Сьюзен Коллинз - The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

“Welcome to the Capitol,” the attendant said.

Coriolanus’s eyes popped open. “What? No. Did I miss my stop? I have to report to District Two.”

“This craft goes on to Two, but we have orders to drop you here,” said the attendant, checking a list. “I’m afraid you need to disembark. We have a schedule to keep.”

He found himself on the tarmac of a small, unfamiliar airport. A Peacekeepers’ truck pulled up, and he was ordered into the back. As he rattled along, unable to get any information from the driver, dread seeped into him. There had been a mistake. Or had there? What if they had somehow linked him to the murders? Maybe Lucy Gray had returned and accused him, and they needed to question him? Would they drag the lake for the weapons? His heart gave a little jump as they turned onto Scholars Road and drove past the Academy, quiet and still on a summer afternoon. There was the park where they’d sometimes hung out at after school. And the bakery with those cupcakes he loved. At least he’d been granted one more glimpse of his hometown. Nostalgia faded as the truck made a sharp turn and he realized they were heading up the drive to the Citadel.

Inside, the guards waved him right through to the elevator. “She’s expecting you in the lab.”

He held on to the thin hope that “she” meant Dr. Kay, not Dr. Gaul, but his old nemesis waved to him from across the lab as he stepped off the elevator. Why was he here? Was he going to end up in one of her cages? As he crossed to her, he saw her drop a live baby mouse into a tank of golden snakes.

“So the victor returns. Here, hold these.” Dr. Gaul pushed a metal bowl filled with squirming, pink rodents into his hands.

Coriolanus suppressed a gag. “Hello, Dr. Gaul.”

“I got your letter,” she said. “And your jabberjay. Too bad about young Plinth. Although, is it, really? Anyway, I was pleased to see you were continuing your studies in Twelve. Developing your worldview.”

He felt himself pulled right back into the old tutorial with her, as if nothing had happened. “Yes, it was eye-opening. I thought about all the things we’d discussed. Chaos, control, the contract. The three C ’s.”

“Did you think about the Hunger Games?” she asked. “The day we met, Casca asked you what their purpose was, and you gave the stock answer. To punish the districts. Would you change that now?”

Coriolanus remembered the conversation he’d had with Sejanus as they’d unpacked his duffel. “I’d elaborate on it. They’re not just to punish the districts, they’re part of the eternal war. Each one is its own battle. One we can hold in the palm of our hand, instead of waging a real war that could get out of our control.”

“Hm.” She swung a mouse away from a gaping mouth. “You there, don’t be greedy.”

“And they’re a reminder of what we did to each other, what we have the potential to do again, because of who we are,” he continued.

“And who are we, did you determine?” she asked.

“Creatures who need the Capitol to survive.” He couldn’t help getting in a dig. “It’s all pointless, though, you know. The Hunger Games. No one in Twelve even watches it. Except for the reaping. We didn’t even have a working television on base.”

“While that could be a problem in the future, it’s a blessing this year, given that I’ve had to erase the whole mess,” said Dr. Gaul. “It was a mistake getting the students mixed up in it. Especially when they started dropping like flies. Presented the Capitol as far too vulnerable.”

“You erased it?” he asked.

“Every last copy gone, never to be aired again.” She grinned. “I’ve a master in the vault, of course, but that’s just for my own amusement.”

He was glad about the erasure. It was just one more way to eliminate Lucy Gray from the world. The Capitol would forget her, the districts barely knew her, and District 12 had never accepted her as one of their own. In a few years, there would be a vague memory that a girl had once sung in the arena. And then that would be forgotten, too. Good-bye, Lucy Gray, we hardly knew you.

“Not a total loss. I think we’ll bring Flickerman back next year. And your idea about the betting is a keeper,” she said.

“You need to somehow make the viewing mandatory. No one in Twelve will tune in to something that depressing by choice,” he told her. “They spend what little free time they have drinking to forget the rest of their lives.”

Dr. Gaul chuckled. “It seems you’ve learned a lot on your summer vacation, Mr. Snow.”

“Vacation?” he said, perplexed.

“Well, what were you going to do here? Laze around the Capitol, combing out your curls? I thought a summer with the Peacekeepers would be far more educational.” She took in the confusion on his face. “You don’t think I’ve invested all this time in you to hand you off to those imbeciles in the districts, do you?”

“I don’t understand, I was told —” he began.

She cut him off. “I’ve ordered you an honorable discharge, effective immediately. You’re to study under me at the University.”

“The University? Here in the Capitol?” he said in surprise.

She dropped one last mouse into the tank. “Classes start Thursday.”

On a brilliant October afternoon halfway into fall term, Snow descended the marble steps of the University Science Center, modestly ignoring the turning heads. He looked gorgeous in his new suit, especially with the return of his curls, and his stint as a Peacekeeper had given him a certain cachet that drove his rivals wild.

He’d just finished a special honors class in military strategy with Dr. Gaul, after a morning at the Citadel, where he’d reported for his Gamemaker internship. If you wanted to call it that — really the others treated him as a full-fledged member of the team. They were already working on ideas to engage the districts, as well as the Capitol, in next year’s Hunger Games. Snow had been the one to point out that, other than the life of two tributes they might not even know, the people in the districts had no stake in the Games. A tribute’s win needed to be a win for the whole district. They’d come up with the idea that everyone in the district would receive a parcel of food if their tribute took the crown. And to tempt a better class of tributes to possibly volunteer, Snow suggested that the victor should be given a house in a special area of town, tentatively called the Victor’s Village, which would be the envy of all those people in the hovels. That, and a token monetary prize, should go a long way toward bringing in a decent crop of performers.

His fingers stroked his butter-soft leather satchel, a back-to-school gift from the Plinths. He still tripped over what to call them. “Ma” was easy enough, but it didn’t suit to call Strabo Plinth his father, so he used “sir” a lot. It wasn’t as if they’d adopted him; he’d been too old at eighteen. Being designated an heir worked better for him anyway. He’d never give up the name Snow, not even for a munitions empire.

It had all happened very naturally. His homecoming. Their grief. The merging of the families. Sejanus’s death had totaled the Plinths. Strabo had put it simply: “My wife needs something to live for. So do I, for that matter. You’ve lost your parents. We’ve lost our son. I was thinking perhaps we could work something out.” He’d bought the Snows’ apartment so they didn’t have to move, and the Dolittles’ below it for himself and Ma. There was talk of renovating, of building a spiral staircase and perhaps a private elevator to connect the two, but there was no rush. Ma already came by daily to help with the Grandma’am, who’d resigned herself to having a new “maid,” and she and Tigris got on swimmingly. The Plinths paid for everything now: the taxes on the apartment, his tuition, the cook. They gave him a generous allowance as well. This was helpful because, although he’d intercepted and pocketed the envelope of money he’d sent Tigris from District 12, university life was expensive when done right. Strabo never questioned his expenditures or nitpicked over a few new additions to his wardrobe, and he seemed pleased when Snow asked for advice. They were surprisingly compatible. At times, he almost forgot old Plinth was district. Almost.