LEP Headquarters, Five Hours Later, Medical Wing
Doctor Terrence Sedge was having a strange day, that was for sure. For one thing, that anomalous power outage had wrecked absolute havoc on the medical bay, shutting down critical systems and machinery. If not for the backup power, things could very well have ended in tragedy.
The rest of the day had been spent tending to standard-issue wounds inflicted on LEP members in the line of duty (usually the results of botched locker-room bets), and cataloging his personal journal, as he frequently did. Might make a good book someday. Or so he kept telling himself.
Doctor Sedge had encountered another curiosity that day when he tuned into PPTV in the doctors' lounge at lunch hour. He picked up a news report concerning human activities, a subject that had been rising in frequency at an alarming rate. The first time humans had earned themselves a place on live PPTV airtime was when the first man on the moon had discovered a fairy resort. That had been a nightmare. Mind-wipes, zero-gravity chases, and a crashed moon rover. Terrence still remembered that day.
Today, however, it seemed man was suffering. While this didn't bother Terrence unduly, the following information served to perplex him. An earthquake of enormous proportions had rocked the foundations of the human city of San Francisco several hours ago. It had been so large that the human's Richter scale didn't posses a large enough number to record it. Severe infrastructural damage, casualty reports skyrocketing, it was a full-blown disaster. And in a major population center. One could almost guess it had been deliberate, but the very notion was preposterous. Who could control an earthquake?
No, Doctor Sedge didn't worry himself with that information. He had other things to concentrate on. Because now, instead of the usual steady flow of minor injuries, he was getting flooded by a large amount of wounded LEP Retrieval boys.
That in itself was strange. Retrieval didn't report that many casualties, at least not in such a high concentration, but Sedge simply did his job, and treated them well. After he'd finished up the main tasks, which had included turning away Corporal Kelp after his eighth request for a Bioscan, insisting he'd broken something, Terrence brought his attention to the most pressing case. Other doctors had been tending to Captain Holly Short, and had made some progress, but hadn't really known what to make of her situation. She had suffered a minor wound to her side, which, apart from ruining her jumpsuit, shouldn't have given her due pause. But her magic, as well as that of all medics who laid hands on her, simply couldn't heal her wounds.
Upon entering the surgery, he received another shock for the day as he noticed a human boy, perhaps fifteen, although Terrence could never really tell for sure (seeing as he'd flunked his human physiology class at University), sitting by the captain's side. Sedge was far from a prejudiced elf, and held no grudge against humans, but it still gave his aging heart a nasty jolt to see one sitting in his surgery. After a moment's confusion, he set about on the most tactful course of action: he completely ignored the human.
The captain remained unconscious on an examination table, her pretty young face illuminated by the stark lighting of the medical chamber. The human gazed at her with a fondness that intrigued Terrence, but he had other matters to attend to, and if LEP command was okay with the human, he was too.
Bustling about, readying his surgical gloves, he proceeded to examine Short's wound, which had been mended physically as best it could by nonmagical materials. No, it was Sedge's job to discern what the source of the magic-suppressant was. But after half an hour of careful examination, he was forced to conclude that they were dealing with a curse, and a powerful one at that. He recognized the wound as being inflicted by a human bullet, but those didn't have magical properties, did they?
As if he'd heard his thoughts, the boy spoke up. "Cursed, yes, I thought as much. I tried to staunch the bleeding, and the sutures held, but it seems to be weakening Holly."
Now, Sedge was a very open-minded fairy, so he decided it best to acknowledge the human. "You performed the field surgery? I was unaware humans were qualified to do so. Or even understood our anatomy at all."
The boy smiled, a sort of unnerving vampire's-smile. His deep blue eyes seemed to stare into Terrence's soul. "Doctor, I consider myself highly accomplished in fairy medicine, having gone through several courses under the pseudonym Julius Mulch."
Terrence was thunderstruck, but shook this off, going on, "Then you can tell me what caused this wound?"
Artemis nodded. "Cursed bullets. We don't know for sure, but I've hypothesized that they must be infused with animal fat of some sort. I'm surprised the LEP haven't briefed you on it already."
