Ancient Oak, Irish Countryside, 2005
LEP Recon Captain Holly Short finished The Ritual in the shadow of an ancient oak. The refreshing magic spread throughout her body to the tips of her pointed ears.
The elf laid on her back in the untamed grace, soaking in the luminous glow of the moon and taking in the smell of fresh dew. These were the times she lived for; it had been too long since she'd been last been above ground. In the two months since her last adventure with Artemis Fowl, she had been under constant surveillance for health reasons and had endured a mercilessly long enquiry by the High Council of Haven City. They had only released her now to complete her ritual and restore her magic. She was going to milk it as long as she could.
She heard a buzzing from her discarded helmet and fit it on her small head.
"Hello?" she said as her visor sprang into action. The face of Foaly, the LEP's resident centaur genius, popped up in the upper right corner of her view.
"Hey Holly!" The centaur grinned at her. "I've got something you might want to see."
The helmet's visor brought up a feed of security camera footage. The footage showed a softly-lit, well-kept lawn. Two humans were sitting at a small table, having dinner in the light of a small candelabra.
Holly squinted. "Is that…?"
"Artemis!" Foaly confirmed. "On a date!"
The LEP still had Artemis under constant observation, partially for his own safety and partially for the sake of the People, the underground society of fairies. You never knew when the Irish boy would decide to dabble in their affairs again.
"Darvit!" Holly swore, but she couldn't help smiling. She had lost a bet with Foaly that the mudboy would have the courage to ask Minerva out in at least three months. Holly had bet it wouldn't happen within the year. Still, it was equal parts amusing and charming to see Artemis Fowl on anything as mundane as a date. She would expect dinner with the young genius to involve poison in the steak or tranquilizer in the champagne.
"This was earlier this evening," Foaly said, his face nearly splitting open from grinning. "It gets better!"
Holly watched as Minerva got up from the table and moved over to Artemis. She leaned over and towards him.
"No way!" From dating to a kiss. What other impossible firsts could Artemis squeeze in to a single evening?
"Keep watching," Foaly urged as Minerva and Artemis moved closer to each other. "This is where I come in."
Just before the two humans came together, a screeching alarm went off on the Fowl Manor grounds. Lights flashed and Artemis fell out of his chair, probably staining his spotless button-up in the grass.
"Foaly!" Holly scolded him, trying to keep herself from laughing. "Have you no respect for romance?"
"I do," the centaur replied, flicking his newly braided tail (the work of his girlfriend Cabaline). "But I have a deeper respect for practical jokes. And besides, you're one to talk about romance."
Holly blushed. She had recently gone on a few unsatisfactory dates with Trouble Kelp, the new commander of the LEP. He was a brave elf and a good leader, but he was eternally self-serious and only knew how to talk about work. There just wasn't that fun spark Holly was looking for.
"Fair point," Holly relented. It's not like she could deny it.
"Anyway," Foaly said, moving on, "you better get back to Haven, stat. People are starting to wonder where you've gone and it's nearly time for your next meeting.
Holly groaned. It had been non-stop with the LEP and its inquiries. They needed to know what she'd been doing, what her interactions with the demons were, how Artemis had interacted with them, if the warlocks could be trusted. It went on and on without much point. How much more could they possibly need to know?
Holly strapped her wings back on and took off. The wind whipped past her face as she rose higher, letting herself drop when she reached 300 meters. Gravity plunged her into a dive, straight towards the surface of the Irish Sea.
She was at 100 meters, a good place to pull out. She reached for her wing controls when she was suddenly struck with a wave of searing pain. Her whole body froze up where it was and she started to vibrate.
"Holly?" Foaly cut into her coms. "Holly is something wrong?"
Holly didn't answer. She couldn't. Her teeth were chattering rapidly and she couldn't get them to stop. She was at 50 meters now, dangerously close to the surface of the water.
"Holly! Pull up!" Foaly shouted in her ear.
A surge of magic shot through Holly's body. Immediately, her limbs loosened and she activated her wings. Her foot skimmed the waves as she put a burst of energy into the thrusters.
"Oh thank the gods!" Foaly sighed with relief. "What happened there?"
"Dunno," Holly said, through deep breaths as she tried to calm herself. "I just froze up."
"You were paralyzed?" Holly could hear Foaly typing furiously. "I just let the med center know."
"Foaly, I'm fine now," Holly insisted, even though her head felt light, her eye hurt and she was pretty sure she tasted blood. She wasn't about to be detained by yet more observations.
"This could be a side effect of the time travel," Foaly insisted. "The warlocks are gonna want to have a look at you."
Holly groaned. It would be another few months of being trapped underground. Foaly was right, though; they were still researching the effects of time travel on her and the two warlocks that had come with her to Haven City. There was no avoiding it.
"I'll be there in a few hours," Holly responded, turning off her comlink and sulking about the boredom and bureaucracy in her immediate future.
After a shuttle ride to the center of Haven, struggling to get a cab and getting past the convict line without getting pickpocketed, Holly finally arrived at the LEP medical wing. It was a small, underfunded wing of the department; the assumption that since fairies have the ability to heal themselves, there would be no need for a large hospital wing.
The only occupants were Commander Kelp, Foaly, Qwan, an old warlock, and No 1, his apprentice. The latter two were rubbing their heads, the magic runes on their bodies flickering with red and blue light.
"Holly!" Foaly spotted her first and cantered over to hug her, but just stopped short. "What's wrong with your eye?"
"My eye?" Holly asked, reaching up to touch the lower lid of her left eye. Her fingers came back red.
