Holly thought that this last bit was possibly Wiccahumor.
Foaly had reached the same conclusion about Artemis, and said as much in a
text message he buzzed over to Holly’s helmet, which sat on the table before her.
Holly tapped her visor to reverse the readout then read the words.
Our boy is obsessing. Atlantis?
Holly called up a Gnommish keyboard on the visor and typed, slowly, so as not
to attract attention.
Maybe. Fives? She sent the message.
Yes, fives. Classic symptom.
Then seconds later.
A demonstration! Fab. I ♥ demonstrations.
Holly managed to keep a straight face in case Artemis happened to stop
counting long enough to glance her way. Foaly could never concentrate on
anything for very long, unless it was one of his beloved projects.
Must be a genius thing.
It seemed as though the Icelandic elements held their breath for Artemis’s
demonstration. The dull air was cut with a haze that hung in sheets like rows of
laundered gauze.
The fairy folk felt their suit thermocoils vibrate a little as they followed Artemis
outside to the rear of the restaurant. The back of the Adam Adamsson
establishment was even less impressive than the front. Whatever lackadaisical
effort had been applied to making the Great Skua hospitable obviously did not
extend to the back of the building. A whale mural, which looked like Adamsson
had painted it himself using a live Arctic fox for a brush, stopped abruptly over
the service entrance, decapitating an unfortunate humpback. And in several
spots, large sections of plaster had split from the wall and been tramped into the
mud and snow.
Artemis led the small group to a tarpaulin, which had been pegged over a
large cube.
Foaly snorted. “Let me guess. Looks like a common garden tarpaulin, but is
actually cam foil with rear projection set to look like tarp?”
Artemis took two more steps before answering, then nodded toward everyone
to fix them in their places. A bead of sweat ran down his back, generated by the
stress of losing his battle to obsessive behavior.
“No, Foaly. It looks like a tarpaulin because it is a tarpaulin,” he said, then
added, “Yes, a tarpaulin.”
Foaly blinked. “Yes, a tarpaulin? Are we in one of your Gilbert and Sullivan
operettas now?” He threw his head back and sang, “‘I am a centaur, yes, a
centaur is what I am.’ It’s not like you to wax, Artemis.”
“Foaly is singing,” said Holly. “Surely that’s illegal?”
Vinyáya snapped her fingers. “Quiet, children. Contain your natural disruptive
urges. I am most eager to see these nano-wafers in action before taking a shuttle
closer to the warm core of our planet.”
Artemis bowed slightly. “Thank you, Commander, most kind.”
Five again, thought Holly. The evidence mounts.
Artemis Fowl twirled a hand at Holly Short as though introducing himself to a
theater audience. “Captain, perhaps you would remove the cloth. You have an
aptitude for taking things apart.”
Holly was almost thrilled to have something to do. She would have preferred
to have a serious talk with Artemis, but at least tackling a crate did not involve
ingesting more scientific facts.
“Happy to,” she said, and attacked the tarp as though it had insulted her
grandmother. Suddenly there was a knuckle knife adorning the fingers of her
right hand, and three judicious slices later, the tarp fluttered to the ground.
“You might as well do the crate while you are about it, Captain Short,” said
Artemis, wishing he could sneak in an extra word to bolster the sentence.
Immediately, Holly mounted the crate and apparently punched it into sections.
“Wow,” exhaled Foaly. “That seemed excessively violent, even for you.”
Holly descended to earth, barely making a footprint in the snow. “Nope. It’s
more of a science. Cos tapa. The quick foot. An ancient martial art based on the
movements of predatory animals.”
“Look!” said Foaly, pointing with some urgency into the vast steel-gray gloom.
“Someone who cares!”
Artemis was glad of the banter, as it distracted from his loosening grasp on
the logical world. While the fairies enjoyed their customary back-and-forth, he
allowed his spine to curve for a moment, let his shoulders dip, but someone
noticed.
“Artemis?”
Holly, of course.
“Yes, Captain Short.”
“‘Captain’? Are we strangers, Artemis?”
Artemis coughed into his hand. She was probing. He needed to ward off her
attentions. Nothing to do but say the number aloud.