Sedge flushed. "Yes, well, I'm sure they've got more important matters to attend to. Come now, I don't have time for this. Captain Short will recover, and I think I can give her an infusion of magic, twice an hour, until the curse is overpowered. They can only absorb so much magic before they are overloaded, you know." He swelled with pride, happy to know something that this irritating human didn't.
"Yes, I am aware," chuckled Artemis. "I wrote an article on curses after encountering the cursed sword of one Leon Abbot a few years ago. Very fascinating."
Terrence went back to his work without another word, brow creased and lips pursed in silent disapproval.
Yes, this was turning out to be a very strange day.
*****
Ten Hours Later
It felt like a troll had mistaken her for a park bench, and had sat on her. Then again, trolls usually preferred to smash park benches, so she supposed she ought to be grateful.
Her memory was foggy, the last thing on her mind being something about a trap. Yes, that was it. A trap. But who set it?
For a moment, her old instincts screamed Fowl!, but she knew this wasn't true. After all, Artemis hadn't been her enemy for almost four years now.
Holly tried to open her eyes, and was rewarded with a stinging pain in both of them. High-voltage fluorescent lights beat down on her, and she forced herself to squint. A dull, continuous humming sound informed her that some machinery was running, and the sharp pain in her arm told her that she'd been stuck with an IV.
But there was another sensation, besides the pain in her arm or the brightness of the room, the cold of the examination table or the din of machinery. A gentle pressure on one hand, not crushing her fingers, but fondling them, never letting go.
She heard voices. "Orderly, get me more medical gel. We'll pack off this wound and she should be good to go," instructed the first voice, speaking in an unrecognizable accent. It must've been a fairy. With their gift of tongues, fairies' speech often sounded like a bit of every dialect, instead of just one or two.
Holly discerned the sound of rubber-soled shoes squeaking away, and assumed the aide must have set off on his task. The voice, which must have belonged to a doctor, sighed, then addressed another. Holly hazarded another guess: whoever he spoke to must be another lab technician, checking her pulse or something. That would explain the grasp on her hand.
"Well, then, it seems that the procedure worked. Your friend here will make a full recovery, I expect. She'll need to complete the Ritual to fully purge the curse from her body, and she'll still suffer from a few side effects for a few days. I'm prescribing bed rest for at least a week." He paused, and scribbled something on a sheet of flimsy, his pen making scratching noises as it worked. "Tell me, human, just how do you know Captain Short?"
Human? thought Holly, then, Artemis!
She didn't know what she was feeling. Artemis had come to stay with her! Had already been working with the doctor! She couldn't tell if she was angry at the meddling Mud Boy, embarrassed at her friend, or… touched?
Then it came to her: Artemis was holding her hand.
Immediately she tried to write it off as merely moral support, but there was something in the way he held it, reverently, almost compassionately. All of this Holly sensed from his touch. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, but not from fear, from something else, equally dangerous. Fairy intuition was never wrong.
Artemis seemed to realize the doctor had picked up on this as well, and immediately slackened his grasp. Holly felt part-relieved, part-disappointed.
"Ah, yes. You could say we've been good friends for a few years now."
Silence hung thick in the room for a second, as neither party really bought this explanation, but the uncomfortable atmosphere was broken when the orderly returned. By now Holly's eyes had adjusted to the harsh light, and she stirred slightly to get a better look at things.
"Doctor Sedge, she's awake!"
She could dimly see the surgeon wave the assistant away. "Yes, yes, Finch. Give me that gel. That's the ticket."
Holly felt a surgical glove expose her mending wound and press a glob of icy gelatinous ooze to it. Mild pain and excruciating cold jolted her into complete consciousness, and the two medical personnel were quick to hold her down. "Relax, captain, all is under control," assured the doctor. His face was kind, but weary, as if it had seen much suffering. His brow, creased in concern, relaxed slightly when she complied. "There's a good lady. Just rest, and we'll be back to check up on you in a moment. Now, if you will please, Finch, come with me. I need you to help me see to the Commander. He's still recovering from his head wound. Minor concussion. The magic's mended most of it, but he's still disoriented."
