the night threatened by a – a –"Dammit, what was the word? "A sword-thing. Hey, there's something I meant to ask you."

Panem's chest was almost too tight to speak, but he managed it: "What did happen between you and Wei Yao, huh? What did you do to China, Japan?"

He didn't know how it happened, it happened so quickly. One moment Japan was retreating to the darkness, the next he was by his side with his sword fully unsheathed. Panem gasped, feeling a spot of sudden pain in his side; his hand raced to a gash, small but deep and soaking his sheets with blood. Japan sheathed his sword once more. "That's one district marked out for the warmongers," he said. "Number Five, I think." He turned his back again. "Your problem has always been the same, Panem-san: you don't think before you open your mouth."

And only after he had vanished into the dark did it come to Panem. "Shit," he moaned. "Katana. That was the word."

LINEBREAK

The Outback was a huge, fissured place. Australia had always had a kind of fearful respect for its tilting flatness, the thick colour duality of acrid yellow-brown against cornflower blue where the horizon stretched. There were parts of it, she marvelled, that simply seemed to gasp for water like dried out mouths.

She had been walking for some time now, starting at Uluru, and heading further and further out of the beautiful greenery, feeling the grasslands peter out, watching the roads amble off into aimless trails. The Sun arched its way in a leap from behind her to burning ahead; she was forever confidently walking to a spectacular sunset each day. On her first day at the big rock it had stormed, and the cracks in it had made homes for waterfalls, the red gone to monochrome and the water like molten silver. On her journey out, the water had dried up even more than usual. Her own skin was flaking, crisping up in the glare, but she didn't mind. She moved, trance-like, without eating, drinking or speaking, overwhelmed into silence with a sense of impending doom. She felt, she was sure, some ancient and ugly thing just about to rear its head and take her from behind. A beast, she imagined, with brightly coloured and patterned scales, black eyes, and a screech that chilled her blood.

Australia was unused to the disquiet. That was for conflicted nations, like Japan, or Panem, or England. England, who'd suggested so long ago, We should have one more game, shouldn't we? For old time's sake? She'd kept on putting it off, and now they'd never have another fight over who should be bowler first. It didn't matter that no one in either country played cricket anymore. They remembered.

Australia felt rumbling in the ground. She dropped into a crouch, pressed her ear against the sand. The rumbling sounded like gurgling, the churning of water in a gut. Her heart beat faster, and she barely had time to pull her head away from the earth when it erupted; immense jet-streams of water bursting out into the sunlight.

Australia leapt backwards, the sound deafening. The water seemed to stretch for miles upwards. Australia had a moment to watch it climb until gravity took over, and it started to plummet downwards. The impact of water smacking dirt was enough to send her flying, drenched, to the side. What. The actual. Fuck. Her glasses were thrown off, but she could see the blurry shape of the strange water-tornado, towering and weeping all over the desert, dissolving the cracks in the ground until a growing pool of muddy water grew, surrounding Australia.

And though no other clear shapes were visible, Australia heard the great booming cracking sounds, as the fissures in the Outback wept and sweated and bled.

The towers of water flowed all over the desert, drowning the villages, creeping their way towards civilisation. They did not stop.

After two weeks, they had reached the cities.

LINEBREAK

The first sightings were somewhere in Sevilla, a landlocked Torro town. It had looked like a cloud, a great brown thundercloud sitting on the horizon. There was a great rumble of the earth, as the cloud drew closer, and as its nature became clear. Crimson eyes glared all over it, hooves tore up the ground as dust flew all around, and the sound of grunts, snorts and thundering rage became more and more deafening.

The villages did not stand a chance. Leaving a trail of ruined houses and lives behind them, an immense herd of bulls stampeded across the nation, flickering in and out of sight of the inhabitants.

The next recorded sighting would be in Monaco. The next in Geneva. The bulls marched onwards, an unstoppable raging force, drawing a line of destruction across Europe.

LINEBREAK

And, dotted about in different parts of Northern Africa, there were other occurrences. No nation or inhabitant was there to see them, but they were happening all the same. First there was a quiet, drawn out groan. It echoed mournfully over the plains of crusted grass and wispy sands, with not a living soul around to answer it. Second, mud began to reach out from under the plants and dust, twisting and fastening itself, shaping into vague figures. It was still locked to the ground, and there the figures lay, corpse-like, arms by their side. They did not move as the dirt flaked, as dark flesh broke through the cracks, as fingernails of clay smoothed themselves. Only when the last clumsy details had been put in place did they open their eyes, either dark brown or piercing green. And only once their eyes were open did they flex their hands, push themselves off the ground, and start learning to walk.