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[youbarium]

Who| Carlos and anyone
What| He's been a sad scientist lately, and a reclusive scientist, and an obsessive scientist. He is a scientist who is bad at remembering that he has friends, and he can do things with friends, and that the world does not revolve around memorizing a blueprint.
Where| The coffee place on the ground floor of the Tribute Center.
When| Late this week/possibly this weekend, any time you feel like finding him
Warnings/Notes| None so far.

I almost have it. I almost have it. Just a few more days, and I'll be able to recreate the blueprint completely accurately.

Carlos can't make an actual recording of his progress, since the Capitol would both confiscate his recording device and record him making the recording itself, but that doesn't mean he can't pretend to take voice notes in his head.

Steve, Tony, and Bruce have been a huge help. Steve especially. Between the three of us, I'm sure we can reverse-engineer this machine.

He sits at a small table, hair artistically mussed and one shoe half-untied, and sips a cup of coffee. The steam makes his glasses fog up, but he only seems to notice so much. That is, he is repeating a cycle of actions: he takes a sip, his glasses fog up. He wipes the lenses with the sleeve of his lab coat, and sips again. He does not seem to get agitated, nor does he seem to realize that he could avoid this by removing his glasses. He just repeats the motions again and again, too lost in thought to take any further action.

I'll be ready when I go to District 13. If I go to District 13.

Comments

[gardienne]

"Then I don't care." Eponine says, comfortably. She doesn't really get what Carlos is saying, but it all sounds a bit doom and gloom. "I only care if it is affecting me - us. But even this. I think they'll just kill us all when they're through with us."

[youbarium]

Carlos thinks about that.

"It seems to me," he says, slowly, "that if there's no way to get out, we either win, or we eventually aren't brought back. If Panem keeps using the Hunger Games as the lynchpin of its culture, then sooner or later, we'll all win, or we'll die, one by one. After all, none of us are aging, so we won't die of natural causes."

It is doom and gloom, but Carlos isn't in the most hopeful of moods right now. He can't tell her about the device he's working on or District 13, which are the only bright spots he can think of. Sorry, Eponine.

"If there's no way to get out."

[gardienne]

"I always knew that I would not grow old." Eponine smiles wanfully. "Had I been in Paris, I would have been dead two years ago by my Pa's hand, or more likely, Montparnasse's knife, left to die slowly so I know the feeling. Or hunger or cold would kill me... but after that with the gang - " She shrugs. "Nah, no peaceful death. And nothing here either. Oh, but I so wish you get out somehow. You could be a citizen, you know? You don't have to do this."

[youbarium]

He looks at her and gives her a sad smile.

"I don't know," he says. "I don't think I'd like being a citizen. The people in the Capitol are kind of..." Carlos trails off, and thinks better of finishing it. "...you know. I like the other Tributes a lot better. Most of them, anyway."

Tom Cassidy was the notable exception.