by Rick Riordan
I was afraid Annabeth was going to stab me with it. Instead she used it as a screwdriver, to open a panel in the dragon's neck. "Here goes nothing," she said.
And she started to splice together the celestial bronze wires.
It took a long time. Too long.
I figured capture-the-flag had to be over by now. I wondered how soon the other campers would realize we were missing and come looking for us. Beckendorf probably had five or ten minutes left before the ants got him, if Annabeth's calculations were correct (and they always were).
Finally Annabeth stood up and exhaled. Her hands were scraped and muddy. Her fingernails were wrecked. She had a brown streak across her forehead where the dragon had decided to spit grease at her.
"All right," she said. "It's done, I think...."
"You think?" Silena asked.
"It has to be done," I said. "We're out of time. How do you, uh, start it? Is there an ignition switch or something?"
Annabeth pointed to its ruby eyes. "Those turn clockwise. I'm guessing we rotate them."
"If somebody twisted my eyeballs, I'd wake up," I agreed. "What if it goes crazy on us?"
"Then... we're dead," Annabeth said.
"Great," I said. "I'm psyched."
Together we turned the ruby eyes of the dragon. Immediately, they began to glow. Annabeth and I backed up so fast we fell over each other. The dragon's mouth opened, as if it were testing its jaw. The head turned and looked at us. Steam poured from its ears, and it tried to rise.
When it found it couldn't move, the dragon seemed confused. It cocked its head and regarded the dirt. Finally, it realized it was buried. The neck strained once, twice... and the center of the crater erupted.
The dragon pulled itself awkwardly out of the ground, shaking clumps of mud from its body the way a dog might, splattering us from head to toe. The automaton was so awesome none of us could speak. I mean, sure, it needed a trip through the car wash, and there were a few loose wires sticking out here and there, but the dragon's body was amazing—like a high-tech tank with legs. Its sides were plated with bronze and gold scales, encrusted with gemstones. Its legs were the size of tree trunks, and its feet had steel talons. It had no wings—most Greek dragons don't—but its tail was at least as long as its main body, which was the size of a school bus. The neck creaked and popped as it turned its head to the sky and blew a column of triumphant fire.
"Well..." I said in a small voice. "It still works."
Unfortunately, it heard me. Those ruby eyes zeroed in on me, and it stuck its snout two inches from my face. Instinctively, I reached for my sword.
"Dragon, stop!" Silena yelled. I was amazed her voice still worked. She spoke with such command that the automaton turned its attention to her.
Silena swallowed nervously. "We've woken you to defend the camp. You remember? That is your job!"
The dragon tilted its head like it was thinking. I figured Silena had about a fifty-fifty chance of getting blasted with fire. I was considering jumping on the thing's neck to distract it when Silena said, "Charles Beckendorf, a son of Hephaestus, is in trouble. The Myrmekes have taken him. He needs your help."
At the word Hephaestus, the dragon's neck straightened. A shiver rippled through its metal body, throwing a new shower of mud clods all over us.
The dragon looked around, as if trying to find an enemy.
"We have to show it," Annabeth said. "Come on, dragon! This way to the son of Hephaestus! Follow us!"
Just like that, she drew her sword, and the three of us climbed out of the pit.
"For Hephaestus!" Annabeth yelled, which was a nice touch. We charged through the woods. When I looked behind us, the bronze dragon was right on our tail, its red eyes glowing and steam coming out its nostrils.
It was good incentive to keep running fast as we headed for the Ant Hill.
When we got to the clearing, the dragon seemed to catch Beckendorf's scent. It barreled ahead of us, and we had to jump out of its way to avoid getting flattened. It crashed through the trees, joints creaking, feet pounding craters into the ground.
It charged straight for the Ant Hill. At first, the Myrmekes didn't know what was happening. The dragon stepped on a few of them, smashing them to bug juice. Then their telepathic network seemed to light up, like: Big dragon. Bad!
All the ants in the clearing turned simultaneously and swarmed the dragon. More ants poured out of the hill—hundreds of them. The dragon blew fire and sent a whole column of them into a panicked retreat. Who knew ants were flammable? But more kept coming.
