Disclaimer - I'm not Eoin Colfer.

Chapter 3 - Pasta

Smack.

Smack, smack.

Smack.

Smack-smack, smack-smack-smack, smack-smack.

Artemis awoke to a face full of damp fabric.

Smack.

What was that sound?

Smack, smack.

His mind cleared on the last 'smack'.

What was the last thing he remembered? He'd been collected from the cell… and driven home by Butler. But… he'd passed out somewhere on the journey as he couldn't recall anything before that. Artemis would never let something like sleep get in the way of his determining what was going on. He must have been intoxicated or drugged somehow. Did Butler dr-?

Smack.

Smack-smack-smack.

What was that irritating noise? Artemis opened his eyes cautiously to find that his face was buried in an item of clothing of sorts.

Smack-smack-smack, smack-smack-smack-smack-smack.

Artemis turned his head ever-so-slightly to the left, keeping the rest of his body in a relaxed imitation of sleep. His arms were stiff by his sides, aching, and something solid was digging into his chest. He shifted his weight to ease the pressure.

Smack-smack-smack-smack.

He lifted his head to look around, blinking a few times to adjust to vision. He was looking at a blank wall, slightly dirty, with bits of blu-tac stuck to it in various places. He glanced down to see he'd been asleep with his head buried in a coat, which was wet with what appeared to be his own saliva. Disgusted, Artemis sat up immediately, nearly falling of the small couch he had been sprawled on. Whatever Butler had given him, it had been rather powerful.

Smack-smack, smack-smack smack.

He glanced up, seeing movement. It turned out that the noise was a twenty-year-old Butler. In what appeared to be a living room, the seven-foot Eurasian was drilling moves on a target bag, stringing them together with expert ease and a silent bounce on his toes. The target bag was hanging from the ceiling, and it was, in itself, pretty unusual. It looked to be made of some sort of wood with a covering of faded, patterned cloth. Butler zipped around it, striking faster than Artemis could follow, making it apparent that he definitely hadn't lost any talent in this alternate reality.

The living room was small, but large enough to be called a living room, and contained what seemed like enough space for training. In fact, that seemed to be all the living room was adapted for; all there was apart from training equipment and the couch was a small desk in the corner. There was an entrance that presumably led to the kitchen or front door, and another door in the left wall looked like it led to a large closet of some kind.

"Up already?" grunted the man, launching a series of alternating kicks on the target. Each blow sent it spinning wildly.

Artemis nodded. Judging by the fact that he was still conscious, Butler was one of his friends in this reality. He was thankful for this, and wanted to try and to keep it that way. "Yes. But that was rather a heavy dose of hypnotics. Was there really a need?"

Butler looked at him sharply. "Of course there was! Don't you feel better now? You've done crazier things before, but sleeping with Minerva and getting arrested for indecent exposure is definitely not something I anticipated. I'm just glad I reached you when I did," he said, before launching another spinning kick.

"Clearly," murmured Artemis.

So in this world he appeared to have some form of mental defect too. Interesting. The question was: how real was this world? And why was he in it? Had he died in Argon's clinic? Was this what came after…?

At that moment, the door that Artemis had previously thought to be to a large closet opened, and a teenaged girl walked out, humming good-naturedly. The strong smell of conditioner rushed out of the bathroom and filled the room, making Artemis wrinkle his nose slightly.

The girl shook her head. "Honestly, Dom, do you really have to leave the lid off the Radox every time?"

Juliet Butler looked every bit the same in this reality as the last one – albeit slightly smaller. She had the same blonde ponytail and the same striking features that were a trademark of the Butlers. Artemis was relatively unsurprised at her unanticipated appearance, seeing as he'd by now noticed that the personas from real life seemed to be reflected here, if a little distorted.

Butler delivered a powerful open-palmed strike to the target, sending it swinging, and then turned to his sister. "Good evening to you too, Juliet." He smiled. "And look – Al turned up. Guess where I found him."

