A/N: Happy Fourth of July! Now everyone gets to celebrate Independence Day, even if you're not American!

To all of the story alert-ers, the favorite-ers, and especially the reviewers, THANK YOU! Special thanks go to the articulate and beautifully verbose review left by carolnegate, and the galvanizing review from Taryn Ravensong - a comparison to Blue Sky made my entire day! Knowing that people are taking my story seriously, and looking forward to it, has really changed how I relate to this li'l thought experiment, and now I'm determined to make it the best it can possibly be. So thanks to all of you! Now, enjoy!

Katniss and Chell did not stop running until the upheavals ceased and GLaDOS' voice, threatening and insulting the blue sphere that was now attached to her, faded to a murmur.

"That," Katniss tottered three last, heavy steps before leaning against the trailing, "May have been – the worst – possible mistake we could – you're hurt."

"Only a bit," Chell answered automatically.

"Let me see." Katniss was on her feet again, inspecting the arm that Chell presented to her. A wide, but not deep gash raked the skin over her elbow.

"It must have caught on something when we were hurrying out of there. I've had worse. I think."

Katniss rifled through the pockets on her suit. "I had a bad scratch on day one – Haymitch sent me medicine – do I still have – yes, I still have it!" She spun open the lid of the little medicine jar, and dabbed two fingers in. "This may sting a bit."

"No, we should save it, we might not get more."

"Chell, don't worry. I'll be stingy." She spread the medicine with care over the cut. Chell, she noticed, barely changed her stoic expression. "There. Not too bad. Besides, it's better to get to the cut now than let it be infected and… yeah."

"There won't be any more care packages is what I'm saying."

"I know. I can make a little go a long way. Don't jostle it."

Chell nodded, then leaned heavily against the wall. Katniss noticed the way that her – partner? Companion? Ally? – held herself. Only her left hand, cradling the opposite elbow, showed anything of energy or strength. The rest was flagging, swayed, lowered, everything spelled weariness. "Are you okay?"

Katniss wasn't sure she'd ever asked that of anyone in her life, other than Prim and perhaps Peeta. Chell waved a hand. "Just tired. Worried." She glanced back the way they came.

"Thinking about the other cores?"

Chell nodded. "I hope they got away. And I hope Wheatley is alright. I hope…" she glanced at her arm. "I hope this medicine works."

"It will. And don't worry about us running out." Katniss carefully packed the medicine away, rubbing the residue on her fingers on her own minor scratches. "My mom said it was always astounding how much meat I could get off of one scrawny squirrel."

"Squirrel?"

"I used to catch 'em fresh, back home."

"You hunt, you mean?"

"All the time," Katniss answered. "Poach, really. It wasn't exactly legal."

"What weapon did you use? A gun?"

She gave a derisive chuckle. "I wish. Bow and arrow. My dad taught me how to shoot. It's kept me and my sister alive."

"And your mother, I guess?"

"Yeah. Her too. She's a healer." Katniss eyed Chell's arm. "Wish she were here – she'd really know how to patch that up."

"I'm fine. Really. Tell me more about hunting. Do you go into the woods? Or… I don't know, a desert?"

"Woods. There's a wide meadow beyond the fence in District Twelve, and after that it's just woods and wilderness for miles and miles."

Chell nodded. Katniss got the distinct feeling that she didn't want to hear about nailing squirrels in the eye or bartering meat for goods. Slowly she began to talk about the forest, how it fringed District Twelve like a blanket tossed aside, how you crossed over the meadow and the smell and sound of the district faded away behind you, and the trees grew thicker and closer together, and when you knew you were in the forest the silence was profound, interrupted by birdcalls and wind and your own breathing. And how even in the darkest, thickest tangle of trees you never minded how bumpy the ground became or how easily you could get lost, because you were free, free from the people you loved and the Capitol and the poverty and free from the past. And all around was green.

Katniss, when she ran out of things to say, stopped, and saw that Chell had leaned back her head and closed her eyes. A sad, thoughtful look was on her face. But in the silence she sat up. "Did something happen?"

"No."

Chell heaved a sigh, sitting up straight. "Your woods sound beautiful."

"I'll take you there." Impulsively, Katniss reached for Chell's hand and squeezed it. "Promise. The minute we get out of here."

