18.
References to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
Mercedes Silk could never go home again after she won the Hunger Games.
It had all come down to her and one other tribute, a sixteen year old boy named Dublin. Her district partner.
The two had stood several feet apart from each other, each looking unsure and unsteady, neither one really too eager to do what they knew needed to be done. At least it was if they wanted to go home. It would have to be one of them. Nothing like this had ever happened before, two tributes from the same district being the last ones left, one forced to kill the other in order to win. It was one thing to kill someone from a completely separate district, but how do you go home and face your people after taking the life of one of your own?
Mercedes and Dublin hadn't seen it that way at the time. No, in that moment it was all about waiting to see what the other would do. Mercedes was covered in mud and blood, both her own and someone else's, while Dublin had gotten his eye gouged out at one point. They'd separated after the bloodbath on day one and this was the first time that they'd seen each other since. It was sad that it would also turn out to be the last time.
Mercedes was holding a knife that she had somehow managed to wrestle away from the District 7 girl before killing her with it after she'd tried to steal some fresh water that Mercedes had gotten from a sponsor. The whole ordeal was still a bit of a blur, though she could have just been willing it to be that way. Dublin was holding a sharp rock that he'd most likely just found nearby in his hand. They both stood there for several minutes, never breaking eye contact. Her eyes actually started to water a little bit, but she didn't even dare blink for fear of what he might do if she took her eyes off of him even for a second.
Finally, they agreed to toss their weapons, albeit very reluctantly, and circled each other, again, for several minutes. Thinking about it now, she often wondered if the people watching got bored with her and Dublin's little 'dance' and were begging their screens for one of them to just do something already. Every year one of the first things that she warned her tributes about was 'the dance'. That there may come a point where they would have to turn on one of their own just like she had. It may not even come down to each other, it may end up being them and someone from another district. Either way, they should prepare themselves mentally and emotionally for the possibility of 'the dance' happening. She certainly hadn't been.
She'd done her best over the years to try to block out what happened next. How she and Dublin found themselves on the ground and wrestled each other, kicking, clawing, biting, screaming…She's still not entirely sure how she'd managed to get a hold of the rock he had been holding and crush his skull with it. She'd only hit him once, and then she'd stood up and backed away. He'd tried to crawl towards her, but she ran in the opposite direction and hid somewhere in a nearby cave. She'd sat there and rocked herself until she heard the announcer declare her the winner. That was how she learned that the boy who used to help his father deliver milk to her house had died by her own hand.
Everything after that was just more blurs. She was looked over by the doctors, she was crowned, she was sent home, she had to face her family who didn't know how to act around her or what they could talk about. She had to avoid her neighbors, especially Dublin's family, she couldn't so much as smell milk any more without vomiting. She endured her so-called Victory Tour, she pretended like it was enough that her family had a great new house and she had more money than she knew what to do with after a lifetime of never having enough, if any. She avoided going into town because she could see the way that everyone was looking at her now and she couldn't stand it. She felt like a murderer who'd gotten away with it—had even been rewarded for it. A monster. A traitor. She couldn't stand it.
One year later when it was time for her to be a mentor—a life sentence, she liked to call it—she'd lost both tributes. She'd gotten blackout drunk and woke up with an IV in her arm in an attempt to sober her up before she got back on the train. But the mere idea of going back to Six had made Mercedes throw up again. She couldn't do it. So she decided to stay in the Capitol and get an apartment there. Her family didn't understand and pleaded with her to reconsider, but Mercedes just insisted that they would be taken care of. It was her money, her decision, and it was non-negotiable. They'd tried to change her mind over the last seven years, but to no avail. The Capitol was her new home now.
They never said it but she knew that this move made her look even worse in the eyes of her former neighbors. But she tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that she would never have to see or think about them again if she didn't want to. Besides, how could she look at them again after having failed to mentor their children properly. She couldn't face them after being responsible, albeit indirectly, for more District 6 children not going home to their families.
She spent the next two years blowing her money and getting drunk on whatever was put in front of her, even if she couldn't pronounce it or remember what it was that she kept ordering. One night after getting into a fight with some random woman in a bar (and mistaking her for the District 7 girl from back in the Arena) she blacked out and woke up on a couch in an apartment that was definitely not her own. At first she panicked, but then some guy in grey sweats and a tan tank top exposing the blue clouds on his left shoulder and orange flames on his right, came in and offered her two different glasses that he was holding in each hand, a steaming mug of coffee and a glass of water.
