Warning: This is a long chapter, lol.
I do not own Artemis Fowl but I do own this story.
One week later
Artemis was tired.
Mandi was tired.
They had both spent a week getting people transported across an ocean and into Egypt. Mandi had done all of this to find that she had to send half of them back when they suddenly came down with all sorts of illnesses.
Artemis was tired of waiting and almost went ahead without some of his men. he only stopped when he would remember that he may need them to dig again. He knew the men just loved that. It gave a whole new meaning to the People's "Mud men." At the thought of the People Artemis checked his new laptop to see if what he had made for Foaly was still working.
He smiled at the thought of the centaur being fooled. Foaly was such an idiot sometimes. He had attached a device to piggyback Foaly's piggyback that was attached to a television satellite. It made sure that the People remained unaware of his activities until he had the things necessary to make this matter a little one.
He had also arranged to have a device set up to make phone calls from his house to various innocent locations in his voice. This would give the illusion that he was present when he was really thousands of miles away.
He stood looking out at sand. "Wonderful." he thought. " More dirt. "
His men seemed to be thinking the same thing as they trudged through it, half way through the fourth day of their five day journey.
Mandi was tailing Fowl every step of the way, though he didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn't care. This frustrated her to no end. Because they did not know what Fowl was after or where he was going, they could only follow him and wait for an opportunity to head him off.
She settled into her sleeping bag, thinking about the last week.
"Stupid Fowl." she muttered as she thought of the laptop with information she already had.
When she woke up the next morning George was decided to be enough assistance and the two of them set out. They saw Fowl and a group of men climb down into a hole near the base of the pyramid. He must have had his men dig all night! What a slave driver.
Artemis, Butler, and ten men climbed down into the mine shaft that looked so horribly dug that it could collapse any second. Artemis looked at it for a moment and then began to walk down the lane before anyone could complain or state that they wanted to go back to the surface.
The men stood back for a moment and watched as the bodyguard, and then the boy suddenly disappeared in the middle of the tunnel. They followed slowly and soon were on the other side of the image of a holographic projector. The men looked back in confusion at the opening to the mine and then to where they were headed. It was a well built mine, so well built it could have been a hallway in someone's house.
Artemis hadn't anticipated that piece of fairy technology but by the look of it guessed it was a bit primitive.
They continued to walk at a leisurely pace. Artemis realized how out of shape he was as he raced down a suddenly steep hill, panting with sweat drops on his forehead as these men around him could have run up the hill and had less of a reaction than himself. He made a mental note that when he returned to his house he would get into better shape, which he figured would be easy with puberty and testosterone there to aid him.
Meanwhile
Mandi and George climbed into the cavern and jogged under cover of an unexpected wall.
Mandi looked it over.
"Looks like Fowl left a holographic projector." She studied the picture. "Impressive." she looked down the lane that they were standing in. It was about ten feet wide and ten feet high and stretched out for an unknown distance.
"You up for a jog?" she asked George.
"I'll race you."
That night Artemis let the men he had brought sleep and Butler kept watch for half the night before waking one of them up.
Artemis woke earlier than the rest of them and roughly woke them up with an annoying beeping he had programmed into his watch just for this reason.
They continued the walk faster than their dazed and sleepy minds preferred. Artemis felt an excitement filling him as the air got cooler. They were roughly fifty feet underground when he stopped everyone in front of two separate tunnels.
Artemis stood for a moment, examining the arches of the tunnels, the descent. He then sniffed the air before instructing Butler to kick the wall in between them in various places. When Butler kicked the wall in the last place a noise of cracking rock rang through their ears as a crack crawled from the floor to the ceiling. The crack grew bigger and bigger until Butler could fit into it and he led the way into the hallway that was revealed.
The men walked into the hall made of sandstone. There were torches hung on the walls and several people picked one up to light the way. These proved not to be needed since as they began to walk, torches lit themselves along the wall for about a fourth of a mile until the hall connected with a large room right out of an Indiana Jones movie.
The men looked around in awe at the enormous room with hieroglyphics engraved on every inch of wall, pillar and arch. Ladders and large scaffolding were placed all along the walls as if the engravers had disappeared in the middle of this grand project. This gave the place an eerie aura, putting the men on edge and Butler on his toes. The room was made out of the same stone as the pyramid they were under and the torchlight made everything glow yellow. There were stairs along the wall of the opposite side of the room and on a platform at the top of these stairs sat a swirling portal of light. The men drooled as they watched the portal changing colors reminding them of a black hole.
