Child of Zeus {Interactive Story} (PJO/HOO/TOA)

FOURTEEN: I Don't Like Trains

I was surprised and so very thankful when Fillip got us to Truman Medical Center in Kansas City in exactly twenty-three minutes. Police cars had been dotted along our route, but upon seeing the hazard lights blinking on Fillip's truck and his speed they didn't pursue. Even better, there were few cars on the road for whatever reason and any cars that were swerved out of our way.

We jumped out of the truck bed, feeling accomplished in the fact that we had time to get to the train station in time, but we hid our gleeful emotions with panicked ones when Fillip climbed out of his truck.

"I'm gonna leave you from here, kid." He said to me. "Take care, I wish your family the best."

"Thank you so much, Fillip." I gushed, grabbing Diana's and Johnny's hands and pulling them towards the front doors of the hospital, as if we were actually going in. As soon as he sped out of sight, we turned from the doors.

"I can't believe you just did that!" Diana marveled.

"Maybe it was good that you got to lead this quest, Y/N," Johnny added.

"Why, did you ever doubt me?"

"On multiple occasions." Diana joked, and I playfully nudged her.

"Come on, we have to find and get to Union Station. The train leaves soon."

~

After getting directions from a local, then running from that same local when she asked if she'd seen Johnny and I on the news, we made it to the train station with ten minutes to spare, just in time to snag the last room on the train with two hundred and ten dollars for each of us. The total being six hundred and thirty dollars, we had only sixty dollars left between us. Luckily, the train came with a complementary dining car.

Johnny dropped all our bags off into our compartment, because he didn't want to lug it around. Diana, being who she was, thumbed her owl pendant as she read through a fact book about the train we were on, brow creased.

"The train's top speed is one hundred and fifty miles per hour... It'll take us a a day and a half to get there!" She said, frantically.

We were in one of the various lounge cars, set up at intervals between rooming cars. They each had their own theme, and this one was steampunk; gears hanging out of teared pieces of the walls, red-iron window frames, steam whistles sticking out from the grandfather clock, and tables and chairs in the same style. The dining car, I'd noticed as we walked through it to get here, was done up similarly, being that every dining car matched its corresponding lounge area. Even the attendants of their respected areas were dressed in the proper attire; the lady here wearing a dark green pinstriped old-fashioned shirt, a black skirt, fishnet stalkings, clockwork-esque shoes, and a hat with goggles on it.

Hanging on the wall beside one of the windows, was a picture of a pale old man made solely of skin and bones. Under his old-fashioned conductor's cap it was easy to tell that he was bald, but he had a daunting white moustache and a broad smile. His eyes, forest green, bore into everyone in the cart like a protective guide of some sort. A plaque under the frame read 'Roy William, Train Conductor'.

"Relax," I insisted. "We have five days. We'll be fine."

"No, we won't. Quests don't work like that! We need to see if we can get the conductor to go to the fastest train speed - three hundred miles per hour; then we can get there in half the time!"

"Maybe you're over-analyzing th--" Johnny suggested, but was caught by Diana's glare.

"I'm not. Look, you agreed with Chiron didn't you?" She looked at Johnny. "He was wrong. I was right. Same with this. You two relax, then, and I'll be responsible and go."