Apple of Discord: Chapter 6

“Ah! A few years back the Kerkopes brothers came to Camp Half-Blood Austin branch with a sort of carnival. Akmon and Passalos were two thieves that had been punished back in the day for stealing from Herakles, and they were transformed into monkey-boys for their trouble. Remember that story?” Grey asks.

“Who doesn’t,” you respond.

“Well, they got into trouble out at camp with all their rigged carnival games, dangerous double-plays, and backstabbing. All to make a quick drachma.” Grey shakes his head, disapprovingly. 

“That sounds less than fun.” 

“Definitely. They have been running auctions, dark aftermarket type stuff, for the last couple of years. We became aware of this special auction when one of Nero’s agents accidentally tipped us off during a not so friendly game of ‘Get down Mr. President!’”

“Do I want to know what that is?” You furrow your brow.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific. The auction? Nero’s agent?”

“The ‘Get Down Mr. President’ part,” you say.

“Best you don’t know. Stay focused.”

“You brought it up!” 

Grey continues on. “We tried inserting Sam and Shai into the auction mix. This felt too important not to make a play for whatever was up for grabs. Unfortunately or fortunately, by the time we got more information, the auction had already taken place.”

“How could that have been fortunate?” you ask.

“We discovered that Nero had killed everyone else who had been invited to bid,” Grey responds flatly.

“Really?” you say. “That’s brutal. It must have been something really powerful.”

“You have no idea.” Grey begins. “The item up for grabs? The computer of Daedelus. Annabeth’s computer—the one she thought she lost in her fall into Tartarus during her battle with Arachne.

Our best guess is that the computer fell into a bit of Arachne’s world-wide web and got stuck there. The Kerkopes fished it out and discovered quickly what it was they had. They have a nose for that type of thing. I can just imagine the perverse joy they must have felt in that moment. After all, greed, not blood, courses through their veins.”

You feel overwhelmed with dread. “This guy needs to give it a rest.”

“Yeah, this isn’t going to make our job any easier. It would also confirm a few things about how Nero and Pontifex accessed the BELCH earlier,” Grey muses.

You run your hand over your chest, remembering the feeling of Pontifex punching you out of the BELCH and into a wall, not so long ago. A flood of images and mixed feelings assaults you: anger, fear, confusion and ... hope.

Surprisingly you have hope. It doesn’t spring from anyone else. It doesn’t come from a pep talk. It’s not an outside source. This is from some deep place inside. A place of knowing.