Chapter 35:
For the rest of the afternoon, the cameras focus primarily on the Careers. There is nothing too exciting going on in the alliance camp- Prim is caring for Jack, Annella has taken on the role as provider of fish and water, and Mouseface has made herself useful collecting twigs and branches for the fire, as well as fetching anything Prim and Annella need. I am proud of the girls' efficiency.
Meanwhile the Careers, after preparing and gorging themselves on the bobcat meat (thanks to Paavo's excellent survival skills training), sit around all afternoon staring at the cattle prod, trying to understand it. I am so furious at Paavo, I can barely look at him.
"It can't be that hard," Nutmeg is saying, exasperated, looking at the base. "I saw her turn it on in a matter of seconds. She just hit a few of the buttons at the same time." The problem was that there were at least a couple of hundred small buttons at the base, in rows, in various colors, with random letters and numbers, in no discernable order.
"Yeah, that's helpful," says Silk sarcastically. Nutmeg jeers at him.
"Maybe it's some kind of code?" Paavo throws in. "We just have to figure it out somehow."
"Or," interjects Stone, "we can just start trying stuff and vary it slightly until it works."
The latter sounds much less taxing; the Careers go to work. They try every different color possible. Hitting only the green buttons. The red ones. The yellow ones. They try spelling words. Games. Quell. Snow. They try hitting all of the same letters. The C's for Copper. The O's for Ohm. The same numbers. All of the 1's. They're from District 3- all of the 3's. Nothing they try turns the device on.
Frustrated, the Careers agree to set the cattle prod down, and go ahead with their plan to attack the alliance anyway. They still have more weapons, they reason, and an edge when it comes to hand-to-hand combat- especially since there's only one male left in the alliance. Since the food shortage will ultimately hit the Careers harder, they will need to attack as soon as possible, while they're still at a sizable weight advantage. Paavo pleads to the group to let him try and figure out the pattern tonight, and they decide to stage the assault early in the morning- District 3 weapon or not. The advantage of the cattle prod, however, is that they can use it at a distance so that their attack is far less risky- without it they will have to prepare themselves for a greater possibility of injury, especially with the way that Annella can handle her trident.
With such a clearly defined time range for the attack, my anticipation builds and diminishes at the same time. I am no longer nearly as concerned that the Gamemakers are going to spring something awful on the alliance this evening, with a full-scale battle planned on them for twelve hours later. But the butterflies in my stomach for tomorrow morning are already fluttering.
I am somewhat right. By evening, the arena begins to "snow"- again, with dry ice crystals- providing no hydration but plenty of opportunity for hypothermia and frostbite. What starts as a beautiful snowfall throughout the arena turns into a potentially deadly blizzard, with whipping winds and an accumulation of significantly more frozen CO2, but compared to the drama of the first two nights- this is cake. The Careers have the shelter of the Cornucopia- they lay inside the cochlear segment while Paavo keeps watch at the wide entrance near the fire- looking perplexed as he stares at the District 3 weapon, wheels turning as he tries to make sense of it. The alliance has the protection of the forest canopy- as well as enough camping supplies that they had swiped from the Cornucopia at the beginning- to keep this storm from being life-threatening. They simply bundle up even more than usual, protecting themselves with anything even remotely resembling covers, and huddle a little closer to the fire (and to each other).
Peeta and I cuddle up, too- we get under the blanket in the sitting room and kiss all evening as the Quell plays in the background- now when my lips are on Peeta's somehow I don't need to keep my eyes on the TV screen anymore- though I briefly think of Prim in the storm and wish that she could be half as warm as I am. Peeta tastes like the hot chocolate that we drank earlier this evening. His strong arms around me, the feeling of safeness and security, combined with the heat of us being so close, start to have a tranquilizing effect. After a night of no sleep and a night of awful nightmarish sleep, I am exhausted, and it isn't long before my eyelids start to droop. Peeta gently kisses my forehead, which I take as silent encouragement to get some rest while I can. It isn't even 9 p.m. I fall asleep almost instantaneously.
