Miri began to feel the heat coming from her overworked laptop. Her ears perked to hear something expected, her eyes scanned the terrain. Something made her extremely alert.

It was the lack of something.

Wind.

She removed her elbows from the laptop and placed her hand on the insignia. Carelessly, she wiped away a few dust particles. Her hand then resumed its original place.

Miriena looked thoughtfully at it. She had never liked long nails - they made her unusually nervous. Painted long nails were even worse. They somehow seemed, to Miri, pretentious. Exhibitive, yes, but it was not an authentic display that would win her respect.

Consequently, Miri never went to a manicurist. A simple shearing, using clippers, was all that was ever needed to attend to her fingers and toes.

Presently she was not unduly worried about fake nails. She drummed her trimmed fingers inaudibly over the letters of "extensa", the computer's trademark. Miri was more concerned with how to debug the site when she was not the proper owner of it.

She was tempted either to turn up the volume, or open the screen, so she could check on the sonar bleeps. Pulling out the LCD was too obvious. And being obvious would make her too easy. The unidentified boy, though many feet apart, sat directly in front of her. Slowly, her other hand crept to the side of the laptop.

But she hesitated.

Unstably, Miri risked a quick glance at Artemis. To her alarm, he looked up from his screen at well. He smirked at her, and Miri was rather speechless. Though…the smirk was more…cynical, than…smug.

One more time, Miri. Why are you not alone? The number one rule, broken. What happened to 'check the parameters'? Gotten lazy, haven't you?

But she ignored her thoughts, which were apparently bent on lowering her self-esteem. There wasn't enough time to chastise herself.

Well, she murmured. Her voice behaved irrationally nice.

He might have gotten in. There should be no excuse on why I can't do the same. Determined, the fingers on her other hand dialed the knob.

There was a moment of waiting.

At first, she groaned. She did not hear anything from the laptop, and anticipated the failure of the speakers.

Then, she sighed in relief. Because, a shrill chime ensured her the healthy condition of the audio outputs. Which, in turn, means that the run-time errors had finally gotten tired of popping ceaselessly over the screen.

She recognized the chime instantly. Someone was trying to contact her via yahoo messenger.

Miri had no choice but to pop up the screen. Otherwise, the boy and his, eh, girlfriend would definitely notice.

Upon remembering something, Miri rolled her eyes. Foaly was right. She was paranoid.

She pressed a function to disable the snooze, and brought up, from the hazing monitor, a small window. It read:

aurum_est_potestas (5:24:57): Having technological issues, I presume.

Miri frowned.

Gold is power.

She did not know who aurum_est_potestas was. She never had a friend named under such a pseudonym, unless Krista changed her name again.

Unsatisfied, she pulled out her yahoo messenger and saw browneyed_innocent93 offline. aurum_est_potestas was not Krista.

Approximately ten feet away from Miriena, Artemis Fowl smiled, despite having a girl clasping onto him.

His usual self disliked immensely the idea of conversing via chat, mainly because of the wide use of chatspeak, and the popular trend of incomplete sentences. Artemis would have preferred a less crude, and perhaps more elegant way, such as contacting through cellular phone.

Lately, however, the business associates Artemis encountered were…on the move. Frequently, shall one add, on the move.

Most of them did not own either a pager or cellular phone, because these particular bands of people were not exactly wealthy, but knew wealthy people.

Such as their bosses.

And establishing a congenial relationship with them was crucial, if Artemis decided to acquaint with higher levels.

Only recently did Artemis acquire an account of his own, pushed by the widening use of various chatting programs.

aurum_est_potestas.

Perfect.

As usual, today was involuntarily deplorable. Artemis was not able to successfully skip boarding school, and Butler had fallen ill. Currently, Tania Needlemeyer was also adhering to his body, a rather unpleasant thing, if southeasterly winds blew large quantities of perfume in your face.

But, he had been observing a rather interesting girl in front of him. For the past half-hour, she has been in constant anxiety - slamming her LCD screen, groaning sardonically, and drifting off into space.

What could he do?

A cheerful message from a criminal mastermind should brighten her day considerably.

Artemis allowed Tania to lay her head against his neck. He watched, through sharp, blue eyes Miri's keystrokes.

Miri, from her LCD screen, looked at the boy.

"No shame in being paranoid," Foaly's voice came in her ear. "Geniuses of all eccentric sorts have classic symptoms of paranoia. You remind me of various reclusive geniuses. Me, for one," Foaly smugly began, "Opal, as I have said before, and an Irish boy by the name of Artemis Fowl. The second, to be precise."

She tapped on her keyboard.

imaginary_number6 (5:25:44): gold is power? from my father's observations, it seems that the value of gold has dropped recently. in case you're interested, he urged me to buy Sun Microsystems for 500 shares. i refused, resulting in missing out on a good profit. who are you anyway? you have interrupted my debugging process.

Artemis was close to speechless. This has not happened very often in his life. Once in London, when meeting with Jon Spiro. Twice when he was five.

Now, fifteen.

His reflexes pulled him back. Somewhere deep in his mind, he had expected this exact reply. He was therefore, and technically, not speechless. He was amused.

Today was involuntarily deplorable, he remembered. He replaced 'deplorable' with 'intriguing'. The wind rose again, knocking hair into his face. Blindly, he responded.

aurum_est_potestas (5:26:01): I am sincerely empathetic that you did not buy Sun Microsystems as your father suggested. I am also apologetic that I have interrupted your debugging process.

Foaly's rambling was heard again. "Opal, as I have said before, and an Irish boy by the name of Artemis Fowl. The second, to be precise."

"Artemis Fowl? Doesn't he live in one of the top five richest Irish families'? I might have seen him once, torturing another psychologist. Serves her right, though. She was a rather pretentious lady."

"That wouldn't be surprising."

Foaly snickered.

"Give me a mug shot," Miri heard herself say.

"Ahh...let's see...rather skinny, raven-haired, keenly clear eyes, pale complexion. A, well, handsome boy on the whole. Though, that thought has never struck me until now. I'm surprised why the ladies haven't called in yet..."

"Isolation doesn't exactly help in matters of social life," Miri responded.

Yet, she was staring at him with another girl, practically sitting on his lap.

But it made sense.

She smiled. Time to play a game.

imaginary_number6 (5:26:39): apologies registered on my computer. in 4 minutes, i'll have a few members of the cia dragging you to their departments. as soon as i gather the coordinates of your position. please, refrain from moving. as far as…your identity, which i have observed that you chose not to reveal in your last message...don't tell me. i already know. Artemis Fowl.

Of course. She didn't really know.

Reactions are crucial in analyses.