The Enlightenment

AN: Dear readers, all political/ethical views expressed by characters in this fic represent ONLY the views of that character, and not the author. I only write the story down, people. I have absolutely no control over what happens when to whom or why.


The moment I let him up, Xavier Malcovitch makes it clear he absolutely despises me. He's no longer an adorable mishka or zaychik, he's a murderous bear who'd rather kill than cuddle me. And, just to spite me, he runs to the man who gave him the injections and clings to his legs the way he used to latch onto mine, nuzzling his nose into the medic's thigh. Our physican looks quite uncomfortable with this newest development-whether embarrassed or pain from having his genitals inadvertently crushed I can't tell. He pats Xavier's head awkwardly in an attempt to comfort him. "It's alright, Mr. Malcovitch. You're done now."

"Don't be a such a Cry baby," I call to him. But it's haughtiness, not hurt, that glares up at me out of those accusing dark eyes. I ignore him. Good, I try to think. It's not like I wanted to play nurse-maid anyways. But the rejection still stings, and I don't like it. Don't get so attached, Petra. If he hates you, it'll make killing him easier.

Then it's my turn. And looking down at Cry baby's insolent stare, I realize there's something I need to do. "Let me do it." I insist as the medic swabs my arm again.

"What?"

"I have to win the Hunger Games," I explain, gritting my teeth. "So give me the goddamned needles and point me to the nearest vein."

He opens his mouth to counter me, but to my surprise he relents. "Give it IM. It'll be faster."

"What does that even stand for?"

"Intramuscular."

The thought of injecting my own ass is about as obscenely absurd as it would be nearly impossible: I'm not exactly buxom either fore or aft. Even twisting I can't get a good view. "And just how am I supposed to do that? I don't know if you'd noticed, but my ass is back there." I gesture with my thumb. "I might be a girl, but I'm not that flexible."

The slightest trace of a smile again washes across his face. "You have larger body mass than a pediatric patient. Might I suggest the upper thigh instead?"


So for the third time today I'm laying on this stupid table. At least this time I still have my pants on, even if they're around my knees.

"You don't have to do this," the medic says, placing the first syringe in my hand. My eyes are still shut tight. This is going to hurt, something deep within me protests.

No shit, Petra. You'll be lucky to stay conscious. Call it stupidity, call it stubbornness, call it closure, when I look at Xavier Malcovitch there's just something I have to know: is Petra Stone-heart strong enough? Can she do what needs to be done?

The glass barrel is cold, and the plastic of the plunger is strangely textured to my hand. "Are you about to go into an Arena with twenty-two kids whose only chance of getting out is to kill you?" I snort, jabbing the needle into my leg with a grimace. I push the plunger, and searing pain shoots though my spine. I grit my teeth. "Then yes, I do." It's not fair to force Malcovitch, then not be willing to suffer the same. I let him get the injections because he needed them. It was cruel, but it was kind. Just like killing him will be. I held him down, I console myself as the next needle pierces my flesh. I held him still. He tried to escape but he couldn't. I hurt him once…I can—I will— do it again.


When I finally sit up, my thigh is throbbing. A spreading sea of raised welts twists across the skin. But it's over. I did it. I confronted my fear.

with your eyes tight shut and a medic practically holding your hand, something within me sneers. Suddenly I don't feel so courageous anymore. I feel like a stupid little girl out to prove something, but unsure of what and to who. I stand and pull my pants back up.

"Satisfied?" He asks.

I flush. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Most do," he replies. "But you now know if it becomes necessary to inject yourself in the Arena, it's a skill you'll be able to perform."

"That's what I thought," I say sourly. "But now that I think of it, it just seems stupid."

He raises an eyebrow. "Beware the Tracker Jackers." It's a cryptic warning, sure; but outside of his prior instructions I have no idea what it might mean. Every child in the 12 Districts knows to beware the muttations. I ponder his words, and wonder if Klerkov might know. He was a Victor—I'm fond of Tasha, but her expertise is in winning the audience, not the Games themselves. No, I'll have to ask Klerkov, I deliberate. That is, if he'll still have me.

