DISCLAIMER: No, I still don't own any of the characters that have made an appearance in the Eoin Colfer books. But Calyárina and Lukas are mine. I like them.
A/N: To my reviewers... holikaimelar, thanks for the review... but if you're looking for a regularly updated fic, I'm afraid I shall fail you. I'm simply not a reliable updater. My apologies! And to Invader Nina - I really appreciate the review! You're one of the reviewers who can make my day... thanks! (I love writing new fics too!) Happynutcase, I'm a bit worried this fic won't receive the approval "Artisan Cliff" did. But you know, this is just a rewritten version. Practically the entire Chapter One of "Artisan Cliff" appears in this first chapter, too, only slightly edited and spliced with other scenes. Is that okay? To griffin&sabine, I still love your name, even if I'm forced to change mine. You're one of the more consistent anonymous reviewers... and, hehe, I think you're exaggerating. Was that outrageous compliment aimed at me, despite my terrible updating habits? And, otakuprincess, I wish you luck with your H/A fic... I'll check out the next chapters... this'll be Artemis/Lianne, but I hope you continue reading this. The Xylia, and PrOnGs Da GrEaT, thanks for reviewing! It's only the prologue, but I hope it gets better. And finally, glow-in-the-dark: as usual, thanks for the praise and support. Please keep reviewing! Remember, this is just a rewritten version of "Artisan Cliff"!
Three and a half years after Artemis Fowl kidnapped – and released – Tong Sheng Tu.
CHAPTER ONE
(equals and a formality)
Julius Root slipped into the Council Room.
His face already held a tinge of red. A hearing to determine whether or not to put Mulch Diggums in jail. D'arvit. If that criminal didn't belong in jail, no one did.
Although all three Commanders had been welcome at the hearing, Root was the only one who attended, out of a personal interest in the criminal. There was no 'jury of peers' present - the final decision would be made by the Council. He spotted an empty seat next to Ivy Vinyáya and slid into it. To his satisfaction, most of the Council members were stony-faced, as though reluctant to even entertain the notion of freeing Mulch Diggums.
"Where's the criminal?" he asked Vinyáya.
She shot him a dark look. "His name is Mulch Diggums, Julius. And from what I hear, he may have a valid argument."
Before Root could snort, the oak-paneled door opened. An elegantly pretty elf, just a few decades younger than Root, stepped in. Her long white-blond hair, streaked with burning red-gold, gleamed above her light green eyes, and everything about her suggested understated sophistication and intense professionalism. Next to her was Mulch Diggums, a smug smirk on his face, handcuffed at the wrists and ankles and flanked by two expressionless LEP officers.
"Elena Calyárina," Root murmured, aghast. Foaly had told him that Diggums was writing to the lovely elf lawyer, but he had been confident nothing would come of it.
Vinyáya smiled. "I've seen her before. She's one of the better fairy attorneys."
Root could feel his blood pressure shooting up. "How did the crim – Diggums get Calyárina to represent him?"
The female commander and council member next to him shrugged. "That's why I said he had a valid argument."
Root was purpling. "D'arvit," he hissed.
Calyárina gave the council members a professional smile, and began. "My client, the dwarf Mulch Diggums, was arrested four and a half years ago on charges of kleptomania. I am here to prove that his arrest was illegal…"
-------)---{}---(-------
"Listen, Artemis. It's wonderful that you know what the bloody heck 'sodium chloride' is," Lianne Ramirez snapped. "But – "
Artemis glanced coolly at his lab partner, then turned back to the experiment sheet. "I believe the layman's term is 'table salt,'" he murmured.
"Great. I'm glad we've cleared that up." Lianne scowled. "Too bad it's already written on the board! I was actually asking why you're typing up our experiment sheet, when we have yet to actually perform the experiment."
"I've already done this several times. My results, of course, were accurate. I believe I know more than Professor Stafford does about this experiment. There is simply no point in wasting time doing the experiment when you can just read what I have written and commit it to memory for the test," Artemis explained. He went back to typing, with a speed unusual for one his age, on the computer.
Lianne was tempted to strangle him.
It was the fourth day of classes for students attending Artisan Cliff, an elite private college that was considered to be one of the best in the world. It had a curriculum that combined academic, arts, and athletics. In its brochure, it claimed that over 80% of their graduates went on to gain national or international fame by the age of forty, either as artists, politicians, athletes, et cetera. It had a brilliant staff, excellent facilities, and a school population that was never allowed to exceed 160. Its tuition was also incredibly expensive.
Of course, the students could usually more than afford it. Or at least, their parents could.
Lianne was a rare exception. Her parents wanted her to receive the best education, so they had scraped and saved for years to come up with money. When they announced that they could finally afford to send their beloved daughter to Artisan Cliff as a college freshman, they were happier than she was.
