The Private Wound

Summary: Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man manages to trap him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

Author's Note: As usual, thanks are due to ilex-ferox. The Beta. The legend.


LEP Police Plaza, 7:23 am

"What in the name of Frond are they doing?"

The question came from Corporal Grub Kelp, who was watching a black-and-white camera feed streamed from an old LEP helmet that was resting on what looked like a coffee table. From the camera's rather limited viewpoint they could see the back of a dwarf ravaging the interior of a refrigerator, the profile of a human male squinting at a computer screen and, most importantly, the pretty female Major, sitting on a grubby countertop, toying dispassionately with the hem of her dress and occasionally glancing uneasily at a scene behind the camera. Every so often, their old Commander would walk in front of the camera, apparently drinking something foul judging by the look on his face.

Grub bit his lip. He had believed that Holly and Root were doing something vitally important elsewhere, from the agitated tones of both during the brief conversation they had had a few hours ago. But now, to see them sitting around and drinking - if his suspicions were correct - with none other than Artemis Fowl, he wasn't so sure.

"Corporal?" The techies were watching Grub carefully. "What do we do now?"

The younger Kelp cleared his throat nervously. Decisions larger than what to drink at Spud's Spud Emporium were best left to his brother, who was currently trapped in City Hall and relying on Grub to get him out of there. He clenched his fists. "The three fairies we can currently see have been positively identified as Major Holly Short, ex-Commander Julius Root and ex-convict Mulch Diggums. Right?"

"Yes."

"And do we have any idea what they're doing?"

"Drinking some LEPretrieval sim-coffee, from the looks of it," one of the braver techies responded, gaining a few strained smiles from his colleagues and the best I'm Not Amused look the Corporal could muster. It was common knowledge in Police Plaza that Grub Kelp made coffee for the retrieval division, and even more widely known that a dwarf's recyclings were generally more fluid.

"Hang on a minute," another nameless pixie said, pointing at the screen showing the feed from the helmet. "What are they doing now?"

A few moments of anxious keyboard-tapping ensued, during which Grub felt strangely nervous, and then the footage sputtered into life on the plasma screen in the middle of the room, the grainy quality reduced by running it through a quick clean-up program.

Grub swallowed nervously. Something big was definitely happening. Holly had moved from the countertop and had pushed the human away from the computer. Root appeared to be literally kicking Mulch Diggums out of the door and - Grub shivered slightly in recognition - Fowl's enormous bodyguard Butler momentarily blocked the view of the camera as he dragged an unwieldy shape out of the door with uncharacteristic alarm. Holly was still arguing with the boy Grub now realised to be none other than Artemis Fowl, and attempting to shepherd him away from the computer. Her face was contorted in anger and - was that fear?

The dumb show was put to an end by the reappearance of Butler. His barrel chest was heaving but his pace didn't slacken as he crossed the room and picked up both his charge and the LEP Major and hurried back out. The subterranean techies were left, astounded, watching footage of an empty room.

"What was that about?" Breathed a pixie to the left of Grub, but the question was lost in the collective gasp from the others watching the video as a flash swept the room, momentarily whiting out the camera footage. Silence followed this gasp, then panic gripped the room.

Grub, standing in the middle of the room, was completely nonplussed. Frantic elves darted between one computer and another checking readouts from screens that shimmered and changed before Grub could read the first line. He gathered from the general attitude in the room that the whiteout had been caused by more than a chance reflection as the sun rose, but his attempts to collar a techie and find out exactly what had happened were failing.

The technicians could have swarmed all night trying to figure out the cause of the white flash, were it not for an internal mail message for Corporal Grub Kelp. It was colour-coded red meaning urgent asGrub well knew, although not from personal experience. His brother Trouble got the lion's share of red messages.

As one, the techies swivelled to look at the Corporal. One helpfully volunteered a laptop so that Grub could open the message; a recorded video clip. Fingers shaking with adrenaline, he pressed 'play'.

Haven City Hall

Rhodius Bentwood watched as the seeds of suspicion he'd planted took root in the minds of the frightened occupants of City Hall. Took Root, he thought, that's almost a joke.

He chose to sit with Wing Commander Vinyáya, although conversation was limited as she snored on the tabletop. He didn't mind. The view from their corner of the room was enough to keep him occupied.

