Chapter 6: Emergency
-Haven, Lower Elements-
Diana was thinking quietly and deeply. Artemis was, too, but he was searching for an ideal plan. Diana was thinking of something else.
"Artemis, Diana. Artemis, Diana…Hmm…Interesting." She mumbled.
"May I ask what you're doing, Diana?" Artemis asked, amused.
"Artemis, Diana. Is it a coincidence?" she wondered aloud.
Artemis was seriously considering the possibility that Diana had gone out of her mind.
"Artemis is the goddess of the moon and archery. Her Roman name is Diana. Is that a coincidence?" She paused to look at him. "Did you know that?"
Artemis contemplated it. "Yes, so it is. What an interesting observation. But it must be a coincidence. What else can it be?"
"Maybe," Diana thought aloud. "Maybe we were the same person in a previous life, but we diverged into two people in the after life. Isn't that possible?"
Artemis wasn't exactly religious, so he didn't consider this as possible in the least. "Hardly, Diana. You seem to be overly devout."
"You know what? I think you're right." Diana suddenly laughed. "I just remembered, Artemis is a girl's name!"
Artemis scowled. He despised people who said that. "Well, Artemis may be a female name, but for your information, Artemis Fowl is no girl."
"All right. You didn't have to be so sensitive about it, you know." Diana continued her pondering. "Imagine that your name was Diana. Now that's a real girl name." Then she giggled.
"Do stop laughing. There's nothing humorous about it." But Artemis had no choice but to laugh himself. Diana seemed to have an innate ability to make everyone happy.
Holly walked in the door. "For Frond's sake, what is so funny? There's no time to joke around. You know that." Holly paused. "I'm pretty much tired of waiting like this. I'm starting to think this was all my hallucination, and Jon Spiro was never there."
"Hallucination? That means you're crazy. I know you're weird, but I'd like to not think you're crazy." Diana laughed.
"Sadly, she is," Foaly said as he walked in the door. Holly glared. "I mean really. She has a disease called 'Artemis Abhorrence.'"
Holly smiled. "You've got that right. And Foaly has a disease called 'Indiscriminate Encryption.' That means he makes a new language for every file he has. Just out of paranoia."
Ignoring Holly, Foaly handed Artemis a disk that was labeled "Fowl." "I came to give you this. It's a copy of your memory. You probably didn't know I had it."
"I see." Artemis stared down at the disk in his hand. "It would be interesting to have a look at my past. There might even be some things that I don't recall."
Diana, of course, had read Artemis's memory before she had gone to London to meet him, so she wasn't interested in the least bit. "You seem to have been quite a smart guy as a baby," she commented.
Artemis's eyes widened with surprise. "You read my memories? I do have privacy, you know."
She shrugged. "Nothing important, really. I was supposed to read it just to have a glimpse of your association with the People, but I couldn't resist my curiosity."
Artemis frowned. "All right. Thank you anyway, Foaly."
"This is absolutely disgusting!" Spiro yelled angrily. They were still in the long, meandering sewage pipe.
"Shh, not so loud," Keeth said. "When you go out, you have to put this object on your head." Spiro looked at his hand to see a small black dart about the size of a nickel. "What is it?"
"It's an invisible shield. My invention of course." Keeth beamed. "You see, we goblins can't do any magic. We can't shield ourselves either, so this is pretty much the closest we can ever get to shielding."
"Okay, but of all places, why do I have to put it on my head?"
"Don't worry. It's adhesive. I'll tell you when we are almost there, so you can stick it on your scalp. And I guess we are almost there." Keeth pointed to a ray of light coming from a distance. "Can you see it?"
"All right, whatever," Spiro grumbled. "But why on earth did we have to go through a sewage pipe?!"
Keeth sighed. "For the thousandth time, sir. We could bump into people, and they are going to be very surprised if an invisible object is stomping on their foot. We may be invisible, but that doesn't mean we aren't solid."
Keeth helped Spiro come out of the tube. He already had the dart on his head. It shifted automatically and was hidden amidst his hair.
"Now," Keeth whispered excitedly. "I will take you to a top secret place. Only the LEP people and I know about it. It's is locked with a code, but I have already deciphered it."
"It must have been a piece of cake for you," Spiro muttered.
"Do be quiet. The shield isn't soundproof, you know."
At the end of a hall, there was a small room. Instead of a hard, steel door like all the others, this room had a blue, translucent covering.
"You see? It's perfect. We won't even be noticed when we walk through this. I guess the so- called LEPrecons didn't realize that this kind of lock would be much easier to pass through."
"But what about the cameras? They're motion sensitive. They'll pick up the movement we make in the atmosphere."
"No, there isn't anything like that in here," Keeth explained. "Nobody's supposed to know about this room, remember? All there is is just a small camera in the corner, but it's totally out-of-date. It relies on vision."
"Still, the alarm will go off?"
"Sure," Keeth said, guiding Spiro through the blue light. "But we're invisible, you know. Come right over here and look at these beauties."
What Spiro saw were two shelves on each side of the room full with silver guns. Each one was made of stainless steel and coated with a thin layer of silver. They were unlike anything he had ever seen.
"What are these?" he asked.
"These are the Demolisher 2004s," Keeth replied. "They're still being developed, though."
Spiro picked up a gun that was located far beyond the range of the camera. The gun's handle molded itself like Jello and adjusted to fit in Spiro's grasp. The trigger also moved so that it was in his reach.
"You see, these things don't run on bullets. They use laser darts. Not laser beams, laser darts. It goes in a straight line forever, and breaks through any object."
"So what you're saying is that you highly recommend these weapons to be used in our 'war'?"
"Basically," Keeth said. "But the problem is that they weren't built for war. Their primary purpose is to demolish any obstacle that hinders the person who pulls the trigger. So it might not be an optimum weapon for the war-"
"Well, this baby will have to do. Besides, it looks great." Spiro said as he scratched his head.
It was then that the shielding device fell from his head.
And the alarm rang.
