+ Big thanks again to FoxfaceFan1 for another great review! As for the 3rd QQ, yeah, all 12 year-olds. Not exactly a momentous occasion in this timeline, but safe to say it was a bit of a snoozer as far as Hunger Games go. Not much detail so far on the 98th Games, correct – although we'll meet Lapis, the girl mentioned in chapter 1 of this book who won, later on down the line. For that matter, given that this is the year of the 100th HG, we'll be checking out quite a few of the past events (and their victors) in the chapters to come. Have I mentioned this is probably going to be way longer than the last two books?
/ / / / /
No coward will act unless forced to – by an opponent, by random chance, or by the opportunity to usurp another's work.
Sometimes, when all he could do was wait and stare up at the sky as plans worked their way to fruition, Arrian questioned Suleiman's words. His mentor had first said them years ago and stuck by them since. In his quietest and most alone moments, Arrian even wondered if they were cowards. After all, didn't they slink about in the shadows, acting from positions of strength and avoiding detection?
No, Suleiman always countered. Our work is are on, and we do not react to our opponents. They react to us.
Arrian believed that most of the time. But he wasn't perfect: In moments of doubt, when he worked alone and operated for days and weeks at a time without speaking to another, he wondered just how much of Suleiman's principle was confirmation bias.
One thing was clear to him, however. The people who called this place home were cowards. They had piggybacked on the revolution of the Dark Days, riding the momentum sprung by resistance in District 4 all the way to a position of leadership among the rebellion. They had abandoned their allies in a life-or-death struggle in their greatest hour of need to hide in their tunnels and vaults. Then for a hundred years, they had shirked responsibility and watched despair and corruption seep into Panem's foundation without so much as lifting a finger to do anything about it.
Once Arrian had named the people who called District 13 home machines. That didn't seem so accurate now. Machines weren't cowards, after all.
Suleiman slunk out of the forest underbrush, nudging Arrian away from his thoughts. His mentor rested a long, thick-scoped rifle over one shoulder, his black hair full of twigs and nature debris. Green and brown camouflage streaks painted his face. He reeked of the swamp that surrounded District 13 to the south and west, and algae and mud stained his trousers.
"Perimeter patrol two hundred paces away," Suleiman growled, crouching down next to Arrian. The smell was even worse up close. "Heading north. They won't interfere."
"It's time for their shift change, anyway," Arrian said with a shrug. He leaned over to a gray plastic crate buried in leaves and loose dirt, pulling out a tablet and handing it to Suleiman. "The Capitol sends word."
The taller man narrowed his eyes, looked over the message in a flash, and set down the tablet. "Interesting proposal. Later I'll take him up on it. Not now."
Arrian picked up his own rifle and aimed it out of the forest, staring through the scope as he looked around. Two metal sensor spokes of District 13's detection grid hummed a hundred meters away. They were part of a network of sensors, some that stretched miles and miles out from the district. Those were for picking up things like Capitol armies or hovercraft, however. These were the sensitive kind of detectors, the kind that would pick up a rabbit crossing past them. Any human trying the same would have no chance avoiding the district's eyes.
Unless, of course, one had a way of telling the detectors what to see – or not see.
While Suleiman tapped on the tablet and looked up from time to time, Arrian reached back into the crate. From it he pulled a small, camouflage-painted drone no larger than a possum. Six spindly metal legs gave its medicine pill body mobility.
"Ready?" Suleiman asked, holding the tablet up and squinting towards the sensors in the distance.
Arrian slapped the drone, provoking a spasm from its insectoid legs. "When you are."
At Suleiman's control, the little drone dutifully marched out of the forest, into the open, and straight for the sensor posts, a robotic dog fetching at its master's command. It didn't have a chance at getting through undetected on its own, and while an overworked operator deep in the bowels of District 13 might blow off the disturbance as nothing more than another wayward squirrel or wild dog, that would prove nothing for Arrian and Suleiman.
