Are you, are you, coming to the tree?

[etcircenses]

Who| All those on the liberation mission and all those being made to fight against them.
What| The liberation of District 9.
Where| District 9
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| War, violence, death. Please warn for more in headers.

By now, even the most remote and isolated Districts are well aware of the chaos ravaging Panem. District Nine, golden with wheat and blinding with its expansive blue horizon, is quiet, and yet nothing about it feels safe; the stillness is less like a serene oasis than like tall grass that cannot help but contain lions prowling. An air raid siren was going off an hour ago at the sight of hovercrafts, driving everyone inside. No one is outside working the fields or traveling the dirt roads to the hub of the District, which sits in the center like a spider in its web or the axel of a wheel. Displaced Capitolite and Districter both are hunkered down within the corrugated-metal buildings.

The air is hot, and once outside the hovercrafts one finds that what was previously mistaken for silence is in fact the monotonous hum and whine of insects, too continuous and amorphous to really qualify as actual sound but certainly not the absence of it. The sun glares down from a cloudless sky. The earth was tilled until an hour ago, and many of the fields are only partially plowed. Some still have farm equipment left out. Mills and water towers sit awkwardly at the edge of the fields like sentinels or oversized dominos.

The crops stretch out to the horizon, ranging from waist-height to taller than the average full-grown man, depending on the breed. The sheer variety is astonishing, the quality even moreso; ears of corn are as large as toddlers and the wheat is a flawless golden color, thanks to Capitol technology and genetic modification. There are no pests, as most of the plants have a natural pesticide that is fatal upon ingestion and only removable with sprays available to importers to the Capitol, to prevent theft by the hungry employees.

There are crop circles, many in the Capitol’s logo and a few stamped with the insignias of local Capitol-run businesses. It does not reflect the sentiments of the natives but rather an attempt by those clinging to their echelons to enforce a mindset in vain. The propaganda has largely been repelled from the souls of the people here like bugs to a windshield. Only the rarest bit of graffiti may be spotted saying "All is not lost" and "you are weak" both of which have clear attempts to be scrubbed away.

The war continues, and in the back of everyone's mind is a familiar phrase; may the odds be ever in your favor.

Comments

[metalicarus]

The structures crumble with their supports in shambles and Jet aims for large storehouse next, diving down from his height to smash into and through the roof. Cracks and bursts of dust from shattered wood and rock are the only signs from the outside of the destruction within. Jet busts through the door and out to the street, perching on top of the eaves of City Hall as the disaster unfolds. A handful of people rush out of the building from either end, but clearly not all before the structure gives out and begins it's inevitable crumble, crushing supplies and citizens in it's path.

[silberfuchs]

There's absolutely no acknowledgement of Albert's presence, let alone if Jet heard him, and Jet must have heard him. Albert knows his husband's enhancements, knows he could hear a field mouse in this war zone if he cared to find it. Something else is going on, and a feeling sinks to the pit of Albert's stomach at the thought of what the Capitol could have done, the German cyborg feeling sick and tasting bile as he makes his way through the fleeing throngs, a fish against the current.

Jet lands on the somehow still intact state building, looming like a bird of ill omen, a rook in brilliant white instead of midnight black. He surveys the destruction he's wrought with an impassive expression. Not uncaring so much as simply nothing, no intent behind those blue eyes, no character.

What have they done to you? Albert's heart screams and keeps on screaming but his head has to ignore his own distress, has to think then act before this gets worse. Before Jet does something more direct than breaking down buildings.

He has to shoot his husband down.

He can recover him then, Albert reasons. Drag him back to Thirteen and raise hell until something is done to help him, until he has his husband back. Even if he has to take Jet back in pieces, he'll put them all right again, shard by shard. He knows where each and every one fits and he owes the man who'd done the same for him no less, the man he loves no less.

But it still hurts to line up the shot. Hurts to drop to one knee in the middle of the street as the last of the civilians run terrified past him, not sparing a second glance for the man of metal kneeling in the heart of a war zone. It sears worse than anything he's ever felt to pull the safety from the launcher in his knee, to tick off the wind resistance and angles in his HUD. To force himself to think fire when he can see in his mind's eye Jet falling from the atmosphere, hugging Joe tightly to himself, as so much stardust, lying on the cold floor of the museum as his life drains from him, staying by Albert's side as they're slowly enveloped by the ocean, flayed, gouged, eaten alive.

Albert screams.

The missile fires.