Lianne had nothing against Artisan Cliff. She was impressed by the fact that there was one computer per two students. She enjoyed it that the classrooms were air-conditioned in the heat, and heated in the cold. She respected the brilliant staff.
But she held Artemis Fowl, Junior, against the school.
Lianne had already decided that she would never forgive Professor Stafford for pairing them. She knew that Artemis was unfairly blessed with brains, wealth, and, as if those weren't enough, fairly good looks too, but she despised him anyway. She hated how arrogant he was about himself. She hated how condescending he was towards her, just because her IQ wasn't a million and five.
For his part, Artemis was equally irritated with her.
He had graduated from St. Bartleby's High School, valedictorian, of course. His parents had placed him in Artisan Cliff for college. Artemis quite liked the school, but he was growing increasingly annoyed with his lab partner. At St. Bartleby's, his former lab partners had either tried to pretend that they knew as much as he did to impress him, or they just copied what he did and reaped the good grades.
But Lianne seemed determined to work with him as an equal. Artemis continued typing, but inside he was frowning. Didn't she know that he was smarter than ten of her put together?
For all his intelligence, he was still stunned when Lianne suddenly reached down and unplugged the computer. The screen flickered, then went black.
"I hadn't saved that," Artemis said coldly.
Heatedly she retorted, "Thank god for that. Now let's do the experiment, like everyone else." She gestured around the room. The rest of the forty students in the class were clustered in pairs around the lab tables, looking back and forth between their experiments and the computers next to them.
Artemis didn't bother to hide his disdain. "I repeat. I have performed this experiment numerous times, and I have come to a conclusion. the My outcome, which was the same each time I executed this experiment, was accurate."
Lianne wasn't a violent person, but right now, she was seriously weighing the consequences of slapping Artemis Fowl right on his super-intelligent cheek. She actually lifted her palm, held back only by the thought of what he would do to retaliate. Hack into her e-mails and sabotage them?
He noticed. Graciously he conceded, "But seeing how upset you are, I shall not reprimand you for your childish action. After all, I shall find it easy to type up our experiment report again."
That was it. Lianne marched away from him. Stopping next to Professor Stafford, she asked sweetly, "Professor, do you know anyone who's willing to trade lab partners?"
-------)---{}---(-------
"A FORMALITY!" Root bellowed. "YOU'RE CONSIDERING THE RELEASE OF A CRIMINAL ON A FORMALITY!"
"The violation of a formality," Cassio Pidgerus, an elderly council member, asserted.
Root felt like he was going to explode. Certainly an alarming amount of blood rushed into his head, and his heart felt like it was going into overdrive. Vinyáya quickly put a hand on his arm, patting him, and made her voice soothing. "Relax, Julius…"
Root exhaled and fumbled in his pockets for a cigar. When he drew one out, another council member, Breton Lukas, glanced coolly at him and said, "Those filthy things aren't allowed in the council room."
Of course, the newest and youngest of the seven council members was offending a lot of his colleagues, those who were even more avid smokers than Root. But if Lukas cared, he wasn't showing it. Only Vinyáya knew that the sprite – who was extraordinarily brilliant even among the more intelligent members of his species – truly didn't care. Lukas hadn't gotten where he was by being timid.
Root wanted to strangle the impudent little sprite, but Vinyáya's hands tightened on his arm and he restrained himself. As calmly as possible, he pulled a cigar out, glaring at Lukas. Daring him to argue.
A faint grin appeared on Lukas' face, and he shrugged. Root realized that the kid (the fact that he was a mere five decades older than Holly Short nowithstanding) hadn't been banning him from smoking. He had simply been informing him that the 'filthy things' weren't allowed.
Vinyáya's grip loosened, and for some reason, Root relaxed. With admirable restraint he announced to the council, "If you release Mulch Diggums, I will personally see to it that he is captured again. And this time, there won't be any loopholes for that criminal to wiggle through."
Pidgerus sniffed. "Commendable, Julius. Because from what that lawyer Calyárina has said, it seems we may have to release him."
He couldn't help it. Automatically, Root felt his blood pressure beginning to skyrocket again. Damned fools. "The criminal stole your gold, or did you forget that?" he bit out.
But even as Root said it, he knew it was useless. Calyárina was simply too good. As she had pointed out, the LEP hadn't arrested Diggums legally. Now, what kind of a Council would it be if its members let their personal vendettas get in the way of justice? They might hate Diggums for stealing their gold, but they shouldn't let that interfere with fairness in this case. The fact was, in the eyes of the law, her client, Mulch Diggums, should never have been arrested in the first place, because the warrant had expired a day before the arrest.
