hunger games weapons genius

The first breach wasn't loud.

It came as a flicker—barely a heartbeat—on the control room monitors.

Then the lights dimmed.

Just for a moment.

And when they returned, the doors were open.

Not the ones to the tower.

The outer doors.

The hidden gates that sealed off the Arena from the world beyond—the ones even tributes weren't meant to know existed.

Rue stared at the control panel, mouth slightly open. "What did you do?"

Goo didn't answer right away.

He was staring at the blinking icon in the corner of the screen.

Receiver 02A: Signal Acknowledged.

"I called someone," he said finally. "I didn't know if they'd answer."

An hour earlier, while Rue had slept beside the humming warmth of broken terminals, Goo had keyed in a short sequence of code into the transmitter he'd taken from the drone. One signal. Shortwave. Untraceable. Old-school.

A relic—something even the Capitol had forgotten how to block.

And someone out there—someone outside the Games—had heard him.

The return ping came with coordinates.

Not words.

Coordinates.

And a three-symbol code:

D13

Rue pressed her forehead against the glass wall, watching the jungle stretch beyond.

"They're coming for us?" she whispered.

"Not yet," Goo replied. "But the door's unlocked now."

She turned. "So what do we do?"

Goo tilted his head.

"We leave."

But the Capitol wasn't idle.

The Sweepers had closed the distance.

One had already reached the edge of the Spire.

It moved without sound—like a shadow given shape. Its claws scraped softly against the steel flooring.

Rue saw it first.

Her breath caught. "Goo."

He didn't panic.

He checked the monitors.

Two Sweepers now. One below. One flanking the left side.

Too many for a clean fight.

Good.

He wanted the Capitol to feel what it meant to lose control.

"Go to the stairs," he told Rue. "Third floor. North door. There's a zip line—it's old, but it'll hold."

"What about you?"

"I'll follow."

He met her eyes.

"And I don't lie."

She hesitated only a second before running.

The moment her footsteps disappeared down the stairwell, Goo turned to the central panel one last time.

The error log was overflowing now.

Glitches stacked on glitches. Tribute locations scrambled. Environmental shifts frozen mid-sequence.

And that blinking line:

UNAUTHORIZED USER: G00-K11M

He smiled.

Then slammed his fist into the override switch.

The tower's defense system activated.

One last gift for the Capitol:

A lockdown… with the Sweepers still inside.

Rue zipped down the line just as the tower shook behind her.

A blast—deep, muffled—rumbled through the steel.

Then another.

Metal creaked and shrieked.

The Spire began to tilt.

She landed hard in the dirt, rolling, gasping—and turned just in time to see Goo leap from a lower ledge, landing beside her in a crouch.

Alive.

Barely.

He looked back at the tower as it began to collapse, piece by piece.

"Now," he said, brushing dust from his shoulder.

"Let's burn their world."