Quote: "Commence deleting," ordered Foaly. "But keep a copy. Sometime when I have a few weeks off I'm going to find out what makes this guy tick."
- Pg 303. Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code, US Edition
Disclaimer: I don't remember ever owning Artemis Fowl and Harry Potter, and I'm pretty sure that is not something one forgets easily.
In Memory of Mind
Foaly came across the disc by complete chance.
In truth, he had completely forgotten about it. Hey, it wasn't his fault. Between Artemis cheating the Memory Wipe and his and Holly's little trip in time and everything else in between, Foaly was lucky to remember to brush his mane, let alone find time to do it.
All in all, there was no shame in admitting that the little disc had slipped his mind when it vanished to the back corners of his desk. There was no shame in acknowledging that it had been out of sight and out of mind for years. No shame at all.
Foaly scowled at the minute, shiny disc in his hand.
Oh, who was he kidding? He had made a huge blunder. How could he have forgotten that he had made a copy of the mind of the only Mudman to ever succeed in obtaining fairy gold? Of the mind of the only Mudman to ever double cross the fairies and get away with it? Of the mind of Artemis Fowl II?
As clear as day, in his perfect script, the disc was labeled Artemis Fowl: The Memory Files.
"Oh Frond, I hope I'm not getting old." Foaly muttered, shuddering at the thought. He knew he was no longer in his prime, but he wasn't that old yet. He wasn't even close to the age of the stuffy Higher Ups who had taken it into their heads to order him to tidy up his work station a bit. Just because an intern had become comatose after getting in the way of a perilously stacked pile of equipment.
Foaly hadn't been too pleased with wasting time that could have been spent on more fruitful endeavors cleaning. But, he twirled the disc in his hand, since the order had led to the rediscovery of this little beauty, he'd have to remember to disable the bug he'd sent to their home computers. Later.
Right now he had two choices: he could follow orders like a good little centaur and go back to cleaning the desk, or he could watch the disc and find out what made a former criminal mastermind tick.
Foaly glanced briefly at the messy desk before turning back to the disc. Really, no choice there.
He trotted over to his computers, examining the disc along the way. For something that had been lost at the back of his desk for nearly a decade, it was in pretty nice shape. No scratches, little dust, zero damage from mold particles.
"Well, you aged nicely," Foaly informed the disc, as he inserted it into one of his many prides and joys.
Foaly loved every single one of his inventions, but this is one was definitely one of his favorites. It was his baby, his love, his cherished work of art. He had built it from scratch, like many of his inventions, but unlike the others, this one was still one of a kind. As in, there was nothing like it anywhere in the world. Above or below.
Foaly smirked as a faint hum filled the air indicating that the disc was being processed.
This machine not only had three dimensional enhancement and surround sound, but it took all the memories that were fed to it, analyzed them, and through a process that had taken him months to set up, presented the scene as accurately as possible to the time it had occurred. Meaning, he didn't see only through Artemis's eyes, but instead, with the aid of countless security cameras, videos, satellite images, and the Internet, he saw Artemis experiencing the memory. Sort of like a Mudman movie, only with better sound and quality.
It was, in the words of Holly, amazing and overly dramatic.
Hey, was it a crime for a centaur to have a little drama in his soul?
His masterpiece, the Memory Manipulator as he called it in private, beeped once, signaling that the download was complete. Data began flashing onto the screen at just the right speed for Foaly to read it and retain the information. Nothing particularly interesting, just the Mudboy's stats, family, and school reports. Nothing he didn't already know.
Foaly scanned the data, until he found something that looked even remotely interesting.
He clicked on a few memories and watched Arty replicate a DNA model, instruct the teacher, and order Butler around.
Boring. Boring. Boring.
Foaly rewound to the beginning of Arty's life, to when he was a two foot tall bundle of joy. A small boy with neatly combed hair and a scowl popped onto the screen. Foaly snickered. Ha, the Mudboy had been short. He chose the first memory he saw and sat back, ready to be amused.
It was four memories of Arty beginning annoyed at the entire world in general (apparently the boy had gone through his teenage angsting years during his toddler years), that something interesting finally happened.
One minute, little baby Arty was playing with his Rubric's Cube in the back seat of the car, an unknown Mudman at the front wheel. The next, Artemis was standing by the totaled car, wide eyed and paler than normal.
There was no memory of what had happened in between.
Foaly frowned and rewound the disc.
That shouldn't have happened. That couldn't havehappened. Sure, memories faded after time, especially for Mudmen, but the mind never forgot them. Ever. Not with a mesmer, which is what a Mudboy of that age would have gotten if he saw something he shouldn't have. A mesmer simply pushed the memory in question to the very back of the mind, speeding up the natural process of forgetting.
On the slight, very slight chance that a Memory Wipe had been ordered, and Foaly knew that none had been as he would have clearly remembered it and if he hadn't then his computers would have, something would have filled up the blank. A memory wipe did not wipe out a memory like its name implied. Rather, it blurred and pushed the memory to the furthest corners of the mind. Then nature would slowly have Artemis's mind conjure up something to fill in that gap. Something should have been conjured up to fill in that blank. There was no logical reason that should just leave that particular part of Artemis's memory empty.
Because once the mind recorded something, it could never be forgotten. That memory would forever be a record of what was felt, was seen, and was heard, at a particular moment. Even if a memory was no longer called upon, pushed back, unacknowledged, it was still there somewhere in the mind.
Foaly had made a copy of every single memory stored in Artemis's mind. There shouldn't be anything missing. And he had not made a mistake. He pushed that thought away before it had time to mature. Foaly never made mistakes.
On the screen, little Arty turned the cube in his pudgy little hands one last time, completing it. And then, he was on the street, next to the totaled car.
Foaly replayed it again, watching it intently.
Tiny pale fingers slide the white row into place and…there.
Everything flickered.
And little Arty was on the street, eyes wide and unfocused.
Trauma?
No, even trauma wouldn't completely wipe out a memory like that.
He studied the shot carefully, paying attention to not only Artemis, but to what was occurring around him. To Artemis's right lay the remains of the car that he had been traveling in. It was entirely destroyed, but not in the 'crashed' way, but in the 'exploded by a bomb" way. But Arty was fine, there wasn't a scratch, well visible anyway, on him, so it couldn't be that. A crash was got of the question, unless they'd run into a tank that had mysteriously vanished after slamming into them.
Turning away from the wreckage, the centaur studied the rest of the memory. There weren't any burn marks on the ground near little Arty, further ruling out his bomb theory, but there was much smoke, uprooted streets signs, and the odd crack in the street here and there.
Gas explosion? Nah, Arty'd be dead if that had happened.
The people around Arty though did seem to be behaving as though there had been one, running around with panicked looks on their face. None seemed to be particularly hurt, though a few had dark bruises on their faces. The more relaxed portion of the crowd seemed to be just standing and staring like—
Jackpot.
Off to the side, almost out of the frame, were a boot and a leg. A boot and a leg. And nothing connected to it. They were disappearing into thin air.
Foaly saved the image to his computer.
Apparently they weren't the first to mess with the Mudboy's mind.
FIN
You know, sometimes, when I'm daydreaming instead of listening to lectures, I feel sorry for the 'normal folk' in fantasy stories, especially those in HP and AF. Between wizards modifying their memories with wands and fairies wiping it with technology, it's a wonder the poor old muggles aren't all brain dead yet.
By the way, this is an oneshot. :D
See you all in two months!