Chapter 2

A/N: This is where I take over. Sorry again Ezqueza.

Artemis sat cross legged on his cot. The room's holoscreens, which covered three of the four walls, danced with the picture of the strange text, blown up. The laptop at Artemis feet ran through the text thirty times a minute with different decryption keys, mathematical codes that would have baffled any human (any human that didn't have Artemis's brain at least) and most centaurs to. But the most valuable computer in the room was turning over in Artemis's own head. And he had some help too. It was just too bad that the only help that could understand what was going on in his head was speaking of prophecies at the moment.

"We were meant to find this!" said Orion "We were destined to. Don't you see!"

"If we were meant to find the ridden then we would have found it when I kidnapped Holly. She would have had it. And it would have been deciphered" Countered Artemis. He and Orion had been going off at the parchment (or as they had begun calling it "the riddle") for most of six hours (Artemis didn't want to stop after four and Orion had goaded him to continue after five) and had made nearly no progress, save to find where the text actually seemed started. The meaning remained a mystery, so Artemis adjusted his mind onto other paths, hoping to find new ways to understand the text.

"Perhaps the Riddle is hieroglyphic, such as how the People write the Book" Provided Orion. Artemis smirked. According to Dr. Cumulus the easiest way to overcome the Atlantis Complex was to face his guilt. And because Orion was the literal personification of his guilt, the good doctor continued, the simplest way to do this was to converse with the being that had taken residence in his head. Even basic psychology majors knew that conversing with the voices in one's head was tantamount to madness, but apparently Atlantis Complex didn't work that way. It was the magic, Cumulus told fowl, which made the mind act this way. Artemis had been ready to pry the knowledge of the disease from the doctor's hands when he received full access to the medical databases (wait, did I say received, I meant hacked) and begin learning about the Complex.

"That would be a sound hypothesis, if the scripture was gnomish. The letters aren't relatable to Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, or Phoenician, let alone Gnomish. The structure is similarly mute on the underlying meaning." Artemis stared at one of the projections of the writing pondering the symbols. The answer had to be somewhere. Then suddenly an epiphany came to him. Or, rather, it came to Orion, but considering they shared the same body the idea was really Artemis's.

"What if the structure was integral to the wording? Then the positioning of the letters would correspond to the meaning and grammatical organization of each letter."

Artemis twitched involuntarily, staring at the picture with new eyes. "Yes, of course, any civilization that would have its own language would have differing structure. But grammar and meaning based on placement in the text, relative to placement…" The cogs in Artemis's mind began to speed up. Retyping the decryption code to accommodate the new variables he began to see patterns in the nonsense symbols.

"If we simply assign the positions new meaning… the words are backwards… it's a formula… almost a formula… not words, numbers, equations…" Artemis's and Orion's thoughts blurred and meshed, thoughts whispered, turning the strange language from a mystery, to near coherency, to almost a literal art. The symbols correlated to numbers, then equations, then to systems of equations. As Artemis began to input the equations in to the plotting programs of the equations, Orion babbled faster, racing ahead of the computer. "The designs don't translate to Euclidean geometry they overlap in to many positions to be a solid structure. If only there were more… Eureka!" Orion's proclamation caught Artemis's attention. "The equations aren't 3rd dimensional. They're 5th dimensional!" Artemis reprogramed his computer to print on five dimensions (another task that would have boggled the minds of most physicists and computer coders) and hit compute.

The computer screen portrayed a picture whose scale demanded a larger viewing screen. Moving the picture to the three holoscreens, Artemis ignored the door opening on his left. That could wait. The dimensional coordinates between one and three formed a rough portrayal of six continents. But the coordinates of the fourth and fifth dimensions reached high into the heavens, vanishing out of conventional computer power and squeezing down to land straight in the heart of the largest continent.

"Computer over-lay map of the world and remove equations showing dimensions one through three." As the computer crunched on the request Artemis turned around to face his visitor.

Juliet looked at the strange texts and odd computer programs and did not even endeavor to understand them, simply saying, "Hell Artemis, you may be the smartest person on the planet but your always more interesting when you have something to".

