Vica Madsen, 17
D6F
Training Center, Capitol
July 3, 329 AEDD

The first day of training had only confirmed what Vica already knew: the Careers were ultra-dangerous, and they wanted to kill her. She'd tried to stay in character as her alliance pretended it had nothing at all to fear, but she still found herself watching the Pack more often than what was strictly necessary. District Six's roving Peacekeepers and dodgy underground had sharpened her prey senses, but the Careers were an overwhelming force.

Vica had to wonder why Jeremiah had selected her for his team. He was the only tribute in the room who stood a chance of beating the Careers, and yet he'd teamed up with weaklings. Danny had a sort of fanboy thing going on with Jeremiah, which tracked with his criminal aspirations, but he wasn't exactly competent. Vica was a little stronger, but she was far from the toughest outlier in the room. And Xanthe, a fanatical believer in a god Vica had never heard of, did nothing at all. The first day of training was less productive than Vica had hoped. They'd all failed at tree climbing, and then Vica had discovered that she was a natural at archery, but only if she was impractically close to a stationary target. Jeremiah had assigned her to spend the afternoon practicing, but not much had improved. She suddenly understood why the Careers were so much better. If they started off hopeless at archery but practiced regularly, coached by experts, for ten years, there was absolutely zero chance that a newbie with three days' worth of experience could get lucky. At the end of the day she went up to the DIstrict Six suite with a sinking feeling in her stomach.

She suffered through a decadent Capitol dinner and was grateful when Danny took pity on her and bore the brunt of the Hunger Games conversation. An Avox set a dish of ice cream in front of her. She pushed it away.
"Are you okay?" Aurelius asked. Vica's forehead hit the table with a dejected thunk. Britta patted her.

"Why don't we go to your room?"

Vica couldn't imagine what she'd do without her mentor. Britta had asked her to describe her strengths, so Vica confessed her history of theft and hoped it wouldn't come back to bite her. Britta recommended something close-quarters, something Vica could use to stab someone in a fight without them even realizing what she was doing.

So now, as the second day of training commenced, Vica visited the dagger station and was given a spindly nail trench knife. Danny's weapon, a similarly thin blade, was stored folded and designed for surprise. He had chosen something as similar to a shank as possible. Vica's knife was designed to come out of nowhere and become invisible once the chaos of violence descended.
She could only hope that it worked. Jeremiah had quickly approved it, especially because learning to use it wouldn't take up much time. Even though it was dull, she obeyed Jeremiah and practiced starting fires by rubbing sticks together. She would regret losing focus if the arena turned out to be an arctic snowscape. As she tried and failed to produce smoke, she observed the tributes around her. Britta's words from the night before rang in her ears. She'd questioned whether the knife plan would really help her escape a Career, but Britta had warned her not to discount the other outliers.

Vica looked up to see the Five girl pounce on a dummy and disembowel it with a massive knife. She flounced over to the water fountain. Her district partner tussled on the floor with a training robot, an expression of mild satisfaction overtaking his face as he pinned it beneath him and wrapped his hands around its throat. Vica knew she would do whatever it took to survive, but she would feel safer when those two were dead. An alliance of mostly younger-end outer district kids listened to a trainer explain a first aid procedure. The District Ten tributes practiced some basic sword fighting stances. One of the male Careers seemed to say something funny, and they all laughed. The Twelve boy, still with them, turned inwards, towards the funny one, who gave him a friendly slap on the back. The One boy's smile dropped off his face as he watched.
Who else was left? The little Nine girl had abandoned yesterday's clumsy efforts with weapons and had turned to a station with raw materials in stacks. She was weaving together a mat of yellow stalks and dry leaves. Nearby, another alliance constructed a lean-to. Vica looked for her own allies. Jeremiah had found some dumbbells and was doing bicep curls. Xanthe was timidly handling some kind of long spear. Danny had disappeared altogether.

