Chapter 37
On the giant screen, Rubis lurks in the shadows.
True to what he told me, he really was following Tuna for the Disney infinity character she had hanging from her pack. I assumed her shrimp earrings were her token, so she must have found and kept the character because… well, it's Tuna. Why am I questioning this?
The real question is, why was Rubis more focused on that little plastic superhero than on me?
Tension builds, as Rob and I look like we are about to meet our end onscreen.
Chazzer tries to get the crowd in a frenzy.
"Come on, theydies and gentlethems! What's Midnight gonna do?!"
He performs a drumroll on his knees.
The dart flies through the air in slow-motion, from Rubis' lips.
Fire fills the screen.
Disappointment fills Chazzer's face.
"I knew you got saved." He promises me, sheepishly.
In the top box, Minnesota slaps their hand to their forehead. They make a note on a tablet, which I hope reads something like, Sack that magenta buffoon.
Now that past-Rob and I are safe, present-me finds out how Pinty ran into Salto.
Pinty is chasing Bretta along a thin road, between houses. Bretta glances behind her in fright, to see Pinty hot on her tail.
Bretta turns back around and slams straight into Salto.
Both cry out in surprise. A disposable vape falls out of Bretta's pocket. She scrambles to pick it up, then sees Pinty only yards away.
Bretta springs to her feet and runs for her life, without her vape.
Salto croaks after her, "Not so tough now the kids have weapons, huh?"
Pinty comes to a stop, standing over Salto.
"Gimme that." Pinty orders.
Salto tosses her the vape, nonchalantly.
Pinty doesn't even bother catching her breath before taking a long puff of fruity goodness.
"Ain't you a career?" She growls.
"Not anymore." Salto grouches.
"Well, yeah. 'Cause you're dead."
Pinty swings for Salto with her knife.
"Wait!" Cries Salto.
Pinty halts and raises her eyebrow.
Salto says, "I can help you! Two year-sevens is better than one, right?"
Pinty considers, "Mandem do like to travel in packs…"
"Exactly!" Salto presses, "Keep me around. I know about the remaining careers. I know how to kill. And I'm no threat to you – I'm injured."
"Man can see that, innit." Says Pinty, "Alright, fair. But you'd better not slow man down, you get me?"
"Yep." Says Salto, "Can I use the vape?"
"A true hardman, I see." Pinty smiles, handing over the vape, "You'd better do as I say, or man'll keep the vape to myself, no lie."
"Got it." Says Salto, as though there could be no greater threat.
"Ha!" Chazzer guffaws beside me, "They're acting as though their little duo will last thirty seconds!"
At my exasperated look, he amends, "Which it will…? Against all odds… I'm going to be quiet now, so I don't, y'know, ruin the tension…"
He trails into silence.
Now we jump to Eugene and Elsie.
"You can sleep in a separate room if you want, Elsie," Eugene is stammering, "but I would feel much safer if we were together."
"That'd better be the only thing you feel." Mutters Elsie.
"What was that?" Eugene asks.
Louder, Elsie says, "Oh, I just said, good idea… I'm scared…"
The two squash awkwardly onto the single bed, one far happier about it than the other.
Elsie stares at the opposite wall, with her back to her bumbling team-mate. When his breathing steadies and she is sure he is asleep, Elsie tiptoes out of bed.
She unzips Eugene's pack, popping her head up like a prairie dog to see if the sound woke him.
He doesn't stir.
Tears glitter in Elsie's eyes as she grips a knife in both hands.
She leans over Eugene and stabs it into his neck.
His eyes fly open and his lungs fill with air.
The scream barely forms on his lips when Elsie clamps her hand over his mouth. She pulls the knife out.
Elsie squeaks, "Sorry! I've never done this before!"
With some difficulty, she slits his throat.
Eugene's eyes go dead.
Elsie gathers her wits, wipes the blood off the knife and puts Eugene's pack on her shoulder. Then she opens the door to find me and Rob in her way.
She dashes past us before we can react. We proceed, unknowingly, to the murder-scene.
After broadcasting our surprise, the footage returns to Elsie.
Her meeting with Pinty is not as exciting as Salto's. The latter is there to mediate, and the three quickly form a team, fuelled by tween-angst and vape-fumes.
We cut back to me and Rob, hiding in the office.
Elsie sold us out; why on earth we stayed in the building that she saw us in, I have no idea.
Hang on; yes I do. We're idiots.
