Artemis Fowl: The Ivory Files
By Caspian Nyghtvision
Chapter Six: Complications
Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you're acting like you're somebody else gets me
frustrated
Life's like this you
And you fall and you crawl and you break
and you take what you get and you turn it into honesty
and promise me I'm never gonna find you fake it
--- "Complicated" by Avril Lavigne. (Who else?)
______________________
Amendments
_____________________
Thanks to everyone for pointing out things that I somehow missed. The ship is "The Fowl Star," not "the Morning Star;" Artemis the Second's nickname is "Timmy," not "Temmy," and flamingos are "irregular breeders and may only breed sucessfully every two or three years." Free drinks to artyfan108, Kitty Rainbow, and "Encyclopedia of Animals" respectively for pointing these things out. I will personally pour them as soon as I am done sobbing in my room and tearing my hair out. These past weeks I have been in no state to write, but have insisted on doing so anyway, so please forgive those plotholes.
Chapter Five has been reissued with corrections.
Thanks to the Reviewer for pointing out that Holly is Out Of Character. There is actually a reason for this. Sort of. My logic makes sense to me, but I realize that a lot of people out there are (surprisingly) not me, so I suppose I should explain myself before anybody gets hurt.
The Holly we know in the books is creative, resourceful, brilliant, sometimes devious, impudent, occasionally disrespectful to authority, stubborn, loyal, fiery, proud, and above all, Holly keeps her cool. She's feisty, energetic, determined, and goes her own way, torpedoes be damned. Although she's good at heart, she can be mean and bitingly sarcastic, and it's hard for her to show that she cares. If you're into astrology, Holly is a classic Aries. If you readers are frothing at the mouth demanding where I'm getting all this, I will cite chapter and verse evidence.
The Holly I'm showing has not come under fire yet. At this point, all I've written of her are scenes at home or with friends. Thus, she acts different. Not necessarily out of character, though I accept that I haven't been very clear with that. Mostly, what I'm aiming for is casual. It is also humor, after all.
No person is completely one-dimensional. The person you are on the Internet is completely different from the person you are to your parents; you may act insane and immature around your friends, but you act cool around the little kid who looks up to you. The person you need to be when battling trolls and hacking your way out of a concrete cell is different from the person you are at home, when nothing's at stake and nobody's watching except for a fish.
Go ahead. Ask me another one.
_____________________
Saturday Morning
Same time as we last left off
Underground, Haven City
Emergency Medical Ward
________________________________________
Holly sprinted down the halls with Trouble in tow. It reminded her of the old days in the LEP Academy, where she had first met some of her present comrades, and they had to flee the scenes of their crimes. She vaguely remembered running like this with Trouble and a few other classmates behind her, escaping from the scene of some prank she couldn't quite recall. She thought it had something to do with lima beans and Wing Commander Vinyaya's desk. They had all been rather wild back then.
They shot past a desk, where a warlock intern noticed them go by and dashed after them. "Hey, wait!" he shouted, waving his arms. "Captain Kelp? Your brother's on the line! Something about a water main explosion and a Mrs. Brackley. He says you've been evicted."
Trouble slammed on the brakes, spun on his heel and glared savagely at the intern. "Oh, just shout it out all over Haven, why don't you?"
"Sorry, sir," the intern said meekly as a small crowd of People appeared out of nowhere and gathered around with interest.
"I have an appointment with the commander. Tell him to deal with it himself, for Frond's sake!"
"Sir, he insists. He's threatening to call your mother."
The tips of Trouble's ears flushed red as the magically-formed small crowd began to titter. He was now faced with a choice he had never wished to make. He had to choose between Julius Root and Ma Kelp. Would he rather be court-martialed and lose his job in disgrace -- or beaten unmercifully with a wooden spoon, then have to suffer hour after hour of furious lecturing, wrist-spanking, blackmail and "You call THAT looking after your brother?!"
"D'Arvit. D'Arvit, d'Arvit, D'ARVIT." Trouble stormed past the intern, snarling several curse words that were too horrible to even think about translating. "Get my blankety-blank brother on the blank-blank-blanking line. Blank. Go ahead without me, Holly," he called ahead.
______________________
Meanwhile, in Fowl Manor...
______________________
The very foundations of everything he knew to be true were blown apart by a bio-bomb. The scattered pieces of his mind languished, screamed in tiny little voices, and burned like ants under a magnifying glass. Then the alchoholic squirrel of emotion staggered onto the battlefield of his brain, gathering up the burnt cinders of reality and pasting them randomly back together with Spackle.
Artemis was suffering what many of we more well-adjusted adolescents call a 'brown-out.' Similar to a sugar low, post-test depression, Ordinary Feelings of Paranoia and Angst, or, in females of the species, 'that time of the month.'
"I'm an only child!" he kept repeating at regular intervals. Mulch, sitting at the foot of the couch, was timing him. "Twenty seconds," the dwarf announced.
"I'm an only child!"
"What do you think happened to him?" Juliet asked in hushed tones. Butler, taking Artemis's blood pressure, shook his head tensely. "No idea."
"Should I go fetch the Mr. and Mrs.?"
"Not just yet." Butler unwound the bandage from Artemis's upper arm. "Check the first-aid kid for a sedative."
Juliet ruffled through the box. "Nope, none. Ooh, gum." She popped it into her mouth.
"Twenty seconds," Mulch put in with doomsday cheer.
