The Place of White and Gold

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter One: A Beginning

Today is Founding Day. It’ll be celebrated for many years to come, I’m sure. Today, I’m part of history, the first real Minister of what was and maybe always will be District Fourteen. The Dark Days are over, and we’ve begun. We’ve gained our independence from the Capitol and gone from what was only an organization to the transportation district to a state of our own. From here, the glory begins.

Outside there’s chaos. The newly elected Representatives of each Sector are on their way to the veranda of Headquarters to take their places. The children who are too young to understand run and send dust clouds up into the air. I’ll be moving to Headquarters shortly – first for the ceremony and then to live as Minister. For now I write and watch out the window.

Distance is key, not investment.

There is a lot of work left to do. We have citizens unaccounted for, which makes me think of the possibility that there were traitors among us during the war. Or they might just be caught in the aftermath, back in Panem. Some districts still rebelling blindly, the Capitol seeking revenge.

It’s interesting to observe the changes. In some ways Panem could view us as weak. We have no official military, but of course our resources are far and few between from the war. Not even “Peacekeepers”. The government is different too, and so is the landscape, changed because of it. Our large living buildings are now Sectors, a Representative for each, a function for each, almost like a district in Panem. Are we doomed to their poverty as well?

We are clueless to what is happening in their country, until we can re-establish ourselves among them. Surely, Thirteen has been destroyed in our place and the districts will be punished, most likely ignorant to our existence.

Headquarters used to be the Justice Building. Now it will be home to me and my immediate family, and the place for government jobs. There is even more work to be done and routines to settle into. The basics of the Charter are written, real laws underway. But we need security and self-sufficiency. Of course we planned but there were always deadly variables you couldn’t account for. We hoped our new society could eliminate as many of those as possible. Records like this one and the Charter and a jury system not yet put to the test.

We have a motto, and I always felt that was what put everything together.

Loyalty. Precision. Authority.

We are too great for mistakes, this says, and we do not need anyone else, we are above all. We are powerful. We are the State of District Fourteen.

May we live on forever. Now, I’ll go and face this world.

—From the Record of Cygnus Laine, First Minister of The State of District Fourteen

. . . . .

I. A Minister will be elected by citizens annually. The Minister will only hold office consecutively, and will be the head of state for that time. They will make supreme decisions regarding trials, ceremony,

government, progress, warfare, and economics. The Minister will reside in the Headquarters building, and this will be the house of the government.

II. Each dwelling will have a Representative elected by the residents of that Sector. Representatives are responsible for conflict within their Sector, serving as a jury member for any trials, and regularly reporting progress to the Minister. They will dictate assignments to their residents regarding occupation in their assigned industry.

III. Every citizen will be required to keep a Record of their life, beginning at the age of twelve. These Records will be written daily, and when one book of their Record is complete, it will be relocated and stored in the Library of Legislation. Records are kept for historian research and evidence in trials.

IV. Each Sector will have an assigned industry for its residents, as follows:A. Sector One, Processing and Manufacturing.B. Sector Two, Electronics and Technology.C. Sector Three, Power.D. Sector Four, Architecture and Construction.E. Sector Five, Refineries and Mining.F. Sector Six, Farming.G. Sector Seven, Medicine and Advancement.H. Sector Eight, Product Distribution.I. Sector Nine, Textiles.J. Headquarters, Government and Law.

V. If accused of violating the law of our state, every citizen has a right to a trial held in front of the Minister, their Deputy, and all Sector Representatives. A vote presided by the Minister will determine whether or not they are guilty and if so, their consequences.

VI. At the conclusion of their tenth year of required education, at the age of sixteen, each citizen will select their occupation, relocate to their new Sector, and begin training for their career. After the duration of this time period, they will begin work according to the regulations of their specific Sector. At this time they are awarded their quarters and financial account.

—From the Charter of The State of District Fourteen (the rights, privileges, and regulations)

. . . . .

The early days of District Fourteen after their independence went slowly. With the new government, laws, and Charter set in place, the rebuilding began. Citizens began to settle into their lives as the state’s pioneers. Work and school started up, the Sectors were put together, Record books distributed, and officials tried to keep order.

The times were also trying. A large group was concerned that the Capitol didn’t really plan on leaving them alone; yet another argued Fourteen’s view on the districts they were once a part of. Some disagreed with the Minister’s ways. Even more were left ruined because of the war—a lost family, almost nothing to their name.

But Fourteen could be resilient, and so they would have to be.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Two: A ConspiracySeven Years Later

"Keep it down, Felicity," hissed Licinius. "Do you want us all to get caught?"

"Well… no…."

"—Both of you shut up!" Altair cut in. "They're about to start."

In the small room adjacent to the monthly Representative meeting, the four citizens were gathered, listening in for information. It had become tradition amongst their group, though only the four were ever willing to venture out.

They could hear the Minister, Cygnus, calling the meeting to order; the voice of his son Deneb, the Representative of Sector Four, shouting for quiet. The other conversations quickly faded out. Probably Catalina that's still babbling on, Altair thought bitterly. What does the farming Sector know about anything? Lyra or Magnus, even Joanna, they've got more sense.

Nearer to the door, closed and locked, Justice stood on watch, listening carefully for outside sounds, peering out through a slight crack in the old wood panels. There were no signs that they would soon be noticed as the meeting really began.

. . .

Cygnus Laine: First short report tonight will be Belarius Lin, Sector One.

Belarius Lin: All production's on-schedule, sir. There was one delay with the machines—but a Sector Two worker fixed all it up.

Cygnus Laine: Is that all?

Belarius Lin (muffled): Yessir.

Cygnus Laine: Very well; from Sector Two….

. . .

"Having trouble hearing, even with the device," Licinius grumbled. To Justice, just out of earshot of what was coming through their carefully stolen contraption, he added, "On Two, now; nothing interesting."

"Problems again?" Altair looked outraged, though he was speaking quietly like the others. "Really?"

"We've been having them the last few times," Felicity said. "Not too much to worry about."

"There it is," said Licinius. "Deneb's gone already, that could've been something, but he usually doesn't have much. Catalina, though—"

"—stupid girl—"

"—usually has interesting news. Shush; she's just finishing up."

. . .

Catalina Ross: There was a trial for that, and, well, you know he was given a sentence. Well, executed, yeah. And our numbers didn't change. The trend doesn't seem to be continuing in our Sector, and I'd say not in any others either.

Cygnus Laine: That'll be enough. And Lyra Taile, Sector Seven?

Lyra Taile: There have been no major medical cases in the past month, nor anything indicating an epidemic.

Cygnus Laine: And for the vaccine project?

Lyra Taile: It's coming along nicely, sir. It is one of our Sector's top priorities—next month, it'll be in the hands of One for mass production.

. . .

"Wait, what incident? And which vaccine was that?" Felicity asked.

"Someone in Six decided they weren't going to feed their animals till they got paid more, got real stubborn with some officials, resisted arrest, that kind of thing. Not one of us. They took it seriously though." Licinius glanced towards the door, at Justice. "Anything?"

She shook her head, momentarily looking away.

"Wasting time," said Altair. "By now Lucer and Grace have probably both gone. We're done with the short reports."

"Who?" asked Felicity.

"Magnus and Joanna," he corrected himself, using the first names that never came out aloud naturally.

"Figure the Six incident outcome is worth reporting back to the group?" Licinius asked.

"Sure."

. . . . .

When the so-called conspirators met next, it was the larger group, not everyone but the small majority that did show up to real meetings. It was held in Licinius' quarters, with about eleven others turning up.

Licinius began with the news from the last Representative meeting, to which Felicity added that she had since heard that her Sector's representative was going to be retiring. Hence began the same old discussion on how they needed to integrate themselves into the higher-up government officials, how one of them from Sector Two ought to run for the soon-to-be open position. The only other Two citizen of the group was a middle aged man called Lance who had fought in the Dark Days' battles with the Capitol.

"You could run," one of the other group members said to him. "You'd have a better shot than Felicity—no offence."

"Get it through the Minister's head that we need the districts on our side instead of destroying them."

"People would like a real veteran."

"Yeah, yeah, then we'd be gettin' somewhere. One of us could be Minister someday, Cygnus ought to be stepping down soon, too."

"Or," Justice added, her voice low, "they both try it. Couldn't hurt our odds much, could it?"

There was agreement, and a plan was set. When the Sector Representative called for new nominations, Lance and Felicity would anonymously nominate each other. Hale, one of the publicly well-liked members from Sector Five, would help with Lance's campaigning inside the other Sector where he also had a group of friends—Felicity would be more of a backup plan, in the case that Lance was to be outvoted. Nearly two years of their efforts, and right now, it was coming down to this one event.

. . . . .

Neither Lance or Felicity were ever elected. The new Representative was a relatively young man named Jack who had formerly been working in Two's electronic industry, specifically in transportation, the son of an engineer and a machinery operator. He was bright, academically, and ambitious, though not particularly known for kindness. He had ideas, and that was what the Sector really wanted.

The conspiracy did not end. Felicity Nimbell, Altair Morrose, Justice Bane and Licinius Astral continued listening in on the Representative meetings. The whole group still met just as often as it was safe, and discussed, and dreamed, and planned. Hale was a frequent, secret visitor to the Library of Legislation to see what there was to be known, and they were all highly aware of anything important that happened in the fairly new state.

District Fourteen was founded on the suppressed dreams of a nation. That statement would never die.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Three: A Leader

Deneb Laine wanted to be an architect, simple as that. Around his room at Headquarters there were scattered research files and half-finished plans, ideas scrawled on notecards pinned to the wall by his bed. It was a room any boy from Sector Four would be proud of, and their parents would be proud of them too, genuinely wanting to stay in their home Sector and work in their family’s industry. But his father was Fourteen’s first Minister, Cygnus, and he wasn’t meant to let the family name disappear.

His mother wanted him raised in a Sector; fine, his father agreed, and they compromised, so every day he went to school with his classmates in Four and learned all he could want to know until he was sixteen, for three years after the Dark Days. By night and ceremony he was his father’s son, he was the Minister’s kid and the heir to all the Laine family credit. By day he was a student, an aspiring worker.

The night before his last day of school, at all of sixteen years old, he told his father he wanted to continue his act of being a Sector Four citizen. He would stay at home, but go to his training and eventually work every day alongside the children he’d been taught with all his life.

His father told him, his voice steely and calm, that he would be elected a Representative, in due time. He could never belong in a Sector. He belonged at Headquarters. Representatives are a part of their Sectors, the son reasoned aloud. No one trains to be one.

Cygnus Laine marched down to the Library of Legislation and ordered to see the Charter, wondering how the Minister’s family was so easily excluded in it. They weren’t meant to do the Sectors’ work. They would be taught in one, yes, one that they could run to represent later. But in the meantime, between schooling and work? They would be trained differently, the father thought, safe at Headquarters, not bothering with any other occupation.

Deneb Laine was not an architect. He continued his dreams on his own, privately, and publicly, he was in full accordance with his father’s wishes. He did not choose Sector Four. He didn’t choose a Sector at all. He was prepared to be a Representative, and at the age of twenty, he was elected. For Sector Four.

. . . . .

The conspirators knew of Deneb’s wish. Hale Derrick of Sector Five had still been visiting the Library of Legislation on their behalf, and, time after time, had watched the Minister’s son poring over the Records of Four citizens, old project files.

They didn’t expect him to go against his father, but they did know, now, what would pull at him.

Justice Bane was from Sector Four. Though more famous for a quick mind and keeping watch on the outings, she was involved in the beginnings of a project to re-design the layout of the standard quarters. Version Two, they called it, the more recently built living areas would be different in the more crowded Sectors. Small but efficient.

And the Minister’s Deputy was soon retiring, the son not ready to take his place, but set to choose, instead of his father, the next.

. . . . .

“He’s still young, if paranoid,” Hale said, his tone hushed, on his next trip to the Library of

Legislation. This time, Justice was next to him, slowing her steps to meet his older pace. “Vulnerable, likely. Desperate, he has no choices in mind his father might approve.”

She nodded, glancing at the pale brown dust settled over the ground. Fourteen still had no paved roads.