Juliet cracked a smile and Artemis graciously returned the compliment, "And you, Miss Butler, have always been ostensibly annoying when you didn't have a firearm with you. But your sense of timing is impeccable". Turning back to the computer screen, he continued "I need to leave soon and you and Butler will be coming with me". The computer had finished the program and now showed the world map. The strange 5th dimensional pipe now sat on the edge of Russia and Belarus, barely fifty miles in from the border. Coordinates flowed past on the screen and Artemis memorized them effortlessly, sorting them away for when they got the surface. "Tell Butler to prep the Lear. We're going topside."

…

Domovoi Butler had never been a spiritual man. If any higher power did exist then it would have made his job much easier from the beginning and prevented Artemis from kidnapping Holly in the first place. Protecting Artemis from himself though, was another matter. As Artemis had slowly descended into the grips of the mental disease, the youth's life had gone with him. And now that he was being treated for the Complex, he insisted on travelling to the surface and gallivanting off to the middle of the old USSR. That didn't mean that Butler wasn't going with him, it just meant that he rather disagreed with the timing. And if it was Orion who had brought him here instead of Artemis, he would return his charge back to Haven personally.

Butler waited on the tarmac at Minsk international airport, patiently contemplating his discomfort. The mass of his worries came from an oversight on his part. Having never been to Belarus prior to now, he had never set up a proper contact in the nation. All of his regular, Russian contacts had been unable to meet him and the contacts they had had been unwilling to trust Butler.

A ringing the Eurasian's pocket distracted him from his grim thoughts. Bringing the smartphone out the bodyguard read through the Gnomish text. "Meet at 53°54′60''N, 27°34′72''E". Returning the phone to its holster, Butler reminded himself that Artemis's new found fear of the number four was not shared by Orion. Perhaps this simply meant that Artemis was starting to return to normal. Or it could mean that Orion was in charge. As he strode off the ground into the airport Butler couldn't decide which version would be preferred. The mad one … or the product of one's madness.

…

As Artemis waited for Butler to arrive he decided to entertain himself a little. A little hacking here, some spam there, and suddenly the name of Belarus name turned to some profane Russian slur. Chuckling into his fist Artemis waited patiently as the internet traffic skyrocketed. Just before the government took official notice he reset the name to the original. Looking up at Holly he said "This may very well revolutionize the lives of thousands. Maybe a temporal gateway. A new form of interstellar travel perhaps. We are at the threshold of some many discoveries".

"Yeah, a big hole in the sky. Don't you mud men make enough of those every day". The two had been fairly silent towards one another on the way up. Holly was busy piloting, and Artemis was bringing Foaly and Qwan up to speed on his decoding of the text. Juliet, who hadn't been trying to keep up with Artemis's talk of quantum physics, turned her attention to Holly. "Any sight of big brother?"

"Not yet, but he should be here soon enough. And if he doesn't show up we can always pull some satellites out of orbit, triangulate his cell." Holly look out the window again and, speak of the devil, there he was. "We'll takeoff when Butler gets in. And Juliet."

"Yeah."

"You might what to reset your skin color". Juliet glanced down and saw that her skin was still green.

"Oh crap". Pulling out a device that looked deceptively like a stopwatch, she slapped on her wrist and dialed in normal. The skin around the device turn pitch black then returned to its normal shade of beige. "Don't let him in let" she cried, almost as though he was in danger of walking in on her.

Holly rolled her eyes and waited for Juliet's skin to mostly correct itself before opening the hatch. Butler ducked in and remained hunched in the compact shuttle.

"Holly, it's good to see you again" Butler lowered his hand to shake. Holly passed that up and hugged him around the knee. Her arms didn't even make it around.

"It's good to see you to Butler." Leaning away, Holly asked, "How's Angeline?"

