Note: I've no excuse for the month long hiatus. Unless life counts, which it doesn't. Everyone else has that too and they're updating...*shame*

THE 30TH FLOOR

The chilling deluge had finally abated somewhat, Percy noticed as he craned his head up to face the imposing height of the building that was Posei Sea Trading Corporation. Not like it mattered much to the teen. If anything, the tingling pinpricks of rain that hailed down only helped to boost Percy's nerve.

He walked in, after troubling himself momentarily with a tricky revolving door, and squelched through the foyer. Watery footprints trailed behind him, every step drawing looks from passerby. Percy tried to ignore them, instead making a b-line to the receptionist's table.

"Excuse me," the teen asked, his voice as polite as he could make it. "I'm wondering if it's possible for me to see Don—um...Mr. Posei?"

The receptionist peered at him over her thick rimmed glasses, putting down the pencil she'd been scribbling with. "Do you have an appointment?"

"I'm his son," Percy declared. "I didn't think I'd need an appointment."

"His son?" she scoffed. "Sorry, but I find that hard to believe."

Percy wrung the hem of his dripping school shirt with unease. He wasn't used to the idea of having a father and having to say it out loud was just weird. But still, he had to get in and talk to Don Posei. Percy just didn't think that he could face his mom as he was now: confused and irritated at everything he didn't know. "But it's true..."

"Look," the receptionist said, picking her pencil back up and scribbling into a notepad. "Mr. Posei is too busy to see anyone without an appointment, especially some random kid coming off the streets."

"But ma'am, it's true," Percy pleaded. Why wouldn't anyone believe him? "He even came to my school a few days ago!"

"I find that highly unlikely," she told him, waving her hand as if to shoo him away. "Now, please leave or I will have to call security."

Indignation bubbled up in Percy. What was the point of finding out who his dad was if he could never see him anyway? But before he could say anything, another, deeper voice cut into their conversation.

"There will be no need for that."

The receptionist fumbled her pencil as she stood to greet the newcomer. "Mr. Posei, good afternoon sir!"

Posei? The name rattled through Percy's head, not registering with the image it was associated with. This guy sure as heck wasn't his dad. He looked like he was in his late twenties and wore a light tan suit over a bright blue dress shirt. "This isn't Don Posei."

"That's my father's corporate nickname," the stranger said. There was an undertone of something in his voice, Percy just couldn't put his finger on it. "I'm his son."

Well so am I, Percy thought to himself.

"I'm sorry for the boy Mr. Posei, he was just leaving," the receptionist warbled, clearly flustered at Mr. Posei's presence.

"There's no need for that," the suited man repeated. "I'll take him up to my office."

"You mean he's actually Don Posei's-," the receptionist started before the stranger silenced her with a pointed stare. "I'm sorry sirs, good afternoon again and have a good day."

"Let's go," Mr. Posei ordered, turning on his heel and expecting Percy to follow.

Of course, as confused as he was, that's exactly what the teen did.

The two walked down a particularly long hallway in an awkward silence. At least people weren't staring at him anymore, Percy noticed. In fact they seemed to be avoiding any and all eye contact. Percy and his maybe-half-brother stepped into an express elevator and watched its doors ding shut, sending them on an even more awkward ride to the 30th floor.

"So," Percy started. He really wished that the elevator music wasn't so gaudy. With nothing else to start conversation, he decided to run with that thought. "Pretty awful tune playing, huh?"

All Percy got for his icebreaker was a stoic side glance. "I'll thank you to not comment on my cello."

"Well when I say awful, I mean it in a good way," Percy amended. Drawing on one of his grammar sessions with Annabeth he added: "You see that's what teenagers do nowadays. It's like how we use 'fail' as a noun."

"Perseus, we will talk once in my office and no sooner," he informed the teen.

Percy felt his cheeks redden at the telling off. "We aren't going to dad's office?"

"Father's out of town on a business meeting," Mr. Posei replied. The doors slid open with as a recorded voice announced that they'd arrived on the executive floor. "Come along Perseus, we have a lot to discuss."

Mr. Posei's patronizing tone grated on Percy's nerves. This visit was definitely not going so well. But the teen kept his thoughts to himself as they stopped in front of a stark white door, a chrome name plate adorning it.

Mr. Triston Posei

Chief Operating Officer

"Um, I think they misspelled your name," Percy said, squinting at the letters to make sure he'd read them right. "They said Triston instead of Tristan."

"That is not the utility staff's fault. Father was simply not himself when he was signing my birth certificate," Triston muttered. He ushered his half-brother inside, swinging the door shut behind them with a resounding click.

"Dad spelled your name wrong on your birth certificate?" Percy asked. Triston didn't respond and the teen took that as a cue to drop the subject.

They sat facing each other across a small coffee table as the older of the two busied himself with rifling through a briefcase he'd pulled out from nowhere. So with nothing else to do, Percy's mind wandered, scanning their surroundings with fidgety shifts of his head. He took in the room's black, white, and teal motif. Nothing really stood out in terms of decor but...wait a minute, what was that? Triston seemed like a pretty boring guy, not really someone who looked like he cared to have family pictures in his office. Yet there was the exception to the paradigm Percy had set for his half-brother: a single photograph, encased in a varnished wooden frame. A family of three stared out from the snapshot. One of them was a woman he didn't recognize, but there was no mistaking who the two men were. He knew the color their irises bore; after all, his were sea green too.

