"I should maybe do something to help with external communication" "Annabeth, we're in the middle of training" "First of all, I declared this training so when I say it's over, it's over. Second, having a really powerful brain that spits out new ideas at an insane rate and having problems with deciding what I focus on is kind of a difficult combo. Though it is rather interesting that I got distracted while fighting, since my ADHD usually priorities fights over everything else. My only explanation is that I trust you so much that even if you stand there with a knife in your hand, I don't view you as a threat. Want to help me with the project?" "I could use a break, and if it helps you I'm not saying no to that." I got my laptop from my pocket (yes, it fits in there) and began working on my project. I didn't even have time to go back to my room, this was too important.
Over the next two hours or so, Piper and I designed and coded a little program. The interface was similar to a WhatsApp group, except everything was localized and you could change who was writing with only a few clicks. I typed out my first message:
Hey everyone,
Our internal communication still sucks, so I decided to give this system a try. If you're reading this, maybe give it a go as well. Just remember to select who's writing
Annabeth
Then I added profiles for all alters I knew of so far. Since I wasn't sure whether Annie and Luisa could read (they probably could at seven years old, but I couldn't be 100% sure) I also coded in a rudimentary text to speech function. "Okay, I'm done and am now ready to function normally again. I mean, I am by no means functioning normally with my DID and ADHD, but I can function as I usually do. I think they should rename ADHD, since the first D stands for deficiency. I just worked on this project for almost three hours, though it could have been one if I hadn't misspelled everything, without any sort of break. Does that look like a deficiency to you?" "Uh, no, I ev-" "Exactly. Change the name" "You looked so focused that I wanted to put that to the test" "And how exactly did you do that?" "Instead of answering, Piper showed me a photo of my typing on my laptop. Woven into my hair were seven different pens, a ruler and two pairs of scissors. "I tried to see how much stuff I could put into your hair before you'd notice, but then I ran out of space." "I must have been really dissociated when that happened" "Actually not, you were typing in code at an insane speed at that point in time, you were just really focused on that" "Possible. By the way, did you do the English homework we got till tomorrow?" "I definitely, probably, like, maybe, did, didn't do it. Why do I need to analyze the motives of a rat?" "It's not just a rat, it's an extremely intelligent rat." "I still don't give a schist about what its motivations are." "I already did it. I guess you can take some inspiration from it."
I found the text I had written and gave it to her. "I'm gonna be honest, that is the worst handwriting I've ever seen from anyone that wasn't a doctor" "Is it really that bad?" "Yes. Why do I feel like you have a whole speech prepared explaining why it's so bad?" "Personally, I don't think it's that bad and how would I have prepared an explanation for a phenomenon that I hadn't noticed yet? But maybe I'll find a reason" While Piper tried to copy m- sorry, while Piper took inspiration from my text, I came up with an explanation for my supposedly bad handwritten. "Okay, I'm done. I feel like I've had to guess so much that the teacher won't even recognize it as the same text anymore" "Good. I think I've got my explanation now. See, my brain is kind of on crack, and I mean that as in really strong not under drug influence. So basically, the Athena part of my brain rushes through the homework at insane speed such that I can finish it before the ADHD part decides it's time to design a temple for Hera. Spoiler alert: it's not that glorious. Anyways, I'm rushing through the work so quickly that my hand just can't keep up. My dyslexia probably doesn't help either. I might have even slipped some Greek in there" "Is that why you wrote ppoduct?" "That's not a p, it's a ρ. So yes, it's supposed to say product" "And you really didn't notice how bad your handwriting was until now" "I'm a child of Athena. Not noticing my own weaknesses is in my DNA. Or my ichor? Do I have ichor? I don't mean as blood, I know my blood isn't golden, I mean as DNA. Because the gods have DNA made of ichor and being passed on is kind of DNA's thing. Do I have 23 ichor chromosomes and 23 human ones? How does the RNA-polymerase transcribe that? Do I just have free uracil-tri-ichorate that it uses to create ichor RNA? And Ichor specific tRNAs? And corresponding ribosomes? What about the DNA-polymerase? Does it make a second ichor strand? Does it make a mortal strand matching the ichor one? Do I just have two random cells in my body where one set of chromosomes is half ichor half mortal and everything else is normal, like in the experiment where they made DNA with N15? Or, since the DNA is divided into the 23 chromosomes, maybe the ichor strands where split further and now occupy 46 cells. Technically, my dad didn't biologically contribute his DNA to my creation. Does that mean Athena synthesized his DNA? And if yes, did she use ichor, giving my first cell an ichor only diploid set? That would make 92 fragments. On the other hand, when two cells merge, their chromosomes only have one chromatid each, so it would again only- wait, no, it's still 92 because that one chromatid has two strands to it. And if I wasn't born, do I even have DNA? Was I ever a single cell or did I just pop up as a newborn?" "Did you just have an existential crisis over DNA?" "Kind of. I wouldn't call it a crisis, more like a theoretical research endeavor" "sure. A research endeavor" "So, our first half week here is almost over. How was it?" "I mean, apart from the four flashbacks you had it was great. And apart from the lessons. And your other not flashback related mental health issues. We've spent three mornings here and on two of them you had some sort of breakdown before breakfast" "You shouldn't have triggered me before breakfast" "How did I trigger you?" "Well yesterday, you asked me about my issues and thereby made me talk about people who had treated me badly in the past. Today you mentioned Annie's upbringing, which was partially done by someone whose death was rather traumatic for me." "Then I guess I'll switch to a more comfortable topic. Let's see. How about the topic regarding the thing generally considered the best experience tm"
