Coriolanus waited until he and Sejanus reached the deserted backstreets near the base before he broached the subject of Billy Taupe. “So, what did you two have to talk about?”
“Nothing, really,” said Sejanus uncomfortably. “Just some local gossip.”
“And that required a map of the base?” asked Coriolanus.
Sejanus pulled up short. “You never miss a beat, do you? I remember that from school. Watching you watch other people. Pretending you weren’t. And choosing the moments you weighed in so carefully.”
“I’m weighing in now, Sejanus. Why were you in deep discussion with him over a map of the base? What is he? A rebel sympathizer?” Sejanus averted his gaze, so Coriolanus continued. “What possible interest can he have in a Capitol base?”
Sejanus stared at the ground for a minute, then said, “It’s the girl. From the hanging. The one they arrested the other day. Lil. She’s locked up there.”
“And the rebels want to rescue her?” pressed Coriolanus.
“No. They just want to communicate with her. Make sure she’s all right,” explained Sejanus.
Coriolanus tried to keep his temper in check. “And you said you would help.”
“No, I made no promises. But if I can, if I’m near the guardhouse, perhaps I can find something out. Her family’s frantic,” said Sejanus.
“Oh, wonderful. Fantastic. So now you’re a rebel informant.” Coriolanus took off down the road. “I thought you were letting the whole rebel thing go!”
Sejanus followed on his heels. “I can’t, all right? It’s part of who I am. And you’re the one who said I could help the people in the districts if I agreed to leave the arena.”
“I believe I said you could fight for the tributes, meaning you might be able to procure more humane conditions for them,” Coriolanus corrected him.
“Humane conditions!” Sejanus burst out. “They’re being forced to murder each other! And the tributes are from the districts, too, so I don’t really see a distinction. It’s a tiny thing, Coryo, to check up on this girl.”
“Clearly, it isn’t,” said Coriolanus. “Not to Billy Taupe, anyway. Or why did he wipe out that map so fast? Because he knows what he’s asking. He knows he’s making you a collaborator. And do you know what happens to collaborators?”
“I just thought —” began Sejanus.
“No, Sejanus, you’re not thinking at all!” steamed Coriolanus. “And, even worse, you’re falling in with people who barely seem capable of thought. Billy Taupe? What’s his stake in this anyway? Money? Because to hear Lucy Gray talk, the Covey aren’t rebels. Or Capitol. They’re pretty much set on hanging on to their own identity, whatever that is.”
“I don’t know. He said he . . . he was asking for a friend,” stammered Sejanus.
“A friend?” Coriolanus realized he was shouting and dropped his voice to a hush. “A friend of old Arlo, who set the explosions in the mines? There was a piece of brilliant plotting. What possible result could he have been hoping for? They have no resources, nothing at all that would allow them to reengage in a war. And in the meantime, they’re biting the hand that feeds them, because how will they eat here in Twelve without those mines? They’re not exactly bubbling over with options. What sort of strategy was that?”
“A desperate one. But look around!” Sejanus grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. “How long can you expect them to go on like this?”
Coriolanus felt a surge of hatred as he remembered the war, the devastation the rebels had brought to his own life. He yanked his arm free. “They lost the war. A war they started. They took that risk. This is the price they pay.”
Sejanus looked about, as if unsure which direction to go, and then slumped down on a broken wall along the road. Coriolanus had the unpleasant feeling that he was somehow taking old Strabo Plinth’s role in the endless discussion over where Sejanus’s loyalties lay. He had not signed up for this. On the other hand, if Sejanus went rogue out here, there was no telling where it would end.
Coriolanus sat down beside him. “Look, I think things will improve, really, but not like this. As it gets better overall, it will get better here, but not if they keep blowing up the mines. All that does is add to the body count.”
Sejanus nodded, and they sat there as a few raggedy children went by, kicking an old tin can down the road. “Do you think I’ve committed treason?”
“Not quite yet,” said Coriolanus with a half smile.
