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Cloning, Percy thought, had gotten way out of hand.
He’d thought it was a designer dog. They were things rich people invested in, so Percy hadn’t seen too many of them in his corner of New Manhattan, but some of the rich kids at his boarding school had liked to tote around writhing balls of fluff. It had been a big thing a few years ago. Design your own dog. The owners were weird about it—so weird, in fact, that this lady called her little snakelike Chihuahua sonny was honestly kind of expected.
The fire breathing wasn’t.
Percy could accept a weird little dog with a lion-like mane, scales on its haunches, and feet that looked creepily like goat hooves. Especially when it had one of those tacky holographic collars, decorated with cartoon dog bones. But when it opened its mouth and blasted fire at him, he was almost too surprised to move.
Almost. He’d grown up on a space station. Fire was the killer. It could burn through oxygen supplies and damage life support systems and threaten everything. The Gateway was more a tourist trap than actual functioning ship nowadays. Hell, it hadn’t ever been a functioning ship on its own, just a replica built over Neptune to commemorate the spaceships that had been sent out exploring. But it still had all the relevant safety mechanisms. Even up here, on the viewing platform, the nearest fire extinguisher was only a few metres away.
It was more instinct than logic that had Percy dive to the side, roll, and grab it. He sprayed it in the weird little dog’s face.
It howled, choking on foam. Its creepy mother howled too, like the fire had been another child of hers.
Percy took the chance to glance around. The viewing platform was almost closed for the day—soon the shuttle would be back to take the last few stragglers back to St Louis, and he could reunite with Annabeth and Grover. But there were still people up here. A kid. His parents. A couple. The platform was long and curved, giving a three-sixty-degree view of Neptune’s deep blue atmosphere below, its many moons, and the rings they orbited within. There were benches to sit at and look, but otherwise the hall was just an expanse of gleaming floors and bright windows.
They’d been here for a while already. It had been an actually peaceful moment on this horrible quest. They’d listened to the tour guide prattle on about how Triton was Neptune’s largest moon and the fact that it rained diamonds on Neptune was actually a myth. Annabeth had tapped her foot and waited for the engineering information to start; that was what she’d come here for. But the tour guide had just kept talking about the planet. Its rings were mostly dust, not particularly dense—look out the window and see for yourselves! Neptune’s atmosphere was comprised of hydrogen, helium, and bits of methane. Its mantle was mostly a slushy ocean of ice, water, and ammonia. Beneath the mantle, its core was rocky like Earth’s, and hot enough to form diamonds, though remember, raining diamonds was a myth…
Of course it had been too good to last.
Now, Percy had to scan his surroundings for combat advantages. There weren’t many. It was a wide-open space with few features to trap the weird little dog in, or distract it… But next to the empty shuttle airlock, there were a couple of escape pods. There were even more at the other end of the arc of the deck.
Percy eyed them hungrily.
“That was a mistake, dear,” the creepy mother chided. Now that Percy looked, her forearms were all scaly too. Body modifications? Or— “My son hates the taste of that horrible foam.”
“Your son,” he said, but he was a little distracted. The weird little dog was no longer little. Before his eyes, it got bigger, until it was the size of an actual lion. “The… Chihuahua.”
“Chimaera,” she corrected, and yeah. Yeah. He could see that now. Its weird little holographic collar, dancing with images of dog bones, had grown with it. Now the dog bone holograms looked a lot more like human bones.
Chimaera. Mythical monster. Right. Chiron had said that a lot of monsters had gone to space along with the gods and humans. It didn’t matter that most of them still frolicked in the Ancient Lands, down on Earth. They still followed heroes everywhere they went.
He didn’t realise his hands were shaking until he dropped the fire extinguisher. Before he could pick it up again, it rolled toward the chimaera, who promptly stood on it with enough force to crush it. Percy tried to reach for Riptide.
“Be honoured, Percy Jackson,” the chimaera’s mother said. She was laughing with all the sibilance of a snake. “Lord Zeus rarely allows me to test a hero with one of my brood. For I am the Mother of Monsters, the terrible Echidna!”
Terror closed his throat, but not tightly enough to stop him from running his mouth. “You must be happy about all the breeding programmes down on Earth, then,” he said. “Aren’t those anteaters off the endangered list now?”
She howled. The chimaera lunged.
Percy dived to the side, just avoiding being trampled by its hooves. It wasn’t the Minotaur, though, and it spun quickly. Its viper-like tail whipped around and nearly took out the bystander kid’s eye.
He needed to lead it away from the mortals. He ran to the other side of the viewing platform, where none of them were, and had to duck again to avoid its fiery breath. The sleeve of his shirt caught fire, but he stopped, rolled over the floor to douse it, and staggered to his feet. The chimaera followed, more slowly. Stalking.
Smoke from its breath curled. The fire alarm blared, shrill and sharp in his ears; red light flashed overhead. The mortals had already noticed the blaze in their midst, but now they panicked. A voice said over the speakers: Please proceed calmly to your nearest escape pod. A tractor beam will collect you and escort you safely to St Louis Station.
