<div align="center"><em>Vanessa catches up</em></div><hr/><br/>As if tugged by the same magnetic force, Vanessa's jaw dropped as Abigale's did.  She knew Vincent was a bit flippant and perhaps too comfortable about godly things, but talking to Mr. D about his Diet Coke punishment was like building a toothpick bridge: only little kids did it and no weight should get put on it.<br/><br/>Then as if to punish Vincent in turn, Abigale's father appeared.  Though she had been at camp for a while now, Vanessa could not think of when she had met with so many gods in such a short time.  Hopefully divinity wasn't like radioactivity.  If it was, she hoped it would be more like comic book radioactivity and give her superpowers and not like real radioactivity which would probably give them cancer.  Could demigods get cancer, anyway?  Too much ambrosia would probably give it to you.  While Hermes handed out the enchanted coins, Vanessa eyed them suspiciously.  Maybe prolonged exposure to gods and their trinkets should come with warning labels.  How would you cure a demigod if they did get cancer?  What if they had a developmental disorder... or a degenerative one...?<br/><br/>Vincent's tap on her shoulder brought her a bit out of her darkening thoughts.  Before she could ask him any of the thoughts plaguing her mind, he flipped his coin and was snapped away from his chair.  With wide, worried eyes, she turned her attention back to Mr. D.  The god simply sipped his Diet Coke through a straw, staring vaguely out the front window as a group of satyrs approached.<br/><br/>"What are you staring at, Vanna?" he said, his back still turned to her.  "Get going already.  I'm a busy man."<br/><br/>Maybe Mr. D's Diet Coke had curative properties.  "Sorry, sir," she mumbled.  She stood, her bags swaying off her shoulders with the motion.  Squinting, she balanced the coin on top of her her right thumb cautiously.  The tucked digit was loose under her finger, and her attempt to toss it resulted more in a urgent upswing of her arm than a flick of the thumb.  The coin slid sluggishly off her hand.<br/><br/>"Oh!" she gasped, trying to catch it.  Hermes had said it worked only twice.  What if she just dropped it?  Would that count?  Would the coin leave without her?  Panicked, her arms flailed in a vain attempt to catch the spinning disk in the air.  The coin flashed as it tumbled through her fingers, turning in the air like a loose gear.  As the golden coin fell past her hands, Vanessa chased after it bodily.  Falling forward, she managed to cup the coin as it fell.  Both coin and girl hit the floor and were gone.<br/><br/>A blunt blow to her chest, a visceral crunch, a blinding strain on her back and skull, and then it was hot.  Sprawled on the floor of her father's forge, Vanessa's body locked in confused pain for a moment and she tried to remember what had happened.  She rolled onto her back, easing the hard ache in her chest but sending a tear-squeezing spasm along her spine.<br/><br/>"Ow..." she whispered, lying still until the pain ebbed.  Grabbing the metallic leg of a seemingly inert automaton, Vanessa pulled herself up.  As she sat, her face was turned down into her lap.  "Oh no..." she moaned before hurriedly unzipping her camera bag.  Inside, she found the source of the crunching sound: the lens of her camera had smashed into rings of glass and plastic.  Hunched over the remains, Vanessa muttered frantic, indiscernible words as her bent fingers made a manic dance over her broken joy in effort to make it good enough again to show her father.