A/N: Yes, more plot setup. Lots of things still need to be explained.

Chapter 4: Web of Lies

"Beautiful," breathed Opal Koboi. "Just extraordinary." From the awed, rapturous expression on her face, Spiro almost expected a divine light and choir of singing angels to appear.

Spiro scowled. "Right," he said through gritted teeth. "It's really something. But I'm a busy man, pixie. So, if there's an ending to this nice little story, I'd appreciate it if you'd just skip to the punchline already."

Opal's eyes were still riveted to the sleeping face of her clone as she said with a reluctant sigh, "Very well."

She forced her eyes to return to Spiro. "As you might have guessed, my plan to fool the LEP this time was remarkably similar to the first. But with a few key differences."

Opal delicately slipped a finger under the pointed chin of her clone and lifted the head up from where it had been hanging to its collarbone, allowing Spiro a better look at its face. "Do you see anything different?"

Spiro looked between the two. "She's unconscious?" he guessed.

"Anything else?"

Spiro carefully looked again, studying every feature. At last he admitted grudgingly, "No."

A gleam of triumph sparked in Opal's eyes. "Precisely. There is no difference."

Spiro was starting to lose his patience at these games. "Isn't that how this clone thing is supposed to work?"

Opal waggled a finger. "Ah, but when I previously had a clone made, it was grown in a chrysalis from an embryo made from my DNA. The creature was genetically identical to me, but not identical physically. You see, any alterations made to my body would not be replicated by the ordinary cloning process. Certain key characteristics would be missing."

Opal slipped her fingers behind her ear, separating the long ebony sheaves of silken hair so he could see it, and she slid an arm around the shoulders of her clone.

Opal continued, "Of course, fairy ears are pointed, but mine have been modified with surgery. I also had a human pituitary gland implanted in my head, and I have grown almost two feet I would not have naturally. And you see my clone—she retains all modifications."

"So?"

"So," said Opal, smiling, "this clone was not grown like the other one. And those pieces of 'evidence' that she is no clone have aided in concealing the switch from the LEP. The one you're looking at here was a test—the real one is now in a prison cell under the LEP's watchful gaze. You see, I had help, a fairy with incredible magic reserves, ironically brought to me through the error of Artemis Fowl, and she was able to discover and implement an old demon art. A direct synthesis, or replication, of my body bypassed all those minor annoyances of ears and inches. Apart from brain activity, the two of us are absolutely indistinguishable. Not to mention, synthesis is a much faster process than growing a clone to full size, if a bit taxing."

"So this thing is some kind of magical replica?"

Opal beamed. "Precisely."

Spiro looked at the creature. He noticed its eyes had opened slightly, but they were dull and lifeless, and it sagged in its restraints like a life-sized doll. "But it's still brain-dead," he pointed out. "So you've got a thing like this in a cell instead of you. But you pulled the coma-and-switch trick once before. They'd have to be brain-dead themselves not to at least suspect something."

Opal giggled and clapped her hands. "Oh, but I told you. This time I changed the rules, just a bit. The LEP assumes that an active and awake Opal Koboi can't be a clone. But they forget I am a genius, who has defied the boundaries of what can and can't be done in science time and again. There was just one thing I had to do to be free. Find a way to give my clone a brain."

"Easy," said Spiro, with a touch of sarcasm.

"Only," Opal continued, ignoring him, "I had a slight obstacle. To make the switch undetectable, I couldn't simply give my clone a brain, it had to have my brain. My memories, my temperament, my acquired mannerisms. The ideal would be if the demon art of synthesis could replicate my own brain wave patterns, the neurological pathways formed over years of use. Unfortunately, that is beyond both magic and science. However, while I wasted away in prison, the solution came to me—So simple. So obvious."

"Oh yeah?" said Spiro, wishing she would skip the melodrama and get to the point.

Opal smiled. "You see, why should I bother to create an entirely new brain, when my own is so vast that there is more mental capacity than even I can ever fully use? If creating a new brain is not an option, I can simply connect the clone's empty mind to my own."

Opal tapped her temple. "This clone and I are linked," she explained. "All I needed to do was have two devices made and implanted in our heads, one to act as a transmitter to send my thoughts to the clone, and a receiver to take and organize those thoughts into meaningful information. These devices are, of course, organic and therefore completely undetectable, as are the signals they send out. Even for the great Foaly."

