I blame the Windex. I should've known better. Now my entire project, two months of work, might literally blow up in my face.
I storm around Bunker Nine, cursing myself for being so stupid. Theo is sitting on a workbench nearby, her leg shaking anxiously. Jason and Piper are trying to calm us down.
"It's okay." Jason says. "We're here to help."
"Just tell us what happened." Piper urges.
Thank goodness they answered my distress call so quickly. We can't turn to anyone else. Having them here with Theo and I makes me feel better, but I'm not sure they can help stop the disaster.
I take a deep breath. "Okay, guys. This is serious. Buford's gone. If we don't get him back, this whole place is going to explode."
Piper's eyes lose their usual smiley sparkle. "Explode? Um... okay. Just calm down and tell us who Buford is."
I know she doesn't do it on purpose, but her charmspeak is hard to ignore. I feel my muscles relaxing, and my mind clears a little.
"Fine." I say. "Come here."
I lead them across the hangar floor, carefully skirting some of our more dangerous projects. In my two months at Camp Half-Blood, Theo and I have spent most of our time at Bunker Nine. It feels like home to me, but I know it still makes Jason and Piper nervous. I can't blame them. The whole thing is part weapons-depot, part machine shop, and part underground safe house, with a little bit of Area 51-style craziness. Tool cabinets, storage closets, cages full of welding equipment, and stacks of construction material make a labyrinth of aisles so vast, I think we've only explored about ten percent of it all. Overhead runs a series of catwalks and pneumatic tubes for delivering supplies, plus a high-tech lighting and sound system that Theo is working to figure out.
A large magical banner hangs over the center of the production floor. I recently discovered how to change the display, like the Times Square JumboTron, so now the banner reads Merry Christmas! All your presents belong to Leo!
I bring my friends to the central staging area, Theo trailing behind them. I bring them to where I'm working on the engine that'll run the warship.
"See?" I ask.
Fixed to the keep, the engine apparatus looks like a high-tech jungle gym made from pipes, pistons, bronze gers, magical disks, steam vents, electric wires, and a million other magical and mechanical pieces. I point out the conbustion chamber.
It's a thing of beauty. Theo had found the design, and I've been so excited to build it. A bronze sphere the size of a basketball, the surface bristling with glass cylinders so it looks like a mechanical starburst. Gold wires run from the ends of the cylinders, connecting to various parts of the engine. Each cylinder is filled with a different magical and highly dangerous substance. The central sphere has a digital clock display that reads 66:21. The maintenance panel is open. Inside, the core is empty.
"There's your problem." Theo says from behind them, pacing. Her voice is clearly anxious.
Jason scratches his head. "Uh, what are we looking at?"
I think it's pretty obvious, but Piper looks confused too.
"Okay," I sigh. "You want the full explanation or the short explanation?"
"Short." Jason and Piper say in unison.
I gesture to the empty core. "The syncopator goes here. It's a multi-access gyro-valve to regulate flow. The dozen glass tubes on the outside? Those are filled with powerful, dangerous stuff."
Theo pipes in now. "That glowing red one is Lemnos fire from Hephaestus's forges. That murky stuff there? That's water from the River Styx." She's speaking so quickly. I know she's stressed, she's the one that went and got all these different magical danger-substances, and she had insisted on helping me install them so that I don't accidentally spill one on myself and die instantly. It was a sweet thought, but neither of us had an eye on Buford.
The stuff in the tubes is going to power the ship." I continue. "Like radioactive rods in a nuclear reactor. But the mix ratio has to be controlled, and the timer is already operational." I tap the digital clock, which now reads 65:15. "That means without the syncopator, this stuff is all going to vent into the chamber at the same time, in sixty-five minutes. At that point, we'll get a very nasty reaction."
Jason and Piper stare at me, then Theo, then me. I wonder if I've even been speaking English. Sometimes when I get agitated I slip into Spanish, like my mom used to do in her machine shop, and Theo doesn't even notice the difference, she just answers in Spanish automatically. But I'm pretty sure I used English.
"Um," Piper clears her throat. "Could you make the short explanation shorter?"
Theo stops pacing. "One hour. Fluids mix. Bunker goes Ka-boom. One square mile of forest turns into a smoking crater."
"Oh." Piper says in a small voice. "Can't you just...turn it off?"
"Gee, I didn't think of that!" I exclaim. "Let me just hit this switch and-No Piper. I can't turn it off. This is a tricky piece of machinery. Everything has to be assembled in a certain order in a certain amount of time. Once the combustion chamber is rigged like this, you can't just leave all those tubes sitting there. The engine has to be put into motion. The countdown clock started automatically,and I've got to install the syncopator before the fuel goes critical. Which would be fine, except... well, I lost the syncopator."
Jason folds his arms. "You lost it? Don't you have an extra? Can't you pull one out of your tool belt?"
I shake my head. My magic toolbelt can produce a lot of common tools, but it can't produce complicated devices or magical items.
"The syncopator took me a week to make." I explain. "And yes, I made a spare. I always do. But that's lost too. They were both in Buford's drawers."
"Who is Buford?" Piper asks. "And why are you storing syncopators in his drawers?"
Theo rolls her eyes. "Buford is a table."
"A table." Jason repeats. "Named Buford."
"Yes, a table." She insists. I wonder if my friends are losing their hearing. I think we're being very clear.
"A magic walking table." Theo continues. "About three feet high, mahogany top, bronze base, three moveable legs. Leo saved him from one of the supply closets and got him in working order."
"He's just like the tables my dad has in his workshop. Awesome helper, carries all my important machine parts." I tell them.
"So what happened to him?" Piper asks.
I feel a lump rising in my throat. The guilt is almost too much. Theo shakes her head in annoyance, which doesn't make me feel better. "I-I got careless. I polished him with Windex, and...he ran away."
Jason looks incredibly confused. "Let me get this straight. Your table ran away... because you polished him with Windex."
"I know, I'm an idiot!" I moan.
"A brilliant idiot, but still an idiot." Theo agrees. "Buford hates Windex. It has to be Lemon Pledge with extra-moisturizing formula."
"I was distracted. I thought maybe once he wouldn't notice." I explain. "Then, I turned around for a while to install the combustion tubes, and when I looked for Buford..." I point to the giant open doors of the bunker. "He was gone. Little trail of oil and bolts leading outside. He could be anywhere by now, and he's got both syncopators!"
"Theo, you didn't see where he went?" Jason asks her.
She shakes her head. "I was helping Leo install the combustion tubes. They've got some pretty nasty stuff inside them."
Piper glances at the digital clock. "So... we have exactly one hour to find your runaway table, get back your synco-whatsit, and install it in this engine, or the Bunker explodes, destroying most of the woods."
"Basically." I agree.
Jason frowns. "We should alert the other campers. We might have to evacuate them."
"No!" My voice breaks. "Look, the explosion won't destroy the whole camp. Just the woods. I'm pretty sure. Like, sixty-five percent sure."
"Well, that's a relief." Piper mutters.
"Besides," Theo says. "We don't have time. "
"I-I can't tell the others." I insist. "If they find out how badly I've messed up..."
Jason and Piper look at each other. The clock display changes to 59:00
"Fine." Jason says. "But we'd better hurry."