A/N: Thanks to jakeboy4914, PrincessLyoka and mangesboy01 for reviewing! As ever, the support is appreciated.

Yet again, this chapter's including a large amount of content from 'Catching Fire'. It's kind of hard to avoid it at this stage in the Games, with so few tributes left alive. So I'll mention that most of the dialogue in this chapter has been taken from Chapter 25 of 'Catching Fire'.

I hope that you all enjoy the chapter :)


"All I believe, and all I've known

Is being taken from me, can't get home

Yeah, do your worst, and worlds collide

Let their fear collapse, bring no surprise

Take me out of here."

- Rob Swire, 2010.


The 75th Annual Hunger Games (The Third Quarter Quell) - Day 3, 8.45 am

Brian T. 'Beetee' Matthews (55), District 3 Male (victor of the 38th Annual Hunger Games)

Pendulum - Watercolour (2010)


I sit on the sand at the water's edge in the weak morning sunlight, Plutarch's plan circling round and round my mind. He wants us to break out of the arena, keeping Katniss safe and getting as many of us out as possible along with her. At the rate we're going, the Games will be over in another day or two, and this might be my only chance to get more than one of us out alive. This morning, for the first time since the Third Quarter Quell began, I've been in possession of the coil of wire - of my own invention, I may add - that is the key to unlock the force fields that encircle the arena, and had the senses to be able to use it. My back might still be in considerable pain - I have never known such agony in all my fifty-five years until I arrived at the cornucopia roughly forty-eight hours ago - but it's not as crippling as it was.

Now is the time to put my plan into action before it's too late.

Really, it's rather simple; any of us would be able to do it, but I've been entrusted with the plan because I have the technical know-how to resolve issues that the other victors do not have. Also, it'll make the plan seem more believable to the Capitol audience if a victor defined by their intelligence suggests it, as opposed to Katniss or Johanna suggesting it. Still, I've got to explain it to them, anyway. Both Finnick and Johanna know that their is a plan, but only that it includes the wire. Now is the time to reveal all to my allies.

I call my fellow victors over to me on the sand, and it takes a minute for Katniss, Peeta and Finnick to assemble themselves on the beach in front of me.

"I think we'll all agree our next job is to kill Brutus and Enobaria," I say bluntly, just so that they know that this meeting is for something serious, not a trivial chat about how to divvy up our plentiful supply of food. Plus, that's our cover for our actions; we were trying to take out the tributes of District 2, not break down the walls of the arena. " I doubt they'll attack us openly again, now that they're outnumbered," I continue. "We could track them down, I suppose, but it's dangerous, exhausting work."

"Do you think they've figured out about the clock?" Katniss asks me, and I have to think for a moment before answering. Considering it was such an easy deduction for Wiress and I to make, I never really gave much thought to whether the other tributes had understood the arena, too. I had just assumed that they had worked it out, as we had done. Thinking about it now, I'm not so sure.

"If they haven't, they'll figure it out soon enough," I reply, trying to factor in variables I hadn't considered before. "Perhaps not as specifically as we have. But they must know that at least some of the zones are wired for attacks and that they're reoccuring in a circular fashion. Also, the fact that our last fight was cut off by Gamemaker intervention will not have gone unnoticed by them. We know it was an attempt to disorient us, but they must be asking themselves why it was done, and this, too, may lead them to the realisation that the arena's a clock." Having thought it through, I don't know how they couldn't possibly know. Let's just assume that we're on the same page and that they're wise enough not to fall prey to the Gamemakers. "So I think our best bet will be setting our own trap," I conclude.

"Wait, let me get Johanna up," Finnick interrupts. "She'll be rabid if she thinks she missed something this important." I nod in agreement, as Johanna needs to know all that there is to know about the plan, just as much as the rest of us do. We can't have anyone who doesn't know what is expected of them. Such a person would be a liability.

As Finnick dashes off to rouse Johanna from her slumber, Katniss murmurs something that I don't quite catch - my hearing isn't all that it used to be - and then we wait in silence for a few moment until Finnick and Johanna return to us. Then I ask for everyone to take a couple of steps back as I drop to crouch on my heels, drawing a rough map of the arena in the sand. The others all crouch around in a small huddle, as though they are students turning up to class. In a way, I suppose that they are. I will tell them all that I know about the plan to break us out of the arena.

"If you were Brutus and Enobaria, knowing what you do now about the jungle, where would you feel safest?" ask my allies, and Peeta perks up to reply.

"Where we are now," he says. "On the beach. It's the safest place."

"So why aren't they on the beach?" I ask again, probing for answers from my allies. I know the answers already, of course, but by getting them to interact it helps me to gauge how much they are understanding what I'm telling them.

"Because we're here." This time it's Johanna who replies to me.

"Exactly," I nod. "Because we're here, claiming the beach. Now where would you go?"