"Hi," he said in a sort of dry way as he placed the cups on the coffee table in front of her. "It's nice to see you again."
At her confused look, he clarified with the roll of his eyes. "Last night at the office party, I was shaking hands with all of my new employees, and you too apparently. I'm the new Head Gamemaker."
"Oh God," she groaned. "I'm gonna be sick again."
"You were sick twice last night," he sounded indifferent. "I didn't know where you lived, you didn't have your identification on you—"
"And someone just helped you help me into your apartment?" she asked in disbelief. "You have that much clout so far?"
"Apparently."
"You should have just taken me to the hospital. I'm a regular there. They would have known what to do with me, I'm surprised nobody told you."
"Oh, they told me," Isley said. "And I thought that was ridiculous so I brought you here instead."
"The Capitol can afford it," she countered bitterly as she downed half the glass of water.
"Well, it didn't sound like their enabling was doing you much good."
She drank the rest of her water. "'Enabling'? What? You think there's a problem with helping a mighty victor feel better after a long night?"
"I've met some mighty victors, I'm not looking at one right now." Then his eyes inexplicably softened. "You were going on and on about how 'They're just gonna die again, they're just gonna die again, why should I bother showing up?' So, I brought you here. Maybe it was stupid, but it seemed like a good idea at the time."
She felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment. "I said all of that? Well, forget it, okay? I was drunk—"
"You were sad," he said simply. "Look, I brought you here…because I want to show you something. It's something I fully intend to share with everyone, but after last night I wanted you to be the first one I showed it to. Who knows, maybe it will help."
Curious and suspicious all at once, Mercedes scooted over on the sofa to make space for him while he showed her the layout for that year's Games.
Her jaw dropped to the floor. She turned to him in disbelief. "You're showing—what are you doing? You could get into a lot of trouble—"
"Like I said, I'm showing everyone. But you had a rough night."
"How—what makes you think you can get away with this—"
"Because it's time for a change," he said simply. And there was a mischievous, excited gleam in his eyes as he spoke. "It's time to do away with the bloodbaths and the killing. It's time for something more substantial. I don't want some grotesque display being the legacy that I leave behind. I want it to be something great. Something exciting. Something…" He turned to her, his expression gentle and downright kind. "Something a victor can be proud to say that they survived. They can go home without anyone else's blood on their hands. That's no way to win anything. In my experience it sort of dirties up the victory."
She blinked at him, intrigued, maybe even somewhat grateful. And true to his word, he showed up on the first day of training and displayed the layout of the Arena himself and told the tributes to prepare accordingly. It had surprised Mercedes. She hadn't told anybody about the meeting that she'd had with him that morning. She hadn't told anyone to this day.
After that, her life changed. She still struggled with being a mentor and the guilt she felt over winning and especially over how she'd won, but it was a lot easier to take than it had once been. She drank less, she slept a little easier—though that was mainly thanks to Capitol drugs. She even got a day job to keep her mind occupied. She became a civil engineer, having designed more than a dozen bridges for the Capitol and districts, not that she personally oversaw the construction of any going on in the latter. She even had a project going on right now involving metro tunnels that was far more intricate than anyone even realized.
She'd also become best friends with Isley over the years. They normally kept things purely professional while the Games were going on, but every other time during the year, they were attached at the hip, frequently attending shows, going out to dinners, basically doing everything lovers did but actually be lovers. It was nice having a friend, which she hadn't realized she desperately needed until she found one. It was especially nice because he both understood what she went through in the Arena and didn't judge her for it, while at the same time didn't push her to talk about it at all, not if she didn't want to.
The years got easier, or at the very least, she found pleasure in small things that she'd learned not to take for granted. But recently it had been wearing on her just how Capitol she felt herself becoming while she lived here. She'd gotten so used to food just appearing when she wanted it, the water pressure being exactly what she desired at all times, and pretty soon she was able to dissociate from her role as mentor. She'd learned that was the best way to protect her heart and mind, to just keep it in a separate room where it couldn't bother her or turn her into a maniac. But that was the problem, that she had gotten so used to it. Not quite numb, but how long until she was?
Isley could sense that she was at the risk of falling back into old patterns and had been concerned. But then he'd lost his job and had needed her support, which she was happy to give. But it had actually been him getting replaced that had put her over the edge. Gone were the sophisticated Games that he wanted to make the new norm, it was back to basics with the savagery and the bloodbaths.
