The Phrontistery (aka Victoria's bunk)

Victoria explained to me about the makeup and why my sisters wore it. I stood up and retrieved it out of the bin, and plopped it down on my other sister's bed. I still hated the stuff, it made you fake.

"Well she needs to acknowledge that she is not allowed to put that stuff on my bed. I acknowledge that im ugly, but do I wear that stuff?"

I shook my head and moved to Vic's bunk, I was still marveled by her gift from mom. It was awesome but I wondered how it worked. I was dying to know, the thing about me is I get mad when there is no logical explanation. Like with how magical items work, I thirst for knowledge on how it works. Then I usally stay up all night trying to figure it out, the longest I have gone without sleep to know how it works is 4 days. I never gave up, I just took a break from it.

"So I am really wanting to know how the sheild works, It is so magnificent and I would love to see how it works. So I was wondering if you could maybe show it to us real quick?"

I thought of all the possible ways it could work, 1 of them seemed stupid but the most logical. Maybe there was a sensor or something that activated to touch and then the sheild pops out. That was better than any of my other guesses, but I could make better guesses if I saw it in action. I looked over at Jason, I think I might have interupted a conversation with them. I wanted to apologise, but I couldn't bring myself to talk to him. I had a burning feeling in my throat, it happened every time I talk to someone I don't know. It even happened when I first met Victoria. If I was going to the party with Vic and him, I would need to muster up some courage and actually talk to him.

I was taken aback by Jason's comment and a little hurt to. First he called me a kid, I was 1 year younger than them for I was 13 in less than 2 months. Second of all I knew that it would scare the wits out of me, I wanted to see how it works. I wasn't stupid, and he was kinda implying that. I could read his facial expression. I was a little upset.

"Well at least I will be able to see how it works, thats all I really want to see. I am not ignoramus! I know what it can do, I want to see how it works. How it turns from a sweatshirt into a breastplate ok? Is it bad for being curious? I want to try to find the most logical explanation on how it works."

I felt my face get hot, I was not at a good start with this Jason kid. When I finally did talk to him, I got upset. Well it was because he was saying things that made me upset. I looked over at him giving him a look, now I felt bad. The last time I got angry at someone was 2 years ago when I became a year rounder. My dad yelled at me because I cause to much trouble and we got in a big argument. He then sent me from France to America to stay a camp permanitly becuase I kept interupting his work. I never got to say sorry to my dad, so I have been holding onto the feeling for a while.

I reached my hand out and shook it. Cue the nervous feeling again, I wasn't very cofident person. I also felt bad for almost yelling.

"I am E-Elizabeth Roberts, but I go as Lizzy. Im daughter of Athena, as you probably already know. Oh a-and I am sorry for yelling." I said quitetly, almost mumbling but it was clear.

I looked at Jason, he was smiling with so much enthusiasm I couldn't help but to smile a little. I could see in his eyes that he felt bad for saying that. But I could tell that he still saw me as a little girl. I looked like a little girl so I couldn't blame him.

OOC: Im sorry for the short post, Im doing homework and studying.

OOC: EEEEP LET ME POST. XD And nice profile pic, Maybeth!

BIC: Victoria's eyebrows furrowed just a little, which was almost un-notice-able, when Lizzy said she was ugly. It kind of made her remember the day one of her sisters wore a shirt that said 'sexy and smart'.... two words which did not quite fit in Victoria's mind. You could be smart, sure. But sexy and smart? Sexy meant that the person pays real attention to her body and physical appearance, though the person who is truly clever knows that the physical appearance is irrelevant. So why bother about something irrelevant? That's the way Victoria felt when Lizzy said she was ugly: why do you bother about irrelevant things? Are you really as smart as you pretend to be?
(Now don't get her wrong: sexy does not mean beautiful; sure people could be intelligent and good-looking, like Annabeth for example. But bother about your physical appearance? Not so smart.)

When Lizzy asked Victoria how the gift functioned, she was about to tell her briskly it was not a shield, but a breastplate, but before she could even open her mouth, Jason already did it in the same cutting tone Victoria would've taken. She couldn't help but taking it as a sign Jason and her really fit together.