"What exactly happened, Captain?" Kelp asked, in the mode of decisive commander. Holly relayed what had happened over the sea; the paralysis, the pain, the chattering teeth.
"That's what happened to us!" chimed in No 1, still caressing his temples.
"Something powerful happened a few hours ago," Qwan concluded; his runes were still flickering. "Somebody used some very strong magic to make us all react that way."
"Did anybody else feel it?" Holly asked looking to the commander.
"We're asking around now, but so far it's only you three."
"Might it have something to do with the time stream?" No 1 suggested, his runes finally calming. "Could there still be residual effects."
"There shouldn't be," Qwan mused. "From the little I know, time travel shouldn't be a problem now that Hybras has been removed as an anomaly."
"Could it have been Fowl?" Kelp suggested. "You mentioned that he was able to syphon magic in the time stream. Perhaps he did something to cause this."
"Unlikely," said Holly. "He used up all his magic to get us back home."
"He told you this, Captain?"
Holly nodded.
"Can we trust him?"
Holly frowned. "With all due respect, Commander, Artemis has been nothing but a friend to the People for many years now. I doubt he would lie to us about something so important."
"Really?" The commander raised an eyebrow. Holly tried to rationalize it to herself; the commander hadn't had as much direct contact with the Fowls as she had. Most fairies only knew Artemis Fowl for the incident when he had kidnapped her and stolen half their gold. He couldn't understand how much the boy had changed from the dangerous criminal mastermind he had been.
Holly turned to the centaur, hoping to find support, but even Foaly was looking doubtful. "This wouldn't be the first time Artemis lied to us as our friend, Holly," he reminded her. Holly knew the centaur was right; the sneaky mudboy had exploited the People, lied to them and kept them in the dark about his plans. Even when he was trying to help them.
Holly sighed and flipped her visor back over her face. "I'll call him."
A picture of Artemis slid into her field of view as the helmet dialed his number. It was of him and his two brothers at the beach. Artemis was crouched beside them, one of them holding his hand and the other burying his face in the shoulder of his older brother. Artemis had sent it to her to replace the default glaring photograph the LEP had on his file.
The dial tone cut off.
Holly waited for the boy's icy Irish tones to come through the speakers, but there was nothing but quiet.
"Hello?" Holly ventured, her heart rate starting to accelerate. "Artemis?"
Suddenly, her helmet filled with deafening static. It screamed, thrashed, buzzed and crackled in her earpiece, pushing her eardrums to their breaking point.
She threw off her helmet and sat on a surgery table, massaging her ears and holding her left eye. It was bleeding again and it hurt even worse than before.
"What happened?" Foaly was nearly panicking. He hadn't been the same to Holly since her reappearance. He'd been over her shoulder almost constantly.
"Static…" Holly's voice sounded muffled to her ears. Everything sounded muffled.
Qwan walked over to the helmet and put it on his own head. His mouth straightened into a grim line.
"Time." The old warlock removed the helmet. "That was the sound of time. The mudboy is in the time stream as we speak."
Holly's hearing began to clear as the magic repaired her eardrums. Even with that Holly wasn't sure she had heard correctly. "He's what?"
"Artemis is traveling through time," Foaly repeated.
Holly still couldn't comprehend. Artemis had lied to her, his best friend. She shouldn't have been surprised or hurt by this, but she was. She thought they'd moved past the stage of deceit and mistrust, a point where they could tell each other everything, even things nobody else knew.
Mixed in with the sense of betrayal was a sense of panic. Artemis, traitorous mudboy as he was, was still her friend. She could give him a good thrashing after she saved him.
"Can we figure out where he's going?" Holly asked, jumping off the table.
"Well, it'd technically be 'when' he's going," Foaly commented.
Holly ignored him, addressing the warlock.
"Can you find where he's going?"
"Possibly…" Qwan turned the helmet in his hands, thinking. "It could be possible to partially enter the time stream, but that's only theoretical."
"Do it anyway!" Holly had to fight to keep her voice together.
"Hold on, Captain," Commander Kelp interjected. He had stood off to the sidelines, watching the drama unfold. "You're overstepping your boundaries. The use of the warlocks is entirely up to me. And I say we won't use them to save a mudman who has caused us this much trouble."
Holly was shocked. Kelp was overly stiff and not much fun, but he was honorable. He would never leave behind an innocent. If you could call Artemis innocent.
"Commander, I more than anyone am familiar with the People's troubled history with Artemis Fowl. But since the original incident, Fowl has grown into something resembling a respectable human being."
"I understand your personal attachment to the Fowl boy," the commander said, scowling at her. "However, I will not risk the life of one of my officers on a rescue mission for Artemis Fowl. And I will certainly not risk losing one of the only two warlocks in existence on a theoretical exercise."
"Commander-"
"That's final, Captain!" Kelp shouted at her and just for a moment he looked exactly like Julius Root, Holly's ex-commander and teacher. She remembered his face as the bomb on his chest exploded, the sad smile he gave her. She would not lose another friend.
She snapped to attention and saluted. "Yes, sir." She took her helmet out of Qwan's hands and left the medical wing.
On the taxi ride home she stared out the window, into the ceiling of the massive cave that housed the last fairy city. Her own reflection stared back at her, with two different eyes. One was her own, golden hazel. The other was blue; it had belonged to Artemis. They had unintentionally swapped left eyes in the time stream and now each had a piece of the other.
"We are connected," Artemis had remarked. "Now and always."
Holly realized that this was why she had been so affected. When Artemis went into the time stream, he had taken her eye with him. The pull had wanted the rest of her.
We are connected, she thought. In more ways than one.
"Artemis," Holly murmured, staring into her bright blue eye, "why do I always have to save you?"