Artemis Fowl: The Duplicate Effect
Opal Koboi just doesn't know how to quit. She's psychotic. And now that there are two of her, the world is within her grasp. Unless Artemis Fowl can figure out how to stop her.
a.n.
This is something I wrote almost immediately after finishing TTP. I don't think I'll work on it very much, but I might update once in a blue moon. I just wanted to share it.
Chapter One:
Havenly Delights
Havenly Delights, Haven City, The Present
Holly Short was uncomfortable. This was a sensation she was not very familiar with. In all her 100-some-odd years, she had barely ever been truly uncomfortable. Anxious, yes. Frustrated, incredibly. Awkward, without a doubt. But never truly uncomfortable.
The slinky white dress she was wearing dug into her in strange places and she longed to tug it out. It had been a gift from her mother, years before, when Coral Short had still harbored delusions that Holly might avoid the LEP entirely and go into some sort of socialite/business world. Every girl fairy needs a slinky white dress in her arsenal, the elder elf had advised, holding the garment bag up like a sugar-addicted child holding chocolate.
Holly had accepted the thing with as much grace as she could muster, and now she regretted it. It was utter torture. The material seemed to be trying to squeeze the air out of her lungs and force her chest into greater prominence while still looking delicate and feminine. And unfortunately, it managed to do that. She'd done a double take when she'd seen herself in the mirror.
But the travesty of a garment had a particularly irksome wire that was digging right into the soft flesh beneath her arm. Her fingers were itching to slide in there, to put something in between the spike and her skin. Most unluckily for her, present company would not have allowed such an unladylike thing.
She glanced across the table at her companion. She enjoyed his friendship, to be sure, but there was something in the way he looked at her out of the corner of his eye that made her feel uneasy. He was telling a story at the moment, and she truly wished she could pay attention to it. He was a magnificent storyteller, and she would have liked nothing better than to sit there actually enthralled in his tale, instead of just pretending to be.
Her mind kept drifting, far away from the table at which she sat. It drifted up, thousands of miles, and back about five years. Eight years, her conscience corrected her. Tonight was very important to her, the anniversary of a night that she had once considered the worst of her life. Now she could look back at that night, if not with fondness, then at least with appreciation of what it had brought to her.
That night had given her an altercation with a troll in Italy, a very angry Julius Root, a chance to fulfill the Ritual after four years of neglect, and her very first face-to-face encounter with one pasty-faced, sunglassed, ridiculously frightening Mud Boy. A boy who was now, without a doubt, her best friend.
As she stared across the table, only half listening to the story she was being regaled with and nodding and smiling in all the right places, her mind drifted to her last face-to-face encounter with that same boy. "I thought you were dead," she'd said to him. "Me too," he'd admitted. "Then I realized that I couldn't die, not in this time." "I presume you're going to explain that to me." Sometimes, she hated the genius. "Later." he'd responded. "Over supper."
She'd never held him to that promise, but she'd never forgotten it. Later. Over supper. She couldn't help wondering how it would be if he were the one sitting across the table from her now. She wouldn't be wearing such a horrific dress, for one thing. She probably would be in her LEP jumpsuit, or even her pyjamas. And she would probably be paying a lot more attention to him than she was to her current date.
He was looking at her, and she knew it was one of those times when she should laugh and flirt. So she did. Giggling, she reached over their plates of food and touched his hand briefly. "You're so funny," she murmured, fluttering her lashes subtly at him. The trick seemed to work; he blushed slightly and began a new story. She immediately tuned out. It was something about dwarfs, anyway. They weren't the loveliest of subjects.
They were at the most high-class restaurant in Haven, which is why she'd been forced to don the white silk trap of doom. The food before her was done up in a series of swirls and intricate carvings, and she could barely recognize it as the avocado it was supposed to be. She shovelled a dainty forkful into her cherubic mouth. It certainly didn't taste like avocado. But it didn't taste like anything, really.
Her thoughts slid right back to the importance of that night. Of how much she had hated the boy when he had first kidnapped her. Of how his cold blue eyes had seemed to glare right into her soul and cut it to pieces, even through the sunglasses. She shivered at the memory, and her companion broke off in the middle of his story to gaze worriedly at her.
"Are you cold?" he asked, compassion filling his voice.
"Oh! Oh no, not at all!" She cast her mind to the (rather one-sided) conversation they'd just been having. "Just . . That goblin thing. It's kind of unnerving, you know?"
He stopped shrugging out of his jacket and smiled widely at her, obviously impressed that he'd given her chills with his storytelling. She smiled back, trying to hide her distraction, and he ploughed on with his account.
Guilt gripped her stomach. She should never have agreed to go on this date. There was just no chemistry between them; no magic. She felt a little sick at how she'd struggled to come up with a cover for her shiver; not for his sake, but because she did not want him to offer his coat.
