The Running Games

2.

He had always thought that President Janson should be viewed in front of white pillars that were hung with oversized flags. It was almost jarring to see him surrounded by such ordinary objects. What could he be doing here?

Perhaps it was the newness of the house of the shock of seeing him or the mutual understanding that he could have Thomas killed at any second that made him feel like an intruder in his own home. He doesn't welcome him or offer him a chair, he doesn't say anything. In fact, he treated him as if he were a real snake, the venomous kind. He stood motionless, his eyes locked on him, considering his plans of retreat.

"I think that we can make this whole situation a lot easier if we agree not to lie to each other." He said. "What do you think?" He thought that his tongue was frozen and his speech would be impossible, so he surprised himself when he answered in a steady voice. "Yes, I think that would save some time."

President Janson smiled for the first time and he noticed his lips. He was expecting snake lips, which is to say none, but his were overly full, the skin was stretched too tight. He wondered briefly if his mouth had been altered to look more appealing. If so it was a waste of money.

"My advisors were concerned that you would be difficult, but you're not planning on being difficult, are you?" he asked.

"No." Thomas answered.

"That's what I told them. I said any boy who would go to such lengths at preserving his own life isn't going to be interested in throwing it away with both hands. Then there was his family to think of. His mother, sister, and all of those...cousins." he could tell by the way he lingers on the word cousins that he knows that he and Teresa did not share a family tree. Maybe it was better that way, he didn't do well with ambiguous threats and he would much rather know the score.

"Let's sit." President Janson took a seat at the large desk of polished wood where Kay did her homework and his mother did her budgets.

"I have a problem, Mr. Everdeen." He said. "And it started the moment that you pulled out those berries in the arena." That was the exact moment when Thomas realized that the Gamemakers would have had to choose between having no victor, or two.

"If the head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, had any brains, he would have blown you to dust right then. But he had an unfortunate sentimental streak. So here you are. Can you guess where he is?" he asked. Thomas nodded, because by the way he said it, it was clear that Seneca Crane had been executed. The smell of roses and blood had only grown stronger now that only the desk sat between them. There was a rose in President Janson's lapel which suggested the source of the flower perfume, but it must have been genetically enhanced, because no real rose smelled like that. As for the blood...he didn't know.

"After that, there was nothing to do but let you play out your little scenario. And you were pretty good too, with your love induced schoolboy bit. The people in the Capitol were quite convinced. Unfortunately, not everyone in the districts fell for your act." he said. Thomas's face must have registered some kind of bewilderment, because he addressed it.

"Now, you wouldn't know this of course. You have no access to information about the mood in other districts. In several of them, however, people viewed your little trick as an act of defiance, not an act of love. And if a boy from District 12 of all places can defy the Capitol and walk away unharmed, what is to stop them from doing the same? What is to prevent, say, an uprising?" It took a moment for his last sentence to sink in for Thomas. Then the full weight of it hit him.

"There have been uprisings?" he asked, both chilled and elated by the possibility.

"Not yet, but they will follow if the course of things doesn't change. And the uprisings have been known to lead to revolution." President Janson rubbed a spot over his eyebrow, the very spot where he had gotten headaches himself. "Do you have any idea what that would mean? How many people would die? What conditions those left would face? Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse."