Beginning Notes: Hi Guys! This story is a revamping of something I published a way long time ago. I started with this idea almost three years ago, and didn't really ever follow through with it. I stumbled across it a few weeks ago, though, and was excited to maybe start up again. Now I'm back and (hopefully) better than ever! Now, after doing a little more planning and hopefully having gained much more writing proficiency over the past few years, I'm ready to get it up off the ground again. So, here is the first chapter, with a healthy dose of Gallagher Girls inspiration and some thoroughly google-translated Portuguese, in all its glory. Let me know what you think with a review, and enjoy!
Before lunch, Annabeth's day was shaping up to be pretty darn average. Well, as average as one could expect a day to be for a seventeen-year-old girl attending Long Island Academy of Arts and Sciences. She had started her morning running counter surveillance exercises in Escape and Evasion class, and aced a quiz on Saudi Arabian dining customs during second period. She popped into her Cryptography classroom around noon to hand in her translated copy of their most recently assigned code, and made it to the dining hall just before lunch would be served. She could never have known how unaverage her day was about to become.
The Long Island Academy of Arts and Sciences might sound like any other, run-of-the mill east coast private school; indeed, it was marketed as such. Outsiders know it to be no more than a supremely elite and highly selective boarding school. Yet, situated in a secluded bay on the Long Island Sound, the academy's high, ivy-covered walls hide much more than what meets the eye. The titular "arts and sciences" taught to the academy's students were not those of playing the cello and microbiology, but rather the art of deception and the science of codebreaking. The Long Island Academy of Arts and Sciences was, in fact, a school for spies.
So, as Annabeth sat down beside her best friend and fellow agent-in-training, Thalia Grace, she greeted her not in English, but in Portuguese—the assigned "dining hall language" of the week.
"Você sabe o que é o almoço hoje?" she asked, plunking her bag down on the table.
Thalia scooted over to make room for Annabeth to sit, and replied, saying that she did not know what was being served for lunch that day, and that Annabeth would do well to brush up on her Portuguese pronunciation. Annabeth stuck her tongue out in retort, and sat down. Before the two friends could even strike up a conversation, though, they were interrupted by someone calling out their names from a few tables down, completely forgoing the Portuguese assignment.
"Annabeth! Thalia! You'll never guess what just happened!"
A kid with curly hair and a rasta cap slid into a chair across from them with such energy that it screeched several feet across the hardwood floor. Sheepishly pulling himself back to the table and righting his cap on his head, Grover Underwood leaned in with an excited glint in his eyes.
"So, I was in Programming and Systems Analysis, right?" Grover had to pause to catch his breath, apparently having run all the way from the Herman building.
Programming and Systems Analysis was just the fancy, curriculum title for hacking, and it was Grover's best subject. He was a technological genius.
His breaths slowing to a more average rate, Grover went on. "Anyways, so, we were meant to be working on some passkey encryption project, but I finished that ages ago, so I was messing around with the firewalls that protect the security camera feeds. I've never gotten past them before, but today must have been my lucky day, because I usually can't even access any of the source code, but when I tried approaching from a veiled VPN-"
"I don't have the slightest idea what a VP-whatever is," Thalia said, also abandoning the assigned language, and spooning portions of the newly-arrived salad onto her plate. "Can you just get to the point?"
"Oh, right, sorry." Grover's fingers danced over the tabletops in excitement. "So, I got onto the camera feed, and you'll never guess what I saw."
"You said that, " Thalia grumbled. "If we're never going to guess, how about you just tell us then?"
Just as Grover was opening his mouth to reply, the doors of the dining hall burst open, and one hundred heads swiveled at once to face them. Mr. Chiron Brunner, head of the Academy, sat in his wheelchair in the foyer, accompanied by a tall, teenage boy whom Annabeth had never seen before. As the pair of them walked into the dining hall, flanked by Academy security, the light illuminated the boy's face.
Thalia whistled. "Dang. That is not a bad looking guy, eh Annie?"
Annabeth frowned. "He looks annoying. And don't call me Annie."
The boy was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt—decidedly not the school uniform—but he didn't seem to be wearing a visitor's badge either. He ran a hand through his disheveled black hair, and his eyes roved the room, as if he was sizing up the place. For a moment, they met with Annabeth's, but she immediately realized she must have been staring, and snapped her gaze back down to her lap.