Would it have been so horrible? A little voice in her head mumbled. This was a voice that often whinnied at her, and she was positive her mind had supplied her conscience with the voice of the paranoid centaur, Foaly. She could imagine the tender expression he would wear if he could see her now. You're breaking his heart, Holly. Don't pretend. Trouble isn't such a bad guy.
No, she answered. But he's not the right guy. Though who the right guy might be wasn't something she put much thought into. In fact, that was a subject she tried to avoid as much as possible.
That's because, Foaly chuckled in her mind. You're afraid the right one is going to be Art—
She was interrupted by a vibrating in her right ear. Her comm was beeping at her; which meant she had a call. Of course, since she was on a date she had mostly disabled her comm. Only calls from one person were allowed through.
"Sorry Command— Trouble," she amended, catching sight of his just-call-me-Trouble expression. "I have to take this."
He looked slightly surprised — she guessed that no one had ever answered a call while on a date with him before — but nodded. She smiled vaguely and got up, moving a few feet away from the table before pressing her earpiece.
"What's the problem, Artemis?" she asked, more harshly than she'd intended.
"Stressed out, are we?" His smooth, amused voice sounded directly in her ear. The microphone she spoke into was a smooth, skin-coloured patch directly on her throat. Impossible to detect, as it were. A very useful invention, created through joint effort between Foaly and the human Artemis Fowl.
Artemis Fowl. Her erstwhile nemesis and current closest friend. After their first meeting (when he'd kidnapped her and held her for ransom), they'd been through all sorts of dangerous and ridiculous situations together, always seeming to get out alive at the last possible moment due to his ingenius plots and her uncommon military skill. They'd visited the Arctic, fought goblins, broken into two of the world's most secure telecommunications companies, stolen countless pieces of the Lower Elements Police's most valuable technology, and shifted through time — twice. They'd even swapped eyes; she now sported one of his blue eyes, and he saw through one of her hazel ones. You couldn't go through all of that with someone and not end up as friends.
"I'm a little busy right now, is all." He always seems to call at the wrong time, she thought. In the middle of an operation; right when I'm about to give a speech at the Academy; when I'm just sliding into a slime pool; and now on a date. He either has really good timing, or really —
"I've got bad timing, haven't I?"
That was another thing about the boy. He seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. All the time.
"Yeah well, you can't help it, I suppose." Way to be. Let him think it's alright that he consistently interrupts you at crucial moments. "Anyway, what's this about?"
"I was wondering if you were busy tonight," the boy said, casually. Holly immediately became suspicious. As soon as Artemis sounded casual, it meant that he wanted something. "Butler just received some new weaponry from a supplier in Xi'an that he wanted you to check out."
It appeared innocent enough . . . but Holly knew better than that. Nothing Artemis ever did was truly innocent. He always had some ulterior motive. Luckily, she had the perfect excuse.
"You know I can't," she mourned, sighing dramatically. "I don't have the power to get a surface visa on such short notice."
"Don't give me that," he chided, his voice smug. "I know you were given a perpetual visa. You can come up whenever you feel like it."
Her mouth dropped open. There it was. Her ace in the hole. The only thing that ever gave her a sense of power. Gone.
"How . . How did you know?" She tried to stop her voice from shaking. She had an idea where he got that information, and if she was right . . . Ooh, there'd be hell to pay.
He was right, of course. Due to Artemis' extensive aid over the past years, the Council of Elders had decided to make him a permanent contact above ground, the theory being that they would send an LEP official up to him on occasion, to ask for information or assistance, and in return he would receive hefty benefits (such as gold). Unfortunately for the Council, Artemis was smarter than they were. The gold, while a nice thought, was not what he wanted. What he wanted became clear when Corporal Lili Frond had been sent as a liason and he refused point blank to speak to her. The same thing happened with the next 18 fairies sent aboveground; all came back with the same response: "I will not liase with anyone who is not Captain Holly Short."
In the end, the Council agreed that Artemis' friendship was too great an advantage to lose, and so they had granted Holly with a perpetual surface visa. She could go up when she wanted, where she wanted, as long as the final aim of her trip was to meet up with Artemis.
"I have my sources, Ambassador Short."
Holly groaned. That was another thing. Due to her new 'duties', as the Council called it (though they all knew the visa was exactly what she wanted, and not a heady responsibility), they had stripped her of her old rank and title of Captain in the LEP and replaced it with the diplomatic position of Ambassador.
Which was why she had been able to go on the date with Commander Kelp in the first place. He was no longer her Commander. She was no longer a member of the LEP.
"I'm going to absolutely murder that centaur." she muttered, dully.