You being Deputy could save our cause, Licinius had told her seriously, at the previous night’s meeting. When Cygnus steps down, you’d be in a good position for election. Almost as good as Deneb is. Friends in high places, that’s what we’ve always needed.

They slipped into the large, open room lined with rough wood shelves. A few of the lights around them flickered. Hale knew Deneb’s schedule well, this would be the rough time space he was there.

Justice left the other man quickly, wanting to be seen together as little as possible, it might look suspicious. She searched for her latest complete Record book, a sticker on the front cover stamped with her name and Sector. Taking it over to a nearby table, pretending to read her own Record—it was the first thing that had come to mind—she waited.

Half of an hour passed.

Hale shrugged questioningly from a section away.

The full hour passed.

She pretended to read less and looked around more, anxiously at the clock.

Twenty minutes passed.

Hale left.

Waiting five minutes, she got up and replaced the Record, leaving as well and finding him outside, leaning against a fence that bordered a Sector Six grazing area. “No idea,” he said. “Try Thursday?”

“All right.”

Fifteen minutes later, Deneb arrived to a library free of conspiracy, after a long lecture from his father about how to choose a Deputy.

. . . . .

Justice went to Sector Two that night, looking for Felicity. She was in her quarters, not a surprise, a small-scale circuit in pieces on her dining table. “Really?” she asked, after Justice told her of the day’s failure, inside when the door had closed. “Hale looked really sure ‘bout it.”

“And the Capitol was really certain about us,” said Justice.

. . . . .

Early Wednesday morning, she set out for work as usual. Today they were on an upper floor of the Sector building, one that was empty and to be converted into more quarters in the future, to suit the slowly growing population. Sectioned off with tape was where the dividing walls of the quarters would be put up, as the team looked at what the space allowed up close.

Deneb Laine emerged from the concrete staircase, sharp gunmetal-blue eyes watery from the

dust.

He talked to the crew’s supervisor, off to the side as they checked and recorded their measurements, glancing at the ones of interior furniture they’d saved. Justice watched the conversation; there was nothing of interest in the actual topic but Deneb… was there, in Sector Four, maybe fifteen feet away and she was doing nothing.

“I’ll check on that; thank you, sir,” he said, with a brisk smile as he swept out, back to the stairs.

. . . . .

It was the beginning of their conversation on Thursday.

Well, not quite. “Mind if I sit here?” he asked her, in the library once again.

“Go ahead,” she said, wondering if there would be any recognition that could start them off. No; of course not. “Did you find anything on the weight limits?”

“Oh. You’re in the Version Two group? Sorry, I didn’t realize—and I did. Yes.”

She nodded, eyeing the file he’d just set on the table they shared, back in the Sector Four research area of the library. “Case 491” was printed in bold black letters on the front, stark against the Manila folder. Justice knew how to decode that by now—4, for a Sector Four incident, 9, for taking place in September, 1, the first in that month. She couldn’t remember hearing of the case and didn’t really want to be the one to ask.

Deneb spoke a minute about the answer he’d found, with the enthusiasm of someone new to the work. Justice was happy to let him talk.

. . . . .

All of it was strange, the first few arranged meetings. She went without Hale the next times, and Deneb talked about being a Representative. Justice offered the visions of the life she had, the normal one, on the surface, that he sought. He looked wistful, and was always an intent listener on the topic.

. . . . .

He didn’t think much of the Deputy choice when it was her name that came out. He didn’t talk to many people outside of Headquarters, and he didn’t want to choose someone in the house of the government. It was the first name in his mind. His father had no reason to disapprove.

Except, Cygnus said, choosing someone from Four would make them look biased, wouldn’t it?

Instead he chose Jack, the ambitious Sector Two Representative with new ideas. Three months later, Cygnus stepped down, and Jack won the election for the new Minister over the also-eligible Deneb, who stepped up to Deputy.

There was an election for the replacement Sector Four Representative.

Guilt racking the new Minister’s Deputy, he made sure that Justice Bane won.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Four: A Spy

As Minister, Jack Brooks was very effective, if, despite his election, slightly under-supported. He didn’t have the same beliefs as Cygnus had, though said nothing that pleased the conspirators, either. Fourteen was flourishing, and with that progress Jack was happy. So, he said, it was time for them to think of taking action once again.

There were protests. Not openly against him, but most normal citizens had settled into their new, Capitol-free lives and were content with that. The rest of the government feared another war so soon would be the end of them. The conspirators still wanted an alliance with the districts instead of such a solo, destructive effort.

Jack Brooks heard none of it.

Instead he scoured the Records to put together an elite strategy-devising team that would produce plans for spies and a real military, provisions for war. It would be time-consuming and taxing, but, he promised the state, rewarding.

. . . . .

Capitol Hovercraft 495 :: 0400 Hours

Location: -800 Kilometers from Fourteen Border

Passengers: Leigh Fletcher, Slade Fletcher, Volare Alas (Pilot)

Mission: Deliver passengers to state.

. . .

There was something to be said of children raised in District Two, though no one was sure quite what that was. It instilled bravery, courage—or maybe just bloodlust. Manipulation, lying, cheating, doing anything to win, they were all just part of the mindset.

Leigh and Slade Fletcher were no exception to this.

They were always called loyal, no matter what they did, and subordinate. When the Capitol’s secret military base in Two made the whole district a target in the Dark Days, Fourteen attempted to raze it to the ground. They nearly succeeded. In the one month the siblings were both fifteen, a missile hit the end of their street, throwing flames down the road and into their home, running up the north wall of the house as their parents yelled for them to run.

They fumbled their way out of a first-story kitchen window, and ran for their school, one of the shelters. For one second, Leigh turned, watched their home reduce itself to ash, sparks jumping through the smoky night air. Her brother pulled her forwards, and they never did go back, and their parents never did get out of the house. But they’d done as they were told.

Then there were the practices, secret though they were encouraged. After the war ended, several times on the verge of death and getting desperate, they sheltered in a cave made of rubble from what had once been a storage building near the train station. Near them, they found, a solider who had

stepped out of the fight early on was hiding out the days in a little hut—if you could even call it that—made of mud and tree branches and old plastic tarps. He was the one who began those practices, salvaging weapons and even makeshift ones from all the wreckage, mostly dull knives once used in kitchens. He taught them how to survive, how to kill, how to defend themselves if they were ever going to be reaped. Others began to stay and watch. The mountainous area behind the hut became the first thing District Two ever had resembling a Training Center.

They were never reaped, though one boy in the group was, and they didn’t care to watch his death, one at the hands of a former ally, securing him in a trap dangling from a tree as an acidic flood began to rise.

Out of the Reaping, without tesserae and only low-paying quarry jobs, Slade announced: “I’m gonna be a Peacekeeper.”

“So am I,” his sister answered.

“You can’t be a Peacekeeper,” he almost laughed, watching the look on Leigh’s face. “You’re not old enough.”

“I’m not a full year younger than you,” she shot back.

“But—well, since when have you ever seen a woman Peacekeeper, huh?”

“Three at the last Reaping. And we passed one just yesterday.”

“You don’t know anything about the job.”

“Neither do you.”

The two argued for well into an hour, until Slade relented. “Fine. So be a damned Peacekeeper and see how long you last. I wish you luck.”

They did enlist, and their squad commanders were impressed with both of their progress. They were allowed to stay in the district as they wished, a compromise for the lack of funding that could earn them raises. They were as competitive as those strong tributes nicknamed “Careers”, with each other especially.

At twenty-two and twenty-one, they were offered positions in the Capitol. Guards, one of their superiors said, waving a hand. Probably graveyard shifts at first, for them high-up people. Y’know, the politicians, Gamemakers, whoever. Maybe one o’ ya ‘ll get lucky, land a place near the grand President himself. They accepted. Slade was indeed soon in the Capitol Building, pulling his sister in. Over two years later, the President called them both in one day and said that he had found them a purpose.

. . .

There were many slip-ups in their integration into Fourteen. Pieces of their story they didn’t quite agree on, questions not answered fast enough as they were thoroughly searched, letting the Capitol accents they’d acquired affect a word here and there. To the Minister, Jack, and to his Deputy, Deneb, and in fact the Representatives and all of Fourteen, they were runaways from District Nine. Fourteen supporters from the Dark Days that had just escaped and found them once again.

In reality, they were spies. In eight weeks they were to return to the point the hovercraft had secretly, invisibly dropped them off at, go back to the Capitol with their reports on Fourteen while giving the state as little information as possible. The President had personally advised concealing the truth of the war’s effects, namely the Hunger Games.

Jack was pleased at the idea they still had support in Panem, citizens that might be weeded out before their attack. He gave orders for them to stay and gave them both accounts and Records and quarters and jobs in Sector Eight, Product Distribution.

. . . . .

Oblivious to the Capitol’s infiltration, Deneb absorbed the arguing going on in a meeting of the strategy team. The debate was useless, he thought, as nothing was known for sure. Everyone was winding themselves up about whether or not the Capitol had rebuilt their important structures in the same locations, while he pondered if Jack would ever work up the nerve for an actual attack. Most of him wished he wouldn’t, and was afraid of the other man’s confidence and even eagerness.

He put in his thoughts as the conversation became more civil, in a way he hoped wouldn’t invite further conflict. As if it’s avoidable.

. . . . .

The Fletcher siblings took note of everything in Fourteen in their Record books, nothing overly conspicuous but everything still detailed, not even hinting at their real past in case the government would search for it. They planned to take them back to the Capitol.

Slade became the worrier for one of the first times, thinking of what their fate might be if Fourteen were ever to find the truth about them, trying not to imagine the scenarios that came to mind. He waited for the date of their departure with bated breath, heartbeat constantly rapid. And Leigh takes too many risks, he would think on a sleepless night. What if…?

He was being ridiculous, questioning even his own sister’s loyalties, the one he’d grown up with all his life. Fourteen was making him paranoid and jumpy and afraid, and he didn’t like it one bit. For the first time he found himself wishing he had his sister’s subtlety in her worries, the ability to focus on something else.

. . . . .

Jack became a more and more frequent visitor to those tactic meetings, several times bringing in new members for the group. One was Lance Casimir, who had formerly run against Jack to be the Sector Two Representative and failed. He had fought in the Dark Days, making him instantly a respected and welcomed strategist.

It was the second mistake Jack made in that time period.

Lance was still one of the conspirators.

. . . . .

The Fletchers would become the first and last spies to successfully get in and out of Fourteen, leaving the state, at the discovery of their absence, outraged and more on-guard than ever. Questions began to fly, the trial rates went up at the violent outbursts of, “Why? Why?! How did you let this happen? How?!”

There was a secret to their success undiscovered. District Two and Fourteen weren’t all that different. The Fletchers were the only spies ever from the second district, the only ones ever really able to be convincing. One day, they became their roles.

One day, they disappeared.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Five: A Secret

After the disappearance of the Fletchers, Jack was losing trust. Fast. His decisions became hasty; the new Sector Two representative was chosen quickly, a nobody. He redoubled his efforts on working with the strategy team, hoping a success there would make up for the valuable information taken back to their enemies. The more and more he focused on the military system being planned out, blueprints for weapons being made, the less he saw of his Deputy. Jack was never an intuitive man, never good at taking social cues. And so he missed another crucial fact.

Deneb Laine was in love.

Almost no one knew. Because Fourteen’s government was slowly becoming lofty, those belonging to Headquarters coming above everyone, no one could be good enough for the Deputy. Especially not someone from a Sector—and Four of all places, Representative or no. But love was blind, if aware of threat. So that was the first secret, kept between two. That the ex-Minister’s son was in love with Justice Bane.

. . . . .

There was another, just as pivotal but greater known. Another secret, another mistake of Jack’s.

Lance had joined the strategy team at Jack’s request, jumping at the chance to have news to report back to the other conspirators. At first he was quiet during their gatherings, not often offering ideas or opinions, just watching, listening, absorbing, doing the work he was assigned. He slowly said more and more each time he did talk in a meeting, then started speaking up outside of when required, eventually volunteering extra pieces of work. He became Jack’s go-to for questions, put in control of small projects, then larger ones.

