Chapter 2

First Movement II

:i:

Perhaps the words 'Artificial Intelligence' were a bit of an overstatement; to the intelligences themselves and concerning the general conceivement of them. For most, the letters 'AI' represents something incomprehensible or from a 20th century sci-fi film. In fact, it is neither of these things. Google's search engine, for example, is an 'AI'. The analytical program inside an airplane is an AI.

Needless to say, Artemis found them tiresome; more times did they irritate him than they actually helped. There was a certain advantage admittedly- they could be set to do the more mundane tasks, and as mundane as they were, they could be done quickly and in most cases, efficiently as well.

Unfortunately, this was not one of those cases.

The sunlight was blinding as it was warm, the tiled patterns which made up the floor of the sweeping terrace radiating unfelt heat. It brought scents of tea and marmalade, tipped with the dew trodden leaves of summer bordering on autumn. He flicked his gaze to the table as his mother came sweeping up behind him. He lowered himself a chair. He had no other option.

Fowl Senior folded a stack of pressed white pages and slid them into an envelope, the sound of paper drowned in the beating of leaves against the azure sky. He looked reasonably concerned.

"Arty. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Father. A little tired, nothing more."

Angeline couldn't remain silent. She poured tea into a cup, sliding it across the table. "Won't you have some breakfast, then? You do look awfully pale." She reached up and laid a hand on his brow. "Are you absolutely sure you're not ill?"

Artemis took the cup gingerly. "Mother- I'm always pale."

She looked doubtfully at Butler, who stood just outside the doors. "Butler did say he was a little unwell…"

Her husband picked up the newspapers, as he did every morning. "I expect Arty instructed him to say that." He said, unfurling the first page and glancing at his son. "Am I correct?" There was the barest hint of a smile at the edge of his lips. Angeline looked rather put out; deprived of her chance to fuss. Artemis inclined his head at the manservant.

"Your game is slipping, old friend."

At this, his father chuckled and to his surprise, did not pursue the matter.

He was impatient to return to his study, excusing himself from the reproachful gaze of his mother. It made him feel oddly vulnerable, a reminder that he had only been a child, not too long ago in the past.

The windows blacked out, the feeling was shut away along with the light- and he was allowed to return to the comfort of work; work which had become more or less 'uninteresting' in terms of risk and the childish adventures long gone. Time had its whims, it would seem. Although he would not admit this, the calls from Mulch and Holly were the only escapes from his new-found, risk-free and very narrow life. He treasured those escapades.

Artemis guiltily re-activated the sleeping projector, perfectly aware that he still enjoyed what his father may call 'black' but what he called 'the lighter shade of grey.' Of course, he argued, this was most certainly white- he was simply taking counter-measures against an assailant who may prove to be extremely dangerous.

Somewhere in the depths of his mind, Artemis' subconscious fervently hoped against the contrary.

The map re-appeared in front of him, four islands dominating the projection. The 78 points glowed an improbable shade of yellow, unchanged and frustratingly over estimate. He stood still in front of the hologram. Cross referencing was all very well- provided you had enough references at your disposal. He drummed his fingertips on the polished table top, and then made a decision.

Crossing the room to his desk, he settled into his smug composure in front of the computer. The crystal eye of the camera perched on the corner of the screen. Reluctantly, Artemis booted the laptop.

Foaly had upgraded since the last batch of equipment had gone through. That was two days ago. This was how fast one had to work, especially to keep constantly ahead of the technology above. This was a race in which it was like playing soccer alone against a team of thousands. The word 'fair' did not exist and rules were there to take up space. Evolution of technology was going so fast, the police would have a field day with speeding tickets. Unfortunately, this evolution was not a one-sided event. The mud-people were picking up their pace and soon, it would only be a matter of decades- that and how unorthodox each race was preparing to get.

There was another disadvantage to the population boost- thanks to the advances in medicine. The prices of carrots had shot skywards along with the rest of the organic produce. Foaly crunched enthusiastically. Just when he started to actually need the vitamins- such a shame his salary didn't rise quite as fast.

He considered the images in front of him for a moment, then dragged one into a file with his index finger. The electronic webs spanned the slight curve of the Operations' Booth, which too, had been upgraded after the B'wa Kell uprising and a few times since. Of course, Sool still had his finger in the command of the LEP and it was the only time Foaly wished fairies didn't live quite so long. Or someone would murder the gnome. He reached for another carrot.

It was at this moment that a live-conferencing window floated to the front of the cluttered screen, cued on its own accord.

