Misdirection
A/N: I know this is late, but when I said 'take a hiatus from fanfic,' I meant it. And it was worth it! I won NaNoWriMo (at a cool 75k) and now I'm back to fanfic, right in time for the end of the world!
I sincerely hope you all enjoy this chapter. If you're still sticking around, you have my deepest thanks. (And a review never goes amiss, either). I wish you all happy holidays!
Disclaimer: Nope, I STILL don't own anything!
Wheatley's optic widened again, and his lower lid lifted in his version of a smile. Finally, Katniss felt it was safe to ask Chell, "Are you better?"
Chell nodded. "Yes."
Finnick was heard saying, "So this program…" and Chell spun around. He was on the secretary's computer, Wiress looking over his shoulder, their eyes darting all over the massive screen, "Intelligences were, what, constructed from bits and…"
Chell put a finger to her lips, a fierce expression on her face.
Finnick looked a bit offended. "What, is 'least said, soonest mended' our motto for tonight?"
"Where did you learn your way around a computer?" Katniss asked him.
"Picked it up in the Capitol," was the answer.
"Look," Chell said. "We have to get out of here. And the sooner, the better. It's a matter of survival. Either all of us leave now, or none of us will get to leave in the future. The water in the pipes here still works. That means that this area is still connected to something – they may even be a working elevator. I say we find it, take it to the surface, and quit this Game for good."
"And leave Peeta?" Katniss asked.
"I'm pretty sure Peeta was prepared to die going in—" Chell started.
"Which makes it even less okay to abandon him. I owe him my life, and I will get him out of this arena—"
"Hate to break it to you," Johanna cut in, "But you really don't owe him your life, if anything, you owe Haymitch your life."
"Your insistence on staying here will let Her pick you off like a sitting duck," Chell said.
"I won the last Game by being in love with Peeta. What would it look like if I just abandoned him now?"
"It would look very smart. I'm with Chell." Johanna stood next to her to emphasize the point. "For all we know, Peeta's already dead, Mockingjay. Can we even hear the cannons in this room?"
"Then I'll find out myself—"
"How? His body is already on its way to District Twelve by now…"
"He's not dead. And some things are worth dying for – yes, even worth the Mockingjay dying for." Katniss stared them down, but the intensity of her glare was undercut by Wheatley's excited cry of, "My god! You guys, I just got the most amazing idea—"
Katniss looked down, her fists clenched and her eyes closed. Then she looked Chell square in the eyes. "Chell, you can leave this arena if you want, but I won't be with you."
Chell looked at her a moment longer, then turned away. "Fine, as you—" she froze. In the seam between the ceiling and walls, there was a camera. And next to the camera, there was a black nozzle. With a hiss, the nozzle began to emit a faintly visible, off-green cloud.
Chell reached out and gripped Finnick's arm, so tight he cried out with pain. "What is it—"
"Neurotoxin," she choked out, in a small voice that every Victor somehow heard.
Finnick yelled, "Neurotoxin! Everybody, RUN!"
Lights, Camera – Action! –
From outside of what had been Cave Johnson's office, the cameras waited. The door burst open and Johanna Mason ran out, followed by Finnick, Wiress, Seeder, and Katniss. The last person to leave – the one that the Editor cut from the footage – carried a blue-lit personality core in addition to her portal gun. But she had barely glimpsed the outside when she spun on the heel of her boot and ran back into the chamber, already starting to fill with mist. When she re-emerged, she was running at full speed with her face scrunched up, like she was underwater, and she staggered under the weight of two personality cores, one blue, and one pink. But when she re-emerged, not a single Victor was in sight.
The catwalk that Finnick and Johanna took was immediately replaced by a twisting stairwell, which Wiress darted up before she realized that no one was there. The floor beneath Johanna's feet gave way as she ran into a patch of darkness, only to be replaced when Finnick ran over that same ground. Johanna fell more than thirty feet into the darkness, to land harmlessly on her feet, swearing. Only Katniss held on to Seeder's hand as they ran down what had become a blank white hallway, followed, as ever, by the cameras.
Chell almost shouted "Wait for me!" or "Where are you?" or just "Katniss!" but her voice failed her. She ran for a few paces down the corridor, but she could neither see a red-striped jumpsuit up ahead, nor hear any footfalls over the roar of machinery.
