The Last Guardian, the eighth and final book in Eoin Colfer's best-selling Artemis Fowl series about a teenage criminal mastermind, won't be published until July 10, but he's releasing an exclusive excerpt here.
His publisher, Disney, is revealing the book cover and announcing that the first printing will be 1 million copies. The last three Bücher in the series, aimed at kids 10 and up, have hit the oben, nach oben 10 on USA TODAY's Best-selling Bücher list. Disney reports Mehr than 13 million copies in print in the USA.
As for the ending, Colfer, from his Home in Ireland, tells USA TODAY that "Artemis's story always had to end with him being a hero. He had to go from being a selfish criminal to a hero who is prepared to sacrifice everything for a good cause. In this case, the cause is the lives of everyone he loves, whether he sacrifices everything oder not will be revealed in the final chapter."
This summer, Colfer, a former teacher, plans a cross-county U.S. book tour, with appearances at BookExpo in New York, and Comic-Con in San Diego. In bookstores and libraries, he'll cast volunteers in a theatrical performance based on the series.
Despite several delays, Colfer says an Artemis Fowl film remains in the works: "The movie has a working script and hopefully a director will be chosen later in the spring."
Read the exclusive excerpt after the jump:
Prologue
Ériú; Present Day
The Berserkers lay arranged in a spiral under the rune stone, looping down, down into the earth—boots out, heads in, as the spell demanded. Of course, after 10,000 years underground, there were no physical boots oder heads. There was just the plasma of black magic holding their consciousness intact, and even that was dissipating, tainting the land, causing strange strains of plants to appear and infecting the Tiere with uncommon aggression. In perhaps a dozen full moons the Berserkers would be gone utterly, and their last spark of power would flow into the earth.
We are not all disappeared yet, thought Oro of the Danu, captain of the Berserkers. We are ready to seize our glorious moment when it comes and to sau, leistungsbeschreibung chaos among the humans.
He sent the thought into the spiral and was proud to feel his remaining fairy warriors echo the sentiment.
Their will is as keen as their blades once were, he thought. Though we are dead and buried, the spark of bloody purpose burns bright in our souls.
It was the hatred of humankind that kept the spark alive—that and the black magic of the warlock Bruin Fadda. Mehr than half of their company of warriors had already Abgelaufen and been drawn to the afterlife, but still five score remained to complete their duties should they be called upon.
Remember your orders, the elfin warlock had told them all those centuries ago, even as the clay was falling on their flesh. Remember those who have died and the humans who murdered them.
Oro did remember and always would. Just as he could never forget the sensation of stones and earth rattling across his dying skin.
We will remember, he sent into the spiral. Remember and return.
The thought drifted down, then echoed up from the dead warriors, who were eager to be released from their tomb and see the sun once more.
CHAPTER 1
A COMPLEX SITUATION
From the case notes of Dr. Jerbal Argon, Psych Brotherhood
1. Artemis Fowl, once self-proclaimed teenage criminal mastermind, now prefers the term juvenile genius. Apparently he has changed. (Note to self: Harrumph.)
2. For the past six months Artemis has been undergoing weekly therapy sessions at my clinic in Haven City in an attempt to overcome a severe case of Atlantis Complex, a psychological condition that he developed as a result of meddling in fairy magic. (Serves him right, silly Mud Boy.)
3. Remember to Abschicken outrageous bill to Lower Elements Police.
4. Artemis appears to be cured, and in record time too. Is this likely? oder even possible?
5. Discuss my theory of relativity with Artemis. Could make for a very interesting chapter in my V-book: Foiling Fowl: Outsmarting the Smarty-pants. (Publishers Liebe the title: cha-ching!)
6. Order Mehr painkillers for my blasted hip.
7. Issue clean bill of mental health for Artemis. Final session today.
Dr. Argon's office, Haven City, the Lower Elements
Artemis Fowl grew impatient. Dr. Argon was late. This final session was just as unnecessary as the past half dozen had been. He was completely cured, for heaven's sake, and had been since week eighteen. His prodigious intellect had accelerated the process, and he should not have to twiddle his thumbs at the behest of a gnome psychiatrist.
At first Artemis paced the office, refusing to be calmed Von the water wall, with its gently pulsing mood lights; then he sat for a Minute in the oxygen booth, which he found calmed him a little too much.
Oxygen booth indeed, he thought, quickly ducking out of the chamber.
Finally the door hissed and slid aside on its track, admitting Dr. Jerbal Argon to his own office. The squat gnome limped directly to his chair. He dropped into the embrace of its padding, slapping the armrest controls until the gel sac under his right hip glowed gently.
"Aaaah," he sighed. "My hip is killing me. Nothing helps, honestly. People think they know pain, but they have no idea."
"You're late," noted Artemis in fluent Gnommish, his voice devoid of sympathy.
Argon sighed blissfully again as the heated chair pad went to work on his hip. "Always in a hurry, eh, Mud Boy? Why didn't Du have a puff of oxygen oder meditate Von the water wall? Hey-Hey Monks swear Von those water walls."
"I am not a pixie priest, Doctor. What Hey-Hey Monks do after first gong is of little interest to me. Can we proceed with my rehabilitation? oder would Du prefer to waste Mehr of my time?"
Argon huffed a little, then swung his bulk forward, opening a sim-paper file on his desk. "Why is it that the saner Du get, the nastier Du are?"
Artemis crossed his legs, his body language relaxed for the first time. "Such repressed anger, Doctor. Where does it all stem from?"
"Let's stick to your disposition, shall we, Artemis?" Argon snagged a stack of cards from his file. "I am going to Zeigen Du some inkblots, and Du tell me what the shapes suggest to you."
Artemis's moan was extended and theatrical. "Inkblots. Oh, please. My life span is considerably shorter than yours, Doctor. I prefer not to waste valuable time on worthless pseudo-tests. We may as well read tee leaves oder divine the future in turkey entrails."
"Inkblots are a reliable indicator of mental health," Argon objected. "Tried and tested."
"Tested Von psychiatrists for psychiatrists," snorted Artemis.
Argon slapped a card down on the table. "What do Du see in this inkblot?"
"I see an inkblot," sagte Artemis.
'Yes, but what does the blot suggest to you?'
Artemis smirked in a supremely annoying fashion. "I see card five hundred and thirty-four."
"Pardon me?"
"Card five hundred and thirty-four," repeated Artemis. "Of a series of six hundred standard inkblot cards. I memorized them during our sessions. Du don't even shuffle."
Argon checked the number on the back of the card: 534. Of course.
"Knowing the number does not answer the question. What do Du see?"
Artemis allowed his lip to wobble. "I see an ax dripping with blood. Also a scared child, and an elf clothed in the skin of a troll."
"Really?" Argon was interested now.
"No. Not really. I see a secure building, perhaps a family home, with four windows. A trustworthy pet, and a pathway leading from the door into the distance. I think, if Du check your manual, Du will find that these Antwort fall inside healthy parameters."
Argon did not need to check. The Mud Boy was right, as usual. Perhaps he could blindside Artemis with his new theory. It was not part of the program but might earn him a little respect.
"Have Du heard of the theory of relativity?"
Artemis blinked. "Is this a joke? I have traveled through time, Doctor. I think I know a little something about relativity."
"No. Not that theory; my theory of relativity proposes that all things magical are related and influenced Von ancient spells oder magical hot spots."
Artemis rubbed his chin. "Interesting. But I think you'll find your postulation should be called the theory of relatedness."
"Whatever," sagte Argon, waving the quibble away. "I did a little research, and it turns out that the Fowls have been a bother to fairy folk off and on for thousands of years. Dozens of your ancestors have tried for the crock of gold, though Du are the only one to have succeeded."
Artemis sat up straight; this was interesting. "And I never knew about this because Du mind-wiped my forefathers."
"Exactly," sagte Argon, thrilled to have Artemis's full attention. "When he was a lad, your own father actually managed to hog-tie a dwarf who was drawn to the estate. I imagine he still dreams of that moment."
"Good for him." A thought struck Artemis. "Why was the dwarf attracted to our estate?"
"Because the residual magic there is off the charts. Something happened on the Fowl Estate once. Something huge, magically speaking."
"And this lingering power plants ideas in the Fowls' heads and nudges us toward a belief in magic," Artemis murmured, almost to himself.
"Exactly. It's a goblin-and-egg situation. Did Du think about magic and then find magic? oder did the magic make Du think about looking for magic?"
Artemis took a few notes on his smartphone. "And this huge magical event―can Du be Mehr specific?"
Argon shrugged. "Our records don't go back that far. I'd say we're talking the surface days, Mehr than ten thousand years ago."
Artemis rose and loomed over the squat gnome. He felt he owed the doctor something for the theory of relatedness, which would certainly bär some investigation.
"Dr. Argon, did Du have turned-in feet as a child?"
Argon was so surprised that he blurted an honest answer to a personal question, very unusual for a psychiatrist. "Yes. Yes, I did."
"And were Du forced to wear remedial shoes with stacked soles?"
Argon was intrigued. He hadn't thought about those horrible shoes in centuries; he had actually forgotten them until this moment.
"Just one, on my right foot."
Artemis nodded wisely, and Argon felt as though their roles had been reversed and he was the patient.
"I would guess that your foot was pulled into its correct alignment, but your femur was twisted slightly in the process. A simple brace should solve your hip problem." Artemis pulled a folded napkin from his pocket. "I sketched a Design while Du kept me waiting these past few sessions. Foaly should be able to build the brace for you. I may have been a few millimeters off with my estimate of your dimensions, so best to get measured." He placed ten fingers flat on the desk. "May I leave now? Have I fulfilled my obligation?"
The doctor nodded glumly, thinking that he would possibly omit this session from his book. He watched Artemis stride across the office floor and ente through the doorway.
Argon studied the napkin drawing and knew instinctively that Artemis was right about his hip.
Either that boy is the sanest creature on Earth, he thought, oder he is so disturbed that our tests cannot even begin to scratch the surface.
Argon pulled a rubber stamp from his desk, and on the cover of Artemis's file stamped the word FUNCTIONAL in big red letters.
