A/N: Hello readers—there have to be SOME of you! This is a random Artemis Fowl fanfic, but it centers around the People. One of the People in particular.

***

I'm T'dal Thorn…well, my full name is Tiria Ridal Thorn, but that name is too long for a two-foot-tall fairy. So it's T'dal (Ti-dahl). An elf.

Who am I really? T'dal, the little elf-girl who lives in Upper Haven, best predictor under the world. Despite being only forty years old—the equivalent of around fifteen in human ages.

Someone came to me with an interesting question about a year ago… "Will Artemis Fowl return?"

That, naturally, aroused my curiosity…Fowl is well known among the People. Especially those under Ireland, where I am.

"I cannot go on such little information as that," I said professionally, fixing this redheaded elf wearing an LEP badge and nametag with my coolest gaze. "Fairy may I be, but no mind-reader."

She colored and looked back at me, not flinching. "I am Captain Holly Short of LEPrecon, and if I say to go on that question, you…"

I rolled my eyes. "I know your name, Captain Short. Now, the fact remains: do you want a prediction from a beginner? Someone who may be…inaccurate? I detect it's an important matter…I'd give you the right answer, provided that I know exactly what the question is."

The LEPrecon officer glared at me, then sighed. "All right," she said heavily. "What do you need to know?"

I decided NOT to say "everything" like they do in the Mud People films. "As much as you care to give."

She gave it.

Now, I must tell you, as an elf within my first two decades, I look a bit…juvenile. I'm blond and thin, with slanted eyes and a hooked nose. Not pretty. Just childish, and a bit…cute. How I hate the word.

So I have a LEP officer, one who's probably four times my age, in the office, and she spilled everything. Poured out her story, with all the unneeded details. I scribbled the good information, the non-subjective, the opinionless. There were about twenty sentences out of three hundred that fitted the exact criteria, but more tidbits could be added.

I looked over the facts, then the psychological report from that idiot Argon. Well, he's an idiot socially—bullied me a bit during high school—but his work is sound. I had the answer before Captain Short finished her last sentence.

"Yes."

Short blinked. She took a breath and asked, "How?"

I love my job. As professionally as possible without smiling in the least, I said, "Captain, that's a second question. If you'd like to pay me for the second one, I'd answer gladly."

She was going to pitch at me, I swear. Probably the fact that I was a foot shorter than her, and a genius to boot, stopped her.

"D'Arvit…how do you know, then? That's not a prediction question, now is it?" Short asked slyly.

D'Arvit herself. I'd been had. Well, nothing for it but to explain…she might have been on a mission and I could be charged with obstructing an LEP operation.

"Captain, it's basic logic. He got fifteen million dollars of LEP gold and wasn't happy. He got his mother's sanity back and he wasn't happy. He got his father back, the object of his moneymaking, and wasn't happy. I read a thought from his mind: it would be much harder to be criminal with both his parents around. Well, that's nearly a dead giveaway. He will return."

Now I was babbling. Do prodigies ever win?

Short smiled, displaying pointed teeth. "Thank you, Miss Thorn. That was…informative." She got up from the chair and turned to leave.

I rocketed out of my seat like I had been sitting on a pin. "And my gold?"

"Oh yes…here." The captain flung a single gold bar my way.

I grabbed her sleeve. "Know how to read?"

Short's eyebrows lowered. "Of course. Now let me leave."

I pointed at the sign on my desk, which clearly said, "PREDICTIONS: FIVE (5) OUNCES GOLD, OR TWO (2) INGOTS."

The LEPrecon officer scowled and handed me another ingot. I smiled, showing off a glistening set of pointed teeth of my own. "Thank you for your business, Captain Short. Have a lovely night," I said, smiling innocently.

She growled something incomprehensible (probably a good thing; I need to preserve my innocent mind…hah…) and strode out of the office with a face like thunder.

***

And that, I thought, would be the extent of my connection to the Fowl cases. Regrettably (hah) it wasn't.

***

Fast forward: Two months later and I was still thinking about Holly Short's visit. Then a centaur made an appointment.

He introduced himself with a firm handshake and the word "Foaly." Aaah…the techie centaur who managed the LEP Ops booth, and a…ahem…"dear friend" from middle school.

"Good aftermid," I said politely, deciding not to ask about the aluminum foil hat between the centaur's horns.

(A/N: "Aftermid" is not a typo. As you'll remember, the fairies do everything at night. So I took some liberty and made up a greeting—after-midnight.)

"Same, same. To business…"

I rested my chin in my hand and looked at him. "Your question?"

He shook his head. "Unh-uh. An…interpretation, if you will." He laid a wafer-thin laptop on the desk and pushed it towards me. I opened the minicomputer and checked out the screen—open to the word processor.

