'Good.' The camp director said, tossing him a small wooden box. Percy looked at it. A tooth brush, a small tube of toothpaste, two orange shirts and two khakis. 'Less paperwork. Here are your belongings. Take it, go to Section E, and play with the brats there, Peter. Dinner is at five thirty. Lights out at eight thirty. Wake up at 3 in the morning. Breakfast at three thirty. Lunch at the work site. See you. Get out of my office now, Parkinson.'

'What? We wake up at 3 am?! No way… Erm, Mr D.'

'Get out. If you have any questions, ask Chiron. Out, Johnson.'

'It's Jackson,' Percy called behind his shoulder as he stumbled out of the office and back out under the scorching sun, carrying his wooden box and wondering which of the brick buildings in the distance belonged to Section E.

Thankfully, the letters of the sections of the camp were painted on the side of the brick buildings in bold, white letters. Percy had no trouble finding section E. It was nestled between section D and section F. He knocked on the door of the building and waited for someone to answer the door. The building had no windows, so Percy had no idea what was going on inside.

A blonde guy opened the door. He scrutinized Percy with ice blue eyes and said simply, "Hello. You must be Jackson."

Percy nodded and extended his hand to the guy. "Nice to meet you."

"I'm Luke. JUst Luke." The guy said, shaking Percy's hand. Luke had to be about twenty-seven, and had a long pale scar running from the bottom of his left eye to below his lip, like a tear trough. Percy wondered why he was here. He surely had to be too old to be at the camp.

"So… What did you do that they threw you in here?" Percy asked casually, arching one of his eyebrows.

Luke laughed in amusement, his scar rippling. "I work here. And I am in charge of section E. You may call me Mr. Luke."

"No thank you, Luke," Percy said politely.

Luke narrowed his eyes and glared at Percy. "It's an order."

"Alright, don't fly off your rattle, Mr. Luke," Percy sighed. Luke shook his head and let Percy into the building. The building was just one giant room, with about thirty bunk beds. Most of the beds had a small box in the corner, with the disgusting puke orange shirts and khakis hanging from the railings (what are those things called anyway?). Most of the camp shirts were muddy orange, and the words TYRC: For a Better Future which were fresh and bold on Percy's new shirt, were faded and some of the letters were barely visible anymore. Dirty socks were strewn randomly across the floor.

However, the thing that struck Percy was not how messy and how unhygienic and potentially dangerous the room was (what if someone slipped on the socks?!). It was the fact that it was empty and no one was to be seen.

"Where are the rest?" Percy asked, feeling extremely stupid.

"Oh," Luke said. "They're at work."

Another long day. Annabeth hated Fridays, unlike just about everyone else in her class. Fridays were the pits. There were no lessons on Saturday and Sunday. Which sucked a lot. Plus, 6pm to 8 pm on Fridays was visiting hours. Which turned out to always be a horrible experience. All the girls lived in one dormitory, and it was horrible when all her dorm-mates' parents, which most of them complained about so much, visited. It was always a horrible reminder that her parents didn't really care. She wanted to scream at all the ungrateful girls how lucky they were to have parents that loved them unconditionally.

She dragged her feet to homeroom, and sat at her seat, taking out her pencil-case, and arranging her stationery neatly on the table. Many people suspected Annabeth had a mild case of OCD. Maybe it was true. Maybe it was not. It was just second nature for Annabeth to be as perfect as humanely possible.

The homeroom teacher spoke to them about how they should commit themselves to the project and start writing as soon as possible. In fact, the students could drop their letters in the teacher's mail box outside the room* at their leisure. Every Monday, the letters collected would be mass-mailed out to Texas. Assuming that their assigned camper wrote back before the next Monday (when TYRC collected the letters for mailing to the respective schools), they would receive their letters by latest Thursday. Due to the long time lag between mailing the letter and getting a response, the students were encouraged to write longer letters.

"Class, dismissed. Please go to your first block of lessons." The teacher said tiredly as soon as the bell rang, signaling that the students should be heading to their next class.

Annabeth sighed. Art was the next block of lessons she was supposed to be at at, and she hated art. It was the only subject she did not excel at, and Annabeth did not take that lightly. It was an insult to her intelligence and determination. Because sad as it was, art was one of those subjects where intelligence had no count. Creativity and inspiration could not be forced. No amount of hard work could make up for a lack of creativity.

Unfortunately, Annabeth lacked in creativity and imagination. She saw everything as it was, in black and white. Imagining things never brought about any good. She used to dream of a graduating as a Major in English and Maths, finding a decent job and maybe finding the right person to settle down with. But now, she saw things as they were. When she finished high school, she'd have to get a job, because no way under the heavens would Mrs. Chase allow her to continue her education.

Once in a while, when depression about not going to university or even college overwhelmed her, Annabeth would do the unthinkable. She would pretend to have an upset stomach or fever, inform the teacher, and take the block of lesson off to hang in the lounge of the dormitory, reading her books and writing poems and short stories. Annabeth knew that her actions would haunt her later; missing lessons was a horrible thing to do. She would miss out on a lot. Something important might have been covered. But sometimes, the monotony of repeating Monday and Friday overwhelmed her, and taking a break from the attending lessons felt too good to resist. (AN: Ok, I'm not actually sure if you CAN just do this. But just assume you can fake sick and just take the day easy in Goode High.)

Packing up her things neatly, Annabeth made her way to the art room with her bag, along with her class mates. After everyone had sat down, and the art teacher started writing the objectives of the lesson on the board, Annabeth raised her hand and pretended to look absolutely miserable.

That was too easy, Annabeth thought. She was walking back to the dorm, felling guilty and smug at the same time. The art teacher had totally fallen for her trick, and had dismissed her without a second thought after Annabeth said she felt like 'puking all over the place'. Too easy.

I hope this is not going to be happening more regular than it is already, Her inner voice of justice chided her sternly.

Annabeth shrugged to herself and walked across the campus to the dormitory building. She went to her room and placed her bad neatly next to her bunk bed that she shared with Thalia.

Thalia, Annabeth's best friend and room mate, was always wearing a black hoodie over her uniform. It was part of her 'Black is the New Black' agenda. Since she could only wear her school uniform, the black hoodie was the best compromise for her agenda.

Thalia also had family issues. Her parents were divorced, and neither had actually wanted to take care of her. Throwing her in a boarding school was the simplest solution- her parents split the bill.

Perhaps that was why the two got along so well. They had both gone through a lot of pain and abandonment, and understood each other perfectly. It was painful, knowing that nobody really cared for you.

Annabeth decided to sleep for the whole block and go for the next lesson, but suddenly remembered the project. For some reason, Annabeth didn't feel the dread towards the project she had felt when she first heard of the it. She thought of how someone said that most teens that committed crimes were sad and lonely and looking for an escape.

Well, she thought, pulling a piece of notebook paper from her bag. If I can change Jackson's mindset, he might lead a better life next time.