“Strangers? No. We’ve known each other for more than five years.”
Holly took a step toward him, her eyes wide with concern behind the orange
curve of visor.
“This five thing, Arty. I’m worried about that. You’re not yourself.”
Artemis swept past her to the container that rested on the floor of the crate.
“Who else would I be?” he said brusquely, cutting short any possible
discussion on the state of his mental health. He waved impatiently at the ice haze
as though it were deliberately obstructing him, then pointed his mobile phone at
the container, zapping the computerized locks. The container looked and sounded
like a regular household refrigerator, squat, pearlescent, and humming.
“Just what they need in Iceland,” muttered Foaly. “More ice makers.”
“Ah, but a very special ice maker,” said Artemis, opening the fridge door. “One
that can save the glaciers.”
“Does it make Popsicles too?” asked the centaur innocently, wishing his old
buddy Mulch Diggums was there so they could high-five, a practice so puerile and
outmoded that it would be sure to drive Artemis crazy, if he weren’t already
crazy.
“You said this was a demonstration,” snapped Vinyáya. “So demonstrate.”
Artemis shot Foaly a poisonous look. “With great pleasure, Commander.
Observe.”
Inside the container sat a squat chrome contraption, which resembled a cross
between a top-loader washing machine and a stubby cannon, apart from the
jumble of wires and chips nestled under the bowl.
“The Ice Cube is not pretty, I grant you,” said Artemis, priming the equipment
with an infrared signal shot from the sensor on his phone. “But I thought better
to get production moving along than spend another month tidying the chassis.”
They formed a ragged ring around the device, and Artemis could not help thinking
that had a satellite been observing the group, they would have looked like
children playing a game.
Vinyáya’s face was pale and her teeth chattered, though the temperature was
barely below freezing. Chilly in human terms, a lot more uncomfortable for a
fairy.
“Come on, human. Switch this Ice Cube thing on. Let’s get the dwarf on the
mudslide.”
A fairy expression that Artemis was not familiar with, but he could guess what
it meant. He glanced at his phone.
“Surely, Commander. I will certainly launch the first pouch of nano-wafers just
as soon as whatever unidentified craft is passing through the airspace moves on.”
Holly consulted her visor readout communicator. “Nothing in the airspace, Mud
Boy. Nothing but a shielded shuttle full of hurt for you, if you’re trying to pull
some kind of trick.”
Artemis could not stifle a groan. “No need for the rhetoric. I assure you,
Captain, there is a ship descending through the atmosphere. My sensors are
picking it up quite clearly.”
Holly thrust her jaw forward. “Well, my sensors aren’t picking up a thing.”
“Funny, because my sensors are your sensors,” countered Artemis.
Foaly clopped a hoof, chipping the ice. “I knew it. Is nothing sacred?”
Artemis squared his shoulders. “Let’s stop pretending that we don’t spend half
our time spying on each other. I read your files and you read the files I allow you
to steal. There is a craft that seems to be heading straight for us, and maybe
your sensors would spot it if you used some of the same filters I do.”
Holly thought of something. “Remember Opal Koboi’s ship? The one
completely built from stealth ore? Our pet geeks couldn’t detect that, but Artemis
did.”
Artemis arched his eyebrows as if to say Even the police officer gets it. “I
simply looked for what should be there but wasn’t. Ambient gases, trace
pollution, and such. Wherever I found an apparent vacuum I also found Opal. I
have since applied the same technique to my general scans. I am surprised you
haven’t learned that little trick, Consultant Foaly.”
“It will take about two seconds to sync with our shuttle and run an ambience
test.”
Vinyáya scowled, and her annoyance seemed to ripple the air like a heatwave.
“Run it then, centaur.”
Foaly activated the sensors in his gloves and screwed a yellow monocle over
one eye. Thus wired, he performed a complicated series of blinks, winks, and
gestures as he interfaced with a V-system invisible to all but him. To the casual
observer it would seem as though the centaur had inhaled pepper while
conducting an imaginary orchestra. It was not attractive, which was why most
people tended to stick with hardwired hardware.
