Dome Drama

It was a huge expanse of a room, with a magnificent domed glass ceiling and a spotless marble floor. The sunlight shone into the crystal dome, refracting into soft rainbow specks on the floor. Had it not been for the ugly supercomputers rooted at the centre of the room, it was a breathtaking place.

This time, however, Reddler wasted no time marveling at the architecture. She sprinted to the centre with amazing speed and silence, taking the two technicians sitting at the computers completely by surprise. Their hands reached for their guns, but they were too slow. She kicked their guns out of their hands, and in a single flying leap, proceeded to give their skulls the same treatment. Artemis walked over to her side just as the second guy fell groaning to her feet.

"Good work," he said. "Now, Foaly wants us to jack the central processor. We split and look for it. Maintain radio silence unless absolutely necessary."

Reddler frowned. She had counted approximately forty-eight computers in the room, and most of them were the same size.

However, she knew that the central processor could be identified by its cables: they were slightly bulkier, and had specific codes stenciled on to them that she had been made to memorize years ago.

She dropped to her hands and knees, and started to examine the snaky mass of cables. After a while, she was close to giving up. All of them were pretty much the same. She was tired of handling the decade-old Cray-XMP hardwires. Apparently the mafiya weren't very enthusiastic about updating. Reddler stood up, puzzled. She couldn't spot Artemis among the jumble of computers. She suddenly missed a beat. There had to be a glitch somewhere. Very, very softly, she whispered into the mike. "Artemis?"

There was absolute silence, except for the monotonous drone of the machines. Reddler could hear the blood pounding in her veins.

"Artemis?" she tried again. "I think I've just realized something."

And then boomed a voice she recognized only too well. A fiendish, mocking voice.

"So have I."

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Reddler turned around.

Vitya Kayakova was standing next to Artemis, his hand clamped over his mouth and a gun glued to his temple.

"I've just realized that he's expendable."

"Let him go," said Reddler, talking fast. "I'm the one you want." She lifted her hands above her head, throwing away the thermal scanner to the floor at the same time. She watched his eyes travel to the scanner skidding off the floor, and played her move off his reaction. In a split second, she aimed a kick to his knee and snatched his gun as he came down. Vitya fell writhing to the floor.

Reddler and Artemis backed off as he struggled to his feet. They looked around. The entire perimeter of the room was surrounded by guards.

"So," Vitya said, thumbing the safety off his backup weapon. "The great Artemis Fowl finally pays a visit. Your head will fetch me a hot bonus."

"Indeed," said Artemis calmly. "Your own head wasn't obviously enough to track down a thirteen-year-old."

"I'm fourteen!" hissed Reddler.

"Quiet!" yelled Vitya. His traveled to Artemis' hand. Blood was dripping from his finger, which was taped with a soggy band-aid, on to the white marble floor. His nose crinkled at the mess.

"Boy, do something about that or I will," he said, pointing his gun at Artemis' hand, as if to make his intentions clear.

"That's the politest thing you've said all day," muttered Reddler, as Artemis hurriedly stripped off the old band-aid and put a fresh one in its place.

"All right, you wench! You'll come here now. We've got about eight hundred people scouring the States for you. Someone had better tell the boss."

"She's not going anywhere," said Artemis, glancing at the faint, smoky shadow trailing in front of him, almost invisible on the polished floor.

"Don't worry, Fowl," said Vitya in an extra-nice voice. "I'm not going to hurt your girlfriend." He let his eyes trail over Reddler's form for a while. "At least, you won't be alive if I do." He raised his gun at Artemis.

"And don't bother with any wisecracks, you little prick."

At that instant, the glass ceiling shattered into a thousand shards and collapsed about them.

Butler had been hovering above the enormous domed ceiling, wrapped in cam foil and held in place by Captain Holly Short, who had him attached to one of the clamps on her moonbelt. Keeping himself calm was really hard at that moment, when his principal was involved in a raging drama below him. It tore him to place Artemis in the care of a thirteen, no, fourteen-year old, more so because she wasn't a Butler. But that was the plan, and his job was not to deviate from it at all costs. Still, it was fraught with risk. Vitya was armed, and could start shooting at any moment. A bullet at point-blank range to the heart would be too deeply embedded in tissue for fairy magic to heal. Somehow, he felt that it was the girl who was more at risk. He didn't like the way Kayakova was looking at her. Artemis was his first priority, no doubt, but he wouldn't forgive himself if anything happened to the sunny little girl. He glanced down to where she was standing. She was staring at Kayakova with a look of pure venom. Her hand moved behind her back, and she gestured to the invisible audience above her. Butler saw her raise one finger, then two. And …three!

Butler grabbed onto a piton cord and unhooked himself from Holly's moonbelt. She gave him a thumbs-up.

"That's your cue," she said.

Gravity lunged for its hold on his body in a second, and he plummeted downward into the glass dome.

There was a terrific crash. Vitya's words died in his throat as he watched the razor-sharp shards of crystal shower down on him. He clumsily darted for cover, trying to protect his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the surrounding guards do the same. When the tinkling of the falling glass stopped, he slowly drew his hands back from his eyes, and was astounded to see an enormous man standing in front of him. It was a novel moment, with no one knowing exactly what to do or say.

"Having fun?" said the man, breaking the stiff silence.

As if beckoned by an unheard command, every man swung into action, aiming their weapons at Butler, opening fire at that very instant.

