"Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there? Anyone punch outta that wreck?"
If Annabeth were dramatic, she would say that she waited with bated breath for a sound, any sound to come from the other side. She would imagine that the person fumbled with her radio before jamming the button and barking back a response. Instead, the answer came fluidly, as if the survivor were right there. "Colonel Christina Eliopolis, U.S. Civil Air Patrol. Who are you?"
Annabeth decided that she liked this Colonel Eliopolis. "I'm a skywatcher. They call me Mets Fan."
She could imagine Percy laughing at her handle. Seaweed Brain would point out that Annabeth owned a Yankees cap. However, when Annabeth presented her handle as emergency communication with civilians about non-monster dangers (read: Zacks), Chiron seemed to see the meaning in the name: Mets was short for Metis. Athena's mother.
Annabeth described what she'd seen: the C-130 suddenly smoking, spiraling downward, and two parachutes coming out. Of course, she had left out a few details: the real cause of the plane's malfunction, that she was not a real skywatcher. The Mist would disguise the former, and the colonel had no suspicions of the latter. Even so, Annabeth hated lying.
"I made it," the voice on the other end croaked, "Now what the fuck do I do?"
Annabeth took off the headset and sighed. Looking out the window (clear plastic over a hole in the wall) and frowned. A cloud of dust. No moans-so not Zack. Nonetheless, her cue to leave.
As she hurried to stuff her gear into her backpack, Annabeth realized that she'd never answered Christina. "Look up," she said. Hopefully, the microphone was good enough to pick up what she'd said.
As she secured the straps of her pack, Annabeth decided that the gods must have given this Colonel Eliopolis a lucky break. She'd managed to crash land two days before a routine air shuttle between Baton Rouge and Lafayette would pass over the area AND get to the highway right when it was within sight, despite being delayed by Gs along the way. Grabbing her dagger, Annabeth busted out of the old but miraculously functioning ham radio station. As she headed toward the pre-arranged meet-up station for demigods in trouble, she looked toward the highway behind her. A UH-60 hovered over the spot where a signal flare had been moments before.
In a now abandoned shack, a headset that lay on a table crackled to life. In between transmissions of garbled speech and static, a voice said, "I got my pickup, I'm safe" and "thank you thank you thank you" and a choked sob and "d'you think I'll finally get that episode of The View?" Then silence.
A light on the radio blinked. Wind whistled. The plastic over the window fluttered, and an old door creaked and swung lazily in the Louisiana breeze.