Holly watched as they both left, swinging the door shut behind them. Casting her glance about, she noted the stark white walls and the transparent viewing window, currently opaque for privacy. The machinery she'd heard earlier hummed from their wall sockets, recording her heart rate and brain activity. In short, she looked everywhere but at the pale Irish youth sitting in a corner, trying not to be seen.
Holly was willing to comply. Even in her peripheral vision she saw his face was flushed with abashment, and by the heat of her own cheeks she realized she must be, too. Eventually, however, she knew she had to talk to him.
Nodding curtly to Artemis, she stated mildly, "Nice to see you're in one piece."
Artemis glanced up from his shoes, which, up until now, he had been taking an intense interest in. With a weak smile, he looked directly at her, and responded. "You too. The good doctor knows what he's doing. You were pretty bad for a while there."
Holly felt her blush deepen, but shook her head to distract herself. Artemis had been there the whole time. He'd probably offered the surgeon advice, maybe even worked on her himself. For some alarming reason, that made Holly tingle all over, but maybe it was just the medication. At least, she hoped it was.
After a moment, she realized Artemis was waiting for her response, and muttered, "What happened to Gray? And the robbers?"
Artemis seemed to grow very, very tired. More tired than any person his age should look. "Gray's dead, but we've rounded up the other thugs. They made off with almost one hundred million, but they made the real steal at the museum. Two hundred and fifty million marks in priceless art. Gone." This seemed to hit him worse than anything. After a moment, he went on. "None of the prisoners had any idea who their employer was. Gray's secret died with him. But we suspect, obviously, that whoever they are, they planned the raid on my manor. I've managed to contact my family, and they're giving the area a wide berth. My mother will come up with some excuse to stay away. Arrange a skiing trip or something."
Holly remembered with a jolt that Artemis had told his mother all about his adventures. The kidnapping, the rebellion, the Cube, Julius's death, everything. Well, at least she hoped not everything.
She'd just been trying to delicately phrase a way to find out if Artemis had spilled the acorns to his mom about that little incident in Rathdown Park, when he rose, and approached her.
Kneeling by her side, he began to check her stitches, making sure they were in place. "Forgive me, Holly, but Doctor Sedge asked that I check up on you from time to time before he returned."
Holly said nothing, and even managed to keep a straight face, her voice completely deadpan as she answered, "Roger, Arty."
His hands fumbled as she mentioned his mother's pet name for him, a name Holly herself had taken to adopting in her secret moments, but rarely before others, especially not Artemis himself. His fingers brushed against her soft skin, and she winced in embarrassment, afraid of… what? There wasn't anything to be worried about, was there?
But try all she might, Holly couldn't regulate her heartbeat, which had just skyrocketed. The machine whined with an incessant deet-deet-deet-deet, mimicking her agitated patterns. Adrenaline pumped through her system, and if she had any magic left, she knew it would be crackling about her in excitement. What was happening to her? She'd never felt this way before…
Except for once. In the cage of a half-ton gorilla.
Artemis, mistaking her wince and accelerated heart rate as a medical reaction, hastily inquired, "Are you okay, Holly? Did I do something wrong?"
There was real alarm in his voice, real concern. Somehow that struck her as sweet. Holly realized she needed to write it off as pain to avoid suspicion, but before she had time to think, her subconscious answered, "No."
That word hung on the air for several seconds, ringing in both their ears. Why had she said no? Was it because Artemis hadn't caused her pain, or because… because it had felt right?
No! She mentally slapped herself. He was just a human. Just a human.
Still, tentatively, almost against her will, her eyes traveled to his, and for a moment they locked. Perhaps they both conveyed some unacknowledged truth, but before either of them could muster the courage to say anything, all the power in the building shut down with a loud whirrrrr.