Juliet looked at Artemis. "That's the longest one yet, Al. Two nights – where did you even go? And nice clothes, by the way." She grinned.

Artemis frowned. "I seemed to have come to my senses a little too late…"

Juliet almost squealed. "You went to Minerva's, didn't you? And… so, did you…do it?"

Artemis looked at Butler. A crazed Juliet could only complicate things further at the moment, if she was anything like she was in real life.

Butler was unwrapping his hand bandages. "No, he didn't. He tried to escape, and got thrown in a cell for a couple of hours."

Juliet tutted. "Like the local police have anything more important to be fighting. And what do you mean, 'escape'?"

Butler shrugged, walking over to the desk in the corner and picking up a clipboard. "They didn't give me any specifics."

"And it's probably better not to go into specifics," Artemis muttered.

As a slow grin slid across Juliet's face, he pointed back behind him. "I need to go and sort out a couple of things… in my room…"


After some exploration, Artemis stood in a small box-room that turned out to be his bedroom. The flat really was abysmally small, with only two small bedrooms, a living room, an extremely small kitchen and one bathroom. Needless to say, it was a steep fall from Fowl Manor.

He'd deduced that in this world he resided here, as a student of some kind, and owned the name 'Alice'. Now that was embarrassing. 'Artemis' was a complex name, with a story and meaning behind it. 'Alice' was a ridiculously common name, containing no immediate meaning besides linking most simple-minded people to the cringe-worthy novel 'Alice in Wonderland'. And it was, above all, blatantly female.

This room was supposedly Artemis's, but all evidence indicated the opposite. It was extremely small – possibly even smaller than the cell he'd been in earlier. There was an almost disturbing lack of furniture, but the room somehow still managed to be full. Clothes littered the floor, books littered the clothes, and litter littered everything else. Crumpled paper, open textbooks and scrunched-up socks stared back at him wherever he looked. Indeed, the only spot in the room that appeared to be somewhat 'tidy' was a small shelf on his right, and even that was packed with overfilled ring-binders, looking uncannily like one of Mulch's 'killer' rock sandwiches. Artemis Fowl had never in his entire life kept a room that wasn't immaculate. Untidiness was inefficiency – even as a child he'd deemed it important to keep things in order. This was not a good start.

And the clothes. Ordinary clothes – jeans, ridiculously casual jumpers and even a couple of T-Shirts. It was embarrassing to say the least. Even so, Artemis was pleased to find a suit in the meagre selection of clothing, and he set it aside to change into after he'd given the room as thorough an inspection as he could bear to.

Above all, the bedroom looked to him as what would be inhabited by a hectic teenager.

He picked up a book from the floor. It said 'Chemistry: The Central Science', in small printed letters on the cover. So Artemis was studying chemistry?

He paused for a second. Did the Artemis, or Alice, of here not have his intelligence? Indeed, he had completed his PhD in chemistry at the age of eight-and-a-half. This Alice person seemed only a quarter of the way through it, and only at the age of nineteen.

So in this world he was 'normal'? Artemis frowned. How pathetic.

As he put the book down, his eyes flicked around the rest of the room, hoping to find at least something indicating the real him. There were a couple of CDs resting on the shelf and he went over to look at them. Fortunately, they were classical works – two compilations of them, to be exact.

"Dancla… Kadosa," he said out loud, smiling as he glanced through the contents on the back.

What he needed now was something soft, soothing even, to help him think. He needed to figure out where he was, why he was here and, most importantly, how to get back to the real world.

He looked around for a CD player and found a small one hidden underneath a pair of cheap trousers with the power-plug badly Sellotaped into its side. It would have to do, he decided, opening the CD slot and placing a disc inside.