I hope so, he thought. I really hope so.
Artemis's bodyguard, Butler, waited for his principal outside Dr. Argon's office in the large chair that had been a gift from the centaur Foaly, technical consultant to the Lower Elements Police.
"I can't stand to look at Du perched on a fairy stool," Foaly had told him. "It offends my eyes. Du look like a monkey passing a coconut."
"Very well," Butler had sagte in his gravelly bass. "I accept the gift, if only to preserve your eyes."
In truth he had been mightily glad to have a comfortable chair, being Mehr than six and a half feet tall in a city built for three-footers.
The bodyguard stood and stretched, flattening his palms against the ceiling, which was double-height Von fairy standards. Thank god Argon had a taste for the grandiose oder Butler wouldn't have even been able to stand up straight in the clinic. To Butler's mind, the building, with its vaulted ceilings, gold-flecked tapestries, and retro sim-wood sliding doors, looked Mehr like a monastery where the monks had taken a vow of wealth than a medical facility. Only the wall-mounted laser hand-sanitizers and the occasional elfin nurse bustling past gave any hint that this place was actually a clinic.
I am so glad this detail is coming to an end, Butler had been thinking at least once every five Minuten for the past fortnight. He had been in tight spots many times, but there was something about being confined in a city clamped to the underside of the Earth's crust that made him feel claustrophobic for the first time in his life.
Artemis emerged from Argon's office, his self-satisfied smirk even Mehr pronounced than usual. When Butler saw this expression, he knew that his boss was back in control of his faculties and that his Atlantis Complex had been certified as cured.
No Mehr counting words. No Mehr irrational fear of the number four. No Mehr paranoia and delusions. Thank goodness for that.
He asked anyway, just to be certain. "Well, Artemis, how are we?"
Artemis buttoned his navy woolen suit jacket. "We are fine, Butler. That is to say that I, Artemis Fowl the Second, am one hundred percent functional, which is about five times the functionality of an average person. oder to put it another way: one point five Mozarts. oder three quarters of a daVinci."
"Only three quarters? You're being modest."
"Correct,'" sagte Artemis, smiling. "I am."
Butler's shoulders sagged an inch with relief. Inflated ego, supreme self-confidence. Artemis was most definitely his old self.
"Very good. Let's pick up our escort and be on our way then, shall we? I want to feel the sun on my face. The real sun, not the UV lamps they have down here."
Artemis felt a pang of sympathy for his bodyguard, an emotion he had been experiencing Mehr and Mehr in Kürzlich months. It was difficult enough for Butler to be inconspicuous among humans; down here, he could hardly have attracted Mehr attention if he had been wearing a clown suit and juggling fireballs.
"Very well," agreed Artemis. "We will pick up our escort and depart. Where is Holly?"
Butler jerked a thumb down the hallway."Where she generally is. With the clone."
Captain stechpalme, holly Short of the Lower Elements Police Recon division stared at the face of her archenemy and felt only pity. Of course, had she been gazing at the real Opal Koboi and not a cloned version, then pity might not have been the last emotion on her list, but it would certainly have ranked far below rage and intense dislike bordering on hatred. But this was a clone, grown to provide the megalomaniacal pixie with a body double so that she could be spirited from protective custody in the J. Argon Clinic.
stechpalme, holly pitied the clone because she was a pathetic, dumb creature who had never asked to be created. Cloning was a banned science, both for religious reasons and for the Mehr obvious fact that, without a life force oder soul to power their systems, clones were doomed to a short life of negligent brain activity and organ failure.
This particular clone had lived out most of its days in an incubator, struggling for each breath since it had been removed from the chrysalis in which it had been grown.
"Not for much longer, little one," stechpalme, holly whispered, touching the ersatz pixie's forehead through the sterile gloves built into the incubator wall.
stechpalme, holly could not have sagte for sure why she had begun to visit the clone. Perhaps it was because Argon had told her that no one else ever had.
She came from nowhere. She has no friends.
She had at least two Friends now. Artemis had taken to joining stechpalme, holly on her visits and often would sit silently beside her, which was very unusual for him.
The clone's official designation was Unauthorized Experiment 14, but one of the clinic's wits had named her Nopal, which was a cruel play on the name Opal and the term no pal. Cruel oder not, the name stuck; and now even stechpalme, holly used it, though with tenderness.
Argon assured her that Unauthorized Experiment 14 had no mental faculties, but stechpalme, holly was sure that sometimes Nopal's milky eyes reacted when she visited. Could the clone actually recognize her?
stechpalme, holly gazed at Nopal's delicate features and was inevitably reminded of her gene donor.
That pixie is poison, she thought bitterly. Whatever she touches withers and dies.
Artemis entered the room and stood beside Holly, resting a hand lightly on her shoulder.
"They're wrong about Nopal," sagte Holly. "She feels things. She understands."
Artemis knelt down. "I know. I taught her something last week. Watch."
He placed his hand on the glass, tapping the fingers in sequence slowly, building up a rhythm. "It is an exercise developed Von Cuba's Dr. Parnassus. He uses it to generate a response from infants, even chimpanzees."
Artemis continued to tap, and slowly Nopal responded, raising her hand laboriously to Artemis's, slapping the glass clumsily in an attempt to copy his rhythm.
"There, Du see?" sagte Artemis. "Intelligence."
stechpalme, holly bumped him gently, shoulder to shoulder, which was her version of a hug. "I knew your brains would eventually come in handy."
The acorn cluster on the breast of Holly's LEP jumpsuit vibrated, and stechpalme, holly touched her wi-tech earring, accepting the call. A quick glance at her wrist computer told her that the call was from LEP technical consultant Foaly, and that the centaur had labeled it urgent.
"Foaly. What is it? I'm at the clinic, babysitting Artemis."
The centaur's voice was crystal clear over the Haven City wireless network.
"I need Du back at Police Plaza, right now. Bring the Mud Boy."
The centaur sounded theatrical, but then Foaly would play the drama Queen if his carrot soufflé collapsed.
"That's not how it works, Foaly. Consultants don't give orders to captains."
"We have a Koboi sighting coming through on a satellite. It's a live feed," countered the technical consultant.
"We're on our way," sagte Holly, severing the connection.
They picked up Butler in the corridor. Artemis, Holly, and Butler were three allies who had weathered battlefields, rebellions, and conspiracy together and had developed their own crisis shorthand.
Butler saw that stechpalme, holly was wearing her business face.
"Situation?"
stechpalme, holly strode past, forcing the others to follow.
"Opal," she sagte in English.
Butler's face hardened. "Eyes on?"
"Satellite link."
"Origin?" asked the bodyguard.
"Unknown."
They hurried down the retro corridor toward the clinic's courtyard. Butler outstripped the group and held open the altmodisch hinged door, with a stained window depicting a thoughtful doctor comforting a weeping patient.
"Are we taking the Stick?" asked the bodyguard, his tone suggesting that he would rather not take the Stick.
stechpalme, holly walked through the doorway. "Sorry, big man. Stick time."
Artemis had never been one for public transport, human oder fairy, and so asked, "What's the stick?"
The Stick was the straße name for a series of conveyor belts that ran in parallel strips along Haven City's network of blocks. It was an ancient and reliable mode of transport from a less litigious time, which operated on a hop-on / hop-off system similar to certain human airport-walkway systems. There were platforms throughout the city, and all a person had to do was step on a gürtel and grab hold of one of the carbon-fiber stalks that sprouted upward from it. Hence the name Stick.
Artemis and Butler had of course seen the Stick before, but Artemis had never planned to use such an undignified mode of transport and so had never even bothered to find out its name. Artemis knew that, with his famous lack of coordination, any attempt to hop casually onto the gürtel would result in a humiliating tumble. For Butler, the problem was not one of coordination oder lack of it. He knew that, with his bulk, it would be difficult just to keep his feet inside the belt's width.
"Ah, yes," sagte Artemis. "The Stick. Surely a green cab would be faster?"
"Nope," sagte Holly, hustling Artemis up the ramp to the platform, then poking him in the kidneys at just the right time so that he stepped unconsciously onto the belt, his hand landing on one stick's bulbous grip.
"Hey," sagte Artemis, perhaps the third time in his life he had used a slang expletive. "I did it."
"Next stop, the Olympics," sagte Holly, who had mounted the platform behind him. "Come on, bodyguard," she called over her shoulder to Butler. "Your principal is heading toward a tunnel."
Butler shot the elf a look that would cow a bull. stechpalme, holly was a dear friend, but her teasing could be relentless. He tiptoed onto the belt, squeezing his enormous feet onto a single section and bending his knees to grasp the tiny stick. In silhouette, he looked like the world's bulkiest ballerina attempting to pluck a flower.
stechpalme, holly might have grinned had Opal Koboi not been on her mind.
The Stick gürtel trundled its passengers from the Argon Clinic along the border of an Italian-style piazza toward a low tunnel, which had been laser-cut from solid rock. Elfen lunching al fresco froze with forkfuls of salat halfway to their mouths as the unlikely trio passed by.
The sight of a jumpsuit-clad LEP officer was common enough on a Stick belt, but a gangly human boy dressed like an undertaker and a troll-sized, buzz-cut man-mountain were quite unusual.
The tunnel was barely three feet high so Butler was forced to prostrate himself over three sections, flattening several handgrips in the process. His nose was no Mehr than a few feet from the tunnel wall, which he noticed was engraved with beautiful luminous pictograms depicting episodes from the People's history.
So the young Elfen can learn something about their own heritage each time they pass through. How wonderful, thought Butler, but he suppressed his admiration as he had long Vor disciplined his brain to concentrate on bodyguard duties and not waste neurons being amazed while he was below ground.
Save it for retirement, he thought. Then Du can cast your mind back and appreciate art.
Police Plaza was a cobbled crest into which the shape of the Lower Elements Police acorn insignia had been painstakingly paved Von master craftsmen. It was a total waste of effort as far as the LEP officers were concerned, as they were not generally the type who were inclined to gaze out of the fourth-floor windows and marvel at how the sim-sunlight caught the rim of each gold-leafed cobble and set the whole arrangement a-twinkling.