"I'm an only child!" Artemis cried pleadingly. He sat bolt upright and started shaking. His eyes -- oh, you already know what color his eyes are. Deep, cool, sapphire blue. But I'll say it again.
His deep blue eyes were wide and unfocused. He grabbed Butler's arm so hard that the manservant actually felt it.
"Don't let them have it."
"Who, Artemis? Have what?" Juliet wondered, her eyes wide as a stricken lamb. "Twenty seconds," Mulch offered, looking at Artemis hopefully.
"I..." Artemis trailed off. All his life, he had been the center of attention. Even when both his parents were incapacitated, he had never had to think of anyone else. He'd never had to look after someone younger. Now, he thought for the first time of giving up his place. Sole heir of the Fowls, the only son, the one in whom all his parent's hopes for the future were going to be realized, their... well, their baby. And as much as he resented it, the thought of stepping aside in favor of some newcomer -- a perfect stranger -- was making him feel a bit sick....
"Better go get those sedatives, big man," Mulch remarked phlegmatically as he reset his stopwatch.
______________________
Later that Saturday Morning
Howler's Peak
______________________
Elegant fingers rattled rapidly as Opal Koboi posted the chapter. Her vivid green eyes narrowed in fury as the browser popped up a message, "Site overloaded. Please come back later."
"D'Arvit!" she spat, clencing her small fists in fury, sharp little nails digging into her palms. With mild interest, she noticed that she was making herself bleed...
"Opal, do you have a minute?"
She started in surprise, automatically shielding her computer with her body. "Oh, it's you. Back twice in one morning?"
"It's important. I need a contact, Koboi, and quickly. A human with a bit of money, who wants to make more. And... there's no way to put this politely. Someone who's on the gray side of legal."
"Basically, you want a rich crook?" Opal summarized.
"Eh... more refined."
"A politician? An oil investor?"
"Someone like your French contact, Luc Carrere. Do you have any more like him? Preferably someone more intelligent than a bowl of chopped celery?"
"Oh, that's harsh." Opal's eyes sparked with amusement. "How did you find out about him?" Knowing better than to expect an answer, she lapsed into thought. Suddenly it came to her... like a thunderbolt from the blue, but less painful. It was like a warm summer breeze flowing into the cold corners of her mind and making them a little less uncomfortable. Respect, revenge, power, freedom, reviews... name one name, and they were all within her reach.
The food slot was unlocked, and a pad of paper and a pencil skidded across the floor. She wrote one name on it. Then she had a thought, and wrote down the title of a story and an Internet address. She handed it back through with a wicked grin. "Oh, Takaban? If you want to thank me, read the story. All the way through. And leave me a nice, long, well-thought-out review."
______________________
Medical Ward
______________________
Holly slowed down as she reached the door of the room. Hospitals made her uneasy. The disinfectant smell, the haggard-looking students, the drip stands and wheelchairs left ominously against the walls, the funny-colored paint job -- this was not her kind of environment at all. She didn't like the way her magic itched in response to the pain of others. Give her a cool - but not cold - night under the stars in the remotest parts of Ireland, breathlessly tracking a stray troll across the endless fields... none of this antiseptic stuff.
Her fingers closed around the handle of the door, flexed once, and pulled it open. Instantly she was assaulted by a thick wall of awful smoke. With a gasp, she leaped backward into the sterile air of the hallway, suddenly grateful for the disinfectant she'd resented a few seconds earlier.
"Come on in, Captain, and meet Foxy," Root called from the foul smog.
(With smooth efficiency, a crack team of janitors assembled a high-power fan in the hallway and started dispersing the smoke. A short girl with auburn-brown hair wandered by, spritzing something from a spray bottle into the air. "Yay.")
Holly entered the hospital room, suddenly feeling nervous. "Are you sure you should be smoking, Root?" she asked lightly, shutting the door behind her.
"The kid's wearing an oxygen mask. He can't complain." Root waved a dismissive hand, flecking small bits of ash into the air.
A snort from the hospital bed was his reply. Steeling herself, Holly looked at the patient.
It wasn't at all like she expected. Sitting straight with his back against the wall, he looked like a perfectly normal person, who had been pounced on by a swarm of vengeful medics and trussed up with oxygen masks and IV lines. The IVs carried a glowing blue liquid -- antiseptic saturated with the Gift, a true blessing to doctors who were tired of using raw magic to heal a patient. He looked fine. Good, even, with electricity in his eyes despite the unflattering hospital light.
Nothing like her father, who had spent his last days in a hospital like this. The Gift can't save everybody.
Holly breathed a sigh of relief and extended her hand. "Hello. I'm Captain Short of the LEP."
He nodded back and wrote something on a dry erase board. Holly read the Japanese words with concentration... Basic Gnommish should be adapted as a universal language. "Your name is Kitsune? That means fox, doesn't it?"
He nodded, erased, and wrote some more kanji. Holly frowned. "Can't you write in English, or Gaelic?"
The person now established as Kitsune gave her a Look with his yellow-green eyes. He took the board back, then wrote in both English and Gaelic, "NO."
Root looked on in amusement as Holly glared at him. "Why not?"
In Japanese: "Mostly, because I don't feel like it." Then there was an emoticon -- ":P"
"D'Arvit," Holly said under her breath, barely moving her lips. Somehow, Kitsune heard that. He wrote something on the board and showed it to her. It was something untranslatable.