"Thanks, Jason," she sighed, even though his outburst was a bit violent. "And Mother clearly said I had to be prudent with it, so I am not showing it to you, at least, not right now. And as for how it works, it turns into my breastplate when I ask it. It has a voice recognizer, obviously."

Like her bed, which had, if you wanted to go into her secret room, a voice recognizer, an eye scanner and a fingerprint checker if you wanted to get in. Oh, and a combination of numbers and signs which Victoria changed every week.

Jason and Lizzy continued arguing. Reading their facial expressions (which really wasn't hard right now), she could tell Jason found Elizabeth kind of stupid, which Lizzy noticed, and tried to prove him it was not true.
Victoria had always had suspicions of Lizzy being perhaps a sophist, and she still had not made her decision so far, therefore she followed the argument with interest instead of interrupting, curious to see Lizzy's arguments.

Finally, Jason made a good move by muttering he was sorry; Victoria couldn't help but think of the German proverb that said 'Der Klügere gibt auf' which meant 'the cleverest gives up', in an argument like that. She innerly smirked at Jason, which he of course could not see, since her she did not betray her feelings on her face.
He started the meeting over again, shaking Elizabeth's hand and introducing himself, and Lizzy gave in. They even smiled at each other.

"Good," Victoria stated. "Now everybody's friends again.... Jason, why don't you go as a crazy scientist?"

Victoria had thought about that for herself in the beginning, but had come up with a better idea, so she gave the crazy scientist idea to Jason.

"I have some 'equipment' if you wish," she added, pointing to the floor, where she had her private room. "I might even have a pair of broken lab goggles."

OOC: Oh my gosh Morgan! That is 38 lines, how did you do that? I will have to post in the morning because I cant type to much on my Kendal fire.

OCC: she had to cover her side, on all the other posts we did moving so fast without her...sorry!
And thank ya Morgan! :D

BIC: I nodded. I smiled, and nodded more. Someone else, would probably think of me crazy, but Vic knew this was my usual reaction when I heard something knew and unique I haven't thought on my own.

-Makes total sense!

I muttered happily, fully acknowledged for my brothers and sisters reaction to this. They always knew I had a tendency to study more than usual, and focus in science, but it would probably be a big shock seeing me like this. Also, I was douptful about the Athena half-bloods' reaction. They might not like to see a dude dressed this way claiming to love science, specially someone who is also son of Apollo...

I didn't care though, in fact, I would be really interested in watching their reactions and behavior towards me.

I noticed, that Vic had nodded me to the floor. I knew that she had a special and hidden room, that stored every kind of scientifical goodies. I was lucky enough to find a copper piece, from the ones used for the construction of the LHD!!!

-I'm in! I said enthusiastically smiling while I waved my fist on the air. I know I was being weird again, but it was a sigh of happiness I used instead of hugging everyone around, and screaming wildly as my siblings did...

OOC: Let's post at the dance. ^^

Occ: agreed, Lizzy is going as Albert Einstein. What is vic going as?

OCC: where is the dance topic?

Victoria was lying on her bunk. She had finished her daily activities, which meant wrestling in the Arena in the morning, pick-nicking with her cabin near the Lake, then canoeing from 2pm to 4pm then one hour of pegasi riding session and aerial combat. She had taken a refreshing cold shower after that, and had dressed in new clothes.
The blonde daughter of Athena was now wearing a wine red T-Shirt that read 'Keep calm and follow the laws of thermodynamics' (an atom replaced the usual crown that could be seen on those shirts), scribbled with various formulas, diagrams, equations, star charts and chemistry reactions, along with a pair of grey cotton shorts that showed her lightly tanned, trained legs. Her feet disappeared into a pair of brown walking boots and blue socks.

OOC:

Her T-shirt:

BIC: Victoria's blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail held by a black scrunchie and her only piece of jewelry was, as usual, her Camp necklace: six beads were aligned on the leather lace.
The fourteen-years-old was playing with a rope knots; it was a box her father had given her for her birthday, and she had been repeatedly tying and un-tying the knots. You might think it's a pretty stupid occupation, but un-tying knots activates the same regions of the brain as when you solve a problem; it helps to better your deduction and problem-solving abilities.
While her fingers were absent-mindedly fiddling with the knot, her mind was thinking in the fourth dimension; a layer of her spirit was solving an equation of the fifteenth degree, a second one was contemplating on whether the beauty of nature wasn't hiding respectively morphing into its subjective cruelty and a third one was reflecting how the short-duration high-intensity bursts originate. As usual, all the layers of her mind were working at once, and at full blast.

