Oh ma Gawd! An update within a four month period *clasp hands to cheeks* AMAZING!
Shall I tell you what else is amazing...?
I AM GOING TO UNIVERSITY!
I GOT IN!
Two A*'s and Two A's firmly gives me a place at one of the top five unis in the UK. Go me *waves the ellie flag*.
Any hoo...
I had a grand total of...SIXTEEN REVIEWS PEOPLE! The most I've ever had for a fic, leaving me well and truly chuffed :)
THUS the early update, and this beast of a chapter! Three parts people, totally knackered me out. So I hope ya likes it.
REVIEWER FEEDBACK!
Diana's Sagittar - Firstly, your brother has an awesome name :) Secondly, thanks for saying that the last chap was by best yet - improvement is the aim of my game lol - so it's nice to know that's working out...
Lli - Thanks for the grammar tips again! They were duly noted. I loved the demonstration sentence, it made me smile *smiles*. Artemis + cooking just don't mix, regardless of whether he's sane or not. And yeah! What was with the lack of sarky mean-ness from Artemis in TAC? I mean, we got the stump bit at the beginning and that was about... it? Anyway, thanks!
Ann Incorporated - I'm glad you liked the insults - so fun to write! So they'll probably be more where that came from...
Bibliolympian - I'VE UPPED THE WORD COUNT! Please don't shout at me again... *cowers*
Holly Bluemoon - Thank you for the speechless quality to your review - it fluttered me heartstrings, lol!
mischievious101 - Sorry for not putting a spoiler warning! Argh! I hope you've read it by now though..?
vermismortifer - The present day 'Criminal swamp' has been left reasonably alone for this chappie (apart from a brief sneek peek in the middle) but I shall be wading back in for the next update, because indeed I find it fascinating...and 'crotched'... LMFAO, I hadn't spotted that (well, obv). What would that mean? I don't know. It sounds like the name you'd give to genital knit-wear but that's just my twisted theory... Thanks!
CieloCrimisi - Okay the trap theory... cold! You'll have to read the next update to know what went on after Arty legs it from Tuley and Volga... You like Annie? Good! She's back in this chap, with knives, lol.
Hello- I am me - Hi, I'm me too :) Here's the update!
Harprani - You're wish is my command! Here's Holly, finding out more! Kinda...
nabbi - Dude, thanks! :)
Lady Recondite - Any A/H in this? Kinda - later, later on. But if you're reading this for A/H loving, you're going to be disappointed. It's not like that. Somebody just gets pissed about the possibility or maybe the realities of A/H.
Silverphoenix - Artemis and Holly talking? Heh, keep reading my friend. I'm glad you think my Arty is different btw, I'm taking that as a sound compliment :)
Kaiyt - I'm glad you reviewed! I'm glad I drew you in :) So here comes some more 'personal-violence-acceptance-issued-questioned stuffs' :) And of course we may duel Orion style, my fine Lady! I throw my gilded gauntlet at your feet!
(If I missed anyone out it's probs because I PM'd you... if not, I can only apologise and I'll make sure to catch you next time!)
QUICK NOTE
The second part of this (the dream) is a contiuation of the last dream where Art & Annie are about to go rob someplace for their first proper solo heist. Just a reminder :)
I'll leave you in peace now... ;)
'Listen to me. I know you don't want to do this. There are probably gonna to be lots of things in our futures that you're not gonna want to do, but we're still gonna do them, you understand? It just comes with the territory of who we are.'
Chapter Five - All Thumbs
The door to the ops booth hissed open.
'Ah, Krunk,' sighed Foaly without bothering to look up, 'only you could take four hours to recalibrate a dorsal transistor, but better late than never I suppose. Give it over...'
The centaur flipped a hand over his shoulder, fully expecting to feel the gentle weight of the prototype being placed on his palm.
He was being far too optimistic.
'ARGH!'
His face slammed nose-first into the desk, his hairy arm twisted behind him to an unnatural degree.
'Holly!' he gasped, his cheek bruising against the imitation chestnut. 'Holly, get off, you're hurting me!'
The she-elf snarled, adjusting her grip painfully on his wrist.
Captain Holly Short had stormed down to police plaza that morning, ignoring the chorus of honks and blasts from under commuters' hot bonnets as she'd stopped a whole inner-city traffic lane just to take a short cut. A few of the more irate drivers had actually got out of their vehicles to make their displeasure more verbal, but after one glance at Holly, or more specifically her thunderous eyes, they had all got quickly back in their cars.
'You told Trouble,' she hissed, her left boot resting on Foaly's chair, the right jammed against his shoulder joint.
The centaur swallowed, causing his protruding Adam's apple to grate against the edge of the desk.
'I had to tell Trouble,' he gasped, reverting to the safety of the LEP regulation handbook. 'You're a Captain in one of the most dangerous jobs you could be in. If I find anything that could potentially hinder you in your post, thereby putting other officers at risk, I have a professional duty to inform your commanding officer. '
Holly's eyes narrowed to slits. 'I trusted you, centaur. I trusted you with something I didn't want to tell anyone else and you went and blabbed to Trouble Kelp.'
