Over the next hour Hopper, Dhina, and Emily study the edible plants in the most common arena habitats. The trainer goes over the plants very carefully, making sure that the tributes concentrate and are able to describe the edible nuts, berries, leaves, and roots before having them repeatedly attempt to pick them out from among similar looking plants. "mimicry," the trainer calls it, when an edible plant looks very similar to an poisonous one. "Helps them avoid being eaten."

Before long, lunch is called, and the small group make their way to a buffet area with many small tables. 

Hopper and Emily sit down with Dhina with trays loaded with food and begin eating, the boy making a point of passing around the bread basket to his two companions. Emily and Hopper make small talk about their districts while Dhina eats quietly. This goes on for a few minutes, when a quiet voice interrupts the conversation. 

"Excuse me?" asks a tiny brown haired girl with blue eyes and a mousy demeanor. "May I sit with you?" There's a communal shrug and the shy girl sits down and quietly tucks into her soup, appearing more and more anxious as time goes by. After a few minutes of this awkwardness all three of the other tributes at the table are starring at her, questioningly. 

"I'm sorry," she whispers, extremely unsure of how to handle the attention. "You see... the other boy from my district..." 

There's suddenly a loud crashing noise from the gym area, like a large structure was demolished. All of the tributes in the dinning room stand up and quickly run to investigate what could have possibly made that noise. 

The scene that lays before them is of the obstacle course in ruins. The climbing tower turned over onto the jumps and tunnels, the water tank spilled out, and the moving pieces all jammed up so that they break more and more as they twist and turn against the various weapons deeply wedged inside. Then all of a sudden a small fire breaks out on one and the sprinklers start, soaking all of the tributes.

[Developer's Note: In future iterations of the Hunger Games, we should have a system of deterrents for tributes involving punishments less severe than death. Many children have caught on to the fact that we cannot kill them before the games actually start, and this realization has in some cases fueled highly undesirable behavior.]

"Woah."

Emily sounds scared.

"Woah."

Dhina sounds sort of impressed.

Hopper looks about timidly, trying to avoid the appearance of fear. He gets an eye of the other tributes reactions as they step back and take in the whole scene. Some of the 'careers' seem almost impressed, one of the boys nodding his head in approval. The others either seem bored, entertained, or freaked out. 

He catches himself, decides this is the time to continue with his persona. It's not much, but he holds his hands out on either side of his body and steps backward, pushing Dhina, Emily, and the district five girl back. 

He looks up just enough to catch a game maker's eye. It's a brief moment but Hopper is pleased with the impression he's made.

Stepping back with the girl tributes, Hopper suggests that they go finish lunch.  

"My hero."

As pointless as tagging along with Hopper feels, it's not really like Dhina has got anything else competing for her attention right now.

(What are you going to do, Dhina? Learn to use a sword in the next three days? Ha!)

And so she'll follow him back to the lunch table as suggested.

"So what is your name, miss?" asks Hopper, pulling out a chair for the district five girl.

"Electra Smithe," she says shyly, sitting down and glancing at Dhina. It's clear she doesn't want to talk, but prefers to hide inside of herself and keep away from her district counterpart, wherever he is.

She be getting along with Dhina, sullen thing," thinks Hopper, keeping up his stupid grin while passing Electra the bread basket.

The rest of the day is spent alternating between learning survival skills and working on terrain skills. Instead of using the obstacle course, however, instead they practiced dodging balls tossed at them, and being tested by having the whether suddenly shift so as to gauge the tributes reactions. This goes on until around five in the evening when the tributes are given back to the mentor's to look over the progress and make suggestions or work on strategy.

As the mentors wander down into the training rooms, Detta is pulled off to the side before she can be seen by anyone else. 

"Detta," Euphemia attempts to whisper, standing on her toes to get her mouth as close to the victor's ear as she can. Her words feel dry and cracked, but Detta listens, knowing this is important to the lives of her tributes. "I have some news about one of the things the tributes will face inside of the arena."

“Can this wait until nightfall?”

