Wildfires, Heroes of Olympus ₂

076, world's unhappiest birthday

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
FINLEY                 BRIGGS

Here's a great way to spend your seventeenth birthday: go and meet Asclepius!

Finn originally hadn't wanted to, but Leo forced her and Jason to accompany him.

They needed Leo to lead the expedition. There was an Archimedes lock on the door to the entrance of where they needed to go. For some reason, Leo had built a giant Archimedes grabber arm in his spare time. He was the only one who could get them past the front door.

He chose Finn and Jason on his quest-mates, because apparently Leo was now their self-appointed chaperone. Not because he cared about decorum—gods, no—but because he thought it was hilarious.

"Listen," Leo had declared, a mischievous grin on his face, "I'm doing this for your own good. Someone's gotta make sure there's no funny business on the mission. Can't have you two lovebirds sneaking off for smooch breaks while I'm singlehandedly solving ancient Greek engineering puzzles."

Finn had immediately smacked him on the back of the head, her face redder than a strawberry. "You're unbearable!"

Jason, ever the diplomat, had tried to keep his composure, though his ears were suspiciously pink. "We're professionals, Leo. We're here to help, not... whatever it is you're imagining."

"Sure, sure," Leo said, clearly not buying it. "But just so you know, I've got eyes on the back of my head." He tapped his temple conspiratorially.

"More like holes in your brain," Finn shot back.

They continued to Asclepius's location.

Leo opened the hull's forward access vent and extended the arm, guided by the console monitor and Jason, who flew outside, yelling directions.

"Left!" Jason called. "A couple inches—yeah! Okay, down. Keep it coming. You're good."

Using his trackpad and turntable controls, Leo opened a claw of his grabber arm. Its prongs settled around the grooves in the circular stone structure below.

"Okay, little buddy." Leo patted the Archimedes sphere embedded in the helm. "This is all you."

He activated the sphere.

The grabber arm began to turn like a corkscrew. It rotated the outer ring of stone, which ground and rumbled but thankfully didn't shatter. Then the claw detached, fixed itself around the second stone ring, and turned it in the opposite direction.

Leo grinned as he continued to manipulate the controls. But when Finn's elbow settled onto his head, he couldn't help but laugh, his fingers never missing a beat on the controls.

"Hey, hey," Leo said with a mock protest, trying to duck away from her elbow. "That's my gorgeous, shiny head you're using as an armrest, okay? You better appreciate the beauty of it."

Standing next to him at the monitor, Finn laughed. "It's actually working, Valdez. You're pretty amazing."

Leo chose not to shoot back with offense, sarcasm, or complaints. Even when the bone of her elbow dug into his skull. Maybe it was because he realized he might never see Finn again after tomorrow.