I'm doing science and I'm still alive. (goldenwire) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-04-25 22:46:00 |
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It was close enough to the end of the Games that while Mags kept her tablet on her to keep a vigilant eye on Shad -- it seemed like the right thing to do and the least she owed him now, rather than for practical or even emotional reasons -- she was no longer spending much time in the viewing room or courting sponsors. Char had already sent in the final gift they could afford and it was up to Shad to win on his own now. Or die, which she suspected was much more likely to be his fate for more than one reason, some not within his control at all. At least the Four bread, with its distinct green colour and fish shape, would be a nice last reminder of home before he went, whenever he did. So she didn't feel particularly guilty as she made the rounds at yet another Capitol event she had been invited to attend. Ever since she had returned to mentor for this year, a few people seemed to remember that she existed again, especially now with Shad making it so far despite a rough start with a blood-bath death and Miranda's awkward one last year. This time, she had been asked to make an appearance at an event for the release of new weapons, possibly for future Games. Of course people were particularly interested in her opinion on tridents, and she had just finished looking at a design that seemed to have the prongs arranged to make one more aerodynamic (Who throws a trident though?, she had thought behind her smile as she shook her head) when she noticed someone familiar a short distance away. Beetee wasn't someone Mags spoke with too often when most of her friends were either other Careers or older victors who had won shortly after she had, but she had always liked him well-enough and trusted him for conversations without sentimentality. Though this time, she hadn't seen him around as often, and on the rare occasion she did, he seemed a little odd, even if she couldn't put a finger on what it was exactly. She excused herself and walked over to him, smiling as she spoke. "Oh, Beetee -- I'd say I'm surprised to see you at an event like this, but of course I'm not." Beetee flinched when he heard his name, but relaxed quickly after turning to face Mags. Though it had been several days since he'd learned of his mistake, Beetee had always been twitchy, and he couldn't easily shake the extra jumpiness he'd acquired after a year of paranoia. "Oh, hello," he said, returning the greeting and sounding significantly more surprised than Mags had. "You shouldn't be, of course. I've been a consultant with Vulcan Industries for years." In one hand, Beetee held a glass of some kind of electric blue liquid, and a tiny green light on his watch beat a steady rhythm, seemingly in time with the ambient music. With his free hand, he gestured towards the nearest prototype, propped upon a pedestal. The bow had laser sights, the length and tension automatically adjusted, and the arrows in the quiver dangling next to it bore a chemical coating that burst into flame at high velocities. "It's fascinating work, but you can be honest with me, Mags. What do you think?" Mags' expertise on weapons was fairly limited to the usual Four set of knives, spears, and tridents -- none of which she had handled for decades now -- nevermind advanced technological versions of everything. She thought of her own Games back in the day and how simple everything had been then, and where they seemed to be headed now. Of course no one was a victor by accident, but the more time went on, the more other factors beyond a tribute's skill and ingenuity seemed to influence who ended up the victor. But as honest as she was willing to be with Beetee, whom she knew wouldn't be taken in by false pleasantries for politeness' sake, she couldn't say suggest the Games were anything but a fair competition. Not here, not after what happened with Four last year -- or at least not in those exact words. "Well, with a bow like that, I can see the outlying districts maybe having more of a chance if they can get their hands on one." She wasn't sure yet what to make of Beetee seeming more anxious than she remembered him being, but figured it wasn't her business anyway. "That would be quite the Games, with all this in the Cornucopia or sponsor shop. But I admit, it seems a little ... excessive? Nothing against you, of course, my dear. The Gamemakers need more of a show each year, and there are so many new arenas they can come up with now." That was, of course, assuming the weapons were actually for the Games and not for arming Peacekeepers. Beetee shook his head. "Must everything be about the Games?" he asked. Even in years when he mentored, Beetee invested himself in the Hunger Games less than any of his fellow victors, save perhaps Wiress. But while she was distracted by the ideas in her own head, he was the opposite. In the larger scheme of things, the Hunger Games were the distraction. So long as Panem focused on the injustice of 23 children dying every year, the instability of society went unexamined. Mags had been around long enough that perhaps she could see that. "Experimental prototypes like this don't belong in the arena. Even the average trained Peacekeeper wouldn't know how to use a weapon like this to its full extent, and it's too expensive to outfit all of them with top-of-the-line gear." Just as well. District 13 couldn't afford the same for their entire militia either, but thanks to Beetee they had enough information to keep their troops current and maybe perform some R&D of their own. He didn’t particularly like working for a Capitol manufacturer, but the work was interesting, and the espionage opportunities countless. Beetee waved at the quiver. "No, only a truly talented archer could make this weapon sing, and there's no guarantee someone like that will pick it up at the Cornucopia. Such a waste otherwise, isn't it?" Mags nodded along as Beetee spoke, though she wasn't quite sure what to make of his comments. If the weapons were meant for neither the arena nor Peacekeepers, then she wasn't quite sure what other purpose they might have or why the Capitol would be investing in such projects. Certainly nothing too secret, if they were being displayed out in the open even in front of a victor like herself with little involvement in such affairs. Then again, there was that old saying about hiding in plain sight. And for a moment, she thought back to the Dark Days when the Capitol had developed mutts like the jabberjays