I N F E R N O
- Dim Aldebaran -
Chapter Five
:i:
The genius of Artemis Fowl had not been discovered until he was near three years old: he had forgotten to lock the door to the piano room. Before, everyone had assumed it was recordings, the Chopin and Rachmaninoff.
Once he had discovered the internet, he had near abandoned the piano, but it, of all the disciplines he had mastered, was the closest to his heart, his first.
Thus, it was the piano he found solace in now.
Halfway through a Moonlight Sonata variation, he spoke through the slow magic of the chords: "Mother sits on the bed. Father, on the chair. Dom stands; Juliet by him. You need not listen through the door."
The door opened: Holly returned to the visible spectrum and scowled. "How did you know?"
Artemis twirled some grace notes. "Trade secret, alas. Now, is this as good as that synthesized shit in Haven?"
"How vulgar," Holly replied; Artemis seldom swore, though here, it was in mockery, not out of any real disgust. She leaned against the wall and smiled. "And yes, it is far better than that 'synthesized shit'."
"I thought so."
The notes sank down into pool and paused, the moonlight still on the waters, resting there as if in some great dream of tranquility. "What are you thinking about?"
He sighed, and the music rose; the pond rippled. "I am pondering my own stupidity."
"I could always heal the hickey, you know."
The music laughed with a whimsical turn of tempo. "It's a lovely bit of memorabilia, actually."
"First kiss?"
"Not quite."
"Bisoux don't count."
"'First Blonde', if you must know."
"No Juliet?"
The music forgot itself; Artemis turned around. "Employees are off-limit."
"And assassins aren't?"
Artemis touched the… afflicted places. "Certainly not," he replied, and stood. "Have you any experience with 'netspeak'?"
Holly grinned and followed him out the door. "Some. As an intern, I was given the task of tracking down homophiles over the net. I sifted through the IM records."
"Pornography is illegal in Haven?"
"Mud Man pornography," Holly corrected. "The Council ruled that loving Mud Man 'spirits' was equitable with porn."
Artemis' brow was raised. He was well-acquainted with porn: his Galatea virus had nearly rendered it extinct over the net. After some degraded programmer isolated and contained his creation, he had never bothered to pursue the matter. It was a distasteful venture to begin with; and Butler had always given him the strangest looks while he was working. "In any case: Canadian slang?"
She made a face. "The Gift of Tongues is rather iffy on slang. It translates, but… odd things happen. And it's damn near impossible to speak."
"What about dialects?"
"Kind of," she said, following him into down the stairs. "Again, some things translate a little funny, but I can get the gist of it."
He nodded, and opened the door to the study. "I might need your assistance; my… education regarding such matters have been mercifully lax. Now: what do you think of our insistent mosquito?"
She selected a swivel chair and plopped down. "Probably some rich git that decided, strangely enough, he didn't like you."
"She," Artemis corrected idly. "Is that all?"
She spun the chair around. "Well, being an absolute idiot goes unsaid. Can't plan, can't hire, can't do squat. You haven't been very careful lately; if it had been Britva or anyone else you've managed to piss off, you'd be dead."
He took a seat, and considered the computer before him. Angeline had had this one specially made with mahogany keys and the like as an anniversary present to 'Timmy': it clashed less with her preferred Victorian aesthetics. "Monsieur gave her name as 'Medea Atreus'. It's obviously a pseudonym, and probably symbolic; by analyzing this, we can analyze her."
Holly pondered the name. "Sounds like Latin."
"Greek," Artemis corrected. "'Medea' was the sorceress-witch that aided Jason and the Argonauts when they sought the Golden Fleece. 'Atreus' is a royal house noted for its high familicide rates, and also for its occurrence in a certain science fiction series."
Holly nodded. She moved in on the computer and started a game of 'Space Cadet' pinball. "Hey, Dune, right? I had to read that in Mud Man Literature 220."
