Consternation

"Code Red! Code Red!" The truculent Howler's Peak guard squealed as it dashed through the monotonous greyness of the prison corridors pressing every Emergency siren as it went. The prisoners had escaped, just as it was his watch, Why oh why did it have to be him? If the truth got out that he was napping on watch, he'd get sworn at within an inch of his life. The prisoners could not escape, Oh Frond, please, if he lost his job at Howler's it'd be back to mooning about at his mum's place again getting his cheeks pinched till they throbbed by his mother's Bridge Ladies. Anything, anything but that.

LEP Headquarters

LEP Headquarters was thronged with lobbyists protesting for better prison security systems, overrun by the press and absolutely swelling with curious Atlantean tourists with cameras slung round their necks and bits and pieces of half-eaten Spud's Spud Emporium Mystery meat Hamburger Specials. Holly was one of the Recon Officers temporarily taken off duty to act as the Council's PR men, walking briskly in the hall, wearing an ill-fitting LEP Consultant blazer, she wondered (for what must have been the thousandth time since she joined the LEP whether she would have done better on a nice, safe, boring traffic officer job, or as her mother suggested, a make-up counter girl). She felt stupid, this wasn't what she had wanted to be, the Council's spin-doctor, she had wanted to enforce justice, to ensure People's rights, to make both worlds, surface and subterranean, whole again, to be core diving, to be on another madcap, wildly exhilarating adventure with Artemis Fowl again. Then she glanced at the smoothly gilded clock face.

Break time.

Holly sighed, not knowing if it were a sigh of relief or one of pure instinct, as she entered the jam-packed LEP cafeteria filled with green-clad officers milling about or sitting at tables making raucous conversation and bawdy jokes about the Council, the air was saturated with the awful musk of old oil and week old macaroni and cheese and greasy pizza.

Really, if the Council members ate their lunches in this hovel, just like the rest of us commoners, perhaps they'd actually bother to get off their fat, lazy butts and get this place cleaned up, or better still, renovated like they promised to twenty years ago!

Thinking this, she walked to her usual table where most of her more civil colleagues were sitting and highly engrossed in a copy of The Subterranean Times.

"Hi! What're you all reading there?" She said by way of greeting as she sidled in beside Foaly who was just then inhaling his crate of carrots in beetle-juice.

"Hello, we thought you were still on spin-doctor duty" Grub replied. (He was as usual, skiving off his duty.

"No way. Now let me take a look at that, ever since the paper route changed, I haven't been getting my newspapers before they've been used as Mrs Next-Door's dog's chew-toy."

"Write a complaint." Trouble suggested as he handed her the newspapers.

"Wow, and I thought Grub was the complainer here."

"I highly suggest you take a good, fast look through the paper and prepare to die if you intend to continue on this vein."

"Ooh, I'm sooo scared, I might die before I finish reading the paper."

"Very, very, very tragic." Foaly added after he swallowed his mouthful of carrots.

"Speaking of tragic, did you hear how the Basaltville Baseballers were totally obliterated by the Atlanta Air-Fairies? Now that's tragic." Grub cut in.

"Where'd you hear that? I haven't heard anything of the match yet!" Holly inquired incredulously.

"That's most probably because your Sports section got all chewed up by Fluffy. It came out just this morning." Foaly said.

"Oh, I'll kill that dog first thing I get home!" Then Holly began flipping to the Sports section, but she never got there, on the second page was printed the headline:

Mud boy Blown Away; Tornado sweeps through Ireland, DemolishesSchool and Disappears.

Fairy Suspected

"Hey, what's this?" Holly and Foaly exclaimed at the same time, but they both already had an odd tingling in their bones that it was a certain Artemis Fowl who had been blown away.

They were right.

Five hours later

"Foaly? Foaly? Foaly!!! Come on, this isn't a coffee break, we're talking about life and death here. Hurry, hurry, HURRY!!!!!!!!!!!" Holly turned and shouted.

"Oh yeah, easy for you to say being light and floaty and not carrying any of this luggage that's ALL-MOSTLY-YOURS!!!!!" Foaly, who was lagging behind her with a mountain of carrier bags stuffed with clothing, weapons and other things not politely mentionable in polite society, strapped to his back with Velcro bag straps (actually, these were hand-me-down 'family heirlooms' from one of Foaly's great great great great great great great… (we all know the drill) grand cousins's grandma's third nephews twice removed).

They were at the Haven airport and rushing to get to the ticket booths to boot two unfortunate holiday makers off the flight list to get to Ireland. It was Foaly's idea really, Holly (though acting as if you couldn't've paid her to be there) was raring to get off PR duty and into an adventure and so, they had dashed back to their homes to get what they needed as well as some equipment and two specially created holographic projectors to cast 3-D disguises of a very normal, very boring, very rich bright-eyed and bushy-tailed American tourists wandering around Ireland with no purpose at all but to see leprechauns and kiss Blarney's wall.

Life was getting good again. Very rushed, very scary, very sudden and very, very, very much worth living again.