Gracie Clearglade (malfunctions) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-01-27 23:05:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ! 56th games, - capitol, victor: 33rd beetee latier, victor: 44th wiress lag |
WHO: Beetee Latier and Wiress Lag.
WHAT: Talking about talking to the tributes.
WHEN: Day… 4? While the kids are at training, anyway.
WHERE: Nerd homebase, third floor of the Training Center.
WHY: Faraday said to.
STATUS: Complete.
There was a project every year. Last year had been the grain elevators, the plans she’d come up with to automate the sorting and loading of various grains while reducing the risk of dust explosion. This year it was combine harvesters, great beasts of machines Wiress had never seen in person, but she’d spent the last month poring over crop yield reports from Nine and schematics she’d requested for their current machines, and she’d spent the last few days since reaching the Capitol mostly in her room at the Training Center.
The Avoxes knew by now not to tidy there when Wiress was working, so it was a bit of a disaster zone, strewn with papers covered with her cramped writing and metal parts and working scale models of various bits and pieces of oats and hay and other things that made her sneeze. It smelled like engine grease and warm metal; despite still being in the Capitol with two clever little children who would be sent to the Arena in a matter of days, Wiress was happy.
She was sitting at the table she’d taken for her workbench, comparing her own notes and calculations with the 3D schematic she’d brought up on her tablet. Occasionally she muttered to herself and chewed absently on the end of a pen, or hummed a little while she worked. Solitude was nice, but her door was open. Always open to Beetee and Faraday.
Beetee knocked on the door frame, waiting for Wiress's assent before entering the room. It was a courtesy he preferred be extended to him as well, though he doubted she would turn him away. She'd been reclusive since coming to the Capitol, no doubt making breakthrough after breakthrough on her latest designs, but as much as Beetee would have preferred to let Wiress tinker away in her room-cum-workshop, he knew that pattern of behavior would not be sustainable in the long run. Faraday was right. After waiting longer than most districts with multiple victors of the same gender, District 3 needed to start easing its second female victor into a mentor's mindset.
"I was hoping we could talk -- about the tributes." They had already left for the day's training, prepared with their goals and strategies for the day. Beetee liked both this year, an unusual occurrence. Both Ace and Machine seemed clever, the kinds of tributes that he expected to perform relatively well in the arena and that he wished could remain in District 3 to apply their innovation to industry, but neither had grabbed his attention as immediately as Wiress had, twelve years prior.
Wiress looked up at the knock, dismissing the projection with a tap of her finger, and smiled. Talking to Beetee wasn’t like talking to other people -- with Beetee she didn’t have to struggle to finish sentences or repeat herself or try to explain with many words where only a few would have done. Beetee understood, and she didn’t know if he really knew what a relief that was.
Her smile faded at the mention of the tributes, and she looked down, pushing one of the scale models across the table. The children -- every year was different. This year she hadn’t even spoken to them yet, just sat quietly across the supper table with her head in her work and her eyes on her plate.
“Okay,” she said after a moment, because Beetee wouldn’t want to talk for no reason. He didn’t do anything for no reason. She tapped at her tablet again to bring up the profiles of their cheeky boy and angry girl, and brushed a finger over both their faces, side by side there on the screen. “The tributes,” she repeated, and looked up at him, waiting for Beetee to present whatever problem he wanted her to examine.
"Both tributes are clever this year, excellent candidates," Beetee began, bobbing his head and wringing his hands together. These Games marked the twelfth year since Wiress's reaping, and in all that time the rest of District 3 had deliberately avoided bringing up the idea of her mentoring. It could wait until she was better, the other three victors had agreed, more than a decade ago. Broaching the topic at this point felt like an acknowledgment that perhaps Wiress would never get better.
Beetee liked Wiress how she was; he could follow her patterns of thinking more often than not, and he always found her work fascinating and impeccable, but he couldn't ignore how she struggled to communicate with people outside of her little circle. It didn't seem fair or sensible to ask Wiress to put more into the Games when they had already taken so much from her, but the Capitol would force her to take an active role eventually. Preparation was only logical. "Faraday and I talked earlier, and she -- we were hoping that you could spend a little more time talking to them this year, perhaps advise them some."