"Hardly a fair representation, but yes. However, I doubt she chose the pseudonym for that reason. Now, the first aspect: the goddess Hera favored Jason, and, wishing to aid him on his quest, had Medea, guardian of the Golden Fleece, witch extraordinaire and the local princess, shot by one of Eros', or Cupid's, arrows. For Jason's sake, Medea cast numerous charms, killed her brother, betrayed her father, left the country of her birth, bore him two sons, killed Jason's uncle, et cetera, and he repaid her by marrying another woman and kicking her out of his house. She, quite understandably, went a little bonkers at the end."
"What happened?"
He smiled. "Killed her children, burned Jason's fiancé alive, and rode off in a flying chariot."
Holly shook her head. "You Mud Men have an odd sense of drama."'
He shrugged. "Typical Euripides. Now, the house of Atreus features Cassandra, who had the gift of foresight—but no one ever believed her prophecies of doom, especially for her father's house."
"Why?" Holly interrupted.
"Apollo promised her the Sight if she would sleep with him; after receiving the Sight, she refused, and he then cursed her. Now, to her father Agamemnon: He sacrificed another daughter of his so the Trojan War would begin favorably, and then left home for ten-some years during the aforesaid war. When he returned with a sex slave, his wife Clytemnestra went into a rage and had her lover kill him. In revenge, his daughter Electra killed her and then, in turn, herself."
Holly wrinkled her nose. "Really. And people like this stuff?"
"Nothing compared to Oedipus Rex, I assure you." Artemis considered Holly's high score on pinball and frowned; she had beaten his. Easily. Not that he had ever taken pinball seriously, of course. "Clearly, 'Medea Atreus' has a taste for unrequited angst. I doubt any of the symbolisms apply directly to her life—lost a lover, killed a father? She probably just has some interesting fantasies."
Holly watched Artemis' pinball game with interest. 'Space Cadet' was an LEP favorite. "That's why people watch soap operas. Works out all that mushy nonsense. And don't look at me like that."
"So defensive, dear Holly." He finished the game with a flourish. "Touché."
Holly scowled at the new high score, and began a new round. "Anything else?"
"The burqa girl; you've seen the Louvre tape, no?"
She nodded through her frantic pinball game. "Entered alone, left alone. Stopped only at Girl in Solitude, and then, only to bump into you. Face was never exposed; fingerprints impossible."
"Such a poor summation," Artemis murmured, watching Holly's playing appreciatively. "You missed out on all the delicious details. For example: the burqa was homemade."
"She's poor?"
"No: she wanted to be discreet. A Caucasian American buying a burqa, and an unusual shade of orange, would be traceable, especially over the web." He paused Holly's game, raising a brief protest, and, bringing up a clip from the Louvre, zoomed in on the burqa. "See these seams? Handsewn. I suspect she got the pattern at a local sewing store, which would also explain the peculiar color. All untraceable, too
"Rather paranoid, isn't she?"
"Or just economical, though that's unlikely, considering she probably wasn't in the actual thievery…" He paused, considering the game. "But the assassin, he had such elegant entry and exit plans… planned by her? He was such an amateur, he could not even carry them out… Perhaps she is Dutch?"
Holly frowned. "Dutch? I thought you said—"
He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "'Dutch', 'penny pincher', et cetera. The point is, she is either on a tight budget or sacrifices quality for price."
She nodded along, taking the computer back from Artemis and resuming the pinball. "Anything else?"
He paused, considering. "The painting. I pulled it from an aristocrat's summer home in Alberta. All my research beforehand on the family—maids, friends, relatives, anyone—showed no one like this girl. The couple were both retired Bollywood stars of, obviously, Indian descent, with no children and a stable marriage—no affairs, no possible 'Medea'. They hired the son of a local rancher to take care of the house when they weren't around, who had to drive nearly thirty kilometers just to get there: the place is very isolated, so no neighbors can explain the girl either. They never entertained there, either; social things occurred at their Bombay penthouse suite. Furthermore, there is no record of this Fragonard that one can find by accident; if I hadn't, ah, relocated a painting by his granddaughter Morisot, I never would have even known of its existence."
Holly frowned at her score, and started a new game. "So we don't know the girl's connection to the painting."
