Percy raised an eyebrow, "really? Because I remember someone telling me the principal and the dean of New Rome college had come to see me at the senate after we returned the Eagle."
"That was David," Saito grumbled, "my dad. I took over this job just two days after that incident. He basically took off after your little speech, said something about 'finding himself' or some crap. Anyway yeah, I know about you, so what do you want?"
So Percy told him. He began with what he wanted to build and how he was going to do it. He also told the man why he wanted to build the Haven in the first place. And in the end Saito was in tears.
"You," sniff, "You're such a great guy!" Sniff, "you are so cool! Building a place for your fellow demigods," and that was when he really let loose as the water works just came pouring out.
Percy turned to Julia, "ah...what's going on?"
"He just get's really emotional," Julia replied with a shrug, "one time I showed him a picture of a puppy and he cried because the puppy was covered in mud."
"It was just so cute!" Saito cried out while Percy chuckled.
"So anyway, can you help me or not?" Percy asked.
"Hell yeah I can help you!" Saito said with a grin as he got up, "follow me!" Saito bolted out of her chair and walked out of his office. "Wendy I'm taking an early lunch!"
"Okay!" Wendy called out as Saito walked out of the office and through the college. At the end of the corridor was a set of stairs leading down. Saito walked in and the others followed. The basement was another corridor, but thie ended halfway through leading up to a dead end.
Saito pressed his palm flat on the wall in front of him causing it to glow gold as the wall disappeared in a flash of golden light revealing a large room.
"Wow," Percy exclaimed as they walked in. As they did the wall suddenly appeared behind them. Percy pressed on the wall,it was solid, so definitely not an illusion.
"This is my lab" Saito called out. Percy turned and walked into a room which basically looked like the exact opposite of Saito's office.
Everything was brand new, or at least polished enough to look like it. Each equipment in this place was labeled with a tag or some other form of identification.
It seemed chrome was a common theme here as everything was covered in were a couple of machines whose purpose Percy couldn't' even begin to imagine. Hell one looked like a pogo stick with a wire attached to it and a drill for a tip.
"What is this place used for anyway?" Percy asked as Saito lead to tone corner of the lab with a table and a whiteboard next to it.
"I come here to do my research," Saito explained. He then pressed his hand on the whiteboard which suddenly blinked on as it started to display images of graphs and quadratic equations. "This is my personal 3-D board, I made it from scratch and is basically my library for anything and everything. Any scrap of information I find I put into this machine."
"So it's basically a big kindle library?"
"That, and much more," Saito smirked as he pulled up a couple of pictures and a one big document, "I also use it to help me come up with theories for my research, investigate various occurrences in the world and even simulate various hypothesis."
"So......like a swiss army knife?" Percy asked.
Saito sighed, "yes....like a swiss army knife."
Julia chuckled, "Saito built this himself Percy, so he's a little.....attached."
Saito grumbled, "you would too if you actually knew how much hard work I poured into this thing. Anyway, here's the information you needed," Saito stepped aside showing various pages and documents displayed on the board. Several parts were highlighted with yellow marker, Percy focused on those and realised that this was exactly the information he wanted to know.
"So you brought us down here to show all the data compiled in one spot instead of opening up and looking through various documents," Percy realised, "nice."
Saito smirked, "glad someone can appreciate my intelligence."
"That and you also just wanted a chance to show off your lab," Julia smirked, "I know your tricks Saito, every time you want to impress someone you bring them here."
"I would never do that!" Saito gasped in disbelief, "this lab is my most prized possession! I would never reduce it to being nothing more that a cheap tool to show off!"
"Really?" Julai raised an eyebrow, "then what's the rumor I heard about you bringing Louise down here two nights ago?"
Saito gulped, "t-that was just research. She wanted to see my macro particle observe."
"You're making that up."
"No I'm not!"
Julia raised an eyebrow, "Saito our eyes are marco particle observes."
Saito blushed, "w-well she did have lovely eyes."
"Damn Saito I didn't know you were such a player," Percy chuckled, "but I guess smart is the new sexy and all."
Saito grumbled, "shut up. Anyway did you find what you were looking for?"