"And we'll have fresh squirrel," Chell murmured. Her hand was cold.

"Rabbit's better. Is your arm—?"

Chell raised her right elbow to check. Her eyes widened. Katniss leaned over to see: the cut was well on its way to healed. "Not bad," said Chell.

"Haymitch knows what he's doing." Katniss felt a rare flush of pride for her mentor. She stood up, pulling Chell along behind her. "So. It looks like Wheatley's attached to the mainframe, good and secure. Now she's, what, a fifth less dangerous?"

"Maybe a half."

"I really don't think the other tributes are any safer with him in the wings." Katniss noticed that Chell didn't disagree. She also noticed that Chell hadn't let go of her hand. Katniss lightly dropped it and said, casually as she could, "But he's buying us time."

"So now we find the generator…"

"Wait a minute. I've been thinking." Chell turned to her. "If we find the generator and destroy it – assuming that we can – what if the test chambers all, I don't know, collapse or explode? We can't stop this Game without taking the tributes out first." Katniss waited until she saw Chell nod. "Unless you want to, I don't know, bargain with her?"

"No bargaining. But with Wheatley on hand, we might be able to sabotage something else."

"You took care of the neurotoxin…"

Chell nodded, a brief look of pride crossing her face. "Until she notices it, at least. But I did that, now this time… I'm thinking hijacking an elevator."

Katniss nodded. "How do we find one to hijack?"

"There's always a way. Worse comes to worst, look for the graffiti."

"Did you make those?"

"No. At least," Chell corrected herself, "I don't remember making them. I like to think a friend left them behind for me. Someone who knew the facility even better than me."

"Did they ever find a way out?"

Chell was silent.

One Ignored Elevator Chamber -

Somewhere in the blessed world, the sun was shining bright.

But not down here.

Somewhere in the godforsaken arena, Wheatley was being incompetent. He had already elevated incompetence to nearly an art form, but now he had a grander canvas on which to work, and a scathing, snarling critic whom he loved to piss off. His newest masterpiece was "Symphony in 4,000 Turrets, Variations on a Theme of New York Wiseguys, Sans Casing, sans Bullet." (Medium: Metal.)

And somewhere GLaDOS was raging at him.

And somewhere the hearts of tributes were light, because the difficulty settings on their tests were plummeting, and would soon be in negative numbers.

And somewhere an audience was laughing.

But there was no joy in a lonely, derelict corner of the Testing Center. Chell struck the cable box of an abandoned elevator shaft and swore, defaming the name of the brilliant Aperture Scientists.

Chell had removed the casing and clenched her jaw, staring fixedly at the wiring. After the fifth curse, Katniss, who was ostensibly "standing guard" but was sitting down at the moment, said, "Step one: hijack an elevator. In progress."

Chell turned to glare at her. "Would you like to give this a go?"

"Coal miner's daughter," Katniss indicated herself. "What do you think I know about electronics?"

"How to blow things up, maybe."

"Which still does us no good."

"Stop deprecating yourself like that."

"What?"

"Stop putting yourself down. If you – a message!"

"What's it say?"

Chell squinted at the bright blue screen. "Hacking Disabled... Suck It… Black Mesa."

"Black Mesa? Who was that, another test subject?"

Chell shook her head and shrugged.

"But a message is good, right?"

Shrug, shake of the head. Chell kept working, leaving Katniss alone with her thoughts. Come to think of it, she remembered hearing something about the first Victor of District 12 – who was from long, long ago – winning because he did know something about explosives, and was the only one in an arena full of bombs who kept his head about him.

Even just thinking that, she winced. Well. In a manner of speaking. Still, that was something. District Seven had its axes, District Four had its tridents, District Two had its… everything, but at least District Twelve's industry could contribute a bit to their Hunger Games training.

Then again, when was the last time an arena had contained any bombs other than those around the platforms?

A green light, that reminded Katniss painfully of the sunlit trees of home, cut its way through the seams between the wall panels. "Lady! Other lady! I found 'em, pardners!"

Katniss got up and pried the panel apart to see. "Rick?"

"Absolutely, ma'am, and in the flesh."

Katniss counted the cores. "Where's Kevin?"

"Fact: The Space Core finally got to go to space."