His secret was that every word was brought back to the conspiracy.

. . . . .

Deneb was a very easy person to trust. Or so thought Justice.

It was well-placed confidence.

Deneb did not attend a great deal of the strategy team meetings, instead watching over what Jack did not. But for what he saw of the Minister, he thought about the government more. Jack did not care about most citizens. Almost every trial’s defendant was executed if the slightest infraction of a law or the Charter had been found. The average amount of work hours went up, the average amount of pay went down. Representatives were no longer elected, but selected only by the Minister himself just like the Deputy. Citizens’ problems, if brought to Headquarters, were mostly ignored.

He ranted aloud only in Justice’s Sector Four quarters, and even then, a bit cryptically. But his opinions were clear to the two of them, something he was sometimes wary of, though he really didn’t know the half of it.

. . . . .

“Sector Ten,” Jack declared in one of the meetings, “will be the grandest Sector this state has ever built. For military operations only.”

It was the strategy team’s latest creation. Many had been skeptical at first—a tenth Sector?—but Jack had supported the idea, and so it was decreed that Sector Ten would go into planning the very next day. An elite group, the strategy team, would be the first citizens, and the option would, unlike the other Sectors, be presented to few of those who had reached the time to select their career path.

“Everything white, and gold—purity and victory only for our military.”

. . . . .

“You told him WHAT?!”

“Nothing important,” Justice defended immediately, with a vague hand gesture of shush. Licinius had not been happy to hear that Deneb now knew of the conspiracy. “Or, no specifics.”

“Going to get yourself killed with that attitude. You want us all to be found out? We’ll be dead by the end of the week if you go blabbing everything to Cygnus’ kid.”

“He’s not just the old Minister’s son, you know. Besides, he’s more enthusiastic about this already than half of our group. He’s valuable.”

“He’s dangerous. He’s the Deputy, for land’s sake.”

Justice sighed. “Give him one meeting. If it’ll get anyone killed, it’ll be me, so what do you care?”

“Fine,” he relented. “One meeting. One.”

. . . . .

From the Record of Lance Casimir, Conspirator and Strategist

I can’t say I remember everything Jack said in today’s meeting. But I do remember what actually happened. It was our first real go at getting into the Capitol’s broadcast. We did get in, it wasn’t a difficult system and it wasn’t probably meant to be, but only for a few seconds.

The screen was hard to see, dark in the scene, and if I had to guess it looked like a type of almost fantasy forest. There was a figure moving careful. Kid, I think, also hard to see. What was weird was they were holding a sword. Then we could see a fire, and another shadow of a kid sitting right by it. Then it got disturbing. The first kid went and plunged the sword into the second, and there was this horrible scream and then a sound like “boom”. The first kid started to sneak away, and that’s when the signal went out.

I don’t think I’ll forget the silence in the room after. Murder, just like that, on the Capitol’s national broadcast. Why, why, why. None of us know. Maybe we never will. Maybe it was just out of context and we didn’t understand it. But I doubt that. We were just as good off as we had started as. For once, ignorant, because we don’t know what the Capitol’s doing to those kids.

. . . . .

“Quiet! I said, quiet!” The conversations taking place died down, the quarters silent. Several of the regular meeting attendees were shooting strange glances at Deneb. The old Minister’s son? they whispered, nervous, excited. The Deputy?

Licinius proceeded talking at the front of the room, the leader of this conspiracy gathering. “Before this comes up… well—” a slight smirk crossed his face “—Justice, care to enlighten us all?”

She talked, briefly, of Deneb’s sudden presence. Any nervousness remaining efficiently turned to

excitement.

The rest of the meeting, Lance told the others of what he had found out in the strategy team meetings, and of the strange bit of footage they had caught on the broadcast; Justice elaborated on the plans for the new Sector, currently being drafted in Sector Four; a debate on what sort of position Hale and Licinius were both in as potential chosen Representatives for their Sectors took place, Deneb a top contributor.

It was the longest meeting they’d had yet that year.

. . . . .

Nearly a month later, the creation of Sector Ten was publicly announced. Jack gave the speech from a balcony of the Headquarters building, his address fit onto a small, white index card. And it was in that address that the soon-to-be Sector’s building became known as the place of white and gold.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Six: A Game

Little was seen of the strategy team over the next several weeks, as they finalized the Sector Ten project. But even as they settled into their new lives and routines, Jack continued to be demanding in the department of hacking into the Capitol’s broadcast. A second attempt passed with more of a failure than the first, but the third continued to be delayed, again and again, because Jack wanted this try to be perfect.

He said that if they didn’t manage it this time, the project would be scrapped, at least temporarily, as they did have other things to attend to. But the team knew that he would never be satisfied if that happened.

So when they launched the third attack, the room was deathly quiet.

The top members of the team, the ones originally from the electronics Sector alongside the Minister, fought their way through the signals to intercept the same channel they had the last time; others, the backup plan, were ready for when the Capitol noticed the change, defending the waves of the broadcast going to the Sector Ten room.

Jack, with a select few of the strategists, watched.

The screens the broadcast was played to lit up without much ceremony. It was on the early side in the morning, somewhat past eight, but everything on was leading up to an event that would start at ten. It definitely had the air of required viewing, and showed quick, sometimes almost unperceivable clips, highlights from days before, it looked like.

Jack had a secret of his own when it came to the third attempt. He had been planning the attempts on getting into the Capitol’s broadcast for a long time; so, when the Fletchers appeared, he asked what the Capitol would be showing that might be of interest to Fourteen. It was a question they’d tried to squirm away from, and he’d noticed. But they had told him that every year, the Capitol had weeks’ worth of required viewing in the last days of June through July, sometimes straight until the end of the month. It changed every year, and they said there wasn’t much more to tell than that.

(That was partially a lie, but Fourteen wouldn’t know it.)

As the highlights went on, a good number of the strategists looked at Jack. Some looked at each other. The ones taking the defensive side simply looked at the screens, confused. There had been no attempt at blocking them out, so far.

The recaps kept rolling, and soon there was discussion, attempts at figuring out what they were about. An hour passed, and there was still no fight for the broadcast to be had. They watched—names were selected out of glass containers, read aloud as the cameras focused on a person who came to the stage (and, they noted, all seemed to be children), but it was a very strange occasion; there were often tears and protests from those selected. Those clips were interspersed with some from what looked like a terrible parade, with the same children, and then a review with numbers next to all of their names. Finally, interviews with them.

“From what I’ve heard, this year’s victor will have a hard time at it, wouldn’t you say?” asked one of the reporters, questioning someone in a live bit of film.

“Sure sounds like it, Simon,” the woman answered. “Based on what we heard from this batch of competitors last night, it’s going to be a very eventful year.”

The interview continued, but back in District Fourteen, Jack said, “Any ideas?”

It’s a reality competition show for kids. There’s been a few days of build up for it. It’s a huge event in the Capitol. The contestants are chosen randomly to participate and some seem like they don’t want to go.

At two minutes until ten in the Capitol and in Fourteen, the screen turned briefly black, then slowly, slowly faded into an overhead look at the contestants. They were coming up into view as though they were in an invisible elevator from below the floor to stand on metal plates in a large circle. In the middle, there was a huge, silver Cornucopia, overflowing with various supplies. As soon as the last spots of black reached the very corners of the screen, large, plain text started to appear, a title and subtitle, letter by letter over the scene.

The Ninth Annual Hunger Games: Year of the Labyrinth

The words dissolved quickly, quiet music began, and then, “Sixty,” said a man’s voice, sudden enough to make a few of the strategists jump. Few were still looking at the computers used to get into the broadcast, instead drawn to the program.

“Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven.”

The cameras started to move steadily down into the circle of kids.

“Fifty-five. Fifty-four. Fifty-three.”

The strategists started to note the setting. It appeared to be indoors, illuminated in blue light. The floor was tile; the walls were bricks. All was silver and gray. There were four exits, one empty doorway on each wall, leading into hallways that looked blurred on-screen, but similar to the space around the circle.

“Forty-seven. Forty-six.”

The camera view shifted a bit upward, moving along the circle to show a sixth of the group, four of the contestants. Among them were the girl they’d heard was from District Three, tiny and with limp brown hair, an older boy from District… Eight? Nine? Most of them had already forgotten. Then there was an eighteen-year-old girl—or they thought they’d heard eighteen—from District One, and a dark-skinned boy who was from either Eleven or Twelve.

“Forty. Thirty-nine. Thirty-eight. Thirty-seven.”

The broadcast had split in half now, the current footage shrinking to the bottom half of the screen, the top part revealing crowds that had gathered in different places of what could only be the Capitol, and the anxious scenes happening in more run-down looking areas that the strategists assumed were the districts. The lower half continued moving along the circle of contestants.

“Why isn’t anyone moving?” someone in the Sector Ten room blurted. “Is that what they’re making all this fuss about counting down to? And what else are they going to do at zero, anyways?”

“I’m guessing jump into that pile,” suggested Lance.

“Twenty-four. Twenty-three. Twenty-two.”

The music grew slightly louder, and the view of the contestants stretched to fill the broadcast’s screen again.

“Nineteen. Eighteen.”

The cameras had zoomed out slightly, and changed over to quick clips showing the different supplies in the middle of the circle. Food, water, medicine, blankets, sleeping bags, and… weapons?

“What do these kids need weapons for?”

“Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.”

At “Ten”, the general view of the kids was back, the strategists examining them, trying to figure out what was about to happen. An air of sickness filled the room. All of the competitors looked ready to sprint for their lives.

“Five.”

The strategists exchanged last glances between themselves.

“Four.”

The children’s postures became stiffer, more leant forwards, more on edge.

“Three.”

The music’s volume rose again.

“Two.”

No one dared to breathe, or blink.

“One.”

What is this?

A loud, clear gong sounded almost without an echo, something that sounded automated. Before the noise was fully processed by anyone, all of the contestants had thrown themselves off their metal plates, sprinting in all different directions. Just over half were headed into the middle of the circle, the rest scattering along the walls and veering off into the different hallways—the smaller boy that was from Eleven or Twelve, the girl from Three, both from District Six, and the boy from Seven were among them.

In front of the mouth of the Cornucopia, the boy from District Ten collided with the eighteen-year-old girl from One, both of them with weapons drawn. The girl slashed at him with the short scythe in her hands, but he jumped back, countered by trying to knock the blade away with his sword. She yanked her scythe back away from him, and moved lower, back up to impale him through the chest, letting him fall back down along the sharp edge to the ground. She whipped around, grabbed one of the backpacks, and headed back towards her district partner.

On the opposite half of the room, the boy from District Eight was kneeling over another boy—from Three?—and attempting to drive a knife into him, without much success. The girl from District Two shot an arrow into the back of the Eight boy and opened fire at Three as he tried to run. He fell over a bag containing a tent with two arrows sticking out of him.

The girl from Four was nearly beheaded by the—eighteen-, or seventeen-year-old?—boy from One, who promptly shoved her off to the side, near the body of the girl from Five.

The Five girl’s district partner started to race over to her, only to have his feet kicked out from under him by the boy from Two, who speared him twice.

A battle between the girls from Seven and Ten flashed by in seconds as they circled each other, making grabs for the food they each held in their weapon-free hand. The girl from Seven put an ax into the shoulder of the other, just as a knife entered her stomach, and both died before they could even pull out their weapons.

By then competitors who had run in and grabbed supplies, then ran out had all dispersed—the girl from Eight, both from Nine, and the other boy who was from either Eleven or Twelve.

But the girls from the last two districts were still hiding from those who were remaining at the Cornucopia—all on the older side, from One and Two—just behind a stack of boxes. They jumped out from the hiding place, armed with supplies, and sprinted for one of the exits before the others remaining could turn around and notice.

The music faded out, and the cameras focused in on the children from One and Two who were still in the first room.

Back in District Fourteen, the strategists looked from each other to Jack to the screen, in something that wasn’t quite horror.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Seven: A Victory

Night had fallen in the arena. Still alive were the boy from District Seven, the allies from District Nine, the small, dark-skinned boy they now knew was from District Eleven, the allied and armed girls from Eleven and Twelve, the older, allied kids from One and Two, the girl from Three with limp brown hair, and both from District Six, separately.

