Percy receives Ganymede’s urgent message and realizes that returning Zeus’s chalice will require crashing a divine brunch with Zeus’s mother, Rhea. Percy wants to send the chalice by delivery, but Annabeth reminds Percy that quest completion requires Percy to deliver the recovered item personally.

Grover proposes a risky infiltration plan. After Annabeth reluctantly lends Percy her Yankees invisibility cap, Grover explains that a cloud nymph named Naomi, who works in Zeus’s palace kitchens, may be able to slip Percy inside if Percy reaches the side entrance and gives the right knock.

In a cab to the Empire State Building, Grover warns Percy that Annabeth’s cap can fool spirits and minor gods but probably not Olympians. Percy, exhausted from wrestling Geras, worries about sneaking into Olympus when several gods already dislike Percy.

At the Empire State Building, Grover creates a distraction by hula-hooping with Ganymede’s glowing sacred hoop while playing panpipes. The performance draws the attention of the guards and the immortal-looking sentry, giving invisible Percy the chance to steal the sentry’s access card and reach the special elevator.

Percy rides to the six hundredth floor and emerges on the floating bridge to Olympus. As the eight o’clock bells ring below, Percy hurries toward the divine city with the heavy chalice, determined to get it to Ganymede before Zeus’s brunch begins in earnest.