What feels like a few seconds later, Peeta is the one lightly poking me in the ribs. "Wake up, Katniss!" he whispers excitedly. "Look!" He is pointing at the TV screen.
I open my eyes enough to see that the camera is focused on Paavo- who looks like a lightbulb just flashed above his head. The camera isn't close enough for me to me to see the numbers on the District 3 weapon, but it is obvious that Paavo has learned something important- he is gripping the prod with his left hand, three fingers carefully placed on neighboring buttons, and the prod is sparkling with electricity.
"Whoa!" I whisper in amazement. "He figured out how to turn it on."
"Yeah," Peeta agrees, "just not how to fire it yet. But hopefully he will soon- before the sun rises."
"Wait, what time is it?" I ask in disbelief. I can't imagine that more than an hour has elapsed.
"Four-thirty," Peeta replies.
Wow. While still a little disoriented, I am waking up fast- I've had almost eight hours of sleep already. And the Careers were all asleep before I was, planning to attack the alliance in a couple of hours- which means that they will all be waking up soon. Paavo never woke them to take his watch. He doesn't have much time.
But he doesn't need it. Pointing the weapon away from the Cornucopia, towards the fire, Paavo carefully places the three fingers from his right hand on the base of the cattle prod, in an arrangement that perfectly mirrors his left- and the jolt of electricity escapes the end in a blinding flash of light, hitting a branch several yards away and setting it aflame. As soon as it registers to him that he understands how to work this new weapon, Paavo turns around and points it in the direction of the Careers.
The problem is that the cracking of the branches, combined with the flash of light emitted from the prod, was enough to wake the dead. When Paavo spins around, he finds the Careers conscious, sitting up, rifling through their stuff, desperately grabbing for their machetes and rocks- it looks like all three of them had thought to keep their weapons by their sides when they slept tonight. Goes to show how much they really trusted Paavo.
Paavo pushes the buttons to fire the prod again, aiming at Stone first- who is better at killing at a distance than the other two- sitting in the middle. He hits him right in the chest, and after a few moments Stone's torso topples backwards until he is laying flat on the metal floor of the Cornucopia. Stone is out cold. Unfortunately, it takes Paavo an additional second or two to double-check his finger positioning and turn to the left to re-aim, and by this time both Silk and Nutmeg have found their machetes.
Paavo fires again at Silk, who had already risen and started to close the distance towards him. The prod sends out voltage that hits Silk in the stomach; we watch as Silk freezes instantly and a couple of moments later falls to the ground. Paavo jerks the weapon to the right, but by that time Nutmeg is practically on top of him. She lets loose a wild swing from her machete just as Paavo hits the button combination on the prod one last time.
The electricity that hits Nutmeg on her left side is enough to redirect the aim with her machete. Unfortunately, the swing had already been set in motion. So rather than slicing Paavo right in the center of his chest, the machete blade pierces his left shoulder, and gashes downward as Nutmeg twists away. Paavo screams and drops his weapon. But the cattle prod had already transmitted a significant amount of voltage to Nutmeg's body, and she is powerless to continue to swing as she falls to the ground, twitching. Blood gushes from Paavo's shoulder, coloring his light jacket a sickening red. But this is no time for him to stop. He takes out his knife with his right hand and approaches each of the Careers in turn, slitting their throats as they lay unconscious. The cannon booms three times. And just like that, the Careers are gone and the arena is down to alliance members.
Bleeding profusely, blood soaks through the entire left side of Paavo's jacket in a matter of seconds. He looks around the Cornucopia, but nothing is of that much use to him there with regard to healing his wound. Looking for the second time as if a lightbulb lit above his head, he picks up the cattle prod again and heads away from the Cornucopia, towards the woods and the alliance, leaving a trail of bloody snow behind him.