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TWELVE, crusty's waterbeds
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WHILE PERCY WAS BUSY complaining about them being stranded, Aster saw a taxi cab out of the corner of her eye. She looked at Annabeth, who nodded.
"Come on!" Aster said as she dragged Percy toward it, Annabeth and Grover right behind them. They jumped into the back of the cab, the four of them squeezing into three seats, which was surprisingly comfortable (most likely because they were twelve and still small for their age).
"Los Angeles, please," she told the cab driver.
The cabbie chewed his cigar and looked amused. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front."
"Crap," Percy muttered under his breath.
Aster dug around in her pocket, but the only thing in there was the Lotus credit card. She prayed to Hermes for safe travels as she held the card out to the cab driver.
"You accept casino debit cards?" Aster asked.
The cab driver shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first."
The driver took her green Lotus Cash Card. He looked at it skeptically.
"Swipe it," Aster encouraged him.
He did.
His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign.
The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at the four, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?"
"The Santa Monica Pier." Aster suppressed her smirk; she could get used to people calling her that. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."
In hindsight, maybe she shouldn't have told him that. The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.
On the road, the four friends had plenty of time to talk. Percy told Aster, Annabeth, and Grover about his dream, but he had trouble recalling some of the details. He talked about how he had seen Thalia, and Aster's heart skipped a beat. Did it mean something that she was appearing in both of their dreams?
Percy continued on, saying he had returned to the great chasm that he had been in his last dream—the same voice, cold and evil, echoing from the depths of the pit. It was having a conversation with someone that Percy couldn't see, but the voice was familiar to him. Yet Percy couldn't identify it. Apparently, the servant had failed to bring the evil voice the bolt. The monster said he would reward the invisible servant if they succeeded, but they stayed quiet. The being seemed to notice Percy watching, and he sent him away. After the scene had changed, Percy saw his mother, frozen in golden mist. He was in a vast throne room with a throne made from only human bones. Then Percy began to melt away, and he woke up.