Foaly scowled.
'Yes,' he snapped, his natural pique flaring despite the boot on his shoulder. 'Yes I did, and then he phoned you, I know. But did you have to tell him to stop being jealous of Artemis Fowl? Seriously? That was quite possibly the worst thing you could have said. Ever.'
Holly dropped his arm and the technician groaned in relief.
'Do not turn this around on me!' she shouted, pointing a sharp finger in his face. 'Don't you dare! I wouldn't even have spoken to him this morning if it wasn't for your big mouth!'
'Oh that's right,' he sulked. 'Pull out the mouth jokes. Let's all have a good laugh at Foaly's massive jaws...'
Holly's face deadpanned.
'Do I look like I'm in the mood for a pity party, centaur?'
He picked himself up from his desk, wincing as he slowly revolved his shoulder.
'No, I know,' he sighed, 'and I'm sorry, I should have warned you before telling Kelp. But I don't think you realise how worried you had me yesterday. You burst in here, looking like a friggin zombie in uniform, telling me you were having psychic visions in your sleep! Visions about secret burials and-and...' he looked away from her, 'and imaginary little girls!'
Holly's eyebrow twitched. 'If you're talking about Annie...?'
'Of course I'm talking about Annie!' he snapped, his eyes flashing back to hers. 'Who else would I be talking about?'
The room fell silent and Foaly turned his chair back to face his desk.
'Now if you'd excuse me,' he said, 'I have work to be getting on with; important work that needs to be completed without distraction...'
Holly glowered at him. She stalked away from his desk and grabbed the same fold-out chair she'd occupied the day before, wrenching it open and dropping ungraciously into its cloth cradle. Around the room hundreds of monitors surrounded her, displaying everything from Inner-city traffic reports to maps recording possible locations of the 'still-contentedly-at-large' Opal Koboi.
After a long, silent moment the elf broke the quiet.
'I know you don't believe my dreams are real, Foaly,' she said, in a way that signalled she didn't much care either, 'but I had another one last night, just the same as the others.'
Foaly didn't show any exterior signs of having heard her.
'And,' she continued, 'I've decided that I need to start investigating what I'm seeing. I can't just ask Artemis; he'd either blow up, or just deny everything, therefore... I've got to start gathering some evidence.'
The centaur spoke at last, 'And where are you going to get that from, pray tell?'
Holly leant forward, her eyes glinting.
'Fowl Manor.'
Foaly turned to gawp openly at his friend.
'What?'
'Fowl Manor.' She repeated. 'My dreams tell me that the bodies were always dumped in a forest at the back of the Manor grounds. So, if I could just go and run a scan of the clearing I could prove straight away whether the bodies exist or not, therefore proving whether my dreams are real or not.'
Foaly closed his eyes, putting a hand to each of his temples.
'Wait, wait, wait,' he demanded, his voice a mixture between exasperation and derision, 'So you're telling me you want to break into Fowl manor, without Artemis knowing, to search for evidence of possibly imaginary murders committed by his Father over a decade ago...?'
Holly considered this statement for a moment. 'Yep,' she said eventually. 'That's about it.'
The centaur stared at her as if she was attempting to lick her own elbow.
'You're insane,' he said flatly, 'and plainly delusional. There is no possible way you're going to get inside that house without either Artemis or Butler knowing about it first. The whole estate is a veritable minefield of anti-fairy technology! It's got shield deflectors, laser sensors, DNA stun-cannons, everything Fowl can think of to protect his home and his family from any unwanted visitors, not to mention all the stuff I provided him in case our dear Opal decides to drop him a visit.'
'But I'm not Opal Koboi,' retorted Holly, 'and I've got no intention of going inside the actual manor. I only need to reach the woods. My dreams tell me that the bodies were always taken to a clearing- '
Foaly whinnied with frustration. 'Your dreams aren't telling you anything, Holly, because they're just that; dreams!'
She shook her head slowly.
'I know it sounds insane but-'
Foaly cut impatiently across her.
'I found the girl!'
The elf's eyes widened.
'What?'
'Annie Shinner. I found her, on the database.'
'And you didn't mention this earlier?' shouted Holly.
Foaly snorted belligerently. 'You never asked!'
He swivelled in his chair before she could retort and yanked a small screen towards him. On it, he opened up a recent human census page; recent in fairy terms anyway.
'There was only one name,' he said, typing swiftly, 'only one name in the entire world.'
Holly stayed silent as he navigated to the right page, her heart hammering in her chest.
Is this it? she wondered, her breath ragged. Have I found her? Is there proof already that she exists?
'There,' declared the centaur, eventually. 'There she is; the only Annie Shinner born within the last four hundred years.'
Holly looked at the picture.