Root broke up the impending disaster by doubling over with laughter and accidentally dropping his cigar on the bedsheets. Kitsune grabbed it, dropped it in his nearby glass of water, and pulled off his oxygen mask in relief. "Nice to meet you, too, Captain."
It looked like they were off to a good start.
_______________________
Saturday Afternoon
Unknown Location
________________________
"A fiery death, straight from hell," the dwarf babbled, clutching the blue plastic packet to his chest. "I could have died yesterday back there. Burned away to a pile of ash."
"Look, Marcus, you had the ivory, okay? You didn't die. Now try not to look like a total loser when I do this report." The elf rolled her blue eyes scathingly as she lounged in the lobby of the headquarters. Pulling out a small mirror, she shook out her bright blonde curls.
"You're not listening!"
"I can't hear you, Marcus. I'm not listening." She twirled a strand of golden hair around her finger and stared into the mirror."What do you think -- do I look okay? I want to impress our boss."
"You look fine. You always look fine." The dwarf stroked his gingery beard fretfully. The living hairs preened beneath his touch.
"Why, thank you, Marcus."
"I thought you weren't listening!"
She didn't have an answer to that, so she returned to making herself look halfway decent. "Meet me outside his office, okay? I have to go to the powder room."
"Yeah, yeah."
"The office" was bare, sparse and painfully clean, with no real furniture. In the middle of the floor knelt a figure, wearing arctic camouflage with spots that were actually paler than his skin. His black-feathered wings occasionally rustled with movement. He was using a fantastically modern laptop computer that would have brought envious drools to the mouths of human computer nuts everywhere, if they had been with him at that moment. His infinitely dark eyes were frozen wide in morbid fascination.
"The little psychopath," he breathed. "How am I going to review this?"
He didn't seem to notice the two in the doorway, but with a shake of her blonde curls, the female tripped in confidently. "Good morning, sir," she said in a sort of sultry chirp. Peering over his shoulder, her soft blue eyes strained out of their perfectly shadowed sockets. "Who under the Earth is 'Evilly_Brilliant_Femme_Fatale?' And -- and -- those characters wouldn't do that!!"
"In the minds of fans, nothing is impossible," Takaban stated, slamming the laptop shut. "In Koboi's mind... What's your report, Frond?"
Lili Frond, bimbo face of the LEP, descendant of the famed elfin king, sighed and jerked a commanding thumb at the dwarf in the corner. "Marcus, get in here. It's your report, too."
Grousing under his breath, he stomped into the office and assumed a sulky pose next to her. Lili examined a fingernail with biting scorn as her partner snuffled loudly. "Well, sir, I think we did a good job. We scanned the state of Oklahoma and paid off a couple of eight-year-olds with that Mud Money you gave us." Pouting kittenishly, she gestured at Marcus to take over.
"Visited an oral surgeon and got some old wisdom teeth from his biowaste cans," the dwarf sighed, "Tried to get at some old dead Mud Man they were burying but couldn't do it in time, and his teeth were probably all rotten anyway. Stopped at a drugstore because Lili wanted to see their eyeshadow. Got thrown out of drugstore 'cuz Lili tried to buy two hundred bucks worth of makeup and an R-rated chick flick, on a third-party charge card, and they thought she was six years old."
"I have the figure of a full-grown woman," Lili Frond spat venomously, eying her pronounced curves with an appraising powder-blue eye. "That pimply old clerk was stone blind."
"He couldn't see your figure," Marcus shot back. "All he could see was your chin! I told you, you're too short to be buying R-rated DVDs from Mud People!"
"What? You never said any such thing. Besides, I'm not SHORT! I'm one of the tallest elves in Haven! It's the innocence in my eyes that makes me look young!"
"Innocence!? Don't make me laugh!"
If you have ever lived with any kind of fowl -- Artemis and Co. don't count -- you know that when they become scared, annoyed or enraged, they puff up their feathers to make themselves seem larger and more threatening. (Or, in the case of the author's little sister's parakeet, like a small, startled feather duster -- but a really, really threatening little feather duster.) Size is intimidating. A small person like Holly Short could wipe you out with one casual zap of a Neutrino 2000, but you'd rather take her on in a fight than a big person like Butler.
Takaban wasn't quite a parakeet. Although light-boned, he was as tall as a young man. When he suddenly flared his huge wingspan open like a small plane about to take off, the effect in the small office was paralyzing. Lili squeaked and fell backwards into Marcus. With a grunt, he pushed her off and stared.
"What else happened?" Takaban asked in his usual half-depressed tone. With a swift rustle, he folded his wings to his back and looked just as thin and Gothic as before.
"Um, there was a, there was um," Lili babbled intelligently, "There was a, uh, a Mud Boy. Man. Mud Teenager. Ish. But maybe he wasn't. Um, but don't worry, I killed him. Or, at least, he's dead now. I think. Maybe. Marcus?"
"What are you asking me for? I was unconscious! Burnt half to death!" the dwarf squawked, shuddering. He sunk slowly to the floor, both from shock at Takaban's display and from his pyrophobic memories. A few snatches of groans "I felt the clutches of hell" and "A fiery grave" were just audible from his huddled body.
Takaban gave him a brief look and fixed a hawklike gaze on Lili. "I expect you to tell me everything."
