Swear on Archimedes

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chapter eighteen; Swear on Archimedes

JINX SMILED widely when Leo managed to click the door open. 

"That, good people, is how we do things in Leo World. Come on in!" Leo boasted. 

"I hate Leo World." Frank muttered. 

Jinx patted him on the back, moving forward. "I love Leo World."

"Of course you do, everyone does." Leo grinned, putting an arm around her shoulder.  

She rolled her eyes and shoved his arm off and looked at the room. Inside was a bunch of different things that Jinx couldn't dream of knowing how to use. The room was filled with many trinkets littering the entire room, from countertops to scattered around the ground. 

Leo walked up to a manikin armored in full Roman gear. "Dude, these would be so awesome if they worked." 

"Thank the gods they don't." Jinx shivered. She did not want to see manikins start moving all of a sudden, it wasn't on her bucket list. 

 "Those things are going to come alive and attack us, aren't they?" Frank backed away.

Jinx couldn't blame him for questioning it. Her overthinking was over the roof just looking at them. Those armored manikins could definitely take her on a one-on-one fight. 

 "Not a chance. They aren't complete." Leo laughed, tapping the manikin's neck.  "Look, the head's wiring has been disconnected. And here, at the elbow, the pulley system for this joint is out of alignment. My guess? The Romans were trying to duplicate a Greek design, but they didn't have the skill."

There he goes again, Jinx sighed.

"The Romans weren't good enough at being complicated, I suppose." Hazel said.

"Or delicate," Frank added. "Or sophisticated."

"Hey, I just call it like I see it." Leo moved around the manikin's head, making it bob up and down. "Still...a pretty impressive try. I've heard legends that the Romans confiscated the writings of Archimedes, but—"

"Archimedes?" Hazel looked baffled. "Wasn't he an ancient mathematician or something?"

"Ancient mathematician? I thought he was an astronomer?" Jinx asked, poking around at the table.

Leo laughed. "He was a lot more than that. He was only the most famous son of Hephaestus who ever lived."

Frank scratched his ear. "I've heard his name before, but how can you be sure this manikin is his design?"

"It has to be!" Leo exclaimed. "Look, I've read all about Archimedes. He's a hero to Cabin Nine. The dude was Greek, right? He lived in one of the Greek colonies in southern Italy, back before Rome got all huge and took over. Finally the Romans moved in and destroyed his city. The Roman general wanted to spare Archimedes, because he was so valuable—sort of like the Einstein of the ancient world—but some stupid Roman soldier killed him."

"There you go again." Hazel and Jinx muttered. 

"Stupid and Roman don't always go together, Leo." Hazel reminded. 

Leo nodded absentmindedly while Frank agreed. "How do you know all of this anyways?" He asked, "is there some Spanish tourist guide down here?" 

"No, man." Leo kept playing with the manikin. "You can't be a demigod who's into building stuff and not know about Archimedes. The guy was seriously elite. He calculated the value of pi. He did all this math stuff we still use for engineering. He invented a hydraulic screw that could move water through pipes."

Jinx's head hurt just thinking about the things Archimedes invented or discovered. She didn't think she'd ever have to retain this type of information in her life and put it to use. 

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