Sejanus tugged at some weeds growing out of the wall. “Dr. Gaul does. My father went to see her, before he went to Dean Highbottom and the board. Everyone knows she’s really the one in charge. He went to ask if I might be given the chance you were, to sign up for the Peacekeepers.”
“I thought that would be automatic,” said Coriolanus. “If you were expelled like me.”
“That was my father’s hope. But she said, ‘Don’t conflate the boys’ actions. A piece of faulty strategy is not commensurate with a treasonous act of rebel support.’” Bitterness crept into his voice. “And so a check appeared for a new lab for her mutts. It must have been the priciest ticket to District Twelve in history.”
Coriolanus gave a low whistle. “A gymnasium and a lab?”
“Say what you will, I’ve done more for Capitol reconstruction than the president himself,” Sejanus joked halfheartedly. “You’re right, Coriolanus. I’ve been stupid. Again. I’ll be more careful in the future. Whatever that holds.”
“Probably some fried baloney,” Coriolanus said.
“Well, then, lead on,” said Sejanus, and they resumed their trek to the base.
Their bunkmates were just rolling out of bed when they returned. Sejanus took Beanpole out to work on his drills, and Smiley and Bug went over to see what was happening in the rec room. Coriolanus planned to use the hours until dinner studying for the officer candidate test, but his conversation with Sejanus had planted an idea in his brain. It grew rapidly until it wiped out everything else. Dr. Gaul had defended him. Well, not defended him. But made sure Strabo Plinth understood that Coriolanus was in an entirely different class than his delinquent son. Coriolanus’s crime had been only “a piece of faulty strategy,” which didn’t sound like much of a crime at all. Perhaps she hadn’t written him off entirely? She’d seemed to take special pains with his education during the Games. Singled him out. Would it be worth writing to her now, just to . . . just to . . . well, he didn’t know what he hoped to achieve. But who knew, up the road, when he might be an officer of some consequence, if their paths might not cross again. It couldn’t hurt to write her. He’d already been stripped of everything of value. The worst she could do was ignore him.
Coriolanus chewed on his pen as he tried to compose his thoughts. Should he start with an apology? Why? She would know he wasn’t sorry for trying to win, only for being caught. Better to bypass the apology entirely. He could tell her of his life here on the base, but it seemed too mundane. Their conversations had been, if nothing else, elevated. An ongoing lesson, exclusively for his benefit. And then it struck him. The thing to do was to continue the lesson. Where had they left off? His one-pager on chaos, control, and — what was that third one? He always had trouble remembering. Oh, yes, contract. The one it took the might of the Capitol to enforce. And so he began. . . .
Dear Dr. Gaul,
So much has occurred since our last conversation, but every day I am informed by it. District Twelve provides an excellent stage upon which to watch the battle between chaos and control play out, and, as a Peacekeeper, I have a front-row seat.
He went on to discuss the things he’d been privy to since his arrival. The palpable tension between the citizens and the Capitol forces, how it threatened to spill over into violence at the hanging, how it had overflowed into a brawl at the Hob.
It reminded me of my stint in the arena. It’s one thing to speak of humans’ essential n
ature theoretically, another to consider it when a fist is smashing into your mouth. Only this time I felt more prepared. I’m not convinced that we are all as inherently violent as you say, but it takes very little to bring the beast to the surface, at least under the cover of darkness. I wonder how many of those miners would have thrown a punch if the Capitol could have seen their faces? In the midday sun of the hanging, they grumbled but didn’t dare to fight.
Well, it’s something to think over while my lip heals.
He added that he did not expect she would reply but wished her well. Two pages. Short and sweet. Not overly demanding of attention. Not asking for anything. Not apologizing. He folded the letter crisply, sealed the envelope, and addressed it to her at the Citadel. To avoid questions, especially from Sejanus, he went over directly and dropped it in the mail. There goes nothing, he thought.
At dinner, the fried baloney came with applesauce and greasy chunks of potatoes, and he ate every bite on his heaping tray with relish. After supper, Sejanus helped him study for the test, being noncommittal as to his own interest in it.