"Really?"

"No," Rick growled at Craig. "Stop lyin'. We lost track of him. Had to leave 'im behind. Left him one pistol…"

"A pistol?"

"For the coyotes."

"Now you're the one who's lying. You've lost him."

"How could you have lost Kevin?" Chell turned from the control panel. "He's loud, persistent, and his optic is bright yellow. And Katniss, I'm giving up here. This is a pure Aperture Science device, all right. I'm not even sure it actually calls an elevator."

"Why would Aperture-made things not do what they're supposed to?"

Chell looked at her with a wry, unreadable expression. She hefted the portal gun at her feet. "See this?"

She nodded.

"Original purpose was something like a shower curtain. Anyway, the last lever I pulled had no effect. Why did they even have that…" a flash of blue at her elbow caught her eye. Katniss crossed the room to read the message with Chell:

Contact an Engineer.

"Well." Chell leaned back on the springs of her boots. "Do you have any ideas?" She turned to glance at her. "You look like you do."

"Engineers… District Three makes and programs electronics. We could…find them."

"Are their victors still alive?"

From the seam in the wall there was a crescendo of "Si, si!" and "Last time I checked, Other Lady" and "Fact: Test Subjects Five and Six have the highest testing scores of any test subjects still alive."

"But," Katniss said quickly, "neither of them seems to be quite – all there. If you take my drift."

"Tell me about them."

"I… really, I don't know them that well. They won before my time. I've seen them a bit on TV, but they're not the most popular Victors by a long shot. Johanna Mason called them Nuts and Volts."

"First of all, Katniss, have you forgotten that we've developed pet names for the robots in our lives?"

She paused, then smiled ruefully, then chuckled, then shook her head.

"Just making it clear. Second of all, who is Johanna Mason and why do we care?"

Katniss smirked. "We don't care. She's a… a…" her mouth twisted up. "A scarlet woman, that's it. I don't like her. But back to District Three… Beetee and Wiress are both older, graying. Wiress mutters a lot to herself, and Beetee is always fiddling with some electrical gadget or another."

"But they're Victors."

"I don't know how they won."

Chell walked over to the seam in the wall. "If the three of you can commandeer an elevator, without attracting Her notice, do it. And bring it here."

The three lights nodded, then swiveled away. She turned back to Katniss. "Does anyone ever win the Game purely by luck?"

"Luck helps," Katniss answered at once. "Luck really helps. But no one ever wins purely by chance. Then again, after you win the Game… most Victors tend to fall apart. I think Wiress fell apart."

Chell frowned darkly at the words, then asked, "What about after their victories? What does a Victor do with their free time?"

"Mentor the new tributes," Katniss answered, "for the rest of their life. But each one must get a hobby, too – Wiress did something with music, at least I could follow that. I could never really keep up with what Beetee did. District Three is so opposite to Twelve, it all went over my head."

"Not much chance either became an elevator operator, then?" Chell asked.

But Katniss had fallen silent again. Chell let her work her thoughts out. Far away a mighty pipe rumbled, no doubt delivering a shipment of repulsion gel to the wrong location – or, possibly, blue paint to the correct location.

"Remember how Cecelia called me 'Mockingjay'?"

Chell turned at Katniss' question. "Yeah, why?"

"The Mockingjay is the symbol of the rebellion. District Eight was one of the rebelling ones…" Katniss began suddenly to laugh. "What if the Victors have taken up rebellion as their hobby?"

"Wait a minute. You said District Eight was in rebellion. Is District Three…?"

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

"Some news, some small uprisings, but – the people there, when Peeta and I visited last year on our Victory Tour, they were happy to see us. The Districts that are eating out of the Capitol's hand didn't react that way. Besides, I think Beetee would be in on any rebellion that was happening. He just seems to have that kind of awareness of everything."

"Katniss, please think. Be absolutely certain that you're not just going off of a gut feeling. You're sure that District Three is rebellious against the Capitol?"

"Yes. And even if it's not…" she pointed to the elevator. "We need an engineer. We were going to start collecting test subjects sooner or later – we're just—"

What Katniss said was drowned out in the spluttering hiss of an elevator slotting into space, reluctantly and slowly. Once the elevator slowed to a stop (sending out sparks as it did) they could make out a second cacophony: Rick's voice was bellowing "Yee-haw! That'll learn ya! Ride to the sound of the guns!"