Spiro frowned. He had been mostly following the girl's little story, but he felt like there was something missing. So Opal had had a copy of herself created, along with these high-tech devices. But he had a feeling she wouldn't have the opportunity in prison. Then she had put the clone in her cell in place of herself. He could only suppose she had had a great deal of help from that mysterious accomplice with 'incredible magical reserves.' However, as the details began to come together he wasn't so interested in that.

"So," he said. "You've been switching back and forth. Part of the time you control the clone back in prison to keep your jailors from getting suspicious, part of the time you control your body here."

Opal rolled her eyes. "As usual, you fail to grasp the true extent of my brilliance. I don't have hours a day to waste in prison, pretending to be myself. And even if I did, that would leave my imprisoned clone with hours being impossible to rouse, which would again draw suspicion. I needed my replacement to be precisely like me, but fully autonomous."

"So, let me get this straight," said Spiro, in a voice of forced calm. "You switched with your clone, so it's in prison instead of you. But no one suspects it's a clone because it acts just like you, which it does because it's hooked up to your brain. But you aren't actually controlling it."

Spiro thought she might get impatient with his failure to appreciate her genius, but she only smiled. "Yes," she said. "Only, you should say, not controlling it consciously."

Opal lifted her arm as though checking the time, giving the computer on her wrist her attention. Putting her V-goggles back on, she began typing something into the invisible keyboard. "To be precise, it is my subconscious knowledge of what I would do in a particular situation that controls my clone. It was relatively simple to do—Foaly has already developed technology to manipulate the subconscious in the form of mind-wiping, to fool the mind into believing it has not witnessed what it knows it has seen. All I needed to do was modify the principle a little."

"Subconscious," Spiro muttered, rubbing his forehead where he felt a headache coming on.

Opal lifted her wrist with the computer for him to see, and continued, "This contains the master chip, the object which allows me to control my clone. I simply decide what criteria I want my subconscious mind to respond to, then enter that criteria into this machine. Then the clone acts as I do independent of my will, with a few differences according to my specifications. For instance, for the clone who is now imprisoned in my place, I inserted that she would not know that the real Opal Koboi had already escaped, or even know of the plans I had been incubating for the last year, lest she be inclined to attempt the same strategy herself. Other than that, she possesses all the same memories I do, excepting those I have formed since her initial activation."

Spiro nodded as though he understood all this. He did get the main gist of it, or so he thought.

"So it's not just a clone that acts exactly like you—you can manipulate it. Make it so there are things it doesn't know to make it different if you need to."

Opal nodded. "Only the differences can be quite extreme, if necessary. The subconscious is capable of projecting and compensating for quite a few variables, so even fundamental changes to the personality are possible."

Opal looked so delighted with herself that Spiro wanted to roll his eyes.

"But perhaps a demonstration is in order," she said, and gestured to the clone still being held up by metal clamps. "As I said, this is an early prototype, so it's far from the perfect specimen that now resides with the LEP. However, it will do for the present."

Her fingers moved over the invisible keyboard above her wrist computer. "Let's enter some parameters," she said cheerfully. "First, of course it should not be aware that it is a clone. Therefore, the memories it shares with me should not extend past a few months ago. And let us add one more thing, just for our amusement. I will show you the exquisite control I have over the design of the personality of my creation."

Opal fingers paused over the invisible keyboard as she considered, then she smiled. "What if Opal Koboi actually liked Artemis Fowl and his subordinates?" she said brightly.

"Now, that would be a fundamental change," Spiro muttered.

Opal quickly finished inserting the prompt. "Now," she said, "my subconscious will automatically respond to those suggestions as they are sent to the device in my brain. It will fill in and rearrange what it knows to fit with the new beliefs I have given it, and that information that will be received by my clone, through the device grafted to its brain. That information will then control its behavior."

It was all Spiro could do to keep from taking a step back when the doll-like clone suddenly blinked, its vacant eyes coming to life like a booted up computer.

The clone looked around, and immediately noticed the metal loops that had been holding it up. Its eyes flickered to Spiro and Opal, and they were hard.

"You have the nerve to hold me prisoner, ingrates? Your presumption will be the end of you. I will have you tortured and mummified, so that all future generations will remember your folly."

