D E S C E N T
- Dim Aldebaran -
Chapter Seven
And as I listened, your voice seemed so clear:
so calmly you were calling your god.
"Full Circle"
Loreena McKennitt
:i:
Juliet was the first to awake.
Ko's conditioning had imprinted her deeply; her first reaction was that of all Butlers. She faked unconsciousness, stretching her senses out analyze the situation:
Citrus shampoo, hers; chrysanthemums, drifting through the window; musty, like old age, or dust.
Metallic, blood, where she had bit her lip; saltiness, teenage tears.
Strange silkiness, dust, old dust; threads that caught her fingers, her shag carpet.
Breathing, harsh, fast, cracking with dust.
Silence was not a good thing.
She opened her eyes—gray shadows, with a sliver of light out of the corner of her eye. She was under her bed, of all places.
She stretched out, feeling the confines. No chains or the like, thank God, but she had an inch of wriggle room above her.
She slid her feet an inch over, then her torso, slowly, carefully, feeling her own breath settle on her like a searing rag.
Slide, inch—inch—inch.
Her eyes watered from the disturbed dust.
inch—inch—inch
The darkness was oppressive. She wondered if she was developing a phobia.
inch—inch—inch
She remembered the girl in the doorway. Opal Koboi. She looked almost human, with that cotton candy pink t-shirt, almost childish with that glittery butterfly clip that sent her black hair out in a fashionable spray. Even her expression was human—hate, pure hate.
inch—inch—inch—out
Juliet jumped to her feet. No security threats. Holly was gone.
Artemis had had panels installed in their bedrooms, safety caches of sorts, lined with lead and projecting false readings out to the world. The LEP had not found Artemis'; hers was probably still intact.
She pulled at the seam, scratching at it with her fingernails until it came apart. A neat line of Neutrinos on the far side, and in a bin on the bottom random equipment. She grabbed the familiar ones, the ones she knew how to use—Neutrinos (a gun is a gun, she thought morbidly), mirrored sunglasses, ear sponges, sonic grenades, enlarged LEP helmet.
She was not as strong as she used to be, but she was still a Butler, and her Principle was in danger.
She creeped down to the study. The Artemii weren't there—somehow, they had managed to sneak by from their little tête-à-tête.
Dom's room. No one there; she left via the kitchen, and saw him slumped on the ground like a nuked mountainside, grated carrots covering him as an early snowfall.
No time.
Artemis is at stake.
As she walked through the door, she heard him moan—it was all she could do to keep from turning back.
Up the stairs.
Artemis' room.
Angeline was sprawled in the corridor, a fallen birch, graceful even in death. Her hair had escaped from its coiffe and was sprawled across the hallway like so many branches, and her face was pale, twisted in pain.
Juliet reached down and checked her pulse; not dead, asleep in the bleak midwinter.
Artemis' room was just ahead. The silence killed her.
She came to the door. It was ajar. If Koboi was anywhere, it was here.
She turned the Neutrino to the highest setting, and opened the door.
No one.
Artemis was not at his piano, letting his soul out—there was no sign of struggle. Everything was impossibly neat, as only Artemis could manage.
—the computer was on.
She went to it. There was a message. It looked short, probably relevant, so she read it:
Butler—
If you are reading this, then I have failed to handle Koboi on my own. Yes, Koboi—I'm sure you remember by now. She arrived in a red Forester. I do not know whether she looped the security cameras. I do not know if she is after me, or all of us. There is no time. See Father's business contact. They are related. I suspect she is linking herself to humans more so than in the B'wa Kell incident: she appears to have taken the form of a human child. If so, she has no magic.
Mother is coming. I must go now.
Best of luck,
AF
She ran to the window. It had a perfect view of the driveway; no red Forester, no 'human child'.
"Damn."
'Damn' was an understatement, but I'm sure you understand. It is often difficult to express oneself in situations like these.
There was no point in running now; Koboi had gone, with Artemis and Holly. She could only make plans.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye; she exited the room, and there was the father, as she had never seen him before—hunched over Angeline, sobbing in a dry, broken matter, doing a stilted CPR.
"Sir!" she cried out, running to him. "Sir, she's alright! You'll hurt her!"
He looked up, startled. He stopped the CPR. "What happened?" he demanded, checking over his wife. He had never thought to check her pulse—aristocrats could be so stupid sometimes.
"Kidnapping," she said.
"The Mafiya?" He stood up, his face tightening with memories.
Juliet shook her head. "No. The fairies." She began to walk away, to revive Dom.
He caught her arm. "This is no time for sarcasm," he said angrily. "Who took Arty?"