On this particular Tag it seemed that everyone on the fourth floor had slid from their cubicles like pebbles on a tilted surface and gathered in a tight cluster Von the Situation room, which adjoined Foaly's office/laboratory.
stechpalme, holly made directly for the narrowest section of the throng and used sharp elbows to inch through the strangely silent crowd. Butler simply cleared his throat once, and the crowd peeled apart as though magnetically repelled from the giant human. Artemis took the path into the Situation room to find Commander Trouble Kelp and Foaly standing before a wall-sized screen, raptly following unfolding events.
Foaly noticed the gasps that followed Butler wherever he went in Haven, and glanced around.
"May the fours be with you," the centaur whispered to Artemis―his standard greeting/joke for the past six months.
"I am cured, as Du well know," sagte Artemis. "What is going on here?"
stechpalme, holly cleared a Weltraum beside Trouble Kelp, who seemed to be morphing into her former boss, Commander Julius Root, as the years went on. Commander Kelp was so brimful of gung-ho that he had taken the name Trouble upon graduation and had once tried to arrest a troll for littering, which accounted for the sim-skin patch on the tip of his nose that glowed yellow from a certain angle.
"Haircut's new, Skipper," stechpalme, holly said. "Old Beet Root had one just like it."
Commander Kelp did not take his eyes from the screen. stechpalme, holly was joshing because she was nervous, and Trouble knew it. She was right to be nervous. In fact, outright fear would have been Mehr appropriate, gegeben the situation that was being beamed in to them.
"Watch the show, Captain," he sagte tightly. "It's pretty self-explanatory."
There were three figures on-screen, a kneeling prisoner and two captors, but stechpalme, holly did not place Opal Koboi right away because she was searching for the pixie among the standing pair. She realized with a jolt that Opal was the prisoner.
"This is a trick," she said. "It must be."
Commander Kelp shrugged. Watch it and see.
Artemis stepped closer to the screen, scanning the picture for information. "You are sure this is live?"
"It's a live feed," sagte Foaly. "I suppose they could be sending us a pre-record."
"Where is it coming from?"
Foaly checked the tracer map on his own screen. The call line ran from a fairy satellite down to South Africa and from there to Miami and then on to a hundred other places, like the scribble of an angry child.
"They jacked a satellite and ran the line through a series of shells. Could be anywhere."
"The sun is high," Artemis mused aloud. "I would guess Von the shadows that it is early noon. If it is actually a live feed."
"That narrows it down to a quarter of the planet," sagte Foaly caustically.
The hubbub in the room rose as, onscreen, one of the two bulky gnomes standing behind Opal drew a human automatic handgun, the chrome weapon looking like a kanone in his fairy fingers.
It seemed as though the temperature had suddenly dropped in the Situation room.
"I need quiet," sagte Artemis. "Get these people out of here."
On most days, Trouble Kelp would have argued that Artemis had no authority to clear a room and would possibly have invited even Mehr people into the cramped office just to prove his point, but this was not most days.
"Everybody out," he barked at the assembled officers. "Holly, Foaly, and the Mud Boy, stay where Du are."
"I think perhaps I'll stay too," sagte Butler, shielding the oben, nach oben of his head from lamp burn with one hand.
Nobody objected.
Usually the LEP officers would shuffle with macho reluctance when ordered to move, but in this instance they rushed to the nearest monitor, eager not to miss a single frame of unfolding events.
Foaly shut the door behind them with a swing, schaukel of his hoof, then darkened the window glass so there would be no distraction from outside. The remaining five stood in a ragged semicircle before the Wand screen, watching what would appear to be the last Minuten of Opal Koboi's life. One of the Opal Kobois, at any rate.
There were two gnomes onscreen, both wearing full-face anti-UV party masks that could be programmed to resemble anyone. These had been modeled on Pip and Kip, two beliebt kitty-cat cartoon characters on PPTV, but the figures were still recognizable as gnomes because of their stocky barrel torsos and bloated forearms. They stood before a nondescript gray wall, looming over the tiny pixie who knelt in the mud tracks of some wheeled vehicle, waterline creeping along the legs of her designer tracksuit. Opal's wrists were bound and her mouth taped, and she seemed genuinely terrified.
The gnome with the pistol spoke through a vox-box in the mask, disguising his voice as Pip the kitty-cat.
"I can't make it any plainer," he squeaked, and somehow the cartoon voice made him seem Mehr dangerous. "We got one Opal, Du got the other. Du let your Opal go and we don't kill this one. Du had twenty minutes, now Du have fifteen."
Pip the kitty-cat cocked his weapon.
Butler tapped Holly's shoulder.
"Did he just say—?"
"Yeah. Fifteen minutes, oder Opal's dead."
Butler popped a translator bud into his ear. This was too important to trust to his dubious grasp of Gnommish.
Trouble Kelp was incredulous. "What kind of deal is that? Give us a terrorist oder we kill a terrorist?"
"We can't just let someone be murdered before our eyes," sagte Holly.
"Absolutely not," agreed Foaly. "We are not humans."
Artemis cleared his throat.
"Sorry, Artemis," sagte the centaur. "But Du humans are a bloodthirsty bunch. Sure, we may produce the occasional power-crazed pixie, but Von and large the People are peace-loving folk. Which is probably why we live down here in the first place."
Trouble Kelp actually snarled, one of his leadership devices―which not many people could carry off, especially when they stood barely Mehr than three feet high in what Artemis was sure were stacked boots. But Trouble's snarl was convincing enough to stifle the bickering.
"Focus, people," he said. "I need solutions here. Under no circumstances can we release Opal Koboi, but we can't just stand Von and allow her to be murdered either."
The computer had picked up the references to Koboi on-screen and had elected to run her file on a side screen, in case anyone needed their memory refreshed.
Opal Koboi. Certified genius pixie industrialist and inventor. Orchestrated the goblin coup and insurrection. Cloned herself to escape prison and attempted to lead the humans to Haven. Responsible for the murder of Commander Julius Root. Had human pituitary gland grafted to manufacture growth hormone (subsequently removed). Younger version of Opal followed Captain Short from the past and is currently at large in present time line. It is assumed that she will attempt to free her incarcerated self and return to her own time stream. Opal is in the unprecedented position of occupying places one and two on the LEP Most Dangerous list. Categorized as highly intelligent, motivated, and psychotic.
This is a bold move, Opal, thought Artemis. And with potentially catastrophic repercussions.
He felt rather than saw stechpalme, holly at his elbow.
"What do Du think, Artemis?"
Artemis frowned. "My first impression is to call it a bluff. But Opal's plans always account for first impressions."
"It could be a ruse. Perhaps those goblins would simply shoot her with a blank?"
Artemis shook his head. "No. That would deliver no payoff other than momentary horror on our part. Opal has planned this so that she wins, whatever the eventuality. If Du free her, then she's free. If the younger Opal dies, then . . . Then what?'
Butler weighed in. 'You can do all sorts of things with special effects these days. What if they computer-graphic her head to explode?'
Artemis was disappointed in this theory, which he felt he had already discounted. "No, Butler. Think. Again, there's nothing to gain."
Foaly snorted. "At any rate, if they do kill her, we will know very soon whether this whole thing is real oder not."
Artemis half laughed. "True. We will certainly know."
Butler groaned. This was one of those times when Artemis and Foaly were aware of something sciencey and assumed that everyone else in the room also had all the facts. Moments like this were guaranteed to drive stechpalme, holly crazy.
"What are Du talking about?" shouted Holly. "What will we know? How will we know whatever it is?"
Artemis stared down at her as though waking from a dream. "Really, Holly? Du have two versions of the same individual occupying a time stream, and Du are unaware of the ramifications?"
Onscreen the gnomes stood like statues behind the shivering pixie. The armed one, Pip, occasionally checked a wristwatch Von tugging his sleeve with his gun barrel, but otherwise they waited patiently. Opal pleaded with her eyes, staring at the camera lens, fat tears streaming down her cheeks, sparkling in the sunlight. Her hair seemed thinner than usual and unwashed. Her Juicy Couture tracksuit, purchased no doubt from the children's section of some exclusive store, was torn in several places, the rips caked in blood. The picture was super-high-def and so clear that it was like looking through a window. If this was a spurious threat, then young Opal did not know it.
Trouble pounded the desk, an affectation of Julius Root's that he had adopted.
"What are the ramifications? Tell me."
"Just to be clear," sagte Artemis, "do Du wish to be told what the word ramifications means? oder to know what the ramifications are?"
stechpalme, holly elbowed Artemis in the hip, speeding him along. "Artemis, we're on a clock, here."
"Very well, Holly. Here is the problem. . . ."
"Come on," pleaded Foaly. "Let me explain. This is my kingdom, and I will be simple and to the point, I promise."
"Go on, then," sagte Trouble, who was known for his Liebe of simple and to the point.
stechpalme, holly laughed. A single harsh bark. She could not believe everyone continued to act like their everyday selves even though a life was at stake.
We have become desensitized, like the humans.
Whatever Opal had done, she was still a person. There had been dark days when stechpalme, holly had dreamed of hunting the pixie down and issuing a little mud-man justice, but those days were gone.
Foaly tugged at his outrageously coiffed forelock.
"All beings are made of energy," he began in the typical pompous imparting important info voice that he used at times like this. "When these beings die, their energy slowly dissipates and returns to the earth." He paused dramatically. "But what if a being's entire existence is suddenly negated Von a quantum anomaly?"
Trouble raised his arms. "Whoa! Simple and to the point, remember?"
Foaly rephrased. "Okay. If young Opal dies, then old Opal cannot continue to exist."
It took Trouble a second, but he got it. "So, will it be like in the movies? She will fizzle out of existence, and we will all look a bit puzzled for a moment, then forget about her?"
Foaly snickered. "That's one theory."
"What's the other theory?"
The centaur paled suddenly and uncharacteristically yielded the floor to Artemis.
"Why don't Du explain this bit?" Foaly said. "I just flashed on what could actually happen, and I need to start making calls."
