Nikomedes and the Game of Olympus

Chapter 16, Act I - A God Tries To Buy Us Cheeseburgers.

The next afternoon, the train arrived at our final stop, Denver. Fortunately, I've been keeping us rather well-fed, so while we couldn't afford food from the dining car, I could just summon us food. But I could tell Percy and Annabeth were tired of home cooked food. I'll try not to be offended.

"Let's try to contact Chiron." Annabeth said. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit." She told Percy. "We can't use phones, right?" Percy asked, confused. "She's not talking about a phone, Perce. We have a method of communication called Iris messaging, where you can essentially video call someone through a rainbow." I tried to explain. I'll be honest, I don't think there was a better way to explain that.

Annabeth nodded, fishing around in her bag for a drachma as we walked around. We found a do-it-yourself car wash, and went to the stall furthest from the street, and Annabeth asked if any of us had cash.

Grover took out the spray gun. "I've only got two quarters. It's seventy-five cents." He grumbled. Percy fished out a quarter, and I gestured for them to stop. "Guys. Put on your thinking caps for a second. We have two hydrokinetics here. If we're looking to create a rainbow, we can do this." I waved my hand, and water rose from a puddle on the ground, and I placed it inside a large bowl I'd taken from Medusa's place, propping up my dagger in there to use as a reflective surface.

I used some of my photokinesis, light reflecting off of the dagger, and before long, we had our rainbow. "Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering." Annabeth said, tossing a drachma into the rainbow. "Half-Blood Hill." She requested. I raised a brow at her broad request, but ignored it as Luke shimmered into view, from the porch of the Big House.

"Luke!" Percy called out. Luke turned to face us, and a grin split his face. "Percy!" He greets. "Is that Annabeth, too? Niko and Grover, as well? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?" He asks worriedly.

"We're...uh...fine," Annabeth stammered out. She was blushing, straightening her shirt, and trying to comb loose hair out of her face. Before she could embarrass herself further, I cut in. "Is Chiron there?" I asked him bluntly.

"He's down at the cabins. We're having some issues here with the campers. Is everything cool with you?" He asked. "What kind of issues?" Grover asked, frowning. Unfortunately, a large car pulled in, music blaring at dangerous levels. I flinched, but tried to mask it quickly.

"Chiron had to—" Luke frowned at getting cut off by the asshole's music. "What is that noise?" He shouted. "I'll take care of it! Grover, come here!" She shouted, dragging the poor satyr with her.

"Chiron had to break up a fight. Things are pretty tense here, you two. Word leaked about the Zeus-Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how. Probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan war again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus." Luke told us.

I frowned. He had signaled to me before that he didn't summon the hellhound, meaning another spy. Not Silena Beauregard, I knew that much. She needed blackmail to be a spy. Maybe some nameless unclaimed that wasn't mentioned in the books? It could be Chris Rodriguez or Ethan Nakamura, though Ethan only joined the cause for justice.

I was shaken from my thoughts when the music's volume decreased in the next stall over. "So, what's your status? Chiron will be sorry he missed you." Luke asked. Percy filled him in about Medusa, the train, and his fight with the Chimera, as well as his summons to Santa Monica.

I chipped in to talk about the encounter with the Furies, and my fight with Echidna. "I wish I could be there. We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen...it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him." He insisted. I stayed quiet.