“Hi. I’m Augusta Byron. District Three.” The words that came out of Augie’s mouth didn’t feel like her own as she made her way across the training center. Her entire body was nerves. She’d come up with this stunt last minute, and it was probably against the rules, but no one had specifically told her not to, and what were they going to do, kill her?
Augie grabbed a small pocket knife and sat down next to the simulator. It was a few keystrokes to get the command window open - it was child’s play. Anyone in District Three should be able to figure out how to open a command window on an unfamiliar operating system. But then, Augie wasn’t trying to impress. She’d heard about Nano’s private training, about how he’d hacked the training room. She could do that - of course she could, but a copycat isn’t impressive. Still, she typed out the code she’d come up with this morning in careful, sharp, quick taps. Hit enter. Execute. As she knew Nano had done, Augie made the room turn black. But unlike Nano, then she was running.
Augie had roughly thirty seconds to get out of sight before the lights she’d programmed turned back on. She could make it. It wasn’t far, and the Gamemakers probably wouldn’t have even noticed the door, let alone expected her to notice it. The doors were designed to go unnoticed, just like the people who utilized them.
Just before the lights went up, Augie slipped into the avox corridors.
It had taken two days for someone to actually explain the avoxes to Augie. She wasn’t supposed to talk to them, or watch them, or follow them. But two days in, it was already too late, and Augie had already spent hours mapping the corridors. Augie was certain none of her actual talents would impress, but her hobby of sneaking into places? She could make that work. Shock value had to count for something, even if the values of “shock” and “non-shock” were ultimately pretty binary.
Except two days into her time in the Tower, she started training. Two days in, she stopped having time to explore. Two days in was after a bomb had gone off.
Maybe she’d gotten lucky during her initial excursions, and just happened to not run into any Peacekeepers, or perhaps they increased the Peacekeeper presence since the tribute parade. But Augie didn’t have time to speculate. There was a half of a second when she and the Peacekeeper both stared at each other, neither expecting the other, and then the Peacekeeper lunged, and Augie ran, thanking the Peacekeeper’s initial movements giving her a headstart and the only advantage she’d likely get.
Augie was sure the Peacekeeper would call for backup in a moment, and she snaked her way down a few extra corridors, hoping to shake her chaser. She didn’t. She was losing time. She knew because she was keeping the time in her head. Still, she kept ducking down incorrect passageways, making her choices look random instead of calculated. Random and calculated. More binary.
Augie darted around a corner, turning left, then another left, then stairs. She was still keeping the time in her head. Not much time left. She rushed around avoxes, not seeing any true faces, just uniformed bodies that threw confused expressions in her direction.
“Sorry!” she hissed as she moved. Augie wasn’t sure why she was whispering. It wasn’t as though the figure sprinting behind her couldn’t hear her. Maybe it was because the avoxes couldn’t talk. The air in the avox corridors had been, in Augie’s previous experience, a suffocating silence. It carried no melodies of distant conversation, gruff undertones, or giggles. Just the shuffling of feet, and the opening and closing of doors and drawers as items were collected and carried to various destinations. The noise, the slapping of shoes, the hard breaths, and the Peacekeeper calling after her, was all an intrusion. A disruption. An invasion. It wasn’t the way it was supposed to be in here, and Augie felt it in her bones.
One more left, and Augie was at her destination. The timer she was keeping in her head wound down and she had precious little time left before the Peacekeeper closed in on her.
She’d programmed a great entrance - the lights would go dark again, and Augie would hide in the shadows, taking a cube of cheese or perhaps a piece of fruit and stabbing it with her knife. And when the lights came on and the Gamemakers were looking for her out the window, she would surprise them by smugly eating her food, restating her name, and leaving. It would have been badass.
Instead, Augie burst through the door with a loud cry. She flipped open her pocket watch and held it out at the bewildered Gamemakers and the Peacekeeper that had followed her in the room. She was not about to go down without a fight. Was she going to go down?
Augie didn't learn the answer to that question, because at that moment, her programmed lights went black.
Augie dropped her knife and sprinted for the door - the regular one that the Gamemakers used, not the avox one, not this time.
“Augusta Byron, District Three!” She shouted as she threw it open. The lights were fading in again, but Augie was out of there, and she was so lost in a cacophony of her own terrified, mortified, exuberant, and ever so slightly victorious laughter that she ran halfway down the hallway before she realized that there was no slapping of Peacekeeper feet, and that after all of that, no one had followed her.