The girl from Eight and the boy from Four had fallen during the day, after the initial, bloody battle. Those from District One and Two remained in the first room, while the others had spread out in the hallways.

In Fourteen, the strategists were wide-awake. It was late, now, but like children being told a horror story, they weren’t thinking of sleeping.

These kids, competitors—and the strategists had learned that they were called tributes, never children—had only started to discover what waited for them in the labyrinth. A different death around every corner, these, these, things that melted out from the walls, floor tile sections that dropped into an endless black abyss with only some areas safe to walk on as a bridge.

Now, the cameras followed the trembling girl from Three down one of the halls—she approached what looked like a dead-end. The camera view shook to make it look like someone walking behind her was filming it, even though it wasn’t, and every now and then she turned around to look back the way she came, her eyes huge and childlike and afraid. Her footsteps echoed around in the silence.

She came to the dead-end, but it actually wasn’t. To the right was another identical hallway (they’ll all go mad in this place, one of the strategists said, no time, everything looks the same, it’d give anyone a nervous breakdown). And to the left was a hall that actually dead-ended after just a few feet. The little girl moved into that area, the best hiding place anyone could find in the place, and dropped to the floor, sitting on her legs, and pressed her forehead to the ground and sobbed, awful, awful wails for hours.

. . . . .

Meanwhile, the One and Two group (Careers, said the announcers, over and over again, a nickname apparently just forming) was in a heated debate in the first room, about, it seemed, everything. Which hallway to go down, who to hunt first—hunt, cried one of the strategists, what are they, animals?—if they should at all.

The strategists were now beginning to understand more. In place of their fascination was a bit of horror, but perhaps not quite enough. Jack, for one, seemed unaffected. He commented occasionally on how effective this had to be for showing the districts their worthiness, or lack thereof.

Lance was sickened at those words. He couldn’t wait for the next conspiracy meeting to tell the others of this, and Jack’s view. It would all but rile them into unmasked rebellion, he thought.

. . . . .

The next day, the girls from Eleven and Twelve were creeping down one of the other halls when Eleven grabbed the other girl’s arm urgently. “Do you hear that?” she half whispered and half hissed.

“Hear what?”

They both listened closely. Somewhere not far off, there was the sound of rock breaking off something and hitting the ground.

“Those idiots,” said one of the strategists, a loyal supporter of Jack’s, eyeing the floor tiles caving in several feet right in front of the girls.

The two took a simultaneous step back. The row of tiles in front of them had several missing, and beyond that, there were none until a matching pattern across the abyss, probably what used to be ten rows away.

“Okay,” breathed the startled-looking girl from Twelve. “Okay. We—we can just go back.” They turned. The floor previously behind them dropped in the same way.

“Or not,” said Eleven, hysteria starting to creep into her voice.

“Okay,” Twelve repeated. “We’ll just… have to cross, then.”

Both of them stepped onto a different tile from the row still partially intact. Twelve carefully reached for the water bottle tucked in an outside pocket of her backpack. She spilled some of the water on the space in front of her. It fell into the nothingness. Twelve shuddered, thinking, if she didn’t think of testing spaces first, that could’ve been me.

She let a few drops of water fall onto the space that would’ve contained the tile diagonal and to the right of hers. The water remained there, elevated on an invisible surface above the black. She stepped, oh so carefully, onto that space. Twelve extended her arm and handed the water bottle to Eleven. “Just… test it like that. We can’t go wrong with it, can we?”

Eleven poured some water on the space in front of her. It was safe. She took a step forward, handed the bottle back to Twelve. The next safe space for her was the diagonal space to the left. She almost overshot when she took her step that way, almost slipped, and her stomach churned when she looked down at where she could’ve fallen.

They continued on. One more row. Two more rows.

The strategists watched them with bated breath.

Eleven stepped onto the next safe spot when her foot slipped on the poured water, throwing her onto her back. Her upper body fell into an area with no force field, pulling her backward even as she scrambled to get back up on the space.

Twelve rushed over—“Here, just grab my arm. Do it!” Eleven slipped further down, stretching her arm out. Their hands weren’t even close. She attempted to sit up on her knees, but they were on an unsafe space as well, only her feet and waist on the force field. Eleven was thrown into something like a standing position, and fell in a space of two unsafe tiles. She grabbed at the safe space nearby, next to Twelve, who grabbed Eleven’s arm.

“Just give it up,” choked Eleven. “It’s not going to work.”

Twelve pulled on Eleven’s arm harder, crouching and balancing carefully to not fall, herself. One of Eleven’s hands slipped, and Twelve wasn’t strong enough. She was flipped over, over the space where Eleven had fallen, and her feet landed against the wall next to an unsafe section, a wall that she grasped at desperately. She fell.

The cameras started to follow them down until they were completely engulfed in darkness, with Twelve screaming, “No, no! It wasn’t supposed to happen like this! Please, please, I don’t want to die! Please—!”

In the Fourteen strategy room, Lance felt a pang of distress tug at him.

As the screams silenced and the two cannons fired, he look around, thinking that he was the only one who felt it.

. . . . .

Eleven’s district partner had died the day after the next, at the hands of the boy from District Six, as the strategists watched the battle. The little girl from Three was killed by the Careers later, surrounded and not fighting, still curled up in a little ball, eyes tightly closed, hands over her ears, singing and talking to herself. The other tributes had laughed and joked about “the crazy girl” afterwards.

Now it was night again. The strategists watched the obituary that played at night with much interest, mostly because they knew the instrumental song played was one written by a District Fourteen songwriter. It had a message in it. Was it known? They had no idea.

After the song, the cameras were on the allies from District Nine, each of them in a sleeping bag. They talked just to be able to hear something, someone, until they had both fallen asleep.

Lance called it sweet. Jack called it pathetic.

The cameras came back to the two tributes after a duel between the boy from Seven, and the boy from Two, who had left his allies the day before. The boy from Seven was killed instantly, while the Two boy bled out more slowly, his body contorted in agony, twitching until he was still, lifeless. But when the cameras came back to the Nine tributes, they were still sleeping.

The wall on their left side seemed to bend, and forming from the flexible section was the figure of a man, who detached from the wall. He seemed to be completely covered in dripping paint, no other colors visible, no eyes, only the shape of a nose and mouth, no hair. Limbs and hands and feet weren’t detailed. The paint-like substance was a camouflage with the wall, the color of the bricks that looked blue from the lantern light.

He crept over to the sleeping tributes, and then launched himself at the boy.

The tribute woke instantly, and so did his district partner, at the sounds of his cries and the struggle.

The figure of the man turned on her, too, and their weapons seemed to do nothing, didn’t even make a dent. The boy was strangled to death, and the girl, hit over and over and over again, trying to scramble away, died when the figure plunged her own sword into her, and picked her up as if the sword was a skewer and she were a piece of meat. He flung her body against the opposite wall, and then melted back into the bricks.

. . . . .

In the next day, the remaining Careers (both from One, and the girl from Two) found the girl from Six and killed her. The boy from the same district had yet to be found by anyone, surviving purely on gifts that dropped through the ceiling to him.

The strategists wondered how that was facilitated.

Lance wondered if there was, somehow, a way to send one. He knew that there couldn’t be, but the kids, they needed more of those gifts.

Instead, that night, they watched the girl from Two slit the throat of the boy from One in his sleep, as his district partner woke and was also slaughtered.

Who could look another child straight in the face, and end their life?

Now there was only that Two girl and the boy from Six remaining. The next day passed with them hunting each other down, and most of the next. Nearly all of the strategists had an extra long turn for sleeping that day, while a few at a time watched for upcoming action. Late, late that night, what was actually the eighth day, the boy from Six and the girl from Two found each other in a hallway intersection. The fight began in a way that could almost be called civil. They fought cleanly, with knives. Then Two started cheating, if there even was a thing called cheating in this contest. She used every dirty trick and fake-out she knew.

Six knew none of them. He was wounded several times, until it was all he could do to clutch at the stab wounds, falling to the ground, with Two leaning over him, taunting. “That all you got, huh? Really? You Six people, you’re pathetic excuses for humans. Your partner didn’t put up much of a fight, either. But at least she was fun to kill. I can’t even say that for you.”

She leaned so close to him their faces almost touched, and said, “Goodbye, Six. It was nice knowing you.” She leant back, and drove the knife into his neck. The cannon fired. Trumpets sounded. She had won.

There wasn’t much time before the screen had faded to black, and there was something almost like credits rolling. The names were easy to read, it was a slow reel, and the strategists looked for ones that were familiar from what they’d heard or knew. Not a lot.

Then came a section that was titled “Founders of the Annual Hunger Games”.

“Hey, those almost sound like Fourteen names, wouldn’t you say?” asked one of the strategists. Jack gaped.

“Those are Fourteen names.”

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Eight: A Fear

In his time at Headquarters, Jack had learned that he had a least favorite part of it all: speaking in public. He couldn’t understand it; he felt fine speaking at the Representative meetings, or those of the strategy team. He was fine in most social situations. But speaking in front of the whole state? He stood near a door in the Headquarters building, where he would exit onto the balcony where he would make his address, and shook, and sweated, and breathed harshly.

He asked one of the attendants to bring him a glass of water, cold as possible, he said, and they scurried off immediately. Yes, he was just dehydrated, that was all, Jack thought. But, for land’s sake, what will everyone think of this?

He looked down at what he’d written on a fresh batch of small, white index cards. His handwriting was sloppy, quick and scrawling, and the ink had smeared all over the place. How badly can I screw this up?

Someone behind him coughed. Jack whipped around. “Your water, sir?” The attendant held out a clear glass slippery with condensation, filled with more ice than water.

He took it, downed several gulps at once, spluttered and coughed. “Thank you,” he got out at last, curtly. The attendant disappeared into the background of people. Jack continued thinking and drinking water. He brushed a section of the curtains aside and peered out the window. Most people were gathering in front of Headquarters by now, and those remaining inside the building would be watching him on screens.

Screens! Why didn’t I decide to just do this that way?

He looked down at the index cards again, and swore several times mentally. He would be standing out on the balcony, he was sure, with the whole state silent and waiting, and be unable to read his own writing, he thought. He would look like a total and complete idiot. Why did he not decide to have someone type it up for him? It would’ve had to be one of the strategists, who already knew of what he would say, and they would’ve been willing, right? It didn’t matter.

He heard the event beginning down on the veranda. Deneb introduced him. There was applause. That was his cue.

Someone opened the door for him, and he set the water down someplace, and stepped outside. His heart pounded, but when he spoke, his voice and breath sounded steady. Jack felt more confident, now, if still a bit sick. He told the state of the strategy team’s success in infiltrating the Capitol’s broadcast first. Applause. Then he spoke of what they had seen. Uneasiness, though Jack didn’t pick up on it much. He talked about how effective it looked as a way of controlling those other districts. Here he turned proud, and announced the strategy team’s other finding: the so-called “founders” of these Hunger Games had nearly all been Fourteen citizens, all ones that were unaccounted for after the war.

Traitors? he asked the state. Possibly. But since they left before or during the war, they have little current information to share and are no danger to us.

There was his longest pause in the speech, his only transition to, Here at Headquarters, we find this idea an honorable one to attribute to our state’s name.

Here was where the conspirators’ sickness with Headquarters grew. They’d heard Jack’s view—and that of the people most loyal to him—from Lance, but this… this was different. The next meeting of the conspiracy would be anger just barely contained, broiling over and bursting with fervor at the idea of really doing something about it.

Jack didn’t make a long speech. After explaining what had happened and Headquarters’ perspective on it, he knew that there wasn’t much else to say other than elaboration, and so cut to a conclusion of, We’ll continue to update you as we find out more, and shortly after, left the balcony, headed for the building.

He sighed to himself, back in the privacy of the indoors. Jack drank more water, and threw out the sweat-soaked index cards, and stopped shaking as much, breathed more evenly and felt less nauseous. The address had been fine, he decided. Just fine. Deneb told him so with a brisk smile and controlled tone: “Excellent speech, sir.”