And what a view it was. The LEP's golden fairy, Trouble Kelp, had resorted to climbing onto the bar top with his hands raised, palms facing the increasingly hysterical crowd in the universal gesture of Don't shoot me. Bentwood almost felt sorry for the elf: he hadn't done anything wrong, just followed a little too closely in his commanding officer's footsteps. The sight of that obnoxious centaur, however, stiffened his resolve. As his employers so often reiterated, the only way his own scheme would come to anything was if theirs succeeded. It required a lot of patience, but after all his years of waiting, patience was second nature to the pixie.

They were pulling at the would-be Commander's trouser hems now; paranoia giving way to anger. It was like being at a Riverbend concert. Bentwood frowned. If he let this carry on much longer, there was no doubt some of the more panic-stricken guests at the ball would be calling for Kelp to be burned at the stake. Now seemed to be perfect for one member of the LEP to make a sudden breakthrough.

Surreptitiously he opened his communicator - carefully protected from his electromagnetic pulse by a highly specialised case designed to mimic a Faraday cage. He sometimes wondered whether the centaur realised how easy his systems were to beat when you thought like a Mud Man.

The little device flashed once as it recognised Bentwood's fingerprint on its omni-sensor. Then it popped open and displayed a small, gnommish menu on its crystal screen. He pressed a button.

Call Sool?
The device asked.

The pixie's finger hovered above the keypad for a moment. Confirm.

Pskov, Russia

Tarasov's apartment was small and had a forlorn sense of neglect about it. Rather like Tarasov himself, Holly thought. Piles of yellowing science journals rose from the floor like stalagmites, to meet the real stalactites that grew from the ceiling, fed by a five-year infestation of damp.

Butler commandeered the far side of the apartment, where he was proceeding to bind Tarasov's hands with masking tape. The rest of the group remained near the filthy kitchen, although all that separated them from the prisoner was a plastic countertop with an algae-covered fish tank tucked in the corner. Walls were at a premium in this apartment block.

Mulch, naturally, went straight to the Russian's fridge and began to empty it systematically. Root scowled at the dwarf before collecting a chipped glass and filling it with tap water. It was a habit Holly had noticed before; the Commander liked to keep his hands busy during times of stress, hence the fungus cigars. However, neither of these actions held Holly's attention for very long. Upon entering the apartment, Artemis went straight to Tarasov's computer. It was an old model, the off-white colour of computers in the mid-90s, with many more modern silver or black components added on; an odd patchwork of technology.

"What are you doing?" she asked, watching as the boy brought the computer out of its standby mode, drumming his fingers impatiently on the desk.

He didn't answer for a few moments, chewing his lip as he figured out the pass code. The computer beeped once as he typed the right numbers and the screen flickered and changed, showing a black desktop image with folders littered on the left hand side.

"Artemis?"

He looked up with a start at the elf, who had repositioned herself on the countertop. "I'm searching his computer for anything relevant. I'm sure once Haven is back to normal, Foaly can detonate an data charge in the hard-drive, but for now I just want to know how he got into Fowl Manor."

Holly nodded. She knew how much the attack on his home must have shocked Artemis, and understood his desire not to see it happen again.

She appreciated, too, how necessary it was for Butler to interrogate Tarasov for information, but that didn't mean she agreed with it. She settled onto the counter and fiddled with her skirt hem, occasionally shooting dissatisfied looks across the room.

A few uneasy minutes passed. Butler had not yet started questioning Tarasov, preferring to sit in front of the Russian, perfectly still, and leave the man's imagination to do all the work. The only sound, therefore, was the persistent clicking of Artemis's fingers on the old computer keyboard.

"Wait a minute..." The noise on the keyboard stopped. All three fairies turned to look at the boy.

"What is it, Artemis?" Holly asked, aware that whatever must have stopped the boy in his search couldn't be good. He was squinting at the screen, as though what was written there would change if he looked hard enough.

"There's a file here named...'Novikov'."

Mulch looked unimpressed. "So?"

Artemis ignored the question, looking over to Butler who had turned away from the captive at the mention of Novikov.

"Is it encrypted?" Butler asked.

There was silence as he turned back to the screen and clicked on the file. Holly had no idea what the importance of the name 'Novikov' was, but from the way the two humans were acting, it was serious.

Once the file was opened, several sub-folders appeared, each distinguished by a single number from one to seven. Artemis frowned and moved the mouse to select the folder marked '1'.

Before he had chance to click the icon, however, the screen went black. He stared at it for a second, his rational mind resisting the urge to slap the monitor. He'd been inches away from revealing potentially crucial information about the man who held his father's freedom to ransom.

