Sorry for the really long delay in updating, I was working on a mix of things in addition to this chapter. Enjoy...
Jamee Bolts POV
I sit on the train and stare at the food on the plate in front of me. I know I should eat something while I can, but I can't seem to force anything down. The fingers of my left hand idly stroke the thin gold chain around my wrist. Jared told me it was his good luck charm when he gave it to me, and considering the scrapes he used to get in back when he was in school, it's not too far fetched that he has a lucky charm. Then again, maybe by brother's luck is within him. Heaven knows that there was no luck left in the gene pool by the time I came along six years after him. I mean, how unlucky does one have to be to be born into district three without a mechanical bone in your body? I try hard in school, but the ins and outs of technology are just lost on me.
I glance over at Millard, the boy who was reaped, and feel almost worse for him than I feel for myself. He's quiet and smart, just the kind of guy who could really have a great career in district 3, but not exactly victor material. I doubt I'll be the victor either, but at least I have a bit of a skill. Or at least, I bet my accuracy with paper airplanes could translate into some sort of weaponry. I've never touched a weapon, so who knows if it will be that much different. I pick up my butter knife and try to picture throwing it like an airplane.
Cheeta, our escort, sets down her fork and looks from me to Millard, back to me again. "Well, aren't we a talkative bunch?" Millard snorts and we both look over at him. Our mentor, Techtra, is about 70 years old, half blind, and focused on trying to scoop peas from her plate. Her hand is shaking so violently that it takes four tries for her to get a single pea to her mouth. At that point she gives up the pretense of manners and starts scooping food up with her fingers. She doesn't even notice the conversation going around her.
"What are we supposed to talk about?" Millard asks, his voice barely audible. "It's not like we're best friends. It's not like you and Techtra are going to bestow any pearls of wisdom upon us. And it's not like it matters since we'll be dead in a couple of weeks." Techtra does look up at this and throws a pea at Millard. He yelps in surprise, but she has already started doing something. With painstaking slowness, she unravels her wire bracelet and stabs an end into her porkchop. Then, equally slow, she wraps the other end around her spoon and rubs some other metal thing on it. I feel like I recognize the metal thing, but can't place the name of it. When she's done she silently beckons Millard to come and take the spoon. He rolls his eyes and walks around the table to her. Then he picks up the spoon and his whole body goes rigid. Cheeta screams, Millard slumps to the floor and Techtra cackles softly.
"Oh my god!" I say, jumping up away from the table. "Did you just kill him?" Our mentor is supposed to help us survive in the arena, not kill us before we get there. Techtra shakes her head and smiles a toothless grin at me. She picks up the spoon, using her napkin, and tips her glass of water over on to Millard. He sputters and sits up, whipping his head around from side to side as if trying to gain his bearings and look for an attacker.
His eyes land on Techtra and I'm wondering if he's going to attack her. I mean, she's an old lady and all, but if he decides to attack her I have to say, I think he's justified. "That was brilliant!" he says. It's the first time I've heard him say anything louder than a mumble. "Can you show us how to do that?"
Techtra spends the rest of the trip trying to show us how to turn a chunk of meat and some wire into a weapon, and while Millard seems to catch on, I'm still in the dark. The only thing I've managed to do was shock my own hand a little. After about twenty minutes I give up and leave them to their stupid wires.
Millard POV
In one hour, my mentor has shown me more kindness and taught me more than my father has in the seven years since my mom died. I think he blames me for her dying, and for a while, I blamed myself. She had fallen down the stairs one day and broke her neck. I was only six and I didn't know what to do so I just kept trying to wake her up. When my father got home from work I was crying and screaming and telling him I couldn't wake up my mom. He yelled at me to stop crying and sat on the floor holding my mom. He asked me what I did to her and told me it was all my fault. I learned that day to stay quiet and not open up. I'm older now and know there was nothing I could have done, but I've never really opened back up. My father and I were never close again either. Even today, when we said goodbye in the justice building, my friends were excited that I could become a victor, and I almost could believe them, but my father reminded me that there's no way I can win. He gave me a hug for the first time in years, but it felt forced, like he thought he was obligated to do it. When he released the hug and said "At least now I'll have justice" I knew that he didn't love me anymore.