She spun on her heel, once, twice, until she had gone in a complete circle, eyes wide, seeing everything except what she wanted to see. Nothing that the cores said or sang registered with her.
The full force of her situation struck Chell. She was alone, in the facility that had gone rogue, her allies completely scattered. She had a single-portal device, and the two imperfect cores who could be guaranteed to never, ever be silent. The brief flicker in her life of human companionship and cooperation was over. She was alone.
The red gleam of a camera reflected out of the darkness, but no Voice spoke to her.
Eventually Chell stopped turning and turning, and fell still. The cores fell from her hands, still unheeded. She screwed her eyes shut, envisioning Seeder's map (what would happen to Seeder now), and the widening gyre of the Facility all around her.
'And so the enchanted princess woke up from her slumber and realized her complete and utter insignificance in the scheme of the world. Less than a worm. Less than a mote of dust. With less power than either…'
It took Chell a minute to realize that GLaDOS hadn't said that. When she did, her grip on the portal gun grew tighter and tighter, until her hands felt like they would snap.
'Real or not real,' she thought. 'That is not real. And I will not let Her enter my mind. She would not dare.'
She turned behind her her, and saw, twining up the grey wall that hid Cave Johnson's office, a stairwell. She ran for it and began to ascend, moving upwards, at the best pace she could maintain.
Smiling From the Television Screen -
"… Aaaaand there you have it, folks! The Game of hide-and-go-seek is over! All the traps are sprung, and the mice have been chased from their little hidey-hole! There's seven tributes left and a lot of action left in store, folks! This is a game changer and no mistake. Don't miss a moment of this exciting action. This is Caesar Flickerman, and we'll be right back to the 75th Hunger Games after these messages."
And now, a word from our sponsors –
In Cave Johnson's office, the lights all went out, except three. There was complete silence, until a tiny voice piped up, "Space? Is this space?"
"Just goes to show. Even the toughest folk'll turn tail once a bit of deadly, paralyzing, nerve-destroying poison shows up. Not my Johanna, though. She'll be back, you mark my words. She'll come back for me with a bullwhip and a Winchester. You wait and see."
"Fact: Rick and Kevin are attempting to irritate me to death. It is not working. Much as I wish it would."
On the floor, a portal device glowed with a tiny blue light.
Lost and Finding -
That portal device belonged to Wiress. When she realized that she had left it behind she stopped and hand to prevent herself from dragging her palms along the cement wall until they bled. How could she have been so foolish?
"Stupid Nuts," she said to herself. "This is why they wanted Beetee in the first place."
And she remembered Beetee, and had her goal. She clenched her fingers tightly and began to climb stairs.
Johanna still had her ax and her portal device. She moved down the hall in complete silence, but nearly shrieked when she tured the corner – falling back immediately – and saw the rows of turrets staring at her.
At ankle-height, some ways away, lay a Discouragement Beam, and a small cube with reflective sides. She eyed it, contemplating.
Finnick hadn't even gone two hundred feet when he stepped into what was, without question, a testing arena.
The only thing that slowed Katniss down was her grip on Seeder's hand. The older woman's strides were more measured; perhaps she was regulating her strength and adrenaline; perhaps she was just not as spry as she once was. The tunnel that they ran down was just barely lit up enough for them to see the divide between floor and wall. That meant that they weren't surprised not to see anyone, and they weren't perturbed when the roar of machinery around – the Facility rearranging itself into some new and terrible game board – drowned out any footsteps that they obviously would have otherwise heard. Katniss did slow down when she heard Seeder panting beside her. She slowed from a full-tilt run to a brisk walk, taking the time to look around her properly. The sight of a camera nozzle following them spurred her to walk faster again.
Seeder said, "Katniss, listen."
Katniss listened. "No turrets, no beams – you don't think she'd release mutts in the arena this late, do you?"
"No, I mean listen."
"We're safe… we can slow down?"
"No. Katniss, really listen. What do you not hear?"
Katniss stopped, and listened. She looked down both ends of the tunnel. "CHELL!" she yelled. "FINNICK! WIRESS!" after a pause, "JOHANNA!"
