Priorities

Minerva POV

'What's going on?' I asked, barely collected now, through the phone. There had been 30 seconds of radio silence and counting and I was getting edgy.

I was tempted to see if my phone ceased to work but I knew this would be just a useless motion born from stress that would only worry me more independently of what I saw, so I didn't!

Foaly was scanning the files when he stopped speaking. Maybe I should do the same.

With that, and a few quick clicks, I started scanning the files of the computer in order to see what was so important.

When I did I regretted it, and understood the radio silence, but mostly regretted it.

In front of me there was a multitude of pictures coming out of the files and feeling the screen before any of them could be studied properly. At first glance there was nothing in common. The background, angle, time and quality all deferred. Then some patterns started showing. There was always a black clad figure near the center. Then I started discerning details. There was always a teenager in a suit. He had pale skin that came in sharp contrast to the rest of his dressing and black hair that was pulled back in most of them.

I was almost certain about which person this was. To be exact the rational part of my brain was 100% certain but the emotional part had a grasp of what it meant for a person to have several pictures taken off by the government and tried to convince me to wait and see.

But all doubts were eliminated when I was shown the last picture.

I stared at the picture for one good minute, not even breathing, until the wheels of my head started working again.

'Oh mon Dieu!' I finally exclaimed

I wasn't there when the event took place but, from what I had been told this looked a lot like his "resurrection". There were two deductions that could be made out of this… and neither of them was good!

Firstly it meant that a satellite had been taken out of its orbit to follow one of the people in this picture, Probably Butler, for months after the original person that they watched supposedly died. This was well beyond a simple interest in Artemis's person. This was spying of the kind you would see on people that were theorized to be world-class threats.

Second was that for the last one and a half year they had pictures of a centaur and an elf. This isn't evidence beyond doubt but it is enough evidence for investigations to be conducted. And they had one and half year to conduct them.

Countries had fallen in less time.

Artemis would seem to have attracted very much attention and…

Wait, police was coming to his house half an hour ago! This means… Oh God!

I quickly got ready to call him when I remembered what he had told me.

Close the connection and leave no trace of it!

Knowing Artemis he would already be planning with the data he had. If the data changed then the plan would fail and I wouldn't only not have helped him but put him in a more difficult position and exposed my connection to him to the government, putting not only myself but her brother and father in danger too.

If it was only me I may but now…

Then I heard my name being called faintly. I searched around the room to trace the sound and found out it was coming from the phone which was on the floor.

I must have dropped it when I saw the picture. I thought. Even through this grim situation I managed an internal chuckle about not even understanding that it had fell from my hand even though I used the said hand for typing. The sense of lightheartedness disappeared as soon as it came and I quickly bowed down to grab it.

I put it in her ear and quickly replied.

'Yes, Foaly?'

'Holly here!' The voice was heard and before I could offer some quick, etiquette demanded, apology Holly rushed to continue. 'Minerva… have you seen what is inside this those files?' I asked obviously pausing to choose what to say.

'I hadn't until a moment ago. I opened them after you.' I said and paused 'I will guess you know what this means!' I continued with a dead serious tone.

'Yes! Artemis is in danger! But…' She paused again. This was getting annoying.

'Look I understand that you don't want to disclose too much to me ad that you don't trust me so much but seriously right now I worry more for our mutual…' I stopped. Did I have the right to call him a friend? I wasn't even certain there was an actual word for what he was to me in combination to what I was to him. 'Acquaintance.' I decided would be the certainly politically correct word in this case. 'So if you could stop choosing what to disclose and testing both my knowledge and my patience I would be reasonably grateful!' I said frustrated

'Look, although I don't really trust you, Artemis did and if anything he is objectively better at judging characters than I am. I have laid it to rest since you mentioned him. The problem here isn't a logical. It is emotional!' She said calmly but with an apologetic undertone, doubly surprising me. Both the tone and context were troubling but the most obvious problem with all of this was

'What do you mean it is emotional?' I asked

'It is in the way that you must carefully handle an emotionally charged civilian when you tell them that their needs isn't a priority!' She said coldly but I could feel the hesitation in her voice through the phone. And I couldn't care less.

'What do you mean he isn't a priority?' I said through gritted teeth practically fuming. I was certain that my face had gotten red as well as my whole face was burning.

'I mean that right now we have a person that will probably be in danger in the future while I have agents that are already in danger and in the hands of the enemy. They take priority.' She said but I could once again hear the hesitation but once again I didn't care. I couldn't believe her ears! Artemis's so called "Best friend" by himself put his life in lower priority than some unknown numbers.

Now if it was any other person my logical side would have prevailed and told me that I would have done the same. But right now my logical side was only there to reinforce my emotional side's whims and it was doing that splendidly.

'Artemis is also in immediate danger.' I said before even consciously understanding I did so.

'What did you say?' She asked obviously shocked by the news.

'I said,' I said dangerously quiet. 'Artemis is also in immediate danger. Interpol, the human equivalent of your LEP, is right now in his house, interrogating him at best and having already…' I stopped. I couldn't voice the possibility. I didn't have many people that I cared about. As was usually the case with people of my kind all my care was consumed in that short list and any and every person inside it got the worry and care deserving of a parent or a lover. So I couldn't voice the possibility. It would make it way too real. 'You get the idea.' I said finally.

Silence.

'I am sorry.' Was finally heard through the communication. The voice had nothing apologetic about it anymore. The voice was broken like it was trying to hold back sobs and it had anger inside it. I could feel that it was directed towards Holly herself 'Eight lives are more important than one and although we have the units we only have one hacker. I cannot risk anything going wrong!'

'What if I become the second hacker?' I said desperately

'I am sorry. I cannot trust my soldiers in the hands of a hacker of unknown skill. It isn't about loyalty anymore. I am sorry!' She said and with that she terminated the connection.

I couldn't believe this. This fairy was supposed to be Artemis's best friend and through all this she chose to ignore him.

I was fuming. I worked it though my brain a bit. I stood still. My eyes started burn. I blinked and tears came out. I reached a trembling hand to my face to see that I truly had been made to cry.

All because that low-as-dirt-IQ fairy wouldn't save a person that meant the world to me.

AND FOR WHAT? Some expendable little soldiers.

And then a thought was born.

You think you can just ignore me? Well let's see if my hacking skills deserved to be trusted with your troops, Holly!