Oh, anything but that, your highness, Spiro thought, and resisted the urge to quail mockingly. Apparently this version of Opal Koboi thought herself some kind of queen. But in fairness, perhaps the real Opal thought so as well, but the fact had yet to come up in conversation.

The clone's eyes flickered to Opal. "And who are you?" she demanded. "An impersonator? Tell me, and I will not prolong your demise."

Opal clasped her hands together in a praying gesture, and her voice was deferential. "Mistress Opal, we are not your enemies. We are your most devoted admirers. I even had surgery performed on myself so that I could look just like you."

Spiro was incredulous. He did not believe for one second that even a brainless clone controlled by someone's subconscious could buy such a ludicrous explanation.

However, the clone was quiet, and she nodded as though she found this perfectly reasonable. "I see," she said.

Opal added, "We apologize for bringing you here so abruptly and without informing you, Mistress, but we had no choice. We took you from the penitentiary. One of your intelligence could not simply be left to waste away in such a place."

"Did you?" The clone looked around at her surroundings again, and for a moment almost looked impressed. "And how did you do that?"

"It was a simple matter," said Opal. "But there will be time to explain all that later." Her chocolate brown eyes glittered. "If I may ask, Mistress, what should be done with Artemis Fowl and his subordinates?"

"Fowl!" hissed the clone with contempt. Then her eyes seemed to cloud over and her face went slack. Her head twitched. Then her eyes cleared and she smiled, apparently unaware of her lapse. "Fowl," she said again. "I have many plans for that one. He and his friends will be my tools. Since that incident with that criminal relative of Commander Root, I have been able to do some research on blood runes. Imagine what I would gain if I had Fowl's intelligence in addition to my own, as well as his knowledge of the human world of crime. And if I were to also have his servant Butler's combat ability, Captain Short's training and experience from her time with the LEP, that dwarf's thieving talents..."

The real Opal giggled with delight. "You mean you don't want to kill them?"

"Little simpleton," said the clone. "Why would I want to kill that which could be of such great use to me?"

Opal's smile froze, and for the first time that day, Spiro felt like he might actually be enjoying himself.

"Okay," said Opal abruptly, fingers flickering over the wrist computer. "I think that will do as a demonstration for now."

The clone was not pleased. "Slave," she said. "That tone is not very—" However, her eyes dulled and her face slackened once more as Opal cut the signal being broadcasted by the transmitter in her brain.

Spiro couldn't resist a comment. "Maybe she's got a point. We could use Fowl and his little flunkies."

Opal was glaring at her wrist computer. Then she relaxed. "As you can see," she said, "the mind of the clone is adjustable, but still remains grounded in the original personality. This one is faulty—There is a slight delay in the transfer of parts of information, so the true personality often tries to reassert itself when the subconscious suggestion causes it to think or do something too contrary to itself. The final product, which now rests in prison in my stead, has no such glitches."

Spiro nodded. "Okay. Makes sense. But why is any of this important, fairy? So you gave your clone a brain by hooking it up to yours, and you can manipulate its memories and even its personality. It's not like the clone posing as you would need a lot of that kind of adjustment, so who cares?"

However, as Spiro gazed at the clone, an idea sparked in his mind. "Oh, I get it. You can make a ton of copies of yourself, then the copies can take care of your work. But you can specify that your clones are loyal to you, so they won't get cheeky and step out of line." Spiro could already see the possibilities. "Okay, fairy, you've sold me. Make me one of these clone things, and hook it up to me. I'll go on a nice long vacation in Tahiti, and my double will carry out my work here. I'll be safe, and he won't try to steal from me or take my place, because we can make sure he only does what I say."

Opal snorted. "As though your puny brain would be capable of sustaining a clone. Even if you are not controlling both bodies simultaneously with the conscious mind, the subconscious is still required to be capable of generating a proper response based on the original's true memories and personality, while incorporating the current parameters entered to modify the personality accordingly. And I doubt you could do that while you were wide awake, human, let alone with your subconscious."

Spiro scowled. "So this little trick only works for you?"

Opal paused. She looked directly at him, and for a moment her chocolate brown eyes seemed to glow with a crimson light in the semidarkness of the conference room. Her small, blood red lips turned up in an oddly chilling smile.