Eventually, Jack went back to his quarters to ponder the state’s tense reaction.

. . . . .

After the meeting of the conspiracy filled with so much anger, Justice began to worry about Deneb’s presence there. He was naturally associated with Headquarters, no matter his personal opinions, and the conspirators had not been discreet in their new negative thoughts on him . Is it safe for him to keep going? Not everyone was against him, of course. Felicity took Justice’s side, at the very least.

It isn’t right. He’s against Headquarters and our conspiracy doesn’t want him. Where’s he supposed to go, to blend in with everyone else still trying to just process all this?

She tried to bring it up by him, in her quarters not too long before the next conspiracy gathering. It did not go well.

“What, you think I’m a coward?” he demanded.

“No; of course not.”

“Then, what—?”

“—I’m saying that I am, Den, when it’s about you. Some of the others—they’re almost as willing to kill for the sake of power as Headquarters is.”

“Oh, so it’s your friends who are the problem now.”

“You’re talking like you’re not on our side.”

“You know I am.”

“I know. Just think about not going for a while, give everyone a chance to cool off.”

“They shouldn’t need it.”

“But they do,” Justice said, exasperated. “It might not be what it should be, but that’s the way it is.”

“Story of my life, poppet. Story of my life.”

. . . . .

Deneb did give in, and skipped the next two conspiracy meetings, but met with some of the members individually. Through this, word got through the group that Deneb’s persuading of Jack had led to Licinius’ new place as a Representative, and that Lance was in a good place to gain power in the recently-created Sector Ten due to it, as well.

By the third meeting after Jack’s address, Deneb was welcomed back. The group spoke mostly of the recent government meeting where there had been a vote to determine if the state had interest in sending spies into the districts. The conspirators were naturally against it, sticking to their theory that the districts should be their greatest allies. Deneb, Justice, Lance, and Licinius especially had managed to convince others to be against the ideas for fake reasons. The vote turned their way—there would be no spies in the districts yet.

The conspiracy felt grateful for something to celebrate.

“Goodness knows we need it,” said Altair.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Nine: A Betrayal

Byron Stonewall had spent months trying to find the conspiracy that he wasn’t even sure of. He hadn’t always been against Headquarters—in fact, he wasn’t so sure he was even completely against it now. But he was against the “new” Catalina Ross, whole-heartedly, and she was a Representative, so it was the government to blame.

They had grown up together in Sector Six, as loose friends, until around the time they were both fourteen. They did a project on cattle-feeding together, and started to talk every day. Twelve years later, they were still carrying on the same way.

But things had changed, it annoyed Byron now—they had celebrated Catalina’s victory in the Representative election together, yet by now, the new job had gone to her head. Cygnus and Jack, the Ministers, had all but brainwashed her into blind obedience of Headquarters, and she thought that way was better. Byron wasn’t like that, a thinker at heart, and so Catalina looked down on him for his lack of trust.

They stopped talking.

Byron felt bitter and lonely, and directed a great part of his anger at Headquarters in general. He knew that there just had to be others who thought like him, and so sought them out, with little success. It was because he didn’t care enough, because the conspiracy was his second choice. His first choice remained just being able to talk to Catalina again.

The conspirators were the ones to find him, instead of the other way around; but, they didn’t want to approach him. Security had gotten stricter, risks were more dangerous. They were tentative about revealing their knowledge of opinions, as he so openly seemed torn to those who knew the feeling. Felicity from Sector Two was the one who finally went up to him.

If Felicity had one strength it was charm; a well-timed smile and few persuasive words and she usually had what she wanted. It was how Sector Two got half of their project funding, and everyone knew it. So Byron was quick to agree to come to one meeting, when she asked him somewhere out by the ranch, out of anyone’s earshot.

But a strategist testing the outdoor security cameras being installed overheard the conversation anyway. A gathering of traitors? they thought instantly, and ran to tell Jack, anticipating reward for it.

Jack looked at the footage and used the face-recognition security program to find Byron’s information, but recognized Felicity immediately—they’d lived in the same hallway when he was in Sector Two, something almost saddening. A betrayal from his own home Sector, even if he didn’t consider himself a part of it anymore.

The meeting would be in one week, giving Headquarters the same amount of time to make a plan of attack. Jack called in a select few of the strategists, and his top constables. It was here that they discovered one crucial issue. The location of the meeting had not been determined when Felicity talked to Byron, and they couldn’t find anything from the new security cameras. They needed a “where” for this gathering, so they could find the others and arrest and execute them all quickly, in one nice, neat go at it.

So Jack went out to the Sector Six complex to bring Byron to a room deep inside Headquarters and sat him down for a little chat. Because he wouldn’t want anything to happen to precious little Catalina, would he?

“It’s supposed to be behind Sector Two.”

“Oh, excellent. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

. . . . .

The conspirators had found a new meeting place to be used upon occasion, a secluded wooded area just outside of the state’s land. It was dark, late evening, and everyone would come at slightly different times, along different routes, with reasons to be away. Felicity checked for cameras and bugs to destroy, being from the electronic Sector Two, beyond the strategist’s current testing hours, which she had heard from Lance.

The others began arriving until all actually attending were there, and Licinius began a quiet speech about trivial difficulties in Sector One, supply shortages.

Then there were footsteps. A constable’s voice echoed through the trees as the others fanned out: “You are under arrest for treason against the State of District Fourteen; you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to a trial and Headquarters vote on your verdict—anything you say or do may be used against you in the court—”

Already most of the conspirators had scattered away from the flashlights and taken off into the darkness, towards the woods to be able to sneak back in—the constables chased after then and starting grabbing those who hadn’t run fast enough. “RUN—!” someone was shouting, and Felicity had just started to trip when someone pulled her backwards and into restraints.

“HELP, PLEASE, SOMEONE, PLEASE—!” Her screams cut off abruptly when one conspirator tried to attack the constable holding her back, and failed.

Most had disappeared now, a few captured and some hiding. A muffled gunshot was heard from somewhere out in the forest, and what Felicity could just recognize as Justice’s voice yelling, “LEFT, GO LEFT!”

Byron was among the force that had swept in, leading them to the right location, and could see the frustration in the returning constables who had mostly lost their suspects. The majority had escaped for now, probably headed back into the state to blend in.

Headquarters would have some explaining to do, now.

. . . . .

Felicity, the other lesser-known conspirators, and even Byron were all prosecuted and killed quickly, in secret, as the conspirators had to stay quiet. Catalina was deemed innocent, unharmed.

There were regrets among them from that night, and tears for those who were lost; tension was there, but no one could find someone in the group to blame, now. Some stopped attending meetings altogether in fear, and others seemed to have not returned from the woods. Headquarters said that they killed in self-defense during the encounter.

“Even more lies,” Justice had said, still tearful from having to vote for Felicity’s execution, her best friend, not even thirty, too young to die like this.

No one was supposed to die like this.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Ten: A Battle (Or, A Dream)

Deneb said, “So,” and Justice said, “So,” and that was as far as their conversation had gotten. The rest had just been stating the obvious. Seventeen days had passed since the would-be meeting in the woods, and in the meantime, Two, Six, Eight—they were all on complete lockdown—and a thirty-five foot tall electric fence locked everyone into the state, razor wire and metal ground plates and guards watching it and all. There was a curfew well before dark, and school and all but the most necessary jobs came to a halt.

It was past midnight, on the twenty-sixth of March. (It would have been Felicity’s birthday, her twenty-sixth, ironically, and that was why neither of them could get words out, because her Sector and those of everyone involved who was caught were on lockdown and the whole state seemed to be in disarray.

And Deneb felt like he had spent more nights crying over it than anyone else, though Justice tried to comfort him, even though it was her who’d known Felicity half of her life and he’d only known her—what, a year and a half?—and she didn’t even know the whole story, what he thought about all the time.)

You pulled the trigger. You killed her. You—

“—Den.”

“What?”

He snapped out of it, and Justice’s fingertips were brushing his cheek. “You… had that look again.”

“Sorry.”

She looked up at him, head tilted to one side slightly, eyebrows drawing together. “It’s okay.” She kissed him, soft and soothing, and he gripped her by the shoulders until their lips were barely touching, and they were left with just their breathing and the quiet.

(Justice was always the reasonable, logical one—so maybe her comfort meant more than anyone else’s, not that anyone else offered any.)

Light flooded the room from outside, intensely bright and flickering across the floor, and the fire was outside, the top floors of Sector Eight, everything burning all at once. A flurry of motion—grabbing shoes, jackets, door open, door closed, racing down the hall, stairs, across a room, door open, door closed—and they were outside, most of the state not on lockdown with them.

“You two! Any idea what’s going on?” Licinius, running towards them; their view of the world seemed to be shaking.

“No, but where’s—wait, are those—why do they have guns?” Deneb looked at the side of the Sector Eight building, where a great deal of the strategy team rounded up the Eight residents that had escaped. “That’s not good—” A piece of the roof started to fall; there was screaming, a wailing sound behind them, and someone walked towards them through smoke. “Go help the kids—”

“—Do you really think that’s our problem—?”

“—Just trust me—!”

Licinius and Justice saw that the person approaching them was Jack, and scattered from where Deneb stood, towards where the wailing of the small children came from, a gathering that the strategists were not restraining, trying to get people in order.

Crack; gunshot; screams; they whipped around. The fire quickly faded out, in the instant after the sound, and within a few seconds Justice had put together the shot and the severed wire lining the roof of the building and the weapon in Deneb’s hand, which he gave back to Lance (one of the strategists there and armed, a conspirator nonetheless.)

“Two,” she said. “Sector Two had something to do with this.”

“The twenty-sixth of the month….”

Deneb had just started to approach them again as Jack found a portable microphone that went over the state’s intercom system and gave orders, first to the strategy team: “All Sector Ten residents, please escort all Sector Eight citizens sixteen or over to Headquarters for further security action, and all those under sixteen to Sector Seven to stay for the night, then report to my office. All Representatives, and Deputy Laine, please report immediately to my office as well. Everyone else is to return to their quarters at once. Thank you.”

The intercom system clicked off.

Lance went with the strategists to escort the terrified-looking Sector Eight citizens off, following that group’s orders before the Representatives’ (as he was the one for Ten), while Deneb and Justice and Licinius went towards Headquarters.

Jack apparently did not have much to say at that point. The Sector Eight building would be repaired quickly, while the citizens were questioned about what had happened and then, most likely, released. The other lockdowns were off; school and work were going back on, the curfew no longer enforced, everything announced in the morning.

They were dismissed. “Laine—I want to talk to you,” Jack said, and Justice gave him a concerned look but obediently left with everyone else.

“Yes, sir?”

Jack sat at the desk and gestured for him to do the same, across from him; he did. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been back in Four a lot lately,” he said, and the off-topic subject caught Deneb off-guard.

“They’re expanding the Sector Two project,” he said, too quickly, and then scrambled for an explanation. “It’s… short on assistance, because… a lot of those who worked on it were… caught in something else, when they decided to go back to it. So I’ve been working on it.” (During the day, that was half true, but the rest wasn’t.)

“And you like the work in Four?”

He wondered if that was a trap question, if it was meant to get him to say it’s better than working for Headquarters. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re not just there during work hours, though,” Jack continued, and before Deneb could think of a response added, “You’re friendly with their Representative, aren’t you?”

“… Yes, sir.” He did something like cough, nervously. “As I am with most of the Representatives.”

“But you’ve always been fascinated by Four, haven’t you?”

“I practically grew up there.”

“I wasn’t talking about the Sector.”

“… Sir?”

“She was your first choice for Deputy, back when you were a Representative, yourself, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.” He fought the urge to look away, now. Jack was clearly interested enough that he’d gone to Cygnus, and that was never good. A few extra seconds had passed in silence, and Deneb used “Sir?” as a prompt again.

Jack shrugged. “Just… watch yourself, Laine. Your department doesn’t need any more scandal right now, does it?”

“No, sir.”

. . . . .

