DISCLAIMER: No, Artemis Fowl and all the characters whom Eoin Colfer included in his wonderful trilogy are not mine.
A/N:
Okay, I can't take it anymore. There are simply too many flaws in my fic "Artisan Cliff." One, I disregarded Eternity Code when I wrote it. Not on purpose. Eternity Code hadn't come out in the Philippines when I was well into the writing of Artisan Cliff.
Two, the title sucks. I'm terrible with titles. The title of this fic isn't much better, but at least it's better than Artisan Cliff, a title which I couldn't explain if my life depended on it.
Three, Artisan Cliff wasn't well-written. I admit it. Most of the chapters are too short, or too abrupt, or too choppy, or, as Nyghtvision mentioned, too full of unnecessary details.
Anyway. Here it is. The logical version, set after EC. Artemis Fowl doesn't have his memories. Mulch Diggums plays a vital role. And, of course, so does Lianne Ramirez.
A year after the wiping of Artemis Fowl's memories of the people.
PROLOGUE
(change and loose ends)
"Foaly!"
The centaur looked up as Holly burst into the Operations booth. He was munching on a carrot. "What?' he mumbled.
"Routine Fowl surveillance… and Foaly, he's back," Holly said anxiously.
Instantly Foaly grew serious. "He's discovered us again?"
Holly shook her head impatiently. "No, he doesn't even care at all about fairies or magic. Although he has been painting a lot of fairy pictures. Foaly – he's back to being evil."
"What are you talking about?"
"Remember how he was when we first came into contact with him? When he kidnapped me? Remember?"
Foaly thought of a pale youth with icy eyes and a voice that could send chills down any spine. A ruthless youth with no qualms about getting what he wanted. A despicable person. "Yes, I remember."
"Well, he's back to being that way," Holly said.
"How do you know?" Foaly asked, swinging around to face his computers, already calling up every file related to the current activities of Artemis Fowl. As he scanned the screen, he paused. "Oh."
"You see? I only found out when I entered – "
"Root said you weren't to enter Fowl Manor anymore."
"I was bored, and I still have an invitation," Holly snapped. "Will you listen? Foaly, he's holding the girl in the same room where he held me."
"Root told me a few months ago that I could stop checking up on Fowl," Foaly mused, his eyes flying over the words on the screen. Forgery. Theft. But, most alarming – "Kidnapping." The centaur shook his head.
"Artemis Fowl has kidnapped the daughter of a gangster in Hong Kong!" Holly glared at Foaly. "I think we owe it to the girl to save her."
"Tong Sheng Tu," Foaly said as his finger danced over the keyboard. "Or, quite simply, Cathy Tan." He snickered. "Chinese names kill me, they really do."
Holly darted forward and smacked Foaly hard, right on his head. The centaur gave a cry of pain, completely taken aback. Holly wasn't usually a violent person.
"You moron!" she yelled. "Artemis Fowl just kidnapped a human girl – the ransom he's asking for is ridiculous – and you're sitting there making jokes!"
"Holly, you're turning red," Foaly complained, rubbing his head. "If you keep this up, you'll be just like Root in a few decades."
The auburn-haired elf made an incoherent sound of fury and drew her hand back to hit him again.
Foaly raised his arms in surrender. "Okay, okay. What are you so upset about, anyway? So Fowl kidnapped a girl. At least he didn't kidnap you."
"Foaly," Holly said slowly, enunciating each syllable so he would understand how serious he was. "Artemis said that if we wiped the memories and influences of the People from his mind, he might again become that cold individual who kidnapped me and set an exploding whaler trap for Commander Root. And he was right."
Foaly looked at her warily. "So what do you want to do?"
"I think we should save the girl."
Foaly tapped a few more keys, and a picture appeared on the screen.
He dropped his carrot. "You're right. We did the world of Mud Men an injustice when we set Artemis Fowl loose on them."