"Well," she said softly. "I didn't say that."

Holly's eyes fell on the author's note on one of the first pages of the book and she only had to take in the first couple of lines before her eyes were rolling toward the ceiling in exasperation. She had little doubt that, by the end of this, she would be the kind of sick that could only be the result of excessive sentimentality.

However, as her gaze flickered over the page, the words at the end caught her attention. She felt a kind of queasiness in her stomach, a flash of foreboding, and she found herself suddenly hoping that the book really was no more than a dopey, sentimental adventure-romance, the kind one read to children before bed.

Fair Reader, it began, you are now about to embark upon a great journey. Soon you will witness the story of a great and noble soul, who traveled bravely throughout his land and defended with all his mighty strength the weak and oppressed. This is a wondrous tale of good and evil, love and hatred, joy and sorrow, sacrifice and vengeance, forgiveness and regret. But a word of caution, O Courageous Adventurer. For this is also a tale of inexpressible tragedy...

Spiro shook his head irritably. He was starting to tire of these games. "All right," he grunted. "Well, never mind that, then. Tell me how Artemis Fowl fits into all this. You said we'd be getting our revenge, so what's your plan?"

Opal was still smiling at the blank face of her clone, in a haze of self-delight. However, at last she sighed and shook herself out of it. "Oh, that. It's fairly simple, actually. In the past, I have fought the LEP, but Fowl and his friends have always found a way to interfere. So once Fowl is rendered helpless, our way will be free, and the world will be ours." She paused, lips still curled. "You see, to get Artemis Fowl out of our way, we must turn the LEP and his allies against him."

Spiro thought about that. "So, you're talking about framing him for something."

"That is one way to put it."

Spiro couldn't help but stare at her for a long moment. "You're joking, right?"

Opal arched a delicate eyebrow. "And why would I joke, Mr. Spiro? Framing Artemis Fowl and turning the People and his friends against him is the ultimate solution. It will leave him powerless to stop us, and have him wallowing in the depths of such anguish that it will make a very gratifying end to this affair."

Spiro was, of course, unaware of the marked similarity this proposed plan of action bore to Opal's previous plans, but even so he was still not all that impressed. Sure, it all sounded good. But there was a difference between a scheme that sounded good in theory and a scheme that would actually work in the real world.

"Okay," said Spiro. "Maybe we can turn these LEP people against him, and the rest of the fairies. You can do a lot dipping into the political arena and sewing doubts. But he'll still have his closest allies. He'll have his bodyguard Butler for one—Blunt claimed to have taken him out, but last I heard, Butler was alive and well and still working for the Fowls. Butler's the kind of man who's got quite the collection of contacts around the globe, and if he calls them all on favors at once, he and Fowl could have a veritable army built up almost overnight. And that's not even mentioning Fowl's fairy friends you told me about."

Opal's bow lips were tight with suppressed pleasure. "As I said, turn them all against him. LEP, allies, friends. My revenge won't be completely satisfying until he is broken and alone."

"You'll have to kill Butler, then," said Spiro. "You won't turn him against Fowl or make him believe whatever load of crock you feed the general public. You can't turn Butlers and Fowls against each other."

"You think not?" Opal tutted and shook her head. "You are correct to be wary of Fowl's bodyguard. For a Mud Man, he is most impressive. He has a force of will so strong that he was able to resist my mind control once—a feat quite unheard of, I assure you."

Spiro was becoming agitated, and against his better judgment, spoke his mind. "You just don't get it, fairy. I barely knew Fowl, and even I knew he didn't have the nerve to do much more than play kid games to make money. His little friends won't believe it either, and certainly not Butler. Trying to set him up is a waste of time."

When Opal made no immediate reply, he went on, "If there's even a single loophole, a single way to beat you, Fowl will find it. Butler will follow Fowl to the ends of the earth, and even if you could somehow make Butler doubt, that kid would still convince him of the truth, even if he had to lie to do it. And the same probably goes for all of his other associates. We might as well just kill Fowl if we get the chance and move on from there, rather than take any elaborate, roundabout measures that'll just fall apart at the first misstep."