Juliet looked him in the eye, every inch a Butler, from her dusty clothes to her peach-fuzz hair. "I'm being serious."
He was a businessman; he knew when truth was looking him in the eye. "I think," he said slowly, "you should explain how fairies could have taken Arty."
:i:
Holly came to slowly, perhaps too slowly. She was not used to being knocked unconscious—just as she was unused to the bonds that circled her limbs as if a kraken.
Her first instinct was, of course, to scream for help. When that was inhibited by the gag, she tried the next in line, squirming futilely. Her Recon instincts did her little good: there was no Neutrino, no Foaly. Only the strange and twisted darkness of a blindfold—the sort that played tricks on the mind: is it dark outside, or light? Are they bringing forth the iron maiden, the crucifix, or the guillotine?—tortured, martyred, or executed?
It didn't particular matter, though, since then the car hit a rather nasty bump in the road, and she reverted to the set of instincts she referred to as the Artemis collection. It loosely comprised of a general bemoaning of the situation, frantic, spiraling thoughts of escape, and then, of course, the 'what-if' factor.
It was surprising useful, given that the collection largely consisted of self-pity and the like. Her mind already toyed with the warmth besides her, who, by his relatively shallow breathing, was already awake.
She felt weight on her side , slapped down rather clumsily —she must be laying on her side, since it would explain why her left limbs were all numb. "If you would, Holly."
Holly blinked in the dark, even if there was none to see her surprise. He had, evidently, already recovered his memories. "Further down," she said. He complied; she felt his fists flop down to the uncomfortable area between her head and her belly. The feeling was not a pleasant one.
She brought her arms up—tied in front, thank Frond—and mussed with his bonds briefly. They weren't done particularly well, as if she had just read a book on knotmaking but hadn't gotten any practical experience first.
In the warm darkness, Artemis brought his hands away with a sigh. There was the sound of rustling cloth, and then she felt his hands scrabbling for hers, touching places she'd rather he never touch again. "Watch it," she snapped.
"Désolée," Artemis murmured, now fiddling with her bonds. His larger fingers did not favor the tight knots; they took several minutes to undo.
There was silence for several moments, silence but for the sound of their breathing, fast and shallow in the hot air.
"It's Koboi," she said suddenly.
"I know," he replied calmly. "I talked to her."
"She's a loony."
"As 'loony' as Foaly."
Holly glared, even though he was unable to appreciate it. "Foaly's good. Opal's bad."
"This is getting us nowhere, by the way. I thought you might like to know."
Holly shifted in the dark. It was obvious they were in the trunk of a car; she could feel the rumble of a shoddy highway beneath her, shaking her very bones. "How are we getting out of here?"
"We don't."
Holly didn't like darkness. Holly didn't like being that close to Artemis. Perhaps most of all, Holly didn't like not being in control. "Why not?" she demanded.
"If we escape now, we will know nothing of Koboi's plans."
"We won't be a part of them, either. I don't feel like dying. This feels like an opportunity to escape. Very touchy-feely: let's go."
"We stay."
"You can't order me around, Artemis Fowl!"
"You're right," he conceded—"but my ideas have this tendency to be right." With her silence, he continued: "Opal Koboi has recovered from her comatose state. She would not have kidnapped the two of us without plans for the underground: they attempt a rescue shortly, and in all likelihood succeed unless they are… distracted. She was accompanied by a human contact with enough status to arrange a business meeting with my father. She knows what she's doing, Captain, and we don't. I can only extrapolate so much of her plans."
Holly's head spun, swirling with thoughts in the muggy silence until she was struck by one in particular:
"What's happened to you?"
In the darkness, there was the silence of hesitation, hot and heavy in the trunk of the car. They could hear cars outside, they could hear the road beneath, they could hear the sound of their hearts.
"Another time."
"Artemis—"
"I recovered my memories a week after the mindwipe. Do you honestly think a time capsule and a few implanted emails were all I had?"
Silence, like the slow pulse of blood.
"Now," he continued, "if you don't mind, I'd like to think for a time. If you still insist on escape, the lock can be picked, and we're in urban Dublin. Opal can't pursue. The Fowl townhouse is just around the corner, if that is the church I hear—the chauffeur will recognize you. The password for the comm is 'cavalier'. "
Holly thought of the piano, the Prozac, the mindwipe—here, he seemed back to normal, criminal mastermind style.
"I'll stay," she said to the darkness.
"I thought as much."
She felt a ball of annoyance tighten in her stomach, half-remembered from those Spiro days with their careless banter and exhilarating action. It was a strange sort of homecoming for her.
Foaly had said his mind was disintegrating—
It was hard to believe, locked in a car trunk on their way to death by the hands of a power-mad pixie.