Suddenly I'm not in a hurry to leave. The sterile, uninviting atmosphere in here seems less threatening than facing the rejection of my Mentor or Escort. Or the wrath of the Capitol, either.

…or their adoration, for that matter. I've had enough of that to nearly kill me.

"So…are we done?" I finally ask. He's not a friend, no. But he was nice to us, and I have a feeling that familiar faces will become one of the things I miss the most.

"One last thing," he tells me, kneeling down to look at Xavier, still playing coy—and shooting me dirty looks every time the medic's back is turned. "There's something I want to check."


"Poor dentition with multiple dental caries in both maxillary and mandiblar molars and premolars," the medic drones, wrestling fingers and a penlight into Malcovitch's mouth. But when his hands grasp Xavier's left cheek to steady him, Cry baby lets out a wail and a tantrum of kicks.

The medic swears and rubs his ribs, but never utters a word of complaint. He releases Cry baby, who holds his arms out to me pleadingly, then remembers our fight. He sniffles, and buries his face in his knees instead, leaving long, salty strings of snot and tears against his pants.

…the right side of his face, at least. "Large maxillary abscess noted above left bicuspids," the medic finishes. "We will medicate with *Cephorexin."

Suddenly Cry baby's obsession with cream makes a hell of a lot more sense. I've seen cattle lose hundreds of kilos before, simply because eating became too painful. "It is really going to make a difference?" I ask. "Treating it, I mean?"

The medic faces me slowly, a dogged look in his eye. My apologies, he said. I didn't realize you were intelligent. His next words are chosen carefully. "It's my job to provide him with Capitol standard care. I would be remiss in my duties not to prescribe the antibiotic."

Again, he didn't answer my question. This time it wasn't because he didn't listen: he just didn't want to. "But it won't cure it, will it?"

He shakes his head. "No. Not in-"

"In what?"

His gold-flecked eyes dull in resignation. "Not in time to make a difference to his quality of life," he ends with simple finality. He's the Hunger Games' medic, and he's known from the instant he laid eyes on Cry baby that he didn't stand a chance.

I press on. "So it won't stop the pain."

"No. I can provide him with a topical analgesic for temporary relief but-"

There's a grunt, and a sharp cry of pain punctuating by a sickening snick and sucking sound. "Good Games, girl!" The medic shouts. "What have you done-?"

My fingers are raw and bloody as Xavier Malcovitch's eyes roll and his body sprawls backwards onto the table, flopping limply. Three of his infected teeth lay in my outstretched palm. I'm Petra Angelovna, and I'm the butcher's daughter. You want the cows as fat as possible before slaughtering, and sometimes that means finding out why they won't eat, and doing something about it. You remove the tooth, or you cut your losses and remove the cow. "Relax," I tell the flabbergasted medic. "It's not like I've never done it before."

"To a human?" He asks weakly.

I shrug. "What's the difference?"

"I'll write orders to have him fitted for a prosthetic this afternoon," the medic says shakily, face ashen. "But it'll be up to your Stylists to see that he wears it." Good. After seeing the missing chunk of flesh in that nurse's arm this morning, the stylists are welcome to risk their fingers to Cry baby's teeth. I'm going to need mine for the Arena.


He's drowsy and fussy when he comes to, and has forgotten all about our petty argument. He moans sleepily, and nestles into my arms while wiping his eyes repeatedly with the back of his hands."Malcovitch," I say suddenly, but not to the boy in my arms. I turn to the medic.

"What about him?"

"Do you know what's wrong with him?"

"I've seen it before," he replies. Protein calorie deficiency, chronic calcium deficiency, B12 deficiency, chronic lead over-exposure, chronic iron deficiency, lack of iodine and underfeeding due to inadequate enamel fluoridation and poor dental hygiene."

I might be intelligent according to him, but I'm not a medic. He'd do well to remember it. "What does that mean?" I ask again.

"That means if he'd been born in the Capitol, he'd been a happy, healthy boy."

I frown. "Can you fix him?"

"No. Those nutrients are essential even during embriogenesis for proper CNS development."