The urge was quelled rather quickly by the appearance of a series of numbers on the monitor. The group stared at them in confusion, for a moment, when they began to change.

Butler was the first to realise what was happening. His body seemed to have sensed it even before his mind began to do something about it. A countdown. He manhandled Tarasov into a fireman's lift, the latter swearing fluently in Russian. He shouted to the others, although Root and Holly had already begun to move. The Commander stumbled over to the dwarf, who seemed reluctant to abandon the contents of the 'fridge.

"But Julius - !" He didn't get much further than that. Root lifted his foot in a kicking motion, and Mulch got the message. Dwarves take any threat to their hindquarters seriously.

Holly, meanwhile, was having more trouble attempting to drag Artemis from the computer. As soon as the countdown began, he'd pulled the computer station away from the wall and was frantically analysing the wires and circuit boards.

"Artemis, we don't have time for this!"

"It's not that...there's no explosives here...I don't see what could possibly happen at the end of the countdown."

Holly gritted her teeth. He certainly picks his moments.

"Artemis!" She shouted again, her voice straining on the edge of panic as the numbers ticked past in the corner of her eye.
They only had a minute left. It's not enough time.

"Holly, it's another of Tarasov's schemes. To take our eyes off the proverbial ball."

"Would you bet your life on it?"

He hesitated. That was all she needed. She grabbed his arm and started to pull him towards the door, where Butler had reappeared. "I thought you were right behind me!" the Eurasian said, scooping the two unceremoniously under each of his massive arms. There would be time to chastise them both later; living was the priority at the moment.

The trio hurtled down the stairs faster than Holly thought possible without mechanical intervention. Not for the first time, she found herself admiring the bodyguard's proficiency under stress. They emerged on the Russian street just in time to see a cylindrical object snake its way into Tarasov's window. A few seconds after that, by which time they had crossed the street and were being bundled into the jeep by the manservant, a blue flash shone out of the apartment windows, looking to all the world like the bright light emitted from a television set. But Holly was in no doubt that the two goldfish in the tank were now upside-down.

"Well," Mulch said cheerfully as Butler turned on the engine and began to pull away from the kerb, "no adventure is complete without at least one brush with death."

Root scowled. He hated it when the dwarf was right.

Haven City Hall, 10 minutes earlier

"Ladies and gentlemen, please!"

Foaly snorted from his hiding place behind the bar. "I hope you're using those terms loosely."

Trouble, standing on top of the bar with his arms spread wide, couldn't spare a disparaging comment for the centaur, busy as he was watching the crème de la crème of Haven's social and political society descend into an unruly mob. If he had been a fan of Mud Man literature, Trouble would have found several parallels with The Lord of the Flies. And there was no doubting who Piggy was.

Several of those fairies closest to his feet were attempting to seize them. What they were planning on doing if they caught him was anyone's guess. Trouble doubted they knew themselves.

"Ladies and - ladies and gentlemen!" He tried again. It was hopeless; he couldn't have been heard over the frenzy even if they cared for what he had to say.

"Ladies and gentlemen." A new voice joined the cacophony. This one was different though. Amplified. The speaker had barely raised his own voice, but the loudspeaker function on the communicator he held before his mouth augmented the sound a hundred times. The crowd stopped its clamouring and turned to look at the tiny pixie standing on the stage. Foaly looked out from over the bar.

"But how is his communicator working?"

The majority ignored the question, swarming over to Bentwood - Trouble was certain it was him - and looking up at him with the calmness that comes from renewed hope.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said again, an indulgent smile gracing his lips, "I have just this minute managed to make contact with the LEP acting Commander, Ark Sool. He has, I'm afraid to say, bad news." Bentwood tapped a few buttons on his communicator, calling up video footage of the gnome and projecting it onto the wall behind the stage. The fairies remained silent, awaiting the message. He pressed 'play'.

"Good evening, noble and esteemed citizens of Haven," the message began. Both Trouble and Foaly pulled a face at this obvious display of sycophancy, but the egos of most fairies in the room were too large to realise they were being flattered.
"I am afraid I have to be the bearer of bad news on what should be such a happy occasion." The oily smile on his face slipped, momentarily, into a sneer. "As many of you are already aware, Haven experienced damage to its infrastructure earlier this evening. And, at around three forty-five am, the entire city suffered a power cut. In the following hours, our loyal team of LEP technicians have worked to restore power and mobility to the main city. However, due to a security malfunction in City Hall, the steel doors have remained sealed."

