Percy was never the type to stay still. He should have told Grover, but it had slipped his mind at the time. He wasn't sure how long he'd lasted in his room before the temptation to explore outside. Maybe five minutes? Probably less. He'd had a watch when he had come back from school and taken out the trash that afternoon, but he guessed it had been blown off in the big explosion (KABOOM!) and now he couldn't tell the time. There had been a clock in his room on the drawer. A digital one with a black plastic casing. It wasn't that Percy was unobservant, it was just that the rate at which Percy processed information was far slower than the rate at which he took it in.

And now he was wandering among the corridors that were lined with pipes and underground. He had no idea where he was going, but he was just curious. There was a green pipe on the ceiling that Percy had chosen to follow. It had taken him up a set of stairs and through several doors until it disappeared into a wall. Then Percy heard a gurgling sound that always arose when someone flushed the toilet. He saw it reverberate through another pipe along the ceiling, and Percy decided to follow that.

He wondered briefly how big the facility was. Something in the back of his mind told him he'd walked at least a hundred metres, but Percy didn't pay attention to it. After that he promptly forgot it. Part of it was just his character, but much larger part was because he was face to face with a tall girl. She was lean and had the same expressionless mask that Annabeth always had. He wondered if there was a shop here that sold them. Apart from her mask, the girl was completely different. She had black hair and dark eyes with slightly tanned skin. She turned her head slowly and asked, "What are you doing here?"

Percy saw another similarity. Both Annabeth and the brown expressionless girl had voices that were hard. Like the concrete blocks that had made up his house before KABOOM! or the bricks that had cockroaches crawling through them every time Percy walked past them. Of course, those bricks might always break and become playthings for Percy in his wonderful fantasies and playworld of heroes and knights in shining armour.

Suddenly the girl surged forward and asked, "What are you doing here." Even though Percy was taller than her, he still stepped back, not wanting to get close to her tanned skin.

"I'm Percy." Percy quickly stammered out. "Who are you?" He quickly stepped back again until he was leaning against the wall, and was thankful that Reyna didn't follow.

"Reyna." Came the short reply. "What are you doing here?"

Percy was stumped. How could he explain the itch? The need that rose in him to do something. His urge to explore and see things, to satisfy his mind that craved distractions and took in details. It was something that couldn't be put into words. "I was just walking around."

It seemed weak and pointless when put into words, as if he was reducing himself when he brought himself back into reality. Reyna narrowed her eyes and said, "We've told you infiltrators to stay away from our living quarters unless we're working on missions together.

"Hey, no need to be so unfriendly," came a deeper voice. A young man walked out, even taller than Percy was. He was dark skinned and stood straight. He reminded Percy of a tie, the tie his dad always wore when he came back from work. Neat and proper and straight. But even though he stood straight like Reyna did, he didn't seem as brittle and hard. Reyna was forcing herself to stand straight, but this man seemed to have been born straight. Like he had stood, or floated, straight in the womb instead of in fetal position.

Maybe he had slid out of his mom straight and smooth, smiling that easy and relaxed smile, saying, "Hello there. Nice to meet you, mom. Would it be terribly inconvenient if you cut off my umbilical cord?" Percy smiled slightly at the mental image of a tall baby talking in his mothers' arms.

"I'm Carter," he said, extending his hand, "You've probably been told that we can get a little territorial over our living spaces. I'm assuming you haven't worked with us firsthand."

Percy reached out and shook hands. He had never understood why people had to shake hands when they first met. Was it saying that they trusted each other enough to touch each other? Percy had never trusted everyone he'd shaken hands with. He'd only ever truly trusted his mom, and they had never shaken hands. They had never needed to say that they trusted each other.

Suddenly Reyna suddenly poked at Percy's neck with and turned to Carter. "I think he's the new infiltrator. You know, Poseidon Jackson's son."

Carter frowned and peered at Percy's neck as well. "Who's your dad?"

Percy frowned. "Why do we have to talk about him?" He didn't want to talk about unpleasant things. They were so easy to ignore anyways. "What's an infiltrator?" He asked. It sounded like a fancy word his teachers would use. Words like circumnavigate, and scrupulousness, and vilification that were so nice to pronounce, even though Percy didn't know what they meant.

"An infiltrator is what they call your section of us half-bloods," Reyna said, "You spy and do more covert operations. We're the strikeforce. We're more like soldiers than you are."