Soon, a pleasant nocturne was resonating through the room and Artemis turned his attention back once more to the shelf, satisfied. The folders that were squeezed in-between the slightly-scratched wood had scribbled names on the sides – one read 'LECTURE NOTES' and seemed to be especially large. Another said 'FINANCES', but the third caught his attention. It simply had the word 'MISC.', and Artemis had hacked into enough computers to know that 'misc.' folders rarely had unimportant things inside them. So he picked out the folder, being careful not to spill any of the others, and hefted it in an arm. It was rather heavy, and he carried it over to the bed, dropping it next to the pillow.

He sat down next to it, staring at the undecorated cover. He'd been asleep for a long time – daylight was fading fast, and a clock on the wall indicated a quarter past seven. Thankfully, all of the drowsiness from the pill had worn off by now, and Artemis was wide awake – at his near-full potential to begin to figure out how he was on this surrogate Earth, and why.


Argon glanced at the monitors briefly as he entered the hospital room. They were perfectly normal. The human was asleep, still in his coma – that much was evident. And yet, his heart was beating as if he was perfectly fine. Extraordinary.

Holly was still on the bedside chair. She'd fallen asleep, having stayed up all night. Argon did feel a little sorry for her – this kid was probably never going to wake up, Fowl or not. Most fairies in a coma did, but the problem with this was that it was no normal coma. Normal comas did not stump doctors or psychologists. This, from what Argon had deduced, was a guilt-induced shutdown of the body, ordered by the mind itself. Atlantis Complex was a very strong disease.

The mind controls the body. Argon supposed that in this case, the Fowl boy had lost control of his mind – and a mind like his, out of control? Who knew? Argon wondered if the boy was really awake in there, and thinking about it. This was the problem with mental patients, and comas. There was usually so much waiting and wondering – only someone with a huge reserve of patience could put up with this. Luckily, Argon had that. And a very generous salary was also welcome into the bargain.

The boy twitched, a mere centimetre. Argon didn't miss it, of course. He immediately picked up a clipboard off the bedside table and jotted it down. This was the third registerable movement the patient had made so far. The other two he'd seen on camera – short jerks of the arm. If Argon could figure out a pattern between these, he might possibly be a step closer to a breakthrough. It was a long shot, but with health, all points had to be considered.

"How is he doing?" The elf was awake now, her voice hoarse with misuse. She coughed to clear her throat.

Argon smiled. "He's doing just fine." That was the standard reassurance-talk. Coupled with a pleasant expression and a soothing tone, it could work wonders.

Holly wasn't having any of it. "Truthfully."

His smile slipped a couple of notches. "He's fine. As you can see, his heart is beating at a perfectly normal rate."

"Then why isn't he awake?" She almost hissed. Argon was sure she wanted reassurance, but she was smart enough to detect nonsense when she heard it. How could he offer real reassurance where it didn't exist?

"It's a mystery – we are doing all we can to figure things out," he said, his smile almost non-existent now. "Honestly, the human's condition hasn't deteriorated." Yet, he added silently.

She drew her knees up to her chest, staring once again at Artemis. "I see." Either she was satisfied with the explanation, or she knew he didn't know any more on the topic. Argon suspected the latter.

He pulled out a packet and placed it on the table. "The nurses will be in after an hour to administer nourishment."

With that, he turned and headed back out of the door towards the next room, thinking about the effects of this coma. Maybe he'd get someone to question Koboi about her self-induced comas – a connection could be made. For now, though, the human would simply have to endure.


Artemis opened the ring-binder and skimmed the first page. It read 'Alice Sweete', nineteen. Sweete? He'd hoped that had been a bad joke from Root, but it looked like this was actually his surname. Despicable, he thought, as he turned to the next page. This time it was a photograph. Him, younger, standing with an equally youthful Butler at the ruins of a castle, grinning like an idiot. The page after was another photograph, this time of him and a blonde haired boy he didn't recognise. Of course – this Alice must have had a lot of different friends, Butler just being one of them. Indeed, one of the things Artemis was finding most difficult to adapt to was the fact of Butler's age. Artemis had barely known Butler when the bodyguard was in his thirties, and could vaguely remember him being young, but Butler in his early twenties was almost surreal. Well, this whole place was surreal.