"I don't like where this is going, but as long as it's not traumatic, sure, go on." "So, you can turn invisible?" "Yes. The magic was restored once the statue was secured." "And Percy has his own cabin?" "When Tyson isn't visiting, so almost always, yes" "So you can be alone without anyone noticing?" "Indeed. I think I know where you're going with this. Sometimes we get into bed and then we just cuddle for ages" "and when you say cuddle…" "I mean cuddle. What else would I mea- gods, what is wrong with everyone. Why do they all think we…" "Annabeth, be honest" Piper commanded. "Are you doing anything in there?" "First of all, I'm pretty sure mind control is pretty illegal in such a conversation, secondly, No, we don't" "It's not my fault that you're so sensitive to charm speak" "But it is your fault that you're using it" "That is indeed true" "I find it really interesting that you actually questioned my answer, as if us not doing what you thought, which I'm assuming is adfr, is like super unrealistic." "And what is adfr?" "Adult fun time related" "you keep surprising me with your vocabulary." "Going back to my last statement, it's probably because of allonormativity, as we discussed yesterday. I still don't understand how this society functions with so many allos. Like imagine you're giving a speech and you see an attractive person in the audience and you're like 'I'd totally get-'" "that is not what my voice sounds like" "'get in bed with her' and then you just have to carry on with the conversation while having this absurd desire" "That's not entirely how it works, but yes, it can be a little bit annoying. But not annoying enough to collapse society" "I mean, I experience what sexual attraction is like most days, through Percy. I mean his attraction to me, not mine to him. It doesn't really seem to affect him that much, though he did say yesterday that his self control wanted me to get dressed." "As someone who not only likes girls but can also sense other people's attraction, I can say that there was definitely a lot of temptation involved." "Exactly what I'm saying. You know, maybe talking about trauma wasn't so bad after all" "If you say so, how's it going, trauma wise?" "Pretty okay for my standards. I've had a flashback every day I was here. Well, one of them you avoided just in time." "So that's what's considered pretty okay. I'd tell you you are in desperate need of a hug, but I feel like you already know that." "You and Percy have made that very clear. There's a lot of reasons why: firstly, I'm traumatized so I sometimes need to be comforted. Second is the reason is the one you were probably thinking of right now; giving someone a hug is a way of showing that you feel sorry for how schisty their life is. Third reason is that I didn't receive a lot of love during childhood, so now I crave it even more." "You really just made a list of reasons why people should give you a hug" "Yes, yes I did" "You know who also needs a hug?" "No?" "Nico. He's had almost as much trauma than you, but you at least have me and Percy to talk about it. Nico doesn't have that. I mean, he's sorta close with Jason, but that's pretty much it. He's more isolated than you ever were" "I think he needs more than just a hug. We need to make a plan" "This implies that simply giving Nico a hug won't already require a strategy worthy of your mom." "Okay, who do we need. Me, because I'm a trauma expert. You, because you're great with empathy, we'll also need…" We spent the next thirty minutes or so makings a plan for giving Nico a little bit of therapy. When we were done, it was time for dinner already. "Well, time to face the real world again. Good thing 17 year olds typically aren't that traumatizing. Well, there's some people on our school who are kind of not so nice." I thought about one time I had gotten in trouble for 'being a nerd' just because I had done a twenty minute presentation about how glaciers change the landscape. A very interesting topic if you think about it. For example, the biggest collections of fine clay are created by strong winds beginning over the glacier, picking up fine particles from the sander, carrying them over the urstromtal and depositing them behind it. Another interesting feature of post-glacial landscapes are- wait, that's irrelevant. Anyways, there were some people being not so nice to me. I felt like my brain really didn't like me thinking about this because… wait… what was happening… everything felt foggy… and unreal… in the corner of my eye, I saw Piper… she looked pretty… speaking of Piper…
Piper
"…Kind of not so nice" Annabeth said. Then she was silent for a few seconds. She looked a bit like she was switching. "Uh, Annabeth, are you okay?" "Okay?... yeah, just… a bit… dissociated" "That's sounds more than just a bit. Anything I can do to help you?" "Uh, distract me… much as possible" Distract her. That should be doable. I remembered what Annabeth had told me about grounding, which was also kind of a distraction. From what I remember, it was about creating strong and diverse sensory inputs. I looked into my bag and found a hairbrush with built in mirror. (Just like the eyeshadow, I had not packed this voluntarily but had been forced to by my siblings. But right now, I was grateful for having it.) I opened it up and gave it to Annabeth. "Uh, take this. I don't know why I have it, well, I do know, my cabin wouldn't let me leave camp without it. What I don't know is why they insisted I take it. I guess that's just an Aphrodite thing…" As I talked, Annabeth passed the hairbrush between her hands, slowly gaining more awareness of the real world. "Can I keep it?" She asked. "What?" "The hairbrush. It has all these different surfaces with different textures, even different temperatures, well, technically, they all have the same temperature, I just perceive them as different because they have different heat conductivities. Anyways, it gives many different sensations, so it's great for grounding. So can I keep it?" "If you think it'll help, sure. I have another hairbrush somewhere." "Thanks, I feel like this could make a big difference." She inspected the hairbrush for a while. "These sparkly spots give great visual stimulation in most light conditions. Maybe I could add a few more of those. You said that it was dinner time, right?" "Correct" "Then I guess we should go there now" That was the first good idea Annabeth had had in the past ten seconds. Yeah, she has a lot of good ideas. We went there and it all went well. Definitely better than yesterday, when Annie had told everyone about teleporting cats (not that that had been incorrect). Only when we left, things started going bad. Three girls approached us. They had always seemed a little suspect to me, but I hadn't paid any attention to it up until now.
Wow, another cliffhanger.