Memories of Rob flood back to me, that the big screen can't recall. The way he smelt, like a freshly varnished surfboard and flecks of sea-spray. How, whenever he touched me, it felt like warm, foamy waves were enveloping my heart.
Then, to my surprise, more respectable memories come to mind. How Rob always wanted to keep the peace. How he was determined to be optimistic in the face of almost certain death. How he humoured my delusions, and actually made me feel like I had a friend.
Why couldn't I just be happy with a friend?!
I crush the remorse, the shame and the despair that accompanies these thoughts.
I sit stiffly in the throne, trying my very best not to soften at the scene of Rob and I sharing a can of soup.
Rob airs his frustration with his brother. The floor gives way. We work together to tower to the doorway.
This could have been the most wholesome scene – two best friends facing adversity, determined to help each other live another day.
I watch myself push Rob into acid.
It feels like a completely different person. I have to view it that way; I can't deal with the guilt.
Aware that I am still on the mic, I mutter, "Poor guy couldn't have lived much longer. I did him a favour."
The audience cheers with agreement.
When Rubis saves me onscreen, it is edited like a cheesy romance. Just like how I thought of it at the time, dramatic soundtrack and everything. Now, I know even our meeting was set up by the Capitol.
True to his word, Rubis really had come to the area for the smell of fish and chips. He barges into the derelict shop and scans around for anything frying. Only greasy paper and mouldy ketchup-bottles lie strewn across the counter.
The camera zooms in on a scent-machine, hanging over the door, wafting the alluring aroma outside.
My panicked shouts and Rob's agonised screams pierce the auditorium.
Rubis' head perks up and he lumbers next-door to save me.
His silhouette manifests in the doorway, framed from my point of view. The footage slows down and pulses with a rosy glow. Little love-hearts float around the border of the screen as Rubis' hair wafts in the breeze, in slow-mo, like a L'Oreal advert.
Like the cameras could see inside my head, not just what was really happening.
Rubis hauls me up and we lie together in total bliss. We leave the corner-store to a triumphant fanfare.
But the camera stays focused on the building.
A few moments pass – how much time that corresponds to in real life, I can't guess – before petite, cloudy-eyed Blue appears at the scene.
She is using a blind-person's cane, which must be the token she brought in with her. sweeping it side to side, Blue follows the shoreline of the shop wall until she finds the open doorway.
The audience holds their breath, as Blue takes a confident step through the door and falls directly into acid.
"And we have another death!" Hollers Chazzer.
I am fixated on the screen in confusion. Blue was supposed to die because of the Goths, wasn't she?
I watch as Blue flails about in the acid, her face contorting in pain. She reaches out with her arms while kicking with her legs, eventually locating the doorway. The acid has risen to ground-level since I escaped, so Blue has no problem hauling herself out of the trap to lie where Rubis and I were, not long before.
To my astonishment, Blue is still made of flesh and blood. Not one bit of bone peeks through her acid-soaked skin. In fact, all she has to show for her dip in Rob's death-pool is some angry blisters on her arms and neck.
Virescent liquid sloughs off her to coalesce in a puddle outside the doorway.
Blue scoots to sit against a wall and sets to work using her mutant powers to heal herself. Each of her blisters gradually shrinks and recedes into her pale skin.
The acid should have corroded her to the bone, despite her only being submerged for a few moments.
Blue smirks up at the sky, as though she knows this.
"You can't get a mutant with a trap meant for humans." She sneers.
The sound of claws on concrete reaches her from across the road. Blue covers her mouth in panic.
"Or maybe you can…" She breathes.
Across the road, her district partner has appeared. Carni the mutant lizard glares directly at her.
He licks his scaly lips.
Blue's shoulder twitches, as though begging to run away. She steels herself instead.
"Please, leave me alone!" She calls.
Carni crosses the road towards her.
"Hungry…" He growls.
Chazzer comments, "Well, that blue-haired toothpick is hardly a meal, my amphibian friend."
I can't help but agree.
I chuckle, "And who knows what mutant food poisoning he would get from her."
The crowd laughs.
Blue whimpers, overdramatically, onscreen.
Carni looks confused as to why she is not running. Then he shrugs it off. There's no way a blind girl could outrun him, anyway.
He lunges for her with a growl. Blue sticks out her leg to trip him.
Just as I think the lizard will go flying into the acid, he halts with his shin against her protruding leg. His momentum was not enough for Blue's plan to work.
"Oh, shit." She says.
Carni pins her against the wall with his claws. Blue tries to raise an arm to block his bite, but she is stuck. The reptile's teeth clamp around her throat and she gurgles blood, unable to breathe or scream.