"Inside, now!" Annabeth told us. "While they're focused on the dragon!"
Silena led the charge; it was the first time I'd ever followed a child of Aphrodite into battle. We ran past the ants, but they ignored us. For some reason, they seemed to consider the dragon a bigger threat. Go figure.
We plunged into the nearest tunnel, and I almost gagged from the stench. Nothing, I mean nothing, stinks worse than a giant ant lair. I could tell they let their food rot before eating it. Somebody seriously needed to teach them about refrigerators.
Our journey inside was a blur of dark tunnels and moldy rooms carpeted with old ant shells and pools of goo. Ants kept surging past us on their way to battle, but we just stepped aside and let them pass. The faint bronze glow of my sword gave us light as we made our way deeper into the nest.
"Look!" Annabeth said.
I glanced into a side room, and my heart skipped a beat. Hanging from the ceiling were huge, gooey sacks—ant larvae, I guess—but that's not what got my attention. The cave floor was heaped with gold coins, gems, and other treasures: helmets, swords, musical instruments, jewelry. They glowed the way magic items do.
"That's just one room," Annabeth said. "There are probably hundreds of nurseries down here, decorated with treasure."
"It's not important," Silena insisted. "We have to find Charlie!"
Another first: a child of Aphrodite uninterested in jewelry.
We forged on. After twenty more feet, we entered a cavern that smelled so bad my nose shut down completely. The remains of old meals were piled as high as sand dunes—bones, chunks of rancid meat, even old camp meals. I guess the ants had been raiding the camp's compost heap and stealing our leftovers. At the base of one of the heaps, struggling to pull himself upright, was Beckendorf. He looked awful, partly because his camouflage armor was now the color of garbage.
"Charlie!" Silena ran to him and tried to help him up.
"Thank the gods," he said. "My—my legs are paralyzed!"
"It'll wear off," Annabeth said, "but we have to get you out of here. Percy, take his other side."
Silena and I hoisted Beckendorf up, and the four of us started back through the tunnels. I could hear distant sounds of battle—metal creaking, fire roaring, hundreds of ants snapping and spitting.
"What's going on out there?" Beckendorf asked. His body tensed. "The dragon! You didn't—reactivate it?"
"Afraid so," I said. "Seemed like the only way."
"But you can't just turn on an automaton! You have to calibrate the motor, run a diagnostic... there's no telling what it'll do! We've got to get out there!"
As it turned out, we didn't need to go anywhere, because the dragon came to us. We were trying to remember which tunnel was the exit when the entire hill exploded, showering us in dirt. Suddenly we were staring at open sky. The dragon was right above us, thrashing back and forth, smashing the Ant Hill to bits as it tried to shake off the Myrmekes crawling all over its body.
"Come on!" I yelled. We dug ourselves out of the dirt and stumbled down the side of the hill, dragging Beckendorf with us.
Our friend the dragon was in trouble. The Myrmekes were biting at the joints of his armor, spitting acid all over him. The dragon stomped and snapped and blew flames, but it couldn't last much longer. Steam was rising from its bronze skin.
Even worse, a few of the ants turned toward us. I guess they didn't like us stealing their dinner. I slash
ed at one and lopped off its head. Annabeth stabbed another right between the feelers. As the celestial bronze blade pierced its shell, the whole ant disintegrated.
"I—I think I can walk now," Beckendorf said, and immediately fell on his face when we let him go.
"Charlie!" Silena helped him up and pulled him along while Annabeth and I cleared a path through the ants. Somehow, we managed to reach the edge of the clearing without getting bitten or splashed, though one of my sneakers was smoking from acid.
Back in the clearing, the dragon stumbled. A great cloud of acid mist was roiling off its hide.
"We can't let it die!" Silena said.
"It's too dangerous," Beckendorf said sadly. "Its wiring—"
"Charlie," Silena pleaded, "it saved your life! Please? for me."