She met his eyes wordlessly, her finger gone still on the tablet screen. Talking to the tributes. That wasn’t something she’d done much of, even when she’d been a tribute herself -- she’d been shy before the Arena, and hadn’t even spoken much to Three’s other tribute that year. She’d talked to Faraday and Beetee about the children, helped where she could with her own observations, but interacting with them wasn’t something that had been expected of her this far. But things were changing. Two near-wins for Three in the last few years and another pair of contenders this year, Faraday’s son growing up so fast, other older victors who didn’t mentor anymore when they had younger ones who could take over. Anyone could see the pattern, even if she didn’t want to know what was coming.
Wiress stood, pushing the bench back, and hugged the tablet with the children’s faces on it to her chest as she paced the few feet between the workbench and her untouched bed, back and forth, back and forth, turning with a Peacekeeper’s precision at each end of her trajectory. “I know,” she said to the floor after a few moments of this. “Thirty years for Faraday. My turn. I know.”
She knew, and she knew that it had been a kindness on Faraday’s part to keep the responsibility of mentoring from her this long. Wiress pushed out a long breath, resigned. It wasn’t this year, and maybe it wouldn’t be next year, but it wouldn’t be long, either. “Machine,” she added after another moment, without a pause in the pacing. “I read the files. Ace is programming, and that’s…” She tilted her head at Beetee; his area, not hers. “She knows mechanics. Dynamics, kinematics, practical for…” She frowned and paused by the workbench again, picking up one of her combine harvester models to spin the wheel gently. Thinking about the Arena was hard, and talking about it was harder.
"There are so many other variables: materials, location, time." Approaching the table, Beetee traced a line with his finger along the edge of the surface. "But she'll listen, and she could benefit from learning about what she might be able to build in the arena." The word traps remained unspoken. Harsh and direct words served no logical purpose when both he and Wiress could follow the train of conversation.
He liked Machine, as much as he could like any tribute. Clever, healthy, determined but realistic. Wiress would like her too, he hoped, and maybe, because Machine was older and more independent than her male counterpart, Wiress's heart wouldn't break so much if and when the girl died in the arena.
Wiress put the model down gently and looked up, meeting Beetee’s eyes through his glasses. He was kind to speak in the abstract, in the gentlest terms possible -- he was always kind to her. Time to repay that kindness with usefulness for a change. So she pushed aside her discomfort as much as she could, and even smiled a bit. “Yes,” she agreed. “We can’t predict conditions with any measurable accuracy. But if she lives long enough. She could, maybe...” Iaso had survived nearly long enough, last year. The trap she and little Mouse had set had been sprung -- too late for both of them, but Machine had watched and learned, no doubt. And Ace, too, but the girl was the one who could put her skills into action in the Arena, if she could figure out how to use what she was given.
Machine was bigger and stronger than usual, too, and more angry than scared. Nearly Wiress’s opposite in some ways, but they spoke the same language. As far as Wiress spoke anyone's language, at least. She frowned after a moment and twisted her fingers together. “She’ll listen, but…” But. The biggest, unspoken caveat.
"I can be there," Beetee offered. It might not have been what Faraday had in mind, precisely, when she first suggested that Wiress talk to Machine one-on-one, but both tribute and victor would receive greater benefit from a conversation with Beetee in the room. Such a setup made the most logical sense, particularly when he expected that he would mentor alongside Wiress when her time came.
She relaxed and untwisted her fingers at that, and even smiled. "Okay," Wiress agreed, and sat down at her workbench again with profound relief. As long as Beetee was there, she thought she could face anything. Tributes, mentoring, the horrors of the Arena and the horrors of the Capitol alike -- it all seemed a little easier if she had Beetee at her side.
She laid her tablet gently down and swiped at the screen again to bring up the schematic she'd been working with, and the data sheets beside it. "Look," she told Beetee, and flipped it around so he could see. "My calculations predict a twenty-one percent increase in crop yield per acre on barley, sixteen percent on wheat." She picked up the model, running one finger lovingly along the cutterbar that was her greatest improvement to the design. "There were several major flaws..."
Everything was flawed, really. But she and Beetee, together, could fix most things. Maybe if he was there, she could help the tributes overcome their own flaws. Maybe they would bring young Machine home; she was strong, she wouldn't break in the Arena. And then Wiress wouldn't have to dread mentoring after all.