"Hello, you've reached the residence of Paul Blofis and Sally Jackson, we are unable to take your call at the moment, but please leave a message after the tone."
Paul Blofis stood on the corner of the busy New York intersection. It nearly two in the morning, and pouring rain. He turned his head left to right, waiting for a break in the flow of traffic to cross the street.
Paul had been called to his brother's house in the middle of the night for an emergency. Of course, once Paul had arrived, everything was fine and John's arm had been bandaged up nice and tightly by the nieghbor and a lecture on the safe use of kitchen knifes had already occured.
John was a thirty two year old bachleor, the youngest and most reckless of the Blofis clan, and had somehow ended up as Paul's responsibilty.
Traffic slowed and the red hand turned into a white-blue walking figure. Paul crossed the street briskly, turning left on the sidewalk and walking past the local florist.
Paul cringed, remembering the painful memory.
"Mrs. Jackson, would you prefer the roses or the water lilies?" the attendent asked.
Sally's face, already so worn and wrought, crumpled.
Paul noticed, and answered for her. "I think the water lilies will be more suitable." he paid for the bunches, filling in the location of the memorial service, and led a torn Sally out of the shop.
That had been almost four months ago.
Now, Sally's face remained passive, with frown lines etched around her mouth, and sadness permeated in her eyes.
And her son remained gone.
Paul sighed, shaking his head and entered the apartment building, walking towards the elevator instinctively.
He pressed the number eleven and shook the water droplets from his sopping hair.
There was a ping, and the doors opened, Paul left the elevator and entered the hallway, following the hallway towards the apartment, the brass numbers hung with care on his doorway.
He turned the key, making a jiggling sound then the satisfying, clear cluck as the door opened up into the small entryway.
Paul shrugged his coat off, hanging it up on the rack. He made his way to the kitchen, expecting darkness and the hum of the fridge, but instead found a light on and someone's quiet breathing.
The apartment was otherwise completely silent. The traffic outside a distant hum of concentrated noise.
Paul's forehead creased as he entered the kitchen to find Sally in her bathrobe sitting at the table with her back to him.
"Sally? What are you doing up still? It's two in the morning, you should go back to sleep."
Sally didn't respond, didn't even awknowledge the presence of someone else in the room.
Worry began to rise in Paul's chest. "Sally?" He strided over to her, leaning on the table to get a better look at her face, try and catch her attention.
Sally's head rested on her clenched palms, her frantic eyes focused on a point straight in front of her.
Paul followed her gaze, resting on the nearly eight year old answering machine that sat on the edge of the square table, nestled in the corner admist salt and pepper shakers, a pad of post its, and some old letters.
The red light was blinking, a new message was still on the machine.
Paul reached over and pressed the play button.
There was the sound of the tone, and then someone's breathing came over the system. A long silence, and then, in a somewhat strangled and tired voice;
"Mom. Hey, I'm alive." a pause "Hera put me to sleep for a while, and then she took my memory, and..." the voice faltered, another break "Anyway, I'm okay. I'm sorry, I'm on a quest-" another pause, a slight groan. "I'll make it home. I promise. Love you."
Percy.
"Annabeth, what should we do with the guy's bag?" asked Jason.
"Torch it." Annabeth replied stonily. She studied the map, looking closely at the road depictions.
So far, this quest hadn't gone as planned. At all, to be honest.
At least, if it had, they sure wouldn't be stranded in the middle of nowhere, with a smoking warship in the dirt behind them.
They had only met one person in the three hours Leo had been attempting to locate the source of the crash, and he was some mortal that they had had to ward off. Of course, when they realized he was carting around a bag of money and questionable substances, they had been forced to reconsider their methods.
"Leo, how much longer?" Piper called.
"No idea. Still can't find the source." There was some clunking and rumaging around coming from the cockpit.
"Well, hurry up. I don't want to be stranded out here in the middle of the night.
The sun was currently beating down on them, and the hours until dusk were becoming numbered.
They had left in the Argos II at dawn this morning, hoping to enter the Roman camp by early afternoon, but around noon, Leo had announced that they were going to have to land because 'there's a hell lotta smoke coming out of the butt'.
With every passing minute, Annabeth grew more and more anxious to see Percy.
Percy. They were forty miles away from him. Annabeth drew in a long breath, closing her eyes and blowing it out. She had to focus on the situation at hand.
"Annabeth, you figured out where we are yet?" Jason asked.
She hesitated to answer. "I think... I think we're in Mt. Diablo park... based on our progress in flight and I think I've even been hiking here with my dad before. So we're about forty some miles from the city. If we were to set out on foot now, and catch a couple buses, we'd be there tomorrow evening."
