When Annabeth had gotten out of her shower, she waited on the bed she had chosen for Percy to come. She was reading an architecture book that she had found in an outside Velcro pocket of her bag. It was all about the actual architects of certain monuments. What was better is it was all written in Ancient Greek, making it much easier for her to read. She assumed that Percy had found it somewhere and packed it.
At a quarter to one, a knock came to the door. Annabeth jumped out of bed to answer it. First she checked the peephole and saw that Percy was leaning heavily on the door frame and raising his hand to knock again. Quickly, Annabeth opened the door for him. Percy nearly fell into the room, but he managed to catch himself.
When Percy had straightened up, he looked at Annabeth and said, "You never did tell me what kind of shot you wanted me to take for you."
Annabeth suppressed a smile as she led him to the bed. She pulled back the covers for him, but he was struggling with stripping down to his boxers like he usually did. Trying her best not to laugh, Annabeth got up and helped Percy take off his shoes, socks, shirt and pants. There was a dark stain on his pants and when Annabeth took a sniff, it told her that Percy had spilled a little tequila on himself.
When Annabeth climbed into bed, Percy pulled her to him. Since Percy was on the side closest to the wall, Annabeth had to turn out the light. She untangled herself from Percy as she set her book on the nightstand and flipped the switch to turn out the lights. She climbed back into bed and Percy immediately pulled her flush against him. It seemed that Percy like to cuddle when he was drunk.
In the morning, Annabeth woke up before Percy. She found herself trapped in his embrace. She tried to get up to go to the bathroom and wash her face, but Percy's grip only tightened when she tried to move.
Annabeth attempted trying to wake Percy up. On her fourth try, she was able to get Percy to stir. With a bit more pushing, the eye that wasn't smothered in the pillow opened blearily.
"Wha…?" Percy said turning his head slightly so his other eye was exposed.
"Come on, Percy. Wake up." Annabeth said softly.
Percy buried his face in the pillow without loosening his grip on Annabeth.
She sighed. She started pushing him the best she could again. He just chuckled and finally rolled over onto his back releasing his iron grip on Annabeth. He stretched his arms over his head, whacking the headboard.
Annabeth was not one to normally insult her husband, but he looked pretty terrible. She could definitely tell he had a hangover. "Percy, I think you might want to take a shower and wake up a bit." Annabeth suggested.
Percy turned his head to her with a raised eyebrow. "Why's that?"
"For one thing, you kind of stink."
"Thanks, babe."
Annabeth rolled her eyes and said, "Just take a shower so we can start the day." She grabbed his left arm and brought it around her shoulders. She wasn't looking to snuggle more with him, she was checking the time on his watch. Percy didn't take it that way though. Annabeth barely got time to see that the watch read 0723 before Percy had wrapped her in his tight embrace again.
"Percy. Come on. Take a shower." Annabeth said, attempting to pry herself out of his arms once again.
Percy shoved his face into Annabeth's neck and whispered into her ear, "Only if you come in with me."
Annabeth could not help the light blush that lit up her face again. She found herself nodding before she realized what exactly she was agreeing to. Percy grinned against her skin. He scooped Annabeth up from the bed and carried her into the bathroom.
The two of them were in the bathroom for about an hour. When they came back out, Percy was cleaned up and looking like his usual self. Annabeth felt good after two showers pretty much back to back.
"I'm surprised we haven't had any contact from the guys." Percy commented as they were getting dressed.
"I'm not." Annabeth responded. "Think about it. You were all out drinking last night and didn't come back until almost one. I thought the bar closed at midnight as well."
"Nope bar closes at one and it was a special tourist bar. More of a Western feel to it. I guess you're right though. I'm going to wake them up." Percy said.
"How are you going to do that? They'll be just as hungover as you were this morning." Annabeth said.
"I'll figure something out. I can mention some kind of emergency and they'll be jumping out of their skin." Percy said shrugging.
Annabeth snorted. "Good luck with that."
Percy nodded and said, "I'll need it."
He called their rooms first. No answer. He tried calling their cell phones and the majority of them were off. The rest were ignored. He tried sending an electrical shock through the earpieces which Annabeth didn't know was possible. It got Frank up but that was it. Frank was set with the task of waking Leo as Percy tried fruitlessly to wake the two brothers. He resorted to raising the voltage on the electrical shock.
