Rick knelt beside his father's bed. Zeus wasn't looking good. The young, powerful man who had once been the King of the Gods was now old and wrinkled, confined to his bed by joint pain and back stiffness. The Fading was affecting everyone in the Ancient Greek world, his father had told him. No one believed in the dusty old gods anymore, instead preferring to focus on the new, cool gods that had only been around for a few thousand years. All gods needed people to believe in them to stay alive, and the Greeks were skating on dangerously thin ice. They were barely hanging on from history lessons and books of Greek myths, but if something drastic wasn't done soon, the gods who had dominated and controlled Western civilization for millennia might fade entirely. Rick couldn't let that happen. He loved his dad, who had raised him on Olympus since he was six, when his mom had died in a car crash.
"Rick… you're our last hope…" Zeus muttered under his breath, wheezing from the effort that it took him to talk. "you need… to let them know…"
"Let who know, dad? Let who know?" Rick asked desperately, squeezing his father's hand.
"All of them… everyone… please…" he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
"I will, dad. I will," Rick said softly to his dad's frail figure, a lone tear running down his cheek.
Rick didn't know where to start. Take a video of Olympus and send it to a news company? No, that was the kind of attention that the gods had tried to avoid since the start of the technological age. They wanted real believers, not media drama.
Rick had an idea. Quickly, he rode the elevator back up to Olympus and rushed to his father's bed. Shaking him awake, Rick asked,
"Dad, quick. Where is that Camp Blood or whatever that you were telling me about?"
"Camp Half- Blood? It's on the shore of Long island, by that... Denny's... that I took you to so long ago. You really didn't get that I was trying to tell you that something... important was there? Why else would I take you to… a Denny's?"
"Thanks dad!" Rick said, turning around and rushing off. He clambered back into the elevator and rode it down to the ground, hailing the first taxi that he saw.
"Denny's on Long Island," he said to the driver.
"you sure? There's one just two blocks away from here, what's wrong with that one?" the cabbie asked. Then he turned and grinned.
"Apollo?" Rick asked incredulously, recognizing the handsome face and stunning white teeth. "Why aren't you all… old and stuff?"
"Because I've learned to move on with society, kid. To stick with the times. I founded the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Archery is still popular. Half of Billboard chart toppers are my kids or literally me in disguise. I'm still relevant, and until music and shooting leave Earth completely I always will be. Heck, not as many gods have been effected as you might think, or as many as your dad would want you to think. Hermes still has mail and travelers to sustain him. Hades still has dead people to keep his energy up. Artemis still has hunting. Aphrodite still has love and beauty. Really, only your dad has been effected to a crippling point so far. Science has debunked pretty much everything under his control. People no longer look up, see lightning, and say, 'oh, Zeus is angry.' Instead, they all think about how there must be a storm coming, and how they didn't expect a storm to be coming since the Weather Channel said that there would be a storm coming, and the Weather Channel is always wrong. Even Poseidon is fine, since fishermen all still pray to him, ironically or not, before long voyages. To be honest with you, the whole 'Science' thing has effected me a little bit in the way of my sun chariot. That's why we're not in a Maserati right now, as a matter of fact."
"wait, we're in the sun ch-"
"Yep! Hold on!"
"To wha- WHOAAAA MY GODS" Rick screamed as Apollo pulled on the steering wheel, causing the taxi cab to jump off the ground and gain altitude at nearly a 90 degree vertical angle.
Rick, who had always been interested in planes, (no surprise, given his heritage), was interested immediately in how the car functioned. "Did you just rotate at 25 miles per hour? How is this car aerodynamic enough to support flight? How are we not stalling out? Is the cabin pressurized? Where-"
"science doesn't exist, remember?" Apollo chuckled, effectively shutting him up for the remainder of the flight, although Rick's mind continued to race.
A/N despite what is stated in this chapter, I, the author, absolutely, 100% DO believe in science. I was just expanding upon how, in The Titan's Curse, Apollo says that science about the sun is fake. I am just attempting to maintain realism and stay true to the books. STAY IN SCHOOL, kids. SCIENCE IS REAL.