A back room of the Library of Legislation that Deneb had confirmed as safe was where a very small-scale gathering of the conspiracy was held the next day. It was just the remaining original leaders (Licinius, Altair, Justice), and the old-timers (Lance, Hale), and Deneb. (Licinius pointed out that they were really the only active people left, and no one could disagree.)

“It was an electricity fire, no doubt about it,” said Lance. He was part of the strategy team that was Sector Ten now, but there was nothing that changed he’d spent most of his life in Two. “An accident like that—well, it’d be hard for it to be an ‘accident’.”

“Would someone know how to cause it, though?” Altair asked, from closer to one of the corners of the room.

“Yeah—yeah, of course, in Two… you learn that before you learn how to walk. Not on purpose, but… yeah. You would know.”

“I have a theory,” said Licinius, and waved the file that Deneb had brought, with Case 039 stamped on the front, which he had just finished skimming. “You know when this all happened, when it started? Thirty-nine minutes past midnight. Thirty-nine minutes. That sort of thing doesn’t happen by coincidence. On the twenty-sixth of March. How old she would’ve been and her birthday and the case number, the date, really. No coincidence.” He didn’t use Felicity’s name; he didn’t have to. Licinius was pacing, voice raised just below the point that wouldn’t have been cautious. “They’re regretting it now. They think the worst possible thing they could do would be to give us a martyr… and they’ve done it. Look what happened in Eight! It scares them because that’s what we’re doing dead, let alone alive. … But, I guarantee you most of Two’ll be dead in a month. They’re not thinking anymore, we’ve lost them, they’re dying for stupid reasons… and not being subtle about it either.”

“Why would they do it, though? What’s the motivation for lighting up the top stories of Eight?” Altair asked, clearly skeptical.

“—I don’t know, destroying government property, arson, a way to get them to let them out of the building, maybe the Games just pissed them off and they wanted to watch something burn, I don’t know—I’m not that insane yet!”

“Well for land’s sake, what’s your ranting doing for any of us?” Altair demanded, and the Record in his hand—one of Felicity’s, something else they’d been looking at—went flying across the room, hitting the opposite wall.

There was tense silence while Licinius seethed at the question, but it was Hale who broke it, quietly: “Arguing isn’t getting us anywhere, either. This is exactly what they want, for us to be fighting. We’re not much good alone, are we?”

“Well if there’s only six of us left—!”

“There are others; they’re just not here.”

“Well then, where are they? Dead? Scared off? Runaways? Do you know how many people have died in the last week trying to get past that fence—?”

“We have to work with what we have.”

“Yeah, because everyone here is so useful. What about you, huh?” He gestured at Deneb. “Weren’t you supposed to be helpful for keeping people alive?”

“I couldn’t do anything more than any of the Representatives,” Deneb said, voice carefully even. “You know that. Not without the risk of uncovering everything.”

“You have more influence on Jack and you know it! And you were the only one who was there.”

“I did what I had to.”

Apparently the way he said the sentence didn’t come out so even, inviting strange looks from everyone else, Licinius’ tone turning to a hiss. “Did? ‘Did’ what?”

“Well, I—” He stopped himself, heart rate up a bit. He’d loaded the weapon with just one bullet, one shot, one chance, avoiding meeting Felicity’s eyes, she was just a quivering mess on the floor, backed into the corner of the room, whispering pleasepleaseplease and then, “I’m sorry,” crack; gunshot; the life draining out of her eyes, her body hitting the ground with a thud, the blood on the tiles, the weapon falling out of his grip, clattering on the floor, and he’d closed her eyelids, sat by her side for one extra minute, holding her hand and praying— “I… well….”

“You were the one who killed her, weren’t you?”

“I did what I had to,” he repeated, more distressed, and hating, more than any of the others’ anger, the look Justice was giving him, although she still held onto his hand. “I… it was quick; that was the most that I could do—”

“The most that you could do?” Licinius laughed, harsh, bitter, raw. “That’s the best you can come up with?”

“It was what any of us would’ve done,” Justice said. “What any of us would’ve had to do. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same.”

Licinius went back to pacing angrily but let the topic alone.

“Still, what about Eight?” Hale asked after a few seconds. (Most of them thought around then that no one had known the conspirators from Eight very well, the ones that had been caught—they had just chosen the wrong meeting to actually attend, not even regulars, and they weren’t being discussed much.) “We’re probably not against whoever started it, but….” He looked thoughtful for one second, as if pondering what he was about to say. “You ever heard the term ‘fight fire with fire’?”

Everyone looked at him, even Deneb, who had been carefully watching the ground.

“You think we should try the same thing?” Lance asked, incredulous. “Where, here—Headquarters?”

“Are you really proposing—?”

“That, my dear friends,” Hale started, looking somewhat crazed, “is exactly what I am proposing.”

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Eleven: A Fire (Or, A Chance)

“That, my dear friends,” Hale started, looking somewhat crazed, “is exactly what I am proposing.”

“Have you gone mad?!” demanded Altair, slamming his hand against the table. Lance tried to shush him.

“Gone mad? You make it sound recent.”

Licinius stared, acting as though he was still running the gathering; Deneb and Justice looked at each other, and then at Hale, who seemed to have finally snapped. “Well, the idea’s well and good, but someone has to actually do it,” Justice said. “I’d be amazed if anyone could even find a match with… with the way things have been.”

Licinius jumped on the statement: “There are other ways to start a fire.”

“Not my point. I just meant—well, someone’ll be the one Headquarters finds.”

A few beats of silence, and then, “So, what? We vote? We—“ something that would’ve been an amused smirk came onto his face “—draw straws? I don’t see any volunteering happening.”

(Maybe just to spite him,) Justice said, “I’ll do it,” and the words were out of her mouth before she could think about them.

“No.” Everyone turned to look at Deneb, whose grip on her had suddenly become painfully tight. “I think,” he started his supposed explanation, “we might want to keep Representatives out of the way.”

Justice, Licinius, possibly Lance.

“And not yourself, ‘Deputy Laine’?” Licinius said it like an insult.

“Well,” he said, “I am—I would have a reason to be near Headquarters in the first place, I think I could—“

“No.” Justice this time, mocking his tone from earlier. “There’s a good idea, let’s give up any say you have in Headquarters, see how it goes?”

“Justice,” he said, pleading.

“Decent point,” said Lance, all but interrupting him.

Licinius cut in; “Where does that leave us? Hale and Altair?”

“I should go,” said Hale, as if snapping out of his daze. “It was my idea.”

“You’d have no chance of getting out. No offense, but you’re….” Lance struggled for a somewhat-nice way to say it—

“—Not exactly a spring chicken anymore? I know. I don’t have the life ahead of me that most of you do. Which is why I should go. And it’s not like I do much around here.”

“If you’re sure,” said Altair, and that ended that part of the conversation.

In the next ten minutes, a plan.

Deneb mentioned how most of the first floor of Headquarters, the huge room just beyond where you entered from the veranda, was divided by movable walls, sheets of canvas suspended by square, metal frames on wheels. Which, if positioned the right way, could also turn most of the first floor into an inescapable death trap, providing anything went wrong inside the room. “Case 491,” he recalled fondly, remembering what else happened the day he’d looked at that file; “in which someone tried to do just that. … It was the worst mistake Four ever made.”

“The beautiful metaphor of the movable building,” Justice mused, “which never actually works in reality.”

“So?” Licinius wasn’t putting connections together.

Deneb continued: “If I was in there a few minutes beforehand, we could make it a lot harder for certain people to get out.”

“Without getting caught? You’d have to move pretty fast, and know exactly where everything was—”

“And all of the plans for every building in this state are in Four,” Justice interrupted him. “Easy to get to.”

“Fine,” Licinius snapped. “The second he’s out of the building, it goes up in flames. Because that doesn’t look suspicious.”

“I could make sure the cameras and… whatever, ‘conveniently’ crash around that time,” said Lance. “Just make sure you have your cover stories straight.”

. . . . .

From the Record of Hale Derrick, Conspirator

i’m taking a risk by writing this, i know, but since i still have a while to wait, i might as well, for whoever finds this. Of the others. No one else will understand anyways

i found a match, for humor’s sake. Light it, let the spark go, watch it burn. Continuing the dream. For Two

The original dream, maybe. It’s changed. Lici1 has some different ideas. Different is the word. i’m on the other side. Starting it early so i can do one last thing for them. Set up De4 as the hero trying to rescue people, if he’s not killed. i hope he won’t be

… i wish you well

. . . . .

The same thing happened a second time—light thrown across the room, but slower, less obvious in the daylight, weaker and flickering more. And for a second time, Deneb ran out of the room.

No, no, no—it’s early—why, why— “Den, no!” Justice yelled after him, following. “It’s a trap, it has to be, please, Den—!” They were outside already, out of breath from the stairs, and he was too far ahead of her. At the mark of the Sector Nine building, someone grabbed her by the arm, pulled her away from the burning Headquarters.

“Let him do this,” Licinius hissed at her, although he looked just as bewildered while he fought her protests.

Deneb reached the veranda, the front door, and a wave of overbearing, intolerable heat washed over him when it opened. Inside, most of the canvas walls had disintegrated to ash. The building was mostly wood and Hale had been careful—it all burned easily. Smoke coated everything and he couldn’t get a full breath of air down. Find Jack. Make sure—he spluttered and started to trip as he ran away from a desk that a spark reached—sure he doesn’t—he scrambled to hold on to something, but everything burned, scalding his right side—doesn’t get out—

He ran; almost everyone was gone already, well trained to move fast. He moved too close to the right again, and, still choking, fell to the ground in pain, about to throw up, trying to get back on his feet. Dead end in front of him, more fire.

Am I going to die like this—? Completely trapped, burning—

A sob escaped him, and the fire at the dead end flickered too close to him, making him cry out, turn and sprint the other way, as much as he could, gasping for air, none of it going down—was he going to suffocate, oh, what would even be left of him—?

There was a side exit, one that went out behind the library branch. Finding anyone was a hopeless cause, he would go around towards the back and look, but....

One of the metal frames fell, and he jumped back, the little remaining canvas thrown towards him, and he screamed as the fire licked at him, tried to keep moving. He choked more, desperate for air, clutching at anything he could, blind from tears and the searing pain where they hit the burns.

He almost didn’t notice when he had stumbled out of the side exit, except for the sudden presence of too-bright sunlight hitting his eyes and air getting into his system. He tripped, and let himself fall, exhaustion taking over, laying limp on the ground almost a relief.

“Den!” Someone kneeling by his side, petting his hair, whispering, “Oh, sweetie,” over and over, people calling for help, chaos behind it all—

And darkness.

. . . . .

“They’re watching to make sure his respiration process is steady, right now his RR is 15, fluid concentration has been brought up to normal, nutrition levels are good….” Lyra looked up from the clipboard, looking more in her element than she did at any of the Representative meetings, and at Justice, who sat in the waiting room of Sector Seven. “He’s in the best of hands; I promise. He’ll make it through. They just need to clean him up and get him some analgesics, and then you can see him. All right?”

“… Is he still unconscious?”

“Mostly. It’s probably better, at this point, and it’ll keep him still while they dress the wounds. You can be there for that.”

“How long should it be?”

“Until you can see him? By now, twenty minutes or so.”

“So, how… how bad is it?” Her voice broke a bit.

“Not as bad as it could’ve been. Superficial second-degree burns, mostly on the torso—front, right side. Should be healed in two weeks, tops. I’ve seen people fully recover from much worse.”

Justice nodded, trying to suppress her panic. Nearby, Lance listened to the conversation, calmer but still looking worried.

“He’ll be fine. Really.” Lyra squeezed her shoulder, gentle, always the caring Seven, and headed back down a hallway that went into the waiting room.

“I don’t know much ‘bout all the medical stuff,” Lance started, “but I can look at a chart, and—well, the ones Lyra had, they look okay. Stable.”

Twenty minutes later, as promised, Lyra was back, and led her to a room several more doors down the hall than expected. “Mining accident the other day,” she explained. “I told you people pull through worse.”

Of course, she’d been so wrapped up in their own little world that she hadn’t heard.

