Hurricane ~ L. Valdez

1.38- Bunkers and Council Meetings

I cannot describe how amazing it was to finally be sleeping in my own bed. As much as I hated my cabin, having Jason there made it better, and the two of us were able to fall asleep pretty quickly.

That next afternoon Leo had told me, Piper, Jason, Chiron, and his cabin-mates that he had something to show us. He had told me about the cave/workshop thingy the night before, and I couldn't wait to see it.

"Here we go." He said nervously, setting his hand on fire and pressing it to the door.

His cabinmates gasped. "Leo!" Nyssa cried. "You're a fire user!"

"Yeah, thanks," he replied. "I know."

Jake Mason, who I was glad to see out of his body cast (although he was still on crutches), said, "Holy Hephaestus. That means—it's so rare that—"

The massive stone door in front of us swung open, causing all of our mouths to drop.

The only person that didn't look surprised was Chiron, though I suppose it takes a lot to make him surprised. He simply knit his eyebrows and stroked his beard, and his expression was making me nervous.

I could tell it was making Leo even more nervous than I was, but he forced a smile."Welcome to Bunker Nine," he said, as confidently as he could. "C'mon in."

Leo grabbed my hand, showing us around silently. Bunker Nine was— to put it simply— amazing. There were giant machines, worktables, old maps and schematics... and sitting on one of the central tables sat Festus' head, still battered and scorched from the crash in Omaha.

Leo went over to it, stroking the dragon's forehead. "I'm sorry, Festus. But I won't forget you."

I squeezed his hand reassuringly, and Jason put a hand on Leo's shoulder. "Hephaestus brought it here for you?" He asked, and Leo nodded. "But you can't repair him," Jason guessed.

"No way," Leo said. "But the head is going to be reused. Festus will be going with us."

Piper came over and frowned. "What do you mean?"

I guess Piper had forgotten all about the 'rEtUrNiNg tO yOur rOoTs' stuff.

Leo and I started to answer, but Nyssa cried out, "Guys, look at this!" She was standing at one of the worktables, flipping through a sketchbook—diagrams for hundreds of different machines and weapons. "I've never seen anything like these," Nyssa said. "There are more amazing ideas here than in Daedalus's workshop. It would take a century just to prototype them all."

"Who built this place?" Jake Mason said. "And why?" Chiron, as per usual, did not answer anyone's questions. I love the guy, but he's not always the most helpful.

"It's a wartime command center," Leo said. "The camp was attacked once, wasn't it?"

"In the Titan War?" Piper asked.

I shook my head. "No. I definitely would've remembered that."

"Besides," Nyssa said, "that map looks really old. The date...does that say 1864?"

We all turned to Chiron. "This camp has been attacked many times," he admitted. "That map is from the last Civil War."

Ok— uh... I was confused and concerned. The Hephaestus campers looked at each other and frowned.

"Civil War..." Piper said. "You mean the American Civil War, like a hundred and fifty years ago?"

"Yes and no," Chiron said. Leave it to my man Chiron to give the most confusing answer of the century. "The two conflicts—mortal and demigod—mirrored each other, as they usually do in Western history. Look at any civil war or revolution from the fall of Rome onward, and it marks a time when demigods also fought one another. But that Civil War was particularly horrible. For American mortals, it is still their bloodiest conflict of all time—worse than their casualties in the two World Wars. For demigods, it was equally devastating. Even back then, this valley was Camp Half-Blood. There was a horrible battle in these woods lasting for days, with terrible losses on both sides."