Mercedes knew why this was happening now. Isley thought that it was more personal than political, but the truth was that because of his Games there was some talk about how the killing might not even be a necessary part of it any more, and maybe never was. It was something that Isley had been very passionate about and trying to pitch from the start. One tribute could still get the big house and cash prize, the district would still win supplies, but all the other losers could go home in "shame". For years no one had bitten, but there was some talk about them changing their minds. Then Snowball got wind of it, passed it onto Glover, the next thing they know, Isley is out of a job.
After all, if the districts aren't living in fear of watching their children die, what's their incentive to be good little slaves? They needed to know that the Capitol meant business, always. She told Isley all of this after that first day of training as they sat on the roof.
Isley had shaken his head and took a long swig from the red wine bottle that he'd brought up. Mercedes was nursing her own bottle of white. They were both in pretty tired, foul moods so that was the most either of them had said since they got up there. He looked out at the beautifully lit city down below with an irritated, critical expression. Mercedes, meanwhile, was looking straight ahead, taking in the mountains in the distance.
"What do you suppose is out there?" She'd asked him this more than once. She had no idea why she was asking him again. He would probably just answer the same way that he always—
"Rubble, toxic waste and savages," he answered bitterly.
"You think?"
He nodded, taking another swig from his bottle. "Yeah. I think this is it. Anything out there is just…dust. I don't think there's anything worth seeing or saving."
She didn't look over at him. "How do you know?"
"Because why build a wall around this place?"
"So people don't leave," she responded simply. "Maybe what's out there is better."
"Not this again," Isley groaned. "Come on. Assuming you wouldn't get arrested or shot on sight if you tried to leave, what are you picturing? Huts? Villages? Communities? A happy little place with no plumbing or medicine or anything really? Do you really think that's better than here? It's terrible and shallow and the rules aren't fair, but you can't honestly think that it could be better in the middle of the wilderness."
"Well," she exhaled before taking a light sip of her own bottle. "You don't know until you know. At this point I really don't care."
He looked over at her with an expression of concern. "Okay, now don't say that."
"Stop," she insisted. "You don't need to be concerned, I'm not gonna do anything bad."
"Oh yeah? And what about crazy?"
She shrugged casually and took another sip.
"Mer," he cautioned. "Don't. Okay? Don't. Do not do anything."
"Ever?"
"You know what I mean. Okay, you know."
She chuckled without humor. "It's just funny. I come from a place where all we do is make things that can take you anywhere, and it's in making those things that I now realize that we actually can't go anywhere. We go where we're told. And if we want to travel and explore we do so only as far as we're told is okay."
Isley leaned over and whispered to her. "There are spies literally everywhere. You know that. So I don't know why you're talking so freely like you were born this morning and don't know the rules."
"Screw the rules, Tiberius." She turned and gave him a defiant expression. "The rules, the rules, the rules are bullshit. What has following the rules ever done for me?"
"You're pretty rich, famous and successful," Isley said calmly like it was nothing.
"I'm stuck here."
"In luxury."
"In the place that gave me a crown and bouquet for wearing a pretty dress and killing a boy that I went to school with. I don't see my family—"
"That's your choice, they want you home—"
"Where is home? Where can I go? Nowhere. I can't go anywhere. That's what they don't tell you about winning, you never really win. You never go hungry, you never have to work or worry about where you're going to sleep that night, but you never sleep again."
"We've had this argument before," he said. "Or discussion. Or good natured debate. I can never remember—"
"Would you stop? Okay, Ise, get your head out of your ass for just a second and think about what could be on the other side. It might be hell, but how do we know? How many pictures have you seen in the last five years—the last twenty? We are taking the word of people that we do not trust anymore. If we ever did."
"Remember what I said about spies? I wasn't kidding."
"It's against the rules to wonder about it?"
"If it's not written, I'm sure it'll get enforced as one anyway. Come on. We've had too much to drink and it's been a long day. We should go back inside."
"I can't do it. I can't watch it happen again. I've come too far, I've made something of myself, I've made things, I've made too much progress. I can't watch it again. And I can't just bathe in liquor to get through it. I can't, I won't—"
"Then help them win," he fired back. "Your tributes."
"You know it's not that easy. You know what it comes down to is luck and I'm not banking on that for either of my tributes. I don't want to do this anymore."
Isley gave her a hard, unreadable expression. "Well in this system the only way to get through it is to rise or know your place. If you can't do that, the only way out is to die."
"I don't believe that. I used to, back when I was drinking myself to death, but I don't believe it anymore."
"And how do you plan on getting out? Hmm? Do you think you're just gonna walk out?"
"I always imagined myself riding out. Yeah, I think I'd prefer that more."
