AN: Ah! This chapter is much longer than I meant it to be. After all, we decided to do short chapters every other day, but this is longer than usual.
ASN: But don't expect this to become a habit. We are rapidly running out of story.
AN: *Pretends to swoon* Horror of horrors! We will have to *gasp* actually write more!!
ASN: Oh shut up.
Chapter 17 What is Going On??
Luckily for Holly, Root had come through on his promise and cleared out the platform at Tara. She got her passengers down to Haven safely, and into LEP headquarters. From there, things began to get a little out of hand.
It started with Captain Trouble Kelp being in the conference room with Foaly and Root.
"C-C-Commander," he stuttered when Holly opened the door. "Wh-what are they doing here?" He stared at the Mud Men behind Holly a little fearfully, but he especially kept an eye on the big one.
"They're here to talk, and that's all." Root growled. "Do you hear me, Fowl? You talk, and then you're on your way home again, without those memories of yours!"
Artemis raised an eyebrow. "With all respect, Commander," he said calmly, "I believe my involvement in this is going to include a little more than information brokering." Root frowned at him menacingly, but when Artemis didn't react, he sighed and waved a hand at a chair.
"Sit." the elf grumbled. Artemis did so, and the Butlers followed his response. Holly, however, hung near the door, trying to avoid her Commander's gaze.
"Holly." Root said with a vicious bite to his voice. "Sit down. We'll talk later." The look on her commander's face was almost enough to make Holly wish she'd never heard of LEPRecon. She sat.
"Fowl," Foaly began, "This is Captain Trouble Kelp." Butler studied Trouble thoughtfully.
"I know you, don't I?" he asked. "You look familiar." Trouble nodded.
"I was part of the Retrieval team you attacked a few years ago." he said in a flat monotone. Now that he had gotten over the fact Mud Men were in Haven, Trouble was professional again. But that didn't mean he had to be nice. "And you met my little brother as well. He was the one you spoke to."
"Ah. The no-ranker." Butler said, smiling a little. "Yes, I remember now."
Artemis finally realized why the name 'Kelp' seemed familiar. "Your brother is the elf who was kidnapped." he stated.
"Took you long enough." Root muttered. Artemis just ignored him. After all, the teen had practiced that particular skill a lot in the past week.
"All right." Foaly interrupted. "That's enough. Artemis, what can you tell me about this Simone girl?"
"Simone is French, a foreign exchange student. She came to my house about a week ago. Her father dotes on her constantly, and provides her with very up-to-date technology. She's very smart, nosy, irritating, and determined to put my entire family in prison, as is her father."
"I think he likes her." Holly said softly. Foaly almost swallowed the pen he was chewing on with his laughter. Root couldn't hide a smirk. The Butlers, of course, had much more practice at controlling their mirth, and were sitting quietly. Trouble seemed a little confused, and Artemis looked distinctly annoyed.
"Captain…"
She looked at him innocently. Foaly started to get a very vague idea of exactly what had been going on at Fowl Manor. He almost felt sorry for the Mud Boy.
Almost.
"Anyway," the centaur said, still smiling a little, "is that why your computer systems were guarded better than usual, and why your documents seemed remarkably legitimate?"
"Yes." Artemis said, still scrutinizing Holly out of the corner of his eye. "She had attempted to break into my hard drive."
"How far did she get?" Foaly asked with interest.
"Not very far." Artemis stated. "I may not have had fairy technology at my disposal, but my computer is still far more advanced than most others on Earth."
"But not under it." Holly commented. He ignored her.
"Look, as much as I enjoy watching Fowl squirm for a change, we need to get down to business." Root interrupted. "We have two kidnappings, and they're obviously related. Foaly, explain to me again this relationship between Simone and Kegel, and Kegel and the fairies."
"Well," Foaly started, falling into 'Professor I Know Everything' mode, "Kegel works for an Interpol inspector named Antoine Badeau. Badeau has a daughter, Simone." He stopped.
"Okay, that's nice," the commander said calmly. Foaly, Holly, and Trouble all winced. Root exploded, on schedule. "HOW DID KEGEL KNOW ABOUT GRUB?!?!"
"Well, um…" Foaly shuffled his hooves nervously. "Julius, this is really hard for me to say…"
"Don't call me Julius and say it anyway." Root snarled.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?" Root asked incredulously. Foaly nodded miserably, visions of a rapidly diminishing budget dancing in his head.
"If we look at this logically, it's really quite obvious." Artemis stated. "Simone's kidnapping came right on the heels of Corporal Kelp's kidnapping. Therefore, Defea must have kidnapped Simone, his employer's daughter, in retaliation."
"Right." Root agreed. "But in retaliation for what?"
Artemis shrugged, unperturbed at the rapid fire questioning. "I don't know."
"You don't know?" Holly asked sarcastically. Artemis crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, his patented blank look firmly on his face.
"I may be a genius, Captain, but I'm not psychic." Holly sneered and was about to say something when Trouble interrupted.
"Why would Defea be in contact with some Mud Man techno geek anyway?"
"Well," Foaly said, "She is a pretty good inventor, and she's had some great ideas."
"That's the answer." Artemis said. "Defea's trading technology with Mr. Kegel. You had said, Foaly, when examining my laptop a year or so ago, that you felt someone may have been leaking fairy technology."
"Yes, the filters on your computer were very advanced for your primitive species. You cobbled them together from the stuff you captured from us, right?" Foaly asked.
"No. I bought them."
Foaly was shocked. "You bought them." he repeated.
"Yes. From Dell." Artemis said with a slight smile.
"Dell." Foaly repeated once again. Then he whirled to Root. "Julius, I NEED a bigger budget! I only developed those filters a century or so ago, and the Mud Men are already catching up!"