Vica angled one of her sticks a little more vertically. Thinking about the other tributes would help her plan, but it also frightened her. She tried to plan chronologically. Her goal would be to survive the days one at a time, starting with the first. The Bloodbath was the deadliest part of the Games. Between one quarter and one half of the tributes would die during it. Six to twelve. She looked around the Training Center again, furiously rubbing her sticks, trying to count off tributes weaker than herself. Twelve girl. Eight girl. Xanthe and her district partner. The Threes. That made six, but six was only the minimum. Who else? Nine girl. The Sevens. The Eight boy? The Tens, probably. That was twelve, yes.

So that left the Career Pack, the Fives, Danny, Jeremiah, and herself. No, she might not be stronger than those tributes she imagined might fall early on. She had skills she kept to herself. They probably did too. So how would it turn out in the end? Vica vowed to pay careful attention to the training scores. If anyone scored suspiciously high or suspiciously low, they had to be hiding something.

And then there was Jeremiah. Vica tried her best not to be afraid, but she knew that if the two of them survived until the Final Six, she would outlive her usefulness as soon as enough Careers died for Jeremiah to overwhelm the remainder. She didn't have the skills to fight them. She would be dragging him down on his path to Victory, and she would be cut loose.

She was going to have to kill him before that could happen. It would be the point of no return, and she had to avoid reaching it. The only way to deal with the tributes who actually stood a chance was to divide them up, ambush them, and kill them. Vica had to make sure she went into the finale without direct confrontation. If she couldn't, she would end up dead.

Just like her family.

Orpheus Adello, 18

D1M

Training Center, Capitol

July 3, 329 AEDD

His second night with Nikita had been just as good as the first. They were something special. Every smile he coaxed out of him was proof that their love was true and pure, untainted by the tug-of-war that pervaded the District One dating scene. It was so natural. It was going to outlive whichever one of them had to die, and Orpheus was perfectly fine with that.

That was a choice for the future, though, and what mattered in the present was that Tybalt was getting surlier by the hour. Tybalt wasn't competition, but he was rapidly becoming an obstacle. He had been there to defend Nikita when Odicci harassed him, and Orpheus hadn't. He'd made Nikita laugh, and Orpheus felt territorial. Of course Nikita deserved to have friends and be happy, but he scolded himself for failing to notice that the room wanted some levity. He had been inattentive. He hadn't made a joke, so Tybalt made one instead.

Tybalt was highlighting his deficiencies as a lover, a role that Orpheus had spent his entire life preparing to take on, and he was terrified that Nikita was going to realize that Orpheus did not contain everything he could ask for. Whereas Nikita had been everything Orpheus could ask for. (Orpheus was unaware that he generally asked for very different things than most people did.)

Training was going so well, actually, he thought he might like to spend the rest of his life in the Capitol with Nikita. Sparring in the training gym, or making pancakes in the luxury kitchen, or sharing the Wyoming king bed. Death could be a romantic idea in its own way, but Orpheus briefly allowed himself to fantasize about a real future together, if, for example, the Gamemakers declared a rule change and permitted two Victors to be crowned, as was declared once before. The 74th Games, with Clove and Cato, were a love story for the ages. Cato had written a book about it after the fact, one that Orpheus had read cover to cover more times than he could count. He and Orpheus could be the new Clove and Cato. They'd get a mansion each in their districts' Victor's Village and buy a sweet little penthouse in the Capitol to share. They'd have a mint-green accent wall in the dining room. They'd go buy coffee filters and tile cleaner at the store. They'd push grocery carts and fold fitted sheets and drag recycling bins to the curb. They'd be so soft and domestic that no cruel interloper could ever reach them again.

Orpheus took down another robot. He'd been battling them all morning. They had different weapons and different techniques. They came in different sizes and numbers and speeds. He had chosen this route because he wanted to be confronted with every possible scenario before there were actual stakes. He was wily enough to escape most of the projectile weapons without incident. No robot landed a fatal hit, but he got grazed by the occasional arrow or shuriken. That made sense, since he'd been fighting nonstop for hours. Physically, he was the weakest Career. That concerned him, but he also had more agility than them. Careers were accurate because they predicted tributes to run from them at top speed in one direction only. Their estimates relied on those assumptions. A tribute who stopped abruptly could escape a spear, one who juked left or right and went the other way could buy themselves some time, and ones who changed levels, suddenly swinging up into a tree or crouching behind a boulder in tall grass, could find the entire Pack running well past them and then simply double back to avoid them.