Percy nodded, even though Reyna had been very vague. All this talk about missions and spying. What were they up to? Again, Percy didn't think about it. Like he didn't think about a lot of things. There wasn't any use in thinking about things that didn't need thinking about. Always better to think on the bright side or else his mind would just go in an endless circle. "What's a half blood?"
"Just what we call ourselves." Carter said, "I think it was Chiron's little joke. We're half-flesh half-metal, and it somehow morphed into our current little euphemism." A euphemism. Such a long word, like infiltrator. Percy wondered if anyone might be offended. Olympians emphasized purity of blood, it was another one of those unwritten rules. People who were descended from pure Olympians were held in higher regard than people descended from countries Olympus had conquered. Like Percy. His mom and his dad were both descended from Olympus. But people who had ancestors from different countries like Corinth or Delphi had never gotten into high positions.

Carter and Reyna were looking at him, as if they expected him to ask some more, and Percy wondered when they had been brought in, and if it had taken a KABOOM!to unhinge them from their ordinary life. "So how long have you been working here? And what do you do?"

"I've been here for seven years now, since I was eleven." Carter said, "Come on, I'll take you to the dining hall. There's just one for all of us, so you'll be able to find your friends."

"Didn't you have to report back to Sadie?" Reyna asked pointedly. Carter winced and rolled his eyes. "It was just cleaning up. Not that it would have been necessary if some of us were with them." His voice turned bitter and sad.

"Regardless," Reyna said, "You need to report to Sadie now. I'll give the new half-blood some directions."

Carter hesitated and nodded, "See you later, Percy Jackson. It's a nice name."

Percy wondered if Carter would always address him including his last name, but then Reyna started talking. "The nearest staircase is on the second left down that way." Percy looked at Carter as he walked off. His hands were swinging by his side, relaxed. He didn't have them in his pockets like Malcom or Michael did. He didn't have them folded across his chest like Reyna did as she was talking to him. He supposed he should have been listening, but phrases like turn right until you see the toilets, or go down two flights of stairs just refused to stay in his brain.

Reyna then turned and left, leaving Percy staring at her in confusion. After standing there for a bit, he decided to backtrack. The corridors seemed to be the same wherever he went. It was like the people who built it had decided to be confusing on purpose. Or maybe because they made the building to be uniform and orderly.

That was another one of Olympus' ideals. Order and uniformity. It had meant that everything had to be the same so that it could be managed easily. Percy guessed it made sense. It was like how his mom made cookies the same from the same mold. It was quicker and they tasted just as good, no matter if they were star shaped or triangle shaped.

Of course, if a cookie was already a star shape, it was hard to make it a circle shape. Too bad there wasn't a mold inside his mom that could shape him and make him all circle shaped. It would have been a lot easier in school. He wouldn't have noticed things, wouldn't have had teachers come down to his level and give him a little talk.

But he wouldn't have noticed things like the way the clock hands always touched each other once every hour. He wouldn't have noticed how his mom always smiled differently every time Percy saw her. Sometimes her eyes would crinkle differently, or maybe she'd be doing something different and have her hands busy as she turned her neck. Sometimes she'd stand on her toes and hug him. And sometimes she would tell him to go take out the trash and he would never see her again.

Percy felt himself crying, felt the itch turn into a burning that started in his chest and ran across his spine and out through his mouth and his eyes. Out and short gasps and small tears as the burning made him shiver over and over again as he doubled over.

He fell against the wall and he felt pain shoot up down his arm and through his body as his shoulder clanked against the wall. He looked down at his new metallic limb all covered in black. He had forgotten that his flesh was gone, burnt off in the big KABOOM! along with his mom. He held the arm up to the light and stared at it. There was a small groove in his arm that had allowed Annabeth to poke something into him. There was also an opening for something that looked like it could connect to one of the computers his dad would sometimes bring with him from work. Apart from that, it seemed like a normal arm to him.

He examined his left arm that seemed exactly the same as his right one, except there was a small protrusion in his left bicep. It was like a bump that he got when he ran into a wall and banged his head. It had hurt, and it had burst with blood leaking out, and he had felt the burning sensation that he was feeling now. It started in his chest and worked its way out through his mouth in the form of sobs and his eyes in the form of tears.

His teachers had, of course, taken him to the hospital, and given him the little talk that he had to be more careful for the good of Olympus. The swelling had gone down soon enough, and he no longer had to wear a white bandage on top of his head.