“They only offer it three times a year, and one’s this Wednesday afternoon,” said Coriolanus. “We should both take it. If only for practice.”
“No, I don’t have a handle on this military stuff yet. I think you’ll get through it, though,” Sejanus replied. “Even if you’re a little shaky, you’ll ace the rest of it, and your overall score might be high enough to pass. Go ahead, take it before you forget all your math.” He had a point. Already some of Coriolanus’s geometry seemed a bit rusty.
“If you were an officer, perhaps they’d let you train to be a doctor. You were awfully good in science,” said Coriolanus, trying to feel out where Sejanus’s head might be after their conversation. He definitely needed something new to focus on. “And then you could, like you said, help people.”
“That’s true.” Sejanus thought it over. “Maybe I’ll talk to the doctors over at the clinic and find out how they got there.”
The following morning, after a night of strange dreams that vacillated between him kissing Lucy Gray and feeding Dr. Gaul’s snakelets, Coriolanus added his name to the list to take the test. The officer in charge told him that he’d be officially excused from training, and that in itself seemed incentive to sign up, for the week promised to be broiling. It was more than that, really. The heat, yes, but also the boredom of his day-to-day life had begun to wear on him. If he could become an officer, Coriolanus would be given more challenging tasks.
The day brought two alterations to the regular schedule. The first, that they would begin serving on guard duty, caused little excitement, as the job was widely known for its tedium. Still, Coriolanus reasoned, he’d rather be manning the desk at the front of the barracks than scrubbing pans. Perhaps he could sneak in a bit of reading or writing.
The second change unnerved him. When they reported for marksmanship, they were informed that Coriolanus’s suggestion to shoot the birds around the gallows had been approved. Beforehand, however, the Citadel wanted them to trap a hundred or so jabberjays and mockingjays and return them to the lab, unharmed, for study. His squad had been tapped to help position cages in the trees that afternoon, which meant he’d be working with scientists from Dr. Gaul’s lab. A team had arrived by hovercraft that morning. He’d only ever seen a handful of people at the Citadel, but the idea of encountering anyone from the lab, where no doubt everyone knew the details of his trickery with the snakes and subsequent disgrace, set him on edge. And then a terrible thought hit him: Surely, Dr. Gaul wouldn’t oversee the bird roundup herself? Sending her a letter across the expanse of Panem had seemed almost like a lark, but it made him tremble to think of meeting her face-to-face for the first time since his banishment.
As Coriolanus bounced along in the back of the truck, unarmed and perhaps soon to be unmasked, his optimism from the weekend vanished. The other recruits, happy to be on what they seemed to view as a field trip, chattered around him as he sank into silence.
Sejanus, however, understood his trepidation. “Dr. Gaul won’t be here, you know,” he whispered. “This is strictly lackey work if we’re involved.” Coriolanus nodded but was not convinced.
When the truck pulled up under the hanging tree, he hid in the back of the squad while he surveyed the four Capitol scientists, all of whom were ridiculously dressed in their white lab coats, as if they might be about to discover the secret to immortality instead of trapping a bunch of insipid birds in hundred-degree heat. He examined each face, but none looked even remotely familiar, and he relaxed a bit. The cavernous lab had contained hundreds of scientists, and these were bird, not reptile, specialists. They greeted the soldiers good-naturedly, directing everyone to grab one of the wire mesh traps, which looked like cages, while they explained the setup. The recruits obliged, collected their traps, and took seats at the edge of the woods near the gallows.
Sejanus gave him a thumbs-up at Dr. Gaul’s absence, and he was about to return it when he noticed a figure in a clearing deeper in the woods. A woman in a lab coat stood motionless, her back to them, head tipped sideways as she listened to the cacophony of birdsong. The other scientists waited respectfully until she finished and made her way back through the trees. As she pushed a branch aside, Coriolanus got a clear look at her face, which might have been forgettable had it not been for the large, pink glasses perched on her nose. He recognized her at once. She was the one who’d chewed him out for upsetting her birds when he’d been flailing around, trying to escape the lab after watching Clemensia collapse in a rainbow of pus. The question was, would she remember him? He slouched down even farther behind Smiley’s back and developed a fascination with his bird trap.
