Artemis was sure that he was time traveling. The chaos around him looked similar to when he, Holly and the two warlocks had traveled similarly just two months before. However, that time the travel had been smooth. Their molecules and minds had been taken through the current of time, freely flying along the essence of history.

This was much different and much worse. Artemis felt as though he were being crushed, squeezed together and pushed against a wall. And he was alone; when Holly was with him, their minds were one. They were as close as they would ever be, company in the chaos of time. Now, Artemis could neither hear or feel anything except the racing of his own mind and the rumbling around him.

Focus, he thought. You need to keep your mind busy or it'll be lost to you. He was still painfully paralyzed, but his vision had cleared. The time around him moved differently; whereas his previous experiences had been vague, cosmic and transcendent, this was more discernable. The time around him looked structured, almost like a tunnel or a hallway. He could see images flying by him as if they were painted on walls. He wasn't jumping around in time, being deposited from one point to the next without guidance. He was being sent somewhere. There was a destination, he decided.

The time also seemed to move around him instead of the other way around. Artemis couldn't feel himself moving, more like he was standing there as the hallway moved around him. The reason, he assumed, was so that he wouldn't fall apart while traveling.

Suddenly, over the rumble of time and the buzzing in his head, he heard a ringing phone. His eyes flicked to his sides, to the ring on his hand that he couldn't see. It was the communicator ring that Holly had given him so that they could talk directly.

Artemis fought against the overwhelming force putting him in place, determined to let Holly know he was there. The harder he pushed, the more the force fought against him. Artemis could feel his bones straining against it, on the verge of snapping, but he wasn't going to let something like the power of time stop him.

One centimeter at a time, his fingers nearly snapping out of their sockets, he rose the ring to his face, opened it and raised it to his ear. He felt like he was lifting a thousand pounds instead of a tiny golden ring on the end of a boney arm.

"Hello?" Artemis heard Holly's voice coming through the speaker and he felt his heart leap. Just hearing her voice was enough; he didn't feel so alone anymore. "Artemis?"

Several things happened at once. Artemis tried to open his wired jaw, only to have it be forced shut tighter than before. He could feel several of his teeth cracking as they smashed together. His arm with the ring phone was forced back to his side and Artemis could feel the metal break his flesh. His head was filled with a violent static, his ears popped and he felt a blood vessel in his left eye break. The molecules in his body squeezed closer together, vibrating with so much friction that Artemis could feel himself getting hotter.

His sight went into a splash of colors, then black, then red, then a blinding white. A huge rumbling filled his ears and he lost consciousness.

Artemis woke to the smell of garbage and the sound of busy city traffic. He opened his eyes, blinked a few times and was met with a spectacular view of an unfamiliar skyscraper. The architecture looked 21st century, so either he was only a few years into the past or he was in a time when this sort of modernist style was becoming retro.

The Irish boy attempted to lift himself into a sitting position, but immediately collapse back onto his back. His entire body felt wrong. It wasn't just that it hurt (it did; he was certain that the radius in his left arm was broken), but that it didn't feel like his body. He couldn't quite understand what had happened. He waved his good arm experimentally and froze.

Unlike others who use the phrase hyperbolically, Artemis Fowl does actually know everything about the back of his hand. He keeps mental note of every scar, stain and birthmark that had left itself on his skin. There was a scar on the knuckle of his ring finger that he felt a special connection to; he had received during the Bwa-kel goblin rebellion almost 2 years previously. It was a reminder of the first time he had helped the People; somebody other than himself.

It was gone.

Artemis blinked, hard, something that he noticed was taking a lot of effort, and looked again. The crescent-moon scar had just disappeared.

Then he noticed the cuff of his button-up, which seemed to have grown twice its size. It looked as though a small child had tried on his father's clothes.

That thought sent of sparks in the boy's brain. He slowly, painfully made his way to a sitting position and looked around for some reflective surface. He was in a dirty alleyway, just outside the backdoor of some restaurant called "James' Place". Trash bins, loose bits of grimy paper and molding food surrounded him and any glass was from broken bottles. Nothing mirror-like.

The door flew open in front of him and Artemis instinctively back peddled. It was a mistake; his arm screamed in pain and he fell back down gasping. An elderly man in a dirty apron came out to the alley, carrying a trash bag over his shoulder. It fell from his hands as he noticed Artemis and ran toward the damaged boy.

"Holy crap…" the man said, crossing himself. "Hey, kid, you okay?" His accent was a thick Manhattan twang, helping Artemis know that he had landed in New York City.

"Mirror…" Artemis hissed. His breath had left him and he was certain that his bottom rib had been bruised, maybe broken.

"Uh… uh…" the man was fervently rubbing his hands together. A stressful tic. "Let me call an ambulance. I'll let my boss know. Just sit tight." He ran back inside, the screen door slamming behind him.

Artemis laid there, feeling broken and a theory swimming in his mind. It would explain a lot of things; the compression in the time stream, the sudden growth of his shirt, the fact that his left eye was very difficult to close.

He lifted his right hand up to his left eye and prodded at the lid. It felt huge, like it was trying to contain a small apple rather than an eyeball. Artemis remembered the first time he'd noticed he and Holly had switched eyes; hers was small for him, being a human, and his had been too big for her, being a fairy. Holly had to shrink down their eyes using magic so that they would be the proper proportions. Artemis had wondered if this would be constantly necessary as he grew older, if the eye would refuse to adjust to his biology and remain the same size until adjusted.

The door was flung open again, this time by an older, heavy-set woman in ridiculous eye makeup and a big hairdo.

"Good God!" she cried, leaning down next to Artemis. "What happened to you, boy? What's with your eye? You know it's bleeding?"

"Mirror, please," Artemis whispered again, this time taking care not to brush his lungs against his rib.

"A mirror?" the woman asked, incredulous. "I don't have a mirror, hun. Besides, you don't wanna see your face right now."

"Makeup mirror?" Artemis asked.

The woman shrugged. "Okay, kiddo. Don't say I didn't warn you."

The lady reached into the pocket of her apron and took out and old and much used handheld mirror. Artemis gingerly opened it with his right hand and saw a much younger Artemis Fowl II staring back at him. This one was at least nine years old, with fewer frown lines in his forehead and a bulging left eye that seemed in danger of popping out of his head.

Artemis gave the mirror back to the pudgy woman. "Thank you," he said, trying to calm his breathing.

"An ambulance is on its way, sweetie," the woman assured him. "Don't worry."

"Worry…" Artemis was staring back at the skyscraper that he had first seen after landing. It finally dawned on him why he hadn't recognized it before. He had only seen it once in person and then again when it had been destroyed on live television.

It was the South Tower of the World Trade Center.