Maybe this swelling would go down after time. Or maybe it could go away now. It wasn't leaking blood, and it didn't even hurt when Percy poked at it. He tweaked at it a bit, and it twisted a little. He tweaked at it again harder and this time he felt the protrusion bend. His fingers clenched harder and suddenly the protrusion broke, shattering under his fingers. He was surprised. It looked to be made out of hard plastic, the kind windows and doors were made of. It must have been brittle if Percy was able to just break it with his hands.

But then he didn't think about that anymore because the burning sensation that normally started in his chest now started in his arm shot up and stabbed him in the head. It fought to get out of him, and burst out from him in a moan. He was burning and fire was leaving his mouth as he moaned and clawed the walls. He tried to stand up, but his legs were shaking with fire and it seemed like the bones in his legs weren't holding him up. Then he remembered that he didn't have bones in one of his legs and he laughed hysterically.

It was like the big KABOOM again, except that this KABOOM was starting inside him and worming its way out slowly. He was sweating all over as the burning stabbed him over and over in the head, like there were lumps coming out of his head and stretching his skull like he had stretched putty when he was a kid. Digging his fingers in enthusiastically and pulling it apart with delight. Seeing his fingers break through the putty and wiggling them while giggling.

Percy giggled then as his fingers clawed into the walls like they had clawed into the putty. He scratched the walls as he writhed there, and he could only think, at least the walls won't all be the same. He could feel the floor thumping and thumping, and at first he thought it was him. But then he felt arms pick him up and start dragging him somewhere.

He was sweating fire, squeezing out the burning within him with all his fluids. His limbs spasmed and trembled but he wasn't put back down on the ground, for which he was grateful. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, so out of time and random. When he walked, there was a rhythm. When he hugged his mom, there was a rhythm. But when fire was escaping him there was no rhythm. Just one long beat. Almost like the big KABOOM that was one short beat. One blink and goodbye mom. Goodbye everything. And all he had done was take out the trash.

Suddenly the fire was stopping. He was still sweating, but now he could see past his tears. Tears always stopped him from seeing, because anything he set his eyes on would refract and reflect off the small globules of clear liquid. But now he wasn't, and he could see Annabeth standing above him clearly. She had the expressionless mask that she always did, and her grey eyes stared down at Percy passively. "You were an idiot."

"Where am I?" Percy asked. He looked around and saw that he was looking up at the same white ceiling as yesterday. Or the first time he had woken up in this place. He couldn't tell the time.

"Do you usually go around trying to break your limbs?" Annabeth said passively, "That was your supply of morphine and other drugs that regulated your brain. Your body's in a lot of pain right now, but we needed you to get used to your body quickly."

Percy wasn't restrained this time and he sat up, taking a look at his arm. There was another lump on his arm now, and this time Percy knew that it was leaking things out. Not blood or dirt or pus, but pristine and clinical drugs that doused the burning inside him. Annabeth leaned over him and brought her face in close so all Percy could see was her hard face and grey eyes. "Listen. That lump is supplying you with painkillers. Your body's still in a lot of pain, but we need you to get used to your body quickly."

Percy nodded. It was easier to concentrate when there was someone speaking right in front of him. The lump wasn't like the ones he had sustained when he had bumped his head. Those had been leaking things out, not in. Percy made to get off the bed, and he staggered, his leg not able to support his weight. Annabeth didn't try and help him which Percy was grateful for. He could at least stand by himself. He got up again, and this time he stayed on his feet. His vision seemed to fade as he got the usual sensation of blood rushing to his head, but it soon went away. Everything went away in the end. His thoughts that never stayed in one place, food, teachers, and even his mom. Percy quickly made that depressing thought go away and started following Annabeth, who had opened the door and was walking out. "Dinner's ready now. I suggest you get used to eating again. You'll need it later."

Percy's stomach rumbled, as if on cue, and he followed Annabeth eagerly through all of the corridors that looked exactly the same. Percy noticed that they were going in the same direction as they had when Annabeth took him to the huge room where everyone was training when Annabeth bumped into Grover, who was coming around the corner. "I was looking for Percy," he started, but he stopped talking when he saw Percy walking behind Annabeth with his hands in his pockets.

"Oh," he mumbled. "Are you okay?"

Percy nodded. "Why were you looking for me?"

"You just weren't at the dining hall." Grover said. Percy nodded and wondered what the food would be like. It would be too much to hope for blue cookies, but maybe there was something there that was equally delicious.

Annabeth held her gaze at Grover, causing him to look away and take a step back. Then he left towards the dining hall, followed by Annabeth and Percy. Grover was acting like the students in Percy's class who didn't know the answer and refused to meet the teacher's gaze. The teacher would cock her head and smile malevolently. Come on, the answer can't be that hard.