___________________________
Holly's Apartment
Obligatory Bit with Bob in It
____________________________
Bob the Atlantean Bogglefish had come up with a Revolutionary New Escape Plan. He decided to tunnel through the bottom of the tank. A lot of gravel was in the way ("Good Lord! What IS this stuff?!") which he pushed away with his snout in a stunning display of action.
Sadly, he discovered the Bottom of the Tank. It made him very sad and depressed for a record of .0003 seconds, before he remembered that he didn't know how to be sad and depressed. It was all too much for a fish to handle. He felt very ashamed, and realized that he had to run away, change his name, and grow a moustache.
For an amazing total of .056 seconds, fiercely crossing his eyes and severely straining his attention span, he grew a moustache.
For some strange reason, it didn't work very well.
___________________________
Fowl Manor
___________________________
Angeline was attempting to contact every Butler, every relative of Butler, every relative of a relative of a Butler, and every seeing-eye emu owned by a Butler that she could get her hands on. Juliet's diary had convinced her that she was not quite ready for a bodyguarding job yet. The best thing for that particular young lady was several years in the most uptight college in the world. St. Bartleby's University for Young Ladies. (Although, deep down inside her soul, Angeline sympathized completely with Juliet.) Now, the lady of the house flung herself into the task of finding a suitable escort for the future Fowl child.
The Butler family was quite large, but most of its members were unshakably occupied. Granny Sue Butler of Louisiana was unemployed, but she spent all her time in her rocking chair on her decaying porch, firing rounds off her shotgun at every passing stranger. Sunshine Rainbow Butler always wore impractically long hippie-style skirts, flower-child blouses, and 1960's makeup. This was all the more disturbing since Sunshine Rainbow was a thirty-nine-year-old man, stood six and a half feet tall, and was a major ringleader in American crime. Most of the others were good, upstanding crime lords, bodyguards, mercenaries and other wholesome things, but they were all booked for life.
Artemis Fowl Senior was ruffling through some of his files, occasionally remembering a name or two to help her along. "What about their cousin, that nice young man we had in once to babysit, when Artemis was five?"
"Dear, he was never quite right in the head. He thought Artemis was twins."
"Well, what if we pay for his medication?"
"Darling, don't you remember? When we got home, he was in tears because a giant flaming panda bear had carried off Artemis's identical brother."
Downstairs, the Artemis in question was being nursed back to health with baking soda. Baking soda, Juliet insisted, was the miracle cure for almost anything. Mulch Diggums reluctantly admitted that it did do wonders for gas cramps. Butler was ransacking the manor for some kind of sedative. Meanwhile, it was up to Juliet and Mulch to bring the shell-shocked Artemis back to health.
"Are you sure about this, hon?" Mulch asked as he stirred baking soda into the fifth glass of lukewarm milk.
Juliet didn't look at him. They had put aside their feud to administer to their nobly fallen master, who was clutching at pillows and making desperate whimpering noises to himself. He had all the symptoms of a shell-shocked soldier. Grabbing him in a headlock, Juliet forced some more milk and baking soda down his throat, ignoring his frantic struggles. "There, look, see? He's getting better already." She patted Artemis's heaving shoulder with the tender care of a big sister.
"Calmed him down, all right. Look, he's as limp as a wet dishrag. Turning a nice greenish color, too," Mulch observed with interest.
"Oh." Juliet grabbed Artemis's chin and looked. He did look a bit sickly. "Uh... gee."
"Bit too much baking soda, do you think?" Mulch gnawed the top off a carrot he had gotten somewhere. "He looks a bit like a half-drowned sprite."
"Oh, gosh, he isn't breathing!" Juliet panicked. She shook the teenager's limp body frantically. "Breathe, Artemis, breathe!"
"Give 'im more baking soda!" Mulch shouted, clambering onto the couch and helpfully pouring the box onto Artemis's head.
"No! He needs to wash it down! Hand me a glass of milk!"
Helpfully, Mulch poured the milk over Artemis's head. "Here, give him this carrot! My old auntie always said carrots were good for gas cramps!" He pulled the masticated vegetable out of his mouth and tried to fit it in between Artemis's teeth. "Here ya go, buddy, munch on this and you'll be all un-bloated in no time!"
"Get away, you mud-headed moron! He doesn't have gas cramps! We have to get him to breathe!" Juliet swatted him off the bed with a powerful backhand, and Mulch fell to the floor with a metallic clang, his feet sticking comically into the air. Huffily, he took his rejected carrot and crawled under the couch to sulk. The Butler instinct came to the rescue as Juliet cleared all airways, thumped her patient's chest a few times, and began CPR.
An important fact: Parents have very bad timing. You must have noticed; you'll be watching a perfectly good movie, and your parents will come in at the most violent part in it, and demand that you turn that junk off. At the moment when you and a friend are having the most possible fun, parents arrive to pick you up - and demand that you leave at once. You'll be in the middle of an important email, and parents will stride in and demand that you get offline so they can use the phone. Good intentions aside, it's a scientific fact that parents have the worst timing possible.
So, according to this universal law, Angeline Fowl HAD to enter the room just as Juliet was administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
__________________________________________________
Good? Bad? Ugly? Less is more? More is less? Constructive criticism? Frenzied ramblings? Karaoke renditions of "Action Fairy?" More praises of Bob? (He's getting a swollen head. Now his eyes are almost in proportion to the rest of his body.) You know where to put them. Everything is accepted with thanks. I accept unsigned reviews, too, just so you know.