The drone, however, was only part of their game. Arrian had taken care of the other part three years earlier, He hadn't been Arrian de Lange that day but "Garth Tanner," the assumed identity of a man whose body fish had certainly nibbled to the bone by now. Arrian had taken what he wanted from the District 13 computer network that day – passwords, information, medical data, juicy tidbits – but he'd also put something into it, something the likes of which these people hadn't seen, something the likes of which Arrian didn't understand.
It was another of those secrets Suleiman liked to keep close to chest. Arrian was content shrugging and going along with the plan.
When the drone was no more than twenty feet from the sensor fence, a hologram jumped up from Suleiman's tablet. It was a plain blue sphere, digital black hexagons patterning its surface. When Suleiman touched his finger to the hologram, it spun once, pulsed, and moved no more.
Arrian had the weirdest feeling it was looking at him.
Out in the clearing, the drone marched right on between the sensor poles. Suleiman glanced down at his tablet, ran a finger across its surface below the sphere, and smiled. "Nothing," he said. "Their system's silent. Didn't pick up even a whiff of it."
Arrian leaned back, in shock of how easily they'd circumvented District 13's security. How did it come so easily to his mentor? Criss-crossing the country, infiltrating District 4, venturing out to forbidden District 13 and infiltrating that, success after success. Arrian knew Suleiman commanded enormous resources and had influence in the Capitol, but those details were murky at best.
It was perplexing, but he had confidence in this man who had never let him down. More specifically, he had confidence in this man who'd done more for him than anyone back in the Capitol ever had. If that confidence came with a few unanswered questions, so be it.
/ / / / /
I wasn't going to keep the Capitol's spymaster waiting.
Come ten o'clock, I rubbed sleep from my eyes and tromped across the town square to the Hall of Justice. A warm breeze kept most of the dust off of the lifeless stone walls, leaving pockets of grime and sand built up in gutters and crags. I hated this old building. Elan had called Glenn and I's names for the Hunger Games here. I'd given a half-hearted speech at the end of the Victory Tour here. I'd listened to two more speeches here, one by a boy I detested, one by a girl I never even shook hands with. I'd watched six children called up here under my mentorship, all returning via simple pine coffins.
The Hall was built over a mountain of bodies and painted annually with a coat of blood.
Today, however, I couldn't worry about that. Lucrezia had said ten o'clock, and damn it, I was showing up at ten o'clock. Unlike Taurus, Cyrus, and most of the others in the Capitol, I had little notion of who she was outside of the Presidential Mansion and little notion of how she treated tardiness. That's why she's the spymaster, Terra.
Ten o'clock. Late anyway. Lucrezia, or whatever fair-skin woman she posed as, picked over fruit at a vendor stall beside the Hall of Justice. She glanced my way as I strolled up, nodding to the vendor and handing over a fistful of talents in exchange for a bag of bright orange, oblong delicacies.
She smiled brightly as I walked up. "Terra!" chirped Lucrezia in a completely foreign voice. "Just was hoping to see you. Maybe we should talk a bit?"
Taken aback, I glanced around and shuffled. "I…okay?"
"Splendid!"
She took me by the hand and led me through the doors of the Hall of Justice. I shuddered in here.
As soon as the doors close, Lucrezia rounded on me. "Why don't you make it even more obvious you're uncomfortable?" she rebuked.
"Wh – what?" I said. So much for the alien friendliness.
"Subtlety lost on a victor," she sneered. "Who would have guessed? Where I can blend into the crowd, you make it glaring who you are the moment you step into the square."
"You told me to show up, not to conceal myself!"
"So a little independent thinking is beyond you? Even clearer why that wench who calls herself president values you. I expect your bedroom exploits could fill a novel. You know what novels are, yes?"
I gaped like a fish, unable to think of what to reply with. Finally, I stammered, "I – she – I didn't sleep with the president. You wanted me here!"
"Only because you're marginally more useful than those other two lowlifes who go by 'victor' in this wasteland," she said.
"Did you just ask me here to yell at me, or do you want something?"
She scowled. "We'll talk on the way. Come."