The mortals did not proceed calmly. Shrieking, they ran for the escape pods, but one bound and blast of the chimaera’s breath put the pods out of commission. Fires were catching all over the deck, now. That little boy was sobbing.
Percy needed to lead it away. He needed to—
The chimaera lunged again, and he swung Riptide, but it bounced harmlessly off that stupid collar. The human bone holograms danced and winked cheerily. Percy staggered—and the chimaera’s viper tail whipped around to seize his calf in its teeth.
He cried out. Pain raced through his leg, like it had been blowtorched instead of envenomed. Through a haze of tears, he noted that the mortals were still stranded by the ruined escape pods, screaming. They were trapped. They were all trapped.
It was his fault. The chimaera was here for him.
Did that mean it would leave them alone once he was gone?
Percy tried to back away. He stumbled a little, but the chimaera seemed content to toy with him for a bit. It let him back right up almost to the second batch of escape pods, though it must have realised what he was trying to do. Its mother certainly did.
“Bold,” she cackled. “Hopeless. They don’t make heroes like they used to, do they, sonny?”
The chimaera belched another burst of fire. Percy flattened himself to the floor, feeling it sear his back and hair, but when he looked up he realised he hadn’t been the target. The last functioning escape pods were all torched, their doors half-melted through. Holes gaped in them.
“You’re going to die over your father’s planet,” she said. “Neptune… Poseidon… it’s still his. Maybe he’ll watch.” She cackled again. “Or maybe if you ask, he’ll save you.”
The thought cut through his addled mind. They were over Neptune. Neptune. Named after the Roman god of the sea. Sure, he wasn’t Poseidon, but…
Was he close enough?
Could he help?
“The poison is in your heart, now,” Echidna said. “But I cannot blame you for not trusting the gods.”
His breath rasped in and out of his lungs like sandpaper, each one a marathon. He looked down at the vast expanse of blue beneath him, and he remembered a warm glow. A smile hovering over him, just out of focus.
“Die, faithless one.”
No, Percy thought. Father, help me. Please.
When the chimaera blew again, he dived for the escape pod. It was hot to touch, hot enough to blister skin, but he didn’t notice. He opened the door, shimmied through the airlock, and slammed it behind him. Flames licked through the holes, but he backed away, reached for the eject lever, and slammed it down with all his might.
Through the cracks, he saw the chimaera’s hideous face lurch away. It had its mother’s eyes, he noticed.
He closed his eyes and waited to die.
The escape pod spun. The heat of the fire had been sucked out immediately, leaving only the cold. He slammed into the wall, hitting his head so hard he saw stars where he shouldn’t. It felt like they were in Neptune’s atmosphere in an instant, even though he knew that the Gateway held itself a safe orbit above atmo, like the darkness of space was a brief loss of consciousness on his part. He tumbled, the luminous blue of the world below obvious even through his eyelids. The screeching of the escape pod and his own panicked gasps grew even shriller in the helium atmosphere. Percy’s head throbbed. Everything throbbed; every beat of his heart hurt.
But the human urge to live wouldn’t let him go. Distantly, through the haze of pain and panic, he registered: escape pods were supposed to have emergency thrusters. Nothing too dramatic, nothing capable of long distances. But enough to control a descent or limp, wounded, to the nearest space station. He should find the controls. Neptune’s vast, slushy ocean stretched out below him. If he hit the water at these speeds, it’d flatten him to a pancake. He needed to get to the controls. He needed to—
Flaaaa-boooom!
He hit the water. Bubbles glittered around him, thick in the slush. Percy the cacophony of the suffering escape pod cut out in the damp blanket silence of the sea. Water flooded in. It tasted awful—sharp and acrid, similar to how Percy’s pee had smelled whenever New Manhattan was having another water scarcity crisis. The ammonia, maybe? Whatever it was, it somehow managed to be the worst thing about this situation.
It should have been freezing. The temperatures below Neptune’s mantle were supposed to be insanely high, but the sea itself was half-frozen. Yet Percy just felt… warm.
The water wrapped around him. His burns backed away from his skin with their tails between their legs. Already, he could feel his heartbeat quickening again, back to its old stubborn beat, the poison routed. His pounding headache calmed. He remembered how the water had healed him during Capture the Flag, even though that had just been an artificial stream on a wandering spaceship.
Now, he felt amazing. Cool and relaxed. Perfectly dry, in fact, though he could see the spots on his clothes where the fires had been quenched. And he was breathing—breathing deep, heavy gulps of water. He’d been breathing this whole time, even as he tumbled through a hydrogen atmosphere. The water was just as cool inside him, in his throat, as it was against his skin. Even if it still tasted like pee.
“What?” he asked. His words sounded muffled to his own ears.
Percy, a gentle voice chided, what do you say?
“Uh… thanks?” His voice still sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Thank you, Father.”
Poseidon—Neptune?—didn’t respond.
Why would he? Percy felt ready to curl up and shrivel just at the thought of what had just happened. He’d run screaming from yet another monster. Annabeth and Grover would be worried about him. Had the mortals even managed to escape? Or had he left them to die?