I boarded the train ready to die. When Techtra electrocuted me with her spoon it sparked a fire, I wanted to learn more. I've always loved learning. I've spent hours poring over books that my mother had, topics like computer programming, survival in nature, calculus, world history and hovercraft engineering. Most of it was stuff that would have really served me well after I finished school and got a job within our district industry, now only a few things I've learned are relevant. I can build a fire without matches, I know a ton about plant identification and I could probably build a decent shelter from scratch. I remember my father mocking me when I was reading the survival book, saying that I'd never have any use for any of that. I guess I'll show him now.
By the time we've reached the Capitol, Techtra has taught me how to use wire as weapon in four different applications, and how to reprogram the door locks on the train. Jamee lost interest not long into our lessons and spent the whole trip watching the scenery pass by and playing with a bracelet.
The Capitol is even more magnificent than it seems on television. Our train is almost archaic in the bustling metropolis, no other vehicle is on the ground. In the sky above us there are personal hovercars zooming around, between them dozens of jetestrians zip along, their jet packs allowing them to weave between, below and over the snarl of traffic. The streets are packed with people cheering our arrival. With the brightly color hair and skin of so many it looks like a candy bowl. The train has slowed so that the Capitol citizens can get a look at us and we're able to get a good look at them too. I see several people wearing a device on their wrist that my father was one of the head designers for. It is a hologram clothing apparatus. The user can select from a set of pre-programmed outfits, or program one of their own. When they activate it, the apparatus projects the chosen outfit on to their body giving the illusion of clothes when they're really walking around with nothing on. The Wardrobe-on-a-wrist are the current fashion accessory of the elite. People really love the convenience of not having to have a closet full of clothes, never having to do laundry, and being able to change their outfit at the touch of a button. I just wish they'd came up with a better name for it. Maybe Virtual Versace or something. That's the problem with District 3 we have a ton of analytic brains but they don't lend to a lot of creativity when it comes to naming their inventions.
The crowd starts to blur together like a watercolor, there are so many people it's impossible to spot an individual anymore. The train pulls in to the station at the Capitol and Cheeta comes back into the sitting room.
"Come along children. Your prep teams are waiting." He leaves as quickly as he arrived and we follow him off the train and into the fuchsia and turquoise building. We're handed over to our own candy colored teams and we're whisked away to get ready for the opening ceremonies.
Jamee POV
Who knew that there was so much hair on the human body? I sure didn't, and I didn't realize that removing all the hair would be so utterly painful. When the first warm wax strip was applied I thought that the prep would be a nice pleasant experience. Then Vidia, one of the girls on my prep team, rubbed it in to my leg and yanked it off, it was like she was trying to remove my skin! I yelped in pain and wasn't too keen on letting her get near me again. I looked to the other two, hoping for an ally against the torture but they didn't seem to care about me getting flayed alive. I looked close at Vidia's deep purple skin, hoping I could tell her that it wasn't fair to torture me and that she had no idea how bad it hurt, but I could see she was completely hairless. Well, other than her two inch long gold eyelashes and the giant sponge of tight gold curls atop her head. She applied a second strip and I tried not to yelp this time.
After all the hair was removed, the other girl on the team, Pink -who has bright yellow skin and black hair- rubbed a thick lotion all over my skin that soothed the tender skin and have me a silvery sheen. I thought that would be the end of the prep because what else could they do, really? But Elysium, the one guy on the team, had more in store. My hair was washed, trimmed and my natural curl was given some oomph.
Elysium and Pink are just finishing putting make up on me when an older lady with too tight skin comes in the room. "We're almost at beauty base zero" Vidia says and the lady nods. When the make up is finished, the lady dismisses the team and invites me to sit down.
"Hello," her voice is deep and gravelly, like she has spent her life screaming at people. "My name is Tareeva, I'm your stylist." She coughs violently and pulls a small metal tin from her pocket. She plucks out a cigarette and taps the end against the tin. The tin heats up and whisps of smoke float up. She sucks on the end for a while before speaking again. "We're going to do an old fashioned idea for your opening ceremony outfit. Have you ever heard of a computer chip?"
I'm so mesmerized by the smoke curling out of her mouth while she's talking that it takes me a second to catch up to what she said. "A computer chip? No, what is it?"
Tareeva starts laughing, then coughing, then wheezing, then starts sucking on the cigarette again. "You kids today, you don't know nothing. A computer chip used to be the height of technology. We've of course surpassed it by leaps and bounds, but that's neither here nor there." She finishes the cigarette and pushes a button on the table next to her. A small hole opens up and she drops the unused portion into the hole. "Well, that's what you're going to be. A computer chip. Come along. Let's get you dressed."
