Marcus's War
Far away in a fortress, hidden beneath a ruined city, an army prepared for another war. Some of its soldiers were already fighting in the districts and even the Capitol in a secret war of spies and saboteurs. One of District 13's star spies was Marcus Lef, who was home for a while recovering from his last mission.
Marcus sat at a desk reading a seemingly endless list of reports. He had one leg in a cast propped up on another chair. Marcus looked every bit a member of a ruling class, from his bright blue eyes, noble sharp nose, and dark widow's peak to his hollow cheeks. He came by his looks, honestly: his mother had been a Lucien, one of the founding families of Panem. The Luciens had previous presidents in their line, but when they opposed the rise of Snow they doomed themselves. Marcus' mother and father somehow managed to stay alive long enough to get him to adulthood in the Capitol. When they were finally arrested he had to escape to District 13. District 13 depended on exiles like him for their spying, people who knew how to fit in with a crowd in the Capitol and knew important people who might help undermine the government.
The office he worked in was dimly lit. It had nine empty dull gray desks along with the ones Marcus worked at. The room had no windows, the same as all the other rooms in District 13. It was very quiet and cold in the office; Marcus hated every inch of the room and every minute he was in it, but he was a good soldier and never complained.
Now he was playing analyst and going through all the field reports, looking for patterns and clues, anything useful others had missed when they read the reports. It was a long and boring job; ninety-eight percent of everything he read led nowhere, but he was okay with it, if his leg would just stop itching. He had been working for thirteen hours, determined that he would find something the others had missed, but so far nothing.
On his desk was a group picture of his graduation class from the District 13 intelligence school. Marcus was in the front row, right in the center, because he was first in the class. In the picture, the tall, blonde beauty Sarah, the second in class, was on his left—she had stolen every boy's heart in the school, but jumped out a window to avoid being captured six months after graduation. On Marcus's right was the class third, Julius, the greatest wit Marcus had ever known; he would have been first in class if he could've stopped making fun of the teachers; Peacekeepers blew his brains out two years ago. Half of all the people in the picture, and most of the people he considered friends, were dead. The Capitol was just getting too good at finding agents. If it wasn't for a jump from a moving train, and the breaking of his leg, he would have already been dead, too.
Marcus's leg itched—it itched something terrible. He was trying to get a pencil down the side of the cast when he lost his grip. Now he had to find a way to get the pencil out!
At some point while trying to dig out the pencil, he got the feeling he was being watched; he looked up to see the huge dog-faced Major Clemens looking down at him, perplexed. Major Clemens looked angry, but then again, he always looked angry.
"I have some work for you. You are a history buff, right?" Major Clemens said with a sneer.
As he tried to stand up and salute, Marcus said, "Yes, sir, I have a Master's in history." His plan was always to be a history professor, which is why he graduated from the Capitol University years earlier than was supposed to be possible. Life never happens like you think it will.
By this time most majors would have his butt in a sling, but he knew Major Clemens, and he didn't care much for formalities if you could get the job done.
"What do you know about the war at the end of the world?" Clemens said as he bent over and pulled the pencil out of Marcus's cast, giving it back with a frown. Marcus was puzzled by the reference to that ancient—nearly mythical—war that destroyed the old world with all its peoples and wonders.
Good, he must have something better than paperwork for me, Marcus thought before saying, "My thesis was on the battle for Atlanta."
"At ease," the major said as he pushed Marcus back into his chair. "Our agents in the Capitol just filed a report saying that some Capitol doctor has reinvented a monster from the old world."
"A monster?" Marcus stared, confused at the strange look on the major's face.
"I hope this is nothing, but I want you to run it down." His voice said much more than his words: he was scared of something, but what?
"What kind of monster?" Marcus asked. "One of Snow's mutants? What did he do now—cross a lion and a viper, or something like that?"
"No, we are talking about what my grandmother used to scare kids to bed with. It may not be their official name, but she called them banshees. God help us."
The cold of the room filled Marcus, and he shivered.
ns 18.68.41.175da2
