Chapter 35: Déjà Vu
We stepped out of the infirmary of the Big House and waiting outside cooling his heels off was Maxwell. He leaned back against the blue siding, intently carving a new piece of wood with his knife. "Finished your last carving?" I asked him.
He looked up at me briefly before he brought his eyes back on the delicate notches he was making. "Yep, just something to keep my hands busy when I'm not fighting". He twirled his short knife expertly between his fingers before slipping it into a leather sleeve. "Where you guys going?"
I shrugged my shoulder in the direction little Harley left running. "Calypso might have figured out a way to heal everyone back in Camp Jupiter. Reyna knows where to go and Harley's arranging transportation to get there".
At the mention of Harley's name, Max grumbled as he slipped his knife in and out in indecision before he dropped it into his pocket. "Oh fun… He's probably going to their little workshop. I wouldn't trust anything that's coming out of that place. Hephaestus Cabin's tinker toys tend to end up becoming death traps" Maxwell smiled as he pushed off the wall.
I sighed, "well let's see what happens. It can't be that bad".
Right from the start it seemed we Luck wasn't on our side. When we got to the bulkhead of the Bunker, it closed and locked. Maxwell grumbled as he tried muscling the steel door open. When it failed to budge; he gave it a solid kick which ended with a dull thunk and Max groaning as he clutched his boot. "They closed the doors on us".
"Isn't there a lever or a switch to open the door?" I asked looking at the thick steel door. Aside from the deep red rust, the bulkhead seemed vaguely familiar to me.
"If there was, it's gone now. The Hephaestus kids took over the place and turned it into their private tinker shop. It's protected with passwords and security codes. Type in the wrong code and you get a nasty shock. Believe me, I've tried. Not fun".
I scratched the back of my head. "Is there another door into the Bunker?"
"Not that I know of. The only way in is through those big steel doors".
I stepped away from the bulkheads and walked along the Cliffside. The path was overgrown with raspberries and strawberry vines, so the going was a bit rough. "Ugh Alex, what're you doing?" He asked still standing in the clearing at the edge of the brambles.
"Call it a hunch, but I don't think there would only be one way to get in or out of a place like that". I tripped over a rock under the greenery and took a tumble headfirst into the raspberry bushes. "Owww…" My face was stinging and my palms were a bit bruised but otherwise fine.
"You okay man?" Maxwell asked, a little nervously.
"I'm cool, just tripped on something". I looked behind me and noticed a dull shine. "Hello. What's this? Dude there's something over here".
"You better not be yanking my chain man" Maxwell grumbled as trudged through the thorny plants. "Otherwise, I'll use you as my personal punching bag for the foreseeable future" he punched one fist into the palm of his other hand for emphasis.
"Max, come on. Look at this thing". He kneeled next to me and we checked it out. It looked like a shift or something. Made of metal, mostly covered in greenish coating, with a few flecks of gold and bronze peeking out.
"Looks like an old lever" Maxwell figured. He reached for it and pushed on the short shaft sticking out of the ground. Tried as he might, the lever wouldn't shift. "Dude, it's busted".
I rubbed my chin and thought about it. "Something about it looks off. The end has a pattern to it, looks like an H, like a lock or something".
"Fat lot of help a lock is gonna be without a key" Maxwell complained as he got up and started walking off. His foot clanged into something and a metal rod went rolling across the ground.
I reached for the bronze shaft and hefted it. One end looked like solid, circular rod. But the other end had a solid H. "You asked for a key, you got it. H, for what Hephaestus?"
"Hmm, I think it's called Eta, but close enough. Try it" Maxwell suggested. I forced the H on the rod into the mold on the shaft. It fit perfectly, but nothing seemed to be happening. "Now what?" he asked.
"I don't think it's an actual key. I think we still need to force it open. Let's try it". Me and Maxwell got close to each other and yanked on the shaft together. Apparently looks were deceiving because we went flying backward, the lever unlocked with barely any effort at all. We fell on our butts and on top of each other in a tangle of arms and legs. I was on my back and he was laying on top of me, staring down at my face in a daze. When we realized the position we were in; he jumped off me blushing; while I backed away a bit.
"Sorry about that Alex" his milky white skin blushed to a cherry red.
Thankfully my tan hid most of the blush. "It's cool Max, don't know our own strength" I added as I raised my arms and flexed in a double biceps pose. He smiled as he put a hand in front of me and I grabbed it and got up. "Hey, look behind you".
As he turned around, we watched as the Cliffside seemed to slip behind itself. A skinny black hole in the wall appeared in front of us. "Secret tunnel. Cool man, definitely going to use that later. Don't tell the others about it. It'll be our secret" he beamed a crocodile smile and I couldn't help grinning with him.