DNT PNC THIS IS PLEA.FOWL HAS BEEN KDNPPD & LKS LKE SOME1 UNDRGRND.HLP—BUTLER

I read it twice and looked up at Foaly, disbelief twisting my face. "Interpreted? What do you need interpreted?" I glanced up at the ceiling. "Must I even request payment?"

Foaly scowled. "Well excuuuuse me, you snotty little…ahem…T'dal. I was wondering if it was a lie."

"Elementary, my dear centaur," I said sarcastically. "True." I read the message again. "Don't panic, this is a plea…no, really…"

"Are you gonna help me or not?" the centaur asked angrily.

That actually caught me off-guard. "What?" I…well, I squawked. "I'm sorry, I could have sworn you just asked ME to help you find a Mud Boy who's almost thrown the planet into an interspecies war…twice. I must have misheard…"

Foaly groaned. "No, T'dal, you didn't mishear anything. Fowl's all right—" He scowled at me as I rolled my eyes. "—sometimes. Look, if some fairies did kidnap the little idiot…how the hell would that happen, by the way, his bodyguard's even more paranoid than me, which is saying something…"

"Get on with it," I said icily. "You owe me two ingots already just for your time."

"If some fairies kidnapped the little idiot," Foaly repeated loudly, "we have the chance to turn them in and get a little reward…"

"Why are you asking me?" I hissed. "Foaly, I'm just a precocious little elf when all's said and done, and all you ever cared about in middle school was that I was smaller than everyone else…"

He flushed with anger. "That was almost thirty years ago, come on…and then all I cared about was how to hack into the restricted sites on the Web…"

"Waffling…WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME?"

Foaly slammed a fist on the desk. "You're smart, D'Arvit! You got skills! You actually know left from right!"

"Okay then," I said, settling back. He told me what I wanted to know, so…

"Will you help, then?"

I rolled my eyes. "Hello…um, duh."

"Thanks, T'dal," he said, and put four bars of gold on my desk.

"Sure. Now go back to being the paranoid techie like a good little pony…"

He clopped out of the office obediently. Somehow I had a feeling he'd be coming back.

I tossed the gold into my safe and turned to meet my next customer, a ditzy gnome who wanted to know when she'd meet her true love. Aaah, stuff that I could handle that didn't involve a quadruped with an attitude.

So what about the Fowl case? After the last customer (a young sprite who wanted to know if he would get into the LEP) left around five a.m., Foaly came back.

I was closing up—emptying the safe, locking my desk, shutting down the computer—when the centaur trotted in again. "I'm closed, can't you see that?" I said snappishly, pointing towards the "SORRY—CLOSED" sign on my desk.

"Yeah, but this is special work," Foaly said, shrugging. "I traced the e-mail, and it's from…"

"Fowl Manor?" I interrupted.

Foaly shook his head. "Russia."

I looked up at the ceiling. "Not the radioactive wasteland…"

"Yup, the radioactive wasteland."

I thought for a few seconds. "But that doesn't have much to do with anything, does it? I mean, we want to find Fowl, not the bodyguard."

"Well…" Foaly started. "Well, it might. See, if he's not where he's supposed to be, then that might mean that he was kidnapped, too…"

"And then Butler's kidnappers might be in league with Fowl's kidnappers…" I said, thinking out loud. Well, it might work.

"That means that someone in Russia knows about the People…" Foaly remarked.

"And that's a danger to us all," I finished. D'Arvit.

"Right."

I rebooted my computer. "Okay then…logic. People who are enemies of the Fowls."

We started up a database on those premises. After nearly an hour, the centaur said, "Time to break a rule."

I glanced up at him. "And that rule would be…what?"

"Using Ops Booth technology for personal projects," Foaly said, shrugging.

A smile started to spread over my face. "No…that's not breaking any rules…"

"How, pray tell," Foaly demanded.

"Well, it's technically an undisclosed crisis…there's a loophole in there, I know it…if anything presents a direct threat to the People, all LEP technology can be used even if it's undisclosed and not passed by the LEP commander. I'm sure Beetroot wouldn't mind," I said slyly.

Foaly clapped his hands once. "You're brilliant. Now let's go."

We saved the file to a disk, and were off.

It was odd walking through Haven that close to daylight. There were a few dance clubs still open, but the streets were deserted except for a few drunks swaggering and staggering into the alleys. Police Plaza was totally devoid of life except for a single light in a third-floor office.

Foaly pointed up at it. "That's Root. Should we inform him?"
I thought about it. "Well, then we'll be legal…nah."

"Criminal," Foaly said teasingly.

I shrugged. "Come on, pony. We have a little idiot to rescue."

It was nearly eight in the morning by the time we were finished. Both of us were near exhaustion, but Foaly was still working out searches. I didn't pay much attention—it was all techie stuff, and that didn't interest me. I was curled up in one of the swivel chairs, wondering if I could take a day off. In just twelve hours I had to be back at work.