Glass and marble chips hailed all over the place. Butler took his first shot at Kayakova's shoulder, incapacitating him in a second. Then, covering Artemis all the time, he rapidly fired on as many guards he could at one go. His reflexes were lightning fast. Watching him take out dozens of armed opponents at a time, Reddler hoped she wouldn't have to face him in a fight. She, meanwhile, helped herself to Kayakova's automatic weapon, taking on Butler's blind side. Two of the goons started advancing upon them like raptors. Butler backhanded one of them without even turning around. Reddler was too immersed in the gunfight to have heard them approach. The second of them targeted her, landing a fine punch to her side that made her see stars. She fell to the floor, gun slipping from her grasp. She quickly flipped herself onto her back. The guy had his gun pointed straight to her heart. She saw him grope for the trigger. But the shot never came.

Artemis threw himself on the man with all of his strength, ramming his fist into his stomach. The man swayed and fell, moaning in pain. Artemis stood there, looking at his hands, as if amazed by his own strength.

And then Reddler saw another man behind him, poised with an army knife, drawing his hand back to strike.

"Get down, Fowl!" yelled Reddler.

She forced herself to feet with blinding speed, spun, and kicked high above Artemis' head, aiming for the knife. Before it could fall to the floor, she struck ground to regain momentum, and hit him on the chin so hard that he spat blood.

By the time the man had stopped sliding over the slick floor; Artemis was already up on his feet.

"Thank you," he said.

"Likewise," said Reddler simply.

Butler eyed the unconscious body slide to a stop in front of him. Blood spewed out of his nose and mouth, leaving glinting red trails around him.

"Dead?" he asked Reddler, raising an eyebrow.

"Nope. Brain damaged," she said, shrugging.

"We're leaving," said Artemis, over the sound of running feet, rapidly advancing. "That'll be the infantry, no doubt."

"What about hacking the computers?" asked Butler. "Foaly was saying something about a central processor."

"It's a parallel processing unit," said Reddler. "Distributed centre."

"So, what now?"

"We leave," said Artemis.

"We're leaving?" said Reddler angrily. "Just like that? Are you implying that we risked our lives for nothing?"

"Why don't you tell me what we're supposed to do?" he said coolly. He seemed to be amused at her desperation.

"Something," she insisted. She glanced at Butler, and saw that he was already rigging the piton into loops. If he found it to be surprising as well, he was doing a very good job hiding it. She faced Artemis again. He was staring at her with a smug smile.

Reddler sighed. She was heartily sick of his cavalier attitude. Was there even a point to his insanity? Why would he endanger everyone he cared about on a whim?

She met his calm blue eyes.

There's something he's hiding from me.

She turned back to Butler and studied him steadily prepare for their escape.

And Butler knows.

"The piton won't support the three of us at a time," said Butler. "I'll go first with Artemis. Reddler, I'll lower the cord to you, and you can follow us."

"Okay," said Reddler.

Butler wound the cord around Artemis, then himself. "Ready, Captain," he said into the comm. screen. The next moment the two of them were easily lifted from the ground and over the skeletal framework of the dome. Five seconds later, the cord dangled in front of Reddler. She took it and wrapped it around her waist. Just as she as was about to leave, she saw Vitya stir and slowly open his eyes.

The Croft girl was standing quietly in front of him. The ground near her was littered with fallen guards. He swore and reached for his gun, but it wasn't there. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating, but he couldn't tear his eyes off her. She took a few steps backward, blew him a kiss, and then with an enormous lurch, jumped vertically up almost forty-odd-feet and turned a single somersault in mid-air before disappearing over the wrought-iron rafters.

Vitya Kayakova was in a daze. He didn't want to think about the impossible feat he had just seen, it made his head hurt. He just lay there, looking at the blue sky above the mangled rafters. His last thought before falling back to unconsciousness was

The boss is going to be very angry.

The Lear jet, en route to London

Reddler sat at the front of the plane, watching a Blue Planet video on the wall-mounted TV, but her mind wasn't in it. She was still angry that Artemis hadn't bothered to tell her the entire plan. Little did she know that it was exactly how Artemis' plans usually went. He never included more people than was necessary in separate fragments of an operation.

She paused the video, tossing the remote to the side table. Her body was aching and she felt extremely sleepy. Maybe a nap would help her refresh her mind. She pulled down the blind, shutting out the rich golden glow of the setting sun. A clip of a school of tropical fish in the ocean was frozen on the TV. The rich blue of the background reminded her of Artemis' eyes. A perfect, vibrant blue. She wasn't aware of the slight blush on her cheeks as she drifted off to sleep.

"Maybe I should apologize," Artemis was saying. He was at the galley with Holly and Foaly. Everyone was exhausted and hungry. He'd asked Reddler to join them, but she had stridden off sulkily to the front of the plane to watch a video and relax.

He now watched the beads of condensation form on his glass of juice. "I do owe her an explanation."

"When will you learn, Fowl?" Holly said, between mouthfuls of strawberry shortcake. "It's not very wise to drag her along this way. She's got her own issues to sort out."

"A hell of a lot of issues," said Foaly, playing with his salad. "But you've got to agree, Captain, that she's far safer with Artemis than back home. Didn't you hear? The mafiya's been combing the country for her."

Holly reached for another slice of cake. "Britva will be informed of this," she said darkly. "As well as Easton."

"I know, I know," muttered Artemis, smoothing his hair.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Artemis."

"I do."

"Because you've got a lot on the line here. They won't be sluggish to finish you off to get to her."

"I know."

Holly munched on her cake thoughtfully. "You know, it wouldn't kill you to talk to her. At least."

Artemis looked out of the window, and gazed at the orange clouds lit up by the sun.

"Maybe I will," he said.