OOC: Sorry for the short post, I'm kind of in a rush. My next one is bigger though.

BIC:Victoria looked up, and a great smile beamed across her face.

"Jason!" she said, stood up and wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug. He smelled of cedar and lemon. Delicious. "I've missed you too. Sorry I didn't come to the marshmallow roasting session yesterday, I was kind of busy."

She smiled again at him, her ponytail sweeping over her shoulder.

"I'm glad you are here. I wanted to show you one of my inventions, remember?"

Victoria put her index to her chin and made her signature half-smile; she was smiling with one side of her mouth only, and her blonde eyebrows were lightly arched.

"Would I like to have a gemstone?" she mused. "It indeed is a good question. What do you think?"

She smirked, twisting his words in order to get out of the question. She was too excited about her invention anyway.

OOC: Again, sorry for the short post. D:

OCC: it's okay :D

Jason was in a difficult position, and he well knew it. He became more nervous, and looked around.
He should be able to answer that question, although, they didn't talk about their favorite colors and stuff like that, as every "couple". He decided there was no wrong answer to the question after all, it was a gem close in Athena's children. He wished she trully liked it.

-I guess you will like this one, he said and smiled her warmly. He took the small package out of his pocket, and when they sat on her bed, he looked into her eyes, opening it slowly in front of her. The olivine gem, sparkled under the suns rays, creating playfull colors around them. The bronze leaves and branches on it, shimmered and it seemed more beautiful than before.

Jason was already imaging her wearing it on her soft and thin neck. She would be prettier than she already was. But how could this be possible? He wondered smiling at her.

-So, do you like it? He asked playfully.

After that sweet soft moment, Jason felt happier than ever, and smiled widely. He was really excited that Victoria liked the jewel!
-Yes, of course! Show me! He said cheerfully.

Now though, he was so curious to see... to hear... to learn everything about Vic's inventions. He knew she was more than a scientific genious, specially being a daughter of Athena. But he couldn't imagine what she actually meaned by that. Was it a new theory point she had thought of? But she said "inventions" which means a lot... Had she made something?

She had a lot of equipement, but Jason doupted that the word invention was referring to something simple and small... But something complex and huge, as his favorite LHC, was impossible for Victoria, he was certain. He tortured his mind, to find a possible solution, looking at her impatient.

OCC: sorry, short post

Victoria smirked and stood up, taking Jason's hand in the motion so he stood up too; she then knelt down, selected her code, spoke her name for the voice recognizer, let the laser scan her eyes and the finger print checker test her fingers. It might be a bit too much security for her private room, but Victoria was extremely touchy on that and didn't want random people who wouldn't understand anything roaming about through her inventions.

They went down into her private room by a flight of steps. It was quite large; the walls disappeared behind the bookshelves, everything was ordered, classified and labelled. There was one shelf for philosophy, the upper part for the books she bought and read, the lower one for her personal notes, written down and put into large folders. There were of course shelves for maths, physics, chemistry, and whole sections for her researches.
The north side of the room was taken by a large wooden desk with two computers that Victoria had altered with celestial bronze and graphene so they had more power than a regular computer. Also, the keyboards included the ancient greek alphabet for more comfort.
At the south of the room stood her lab bench; in one of the corners stood a labelled group of inventions. When she saw Jason stop in front of one, she smiled.

"That's a 3-D-printer. I'm using another one for various things, but it's upstairs. This one is for one of my other projects..." She licked her lips. "You see these Petri boxes? I'm cultivating cells in there. A 3-D-printer could be a useful tool in medicine. It would first scan a wound then directly print the needed cells onto it. It could be an alternative for ambrosia... But I still have to work on it. I'm not as good in medicine and genetics as I am in astrophysics or geodesy."

She turned away.

"Anyway, that's not what I wanted to show you. Here it is."

The fourteen-years-old pointed at what looked like a snowboard, but made utterly out of metal. It didn't look very complex, so she felt the need to explain again.

