BETWEEN THE LOST COLONY AND THE TIME PARADOX
When Artemis Fowl Affair seemed to be over, back when he was twelve, plenty of eyebrows were raised as he was to be sung as the hero who helped suppress the Goblin Rebellion. But even that was not to be the end; far from it. A solemn promise of friendship helped stall his own greedy interests to exploit The People. We are talking about Fowl, who of course had a few had a few cards to play.
The weapons confiscated from the time of the Fowl Manor siege were salvaged and thoroughly put to use – for a bit peaceful purpose- soon to be a not so peaceful enterprise.
The Fowl kid managed to build what he called the 'C Cube' which appeared to be a supercomputer by the mud men "tin – can" standards. Jon Spiro would be able to outsmart his arrogance, (where was I at that time? Oh! The priceless expression!) but The People would unwillingly help him in his retrieval attempt and now seeing him as a true threat who nearly compromised their identity and subject him to a mind wipe to erase him of his memories pertaining to The People (Foaly would never admit but I am sure that he stole the 'section cut-out' idea from one of my 'HyperPsych books', you can buy those, they are amazing!)
Not only was the Fowl kid first one to beat The People out of the 'Time Field-Bioweapon combo' – The Ace in the Hole – but also the first to have made a clever arrangement to regain his complete memories – which to my utter disappointment proved beneficial for The People, in hindsight that is – who helped in stopping the hideous plans of Opal Koboi and a year later helped in the rescue of the Eight Family from the doomed island of Hybras.
And Alas! My area of knowledge of the exact planning and the current deviltry in which the teen is now involved is lacking but I will not be wrong to say that this is merely a beginning of a journey from which there is no return! We have to keep our guard up for we never know whether his eyes might run so deep enough to be able to read this very article!
Anuvius L. Cumulus
President of the Psych Brotherhood
Underground 4mi, Pennsylvania Street,
Washington D.C., U.S.A.
THIS SCENE CONTINUES FROM THE LAST PAGE OF LOST COLONY
"Twins?!" Artemis Fowl The Second found himself with weakened knees and grabbed the setee for support.
Butler's Spartan habitat did little to calm his astonishment and found himself back again staring deep into his eyes as if it were a farcical joke.
Apparently, it was not.
"Ms. Fowl, I have news that you may find hard to believe, I will be at the Fowl Manor within three hours."
Butler was in no hurry to make them worry for his mental health and firmly believed that they would not believe something of this magnitude.
Now watching Artemis he felt melancholic –completely against The Code; Madam Ko would have had him scrub off his Blue Star Tatoo for such behavior – but he knew better.
"Shall we?"Butler was already out of the door as Artemis felt him being pulled out of the small house.
"Butler, old friend – window boxes?"Artemis had regained a bit of his lost composure."Seriously?"
"You have better questions to answer. Let us begin with your fourteen year look,"
"I am sorry Butler for what I did and I know no reparations are enough but I knew that the only way to save everyone and Hybras was me to take the bomb with me – where of course it either might had instantly exploded or went into stasis – which it nearly did thanks to the nil correlation of time stream it gave us a five hour countdown but we had around six minutes before us to transport the whole island back to our time."
He knew better than tell that the old warlock had not expected to see this side of the century at all.
No need to give Butler more munitions.
Butler had rightfully questioned the levity of his stunt which had costed him a lot more than he could believe.
For three years he had kept everyone waiting.
Butler merely nodded – even though not the most elegant, sharp looking person currently – but gearing up to be so.
"I will tell them all." said Artemis
"Will help my reputation, if nothing else." Said Butler drily
1 WEEK LATER
HIS LIFE WAS GETTING INTO RIGHT GEARS – IF THE WORD 'RIGHT' IS RIGHT, WELL OF COURSE IT IS ARTEMIS FOWL THE SECOND WE ARE TALKNIG ABOUT.
The first day of arrival was something he would never forget.
Now a week had passed and there was someone else he had not corresponded with who was eagerly waiting for the news. It was not that his hesitation was unaccounted for.
"It is the blasted puberty" he had said
Now he was sitting in Casanova Café in Italy with – of course Earl Grey Tea – savoring.