Grover wasn't looking at them in the same way. It was like there was a question that he didn't want to be asked, a question that he couldn't answer. The thing was, Percy didn't know what the question Grover didn't want them to ask was. Did Annabeth know? There was something in the way Annabeth had kept looking at him for a moment that made him quickly turn around. Maybe that was how Annabeth's grey eyes had been modified, they could make someone scared just by looking at them. Maybe they had taken all the white and red out of her and filled her eyes with grey that could instantly make anyone who looked at it scared. Maybe they had taken out all her red and white blood cells and replaced them with grey ones of steel that ran through her whole body and strengthened it. Maybe her blood was grey, and if she were cut, quicksilver would run out of her wounds.

What Percy noticed first when they arrived into the dining hall was the noise. It wasn't particularly noisy, but Percy hadn't heard so many people talk at once in a long time. His school was quiet as they put their heads down studying Olympian geography and memorizing the Olympian Code that each of them had to abide by.

But in this dining hall people talked. They went to a counter to get steaming food and went back to long tables where they actually talked freely. Percy even saw one or two of them laugh. Annabeth nudged him over to the counter where they got plates and held them out for food. They got rice and some meat slopped onto their plates, and Percy's stomach grumbled appreciatively. He just realized that he probably hadn't eaten in a long time. "How long has it been since I came here?" he asked Annabeth.

"We found you on the evening of the twentieth of October." Annabeth said mechanically, "It's the evening of the twenty-third now."

Percy nodded slowly. So it had been three days. Three days ago his body had been whole. Now his arms and legs were black with lumps on them that stopped the fire burning within. What would happen after that? What would happen in three weeks. Would they suck out the red and white inside him and fill it up with grey?

He almost dropped his plate when Annabeth shook him. "You need to stop zoning out or you could get killed."

Percy nodded and went to the table she gestured to, and sat down with Annabeth on his left and Grover on his right. He noticed Carter eating a few tables opposite in between two other dark-skinned girls. Carter was eating naturally without spilling anything. He looked up and caught Percy's eye, giving him a nod before going back to his conversation.

"Hey, Percy," Grover said, "It looked like Carter knew you." He was sitting on the edge of his seat and looked a little nervous. Percy noticed, but didn't quite use, the fact that Annabeth was listening intently.

Percy finished swallowing his mouthful of rice and said, "Yeah. I went walking after you left me in my room and met him and Reyna."

Grover looked at Annabeth who just shrugged and went back to eating. They were interrupted by two Travises. Or at least, that was what they seemed like. They had been eating a few seats beside Percy and now slid next to him.

"What's this about you knowing Carter?" One of the Travises asked. He stuck out a hand and said, "I'm Connor, by the way. Nice to meet you." Percy nodded slowly and looked at the blue eyes that Connor-who-wasn't-Travis were using to stare at Percy. It might have made some people uncomfortable, but Percy was used to getting stared at. It normally happened whenever his teachers smiled at him and took him out for a little talk. But Connor's stare didn't seem bad. When the teachers stared at him, it was like they were trying to figure out how to mold him from a star shape to a circle shape without melting him down, because that would take too much trouble. Connor's stare was like he was trying to understand Percy so he could be Percy's friend. It was new to Percy, but he felt like he understood Connor immediately.

So, Percy told Connor, and by extension Travis, Grover and Annabeth about his little trip into Reyna and Carters' territory. He didn't make the best storyteller. He always went off tangent and noticing new things about the situation, like how both Reyna and Carter was wearing a purple T-shirt, or how Reyna had a slight limp in her right leg. But Connor kept on nodding and laughing and asking questions. Travis was talking with Grover about something else, while Annabeth was methodically eating her food.

When he had finished talking, Percy stopped to drink from a cup of water while Connor smiled at him. "So, do you have any questions?"

Percy was surprised. No one ever asked him to talk more. They would usually just listen and nod, then forget everything Percy said as quickly as Percy himself did. When Connor asked the question, it surprised Percy so much that his brain stopped noticing things for a moment. Then Percy asked, "Are we infiltrators?"

Connor raised an eyebrow and said, "I wasn't expecting that one. Well, yes, we are. And Carter's part of the strikeforce."

Percy nodded. There was something about talking that made him focus. When he talked, he it was like he was ordering his thoughts into a concrete road, like his thoughts were bubbling asphalt that spat out globules of incoherent messes, and talking helped him lay it out flat, for others to see and understand.