Foaly dropped the vegetable, which thunked onto an unfortunate keyboard nearby. When he replayed the incident later, he would realize that he shouldn't have been surprised. He would also realize that this was the beginning of a long, ageless era of trouble. But that was much later.

The centaur positioned his torso directly in front of the camera and enlarged the window, deftly checking the locks on the booth's entrance. Artemis was checking his nails. Foaly cleared his throat and retrieved his lunch.

Artemis spoke, eyebrows lifted in the permanent expression of cynicism. "Hello Foaly. How is the LEP?"

"Good enough. Long time no see. You called…why?"

The Irishman tutted. "We are in a hurry. The formalities aren't over yet. What about my health?"

Foaly grunted. "At least you haven't changed."

"Well, I wouldn't say that. I doubt your attitude has changed in the slightest over the last hundred years."

"Are we going to chat like this about the good old days…or do you have a point to get to?"

Artemis smiled indulgently. "Alright. Procrastination over." He leaned closer towards his screen and continued conversationally, "The truth is, Foaly- I need a favour."

Foaly was beginning to smell a rat. Need a favour ? When had he been so straightforward? Where was the manipulation? Where was the blackmail? Foaly sulked for a few seconds. Artemis could have at the very least, phrased the request as 'I have a challenge for you,' or 'I really need your superior intellect on this,' or-

Artemis tapped his screen for attention. Foaly looked at him, suspicion scrawled across his face. "Let's hear it then. No promises, mind."

He gave a courteous nod. "Of course. By the way, you sound like Mulch." At his end, Artemis opened a grided map. Foaly brought it onto full screen. Amidst the green lines were yellow dots, clustered like a constellation of stars. It took him a moment to get his bearings, for at first glance, he had thought Fowl had started mineral mining on Mars or something equally outlandish. An icon winked at him from the corner of his screen.

"You have mail." Said Artemis nonchalantly. Foaly ran a quick scan before opening the package. He looked back at the map. Then a smug grin made itself visible on his face.

"Aha." He stated.

Artemis shrugged lightly. "Aha, indeed. I need you to pinpoint one location, using the frames you have just received. Partial, I know, but it should be no problem for your computers."

Foaly wasn't going to let it pass so easily. He shook his head in a pitying fashion, as only a centaur could do. "Eighty, Fowl. You're not even down in the tens yet. And you're supposed to be quite clever."

Artemis bristled indignantly. "What do you mean, 'quite clever'? And its seventy-eight, not eighty.

Foaly chuckled and bit into his carrot. "Sorry, are you offended?"

Artemis ignored the question. "Well? Are you quite clever enough to track this for me? Or do I have to ask Mulch?"

The petulant reply was a flat "No."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I can't track it for you."

The Fowl heir raised one eyebrow. "I never thought you would admit defeat so easily, my friend."

Foaly waved the vegetable in the air like an orchestra conductor. "No, no. What I mean is, whatever happened to equivalent exchange?"

Artemis glared coldly at him over the link. "Equivalent exchange?"

It seemed as though the orchestra was playing very loudly, at a very fast tempo. Foaly was enjoying himself. "Well, it's only fair. If I do this little job for you, then…"

"Would you like a shipment of carrots Foaly? Or Trojans?"

Foaly pouted childishly. "Hey, don't be like that. I help you, you help me. A little gift of a certain program would suffice nicely…" He emphasized the word 'little' by twiddling his fingers. Artemis considered him for a moment.

"Alright. Provided that you can track the print in the first place."

Foaly wagged a finger. "Wait a second. Give it here first. Then I'll work."

Artemis leaned back in his swivel chair. "Keep deluding yourself Foaly, it may happen. Next."

"Seriously Fowl, I'll get this thing for you easy- twenty seconds max."

"With your equipment I'm sure. Just do it and I give you my word that equivalent exchange shall be kept. And please, do not haggle- my brain can not stand much more of your whinnying."

Foaly glowered at him, but began calling up the co-ordinates on the screen. He muttered audibly as he worked.

"It's barely a ghost in the systems...are you sure you ran an in-depth enough scan?" he didn't wait for an answer. "Trust you to force me into doing something so manually boring. If I have to use budget to pull in a bird, I'm going to charge you. What's this anyway?" In truth, he never expected an answer. He wasn't disappointed.

The centaur zoomed in on the land area, eliminating the 78 locations one by one. This took longer than he expected, satellite being, oddly, next to useless in the equation. The irony was, he had complained about the use of satellite barely moments before. Actually, it was nearing twenty minutes when, finally, two dots remained glowing on the map.

