“I’ll ask you to give me your best performance, sans stuttering.”
The launch was always chaos. No matter how down to the minute the arena was planned out, there were always loose ends, loose wires, loose anything to distract from the launch. It used to be Chip’s job to fix them all. But at some point, over the last couple years, he’d transitioned from fixing the last minute issues to calling out the last minute issues. So last minute, that the fuss over Lysander voicing the launch off-site was hardly a concern. He’d been with the man before the Quell, when last-minute fixes required Chip’s hands and mind and Lysander’s intelligence and control. They’d been so close to the launch, to the bloodbath, Chip spiraled. Not Lysander, though. Not the rock. Not the unmoving man.
Not until he was gone.
This was Chip’s first time in the primary control room, where, true to its name, primary controls were called. In Lysander’s absence, everything still seemed to go according to plan. His microphone was hooked up property and without delay so he could give the countdown in real time on the primary and secondary feed, even as he was miles from the Gamemaker HQ. It was all so simple, to make sure there was no delay. The CapitolTV feed was most important and clear, while the GazetteTV secondary channel was necessary but amateur. Chip was mostly looking at the ground, nodding along as he adjusted Lysander’s audio input to make sure it wasn’t too over-modulated and sounded as normal a possible.
“You’re a DJ, right?”
Chip didn’t answer his colleague, just went to work. He knew how all this worked, which is probably why the Capitol decided DJ-ing and music production was hit victor-appointed skill. He knew how it all worked in the control specifically, now. He knew the presentation was cheesy and based on half-truths, but at least he could prove himself in a simple sphere where all he had to do was normalize Lysander’s voi-
There was a blast, so loud it silenced everyone in the room. The people on audio tore off their headphones and fell to the floor. The primary feed vanished, but a few screens dedicated to the secondary livestream from the Gazette stayed on. There were flashes as the audio cut out, then gray and darkness.
No one moved. Twenty seconds of silence and televised smoke went by.
Then the carnivorously ambitious swooped in. Deputies and supervisors alike, desperate to be the voice of the countdown after their peer had fallen. Chip saw them all swooping in. It is hard to calculate stress-fueled physical and mental responses until after the fact, but Chip’s were precise.
The ballpoint end of his pen hit a throat.
The heftiest part of his headset hit someone in the jugular.
He shoved a hesitant supervisor to the side, and took their headset.
Silly, really, like they didn’t know who they were dealing with.
He spotted the “audio off” master button, and dragged his fingers quickly across the board. His speech was hesitant, but his actions never were.
“No one.”
It was a command. They were already into the ten second zone by now, but he knew these hungry hearts and ambitious souls by now. Death was an opportunity to them, not sorrowful. The Games would go on. Nothing could stop this, not now. But the least a victor could do was take control.
His middle finger tapped down on a button, switching the control from external (over the arena) to internal (among Gamemakers).
“Three,” Chip stated. He could’ve started at five, really, but he needed some time to go over his most difficult phonetics before he said it. When it came out fluid, in one syllable, he didn’t hesitate to finish.
“Two.”
“One.”
No one heard him outside the Gamemakers’ control center. No one but the people in the room who were just doing their job. The piranhas, eager for a higher position, were furious. The workers, the people who did this to survive, kept on. Without a hitch.
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
Allard was only partially paying attention to the events on the large screen in the viewing room. A gathering of Gamemakers and his countrymen, all talking about how jolly it was for District Thirteen to join the fray. Allard could not stomach it, so he chose a launch viewing room that was outfitted with a bar and a piano. He passed around drinks, anecdotes, praises for his tributes, and, with minutes to go to launch, asked who wanted to hear a tune from District Thirteen. He thought it would dramatic and noticeable, to make these sponsors hear the launch over the music he grew up on. He thought it would be memorable, above all - that this was what would put District Thirteen in the Hunger Games history books.
The speech ended abruptly. Allard was seated at the piano, hands over the keys, when the room went silent. He turned watching as the sponsors in the room looked at the screen, each other, the screen, then started patting at their pockets. They produced their cell phones, tablets, laptops, all to hear a haunting echo of hissing and screaming. Worse still, he could recognize that the screaming did not equate to the number of voices present.
Something had happened. Something awful.
Allard stood up quickly, knocking back the stool. He didn’t make excuses as he left, in a hurry that he was shocked not to see mimicked around him. Perhaps he was moving too fast. Perhaps the world was moving too slow. Perhaps he should hear from his wife soon. She wouldn’t tell him, though, if the world was ending. Not unless Battenberg allowed her.
The world receded to little more than chatter. He could sense it as he walked, as the corner he passed acquired more noise and as he started to run into more people on the sidewalk. It wasn’t far between the Tower and his hotel, but it felt like a whole era had passed. The Era of Vultur, the Era Beyond. He had no name for the latter yet, and little desire to see it seriously. Perhaps this horrific moment was a time to act.
Perhaps.
The elevator wasn’t working at this hotel. An influx of people trying to tune into the Gazette, the government website, anything that might tell them the truth. The first bead of sweat that dropped off him as he ascended the service stairs was truer than the Capitol truth. He wasn’t mad, not at how the Capitol restructured their history. He appreciated it. He would learn from it. He wasn’t climbing for nothing.