The escape pod sank slowly through Neptune’s oceans. Everything around him was that deep, all-encompassing blue. If anything was beyond that veil of colour, Percy couldn’t see it. Currents curled through the holes in the escape pod. Some of them brushed his cheeks. Ruffled his hair. He buried his face in his hands.
Riptide reappeared in his pocket.
He could feel it, wedged between his hip and the wall. In a fit of pique, he drew it and tossed it aside. It toppled through one of those holes and tumbled deeper into the water, out of sight. He didn’t deserve it. He was no hero.
That gentle voice spoke again. Your father believes in you.
It seemed to come from everywhere. Her words rippled around him like the water itself.
That was when he saw her. She was in the escape pod with him, barely a metre away, but she was the same deep blue of the water and nearly translucent. She looked like…
“Mom?”
That was impossible. Mom was on Pluto, under the frozen wastes. Dead.
No, child, only a messenger, though your mother’s fate is not as hopeless as you believe. Come to meet me on my moon.
“What?”
She smiled. I can only stay here so long thanks to the help of my cousin. All of us passed you between our orbits to get you here safely, but she strengthens my presence here even now. Mine is the second-farthest moon that orbits this planet. Before you go to Pluto, you must meet me there. It is your father’s will.
The second-farthest moon that orbited Neptune. “Nereid?” Percy asked, wracking his brain. He was glad he’d been too polite to totally ignore the tour guide’s spiel on the Gateway. “And your cousin… Naiad?” Naiad was one of the other moons, right? The closest one?
Very good. I will see you there.
“Wait!”
Her voice faded. Percy wasn’t sure when he stopped seeing her, a ghost in the gloom, but he did.
“How am I supposed to get up there!?” he called into the dark. “I’m sinking! I’m in a broken escape pod! And I can’t do anything right!”
There was no response. Typical. His father might have saved him before, but now…
Percy buried his head in his hands and let himself sink.
He didn’t know how long he stayed there like that. If he cried, they just salted the pee-like water around him. But eventually he noticed that the more he sank, the warmer it grew. That made sense. The tour guide had also said that below Neptune’s icy ocean mantle, the temperatures could ridiculously hot. She’d given an actual number, but Percy certainly hadn’t memorised it. All he remembered was what she’d said about diamonds.
They didn’t rain. That was a myth. They grew under pressure, instead.
Yet, a small plink pulled him out of his misery.
Percy opened his eyes. Down here, the sunlight had long since petered out, but he could still see in a weird sort of infrared way. Something small—the size of his thumbnail—had bounced off the hull of the escape pod and through one of the holes. It drifted through the water to land at his feet.
Another followed. Then another. Then another.
He bent to pick one up. It was hard to see properly, but it was a small, jagged gemstone, its edges sharp and brilliant. He laughed without humour. Obviously, it was a diamond. They were all diamonds.
What?
Was he hallucinating? He’d thought about it raining diamonds, and this was what his fevered brain had to offer him? He looked up, but the shower of them had stopped falling into the escape pod itself. Instead, the current buffeted them to roll and latch onto the edges of the holes. Before his eyes, they glued themselves to the ruined parts of his lifeline—and started to grow.
Within moments, most of the smaller holes were sealed. The larger gashes closed in rapidly. Percy stared through the wall of diamond that separated him from the ocean, and he found himself glad that some of the water was sealed in with him. It kept him calm enough to process this.
“That’s impossible,” he whispered. It wasn’t deep enough or hot enough for diamonds to form here. Nor did they form that quickly. This was ridiculous.
Another one fell from the ocean above him, big enough to slam into the escape pod. It felt pointed. Like an attempt to knock some sense into him.
It didn’t work. “That’s a myth!” he insisted. “It doesn’t rain diamonds on Neptune! That’s a myth!”
Even he knew how stupid he sounded.
“You’re a myth,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
It was impossible for diamonds to form like this. But it was also impossible for a boy to eject from a spaceship in an escape pod riddled with holes and make it safely through the cold vacuum of space. It was also impossible for him to breathe an atmosphere of hydrogen, helium, and methane, then land safely on an alien ocean world. Everything that had happened to Percy had violated the laws of the universe, but the universe didn’t seem to care about its own laws.
Or, rather: the universe cared about him even more.
His escape pod was done, now. He could feel it, somehow, as the water probed its edges but couldn’t find a way in. The grown diamond panels of his pod were rock hard under his touch. It was fixed.
Maybe, by some miracle, the emergency engine would still work too. The thrusters…
Come to meet me on my moon…
Riptide reappeared in his pocket. He took that as a sign.
Percy pushed himself off the wall and swam toward the controls. Every child on New Manhattan had been taught to operate an escape pod. It was essential health and safety information. That meant Percy also knew that no escape pod was designed for a task like this. Its tiny thrusters would never provide enough force to escape Neptune’s gravity well. Under any other circumstance, according to every law of the universe, he’d still be stranded here.
But as his hands closed around the joystick, he looked up and around. The blue around him was impenetrable. It pressed around him in a hug.
He could feel how much this planet loved him.
“Thank you, Father,” Percy said again.
Then he engaged the thrusters and shot toward the skies.