Turned out the tunnel wasn't that long. It went about twenty feet into the rock and then we had to crouch onto out hands and knees. Felt like a boulder was in our way. I pushed against it and it tumbled aside with a thud. We crawled out, wiped the dust off our clothes and then rolled the boulder back in place; walking off toward the voices echoing in the giant room.
We rounded a couple of boxes stacked with parts and there everyone was waiting impatiently around a large project, covered by a heavy hemp cloth. Harley blinked at us, looking confused, "oh, there you guys are. Thought we left you two outside?"
"Uhm, we got a little sidetracked. This place is a bit big".
"Well of course, this was the tactical center of camp during the Civil War. Where the arsenal used to be. The Hephaestus Cabin moved here during the effort to develop war machines. But after the fighting was over, the place was abandoned, forgotten for years. Until my older brother Leo stumbled on it by accident when he first got here, so cool!"
I looked around the room like I was seeing double. I was getting a headache just thinking about it. I looked up at the back wall where a banner of Hephaestus hung. I squinted my eyes and I thought the brown flag suddenly grew a blue field with stars and red and white stripes. "Hey, are you okay Alex" I felt a hand on my shoulder and saw it was Max's. I shook my head and refocused on the wall, but the banner once more proudly showed Eta on a Brown background.
"Yeah, I'm fine, sorry. So, what's under the tarp?"
"I'm glad you asked Alex" Harley proudly exclaimed. He inched his way closer to it and grabbed on edge of the tarp. "I've been busy working on this for weeks. I wanted to use it to try and find Leo. But since he got back in one piece" he shrugged with a cheeky grin, "you can use it instead. It'll be perfect for shipping you all off to the Sea of Monsters. Behold 'the Harley-Valdez 1.0'" he yanked the tarp off in one quick tug.
"It… It's a plane?" I looked at it as a sinking feeling formed in the pit of my stomach.
"Not just any plane" Harley continued, explaining the planes specs like an auto dealer trying to cut a deal. "This marvel of aviation was inspired by one of the most renowned sons of Hephaestus. None other than the famous Leonardo da Vinci. Look at the lines, the form, it's designed to be a glider, but outfitted with the finest of WWI tech. I added a modern twist by making it out of fiberglass and carbon tubing rather than steel for lightness, but otherwise the design had good bones" Harley conceded happily. "What do you think?" He asked as he practically jumped in place, bubbling with enthusiasm.
"It is impressive" Reyna conceded as her eagle eye flickered over the fixed-wing aircraft.
"Looks a bit rickety to me", Maxwell grumbled to himself as he gingerly poked the plane.
"Where did you get the plan for this thing?" I asked the little kid. Ever since we got back to camp it's been feeling like one déjà vu episode after another.
"Can't take the credit for it, found the schematics lying around a few weeks back and have been itching to get it off the drawing board ever since. Isn't she a beauty" he asked like a statement as if reaffirming a fact.
"Have you flown it yet?" I asked, that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach was getting heavier and heavier.
"Nah, was planning to break it out for a test drive sooner or later but now's the perfect time. You guys can use it to get to the Sea of Monsters in no time. Here let me get it reeved up for you. The engine's a little touchy, but once it gets going, she purrs like a kitty cat".
He hopped into the cockpit and turned the ignition, the engine huffed into life and the propeller slowly began to turn. Everyone stood to the side and watched as the propeller slowly began to turn. As it started going faster, an odd clicking sound started to ring in the air. That heavy feeling inside me collapsed into a black hole and I suddenly felt overwhelming panic. "Get down everybody!" I threw myself forward like a man possessed and knocked everyone over with a bunch of groans.
The propeller blade started shaking wildly in place before it went flying off and sliced through the air over us like an oversized ninja star and then crashed into the bunker's wall with a metallic crunch.
Harley looked across the room with a gaping mouth as his hands flew across the controls, turning the plane off. He jumped out of the cockpit and made it over to us. "Whoa is everybody okay?
"The plane!" I shouted in a scared fit. "The bolt you used to fasten the propeller to the plane was weak, it wrenched right off. The propeller almost mowed us down". My breathing was out of whack, my eyes were wide and the scene kept playing in my head, over and over again.
Harley's eye went up in confusion before he turned around and looked over his plane. Sure enough, the bolt was sitting on the ground torn almost in two. The nose of the pane still smoked a bit where the propeller flew off. He turned around and started asking, "huh go figure. How'd you know that?" but I ran out of there.