"Rick, shut up!" Katniss yelled. Rick fell silent at once, staring at Katniss with a look of almost meekness.

"Sorry, other lady, but this elevator needs to be told who's in charge…"

"Well, now that you've told probably every camera in fifty miles of us that you're riding this elevator, we need to get out. All four of – hey, you found Kevin!"

Kevin was staring straight down at the elevator with a level of focus that was positively eerie.

"Kevin?"

"I am the force of gravity," was all that he said.

"He's contributin' his part to the load, little ladies, don't you worry," Rick assured them.

Chell was already standing in front of the door. It hissed open abruptly, and then shut just as quickly. Chell looked up at the cores.

"Fact: We will prevent this elevator from killing you," Craig informed her. "If we sacrifice some liberty."

"How much liberty?" Katniss moved to stand beside Chell. Craig was silent. She pressed on, "We need to get to Test Subjects Five or Six – one or the other. Can you do that?"

Craig's optic whirred, dilated, contracted, spun, quite like Wheatley's had when he was first attached to GLaDOS. Finally he said, "Forty-five point five percent chance of reaching Test Subject Five. Forty-five point five percent chance of reaching Test Subject Six. Point five percent chance of dying on the way."

"Chance of choosing one or the other?" Chell asked.

"Snowball in hell chance."

Chell turned to Katniss. "Well. We only have one shot. We risk being spotted, or picking one that's no use. We could bail and try to find another way." Her hands were already braced on her dual portal device. "What do you say?"

The door opened and stuck that way. Katniss answered, "I say, sounds like a decent shot. And may the odds—"

Test Chamber 6M –

"—be ever in your favor."

Thus spoke a little white turret, with a red solemn eye and not a bullet in its body.

"My thanks to you," Wiress answered. "Now let me focus."

The turret fell silent. Wiress had adopted it one day ago, rejecting the Companion Cube that GLaDOS had tried to foist upon her in favor of more cryptic company.

She surveyed the test before her. It was almost disappointingly straightforward – the second AI, the male one, was to thank for that, as well as for the large electronic screen beaming "Keep Calm and Carry On" near the doorway, with a picture of a crown on it. Was the crown supposed to represent victory? Well, it was very thoughtful.

Really, the only complicated part of this test was the massive, bottomless chasm that divided the entrance from the exit. On either side of the chasm, loose panels in the wall gave glimpses of the blackness behind them. Wiress was on a tiny island of existence in a sea of formless void. Also, her hair was getting into her eyes.

Wiress had the whole test figured out now. But her hair was still not secured. She took out the tortoiseshell clips and shook it out. The clips were a gift from her District – a reproduction of the tokens she carried into her first Game, twenty-seven years ago.

"The Greek philosopher Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise onto his skull." The turret's voice was very nearly musical.

"You don't say." Wiress learned a lot of things from her friend. There, her short, wavy hair was good and secure.

"The eagle was the sacred bird of Zeus, and carrier of his thunderbolts."

"You shall have to tell me all about Zeus in a minute." Wiress stepped back a few paces, then took a running start. She allowed herself one last frivolous thought – that it had been some time since the female AI had intruded on the test, to spout insinuations about Wiress' sanity – before frivolity shut down, and she thought only of the test. She hit the button the instant before her foot hit the Aerial Faith Plate. Before her, a Cube Deployment Tunnel deployed – an Edgeless Cube. Of course. The Edgeless Cube began to plummet into the abyss, but Wiress was already on a trajectory to meet it. First, teal portal at her landing pad, peridot portal in spitting distance of the exit door. She grabbed the cube and hit the second Faith Plate. The Edgeless Cube was dropped onto the Superbutton, and she saw it already rolling away, but she also heard the door hiss open. Now all she had to do was continue falling through the teal and peridot portals, and run through the now open door before the sphere rolled off the button and the door closed. It was all superbly simple.

Then the universe fell apart, the void entered into the island of existence and flooded it, because before Wiress' eyes the teal portal spun shut and opened again with a red edge, opening out into darkness.

Resistance was futile. Wiress fell through.