Percy nodded turning away from the board, "yeah. It seemed the college was first established in 1902, and since security was pretty lax then people couldn't really check it out properly. There was no digital trail and all that. But ever since computers started to take over they had to try and keep up. Mostly the Mist helped with that, but they still had to register with the State Department of Education. So whenever inspectors or someone similar came up to inspect the college they would knock them out and use the Mist to alter their memories. It's crude, but I think I might have to do the same."
Saito nodded, "yeah, sounds about right. I remember dad freaking out everytime the state department wanted to visit or something. He was worried they would endanger the location of New Rome."
Percy nodded, "anyway thanks Saito, this had been really helpful. And this board of yours is amazing, heck maybe I should get some for the school in my place."
Saito grinned, "yeah, it's awesome. And if you want I can make some more for you. If you're going to build a school might as well use the latest tech to help teach better. After all a city of demigods will feature children with a genius level intellect, you definitely don't want to waste that. But it's kind of expensive, each board would be about.....10 thousand? Give or take."
Percy chuckled, "yeah, that's not going to be a problem. How soon can you make them?"
"How soon do you want them?"
"I have plenty of time. I first need to put down the foundation and things like that. So take your time. I might have the place ready in like a year or something. So no rush, obviously."
"Cool."
"You know Saito has some other pretty cool stuff in here," Julia commented looking around, "maybe you can use some of them in the future Percy."
"Hmm," the son of Poseidon thought, "well it would be nice is we had some cutting edge tech in the Haven. Ed is good, but his forte is software, not hardware. Plus he's already stretched out thin as it is. So what do you say Saito? Got any toys for me?"
Saito rubbed his neck, "I don't know...some of this stuff isn't a joke Percy. They can cause harm."
"Good," Percy said seriously, "that means the dumb mother fuckers who ever think about attacking us will regret it before they even step foot inside our city."
"Plus Percy could help you further your research by funding it," Julia spoke up, "didn't you say you were having trouble with cash Saito?"
"W-well yeah but-"
"-I'm game," Percy interrupted the man, "you make some good stuff man, and if I can help you make things that can help mankind then I think that's well worth my money."
"B-but can you even afford it? Some of these things are expensive you know."
"Dude, I know own an island. Okay? A freaking island. Plus I can summon gold out from the Earth. You partner up with me and I'll give you essentially a blank check."
Saito blinked, "shit, you sure you aren't the son of Pluto or something? Because as far as I know only children of Pluto can summon gold."
"Yeah it's a whole thing. It involves a giant in Alaska, let's just move on to the important thing. I can give you funding, you can give me the tools to help protect and better the lives of our fellow demigods. So," Percy extended his hand, "what do you say?"
Saito looked at the offered and and smiled. He reached out and shock it, "deal."
Percy smiled, "great. Now impress me."
Saito chuckled and nodded.
He took them to a table which featured blueprints for what looked like another data pad of some kind. Saito picked it up and placed it on the surface of his white board causing it to scan the blueprint and displaying it on the board.
"I call it Mercury's sight," Saito explained, "it's basically a monitoring program. By using these," Saito pointed to a picture of mini flying drones, "it allows you to monitor any area of land."
"So it's like a drone surveillance system?" Julia asked not sounding impressed.
"No, it's way more than that. It hacks into a nearby satellite and using the information the drones provide and the image of the satellite it can basically allow you to track anyone and everyone on the area you wish to spy on."
"So it's like Big Brother?" Percy asked nervously.
"You have read 1984?" Saito asked surprised.
"Yeah, and why do you sound so surprised?"
"Because....never mind. Anyway yeah, it's basically like big brother."
Percy frowned, "I see.....well obviously I won't be using this on my own city, I respect people's privacy. Plus after reading 1984 drone and other cameras have kind of been creeping me out."
Saito nodded, "understandable, but I never made this to be a civilian motering system. It's to help in war. If you can display both armies like pawns on a chessboard, then even a mediocre general can achieve victory."
Percy nodded, "this is definitely interesting Saito. What else do you have for me?"
