Beetee:

"Archimedes, on!" I clap my hands and the screens around me come to life. A small part of me can't help but break into a smile every time I activate my computer system. It had taken an eternity to perfect, but after much trial and error Archimedes 2.0 was finally up and running. My original infrastructure was almost completely destroyed by Capitol forces in the Second Rebellion, but I had just enough left to recreate it, bigger and better. Wiress would likely make fun of me for making it voice-activated if she were still here, but she's not, and I've always had a flair for the dramatic.

"How may I serve you today, Beetee?" the operating voice asks in a posh, British tone. A faceless butler appears on the central screen, ready to serve. Maybe I did go a bit overboard with the design.

"Archimedes, open project file 'Victor's Archive.'"

"Right away, sir." A file projects out of the center table in hologram form. I swipe through the various folders I have already, looking for the right one. As I'm engrossed in my work, I hear a knock on the door.

"Come in!" It creaks open and in steps Enobaria Malachite, winner of the 62nd Hunger Games.

"You forgot your mail again. It's been piling up for a week." She opens her satchel and dumps out a pile of envelopes and flyers onto the desk, causing my hologram to ripple. Oops. Sometimes I get too engrossed in my work and forget about the mail. And the dishes. And the laundry.

"Thanks, Eno." She nods, then heads to the kitchen, likely to make herself a black coffee. After the Second Rebellion, most of the surviving Victors went back to their original districts. Those of us with nothing back home decided to create our own facsimile of Victor's Village in District 4. It's not bad at all here, with its cool breezes and sandy beaches. If you can put up with Plutarch's constant badgering to do propos and the occasional group of schoolchildren peeking their heads over the gates to peer in at you, it's downright pleasant.

Some of the Victors, like Eno, can't return home because it's too painful for them. Johanna's here to overcome her fear of water. But me, I wanted something different. I knew I wasn't going back to District 3, but not out of trauma or adventure. I wanted to work on this. "Archimedes, pull up file 006." The hologram spins for a moment before landing on a face. Enobaria comes back, sipping out of a mug. I get a better look at her as she steps into the light. She's wearing her leather biker jacket, indicating that she likely just got back from town. Visiting Annie, maybe.

Like everyone else, I had assumed the former Career was a vicious killer, barely more than an animal. Her Games would certainly suggest that. But after the war ended and we came here, I slowly began to meet the woman behind the monster. Our relationship is strictly platonic, if not a bit odd. I do most of the cooking and cleaning (well, my inventions do at least) and she helps me with research for the Archive. Her last expedition took her to District 11, looking for Seeder's remains. Ironic, considering who killed her.

Sometimes, she tells me about her nightmares, about how the dry heat and adrenaline never left her body. She shows me the scars on her back and sides where they whipped her while being held in the Capitol, describes how they put her in a cage not even two feet high to force her to crawl around like an animal and fed her out of a dog bowl. In turn, I show her where the electricity burned and warped my skin. I tell her about how I was too slow to save Wiress, or too late to save Chaff, or even Cashmere and Gloss and Brutus, for that matter. None of them leave my dreams. I tell her about the bombs. The ones I made with Gale that killed Prim, how Katniss may one day forgive me but I never will.

We make an odd couple, that's for certain. Enobaria technically has her own house in the neighborhood, but at this point, I'm the only one that can calm her down from her nightmares and she's too used to sleeping in my guest bedroom to move out. We're both too stubborn to see a therapist, so here we are.

"Are you still working on your little project?" she asks. I wince. The Victors Archive is anything but little. Enobaria doesn't mean anything by it; she understands the importance of preserving history, but it still hurts a little bit to hear.

"Yes Eno, I'm about three quarters through all the Victors. It's honestly taking longer than I thought. The recent ones were all pretty easy to find, and of course we have footage of everyone but Lucy Gray, but everyone between Invictus and Mags has barely any information about them out there."

Enobaria furrows her brow. She runs her tongue against her teeth like she usually does when she's thinking. The veneers she got after the war are basically perfect; you can hardly tell that her teeth used to be filed into points. The benefits of knowing Plutarch, I guess.

"Do we not have any info about them from the Capitol?" she questions. I shake my head no.

"The Victors only really started being publicized after the 10th. All the focus was on the Games themselves. There weren't any Victory Tours, documentaries, or interviews, unless you count the few that Invictus did early on"

"Sounds nice," Eno says wistfully. "Talking to those idiots was the worst part of being a Victor."

"Besides all the kids dying," she adds, a little too quickly afterwards.

I chuckle. "They also didn't get any monetary rewards or Parcel Days for winning, so it might not be as nice as you think."

"Who's the lucky Victor today?" she asks. I hit a button and a boy's face beams up onto the main screen. The picture is taken from the reaping, zoomed into his head and shoulders. He has blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, standing out next to his relatively drab district partner. His mouth is twisted into a sneer even as the old mayor of District 1 raises his hand, as to suggest that we're beneath even looking at his image.

"This, my friend, is Octavian Quill. Ever heard of him?" She looks at him for a second, then cocks her head in recognition.

"I think I know the name. That's the guy who made District 1's version of the Academy, right?"

I nod. "Exactly. As you know, all of the career districts had their own versions of schools that prepared children for the Hunger Games. District 2 had the Academy, District 4 had Reef's Edge, and District 1 had La Schola Prepatoria, or LSP. Octavian was responsible for the last one, founding it with the financial aid of the third Victor, Glamour Gildenbrand, after the 10th Games. Each of the career districts had their reasons for training kids for the Games, but District 1 had the most straightforward: more Victors meant more money." I push my glasses up. "Octavian came from a merchant family in One, hence the common last name. From what my records tell me, he was always obsessed with money. Later in life he amassed a fortune through his investments and shops, a significant portion of which he'd use to sponsor the mass production of weapons in the Second Rebellion, Capitol and District 13 alike."

