Chapter Text
Percy
"What is that?" Bianca gasped.
Ahead of us was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of a football field and as tall as goalposts. At one end of the mesa was a row of ten thick metal columns, wedged tightly together.
Bianca frowned. "They look like—"
"Toes," Grover said.
Bianca nodded. "Really, really large toes."
Zoë and Thalia exchanged nervous looks.
"Let's go around," Thalia said. "Far around."
"But the road is right over there," I protested. "Quicker to climb over."
Ping.
Thalia hefted her spear and Zoë drew her bow, but then I realized it was only Grover. He had thrown a piece of scrap metal at the toes and hit one, making a deep echo, as if the column were hollow.
"Why did you do that?" Zoë demanded.
Grover cringed. "I don't know. I, uh, don't like fake feet?"
"Come on." Thalia looked at me. "Around."
I didn't argue. The toes were starting to freak me out, too. I mean, who sculpts ten-foot-tall metal toes and sticks them in a junkyard?
After several minutes of walking, we finally stepped onto the highway, an abandoned but well-lit stretch of black asphalt.
"We made it out," Zoë said. "Thank the gods."
But apparently the gods didn't want to be thanked. At that moment, I heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal.
I whirled around. Behind us, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and I realized why they looked like toes. They were toes. The thing that rose up from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle armor. He was impossibly tall-a skyscraper with legs and arms. He gleamed wickedly in the moonlight. He looked down at us, and his face was deformed. The left side was partially melted off. His joints creaked with rust, and across his armored chest, written in thick dust by some giant finger, were the words WASH ME.
"Talos!" Zoë gasped.
"Who— who's Talos?" I stuttered.
"One of Hephaestus's creations," Thalia said. "But that can't be the original. It's too small. A prototype, maybe. A defective model."
The metal giant didn't like the word defective.
He moved one hand to his sword belt and drew his weapon. The sound of it coming out of its sheath was horrible, metal screeching against metal. The blade was a hundred feet long, easy. It looked rusty and dull, but I didn't figure that mattered. Getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.
"Someone took something," Zoë said. "Who took something?"
She stared accusingly at me.
I shook my head. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief."
Bianca didn't say anything. I could swear she looked guilty, but I didn't have much time to think about it, because the giant defective Talos took one step toward us, closing half the distance and making the ground shake.
"Run!" Grover yelped.
Great advice, except that it was hopeless. At a leisurely stroll, this thing could outdistance us easily.
We split up, the way we'd done with the Nemean Lion. Thalia drew her shield and held it up as she ran down the highway. The giant swung his sword and took out a row of power lines, which exploded in sparks and scattered across Thalia's path.
Zoë's arrows whistled toward the creature's face but shattered harmlessly against the metal. Grover brayed like a baby goat and went climbing up a mountain of metal.
Bianca and I ended up next to each other, hiding behind a broken chariot.
"You took something," I said. "That bow."
"No!" she said, but her voice was quivering.
"Give it back!" I said. "Throw it down!"
"I... I didn't take the bow! Besides, it's too late."
"What did you take?"
Before she could answer, I heard a massive creaking noise, and a shadow blotted out the sky.
"Move!" I tore down the hill, Bianca right behind me, as the giant's foot smashed a crater in the ground where we'd been hiding.
"Hey, Talos!" Grover yelled, but the monster raised his sword, looking down at Bianca and me.
Grover played a quick melody on his pipes. Over at the highway, the downed power lines began to dance. I understood what Grover was going to do a split second before it happened. One of the poles with power lines still attached flew toward Talos's back leg and wrapped around his calf. The lines sparked and sent a jolt of electricity up the giant's backside.
Talos whirled around, creaking and sparking. Grover had bought us a few seconds.
"Come on!" I told Bianca. But she stayed frozen. From her pocket, she brought out a small metal figurine, a statue of a god. "It... it was for Nico. It was the only statue he didn't have."
"How can you think of Mythomagic at a time like this?" I said.
There were tears in her eyes.
"Throw it down," I said. "Maybe the giant will leave us alone."
She dropped it reluctantly, but nothing happened.
The giant kept coming after Grover. It stabbed its sword into a junk hill, missing Grover by a few feet, but scrap metal made an avalanche over him, and then I couldn't see him anymore.
"No!" Thalia yelled. She pointed her spear, and a blue arc of lightning shot out, hitting the monster in his rusty knee, which buckled. The giant collapsed, but immediately started to rise again. It was hard to tell if it could feel anything. There weren't any emotions in its half-melted face, but I got the sense that it was about as ticked off as a twenty-story-tall metal warrior could be.
He raised his foot to stomp and I saw that his sole was treaded like the bottom of a sneaker. There was a hole in his heel, like a large manhole, and there were red words painted around it, which I deciphered only after the foot came down: FOR MAINTENANCE ONLY.
"Crazy-idea time," I said.
Bianca looked at me nervously. "Anything."
I told her about the maintenance hatch. "There may be a way to control the thing. Switches or something. I'm going to get inside."
"How? You'll have to stand under its foot! You'll be crushed."
"Distract it," I said. "I'll just have to time it right."
(This is where my writing starts)
Bianca's jaw clenched. "No. I'll—"
I didn't wait for her to finish. I sprinted straight for the monster's left foot.
Behind me, Bianca reluctantly sprang into action, shouting insults and hurling anything she could grab. She charged Talos and stabbed his massive toe with her knife.
It worked. Talos bellowed and lifted his foot, ready to squash her like a bug. She dodged away just in time—leaving his foot suspended and unguarded, showing the hole under his foot.
"What are you doing?!" Zoë's voice rang out.
I didn't answer. I bolted forward and dove under Talos' foot at the last second, sliding into a narrow opening.
I fit—barely. Inside, a bronze ladder spiraled up the interior of his leg. It had to lead to a control room.
I climbed, my limbs aching with each lurch as Talos moved. Outside, I could still hear the chaos—metal clanging, shouting, the sounds of battle echoing up the shaft.
Step by step, I reached the top. A hatch opened into a small chamber—definitely the control center, probably in his head.
Panels lined the walls, full of buttons and joysticks. Labels in Ancient Greek pointed to different limbs and systems. A screen displayed Talos' perspective: the battlefield below, everything from his glowing bronze eyes.
I grinned.
Time for payback.
I grabbed the joystick marked for his right arm. As I moved it, something caught my eye.
A bright red button.
SELF-DESTRUCT
I paused—then forced my attention back to the screen. Talos raised his sword, poised to strike—
Grover.
In a panic, I slammed a random button.
Talos convulsed. His arm jerked wildly. He punched himself in the face.
I laughed in disbelief—until I looked down.
Self-destruct.
My blood ran cold.
No.
I had to get out.
I turned, bolting for the ladder—but the entire room shook. Talos was staggering forward, straight toward the power lines.
I couldn't make it out in time.
Panic set in. My breath caught. My thoughts spiraled.
This was it.
I stared at the screen, heart pounding, as my life flashed before my eyes: Mom baking blue cookies. My first quest with Grover and Annabeth. Rescuing Grover from Polyphemus. Gods—Grover in that ridiculous wedding dress. Reviving Thalia. Annabeth—
Annabeth.
Would she survive this?
Would any of us?
Talos lurched forward, almost at the power grid.
I let out a breath, half a smile on my lips.
At least it wasn't anyone else.