If you think what has already happened in this story is shocking, then you better prepare for what is coming over the rest of it.
Undisclosed location within the Swiss Alps. Present Day.
Unfortunately, once you've torched a raging Troll, you can't just leave it to burn and go home. You have to wait for it to burn itself out. So Masek, Jenna, Cable and even Scarlett had been sitting and wandering and sliding around in the snow, waiting for the fire to go out. However, there is a lot of Troll for the fire to go through, even in the cold, icy conditions of the Alps, and they had been waiting for a long time before it finally stopped. Masek had then left Jenna to look over what remained of the Troll. Whilst everyone had been waiting for Jenna to finish her observations, Masek had been rolling a benign snowball for himself. In the end, he didn't get the chance to use it.
"Hey, I've found something!" Jenna shouted across the snow. Masek picked his head up and walked over to her.
"What do you have?"
"Something very weird" She replied. The fact that Jenna was acting fairly normal told Masek that it was something quite serious too.
"This Troll has two tags in it."
"Two tags?" Masek repeated. "Did you accidentally put two tags into the Troll?"
"No, only one" Jenna replied. "Which means this tag came from another time. We've encountered this Troll before."
"Ha, maybe we caught it, let it go back down to Haven and it somehow managed to get back to the surface. Now that would be something."
"I wish" Jenna said. "I've already scanned the tag. 00313-3."
"I'm not good with the tag numbers" Masek admitted. Jenna grew even more serious, and now Masek was worried.
"Do you remember the Troll we caught a couple of days ago?"
And then it dawned on him.
"You have to be kidding me? But that Troll was in containment. How did it get out? More importantly, how did it get from California to the Alps?"
"Someone wanted to draw us out here" Cable said, joining the party along with Scarlett.
"But why?" Scarlett asked. "Setting a Troll on the loose seems a bit pointless when they know we'd just catch or kill it again."
"No, that's not why they did it" Masek said, it suddenly clicking in his mind. "They wanted us away from HQ. Whoever did this would've had to break in and release the Troll, so they know where we are. But now with us out here, they can break in with the place unguarded."
"Oh god" Cable said, catching on to what Masek had just said.
"We have to get back" Scarlett said. "We have to stop whoever has done this."
"I agree" Masek said, and then indicated to Scarlett. "Prepare the transport. I've got to call Artemis."
Fowl Manor, Ireland
Artemis could feel the energy coursing through his veins. Everything around him, every sense was heightened. He felt powerful, yet transcendent. It was as if his body was no longer his, that he was a god looking over himself. It was an almost ethereal process, one that he wanted to get lost in forever. He closed his eyes, letting his the energy overload his body's pleasure senses, making him feel as if he was about to burst from the power he could feel in every nerve ending. He could see the universe, laid before him. Every star, planet and satellite, there all in one space. Every nebula, every supernova. Everything that was, everything that is, everything that would come to be, it was all there.
But everything eventually comes to an end.
As the power of the machine ramped down, Artemis could feel the sensation leaving him. Soon all that had made the experience so different had been replaced with normality. He opened his eyes, and nothing was any different to how he had started.
"How do you feel?" Artemis Sr. asked, unhooking him from the Energy Matrix.
"Unfortunately, I feel quite normal" Artemis replied.
"It didn't work?"
"It worked for a time" Artemis said, sitting down. "Whilst I was in there, the feeling was something near indescribable. But it didn't hold. As soon as the machine was turned off, the feeling was no longer there."
"Hmm, sounds like more of a compressor problem than a suppressor problem."
"I agree" Artemis said. Suddenly his phone began to ring. Butler looked at him.
"Would you like me to get that?"
"What does the caller ID say?" Artemis asked. He was very particular about who he allowed to call him. Anyone not in his contacts list was expressly banned. The only exception he had ever had to that rule was Opal Koboi, but then that was because he was orchestrating a plan to have her killed, which had been successful.
"Masek" Butler replied. "I feel you should have this one."
"I agree, again" Artemis replied, catching the phone as Butler threw it to him. "You have reached the phone of Artemis Fowl II."
"Artemis" Masek said down the line, "We have a situation."
"That was not a difficult assumption for me to make" Artemis said. "You only ever call when there is a situation at hand."
"Yeah well this one really takes the cake. We believe someone has broken into Agency HQ and somehow released a Troll into the world. We don't know exactly why yet, but we think somebody might have done it to gain unrestricted access whilst we're out here, unable to stop them. We're setting up a bridge now to go back, but I don't know if it'll be too late."
"Clever" Artemis said. "Whoever has done this, assuming your theory is correct, would need both a knowledge of the headquarters and of fairies, and a reason to attack your agency. I don't need to tell you who the prime suspect will be."
"I know, but he's dead."
"If there's something I've learned over the past year, it is that people tend not to stay dead for very long."
"The bridge is ready" Masek said. "I've got to go."
"Of course" Artemis replied. "But Masek, whatever is going on, it has to be fixed. We both know how dangerous he can be."