and tracker jackers to fight the rebelling districts. But none of the districts were rebelling at the moment. The Games and Peacekeepers had made sure of that for the last fifty-seven years, and she couldn't see it happening again with the way things were. Then again, information rarely passed between districts as another form of control. Was Beetee hinting at something going on beyond Four's borders? Though even if he was, it wasn't as if she could expect him to say so outright. "Oh yes, of course. And it's a rare skill, archery -- even most of the Careers can't manage it, let alone with a bow this advanced. I can only imagine the sort of person who would be able to ... put this to good use." Whatever that was -- she still couldn't think of who exactly would be using a bow like this. "And I know not everything is about the Games, but this does seem like the kind of thing Selah or Calixte would have found fascinating, if I might be nostalgic for a moment." Not just weapons in general, but seeing how far things had come since their time as the earliest Careers -- and now she was the only one of the three left. A flash of recognition sparkled in Beetee's eyes behind his glasses, and he took a slow sip of his drink as he considered how to respond. Though he had seen Selah Jones at the Capitol for twenty years before her death, he felt a closer connection to Calixte Rodriguez, despite having never met her. Calixte had died two years before Beetee's Games, and though Beetee could not have been more different as a victor, he carried out Soldier Rodriguez's legacy in different ways. His contact in District 13, Dominic Day, had been Calixte's handler years before. He and his colleague, an officer named Coin, spoke fondly of the only other victor who had ever contacted District 13 -- or at least, they spoke fondly of the intelligence she'd recovered. "From what I've heard, Calixte had quite an interest in warfare," Beetee ventured carefully. That's what the weapons were for, after all: a highly advanced military stockpile was a show of strength, a deterrent to potential enemies. Even Beetee could read the Capitol's purpose plainly, though he didn't specialize in strategy (he knew enough he could beat Lyme in chess, but she was young still). Calixte hadn't been quite so careful as Beetee, and perhaps she came to know the Capitol's power better than anyone. "But in the end, I suppose weapons and tactics couldn't save her," he added. If Calixte really had died of a hereditary illness, such a statement would have been patently obvious, but Beetee trusted that Mags would pick up on his meaning. She had to have suspected that there was more to her fellow victor's death than the official story told, but perhaps not that it was an early casualty of a silent, slowly-brewing war. This time, Mags raised an eyebrow instead of nodding along -- specifically at Beetee's choice of words, though she pretended it was simply her appraising the bow in front of her. She suspected that to most people, it sounded as if he was simply referring to Calixte's background as a Career and her well-known prowess with weapons in the arena. But 'warfare' was a rather strong and pointed word to describe what trained volunteers did in the Games, and it was one of those words that usually only came up in reference to the civil war of the Dark Days. Calixte would have only been a baby then. And Beetee was nothing if not precise and deliberate. As for her death -- of course she remembered Calixte wasting away during the final months of her life after having been nothing but perfectly healthy years before then and the official explanation for it. It had come as a huge shock for her to be the first victor to die, and at so young an age. Mags wasn't one for political intrigue and had simply accepted the death for what it was at the time, when there was no reason not to do so. But the more she thought about it in the years since and how it had coincided with Snow's rise to power, the more something about it bothered her. But Calixte had been a model District One and Career victor, popular with the Capitol and with no regrets or resentment about her Games-- and victors like that didn't get punished. And the ones who did had their family and friends targeted, not themselves. Victors were too valuable for that. "No, it's always like that with us Careers -- we think we're invincible when we come out of the arena, but there's always something that comes along to humble us." Beetee seemed to be confirming through his carefully selected words that there had indeed been more to Calixte's story than the Capitol's official version, but she couldn't imagine what the late victor could have done to justify going as far as to eliminate a victor outright like that instead of merely sending her-- and others -- a warning. "Especially if we get a little ahead of ourselves, forgetting we're not in the arena anymore and can't solve everything with violence. I'd know, of course." And she did, hoping that's what the Capitol would assume she meant as they undoubtedly listened in on the conversation. "Or, well, it's a matter of the right time and place, really." "Of course," Beetee agreed. Mags was right, in that not everything could be solved with violence, but sometimes it really was the most efficient and expedient route. President Snow had taken it often, in his own, subtle sort of way. He had poisoned more people than just Calixte. "Killing one's enemies is a commonly used strategy, regardless of time or place." Beetee suspected that the time would come when he too would return to that strategy. District 13 kept his information, for the most part, on a need-to-know basis, but it wasn't difficult to tell that their long-term goal involved more than just sabotage and espionage. He glanced at his watch, where the green light continued to blink steadily, which meant that his hidden microphone was still working properly. Nobody spoke with or around him about truly sensitive matters, but it didn't matter. In his lab in District 3, Beetee would be able to isolate individual voice files from the ambient noise in the room, and some of the guests might have ideas about how the weapons would be used. His gaze swiveled back up, and Beetee looked Mags in the eye. She might have been from District 4, a district whose tributes often killed District 3's, but Beetee never took their deaths personally. Regardless of other differences, he still had more in common with her than with anyone else in the room, and the Hunger Games couldn't change that. "One just needs to remember who their enemies really are." |