"Did you lose your parents?" Percy asked. Grover choked on his piece of meat that he was eating, and Connor raised his eyebrows before putting on a smile again. "Are you sure you don't have any questions about what your missions will be?"

Percy thought about it and said, "Well, won't I be told if I do have to go?" Connor shrugged and Percy went on, "Besides, what's so special about me? Are you sending me on missions just because of my dad?"

Connor shook his head and leaned in conspiratorially. Percy leaned in as well while Annabeth kept on eating as if the conversation bored her. "It's not just because of Poseidon that we involved you in all of this. It's because of his work."

Connor had said the wrong thing. Percy didn't like to think about his dad, and definitely didn't like to think that he was always at work. My wife's been blown up in a huge KABOOM! and I'm at work. My son's limbs have been replaced with lumps to quench a fire in him, and I'm at work. Percy realized his fists were clenched around his spoon and he let go of it. The metal spoon had bent, molding itself so that it could be held perfectly by Percy, provided he used a clenched fist to eat.

Connor had cocked his head and asked, "You okay? Do you want me to keep on going?"

Percy nodded. Suddenly he could concentrate on what Connor was saying. It seemed so easy to remember the sounds Connor's moving jaw was making. Up and down, up and down. "Your dad's work was the design of a new cyborg. The new design can breathe underwater and gain strength from any surrounding liquids. You can probably tell why it's so important."

Percy nodded. Orthus was more water than land, islands stuck in the sea. Being able to swim and breathe underwater would be like having a cyborg that could fly. Percy wondered what it would be to fly over Olympus and see all the green and fertile lands. See the war between the Olympians and Orthians as they shot at each other across the long coastline of Olympus.

"When your dad found out you were almost dying," Connor was saying, "He made us implement the prototype inside you." It was getting harder to concentrate now. Thoughts of flying unrestricted across the vast country was too enticing for Connor's voice to hold him.

"So," Percy said, trying to concentrate again and lay out the bubbling tar in his mind out smoothly, "I can swim?"

Connor laughed easily and said, "Yeah. You can." Travis leaned in closer and asked, "Scared?"

Travis and Connor were so similar. Not just the way their brown hair grew the same way, or the way their cheekbones were raised at the same angle, but in the way their blue eyes seemed to draw out answers from Percy. Percy wanted to talk to them, not just because they helped him concentrate, but because Percy felt safe telling them things.

"I've always wanted to swim." he said eagerly, "I always thought it was cool. Like flying."

Travis and Connor both leaned back with eyes glittering in interest. "Well, good talking to you, Percy. We're done with dinner now, so have fun." With that, they both got up at the same time and took their plate away. Percy looked at Grover, who was staring at him with wide eyes. Annabeth's expression hadn't changed, but Percy saw that her plate was empty, and had been for a while. Percy slumped down and was suddenly tired. All the bubbling thoughts that normally spat things out at random had cooled, and Percy couldn't think of much at all. He felt drained and just wanted to go to bed.

Annabeth had picked up on that, because she stood up and said, "You need rest. Get some this time." She led him to a row of trays where she and Percy slid their plates in. Walking back to his room with Annabeth, he didn't think as quickly as he used to. He noticed how Grover kept on avoiding his gaze as always, but no random thoughts that his teachers always disapproved of. How ironic that he had started to become a good Olympian. Maybe one purpose of getting modifications, as Annabeth had put it, was to insert some Olympian in them. Maybe Annabeth hadn't been scary and had feelings before they took out her eyes and injected grey to replace red and white. Maybe the black arms and leg that Percy was now wearing would become a real part of him and he would become hard and cold with lumps and protrusions that did unthinkable things.

As usual, Annabeth shook him to get him out of his thoughts. "Stay here this time. I don't want to stick a tracking device in your arm. Go to sleep."

Percy nodded and went into his room, flopping down on his bed. Grover looked at him for a moment, started to open his mouth, but stopped. Instead, he walked away with Annabeth after closing the door, leaving Percy to lie on the bed until he fell asleep.

Yes, I know this chapter took a while. When I updated the first two chapters I was on Chinese New Year. For those of you that don't know, that's a holiday that gives me a week off. So I could update quickly. Now, I don't have a week off, so I can't update quickly.

Plus, this chapter was a little harder to write. We've gotten past the first bit, but there's still a lot to do before we get to the action bits that I want to.

Anyways, hope you liked that chapter.