Dudes and laydeez: All right, so it's been a little while since the last, pitiful update, but I figure I'm still all right... I said this would be finished before Christmas, yes? Well, it will.
Even if the last chapter is posted on Christmas Eve.

Title: The Sharpest Lives Chapter 4 [Okay, this is getting a little ridiculous now]
Author: lovechild1403

Disclaimer: As mentioned countless times before, I own neither Artemis Fowl (a work by the talented author, Eoin Colfer), nor the song this story is named after (The Sharpest Lives - My Chemical Romance). Got it?
Word count: 1,706

A/N: For all the information you could possibly want about this story, please see previous chapters. I'm pretty sure you don't need reminding about the medallion and other inane facts every time you read this. You're smart people, I'm sure you can figure these things out for yourselves.
Oh, and I know that the Mesmer is only supposed to work when eye contact can be established but let's just say it can be done without for the purposes of this story. Maybe it can be done, but with a little extra magic? I don't know, I'm not a fairy expert.

Tina hated her job usually; it was extremely dull being a receptionist at the best of times, but when you worked for a conferencing company...? That tripled the amount of boredom you suffered throughout the working day. It was just answering phone call after phone call, telling people rates and opening hours and - argh! It was extremely frustrating.

However, Tina found herself thinking of boredom as a far-off, much loved dream today, as she struggled to keep up with the influx of calls and the sheer number of people screeching at her and demanding information. As if she knew what the hell was going on; she was even more in the dark than the rest of them, because she hadn't actually been in the room at the time of the supposed shooting.

"I demand that you call my bodyguard at once, young lady!" one man was shouting at her, slamming his fists down on the desk that separated them like he thought he was King Kong or something. "I would have brought Carlos here myself if I'd known there was going to be an assassination!" Tina's first thought was 'your bodyguard's name is Carlos?' and her second was 'if you'd known there was going to be an assassination, I don't imagine you would have come here at all'. However, she said neither of these things, instead opting for the bland, but all-encompassing:

"My apologies, sir, but there are other matters that need to be dealt with first. I'll carry out with your request as soon as is humanly possible." Her execution was perfect; polite but with a hint of almost-undetectable loathing and patronisation. People didn't usually pick up on these things when they were talking to a pretty, blonde receptionist; they assumed that she couldn't spell her own name and never suspected for a moment that she had four 'A' levels and a first-class degree in Information Technology.

"Hello, Campbell Conferencing of Limerick, how may I be of service?" To the casual watcher, the change would have been completely impossible to detect; a slight slackening of the mouth and a sort of dreaminess around the eyes were both indications that the Mesmer had been used. Tina was now under the control of a fairy. She listened for a moment and then nodded to herself and put the phone down. Hitching up her pencil-skirt, she climbed onto the front desk and adjusted the controls on her headset so that she could make an announcement to the entire foyer.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you could please make your way out of the building and congregate on the front lawn - if you would kindly leave space for the emergency services to arrive and under no circumstances should you re-enter the building." All eyes were on the blonde woman as she gestured calmly towards the door. "I repeat: please could you leave the foyer and congregate on the lawn. Do not re-enter the building." The babble had died down now and after a few moments of near-silence, the masses did as they were told, herding themselves into the outside world.

Tina then stepped down off the desk, as per her instructions, and walked down the hall to a supply closet on the right. She opened the door and was completely unsurprised to see a human adolescent, two elves, a dwarf and what appeared to be a giant in a suit. The aforementioned giant was also pointing a gun directly at her face, but this didn't seem to phase her at all.

"Please," she said scathingly, eyeing the gun with nothing like fear; "I'm a receptionist - I've had to deal with much worse than that." Butler cocked his head to the side before slowly lowering his gun and slipping it back into the holster beneath his jacket.

"Miss Hughes, if you wouldn't mind doing one last thing for us, that would be fantastic," Holly said, staring straight into the girl's eyes and smiling kindly. Tina nodded her head.

"Of course - anything I can do to help."

"How very obliging of you," Butler said sarcastically, but the combination of glares from Holly and Artemis quickly shut him up.

"Thank you, Miss Hughes. Now, if you could go to the mains CCTV panel and open the front, you'll see a small bundle of fibre-optic wires that shouldn't be there. I misplaced them earlier and I believe that's where they'll be. Would you mind retrieving that for me?" Tina nodded again and smiled.

"It's my job to help in any way I can," she said and turned to walk out of the door. Once she'd left, Holly turned to the others.

