ASN: Thanks again for all the great reviews. It's such a amazing feeling to have people care enough that they bug you to update quickly.
AN: Or beg. Or even threaten. You all are wonderful. Crazy, but wonderful.
ASN: Yeah. But, on to more important things:
CHAPTER 14: PAYBACK TIME
Haven Shuttleport
Holly, Artemis, and Butler watched in silence as Root walked into the Council Room. All but three members were in various states of disarray, ranging from bandages to oxygen tanks. None of them looked overly happy. But that was not a big surprise.
"Commander Root," Lope said, "I'm glad to see you back in one piece. How did the rescue mission go?"
Root smiled slightly. "It went fairly well. We got Opal Koboi back within our possession, and rescued Foaly. All in all, it was a success."
"And what did you do with Fowl?" Vinyáya asked Root. He swallowed nervously, not smiling any longer.
"Well, that's the problem. You see, he refused to help without, um," Root was wincing. Holly had never seen him so apprehensive before. "He refused to help without payment." he finished miserably.
The entire Council exploded into protests. The fairies were not overjoyed with the possibility of having to pay Artemis again. They still hadn't forgiven him for the gold he had wheedled out of them two years ago.
"You must be kidding!" Cahartez said, standing. "We still haven't recovered from the last time he got our money. We can't afford it. I personally think we should mindwipe the criminal and forget about the entire thing." The rest of the Council nodded agreement. Holly glanced worriedly at Artemis. His face was set in stone.
"I want to talk to them." he said gravely. Holly began to protest, but something in the teen's voice made her stop. She shrugged and began patching him through to the screen in the Council Room.
"It's your grave. Or rather, your mind." she muttered. Artemis frowned, but made no comment. Holly bit her lip and activated the mike, sliding out of the Council's view. "You're on."
The Council members all looked up in shock as Artemis's face appeared on the large screen. "Hello, everyone." he said smoothly. Various Councilors stared at each other in surprise and slight fear. Root just sighed and resisted the urge to bury his head in his arms. He could sense the debate that was to follow. And for once in his life, his fairy instincts were completely wrong.
"I know everybody here is not happy at the prospect of owing me money. That's quite understandable, after everything I put you through when we first met."
Holly stared at the teenager in complete shock. In all her expectations, she had never expected the smooth, snide Artemis Fowl Junior to say such a...a... decent thing. Judging from the huge eyes of Root, she felt her commanding officer hadn't thought it of him either. Butler just sat back in his seat, letting his charge discuss his business.
"I still feel that you owe me something for services rendered." Artemis continued, and Holly felt a rush of disappointment course through her. Why expect him to change now?
"I believe 50,000 euros of gold is an appropriate amount for two full days of aid, don't you?"
From the corners of his eyes, Artemis saw Holly's jaw drop in shock, and he could hear her start spluttering. He absently waved a hand in her direction to shush her, focusing instead on the faces of the dumbfounded Council.
"I think 50,000 euros is an acceptable payment." Lope offered hesitantly. The other Councilors weren't so sure.
"Tell us, Fowl, why do you think we should refrain from mindwiping you?" Cahartez asked curiously. Root, still astounded from Artemis's cut price, recovered enough to wince. Artemis would wave the blackmail computer files in the Council's face now. The Commander could almost see the actions the Council would take once this was over. They'd probably promote Chix Verbil to Commander just to drive Root nuts.
The teen just shrugged. "With all respect, something like what just happened could quite possibly happen again. If I had been mindwiped, you would have had a lot more trouble finding Foaly. And the city would be in pieces."
Totally beaten, the Council members glanced at each other. "Well," Vinyáya said after a pause, "he is right. We couldn't have gotten this far without his help. Unfortunately, we do owe him something." She turned to Artemis. "We'll discuss this for a little while longer, Fowl. If you wouldn't mind..." The fairy gestured to the screen. He smiled slightly.
"Of course. Thank you for listening, ladies and gentlemen." He blinked away.
"Only 50,000 euros?" Lope commented. "Not bad, considering what we paid him last time. Why didn't you tell us he only wanted that much, Commander Root?"
Root smiled weakly. "Slipped my mind."
Artemis sat back, watching the Council members continue discussing his payment. Butler slipped back out into the shuttle, not wanting to bother his charge while he was thinking. Holly had no such reservations. She stared at the Mud Boy for a moment. He pointedly ignored her curious stare, not wanting to talk about it.
