Pawn of Panem | Finnick Odair [2]

Revolution Dies : 10

Chapter Ten

The Special Defense level is situated almost as far down as the dungeons where we found the prep team. It's a beehive of rooms full of computers, labs, research equipment, and testing ranges.

When the doors open, Katniss stands inside next to Gale. I smile and run up to her. We hug each other for a moment, before she whispers, "Thank you... for what you did for Peeta."

I nod into her shoulder, "They don't deserve to be in there."

Before the conversation grows deeper, a guard walks up to us. When we ask for Beetee, we're directed through the maze until we reach an enormous plate-glass window. Inside is the first beautiful thing I've seen in the District 13 compound: a replication of a meadow, filled with real trees and flowering plants, and alive with hummingbirds. Beetee sits motionless in a wheelchair at the center of the meadow, watching a spring-green bird hover in midair as it sips nectar from a large orange blossom. His eyes follow the bird as it darts away, and he catches sight of us. He gives a friendly wave for us to join him inside.

The air's cool and breathable, not humid and muggy as I'd expected. From all sides comes the whir of tiny wings, which I used to confuse with the sound of insects in our woods at home. I have to wonder what sort of fluke allowed such a pleasing place to be built here.

Beetee still has the pallor of someone in convalescence, but behind those ill-fitting glasses, his eyes are alight with excitement. "Aren't they magnificent? Thirteen has been studying their aerodynamics here for years. Forward and backward flight, and speeds up to sixty miles per hour. If only I could build you wings like these, Katniss!"

"Doubt I could manage them, Beetee," Katniss laughs.

"Here one second, gone the next," he turns to me. "Can you bring a hummingbird down with an dagger, Sage?" he asks.

"I've never tried. Not much meat on them. Plus, they're too beautiful to kill," I answer, smiling as one whirs by, a swirl of colors.

"Yes, you're not one to kill for sport," he says. "I bet they'd be hard to, though."

"You could snare them maybe," Gale says. His face takes on that distant look it wears when he's working something out. "Take a net with a very fine mesh. Enclose an area and leave a mouth of a couple square feet. Bait the inside with nectar flowers. While they're feeding, snap the mouth shut. They'd fly away from the noise but only encounter the far side of the net."

"Would that work?" asks Beetee.

"I don't know. Just an idea," says Gale. "They might outsmart it."

"They might. But you're playing on their natural instincts to flee danger. Thinking like your prey ...that's where you find their vulnerabilities," says Beetee.

I remember something I don't like to think about. In preparation for the Quell, I saw a tape where Beetee, who was still a boy, connected two wires that electrocuted a pack of kids who were hunting him. The convulsing bodies, the grotesque expressions. Beetee, in the moments that led up to his victory in those long-ago Hunger Games, watched the others die. Not his fault. Only self-defense.

We were all acting only in self-defense....

Suddenly, I want to leave the hummingbird room before somebody starts setting up a snare. "Beetee, Plutarch said you had something for me."

Katniss nods, "Me too."

"Right. I do. Your new weapons." He presses a hand control on the arm of the chair and wheels out of the room. As we follow him through the twists and turns of Special Defense, he explains about the chair. "I can walk a little now. It's just that I tire so quickly. It's easier for me to get around this way."