"Right - does everybody know what their part is in all of this?" Everybody nodded silently - there seemed to be a lot of very mild-mannered assent going on around here - apart from Mulch, who had suckered himself to the walls in an attempt to escape the upcoming events. Unfortunately for him, Holly noticed him before he could reach the air duct and, with one look at Butler, he was back on the floor in no time.

"I don't see what I have to do with all of this," he whined, his eyes flicking occasionally to the open doorway of the storage cupboard. Holly rolled her eyes.

"You came to help so you're going to help, all right? Besides, you're in the least amount of danger out of all of us," she said and before Mulch could protest, moan or bite her, Tina reappeared, holding Foaly's wonder-wire (a certain ex-LEP elf may have named it in her head) and looking rather obliging. Holly took it from her outstretched hand and pocketed it gratefully.

"Thank you very much, Miss Hughes - you may join the others on the lawn now and forget that all of this ever happened," she said smoothly, her voice thick with layers of magic.

"That's very nice of you," replied Tina, smiling at them all before exiting the room, presumably to do exactly what she'd been told and join the rest of the confused humans on the lawn outside. Of course, if anybody were to ask her where she'd been then she would have no idea, but it wasn't really an obstacle to her plan. Tina had been nice enough but worrying about whether or not people were going to think she was crazy was right at the bottom of Holly's list of priorities at that moment.

"So, Short - I'm ready to do my part," said Root gruffly, stepping forwards and saluting her. She bit back a grin, knowing that any sign of amusement from her would completely ruin the moment. She saluted back without a trace of irony.

"Sir? Let's get out of here." Root nodded sharply, both hands by his sides now, and slipped out of the room with a surprising amount of agility considering his age and general ability to fill a room with his presence. Holly supposed it was an authority thing.* She turned to Artemis and Mulch, the former of whom looked thoroughly prepared for the task at hand. As a matter of fact, she couldn't really think of a time when Artemis hadn't been prepared for any task. He was meticulous with every detail of everything that he did. Well, probably everything... She hadn't had a chance to test that theory yet. She shook her head, dispelling these unhelpful thoughts, and nodded to Mulch. He rolled his eyes and sighed in a long-suffering sort of way but she knew that he was secretly enjoying his part in all of this. She imagined that he missed the criminal way of life and, if outsmarting the new LEP commander was all he could get, then he was going to take it, and he was going to do his part with pride.

"C'mere, mud boy," he directed towards the Irish youth, who did as he was told, lying flat on his back on the floor next to the dwarf. In one surprisingly fluid movement, Mulch unhinged his jaw and scooped an unsurprised Artemis into his mouth. Coating him generously with multi-purpose dwarf spittle, the boy was then spat back out. The result of this rather strange display was that Artemis was now covered in a rapidly hardening cocoon all the way up to his shoulders and his eyes were drooping as his body began to react to the sedative in Mulch's spit.

"As good as this plan is... Holly," he said, not noticing the slight blush that tinged her cheeks at the sound of her first name coming from his mouth, "I must lodge a complaint that... I had to be completely submerged for... for any amount of... time..." And on that note, he conked out.

"Right." Holly turned to Mulch in full Plan Mode. "Diggums - onto Phase two." He nodded and walked to the wall of the spacious store cupboard in which they were residing. Using his thirsty pores to get a grip on the smooth, flat surface, he began to climb all the way up to the ceiling. Once he reached it, he turned slightly and made his way, upside-down, to a small vent above Holly's head and opened it with the practised ease of a criminal. He cackled and pulled himself inside, disappearing from sight.

"You know, I probably could just have lifted him to the ceiling myself," said Butler, who was making quite a good job of staying invisible considering his size. Holly turned to him and shot him a sly grin.

"Then he wouldn't have had the chance to show off now, would he?" Butler nodded in agreement before turning to his young ward, who was snoring gently in his cocoon on the floor. Snoring, Holly thought, amused; she would be sure to tell Artemis all about that when they got out of this. If they got out of this.

She shook her head to rid herself of any such negative thoughts and moved over to Artemis's prone figure, swiftly attaching him to her moon belt and preparing to switch it on. She took one last look at Butler, who simply inclined his head in the smallest of movements.

Time to get down to business.

*You have no idea how tempting it was to just add "Holly liked authority figures... Mmm..." but, after cackling internally for a bit, I thought it would be a little inappropriate and bordering on the ridiculous; things which for which I am renowned, but which have no particular place here. I'm in Eoin Colfer's sandpit, so I need to play nice with his toys.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that - I'd wager it was a little more substantial than the last instalment!

As usual, please review, etc. and I will give you hugs and love via those crazy ol' internet wires :)

H x