Huh. She was right. They couldn't kill her. Not yet.
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Jade’s breathing was steady and sure as she waited for Private Training assessments to start, she’d been training for this for years and for her this was when the games really began. This would ascertain as to whether Sponsor and The Capitol would be interested in her but there was something that she hadn’t bargained for and that was just how deep routed the governments hatred for the Ametrine Family Tree was.
The question had rattled around Jade’s brain since her first encounter. What did you do? It wasn’t like he could tell her, not since The Capitol had done what they’d done to him and she would never know, not after today.
Onyx went into assessment and left again, and Jade offered him all the encouragement she could muster with what was coming, she had a heavy weight that was sitting on her heartstrings that she’d never in her whole life anticipated. Her thoughts were interrupted with the sound of an electronic voice calling her name over the tannoy system and sending a rustle of motion through the remaining tributes. With her head held high, she walked into the training centre.
Nothing had changed in the training centre from the weeks of training that had already happened, the weapons lay docile and primed ready for someone to take them and show off their prowess. Naturally she gravitated towards the knives and fired up the holographic targeting practice, with practiced and fluid motions she threw knives into the silhouettes of tributes that bore down on her, her lithe body moving with ease and grace as ranged attacks bore down on her as well as melee foes. Once the first set of training powered down and she displayed the scores to the Game Makers she knew that 98% wasn’t going to be good enough, so she started again, a new set of holograms and more blades flying through the air from her hand. She didn’t miss one target watching them crumble into orange blocks that seemed to dissolve into the floor. Jade had always pushed herself to be better, and she could feel the strain of fighting these simulated foes bringing a sheen of sweat to her brow. The simulation finished again. 99%.
Again!
Jade heard the voice of her trainer back home shouting in her ear, she knew she could push herself for that perfect score and the clock still had 9 minutes on it.
3 minutes per simulation. 6 minutes gone. Jade told herself mentally. 9 minutes to go.
Jade paused for a second, looking up at the Game Makers who were watching in various states of attention, some were enjoying the show of prowess from a Career tribute that evidently understood what they were doing with a weapon. Jade stepped out of the simulator and moved to the water fountain, leaning into it to refresh herself before another round of fighting.
“Excuse me.” She called up to the platform that the Game Makers were watching from. “The water fountain is broken, could I have a bottle of water?”
Several Game Makers looked confused to be addressed directly by the girl, especially as nothing ever broke in the Training Centre in their eyes. A few consenting nods gave Jade all that she needed, there would be a drink arriving soon and with it, an Avox.
Rather than wasting time on the Avox she returned to her previous tactic of throwing knives into fake tributes and killing them quickly, she remembered her time with Aphrodite and how adapt she was at killing, going straight for the neck or the chest, one fatal blow that would result in the sound of a cannon firing and one step closer to the victory that she knew they both desired.
2 more holograms. Jade told herself, her internal monologue screaming a jumble of mixed thoughts as her plan was so close to being set into motion.
The timing of what happened next was almost perfect.
Jade knew The Capitol now, she understood that they’d taken her Father, Killed her Mother and now it was her turn, the last of the Ametrine lineage. They would kill her in the games, but she was going out on her terms.
As Jade finished another simulation as the telling hiss of the pneumatic door to the training centre opened and the Avox entered, and she knew instinctively who The Capitol would have sent in, another way to throw her off her game. She had one knife and one shot and this was her chance to take it or forever condemn the Avox to the life that they were living now, she couldn’t leave him like that, especially if the Capitol got their own way and she didn’t survive the games.
Before anyone could react, the glint of metal had left Jade’s hand and whipped across the training room floor. A shot that most Tributes wouldn’t have been able to make, but Jade knew how to throw a knife. It pierced the bottle of water first and sent sprays into the air as the bursting plastic sent sounds ricocheting around the vast training hall. The Avox grunted as the knife buried itself into his chest and knocked him off his feet, a cacophony of reactions from the Game Makers intermingling with the clattering tray as it hit the ground.
Jade’s feet carried her quickly towards the downed Avox and she cradled his head to sooth him, knowing that she would probably face some kind of Capitol wrath for killing someone in her training, there were no guidelines to this but she couldn’t suddenly disappear before the end of The Games, people would ask too many questions.