Twenty seconds more than two seconds later, Foaly’s exertions ceased
suddenly and he rested palms on knees.
“Okay,” he panted. “Firstly, I am nobody’s pet geek. And secondly, there may
be a large unidentified space vehicle headed our way at high speed.”
Holly instantly drew her weapon, as though she could gun down a spaceship
that was already falling on them.
Artemis rushed toward his Ice Cube, arms outstretched maternally, then
literally stopped in his tracks as suspicion filled his heart with heat.
“This is your ship, Foaly. Admit it.”
“It’s not my ship,” protested Foaly. “I don’t even have a ship. I come to work
on a quadricycle.”
Artemis fought the paranoia until his hands shook, but there seemed to be no
other explanation for the arrival of a strange ship at this precise time.
“You’re trying to steal my invention. This is just like the time in London when
you interfered in the C-Cube deal.”
Holly kept her eyes on the skies, but spoke to her human friend.
“I saved Butler in London.”
Artemis’s whole frame was shaking now. “Did you? Or did you turn him
against me?” The words he spoke disgusted him, but they seemed to push
through his lips like scarab beetles from the mouth of a mummy. “That’s when
you made your alliance against me, wasn’t it? How much did you offer him?”
For a long foggy breath, Holly was speechless; then, “Offer him? Butler would
never betray you. Never! How can you think that, Artemis?”
Artemis glared at his fingers as if he half hoped they would reach up and
strangle him. “I know you’re behind this, Holly Short. You have never forgiven me
for the kidnapping.”
“You need help, Artemis,” said Holly, tired of talking around the problem. “I
think you may have a condition. It might be something called the Atlantis
Complex.”
Artemis stumbled backward, knocking against Foaly’s hindquarters. “I know,”
he said slowly, watching his breath take form before him. “Lately, nothing is
clear. I see things, suspect everyone. Five. Five is everywhere.”
“As if we would ever do anything to hurt you, Artemis,” said Foaly, patting the
hair Artemis had ruffled.
“I don’t know. Would you? Why wouldn’t you? I have the most important job
on Earth, more important than yours.”
Holly was calling in the cavalry.
“There’s a UC in the atmo,” she called into her communicator, using that
soldier shorthand that seemed more confusing than plain speaking. “Descend to
my seven for evac. Stat.”
A fairy shuttle fizzled into visibility twenty feet overhead. It appeared plate by
plate from nose to stern, the soldiers inside visible for a brief moment before the
hull solidified. The sight seemed to confuse Artemis even further.
“Is that how you’re going to take me? Scare me into voluntarily coming
aboard, then steal my Ice Cube?”
“It’s always cubes with you,” noted Foaly somewhat randomly. “What’s wrong
with a nice sphere?”
“And you, centaur!” said Artemis, pointing an accusing finger. “Always in my
system. Are you in my head too?”
Vinyáya had forgotten the cold. She shrugged off her heavy coat to gain some
ease of movement.
“Captain Short. The crazed human is your contact— put him on a leash until
we get out of here.”
It was an unfortunate phrase to use.
“Put me on a leash? Is that what you’ve been doing all this time, Captain
Short?”
Artemis was shivering now, as though a current had passed through his limbs.
“Artemis,” said Holly urgently. “Wouldn’t you like to sleep for a while? Just lay
your head down somewhere warm and sleep?”
The notion took hold in some corner of Artemis’s brain. “Yes. Sleep. Can you
do that, Holly?”
Holly took a slow step forward. “Of course I can. Just a little mesmer is all it
takes. You’ll wake up a new man.”
Artemis’s eyes seemed to jellify. “A new man. But what about THE PROJECT?”
Easy now, thought Holly. Move in gently. “We can take care of it when you
wake up.” She slipped the thinnest wafer of magic into her upper registers; to
Artemis it would sound like the tinkling of crystal bells on every consonant.
“Sleep,” said Artemis softly, in case volume broke the word. “‘To sleep,
perchance to dream.’”
“Quoting theater now?” said Foaly. “Do we really have the time?”
Holly hushed him with a glare, then took another step toward Artemis.
“Just a few hours. We can take you away from here, from whatever’s coming.”
0 Comments