Chapter 25: Even So

Police Plaza, Haven City

'Thought you guys would never come,' said Hani, yawning and stretching on the seats. She smiled up at Iris and Artemis, who were sitting in the row of seats behind her. 'Where are the rest?'

'Meeting with the Council members. And Internal Affairs. And the commanders.' Iris ran a hand through her hair, mussing up her pink and purple locks into a brilliant mess. 'Poor Rook's having a hard time.'

'So why aren't you with them?'

'Foaly told us to wait here,' said Artemis.

Several officers crossing the main lobby gave the trio disapproving looks, which Artemis was happy to return with his own. Iris waved to them and grinned.

'How did you smuggle him here, anyway?' asked Hani, sitting up. 'I thought he'd be mobbed if anyone saw him out there.'

'Nah, Vinyáya got Laurel to pass me the keys to her car.' Iris brought her knees up and rested her chin on them. 'I didn't even know she had a car.'

'I didn't even know you could drive,' said Hani, chuckling. 'Did you throw up, Artemis?'

'Not much,' he replied truthfully.

'That's because we haven't eaten much,' said Iris. 'We couldn't leave the lighthouse, and the poor boy here was running on coffee and adrenalin. I'll get Foaly to send some –'

'Iris Moonlove?'

The three of them looked up to see an LEP officer at the end of the row of seats. He gave them a nod of acknowledgement each and went over to release Hani from her cuffs. 'Foaly says that you three should go up to the Operations Booth. I'm to bring you there.'

'Giggerty geggerty, the fun starts here,' said Iris, jumping to her feet. 'Come on, slowpokes. I want to see the pony's lair.'

They trailed after the officer through the bustling corridors, dodging officers and going up flights of stairs to the Ops Booth. Their escort remained silent throughout, evidently under orders not to speak more than was necessary to his charges.

'Here,' he said at last, stopping outside the booth. The glass windows had been blacked out, preventing anyone outside from looking in. The officer rapped on the door and stood back.

'What wouldn't I give for this security,' breathed Iris, running her hand along the wall. 'He's rigged the whole place with everything you can think of. Damn.'

The door buzzed open and a centaur stepped out, twirling his tin-foil hat in his hands. There was a big smile plastered on his horsy face.

'Artemis Fowl and Iris Moonlove. Two of my favourite people in the world,' said Foaly, motioning them through. 'Oh hello, Hani. That was some kidnapping you did earlier.'

There were other people in the booth besides Foaly. A pixie was strapped to a chair at the far end of the room, surrounded by several techies busy at work hooking her up to a machine. Artemis recognized the machine as the same one that had been used during his mind-wipe years ago. The pixie looked familiar, even when her face was obscured with a black eye mask. She turned her head when she heard the sound of the visitors entering the room.

'Opal Koboi,' said Trouble Kelp, striding up to meet the newcomers. 'Holly arrested her in Malaysia.'

'I heard,' said Artemis, looking past the techies to see Holly standing in the corner. Her arms were crossed and there was a glum look on her face. 'How's Holly?'

'Still shaken,' Trouble said, sighing. 'She told Vinyáya what happened in the station – Opal tried to goad Holly into killing her. I call that dirty.'

'Where is V, anyway?' said Iris. 'She said she'll be meeting us.'

'Still in the interrogation room,' said Foaly, going past with his hands full of wires and electronic knickknacks. 'Internal Affairs isn't going to let her off so easily.'

'Aw man,' said Iris, pouting. 'Poor Fin. Why are we not there with them? We're part of the group.'

'You're not LEP,' said Trouble. 'Consider yourself lucky, miss.'

'I could have been,' she murmured, drifting away to the monitors in fascination.

'You're going to wipe her, yeah?' Hani asked, following Artemis's gaze to the pixie strapped in the chair. 'And then send her back to the past.'

'The Council's against it,' said Trouble, smirking. 'But they haven't heard what she was planning to do. The deal with Cahartez was that he would arrest her and keep her in Atlantis. What he didn't know was that he would be giving her time to break out her past self and wreak havoc. That's the problem with these people – they don't think.'

'Hey Kelp,' Foaly called, 'we're ready to wipe her. Any last questions?'

'Where's the warlocks?'

Foaly rounded on an unlucky techie. 'Where are the warlocks?'

'They're on the way!' the techie squeaked. 'Don't trample me!'

There were raps on the blacked-out windows. Foaly buzzed the warlocks through, N˚1 trotting into the booth in front of his mentor, with his arms spread wide and an equally wide grin on his face.

'Artemis!' he said, going to the boy and giving a surprised Artemis a tight hug round his middle. 'Good to see you again! I heard you were in Haven, but you didn't even come to visit me.'