The rosily bespectacled woman, who one of the scientists affectionately introduced as “Our Dr. Kay,” greeted them in a friendly manner, explaining their mission — to collect fifty each of the jabberjays and mockingjays — and laying out the plan for achieving it. They were to help seed the forest with the traps, which would be baited with food, water, and decoy birds to draw in the prey. The traps would be open for two days so that the birds could freely come and go. On Wednesday, they would return, refresh the bait, and set the traps to capture the birds.
Eager to please, the recruits divided into five groups of four, each of which followed one of the scientists into a different part of the woods. Coriolanus swerved into a clump with the man who’d introduced Dr. Kay and concealed himself in the foliage as soon as possible. In addition to the traps, they carried backpacks containing various types of bait. They hiked a hundred yards until they reached a red mark on one of the trunks indicating their ground zero. Under the scientist’s direction, they spread out concentrically from the spot, working in teams of two to bait the traps and position them high in the trees.
Coriolanus found himself paired with Bug, who turned out to be a first-class climber, having been raised in District 11, where the children helped to tend the orchards. They spent a sweaty but productive couple of hours working, with Coriolanus baiting and Bug hauling the traps into the branches. When they reconvened, Coriolanus ducked out and sat on the truck bed, examining his multiple bug bites until they’d put some distance between him and Dr. Kay. She had paid him no special attention at all. Don’t be paranoid, he thought. She doesn’t remember you.
Tuesday was back to business as usual, though Coriolanus reviewed for the test over meals and in the brief time before lights-out. He was itching to get back to Lucy Gray, and she kept drifting into his thoughts, but he did his best to push her out, promising himself he could revel in daydreams when the test was over. On Wednesday, he muscled his way through the morning workout, sat alone during lunch with the manual for a final cram, and then went over to the classroom in which they did their tactical lessons. Two other Peacekeepers had signed up, one in his late twenties who claimed to have taken the test five times already and another who must have been pushing fifty, wh
ich seemed ancient for a life change.
Test-taking ranked among Coriolanus’s greatest talents, and he felt the familiar rush of excitement as he opened the cover of his booklet. He loved the challenge, and his obsessive nature meant almost instant absorption into the mental obstacle course. Three hours later, sweat-soaked, exhausted, and happy, he handed in his booklet and went to the mess hall for ice. He sat in the strip of shade his barrack provided, rubbing the cubes over his body and reviewing the questions in his head. The ache of losing his university career returned briefly, but he pushed it away with thoughts of becoming a legendary military leader like his father. Maybe this had been his destiny all along.
The rest of his squad was still out with the Citadel scientists, climbing trees and activating the traps, so he wandered over to collect the mail for his room. Two giant boxes from Ma Plinth greeted him, promising another wild night at the Hob. He carried them back but decided to wait to open them until the others returned. Ma had also sent him a separate letter, thanking him for all he had done for Sejanus and asking him to continue to keep an eye on her boy.
Coriolanus put down the letter and sighed at the thought of being Sejanus’s keeper. Escaping the Capitol may have temporarily relieved his torment, but he’d already worked himself into a state about the rebels. Conspiring with Billy Taupe. Agonizing over the girl in the guardhouse. How long would it be before he pulled another stunt like sneaking into the arena? Then, once again, people would look to Coriolanus to get him out of the mess.
The thing was, he didn’t believe Sejanus would ever really change. Perhaps he was incapable of it, but, more to the point, he didn’t want to. Already he had rejected what the Peacekeeping life offered: pretending he couldn’t shoot, refusing to take the officer candidate test, making it clear he had no desire to excel on behalf of the Capitol. District 2 would always be home. District people would always be family. District rebels would always have a just cause on their side . . . and it would be Sejanus’s moral duty to help them.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Page 37