Opal checked her nails as she waited for Spiro to finish his little tirade. At last she said patiently, "If killing Fowl would further my plans, I would do it right now. But as a I said, I prefer to keep the LEP in the dark, unaware of my involvement, focusing all their attention on the wrong person. For that, I need Fowl alive, at least or the time being. As for your confidence in Butler's unswerving loyalty, and that of the others—oh, how mistaken you are. No matter how loyal, no matter how dedicated, all have doubts that can be exploited. All we have to do is press the right buttons, and that great faith will crumble away like chalk."

Spiro was still unconvinced. "You can't expect me to believe you know what buttons to press and how to press them. If Fowl himself pulled out a gun and shot someone, I doubt that Butler would buy it. He'd think it was a trick of some kind, a trick by somebody like you. Turning the world at large against him, maybe. Making his inner circle think he's turned on them? Not likely. In fact, I'd say impossible."

"Perhaps," said Opal, though her lips remained curled in a smile. "Perhaps it is impossible. Even though I know all Fowl's relationships must have weaknesses, cracks that if struck just the right way can bring the entire structure to the ground, I don't actually know what those weaknesses are. I don't know where to press the buttons. But as I said, I have ways of changing the rules."

Spiro gazed at her for a long minute, seeing her bow lips curled as though daring him to ask the question. At last, he gave in. "Okay then. So what is your plan to frame him exactly?"

Opal's eyes glinted and she tapped the glass tube with one painted nail. "I thought by now it would be obvious."

Spiro opened his mouth to tell her to quit with the games, but just then a new voice spoke up behind him. Spiro's stomach sank as soon as he heard the cultured tones. He knew that voice, a voice which was forever burned into his memory.

"Come now, Mr. Spiro. We know you are more clever than that. You should know by now never to use the word impossible in the presence of a genius."

Spiro turned slowly, only to see the delivery boy standing not ten feet away from him. The teen's cap had been straightened, but his head still tilted forward so that the bill shielded his eyes from view. The only visible portion of his pale face was a pair of thin lips, stretched in a wide smirk.

Spiro could feel Opal's smug expression pounding against the back of his head, but for once he didn't care. For a moment, he was simply too stunned either to continue in his skepticism or to be in admiration of the brilliance as it all clicked into place.

The delivery boy walked past him, each step unhurried and deliberate. When Spiro turned back around, he saw Opal had lifted one hand, fingers angled down in a decidedly queenly gesture. The taller boy bent, taking the hand and kissing it lightly, before taking up a stance at Opal's right side.

"Everything is under control," said Opal, voice almost gentle in the near perfect bliss of her own achievement.

Standing side by side like that, Spiro was struck by how much the pair looked like siblings, matching hair as black as night, nearly identical expressions of arrogance and cruelty etched on their young faces.

The delivery boy lifted the brim of his cap, and for the first time Spiro stared into his eyes, strangely colored eyes that didn't match, one blue, one hazel.

"Believe me, Mr. Spiro, Jon," said the teenager. "Watch us spin a web of lies so thick that it will be impossible to ever unravel the truth again, until we completely cut off any possibility of his finding rescue, of his being accepted or trusted. After all, absolutely no one can help but suspect a criminal, liar, and manipulator of committing crimes, lying, and manipulating." His smile broadened ever so slightly as he added, "And of course, no one is more aware of that simple fact than Artemis Fowl."

A/N: Hey! We finally got to the introduction to the actual plot. Originally I'd meant to work this idea into the summary, so it would be clear from the start, but in the end I decided to leave it more on the vague side, and let things just reveal themselves within the story itself.

On a random note (warning! spoilers for The Last Guardian), I guess technology had really shot ahead between The Opal Deception and TLG. Opal's clone (which was probably between two and three feet tall) took two years to grow, and Artemis's only took six months. (And I thought Foaly was using a chrysalis of Opal's which she had created prior to when she went to the future in TTP, which would be eight years+ into the past. Maybe Foaly had created better agents for speeding growth? Or human clones grow faster than fairy ones? Though it's also possible I just missed something.) In any case, I just decided to stick with what we knew from The Opal Deception.

Anyway, thank you so much for your wonderful comments last chapter, and don't forget to review! :J

Posted 11/8/12

Edited September 2014: This chapter, along with chapter 3, had been bothering me for a while for being overly long and meandering. I did some fairly aggressive rewriting to cut it down by about 2000 words.