His lungs ached as he reached the penthouse, reserved for him and only him. Per his long-standing request, a violin was never far from any entrance: the main door, a servant’s door, a window. It didn’t matter how one got in, all that mattered was a violin nearby. Just in case it was him, desperate. Just in case this was the last thing he might touch.
He picked up the violin and bow as he walked through the front door, sweating profusely after trekking up the stairs. He knew, with a glance at his watch, that the truth he assumed was true by now was proven. He remembered when the Black Eagles came for him, and he stood on the same balcony, with a violin and bow in hand.
“Monsieur Dupond, they’ve breached the lobby.”
“Allard, they’ve breached the lobby!”
“They will block the exits soon!”
“Allard! They are coming for you!”
Time passes, with more frantic pleas to leave this hotel built up on dust and lies.
“Four years to hate me. I think it might take twice as long to get the country to love me. Eight years. Do you like President, or should I change my title?”
A lament. That was what one would call the tune he played as he took the bow to the violin and played without much thought.
Lament (transitive verb)
: to express sorrow, mourning, or regret for often demonstratively
It was a shame one should die, but one person’s death was not an end. It was a chance. A chance to right the wrongs that put Allard’s people in harm’s way.
Surya saw the text as it flashed across her phone screen, but she paid little notice to it at first. She was in the homestretch, gathering as many sponsors as she could to the same viewing room so she could loudly proclaim a path to victory when her tributes got out of the bloodbath alive. Despite the girls’ skills, she believed they would get out of the launch alive. Avenue knew the odds too much; Rhea knew the cameras too well, even if she didn’t get all the psychology and mechanics of it. She knew how to garner attention. Surya appreciated it.
The press conference was a big part of the Hunger Games news recently, of course. A special little presentation, one that required Lysander’s attention to prepare for rather than requiring his attention in her bed the night before launch. She slept soundly, nonetheless. Woke nervously, knowing that at the breakfast table that morning she would not see Rhea or Avenue. All she could depart to them was done with, so all she had to do now was garner them attention outside the arena. She had a plate of fruit and a coffee with too much sugar, and went to the lobby.
Half the discussion was about the press conference, half about the arena. She understood why this televised presentation was so important, to welcome a new district. But she hardly thought it worthy of as much discussion as the launch itself.
She ordered a mimosa at the bar and asked for it to be delivered to a specific viewing room.
She received a text she only glanced at. She assumed, half-reading, that it was only a little joke from Lysander telling her not to read too much into the arena.
He was on screen. She didn’t look at his text again, instead sitting with her messages open, more focused on what part of his speech she might turn into a cheeky joke for him to come home to.
Lysander’s voice cut out. The screen went black. But several people in the room were on their phones or tablets, watching a secondary, unedited stream from the Capitol Gazette. She recognized the sight immediately.
Smoke. Her first love.
Once upon a time, she wished she could twist and float through the air like smoke, creating images and mirages that fulfilled the dreams of those watching. Sometimes, she thought she met that goal. But today, the smoke was evil. It filled her throat and mouth with acid. It burned her from the inside out. It was a cruel smoke, the kind she pretended didn’t exist. It didn’t drift off chimneys or cigarettes; it came from something more vile.
Before it cleared, she knew what was beneath it.
Take it as a love declaration if you want.
It was all she wanted, to be loved. To be noticed beneath the jewels and makeup and fashion, to be held like she was a child with nothing to offer but loved nonetheless. Maybe it’d been possible, with Lysander, to be so vulnerable. But that possibility was gone in a moment as unlikely as it’d been presented.
The room was quiet. Too quiet. Everyone was staring at the tiny screens with the Gazette stream, until that went black, too. Several seconds had gone by. Several more seconds than it took for Surya to process the truth. She was tempted to remain calm, to remain nonchalant and joyous. She’d once been known as a joyous girl.
But she wasn’t a girl.
With a sudden motion, she let loose of the wine glass in her hand. It dropped to the ground, shattering. It gave everyone a reason to gasp, to exhale. Surya didn’t say anything as she walked out of the room, walked first toward the elevator and then toward the lobby doors. There was a flurry of activity, yet not enough, in her opinion. If the world would not stand still for this atrocity, it might as well go into hyperactivity.
Her palm hit the glass door hard, just as someone was walking into the building with enough force to shake the frame of the doors. She glanced to her left, and saw a familiar face. A coward dressed up in Gamemaker’s skin. Easily distracted by the camera lights suddenly on her, the influx of questions.... all came before the man was probably medically declared dead.
A lifetime flashed before her. Poverty, victory, joy. Suffering, punishment, depression. The skin and muscle on her back rippled with a phantom ache at the memory of her selfish disobedience years before.
Her eyes shifted, focusing in on a lens that she could see turning, shifting, zooming in on her.
Chip wasn’t supposed to like him, and still isn’t sure if he actually does or if he just appreciates having someone he knows in the Gamemaker quarters. But Clover loves him, and Chip trusts Clover. He certainly does not trust Lysander. Yet. It’s not something to rule out for the future, though, and there are some specific work-related situations where Chip would only want to rely on Lysander for help and guidance.