"This is a magnetic board. It's made out of different types of metals (including celestial bronze) and semiconductors. Basically," she stated, going over to it, flipping it over and passing a hand across it "all this side is equipped with highly sensitive diamagnets, that connect to the elements of carbon, copper, silver and lead that are in the ground, plus water. It has a range of one hundred meters, vertically." She caught his look and smiled. "A diamagnet is a special type of magnet that, when submitted to a magnetic field, generates an opposite magnetic field; that enables my board to hover over the ground," Victoria explained then looked back at the board. "It works with a special type of energy." She looked up briefly at him and smiled again. "Photosynthesis."
The daughter of Athena stood up and picked the magnetic board up, putting it horizontally. Immediately, it connected to the elements it found in the ground and stabilized in mid air. When Victoria pressed her hand on it, it didn't move; it looked as if it was lying on something solid.

"Before you ask, this is not a radically new idea. Imitating photosynthesis was first brought up one hundred years ago by Giacomo Luigi Ciamician, and the concept is still played with today. Technically, I could use pure solar energy for this, but there would be two problems: first, there is not always sun everywhere, second, solar energy needs to be used up immediately. No storage possible." She smirked. "Unless photosynthesis is taken into the play. See, plants, seaweed and bacterias have a unique ability, which is to use the energy in sunlight in order to produce a high-energy molecule. Normally, they change carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrate; that happens in two steps, and only one of them is about sunlight." She examined the board while moving on. "Special complexes designed to collect sunlight catch it and use it to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, that's step one. The oxygen is in fact only a waste product, which the plants send back into the atmosphere. Now to the second step. The hydrogen is used to turn the carbon dioxide into an organic molecule, that way the solar energy gets chemically stored. And this is the amazing part, because this enables a maximal spacial and temporal flexibility -- it can be stored for many seasons."

She took her time stroking the surface of the board before carrying on.

"I'm not going to talk about the whole process of how the plant manages to split the water (it'd take too much time, with everything about the chloroplasts, porphyrin and the thylakoid membrane), so I'll just sum the water-splitting up with this reaction: 2H2O+4hν --> 2H2+O2." She didn't need to specify that hν was the energy of a photon, Jason already knew that. "It was quite tricky to do it, you know. The whole photosynthesis was to be imitated with semiconductors, which gaps (between one another) have to be so narrow that the energy of the ray of light suffices to send electrons from the valence bonds to the higher conducting bonds. Only positively charged electron-missing-places stayed behind -- the 'gaps'. Is this state with separated charges durable enough, then the electrons can reduce protons into hydrogen, and the 'gaps' can oxide water to oxygen. That's how I copied photosynthesis in order make this magnetic board function."

It had been quite a speech, but Vic wasn't done yet.

"The created energy is stored into two accumulators. One that is normally used, the other one is for the extremely improbable case that the first one should fail. The battery is based on lithium ions and coated with graphene." She glanced at him, waited, then explained. "Graphene is to be taken out of graphite. I coated the accumulators with it, and the graphene layer is as thick as an atom. Now you might think how I achieved that, since it sounds impossible. It took me a while to figure it out, but I eventually got it. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Which I'll refer to as PAH. I appended the motionless nucleus of circular PAHs to movable hydrocarbon chains. That brings them to pile up spontaneously, and they look like rolls of coins, in which electrical charges can hop from disk to disk. These 'columns' let's say, or 'rolls of coins' can be arranged standing or lying on a special basis, and I'm using them as transport canal for charges in electronic components. It gives them more power, especially when associated with celestial bronze."

She gestured towards her computers. "I've arranged the batteries on my computers too, that's why they are so powerful. They charge in a fraction of a second, they could hack into things very easily (even though I don't do it), but the counterpart is that I have to invent very complicated passwords in order to secure them. My last password was composed of more than fifty symbols, and included letters from the latin and ancient greek alphabet, plus numbers." She smiled. "Now though, I have a different type of password. But back to the topic."

Victoria put a hand underneath the board, the palm on the bottom.

"The batteries are flexible, resistant, and biodegradable; they charge extremely quickly and can contain a large quantity of energy. The only thing is.... it's pretty costly. I won't be able to make another magnetic board before a long time."