Orpheus felt that he was doing well. No, he might not have been the strongest, but he was reasonably sure that he knew more about combat than the other Careers. But then again, his performance might have been suffering because he was trying to surreptitiously get a sense of his competition among the outliers. Griffin Cadbury, his mentor, had suggested this: "It's a mistake to discount the outliers," he said. "If you run into one that you know is dangerous, you'll have an advantage, over them and over the other Careers."

Jeremiah, for example, was a tribute all of the Careers were keeping an eye on, but Orpheus was confident he knew how to beat him. Jeremiah worked up close. He could probably do some damage with a sword or axe, even though he fought best with his fists, but he couldn't pick up a long distance weapon and hit a Career on the first try without getting exceptionally lucky. Orpheus would have bet money that any of the spear-wielding Careers could take him down instantly. But, unsurprisingly, the other Careers looked down on this plan.

See, Careers had this weird thing about honor. It wasn't noble enough to give up the possibility of a kill to an ally. Instead of sensibly falling back behind Odicci, Nikita, and Nathaniel and letting them take care of business, the others would probably charge him with their swords and risk their necks. For what except pride, Orpheus wondered, would lead to this course of action? He knew that Nikita would do a better job fighting Jeremiah than he could, and he was perfectly fine with letting his boyfriend (did that slip out? Orpheus wasn't exactly sure where they stood. Was boyfriend really the correct descriptor?) protect him. If the Five boy slunk up to them with a dagger, Orpheus would want Nikita to stay safe and out of the way while someone better-equipped for a close quarters fight handled the situation.

Orpheus was just like all the other Careers, though. His hubris extended beyond his skill, the glimmer of Victory on the horizon distracted him from the cruel reality of the Games, win or lose, and he thought that at the end of it all, he was going to finally be satisfied. The Games, in their own way, could be largely dismissed because the outcome did not matter to him. He was willing, eager, even, to live, breathe, and die for Nikita when the plot demanded it.

At no point did he consider how Nikita might feel about this.

Nathaniel Lewis, 18

D4M

Training Center, Capitol

July 3, 329 AEDD

Nathaniel wasn't thrilled about the state of the Pack, but at least all the Careers were strong. He could lead his allies, even if they didn't always get along. Nathaniel was relatively confident, but he didn't want to discount even the smallest twelve year old. Arrogance had spelled doom for the other boys in his year, who discounted him at first glance, and over the course of his eighteen years, he'd watched too many strong prospects fall prey to tributes with low predicted placements. They were predictions for a reason, but there was a surprise every year. Careers won two out of every three years, sure, but there were lots of times when outliers won and all the trained tributes died. Even though he had high hopes for his own performance, he understood that at best, all but one of the Careers would be brutally killed.

He didn't have any problem with that. It was part of the shared sense of Career morality. Tributes who were squeamish about fighting dirty didn't get very far. The Careers had a shared honor code, about not stealing one another's glory, about mercy, about putting on a show when the time called for it. And mentally, Nathaniel was prepared to start shrinking the field. All twenty-four of the tributes were sacrifices. They were condemned to die, and no clemency would ever be granted, so Nathaniel didn't see the point in putting off the killing. Better to get it over quickly.

He had to control his temper, though, and that was the difficult part. Leadership was new to him. He didn't have Tybalt's charisma. He relied on being competent and hearing everyone out, then making the right choices for the Pack at large. He knew that too many poor outcomes would turn the tide against him. Sometimes he couldn't stand the constant quarreling and wanted to shout like a drill sergeant until everyone shut up and said yes sir, but that was far from the realm of possibility. Instead, he had to keep the uneasy truce alive. Odicci and Nikita had argued, and that undermined Nathaniel's supposed neutrality. Of course he was on Odicci's side, but it would be unthinkable for the Pack to fracture at such an early stage. Everyone had been civil since his warning, but there were too many interalliances forming. Romance, rivalry, and childish petulance all threatened the shared dynamic.

