The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus #1)(68)

Leo almost dropped his screwdriver. The third Cyclops was a female. She was several feet taller than Torque or Sump, and even beefier. She wore a tent of chain mail cut like one of those sack dresses Leo’s mean Aunt Rosa used to wear. What’d they call that—a muumuu? Yeah, the Cyclops lady had a chain mail muumuu. Her greasy black hair was matted in pigtails, woven with copper wires and metal washers. Her nose and mouth were thick and smashed together, like she spent her free time ramming her face into walls; but her single red eye glittered with evil intelligence.

The woman Cyclops stalked over to Sump and pushed him aside, knocking him over the conveyor belt. Torque backed up quickly.

“The girl is Venus spawn,” the lady Cyclops snarled. “She’s using charmspeak on you.”

Piper started to say, “Please, ma’am—”

“Rarr!” The lady Cyclops grabbed Piper around the waist. “Don’t try your pretty talk on me, girl! I’m Ma Gasket! I’ve eaten heroes tougher than you for lunch!”

Leo feared Piper would get crushed, but Ma Gasket just dropped her and let her dangle from her chain. Then she started yelling at Sump about how stupid he was.

Leo’s hands worked furiously. He twisted wires and turned switches, hardly thinking about what he was doing. He finished attaching the remote. Then he crept over to the next robotic arm while the Cyclopes were talking.

“—eat her last, Ma?” Sump was saying.

“Idiot!” Ma Gasket yelled, and Leo realized Sump and Torque must be her sons. If so, ugly definitely ran in the family. “I should’ve thrown you out on the streets when you were babies, like proper Cyclops children. You might have learned some useful skills. Curse my soft heart that I kept you!”

“Soft heart?” Torque muttered.

“What was that, you ingrate?”

“Nothing, Ma. I said you got a soft heart. We get to work for you, feed you, file your toenails—”

“And you should be grateful!” Ma Gasket bellowed. “Now, stoke the fire, Torque! And Sump, you idiot, my case of salsa is in the other warehouse. Don’t tell me you expect me to eat these demigods without salsa!”

“Yes, Ma,” Sump said. “I mean no, Ma. I mean—”

“Go get it!” Ma Gasket picked up a nearby truck chassis and slammed it over Sump’s head. Sump crumpled to his knees. Leo was sure a hit like that would kill him, but Sump apparently got hit by trucks a lot. He managed to push the chassis off his head. Then he staggered to his feet and ran offto fetch the salsa.

Now’s the time, Leo thought. While they’re separated.

He finished wiring the second machine and moved toward a third. As he dashed between robotic arms, the Cyclopes didn’t see him, but Piper did. Her expression turned from terror to disbelief, and she gasped.

Ma Gasket turned to her. “What’s the matter, girl? So fragile I broke you?”

Thankfully, Piper was a quick thinker. She looked away from Leo and said, “I think it’s my ribs, ma’am. If I’m busted up inside, I’ll taste terrible.”

Ma Gasket bellowed with laughter. “Good one. The last hero we ate—remember him, Torque? Son of Mercury, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, Ma,” Torque said. “Tasty. Little bit stringy.”

“He tried a trick like that. Said he was on medication. But he tasted fine!”

“Tasted like mutton,” Torque recalled. “Purple shirt. Talked in Latin. Yes, a bit stringy, but good.”

Leo’s fingers froze on the maintenance panel. Apparently, Piper was having the same thought he was, because she asked, “Purple shirt? Latin?”

“Good eating,” Ma Gasket said fondly. “Point is, girl, we’re not as dumb as people think! We’re not falling for those stupid tricks and riddles, not us northern Cyclopes.”

Leo forced himself back to work, but his mind was racing. A kid who spoke Latin had been caught here—in a purple shirt like Jason’s? He didn’t know what that meant, but he had to leave the interrogation to Piper. If he was going to have any chance of defeating these monsters, he had to move fast before Sump came back with the salsa.

He looked up at the engine block suspended right above the Cyclopes’ campsite. He wished he could use that—it would make a great weapon. But the crane holding it was on the opposite side of the conveyor belt. There was no way Leo could get over there without being seen, and besides, he was running short on time.

The last part of his plan was the trickiest. From his tool belt he summoned some wires, a radio adapter, and a smaller screwdriver and started to build a universal remote. For the first time, he said a silent thank-you to his dad—Hephaestus—for the magic tool belt. Get me out of here, he prayed, and maybe you’re not such a jerk.

Piper kept talking, laying on the praise. “Oh, I’ve heard about the northern Cyclopes!” Which Leo figured was bull, but she sounded convincing. “I never knew you were so big and clever!”

“Flattery won’t work either,” Ma Gasket said, though she sounded pleased. “It’s true, you’ll be breakfast for the best Cyclopes around.”

“But aren’t Cyclopes good?” Piper asked. “I thought you made weapons for the gods.”

“Bah! I’m very good. Good at eating people. Good at smashing. And good at building things, yes, but not for the gods. Our cousins, the elder Cyclopes, they do this, yes. Thinking they’re so high and mighty ’cause they’re a few thousand years older. Then there’s our southern cousins, living on islands and tending sheep. Morons! But we Hyperborean Cyclopes, the northern clan, we’re the best! Founded Monocle Motors in this old factory—the best weapons, armor, chariots, fuel-efficient SUVs! And yet—bah! Forced to shut down. Laid off most of our tribe. The war was too quick. Titans lost. No good! No more need for Cyclops weapons.”