Caspian Nyghtvision
By Caspian Nyghtvision
Chapter Six: Complications
Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you're acting like you're somebody else gets me
frustrated
Life's like this you
And you fall and you crawl and you break
and you take what you get and you turn it into honesty
and promise me I'm never gonna find you fake it
--- "Complicated" by Avril Lavigne. (Who else?)
______________________
Amendments
_____________________
Thanks to everyone for pointing out things that I somehow missed. The ship is "The Fowl Star," not "the Morning Star;" Artemis the Second's nickname is "Timmy," not "Temmy," and flamingos are "irregular breeders and may only breed sucessfully every two or three years." Free drinks to artyfan108, Kitty Rainbow, and "Encyclopedia of Animals" respectively for pointing these things out. I will personally pour them as soon as I am done sobbing in my room and tearing my hair out. These past weeks I have been in no state to write, but have insisted on doing so anyway, so please forgive those plotholes.
Chapter Five has been reissued with corrections.
Thanks to the Reviewer for pointing out that Holly is Out Of Character. There is actually a reason for this. Sort of. My logic makes sense to me, but I realize that a lot of people out there are (surprisingly) not me, so I suppose I should explain myself before anybody gets hurt.
The Holly we know in the books is creative, resourceful, brilliant, sometimes devious, impudent, occasionally disrespectful to authority, stubborn, loyal, fiery, proud, and above all, Holly keeps her cool. She's feisty, energetic, determined, and goes her own way, torpedoes be damned. Although she's good at heart, she can be mean and bitingly sarcastic, and it's hard for her to show that she cares. If you're into astrology, Holly is a classic Aries. If you readers are frothing at the mouth demanding where I'm getting all this, I will cite chapter and verse evidence.
The Holly I'm showing has not come under fire yet. At this point, all I've written of her are scenes at home or with friends. Thus, she acts different. Not necessarily out of character, though I accept that I haven't been very clear with that. Mostly, what I'm aiming for is casual. It is also humor, after all.
No person is completely one-dimensional. The person you are on the Internet is completely different from the person you are to your parents; you may act insane and immature around your friends, but you act cool around the little kid who looks up to you. The person you need to be when battling trolls and hacking your way out of a concrete cell is different from the person you are at home, when nothing's at stake and nobody's watching except for a fish.
Go ahead. Ask me another one.
_____________________
Saturday Morning
Same time as we last left off
Underground, Haven City
Emergency Medical Ward
________________________________________
Holly sprinted down the halls with Trouble in tow. It reminded her of the old days in the LEP Academy, where she had first met some of her present comrades, and they had to flee the scenes of their crimes. She vaguely remembered running like this with Trouble and a few other classmates behind her, escaping from the scene of some prank she couldn't quite recall. She thought it had something to do with lima beans and Wing Commander Vinyaya's desk. They had all been rather wild back then.
They shot past a desk, where a warlock intern noticed them go by and dashed after them. "Hey, wait!" he shouted, waving his arms. "Captain Kelp? Your brother's on the line! Something about a water main explosion and a Mrs. Brackley. He says you've been evicted."
Trouble slammed on the brakes, spun on his heel and glared savagely at the intern. "Oh, just shout it out all over Haven, why don't you?"
"Sorry, sir," the intern said meekly as a small crowd of People appeared out of nowhere and gathered around with interest.
"I have an appointment with the commander. Tell him to deal with it himself, for Frond's sake!"
"Sir, he insists. He's threatening to call your mother."
The tips of Trouble's ears flushed red as the magically-formed small crowd began to titter. He was now faced with a choice he had never wished to make. He had to choose between Julius Root and Ma Kelp. Would he rather be court-martialed and lose his job in disgrace -- or beaten unmercifully with a wooden spoon, then have to suffer hour after hour of furious lecturing, wrist-spanking, blackmail and "You call THAT looking after your brother?!"
"D'Arvit. D'Arvit, d'Arvit, D'ARVIT." Trouble stormed past the intern, snarling several curse words that were too horrible to even think about translating. "Get my blankety-blank brother on the blank-blank-blanking line. Blank. Go ahead without me, Holly," he called ahead.
______________________
Meanwhile, in Fowl Manor...
______________________
The very foundations of everything he knew to be true were blown apart by a bio-bomb. The scattered pieces of his mind languished, screamed in tiny little voices, and burned like ants under a magnifying glass. Then the alchoholic squirrel of emotion staggered onto the battlefield of his brain, gathering up the burnt cinders of reality and pasting them randomly back together with Spackle.
Artemis was suffering what many of we more well-adjusted adolescents call a 'brown-out.' Similar to a sugar low, post-test depression, Ordinary Feelings of Paranoia and Angst, or, in females of the species, 'that time of the month.'
"I'm an only child!" he kept repeating at regular intervals. Mulch, sitting at the foot of the couch, was timing him. "Twenty seconds," the dwarf announced.
"I'm an only child!"
"What do you think happened to him?" Juliet asked in hushed tones. Butler, taking Artemis's blood pressure, shook his head tensely. "No idea."
"Should I go fetch the Mr. and Mrs.?"
"Not just yet." Butler unwound the bandage from Artemis's upper arm. "Check the first-aid kid for a sedative."
Juliet ruffled through the box. "Nope, none. Ooh, gum." She popped it into her mouth.
