A/N: Back. And, ugh, is this chapter short. I dunno—it seemed okay leaving it where it was…I'll see what you think, and the next chapter WILL be slightly longer.

***

Root called me in the next night, and it was suddenly his turn to look like someone had died—someone like Briar Cudgeon, so Root didn't get to have a go at him before he fried in activated plasma. The LEP commander was absolutely livid.

"If I ever find out you have anything to do with this, T'dal—" he growled threateningly. Then he seemed unable to think of anything worse to say.

"What's wrong?" I demanded. "I didn't have anything to do with whatever it is that you're so up in arms about—kindly enlighten me."

He just threw a folded newspaper at my head. Deciding to get out of the way before he moved on to heavy things like telephones or computer mice, I went outside, holding the newspaper.

It became suddenly very clear as to what had teed off Commander Root.

ARTEMIS FOWL KIDNAPPED—

IS IT A FAIRY'S WORK?

Artemis Fowl, Mud Boy teenager and definite adversary of the People, has been reported kidnapped by the Haven LEP. A Haven predictor, prodigy T'dal Thorn, is, as our source remarked, "instrumental" in the retrieval process.

No information has been uncovered besides that. Of course, if you'd like a recap of the past Fowl events (pun intended if you're reading this aloud), by all means read on.

Haven journalists. You gotta love them, with sarcastic remarks that are actually published in the paper.

After the opening paragraphs was just a highly colored recap of the hostage situation of two years ago. I didn't bother with reading it, having gotten all information from a firsthand source—Holly Short.

"Thorn!" Root yelled from his office. I went back in, sighing heavily.

"You read it all?"

"Yes sir," I said. "The entire thing in all its gruesome lies."

He blinked. "Right. As of now, the present Fowl case is absolutely confidential. If you breathe a word, go live under Alaska for a few centuries and maybe I'll talk to you after that."

"And reporters?" I asked. "They'll be swarming. And if I'm right, mentioning my name is illegal—I'm still a minor, supposedly—"

Root shook his head. "Sorry, T'dal. You're in a business, you've got all the rights of an adult."

I hated Haven laws, I decided, right there.

"Well…"

"So you've got no one to sue. And if anyone shoves a microphone in your face, just tell it where to go."

I smiled wearily. "Oh, this'll be fun."

***

Journalists started wandering around Police Plaza, wielding their wafer-thin laptops like they were weapons of mass destruction. Well, if used correctly, the computers were. I encountered my first when I was walking back to the office, from my visit with Commander Root.

"Excuse me! Excuse me, reporter coming through! Young elf! Thorn! T'dal!"

I turned towards the voice, like a fool, and found a hyperactive pixie carrying a laptop with Haven Nightly splashed across it. My movement seemed to excite her even more—"T'dal! Would you answer some questions for the Haven Nightly newspaper? About your help with the latest Fowl case? How do you feel about being a professional predictor at your young age? How did you get involved with the—"

Deciding to have a bit of fun, I stared at her, and then at the now-open laptop, with the word processor on-screen. If I used enough telekinesis—it'd be a drain, but I'd manage…

Carefully, I pressed each key down with mental energy. Spelling out a rather insulting phrase. By the time the pixie looked at the screen, I was gone through the crowd.

No way am I telling you what I said. I mean, I'm an innocent—not supposed to know things like that—

But the meaning of this is, I got back to work with a pixie stranded in the middle of the Plaza, screeching insults after me. The deluge of screams only ended when the door to the office complex fell closed.

I cleared up my desk, and looked at the schedule for the aftermid. The next appointment was in about two hours—I could do one of two things. Wait around for walk-ins, or leave and work on Fowl's stupid laptop.

"Hey, T'dal," said a friendly voice—no idiot reporters or furious, militant police officers. "Brought you something to work on."

I looked up. Foaly was holding out Fowl's stupid laptop with a smile like he was saving me from deadly boredom.

"How'd you get that?" I demanded. "It was in my apartment the entire time!"

The centaur shrugged. "I got a warlock to summon it. Pretty easy for him. And here you are." He held out the computer again.

Moaning, I took it and put it on the table, in front of my desktop computer. "I'll get on it…" I realized something very, very bad. "Oh shi—shoot."

"What? What's worthy of you almost cursing?"

I sighed. "A warlock used magic on this laptop, correct?"

"Correct," Foaly said, looking mystified. "But what's that got to do with—"

Holding up a hand to motion him silent, I went on, "There's been a spell used on this? And how long did the summoning take? This is imperative, Foaly. Don't be smart-alecky on me now."

He thought about that for a moment and answered, "Okay…the spell took about twenty minutes, from set-up to finish."

I actually did curse then. Rather badly—and magically, enough to immediately rust a picture frame on the wall. "Ohh, this is bad," I added.

"What what what? Tell me what happened!" said Foaly, impatient.

"Twenty minutes of magic is well enough to change the subject of the aura and the trail it leads to," I said, quoting almost directly from the text I had written on mental magic. "Meaning…"

"Meaning?" Foaly asked. "You'll have to tell me—we in the peanut gallery have no idea what you're talking about."

I almost glared, but decided not to—it would take too much energy. "Okay," I said lamely, just for the sake of saying something. "Meaning, I can't tell where Fowl is anymore. The trail I could have gotten now leads to a random warlock. Why didn't you ask me about that?"

Foaly looked flabbergasted. "We lost our lead?"

"Not entirely," I admitted. "There's a very fractional chance that if I use up about all the rest of my magic, I can get under the overrunning trail and find Fowl's again. That means I'd have to get about four days off work to recover and do the Ritual and all that."

"But we're not dead yet?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Guess not. Look, would you be really nice and tell Root that progress will be going rather slowly due to a large amount of stupidity on his top techie's part?"

Foaly scowled. "Stupidity? I beg to differ, elf. No one ever informed me of the delicacies of mental magic."

"Okay, fine," I said, glowering right back. "Would you be really nice and tell Root that progress will be going slowly due to lack of communication?"

He nodded. "So you'll be needing a surface visa, right? After you're all finished with finding the trail and everything."

"Right. I'll finish today and take a workweek off—five days to be on the safe side," I said. "This is a major magic."

"Yeah. I'll go tell him." Halfway to the door, Foaly turned and said, "Kindly don't get yourself killed."

I smiled wryly. "I'll try. Go on, pony."

***

A/N: Yeah. So it's extremely short. I'm sorry…next chapter will be longer, really. Just thought I'd post this before anyone started after my blood. Argh…this isn't moving half as fast as I wanted it to…but anyway. It's here! Kindly leave a review on this weird new site format…

~Flamewing