Into Thin Air: The Forty-Second Hunger Games

Chapter 5

I didn't have the Three girl or the finished Four pair yet so I skipped to Five. They're not late, I just got antsy. I have some messages, so they might be there now.

Slater Hematite

Die successful or die trying.

There weren't any opportunities in Five. I could work in a power plant, breathing asbestos and nuclear waste until I got cancer. I could sweep the streets or beg on a corner from people almost as poor as me. There were no chances for advancement here- certainly no chance for me to give my daughter the life she deserved. I should never have made such a huge mistake, but it was my mistake. She was a perfect little girl.

There weren't any Academies in Five. Everyone knew that. One, Two and Four were the Capitol's darlings, but no one else was allowed to volunteer. What we did have was one or two self-defense clubs that called themselves "athletic centers". Basically, they really were. We didn't have fancy weapons. We didn't have any real weapons, not since the rebellion. We had wooden swords weighted with lead so they swung like the real thing and bows that shot suction cup arrows. It still could have gotten us in huge trouble if the Peacekeepers found out, but they weren't going to look very hard if nothing ever came of it.

For years, nothing had ever come of it. Maybe half a dozen of us trained in a year and we only did it to have a ghost of a chance in case we got Reaped. Six kids out of an entire District had good odds, and none of us had ever been Reaped yet. I was the first one that went with the intent to volunteer. I knew the odds, but for me, a chance at a life without constant hunger and deprivation was worth the risk of death.

My family lived hand-to-mouth. The pennies we could save went to send me to our excuse for an Academy. We were betting it all on one chance to leave this all behind. If I won, we'd never have to worry again. If I lost, they had one less mouth to feed.

I might not have had the courage to go through with it if it wasn't for Serenity. I never did right by her mother. I'd abandoned Connie weeks before, but then I heard she was pregnant. She didn't think I cared, but it changed my life. This wasn't something I could abandon. I was responsible for our daughter. Serenity deserved better, and I'd get it for her even if I had to kill. And if I won, I'd have grounds to file for custody. I could see her every day and never stop spoiling her.

It took a perfect storm for someone from Five to volunteer. It had happened once before, and it worked out well for Sky. For the second time, everything came together. I had the ability to fight, the personality to kill, and the need to win. I didn't care about the others, or about the killing. I only cared about what came next.

Sita Alaya

My sister Elya led me to the broken machinery.

"It started smoking and then shut down. Careful, it's hot," she said.

I never got a chance to go to school, but I still knew a few things. In Five, what mattered was knowing about electricity and energy, and that's what I knew. I'd grown up tagging along behind my mother as she worked, and as soon as I was twelve, I started working too. I wasn't the biggest worker, but fixing things came naturally to me, and I was sometimes the only one who could fix a problem if there wasn't a certified mechanic around.

I checked to make sure the machine was shut off and got to work. The broken machine was an air compressor. We used it to run air through the pneumatic pipes that ventilated the generators that all the other machines were mere appendages to. It was good Elya had caught it before it got worse, since an exploding air compressor was not a good thing.

I opened up the hatch on the back of the air compressor, which was ten feet tall by three feet wide, and peered inside. The problem was immediately apparent. The main hose was worn through, allowing air to escape into the inner workings of the mechanism. The hot, damp air was wreaking havoc on the machinery and overheating it.

"It's the hose," I said to Elya, who was bent over my crouched form and peering in behind me.

"We don't have any replacements," she said.

"Of course not," I said. We only provide for the Capitol. We don't get any provisions for ourselves.

I sat back and considered the problem. We had auxiliary air compressors, so work didn't have to come to a standstill. But we did have to get this one running again. The others would be overloaded on their own, and we couldn't have them all broken.

"Let's check the junk pile," I said. We didn't throw many things away in Five. Broken and rusted equipment went to a broom closet in the back of the building, where it was cannibalized as needed. Hoses were on all sorts of machines and they wore out all the time, so it wasn't hard to find half of one on the pile of odds and ends. I cut off a length and shaped it into two patches.

We did have epoxy. Our factory couldn't run without it. I curled up one of the patches and ran my finger through the hose until I had it situated. I held it in place as Elya smeared epoxy on the other patch, and then I sandwiched them together. The putty formed an airtight seal and welded the patches in place for double protection. I replaced the hose, turned the machine back on, and the problem was solved.