It seemed to do the trick as Travis sent a message over the wire to Percy. Annabeth didn't know what he said exactly, but she had an idea that it wasn't exactly friendly speaking. When all the men were awake, Percy told them to meet in his room and they'll figure out what they should do.
The men all arrived at about the same time. One of them knocked on the door and Percy, after checking the peephole, opened the door to the entire group. As Annabeth had been anticipating, they all looked hungover and dead on their feet. She found it funny, but she assumed it might be considered impolite if she laughed.
"Hey guys." Percy greeted them.
They mumbled greetings as they walked past into the room.
"I don't think our goal should be train 1456 right now. We've got other things to think about." Percy said as he pulled his hologram computer from his smaller bag.
Travis and Connor nodded and Leo shrugged indifferently, but Frank glared at the ground. Annabeth didn't think that he was very happy with the decision. What she wondered was why he didn't say anything.
"Why?" Annabeth asked on impulse.
The men all looked at her. Percy turned away from his hologram and looked at her. He just looked mildly curious while the other men had irritated stares.
"What do you mean?" Percy asked.
"I'm wondering why we shouldn't be watching the train. I thought there was a connection between the crisis and the train's irregular schedule."
Percy raised his eyebrows and raised a shoulder. "We think there is a connection. I just think we might not be able to figure the entire thing out and fix both situations."
Frank broke in, "Can't we at least figure out what's going on before we continue with the hand off?"
"No. I don't think we'll be able to do that. We just won't make it in time. We've got to do complete the hand off and get back and fix the military crisis. That's what we're out in the middle of China for. Not so we can track a train." Percy said.
Frank looked like he was getting a bit worked up. He said, "We already know they have a connection though! Maybe this will help us with the crisis! I think that it's at least worth looking into."
Percy sighed. "I'm thinking about contacting our friends in MI6. We might be able to influence which agents are sent out and what they do with any information. We've got a couple higher ranked people that we can talk to about it. I'm sure they'll be willing to help an A2 mission. They normally are. We might talk to the MSS as well. I'm sure they would have some helpful influence going."
"MSS?" Annabeth asked before Frank could say anything.
"Yeah." Percy responded. "It's the pretty much the Chinese secret intelligence service. Basic equivalent of British MI6."
Annabeth nodded as Frank broke in. "So we're just going to let other people do this for us?"
Percy raised his eyebrows again. "Yep. Look Frank, I can get where you're coming from. What I'm saying is that we don't have the time to actually pursue this train as well as continue to fix this crisis before it really gets out of hand. Let me get other contacts. It will work. We're still going to have a bit of control over the situation."
Frank sighed. "Fine. I still don't like it, but seeing as we don't really have another choice, I'm going to accept it."
Percy nodded and said, "I know. It's not exactly a perfect solution, but it's the best one we've got."
Leo chuckled. They all looked at him. He shook his head and said, "What you said just reminded me of something Jason said on the first quest I went with him on. A plan that we had made to take down Enceladus was proclaimed the best chance we've got by Jason. My thought was that it wasn't a great chance, but the best chance."
Percy chuckled and said, "You think of a battle plan of fighting a giant when we're fighting a mortal war."
"Do you have a problem with that?"
Frank snorted. Leo turned on him. "What?"
Leo was standing nose to nose with Frank when Frank answered, "Nothing. I'm just thinking about my first fight with a giant. Not quite the same nostalgic feelings that you seem to be getting."
All the men laughed at that. It seemed to ease the tension between the group. Leo looked to be nodding in acceptance of Frank's little spiel.
"Alright." Frank conceded. "We'll do it your way, Perce."
"Thank you."
"Let's at least check that the train is still being irregular." Annabeth suggested.
Percy gave her a look. It was one that said I knew you would put your two cents in. But he didn't look too displeased about it either.
He sat down in the desk chair and popped the hologram image up from his computer. He pulled up the subway map and extended it. Two other image screens came out. They both were rotating between the different cameras at the stations. The center one was tracking 1456 with its schedule in the bottom right corner.
It was perfectly on schedule. Percy's eyebrows furrowed as his eyes flickered between the cameras, schedule and train.
"He's changing trains to make it more difficult to track." Frank said.
"Pull up the records from yesterday. We need to know what stations it did stop at. We also need to figure out when it started an irregular schedule. From the time it came out of the train yard or at some point during its rounds." Travis said.