A low hum of whispered conversations reverberated around the hall. Outsiders were never allowed within Academy walls, and he was too young to be a visitor from the agency, but he couldn't be a student. Students were admitted very rarely, and only under extremely specific circumstances. Annabeth's own admission had been under even more unusual circumstances than what was standard, but that was beside the point. It was already one month into the school year, and judging by the boy's height and his lean, muscular build, he was around her age. Even with the right qualifications, Annabeth had never heard of a student being admitted after tenth grade, and she was entering her senior year.
Annabeth saw Mr. Brunner whisper something into the boy's ear, and the boy nodded. He shook hands with the headmaster, and began to pick his way through the mess of tables and chairs in the dining hall. He passed several tables full of students, and if he noticed that everyone he passed was staring at him in silence, he didn't let on. He didn't sit down, either, despite walking by several empty seats. It took Annabeth a few seconds to realize that he was walking toward someone in particular. That someone in particular seemed to be her.
Oh no you don't, Annabeth thought to herself. Her suspicions were confirmed when the boy caught her glance again and smirked. She didn't like the way that smug played across his face, slanting his chiseled jawline and oozing the exact sort of cocky attitude she expected from him. She wasn't sure what had made her dislike him so much before even hearing him talk, but she was sure.
Annabeth was broken out of her contemplation by the sound of the boy pulling a chair up next to Grover, directly across from her. The mischievous smile still plastered across his face, he dropped into it.
"You," he said, leaning across the table and looking right at Annabeth. "Were staring at me."
"I was not." Annabeth glared at him.
The boy grabbed a nectarine from her plate, took a huge bite of it and grinned. "Were too. I'm Percy, by the way. I'm new."
Annabeth pulled her plate away from Percy. "New? Really? Couldn't have guessed."
Thalia elbowed her. "Nice to meet you Percy, I'm Thalia. This is Annie, who clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."
"I'm Grover," Grover said, looking confused. Annabeth was pretty sure she knew why; it wasn't every day that Thalia was the one injecting politeness into the conversation, and to be honest, Annabeth wasn't sure where it came from either.
"My name isn't Annie," Annabeth said, giving Thalia a stink eye. "It's Annabeth."
"Oh, so you're Annabeth?" Percy asked, leaning back in his chair.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Annabeth asked, dropping her begrudging tone, betrayed by her genuine curiosity.
"Chi–I mean, Mr. Brunner told me about you," Percy said. "We're meant to go to his office together after lunch."
Annabeth straightened. "You didn't feel the need to mention that earlier?"
"You were too busy glowering at me."
Annabeth huffed, and stabbed at her salad with a fork.
"What's up with this salad?" Percy asked after a moment's silence. "Don't they feed us any real substance here?"
Annabeth didn't love salad herself, but she suddenly felt the need to defend it.
"Quinoa is substantial," she retorted. "Anyways, it's Meatless Monday. We're having chicken caesar wraps tomorrow."
Grover, who was munching on Thalia's leftovers, perked up at this. "Meatless mondays are the only good days for vegetarians. The rest of the days we get soggy pasta salad and bland bean burgers."
"Here's a thought," Percy replied through a mouthful of leaves, having just snagged his own bite from Thalia's plate. "Don't be a vegetarian."
Annabeth thought that was pretty rude, but Grover and Thalia both laughed, and she thought it best not to push it, if only for her friends' sake.
"Hmph. If I had known chicken caesar wraps was this school's idea of a substantial meal, I wouldn't have accepted this deal."
"Deal?"
"What deal?"
"Why are you even here?"
Thalia, Grover and Annabeth all spoke at once.
Percy grinned. "I'm a new student. Everyone has to be a new student at some point, don't they?"
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Not four weeks into senior year, they don't."
"Well, here I am."
"You know, everybody is going to ask you these same questions. You're going to have to fess up at some point."
Percy didn't answer, and avoided her gaze. "Everyone's leaving. We shouldn't keep Mr. Brunner waiting. "
"I still don't know what this meeting is about," Annabeth said.
"Yeah, well you'll never know if you don't get a move on. Let's go!"
He stood up, and pushed in his chair. Annabeth moved to follow, but Thalia grabbed her elbow before she could stand.
"You'll tell us everything, right?" she whispered in Annabeth's ear.
"Of course," Annabeth replied, smiling. "As soon as I get out of there."
Thalia smiled back, and let go of her elbow. Annabeth hurried to catch Percy, who already had one foot out the door.