Many of the next pages were, disappointingly, photographs. There were quite a few photos with Minerva – who seemed to be a student like Alice, albeit slightly younger. Most of their photographs were taken holding music instruments, or playing them. An orchestra of some sort? At least Alice did something worthy of Artemis' character. From what he could see, Minerva was a good friend of his in this world. Artemis hoped he wouldn't run into her again – she'd caused him enough trouble already.

A sleeve slid out of the binder as he turned the next page – and his eyes widened.

The first piece of paper displayed an incredibly accurate sketch of none other than Mulch Diggums. It was quite the sight; the dwarf had a disturbing smile plastered to his face, the enormous tombstone-teeth revealed in all their glory.

Now this was a development. Unless, of course, Mulch existed here exactly as he did there.

Artemis removed the sleeve, glancing through all the images one by one. There was an equally disturbing close-up of Julius Root's face, shaded dark to express his ever-red hue. There was also a detailed drawing of Holly, kitted in the exact same jumpsuit that he'd seen her wear last, and with her gun aiming outwards. All of the pictures depicted them in fairy form.

What…?

The Holly Artemis had seen here was a human police officer; the Root here was an older one (besides being dead in reality) and Artemis guessed that Mulch had a similar doppelgänger. Just like he, Artemis, had 'Alice Sweete'.

So why the images? Was this really a dream? Or… could this be an alternate or parallel universe? Just because he hadn't openly witnessed one when he'd gone back in time to save Jayjay, didn't mean they didn't exist. In fact, they most likely did exist – they had to, after all, due to the fact that time travel had been possible in the first place. It would also explain Root being alive here.

He could possibly have opened a link between universes. But it was unlikely, since he'd been hospitalised, and plenty of time had passed since the time jaunt.

And if this was a parallel universe then why wasn't Holly here too, along with him in the situation he was currently in? Their lives were intertwined enough that however small a hole opened up in the universe, she would most likely have arrived here too. Butler, also. Even Mulch, although the less he thought of life 'intertwined with Mulch's', the better.

It was a possibility, then. It wasn't exactly theory material, but Artemis didn't exactly have a lot to work with.

He turned his attention back to the binder and began to flick through it – but a voice called from the kitchen. "Al! Dinner!" It was Butler.

Artemis hurriedly put the sketches back in their sleeve before locking it in the ring-binder.

As he replaced the binder, he made a mental note to give it a better look later. He would check thoroughly through the rest of it, and all of the other ones too. The sleeve of drawings in this binder had been hidden somewhat, if pathetically, but that could mean other evidence was hidden too. And nothing could hide from Artemis Fowl.

He walked through to the kitchen through the living room, crinkling his nose slightly as the smell of burning reached him.

The kitchen was expectedly small, so Artemis wasn't disappointed when he entered. It was about the same size as his little bedroom, with counters around the walls and a small, round table in the corner. In the middle of it sat a large bowl of some black-looking pasta concoction. That explained the burning smell.

"Sorry, Al, she cooked earlier – I begged her not to, but she insisted and insisted…"

Butler was already seated at the table. Artemis sat down, very much not wanting to taste the cremated meal that Butler was now piling onto his plate. Nevertheless, he was extremely hungry, and he soon found himself eating it at a steady pace. It was bland, and certainly a long way from the culinary masterpieces of the cook at Fowl Manor (and Butler there too), but it was satisfying.

"It's nice," Artemis lied.

Butler snorted disbelievingly. "Don't bother, she's out on a date. But can you imagine? She paid for cooking classes – twenty quid each! She ended up borrowing half of it from me. I was hoping it would pay off…" He shook his head, and ate some more.

"I see how that could be frustrating," replied Artemis. For the first time ever, he was feeling awkward around Butler – something that had never happened before.

"Definitely. Oh, by the way, here's your phone. You left it on, and it was making such a racket that I had to turn it off." Butler pulled out a small, thick Nokia and passed it over the table.