She sighed sadly and stroked its metallic surface. "All of it is equipped with voice sensors which obey my commands. I can tell it to stop, to go faster, to slow down, to go up and down, and so on. I can't go too much up, though, since it has to stay in contact somehow with the elements in the ground. For the rest, I guide it with my feet, like you would a surf or a snowboard." She had surfed only once, and had epically failed, but she had done snowboard with her father, in the Swiss Alps, and even though she rather preferred skiing, she liked snowboarding.

"For the security. I have equipped my shoes with medium-strong ferromagnets that will keep me on, preventing me from falling down by the inverse force of the air. The ferromagnets react to my voice command as well, so I don't walk around and have to suddenly stop because I'm walking on a metallic surface. I have altered my lab glasses -- I already told you about that, I believe. They are lab glasses, but they have several other modus - infra-red, night vision, polarized light, among else, and another modus for the magnetic board. They're gonna protect my eyes so the air doesn't get into them and make them water.
Third, and most important of all: the anti-crash belt." She took out an elastic belt and fastened it around her waist. "It's equipped with voice sensors and intelligent material." She took a plastic film from one of the shelves on which black circuits were printed. "It took me two entire days to code the circuits for my belt. If I fall off the overboard, the suspensors get into action, activate diamagnets which will stop me in mid air before letting me go back down."

Now, her speech was finished.

"What do you think?" she asked Jason with a smile.

OOC: The best part of this post is, I didn't invent anything XD Everything Victoria talks about is scientifically proven: the photosynthesis, the graphene, even the 3-D-printer used for medicine (that one's still a project, apparently). I just combined all into an invention ^^.

Jason followed Vic, down the stairs. He was certain something had changed in that room, below the surface of earth. It was looking to his eyes bigger than last time. More mysterious. Every folder and book and note on these selves, seemed to carry essential information that he had to know. With a second thought, he decided he could spend his lifetime studying and experimenting on various scientic matters in this room, with Victoria, but he also wanted to live his life for good, so not quite that...

He followed her step by step, as she went on talking about different creations, some simular to others, he had seen only in pictures, into the web, from grand-scientists. He was amazed. She had his complete attention, and she knew it. Jason, since he was a little kid he had the mania, to touch things, observe and examine them through the sense of thouching. He passed his hands from several mechanical creations, staring them come to life, their lights flashing, their mechanism working. He wasn't a curious boy, just a teen into his favorite subject! This was a pure paradise for any programmer, hacker, technologist, scientist, chemist, biologist...everyone having to do with science of any kind. Jason was fulfilled by such undescribable emotions, finding him slef in this place. He walked straight away to the altered cb computers. Obviously, to gain more power, within the magical borders. He would love to made a 4d animation, download the mac sustem with torrent, and play gta in this pc, the same time, and he knew it would be quite possible.

When he stared at the 3d printer, his first note, was that it would be useful, as a spray form. In his simplistic, and acknowledged mind, it seemed possible, in the future, that a sort of spray machine, spraying cells? or maybe another chemical ingredient that would be useful to heal wounds, if not immediatly, at a short time period. Ambrosia was the solution of magic, lets say, and that machine, would be the scientific solution!!! Jason didn't express his thoughts though, feared not to say something very stupid, or obviously impossible.

Victoria then, turned to show him what looked like the invension of the year, maybe century, but Jason couldn't remember if there was a scientist in thsi century, that had made an important awarded technological innovation. Higgs, had just confirmed his theory about the molecule that gave m. to the objects, and so on, the molecule that was most likely to have helped in the creation of the universe. He observed it closely listening at her carefully. He smirked. He truly flet so proud of her, he was so glad such a wonderful half-blood, was his girl. Anyone in his place might got envious, but not him. He knew Victoria more than anyone, even if this had not much connection to astrophysics, that she loved. It was something brilliant, and something she created with passion.

He had many questions triggering in his mind, but the most stupid one unfortunately, came out of his mouth.
-Where did you found all this equipment? Vic, you're brilliant!!! He smiled widely after saying that. That was indeed the innovation of the century, a metalic board, floating upon the surface of the earth, working live a living being. Also helpful for the environement, even if it spents an ammount of energy. Something floating upon the ground... something scientists where experimenting on, years, but none reached a sufficient conclusion! Jason flet he had to sit, from the excitment.

OCC: sorry