“What on earth are you talking about, Will?” said Jason. He was straining his neck away from the blade. It had already nicked him in a few uncomfortable places, and he could feel blood trickling down his bare chest. “I do not have nanites in my come. Don’t you think that’s the kind of thing a guy would notice?” he hissed.

Will looked at Jason for a moment, head tilted in curiosity. The neural link on Will’s left temple briefly glowed cyan, in tandem with Jason’s. He sighed, the anger dissolving from his frame. He patted Nico on the shoulder and placed a hand, gently, on Nico’s wrist. “He’s not lying.”

With a huff, Nico removed his hand from Jason’s chest. A heartbeat later, reluctantly, Nico withdrew the knife. He tucked the knife back in its hidden sheath on his belt. “Come on,” said Will. The doctor grabbed Jason by the elbow. “Let’s take this somewhere else.”

Nico looked about him, silently cursing the climate of the Southron realm. The heat of the early morning sun was already enough to make sweat drip from his brow despite the relative shade of his current circumstance.

Truthfully, Nico was thankful that his father had planned this stunt for early in the morning. He was not so sure that he would have survived the heat if Aides had been insistent on starting the joust at noon.

Nico noticed that the knights that were supposed to participate in his tournament were spending the early morning milling about, talking to each other, and making acquaintances.

Jason looked Nico in the eye. He was trying his best not to look as frazzled and desperate as he was, but he wasn’t having much luck. “Tell Cerberus to get me Leo,” he said. “I need him to break into ARKIII’s data banks.”

Nico raised an eyebrow at Jason. Will was about to say something, but the couple’s neural links blinked briefly and Will shut his mouth. “We need to find out when, how, and most especially why Zeus did this to me,” he said, frantically.

Jason wanted to sound calm and collected—like he was most of the time—but from the looks on Nico and Will’s faces, he could tell that they weren’t convinced by his tone at all. “Please,” Jason pleaded. “I need to know.”

“Please don’t call Jason that,” Percy sputtered. He felt his cheeks warm, though it felt more like his face was on fire, rather than just red. The A.I. smirked, instead of saying anything. Of course. It was the kind of reaction that, frankly, Percy half-expected from an A.I. that had Jason’s name all over it.

Percy tried his best to ignore the shimmering holographic avatar of Scipio, but it was a bit difficult. He looked around, eyes adjusting to the dim light. He wondered where his clothes were—if he even had any at this point. The search, ultimately, proved to be fruitless. “Scipio,” said Percy, relenting with a sigh, “Where can I find clothes?”

There was a soft ding that filtered in through the speakers in the room, and a holographic projection outlined the doors of a closet that Percy felt stupid for missing. The doors swung open on their own, revealing an array of standard-issue jumpsuits—ones with Scipio’s emblem on the shoulder. “Thank you, Scipio,” said Percy, gingerly pushing himself off of the bed and onto the floor.

Annabeth’s hand rubbed the small of Percy’s back in slow circles that he supposed were meant to be comforting to him. However, they were less than effective. Percy couldn’t feel her touch, nor so much as the slightest wafting of cool air against his bare skin.

Percy still hadn’t pulled on the top half of the new jumpsuit, but it didn’t seem to matter all that much at the moment. Annabeth had come, just like he’d asked her to, except she had in none of the ways that mattered to him. At least at the moment.

Percy needed a shoulder to lean on, and as far as he was aware, it was impossible to lean on the shoulder of a holographic avatar—no matter how realistic it seemed to be. Underneath the glittering silvery-ness, at least.

The platitudes that Annabeth’s silvery avatar offered Percy did not comfort him in the slightest. His heart was still galloping at a mile a minute, and nothing he tried could get it to slow down. He felt slightly light-headed from all the emotional turbulence that was going on inside of him, and he was starting to think he was losing his mind.