Artemis nodded curtly. "The other theory was first postulated Von your own Professor Bahjee over five centuries ago. Bahjee believes that if the time stream is polluted Von the arrival of the younger version of a being and that younger version subsequently dies, then the present-tense version of the being will release all its energy spontaneously and violently. Not only that, but anything that exists because of the younger Opal will also combust."
Violently and combust were words that Commander Kelp understood well.
"Release its energy? How violently?"
Artemis shrugged. "That depends on the object oder being. Matter is changed instantaneously into energy. A huge explosive force will be released. We could even be talking about nuclear fission."
stechpalme, holly felt her herz speed up. "Fission? Nuclear fission?"
"Basically," sagte Artemis. "For living beings. The objects should cause less damage."
"Anything Opal made oder contributed to will explode?"
"No. Just the things she influenced in the past five years of our time line, between her two ages, though there will probably be some temporal ripples on either side."
"Are Du talking about all of Opal's company's weapons that are still in commission?" asked Holly.
"And the satellites," added Trouble. "Every Sekunde vehicle in the city."
"It is just a theory," sagte Artemis. "There is yet another theory that suggests nothing at all will happen, other than one person dying. Physics trumps quantum physics, and things go on as normal."
stechpalme, holly found herself red-faced with sudden fury. "You're talking as though Opal is already dead."
Artemis was not sure what to say. "We are staring into the abyss, Holly. In a short time, many of us could be dead. I need to stay detached."
Foaly looked up from his computer panel. "What do Du think about percentages, Mud Boy?"
"Percentages?"
"Theory-wise."
"Oh, I see. How likely are the explosions?"
"Exactly."
Artemis thought about it. "All things considered, I would say about ninety percent. If I were a betting man and there was someone to take this kind of bet, I would put my last Gold coin on it."
Trouble paced the small office. "We need to release Opal. Let her go now."
Now stechpalme, holly was uncertain. "Let's think about this, Trubs."
The commander turned on her. "Didn't Du hear what the human said? Fission! We can't have fission underground."
"I agree, but it could still be a trick."
"The alternative is too terrible. We turn her loose and hunt her down. Get Atlantis on the line now. I need to speak to the warden at the Deeps. Is it still Vinyáya?"
Artemis spoke quietly but with the commanding tone that had made him a natural leader since the age of ten.
"It's too late to free Opal. All we can do is save her life. That's what she planned for all along."
'Save her life?" objected Trouble. "But we still have . . ." Commander Kelp checked the countdown clock. "Ten minutes."
Artemis patted Holly's shoulder, then stepped away from her. "If fairy bureaucracy is anything like the human kind, Du won't be able to get Opal into a shuttle in that time. What Du might be able to do is get her down to the reactor core."
Kelp had not yet learned the hard way to shut up and let Artemis explain, and so kept asking questions, slowing down the process, wasting valuable seconds.
"Reactor core? What reactor core?"
Artemis raised a finger. "One Mehr question, Commander, and I will be forced to have Butler restrain you."
Kelp was a breath away from ejecting Artemis oder charging him with something, but the situation was critical, and if there was a chance that this human could in some way help . . .
He clenched his fists till his fingers creaked. "Okay. Talk."
"The Deeps is powered Von a natural fission reactor in a uranium ore layer set on a bett of granite similar to the one in Oklo, Gabon," sagte Artemis, tugging the facts from his memory. "The People Power Company harvest the energy in small pods set into the uranium. These pods are constructed with science and magic to withstand a moderate nuclear blast. This is taught in schools here. Every fairy in the room knows this, correct?"
Everyone nodded. Technically it was correct, as they did know it now.
"If we can place Opal inside the pod before the deadline, then the blast will at least be contained, and theoretically, if we pumpe in enough anti-rad foam, Opal might even retain her physical integrity. Though that is something I would not bet my last Gold coin on. Opal, apparently, is prepared to take the risk."
Trouble was tempted to poke Artemis in the chest but wisely resisted. "You're saying that all of this is an elaborate escape plan?"
"Of course," sagte Artemis. "And not all that elaborate. Opal is forcing Du to release her from her cell. The alternative is the utter destruction of Atlantis and every soul in it, which is unthinkable to anyone except Opal herself."
Foaly had already brought up the prison plans. "The reactor core is less than a hundred meters below Opal's cell. I'm contacting the warden now."
stechpalme, holly knew that Artemis was a genius and there was no one Mehr qualified to Sekunde guess kidnappers, but they still had options.
She gazed at the figures onscreen and was chilled Von how casual the gnomes seemed, in the light of what they were about to do. They slouched like adolescents, barely glancing at their captor, cocky in their abilities and not even a jot self-conscious about their cartoon-character smart-masks, which "read" their faces and displayed the appropriate emotions in exaggerated cartoon style. Smart-masks were very beliebt with the karaoke crowd, who could then look like their idols as well as trying to sound like them.
Perhaps they don't know exactly what's at stake here, stechpalme, holly thought suddenly. Perhaps they are as clueless as I was ten Sekunden ago.
"Can they hear us?" she asked Foaly.
"They can, but we haven't responded yet. Just press the button."
This was just an old figure of speech; there was of course no actual button, just a sensor on the touch screen.
"Hold it, Captain!" ordered Trouble.
"I am a trained negotiator, sir," sagte Holly, hoping the respect in her tone would get her what she wanted. "And I was once . . ." She glanced guiltily at Artemis, sorry that she had to play this card. "I was once a hostage myself, so I know how these things go. Let me talk to them."
Artemis nodded encouragingly, and stechpalme, holly knew that he understood her tactics.
"Captain Short is correct, Commander," he said. "Holly is a natural communicator. She even managed to get through to me."
"Do it," barked Trouble. "Foaly, Du keep trying to reach Atlantis. And assemble the Council, we need to begin evacuating both cities now."
Though their real faces were hidden, the gnomes' cartoon expressions were bored now. It was in the slant of their heads and the bend of their knees. Perhaps this whole thing was not as exciting as they had hoped it would be. After all, they could not see their audience, and no one had responded to their threats. What had started out as a revolutionary action was now beginning to look like two big gnomes picking on a pixie.
Pip waggled his gun at Kip, and the meaning was clear. Why don't we just shoot her now?
stechpalme, holly activated the microphone with a wave of her hand.
"Hello, Du there. This is Captain stechpalme, holly Short of the LEP. Can Du hear me?"
The gnomes perked up immediately, and Pip even attempted a whistle, which came through the vox-box as a raspberry.
"Hey, Captain Short. We heard of you. I've seen pictures. Not too shabby, Captain."
stechpalme, holly bit back a caustic retort. Always avoid unnecessary confrontation with a kidnapper.
"Thank you, Pip. Should I call Du Pip?"
"You, stechpalme, holly Short, can call me anything and anytime Du like," squeaked Pip, and he extended his free hand toward his partner for a knuckle bump.
stechpalme, holly was incredulous. These two were about to totally incapacitate the entire fairy world, and they were goofing about like two goblins at a fireball party.
"Okay, Pip," she continued evenly. "What can we do for Du today?"
Pip shook his head sorrowfully at Kip. "Why are the pretty ones always stupid?" He turned to the camera. "You know what Du can do for us. We told Du already. Release Opal Koboi, oder the younger model is gonna take a long sleep. And Von that I mean, get shot in the head."
"You need to give us some time to Zeigen good faith. Come on, Pip. One Mehr hour? For me?"
Pip scratched his head with the gun barrel, pretending to consider it. "You are cute, Holly. But not that cute. If I give Du another hour, you'll track me down somehow and drop a time-stop on my head. No thanks, Cap. Du have ten minutes. If I was you, I would get that cell open oder call the undertaker."
"These kind of things take time, Pip," persisted Holly, repeating the name, forging a bond. "It takes three days to pay a parking fine."
Pip shrugged. "Not my problem, babe. And Du can call me Pip all Tag and it won't make us BFFs. It ain't my real name."
Artemis deactivated the microphone. "This one is smart, Holly. Don't play with him, just tell the truth."
stechpalme, holly nodded and switched on the mike. "Okay, whatever your name is. Let me give it to Du straight. There's a good chance that if Du shoot young Opal, then we're going to have a series of very big explosions down here. A lot of innocent people will die."
Pip waved his gun carelessly. "Oh yeah, the quantum laws. We know about that, don't we, Kip?"
"Quantum laws," sagte Kip. "Of course we know about that."
"And Du don't care that good fairies, gnomes that could be related to you, will die?"
Pip raised his eyebrows so that they jutted over the oben, nach oben of the mask. "You like any of your family, Kip?"
"Ain't got no family. I'm an orphan."
"Really? Me too."
While they bantered, Opal shivered in the dirt, trying to speak through the tape. Foaly would get voice analysis on the muffled mumbles later—if there was a later—but it didn't take a genius to figure out she was pleading for her life.
"There must be something Du need," sagte Holly.
"There is one thing," replied Pip. "Could I get your com-code? I sure would Liebe to hook up for a sim-latte when this is all over. Might be a while, of course, what with Haven City being in ruins."
Foaly put a text box on the screen. It read: They're moving Opal now.
stechpalme, holly flickered her eyelids to Zeigen she understood, then continued with the negotiation. "Here's the situation, Pip. We have nine Minuten left. Du can't get someone out of Atlantis in nine minutes. It's not possible. They need to suit up, pressurize, maybe; go through the conduits to open sea. Nine Minuten is not long enough."
Pip's theatrical responses were getting a little hard to take. "Well then, I guess a lot of people are going swimming. Fission can put a hell of a hole in the shield."
stechpalme, holly broke. "Don't Du care about anyone? What's the going rate for genocide?"
Pip and Kip actually laughed.
"It's a horrible feeling, impotency, ain't it?' sagte Pip. "But there are worse feelings. Drowning, for example."
"And getting crushed Von falling buildings," added Kip.
stechpalme, holly banged her tiny fists on the console.
These two are so infuriating.
Pip stepped close to the camera so his mask filled the screen. "If I don't get a call from Opal Koboi in the Weiter few minutes, telling me she is in a shuttle on her way to the surface, then I will shoot this pixie. Believe it."
