HEART OF GOLD | CORIOLANUS SNOW

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 96

Coriolanus had to exercise what little his self-restraint he still possessed not to burst out laughing. The room full of people who worked for him was an extra incentive.

"Well," he said, steadying his voice, "now that you mention it..."

Lilith's eyes widened at him. He reckoned it was designed to serve as some kind of warning or deterrence, but she was about as menacing as a kitten.

"You know, glaring at me like that doesn't change anything, per se," Coriolanus teased, "if you can call that glaring at all."

Her mouth fell open, and the sound that escaped it—a combination of astonishment, disbelief, humour, and outrage—coupled with her expression was absolutely amusing. The only other adjective that could more accurately describe her face was adorable. Coriolanus stuck with amusing.

"Why don't you do something you're good at?" he suggested, leading the way back up to their regular spot at the top of the box.

"For example?" retorted Lilith, clearly mimicking his response from a few days back.

"Help me figure out how we'll deal with the rest of the bodies."

"I've had a couple of ideas, actually," she confessed, her head lowering, "but..."

"Let me guess. They involve money?"

"A lot of money." Lilith nodded sheepishly.

"Assuming that's not an issue?"

Gazing up at him, her expression tentative, she asked, "Do you remember the claw machines from Reaping Fair?"

Inspired by the arcade game, she initially considered fitting a large drone with a similar mechanism to scoop up the deceased from the field. It would save a lot of manpower and risk if they didn't have to send someone physically into the arena. Bodies would then be deposited onto a vehicle waiting beyond the forcefield. But it didn't seem proper to just let the corpses dangle in the open as they were transferred. It would be unsightly, and the point was not to expose them.

Would a modified helicopter be too much? Installed with a retractable contraception that could haul the dead tribute straight into the fuselage? It would be able to fly and land on the building where the funeral parlour was located and reduce the need for an auxiliary mode of transport. It should also come in handy if the arena were situated on terrains inaccessible by road.

"Too expensive?" prompted Lilith, when he failed to furnish a verbal reply to her speech.

Coriolanus quirked a smile.

"Too idealistic," he answered. "I prefer the drone idea."

Swallowing part of her disappointment—the rest still lingered on her face—Lilith nodded.

"We still need something we can use right now. You mentioned two options earlier. Are you leaning toward a particular one?"

Lilith shook her head. "That's the problem. I can't decide."

"Talk me through it."

"Well," she began, "from an efficiency and safety perspective, it would make more sense if we made fewer trips, collected more bodies each time. Since they won't last long, and we can't predict the animals, it would have to be quite frequent. I thought about maybe twice a day—at sunrise and sunset—or at least once, depending on the number of deaths.

"But it also hinges on the circumstance of the death. If a tribute gets killed by another tribute, the killer usually leaves the area pretty quickly, which would grant us the perfect window to act. But if a tribute runs into an accident, the threat might still pose a danger to our Peacekeepers, like that wild boar. And of course, if it happens at night, it'll be too dark to operate safely. All collections have to be done during the day. With the upcoming feast, it's likely going to be a second bloodbath. We have to be sure it's over before we send anyone in. We don't want anyone to be caught in the crossfires."