"Twenty seconds," Mulch put in with doomsday cheer.
"I'm an only child!" Artemis cried pleadingly. He sat bolt upright and started shaking. His eyes -- oh, you already know what color his eyes are. Deep, cool, sapphire blue. But I'll say it again.
His deep blue eyes were wide and unfocused. He grabbed Butler's arm so hard that the manservant actually felt it.
"Don't let them have it."
"Who, Artemis? Have what?" Juliet wondered, her eyes wide as a stricken lamb. "Twenty seconds," Mulch offered, looking at Artemis hopefully.
"I..." Artemis trailed off. All his life, he had been the center of attention. Even when both his parents were incapacitated, he had never had to think of anyone else. He'd never had to look after someone younger. Now, he thought for the first time of giving up his place. Sole heir of the Fowls, the only son, the one in whom all his parent's hopes for the future were going to be realized, their... well, their baby. And as much as he resented it, the thought of stepping aside in favor of some newcomer -- a perfect stranger -- was making him feel a bit sick....
"Better go get those sedatives, big man," Mulch remarked phlegmatically as he reset his stopwatch.
______________________
Later that Saturday Morning
Howler's Peak
______________________
Elegant fingers rattled rapidly as Opal Koboi posted the chapter. Her vivid green eyes narrowed in fury as the browser popped up a message, "Site overloaded. Please come back later."
"D'Arvit!" she spat, clencing her small fists in fury, sharp little nails digging into her palms. With mild interest, she noticed that she was making herself bleed...
"Opal, do you have a minute?"
She started in surprise, automatically shielding her computer with her body. "Oh, it's you. Back twice in one morning?"
"It's important. I need a contact, Koboi, and quickly. A human with a bit of money, who wants to make more. And... there's no way to put this politely. Someone who's on the gray side of legal."
"Basically, you want a rich crook?" Opal summarized.
"Eh... more refined."
"A politician? An oil investor?"
"Someone like your French contact, Luc Carrere. Do you have any more like him? Preferably someone more intelligent than a bowl of chopped celery?"
"Oh, that's harsh." Opal's eyes sparked with amusement. "How did you find out about him?" Knowing better than to expect an answer, she lapsed into thought. Suddenly it came to her... like a thunderbolt from the blue, but less painful. It was like a warm summer breeze flowing into the cold corners of her mind and making them a little less uncomfortable. Respect, revenge, power, freedom, reviews... name one name, and they were all within her reach.
The food slot was unlocked, and a pad of paper and a pencil skidded across the floor. She wrote one name on it. Then she had a thought, and wrote down the title of a story and an Internet address. She handed it back through with a wicked grin. "Oh, Takaban? If you want to thank me, read the story. All the way through. And leave me a nice, long, well-thought-out review."
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Medical Ward
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Holly slowed down as she reached the door of the room. Hospitals made her uneasy. The disinfectant smell, the haggard-looking students, the drip stands and wheelchairs left ominously against the walls, the funny-colored paint job -- this was not her kind of environment at all. She didn't like the way her magic itched in response to the pain of others. Give her a cool - but not cold - night under the stars in the remotest parts of Ireland, breathlessly tracking a stray troll across the endless fields... none of this antiseptic stuff.
Her fingers closed around the handle of the door, flexed once, and pulled it open. Instantly she was assaulted by a thick wall of awful smoke. With a gasp, she leaped backward into the sterile air of the hallway, suddenly grateful for the disinfectant she'd resented a few seconds earlier.
"Come on in, Captain, and meet Foxy," Root called from the foul smog.
(With smooth efficiency, a crack team of janitors assembled a high-power fan in the hallway and started dispersing the smoke. A short girl with auburn-brown hair wandered by, spritzing something from a spray bottle into the air. "Yay.")
Holly entered the hospital room, suddenly feeling nervous. "Are you sure you should be smoking, Root?" she asked lightly, shutting the door behind her.
"The kid's wearing an oxygen mask. He can't complain." Root waved a dismissive hand, flecking small bits of ash into the air.
A snort from the hospital bed was his reply. Steeling herself, Holly looked at the patient.
It wasn't at all like she expected. Sitting straight with his back against the wall, he looked like a perfectly normal person, who had been pounced on by a swarm of vengeful medics and trussed up with oxygen masks and IV lines. The IVs carried a glowing blue liquid -- antiseptic saturated with the Gift, a true blessing to doctors who were tired of using raw magic to heal a patient. He looked fine. Good, even, with electricity in his eyes despite the unflattering hospital light.
Nothing like her father, who had spent his last days in a hospital like this. The Gift can't save everybody.
Holly breathed a sigh of relief and extended her hand. "Hello. I'm Captain Short of the LEP."
He nodded back and wrote something on a dry erase board. Holly read the Japanese words with concentration... Basic Gnommish should be adapted as a universal language. "Your name is Kitsune? That means fox, doesn't it?"
He nodded, erased, and wrote some more kanji. Holly frowned. "Can't you write in English, or Gaelic?"
The person now established as Kitsune gave her a Look with his yellow-green eyes. He took the board back, then wrote in both English and Gaelic, "NO."
Root looked on in amusement as Holly glared at him. "Why not?"
In Japanese: "Mostly, because I don't feel like it." Then there was an emoticon -- ":P"
"D'Arvit," Holly said under her breath, barely moving her lips. Somehow, Kitsune heard that. He wrote something on the board and showed it to her. It was something untranslatable.