The hallways of the Justice Hall seemed so much more intimidating alongside Lucrezia. They were dark, shadowy, dusty, leering at me as this aggressive woman led me down the corridors. "We have nine months before the 100th Hunger Games. Nine months by which Taurus wants as much information as possible on this cult that calls this place home."
"We?"
"I'll oversee you. And one more. She'll join us momentarily."
Oh Gods. Forget a short-term assignment with Lucrezia. I was going to get to know her well.
"I bet that thrills you," I grumbled, shoving my hands in my pockets and trudging along behind her.
She stopped me in the hallway, her face contorted in a snarl. "Despite your rush to emotions and your lack of worldliness, you have enough wherewithal and charisma to work your way into the good graces of the small-minded. That's enough for me to work with. The zealously religious aren't known for their open minds and analytical attitudes."
"'Small-minded?'"
"The Odairs. Our current president. I believe that is enough."
So much for subtlety. The way Lucrezia casually mentioned her disdain for Calla shocked me – although I had the feeling that anyone who had spent a lot of time around Creon felt the same way about his hedonistic, party-going daughter.
Huh. Lucrezia and I had something in common. I didn't know what to make about the dig against Finnick and Drake, though.
I followed her down the halls again, head down: "So who am I – are we – seeing?"
"Xanthia var Saalas."
"Who?"
"A Capitol bureaucrat."
The curt way she said that made me think she wanted me to use my imagination and to put an open mind and analytical attitude to work. Alright then: Xanthia. Weird name. Capitol bureaucrat. Stuffy title. I envisioned some skinny, tall woman with frilly, bright, dyed hair standing behind her desk as if ruling some petty empire. Tattoos or body alterations maybe, skin dye at the least. Strange clothes. That weird Capitol accent that got higher with the more words spoken. Sounded about right.
Xanthia var Saalas's office wasn't very Capitolian. It was a Spartan thing, one plain oaken desk scattered with papers and a pair of computer displays and a simple rolling chair. A television screen on the wall showed boring Capitol news – typical talk about toxic radiation levels around District 13 from some news anchor in a containment suit, as if anyone by this point didn't know the place had been nuked into glowing ash during the Dark Days – presided over a pair of hard-backed visitor chairs facing the desk. The room was cramped and stuffy.
Surprisingly, Lucrezia didn't seem to mind. I would've thought someone from the Capitol would have balked at such conditions.
Xanthia var Saalas, read a bronze nameplate atop the desk. Capitol liaison, District 5.
"She spells it with an 'X'?" I scoffed. "Really?"
A husky, powerful voice out of nowhere said, "My parents were assholes who thought starting a first name with an 'X' made them all creative. I'd tell you to blame them, but they're both dead."
I spun around in my chair. So much for thin with body alterations. I had gotten tall right, at least: Xanthia was a brute. She was overweight, strange for a Capitolian considering how much the city's elite prided being as thin as a stick, but combined with her broad shoulders and short neck, it made her look like a mythical giant who had jumped right off of the page of old fairy tales. Her skin was a normal shade of dark brown, a hue darker than the rich tans District 5's sun gave rise to, and her hair was a normal, almost boring, dirty blonde. Even her bland yellow tunic was "normal" as far as Capitolians went.
"Is something – oh, not you," Xanthia said, squinting her beady eyes at Lucrezia and sighing. "I don't need your blue look to know who you are. I'd gotten word from a source you'd showed up here under a different look. Is Calla sending her attack dogs at me, or something? You want to dig something up?"
Lucrezia looked as if she's stepped in something foul. "Might I ask this source?"
"Fat chance."
"Keep your secrets, then. I'm not here for Calla. Or your history, although I gather it's full of disasters."
"Yeah, plenty of 'em, only some accidental" Xanthia snorted, taking a seat. "So if you're not here for Snow, you're here from either Cyrus Locke's or Taurus Sharpe's bidding. Cyrus leans to the impotent side, so I'd say the latter. And I guess Miss Victor here knows him too. So…this is some shitty motley crew to figure out what?"