"On what? A horse?"
"On something."
"How?"
Mercedes didn't say anything. She just took another sip, her expression calm.
He looked at her incredulously. "Mer, no. That's insane."
She still wasn't looking at him. "What's insane, Tiberius?"
"Thinking that you can escape through, what I'm assuming is one of your own tunnels. The government has copies of your blueprints, you know."
"And maybe I don't show them everything."
Isley looked at her with surprise. "This kind of thing takes equipment, people, noise, someone is going to notice—"
"Those same people can be bribed or blackmailed in one form or another."
"Mercedes—"
"Just promise me…" She looked over at him, her expression vulnerable. "Just promise me…whatever happens…I don't even know. Just…can you say 'I promise'? Maybe we can consider that a blank check of sorts."
Isley hesitated for a moment, clearly still concerned by everything she was saying. But eventually he nodded and said, meaning every syllable. "I promise."
She reached over for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. He squeezed it right back as they continued to enjoy the view together. Well, they tried to enjoy it. Their minds were a million miles away from that roof, and from the city all together.
…
Isley had tried to storm through the Control Room, but he was stopped at the door. Snow had anticipated this and prepared for it. Isley growled and kicked the wall. He was still being punished for what he'd done after he'd been fired. Snow had come in, in front of the entire staff in order to introduce them to the new boss and done it personally, pretending like it was such a loss for them, but an honor for Isley while the ghost of a smile was on his face. To his credit, Isley managed to keep his cool. But first, he decided to sing a little goodbye-for-now song on his way out. Isley made it his business to know things about the people he worked with and for, and asked around about Coriolanus Snow and the name "Lucy Gray Baird" and "Covey" had come up a lot.
That was why after he'd cleared out his things and was about to walk out of the room, he gently placed his box on the floor and sang "Nothing You Can Take From Me". The moment Isley started to sing, Snow's smile began to fall. When he was done, Isley gave a little bow, picked up his box, turned around and walked out of the room, satisfied that he had gotten the last laugh.
Isley raced back to the apartments just as the Games were back on after the commercial break. He'd already lost one tribute. He remembered telling Mercedes that he was so sure that it would be Maizie who would outlive Emmer, but he had been wrong. There she was, dead. That pain-in-the-ass tribute that he couldn't wait to get rid of, whose entire district couldn't wait to get rid of her…he walked across the room and poured himself a drink that he downed in one gulp.
Then there was Emmer. Emmer, who had shown great interest in his plans, had taken notes, had actually managed to sneak notes into the Arena, Isley could tell. Emmer, who he'd thought was hopeless, actually had an edge over the others. And he seemed to be using that very precious edge to help the others that he was with, which just so happened to include Mercedes' one remaining tribute. What were the odds? They had both lost someone today. Maybe they could get drunk and not talk about it later.
Annoyed that it was only just now occurring to him, he called Mercedes to tell her what he'd discovered, remembering the promise that he'd made to her years ago. But there was no answer. She was probably busy, working overtime trying to keep alive the one tribute she had left, just like him. He called her again that night, and still nothing. He went down to the sixth floor, but was told that Mercedes wasn't in, she was at her office. So he called her office and she wasn't there. He called her at home, she wasn't there. Suddenly he was nervous. Their talk from just days ago was still fresh in his mind. But she wouldn't. There was no way.
He thought of all the places that she might go, and then he remembered the first bridge that she'd built in the city and went there, but she wasn't there either. He went to her favorite park where she liked to go on runs and walks. She wasn't there. Then he tried her favorite bar, which she'd gone to back when she went on benders. She wasn't there. Finally, and very begrudgingly, he went back to the Training Center and tried to get some sleep, hoping that she would reach out tomorrow.
That night he learned about Emmer's connection to Demetria Langford. All Isley had heard was that she had taken her own life, not that she'd been found by a kid, much less that the kid had been one of his tributes. It completely changed his perspective on Emmer's actions. They became less the actions of a stupid, naive child, and more like those of a child trying desperately to repress a trauma that was rearing its ugly head at an incredibly inopportune moment. And he still had his notes. That was good. What was not good was the Mecha-taur, which was what one of the Gamemakers who was still brave enough to talk to him told Isley they were calling it in the Control Room. He hadn't created that thing, hadn't even sketched it when he was bored or just trying to get an idea out of his head after it simply came to him. And now Emmer was trapped in there with it and his own mentor had no way to warn him.