"Oh. Only a century." Holly said blandly. Root shook his head, annoyed.
"Forget about the budget, it's not going to change anyway. Why would Defea be trading technology with the Mud Men?" he asked. "There's no logical reason, Fowl, that she would risk our cover like that."
"Money." Butler offered. "It's a driving force in any species."
Foaly snorted. "Defea doesn't need any money. She gets a regular stipend from her uncle's estate monthly. Face it, she's rich."
All the fairies stopped their brainstorming as Artemis's usual smirk reappeared on his face. "She inherited money from her uncle." he repeated.
Trouble nodded. A strange sound filled the room, and all the fairies turned to see Juliet trying very hard not to laugh, and not succeeding. At all.
"You…actually believed that?" she gasped in her mirth. Even Butler was grinning. Root, however, was not amused.
"We checked her out, and she did have an uncle who died." he replied defensively. Juliet straightened a bit.
"Yeah, but did you check to see if her uncle's estate was that big? Did he actually leave her huge amounts of money?" Everyone turned to Foaly, who colored. A strange sight on a centaur.
"Well…we were going out at the time and I didn't think it was important." he muttered. Juliet started laughing again.
"Face it, the LEP was duped by the oldest trick in the book. Everyone knows that the best way to explain a sudden increase in income is to claim a rich relative died."
"Yes, and you would naturally know this, working with the Fowls, wouldn't you?" Trouble growled. All of them were a little embarrassed to be lectured on police procedures by mere humans. And criminals, at that!
"Could we please STOP getting off track!" Root bellowed. "All right. Defea didn't get her money from her uncle. I'll give you that, Fowl. Now explain to me why she picked Kegel. And how was she trading technology with him in the first place?"
"And why is my brother mixed up in this?" Trouble grumbled.
"Simple." Artemis tried to keep the condescension out of his voice, but by the tenseness of Root's shoulders, he suspected he didn't succeed. "With the Internet and the everyday use of email and video conferencing, she could run her business without ever leaving her home down here. And in the matter of why she chose Kegel, it could have been something as easy as just placing an ad for her technology innovations on the Internet and Kegel answered. It's also possible that Defea researched and chose Kegel for his Interpol connections and therefore, a large budget and an organization used to dealing with the shady side of the law when necessary."
"Well…" Holly said slowly, "In any case, we're going to have to either negotiate a truce between Kegel and the People…"
"No!" said Root. "I am NOT leaving another Mud Man unmindwiped and able to take advantage of us again." He glared significantly at Artemis, who pointedly ignored this comment.
"Or," Holly continued, "We try to retrieve both hostages."
"That's not going to work." Foaly protested. "As soon as we get the hostage from one of the kidnappers, the other will be alerted and know we're coming. They'll also then be more desperate and more likely to hurt someone."
"That's why we perform two simultaneous operations and retrieve both hostages at once." Holly shot back. Foaly's jaw dropped.
"You know how complicated that would be to pull off?! You'd have to synchronize the operations exactly. Double the equipment, double the manpower, twice as hard to succeed. You might not die, but somebody will!"
"Do you have any better ideas, donkey?" Root asked. Foaly opened his mouth, raised a finger, then sighed.
"Not at the moment."
"All right, until you think of something better, we'll go with Holly's plan." Root said firmly.
Foaly scowled. "It's practically impossible!" he whined.
Holly grinned mischievously. "That's why we're putting you in charge. If anyone can do it, it's you, Foaly."
Foaly's scowl deepened. "I liked it better when you were picking on the Mud Boy."
Butler stepped forward. "Whatever we're doing, we need to initiate it quickly. Every moment we delay is another chance for the kidnappers to get anxious and possibly kill a hostage."
"Besides, Simone's father is coming in two days, and we'd sorta like to have her back by then." Juliet added. Artemis said nothing.
Trouble nodded. "Not only that, but every moment we delay makes it more likely that Kegel will have developed back-up files of fairy knowledge. We don't want him to run across a fairy file two or three years from now and regain all his information, giving him a chance to wreak havoc on the People again."
"Like some people we know." Foaly said darkly. Holly's glance at Foaly seemed distinctly troubled. On the other hand, Artemis's expression did not change, but he sighed deeply.
"You do of course realize that regaining my memories was an accident." Foaly, Root, and Trouble looked at him doubtfully.
"Yeah right." the three chorused. Holly rolled her eyes. Then the LEP officers turned back and began their real jobs: designing the missions. And ignoring Artemis.
Artemis did not like being ignored. Not many people ignored him. After a few scathing comments, no wise person would turn his back on him, much less ignore him. In fact, the only people who had ever ignored him before were…the People.
***************
AN: Now, in case any of you care, here's what we've decided:
ASN: Except for a few, most people preferred short chapters every other day. So expect updates then. If an update is late-
AN: -it's her fault.
ASN: *Makes face* Also, most people wanted a preview
AN: And they threw very amusing fits. I was impressed.
ASN: This coming from a professional complainer. Feel honored.
AN: I'm ignoring you. Anyway, if you don't want a preview, stop reading now. If you do, then by all means, continue.
STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED!! (Sort of spoiled, anyway.)
In the next chapter (Dum dum dum dum!):
The centaur now seemed really mad. "Um, hello? You're beginning to annoy me, and that isn't a great idea. I'm the kidnapper, you shouldn't antagonize me; I might be unstable."
"Might?" Simone snorted. "There's no might about it, sweetheart."
AN: So, how was that? Are you rapidly racking your brains for what
might have caused such a conversation?
ASN: That would have to be a no.
AN: Yeah, yeah, love you too. Anyway, till next update!!