Immediately, the moment was lost, and Holly felt a momentary pang of frustration, quickly submerged beneath her conscious refusal to recognize it, and instead focused herself on the situation at hand. She tried to rise, and Artemis gently, but firmly, pushed her back down. "Relax. I'm going to go assess the damage."
But before he could go thirty feet into the hall, or even before Holly managed to dismiss her confusing feelings of excitement at Artemis's touch, the power returned as quickly as it had vanished. Computer readouts winked into existence, and the in-room television monitor flicked on, unbidden, no doubt a side-effect of the reboot.
A PPTV news channel played. The familiar face of Abelia Rookwood gazed down at her, the reporter's right eye still displaying a rather brilliant black bruise, masked somewhat ineffectively by a layer of makeup.
"We're on? We're on," the reporter stated, obviously just as dislocated by the outage as everyone else. "This is Abelia Rookwood, reporting live from PPTV News Station. It seems another power outage has occurred, a temporary side-effect of the new energy plant's installation. Another major power line was re-routed, but for security reasons, Bismuth Engineering cannot give us warning as to when the next inevitable outage will occur."
At this point Artemis returned, his mismatched eyes fixed attentively on the report. Rookwood went on.
"At a press conference earlier today, Bismuth's chief spokesperson stated the installation is making enormous progress, and that the fairy people can expect to be rid of these outages, and other problems, by this time next week. Complete installation will take time. For those of us who've been living on the moon for the past few months, the plant towers over two thousand feet high, and will exponentially increase output of energy into our city.
"Only the outer shell will be accessible to the public and civilian workers, while the inner one houses executive facilities, and the final chamber hosts, reportedly, a mass shield from the lethal levels of radiation inside. Only one quadruple-sealed damper hatch allows access to the core, which cannot be entered unless the system has completely powered down for three days, allowing radiation to die down. According to interviews conducted with radiology experts, even these precautions will still require any maintenance personnel to wear super-advanced radsuits. It has been said that—"
Suddenly, Rookwood pressed a hand to her ear, as incoming information alerted her to a new report. "We're going to have to cut this report short to cut to some breaking news. Jandus Fern will tell us more."
The screen flashed to another news anchor, who nodded concisely and began, his deep voice slow and methodical, "Thank you, Abelia. It seems for the second time today, catastrophe has rocked the human world. A tsunami of immense proportions devastated the city of Tokyo, Japan, in the Pacific Ocean. We're not exactly sure of casualty figures, as our human information monitoring services can intercept their transmissions only so fast. Suffice it to say, folks, that this is not a lucky day for the humans. On another note, rumors abound that a fairy strike team had been dispatched to Munich, Germany, to put down a security threat. The exact details haven't been disclosed, but our source comes from inside the LEP itself."
Artemis and Holly both automatically muttered, "Grub."
For the next few minutes further reports went on, before the hour was up and PPTV cut to scheduled programming. Still, Artemis's head was spinning. Terrence had told him about the earthquake in San Francisco, which had struck Artemis as a tragedy. The engineering feats achieved on the Golden Gate Bridge had been marvelous, but, perhaps, when they rebuilt the city would be more receptive to his proposed earthquake-reinforcement modifications…
Enough about that. Think! Two natural disasters in about a day? Two major population centers utterly devastated? What could this mean?
He'd been formulating possible explanations when an LEP officer entered the room, speaking to Holly as she reclined, also brooding over recent events, on her examination table.
"Captain, the Commander needs you back at Headquarters ASAP. As soon as you're stitched up, get to the Meeting Room."
"Can you tell us what it's for?" Artemis inquired, curious as to Kelp's next move.
The policeman glanced nervously at Artemis, who, as every little fairy child had learned from their parents for the past four years, was a very, very bad Mud Man. "Sorry, human, but that's classified. Suit up and meet us there. You're wanted, too."
Artemis nodded, and spoke to Holly as the officer retreated. "Can you make it?"
Flexing her side experimentally, she nodded, and rose slowly. Artemis helped her to her feet, and she experienced a moment of inexplicable excitement. Drowning it in a sea of thoughts and distractions, she grunted, "Come on, Mud Boy. We've got work to do."