Nathaniel felt that training was going well, despite these setbacks. The Careers all seemed pretty evenly matched, even if they specialized in different fighting techniques. The intended effect of an effective training performance was to assert their superiority over the outer district tributes. Fear was a powerful lever, and tributes who might've physically stood a chance could be cowed by the Careers' reputation, established in the Training Center. Every Career wanted the highest training score and the most kills, but once the Games began, the Academies would monitor their every move. It was all televised and recorded, and the real prize, even for those who fell in battle, was being posthumously displayed to a class of future Careers as a positive example. That was how the best tributes' memories were kept alive in their home districts. It was even better when a perfect Career achieved Victory. There would be special lessons tracking their path to Victory. Sometimes the Victor would come to the other Career districts' Academies and guest-teach, playing video clips and recounting what had been going through their mind as they made the right choices time and time again.

Really, all of the Careers in this year's Pack would make fine examples. He imagined Orpheus at the front of a lecture hall, casually clicking to the next slide on the projector remote as he explained how outliers reacted when confronted by trained tributes. Haylia might stand on a padded gym floor, boxing gloves wrapped tight around her fists, as she invited the top-ranked trainees to spar with her. Nathaniel had found a friend in Haylia. She was a boxer and a wrestler. He also had experience in hand-to-hand combat and was the strongest and stockiest of the Careers, but her playful punch to his shoulder rocked him off balance. She could use her weight better than him, but he was among the fastest of District Four's Careers despite his weight, so they were about evenly matched. He looked forward to practicing with her in the arena, when the tributes were allowed to touch one another.

Nascha was the quietest Career. She got along with her district partner, but seemed to especially like Haylia. She and Tybalt had spoken the previous day at lunch, and Nathaniel was suspicious of their conversation. It seemed to have taken all the wind out of Tybalt, at least for a little while, and that was concerning. Nathaniel had to wonder what that was all about, but there was always a chance it had been perfectly innocent. Tybalt had been consistently friendlier since talking with her, so perhaps she'd just rebuked him for disrupting the Pack cohesion.

Nathaniel tried to keep everything in mind without worrying too much. He made a point of considering all the factors at play, but this led to overthinking, and he couldn't afford to be distracted at such a crucial juncture. He had to plan for his private session. There was a trick to this. The more tributes the Gamemakers saw do something, the less impressive it became. Because most of the other Careers went before him, he wanted to subvert this law of diminishing returns by planning a display that extended beyond throwing spears at targets or fighting trainers or robots. He wanted to showcase his entire skill set.

That was going to take some effort, but it would be worth it in the end. Nathaniel was used to hard questions and harder work, and he would not give up just because it took some analysis to get right. He was patient. He didn't really need the next day and a half anyway, so he might as well use it for what did matter.

Fahad Azerola, 17

D10M

Training Center, Capitol

July 3, 329 AEDD

Despite his impending doom, Fahad thought there was a lot to like about the Capitol. The escort had gotten him approved for withdrawal medication, which would dampen the effects of going without alcohol in the arena. He was prescribed to take two pills each morning and evening while in the Capitol, and this would be enough to stave off symptoms for about two weeks. Supposedly. Fahad was unclear on how the medicine actually worked, but he did know that he hadn't felt sick since the first dose took effect. His addiction was his greatest weakness. Being nauseous, headachy, and frail would impair his chances of survival in the arena, and the pills had significantly minimized the risk of this. The average Games lasted around two weeks. With any luck, the 329th would be on the shorter side of things. It would be unfortunate if the withdrawal pain resumed just when he had to be at the top of his game in the finale, not that he expected to make it that far.

At least there was Mare. Their relationship was more similar to lust than love, but it wasn't really either. He had figured out quickly that she, like him, made a habit of sleeping around in less than ideal circumstances, for less than ideal reasons. They clicked, and that was enough to justify an alliance. Mare had been the one to reach out, but he was willing to pick up what she put down. Mare might have looked a lot stronger, but they were both woefully new to all forms of combat. They'd settled on swords, since they seemed theoretically easier to use than some other weapons. The rest of the time was generally spent recognizing edible plants, setting snares and other traps, and learning how to not die of waterborne disease.