Saito walked over to another workbench and presented a metal box with a big fan right in the center. "This is basically my answer to air pollution. The fan can basically ventilate and filtre air at the same time. It reduces air pollution down by 40%. I know it's not big and fancy like any of the other items I have show you, but it's very useful and something this world desperately needs."
"What happens to the pollution it cleans?" Julia asked.
"It's basically used a fuel," Saito grinned, "you see the pollutants in the air are a byproduct of energy useage, at least most of it is anyway. So those particles still have something that can burn. This device does exactly that, hence all the pollutants transforms into energy. And the ones which are not are simply collected and stored like in a vacuum cleaner."
"So you would have to have people manually clean it up," Percy gathered.
"Well yeah, but it's really useful Percy," Saito scratched his head, "plus it's something the world needs night now."
"I'm not arguing that Saito," Percy spoke, "it's just if I put these up, and I will, then I'm going to have to have people clean it out on a regular basis. Hm...maybe I can put it under a common work thing or something. Anyway this will basically give another job for people to do.....hm, I can make this work."
"Plus it's eco friendly," Julia supplied, "hell maybe you can build a factory and build and export these things. It could be one of your island's main exports."
Percy shrugged, "hey I'm open to any ideas. Right now I have only a few jobs for the island, the economy obviously won't be able to improve with just the a few minimum wage paying jobs. This could end up helping us a lot."
Saito smiled, "well then I'll get right on fixing this up for you all. Give me maybe a month?"
"You mean it isn't ready yet?"
"No, this is just a prototype. I'm having trouble with the internal combustion. But don't' worry I can fix it up in time."
Percy nodded and slowly let his eyes wander around the lab. Suddenly in the small corner of the chrome covered lab was a table with a sheet of cloth covering something big.
"What's that?" Percy asked.
"What?" Saito turned to where Percy was looking, "oh, well that really isn't something you can use for the city. Plus it isn't even complete."
"But what is it?"
"My pet project," Saito blushed, "b-but that's nothing useful."
"Don't believe him Percy," Julian smirked "every time he blushes like that it means he wants you to ask him what it is, he's just shy and doesn't want to do it himself."
"I don't do that!" Saito shouted at the Praetor.
Percy chuckled, "look man it doesn't matter. Just tell me what it is, I'm gett more and more curious by the second."
Saito sighed, "fine. You saw my drawing of the dimensional portal right? Well this is kind of it."
Percy raised an eyebrow, "really? This?"
Saito nodded as he lifted the sheet up revealing a box sized object underneath. It was roughly the size of Percy's face and currently connected to several wires. On the top was a bunch of keys and the front was blank like a computer monitor.
"So....what does this do?" Percy asked.
"What do you know of quantum mechanics?" Saito asked.
Percy shrugged, "well I'm just a high schooler but Annabeth once mentioned it. It's basically the study of subatomic particles right?"
Saito nodded, "right. Well no, that's a gross over simplification of it, but close enough. Now the theory of parallel universe simply state that in the space we live in there exists a multitude of other universes. Now right now certain events have occurred which has lead to the creation of our world. But let's say something changed, let's say the Nazis won the war, then in that world we would all be Nazis. Get it?"
Percy nodded, "yeah, I get it."
"Great. So quantum mechanics is by part the theory of probability. Meaning anything that can happen, will happen or at the very least has happened."
"Even if it is a one in a million chance of it happening?" Julia asked,
Saito nodded, "even then."
"So there is probably one world out there where Rob didn't cheat on me huh," Julia frowned, "must be a horrible place."
Percy shuddered, "you just turned this really dark really fast Julia."
"Yeah thanks, it's my superpower," Julia replied with a casual shrug.
"Right....." Saito said, "anyway, as I was saying, probability. So quantum physics deals with that, hence the probability of the whole being ruled by nazis? Let's say ½,meaning that there is a 50% chance of a world existing where Nazis live."
"So.....what're the chances of a fictitious world existing?" Percy asked, "like let's say a world with dragons and magic?"
Saito rubbed his chin and nodded, "well...yeah. Hell there might even be a world where demigods and humans live side by side. Anything is possible, and I do mean anything."