"We don't know anything," Artemis corrected. "These are all suppositions; they are guides, not certainties. We think she's very emotional, but maybe she just liked the sound of 'Medea Atreus'; we think she's Canadian, but I had only one phrase to identify a very faint accent, and the location of the original painting."
"Ah," Holly said succinctly, now quite absorbed in pinball. "Well, how do you propose we track her down?"
"Assume I'm right." He took the mouse from Holly.
"Bu—"
"It's a start," he replied, opening a Firefox browser. "There are other extrapolations to make as well: for example, is Medea the actual mastermind? Or just a puppet? I prefer to handle these sort of matters in person, but others send in associates instead. She does seem rather young to be the criminal mastermind we are looking for; and young women are more effective at persuading for certain types. Monsieur, for example. She could be just a liaison while the real mind is safe behind his piña colada in Barbados."
Holly chuckled; Artemis was creating a false Yahoo! ID. "'Achilles'? Is that how you imagine yourself?"
Artemis shrugged, typing in a faux Seattle address. "Almost. I just don't sleep with dead women."
Holly pressed on doggedly. "I never knew you imagined yourself a hero. Or is it more symbolic: what is your Achilles heel, Arty?"
Artemis turned, like a ballerina doing slow pirouettes, and stared. "People calling me 'Arty'."
Holly looked shocked at herself. "Wait, I didn't say—"
Artemis turned back to the computer, fingers flying across the keyboard as they birthed Achilles. "Yes, you did. I'd rather you not."
"Juliet calls you 'Arty'."
"I tell her not to. Every day."
"Pauvre vieux,"Holly said mockingly. "Do you want to know my nickname? 'Crazy girlie captain'. In the headlines, for every case. 'Crazy girlie captain does it again', 'Crazy girlie captain cracks the case'. Almost no one in Haven knows me by 'Holly Short'—I'll walk down the street, and that's what they'll call me: 'Hey, aren't you the crazy girlie captain?'"
"Pauvre vieille," Artemis replied in turn. He swiveled away from the screen. "I have the 'instant messenger' downloaded. Hopefully, I can make contact—there is a 'medeaatreus' registered at Yahoo, though she has no activity in the 'launchcast', 'group' or any other service. The mere fact that she has a username makes me believe she is a late teen or young tween who got it purely for use of the instant messaging service."
Holly squinted. "Well, can't you hack into her account or something? Figure out what she's been up to and stuff?"
Artemis scowled. "Even if she's a teen, she somehow managed to get mixed up in all this. She'll know if I start sifting through her home computer, whether it's because Papa Mobster is looking over her shoulder or because she's an idiot savant when it comes to being a nuisance. Really, this way is safest; she'll have no idea who I am."
"Why would she respond to a random IM by someone she doesn't even know?" Holly demanded. "For all she knows, you're a… a pedophile or something." She gestured wildly, swaying in the swivel chair.
Artemis opened a messaging window. "She'll respond," he replied evenly. "It's human nature."
Holly rolled her eyes. "Fairy children," she said, "never speak to strangers."
"Clearly, you were never a child." He typed in a 'you there?' "Children always, always, speak to strangers. It's whether they run away or not."
"Will Medea run away?"
Artemis stared; the screen was blank except for his query, small and black and neat "No," he said at last. "She wants to meet someone, someone like her; she was so sloppy, so…"
Holly pointed at the screen. "Ding-dong."
Artemis was obliged to look.
medeaatreus: hello?
:i:
Sorry about the long absence; I've been all over the place lately. Check out my livejournal for details regarding the next update and my personal thoughts regarding this chapter.
Anywho, I hope the dialogue didn't drag too much. I tried to make it interesting, and also that Artemis' psychoanalyzation of 'Medea Atreus' made it worthwhile. As he said, nothing was certain about his predictions; so don't make too many assumptions about her yet. He is by no means correct, by his own admittance.
Anyone catch the 'dead woman' reference? Hint, it's the motif in another of my fics…
BTW: who else is addicted to 'Space Cadet'? The pinball game that comes with Windows? (Yes, Artemis has Windows. I know nothing about Macs, and I like to stay on comfortable ground. So sorry if I like to know what I'm talking about.)