Beckendorf hesitated. His face was still bright red from the ant spit, and he looked as if he were going to faint any minute, but he struggled to his feet. "Get ready to run," he told us. Then he gazed across the clearing and shouted, "Dragon! Emergency defense, beta-activate!"
The dragon turned toward the sound of his voice. It stopped struggling against the ants, and its eyes glowed. The air smelled of ozone, like a thunderstorm.
ZZZZZAAAAAPPP!
Arcs of blue electricity shot from the dragon's skin, rippling up and down its body and connecting with the ants. Some blew up. Others smoked and blackened and fell off, their legs twitching. In a few seconds, there were no more ants on the dragon. The ones that were still alive were in full retreat, scuttling back toward their ruined hill as fingers of electricity zapped them in the butts to prod them along.
The dragon bellowed in triumph. Then it turned its glowing eyes toward us.
"Now," Beckendorf said, "we run."
This time we did not yell, "For Hephaestus!" We yelled, "Heeeeelp!"
The dragon pounded after us, spewing fire and zapping lighting bolts over our heads like it was having a great time.
"How do you stop it?" Annabeth yelled.
Beckendorf, whose legs were now working fine (nothing like being chased by a huge monster to get your body back in order) shook his head and gasped for breath. "You shouldn't have turned it on! It's unstable! After a few years, automatons go wild!"
"Good to know," I yelled. "But how do you turn it off?"
Beckendorf looked around wildly. "There!"
Up ahead was an outcropping of rock, almost as tall as the trees. The woods were full of weird rock formations like that, but I'd never seen this one before. It was shaped like a giant skateboard ramp, slanted on one side, with a sheer drop-off on the other.
"You guys, run around to the base of the cliff," Beckendorf said. "Distract the dragon. Keep it occupied!"
"What are you going to do?" Silena said.
"You'll see. Go!"
Beckendorf ducked behind a tree while I turned and yelled at the dragon, "Hey, lizard-lips! Your breath smells like gasoline!"
The dragon spewed black smoke out of its nostrils. It thundered toward me, shaking the ground.
"Come on!" Annabeth grabbed my hand. We ran for the backside of the cliff. The dragon followed.
"We have to hold it here," Annabeth said. The three of us readied our swords.
The dragon reached us and lurched to a stop. It tilted its head like it couldn't believe we'd be so foolish as to fight. Now that it had caught us, there were so many different ways it could kill us it probably couldn't decide.
We scattered as its first blast of fire turned the ground where we'd been standing into a smoking pit of ashes.
Then I saw Beckendorf above us—at the top of the cliff—and I understood what he was trying to do. He needed a clear shot. I had to keep the dragon's attention.
"Yaaaah!" I charged. I brought Riptide down on the dragon's foot and sliced off a talon.
Its head creaked as it looked down at me. It seemed more confused than angry, like, Why did you cut off my toe?
Then it opened its mouth, baring a hundred razor-sharp teeth.
"Percy!" Annabeth warned.
I stood my ground. "Just another second..."
"Percy!"
And just before the dragon struck, Beckendorf launched himself off the rocks and landed on the dragon's neck.
The dragon reared back and shot flames, trying to shake Beckendorf, but Beckendorf held on like a cowboy as the monster bucked around. I watched in fascination as he ripped open a panel at the base of the dragon's head and yanked a wire.
Instantly, the dragon froze. Its eyes went dim. Suddenly it was only the statue of a dragon, baring its teeth at the sky.
Beckendorf slid down the dragon's neck. He collapsed at its tail, breathing heavily.
"Charlie!" Silena ran to him and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. "You did it!"
Annabeth came up to me and squeezed my shoulder. "Hey, seaweed brain, you okay?"
"Fine... I guess." I was thinking how close I'd come to being chopped into demigod hash in the dragon's mouth.
"You did great." Annabeth's smile was a lot nicer than that stupid dragon's.
"You, too," I said shakily. "So... what do we do with the automaton?"
Beckendorf wiped his forehead. Silena was still fussing over his cuts and bruises, and Beckendorf looked pretty distracted by the attention.
"We—uh—I don't know," he said. "Maybe we can fix it, get it to guard the camp, but that could take months."