Foaly had grown steadily grumpier (and no taller) as time ticked off its seconds.

Artemis set down a china cup onto its saucer, smirking. It was an infamous expression, its message very clear.

The LEP technical consultant grunted under his breath. "Yeah, why don't you do it yourself then?" He tapped the keys and details written in Gnomish scrolled out beside the three remaining dots. Well, one dot. The others were framed red. Foaly swiveled around in his chair, paranoia plastered like plastic surgery on his face.

"What exactly are we looking for here?"

"Don't worry yourself Foaly. Now, the references, if you please."

The centaur folded his arms and spoke in a voice that suggested the individual speaking was reading from a textbook. "This one was registered to be the brain of a leather stitching company- wasn't that last centaury- sorry, sorry, yes. Ahem. Leather stitching company, mainly shoes." He paused, incredulous. "Why do you need to know that, Fowl?"

Annoyance flashed across Artemis' features. Then he was the gentleman again. "I don't." Foaly opened his mouth to speak, but he cut across him. "Do you want the-" he spun the file on a hologram in front of the camera, teasingly. "-program or not?"

Foaly shook his head. "You're not going to tempt me. I'm going to find out sooner or later you know."

Artemis smiled as the 'edited' version of the map came through. He straightened his tie. "Of course you will. I shan't deprive you of success."

"What are you up to, little Arty?" Foaly scratched his head (since the Koboi incident, he had discarded his foil helmets.) "You know, you haven't changed at all. And I mean, at all."

Artemis' smile vanished. This was due to the 'Arty' comment, rather than the latter statement. "Be careful Foaly. You are repeating yourself. Perhaps you need to be diagnosed for symptoms of short-term memory loss or mental retardation."

By now, Foaly was down to the last carrot in the carton. He decided the change the subject. Fowl could get so sensitive. "You sure you can do this thing- whatever it is- on your own?" However, sensitivity did not stop him making jibes. "I mean, you needed help on cross referencing…so I thought I might just make the offer…and it wasn't that hard to do, the tracking. Did you see how I did it? Pure genius, the system anyway."

It was a minute before he replied. "Really, Foaly? I don't know about you, but there's two remaining variables on that map. I only want one."

Foaly frowned at the screen in attempt to hide his expression, running a quick analysis of both locations. Though the actual places where more than 10 miles apart, their registration and signature were completely identical. Everything ground to a halt, an imaginary question mark hanging in the middle of space.

He cleared his throat. "The program. Right. Yes, thanks."

Artemis completed the transaction in silence. Foaly's face radiated suppressed excitement. All for barely half an hour's worth of waiting. He had won, of course. This meant…

He checked quickly through the file. It seemed to be all complete, as far as he could tell. Then he ran an extensive scan.

Artemis could see what he was doing and he clicked his tongue. "Really, Foaly. I am offended. I'm a man of my word, and you can trust me."

Foaly's eyes scanned the results. "Yeah, well. I don't trust your word."

Artemis smirked- this was his most frequently used expression. "You have forgotten something, my quadruped friend. But no matter, I have things to attend to; as I'm sure you do as well."

"Yes." Interrupted Foaly, sarcastically. "Busy lives, hunh?"

The young man ignored the comment and closed the link. It caused no little relief. At any rate, he was consoled by the fact that, if a situation ever called for such services in the future, he needn't consult Foaly. The bug he had planted in the program would serve as a remote receiver of sorts, and the centaur would remain oblivious. He surveyed the information in front of him. Twins.

His smirk widened.

:i:

An essential factor to surveillance equipment is that they only worked one way. An impossible feat- so far into the century. A similar example would be the one-way mirror- the window looking in could not be used for looking out. Bugs and Spy-ware (the 21st century had brought a whole new meaning to the terms) were designed so they could not be used against their original users, who were usually the creators. A basic principle which, if broken, could prove unimaginably useful.

In this instance, the hacker had left a small present, which had ceased multiplying when the server's AI discovered it. This was mainly due to the fact that the AI had a back-up. Artemis.

The hacker had disappeared with more than a misty print. And though the virus did not provide any hints to the individual's motives, it did provide form for him to cross reference with. It also brought a dry smile to the edge of his lips; characteristically smug; bloodless like the petal of a flower, unfurling to winter ice. Little touches like these could ruin a perfectly ingenious plan. This was the genre of humor he understood and appreciated…though under the circumstances…

He brushed away the thought for later contemplation.

