Author Games: Beta

Introduction to Beta

Fireworks flash against the sky, illuminating the lone figure in the window. From here the music is little more than a low, insistent pulse, and the murmur of conversation is lost behind buildings. Several floors below his feet the important people are waiting. Tonight is a night to see and be seen, the old families and the new upstarts, all waiting to hang on to his every word and drink in every gesture. His stylist has done well - that is to say that she stood and did nothing, while he dressed himself - and he knows that when he opens the doors to the Grand Hall he will radiate power. They will want him; they will want to be him; they will want both. All before he has even had a chance to open his mouth. He has a speech prepared, of course. He has had a speech prepared since he first saw the Presidential Palace in front of him.

Gaius Nerodius Gore surveys the Capitol that is now his.

At least, he does until someone knocks at the door. He clears his throat to speak but the paneling slides open anyway. Half expecting an Avox with a drink, he raises a hand to dismiss them but drops it again; his visitors are two in number, both female, and both familiar.

"Aya-Grace. Maeve."

"Gai - President Gore."

Maeve inclines her head. "Nero."

He shoots her a look, which she meets with an even stare. There's no point correcting her. "Gaius will do, Aya-Grace," he says, bowing his head to them both in courtesy. "What brings you both here? You should be enjoying the party."

"Mixing with all the right people, giving them the approved 'gossip' on what it's like to work with you?" Aya-Grace grins. "You think we haven't been doing that already?"

"Those little pastry things are delicious," Maeve adds.

"Then we thought it might be more mysterious if we excused ourselves and disappeared."

He nods, approving. This is the kind of thinking that led him to pick Aya-Grace in the first place, not to mention her tenacity and determination. What she wants, she gets. And she doesn't appear to want too much, either. "Thank you. And now I trust you shall be escorting me to the Hall?"

"Yes."

"I'm left handed," Maeve says. "I'll walk on your left, that way if any shadowy assassins jump out of the walls I'm best placed to take them on for you."

Is it sarcasm? It can be hard to tell with the girl from Eight; he supposes that sarcasm is a Capitol thing and her three years in the Gamemakers' Academy may not have given her the same command of it as they have of other things. Politics, for example, which she has taken to with surprising speed. Imagination. Diplomacy, though she's more casual than he would have preferred. He cannot doubt its efficacy, though, and what she lacks in forward planning she makes up for in improvising.

"You're a Gamemaker, not a bodyguard," Aya-Grace sniffs. Tonight she is dressed in a creation that has to be her father's, all flowing pastel silks and elegant lines. Her hair, silvery-pink, coils around her neck and shoulders and her eyes flash as businesslike as ever. The effect is stunning. Good. He likes his Gamemakers to have style. "The media will never forgive you if you get into a fight at Gaius' inauguration."

"I don't start fights."

"You only cause them," he intervenes, before the conversation veers too far away. "We saw your Games, Maeve, if you remember." She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms in front of her chest but says nothing. "While I don't deny that attempting to kill me on the way to my inauguration speech does have a certain flair, it is too risky. Those who oppose me wouldn't do it. We can assume that I am safe for now."

"For now," Maeve muses. "You're going to tell them?"

"Yes. Not everything. But I will tell them."