"I'd hide just at the edge of the jungle," Katniss says, and so far I'm pleased that my allies are on the same wavelength as me. "So I could escape if an attack came. Also so I could spy on us," she adds.

"Also to eat," Finnick pipes up, trying to involve himself in the discussion. "The jungle's full of strange creatures and plants. But by watching us, I'd know the seafood's safe."

"Yes, good. You do see," I say smiling, pleased that my allies have kept up so far. Really I had no idea about the intelligence of my fellow victors. All I was certain of coming into the Games was that my allies would be potent killers. "Now here's what I propose: a twelve o'clock strike. What happens exactly at noon and at midnight?"

"The lightning bolt hits the tree," Katniss says.

"Yes," I confirm, explaining the plan. "So what I'm suggesting is that after the bolt hits at noon, we run my wire from that tree all the way down into that salt water, which is, of course, highly conductive. When the bolt strikes, the electricity will travel down the wire and into not only the water but also the surrounding beach, which will still be damp from the ten o'clock wave. Anyone in contact with those surfaces at that moment will be electrocuted," I conclude.

For a moment, I look at my allies as silence falls over our small group as they all try to comprehend my plan. Personally, I think it's both simplistic and logical, but I guess that not everyone can see it that way.

"Will that wire really be able to conduct that much power, Beetee?" Peeta asks me, finally breaking the silence. "It looks so fragile, like it would just burn up."

"Oh, it will," I reply. "But not until the current has passed through it. It will act something like a fuse, in fact. Except the electricity will travel along it."

"How do you know?" Johanna says, who seems less than convinced. Maybe I haven't won everyone over, after all.

"Because I invented it," I say, surprised by Johanna's lack of trust. Had Plutarch not informed her that I was the one to trust once in the arena? "It's not actually wire in the usual sense," I tell her, not just for her benefit, but so that the other allies can get a better understanding of the technology, too. "Nor is the lightning natural lightning, and nor the tree a real tree. You know trees better than any of us, Johanna. It would be destroyed by now, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," she replies moodily, clearly annoyed that her argument has been so comprehensively invalidated. It's as though she wanted to find a flaw in my plan, even though it might just be able to save her life.

"Don't worry about the wire," I assure the others. "It will do just what I say."

"And where will we be when this happens?" Finnick asks me.

"Far enough up into the jungle to be safe," I reply. Really, I'd have expected my allies to have put two and two together about that one already.

"The Careers will be safe, too, then, unless they're in the vicinity of the water," Katniss points out. It seems as though everyone is having some doubts about my plan.

"That's right."

"But all the seafood will be cooked," explains Peeta, as though he's objecting to the plan, or just not keeping up. I'm not even sure which reason it might be.

"Probably more than cooked," I say, continuing my explanation. It feels like I'm fighting a constant battle to reassure all the others that the plan will work. "We will most likely be eliminating that as a food source for good. But you found other edible things in the jungle, right, Katniss?" I ask our youngest ally.

"Yes. Nuts and rats," she replies helpfully. "And we have sponsors."

"Well then. I don't see that as a problem," I tell Peeta reassuringly. And even if we eliminate all food sources in the arena, I'm sure that we could survive from sponsor support alone. "But as we are allies and this will require all our efforts, the decision of whether or not to attempt it is up to you four."

There's a pause for a few moments as my allies contemplate their decisions, although I already know what the outcome will be. Finnick and Johanna are following orders from Plutarch to assist me at all costs. Even if the victors of District 12 oppose the plan - and I doubt that they do, now that I've answered their questions - then the vote will be three to two, and the plan will go ahead. Still, it relieves me massively when Katniss speaks up.

"Why not?" she says finally. "If it fails, there's no harm done. If it works, there's a decent chance we'll kill them. And even if we don't and just kill the seafood, Brutus and Enobaria lose it as a food source, too."

"I say we try it," Peeta adds, although as soon as Katniss made up her mind I knew he'd side with her. "Katniss is right." That carries the vote already.

Finnick looks across at Johanna, raising his eyebrows in mock doubt, so that he doesn't appear to be following me blindly, which might give away the plan at this stage. Or at the very least, it would show a pre-planned allegiance to me, which would make the Capitol suspect something.

"All right," he says finally. "It's better than hunting them down in the jungle, anyway. And I doubt they can figure out our plan, since we barely understand it ourselves."

That carries the vote, and it takes us just a few minutes to prepare for the journey towards the lightning tree, as I want a chance to inspect the tree from close-up before the lightning strikes at noon. By the time we finally set off along the beach towards the twelve o'clock sector, I'm buzzing with excitement.

I can't wait to put my plan into motion.


A/N: If you liked this chapter, please review! As ever, constructive criticism is welcomed :)

P.S. There's just five chapters to go...