He's talking over my head again, droning like a textbook. Perhaps it's easier to hide the words behind a show of academia than to face what they really mean. I'm a butcher's daughter from District 6, with no education but how to read, write, kill and dress. I envy him his luxury. "Explain," I say softly. "Please. So I can understand."

He sighs. "Xavier Malcovitch suffers from societal mental retardation. It's likely it was congenital."

"What does that mean?" I press.

"He was born that way."

I begin to understand. "Is that why he's so small?"

"Possibly," the medic replies. "But it's why he acts so young."

Societal mental retardation, he called it, and he'd seen it before in District 12. He knows what I don't, and he's done his best to avoid telling me. But I have to ask. Have to know. "How…how much does he understand?"

He is silent for a long while. "Not much," he finally states.

I clutch Cry baby tighter. "How much?"

"Hunger. Pain. Fear," he enumerates. "Maternal affection, perhaps someday sexual attraction. His amygdalary function will be almost normal, his cerebellar function might be made to improve, but he will have minimal, if any, further frontal lobe development."

I can't follow the rest of his words or their full meaning, but his first few sentences were clear. Hunger. Pain. Fear. The only part of the Games he will understand will be the worst. Maternal affection, sexual attraction…but not love, I realize with a pang, never love. "So he's, he's not really…human, then, is he?" I ask, suddenly timid.

But the medic doesn't judge or condemn. Far from being angry, his tone is sad. "No, Petra Angelovna, not in the sense that you or I am. In the Capitol, we run tests for his and similar conditions. He would have been culled in utero."

Culled. Now there's a term I can understand. I'm suddenly angry. "He doesn't even understand. It's not fair sending him into the Games!" I object.

"Life isn't fair," he states blandly. "Not to any of us. I took a vow to do no harm, yet here I am, preparing champions to kill children for sport."

"Can't you, I don't know, can't you do something?" I race desperately.

"I'm afraid a medic's notes aren't enough to excuse a Tribute from the Games," he explains rationally. "If physical handicaps are allowable, it follows that mental ones will be as well."

"Can't you try?"

He holds my gaze for a long, long time. He is silent. When he finally speaks, his words are like ice. "Yes, Petra Angelovna, I could. But I will not."

"He doesn't deserve to die!" I demand.

He looks at me pityingly, green and gold eyes dulled with pain. "Perhaps, Petra. But equally there's the converse: perhaps he doesn't deserve to live."

My spine stiffens. "Because he's retarded?" I snarl.

"Especially so, but not for the reasons you think," he continues softly. "That little boy suffers every day. If I knew another way to ease his suffering, any other way, I'd do it."

"I thought your oath was do no harm," I remind him snidely.

"And which is more harm, do you think?" he asks me earnestly. "I could give that boy an injection now, or even 12 years ago in utero when it would have mattered, that would prevent him from suffering more or even ever at all. Which is more harmful, Petra Angelovna? Killing him now, or ever allowing him to live?"

For once, I don't have an honest answer. I cuddle Cry baby to my chest, and glare at him defiantly. "I'm not sure I agree with you."

"Then you're equally not certain that you don't." The medic corrects. "For all you know, the kindest thing fate ever did for Xavier Malcovitch is letting him die with dignity in the Hunger Games, rather than from hunger itself." For a few awkward moments he stares at me, his gold flecked eyes flickering as he fingers a fine chain around his neck "Good-bye, Petra Angelovna. It was quite…enlightening to meet you. I shall monitor your progress with interest."

And may the odds be ever in your favor, he doesn't have to add. I'm Petra Angelovna, and I'm going to win the Hunger Games, were some of the first words he heard me say. He's known all along he was talking to Malcovitch's killer.

As the Game Enforcers lead us away I shudder. At first impression, I thought he was the monster. What did he think of me?


AN: For those of you who care or are interested, Cephorexin is NOT a real drug at the time of this writing. It is a fictional drug invented by yours truly for the purpose of this fic to be reminiscent of today's pharmaceuticals for any other medical science fiction junkies out there. For those readers not seeped in the inner circles of nerddom, Cephalosporins (the class to which Cephorexin belongs) are a class of antibiotics that act by stopping bacterial wall construction, which will eventually kill the bacteria.