S.H.I.E.L.D.
Before we left for the quest, Phoebe, who was supposed to go on the quest with us, came down with something. According to Zoe, it was the result of centaur blood in the shirt that had been given to Phoebe by the head counsellors of the Hermes cabin. "A childish prank," Zoe had said. I disagreed. Whilst I didn't like the fact that it meant Phoebe wouldn't be able to do much for the next few weeks, but I did like pranks. We came to the decision that technically Camp Half-Blood could be considered a land without rain and 'lost' didn't necessarily mean 'dead', so we decided to set off with just the five of us.
Zoe drove us into New York in one of the Camp vans. It took a while but we ended up at a museum type thing. I couldn't help but feel as though we were being followed. We ended up in a rocket and plane display room thing. Someone bumped into me. I turned around, expecting a mortal. Instead, I was faced with Jackson. What was he doing here? It wasn't his quest. He wasn't supposed to be here. He seemed scared of something. Zoe asked him about what he was doing here. He told us about his journey. He mentioned someone called 'the General'. Zoe tried to deny that he was there. There was a question that I couldn't help but ask. "Are you sure that they didn't say 'director'?"
Jackson looked at me in confusion. "I don't think he was called that, Ruby." That was good. I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief at the knowledge that S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't following us.
The other five all looked at me. "Sorry. I was just checking that S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't after us."
"What's that?" Percy asked.
"I don't know how to explain. I'm not even sure if I should tell you. But it's essentially a top secret spy agency that most regular people don't know about. It would be really bad, especially for me, if they were following us."
"If no regular mortal knows about it, then how do you know about it?" Thalia asked.
"My mom works for them."
"Do you not get along with your mom, Ruby?" Bianca asked
"She cannot know that I am alive," I responded. Of course, I technically wasn't alive. But the only one who knew that was Zoe, and I wasn't exactly going to reveal that to everyone.