I spoke up: "I was told –"
"To meet for coffee and pastries?" Xanthia interrupted me. "I must have missed the memo. Where are my manners?"
Well, at least I wouldn't be bored for the next nine months until the Games.
Lucrezia looked as if she'd stepped into a pile of dog leftovers. "I'm guessing even you have kept track of what's growing in this district. Religious zealots cropping up. Ideology's more than enough for people to fight for, even for a doomed cause. But a doomed cause can inflict a lot of damage before it's finished off. I'd rather finish it off before it begins. Taurus and everyone else with a brain in the Capitol, too."
"So you're after this man Pyre York?" Xanthia said. "Heard about him. Evla, Orson, and the other Peacekeepers can't pin any crime on him, and arresting him will spark a riot. Smart guy. Except for the whole, 'The Flame judges,' and all that nonsense. Pretty ridiculous."
"Most of these people have basic education and no more, and their futures are as bleak as your wit," said Lucrezia. "Small wonder they cling to their faith, no matter how ridiculous."
"Can't argue with that," Xanthia said, nodding. "Nothin' against the religions of the districts, but when the same one gets into too many districts, there might be a bit of a problem. So why focus on District 5?"
"Wait," I said, cutting her off. "What do you mean 'too many districts'?"
Xanthia barked out a laugh. "Lucrezia, I thought you worked with this girl! Do you just lead her around on a leash or something?"
Lucrezia frowned and rolled her eyes. "The Church of the Triad stretches across Panem," she explained to me as Xanthia looked amused. "Six districts. 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, all have variants of the church."
"Based in part on some old world belief, from what I hear," Xanthia added. "There's your history and culture lesson for the day. Don't you go to school for that?"
"School ends before sixteen here," Lucrezia said.
"Oh, excuse me, spymaster, for not being up-to-date on public education."
"Wait," I interjected before they could go on bickering. "Taurus said he wants me to investigate these people and all. I already asked a friend if I could see Pyre -"
Lucrezia scoffed. "Very subtle. I might as well ask the Snows if District 7 can gain its independence."
"What a day when I agree with you," Xanthia said. "Bright idea asking to go see Head Zealot himself, Terra. Would you like to meet the runner-up to the 99th Hunger Games, too? I might be able to arrange something."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Play a part," Lucrezia hissed. "You've acted well as a victor. The Hunger Games audience thinks you're some shadowy, daring victor willing to do whatever it takes to win. We in the know understand that's far from the truth. So if you can pretend to be something you're not there, you can do the same here."
"She's saying to go to church," Xanthia added. "And pretend you believe in that rubbish."
I looked between Lucrezia and Xanthia. I had an idea where the former was going, but I still had no idea where this Capitol "bureaucrat" was pointing me towards. She'd broken enough ideas of what I thought a desk jockey from Panem's central city would be like. "Why are you in on this?" I asked Xanthia in a surge of boldness.
Lucrezia motioned to cut me off, but Xanthia held her back with a swipe of her arm. "Ha! Girl wants answers. First bright thing she's done all day. Fine, Terra. What do I want? I want a stable Panem. Just like Miss Royal Spymaster here, I see what's on top and what's on the bottom aren't very conducive to that. We have a bloody idiot for president and crazies like Pyre York running around the districts spreading their gospel. I can't do much about the former considering she has a formidable power base among the elite. I can sure do a lot about the latter, though. That satisfy your curiosity?"
Thoughts rushed past my mind. So many thoughts. Xanthia and Lucrezia, both of them had a bone to pick with Calla – and not just a small one, at that. More than that, despite their differences, they were in league with some grander ideal. I could tell from the way they spoke, the way they bantered. They weren't strangers. This wasn't a chance meeting. But…what? They weren't like Taurus, commanding me to go here and there, nor were they like Cyrus, advising me on a future that could be. No, something different filled this cramped room.
I couldn't satisfy my curiosity if I didn't play along. Time to go to church.