Mare knew about the vegetation native to District Ten, which spread into Five, Two, and the other southwestern desert districts, but woods, meadow, and coastal biomes were completely new to her. That didn't even take into account what lay beyond the Panemian borders. There were sometimes rainforests or tundras inspired by the terrain of far-flung countries. They still had a lot to learn about how to survive the environmental threats. The other tributes were a secondary concern. Even Mare, who solidly hated the Capitol, was coming to terms with the idea that the best outcome she could reasonably achieve was a quick death at the tip of a Career's sword.

She still wasn't ready to give up, so Fahad wasn't giving up either. He listened to Mare quietly assessing the other tributes while she strung bait onto fish hooks. Fahad was actually pretty good at fishing. It was one of the more relaxing ways to find food in the arena, and sitting on the banks of a replica pond, no matter how out of place it would have been in dusty District Ten, made him feel more at home than the sleek infrastructure of the Capitol buildings. He began to hope that the arena involved water, but then he remembered that he'd never been taught how to swim. If he'd had more time to train, he might have been willing to learn, but it was already almost lunchtime, and it was the second day of training, so he and Mare were halfway through with their preparation for the Games.

Mare was very good at separating her words and her facial expressions. Even when she was feeding Fahad her observations of the Careers' weaknesses, she made herself look like she was making smalltalk or telling a joke to allay suspicion. Fahad was always the one responding in these interactions. He couldn't read people like Mare, but he guessed that if she was willing to share her thoughts, she probably didn't consider him a drain on the alliance. He looked at her, tying off a length of fishing wire. "Any new predictions?" he asked her.

"For the Bloodbath?"

"Yeah."

"I'm pretty sure the Threes will both make it through. They don't look scared enough to die right away. I think they'll fight well." Now that he thought about it, Fahad realized that he hadn't seen a single bit of indecision or fear in either of the Threes. The rare reluctance had come from the Sevens. Fahad squinted a little, trying to see what made Mare so sure they weren't just really good at staying calm.

"What makes you think that?" he asked. Mare understood that he was practicing picking up on things the way she did.

"They have steady hands. Look at the boy loading his blowgun. He's doing it automatically. You see someone thinking while they're doing that, they can't do it in an emergency because they have to focus. They'd be fumbling and getting flustered and then they'd die. See how he doesn't have to look at it? And watch, he's going to shoot it at a target. He's aiming for the side, not the center, because he wants to think he's worse than he really is. Yeah, the One girl's looking at him too, and now she's turning away. She doesn't think he's a threat because it's not a bullseye. But he doesn't look disappointed or worried. He got that dart right where he meant to put it. He can put it where he wants it every single time." Fahad paid attention as the boy loaded another dart and hit the target again, in a different spot.

"Who else will make it through?" Mare smiled.

"Easier to say who's going to die. I think the Fives are going down. The Gamemakers don't want them screwing things up in the arena. The Nine boy and the little girl in his alliance don't pay very good attention to their surroundings. And the boy's cocky. See him smirking? He thinks he can match the Careers. He might make it, but I won't be surprised if he goes down. Some of the younger kids. Probably someone from every alliance. A Career might get taken by surprise. There are a lot of tributes trying to hide their skills, and the Bloodbath is a good time to pull them out. But the Careers are good this year. Truthfully, we might not make it." That wasn't what Fahad had been hoping to hear, but he knew that it wasn't improbable. He just didn't want to die.

Nigel Fassnacht, 19

Gamemaker

12 Witherkemp Road

July 3, 329 AEDD

Nigel looked over at Nikolai. His expression was calibrated to its usual stern-neutral, but he was gripping the steering wheel of the prized pink convertible in a chokehold. Yes, he was frightened, and trying hard not to show it. "I'm okay," said Nigel. Nikolai removed his white-knuckled right hand from the wheel and ruffled his brother's hair. His eyes stayed locked on the road.

"No, you're not."

"It doesn't hurt that much," he offered weakly.

