Chapter 7
Back to Holly

Holly was at Tara. Well, in all honesty, she wasn't.

She was just hovering, hovering over the place where she had been captured. She had already checked for humans. She had already looked everywhere. She had already stalled as much as she could, and now she had to do it.

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Keep breathing. Just keep breathing.

She swooped down, landing at the roots of the oak. She grabbed an acorn nestled in its roots, and flew a short distance off to bury it.

She made a little nest for it, stuck her hand in, and muttered the incantation.

She watched the sparks come up her arm and collect at her big toe. It felt so good- what was that?

Being careful to avoid stopping the Ritual, Holly looked around. There! a rustling in the trees!

She gasped. It was a human!

A tall, skinny Mud Man came into the clearing, wearing bellbuttums and a large dangling peace sign. He was holding a Mud Woman's hand, leading her in after him.

Holly pulled the camo foil closer aroung her. This was going to get ugly.

The Mud Man spoke. "This is it, baby." The girl giggled. That, thought Holly, did not sound entirely drug-free. "This place is like, magic, man!"

Holly shuddered. She did not like where this was going. The guy had no shirt on, and the girl's hiphuggers were more like knee huggers. The less said about her shirt, the more descriptive. These were clearly hippies going on a ride that she did not want to witness.

"There's like, fairies. They come here to chill. And like, soak up on their magic." The pair were nuzzling each other like nobodies business. Especially not Holly's. She wanted out of there. And if they saw the sparks, or caught a glimpse of her, it would be unlikely that they'd let it go.

As the humans started getting more friendly, Holly started losing it. They knew about the People. The Mud Man had said it himself. He knew, he knew!

She looked back over at them. "Feel then magic" was what their theme for the night seemed to be. They knew about the magic. She was selectively hearing now, not noticing the noises and other sounds coming with the phrases that a sane fairy would dismiss as crackheaded moanings in primitive mating time.

She had to do something. if they knew about the people, they must know about the Fowls. What if Artemis had sent them? Had he overcome the mind wipe and would again cause problems for the people?

Holly, Ritual complete, tore off the camo foil and ran over to the doped up hippies, pulling them apart and shaking the Mud Man. "What did he want? Tell him he has no right to demand more from our people!"

Back in the Ops Booth, Foaly pulled up Holly's Cam screen to the mainscreen. One look told him all he needed to know.

"Why, Holly, why?" He moaned as he intercommed the Commander. "You can't be doing this, Holly, no no no!"

Root came in. "What is it, Foaly? and it had better be-" His face fell as he watched the screen. "Oh, d'arvit. This one will take some explaining."

'Foaly, prepare three mindwipes. Be quick, now, Retreival 1 will have them back in record time."

Foaly's face fell. "Three, commander? But there's only two humans involved- " He stopped, knowing the answer and not liking it at all.

"Yes, Foaly, three. Don't make me spell it out for you. Three. And assemble the Retrieval Squad. D'arvit. but this one will be ugly."

Foaly couldn't agree more. But as he got everything ready, he couldn't help but think to himself, Why? Why did she have to crack then?

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The hippies had started running, and Holly started chasing. All reason had deserted her. And it didn't return until the Retrieval Squad pulled her away from the humans.

They have her badge. Or at least her mind.

She didn't know which was worse. Living without policing as she was born to do, or not knowing what had happened. She didn't want to find out. But she had a feeling that, whatever had happened, she would not have much of a choice.

Two words were running through her mind at that moment.

Aw, crap.

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Holly was shaking in her boots at the thought of the mindwipe. Even though she knew Root has really fought upstream for her to keep her job, she knew that it would be best for all concerned if she was taken care of right now. Before she did anymore harm.

The hippies were already being wiped. Then they would be drugged up a bit and put back to their location prior to meeting Holly. They wouldn't remember the little incident, even after just being there. Mind wipes cannot be thrown off until at least a month after occurence, so there was no danger of the wipe not taking.

Holly was soon led into the chamber prepared for her mindwipe. She brushed away a couple tears and took a deep breath. This was it. The end of all her troubles. Was she happy? No. Not by a long shot.

Root came into the room. She looked at him. Foaly came in. She watched him, too. They tried gallently to avoid her glare, but in the end, all came to nought.

Foaly threw up his hands. "I'm sorry, Holly, but what do you expect, a medal? You can't expect us to not do something about you!"

Root agreed, pitching his cigar into the incinerater and his two cents at her. "He's right, Holly, and the Councel has been all along. You need to get a handle on this, and since you can't, we will."

Just picture manic laughter with that statement, and it's an almost humorous. But not quite, thought Holly, not quite.

She was genuinely surprised at how calm she was. She knew what was going to happen. She had accepted it. Now please, let it happen before I have time to rethink this!

"Um, commander, just out of curiosity, is there anyway to get out of this?"

She got a wordless answer when Root's face changed from the customary rosy yellow color to a truly vibrant red with skill usually seen only in traffic lights. She watched him sputter and gasp for awhile, but then the irony of his traffic imitations no longer humored her and she turned to Foaly.

"So, pony boy, how's this gonna work?"

Foaly turned so she couldn't see his face.

"Well, fundamentally, I'm going to hack into your brain and read the contents of its cells. Once that's done, I print copies of the funny and embarassing parts and then I- I delete the moments that involved Fowl and all the trouble you got into."

Holly smiled. Foaly was vallently attempting to cheer them all up, and he got it pretty well accomplished. But then she thought back to some of the bits of Fowl's past that had been posted in the lounge room, and that humor left her, too.

"Okay, now, if we could just get this over with?" Holly said, surprisingly in unison with the other two. They all exchanged looks, and sighed.

"Now remember, pony boy, don't delete more than neccessary or else. And if I find any copies of my most embarrassing moments in the lounge, I'll kill you in the most human way known to fairy."

Foaly didn't smile, just attached the electrodes to her head and strapped her arms and legs to the chair. Holly's heart pounded. This was it. It was really happening.

It started with a gnawing pull at the back of the mind.....

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