The screen flickered and broke into a shower of pixelated snow. The picture - a down-trodden street lined with tilted houses - shattered, span through several other images and settled on one showing a large, metallic room in which one wall was lined with screens. The screens there were showing the exact same thing. The people in the room gawped. One of them, a tall and angular man in white Peacekeeping uniform, turned and clipped a twitching young woman around the head.
"Sort this out!"
"Right away, sir!"
She tapped a few times, her fingers clattering against the keyboard forming the only sound. The occupants of the room were staring at themselves on every screen, a feeling of stony dread settling in their stomachs. None of them wanted to say anything for fear that the first person to speak would be sent to the cells. Head Peacekeeper Ronan was notorious for overreacting to bad news, and this was the worst news of all. The PSN (Panem Security Network) was supposed to be unhackable.
Supposed to be.
On the screen the stolen PSN images of their own room faded out, to be replaced by the District Thirteen seal. A reedy, triumphant voice with a heavy District Eight accent burst from the speakers.
"The following is a Lawrence Madison production, brought to you from the studios of District Thirteen. Assistant director: Porteus Valerius."
"Valerius..." Head Peacekeeper Ronan mused. The name Madison was familiar, but in a vague way. The name Valerius he was certain he knew. One of the underlings started trying to shuffle towards the door. He was too slow. "I thought I ordered that family to be put under lockdown!"
"The boy wasn't there, sir. Nobody has seen him in months!"
"What? You didn't mention this!"
"I didn't..."
Sensing a conflict about to explode that would see all of them except the Head Peacekeeper in serious trouble with the President, the braver of the underlings stepped forwards and raised a tentative hand. "How about we just watch their little movie?"
The room dropped into silence. On screen, the Thirteen seal slid away to reveal shaky footage from the bloodbath. The rebels should not have been able to access that either. A gasp dashed around the room. Their technology was more advanced than expected; they should have spotted that when they'd gone to detonate the pulses in the tracker and found that an electromagnetic blast close to the arena had scrambled their signals. A few seconds after that, all the arena cameras had blacked out. You couldn't do that with a few stolen chips and a couple of angry but clueless rebels.
The girl from Four was crouched behind a wall and clutching a pack to her chest. The voiceover, still the reedy voice, said: "People of Panem. Many of you will have seen the chaos of the bloodbath. Very few of you will know what happened. It is the pleasure of District Thirteen to reveal to you what those in charge do not dare to do."
"The Capitol are cowards." This was a new voice, and the Capitol accent, sharp and precise, rang from every syllable. Head Peacekeeper Ronan swore. "They are afraid of a fair fight. District Thirteen broke into the arena with the intention of rescuing the tributes from a certain death. They escaped. Some viewers may find the following footage disturbing."
The camera rolled upwards at a dark hovercraft shape rushing towards the ground then blacked out. A burning city faded into view, tongues of fire licking at a dark and smoky sky.
A few of the underlings shuddered.
"This footage shows the attempted murder of innocent tributes by the Capitol forces." One of the underlings, a stocky young man with violent purple hair and intensely green eyes, began to protest and was cut short by a curt wave from Head Peacekeeper Ronan. He was listening with a continually deepening frown. "But they are weaker than they think, weaker than this pointless show of power makes them look. All the brute force in the world cannot hold back the will of the people, if the people are aware of this. And we can prove it. As you watch this, so are they. The PSN is in our control."
YOU ARE READING
Twenty Four Shades Darker: The Hunt
Fanfiction[The not-really-a-sequel sequel to 'Twenty Four Shades of Blood'] It was supposed to be normal. Twenty four tributes, one arena, one winner. Just like every year. Except that's not quite what happened. A daring rescue attempt by yet another undergro...