Could Artemis be going mad?
Well, she thought to herself, now is not the time.
:i:
Opal pondered her nails. She hated Mud Man traffic. She hated Mud Man cities.
She hated Mud Man cosmetics, she hated Mud Man fashion, she hated Mud Man stereotypes.
She hated Mud Men in general, for that matter.
Her 'father' was at the wheel. He had no idea there were people in the trunk; in fact, he had no idea anything was wrong in the least bit. He had come out of the meeting smiling—not only did he get the shipping deal, despite the increased costs due of his ecology-conscious industry, but he also converted Master Fowl into his green movement. Fowl Industries, it would seem, would be affiliated with the treehuggers from now on.
Though Opal was quite the industrialist Down There, to Mud Men she came across as a greenie. She approved of 'father's' methods—despite her hatred of their faux relationship, she mentally promised herself to put his precious environmental movement into power, if not himself. She couldn't stand the idea of being called 'daughter' in front of her slaves.
Her lips curled. Ah, yes. Slaves. Slaves were one thing she approved of. They had been outlawed millenniums ago in Haven, but the practice had always seemed efficient to her. Sell your ideas, sell your body, sell your soul. There wasn't a whole lot of difference to her. Her line was drawn at forced slavery. Sell yourself, not another.
She had her policies all planned out. Introducing a cold fusion would be the first. After the energy crisis was averted, she would continue to consolidate her reign with a flush of fairy technologies, integrating them a dozen at a time until the Mud Men were all caught up, and she could graduate them to the stars her peop—the fairies would never dare touch for fear of leaving Mother Earth.
The Mud Men were much easier to mold than fairies—fairies were too set in their ideas, ancient and still aging—but Mud Men were a vibrant, fast race, ready to glisten if given a bit of dwarven rock polish. The fairies, the fairies were cut down and down—they, too, glittered, but it was artificial. The Mud Men had so much more potential, and rock polish, though dangerous to use, could preserve so much more of the natural beauty.
She laughed—'father' gave her a look, but assumed it was something from the sitcom playing on her DVD player. Friends wasn't too funny.
Opal turned the channel. She had planted a camera in the trunk; no sound, but she could at least see what they were doing. Maybe Artemis was in the process of discovering religion; atheism was rather unhealthy, according to the Brotherhood of Psychology. Maybe Artemis wanted to know of Certain Things before he died—ever the curious, genii were.
She giggled at the thought. Ridiculous, but the visual really was quite funny.
'Father' leaned over. "What's that?"
"New TV show," she responded.
"What is it about?"
She smiled. "Captivity. Vengeance." Her smiled widened. "Global domination."
The light turned red. The Forester ground to a halt. "Are these two people trying to stop it?" he asked.
"Yep. And failing miserably, I might add."
He turned to the wheel as the light changed. "Well, I hope they win."
"They won't. The mastermind is too clever for them." She paused. "You see the big one?"
He looked over as traffic closed up again. "Yes."
"He's the smartest person on Earth," she said, "but he's going mad. That's why he'll never beat her. His mind will be collapsing as everything falls around him, and he won't even notice."
Compelled by something strange, she continued—"The girl on his side, the small black blur. She knows what's happening, but she doesn't know what to do. She's not very smart. In fact, she's stupid. She'll be the only one around to save his mind, and thus save the world, but she doesn't know how. All she knows is how to shoot things."
"Sounds interesting," he said. "What about the villain?"
Opal paused. "The villain is incredibly beautiful, genius, witty, beloved, and perfect beyond compare." She considered her nails. "She wants the world because there is nothing else for her to want. She's tried family, she's tried riches, she's tried knowledge, but they didn't work out for her. She will have it all, and everything will thank her for it because she'll fix the world and make it perfect." She smiled. "Just like her."
"Cool show," he said. "What's it called?"
She smiled at the screen. "No idea," she replied, "but I'm quite fond of it."
:i:
The whole bit with Juliet bugs me a lot. I cut and cut and cut to try and write a proper action sorta thing, but it didn't work out too well. Sorry. I'll try to stay away from action sequences from now on.
Mleh. I'll try for another update on Saturday, but I dunno. I'm writing three novellengths at once now, albeit one cowriting writing, and it's rather hectic when school and sci-oly are taken into account. So.
Oh, did anyone catch what the quote at the beginning was referring to in the story, or is my allusion too weirded out...?
Thanks for reading! If anyone can give me advice on writing fast scenes like the one with Juliet—or pointing out what I actually did right, if any—it would be much appreciated. And tell me if you like what I did with Opal. I like the idea of her being a bit idealistic, but it's an easy layer to cut if it's too unrealistic. Thanks!