"Worth trying," I said. I imagined having that bronze dragon in our fight against the titan lord Kronos. His monsters would think twice about attacking camp if they had to face that thing. On the other hand, if the dragon decided to go berserk again and attack the campers, that would pretty much stink.
"Did you see all the treasure in the Ant Hill?" Beckendorf asked. "The magic weapons? The armor? That stuff could really help us."
"And the bracelets," Silena said. "And the necklaces."
I shuddered, remembering the smell of those tunnels. "I think that's an adventure for later. It would take an army of demigods even to get close to that treasure."
"Maybe," Beckendorf said. "But what a treasure..."
Silena studied the frozen dragon. "Charlie, that was the bravest thing I ever saw—you jumping on that dragon."
Beckendorf swallowed. "Um... yeah. So... will you go to the fireworks with me?"
Silena's face lit up. "Of course, you big dummy! I thought you'd never ask!"
Beckendorf suddenly looked a whole lot better. "Well let's get back, then! I bet the capture-the-flag is over."
I had to go barefoot, because the acid had eaten completely through my shoe. When I kicked it off I realized the goo had soaked into my sock and turned my foot red and raw. I leaned against Annabeth, and she helped me limp through the woods.
Beckendorf and Silena walked ahead of us, holding hands, and we gave them some space.
Watching them, with my arm around Annabeth for support, I felt pretty uncomfortable. I silently cursed Beckendorf for being so brave, and I don't mean for facing the dragon. After three years, he'd finally gotten the courage to ask Silena Beauregard out. It wasn't fair.
"You know," Annabeth said as we struggled along, "it wasn't the bravest thing I've ever seen."
I blinked. Had she been reading my thoughts?
"Um... what do you mean?"
Annabeth gripped my wrist as we stumbled through a shallow creek. "You stood up to the dragon so Beckendorf would have his chance to jump—now that was brave."
"Or pretty stupid."
"Percy, you're a brave guy," she said. "Just take the compliment. I swear, it is so hard?"
We locked eyes. Our faces were, like, two inches apart. My chest felt a little funny, like my heart was trying to do jumping jacks.
"So..." I said. "I guess Silena and Charlie are going to the fireworks together."
"I guess so," Annabeth agreed.
"Yeah," I said. "Um, about that—"
I don't know what I would've said, but just then, three of Annabeth's siblin
gs from the Athena cabin burst out of the bushes with their swords drawn. When they saw us, they broke into grins.
"Annabeth!" one of them said. "Good job! Let's get these two to jail."
I stared at him. "The game's not over?"
The Athena camper laughed. "Not yet... but soon. Now that we've captured you."
"Dude, come on," Beckendorf protested. "We got sidetracked. There was a dragon, and the whole Ant Hill was attacking us."
"Uh-huh," said another Athena guy, clearly unimpressed. "Annabeth, great job distracting them. Worked out perfectly. You want us to take them from here?"
Annabeth pulled away from me. I thought for sure she was going to give us a free walk back to the border, but she drew her dagger and pointed it at me with a smile.
"Nah," she said. "Silena and I can get this. Come on, prisoners. Move it."
I stared at her, stunned. "You planned this? You planned this whole thing just to keep us out of the game?"
"Percy, seriously, how could I have planned it? The dragon, the ants—you think I could've figured all that out ahead of time?"
It didn't seem likely, but this was Annabeth. There was no telling with her. Then she exchanged glances with Silena, and I could tell they were trying not to laugh.
"You—you little—" I started to say, but I couldn't think of a name strong enough to call her.
I protested all the way to the jail, and so did Beckendorf. It was totally unfair to be treated like prisoners after all we'd been through.
But Annabeth just smiled and put us in jail. As she was heading back to the front line, she turned and winked. "See you at the fireworks?"
She didn't even wait for my answer before darting off into the woods.
I looked at Beckendorf. "Did she just... ask me out?"
He shrugged, completely disgusted. "Who knows with girls? Give me a haywire dragon, any day."
So we sat together and waited while the girls won the game.