No answer came, not even an echo. She turned to Seeder. "They're gone…"
"What happens to the plan?" Seeder asked.
Katniss thought, looking at her portal device – black with a single red stripe. Marked District Twelve, Test Subject Twenty-four.
"Plan is in place," she said. "Even if it's just the two of us. We'll see what the arena holds… and don't ever let go of my hand." She held it out, and Seeder took it.
"There's the Mockingjay I know," she said.
Before they set forth down the hall again, Katniss took one last, look back. But no one else appeared.
The hall grew lighter, and none of the details changed, except that they perceived a gap up ahead, where the floor dropped down, before the hallway finally ended. Katniss and Seeder both stopped in their tracks when they reached the dip in the floor, and realized that it was a threshold into a test chamber. This was a surprise; there had been no fanfare, no elevators or emancipation grills. The dip in the floor turned out to be stairs, and when they descended the stairs and turned right, a test chamber was waiting for them, waiting to be solved. A heat beam grilled the wall opposite itself, and reflective cubes were stashed away in impossibly high niches along the walls. At the other end of the room, a door was shut, with an orange 'X' glowing next to it.
Katniss scowled at the sight. "We're not playing that Game anymore," and turned around.
Just as Seeder took her arm, and was about to say something to the effect of "Think again," a light came on. A massive screen, set into the wall, flickered and turned on, an eye-wateringly bright white after their long sojourn among decayed fluorescent bulbs and screens of potato leaves. It did not have a test chamber number, but it did have two little pictogram people, getting hurt in various ways, leaping through portals, and, in the end, receiving cake and boxes topped with bows.
"Presents?" Katniss asked, pointing.
"Food," Seeder said meaningfully.
"How do we know it's not a lie?"
"We don't, but I'm not walking all the way back there to look for another way out. I think we've been referring to Her the wrong way all this time; She's not the Gamemaker, She's the Game itself. I have a feeling any route we take will lead us right back to where She wants us."
"But what about your ma—"
Seeder put a finger to her lips. Katniss nodded and glanced again at the screen, and noticed a new pictogram. A black arrow led from the picture of cake and presents to a picture of four little people, squaring off as if for a fight.
She glanced at the older woman; Seeder was looking at the same card.
Katniss pursed her lips and whistled four notes – four notes she had not forgotten, and would never forget, as long as she lived.
Seeder hummed them back.
And they started the test.
One hour, three minor burns, sixteen cusses, and one breathtaking aerial gambit later, a blue checkmark gleamed by the door, which opened. Katniss waited for Seeder before they crossed to the other side.
What they found within was a miniature Cornucopia – the proper kind, like would be found in a normal Hunger Game. There was, in fact, a cake – although even from three feet away they caught a whiff of what it was made of, and it was not chocolate, flour, shortening, and eggs. There were tightly wrapped packets of food – tasteless, protein-rich nourishment – and small backpacks, which were in the same Aperture Science orange as Chell's jumpsuit.
Katniss looked away from the backpacks, and saw two weapons gleaming in the mouth of the Cornucopia. "Seeder." She bent down and pulled them out: a spear, and a bow with a quiver of twenty arrows, all manufactured in a smooth white material. They were perfectly crafted, with the little Aperture Science circle at one end.
It took Katniss a moment to notice how fast she was breathing. She barely heard Seeder saying drily, "Well, this can't be good."
Katniss lifted the bow and tested the string. It was perfectly sized for her – even better than the bow had been last year – and was surprisingly strong, for its light weight. For a moment she thought she could hear her father's voice – or Gale's – their voices blent together in her mind's ear:
"Think of the bow as an extension of your arm, the arrow as an extension of your eye. Stay cool, stay focused, Catnip. You're a natural hunter."
She fingered the bow. 'A natural hunter,' she thought. 'Is that, really, all there is to me?'
Seeder was talking. Katniss shook her head. "What?"
"I was saying, if this were a normal Game, we would be overdue for some kind of showdown. If Cashmere and Gloss are still alive, they would be likely choices. What do you think?"
Katniss felt the camera to their left, tracking her every motion. She thought, suddenly, 'Prim must be so relieved to see me right now. Prim, and Gale, and all of District Twelve.' She slung the bow over her shoulder, and forced herself to say, "I think we should go for it."