The knife had hit hard, no amount of Capitol trickery would be able to save the bleeding Avox as Jade knelt by him, soothing his last breaths the way that she had her Mother when she was ill. Jade’s eyes filled with tears that she’d promised herself she wouldn’t allow. Leaning closer she planted as kiss on the Avox’s forehead as his last breath rattled a silent sigh.
“Goodnight Papa.” She said, loud enough for the Game Makers and anyone else listening to hear, she had freed him from his torment. Standing to face the balcony of Game Makers again she steeled herself, her Father’s blood on her hands still.
“You have nothing else to hurt me with.” She shouted defiantly. “Death is an escape from your clutches, you killed my Mother and Father, Persia and Jasper Ametrine. You will remember their names and so will The Capitol and all of Panem. I’ll make sure of it.”
With that, Jade unhooked the belt that had held her knives and let it drop to the floor before taking one small glimpse at her Father’s lifeless body, he was free now. She wouldn’t cry, not til she was back in the suite and nobody could see. She wouldn’t cry.
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Aspen gave the District Nine team a shy, nervous smile as she took her seat on the couch. It would be any moment now Caesar Flickerman would bound onto their televisions, loquacious and bright, to inform them of the results of their private training scores.
I just want a five. It had been what Aspen had aimed for. Five was a respectable score for someone from her District. It showed that she wasn’t completely hopeless and it didn’t draw attention she didn’t want. A five would be great, a six would be perfect.
If she was honest, she just didn’t want to be that tribute everyone laughed about behind their hands.
Sighing, Aspen waited for the normal pomp and tradition to fade out on the broadcast. It was like flipping a switch, once the time came Caesar was as serious as he was ostentatious. Here they went...
As the Career scores came up, Aspen winced but it was expected. The girl from One scored a ten and Aspen was pretty sure no one would beat that. Last years Victor, Pixel, had been one of the rare elevens in training. As not to disappoint, the Career Pack posted the predicable high scores: ten, nine, eight. Sponsors would be lining up to sponsor them. How lucky were they? Aspen knew she would be lucky to get a sponsor.
Then came the parade of predictably lower scores; fours and fives mixed in with the occasional six. These games seemed to be more what people expected. Her five would put her right in the middle of the pack, average. Right where Aspen Fields had been her entire life. She could live with that, because she wasn’t made for shinning.
Before she knew it, it was Couscous’ name being announced. Aspen held her breath as she looked at her District partner, giving him a smile. Their scores didn’t define them, they weren’t careers. They deserved to know that regardless of their scores, they were important. Scores only made or break you if you were Careers. No matter the outcome, District Nine would still be the same. Their team would still support them all the same. Of that much, Aspen was sure.
Then it was her turn...
Aspen held her breath and closed her eyes. No, she didn’t want to see this. It was going to be bad. Suddenly her five seemed out of reach. People mocked threes... The thought alone was enough to make her stomach churn. Why hadn’t she tried harder with her private training session? She should have tried to learn a weapon instead of resorting to her tried and true skill of hiding. Gamemakers no doubt liked flash and pomp, all she had done was hide in plain sight.
She whimpered as she opened her eyes, telling herself she was going to watch this. Good or bad, Aspen was going to face this head on. If she was going to come home to find Amber again, she was going to have to try to be strong.
A NINE.
Aspen was pretty sure if it was possible for her to physically fall out of the chair, she would have done so. No. No. NO. She couldn’t have gotten a nine. People in the outer districts, they didn’t score nines. Only one Career had gotten a nine and only one had scored higher than a nine making her one of the highest scoring tributes so far.
She felt the tears instantly sting her eyes as she blinked them back. This wasn’t what she wanted. Not at all. How had her plan backfired so royally on her? Around her, her team was cheering and celebrating and Aspen was doing her best not to cry. The Careers were scary and she didn’t want them coming after her. It was surely a fast way to die. Aspen couldn’t fight, not even a little bit.
Deep down, Aspen knew she should be proud not terrified, but it didn’t change how she felt. It didn’t stop her from wanting to run and hide under the blankets. A high score had done little to assure her that perhaps she could win, perhaps District Nine could finally have another victor. She would like to win, but had she helped herself any?
Then before she knew it Districts Ten, Eleven, and Twelve were done and gone. Yep, she had been tied for the second highest score of the evening. Great. Wonderful. Perfect.
Once again, life hadn’t gone the way Aspen Fields had wanted it.
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