Root broke up the impending disaster by doubling over with laughter and accidentally dropping his cigar on the bedsheets. Kitsune grabbed it, dropped it in his nearby glass of water, and pulled off his oxygen mask in relief. "Nice to meet you, too, Captain."
It looked like they were off to a good start.
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Saturday Afternoon
Unknown Location
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"A fiery death, straight from hell," the dwarf babbled, clutching the blue plastic packet to his chest. "I could have died yesterday back there. Burned away to a pile of ash."
"Look, Marcus, you had the ivory, okay? You didn't die. Now try not to look like a total loser when I do this report." The elf rolled her blue eyes scathingly as she lounged in the lobby of the headquarters. Pulling out a small mirror, she shook out her bright blonde curls.
"You're not listening!"
"I can't hear you, Marcus. I'm not listening." She twirled a strand of golden hair around her finger and stared into the mirror."What do you think -- do I look okay? I want to impress our boss."
"You look fine. You always look fine." The dwarf stroked his gingery beard fretfully. The living hairs preened beneath his touch.
"Why, thank you, Marcus."
"I thought you weren't listening!"
She didn't have an answer to that, so she returned to making herself look halfway decent. "Meet me outside his office, okay? I have to go to the powder room."
"Yeah, yeah."
"The office" was bare, sparse and painfully clean, with no real furniture. In the middle of the floor knelt a figure, wearing arctic camouflage with spots that were actually paler than his skin. His black-feathered wings occasionally rustled with movement. He was using a fantastically modern laptop computer that would have brought envious drools to the mouths of human computer nuts everywhere, if they had been with him at that moment. His infinitely dark eyes were frozen wide in morbid fascination.
"The little psychopath," he breathed. "How am I going to review this?"
He didn't seem to notice the two in the doorway, but with a shake of her blonde curls, the female tripped in confidently. "Good morning, sir," she said in a sort of sultry chirp. Peering over his shoulder, her soft blue eyes strained out of their perfectly shadowed sockets. "Who under the Earth is 'Evilly_Brilliant_Femme_Fatale?' And -- and -- those characters wouldn't do that!!"
"In the minds of fans, nothing is impossible," Takaban stated, slamming the laptop shut. "In Koboi's mind... What's your report, Frond?"
Lili Frond, bimbo face of the LEP, descendant of the famed elfin king, sighed and jerked a commanding thumb at the dwarf in the corner. "Marcus, get in here. It's your report, too."
Grousing under his breath, he stomped into the office and assumed a sulky pose next to her. Lili examined a fingernail with biting scorn as her partner snuffled loudly. "Well, sir, I think we did a good job. We scanned the state of Oklahoma and paid off a couple of eight-year-olds with that Mud Money you gave us." Pouting kittenishly, she gestured at Marcus to take over.
"Visited an oral surgeon and got some old wisdom teeth from his biowaste cans," the dwarf sighed, "Tried to get at some old dead Mud Man they were burying but couldn't do it in time, and his teeth were probably all rotten anyway. Stopped at a drugstore because Lili wanted to see their eyeshadow. Got thrown out of drugstore 'cuz Lili tried to buy two hundred bucks worth of makeup and an R-rated chick flick, on a third-party charge card, and they thought she was six years old."
"I have the figure of a full-grown woman," Lili Frond spat venomously, eying her pronounced curves with an appraising powder-blue eye. "That pimply old clerk was stone blind."
"He couldn't see your figure," Marcus shot back. "All he could see was your chin! I told you, you're too short to be buying R-rated DVDs from Mud People!"
"What? You never said any such thing. Besides, I'm not SHORT! I'm one of the tallest elves in Haven! It's the innocence in my eyes that makes me look young!"
"Innocence!? Don't make me laugh!"
If you have ever lived with any kind of fowl -- Artemis and Co. don't count -- you know that when they become scared, annoyed or enraged, they puff up their feathers to make themselves seem larger and more threatening. (Or, in the case of the author's little sister's parakeet, like a small, startled feather duster -- but a really, really threatening little feather duster.) Size is intimidating. A small person like Holly Short could wipe you out with one casual zap of a Neutrino 2000, but you'd rather take her on in a fight than a big person like Butler.
Takaban wasn't quite a parakeet. Although light-boned, he was as tall as a young man. When he suddenly flared his huge wingspan open like a small plane about to take off, the effect in the small office was paralyzing. Lili squeaked and fell backwards into Marcus. With a grunt, he pushed her off and stared.
"What else happened?" Takaban asked in his usual half-depressed tone. With a swift rustle, he folded his wings to his back and looked just as thin and Gothic as before.
"Um, there was a, there was um," Lili babbled intelligently, "There was a, uh, a Mud Boy. Man. Mud Teenager. Ish. But maybe he wasn't. Um, but don't worry, I killed him. Or, at least, he's dead now. I think. Maybe. Marcus?"
"What are you asking me for? I was unconscious! Burnt half to death!" the dwarf squawked, shuddering. He sunk slowly to the floor, both from shock at Takaban's display and from his pyrophobic memories. A few snatches of groans "I felt the clutches of hell" and "A fiery grave" were just audible from his huddled body.
Takaban gave him a brief look and fixed a hawklike gaze on Lili. "I expect you to tell me everything."