The next night, someone knocked on his door. Hoping that it was Mercedes, he eagerly jumped up and swung the door open. It wasn't her. It was an avox who gave him a large silver platter with a silver cover on top. Isley was confused, but he took it anyway, said thank you, shut the door and placed the platter on the dining room table.
He lifted the lid and saw that it was a bowl of warm soup. Soup he hadn't ordered. Then he noticed something underneath the napkin and silverware. A crisp white envelope with his name on it. It was Mercedes' handwriting.
He tore it open, excited, thrilled to finally have some news, but hoping it wasn't the bad kind. When he did, he was surprised by what he read. He'd needed to sit down so that he could process it. No, no, no, no. She was going to get herself killed.
He went to the fireplace and the second the ember he'd created grew large enough to consume anything it came into contact with, he threw the letter on top of it and impatiently watched it turn to ash. There was no way in hell, in case she was ever caught, that he would let that letter fall into anyone else's hands. He wouldn't be responsible for his best friend getting hanged or put in front of a firing squad for desertion or treason or whatever it was they decided to charge her with. He couldn't believe how stupid she was being. Speaking of stupid, he suddenly remembered something else—
He raced down to the tunnels of the metro that Mercedes was building, but it was almost too dark to see. He called out her name, hearing it echo back at him. No response. He called again. No response.
He wanted to call out that she was an idiot and to come home, but what would have been the point? Honestly?
He went back to the apartments and drank some more, trying to pretend that he didn't know that she was still down there hiding. He'd love to know how she planned on leaving the city, how she thought that she could pull a fast one on the Capitol. He'd been too afraid to ask her days ago, too shocked and scared that she would get arrested just for even joking about something like that. Only she hadn't been joking. He'd known that much. He just didn't know how much she hadn't been joking until now.
The next day, he watched as most of the remaining tributes stood around in the plains looking at each other. Emmer, Wicker Mayfield, Latia Burns, Alexandrite Tallis, Alba Torrance, Marrow Clayton, Patch Tergesen and Nona Elwes. They all slowly put down their weapons, agreeing not to harm each other. No one was in the mood to fight. It was pretty incredible. Isley smiled proudly at what he was seeing, feeling like his experiment was working, that these tributes were going to live harmoniously. At least for the time being.
At one point, Patch Tergesen walked behind a large nearby rock, and there was Inga, shoving him against it, her hands around his throat. She smiled as he scratched at her hands, trying to free himself, but to no avail. He spat blood in her face, but her grip didn't loosen.
Then Marrow came up from behind her, grabbed her, forcing her to let him go and tossed her against the rock as hard as he could, and Isley could hear the crunch that could only be the back of her head as it hit the stone.
Marrow stared at her in shock, as if he was trying to fully comprehend what he had just done while Patch sat there and rubbed his throat, trying to catch his breath.
Isley's jaw dropped slightly, surprised that the scariest, meanest tribute, the one who actually had a shot at winning, was really, finally dead. He watched as Patch crawled over to Marrow, who had fallen to the ground and was looking far away. Patch kept shaking Marrow's upper arm to get his attention, but it wasn't working.
Then Nona Elwes came from around the corner with her sword drawn and saw Inga's dead body, her expression matching the one Isley was sure that he had. Patch looked up at her and seemed like he wanted to explain what had happened, but when he opened his mouth, there was a loud roar in the distance. Only it wasn't Patch who made the sound.
It was the Mecha-taur. Where had it come from? It had practically fallen out of the sky from what Isley had seen. None of the tributes seemed concerned with where it had come from at the moment, more concerned with running around trying to avoid it. Eventually Emmer found a spot behind a tree to hide. He tried to catch his breath, closing his eyes and looking terrified. When he opened them again, he was crying. He looked up and suddenly his expression changed. It wasn't fear. It was anger. A quiet, calm anger. Controlled anger. An almost resigned kind of anger.
Looking up at nothing in particular he raised both of his middle fingers, making it impossible for anyone to misinterpret the gesture. Isley suddenly remembered Maizie and laughed despite himself. He couldn't think of a better way for anyone to honor her.
Emmer held up his fingers for a long time, like he planned on keeping them up until he died, which he imagined would happen any minute now.
Then the connection was lost. Isley flinched. What had just happened? What—how had the connection been lost? That had never happened during all his years on the job. Where was Emmer? Where was the monster? What was going on?
…
The remaining tributes were wondering the exact same thing as the ground crumbled beneath them, stopping the Mecha-taur in its tracks before it could do any more damage and actually get to one of them. But they were still falling. And when they stopped falling, they were all in the dark.