"Come on, Holly. It's not that bad, is it?" He actually sounded a little hurt — and it wasn't an overly-done emotion, either. "I mean, you get to spend as long as you want up here, in the fresh air under the moon. Isn't that worth having to spend a little bit of time with me?"
No, because that's not the issue. The issue is that you know, and now I have no excuse to stay away, even if it's against my better judgement to go see you.
He didn't wait for her answer. "Where are you, anyway? It sounds like you're at a restaurant." Of course, the microphone just had to be powerful enough to pick up the diners around her. "Holly . . ." he said, and now he sounded half-intrigued, half-terrified. "Holly, are you on a date?"
The way he said the word made her stomach churn. "I - I . . Uh . . . I - I . . . ." D'arvit. "I -I -I I have to go, Artemis. I'll call you as soon as I get home."
"Wait, Holl—"
But she terminated the call before he could finish. She was blushing fiercely as she fiddled with the controls on her comm so that all calls were blocked. Then she sat down, still blushing, feeling absolutely mortifed. Trouble was watching her, curiosity on his face.
"Was that the Fowl boy?" he asked, and there was a distinct edge to his voice.
"Yeah." She blushed deeper. D'arvit!
"Hmmph." Trouble looked away from her, scanning the crowd around them. She fiddled nervously with her fork and waited for him to say something. "What's he like?"
The question threw her off-guard. "Artemis?"
He nodded, still avoiding her gaze.
"He's . . ." She struggled to find the right words. "He's . . ." Incredible. "A brilliant strategist," she said, finally choosing a description. "You'd probably like him. He's got all the mental capacity to be an incredible commander, but he's so awkward and surly that he'd probably just be laughed at." She had to throw Trouble a bone — and it seemed to work. He preened a little at her words. "But despite that . . He's got some weird sort of charisma. Maybe because you know that he's always going to be right, so you can't help but . . . Trust him." Unless he lies to you, telling you that you caused a fairy plague that was killing his mother. Not that I'm bitter, or anything.
You're only bitter because you kiss—
Shut the hell up, Foaly! Get the heck out of my head!
This is your conscience talking, you know.
Trouble cocked his head to the side. "But . . . Was he always like that?"
Holly laughed. "Not at all. When we first met . . ." She shuddered. "He was horrifying. Cold, ruthless, prepared to do anything for money. He had no emotions, no morals. He would do anything for a price."
"And yet, you ended up friends?"
Holly felt the tiny hairs rising on the back of her neck. So that's where he was going. Trouble saw the human boy as a threat, and was trying to discredit him in her eyes. As if he could. Artemis has been a better friend to me than Trouble ever was.
She decided to show him this by telling him something that neither she nor Artemis had ever told anyone. She dropped her eyes to the table and bit her bottom lip. "When we were in Limbo, I died." Trouble's eyes widened in shock, and she continued. "I had no magic left, and Leon Abbot shoved a sword right through me. The last thing I saw was Artemis glancing once at me, and then looking away, leaving me to die." Her eyes were actually swimming with real tears when she looked up at him. "But what he was actually doing was counting. And when time jumped back, he risked everything — the future of Hybras, No.1 and Qwan's lives, and his own safety — to send a shot into the past. He saved my life . . . effectively brought me back from the dead. It was then when I realized that he'd truly changed. Even when he helped us capture Opal for no fee, I didn't truly believe that he wasn't the same, cold-hearted boy I'd met so many years before. But when he had to concentrate on counting, instead of running to my side like he wanted to . . . it was the hardest thing he ever had to do. And he did it to save me."
The expression in Trouble's eyes was one of pure misery. Holly knew it wasn't because her story had touched him. She could almost hear his thoughts ticking to the inevitable conclusion that he was nothing to her compared to Artemis Fowl. What had Trouble ever done for her at risk to himself? Nothing. He'd reprimanded her at length because that was his job. He'd watched her back a few times . . . but that had also been his job. Fowl had risked everything to save her, multiple times. Even though he'd also hurt her, lied to her . . . she still held the human in higher regard than her former Commander.
He said nothing for a long time, and Holly sat watching him, wondering whether she had made a mistake. No, he had to know. His plate of mushroom caps lay in front of him, forgotten, as he stared dejectedly off into space. Holly was just about to say something when he got to his feet and did up his jacket.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked, his voice rather dead-sounding. "I'll give you a lift home."
She stood up as well, smoothing down the skirt of her dress.
"It's fine," she told him gently, touching his shoulder. "I'll walk."
He nodded, tossed a tip onto the table and left without another word. She watched him sadly as he pushed past the restaurant's receptionist and strode out into the manufactured night of Haven City. A memory suddenly pushed to the surface of her mind, yet again from her last face-to-face encounter with Artemis. In another time, she'd told him.
"In another time," she whispered.
a.n.
Let me know what you think! I may be able to write more sooner if I get encouragement. ^.^