'I was busy,' Artemis said, kneeling to speak to the demon warlock. 'Helping to save Haven.'

'Vigilante, peacekeeper, self-appointed enforcer of the law,' said N˚1. 'I heard all about it.'

'Hurry up, N˚1,' said Qwan. 'This pixie needs to be sent back immediately.'

'Of course,' said the younger warlock, shuddering as he remembered his previous encounter with Opal Koboi. 'I was put in a barrel of animal fat! Gross, disgusting, nauseating.'

'With me,' said Holly, coming out of her corner to speak to the rest. 'Hello, N˚1.'

'Holly!' The warlock went over to her, where she gave him a hug in return. 'How have you been?'

'Pretty good. How about you?'

'You're not happy,' the imp remarked, patting Holly's cheek. 'Do you want me to give you a booster?'

'I'm all right,' she protested, as N˚1 took hold of her hand. 'I'm fine.'

'We'll see about that later,' N˚1 said, winking. 'Coming, Qwan!' He followed the elder warlock across the room to Opal.

'Opal tried to get you to kill her,' said Artemis softly to the elf beside him.

Holly shrugged wearily. 'That's not a question.'

'It isn't.'

'You knew she would, didn't you?'

'I thought she might,' he admitted. 'I didn't think she would risk it.'

'She knows me too well,' said Holly, smiling bitterly. 'She told me that I could save Julius by – by killing her. That's what you did with Leon Abbot, didn't you? Unrealized possibility.'

'How did you…?'

'N˚1's told me things, even if you don't want to, Artemis.'

They watched in silence as Trouble interrogated Opal for the last time. The pixie was unco-operative, preferring to stay dumb on all the questions. He finally gave up in despair and let the techies and Foaly take over and proceed with the mind-wipe.

'I destroyed your phone,' Holly said, not meeting Artemis's eyes. 'Sorry about that. We managed to get my phone back from Opal though, but we can't call each other after this.'

'It's all right,' he muttered.

'Julius wasn't the only thing she tried to use against me,' said Holly, a lump rising in her throat. 'She…she…'

'I heard.'

'Did you?'

'Iris.'

'Oh.'

They continued waiting in silence as symbols and signs flickered on the screens, displaying Opal's memories of the future.

'I could have saved Julius.' Holly's voice broke, despite her best efforts to keep her emotions under control. 'I could have just killed that – that – I could have just killed Opal and stopped her from ever doing what she did in the past.'

'You know about the time paradox,' said Artemis gently. 'You can't change events in the past –'

'What if I could, Artemis? Will things be better now if I had killed her then? Shouldn't I take a chance if I could just –'

She stopped and took a deep breath. 'Do you know how much I still regret shooting at Julius, when I tried to save him? I still lie awake thinking whether I could have saved him by not doing anything.'

'It's all in the past now,' said Artemis. 'We can't change things.'

'Why not?' She caught the tears before they could slip down her cheeks. 'Why not?'

'Because we don't know what might have happened,' he said, smiling a dreamy little smile that Holly had not seen before; it made him look younger somehow. 'We can't go back in time and say that this needs to be changed for the desired future to happen, because we don't know.'

'For all your genius, even you can't answer that?' The laugh came out more as a choke than she had intended.

'You can never predict the ways of men. Or fairies.' He cupped her face in his hands awkwardly. 'Holly, what happened cannot be changed – it's in the past, and how are we to know that changing a single event would change the rest?'

'So you're saying that, in the end, we have to accept things as they are?'

'Yes. It's not easy for you, but that's the way it is.'

'Even if I continue regretting that I wasn't able to save Julius for the second time?' The tears were falling freely now, slipping past her cheeks and dripping into Artemis's hands.

'I'm not heartless, Holly, but what I think is this: You can't change things, so there's no need to regret what might have been. Things could have been better – or, alternatively – they could have been worse. We won't know and it's not within our power to know. So we don't regret the 'what if's', because we don't know.'

'The next best thing, you mean.'

'Yes. Besides,' he continued, 'think of all the people you saved. Julius would be proud of what you did, Holly.'

'So many people were hurt, Artemis! They could have died – '

'No, I'm not talking about the present only, Holly. Think about the people you saved in the past – the people you might not have saved had Opal not done what she did.'

'Name me one then,' she challenged. This was too much for one day. 'Tell me one person who I would be proud to have saved.'

'My family,' he said simply. He took his hands away and turned to watch the warlocks send Opal back in time.

Holly scrubbed at her eyes, tasting her tears on her lips. She looked up to see Artemis watching her out of the corner of his eye, the familiar hazel eye focused on her. It felt strange, as always, to have one of her own eyes looking back at her from Artemis. Maybe she won't ever get used to it. And she said nothing – because, as he said, there was nothing for her to regret.