Chapter 2

A few weeks later, Holly was called into the office of Commander Vinyáya, head of Section Eight. Foaly was also there, stamping his hooves nervously.

"Artemis Fowl is up to something," said Vinyáya. "What do you know about it?"

"As far as I know, he can't be up to too much," said Holly. "He's been confined to his home by his parents."

"Since when have his parents been able to control him?" Foaly asked. "We turned tracer satellites back on him ever since he came back with mysterious magical powers."

"The tracers show he's begun vanishing from his room at night and reappearing a few hours later," said Vinyáya. "We suspect he's doing it by magic."

"Maybe he's jamming your tracers?" suggested Holly. "He might not be going anywhere, just toying with you."

"There's more," said Foaly. "I just discovered an unauthorized program running on our computers, with equations similar to the ones we used to track demon appearances."

"Well, he did say he was working on a new theory of temporal physics," said Holly. "There was something about parallel time branches that could merge."

"That's it!" exclaimed Foaly. "The program seemed to be looking for alternate solutions. It treated the spell that took Hybras to Limbo as a variable, and set up the case where that spell failed."

"As if Abbot had succeeded in stopping the transfer completely, instead of just causing the warlocks to be lost?" Holly asked.

"That would be a huge change in history," said Vinyáya. "The demons could have been captured by mud men, and who knows what would have happened after that? All the faerie people would have been compromised."

"Exactly," said Foaly. "According to some of our researchers, our timeline is only one of many possible. Artemis may have found a way to access another timeline."

"That would be extremely dangerous," said Vinyáya. "Section Eight must investigate. Holly, we need you to search Artemis' room."

"What?" said Holly, "I don't have an invitation. He said he'd keep an eye out for me, but that hardly counts."

"We have something better," said Foaly. "During the time Artemis was missing, Artemis Fowl Senior sent out an email to his contacts: 'If anyone has information about what happened to my son, please come to me at any time.' That was never taken back."

"You were with Artemis in Limbo so you certainly qualify," said Vinyáya.

"I don't like spying on Artemis," said Holly. "I owe him my life."

"If Artemis is meddling in time it could wreck the future of Haven and perhaps the whole world," said Vinyáya. "If you don't do it I'll have to send someone else, someone who may be less sympathetic to him."

"All right, I'll do it," said Holly reluctantly.

And so it happened that the following night Holley entered Fowl Manor in shielded LEP armor, just after the tracers said Artemis was gone.

"I found a notebook with pages of encrypted notes on his desk," said Holly into her helmet communicator.

"Flip through it," instructed Foaly. "The helmet can scan them and transmit the images. Our computers here will crack the code."

Holly did this. Then she noticed several small copper-colored spheres in a box at the corner of the desk. She picked one up. It had a button on top.

"What do you think these are?" she asked.

"Be careful," said Foaly, "It may be an alarm or a bomb. Scan it for us and then put it back gently where you found it."

Suddenly there was a shimmer in the air.

"Holly, get out of there fast! Sensors indicate Artemis is ret..."

It was too late. The portal by which Artemis was returning pulled in Holly and she was sucked out of the world.