recruitment /kelsier

"carnage on my tongue
petal-veined devourer
I will bend and break the world"

He treats the request like what it appears to be at first, a joke, and ignores it. It sits on his desk, a thick packet all dressed up in white linen, and it languishes there for three days. Then a second envelope arrives, this one marked ‘urgent’ in blood red.

He runs a fingertip over the council’s sigil, his mind strangely blank as his hands read the emblem. He’s already opened it and skimmed through the letter inside twice. He doesn’t know what to do with it though, they can’t be serious.

Half past ten, the phone rings.

The amount of people who have his number can be counted on a leper’s hand. When he picks his landline up off the cradle and holds it to his ear, he can tell just by the sound of the world on the other end who it is.

”Claire,” he says.

“Are you going to answer them?”

“What, is someone holding a knife to your throat?” Kel asks.

She laughs, his agent always does at his stupid little quips, but it’s clipped and tired. Sometimes it’s hard to know whether she actually finds Kel funny or if she’s just paid to put up with him. He’s got nothing to measure her reaction against.

He can hear the sound of an alarm somewhere in the background, the quiet shuffling of the passing of keys from one hand to the other, “They’re expecting a call, they want to know why you haven’t yet.”

He waits for her to go on, to come to the conclusion that they both know is waiting for them, but she doesn’t. Kelsier sighs, “You know I don’t-“

“And you need to say yes-”

“Claire, I don’t go outside,” he says.

“Yes,” she says quickly, “I know”

“Yes,” he says, “So it’s impossi-“

“Kelsier,” she says, “Nobody says no, not to them.”

“I do.”

“Kel,” she pleads softly.

“Claire, it could kill me.”

“You’d be lucky if that's all-”

He hangs up on her. It's too late though, she already said it.

Kel knows the way that the rest of the Capitol looks at him. He’s felt the cold, many-eyed stare of Panem on the back of his neck for most of his life. They see a man who hides in his manor, alone at the edge of their world but they don’t see the curse that keeps him there, or the debilitating fear that comes with it.

Most people have no idea what they’re talking about when they talk about death. But he’s walked the paths that run alongside it enough times to know the pain of it. Once or twice he’s slipped down the bank, far enough to have felt the gradual unravelling of that hurt into nothing at all.

He’s thought enough times of what it would feel like to cease to be. When the pain becomes enough, when he’s weak as a flickering candle, that’s when he’s wished for it. It's when he's wanted to die.

But he wouldn’t be lucky, he wouldn’t be anything anymore, he’d be nothing.

The phone starts ringing again as he steps out into the solarium but Kel ignores it in favour of the rain falling on the glass above his head. Claire's right in a way, he knows that, it doesn't make things any easier.

He turns and leans his shoulder against the glass, hand rooting around in his pocket for the sanitiser he always carries. The phone starts ringing again but he still doesn't move to answer it. For a moment, it's as if he's pinned there against the wall of his gilded cage.

There used to be afternoons like this all the time. He used to spend hours stuck on the same bit of tiling or in the corner of a room, just waiting for the day to end, or for something to happen, for the phone to ring- anything. Then his doctors diagnosed him with depression and insisted on regular exercise.

Lo and behold, it worked. That and the pills.

Kel sighs as the ringing starts again and knocks his head back gently against the glass. He's afraid to think about it even, the envelope still sitting on his desk and the topic of the conversation that Claire and him were so careful to dance around.

But as the last ring begins, he quickly slips back into the library to answer the phone. He's still so afraid but so is Claire and in the end he doesn't want to be afraid alone this time.

"Even if I take the job, if I get sick I'll be useless to them," he says, "So what's their plan, Claire?"

There's a stagnant pause on the other end of the line. Then he can hear a steady, rhythmic tapping like nails against a countertop, the rustling of folds of fabric smoothing out, then the steady click of leather heels against hardwood.

"Kelsier, I'm so glad you asked," a silken voice finally says, "Your health and safety is a top priority for us."

Dread crawls down his back, touching down feather-light with all its many legs. Kelsier presses his back up against a bookcase, then, "You're not Claire," he says after a beat, "How'd you get this number?"

"We have every number, dear boy," the voice practically purrs.

"You're on the council."

"Oh yes," she says, "You really are a smart one, aren't you?" Then she laughs lightly but this woman's laugh is nothing like Claire's, it rings out almost methodically, as if her body is simply performing a line of code. "Blessing Fenwick, pleased to be speaking with you, Kelsier."

A Fenwick. He should have known by the tone of her voice, sweet like honey but constantly toeing the line between politeness and a condescending honesty.

"Great, I respectfully decline your offer," Kel says.

"No," Blessing says politely.

"I have a health condition," Kelsier says gently, as if breaking bad news to a small child, "I can't- I don't go outside."

"That's precisely why I'm calling," Blessing says, "We've already made the necessary arrangements to keep you safe and healthy, you won't ever have to leave your home."

"Explain," he says flatly.

"By this afternoon, a package will arrive at your door. Inside is a neurotransmitter and headset that has been developed by nervalink specifically for this occasion," she says, "We've outfitted every possible angle in the training centre with receivers to project a solid version of yourself within."

"But how will I-"

"The headset, darling, put it on and it will feel as if you're really there," Blessing says, "Well, of course you can't physically touch anything-"

"If I can't touch things-"

"All systems have been programmed to follow your order by voice alone."

Kelsier says nothing for a moment. His mind races, searching for another viable excuse, anything to get him out of the corner he's been backed into. "Trust me, I'm not Gamemaker material, Blessing," he says, "I write about death often, but I'm no killer."

"But Kelsier, that's precisely why we want you, we don't need a killer," Blessing says, "We have those already, no, we need someone to reignite Panem's interest in the games. We need a storyteller, for that we need the best in their craft and really who better than you?"

Kelsier winces slightly. Maybe he doesn't have a lot of practice dealing with other people but he isn't a child either. He knows an empty compliment when he hears one and he can tell that all she did was aim right for his ego. A speech like that may have worked on his mother but for Kel, it's meaningless. There will always be someone better than him.

"I don't have a real choice, do I?" he asks bitterly.

For a moment, she's quiet. Then slowly, the rhythmic tapping begins again on the other end of the line.

"There's always a choice, but there's always a consequence too," she says, "Do you think you can bear the weight of yours?"

Kel says nothing for a long moment.

"The list of people in your life is not very long," she says softly.

He squeezes his eyes shut, so tight that spots of colour dance behind his eyes and his hand holds the phone like a vice. He isn't like the people he writes about in his books, he isn't all that brave and he's no hero either. There's a ringing sound in his ears, a hundred camera shutters going off at once. Better them than me, he thinks for one brief, selfish moment, I'm alone in here anyway.

But then he opens his eyes and he's staring across the room at another shelf of books, all lined with leather. He can feel how solid the ground is through the soles of his shoes and the warning in Blessing's words lays heavy over him. It's easy enough to translate, he's going to be a killer either way.

"I'll do it," he whispers.

"Then I'll be the first to congratulate you Gamemaker Kelsier," Blessing says, "Welcome to the Ninety-Eighth games."