Percy nodded and compensated. Meanwhile Annabeth looked at the map. She couldn't see anything labeled 'train yard'.
"What is a train yard?" Annabeth asked.
"It's basically where the trains go when they're not working." Connor answered as he focused on the far left image filled with four different cameras from different stations rotating through.
Annabeth figured she probably should have recognized the term because it sounded so familiar, but she let go. She studied the main map, looking over Percy's shoulder. "Should we try to figure out if a different train is following an irregular schedule?" Annabeth asked.
"After we check the stops 1456 made yesterday. That will be vital." Percy said distractedly.
Annabeth nodded in acceptance. "Annabeth?" Travis called.
"Yes?"
"Tell me if you know this guy." Travis said pointing to an image of a man on one of the cameras he had on the right screen. It was frozen in frame so he could point to the man.
When Annabeth saw the man, she had a feeling that she should know him. She felt like he was a person from earlier life. She just could not place his name or any relation she had to him.
She nodded to Travis with a slight confused look.
Travis nodded and said, "You should. He should look like someone you knew at one point."
Annabeth stared hard at the image of the man. It came to her - this man shared many features with Ethan Nakamura. She tilted her head and started to notice subtle differences. This man had a different nose shape and eye shape. The rest of the visible features seemed the same other than the obvious one that he had both eyes therefore no need for an eye patch.
"He looks very similar to Ethan Nakamura." Annabeth told Travis.
Travis grinned and nodded. "That's what I was thinking. Percy? You probably saw him the most."
Percy looked over and turned in his seat. "I saw Ethan the most? Well maybe out of this group." He sat forward to look at the picture of the man they were looking at in the camera. He nodded slowly. "Yeah. That does look like a lot like Ethan."
"Who is he?" Annabeth asked.
"I'd say another son of Nemesis. That many similar features only happen in a family." Percy said.
"And those are most definitely Nemesis eyes as well. I'd recognize them anywhere." Leo said.
Connor looked over at him. "When did you meet Nemesis, Leo?"
"During the trip across the Atlantic on the quest of seven." Leo replied smugly.
Percy cut in, "So we can agree that this man is a son of Nemesis. Is this our MI6 guy?"
"No. It's our MSS guy." Travis said.
"Have we contacted him already?" Percy asked.
Travis shook his head. "He is a potential A2 member. You don't remember talking to him?"
"I only talked to him over the phone. I've never seen him in person. He's our field agent in MSS for us?"
Travis nodded. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure we've got a meeting with him as well. Today at 1700. I think you're supposed to be calling him at 1000."
Percy checked his watch. 0939. "I've got time. I'll give him a call though. Over secure line or standard?"
"I don't think it really matters. I'd go for secure just in case though." Travis said shrugging.
"Got it. Thanks, Travis."
"Yeah."
Percy turned to the middle image again. He continued checking up on all the stops train 1456 had made. He put them down in a text notepad in the computer and started searching the map for other trains that were operating irregularly.
At five to ten, Percy grabbed his cell phone and went over to the bed to call the man from MSS. Annabeth took his chair and continued watching different trains and checking their schedules.
Annabeth ignored Percy's conversation with the MSS guy. She was getting pretty close to being able to ignore all the men until Leo called her name.
"What, Leo?"
"Check this guy out."
"I'm married."
"Funny. Seriously, you need to look at this guy. He gives me a feeling that I've seen him before."
Annabeth looked at the camera image he was pointing at. He had frozen the frame just like Travis had with the son of Nemesis. "Look at that guy and tell me that he doesn't look like a twin of Percy a few years ago."
Annabeth could definitely see multiple similarities again. However, to her, the differences were more pronounced than they were with the son of Nemesis. She gave a noncommittal shrug.
"I can see where the similarities are. He might be another son of Poseidon. His hair isn't the right color, but the eyes are. I'd ask Percy if he's contacted his dad recently."
"Okay. Do you want me to keep this frame out of rotation for Percy to look at?"
Annabeth nodded and said, "Sure. That'll make it easier than chasing it down later on."
At about 11:00am, Percy came back over. "Look I'm sure this is all very important, but after I got off the phone with Jay I got a call. We've got to meet Jeff at 1130."
A/N: Not my longest or most detailed. The first part was a bit of humor to lighten the sort of darker mood. Definitely another foreshadowing chapter.
As it's August 18th, happy birthday to Percy & anniversary to Percy and Annabeth.