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

TWENTY-NINE: Russia and Rushing

I'm not lying when I tell you I research every place I bring my heroes to (unless it's Attica, or Camp, which I reimagine on my own). I research how long it takes to get from Point A to Point B or as relatively close as I can, like when I took you to Missouri (I even factored in traffic). For this chapter I opened a dozen tabs on my computer, converted Nautical Miles to Miles and found how fast you had to travel on a boat to get to a place in a certain amount of time. Everything Diana spouts from her mind came from my learning. I included this map because you may really need it to visualize their journey, especially through the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Also this chapter was for some reason difficult to write and I have several drafts of it saved. It took me a while. :(

I don't know how I stayed asleep until nine thirty, but when I opened my eyes I was met with the view of a dark, cloudy night. I pulled myself up so I was sitting, and found Diana and Johnny asleep on the two other benches, our bags having been placed on the floor.

I cast my eyes out to the open water, just to check how fast we were going and to see if we were any closer to land. My heart leapt up. The boat was surrounded by land. I couldn't tell if we were as far as Italy, but we'd definitely passed Spain.

We'd be in Russia by tomorrow morning, Aegina had promised. I vaguely wondered how it would go down if we didn't get there. When Prometheus opened the Pithos, would it be instant or filled with suffering? I thought of the families in Vallencia Park. The kids with candies in Jefferson City, Missouri. Everyone at camp...

No, I told myself solemnly. We can do it. Every heroic novel ends with the hero completing the quest. If the world hadn't blown up by now from other inexperienced demigods on quests, it wouldn't happen with me. And we were in the Mediterranean, so close to the Black Sea and Russia.

Johnny was right. Everyone was right. Hope. I was lucky I had hope, even when no one else did. Hope was an asset. And the opposite of hope was defeat.

I didn't know how much sleep Johnny or Diana had gotten, but I woke them up anyway. Johnny was awake instantly, shouting "MONSTER?" before I assured him that we were very much safe from monsters.

"No, not monsters, land!"

It didn't take long for Diana to start ruining my moment of happiness with logistical sentences and facts.

"Oh, good! We're passing France and Algeria now! The Mediterranean Sea connects to the Black Sea first through the Bosporus Strait. And depending on how fast we're going, we can get there as early as eight!"

"How fast are we going?" I asked.

"Not fast enough." She paused, possibly doing a lot of math in her head (she looked very concentrated). "We need to go 1592.873 nautical miles to get to Sukhumi, which is where we can dock and get off. Elbrus is near Georgia, and we can go through Dombay to get there. Then there's--"

"Diana!" I cut her off. "I don't care where we have to go to get there until we're on land, okay? How fast do we need to go to get there at eight?"

"1592.873 nautical miles is 1833.045 regular miles. Going at the speed we're at, one-hundred-and-thirteen miles per hour, we'll get there by..." Her face fell slack. "Eleven thirty, half an hour before the deadline."

"And to get there at eight?" Johnny asked, chewing his lip.

"One-hundred-and-fifty miles per hour, to get there in ten and a half hours, at eight." Diana turned and dropped her head over the front of the boat, chatting with Aegina. The boat sped up almost instantly and I tried to be nonchalant about grabbing the side of the boat so hard my knuckles were turning white.

"Okay, we're going at Aegina's top speed. One-hundred-and-twenty miles per hour."

"When will that get us there?" I asked.