On the screen was a picture of a chubby girl, not more than six years old, her smile angelic, her features cherubic. Her chinky eyes were dark and bright with childish intelligence.
Foaly pressed a button on a communications system which allowed him to contact Julius Root. "Hey, Julius."
The commander appeared on the screen, his face red, his expression annoyed. "This better be good, pony. And it's Commander Root to you."
Without preamble, Foaly said, "Fowl has reverted back to form."
Instantly Root's complexion purpled. "He's found us again?"
"No. But he kidnapped a Mud Girl for a ransom. The figure is astronomical."
Root visibly relaxed. "Well, then, let him be. We have nothing to do with it."
"Commander," Holly interjected, "I really feel we have a duty towards this girl."
"And why is that, Captain Short?" But Root was losing his cool again, his face slowly darkening.
Holly repeated what she'd told Foaly about Artemis, how they were responsible for changing him into a decent human being, and how they'd undone all that. Then she went in for the kicker.
"Commander," she finished, "Fowl kidnapped a six-year-old girl. An infant, by fairy standards."
"He's not a fairy," Root retorted. Then he sighed. "Even if we do have a moral obligation to help, we won't be helping, except indirectly. Do you understand that, Short? We can't risk triggering his memories. He'd become a hazard to us. We were practically at his beck and call."
"What can we do?" Holly asked softly.
On the screen, Root considered. Finally, he said, "What we decided a year earlier, when we wiped Fowl's mind. Our influence may be gone, but his family's still there. And from what I hear, your magic did them a lot of good, Short. Foaly says Fowl's parents have been doing good deeds left and right."
"What does that mean?"
"It means we're going to tattle on Fowl. We're going to tell his parents what their pride and joy has been up to, and let them talk to him."
Holly looked up, and something in her hazel eyes was infinitely pained. "He said Jon Spiro would be the last... Commander, if Fowl still doesn't release the girl and stop his criminal activities?"
"We leave him alone, Captain Short. We leave him alone."
-------)---{}---(-------
Artemis sat in the study, feeling very much like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His mother paced in front of him, quite upset. His father had even forgotten to put on his prosthetic leg, and because of that, he simply sat across Artemis, and the look on his face was one that Artemis only remembered seeing some years ago, when he invested in a project that went bankrupt.
His parents stayed with him for a long time. Sometimes they talked to him in reasonably calm tones, sometimes his mother started crying and blaming herself, sometimes his father lost his temper completely and yelled about greediness and heroism and good deeds.
In the end, they decided to punish him by separating him from Butler. To his own astonishment, Artemis was completely appalled by the idea. At first he tried to pretend he didn't care, then he told his parents he was sure they weren't that heartless, then he threatened to assassinate little toddlers if they sent Butler away, and when none of that worked, he flat-out begged. He couldn't remember doing anything so degrading.
(Juliet, who was passing outside, couldn't resist a bit of eavesdropping. She was absurdly touched, on behalf of her brother, and she decided she'd tell him what Artemis was doing for him before she left for a wrestling career in America tomorrow. All of Madame Ko's rules about never getting too attached to the Principal aside.)
His mother caved in first. She agreed to let Butler stay.
But things were going to change around this house. Both his parents were equally determined about that. There would be change.
Artemis didn't argue. In truth, he had only kidnapped the little girl on a whim, out of frustration, when after months of searching, he couldn't find a single clue as to why he had awoken one morning with mirrored lenses in his eyes. Out of respect for his parents' newfound goodwill towards the human race, he had resolved to limit his criminal activities only towards people who could stand to have a few million dollars stolen from them, and Tong Xie Zhao, his victim's father, was quite the ruthless, wealthy criminal. His only weakness was his daughter… and Artemis hadn't hesitated to take advantage of that.
He had, to his consternation, felt incredibly guilty about kidnapping little Tong Sheng Tu, and in a way, he was relieved to tell her that she was going back to her parents, to her doting father. For some reason, he was getting tired of his constant drive to accumulate more wealth. If he was honest with himself, he had gotten tired a year ago, but the family motto spurred him on. Aurum Est Potestas. Gold is Power.