Artemis took it with slightly forced gratitude – after all, he would rather no phone at all than one like this – however, it would still prove useful. He looked at the display. He had thirty-nine unread messages. Sender: Minerva.

Butler grimaced over his food. "Is she harassing you?"

"It appears so," Artemis sighed, scrolling through the text messages and wondering just how close Alice was to Minerva. He'd originally hoped the scenario he'd woken up in had only been a 'one-night-stand'.

"Are you two actually together then?"

Artemis selected and deleted the messages, all of which seemed to be in capital letters. "No, but she seems to think otherwise."

"And last night…?"

"I don't know what happened," said Artemis. "Waking up in someone else's bed isn't the most pleasant of experiences, least of all waking up in Minerva's bed, getting kicked out for no discernible reason, and having to run down the street completely naked apart from a small pillow for decency."

Butler was sympathetic. "Women are certainly unpredictable. You can expect the unexpected, but you can't expect a female, as my Uncle Major used to say. Then again, he's in prison."

Artemis almost choked. "I… yes, I suppose so." Uncle Major? The real Butler had only once mentioned his uncle after the incident involving the Russian Mafia, in which the Major had died in the explosion of the Fowl Star.

"I agree, you know. Even Juliet – you should see the guy she's dating. Almost as rough as she is. 'The Troll', they call him – and I've only ever seen him in a photo."

Artemis was still dwelling over 'Uncle Major'. It confirmed the fact even further that personas from the real world appeared to be reflected here, if not in completely different situations. He caught the word 'troll'.

"Sorry, did you say… 'troll'?"

"Yes, the guy Juliet's dating – 'The Troll'. Massive hulk of a guy, from the grainy photo I saw on Juliet's phone. She met him at a club last time she came to visit, apparently. She's going to see him tonight."

'The Troll'. Artemis made the connection; five years ago, when he kidnapped Holly. The LEP had released a troll into the manor, and Butler had somehow fought it off, although he wasn't sure exactly how. He'd also experienced trolls himself, when Opal had left him and Holly in the Eleventh Wonder of the World. They were unpleasant, to say the least.

And personas in the real world were reflected here.

Was 'The Troll' that persona? Or was it just a coincidence?

"Al? Alice?"

Yes. It was a coincidence.

'Coincidence' is a term used by the common mind for something that cannot be explained.

Artemis stood up sharply. "Butler, we have to go, now."

"What?" Butler was surprised.

"Juliet is in danger. You said she was on a date with this 'Troll' person. Where is she right now?"

"She'll be with him right now… but don't worry, she'll be fine. But now I'm more worried about you, are you sure you're feeling better?"

Artemis headed towards the door, trying to drag Butler along. He ended up hauling the giant Eurasian's arm, feebly.

Butler looked perplexed. "Al, are you sure you didn't p-"

"Listen, Butler." Artemis looked him in the eye. "Butler. Domovoi. Your sister is in danger and she could die if we don't leave at once."

Butler raised an eyebrow. "Domovoi? It's Dominic, remember?"

"Butle-"

"And what's all this last-name stuff going on? Al, I think your condition's worsening."

"Butler! Dominic, Domovoi, whichever suits you best! Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you want Juliet to die?" Artemis gave the arm another yank.

The shock value worked, and Butler allowed Artemis to pull him a step forward. "She- she won't die. Are you sure you're not just a little bit paranoid at the mo-"

"No. Trust me on this."

Butler paused and looked at him closely, searching for signs of a prank.

Finding nothing of the sort, he headed towards the door, leaving the food abandoned halfway. "I'll get the keys."

Hi. Hopefully you've noticed by now that I'm not HolidayBoredom. If you've been following this, you'll know that the first 2 chapters were written by her, and she put it up for adoption a while back. It may have taken some time (OK, 2 months) but I wrote the third chapter and I intend to carry on, permitting. I hope you enjoyed this, and do give me some feedback. Thanks!