Annabeth

Once we had left the water behind, I took the lead. Rivers were Percy's territory, homeless people were mine. When I reached the fence, I called out "Hello, my boyfriend and I are looking for a place to spend the night, can we come in?" A man came out of his tent. He looked at us for a couple of seconds before saying "You two look okay, come on in. Hey Jimmy, open the drawbridge." I heard some levers being flicked, which released a chain, causing a reinforced bit of the fence to lower to the ground and cover the moat which surrounded the camp.(it wasn't a real moat, just a meter wide stripe painted with blue chalk but it was impressive nonetheless. I walked inside, dragging a very skeptical Percy behind me. "Welcome, to the most advanced homeless community of the country. You can call me Bob. Bob the builder. Yes, I know that sounds exactly like a kid's TV show, but when you're named Robert and you're good at building that's just what happens." The first guy introduced himself. "So, you're the most advanced homeless people around, how did that come to be?" I asked. "Well, there is this legend of how it happened, want to hear it?" "Sure, I love good stories." Bob began to explain with a dramatic voice, almost like a movie trailer.

"It's an ancient story, almost a legend, from long before I was here. Or, to say it more specifically, almost ten years ago. One of our friends was injured. I don't know exactly what it was, or what we were going to do about it. But I do know one thing: to do the thing that would have saved him, we needed heat. Speaking of heat, we just cooked something to eat a few minutes ago, do you want anything?" I suddenly realized that I had eaten barely anything since breakfast. I was really hungry (I try not to use the term 'starving' unless it's actually the case) and it was probably worse for Percy, with him having been the engine for our several thousand kilometer trip. "I'd love to. If you can afford it, of course." A few minutes later, he came back with two plates and a pot of pasta. All three looked like metal, but felt too light for that, even for aluminum. "Sorry for my curiosity" I said in between bites. "But what are these plates made of? It doesn't look like anything I know." It's fired clay covered in aluminum. The aluminum was applied as a powder and then heated shortly so it would melt and solidify before it could run together, making a stable, waterproof , maybe clay isn't the right word, because it's actually finely ground chalk from the cracks in the bridge. Shall I continue with the story?" We both nodded, in sync of course.

"So, they needed heat, more than a regular fire would have provided, or maybe that would have been to smoky to use. Whatever the case, they couldn't use regular fire. They had already given up on him when something wonderful happened. A young girl showed up, looking for shelter. Once she found out about their problem, she dedicated all of her time to solving it, which she did in about five minutes. She told us to get some aluminum cans, some rusted iron and magnesium. Of course, they were hesitant to believe a seven year old, but it was a truly desperate situation. They got everything organized in about thirty minutes. She then told them to grind the aluminum and rust and mix them together. According to the legend, every crumb mattered to her, so they had to brush off the grindstones with feathers. During all of this, no one had any idea what she was planning. At the end, we stuck the magnesium onto the pile and lit it on fire. At first, we were skeptical, but the powers actually caught fire and burned hot and bright enough for it to be painful from at least two meters away, and easily hot enough to save him. This girl saved his life. This is the part that is an old legend, so I can't guarantee for its accuracy, but I can tell you its consequences. The girl might have left the very next day, but she inspired us and showed us: No matter how poor you think you are, if you just have some scrap metal and feathers laying around, you can achieve great things. Thas wording, metal and feathers, reminded one of our members of the story of Daedalus, the guy who was-" "We know who Daedalus is" Percy interrupted him. Annabeth gave me a death stare. "Hey, I wasn't being rude, just saving him from uselessly explaining" "Anyways, it reminded her of Daedalus, so his wings became our symbol." He pointed to the wooden building; on its wall were about a dozen feathers, connected with copper wire, surrounded by three wooden beams creating a Delta. "Interestingly, the young girl actually seemed to be somewhat of an expert on Greek mythology." Suddenly, I had a suspicion of who that girl might have been. "One question: What did she look like?" "Uh, let me think. Maybe the story doesn't mention it at all." A few seconds of silence followed. "So, the only thing I can recall are fascinating gray eyes, like storm clouds. And her name was something with an A. Anna something I believe" "Annabeth?" Percy suggested. Bob confirmed. "Well, I can only think of one person who goes by that name, has stormy gray eyes and was in this area almost ten years ago: my girlfriend." I pointed to Annabeth. "Are you really?" Bob asked. I tried to remember. I didn't have all too many memories from my time traveling alone, but the story did seem somewhat familiar. "I am. I just now remembered. The whole time around that was sort of traumatic, so my brain tries its best to ignore those memories, but now I'm remembering it. But don't worry, this isn't like a bad thing, helping you guys wasn't traumatic, so it wasn't like a flashback."

