VIDEO GAMES! (p. jackson) (#1)

- twelve

ROSE WISHED SHE COULD PUT THE SPIDER ON A LEASH.

It scuttled along the tunnels so fast, most of the time she couldn't even see it. If it hadn't been for Tyson and Grover's heightened senses, they never would've known which way it was going.

They ran down a marble tunnel, then dashed to the left and almost fell into an abyss. Tyson grabbed Rose and hauled her back before she could fall. The tunnel continued in front of them, but there was no floor for about a hundred feet, just gaping darkness and a series of iron rungs in the ceiling. The mechanical spider was about halfway across, swinging from bar to bar by shooting out metal web fiber.

"Monkey bars," Annabeth said. "I'm great at these."

She leaped onto the first rung and started swinging her way across. She was scared of tiny spiders, but not of plummeting to her death from a set of monkey bars. Go figure.

Annabeth got to the opposite side and ran after the spider. Rose and Percy followed. When they got across, Rose looked back and saw Tyson giving Grover a piggyback ride (or was it a goatyback ride?). They made it across in three swings, which was a good thing since, just as he landed, the last iron bar ripped free under his weight.

They kept moving and passed a skeleton crumpled in the tunnel. It wore the remains of a dress shirt, slacks, and a tie. The spider didn't slow down. Rose slipped on a pile of wood scraps, but when she shined a light on them she realized they were pencils—hundreds of them, all broken in half.

The tunnel opened up onto a large room. A blazing light hit them. Once her eyes adjusted, the first thing Rose noticed were the skeletons. Dozens littered the floor around them. some were old and bleached white. Others were more recent and a lot grosser. They didn't smell quite as bad as geryon's stables, but almost.

Then Rose saw the monster. She stood on a glittery dais on the opposite side of the room. She had the body of a huge lion and the head of a woman. She would've been pretty, but her hair was tied back in a tight bun and she wore too much makeup, so she kind of reminded Rose of her third-grade choir teacher. She had a blue ribbon badge pinned to her chest that took Rose a moment to decipher: THIS MONSTER HAS BEEN RATED EXEMPLARY!

Tyson whimpered. "Sphinx."

Rose felt bad for him. She remembered Percy telling her that when he was younger, Tyson had been attacked by a sphinx. First Kampê attacks them, then Briares, his hero, turns out to be a coward, and now this? Tyson couldn't catch a break. Rose made a mental note to check in with him later.

Annabeth started forward, but the sphinx roared, showing fangs in her otherwise human face. Bars came down on both tunnel exits, behind them and in front.

Immediately the monster's snarl turned into a brilliant smile.

"Welcome, lucky contestants!" she announced. "Get ready to play... ANSWER THAT RIDDLE!"

Canned applause blasted from the ceiling, as if there were invisible loudspeakers. Spotlights swept across the room and reflected off the dais, throwing disco glitter over the skeletons on the floor.

"Fabulous prizes!" The sphinx said. "Pass the test, and you get to advance! Fail, and I get to eat you! Who will be our contestant?"

"I've got this," Annabeth whispered. "I know what she's going to ask."

Rose didn't argue. She didn't want Annabeth getting devoured by a monster, but she figured if the sphinx was going to ask riddles, Annabeth was the best one of them to try.

She stepped forward to the contestant's podium, which had a skeleton in a school uniform hunched over it. She pushed the skeleton out of the way, and it clattered to the floor.