"You don't have to lie. I know it can't feel good." Nikolai made a one-handed left turn. "Once we get home, I'm going to set you up in the office with me." Nigel perked up. The office had been, for his entire living memory, totally off-limits. Up until he was five, it had belonged to his father. After that, it became Nikolai's, and he had never allowed Nigel so much as a glimpse inside. The office was always locked. There was no room in the keyhole to peek through, and the door extended all the way to the floorboards. This was because Panem's Head Peacekeeper required the utmost privacy. Nikolai had been working from home as much as possible given the explosion of his usual quarters at the Center of Peacekeeping, but while he'd attended to the District Five problem at the Remake Center with Flossie, Nigel had enjoyed a quiet lunchtime respite from Konstance DuMouchel.

Then the assailant stabbed him. He'd spent the night at the hospital, getting his shoulder put back together again, but Nikolai demanded that he be discharged as soon as possible, so he could be constantly supervised. Nigel had no objection to this plan. Nikolai had always effortlessly navigated the awkward line between sibling and parent. Nigel understood that seeing the office spoke to the direness of the situation, but it still excited him. What would his brother's inner sanctum look like?

It turned out to be a large yellow room with turquoise accent furniture. There was a marble-topped desk of bright wood with yellow secretarial supplies on top. Nikolai set him up on an enormous, cozy recliner, then tucked a plush blanket around him even though it was the peak of summer. He placed a kiss on the top of Nigel's head, then readied a notebook and clicked his pen a few times. "Alright. Could you please describe him again for me?" He'd gotten the story a few times already, but it was time to ask for the important details. Nigel wavered. The attacker had panicked in the middle of his assault. Nigel could understand why. Nikolai had a reputation for being tough on targeted violence, and he would stop at nothing to bring his baby brother's attacker to justice.

"Left-handed. The lower half of his face was covered up by, like, a scarf. He had on gloves."

"How tall was he?"

"I don't know. About my height. Probably like 5'10"?"

"Was he pale?"

"Hard to tell. He had his hat on low and the brim cast a shadow over the part of his face that was exposed."

"That's not helpful. It's not your fault. It's just that this doesn't help me narrow things down very much. I'm trying to figure out if this assailant might be connected to some of the other stuff that's been happening recently. Like if this person might also have shot up the Capitol."

"I don't think so. This guy gave up as soon as he knifed me. He was scared."

"He should be."

"No. Forget him," Nigel said forcefully. "He probably meant to distract you from your investigation. You can't give him what he wants." Nikolai hardened.

"You're right. I have a country to protect."

"I mean, this all has to be connected. We've got the recording, the shooting, and the secret messages. Konstance doesn't come to work sometimes. Jacqueline waits for her, but she doesn't always show up, and one of those messages was found on her desk. Alecto found all that info on Tisiphone, maybe she's the mole, maybe she isn't. That's a lot of coincidence. What else could be important enough to take the Head Gamemaker away from her work three days before the Games? We need a lead."

Just then, the phone rang. Nikolai took it from its cradle and brought it to his ear. He hit the speakerphone button. "Hello, Flossie."

"Orion says the Twelve girl snapped at one of the trainers during lunch. Compared him to the Peacekeepers in her district, asked if he was going to hang her."

"I haven't authorized a hanging in District Twelve in years."

"I know. But she claims it happens all the time. And the Twelve boy is a Peacekeeper, so Orion asked him if she was telling the truth. Supposedly, he was all 'Well, yeah, Albertine does that all the time. Why do you ask?' So I think we should have Griffin Cadbury ask him about it tonight. I don't want to haul him in for questioning. He might get scared and shut down. But a mentor, bringing it up more subtly, might be able to get more out of him."

"'LOOP IS THE MOLE. DEROT STATION TRACK FORTY NINE. DEMAND VENGEANCE. —A.' Vallis Albertine. Tisiphone's page in the database says one of the stations on her route is De ro t, even though it's been out of service forever, and it says she deals with Six, Eleven, Twelve, and the Capitol."

"It's starting to make sense," Nigel said.

"It is. Say, it's about time we sent the tax collectors around. Gamemaking must be tricky with an injured shoulder. How about a little day trip?"

Hey y'all,

It hasn't been too long since I last updated. Yay! We've got four more kiddos' thoughts on training so far, plus a window into the Capitol subplot. Things are getting a little funky now, but we'll put some questions to rest as the Games approach. Next chapter will feature Tybalt, Danny, Twyla, and Ash. Thanks for reading!

—LC :)