"Just write a book" they said. "It'll be easy," they said, "Everyone gets published these days." Yeah, well, it's a little harder when your editors are gods that will turn you into a gecko and use you as a ping pong ball if you don't write them exac...
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PERCY SAID EITHER WE ALL WENT TOGETHER OR NOBDOY WENT. Tyson and I tried to convince them on nobody, but they weren't listening. So I guess it was all of us.
By now it was well agreed that we were not staying on this ship. Tyson ended up carrying most of our bags. Something about it being easier if we needed to fight, and he was strong enough to carry them. personally, I still kept my bag. Not that I didn't trust him, but I like keeping my stuff on me. Especially after our last trip got all our supplies blown up in a bus.
We snuck through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs towards the admiralty suite. Luckily, there was a lot of them. Sort of expected when the ship was the size of a city block. Annabeth scouted ahead with her invisibility cap. We hide whenever someone passed – even the brain-washed passengers. For all we knew they were some kind of security system.
As we reached deck thirteen, home of the admiralty suit, Annabeth hissed "Hide!" and shoved us into a supply closet. I was surprised she managed to close the door behind us.
I almost asked what her problem was. Then I heard people coming down the hallways. It sounded like a pair of guys, maybe around our age.
"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" one of them said.
The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome."
I've never seen an Aethiopian drakon, but it sounded incredibly not awesome. Sounded like something that would bite my face off.
"I hear they got two more coming," the first voice said. Now that I was listening, it sounded familiar. "They keep arriving a this rate, oh, man – no contest!"
The voices faded down the corridor.
"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth took off her cap and turned visible. "You remember – from Cabin Eleven."
I did, vaguely. He was one of the undetermined campers who stayed in the Hermes cabin, waiting for his Olympian parent to claim him. I'd been too busy to keep track of every single Hermes kid, and I'd assumed a lot of the missing people were just staying home because of Thalia's tree being poisoned, but I hadn't seen him this summer.
"What's another half-blood doing here?" Percy asked.
"PB said some other kids were having dreams. She thought it might be...him...trying to recruit people," I said. "I thought – I mean, it didn't sound like it was actually doing anything."
I wanted to think who would turn against camp like that?, but I knew the answer. Luke had already done it. Kronos was manipulative and a lot of kids resented their parents for ignoring them.
We kept going down the corridor. Now it was easy to find our way. There was a cold and unpleasant air that led us towards what could only be our destination.
