I'm doing science and I'm still alive. (goldenwire) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-05-04 20:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! wrap up, victor: 33rd beetee latier |
WHO: Beetee Latier, featuring cameos from various others
WHAT: This was a triumph...
WHEN: The Quarter Quell and beyond.
WHERE: 75th Arena, District 13, the Capitol, District 3
WARNINGS: ... Mockingjay spoilers?
STATUS: Completed narrative (honestly it's more like a fanfic oops I'm sorry)
Sitting still in his harness, in the plain, Capitol-issue jumpsuit, Beetee looks across the passenger bay, to Wiress. He can see it written on her face: she doesn't believe they will be saved before the arena. Ideally, the rebels would take over the hovercraft before the Quarter Quell's 24 tributes face any risk or sustain any casualties. There is no logical reason to wait. But the craft sails along far too smoothly, and Beetee knows, as Wiress does, that they will have to trust that Plutarch will give them what they need in the arena. Her internal clock had always been better calibrated than his, tick tock. Beetee is covered in blood, most of it his, but he has his wire, and the Mockingjay lives. Everything else is irrelevant. The tributes from Districts 3 and 7 stumble blindly through the jungle when a violent crackling noise fills the air, then the sound of Johanna's swearing, and then the unmistakable smell of seared human flesh. In all the years they had known each other, Beetee never taught Blight how to recognize a force field. "Tick tock," Wiress mutters as Ash Blight's heart stops beating. Beetee barely remembers his district partner from the first time he was a tribute. He lost dozens of tributes in his years as a mentor, and he felt hardly anything for any of them. Losing Wiress is different. He thinks it's because she had years to prove herself, that she's more than the wasted potential that tributes usually are. She was also his friend. He doesn't blame Gloss. He didn't know, and he had to play the game. They all do, trapped under the force field at the mercy of the Gamemakers. Plutarch can't and won't save them all. Even with all his knowledge and expertise, Beetee knows that, once he fulfills his mission of liberating the Mockingjay, he could die too. His mind makes him an asset but not indispensable. Wiress had been the same. That is simply the reality of war. As he twists the golden wire between his fingers, Beetee remembers showing Wiress the computer model, years ago. At the time, dabbling in nanotech was something fun, a distraction. He should have predicted then that the future of Panem would come to depend on it. Beetee hears the beeping of his heart monitor before he's even regained enough consciousness to know what it is. He recognizes District 13 as soon as he can open his eyes, even though he's only previously seen it on a computer screen. "Chink," he croaks, as soon as his speech returns. He knows without being told that it was Katniss who brought down the force field. The orderlies take quick note of Beetee's status, and they wheel him out of the hospital and into the lab, still hooked to his monitors. They have no time to wait, tick tock. He remembers an old folk tale from District 3, about a sick scientist who kept his brain alive long after his body had failed. Beetee isn't a scientist of legend, not yet, but he too only ever needed his brain. Gale doesn't have any scientific knowledge, but his practical experience with hunting more than makes up for it, and Beetee takes care of the technical aspects of their plans. Gale is not the same as Wiress, but Beetee has always valued intuition, in its many forms. He projects a simulation into the field, faceless holograms running back and forth at his command. Beetee can run a predictive model. He can estimate, based on average human response times, just how many people will die in the second blast, after x amount of time. Tick tock. "We can choose to minimize the impact of the second bomb, using it as more of a warning shot," Beetee explains. He strikes a key, and the paused holograms resume motion. "But in this scenario, the mass of explosives and timing of detonation have been measured to produce maximum casualties." A flash of light washes over the grass, and the translucent figures fade into nothing. Beetee guesses that's what Gale wants. Beetee goes on trial after the war. They all do, from both sides. Even the Mockingjay, mentally unfit to stand as a witness in her own case, receives an acquittal from a supposedly impartial bench. How can she have a jury of her peers when so many of her peers are dead? Beetee's charade lasts longer than most. Days become weeks. He sits in court, wishing he could be back in his lab, until he forgets, tick tock, how much time has passed. Without a statute of limitations, Beetee must defend actions dating back to his days as a young victor, decades ago. Some of them are easy, and the judge dismisses dozens of counts of invasion of privacy and espionage, deeming them a necessary component of intelligent warfare. It takes longer to debate the deaths of the children in City Circle. Plutarch takes the witness stand and swears that Beetee and Gale's innovations were crucial to the rebellion's victory, and in the end they too are acquitted. They aren't war criminals. Officially. Beetee returns to District 3 after the war. It's not the same district he left before the Quarter Quell. New residents pour in from all over Panem and hydroponic farms grow in hollowed-out buildings. Memorials to the dead crop up at every corner, four just outside what remains of his old home in Victor's Village. Plutarch pays for his new lab in exchange for consultation services, and Beetee has so many ideas, about the broadcast system and more. He's recovered from the Quell, and he doesn't need an assistant to wheel him to his lab bench. More and more time passes since the Quell, since the war, and Beetee goes back to work. Tick tock. |