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Holly's Apartment
Obligatory Bit with Bob in It
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Bob the Atlantean Bogglefish had come up with a Revolutionary New Escape Plan. He decided to tunnel through the bottom of the tank. A lot of gravel was in the way ("Good Lord! What IS this stuff?!") which he pushed away with his snout in a stunning display of action.
Sadly, he discovered the Bottom of the Tank. It made him very sad and depressed for a record of .0003 seconds, before he remembered that he didn't know how to be sad and depressed. It was all too much for a fish to handle. He felt very ashamed, and realized that he had to run away, change his name, and grow a moustache.
For an amazing total of .056 seconds, fiercely crossing his eyes and severely straining his attention span, he grew a moustache.
For some strange reason, it didn't work very well.
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Fowl Manor
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Angeline was attempting to contact every Butler, every relative of Butler, every relative of a relative of a Butler, and every seeing-eye emu owned by a Butler that she could get her hands on. Juliet's diary had convinced her that she was not quite ready for a bodyguarding job yet. The best thing for that particular young lady was several years in the most uptight college in the world. St. Bartleby's University for Young Ladies. (Although, deep down inside her soul, Angeline sympathized completely with Juliet.) Now, the lady of the house flung herself into the task of finding a suitable escort for the future Fowl child.
The Butler family was quite large, but most of its members were unshakably occupied. Granny Sue Butler of Louisiana was unemployed, but she spent all her time in her rocking chair on her decaying porch, firing rounds off her shotgun at every passing stranger. Sunshine Rainbow Butler always wore impractically long hippie-style skirts, flower-child blouses, and 1960's makeup. This was all the more disturbing since Sunshine Rainbow was a thirty-nine-year-old man, stood six and a half feet tall, and was a major ringleader in American crime. Most of the others were good, upstanding crime lords, bodyguards, mercenaries and other wholesome things, but they were all booked for life.
Artemis Fowl Senior was ruffling through some of his files, occasionally remembering a name or two to help her along. "What about their cousin, that nice young man we had in once to babysit, when Artemis was five?"
"Dear, he was never quite right in the head. He thought Artemis was twins."
"Well, what if we pay for his medication?"
"Darling, don't you remember? When we got home, he was in tears because a giant flaming panda bear had carried off Artemis's identical brother."
Downstairs, the Artemis in question was being nursed back to health with baking soda. Baking soda, Juliet insisted, was the miracle cure for almost anything. Mulch Diggums reluctantly admitted that it did do wonders for gas cramps. Butler was ransacking the manor for some kind of sedative. Meanwhile, it was up to Juliet and Mulch to bring the shell-shocked Artemis back to health.
"Are you sure about this, hon?" Mulch asked as he stirred baking soda into the fifth glass of lukewarm milk.
Juliet didn't look at him. They had put aside their feud to administer to their nobly fallen master, who was clutching at pillows and making desperate whimpering noises to himself. He had all the symptoms of a shell-shocked soldier. Grabbing him in a headlock, Juliet forced some more milk and baking soda down his throat, ignoring his frantic struggles. "There, look, see? He's getting better already." She patted Artemis's heaving shoulder with the tender care of a big sister.
"Calmed him down, all right. Look, he's as limp as a wet dishrag. Turning a nice greenish color, too," Mulch observed with interest.
"Oh." Juliet grabbed Artemis's chin and looked. He did look a bit sickly. "Uh... gee."
"Bit too much baking soda, do you think?" Mulch gnawed the top off a carrot he had gotten somewhere. "He looks a bit like a half-drowned sprite."
"Oh, gosh, he isn't breathing!" Juliet panicked. She shook the teenager's limp body frantically. "Breathe, Artemis, breathe!"
"Give 'im more baking soda!" Mulch shouted, clambering onto the couch and helpfully pouring the box onto Artemis's head.
"No! He needs to wash it down! Hand me a glass of milk!"
Helpfully, Mulch poured the milk over Artemis's head. "Here, give him this carrot! My old auntie always said carrots were good for gas cramps!" He pulled the masticated vegetable out of his mouth and tried to fit it in between Artemis's teeth. "Here ya go, buddy, munch on this and you'll be all un-bloated in no time!"
"Get away, you mud-headed moron! He doesn't have gas cramps! We have to get him to breathe!" Juliet swatted him off the bed with a powerful backhand, and Mulch fell to the floor with a metallic clang, his feet sticking comically into the air. Huffily, he took his rejected carrot and crawled under the couch to sulk. The Butler instinct came to the rescue as Juliet cleared all airways, thumped her patient's chest a few times, and began CPR.
An important fact: Parents have very bad timing. You must have noticed; you'll be watching a perfectly good movie, and your parents will come in at the most violent part in it, and demand that you turn that junk off. At the moment when you and a friend are having the most possible fun, parents arrive to pick you up - and demand that you leave at once. You'll be in the middle of an important email, and parents will stride in and demand that you get offline so they can use the phone. Good intentions aside, it's a scientific fact that parents have the worst timing possible.
So, according to this universal law, Angeline Fowl HAD to enter the room just as Juliet was administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
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Good? Bad? Ugly? Less is more? More is less? Constructive criticism? Frenzied ramblings? Karaoke renditions of "Action Fairy?" More praises of Bob? (He's getting a swollen head. Now his eyes are almost in proportion to the rest of his body.) You know where to put them. Everything is accepted with thanks. I accept unsigned reviews, too, just so you know.
Caspian Nyghtvision