-------)---{}---(-------
Later, when Artemis Fowl, Junior, had been forced by his father to release Tong Sheng Tu – or Cathy Tan – and he was being given a good, old-fashioned scolding by Angeline Fowl and Artemis Fowl Senior, Foaly emerged from the cocoon of his intense study of the Fowl Files since he had stopped checking some months ago.
"We left a lot of loose ends, Holly."
She shook her head and listlessly toyed with her helmet, her gaze focused on some faraway point. "No, we didn't."
"Jon Spiro, for one."
"He's in a mental institution."
"He keeps rambling about Fowl and black magic," Foaly said. "Soon Fowl might find him."
For the first time since an untraceable call had been placed to the Fowl Manor, informing Angeline Fowl that her son had managed to hold a six-year-old girl captive a few rooms below, life and interest flooded back into Holly's face. "Why is that?"
"Because Fowl's already found Arno Blunt."
"No," Holly breathed. She recalled how Butler had, making use of invisibility, scared Arno Blunt, hired thug and bodyguard extraordinaire, into confessing all of his crimes.
"Blunt recently confessed to the murder of a man named Butler in a restaurant in Knightsbridge, London, a crime which he says he committed a year ago," Foaly said sourly. He didn't like it when he forgot little details, but he had been so eager to pit his decoding skills against Fowl's ability encrypt his diary entries that he had completely forgotten about Arno Blunt.
"That didn't trigger all their memories?"
"No. There are more Butlers in the world than you think. But it sure triggered Fowl's suspicions. He thinks someone is monitoring all his movements, although from what I can tell, he gave up trying to search for that elusive someone – ahem, us – around the time that he started making records of his plan to kidnap the little Chinese girl. And they can all sense that Butler's aged, somehow."
"What did you do?"
"I've hacked into the human intelligence agency files, and I changed Blunt's description of the Butler he killed into one that will fit a lawyer in Washington, who joined the missing persons list at around the same time Butler was shot. Adrian Butler was five feet and eight inches tall, he was thick around the waist, and he was blond haired and blue eyed. No idea what happened to him, but that should send Fowl off the track." Foaly paused. "And I deleted from all records any mention of Artemis Fowl, or a vampire youth, by John Spiro or Arno Blunt."
"Looks like you've saved the day again, Foaly," Holly said.
The centaur was relieved to see that the elf's mood was lifting. He chewed on a carrot and spoke around it. "Actually, there's a particular loose end that really worries me."
"What is it?" Holly asked.
"Muclh Diggums," Foaly said slowly.
"He's in prison," Holly pointed out.
"He's trying to find a lawyer to take his case for him. You know he's been writing to Elena Calyárina?"
Holly quickly attached the name to the mature, sophisticated elf who was one of the most popular and skilled lawyers in Haven – in fact, she had once represented a commander in Atlantis, who had been accused of embezzlement. She snickered. "Why would Elena Calyárina represent Mulch Diggums?" (That's like Beethoven taking an interest in Britney Spears, but neither Holly nor Foaly would understand that.)
"I don't know, but if she does, I guarantee you she'll get him off," Foaly grumbled. "I've seen Calyárina in action, and she's good."
Holly shrugged. "Mulch's case will be tried at least a decade from now. You know a review of his case will be agonizingly slow, seeing as how he's offended a Commander, jeopardized the Fowl affair, and stolen some of the Council gold and all."
Foaly snorted. "If Calyárina agrees to represent him, he'll be facing the Council for his trial in three years, at most."
"Calyárina will never represent Mulch Diggums, and even if Mulch gets off, he won't go to Artemis. He'll still be on probation. We'll be watching him."
Foaly took a large bite of his carrot. Sagely, he said, "You should never underestimate Mulch Diggums."
A/N: Well? This is the canon version of my old fic Artisan Cliff... please review...