"That might just be what we have to do." Chimed Leo. "Because I found the source..." there was some clanking, "and one of the gears is fried." He appeared out of the ship, holding up a warped and blackened chunk of metal. "So we're not going anywhere in Argie. Not until we can find a new gear to replace this one with."
Annabeth considered this. "Allright then. We'll just have to make it on foot. We can come back for the ship with some of the Roman campers and fix it when we get there. Pack up camp, and we'll move out."
"Roger." Leo agreed.
The four of them packed their backpacks with as much supplies they could fit, and set off through the forest to find a trail out of the park.
They eventually found a trail, hiking single-file along the narrow dirt. The only sound was Leo.
"On the road again..." he sang, embarrasingly off-pitch. "On the road again..."
"Leo, do you even know the words to the song?" Piper asked, annoyed with him.
"Yep. On the road again..."
"Dude, please, no more." Jason pleaded.
"Fine, fine."
Several minutes later, however,
"I'm on the Highway to Hell... I'm on the Highway to Hell..."
"Leo!" Piper exclaimed.
"Not the best song considering the irony of the situation..." Jason agreed.
It was then that the pocket of Annabeth's jacket buzzed.
Annabeth hardly got any calls, and it wasn't safe to use a cell phone in the middle of no where on a quest, so she had no idea who it was.
She checked the phone, and immediately recognized the number.
"Mrs. Jackson? What's wrong? Are you all right?" She answered the phone.
"Annabeth, it's Paul."
"Oh, hi Paul. Are you guys allright?"
"Yes. We're doing allright. Listen, Annabeth, I've been trying to contact you for a couple of days now..."
"I'm on my way to the promised land... I'm on the Highway to Hell!" Leo screamed.
"Leo shut up!" Piper and Jason said together.
"Sorry Paul, you were saying?" Annabeth said, rolling her eyes at Leo.
"Yes, Sally would have called you, but she's at camp right now, and then she called me to say that you had already left. Where are you right now?"
"Forty miles outside San Francisco." She replied, eyeing the bushes that were humming suspiciously.
"Okay, well I called about Percy..."
"Yes?"
"We've had some news, and-"
But Paul was cut off by the giant monster that jumped out of the bushes.
"Crap." Jason remarked, pulling out his sword.
Annabeth reached for the knife she kept in her waistband, ready to fight. It was a hellhound.
Jason took point, slashing the head of the beast, while Piper and Annabeth stabbed the sides, and Leo delivered a sickening pounding to the rear. The hound shattered into gold dust, and the four stood there, eyeing one another for a second.
Annabeth picked the phone up from the dirt. It was cracked in multiple locations, the screen black.
"Great." She sighed. What was the news about Percy?
"C'mon Annabeth, let's keep going. We can get a car once we get out of this park and then it'll be smooth sailing until we hit the city." Piper said.
"Right. Let's just keep going."
Annabeth should have known that something would have gone terribly wrong. After all, she was the one driving.
She wasn't nessicarily a terrible driver, but she wasn't exactly good. She had only received two lessons, both from Percy, and both cut short by ...other distractions.
But she had never expected to get held up less than a mile from the entrance of the camp.
None the less hit somebody.
But in her defense, the crazy guy was walking in the middle of the road, mumbling to himself.
And she had certainly never expected the guy to have been a part of the Roman camp.
The guy was currently laying there moaning in the middle of the abandoned road in the hills above San Francisco. He didn't seem to be too hurt, but he had been hit by a Buick going twenty miles an hour.
The Buick in question had been borrowed by the four demigods back outside the national park. They had driven it across the golden gate bridge into the city, which they traveled through to get to the hills. It had been somewhat hard to know that her dad and stepmom were so close. But it was even harder to remember being here with Percy on a number of occaisons. It was just plain weird to see the Alcatraz island where they had traipsied through several years before, when everything was different now.
But that wasn't even the wierdest thing.
"Hey, wait a second, is this guy wearing a toga?" Leo remarked.
"Not the time, man." Jason said, his eyes wide as Annabeth was trying to figure out what to do.
"Maybe we should just call an ambulence, or call my dad..."
"I don't see a phone around here, and I don't know if you realize this, but the guy looks like a nut." Piper said smartly.
"Dude, he's so wearing a toga. And check out this." Leo said, reaching for the brown paper bag the guy was holding when he was hit. He turned it over and out fell the remains of about twenty stuffed animals, including a panda pillow pet.