Chapter Six - Cabin Fever part 2
The silence between us stretched on as Silena seemed lost in her thoughts. Then, just as I was starting to feel awkward, Silena startled me by suddenly clapping her hands on her legs and standing up.
"Right, you still need to see Cabin Nine, don't you?" She asked rhetorically. "Come on, Char- er, Beckendorf should be there by now. Let's go!"
Following the arrangement of cabins, Cabin Nine was directly across the commons area from Cabin Ten. As we passed by the central hearth, I gave the little girl tending the fire a small wave and she returned it with a smile. For a second, I thought her eyes might have been on fire too, but mentally waved it off as a trick of the light.
Cabin Nine was a solid brick building with industrial smokestacks coming out of the roof. The front door was a heavy, circular vault door like something in the basement of a bank. Silena struggled for a moment trying to open it before giving up and pounding loudly. A moment later, the door opened with the sound of gears turning and the hiss of steam indicating a pressure gauge being released. A Latina with her dark hair held back in a bandana greeted us from the other side.
"Ah, the new sister. We were wondering when you'd show up," she turned to Silena with a smirk. "Beckendorf's downstairs workin' up a sweat if you want to try distracting him."
Silena blushed and mumbled a quick farewell before clapping me on the shoulder and heading inside. The daughter of Hephaestus just shook her head; "Girlie's got it bad."
Looking around, the place could not have been more different than Cabin Ten. Where Silena had kept things neat and tidy, this place looked as if a bomb had gone off. The floor was cluttered with various nuts, bolts, screws and other miscellaneous mechanical parts - one of which had a suspicious dark puddle spreading from underneath it that may have been oil. Surprisingly, the walls seemed to be the cleanest part of the place.
"Um hi," I said. "I'm Penelope."
"Yeah, I know. Heard Chiron say it at lunch," the other girl said. "My name's Nyssa. Normally Beckendorf would be the one to do the meet and greet, but he's got a project that he couldn't wait to get back to. That means I'm the one that gets to give you the two drachma tour. Bunks are over there."
She pointed to a row of narrow steel bunks that were folded up against the wall. Each one had a digital control panel with blinking LED lights, glowing gems, and interlocking gears holding them in place.
"Upstairs is our lounge room," she said. I blinked. The cabin only looked big enough for a single level from the outside, but sure enough there was a staircase leading up and a fire pole in the center of the room leading from the ceiling. "It's not much of a lounge, but there is a couch you can stretch out on that's comfortable enough and a T.V. that gets broadcasts from dad's channel on Olympus.
"Downstairs is the workshop area," she said, gesturing to the staircase Silena had gone down. "There's workbenches, power tools, plenty of scrap material salvaged from the communal forge and even a few weapons made in-house down there."
"You make weapons?" I asked, interested.
"Of course," Nyssa said, raising an eyebrow. "Our dad is the god of Blacksmithing, so it's in our blood. In fact, it's practically a tradition that every new brother or sister we get has to make at least one bladed weapon their first week. Beckendorf's been pushing to have it a standard camp activity for years, but Chiron will only ever set it up as an optional activity. Anyone not in Cabin Nine has to ask him for the sign up sheet to even be allowed to make something. Usually we have the newbies cast a xiphos or something like that, but then other times you get a prodigy like Beckendorf who'll make a fully forged blade on their first go."
"But weren't bronze weapons usually cast?"
"Usually, yeah. But while Celestial Bronze can be melted down and cast, it can also be worked with a hammer and anvil. Granted, it takes more skill to do that, but Beckendorf is regarded as our best forgeman for a reason. You're probably thinking of the mortal's bronze though, which is a copper and tin alloy," Nyssa said. "Admittedly, it's really not that bad of an end result considering that, as a mortal, they couldn't even touch the real stuff."
"What do you mean?"