I stand and follow her to a big, nearly empty, white room. On a table in the middle is a fat metal bracelet. Tareeva picks it up, snaps it on my writs and pushes a button. I look down and grimace at the image that the bracelet has plastered on to me. I am green. Green with silver dots and stripes running every which way. I can't think of anything less likely to attract a sponsor than what I have on. "This is it?" I ask.
"That's it." Tareeva says. She opens her tin and lights another cigarette. "Let's go to the chariots."
Millard POV
My favorite person on the prep team is ironically named Kandee – with a K and two E's she is specific to point out- She has fluffy, baby pink hair that looks like cotton, her skin has been dyed hot pink with pure white stripes which coordinate with her skin-tight, hot pink dress. She delicately shaved my face with a straight razor, even though I've yet to have grown even the slightest hint of a beard. I think she took pity on me since it's unlikely that I'll ever really have a chance to shave. I tried to keep from looking at her chest as she hovered so close, but it was right in my face and the dress really drew attention to her curves.
I keep myself clean and trimmed so my prep team didn't have a whole lot that they could do with me. They touched up the tips of my nails and styled my hair with some blue gel, but even with the superfluous shave, they were done with their basic prep in less than an hour. I thought this was a really long time to spend on getting cleaned up, but the prep team exclaimed over and over that they had nothing to do for hours now because I didn't give them any challenge.
Pepper, one of the guys on my prep team, -the only one who didn't color his skin, probably because it is already a rich chocolate color- leaves the room to go get my stylist. I wonder who the stylist will be since the last District 3 stylist quit on live television during the last games. She made a big spectacle and had to be escorted away by peacekeepers. Pepper returns with a man in his early twenties, maybe.
The stylist also has not colored his skin, though his hair is the brightest red I've ever seen in my life. "Hello Millard," he says. "My name is Danglars, I'll be your stylist for these games."
"Hi." I say. He waves away my prep team and they leave.
"I had a great idea of what I wanted to do for District 3 when I was assigned but these damned games..." He sighs and look out the window. "They just aren't giving any of us a choice. What we have to do is a throwback design. Something that represents the roots of your district industry."
He gets quiet and I start to feel awkward. I don't know what the roots of our industry might be or why it would be a problem. "So what will my costume be?"
Danglars turns to look at me and smirks. "I'm sure my partner is going to use that new Wardrobe-on-a-wrist trash, but if we're going old school, then I'm going to do it right." He walks over to the wall and pushes on a button. The wall slides open and we go into a bright, white room with a big, bulky costume on a stand in the middle. I recognize it immediately from my history books. I'll be dressed as a computer. Not just any computer, but one of the old generation desktop computers. There is a helmet that is essentially a giant angled box with vents in the back. The front is solid black and shines like glass, the rest is a light brownish cream color with a dull finish. The shirt is patterned with a keyboard with a clunky mouse design down one sleeve. The pants are solid black and about as tight as Kandee's dress.
My hopes of sponsorship have just been deleted. I put on the costume like I'm instructed and we head down to the chariots.
Danglars was right, Jamee is wearing a Wardrobe-on-a-wrist and the outfit projected is one that I recognize, again from history books. She's a motherboard. When she sees me she starts laughing.
"Wow!" she says when the giggle subside. "I thought my costume was bad, but yours looks ridiculous." I'm annoyed at this part because she's right, and part because this silly girl who can't even figure out basic electronics might have a slightly better chance than me at winning. I shouldn't let it annoy me and soon we'll probably both be dead, but I feel petulant and petty. When she walks past me towards the chariot, I stick out my foot tripping her. The wrist device does just what I was hoping it would do, it shorts out and she lays on the floor naked for a minute while the device resets. I smirk behind my helmet at her girly screams and walk past her to the chariot.
Her outfit reappears and she stands up quickly checking to make sure that the hologram has her covered, then she stomps over to the chariot. "You're gonna regret that," she says. "I swear you won't make it out of that arena alive. I'm going to send you home in a box." For a second I'm marveling at how cute she is when she's pissed. Then I'm worried that she just might kill me, but there will be 22 others out there trying to kill me too, maybe I'll get lucky and kill her off first. Either way, it looks like the next few weeks will be a little more interesting.
What do you guys think of the new format now that we're a couple chapters in? Is it working? Favorites? Least favorites? Predictions?