"What happened to your 100,000 euros?" she asked, refusing to go away. The teen sighed slightly, then smiled wistfully.
"I'm not worth that much, remember." he said softly. Holly winced as her harsh words were flung back in her face. For the first time since she had run into Artemis Fowl, she regretted what she had said.
"I didn't mean it." she responded. "I was angry."
Artemis looked at her, a hint of exasperation in his eyes. "You're angry every time I see you. Are you always biting people's heads off?"
"You bring out the worst in me." she shot, then backed off, realizing he had succeeded in making her mad again. "You have to admit, your high and mighty attitude does ask for it."
Artemis frowned. "Maybe." he allowed, then he sent a genuine smile at Holly. "But I will never admit it."
She smiled as well. "So, why only 50,000?" she asked again. Artemis's shoulders drooped a little.
"I felt...uncomfortable at taking that much. The help I gave wasn't worth it." Before Holly could make any embarrassing comments on his 'gracious action', he smirked. "Besides, I figure I have about 75,000 euros in patents downloaded from Foaly's network. We must be even."
The elf stared at him for a moment, then brushed off his comment with a chuckle. "I don't even want to know if that was a joke." she said.
"I do." Foaly whined from the Op Booth.
Both fairy and human burst out laughing at the brooding tone of the centaur. It was the first time for years that Artemis had laughed simply because he was content. Not because he was pleased with himself, or entertained because of the actions of others, but because he was just plain amused.
"Okay," Foaly said, "enough with the giggles. The Council wants to talk to you, Artemis."
Artemis composed himself, and nodded once. Holly set up the connection to the Council again, and he leaned forward. "Have you made your decision, Councilors?"
Vinyáya nodded. "We'll give you your money. You did help us, and we believe that 50,000 euros is a befitting amount for what you have done for us. According to Commander Root, you were kind enough to refrain yourself from doing anything in our network system while you were here."
Artemis nodded. "That is correct." he said. The Councilors turned to each other, pleased with the thought of Artemis still unable to get into their system. Holly stared at him disbelievingly. He grinned mischievously. "I waited until after I left." he whispered to her. She bit her lip, unable to decide to laugh or scream. He never quit.
Cahartez turned back to Artemis. "All right. Your money will be sent to your account immediately." he declared. "Now, I conclude that everything has been accomplished? All the Mud Men that kidnaped Foaly have been mindwiped?"
Root nodded. "Yes sir. That's all been taken care of."
Suddenly, Cahartez's praise for a job well done was interrupted by Holly's gasp. The entire Council, Root and Artemis all turned to look at her. She had gone dead white.
"Sir," she whispered, visibly distressed, "We forgot to mindwipe Rand."
The Council turned back to Root, who also paled. "D'Arvit." he whispered softly. 'We did, didn't we?"
Lope's gaze was heavy with disappointment. "So, you left this Rand with his memory and any records he may have left?" The fairy's voice did not bode well for Holly and Root's career future. They cringed.
"Well..." Root began, then was stopped by Artemis's smooth Irish accent.
"Not exactly." the teen said.
California Technology Labs, Executive Office
Jonathan Radison Rand felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. "Uh..." he moaned, pulling his head up off his desk. Kale stood in front of him, stiff at attention and very scared.
"Um, sir, the intruders, well, escaped. We can't find them. We thought they left through the ventilation system, but one of the guards fell through a hole in the office we cornered them in. Apparently they tunneled out." He swallowed. "We have no idea how they did it, sir."
Rand shook his head, trying to escape his headache. That one fairy had belted him good. "Well, they are fairies, what did you expect?" he commented. He rubbed his jaw. "They do have magic."
Kale stared at him, looking slightly worried. "Um...fairies, sir?" he asked cautiously. Rand looked at him.
"Yes, fairies." he said impatiently. "Where's Koboi? We need to talk."
"K-Koboi, sir?" Kale echoed.
"That's what I-" Rand stopped as everything cleared up suddenly. The fairies must have mindwiped his entire staff. Everyone who knew about the fairies know had no memories if that time.
"Who were the intruders, Kale?" he asked, just to make sure.
"Well, we don't know, sir. They didn't seem to take anything, but no one remembers seeing them. There were five people, three really short, and a blur that looked sort of like, well, like a horse. But that's all any of my people know."