"No, Commander Root, we haven't forgotten that," Council Chairman Cahartez said, watching him. Lukas leaned forward, his translucent wings shimmering faintly behind him, and murmured something in his ear, and Cahartez said, "Why don't we listen to Calyárina's final argument before we make a decision? Commander, you may fetch her."
In effect, the Chairman was giving the Commander a chance to talk to Mulch Diggums, off the record, before the council allowed him to walk out, a free dwarf again. Root, finally realizing that there was nothing more to be done, agreed. On his way out, he gave the insolent sprite who had dared to ban him from smoking a curt nod of thanks.
Lukas nodded back. Vinyáya sat back and thought that the two fairies were lucky they had chosen to respect each other. Otherwise, they would have ripped each other to shreds.
-------)---{}---(-------
"Is anything wrong, Artemis?"
Artemis glanced up. He was sitting in the leather backseat of a Bentley, on his way home from school. Butler was driving, but as he did, he watched his charge in the rearview mirror, a bit concerned.
Butler studied his employer's face. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly Artemis had grown. His dark hair now crowned a tanned face, since St. Bartleby's had imposed a rule that required all students to take athletics during his junior year of high school. His deep blue eyes seemed to spill brilliance over the rest of his face.
Lately he had been feeling much older himself, but he refused to acknowledge that, or the slight pain in his chest, the origins of which he had never determined. Artemis had never treated him as anything less than a fully competent bodyguard, and for that he was grateful.
But now, Artemis seemed a bit subdued.
"Nothing is wrong, Butler. I am merely mulling over the matter of my lab partner."
Butler stifled a smile. He had been hearing a lot about Lianne since the first day of classes, when Artemis first met her. Apparently, the girl wasn't impressed by him or his mental abilities.
"She attempted to change lab partners," Artemis said moodily. "I was all for it, of course, but Professor Stafford refused. He said he had paired us according to our abilities and compatibility, and that he had never been wrong." Artemis paused.
"What happened?" Butler asked.
"I informed him that the probability of his accuracy in pairing people continuing without fail was about 2%."
Butler roared with laughter. Had this incident occurred a few years ago, Artemis might have reproved him for his disrespectful attitude, but he had been closer to his bodyguard since the Artic Incident. They looked upon each other as the brother neither had had.
So Artemis only said, "Professor Stafford found it less amusing than you did. He ordered me to perform the experiment and sent Lianne back to her seat." He paused again, then added sourly, "She didn't gloat, but she might as well have. I performed the experiment, the results of which I had already memorized long ago, with her, and she had a victorious little smile on her face the whole time."
Butler smiled. "I'm sure it wasn't that bad, Artemis."
Artemis shrugged and sipped pure water from a crystal decanter. He didn't answer, but he was thinking. In reality, he could have finished all his studies, from elementary to college, in a few years. The education he was interested in, the academic studies that challenged him, took up where most college graduates left off. But it was all a part of his father's plan for a normal family life.
In truth, Artemis didn't mind too much. He was smart enough to admit to himself that he needed a loving family. Why, four and a half years ago, he was doing abominable things. He was –
His mind drew a blank, which annoyed him, but there was nothing to be done about that period in his life which he seemed to have spent doing basically nothing.
By the time they reached home, they were discussing the latest combat handguns available on the market.
-------)---{}---(-------
Lianne was still triumphant over the episode in the laboratory that day. She giggled to herself as she recalled the look on Professor Stafford's face when Artemis had spouted percentage.
She headed to her brothers' room. Rico and Miguel were her older brothers, and they were away on a tour of Australia. They had saved their own money to fund it, because her parents had poured their savings into her tuition for Artisan Cliff.
They had a computer in their room. She turned it on now and logged on to her e-mail account, hoping to hear from her brothers. She missed them terribly. They wouldn't be returning till the end of her freshman year in college.
Lianne laughed as she read her brothers' e-mail. They had sent her pictures of themselves diving and splashing around at the enormous Olympic pool in Sydney, which they had visited for the day. Although people often thought that people with Eurasian looks were stunning, in truth only Rico, the eldest, deserved to be called drop-dead gorgeous. Miguel and Lianne were both more Asian than European, and shared their mother's black hair and dark eyes.
However, when Lianne went to bed, she was still thinking about Artemis. She had noticed his icy glare all throughout their lab time, as if he loathed being sent to the level of mere mortals, but she really hadn't been able to wipe the smile off her face.
She had heard the stories about him. They said he was a criminal. They said his father was, too. They said that he could be enormously vindictive. If the gossip was to be believed, he had been seen all over the world on the same day, the same hour. But she wasn't impressed. She thought the stories highly exaggerated.
She wondered what he would do to get back at her tomorrow.
A/N: Please review... and, by the way, do you think I should continue "Artisan Cliff"? Or should I just delete it?