"Fine," hisses Euphemia. The woman slinks away, no one having noticed her presence or Detta's absence. 

The mentor's go over the beginnings of strategy, with each team either picking angles for marketing or talking about skills, speaking in low voices and watching the other's carefully. Detta just listens as Hopper rambles on the events of the day, nodding as he goes on about how pleased the game makers are. Dhina stays quiet.

Hopper continues his description of progress and training all through dinner. He still manages to eat almost everything, and Euphemia frowns as he slurps up his onion soup. The next courses are a platter of small game birds with gooseberry sauce, prime rib with garlic spinach and roasted parsnip, a salad of shredded broccoli, tomatoes and chopped almonds. Neither tribute can manage to get down the cheese course, a green cheese Euphemia calls 'Stilton'. Instead the kids nibble on the delectable nutty crackers and dried figs until dessert is served, a multi layered pudding of triffle. 

The tributes are sent to their rooms immediately after dinner, and Euphemia let's out a deep breath in weariness. This has the effect of looking like the tiny woman might deflate, as she shrinks down upon such a strong exhale. 

Then, shaking her head, she looks Detta straight in the eye and glares. She only says two words, "Pick one."

The boy's hapless. Foolhardy.

But the girl seems to have already decided she's dead.

"I need more time."

Hoppers feels caged up in his room, and can't stand that he is ushered off to bed as soon as dinner is over. He wants to see the city, the beautiful buildings and the people. He is horrified by the entire situation, but also finds it slightly...intriguing. These capital people can have whatever they want. He wonders what he will do if he makes it out of that arena alive. 

The boy knows that he isn't a fighter, but he figures on finding food and water and using his skills to build shelter and hunker down. He plays with buttons while he imagines what he would do after the games. Maybe he would live in a big fancy house and design trains or electrical boards and have a beautiful wife-

Hopper realizes that he will never get to be with Emily after the arena because there will be no Emily. He can't stand the thought of never getting to touch her, or the most intimate thing he gets involving her is naming his skeet sock after her. 

Fuck, he thinks, angry that this is his fate. I don't want to go through life always wondering...

At that moment he gets up, straightens up a few things, and begins searching through the drawers of the bathroom. Quickly he finds a pack of condoms and a bottle of lube. Shaking, he takes them to the bed, and then very quietly makes his way to the door. He opens it, listening as he snakes his head around and looks about for signs that he might be caught, but Detta and Euphemia are sitting at the dining room table still. He slinks along the wall, hiding behind the furniture and makes his way to the elevator, so intent on making it that he doesn't even hear what either of the women are saying. 

He gets to the elevator and the door opens, he quickly pushes the button and the doors close.

A few minutes later Hopper is coming back up with Emily at his side, anxious and cheeks flushed as the two of them once again sneak past the grown ups at the table. He leads her to the door, getting even more anxious when he notices the smile on her face.

Once inside with the lights dimmed, something else occurs to the boy before anything else happens. He pulls the sock out of his drawer, open the door, covers the knob with the sock, and then closes the door behind him.

“Alright. If we have to make a decision right now?” They do. Detts has put off deciding for too long already. “Hopper. We should go with Hopper.”

The two women make their way to the hallway where the tributes bedrooms are located and hurry to Hopper's room. But when they reach the door, they notice the sock on the door handle. Euphemia puts her ear to the door and frowns, her face crinkling up like tissue paper. 

"He's taking my advice to enjoy his time here, as it were." She says this in what can only be described as both a snarl and a whisper, and quickly walks over to Dhina's room before Detta has the chance to say anything. 

"Girl, get out of bed. No, no need to get dressed, this has to do with your survival," Detta hears the older woman say from the other room and quickly hurries Dhinah into the hallway in her night gown. Unfortunately, the effect of causing Hopper's door to open, Emily peering out red faced and wrapped in a blanket. Seeing this Euphemia hands Dhina off to Detta and reaches for Emily, catching her and then calling, "boy, get out here."