"Doing well, considering how Artemis is doing." After learning that her son had been committed to an asylum, Angeline had promptly marched herself to Tara and refused to leave until they let her down to Haven. It had been a shock to see a human marching through the shuttle port apparently aware of every secret the fairies had concealed for thousands of years. She and Holly had become something akin to pen pals while Artemis had been treated. Angeline would ask Holly how her day had been, if she had talked to mulch, etc. Holly would ask how Myles and Beckett were, whether or not she had told Artemis senior about their son (he still thought Artemis was on an extended vacation). Turning to the boy of note Butler gave him a once over. Artemis certainly did look well enough with the computer he was talking to, but as a bodyguard Butler knew when things were wrong with his principle. Laying down on the too small for him bench, he asked "So how did you manage to sneak out of Haven."

"Oh, I just promised Cumulus a firsthand account of the manor siege. He was overjoyed to send me up for some air." Looking up from lab top he smiled at Butler momentarily. Butler decided to test that he was speaking with Artemis.

"Square root of 196" he tossed at Artemis.

"14" Artemis replied.

"Atomic weight of Cesium".

"132.905".

Butler glowered. "Artemis's favorite song."

"It's no game, part 2." Artemis looked up from the lab top again, raising his eyebrow. "I am Artemis, Butler. To have Orion pretend to be me at such a critical moment would be absurd."

Satisfied that Artemis really was himself Butler looked at Holly and asked "Where are we going exactly?"

"West Russia, twenty miles inside the border. Apparently there's some sort of magic portal in the woods." Butler looked at Artemis, unsure as to whether Holly was telling the truth.

Artemis only replied "Not in the woods captain. Above them."

…

The woods flickered past below the shuttle. Telltale signs of civilization vanished as they reached Russian airspace. Artemis peered out the porthole. Smoke rose in the distance.

"We appear to be late" Artemis observed, "The party's already started." A collective groan emanated from behind him.

"Holly if you would be so kind as to put us down east of the fire. The coordinates put the Rip as being almost directly south of the flames. With the wind going north it would be best to avoid them and the Rip."

Juliet nudged Artemis to the side and looked down as well. "You really do pick the best places for holiday Artemis". Butler glanced out of his own window and would have agreed with his sister, though professionalism kept his mouth shut. The fire was burning fast, and without any rain to dampen the blaze it seem to reach up and take the craft. It actually took the occupants of the shuttle a moment to realize that the fires, and the trees, were actually closer to them.

"Holly, do you intend to extinguish the fire?" asked Butler.

"Do you expect me to let it spread to where we land? It's better if I just put it out." With that Holly opened a compartment on the side of the ship, spilling dozens of spherical shapes into the forest. "Foaly's new fizzlers" she explained. "He made some upgrades while we were in limbo." The fire dissipated as Holly made to land in a clearing. As soon they touched down Holly, Juliet and Butler came out and began to scout the area. Artemis was to stay behind and coordinate. Orion wasn't happy

"You know could exit this mighty craft and assist them" he grumbled.

"I'm supposed to remain behind and help by keeping someone from investigating" Artemis said.

"But what of the thrill of new discovery. Of adventure."

"We're more likely to be eaten by some cosmic monstrosity then learn anything of it if we leave. If anything did exit the Rip then its best that we stay behind and let Butler take care of it."

"Artemis, if we were to let Butler and the others to handle a situation such as that then there would be nothing left to learn of. And this is a once in a lifetime chance. Shouldn't we embark with fate and see what the realm has to offer."

Artemis stared at the computer screen for several moments. Orion was right. Somewhat. If he left the shuttle he would place himself in danger. But if he missed an opportunity like this… Artemis Fowl never missed his opportunity. Sensing that he had succeeded in convincing the boy, Orion cheered in the little home of the maze that was Artemis's head.

Artemis stepped out into the sunlight. The forest surrounded him. Hearing the breaking of branches, Artemis turned to see a lithe blond figure stepping delicately from the shrubbery. "Ah Juliet, I would like to assist you in fin…ding… " Artemis starred at the strange boy who emerged, slowly dragging Juliet behind him.

A/N: please review and comment. I've decided to alternate between the viewpoints of characters based on the universe they came from. Characters of Leviathan next.