Foaly rested his head in his hands. "I used to Liebe Pip and Kip," he said.
His publisher, Disney, is revealing the book cover and announcing that the first printing will be 1 million copies. The last three Bücher in the series, aimed at kids 10 and up, have hit the oben, nach oben 10 on USA TODAY's Best-selling Bücher list. Disney reports Mehr than 13 million copies in print in the USA.
As for the ending, Colfer, from his Home in Ireland, tells USA TODAY that "Artemis's story always had to end with him being a hero. He had to go from being a selfish criminal to a hero who is prepared to sacrifice everything for a good cause. In this case, the cause is the lives of everyone he loves, whether he sacrifices everything oder not will be revealed in the final chapter."
This summer, Colfer, a former teacher, plans a cross-county U.S. book tour, with appearances at BookExpo in New York, and Comic-Con in San Diego. In bookstores and libraries, he'll cast volunteers in a theatrical performance based on the series.
Despite several delays, Colfer says an Artemis Fowl film remains in the works: "The movie has a working script and hopefully a director will be chosen later in the spring."
Read the exclusive excerpt after the jump:
Prologue
Ériú; Present Day
The Berserkers lay arranged in a spiral under the rune stone, looping down, down into the earth—boots out, heads in, as the spell demanded. Of course, after 10,000 years underground, there were no physical boots oder heads. There was just the plasma of black magic holding their consciousness intact, and even that was dissipating, tainting the land, causing strange strains of plants to appear and infecting the Tiere with uncommon aggression. In perhaps a dozen full moons the Berserkers would be gone utterly, and their last spark of power would flow into the earth.
We are not all disappeared yet, thought Oro of the Danu, captain of the Berserkers. We are ready to seize our glorious moment when it comes and to sau, leistungsbeschreibung chaos among the humans.
He sent the thought into the spiral and was proud to feel his remaining fairy warriors echo the sentiment.
Their will is as keen as their blades once were, he thought. Though we are dead and buried, the spark of bloody purpose burns bright in our souls.
It was the hatred of humankind that kept the spark alive—that and the black magic of the warlock Bruin Fadda. Mehr than half of their company of warriors had already Abgelaufen and been drawn to the afterlife, but still five score remained to complete their duties should they be called upon.
Remember your orders, the elfin warlock had told them all those centuries ago, even as the clay was falling on their flesh. Remember those who have died and the humans who murdered them.
Oro did remember and always would. Just as he could never forget the sensation of stones and earth rattling across his dying skin.
We will remember, he sent into the spiral. Remember and return.
The thought drifted down, then echoed up from the dead warriors, who were eager to be released from their tomb and see the sun once more.
CHAPTER 1
A COMPLEX SITUATION
From the case notes of Dr. Jerbal Argon, Psych Brotherhood
1. Artemis Fowl, once self-proclaimed teenage criminal mastermind, now prefers the term juvenile genius. Apparently he has changed. (Note to self: Harrumph.)
2. For the past six months Artemis has been undergoing weekly therapy sessions at my clinic in Haven City in an attempt to overcome a severe case of Atlantis Complex, a psychological condition that he developed as a result of meddling in fairy magic. (Serves him right, silly Mud Boy.)
3. Remember to Abschicken outrageous bill to Lower Elements Police.
4. Artemis appears to be cured, and in record time too. Is this likely? oder even possible?
5. Discuss my theory of relativity with Artemis. Could make for a very interesting chapter in my V-book: Foiling Fowl: Outsmarting the Smarty-pants. (Publishers Liebe the title: cha-ching!)
6. Order Mehr painkillers for my blasted hip.
7. Issue clean bill of mental health for Artemis. Final session today.
Dr. Argon's office, Haven City, the Lower Elements
Artemis Fowl grew impatient. Dr. Argon was late. This final session was just as unnecessary as the past half dozen had been. He was completely cured, for heaven's sake, and had been since week eighteen. His prodigious intellect had accelerated the process, and he should not have to twiddle his thumbs at the behest of a gnome psychiatrist.
At first Artemis paced the office, refusing to be calmed Von the water wall, with its gently pulsing mood lights; then he sat for a Minute in the oxygen booth, which he found calmed him a little too much.
Oxygen booth indeed, he thought, quickly ducking out of the chamber.
Finally the door hissed and slid aside on its track, admitting Dr. Jerbal Argon to his own office. The squat gnome limped directly to his chair. He dropped into the embrace of its padding, slapping the armrest controls until the gel sac under his right hip glowed gently.
"Aaaah," he sighed. "My hip is killing me. Nothing helps, honestly. People think they know pain, but they have no idea."
"You're late," noted Artemis in fluent Gnommish, his voice devoid of sympathy.
Argon sighed blissfully again as the heated chair pad went to work on his hip. "Always in a hurry, eh, Mud Boy? Why didn't Du have a puff of oxygen oder meditate Von the water wall? Hey-Hey Monks swear Von those water walls."
"I am not a pixie priest, Doctor. What Hey-Hey Monks do after first gong is of little interest to me. Can we proceed with my rehabilitation? oder would Du prefer to waste Mehr of my time?"
Argon huffed a little, then swung his bulk forward, opening a sim-paper file on his desk. "Why is it that the saner Du get, the nastier Du are?"
Artemis crossed his legs, his body language relaxed for the first time. "Such repressed anger, Doctor. Where does it all stem from?"
"Let's stick to your disposition, shall we, Artemis?" Argon snagged a stack of cards from his file. "I am going to Zeigen Du some inkblots, and Du tell me what the shapes suggest to you."
Artemis's moan was extended and theatrical. "Inkblots. Oh, please. My life span is considerably shorter than yours, Doctor. I prefer not to waste valuable time on worthless pseudo-tests. We may as well read tee leaves oder divine the future in turkey entrails."
"Inkblots are a reliable indicator of mental health," Argon objected. "Tried and tested."
"Tested Von psychiatrists for psychiatrists," snorted Artemis.
Argon slapped a card down on the table. "What do Du see in this inkblot?"
"I see an inkblot," sagte Artemis.
'Yes, but what does the blot suggest to you?'
Artemis smirked in a supremely annoying fashion. "I see card five hundred and thirty-four."
"Pardon me?"
"Card five hundred and thirty-four," repeated Artemis. "Of a series of six hundred standard inkblot cards. I memorized them during our sessions. Du don't even shuffle."
Argon checked the number on the back of the card: 534. Of course.
"Knowing the number does not answer the question. What do Du see?"
Artemis allowed his lip to wobble. "I see an ax dripping with blood. Also a scared child, and an elf clothed in the skin of a troll."
"Really?" Argon was interested now.
"No. Not really. I see a secure building, perhaps a family home, with four windows. A trustworthy pet, and a pathway leading from the door into the distance. I think, if Du check your manual, Du will find that these Antwort fall inside healthy parameters."
Argon did not need to check. The Mud Boy was right, as usual. Perhaps he could blindside Artemis with his new theory. It was not part of the program but might earn him a little respect.
"Have Du heard of the theory of relativity?"
Artemis blinked. "Is this a joke? I have traveled through time, Doctor. I think I know a little something about relativity."
"No. Not that theory; my theory of relativity proposes that all things magical are related and influenced Von ancient spells oder magical hot spots."
Artemis rubbed his chin. "Interesting. But I think you'll find your postulation should be called the theory of relatedness."
"Whatever," sagte Argon, waving the quibble away. "I did a little research, and it turns out that the Fowls have been a bother to fairy folk off and on for thousands of years. Dozens of your ancestors have tried for the crock of gold, though Du are the only one to have succeeded."
Artemis sat up straight; this was interesting. "And I never knew about this because Du mind-wiped my forefathers."
"Exactly," sagte Argon, thrilled to have Artemis's full attention. "When he was a lad, your own father actually managed to hog-tie a dwarf who was drawn to the estate. I imagine he still dreams of that moment."
"Good for him." A thought struck Artemis. "Why was the dwarf attracted to our estate?"
"Because the residual magic there is off the charts. Something happened on the Fowl Estate once. Something huge, magically speaking."
"And this lingering power plants ideas in the Fowls' heads and nudges us toward a belief in magic," Artemis murmured, almost to himself.
"Exactly. It's a goblin-and-egg situation. Did Du think about magic and then find magic? oder did the magic make Du think about looking for magic?"
Artemis took a few notes on his smartphone. "And this huge magical event―can Du be Mehr specific?"
Argon shrugged. "Our records don't go back that far. I'd say we're talking the surface days, Mehr than ten thousand years ago."
Artemis rose and loomed over the squat gnome. He felt he owed the doctor something for the theory of relatedness, which would certainly bär some investigation.
"Dr. Argon, did Du have turned-in feet as a child?"
Argon was so surprised that he blurted an honest answer to a personal question, very unusual for a psychiatrist. "Yes. Yes, I did."
"And were Du forced to wear remedial shoes with stacked soles?"
Argon was intrigued. He hadn't thought about those horrible shoes in centuries; he had actually forgotten them until this moment.
"Just one, on my right foot."
Artemis nodded wisely, and Argon felt as though their roles had been reversed and he was the patient.
"I would guess that your foot was pulled into its correct alignment, but your femur was twisted slightly in the process. A simple brace should solve your hip problem." Artemis pulled a folded napkin from his pocket. "I sketched a Design while Du kept me waiting these past few sessions. Foaly should be able to build the brace for you. I may have been a few millimeters off with my estimate of your dimensions, so best to get measured." He placed ten fingers flat on the desk. "May I leave now? Have I fulfilled my obligation?"
The doctor nodded glumly, thinking that he would possibly omit this session from his book. He watched Artemis stride across the office floor and ente through the doorway.
Argon studied the napkin drawing and knew instinctively that Artemis was right about his hip.
Either that boy is the sanest creature on Earth, he thought, oder he is so disturbed that our tests cannot even begin to scratch the surface.
Argon pulled a rubber stamp from his desk, and on the cover of Artemis's file stamped the word FUNCTIONAL in big red letters.
I hope so, he thought. I really hope so.
