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“Act friendly. Be confident. Show that we’re strong.”
Luzu repeats the instructions under his breath as he arrives at the entrance of the Allegiance Ball. The building is massive– a looming edifice of cement and steel constructed in such a way that he wonders if the architect’s intent was not to impress the viewer, but to disappear completely and instead give the impression that the building had been spit out from the jowls of the government itself.
“Rub shoulders, but don’t let the residue stain.”
He is wearing a simple suit and tie, and although his garb was fussed over for days on end, the effort is hardly commendable. It is crisp and straight and utterly traditional.
At the entrance, he fiddles through his breast pocket for the ornate invitation card and watches in a sort of disgusted admiration as the security guard implodes into little multicolored marbles of light upon receiving it.
As gruesome as it is, he is impressed. Rubius would have loved it if he were allowed to attend.
“Remember, it’s all politics. You’re not making any real friends there.”
The elevator doors slide open and he steps into a room filled with what seems to be a few hundred people, all dressed in what looks like the aftermath of a rainbow’s brutal murder. Near to his right stand a group of Senators; farther beyond he sees a collection of the world’s ambassadors. There are more strangers than familiar faces here.
He takes a deep breath, clenches his fists and relaxes them. This is his country’s introduction to the modern world. He cannot screw this up.
Luzu starts making his way through the crowd, and soon enough is approached by a Panem representative. She is a short woman with blinding white hair and thick blue eyelashes that swoop and curl rigidly over her eyes.
“Where are you from?” she chirps in a shrill voice.
Upon his response, the Senator tilts her head to the side.
“New...Spain?” she says slowly, as if the words are trying fruitlessly to escape her painted lips.
Luzu holds back a grimace. It’s bad etiquette to use, much less name, something after an institution that was destroyed by the disasters. He himself had argued with Samuel for a new title, one that inspired more confidence in the future rather than dwelling on past failings.
But Samuel had wanted to prove something when he renamed the country- he’d said that they could still rebuild, and that they didn’t have to erase their history, as tragic as it was. The reasoning certainly hadn’t been enough for Rubius, and it feels almost overzealous now among the world’s new elite.
The disturbing idea suddenly occurs to Luzu that they might even take offense to it.
“It’s just temporary,” he says quickly, hoping that he appears at least somewhat assured.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure out a real name eventually!” She smiles graciously and pats his arm a few times in a pitying manner.
Luzu forces a smile, and the conversation digresses smoothly. When they part, he can see the woman still repeating the words “New” and then “Spain” and chuckling secretly to herself.
After small talk and pleasantries with a few other Senators and some familiar ambassadors, the monotonous drivel soon drives him to the back of the room, where there hopefully won’t be as much activity.
He is just attempting to cut through the crowd when he catches a glimpse of a face. It is oddly familiar, like a line from a book read years ago, and Luzu feels himself stop in his path to try to discern who it is. He’s hit with the memory of a pamphlet held tightly in Samuel’s hands.
‘TO ALL OF PANEM’S FELLOW NATIONS, TUNE IN ON FRIDAY TO ENJOY THE HUNGER GAMES’ the pamphlet had read. The man’s face was plastered on the background.
This is Pyrocynical, victor of the 50th Hunger Games and current Presenter.
A chill runs through Luzu’s body. He knows the gruesome conditions of the Games, knows that it’s the government that forces children to participate, and yet the sight of this man unnerves him.
“Rub shoulders, but don’t let the residue stain,”
Guilt rushes through him as he realizes he would rather rub shoulders with the Senators than this silver-haired man. Still, he walks toward him, intent on doing the bare minimum of establishing his presence to the Capitol’s second most beloved public figure, only after the president, before leaving.
“Remember, it’s all politics.”
As he makes his way forward, Luzu imagines the type of person he is preparing to meet. He must be proud, he decides. Vicious and arrogant, too. The Capitol chose him as one of their representatives, after all.
As Pyro turns to look at him, he expects to see a perfect image of illustrious Panem reflected on his face.
What he sees instead is –and it takes a moment to process– what seems like a smile. But there is something critically wrong.
It is appeasing, confident, and so fake that Luzu almost feels the need to apologize. Sure, the celebrity’s image is exaggerated on television and pamphlets, but he’s never met a real person whose mask is so opaque.
“How are you? I don’t think I’ve met you before.”
Luzu is suddenly reminded of the picture books he read as a child, with solid blue lakes in perfect ovals and neon green grass sticking up in geometric spikes, the perfect circle of a Sun casting neither glow nor shadow upon them.
This is a man who has fought and killed others to be where he is now, so if he presents himself like this then it is surely a costume.
“I’m Pyro, though you may already know that as a consequence of, well, being here at all.” Another laugh in that cardboard voice.
“Where are you from?”
Luzu considers him. He could lie to him and make up a nonexistent kingdom with a name that is modern and elegant. It would be easy enough, and then he wouldn’t have to deal with the consequence of a truthful response.
But there’s something about this cartoon come-to-life that grates on his nerves.
So often Samuel and Rubius are suggested to take a step in the direction led by Panem and finally pull New Spain into the new age. “Old-fashioned” and “derelict” the economists call their attempts at democracy. And so often Luzu nods quietly along as Samuel fold his arms in that steadfast way of his and give an impassioned speech about the gruesome Games and the inhumanity of the Capitol.
Now he’s finally meeting the bloodthirsty creatures of Panem, and he’s discovered that this victor, this should-be-victim, is the most inhuman of them all. And try as he might, he just can’t believe it.
There must be someone under this costume, people beneath Panem’s perfect exterior, laborers hidden by the Capitol’s glittering decadence. The Allegiance Ball was built by an architect after all, and Luzu finds himself wondering who they are.
“New Spain,” he hears himself say, and it is a challenge.
He watches Pyro’s eyes and searches for some indication of effect, for some acknowledgement of his own rebellion.
But he is met only with an easy smile and a question about the weather in this ‘New Spain’. The weather.
And suddenly nothing is more important to Luzu than finding out who Pyrocynical really is, this man of cement and steel –if that smile holds any truth at all, or if it is all as rotten as Samuel has always said.
Without thinking, he looks straight into the victor’s eyes and says:
“Our weather’s not great, but it must be better than that of the arena, right?”
And he watches Pyro’s eyes turn to ice.
From then on, Luzu is the ambassador of Karmaland– a small country across the sea that is peaceful and quaint and hopefully never anything more than that.
He no longer wonders where the architect of the Ball is anymore either. He can feel them under his feet every time he returns to Panem. They are beneath the building, where the soil meets the bottom floor, the weight of their own creation pulverizing their bones into grains of dust.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
And Luzu wishes he could pretend that Panem is a self-spawned creature of cement and steel, cold and bright and clean of any trace of what he saw that day in Pyrocynical.
But hidden below, there is an architect too, and he is long, long gone.