It was Saturday morning, and Arthur was running across the courtyard towards Vesta House, where his friends were waiting for him. He had woken up late (even by weekend standards) due to the fact that he had stayed up past 2am after having been dragged to yet another one of The Gang's "secret meetings," which had literally just been a "Try Not to Cry Challenge" watch party for Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Although he had initially been apprehensive of them, Arthur quickly found that he enjoyed spending time with The Gang. He had been under the impression that the sons of Ares were either aggressive jocks or angsty delinquents, but in reality, they were just normal boys, channeling their "child of Ares aggression" into doing "typical guy stuff."
Running up the stairs to Vesta House, Arthur flung the door open. Inside he saw his friends huddled around a laptop: Isaac, Valerie, Katrina, and...
...and Pandora?
"Hi!" the robot waved at Arthur excitedly.
Isaac quickly filled him in. Following their encounter a few days ago, Arthur's words apparently had such a profound impact on Pandora that upon being revived by Alexa, she had promptly turned over a new leaf.
"That's right!" she declared happily, "I realized that lashing out violently when people criticize things I like isn't very healthy. From now on when that happens, I'll just blog long paragraphs about it on social media. Much healthier, wouldn't you agree?"
She looked around the room proudly. Nobody replied.
Pandora revealed that this incident also made her realize that she had much to learn about human socialization, and as a result, she now wanted to study humans to better understand them...starting by hanging out with the four of them.
"Yeah sure, why not," said Arthur before the other three could stop him. He had never been the sort of person to hold grudges or say no to anyone, and this included formerly violent machines.
"Great!" Pandora said, clapping her metal hands. She hopped onto the table and crossed her legs, her face-screen displaying a friendly smile at the four of them "So, what do humans usually do for fun?"
"Well, it depends on the human," Katrina explained, who never missed a chance to share her knowledge of human behavior.
"Okay, so what do you guys like to do?"
"Oh, we uh..." she looked around, unsure of what to say, "We kinda just hang out and...talk I guess..."
"Okay, let's do that then!"
Nobody said anything because of course it's hard to have a normal conversation when you know a robot's watching you.
"How about we watch a movie instead?" Valerie suggested after about a minute of silence.
"Oh, I love movies!" Pandora exclaimed.
Isaac perked up a little. "You do?" he asked, sensing common ground. "Why don't you pick then?" He offered Pandora his laptop.
"Yeah, sure!" she exclaimed. "I'm a huge nerd when it comes to analyzing Disney movies. Like, did you know that Frozen was a subversive masterpiece by not making the princess marry the prince?!"
Upon hearing this, Isaac tried to retract his arms, but it was too late. Pandora had grabbed his laptop and was already scrolling through his list of movies rapidly, scanning their titles much faster than any human could. After just two seconds, she stopped and pointed at the screen.
"According to my databanks, this is a very well-known and well-received movie."
Katrina glanced over at the screen. The thumbnail featured several extremely pale but otherwise generic looking young adults set against a grey background staring languidly out from the screen. She read the title.
YOU ARE READING
The Vesta House Squad
Fanfiction25 years have passed since Percy Jackson defeated the titan lord Kronos on Mt. Olympus. The word is a very different place now. For demigods, who are no longer ignored by the gods or oppressed by society for their differences, there's never been a b...
