Artemis Fowl

A Pair of Them

Three days after Artemis's reappearance from limbo, Artemis sits at the Fowl Manor study and stars avidly at his two little brothers, Derrick and Kevin. Derrick and Kevin were identical except that each's branch of super intelligence was quite opposite. Derrick was the more practical, but had a much smaller range of acceptance, while Kevin was sort of fantasy obsessed and would accept any truth as long as he saw it with his own eyes or had sufficient evidence to support it.

Artemis was still dumbstruck at the fact that his two year old brothers were both home-schooled and educationally at the rough equivalent of a third grader, at two years of age. Although, Artemis realized, he was probably that way when he was their age, it was just that he was brought up under different regulations. When he was educated, he went to a private school for the extremely intelligent and started school at a much older age, four years old and skipped the first grade with out so much as walking through the door to his class.

Derrick and Kevin both had Artemis's raven colored hair, and pale skin, although they had calm eyes and a different face, theirs were longer and smoother than his and they were much more active. Kevin was staring determinably back at Artemis, while Derrick was fidgeting around uncomfortably as if disturbed by Artemis's incessant stare.

After a few minutes, Kevin, who was staring directly into Artemis's eyes, made a simple statement, is was simple but it still shook Artemis slightly.

"You have two different colored eyes. Why?" he had said.

Well, Artemis had neglected to get a colored contact lens to cover up his mismatched eyes yet so, he was altogether rather unnerved that a two year old had noticed. He replied, "I'm not sure as to the cause, it is rather eccentric, as you have undoubtedly noticed, though I don't always like to talk about it, so would you keep that information to yourself in future."

"OK, Arty!"

Artemis flinched, he could barely stand the use of his pet name when his mother used it, now his twin brothers were using it! Derrick piped up.

"Why are you staring at us so, we aren't weird or anything."

Artemis blinked; he was surprised by the directness of his sibling's question. Then again, he had been most obviously direct as well whenever he was involved in a conversation with anyone of potential.

He stood up and left the room. Butler, Artemis's former bodyguard and current steadfast friend was sitting on an ancient Victorian stool in an anxious fashion.

"How'd it go Artemis?" he asked.

"Very strangely indeed, I'm still in shock really. Three years! And in limbo it felt like an hour or two at the most!"

"Shhhh…" Butler advised, "The twins are not above eavesdropping just yet, and they have their brother's gift of doing so with the utmost cunning."

"Thank you Butler, but to think that, not only was I in limbo for a few hours by my reckoning, but the actual time equivalent from that bomb's timer says that I actually aged the three years in limbo without even noticing. To think, four days ago, I was 15 and planning a hostage exchange, and now, I can vote… legally, I can drive… legally, and I… I… just don't believe it." Artemis said dryly. Lately, Artemis had miraculously developed a moderate sense of humor and had been in touch with Holly to keep up with what was going on "downstairs" (his parents were under the intention that Artemis had 'met' someone) as well as on the planet's surface.

Butler frowned, "you know Artemis, even though you are allowed to do all those things, you'd better be more careful about how and when you do them now, if you're planning to do anything… er… that is disagreeable with the law, because while you were away, we have developed a little more, not that it should prevent any difficulty for you I'm sure, in the field of crime detection and prevention, I've kept up so you can review my sources' information on the subject but, several new devices have been put into play that render car license plates and the like quite unnecessary."

"No, Butler. I am done with infringing on the law. Here and there, I may tweak a few, but no more than that. I am determined to try to follow up so that I can lead my double life successfully. You know I have put in for a request that the People make a special chute to the Manor Grounds, sponsored carefully by my various accounts and stores of gold world wide." Artemis said quietly.

Artemis and Butler stared at each other for a while before wordlessly straying to the computer study. Upon entry, Artemis saw clear signs that the twins had already started their first attempts at simple mechanics. Strewn all over the large table in the middle of the room, were several small devices. They looked like small spiders with three long legs and where the legs met in the middle was a small capsule where a tiny seat was with a tiny control stick and a guinea pig wearing a strange little mind reading device on top. The gizmo was roaming around as if the guinea pig was controlling it, but the way the guinea pig was scrambling around inside the capsule suggested that the walking pattern the robot was following was pre decided.

Artemis carefully moved the robots to the side to clear a small space where he could call up his holographic computer hidden in the secret compartment in his seat. He pulled out the small dome, placed it on the table and pressed the glowing silver button on the back. The button glowed red and a hologram display appeared, keyboard and all. The stolen fairy technology was where Artemis stored all his secret files, the keyboard and touch screen display would only work to Artemis's own pulsing fingerprints and DNA make-up.

Artemis pulled up several screens relating to his fairy activities. His Internet was WiFi pirated from Foaly the Centaur's fairy internet connection. This way, Artemis was always aware to the goings on with his friends below.