The thought was out of her mind quickly when they reached the right room, and her heart clenched when she saw him, half wrapped up in the sheets of a hospital cot, clearly in pain, and she half fell into the chair next to the bed. “Oh, Den…” She touched his face, gently, not sure of everywhere he was hurt, and his skin felt too warm.

Less than half awake, he mumbled something incoherent.

“Hmm?”

His hand sought hers, his movements slow, sleepy. She held it tightly; he seemed worried. “Justice—?”

“Shh. I’m right here.”

The two nurses on the other side of the bed arranging bandages both looked up, at her, at the same time. “First time he’s said anything,” one of them said, and they set about binding the burns.

. . . . .

Much later, that night, someone walked in without announcement; Licinius, unconcerned. Justice resisted the urge to scowl at him. “So, what’s the news?” she asked, trying to keep her tone even, quiet so as not to wake Deneb.

“Jack’s alive.”

“Here?”

“No. He wasn’t hurt. By the time he—” he gestured to Deneb “—got there, he was probably out of the building.”

So it was for nothing, she thought bitterly, but neither of them could say it out loud. The building could be reconstructed, easy, she knew that, so there was no real damage done except to Deneb.

“And?”

“He’s resigning.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. Announced it today, while you were… here.” While she processed that, he continued: “They found the person who started the fire. … He was already dead.”

“Oh.” And she played along with their pretenses: “Who was it?”

“Sector Five. Something Derrick.” Like he didn’t know.

She hadn’t even thought about Hale, with everything else.

“His Record showed something interesting. Managed to get hold of it, it was right outside Headquarters with him, when they found it.” He handed the book to her, and she read the last entry, Licinius not looking happy, understandably.

“Oh,” she said again, and handed it back to him. It was a lot—Hale was dead, but in Licinius’ eyes, something of a traitor, and Jack… was fine, but resigning. Resigning. They could talk about that later, in the morning, everyone would know and they could figure out what they wanted to do about it…. Deneb, he could be Minister. Any of them could, maybe.

Licinius left shortly after, leaving her to think. This could be it.

The morning, nothing can happen until then.

Just be patient.

… Nine hours or so?

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Twelve: A Power (Or, A Struggle)

        In three days, Deneb was transferred out of the ICU.  He would only be in the hospital for another four days, although they turned out to be long ones (if for no one else, than for Justice, who by the end of it all hadn’t slept in a week and grew short-tempered).

        Yet, nothing had really happened.  In the day, she would feed him crushed ice with a spoon from a foam cup until he’d just about choked on it, and then some, because it was all he wanted.  (Lyra said that he was bound to develop pagophagia, but didn’t protest.)  And at night she stroked his hair and adjusted his blanket when his thrashing threw it off, and tried to keep him asleep, away from the pain. Otherwise, Deneb, always playful, insisted they play matches of Gambit to pass the time (a card game which he was terrible at, although he didn’t seem to mind).  And in between, she read to him, whatever she could find.

        Lance occasionally visited with news, although nothing much happened outside, either, since there was no one to oversee it.  Jack hid somewhere, not officially but just out of fear, and Deneb was in the hospital.  Meanwhile, Headquarters was rebuilt, a safer version, and there had been a small funeral for Hale.  There was no lockdown.

        The second night of the four days, Lance called them on the hospital room’s phone (which had only just become common in the Sectors, as they weren’t there when they were a district and hadn’t been a first priority, and Headquarters got a hold of the technology first, and surely the Sector ones were bugged).  There would be a meeting of the strategy team and the Representatives in Sector Ten that night, although it was all apparently very last minute, and therefore couldn’t be mandatory, although attendance was “encouraged”.  It was the only time she left, after much persuading.

        “… You should go, poppet,” Deneb had mumbled after a beat of silence, and brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face.  “I’ll be fine here.  Don’t worry about it—“ she’d still looked skeptical “—really.”

        “Okay.”

        He had smiled, and it looked a bit less forced than it had for most of the time he was in the hospital.  “That’s my girl.”

        The meeting was relatively worthwhile, and about the inevitable upcoming election for the new Minister, which would be announced to the public soon.  Both Deneb and Licinius would be very eligible to run, and maybe have a chance.               It was just a chance, but it was a bigger one than usual.

. . . . .

        “Oh, for land’s sake, this is pathetic,” Licinius said on the third day, to Altair and Lance in Sector One, at what could barely pass for a conspiracy meeting. He’d begun to see some from the old group around the state, ones that he’d thought were runaways or in hiding, but they had not shown any interest in returning to the conspiracy.

        “You’re just figuring that now?” scoffed Altair.

        “Yeah, well, one person actually does something—and gets killed and then it turns out he was a traitor anyways.”

        Lance cut in: “I wouldn’t say he was a traitor,” and Licinius and Altair both whipped around to look at him.  “He had a few different ideals from you.  We all have a few different ideas.  That doesn’t mean he betrayed anybody.”

        Licinius attempted to stare him down and it didn’t work.  “Did you even read his last Record entry?”

        “Yeah,” said Lance, a bit sadly, and added, “His handwriting was terrible.”

        “Ha.  You know something?  He was already dead when they found him—”

        “—you mentioned that—”               “—and I don’t know if it was Headquarters he was avoiding, after writing something like… like that.  And besides that, in the commotion, he could’ve gotten just about any of us killed.”

        Even Altair gaped at him this time.  “Well, what were you were going to do to him?”

        Licinius avoided answering.

. . . . .

        A few last forms were being filled in so that Deneb could leave Sector Seven, and upon seeing his current state checked off as stable and a non-issue, Justice said, “Well, good.  You dying right now would be slightly inconvenient.”               “Inconvenient,” he echoed with added flourish.  “You make me feel very loved.”

        “You are very loved.”  She kissed him once.  “Although I can only speak for myself.”  (There was a slight bitter undertone there—his parents had been by exactly once, for a distracted half hour; Altair had never been by at all; Licinius, the one time, the first night, when Deneb was asleep; Lance, only with news; Lyra and other medical staff, only really for treatment.)

        Apparently the forms were done, because the next thing she knew, they were back in Sector Four, almost-happily talking about the election.

. . . . .               There were four, in the beginning.  Four accepted nominations for the primary—Deneb and Licinius, of course, and Magnus Lucer, Sector Eight Representative, and Adit Baron, Sector Five Representative.  In that first elimination, Deneb and Licinius made it through.  Both Adit and Magnus didn’t receive enough votes.

        Of course, this was good news—this was great news, if for but one fact.  Licinius had prematurely gone mad with power, anyone who’d talked to him personally might say.  He had a few ideas in mind that seemed rather counter-productive, including getting revenge on Sector Five, not bothering with possible war preparations, and odd things to do with the older generation of Fourteen that didn’t hold to his “pure Fourteen blood” ideal.

        This worried most of the conspirators.

        It didn’t seem much good—any of their causes—would come out of Licinius getting elected. Deneb was especially nervous before a debate, even as Justice tried to soothe him.  “But I can’t even hold an argument against him if I’m late to a meeting, how am I supposed to—?”

        “Shush.  You’ll be fine.”

        Deneb, shakily, made his way onstage after they announced him.

. . . . .

        There was a ceremonial event the day after next, for more speeches, more delegate considering, more talk about the issues.  Deneb talked of more democratic power for the Sectors (going back to voting for the Representatives, and in the future, the Deputy), trying to help the districts, better rights for citizens.

Between this, when he could, he would try to find Justice in the crowd, for comfort and feedback. These quickly became a countdown to the end of the night. "Try to enjoy yourself. Have a drink. Do something."

He talked to people, tried to smile, be extroverted as possible.  

Licinius, of course, seemed a natural, eerily upbeat and outgoing for the night.

. . . . .

The last all-citizen vote approached and went by; the electoral results as they came in by Sector were announced over the state intercom system.  Sector One. Licinius won, there.

Deneb seemed distressed. "Of course he'd win One. It was a lost cause when we started," Justice tried. "Four was his lost cause. And we have more electoral votes."

Sector Two.  Deneb won Sector Two. This resulted in much hugging and congratulations.  Lance sat with the two of them in Sector Four. (No doubt, Altair would be with Licinius in One listening as well.)

Licinius won Sector Three. Altair's home Sector--he'd surely been a big influence.

Justice was proven right when they won Four. But next was Five--a complete toss up. They could probably predict the first four sectors, but five to nine were more unsure.

Five. Hale. Any posthumous influence there?  Apparently. Deneb won there.

They lost Six. Back to a tie.  "Six is superficial. Licinius probably bribed them."  Lance's words weren't much of a comfort.

The pattern continued: they won Seven, lost Eight. Anxiously waiting for the decisive Sector Nine votes (Headquarters and Sector Ten had very few citizens and so few electoral votes; they wouldn't redeem losing Sector Nine, small Sector as it was, with the current electoral vote tie), Deneb ranted aloud to Sector Eight about how they wouldn’t be alive to vote if it wasn’t for him putting out the fire, and--

“Deep breaths, sweetie,” Justice reminded him.

It shouldn’t have taken so long to get the votes from Sector Nine.  They prayed in the meanwhile. Then the intercom clicked on, and they waited.  “Attention citizens: we have now received the electoral vote results from Sector Nine.  As you know, Sector Nine has ten electoral votes with a winner-takes-all policy, while Sector Ten has two and Headquarters has four.  As our two candidates for Minister are currently tied, the candidate who wins the Sector Nine electoral vote will be unable to be passed by their

opponent in the Headquarters and Sector Ten votes, and so, District Fourteen, I present to you the winner of the Sector Nine electoral vote and our Minister election....”

They heard the sound of the announcer opening an envelope.  No one dared to breathe.

“Deneb Laine.”. . . . .

Arrangements were made for the upcoming inauguration. Deneb chose Justice as his Deputy, naturally, and she appointed her Representative replacement in Sector Four, someone unimportant.

Everything began to look up. But what goes up must come down.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Thirteen: A Twist (Or, A Traitor)Three Months Later

From the Record of Justice Bane, Deputy and Conspirator

Today:-Founding Day ceremony and:-Inaugurations – five o’clock -Case 8326 – review evidence-Version Three meeting – noon -Get measurement recommendations to Joist-Check with Lance on new weapon development diagrams *-Sign District-State Alliance Proposal (start preparing arguments for), Adjusted Work-To-Pay Ratio Proposal, Re-Open Representative/Deputy Election Proposal (all after inauguration)-Set meeting or meet with Sector Six group in re complaints-Training – 9 AM-Get Den to stop reading over my shoulder —

. . .

“—Sorry,” he said lightly, smiling, with an apologetic kiss to the top of her head, and took a few steps away from where Justice sat at her desk, towards the kitchen area. “Breakfast?”

She nodded, still writing. “One minute.”

Deneb said, “I recommend not overscheduling yourself for today. Even though I’m sure you’re better at that than I am.”

“Mm.” She closed the Record book and walked over to him. “Sleep well?”

“All right,” he said, absently stirring chocolate-chips into the pancake mix. His eyes focused on her instead and he almost knocked the bowl over, sheepishly fixing it. “How’d you sleep?”

“Eh,” she shrugged. He poured the batter onto the pan. “Any dreams?”

His face fell a bit. “No. Not really,” he said, voice suddenly quiet. “You?”

“No.” Her answer was a bit muffled by his shoulder since she embraced him from the side, trying to soothe him. He didn’t walk to talk about it. She’d leave it alone.

She drew back, and he flipped over the pancakes, his free arm around her waist. For a few minutes, they almost felt like a normal married couple, with no state to run or war looming outside.

. . . . .

Five o’clock. There would be an approximately hour and a half celebration for certain guests inside Headquarters, before the ceremony would move outside with only those needed on the veranda for the actual inaugurations.

The certain guests by form were the Minister, Deputy, ones previously in either position, strategy team/Sector Ten, Representatives, and anyone invited by the above, plus those who were staffing the event. So in the room there were approximately two hundred people, although Altair managed to feel rather alone and almost bored, lingering in one corner.

He still doubted how this was all going to turn out; the changes weren’t widely accepted and were happening too fast, too little too late to change people’s minds. Because the public was comprised of pure geniuses, Altair thought bitterly.