"Celestial Bronze is a magical metal," Nyssa said. "Its best known property is that it can be used to kill monsters. A slightly less well known property is that it can not be touched by mortal flesh. As demigods we have enough of our parents' divine nature that we can handle it just fine but, if a full mortal tried to pick it up, it would be like trying to grab smoke."
"So what kind of sword did Beckendorf end up making?" I asked.
"He made a kopis. It's a two foot long, single-edged sword with a curved blade. They're usually used by mounted cavalry instead of the two-edged Xiphos because of the downward curve of the blade. A chopping swing is more effective than a thrust when you're on horseback," Nyssa smirked. "Actually, he's got it hanging up on the wall downstairs if you want to see it. Got its own place of pride and everything."
I considered it for a moment, and then remembered Silena had gone down there to try and 'distract' Beckendorf from his work. I wasn't sure what a daughter of Aphrodite would do for such a distraction, and I wasn't sure I wanted to either. Instead, I shook my head; "Nah, I think I'm good for right now. Um, which bunk do I take?"
"Ah damn, I knew I was forgetting something!" Nyssa said, smacking her forehead. "You get third from the stairs. To unlock and claim it, you'll have to hold your thumb over the sensor for ten seconds. After that, the LED will flash red. That's when you put in a five digit pass code. Be sure to remember it though, otherwise you'll end up sleeping on the floor. The lounge couch is reserved for lounging, so you'll get kicked off."
I did as she instructed, typing 3-1-4-1-5 into the keypad when I was prompted by the LED and was slightly amused when a small, tinny voice said, "Input accepted."
There was a sudden hiss of steam being released followed by a grinding of gears as the bunk folded down from against the wall, and I was reminded of the way the vault door to the cabin had opened. It seemed the children of Hephaestus really liked to meld magic with technology. My eyes widened as I realized that what I had originally thought was the bunk itself was actually just a set of folding steps that led into the actual bunk which had been recessed into the wall.
"Go on and check it out," Nyssa urged.
With a shrug, I climbed up the steps and crawled into the bunk. It reminded me a little of how I imagined Navy bunks might be, but with just a bit more space. There were a set of shelves at the foot of the bunk that looked big enough to hold a small television, complete with power hookups, but not nearly enough space for all my things. In the ceiling above the bunk was recessed lighting that could be turned on and off with a switch near the head, and next to that switch was a small hidden panel with a keypad like the one on the outside of the folding steps inside.
"Um, is there a footlocker that goes with this bunk?" I asked.
"You find the second keypad?" Nyssa asked.
"Yeah," I said. "Does that open it up or something?"
"Something like that. I'm gonna head up to the lounge now," Nyssa said. "Go ahead and type in your pass code to continue the self-guided portion of your tour. Whenever you're done, type it in again."
I watched her walk up the stairs before turning back to the keypad. With a shrug, I input my code. Instead of opening up a hidden footlocker as I had expected, the steps began to recede - blocking me in. Just as I was about to put my number back in so I could go give Nyssa a piece of my mind, the entire bunk started to move. I felt a slow sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I normally equated with descending elevators and then the wall fell away to reveal an eight foot by eight foot square room underneath the bunk area. The walls were the same shiny metal as the cabin above. Three of the walls were lined with sunken shelves and there was a dresser against the last wall. A door with metal slats next to the dresser opened up to reveal a small closet.
A weight I hadn't known I was carrying lifted from my shoulders. I'm not the tidiest person in the world, but living with uncle Joe had taught me the value of a well ordered space. The chaotic mess of Cabin Nine and the obsessive cleanliness of Cabin Ten would have no doubt driven me nuts if I had to stay in one or the other exclusively. But this room would make all the difference in the world. It was also apparently mine to decorate and maintain as I desired. If either cabin got to be too much for me to handle, I would at least have a place to retreat to so I could gather myself.
"This is one hell of a foot locker, Nyssa," I said, shaking my head in amusement. I suppose I wouldn't shout at her after all.