Blue tries to shake him off. She tries to use her power, like she did to me and my allies. Though Carni's legs stiffen, he does not let go.
Her face draining of blood, Blue uses a surge of effort to lunge backwards.
With her weight, she should be able to hang from Carni's jaws without toppling him. But the acid-puddle on the ground makes him lose his footing.
Carni scrabbles with his claws as the locked duo tips backwards into the bath of acid.
The action-music ceases. Bubbles rise to the surface.
Thirty seconds pass.
Chazzer sits forward in his seat, awaiting two cannon blasts. None come.
A hand surfaces, covered in furious red welts.
Blue scrambles onto dry land. She heaves with rasping sobs, making the strips of flesh hanging from her limbs quiver. Several dozen white spikes protrude from her neck. Before she can even begin to heal, Carni pops up and snaps her ankle between his jaws, trying to drag her back in.
Blue splays her arms and grips either side of the doorframe. She kicks out with her trapped leg, but Carni holds fast. Then she groans with defeat and her ankle plunges into the acid with him.
But she hasn't given up. Blue doesn't relinquish her grip on the door. She screams and screams, veins throbbing in her neck and forehead. She keeps her leg stiff.
"What a way to go!" Chazzer interjects, "She sure is determined to give him a fight."
It is then that I realise what Blue is doing.
"She's holding him under." I say.
Chazzer looks back to the screen.
"She is…" He replies in amazement.
Carni's head breaks the surface repeatedly, but never long enough to inhale, before Blue kicks him back down.
Her tortured screams alert Izzie and Corvid, who are walking a few blocks away. They share an excited grin with each other, then run in unison towards the noise.
Carni's head surfaces one last time. Then it sinks and is replaced by a stream of bubbles.
Now, the cannon sounds.
Finally released, Blue flops onto the ground, barely recognisable but for her thin ponytail.
An aerial camera-view shows us the Goths approaching the scene.
Blue hears them before they round the corner.
She stands on shaky legs and runs.
Izzie and Corvid spot her as she rounds a corner. From that distance, they can't have known she was injured.
The acid in the basement of the store begins to drain. The surface sinks until the eroded body of a reptile is visible, lying on the ground next to a pile of bones and a withered surfboard.
Corvid and Izzie peer through the doorway.
Izzie says, "How the hell did Blue manage this?"
"Honestly, I couldn't even begin to guess." Corvid replies, "But I don't fancy chasing her after seeing this, do you?"
"Nope, I'm good." Says Izzie.
We cut away from the gory scene to see Blue cowering in a dim side-alley. She does her best to stifle her moans of pain, while patching up the worst of her injuries.
Surprisingly, though her foot has been partially chewed away by acid, it bears no sign of bleeding from Carni's teeth. Then I realise what the white spikes are, around her neck.
She plucks them out, wincing with each one. A pile of pointed teeth builds up next to her, each with the entire root attached.
I say in disbelief, "She made his teeth fall out when they were submerged."
"Or it was an effect of the acid." Chazzer asserts, pompously, "A far more plausible explanation."
"Not if you know Blue was a mutant."
I roll my eyes.
Chazzer laughs good-naturedly at my 'joke'.
Still, I can hardly believe that Blue went from this near-death state to uninjured when we next found her, not even a day later. That is, until the parachute arrives for her, containing medicine.
The public love a superhero, I guess.
I pout accusingly at the audience and say, "Now, why did you fund medicine for her and not for me, when my beautiful face got burned?"
Chazzer says, "I'd say plenty of husbands were grateful that their wives couldn't swoon over that face anymore. It really is a beauty."
I blush, modestly and say, "Chazzer, are you flirting with me?"
"Oh no!" He responds, with exaggerated shock, "I'm far too old for you, Midnight."
Then he adds, in a stage-whisper, "But my dressing-room is number 69, if you want to come see me."
The audience titters with amusement.
I say, "Has anyone got a pen and paper?"
Elspeth rushes onstage from the wing with a post-it note and biro, both chewed up by rodents.
I mumble out-loud while I pretend to write, "Room… 69… Pleasure Palace…"
I actually write, fuck my life, before stuffing the note into my pocket and winking at Chazzer.
Elspeth takes the pen back, having read the note over my shoulder, and emits a multitude of weasel-like giggles from within her hair-nest.
I hurriedly return my attention to the holographic screen. I would rather watch people die than proceed with this stupid interaction.