Enobaria rolls her eyes. "War profiteering. Fun. What were his Games like?"

"Pretty standard, mostly." I pull up a video of Octavian, 16 years of age cutting the arm off of a girl that Archimedes labels as Lora from 8. His golden locks splatter with red as he grits his teeth and slices through bone. The image unsettled me, so I hit fast forward and it speeds up to the Victor's ceremony. Octavian stands on stage with that same smug smile, holding his hands upwards in victory. He's every bit the golden Victor that we would come to expect from District 1. Even on stage, however, having his hand raised by President Ravenstill, it looks like he's plotting something.

Eno finishes her coffee and places the mug onto the table. Octavian's face distorts for a moment as it cuts through the hologram. "So what happened to the creep?"

"Eventually the rebels caught wind that he was selling to both sides. Coin ordered his execution in the Victor's Purge. The rebels in his district couldn't wait. After the bombing in 8, they dragged him out of his mansion and lynched him in front of LSP's front office alongside his wife and children." At the mention of what historians have colloquially named the kangaroo courts held by both the Capitol and the rebellion, Eno's face hardens. She's lost plenty of people, I'm sure, to both sides. District 2's Victors were hit the hardest in the war. At least I got to be with Wiress when she drew her last breath. Most of the 2 Victors died when Eno was imprisoned.

I turn and face the image of Octavian projecting from my desk. It's a rendering of his picture from the reaping, digitally enhanced by a few tools that Wiress once helped me develop. He looks cocky, yes, but there's an air of hesitancy to him. It's difficult for me to reconcile this young boy with the millionaire mogul that he would become. This is what has become the biggest challenge for me this project. I'm used to working with machines and computers, numbers and letters. People are much more complicated than that. It's cliché, I know. Tech genius learns that people are indeed not binary. Still, I have to remember that this was both the monster that taught children to lie and murder, and a boy that was forced to do the same. An extraordinarily wealthy man who made money off of destruction, and a loving husband and father who didn't deserve what happened to him. I don't think I would've been capable of this way of thinking until recently, but Eno has taught me to see the human in everyone. Wiress would be beaming with pride if she were here.

Sensing Enobaria's discomfort, I change the subject. "I've been able to track down a lot of information on his banking records, income flow, etc., but I still need to find out more about his District ties. I'm sure he has some surviving relatives somewhere, maybe a cousin? I should call Citrine and ask…"

The Victor's Purge was violent and brutal, but it was far from thorough. Though the vast majority of Victors did indeed perish, several managed to slip through the cracks, hiding in safe houses or constantly on the run. Citrine was one of them.

Eno puts her hand on my shoulder and gives me a kind smile. "Don't work yourself too hard, Volts. It's past midnight. You can call her tomorrow."

That can't be correct. I look up at the clock and… extraordinarily, she's right. I've been at it for nearly seven hours.

"Perhaps you're right. This can wait." I deactivate Archimedes with a snap of my fingers, then turn to the pile of mail on the table. "Anything important?" Eno walks over and starts sifting through.

"Well, Plutarch wants you for some ridiculous campaign in District 3, you're very behind on your reports to Paylor, Annie's concerned because you haven't responded to any of her letters and… oh, well this is new." Her mouth curves upwards, teeth bared into the wolfish grin that I know so well.

"What is it?" I ask. I look at the letter she's holding. The stamp is a deep charcoal gray, pressed with the emblem of a pickaxe. District 12. Eno breaks the seal and unfolds the letter.

"To the residents of Victor's Village," Enobaria reads aloud, "District 12 cordially invites you to celebrate the union of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark in marriage."

She's right. This is new.

"I'm surprised they invited me after everything." Enobaria's eyebrows are raised. It is surprising, but not completely unprecedented.

"I imagine Peeta wanted to officially make friends with all the other Victor's. We're all in this together, of course." I decline to hypothesize how Katniss would react to her presence. I'm sure the baker's boy is behind this, he has to be. There's not a Games-damned chance in hell that either Katniss or Haymitch would invite any of the Victors outside of Annie, Johanna, and maybe me. "It will be an exciting experience! Either way, it'll give us the chance to track down some more information about Lucy Gray."

Eno still looks hesitant. I know the feeling. After the bomb, I couldn't look Katniss in the eyes for nearly a year, despite her constant reassurances that she didn't blame me.

"This is how we heal, Eno. Remember, we agreed. We don't hold each other accountable for what happened in the Games. Victor's bond."

She nods, then begins to head upstairs. "I'll stop by Annie's tomorrow and see if we can't find you a nice suit to wear. I'm not letting you show up in jeans and a t-shirt." My protests are ignored as she walks up the stairs, barely suppressing a laugh.

I lean back in my chair and put my hands behind my head. As I recline backwards, my mind starts racing, as it always does. I can't get the image of Octavian's face out of my head. The way he cut through Lora plays over and over again in my mind. Such a brilliant mind, pushed down the path of violence and such a young age. A shame he wasn't born in 2. I could have grown up studying him among the other great scientific minds. Instead, he found himself on the wrong end of a noose. Oh, how the Games destroyed us all.

Octavian. Enobaria. Wiress. Katniss and Peeta.

I fall asleep and dream of them all.