98th Reaping [District Three]

The live wire sparks; kids cry out with their hearts splattered across the metaphorical ground.

It's all the same to him. The sparks catching to flame leading to the electrical hum along his fingertips. Grounded to the floor as electricity rushes with a current through his skin. A dangerous system of wires and water; too many fail safes firing off one by one. The voice in his throat caught on the inner webbings of too many electrical shocks firing through his neurons. "Two feet planted. The voltage is too high, give me a minute." Prodigy or not, Kingston Césaire shouldn't be here. Most days he's stuck reworking wires, undoing coding mistakes, or on the best of days, actually building mechanisms, but today he's found himself in the underground wirings of one of Three's main power sources. The intern would have to do is all they always said, but now he's feeling the current of electricity hum across his nerves. Any wrong step and the other four people with him can be electrocuted in an instant.

A simple task to go ensure the wiring to Turing's Factories were stable, but everything's already gone wrong. Moments like these were his least favorite. Sweat dripping along the brow, his heart trapped beneath the confines of his collar; a perfect pristine outfit for the day at hand. Unfortunately, he still was one of the most promising potentials in Three. A brain firing at milliseconds with ones and zeroes in her grasp. The small handheld tablet quickly swiping through signatures, databases, and passwords. If he was going to be sent to ensure a wire's line is secure, he wasn't going empty fucking handed. Was it legal? Not really, but that wasn't a now problem.

Turing Systems went offline in a second. The live wire's sparks settle down as the damp tunnel they're in settles. Gently, his voice settles in the silence. "Shuffle forward, we could still be charged. This," Gesturing to the tablet in hand, he looks to the four other teenage interns. "Stays between us. Let's get this over with." Between all five of them, Kingston could feel the shift in the air start to relieve. A simple enough resettling of wires and burning away at the copper to ensure the connection is redone. Smaller statures able to get between the edges where most of the adults seem to be unable to reach to. The smiles return as the electricity hums. A thumb releasing the code keeping Turing Systems out of commission, finally resettling the power grid to normalcy.

Minutes pass before they reach the ladder leading them back to Sparks Inc. The heaving of their supplies finally being let up as each of them settle back into the office. No Keepers like the boss man said; a simple enough solution to a nightmare situation of paperwork. Kingston's tired already. It's not enough to almost be electrocuted to death and have to still go about the day as if it could be normal. The coding doesn't line up; too many zeroes within the binary of their systems.

Even before all of this, Gramps had only teared up when he'd seen him in the collared shirt with the jacket thrown over his shoulder, knowing damn well it was going to be too hot with his first task of the day. What use was a tech savvy kid? Every time his mother seemed to ask him whenever he'd head out too early in the morning. The time when the sun would loom over the sky burning and burning. Almost too much like the spark of a heart's beat. But, Ma had always given him the sweetest of kisses on the cheek as if he couldn't forget the embarrassment lingering there. "Never waste your potential, baby." A groan like always splayed out before the table; a solidified piece of the familial care they share, except he's not like the usual kid.

Azon. His gramps always commented about the boy who was written out almost a century ago now. Too alike in mind; too alike in hobbies. Gramps swears up and down that Azon was apart of him. Blessed by his ancestor of sorts with the excess potential in his mind. No one really sits down and thinks about how it's actually just him. Code seems to appear before his fingers as his mind screws up and up and up with hypothetical solutions and enough statistical analysis to make any other kid freak the fuck out. Binary seemingly a little too simple for him. Wires being crossed at too young of an age. Gramps swore he carried the legacy.

Legacy.

Who has any use for the concept.

Hard proof is all that mattered in Panem. Blood type A+ sprinkled onto a paper; a signifier that he's mostly human. The name of his father's choosing read before him as a Keeper directs him towards the crowds of other seventeen year olds. Statistically, Kingston Césaire was only written upon twelve slips of papers; enough tesserae for the one bad year when he was thirteen. The odds weren't really meant to be calculated, but the idea was enough to pass time. With the numbers of kids in the crowd and the amount of tesserae that's pulled out for all of them, he knew the only way his name would ever be picked is if there was an outlier. Especially since the change with Talon's victorhood, the odds were even slimmer than before. Who would bet on an outlier? No one bets on the longshot.

Just like a live wire, Kingston carries his shoulders higher, his eyes steady as he stares forward. Some of the other kids seemingly starting to act more like the children they'd never been allowed to be. In panem, kids don't get to be kids. Instead, they're only another population outside of the adults who keep the place running. Too young to be grown up, but too old to be children anymore. Circuitry, complex codes, mathematical equations, and so many other different lines of works were ahead of them and the only way to survive in Three was to get ahead of the curve.

The reaping was always the same. An escort with too many capitolite fashion statements, the video of Panem that plays as if there's truly a heavenly place to exist in the world, and of course, the low thrum of music settling in before the two victors of three sit before them all. The escort, too old to be considered fashionable now, settling into the reaping. Children. As if the word could even settling into their minds; it's redundant to be 98 years into a world where children continue to serve as the punishment for something only ancient ancestors could have done.

Kids don't get to be kids in Panem.

Perhaps that's how reality's always been more of a concept of ones and zeroes before Kingston.

A spark simmers; electricity humming through his fingers.

"Kingston Césaire"

The outliers always have existed.

No one could've prepared him to be one of them. The first thing he feels is the thrum of electricity in his veins; almost searing the shock through his system until his eyes stare dead ahead. Breath on the tip of his tongue, he can feel the heat of eyes striking his face with the need to read him. Enough time to settle into the lines and start firing his own zeroes and ones to keep his eyes steady and not wandering across the crowds. Somewhere, he can hear his ma crying, but there's no reaction. Kingston wasn't just some kid. He was more than just a random kid in the crowd; no could match his potential. It's what his family always said.

From somewhere else, he can hear Gramps. "No. Not him, Azon." As if their ancestors could stop this statistical anomaly. Prayers only work for people who have belief. As the fingertips of the keepers who've come wrap around his side, Kingston can only walk with a steady gaze forward. Tears weren't meant for intelligent boys. It's what his boss always said. Cry once and it'll mean the end of whatever potential could be had. There's gasps. People stare with open eyes. Kingston Césaire could feel the air rising; people couldn't tell if he was important or just another kid lost. Would the people see him as a lost cause? He couldn't have that. Not when there was still a number of possibilities before him still.

"Hello. I'm Kingston Césaire." The words taste of copper on his tongue. "Don't waste your potential."

The soft upturn of a smile pulls on his lips. Might as well leave a fragment of a lesson behind.

Potential wasted.

The last thought pours through his brain as he moves off the stage.

May the best outlier win.