"In that case, I should probably announce your arrival. Hey everyone, Annabeth is here, the one from our founding legend. I think I don't need to tell you to be nice" After a few seconds someone came from from where the drawbridge was controlled, if I recalled correctly, his name was Jimmy. (By the way, that double 'from' I just used is grammatically correct, if you think it isn't, think again). I noticed that he had a piece of black wire loosely wrapped around his middle finger, somewhat resembling a ring. It was good to know that at least one person here knew what really mattered. I know, maybe I should be less harsh on allos, but the way that they experience attraction just seems like such a big weakness to me. I didn't know exactly how horny and attracted people usually were, but if it was anything like how most music displayed it, I had no idea how people have survived this long. It just seems like an annoying distraction to me. People often say that asexuals are incapable of sexual attraction. Personally, I consider myself to be immune to it (well, except for Percy, but since I'm already in a relationship with him, having another form of attraction on top doesn't make that much of a difference.) To me 'Asexuals are at a disadvantage because they don't have the capacity to feel sexual attraction' makes as much sense as 'Vaccinated people are at a disadvantage because they don't have the capacity to become sick'. My internal ace rant was interrupted by more people arriving. In total, there were about twenty. Mostly adults, but there were also some teenagers and even a girl who looked no older than eight. My communication was still not good, but sufficient for me to realize that Annie liked that. I hoped that she wouldn't come out among all these-

Percy

Among the people coming in was also a small child, maybe seven or eight. She'd be the perfect age to be a friend for Annie. Speaking of Annie, I noticed that Annabeth was probably close to switching. Or maybe she was just tired and close to falling asleep, both resulted in similar behavior like her hand relaxing and letting go of mine. I prepared to explain a lot to a bunch of strangers. Before I could think of a strategy, Annabeth turned to me. She seemed to be stablely at the front now. "Hi" She said. It wasn't loud, but definitely Annie. "They're new" I whispered, trying to get across that a greeting was actually appropriate now. "Hey everyone," Annie said, this time more audibly. "Why does her voice sound like that?" one of the inhabitants (this homeless camp was definitely established enough to use that term) asked. "That has to do with her trauma." I explained. "Age changes and short term memory loss." This of course wasn't accurate, in fact your age changing was also part of something called age regression, which was a completely separate thing. However, I knew I couldn't just publicly-ish (public-ish-ly?) state her DID diagnosis. "I get it, living on the streets ain't easy" the same girl who had just asked about the voice responded. Everyone took a few steps back to make sure Annie wouldn't feel intimidated. The only one who stayed was the young girl. "Who are you guys?" Annie asked. I gave her a quick briefing. "These are homeless people who use lots of technology made from the trash and cheap materials they have. This trend was started by you, before you met Luke and Thalia." "Oh okay, who are you?" She asked again, this time to the child. "Me? I'm Ellie. I'm seven and a half. How old are you?" "Well, my body is…" She looked at me for help. "Just over seventeen." "Just over seventeen" Annie repeated. "But right now, my brain is also seven, but almost eight." "So your brain is too young. That's weird" "It's because of the very very bad things that happened to me. I had to run away from home. What about you, how did you get here?" "I was born on the streets, my mom's parents kicked her out." "And your dad?" "Apparently, the whole 'when a man and a woman love each other very very much' thing can happen in a single evening. He was long gone when I was born." I didn't know whether Annabeth would ever find out about this conversation or if she was even listening right now, but if she did, she was probably thinking something along the lines of 'see, this is what happened if you're allo' or 'thank the gods I'm demisexual' We lived together for about eight more months, moving around the town. Then my mom died, we think she was ill, but the people here found me, and now I have a somewhat good life, thanks to you." Ellie gave Annie a wide smile. "Hey, do you want to meet my parents?" "Uh, sure"

A boy and a girl came out of the crowd, both were a bit younger than me and, as far as I could tell despite having seaweed brain syndrome, a couple. "When, she appeared here, we had both arrived here recently as well and kind of became her official caretakers. And then, about four years ago, we started to fall in love with each other and now we're kind of a family." "I also had a kind of adoptive family once, but then she died and turned into a tree and later he killed himself to defeat an evil titan king." "Wow, that sounds cool" Ellie said. "Well, it's not cool that he died, but titans are cool." The rest of the group wasn't as convinced by Annie's story. I couldn't blame them, to mortals it probably sounded very made up, even though it was of course true, but they couldn't know that.