CASANOVA CAFÉ, ITALY
Opposite to him was a girl – fifteen (soon to be sixteen) who was glaring at our unfortunate protagonist, (why of course) the juvenile genius (for he self – relinquished the previous title given by The People who knew him well) for information.
"You spent only a few minutes there! Do you have any idea how worried sick we all were for three years!" was the very first thing she had said.
Evidently silence followed as Artemis Fowl replied, with a sardonic smile as if to say 'Your fault'.
It had the intended impression because both of them had not forgotten. For Artemis it was not hard to remember but for Minerva it was hard to forget. She had spent months altogether to re-weave her research and calculations from scratch to help find his frien- acquaintance in the time stream until Butler coaxed her to stop.
He said he will return and therefore he will
At that time she was much unimpressed by the explanation but as her visits turned lengthy and frequent Butler filled her up with stories of his adventures with The People which (of course) seemed way too unrealistic. He told her how Artemis had decoded The Book and separated The People from their gold and even returned half of it! And all the other adventures and misadventures they had embarked upon. Much to her solace she found herself becoming more patient.
She was soon to be sixteen.
"Artemis, now you are a year younger than me, right?" said she before any other remark that could come would resend her on another guilt trip.
Artemis was caught off-guard by this remark and blankly stared at her. Sure she was right. Week ago she had been twelve and now stood a bit taller than him – no (of course not), stood only as tall as him.
"So it would seem." Managed Artemis with a tinge of uncertainty in his words.
Minerva had to smile. Not only was he playing hot shot when they first met but now was ready to stammer if drilled more upon the topic. Mercifully, she decided not to.
"These three years have been relatively uneventful Artemis. But now that you are back I think life will become a bit more interesting."
"A couple of problems will not hurt the mental faculties, and I should apologize for my decisions I made ." said Artemis subconsciously switching to Lecture Mode.
Artemis had felt a newfound emotion – a 'bond' at this current stage – (later to develop) towards Minerva Paradizo. His general level discussions on physics and psychology were only with veterans who had spent nearly half century researching and were as old as they could get and though proved satisfactory but in hindsight always served as a solemn reminder of his unique intellect.
Now apparently, he did not know whether it was the scientist in him or the teen in him that felt attracted to this lovely girl.
I am not alone.
'lovely'! – he nearly gasped astonished at his mental thought. What next? Identity crisis?
Minerva was an excellent reader of body language and had stunned (if not petrified) veteran psychologists by explicitly and accurately understanding the thoughts of mental patients who had been labeled 'Gone Cases' years ago. Recently patients in Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital had drastically decreased.
But it did not take a genius brain to analyze the emotional change on Artemis' face – which was most unnatural – he almost looked stupid compared to his natural mature look. But it was gone as soon as it had arrived.
"A time tunnel" began Artemis "is created by seven demon warlocks and uses a massive source of energy – convert it - and utilize it to open a time channel.
Our makeshift group consisted of the only surviving demon warlock – whom you saw – Qwan from ten thousand years ago, N°1, Captain Short, me and Leon Abbot – who had the mind of a warlock Qweffor fused within him thanks to Abbot's moronic stupidity.
We used the bomb as our main energy source and if I may – the volcano as an auxiliary source and transported the entire island to the present. The warlocks were designated to control magic while me and Captain Short were designated to decide the 'when' and 'where', respectively. Do you have any questions?"
She did.
"If you are telling the truth, I find it hard to believe that you landed in the intended part of millennia at all. The reason I failed to draw out any means to bring you back was the time stream itself. Its entropy is so vast that a human mind cannot begin to contemplate. Even for you Artemis which is why magic is a necessity to begin such a contraption. Even then it has a whole lot of variables. You yourself had a change of eye colour.
Had there been no tinge of concern melded within her words Artemis would not had hesitated to embark on his 'sarcastic-coup-de-grace' debate setting but now he visibly hesitated.
A great deal of embarrassing hesitation.
He took her hand – which caught her off-guard – and put his finger at a cut mark (which he guessed must be from a surgeon's knife) and said "Heal".