Rand nodded. "Very well. Leave me. I'll figure this out on my own." He turned back to his desk, then looked up. "We were working on something in the room down the hall, is it still there?"
Kale shook his head. "Whatever was there is just a heap of scrap. The funny thing is, the room looks like a dungeon, and no one remembers what was in there."
Rand was quiet. "All right. Go." He sat down and turned on his computer. Kale stared at his boss in surprise. Intruders had been in and out of the building, and had destroyed something that seemed to have been of value. Kale wasn't complaining, but he was surprised to have his head still attached. Rand looked up, now visibly annoyed. "Well?" he demanded. Kale grimaced and left quickly.
Rand sighed. So, Fowl and his friends had decimated the mindwiping machine, taken Opal, and taken that centaur as well. If he hadn't saved the mindwiping machine's blueprints in his computer, he would actually have had to concede defeat for the first time in his life. The computer whirred as the Fowl operating system came online. Rand opened his personal file, where he kept all of his most secret and not quite legal documents. The file's contents appeared on the screen, and he clicked on the one marked 'Mindwipe'.
Pages and pages of tiny print and schematic drawings filled his screen, and Rand smiled triumphantly. The opposition had not won.
A small black dot appeared in the middle of a paragraph describing the brain's electronic pulse mechanism. He looked at it curiously. Was it his imagination, or was the dot getting....bigger? He shook his head. Impossible.
Then, all the letters on the screen started sliding towards the hole. Rand watched in horror as his files fell into the black hole in the middle of the screen and disappeared. He frantically tried to exit the program, but the computer was frozen. In seconds, his personal files had vanished as if it had never existed, and the black hole was getting bigger. Rand reached for the power button, but the computer shocked him so badly his entire right hand went numb. He could only sit there and watch as the black hole expanded to fill the entire screen. His computer let out an electronic screech, and then huge red letters filled the screen.
"We hope you've enjoyed this demonstration of the new kazaana virus. Have a nice day." The red letters slowly faded, and the computer turned itself off. Rand drummed his fingers on his desk as he switched the machine back on. It hummed obediently, and an error message popped up.
"Hard drive erased."
Rand was peeved, to say the least. He left his plush office, walked into his secretary's office, and accessed the network from there. Rand was no fool. He had everything backed up on his network, which connected all of his branches. The computer turned on compliantly. Rand hit the icon for the network, and the machine suddenly coughed.
Rand stared at it blankly. He didn't know computers could cough. Suddenly, the identification numbers of every computer attached to the network started flashing by quickly, along with a message:
"File kazanna.vir copied to network. Please stand by." Rand watched, appalled, as every file from every computer on his network flew into the black void.
In ten seconds, the computer screen went black again. For the first time in his life, Jonathan Radison Rand was completely floored. The phone on the secretary's desk rang shrilly, and he numbly picked it up.
"I need to talk to Rand NOW!" came a harried voice over the line.
"Speaking." Rand said blandly.
"Mr. Rand, this is Somers from the LA branch. All of our computers just went down. Everything is gone. All the files have been erased. Everything we were working on has just disappeared." the man cried.
"When was the last time you backed up the hard drives?" Rand asked, sounding more like his former self.
"Two weeks ago! We were going to back up today..."
"Well, bring out the disks and get back to work."
"But we lost two weeks of work!" the man protested.
"Then you're just going to have to work a little bit harder to catch up!" Rand snapped, and slammed the phone back into its cradle.
He stalked back into his office and sat in his custom made chair. Moodily glaring at his dead computer, he sighed. He had been beaten by a teenager and his pint-sized companions. It was humiliating. Still, he was above petty revenge, and he had two weeks of work to catch up on. The mindwiping machine was a lost cause, but he was still the head of the number one technology company in the world. But as he turned back to his computer, he filed the name Artemis Fowl away into the corners of his mind. He may need it again later.
ASN: Yes, the kazaana virus was my idea. It's the Japanese word for (approximately) black hole or air void. For all of you poor deprived people who have no clue what I'm talking about, the word is from an amazing anime called Inuyasha. By Rumiko Takahashi, if anyone cares.
AN: *sighs deeply* And she is not obsessed.
ASN: I am not obsessed.
AN: Riiiiiight. Well, people, we're down to the final chapter. Excited? Ryn should update within 2 or 3 days. Till then!