Suddenly, I realized something. "One question, most of you just came out of that small shack, and there's no way you would have fit in there comfortably, so how does that work?" " I think it's best if I show you" Bob led us into the shack. On the back wall was an opening to what looked like a large culvert. We followed him for a few meters until we reached a hole in the ceiling. Above that, the ground had collapsed, creating a large cavern topped by a concrete ceiling. The room was dimly illuminated with green light coming from the ceiling. "We discovered this about six years ago. The ceiling of this culvert collapsed and created this sinkhole, where most of us live now" He gestured to the tents set up around us. I estimated that around twenty five people would be able to live in them comfortably. "How did you manage to afford all of these tents?" Annie asked. "That's got to be at least $8000" "That's the price if you buy them new, but you'd be surprised how many 'nature lovers' give up once there's a large enough hole in a tent. There's a camp ground just a few kilometers from here and wherever there's just been a storm, Jacob goes there and talks people out of throwing away their broken tents and convinces them to donate them to him instead. A few of the tents weren't even broken, just abandoned after a few too many beers if you know what I mean." I had a lot of experience with what beer could do to people, but couldn't think of anything that would justify abandoning a tent. "Sorry for being stupid, but I don't know what you're talking about." "You know, you drink too much, your body doesn't like that, and you throw up everywhere" "Oh, right. I literally forgot that happens. My stepfather was, uh, very used to consuming alcohol, so when I think about the consequences of beer, it's mostly rage and violence." "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. But you said he was used to it, what happened to him." "My mom killed him." I said with the most innocent voice possible.

Note to self: Don't try to say not innocent things in an innocent voice. It won't work. Girls can pull this off way better.

"He sounds like he deserved it. Circling back to my explanation, once Jacob gets a tent which happens about once a month, we either repair or clean it, depending on why it was abandoned. These people seriously throw away tents worth hundreds of dollars that can be restored to original quality with like ten minutes of sewing. Anyways, we end up getting thousands of dollars' worth of tents essentially for free. Again, all thanks to her. Thank you again, Annabeth, uh, what's your last name?" "Chase" "Thank you, Annabeth Chase, biggest helper of the homeless" I already knew that this title wasn't something that Annabeth would shut up about anytime soon, with pride being her fatal flaw. Fatal flaw? More like most annoying property. But for someone as perfect as Annabeth Chase the bar for 'most annoying' was set really low. "One question, aren't sinkholes really dangerous? How do you know the ceiling isn't going to fall onto you" "It's safer than it sounds. We have excavated more dirt than what would naturally collapse, so it won't collapse any further. The ceiling is also stable, this concrete slab stretches more than ten meters in each direction. The walls are slanted and reinforced with dried clay. We tried to also fire it, but this room doesn't have nearly enough oxygen flow for that." "Where's the nearest input to the culvert, apart from the one we just went through?" Annie, no, this was Annabeth again, asked. Maybe the conversation about structural integrity had triggered her back out. "It's a street drain, about twenty meters in that direction, two meters from the culvert ceiling to the surface, maybe forty centimeters in diameter" analyzing those stats didn't even take Annabeth five seconds. "If you light a fire at the bottom and maybe close of the other side, the heat should be able to create a strong enough draft to support a fire here similar to the draft kilns used in the early Iron Age. I'd suggest using thermite, so you don't waist oxygen on the drafting fire, but don't grind it as fine as you usually would. At around one millimeter particle size, the fire will burn much slower and therefore longer, and also the cooler temperature means less danger of damaging the pipes. Once the fire is burning, though burning might not be the right term because while a reaction involving oxygen is taking place, it isn't atmospheric oxygen, so it's a gray area between what can and cannot be called burning, the air around it should warm up and come out through the drain, drawing in new air from below the bridge. This should keep the fires in the cave burning." "We'll try that as soon as possible"

So, a homeless camp surviving on MacGyvering. (Did you know that that word is canonically in use in the Riordanverse) What do you think of the idea? I personally think it was interesting what Annabeth has created pretty much on accident. Tell me what you think.