Artemis's bodyguard, Butler, waited for his principal outside Dr. Argon's office in the large chair that had been a gift from the centaur Foaly, technical consultant to the Lower Elements Police.
"I can't stand to look at Du perched on a fairy stool," Foaly had told him. "It offends my eyes. Du look like a monkey passing a coconut."
"Very well," Butler had sagte in his gravelly bass. "I accept the gift, if only to preserve your eyes."
In truth he had been mightily glad to have a comfortable chair, being Mehr than six and a half feet tall in a city built for three-footers.
The bodyguard stood and stretched, flattening his palms against the ceiling, which was double-height Von fairy standards. Thank god Argon had a taste for the grandiose oder Butler wouldn't have even been able to stand up straight in the clinic. To Butler's mind, the building, with its vaulted ceilings, gold-flecked tapestries, and retro sim-wood sliding doors, looked Mehr like a monastery where the monks had taken a vow of wealth than a medical facility. Only the wall-mounted laser hand-sanitizers and the occasional elfin nurse bustling past gave any hint that this place was actually a clinic.
I am so glad this detail is coming to an end, Butler had been thinking at least once every five Minuten for the past fortnight. He had been in tight spots many times, but there was something about being confined in a city clamped to the underside of the Earth's crust that made him feel claustrophobic for the first time in his life.
Artemis emerged from Argon's office, his self-satisfied smirk even Mehr pronounced than usual. When Butler saw this expression, he knew that his boss was back in control of his faculties and that his Atlantis Complex had been certified as cured.
No Mehr counting words. No Mehr irrational fear of the number four. No Mehr paranoia and delusions. Thank goodness for that.
He asked anyway, just to be certain. "Well, Artemis, how are we?"
Artemis buttoned his navy woolen suit jacket. "We are fine, Butler. That is to say that I, Artemis Fowl the Second, am one hundred percent functional, which is about five times the functionality of an average person. oder to put it another way: one point five Mozarts. oder three quarters of a daVinci."
"Only three quarters? You're being modest."
"Correct,'" sagte Artemis, smiling. "I am."
Butler's shoulders sagged an inch with relief. Inflated ego, supreme self-confidence. Artemis was most definitely his old self.
"Very good. Let's pick up our escort and be on our way then, shall we? I want to feel the sun on my face. The real sun, not the UV lamps they have down here."
Artemis felt a pang of sympathy for his bodyguard, an emotion he had been experiencing Mehr and Mehr in Kürzlich months. It was difficult enough for Butler to be inconspicuous among humans; down here, he could hardly have attracted Mehr attention if he had been wearing a clown suit and juggling fireballs.
"Very well," agreed Artemis. "We will pick up our escort and depart. Where is Holly?"
Butler jerked a thumb down the hallway."Where she generally is. With the clone."
Captain stechpalme, holly Short of the Lower Elements Police Recon division stared at the face of her archenemy and felt only pity. Of course, had she been gazing at the real Opal Koboi and not a cloned version, then pity might not have been the last emotion on her list, but it would certainly have ranked far below rage and intense dislike bordering on hatred. But this was a clone, grown to provide the megalomaniacal pixie with a body double so that she could be spirited from protective custody in the J. Argon Clinic.
stechpalme, holly pitied the clone because she was a pathetic, dumb creature who had never asked to be created. Cloning was a banned science, both for religious reasons and for the Mehr obvious fact that, without a life force oder soul to power their systems, clones were doomed to a short life of negligent brain activity and organ failure.
This particular clone had lived out most of its days in an incubator, struggling for each breath since it had been removed from the chrysalis in which it had been grown.
"Not for much longer, little one," stechpalme, holly whispered, touching the ersatz pixie's forehead through the sterile gloves built into the incubator wall.
stechpalme, holly could not have sagte for sure why she had begun to visit the clone. Perhaps it was because Argon had told her that no one else ever had.
She came from nowhere. She has no friends.
She had at least two Friends now. Artemis had taken to joining stechpalme, holly on her visits and often would sit silently beside her, which was very unusual for him.
The clone's official designation was Unauthorized Experiment 14, but one of the clinic's wits had named her Nopal, which was a cruel play on the name Opal and the term no pal. Cruel oder not, the name stuck; and now even stechpalme, holly used it, though with tenderness.
Argon assured her that Unauthorized Experiment 14 had no mental faculties, but stechpalme, holly was sure that sometimes Nopal's milky eyes reacted when she visited. Could the clone actually recognize her?
stechpalme, holly gazed at Nopal's delicate features and was inevitably reminded of her gene donor.
That pixie is poison, she thought bitterly. Whatever she touches withers and dies.
Artemis entered the room and stood beside Holly, resting a hand lightly on her shoulder.
"They're wrong about Nopal," sagte Holly. "She feels things. She understands."
Artemis knelt down. "I know. I taught her something last week. Watch."
He placed his hand on the glass, tapping the fingers in sequence slowly, building up a rhythm. "It is an exercise developed Von Cuba's Dr. Parnassus. He uses it to generate a response from infants, even chimpanzees."
Artemis continued to tap, and slowly Nopal responded, raising her hand laboriously to Artemis's, slapping the glass clumsily in an attempt to copy his rhythm.
"There, Du see?" sagte Artemis. "Intelligence."
stechpalme, holly bumped him gently, shoulder to shoulder, which was her version of a hug. "I knew your brains would eventually come in handy."
The acorn cluster on the breast of Holly's LEP jumpsuit vibrated, and stechpalme, holly touched her wi-tech earring, accepting the call. A quick glance at her wrist computer told her that the call was from LEP technical consultant Foaly, and that the centaur had labeled it urgent.
"Foaly. What is it? I'm at the clinic, babysitting Artemis."
The centaur's voice was crystal clear over the Haven City wireless network.
"I need Du back at Police Plaza, right now. Bring the Mud Boy."
The centaur sounded theatrical, but then Foaly would play the drama Queen if his carrot soufflé collapsed.
"That's not how it works, Foaly. Consultants don't give orders to captains."
"We have a Koboi sighting coming through on a satellite. It's a live feed," countered the technical consultant.
"We're on our way," sagte Holly, severing the connection.
They picked up Butler in the corridor. Artemis, Holly, and Butler were three allies who had weathered battlefields, rebellions, and conspiracy together and had developed their own crisis shorthand.
Butler saw that stechpalme, holly was wearing her business face.
"Situation?"
stechpalme, holly strode past, forcing the others to follow.
"Opal," she sagte in English.
Butler's face hardened. "Eyes on?"
"Satellite link."
"Origin?" asked the bodyguard.
"Unknown."
They hurried down the retro corridor toward the clinic's courtyard. Butler outstripped the group and held open the altmodisch hinged door, with a stained window depicting a thoughtful doctor comforting a weeping patient.
"Are we taking the Stick?" asked the bodyguard, his tone suggesting that he would rather not take the Stick.
stechpalme, holly walked through the doorway. "Sorry, big man. Stick time."
Artemis had never been one for public transport, human oder fairy, and so asked, "What's the stick?"
The Stick was the straße name for a series of conveyor belts that ran in parallel strips along Haven City's network of blocks. It was an ancient and reliable mode of transport from a less litigious time, which operated on a hop-on / hop-off system similar to certain human airport-walkway systems. There were platforms throughout the city, and all a person had to do was step on a gürtel and grab hold of one of the carbon-fiber stalks that sprouted upward from it. Hence the name Stick.
Artemis and Butler had of course seen the Stick before, but Artemis had never planned to use such an undignified mode of transport and so had never even bothered to find out its name. Artemis knew that, with his famous lack of coordination, any attempt to hop casually onto the gürtel would result in a humiliating tumble. For Butler, the problem was not one of coordination oder lack of it. He knew that, with his bulk, it would be difficult just to keep his feet inside the belt's width.
"Ah, yes," sagte Artemis. "The Stick. Surely a green cab would be faster?"
"Nope," sagte Holly, hustling Artemis up the ramp to the platform, then poking him in the kidneys at just the right time so that he stepped unconsciously onto the belt, his hand landing on one stick's bulbous grip.
"Hey," sagte Artemis, perhaps the third time in his life he had used a slang expletive. "I did it."
"Next stop, the Olympics," sagte Holly, who had mounted the platform behind him. "Come on, bodyguard," she called over her shoulder to Butler. "Your principal is heading toward a tunnel."
Butler shot the elf a look that would cow a bull. stechpalme, holly was a dear friend, but her teasing could be relentless. He tiptoed onto the belt, squeezing his enormous feet onto a single section and bending his knees to grasp the tiny stick. In silhouette, he looked like the world's bulkiest ballerina attempting to pluck a flower.
stechpalme, holly might have grinned had Opal Koboi not been on her mind.
The Stick gürtel trundled its passengers from the Argon Clinic along the border of an Italian-style piazza toward a low tunnel, which had been laser-cut from solid rock. Elfen lunching al fresco froze with forkfuls of salat halfway to their mouths as the unlikely trio passed by.
The sight of a jumpsuit-clad LEP officer was common enough on a Stick belt, but a gangly human boy dressed like an undertaker and a troll-sized, buzz-cut man-mountain were quite unusual.
The tunnel was barely three feet high so Butler was forced to prostrate himself over three sections, flattening several handgrips in the process. His nose was no Mehr than a few feet from the tunnel wall, which he noticed was engraved with beautiful luminous pictograms depicting episodes from the People's history.
So the young Elfen can learn something about their own heritage each time they pass through. How wonderful, thought Butler, but he suppressed his admiration as he had long Vor disciplined his brain to concentrate on bodyguard duties and not waste neurons being amazed while he was below ground.
Save it for retirement, he thought. Then Du can cast your mind back and appreciate art.
Police Plaza was a cobbled crest into which the shape of the Lower Elements Police acorn insignia had been painstakingly paved Von master craftsmen. It was a total waste of effort as far as the LEP officers were concerned, as they were not generally the type who were inclined to gaze out of the fourth-floor windows and marvel at how the sim-sunlight caught the rim of each gold-leafed cobble and set the whole arrangement a-twinkling.