Artemis smiled when it changed to a gold color and stayed that way. Artemis walked around the room trying to figure out how to use this portal. There was writing around the portal on the wall in the same language as he had read in the Book not to long ago and so he was able to search for instructions rather quickly.
Just as he found them a commotion was raised among his men. There was one too many of them. Butler quickly apprehended the imposter.
"Where is she?" Artemis demanded of George Newman, Mandi's right hand man.
"I don't understand!" he yelled as his arm was yanked nearly out of its socket.
"Where is your leader!"
"I am the leader!" he insisted.
"Watch the entrance," Artemis ordered, sending men scrambling for the door as Butler tied up George.
Artemis went back to reading the instructions written on the archway. He soon found just what he was looking for written around the arch of the portal:
Requests are accepted for treasures untold
From unknown centuries or time grown old
We'll show you whatever you are so inspired
Or give you the thing which your heart has desired
But brave adventurer you must beware,
To not allow yourself be caught unaware.
Artemis straightened up and faced the portal, trying to remain calm and focus on what it was he sought. Every eye in the room was on him. Unfortunately for him, Mandi Huttle was also in the room and as the light began to engulf him she swung down from a scaffolding and grabbed onto him.
Butler had spotted Mandi an instant too late, breaking into a run and shouting to Artemis as a warning. But Mandi got to him first and he was thrown backwards by some invisible force that the suddenly swelling light emitted.
He was now squinting into a bright light into which Artemis and Mandi had both disappeared. She had been hiding in the shadows in the scaffolding and he hadn't seen her until it was too late. He knew he had failed in protecting Artemis and that he was now alone in the company of a very dangerous individual. But there was nothing he could do.
After a moment the light dimmed back to the way it was before but the two teenagers were not in front of the portal. George felt panicked before realizing that Mandi and Artemis were standing at the bottom of the stairs, unharmed, both looking confusedly around. Mandi looked over at Artemis as though to say something when suddenly the ground shook violently, throwing them both to the ground.
As the walls shook Mandi was almost sure that she heard a baby's cry but knew that couldn't be possible. Artemis thought the same thing but Butler came and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and ran towards the door. Artemis and his men stopped when they realized the door they had entered from was no longer there. Artemis ran his hand along the solid wall as torches on the wall began to fall to the ground with large chunks of stone.
Meanwhile, Mandi saw that the mysterious portal had lost its light and was now a doorway and their only way out. Everyone ran towards it in a panic, stumbling and falling all the way. Whenever one of them made it past the archway two doors would close behind them and then reopen almost immediately, empty, like some stone creature devouring its tiny prey.
Once again the doors opened to an empty room that some of Artemis's men began to fill. Artemis had made it through first, leaving all of his man and his opponents in the room that was quickly being dismantled. Dust and gravel fell from the walls and ceiling as Mandi made her way to the door.
Suddenly she realized that the baby's crying noise was getting louder, even though the roar around her was deafening. Mandi looked around, trying to figure out what was making the noise when she saw, laying on the ground next to a fallen pillar, was a screaming baby in a pale yellow blanket.
Mandi stopped running and looked toward the door that was closing much more slowly then normal. Something was wrong with it, it was stalling and it may not open again. Something about that baby was important, she could feel it. What would it be? Her or the baby?
Mandi ran for the child, hoping that the pillar wouldn't roll. Everything was going in slow motion. A loud crack over head told her that a piece of ceiling was headed towards the hollering bundle. It was thirty feet from it, twenty, fifteen, ten.
Mandi made a dive for the baby, wrapping the tips of her fingertips around it's edges and using her momentum, continued into a roll with the baby close to her. She leaned over the baby to protect it as the rock landed.
She broke into a run for the door. She came to the wall and to her horror found it closed. She kicked the wall to no avail but to injured her toes. The baby cried again as she tried to keep it balanced, ignoring her protesting toes.
She pulled out a pocket knife from her boot and flipped out a large blade. The door was too thick to pry open but maybe she could unjam it. She ran the blade through the edges to the door easily until it caught on something. She jimmied the obstruction until a small rock fell to her feet. A small boulder bounced in her direction but she jumped into the room and away from harm.