[metalicarus]

His eyes are open, but he doesn't see. He doesn't see the man who stops, but those blue eyes find him all the same, drawn by the opposite movement. There's no recognition, no flash of Jet Link, merely an empty presence wearing his face. His mission isn't done. His voice. Buildings. Anger. Nothing. Nothing, he's a means to the end.

With a small but telling whine of the thrusters powering up, Jet burst off the roof of the building and into the air, unaware of the targeting system locked onto him, unaware at least until he hears it and then something stirs. Something sad, if he could have identified the emotion in that split second. It felt like loss.

And then he felt nothing.

The missile burst on contact, shredding through his torso and tearing his flight system, sending the mangled flyer to the street below in a broken heap.

[silberfuchs]

He's never felt so terrible to make the perfect shot, but Albert's face doesn't show how the missile tears through him too. He's a expressionless mask as he rises and bolts towards the crash site, legs and arms pumping.

Three feet from ground zero and Albert comes to a halt with a swallow, memories of times - too many times - past when Jet's been scattered like this on the ground, broken in mechanical pieces. It doesn't look as bad now, he's still mostly in one piece, but it feels worse. It feels a trillion times worse for Albert having been the architect of this fate.

He's not moving.

Albert moves closer, his face still lacking in emotion but his hands are shaking.

[culturalappropriation]

There is one thing they didn't have to program into Punchy, because it was always a part of him: Punchy runs towards the explosions, instead of away. That's what happens now when he sees the missile hit Jet, knock him from the sky like a faulty firework. Punchy runs towards the crash site, laden with a rifle and a handgun and a knife and all that soldier's equipment that only seems able to weigh him down.

They're experimenting with a new method of controlling Avoxes and former Avoxes, an ear piece through which Punchy receives directions from afar. The controller can't see what he does, but she gets her intelligence in other ways, usually slightly delayed. When Punchy starts moving, she pulls up what information she can get of what he might be looking at. She doesn't know it's Albert, but Punchy does, and he pulls to a stop. "Aim your gun at anything still alive", his controller says. Punchy does, standing out against the tall grass, barrel pointed at Albert's chest. His heart crawls up to the back of his mouth.

If she tells him to fire, to shoot Albert would be simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult thing in the world. The eyes that meet Albert's are scared and vacant, hollow and ghostly as an abandoned mining town.

"Bring him in as a hostage," the controller says. Punchy takes a deep breath.

"I gotta bring you in."

[silberfuchs]

Silence. For a long time, it's just silence. Albert looking at the heap of cybernetics that was once a person that was once his heart and he says nothing, does nothing. Not a single movement for an eternal moment. If he even heard Punchy is a mystery in that interminable but ultimately short frame of time.

"Jet too."

He doesn't look at Punchy, but doesn't resist either. He just forms that small sentence, more a statement of fact than a suggestion or question or command. He'll go. He won't fight Punchy because he'd be forced to kill him too, won't leave Jet in a pile on the battlefield, and so that's the only answer.

[culturalappropriation]

Punchy doesn't answer immediately, waits for the command in his ear to confirm that they're both supposed to be brought in, but every cell of him wants to obey Albert's request. Not because it's a request, not because of his programming, but because he knows that Albert needs Jet for his peace of mind, to be his tether to the important things that the world still has. The same way Punchy needs Joan, needs the idea of her back in District Thirteen living without him. Maybe even moreso.

And then he gets the order and those cells seem to go slack a little, the relief making them watery. He nods and gestures with the rifle before turning it back on Albert.

"I don't wanna cap you," he says, meaning it a hundred ways. "Come quiet and this'll be breezy."

[silberfuchs]

Albert says nothing, only nods as he steps forward to gingerly, carefully, so carefully lift Jet's body from the small depression he's made in the ground. Small shards are left there, bits of plastics and metal shorn off in the explosion or subsequent impact. Albert cradles Jet's body, something precious he can't let go of, and then turns back to his captor and nods again.

He'll come quietly, now. So long as he can bring Jet back, can see him alive again after, he'll come quietly.

/wrap?

[culturalappropriation]

Punchy brings up the rear, gun still aimed at the back of Albert's head as the man carries his lover to the Capitol's breast. Every second that passes, Punchy feels his heart lurching and trying to stop, trying to give out from protest at the potential future he sees. He knows it would be so easy for his controller to give him an order, for him to shoot by reflex to the command.

He feels it all, this maybe-future and the kickback of every shot he took at the range under Albert's tutelage, under Joan's, finally under his own. He feels them so strongly that for a moment he thinks he's actually fired.

But he hasn't, and the trio continues forth, back to captivity.