He would see.

. . . . .

The ceremony on the veranda started at six-thirty sharp. Fourteen made these occasions short and simple, and the inaugurations reflected that well. Founding Day was commemorated first, with raising the flag and a moment of silence for the Dark Days. There were speeches that merged the two events together, and once in the inauguration half, there were the two vows (of ministership and deputyship), and then the ceremony began to come to a close.

They were just starting to feel relieved when it was all interrupted.

Crack—at almost the same time, a gunshot, and then a glass window of Headquarters shattering, not five feet over from where Justice stood. The crowd broke into chaos, and Deneb grabbed her arm, “Come on,” and they raced into the building, stopping just before another window that also shattered, ducking away from it. They moved towards the center of the room, weaving through the re-constructed movable walls, closing openings behind them, away from windows, doors.

“We should go different directions,” Justice said, at a brief stop before the next turn.

“Bu—”

She kissed him, to quiet him and try to say the rest: It’s not you they want; they won’t hurt you if they find you alone; I’ll come back if I can; I love you.

And they went different directions. Justice went left, and headed for a side exit. The fence around the state went just a bit into the woods, she could be concealed there if she ran from the exit fast enough, and then go around, into the back entrance of Sector Nine—

She was out the exit, paused a second. “A very predictable move for Sector Four,” someone commented off to her left, and she spun, heart skipping beats, hearing a gun click.

“Hello, Licinius,” she said, mock-casually. “I take it you were dissatisfied with the ceremony?”

“That’s one way to put it.” There was a pause. Licinius continued. “It was always going to end this way. But you knew that.”

“Yes.” She refused to look away, lower her head, do anything but stare him down, and to Licinius it was just. So. Frustrating. Her voice wavered a bit much as she tried to steady it; that was the most he got out of her.

“You always did have too much pride.”

Licinius’ finger hovered over the trigger. “Do it,” Justice said, so quietly he wasn’t sure if he was just hallucinating it. “If you think you can. It’s what you came here for, isn’t it? It’s only a human life, or more.”

“You’re stalling.”

“So are you.” Another pause; “What are you, scared?”

“No,” he said, evenly, although the rest was true, even if he was stalling for a different reason than she thought, probably the same reason she was. Unless he’d actually underestimated her, but he doubted that. (Justice was stalling to talk him out of it, though he thought she was stalling for rescue; he was stalling to be able to gloat to someone, she thought he was stalling out of fear.)

“Do it,” she repeated. “It won’t matter in the long run anyway. You can’t stop this now. It’s beyond you, even if you started it. You could make an example out of me, a martyr, to the others, make them agree with you. Or pretend to. But you can’t kill the cause. My death will do the same thing Felicity’s did, the same thing Hale’s did. It’ll just add fuel to the flames, and your own fire will turn against you.”

“That,” he said, “is a terribly clichéd metaphor.” And he pulled the trigger.

Deneb heard it from inside the building where he had turned, changed his mind— “JUSTICE!” (So this method worked, too, Licinius thought.) He raced out the side exit, and also stopped, knowing something was wrong, this was where he’d heard the shot come from, this— “Justice,” he whispered, choked, seeing her, and fell by her side. “Justice?” He pushed her hair away from her eyes, wide and green and unseeing.

Deneb broke down into sobs and whimpers, unable to think, pulling her body against him, tears dripping into her hair. They were some of the most agonized sounds Licinius had ever heard, and he smiled, unnoticed in the background, and Deneb looked up at the click of the gun, brokenly, almost just tired. He didn’t specifically recognize the sound, but he knew the voice: “Well, if it isn’t everyone’s favorite new Minister.”

“What do you want?” he whispered, beyond distressed. (Broken came close. Shattered came closer.) When no answer came immediately, he closed his eyes, hung his head, tried to breathe but there was no air.

He wasn’t putting all the pieces together yet. Licinius could help with that. He raised the weapon into the last shards of late-evening sunlight, let Deneb process it. First there was shock, and fear, and then— And then, Licinius found himself in some amount of pain, disarmed, and trapped against the side of Headquarters. Crack. Licinius fell back against the wall and then to the side, to the ground.

The weapon clattered to the ground, out of Deneb’s shaking hand. Then, he went back to Justice.

. . . . .

Lance found him there at dawn. After the ceremony had broken into chaos, the strategy team had gone into action to control the crowd, and had gotten everyone back home to stay there. When everything had finally died down he had gone home to try and contact various people. No answers from Licinius; none from Deneb or Justice, either.

So he’d gone searching, and had found the scene outside Headquarters unnoticed in the confusion of the night before. Deneb was half curled up on the ground with Justice cradled in his arms, crying into her hair even though he had long since run out of tears. Closer to where Lance approached them, on the left, was Licinius.

He tensed at that, the thought not really processing before Deneb looked up at him, and he noted his current state.

Deneb had been unable to move the whole night. He’d closed her eyelids, kissed her forehead one last time, and after that, just clung to her like it might keep the life from slipping away. He was still trying to process, even if the first burst of emotion came out in killing Licinius. Then he’d slipped into denial, tried to plead with her even though she couldn’t hear him, prayed and prayed although really, she’d had no chance of living through getting shot in the heart.

“What…?” Lance sat next to him, tried to think of something to say, not wanting to jump to questions although his first word had been one—Deneb wouldn’t want to hear them. But he explained anyway, the words coming out in cries and harsh gasps for air.

After, Lance suggested that they go to Sector Seven. He didn’t know why, really, but he knew that Sector Seven welcomed with open arms anyone who needed someone, and maybe there would be something there that would do… something, anything. On the way there, Lance tried to soothe Deneb’s rapid cycling between denial (hope, that Sector Seven tests would prove something other than the obvious) and despair. He carried Justice, but Lance left Licinius there, planning to tell someone in Seven about what had happened.

It was a long walk, thinking about it. There, they were lucky—if you could call it that anymore—and ran into Lyra, who quickly set up a testing room (but what did they want her to do?) and moved Justice into it, while a quickly-anxious Deneb sat in the waiting room, quiet. Lance waited with him, mostly to shoot glares at anyone who might’ve otherwise approached them.

Lyra came back, looking noticeably saddened. “Minister,” she said to Deneb, softly, as if she was speaking to a child, “I’m sorry, but there’s… there’s nothing we can do now, I—I’m sorry. I wish that there was.”

Lance looked over at Deneb, who only nodded. He’d clearly known that, much as he’d tried to deny it to Lance.

Lyra looked hesitant, but she added: “Also, I—I hate to tell you this, considering the circumstances, but, your wife—she was—you would’ve…”

“Been parents, I know,” whispered Deneb.

Lyra nodded, and then left him there with Lance. That part was news to him, but he didn’t say anything. It took him no less than five and a half hours to coax him out of Sector Seven after that. Other arrangements—and so much else—could wait.

. . . . .

Those things did not go well, not with the fearfulness of the state now and Deneb’s lack of functioning. The leaders of Sector Ten actually met about it, how the state needed things to actually happen, a Minister who didn’t require hours of pleading to leave his room. “He watched his wife and child get murdered, what do you expect him to do?” Lance had hissed at them.

Still, the others high up in Sector Ten were not happy. They conducted a vote of the Representatives and themselves due to not having a Minister or Deputy available, and declared marshal law. Lance was furious. He had fought fiercely for the other side—find a Deputy that functioned, give him time. So furious that he transferred back to Sector Two and found Altair, who was equally appalled, and said, “We’re starting this over. Who do you know that doesn’t like the marshal law?”

Meanwhile, the Sector Ten leaders hung white and gold banners over Headquarters for the official announcement.

Before the Music Dies LegacyANT Companion: The Place of White and Gold

Chapter Fourteen: A Finish (Or, A Fall)Four Months Later

Opinions on the Sector Ten leaders varied. It wasn’t so much that most of the state was against them—no, most agreed with their views, if not how they treated the people, but… it was such a radical, turn-around change from the last leaders that it was a hard adjustment to openly go back.

Most of the state had gone back to supporting the Games, although for different reasons than the Capitol. The Capitol liked them for control, intimidation. Fourteen thought the districts didn’t need that—where had they been during the Dark Days? If they weren’t going to rebel then, they didn’t see them rebelling in the future. So they supported the Games as retaliation, if only Fourteen were to get their own point across with them.

(But they didn’t have the resources to rebel that we did, argued the minority. And those kids never did anything, why punish them? They need help to stop this—)

Sector Ten—well, Headquarters, now—was also becoming concerned with learning more about the Games, how they worked. The idea of spies came up again, although there were few volunteers, then. (One day, volunteering wouldn’t matter.)

In the past, Jack had a lot of effect on the future Sector Ten residents. So when it came to how they looked at the Sectors, they were much like Headquarters had been in the past. They didn’t care. They kept none of the proposals from the last leaders. They took the place of the Minister, and Deputy, choosing the Representatives, who really had next to no power at all.

It felt like no one did.

. . . . .

From the Record of Altair Morrose, Conspirator (A Torn-Out Page)

They say you never miss someone/thing until they’re gone. I think that’s true. I feel like I should miss Licinius for how he was “before”, but I don’t, not really, knowing what came “after”. Justice is missed though, by none more so than Deneb. Engageing him in conversation’s a long, slow and painful process that never actually succeeds.

I don’t try for that as much as Lance does. I think he’s in shock and only time’ll snap him out of it, if it does.

I should be surprised that all of this happened, but I can’t make myself be. It was never much of a secret that Licinius’ and Justice’s views clashed horribley, although I really didn’t think he’d ever do something like this.

Licinius said fix the people, with a good leader the system didn’t matter, Justice said fix the system, and the leader wouldn’t matter. Then there was the aliance with the districts or according to Licinius, not.

I could see it from the start that when Justice joined us the views would shift, and well, she just had more support than Licinius ever did even if he was in charge. Technically. Even though there weren’t many technicallities with us. It just made him nervous, maybe. But clearly something more than that too. None of us expected him to snap like he did though.

At least I didn’t. If anyone else did I’d like to think that… I dunno, something would’ve been done about it.

Too little too late now.

*A.

. . . . .

The new conspiracy meetings went well. Their networking system was better, their passion levels were better, their subtlety was better.

There was just one missing element. Well, person. Lance had been unable to get Deneb to come to a single meeting so far. No amount of pleading, begging, bribing, coaxing, threatening, or physical dragging could get him to change his mind. Lance was just so sure that if he could see how much improved things were now, with the new group, it would help. He didn’t want to push him, but if he could just see what they had done—

Finally, he succeeded in bringing him to meetings, which worked much differently. They were hoping that eventually, they wouldn’t have them at all, and find a different system of communication, with much less chance of getting caught. Getting him there at first required a combination of please and just this one and the others want to meet you and you’ll get some fresh air, at least (and dragging) and the do it for Justice card that Lance hadn’t really wanted to play. (It was a bad topic.

He needed her like he needed air, and now he was just suffocated all the time. Even his official resignation as Minister hadn’t phased him.)

The fact that there had to be a Minister election for the next year was a popular topic with the new conspirators. If the election did happen, it would almost certainly be one of the Sector Ten leaders officially instated. But there had to be some hope, right?

Deneb was almost silent at the meetings and didn’t go to all of them. But it was a start, at least, thought Lance.

. . . . .

One could look at the picture of the conspiracy, their hopes, their dreams, their martyrs.

(Felicity, who was eternally young and nothing but sweet and died because she was good with people. Hale, one of the bravest out of all of them, who perhaps had gotten tired of fighting after all of his years. Justice, who’d just wanted a better world for the child she would never have, and gave her life for it.)

One could take a step back, and look at District Fourteen, the suppressed dream brought to life and corrupted, their leaders.

(Cygnus, who cared about all of the wrong things and was less of a leader than anyone knew. Jack, who was lucky and advanced with his new ideas that weren’t so new at all.)

One could take another step back, and look at the oppressed masses in general.

(The siblings who watched their home and family burn. The tributes who died at the hands of each other, figures that crawled out of the walls in the night, and an endless black abyss.)

One could look at the Capitol, the supposed ultimate enemy to them.

But everyone’s opinions varied on that.