The room was made of wood with silver engravings in the walls. The doors closed behind her silently, cutting off all noise. She checked the baby over, puzzling over where it could have come from. Catching her off guard with a sudden jerk the room began to move upward towards the surface. This threw Mandi to her knees and jostled the sniffling baby into a fit of screams.
It was amazing. This was an elevator. It suddenly changed direction and she was thrown forward, landing on her elbows to avoid landing on the baby. The elevator was going so fast she had to use all of her strength not to crush the baby beneath her. She pushed herself up just enough to roll over onto her back and then sit, supporting her back against the wall. She sat for a moment rocking the child that couldn't have been more than a couple months old.
Just when she began to calculate where the elevator would spit her out at, the doors flew open to a room larger than a football field. She stood and walked into the florescent lit room, letting the door close behind her.
George informed her from across the room, his tone solemn. "Fowl says he has a bomb, Mandi."
Mandi's eyes snapped across the room where George was being held firmly by the shoulders in Butler's crushing grip. Next to them stood Fowl with a smug look on his face.
"That isn't true." Mandi informed. "You have no idea where we are, you could never have planted a bomb, Fowl."
"The missile isn't coming here." he informed her coldly. "It's going to your place of residence."
"You're bluffing." she accused. He couldn't know where she lived.
"I believe that Mr. Linus M. Conners would say differently." he smirked.
"I can't give Fowl a kid!" she thought. She was sure he wouldn't do anything to it, but she couldn't trust him with a child, especially not this child. It could be what was standing between him and whatever he was after. At the same time she thought of the bomb heading toward the orphanage.
"Have you launched it yet?" she asked.
"No, give me the child and the missile can stay unactivated."
Mandi looked toward Fowl who had his hand on his watch. "I'm guessing I can't get a hold of anyone up there to warn them." she said.
"No. Something seems to be inhibiting all of you means of communication." informed her, sarcasm coating his every word.
"What a coincidence." she mumbled.
Her mind was racing. She looked at George and how small he seemed next to Butler. She thought about the orphanage and all of the children there.
"I have one of your men and a missile, give me the baby and you both may leave with your lives.
I can't give him this baby.
She took a step forward and Artemis's men raised their weapons.
"Put them away." Fowl ordered.
Mandi met Butler in the middle of the large room with George in tow. There was a moment where they exchanged glares and everyone was silent.
"Let him go, I'm coming with you."
"No!" George exclaimed.
"That was not part of the deal." Butler growled.
The baby sniffled in it's blankets.
"It is alright Butler." Artemis called. Why not? She was walking right into his hand, how could he pass such an opportunity up?
Within a few hours Mandi found herself in Artemis's private jet. She was strapped in with no chains or ropes. Somehow she had imagined being defeated to be different. She sat staring at the baby with Artemis glancing over at her every once in a while.
Sometimes he would look at the baby when Mandi caught him looking at her and sometimes he would look away. He was memorizing her features and acknowledging how different she looked than in the picture he had seen. She had brown hair that went past her shoulders and was a bit wavy. Her green eyes were rather attractive he thought, then immediately wanted to kick himself for it.
Useless hormones, he thought. He tried to do other things but for some reason he found his eyes wandering back to her.
Artemis stood up, Mandi looked up to see what he was doing and he looked into her troubled eyes for a moment, assuring himself that it was an act.
"Miss Huttle, we are now on our way to Fowl Manor. As you are well aware I am preparing to depart soon. You will be accompanying me and will be charged with care of the child. Juliet will get you your meals and anything else you may need, so feel free to ask."
What is this, a hotel or something? It sounds like he is making it awfully comfortable for me.
"What's the catch?" she said, skeptical.
"No catch." he assured. He moved to sit facing away from her to try to stop himself from looking at her. She looked at the back of his head for a while before the baby in her lap began to cry. She bounced it up and down and patted its back, and checked its diaper but it cried louder.
"What is wrong with it?" Artemis said, trying to remain in composure while speaking above its screams
"I think its hungry!" she yelled back.
Artemis got on his cell phone for a while before snapping it shut and informing her Juliet would have formula when they arrived.
Artemis sat down in a chair and began massaging his temples, and wishing he had ear plugs. This was going to be a long plane ride.
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