Hopper shows his red face with a look of disgust at the people interrupting, mad that he can't even have privacy. Euphemia huffs, looking at the three youths and says "Well, now it's a party, as they say. I was told by my informant that the more tributes we inform, the more likely we are to get caught, but at this point I don't care. All that can happen to me is I get demoted to district seven or worse, and they blow these kids up right away. Let's just take them all downstairs, Detta," Her hisses and squeaks get the message across disturbingly well, and before anyone else can say anything her glare has already shut down any requests to put on more clothes.

"Let's go," she says, digging her claws into the kids shoulders as they head to the elevator.

Detts scans the ceiling overhead, hoping Euphemia didn’t just have that little rant within earshot of a surveillance device.

She seems, on the whole, a lot more concerned about Information security than her would-be co-conspirator and that state of affairs does her nerves no favors.

Emily is too wrapped up being mortified to even fully register what the adults are saying.

She squeaks, though, when Euphemia’s cold hard nails close around her.

Dhina, meanwhile, is hanging on every word. This (the clandestine nighttime meeting, not her co-tribute’s ill conceived rutting) is the most interesting thing that’s happened since she arrived at The Capital and she’s going to give it her full attention.

The Feeling of Euphemia's claws sinking into Hopper's flesh pulls him back to reality but before he can say anything, the boy catches the harsh woman's glance and clamps his mouth shut for once.

He allows himself to be taken into the elevator and the party descend, ready to see what awaits them. 

The elevator goes down below the training center, several stories underground. The scared, half naked boy don't know what awaits them as the elevator sink lower and lower beneath the earth, and struggles to keep the sheet he clutches pulled up tightly with his hands.

When the elevator comes to a stop, Euphemia pulls a small key out of the mouth of the stuffed weasel that is wrapped around her head, and inserts it into a slot in the door. The entire elevator turns around in place, making the group momentarily lose balance. This surprise jolts Hopper such that he almost drops his sheet, prompting him to exclaim, "Fuck, what the fuck?" He adjusts his makeshift garment and glares at Euphemia, when suddenly the doors open. 

"What are we doing here, Euphemia," the boy begs, at this point afraid for his life. When Euphemia finally let's go of the children's shoulder's and steps forward, saying in a lowered voice as she enters what appears to be a laboratory, "I am putting the odds in your favor, you ungrateful brats."

"How?" asks Hopper, when he notices a young woman with a clip board sitting on a counter top, nibbling on a pen. 

"Hey."

She stuffs the badly chewed-up writing implement through the hole in top of the board's clip and glances Hooper's way.

"I was wondering when you lot would show up."

"Who's this?" asks Hopper, looking around the large laboratory and at the strange girl. She doesn't look capital due to her imperfect features and glasses. Either she's district but useful, or she just doesn't care.

“You don’t know?”

She swivels around on the counter to face Euphemia, clutches her clipboard to her chest and arches an eyebrow.

“Who are these kids?”

"They're the new interns!" exclaims Euphemia, smiling so wide it looked like her face would flake away at the seams. 

A strange silence filled the space of the lab as the small group were examined by the young scientist. This awkwardness was broken, however, with the sound of a harsh growel coming from what seemed to be a cage behind a curtain.

Using this interruption of the awkward as a good jumping off point, Euphemia waved her hands in a gesture which look like she's trying to fend off an attacker with her claws. "They're not prepared, as expected. Silly interns," she says, tapping Emily's shoulder to excuse the poor girl's extreme state of undress.

Well. Okay. Apparently this is happening now.

Emily takes a deep breath and reminds herself that her present abject mortification is almost certainly not the worst thing that's going to happen to her this week.

"This is Chryssi Echidna," Detta fills the awkward silence by giving the children a proper introduction to their host. "She designs the monsters used in the Games."

"That's hardly the most important work I'm involved in. My genome restoration work could give a second chance to countless ailing biomes, and my work in neurological engineering could advance thinking itself."

Chryssi exhales through her teeth and shuts her eyes partway as though belaboring a point to infants.

"And on the side, yes, I make a few monsters. It pays the bills."