I waited right outside the Smithsonian. A magical train ride from San Francisco to Washington had allowed me to reach the place in under an hour. Now, I was awaiting the questers. Atlas had sent me here to make them trust me. But how could the questers trust me if they didn't appear?

I looked into the crowd. There! Never mind.

I rubbed my eyes. When I finished, I saw a Pegasus and it's master landing near the Rocket Museum.

I slowly made my way towards Percy. As I turned a corner, I bumped into Zoë Nightshade, the Lieutenant of Artemis.

I may have accidentally connected her lips with mine while bumping into her which was probably not a good thing to do with your half-sister in public. At least in this culture.

Almost immediately, her companions had taken her out their weapons and pointed their Celestial bronze weapons at me. Zoë had somehow taken out her bow and was now pointing an an arrow at my face.

I raised my hands in surrender as their faces started showing signs of confusion. Except for Zoë. She looked absolutely shocked.

"Where's Annabeth?" Thalia asked me, "How'd you escape?"

"THOU SHALL NEVER KISS ME AGAIN BOY!"

I turned my attention to Zoë who was looking at me with pure rage.

"I don't plan on kissing with anyone ever again," I said trying to calm her down.

"Make sure if it," She grumbled as she picked herself up and held a hand out to me.

Somewhat amazingly, this wasn't a trick and she actually helped me up.

I brushed some dirt off my pants.

"How did thou escape The General's grasp?" Zoë asked me, repeating Thalia's question.

"Oh... I had connections with the guards." That was technically true.

"Where's Annabeth?" Thalia asked again.

"Uh... I couldn't bargain her freedom," I responded.

"You couldn't," Thalia repeated.

"Yes," I said.

Thalia looked enraged that I hadn't managed to get Annabeth out with me but Grover saved my life by suggesting we get going or the deadline would pass by while we were talking.

As we walked the short distance to the Smithsonian, I found myself in the back of the group with Bianca.

"Thanks for saving me at Westover," She said. It took me a moment to realize that she was talking to me.

"Yeah, no problem," I replied. I hoped Bianca would realize that I wasn't the talkative type but she continued.

"No Problem? That was brave, pushing me out of danger and letting yourself get into Thorn's hands."

"If you mean it," I replied, "Aren't you supposed to hate my kind? Why are you being so kind?"

Bianca looked at me in the eyes. Something clicked in my brain. She looked up to me.

"I'm supposed to hate boys, not heroes." She said.

Okay. Someone just called me a hero. This conversation was getting awkward for me.

Luckily, we were just about entering the Museum and I took the opportunity to head towards a replica of a space probe. Grover followed me while Thalia and Bianca headed up the stairs with Zoë.

I grunted. "Didn't remember the actual model being so polished."

Grover read the tag. "This says it's from the 60s," he turned to me, "How old are you anyway?"

What was my age anyway? Was I 3000 years old? 4000? Wow, that was sad. I couldn't remember my own age.

I chose to respond with: "Old enough to remember when this thing was launched."

Grover didn't respond, probably because a kid with dark raven hair had bumped into Thalia while she was heading down the stairs.

As you can probably guess, the kid who had bumped into Thalia was Percy. Almost immediately after the encounter, both Zoë and Bianca had their bows ready to fire and Thalia had turned her Collapsible Water Bottle into a long spear pointed directly at Percy's head.

"Percy? What are you doing here?" She asked, half surprised, half confused.

"The Generals here," Percy responded, not answering Thalia's question.

Zoë took the lead. "The General? Thou are lying."

Percy shook his head. "Ok, I was following you guys since you left and I spotted Dr. Thorn so-"

He was cut off by a sudden roar.

"Kitty!" A child said enthusiastically as the monster revealed itself.

It was an overgrown house cat.

More specifically, a lion, probably the Nemean Lion which had impenetrable skin.

It charged straight towards Grover and I. Grover took out his pipes but I pushed him to the floor and crouched myself. The Lion jumped right over us and crashed into a rocket replica that turned out to be hollow inside.

Zoë and Bianca both let lose their arrows but the tips couldn't seem to penetrate the lion's skin.

Percy was running towards the souvenir shop where the cashier was hiding behind her table. He came out with 2 packets of... ew. Space food. I'd tried one of the packets before. Those things seriously needed to be banned.

Thalia had managed to get close enough to the Lion that she could use her spear and shield but the skin refused to be damaged.

"Get it to open it's mouth!" Percy yelled to Zoë and Bianca. But the Lion changed targets and leaped towards the hunters, still on the stairs. When it landed on the pads, the whole stairway shook and the girls fell off, disoriented.

Time to act like a hero again.

I jumped out from my hiding place and waved my hands and screamed "HEY KITTY" on Mycenaean.

The Lion turned to me, opening its mouth to launch a roar that would throw me off my feet.

Not a moment too soon, Percy's space food found it's way into the monster's throat and it coughed. Zoë and Bianca came back up and fired 2 arrows into the Lion's mouth for good measure.

The Lion started dissipating Greek monster style, turning into Gold Dust. Soon, nothing remained of the monster.

Zoë sighed, looking at Percy. "I guess we will have to bring thou along."

When I looked at the museum as a whole, I found that the mortals were talking amongst themselves, apparently not realizing what had just happened here.

Percy looked at Grover.

"Minor confusion spell. It should wear off in a few minutes," Grover said.

As we exited the building I found that a helicopter was circling around the museum.

"You have a vehicle?" I asked though I already knew they had a van.

"We need to ditch the van," Thalia replied.

"Subway it is then," Grover said.