He had no doubt whatsoever that Foaly would be trying all he could to find out what he was doing- namely, what was locked under the dots. In all fairness to him, Artemis would be doing the exact same thing, had their roles been reversed. And this was the reason that he only gave Foaly what he could find on his own- 'reveal' being a delicate art. He toyed with the pen top, updating and bringing the new map onto the projector. It adjusted before he could blink, enlarging on to the southern end of the country.

With a finger, he dragged the pop-up of the details concerning the excluded ID to the edge of the screen. Then he turned back to the other two. Twins. Now how was that possible?

He tapped once on the keyboard, navigating though the data.

Impulses. Foaly's system worked with electronic ID, prints, information and impulses. Unique impulses. They were not frequencies- impulses were more precise; a fingerprint of whatever they were of. They were all different, even if by a minute amount. Just as two human fingerprints were never the same, computers were all unique. You could set encryptions for this, but ultimately, until the digital world and cyber space evolved to organic material, you will always be labored with an identity; with a print. In fact, the organic era would summon the dawn of another kind- DNA. He would worry about that when the time came and the market was ready for the evolution.

Even identical twins had varying fingerprints. In theory.

Artemis brought two separate windows to the foreground of the hologram, one for each of the impulses. He read through the list of gibberish in each one, then ran another scan through the information Foaly had obtained on them. Identical. Which meant one of them was a fake.

Unconsciously, Artemis applauded. Replicating impulses was harder than it sounds. For most, hackers included, the replication held a flaw and consequently produced nothing more than an electric signal emitting from the appointed location. No good to anyone. For those who were more skilled in this area, the impulse would retain the same identity over any sweeps, searches- for example, cross-references- and therefore remain undetected. This was exactly what Artemis' pair of twins was doing- hiding each other. Except that every e-strand, and from what he could see of the print, were perfect clones. Indistinguishable. He would have to dig deeper.

He opened another file on the projection. What he needed was a reference, a factor that would pinpoint the split in the two impulses. It was there- he just had to find it. He set the computer's AI to work, feeding each byte of code into the referencing. One would be sufficient- just one; it would expose the difference in the two and whichever matched that 'difference' would immediately eliminate the other. A simple, but perfectly workable plan. More importantly, it was accurate.

He crossed to the window, and after the pause of his hand, touched the glass once to clear the black away, like a painter, thick brushes of white against the dark background. Behind him, the projector sensors compensated, throwing bright neon lattices of color upon the ceiling. He frowned. They were supposed to form inwards, not flash light around the room.

Somewhere beyond the sea of smooth immaculate lawns, a bird called. And suddenly, it was sunset.

Artemis started at the sound of his own voice, hand jerking from the window sill on which it had been unconsciously resting. He looked skywards, surprised at the brief lapse in concentration. The sun shone with unforgiving harshness; only a few grey clouds to dampen the sound. To his relief, it was still afternoon. He turned to the table, shaking phantom thoughts from his head and the real Artemis retreated with them. A hand reached and blacked out the windows once more.

The twins were still twins. Except that the computer had found a match, between the virus and one impulse. Artemis had had no choice but to wait for this final result. Hacking into the locations (apartments, both of them) he had no further clues as to which one was the real thing and which was the decoy. And he had no doubt, once again, that both were being monitored.

He checked the map, fading one point and zooming in on the other, the feeling of satisfaction lodging in his chest. He proceeded to scroll through the tenants list, while entering the newly found data into the cross-referencing. The words whipped continuously, line after line. He needed the address, the name- preferably everything. His hand flicked the virtual keys idly, eyes traveling down the page.

It was then that it struck him. This one; registered to be the brain of a leather stitching company…Why had that even appeared with the other two locations during Foaly's initial referencing? Its details should have had it excluded, picked off, eliminated from the list from the first frame put into the system, impulse or no; it was conditional. Artemis swiftly zeroed out from the close-up of the building's blue-prints. His mind screamed idiocy, just as the overview map was brought into view. It froze there, like his expression.

Nothing happened.

Then, without warning, the hologram blinked off. He caught something out of the corner of this eye, flickering- like an image does when it is being brought to and fro in a projection, or-

Then the whole server shut down on its own accord, his hands still frozen over the keys.

:i:

Author's Note: Yes. Had a brainwave half way through writing this chapter, so had to start again. Now it looks kind of…patchy. Better than before? Worse? –oh dear- CC very welcome-

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