«My brother worked down here after he became an Avox,» says Castor. Of course. Who else would they get to maintain these dank, evil-smelling passages mined with pods? «Took five years before we were able to buy his way up to ground level. Didn’t see the sun once.»
Under better conditions, on a day with fewer horrors and more rest, someone would surely know what to say. Instead we all stand there for a long time trying to formulate a response.
Finally, Peeta turns to Pollux. «Well, then you just became our most valuable asset.» Castor laughs and Pollux manages a smile.
We’re halfway down the first tunnel when I realize what was so remarkable about the exchange. Peeta sounded like his old self, the one who could always think of the right thing to say when nobody else could. Ironic, encouraging, a little funny, but not at anyone’s expense. I glance back at him as he trudges along under his guards, Gale and Jackson, his eyes fixed on the ground, his shoulders hunched forward. So dispirited. But for a moment, he was really here.
Peeta called it right. Pollux turns out to be worth ten Holos. There is a simple network of wide tunnels that directly corresponds to the main street plan above, underlying the major avenues and cross streets. It’s called the Transfer, since small trucks use it to deliver goods around the city. During the day, its many pods are deactivated, but at night it’s a minefield. However, hundreds of additional passages, utility shafts, train tracks, and drainage tubes form a multilevel maze. Pollux knows details that would lead to disaster for a newcomer, like which offshoots might require gas masks or have live wires or rats the size of beavers. He alerts us to the gush of water that sweeps through the sewers periodically, anticipates the time the Avoxes will be changing shifts, leads us into damp, obscure pipes to dodge the nearly silent passage of cargo trains. Most important, he has knowledge of the cameras. There aren’t many down in this gloomy, misty place, except in the Transfer. But we keep well out of their way.
Under Pollux’s guidance we make good time—remarkable time, if you compare it to our aboveground travel. After about six hours, fatigue takes over. It’s three in the morning, so I figure we still have a few hours before our bodies are discovered missing, they search through the rubble of the whole block of apartments in case we tried to escape through the shafts, and the hunt begins.
When I suggest we rest, no one objects. Pollux finds a small, warm room humming with machines loaded with levers and dials. He holds up his fingers to indicate we must be gone in four hours. Jackson works out a guard schedule, and, since I’m not on the first shift, I wedge myself in the tight space between Gale and Leeg 1 and go right to sleep.
It seems like only minutes later when Jackson shakes me awake, tells me I’m on watch. It’s six o’clock, and in one hour we must be on our way. Jackson tells me to eat a can of food and keep an eye on Pollux, who’s insisted on being on guard the entire night. «He can’t sleep down here.» I drag myself into a state of relative alertness, eat a can of potato and bean stew, and sit against the wall facing the door. Pollux seems wide awake. He’s probably been reliving those five years of imprisonment all night. I get out the Holo and manage to input our grid coordinates and scan the tunnels. As expected, more pods are registering the closer we move toward the center of the Capitol. For a while, Pollux and I click around on the Holo, seeing what traps lie where. When my head begins to spin, I hand it over to him and lean back against the wall. I look down at the sleeping soldiers, crew, and friends, and I wonder how many of us will ever see the sun again.
When my eyes fall on Peeta, whose head rests right by my feet, I see he’s awake. I wish I could read what’s going on in his mind, that I could go in and untangle the mess of lies. Then I settle for something I can accomplish.
«Have you eaten?» I ask. A slight shake of his head indicates he hasn’t. I open a can of chicken and rice soup and hand it to him, keeping the lid in case he tries to slit his wrists with it or something. He sits up and tilts the can, chugging back the soup without really bothering to chew it. The bottom of the can reflects the lights from the machines, and I remember something that’s been itching at the back of my mind since yesterday. «Peeta, when you asked about what happened to Darius and Lavinia, and Boggs told you it was real, you said you thought so. Because there was nothing shiny about it. What did you mean?»
«Oh. I don’t know exactly how to explain it,» he tells me. «In the beginning, everything was just complete confusion. Now I can sort certain things out. I think there’s a pattern emerging. The memories they altered with the tracker jacker venom have this strange quality about them. Like they’re too intense or the images aren’t stable. You remember what it was like when we were stung?»
«Trees shattered. There were giant colored butterflies. I fell in a pit of orange bubbles.» I think about it. «Shiny orange bubbles.»
«Right. But nothing about Darius or Lavinia was like that. I don’t think they’d given me any venom yet,» he says.
«Well, that’s good, isn’t it?» I ask. «If you can separate the two, then you can figure out what’s true.»
«Yes. And if I could grow wings, I could fly. Only people can’t grow wings,» he says. «Real or not real?»
«Real,» I say. «But people don’t need wings to survive.»
«Mockingjays do.» He finishes the soup and returns the can to me.
In the fluorescent light, the circles under his eyes look like bruises. «There’s still time. You should sleep.» Unresisting, he lies back down, but just stares at the needle on one of the dials as it twitches from side to side. Slowly, as I would with a wounded animal, my hand stretches out and brushes a wave of hair from his forehead. He freezes at my touch, but doesn’t recoil. So I continue to gently smooth back his hair. It’s the first time I have voluntarily touched him since the last arena.
«You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real,» he whispers.
«Real,» I answer. It seems to require more explanation. «Because that’s what you and I do. Protect each other.» After a minute or so, he drifts off to sleep.
Shortly before seven, Pollux and I move among the others, rousing them. There are the usual yawns and sighs that accompany waking. But my ears are picking up something else, too. Almost like a hissing. Perhaps it’s only steam escaping a pipe or the far-off whoosh of one of the trains….
I hush the group to get a better read on it. There’s a hissing, yes, but it’s not one extended sound. More like multiple exhalations that form words. A single word. Echoing throughout the tunnels. One word. One name. Repeated over and over again.
«Katniss.»
22
The grace period has ended. Perhaps Snow had them digging through the night. As soon as the fire died down, anyway. They found Boggs’s remains, briefly felt reassured, and then, as the hours went by without further trophies, began to suspect. At some point, they realized that they had been tricked. And President Snow can’t tolerate being made to look like a fool. It doesn’t matter whether they tracked us to the second apartment or assumed we went directly underground. They know we are down here now and they’ve unleashed something, a pack of mutts probably, bent on finding me.
«Katniss.» I jump at the proximity of the sound. Look frantically for its source, bow loaded, seeking a target to hit. «Katniss.» Peeta’s lips are barely moving, but there’s no doubt, the name came out of him. Just when I thought he seemed a little better, when I thought he might be inching his way back to me, here is proof of how deep Snow’s poison went. «Katniss.» Peeta’s programmed to respond to the hissing chorus, to join in the hunt. He’s beginning to stir. There’s no choice. I position my arrow to penetrate his brain. He’ll barely feel a thing. Suddenly, he’s sitting up, eyes wide in alarm, short of breath. «Katniss!» He whips his head toward me but doesn’t seem to notice my bow, the waiting arrow. «Katniss! Get out of here!»
I hesitate. His voice is alarmed, but not insane. «Why? What’s making that sound?»
«I don’t know. Only that it has to kill you,» says Peeta. «Run! Get out! Go!»
After my own moment of confusion, I conclude I do not have to shoot him. Relax my bowstring. Take in the anxious faces around me. «Whatever it is, it’s after me. It might be a good time to split up.»
«But we’re your guard,» says Jackson.