On this particular Tag it seemed that everyone on the fourth floor had slid from their cubicles like pebbles on a tilted surface and gathered in a tight cluster Von the Situation room, which adjoined Foaly's office/laboratory.
stechpalme, holly made directly for the narrowest section of the throng and used sharp elbows to inch through the strangely silent crowd. Butler simply cleared his throat once, and the crowd peeled apart as though magnetically repelled from the giant human. Artemis took the path into the Situation room to find Commander Trouble Kelp and Foaly standing before a wall-sized screen, raptly following unfolding events.
Foaly noticed the gasps that followed Butler wherever he went in Haven, and glanced around.
"May the fours be with you," the centaur whispered to Artemis―his standard greeting/joke for the past six months.
"I am cured, as Du well know," sagte Artemis. "What is going on here?"
stechpalme, holly cleared a Weltraum beside Trouble Kelp, who seemed to be morphing into her former boss, Commander Julius Root, as the years went on. Commander Kelp was so brimful of gung-ho that he had taken the name Trouble upon graduation and had once tried to arrest a troll for littering, which accounted for the sim-skin patch on the tip of his nose that glowed yellow from a certain angle.
"Haircut's new, Skipper," stechpalme, holly said. "Old Beet Root had one just like it."
Commander Kelp did not take his eyes from the screen. stechpalme, holly was joshing because she was nervous, and Trouble knew it. She was right to be nervous. In fact, outright fear would have been Mehr appropriate, gegeben the situation that was being beamed in to them.
"Watch the show, Captain," he sagte tightly. "It's pretty self-explanatory."
There were three figures on-screen, a kneeling prisoner and two captors, but stechpalme, holly did not place Opal Koboi right away because she was searching for the pixie among the standing pair. She realized with a jolt that Opal was the prisoner.
"This is a trick," she said. "It must be."
Commander Kelp shrugged. Watch it and see.
Artemis stepped closer to the screen, scanning the picture for information. "You are sure this is live?"
"It's a live feed," sagte Foaly. "I suppose they could be sending us a pre-record."
"Where is it coming from?"
Foaly checked the tracer map on his own screen. The call line ran from a fairy satellite down to South Africa and from there to Miami and then on to a hundred other places, like the scribble of an angry child.
"They jacked a satellite and ran the line through a series of shells. Could be anywhere."
"The sun is high," Artemis mused aloud. "I would guess Von the shadows that it is early noon. If it is actually a live feed."
"That narrows it down to a quarter of the planet," sagte Foaly caustically.
The hubbub in the room rose as, onscreen, one of the two bulky gnomes standing behind Opal drew a human automatic handgun, the chrome weapon looking like a kanone in his fairy fingers.
It seemed as though the temperature had suddenly dropped in the Situation room.
"I need quiet," sagte Artemis. "Get these people out of here."
On most days, Trouble Kelp would have argued that Artemis had no authority to clear a room and would possibly have invited even Mehr people into the cramped office just to prove his point, but this was not most days.
"Everybody out," he barked at the assembled officers. "Holly, Foaly, and the Mud Boy, stay where Du are."
"I think perhaps I'll stay too," sagte Butler, shielding the oben, nach oben of his head from lamp burn with one hand.
Nobody objected.
Usually the LEP officers would shuffle with macho reluctance when ordered to move, but in this instance they rushed to the nearest monitor, eager not to miss a single frame of unfolding events.
Foaly shut the door behind them with a swing, schaukel of his hoof, then darkened the window glass so there would be no distraction from outside. The remaining five stood in a ragged semicircle before the Wand screen, watching what would appear to be the last Minuten of Opal Koboi's life. One of the Opal Kobois, at any rate.
There were two gnomes onscreen, both wearing full-face anti-UV party masks that could be programmed to resemble anyone. These had been modeled on Pip and Kip, two beliebt kitty-cat cartoon characters on PPTV, but the figures were still recognizable as gnomes because of their stocky barrel torsos and bloated forearms. They stood before a nondescript gray wall, looming over the tiny pixie who knelt in the mud tracks of some wheeled vehicle, waterline creeping along the legs of her designer tracksuit. Opal's wrists were bound and her mouth taped, and she seemed genuinely terrified.
The gnome with the pistol spoke through a vox-box in the mask, disguising his voice as Pip the kitty-cat.
"I can't make it any plainer," he squeaked, and somehow the cartoon voice made him seem Mehr dangerous. "We got one Opal, Du got the other. Du let your Opal go and we don't kill this one. Du had twenty minutes, now Du have fifteen."
Pip the kitty-cat cocked his weapon.
Butler tapped Holly's shoulder.
"Did he just say—?"
"Yeah. Fifteen minutes, oder Opal's dead."
Butler popped a translator bud into his ear. This was too important to trust to his dubious grasp of Gnommish.
Trouble Kelp was incredulous. "What kind of deal is that? Give us a terrorist oder we kill a terrorist?"
"We can't just let someone be murdered before our eyes," sagte Holly.
"Absolutely not," agreed Foaly. "We are not humans."
Artemis cleared his throat.
"Sorry, Artemis," sagte the centaur. "But Du humans are a bloodthirsty bunch. Sure, we may produce the occasional power-crazed pixie, but Von and large the People are peace-loving folk. Which is probably why we live down here in the first place."
Trouble Kelp actually snarled, one of his leadership devices―which not many people could carry off, especially when they stood barely Mehr than three feet high in what Artemis was sure were stacked boots. But Trouble's snarl was convincing enough to stifle the bickering.
"Focus, people," he said. "I need solutions here. Under no circumstances can we release Opal Koboi, but we can't just stand Von and allow her to be murdered either."
The computer had picked up the references to Koboi on-screen and had elected to run her file on a side screen, in case anyone needed their memory refreshed.
Opal Koboi. Certified genius pixie industrialist and inventor. Orchestrated the goblin coup and insurrection. Cloned herself to escape prison and attempted to lead the humans to Haven. Responsible for the murder of Commander Julius Root. Had human pituitary gland grafted to manufacture growth hormone (subsequently removed). Younger version of Opal followed Captain Short from the past and is currently at large in present time line. It is assumed that she will attempt to free her incarcerated self and return to her own time stream. Opal is in the unprecedented position of occupying places one and two on the LEP Most Dangerous list. Categorized as highly intelligent, motivated, and psychotic.
This is a bold move, Opal, thought Artemis. And with potentially catastrophic repercussions.
He felt rather than saw stechpalme, holly at his elbow.
"What do Du think, Artemis?"
Artemis frowned. "My first impression is to call it a bluff. But Opal's plans always account for first impressions."
"It could be a ruse. Perhaps those goblins would simply shoot her with a blank?"
Artemis shook his head. "No. That would deliver no payoff other than momentary horror on our part. Opal has planned this so that she wins, whatever the eventuality. If Du free her, then she's free. If the younger Opal dies, then . . . Then what?'
Butler weighed in. 'You can do all sorts of things with special effects these days. What if they computer-graphic her head to explode?'
Artemis was disappointed in this theory, which he felt he had already discounted. "No, Butler. Think. Again, there's nothing to gain."
Foaly snorted. "At any rate, if they do kill her, we will know very soon whether this whole thing is real oder not."
Artemis half laughed. "True. We will certainly know."
Butler groaned. This was one of those times when Artemis and Foaly were aware of something sciencey and assumed that everyone else in the room also had all the facts. Moments like this were guaranteed to drive stechpalme, holly crazy.
"What are Du talking about?" shouted Holly. "What will we know? How will we know whatever it is?"
Artemis stared down at her as though waking from a dream. "Really, Holly? Du have two versions of the same individual occupying a time stream, and Du are unaware of the ramifications?"
Onscreen the gnomes stood like statues behind the shivering pixie. The armed one, Pip, occasionally checked a wristwatch Von tugging his sleeve with his gun barrel, but otherwise they waited patiently. Opal pleaded with her eyes, staring at the camera lens, fat tears streaming down her cheeks, sparkling in the sunlight. Her hair seemed thinner than usual and unwashed. Her Juicy Couture tracksuit, purchased no doubt from the children's section of some exclusive store, was torn in several places, the rips caked in blood. The picture was super-high-def and so clear that it was like looking through a window. If this was a spurious threat, then young Opal did not know it.
Trouble pounded the desk, an affectation of Julius Root's that he had adopted.
"What are the ramifications? Tell me."
"Just to be clear," sagte Artemis, "do Du wish to be told what the word ramifications means? oder to know what the ramifications are?"
stechpalme, holly elbowed Artemis in the hip, speeding him along. "Artemis, we're on a clock, here."
"Very well, Holly. Here is the problem. . . ."
"Come on," pleaded Foaly. "Let me explain. This is my kingdom, and I will be simple and to the point, I promise."
"Go on, then," sagte Trouble, who was known for his Liebe of simple and to the point.
stechpalme, holly laughed. A single harsh bark. She could not believe everyone continued to act like their everyday selves even though a life was at stake.
We have become desensitized, like the humans.
Whatever Opal had done, she was still a person. There had been dark days when stechpalme, holly had dreamed of hunting the pixie down and issuing a little mud-man justice, but those days were gone.
Foaly tugged at his outrageously coiffed forelock.
"All beings are made of energy," he began in the typical pompous imparting important info voice that he used at times like this. "When these beings die, their energy slowly dissipates and returns to the earth." He paused dramatically. "But what if a being's entire existence is suddenly negated Von a quantum anomaly?"
Trouble raised his arms. "Whoa! Simple and to the point, remember?"
Foaly rephrased. "Okay. If young Opal dies, then old Opal cannot continue to exist."
It took Trouble a second, but he got it. "So, will it be like in the movies? She will fizzle out of existence, and we will all look a bit puzzled for a moment, then forget about her?"
Foaly snickered. "That's one theory."
"What's the other theory?"
The centaur paled suddenly and uncharacteristically yielded the floor to Artemis.
"Why don't Du explain this bit?" Foaly said. "I just flashed on what could actually happen, and I need to start making calls."
