Central Bank, Zurich, Switzerland
"Wow, It's big." Eden said, water particles freezing in her exhaled breath.
Following the late Night message after the night out, that there was something in his bank account that had caused a lot of bother, Artemis, Eden and Butler had flown to Sweden to see what the fuss was about.
"No, not big, huge." She changed her mind, seeing that there was plenty more building behind the four walls surrounding the trio.
"Has anyone any idea where we should go?" Artemis enquired.
Butler shook his head, "No, Artemis, but perhaps you should ask someone."
"Hmm? What?" that was Eden. She was still taking in the sheer size of the bank.
"What's up with you?" Artemis asked his friend, "Is your head stuck facing up or something?"
"No, Smart-Alek," She replied, "I don't want to see your ugly mug, so I look in the opposite direction."
Artemis scowled; he hated being picked on because of his height.
He was about to come back with a witty remark when a thin, middle age man walked over and made the bickering pair jump,
"Good day, Mister Fowl. Please, follow me to my office." He said
Eden was still trying to calm her heart; "He doesn't half scare ya, does he?"
"Suppose he does." Artemis agreed, "'Mon," he said, gesturing the direction Lars had went in, "I need to find out what is causing all this fuss."
By the time the two Irish and the giant Eurasian squeezed into the small office and found seats, Lars had a file on his desk.
"Sorry to make you fly all the way over here from Ireland, but." He shuffled some papers; "there is a problem."
Artemis had fitted into his cold, business mode and stared at the banker, expressionless, "What problem, Mr. Sarraz?" he asked in a tone that was all too common when he was younger, "Please don't hold anything back."
"Well, Mr. Fowl," Lars Began uncomfortably, it was amazing how the young mans stare could drain the confidence out of you, "it's about the collection of symbols you left with us eight years ago."
"Symbols?" Artemis asked, "What symbols."
"It's hard to explain, Mr. Fowl, maybe I should show you."
"Yes, maybe you should."
Lars got up and walked to the door, he gestured the trio to follow.
Five minutes later, they had finally reached a volt and two minutes more it was open.
" This," said Lars, "is it, Mr. Fowl."
Lars held up a cluster of pages full of symbols. Artemis took a few and handed a few more to Butler, "Here," he said, "what do you make of these?"
Butler studied the first page.
"Nothing much," he stated, "though they do seem familiar."
"Ditto." Artemis said, looking carefully at the first line, "hexagon with lines in the middle, patch with a jagged line underneath, dot, cross thing with circles, a triangle with circles at the angles, mushroom… What does this all mean?"
Eden picked up a sheet that had floated to the floor, "This one's all over the place," she turned it around to the back, "look, there's your handwriting, Art. It says 'First page of the fairy book.' The what?"
Artemis shrugged, "I don't know." He turned to the nervous banker, "Thank you, Lars, I would like to withdraw these to study."
"As you wish, sir."
On a Plane, Somewhere over Southern Germany"Any ideas, Sir?"
"No, Butler." Artemis whispered
Eden, who had been leafing through some spare sheets of the mystery pages, walked over to the pair, "Not conspiring against me, are you boys?"
"Don't you worry your little pink head, Eden."
"Oh ha, ha." Eden said in a sarcastic, hurt tone. Her recent introduction to DIY hairstreakers hadn't turned out well for the Northern Ireland lass, "Do you not want to know what I interrupted your little gossip club for?"
"Go on." Artemis said before being rudely interrupted by the, very happy sounding, captain,
"Hello again my dear passengers." Everyone muttered a bored 'Hello' after being instructed to at the start of the flight by the Attendants, "We are Crossing the German/France border. I hope that you are all enjoying the weather because I can see rain clouds rolling up ahead of us. Over and out."
The normally happy looking flight attendants joined with the passengers in rolling their eyes and swearing inwards that they had to be working with this Captain.
"As I was saying," Continued Eden, "there's some stuff in English if you want to know." Artemis made a move to snatch the sheets, but Eden was too quick, "And before you look at them, I want you both to know that…"
"Yes?" said the two men as Eden paused.
"I've already read it and I can tell you that it's a pile of rubbish." She handed the pages over to Butler, "Well, I'm going back to my seat for a snooze."
Butler took one look at the top sheet and passed the pile straight on to Artemis, "Fairies," He said, "Why did you store things on Fairies, Artemis?"
"I Don't know, Butler," Artemis replied, "but there has to be a reason."
"Well I'm going to go back to reading a hardback book with the dust-cover, thus the title, removed.
Artemis busied himself with the papers and pretended to read them. In actual fact, he was trying to read the book, which Butler was reading, to try and find out what he was reading. He almost snorted with laughter. This is what Artemis had read…
' "Oh Dominic, kiss me right here."'
He would have read more but he was dangerously nearing the limit of laughter he could hide. None the less,
"I'm sorry, Maria, we could never be." '
That was it. Artemis laughed before he could stop it. Butler reads Romance.
Artemis quickly lowered his gaze and went back to reading the pages about 'fairies'. Butler looked up,
"Something funny?" he asked suspiciously,
Artemis pointed at the papers on his knee, "This is just so funny, Butler. Couldn't help myself."
Butler, slightly satisfied, nodded but just in case he shuffled around in his seat so that Artemis could definitively not see what was written in the book.
Finally defeated, Artemis started to read the pages for real. After the first page, the memories started to come in a trickle, like a stream, but as he read, the stream memories grew stronger and finally, like a tsunami, washed the false memories away.
Seeing the expression on his employers face, Butler asked, "Is something wrong, Sir?"
Artemis passed back the sheets to his bodyguard and a slow smile crossed his lips, "Read them, Butler." He said.
YO! That'll do me another 3 months.
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P.S HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2004 was V.eventful for me, hopefully '05 will just be as much.