"Malfunction my left hoof," whispered Foaly. Sool continued, oblivious to the seething quadruped.

"We have also managed to track down the cause of this catastrophic set of events." On screen, the gnome paused for effect. Trouble wondered whether he'd ever considered becoming an actor. "I am afraid, dear friends, that it was the result of an attack by a human."

Whatever calm had been restored by the appearance of working technology was shattered in an instant. Sobs of fear and anger at discovery drowned out the rest of Sool's message, and Bentwood was forced to wait several minutes for sufficient calm so that the rest of the video could be played.

"The human's name is Evgeny Tarasov. A reclusive genius, he lives alone in a small town in the west of Russia. We have reason to believe he gained intimate knowledge of the fairies when he hacked into the computer systems of the only other human to have made contact with the fairy race: Artemis Fowl."

Foaly twisted his head to watch the video feed at the mention of Artemis's name, although this had provoked a fresh wave of fear from the guests and the message became inaudible once more. Trouble sat down heavily on the bar top.

"Artemis Fowl. Why am I not surprised?"

"I am." Foaly said, helping himself to a glass of water. "I've tried to hack Artemis's systems before. They're damned hard to crack - I had to use cutting edge fairy technology almost every step of the way just to figure out his passwords. Then there are the files he's encrypted with eternity codes; they took months to solve."

"So what are you saying? Sool is lying?"

"Maybe. Maybe this Tarasov did gain intimate knowledge of the fairies after reading Artemis's notes on us. But maybe he'd been given a magical push in the right direction first."

Trouble frowned. "That doesn't make sense. Why not just tell this man everything straight off the bat? It seems like a ridiculous amount of effort to access one of the securest servers on earth just for a little extra knowledge."

Foaly sighed wearily. "Knowledge is power, Major Kelp."

LEP Police Plaza

"Corporal Kelp?"

One of the technicians was peering into his face with a worried expression on their own. "You've gone as white as a sheet."

Grub swallowed and waved them away with an annoyed grunt. He wasn't used to grunting at any LEP official other than his brother, but then again, he'd never been important enough to get away with it before now.
The message Sool had sent him was obviously intended to reach those trapped in City Hall. That meant Sool had managed to establish contact. He wondered how his brother was doing.

The video didn't make for easy viewing. According to the gnome, the cause of all of Haven's current problems lay with a human named Evgeny Tarasov. Grub shifted uncomfortably at the mention of western Russia. It sounded exactly like where Holly and the Commander were. But it was the signing-off message that left Grub most ill at ease.

"However," it had said, "do not be alarmed. As I speak, a bio-bomb has been sent to Tarasov's apartment. He will shortly cease to be a threat. Then our technicians will switch their attention to rescuing you unfortunate people and this entire incident can be successfully contained. Please remain calm, and trust myself and the technicians to free you."

Grub's mind was racing, trying to make connections with seemingly random events. Western Russia. Artemis Fowl. An attack on Haven. He had to admit that on the surface - especially coupled with the footage he had seen through the LEP helmet, with what looked like Artemis Fowl in the apartment described by Sool - the story seemed almost plausible. However, as the angry scoffs from the techies proved, Sool had never consulted them; in fact, he had actively stopped them from mounting a rescue on city hall. A small group of pixies were also conducting a conversation to Grub's right about the flash they had witnessed on the video footage from the LEP helmet. Now that the flash had been positively identified, the pixies were expressing their outrage at the way the acting commander had behaved - killing (or so he thought) a human without knowing they were unquestionably guilty. Grub thought miserably of the paperwork he would have to complete for that venture.

"Corporal Kelp?" one of the pixies had broken away from the group and derailed Grub's train of thought.

"What?"

"We," the pixie indicated to his friends, eager for them to share some part of the blame, "thought, in light of recent developments, that you should call Commander Root and Major Short again."

"Why?"

The pixie winked. "Because I'm sure they'll be delighted to know who's bio-bomb nearly killed them."

Grub stared at the techie, thinking of what Root did to anybody who had a part in the Plaza's annual game of hide the fungus cigars. He found himself warming to the pixies' idea.


What do you make of that, then?

Reviewers get to join in with LEP Police Plaza's annual game of hide the fungus cigars. They do so at their own risk, though. :)