Hey guys! Back at it with the second prologue of this SYOT, still looking for tributes (a lot of tributes) so feel free to submit, that's really all I have to say, everything else is on my profile page, this is a long sentence, bye for now.
Prologue, Part Two
Celeukos "Cell" Callas, 38
Peacekeeper, District Five
For a while we stand in silence and stare at the paint dribbling from the side of the Justice Building, still wet and glistening in the early-morning sunlight, pooling on the marble steps. When I close my eyes I can hear the droplets hitting the ground like rain. The smell is heady and overpowering.
Matrix tugs on her gloves and tilts her head to the side. "It seems as though Vector Vasquez had help," she says at last, as we stare. "The graffiti wasn't just him."
"Looks like it," I agree, glaring up at the bulging caricature of the President of the Republic of Panem, TRAITOR scrawled in spidery black script over his bloodshot eyes and cartoonishly grotesque smile.
Matrix is the first to pull away. "There's nothing to be done about it now," she says. And she's right. Already a small army of huddled District Five citizens has descended on the Justice Building, frantic to scrub away the portrait before the general population arrives on its way to the electric plants. "At this point," Matrix continues, as we fall into step behind her, "The best we can do is return and question Vector's coworker again."
"Why?" I ask. "He told us everything we needed. He doesn't know any more."
"I feel as though Vector might have been a scapegoat," Matrix muses, rubbing her chin. "Or perhaps he wasn't working alone." She rolls her head until her neck pops. "Either way," she says, "the coworker— Array, right?—I'd like to think he knows more than he's telling us."
I understand the nuance behind her words. "We screwed up," I say, "Didn't we."
"If we don't apprehend the real perpetrators soon, this won't look good on our record," says Matrix. "I told our supervisor that the graffiti problem had been dealt with."
Around us the sunlight catches on towering glass windows and glitters harshly enough to burn. "We'll be alright," I tell Matrix, trying not to wince as the charged acridity of the air wounds my sinuses. "We'll find the guy."
On Matrix's left, Kidd is silent as she often is. Her features are pointed and narrow, fox-like. Her hair falls limply from her skull. Under her grey eyes are heavy bags. Does she sleep at night? She lives with Matrix—the mandate is that Smilers must live with their handlers, for safety reasons—but does she sleep, do Smilers have to? Surely they do; they are still human. And yet I'm not entirely sure.
Matrix turns so abruptly that I almost fail to notice. I adjust my course and jog back to her side as she walks with clipped little paces up to the chain link fence that separates Plant 14 from the rest of the district. She raps on it with her knuckle and the fence shivers like an animal.
Two somber-faced employees dart up to the fence and drag it open as we wait, nodding their heads before scurrying back to whatever they'd been engaged with before. Matrix sweeps forward and Kidd and I are pulled along in her wake.
Matrix corners the first employee before the woman has the chance to make it a few dozen paces away. "Array Salvo," says Matrix. "Where is he?"
The employee blinks. "Array?" she says, frowning very slightly, "Well, I think he's supposed to be in the subbasement today. We've been having backup generator problems, you know." She attempts a smile. "If—you know, just maybe—if the Capitol were to send more of the parts we needed…"
Matrix looks away. "Resource control," she says, "You know that, I'm sure." The woman's face falls; Matrix continues looking somewhere else. "We'll be going," she says, brushing past the woman. "Thank you for your time."
Kidd and I follow Matrix as she veers past rows upon rows of electrical towers humming in the open air and heads for the low, long building that surely houses our mark. For a while Matrix doesn't speak. When she looks at me, there is something unidentifiable in her eyes. "I hate it when they ask for things the Capitol can't provide them," she says.
"It's not your fault," I begin, but she cuts me off with a wave of her hand.
"Oh, I know," she says. We reach the building and descend a few steps to reach the door, which Kidd shoves open with a foot. Inside is a massive hollowed space, choked with machines that mean very little to me, plastered with warning signs, crawling with workers. We stand on a reverberating metal catwalk suspended over the chaos below. Matrix, guided by her impeccable sense of direction, turns right, and we follow.
"It's like they don't realize why the Capitol took power again," she blurts. "They don't seem to understand that everything is almost gone." She narrows her eyes. "Blight in Seven. Pollution in Four. The mines get deeper all the time in Twelve and they still can't find anything." She brushes a strand of hair out of her face. "We needed the Capitol to take control with a firm hand," she says, as we step into a stairwell and begin our long descent. "We still need them. I find it appalling that these people still insist on rebellion." She glances quickly at Kidd. "No offense meant," she says, although the words seem a bit disingenuous. Kidd doesn't even reply.
Our footfalls echo up the stairwell. "A few more years of Games and I think they'll give up," I say. "Janssen can't hold out forever. Almost everyone in Panem despises her for letting their children die instead of facing the music herself."
"Almost everyone," says Matrix, "Is not quite enough."
The stairs end in a squat vestibule that reeks of old paint. We push through the door and into Plant 14's subbasement, a short shadowy corridor with several padlocked doors. The fluorescent strips on the ceiling flicker in and out seemingly at random, humming electrically every time they spring back to life. The only place to go seems to be the door at the end of the hallway that's slightly ajar, and we spread out and head towards it. I rest my hand on the butt of my gun, feel the reassuring cool metal through my glove.
"Array Salvo?" Matrix calls, pushing the door open with the flat of her palm. "Are you in there?"
Silence. If he's there, he's not saying.
We step into the room. It's a small room, dominated by the squat hulking generator stretched across the entire back wall, shuddering and humming, occasionally emitting small sparks or bursts of steam. The dry heat bakes our flesh. "He's not here," I call over the noise of the backup generator. "Let's head back up—"
The fluorescent light from the outside hallway shorts out with a fizz. We are left in the sweating dark. My heart is audible in my chest. My head swims.
"This doesn't feel right," I mumble, and the generator explodes.
There are a few moments of blackness, a few more of panicked confusion, and I find myself curled on my side at the other end of the room, back against the wall, body twitching and convulsing as electricity races up and down my limbs and torso. My hands open and close without my conscious choice. Saliva drools from the open corner of my mouth. For a brief, near-hysterical moment I wonder if this is how Kidd feels all the time, powerless, unable to control her own body. It is a nightmare feeling.
On the other side of the room Matrix lies on her back, twitching like a fish out of water. Kidd shudders with her face to the floor, fingers scrabbling against concrete. The generator has stopped humming. A trap, I think, through the confusion swimming in my brain, He set a trap for us, that son of a bitch—
The door opens.
I can't see the faces from my angle, only the feet. Five, no, six people stream into the room, shutting the door behind them. The darkness is near-absolute, but I can hear two of them coming closer, and I want to rage, to rise, to blow them to pieces. Instead I continue to convulse.
They are speaking now. Their words are fragmented in my addled brain. I don't understand, I think. Dread seizes me. What did they do to me, I don't understand, I'm afraid—
There is a sharp pain at the side of my neck. Then there is nothing.
Hey again. Don't have much more to say down here except check out my profile if you'd like to submit. There are many many spots left so I'm sure there's at least one that you might want! Maybe. I dunno. Anyway, thanks for reading!