Artemis nodded curtly. "The other theory was first postulated Von your own Professor Bahjee over five centuries ago. Bahjee believes that if the time stream is polluted Von the arrival of the younger version of a being and that younger version subsequently dies, then the present-tense version of the being will release all its energy spontaneously and violently. Not only that, but anything that exists because of the younger Opal will also combust."
Violently and combust were words that Commander Kelp understood well.
"Release its energy? How violently?"
Artemis shrugged. "That depends on the object oder being. Matter is changed instantaneously into energy. A huge explosive force will be released. We could even be talking about nuclear fission."
stechpalme, holly felt her herz speed up. "Fission? Nuclear fission?"
"Basically," sagte Artemis. "For living beings. The objects should cause less damage."
"Anything Opal made oder contributed to will explode?"
"No. Just the things she influenced in the past five years of our time line, between her two ages, though there will probably be some temporal ripples on either side."
"Are Du talking about all of Opal's company's weapons that are still in commission?" asked Holly.
"And the satellites," added Trouble. "Every Sekunde vehicle in the city."
"It is just a theory," sagte Artemis. "There is yet another theory that suggests nothing at all will happen, other than one person dying. Physics trumps quantum physics, and things go on as normal."
stechpalme, holly found herself red-faced with sudden fury. "You're talking as though Opal is already dead."
Artemis was not sure what to say. "We are staring into the abyss, Holly. In a short time, many of us could be dead. I need to stay detached."
Foaly looked up from his computer panel. "What do Du think about percentages, Mud Boy?"
"Percentages?"
"Theory-wise."
"Oh, I see. How likely are the explosions?"
"Exactly."
Artemis thought about it. "All things considered, I would say about ninety percent. If I were a betting man and there was someone to take this kind of bet, I would put my last Gold coin on it."
Trouble paced the small office. "We need to release Opal. Let her go now."
Now stechpalme, holly was uncertain. "Let's think about this, Trubs."
The commander turned on her. "Didn't Du hear what the human said? Fission! We can't have fission underground."
"I agree, but it could still be a trick."
"The alternative is too terrible. We turn her loose and hunt her down. Get Atlantis on the line now. I need to speak to the warden at the Deeps. Is it still Vinyáya?"
Artemis spoke quietly but with the commanding tone that had made him a natural leader since the age of ten.
"It's too late to free Opal. All we can do is save her life. That's what she planned for all along."
'Save her life?" objected Trouble. "But we still have . . ." Commander Kelp checked the countdown clock. "Ten minutes."
Artemis patted Holly's shoulder, then stepped away from her. "If fairy bureaucracy is anything like the human kind, Du won't be able to get Opal into a shuttle in that time. What Du might be able to do is get her down to the reactor core."
Kelp had not yet learned the hard way to shut up and let Artemis explain, and so kept asking questions, slowing down the process, wasting valuable seconds.
"Reactor core? What reactor core?"
Artemis raised a finger. "One Mehr question, Commander, and I will be forced to have Butler restrain you."
Kelp was a breath away from ejecting Artemis oder charging him with something, but the situation was critical, and if there was a chance that this human could in some way help . . .
He clenched his fists till his fingers creaked. "Okay. Talk."
"The Deeps is powered Von a natural fission reactor in a uranium ore layer set on a bett of granite similar to the one in Oklo, Gabon," sagte Artemis, tugging the facts from his memory. "The People Power Company harvest the energy in small pods set into the uranium. These pods are constructed with science and magic to withstand a moderate nuclear blast. This is taught in schools here. Every fairy in the room knows this, correct?"
Everyone nodded. Technically it was correct, as they did know it now.
"If we can place Opal inside the pod before the deadline, then the blast will at least be contained, and theoretically, if we pumpe in enough anti-rad foam, Opal might even retain her physical integrity. Though that is something I would not bet my last Gold coin on. Opal, apparently, is prepared to take the risk."
Trouble was tempted to poke Artemis in the chest but wisely resisted. "You're saying that all of this is an elaborate escape plan?"
"Of course," sagte Artemis. "And not all that elaborate. Opal is forcing Du to release her from her cell. The alternative is the utter destruction of Atlantis and every soul in it, which is unthinkable to anyone except Opal herself."
Foaly had already brought up the prison plans. "The reactor core is less than a hundred meters below Opal's cell. I'm contacting the warden now."
stechpalme, holly knew that Artemis was a genius and there was no one Mehr qualified to Sekunde guess kidnappers, but they still had options.
She gazed at the figures onscreen and was chilled Von how casual the gnomes seemed, in the light of what they were about to do. They slouched like adolescents, barely glancing at their captor, cocky in their abilities and not even a jot self-conscious about their cartoon-character smart-masks, which "read" their faces and displayed the appropriate emotions in exaggerated cartoon style. Smart-masks were very beliebt with the karaoke crowd, who could then look like their idols as well as trying to sound like them.
Perhaps they don't know exactly what's at stake here, stechpalme, holly thought suddenly. Perhaps they are as clueless as I was ten Sekunden ago.
"Can they hear us?" she asked Foaly.
"They can, but we haven't responded yet. Just press the button."
This was just an old figure of speech; there was of course no actual button, just a sensor on the touch screen.
"Hold it, Captain!" ordered Trouble.
"I am a trained negotiator, sir," sagte Holly, hoping the respect in her tone would get her what she wanted. "And I was once . . ." She glanced guiltily at Artemis, sorry that she had to play this card. "I was once a hostage myself, so I know how these things go. Let me talk to them."
Artemis nodded encouragingly, and stechpalme, holly knew that he understood her tactics.
"Captain Short is correct, Commander," he said. "Holly is a natural communicator. She even managed to get through to me."
"Do it," barked Trouble. "Foaly, Du keep trying to reach Atlantis. And assemble the Council, we need to begin evacuating both cities now."
Though their real faces were hidden, the gnomes' cartoon expressions were bored now. It was in the slant of their heads and the bend of their knees. Perhaps this whole thing was not as exciting as they had hoped it would be. After all, they could not see their audience, and no one had responded to their threats. What had started out as a revolutionary action was now beginning to look like two big gnomes picking on a pixie.
Pip waggled his gun at Kip, and the meaning was clear. Why don't we just shoot her now?
stechpalme, holly activated the microphone with a wave of her hand.
"Hello, Du there. This is Captain stechpalme, holly Short of the LEP. Can Du hear me?"
The gnomes perked up immediately, and Pip even attempted a whistle, which came through the vox-box as a raspberry.
"Hey, Captain Short. We heard of you. I've seen pictures. Not too shabby, Captain."
stechpalme, holly bit back a caustic retort. Always avoid unnecessary confrontation with a kidnapper.
"Thank you, Pip. Should I call Du Pip?"
"You, stechpalme, holly Short, can call me anything and anytime Du like," squeaked Pip, and he extended his free hand toward his partner for a knuckle bump.
stechpalme, holly was incredulous. These two were about to totally incapacitate the entire fairy world, and they were goofing about like two goblins at a fireball party.
"Okay, Pip," she continued evenly. "What can we do for Du today?"
Pip shook his head sorrowfully at Kip. "Why are the pretty ones always stupid?" He turned to the camera. "You know what Du can do for us. We told Du already. Release Opal Koboi, oder the younger model is gonna take a long sleep. And Von that I mean, get shot in the head."
"You need to give us some time to Zeigen good faith. Come on, Pip. One Mehr hour? For me?"
Pip scratched his head with the gun barrel, pretending to consider it. "You are cute, Holly. But not that cute. If I give Du another hour, you'll track me down somehow and drop a time-stop on my head. No thanks, Cap. Du have ten minutes. If I was you, I would get that cell open oder call the undertaker."
"These kind of things take time, Pip," persisted Holly, repeating the name, forging a bond. "It takes three days to pay a parking fine."
Pip shrugged. "Not my problem, babe. And Du can call me Pip all Tag and it won't make us BFFs. It ain't my real name."
Artemis deactivated the microphone. "This one is smart, Holly. Don't play with him, just tell the truth."
stechpalme, holly nodded and switched on the mike. "Okay, whatever your name is. Let me give it to Du straight. There's a good chance that if Du shoot young Opal, then we're going to have a series of very big explosions down here. A lot of innocent people will die."
Pip waved his gun carelessly. "Oh yeah, the quantum laws. We know about that, don't we, Kip?"
"Quantum laws," sagte Kip. "Of course we know about that."
"And Du don't care that good fairies, gnomes that could be related to you, will die?"
Pip raised his eyebrows so that they jutted over the oben, nach oben of the mask. "You like any of your family, Kip?"
"Ain't got no family. I'm an orphan."
"Really? Me too."
While they bantered, Opal shivered in the dirt, trying to speak through the tape. Foaly would get voice analysis on the muffled mumbles later—if there was a later—but it didn't take a genius to figure out she was pleading for her life.
"There must be something Du need," sagte Holly.
"There is one thing," replied Pip. "Could I get your com-code? I sure would Liebe to hook up for a sim-latte when this is all over. Might be a while, of course, what with Haven City being in ruins."
Foaly put a text box on the screen. It read: They're moving Opal now.
stechpalme, holly flickered her eyelids to Zeigen she understood, then continued with the negotiation. "Here's the situation, Pip. We have nine Minuten left. Du can't get someone out of Atlantis in nine minutes. It's not possible. They need to suit up, pressurize, maybe; go through the conduits to open sea. Nine Minuten is not long enough."
Pip's theatrical responses were getting a little hard to take. "Well then, I guess a lot of people are going swimming. Fission can put a hell of a hole in the shield."
stechpalme, holly broke. "Don't Du care about anyone? What's the going rate for genocide?"
Pip and Kip actually laughed.
"It's a horrible feeling, impotency, ain't it?' sagte Pip. "But there are worse feelings. Drowning, for example."
"And getting crushed Von falling buildings," added Kip.
stechpalme, holly banged her tiny fists on the console.
These two are so infuriating.
Pip stepped close to the camera so his mask filled the screen. "If I don't get a call from Opal Koboi in the Weiter few minutes, telling me she is in a shuttle on her way to the surface, then I will shoot this pixie. Believe it."
Foaly rested his head in his hands. "I used to Liebe Pip and Kip," he said.