"I'm assuming you know the peculiar conditions of your birth?"

Percy snapped out of his reverie, the picture still so fresh in his mind, and looked to Triston. "Conditions?"

Triston Posei gave an exasperated sigh, as if dealing with Percy was an irritating and protracted affair that wasn't worth his time. Coincidentally, that was exactly what the heir to Posei Sea Trading Corp. thought. "Perseus, you were born out of wedlock. By law, that means that you have no right to be here."

"What?" Percy asked, incredulous at the statement. He had no right to visit his dad? What kind of messed up law was that?

"As an illegitimate child and a minor," Triston continued, regarding Percy with a painfully patronizing look. "You have no hold or standing in this company. The only money you could get from this place would be the pennies at the bottom of the wishing fountain. So please take your leave before Father comes back and sees your pitiful face. He doesn't need to be reminded of his mistake."

Not all of this was true of course, but Percy, the gullible goof he was, seemed to think so. Mistake...he'd be lying if he said he'd never thought of the word before. In school, with friends, and apparently at life, all he was and all he'd done...was a mistake. But there was no time to think about it now. He had to think of a witty, sarcastic comeback for his dear half-brother. Percy pushed his cesspool of negativity aside and mustered up all the eloquence (which wasn't much he had to admit) he had in his body. He was just about to speak when—

"Triston! Could you please tell me where your errant father is?" a voice boomed. The door swung open and in walked a tall grim-faced man. His pitch black hair was slicked back, contrasting horribly with his deathly pale skin. "How does my company rack up this much in freight tax? Didn't we agree on a family discount?"

It was then that he noticed Percy, mouth half-open and witty remark dead on his tongue. Instead, what tumbled out of his traitorous mouth was: "You look like Snape from Harry Potter."

Needless to say, Professor Snape did not take kindly to that. "Triston, this is?"

"No one to be concerned about Uncle Mort," Triston replied as he got up from his seat. He grabbed Percy by the arm and hauled him to his feet. "In fact, he was just leaving."

Percy shook his brother off and got up on his own. He was just slinging his backpack on when he noticed he'd completely soaked the ottoman he had just vacated. Before he could stop himself, an involuntary apology slipped out. "Sorry I wet the couch thing."

"No matter," Triston said, though his demeanour said otherwise. "I'm sure you don't accidentally wet things often."

"Hey!" Percy said, realizing the double meaning to the sentence, but Triston had closed the door by then. The teen let out an aggravated groan and kicked the chrome door with a vehement "damn it!"

"Keep your voice down or security will come running," a quiet voice told him.

Percy turned to someone leaning against the opposite wall of the hallway. She was a slight girl, with olive toned skin who might have been one, maybe two, years younger than Percy. The teen took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

"So how do you know Triston?" mystery girl asked.

"He's my brother," Percy answered; the word felt unfamiliar on his tongue and left him feeling messed up inside.

"Oh, I didn't know the he had a brother," she commented, twirling a stray lock of brown-black hair. "I'm Bianca by the way, nice to meet you."

"I'm Percy," he reciprocated, backing away from his half-brother's room. Bianca seemed horribly out of place in the middle of the 30th floor's hallway; then again, with his damp, rumpled up uniform, Percy probably did too. "So what're you doing here?"

"My dad needed to see Triston," Bianca answered.

Percy thought back to Professor Snape barging in and found himself comparing him to the meek girl who stood before him. "That's your dad?"

"Yup, Mr. Mort Sedah, owner and CEO of some kind of big morgue company," Bianca stated with an awkward smile. At Percy's disbelieving look she added, "We take after our mom."

"We?" Percy parroted, looking left and right for another person.

The smile grew wider as Bianca giggled a bit. "My little brother's in the bathroom."

But before the conversation could go any further, Percy heard the most shocking, unexpected thing. Soft and questioning, a voice drifted towards him from one end of the hall. He paled and pinched himself, wishing it was a nightmare. No, no, no, NO!

"Percy?" the voice kept repeating.

The teen forced himself to look to the voice's source and felt all his heart sink and stomach drop. There she was, silhouetted by the harsh office lights and hand hovering over her mouth in shock. Even from this far away, Percy knew who she was. Of course he recognized her, how could he not?

"Percy, who's that?" Bianca asked, pushing off of the wall to stand next to her new friend.

"It's my mom," Percy answered miserably, wondering how she'd even gotten here. He saw the surprise leave her and the hard steeliness of her 'parenting-face' settle in. Percy chewed his lip as she made her way towards them and tried not to think about the fact that all that was separating his entire family was a chrome door.

"She seems mad," Bianca noticed. "Did you get an F or something?"

Sally Jackson stopped right in front of the two, her mouth set into a stern line. "Oh he wishes that was all it was."

Note: Next chapter will be from an interesting POV! I for one am excited!