"Nothing, D'Arvit…" Foaly said. "We need more data. I can't conduct a search just on names and a hunch."

"Okay…we'll do some research. Or we alert the LEP and ask if someone could do a physical search of Haven and surrounding…" I said lazily, wishing the pony would shut up so I could fall asleep.

But no.

Foaly turned from the computer. "You're the genius again. We should do that."

"No really. Well, you're the LEP guy, you get to tell Root," I returned. "Foaly, I'm dead on my feet, can I go home?"

He straightened, very suddenly, like someone had just stuck a pin in his tail. "You could look for him by mind! Your prediction magic! Right?"

I shook my head. "No go…I'd need something of Fowl's, and we don't got that." I was soooo tired!

Foaly pulled something off a lower shelf of his desk. It looked like a…D'Arvit…a human's laptop computer.

"Noooo…by all the gods, Foaly…"

Smiling like he was giving me a treat (albeit a poisoned one), he said happily, "Oh but I DO have something of Fowl's. He left his laptop here…I've strangely never gotten around to dismantling it…so you've got your piece! And it was his for a while, I know that…"

I narrowed my eyes. "Look, I'm tired as hell, I have to go to bed or someone's going to be unhappy. You're closest. Would you like to be locked up in here again? Heard that happened last year…"

"That wasn't funny," Foaly said flatly. "Okay fine…if you can't function…go. I expect guilt'll get you in the end. They'll find you in your office, the first customer of the day, and you'll be trying to get mental sendings from a laptop…"

My last comment was, "Shut up, pony." Then I staggered out of LEP headquarters, laptop under my arm. The thing was half my size, darn it.

I was glad my home, my corner of Haven (add an "e" to that and it'd be a major lie) was almost exactly between my office and LEP HQ. It was a little street-level hole in the side of a cliff that's been cut into a bunch of apartments. Mine was marked with a very bright red door, standing slightly out from the others, which were blue, green, or highly polished stainless steel, in the case of a certain paranoid centaur that had to have everything totally secure.

Home was nice, but bed was better. I washed my face quickly and fell straight into bed. Not even bothering to change, or get under the covers, I fell asleep.

Despite Mr. Foaly's dire prediction, the laptop wasn't nagging a single corner of my mind at all. So there, centaur, I thought in my dream.

***

I was up with the twilight, around six—pretty good for me. That was time for a long shower and a real breakfast, and a leisurely walk into the office.

No hard work that day. A lot of cocky sprites, several kind of thick gnomes, and two or three other centaurs. No LEP elves in need of anger management demanding answers, no techies on my back about laptop computers. It was a lot of relaxing, and I made almost forty ingots. A good night's work.

Finished, thank God, by five a.m. So when Foaly came in finally, I was working off the laptop.

It's weird, getting vibes—there's no other word for it—from something. Especially something Mud People-related.

You have to clear your mind of everything except the person and the object. I had been in the goblin siege of downtown Haven of course, but I had never seen Fowl face-to-face. Which makes it a lot harder. Going on what I had heard from everyone though, it was easy enough to cobble the People's feelings about the boy.

How old would he be? Fourteen? That sounds right…okay, black hair, very pale person, dark blue eyes, cold, calculating, very polished, aristocratic, environmentally conscious, vicious, criminal, intelligent, HIGHLY intelligent… I went on listing facts of Fowl in my brain, and after five minutes had the total idea of him. Then I had to go on to this laptop.

It had the feeling of Fowl around it—his aura, I called it. Okay…strong feelings towards the south. South of Haven—I felt around there, at the same time trying to look at a mental map. South of Haven—one of the old chutes? Perhaps…

I was getting a headache from this divided thinking. But concentrate, T'dal, concentrate! South, really long way. VERY long. And east, a little.

Where was that? I pulled my mind up to the surface—downtown Paris, France? That was…shoot…that was Chute E37. Famous for the discovery of B'wa Kell and Mud Man contact by none other than Captain Holly Short. This was rich…

Foaly knocked on the office door. I nodded and he came in.

"Did you get anything?" he asked, seeing I was working with the laptop.

I nodded. "France. E37."

The centaur did a double take. "What? Chute E37? Where the B'wa Kell centered operations?"

I nodded again. "Right. But…" I thought. "It seems too easy."

"Too easy?" Foaly said incredulously. "Nothing's too easy. If they feel like laying out a welcome mat, we'll just go along with it and step right over."

"Great metaphor, dear techie. But I've got a gut feeling that something's wrong."

He smirked. "Chalk it up to indigestion, Thorn. I'm going to report to Root now and maybe he'll send out a squad…you coming?"
I stood and closed the office down finally. "Yeah, fine. You get to carry the machine, though." I forced the laptop at him. "It's half my size."

Foaly took the minicomputer and scowled at me. "That says a lot."

***

A/N: Umm…that's it for now…is it okay??

~ Flamewing

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