The Fourth Annual Writer Games: Canon

District Five Male - Jove Tesla

Name: Jove "Trojan" Tesla

Age: Twelve

District: Five

Sex: Male

Physical Appearance: We're a family of late bloomers, his dad says. He looks younger than twelve and he's one of the shortest for his age. He's five inches below five foot although sometimes his hair curls when it's humid and gives him an extra inch. It's otherwise wavy. Somewhere he read that only three percent of the district has hazel eyes. He's in the three percent. His hair is dirty blond but he hopes it darkens more because he doesn't like the blond jokes. A girl once told him he looks like an elf. He agrees, but he thinks it's just his ears. They're slightly pointed, and stick out too much.

Personality: Smart but doesn't use it. Nice, but that's the only word people can use to describe him. He's too quiet, and doesn't add enough to conversations. It's not intentional. Most things are hard to explain, hard to articulate. He wants to say a lot but never knows where to start because all the words he wants to say would come out wrong. He tries to talk but they're just rambles. He's not charismatic like his father. He's well-meaning and courageous but uses that courage recklessly. His precept shows this, but he's become more self-aware. He wants to be liked but maybe he tries too hard to be impressive. Maybe he thinks too much and not enough at the same time. He doesn't know. He likes computers more. They're easier to figure out than people.

Background: The boy wants to impress his "friends" on a school field trip. They visit the power plant like every age eleven kid. I can crash the system, he says, and his friend says, You're lying. Security is not as strict as one might expect. Pierre Tesla brings Jove Tesla to work with him every Thursday morning. Melitta Tesla works early that day and cannot bring Jove to school. On Thursdays, Jove talks to the security guards while his father troubleshoots the system and scans for errors.

The friend tells him to crash the system. Go into the control room, prove himself.

He sneaks away from the group. The security guards know him, and they think he's looking for his father. He gets into the control room. The operators are at lunch and he doesn't want his classmates to think he's a liar. He types in a passcode.

Jove is good with computers. He's good with technology, always has been. He should've been born in District Three but he wasn't, he's from Five. If he worked with technology more, he'd be accomplished. But he's District Five and District Five is power, not technology. He crashes the electrical system at the power plant.

The blackout lasts for two minutes. Security guards run in with an operator and they reboot the system and try to override the new commands. The Capitol notices and peacekeepers get involved. A mistake that wouldn't have been made had not every employee been incompetent, says a Capitol official. Employees working that day are punished, as well as his teacher, Ms. Marie. The peacekeepers make an example out of Jove and nobody talks about what happened. It's best kept hush.

They call him Trojan and nobody calls him Jove anymore, and he doesn't know why they stopped using his name. He goes to school each day and then straight home to his recently demoted father and now silent mother.

He doesn't know why he did what he did. It was stupid, he says.

Reaped or Volunteered? Reaped

Weapon of Choice: A good question, but he's not skilled with weaponry. He read that only .04 percent of tributes under fourteen have made it to the top ten. He could say his wits but that's a stretch. Does the answer matter?

Token: For his twelfth birthday, his father gave him a pin. It's shaped like a lightning bolt.