It was of a dark skinned woman with her hair scraped back in a bun and a wooden clothes peg drooping from the corner of her frown. She was dressed in old mud-woman fashion with a long cotton dress and an off-white apron tied round her waist. Her thick arms supported an equally chubby babe straddling her left hip.
'That's not her,' whispered Holly, staring at the image.
Foaly rolled his eyes, 'Yeah, I'd gathered that much. This Annie was born on the fifth of May 1880 in a house just outside of Southampton. She married a Mr Carlton Trent in 1899 and went on to have his five children. In 1912, Carlton lost his job at the local boot-lace factory and decided to move his family to America to find work. With the last of their savings he bought seven third class tickets for the RMS Titanic. Not one of them survived the trip.'
Holly shook her head.
'You've got the wrong one,' she said firmly. 'There's got to be another Annie Shinner, there must be.'
'There isn't.'
'There must be.'
'No,' said Foaly firmly, switching the screen to stand-by, 'there mustn't. Because your Annie is a dream, Holly, and that means she doesn't have to exist.'
The elf was determined.
'Your records are wrong,' she told him, both eyes blazing. 'She exists and she needs me to find her.'
This last statement was a surprise even to Holly.
"She needs me to find her"? She thought, when did I decide that?
Holly grabbed her helmet from the workbench, deciding she could work that one out on the shuttle to Ireland.
Foaly seized her wrist as she made for the door. 'Holly, Holly, wait! Even if she does exist, what are you supposed to do about it? So Artemis had a childhood friend, woop-de-doo!'
She turned to him.
'It's what she's showing me, Foaly!' she hissed. 'It's the fact that for every dream, she's the one that always brings me to Artemis. She must be doing it for some sort of a reason.'
The centaur was shaking his head now, his eyes filled with a mixture of frustration, confusion and could it be... pity?
'Oh, this is useless!' snapped Holly, wrenching her arm free. 'Y'know Foaly, I don't care if you don't get this. I'll soon be proving it to you once for all. I'm going to go to the manor, and I'm going to find those bodies.'
Foaly lurched forwards.
'How are you even going to get top side?' he demanded, actually using his own torso to bar her exit from the Ops booth. 'You think Trouble's going to give you clearance so you can go dig up Fowl's garden? And you will need his clearance, Holly, especially if you intend on using LEP gear to run all your scans. If you leave without his permission you'll be out of the force before you can say "Trubs, I can explain".
He was right, and she knew it.
'I'll get permission,' she snapped. 'Don't you worry about me.'
'But I am worried, Holly. I'm very worried indeed.'
The two friends looked at each other.
'Nine hours,' said the elf, raising her helmet in her hands. 'Give me just nine hours and I can finish this. All I need is one scan, Foaly. And if I'm wrong... well, feel free to gloat all you want when I get back.'
Foaly's eyes were sad.
'And if you're right Holly? What then?'
The elf's fingers fumbled suddenly against her fastenings and the helmet dropped.
'I don't know,' she admitted quietly, 'but it still doesn't change a thing. I'm going to Fowl Manor and I'm going to prove that I'm right...once and for all.'
Annie had come back again. She was dressed all in green this time, her mahogany waves pulled back into a loose ponytail.
'Don't worry, Holly' she said, 'Foaly will come around eventually, they all will.'
The elf smiled sadly. 'He just doesn't understand how real you are to me, how clear everything is when I'm with you... I don't understand it myself.'
Annie put a warm hand to the elf's cheek and smiled her mysterious smile.
'You will.'
She disappeared and so did Holly.
Holly reappeared in a place where the only light came from security monitors lined along a concrete wall. Each showed a black and white view of an empty corridor. Every passage was empty and lifeless, all except for the jaunty advertising boards displaying the legend, 'The Royal Bank of Dublin', in plastic boards along their sides. The only screen not showing an office corridor was a large monitor to the right. This camera showed a vault door; steel, circular and complicated, guarding over the Irish depository's most precious treasures.
The room directly surrounding Holly was small and grim. Low counters dominated the limited space, one to support the CCTV stations and another to hold up a microwave, a veritable library of battered men's magazines and a kettle with a broken lead. The carpet was caked in crisp flakes and crumbs, not to mention rat-sized dust bunnies burrowing deep into the weave. Two short doors led off from the back; one was reinforced, barred and coded, but the other was just ordinary plywood.
Sat in one of the room's only two available swivel-chairs was a large man staring at the security screens, his eyes glassy and blood-shot. As Holly watched, he stretched and groaned, and flaps of loose skin swung like hammocks from below his triceps.
'Keeeer-reist!' he yawned, slapping his hands back down to his knees. 'I am so feckin bored.'
A muffled voice shouted from behind the plywood door.
'Do some cleaning then ya' lazy cunt!'
The large man laughed, glancing over his shoulder towards the toilet.
'Nah, thanks!' he shouted jovially. 'I think I'm doing just fine here!'
He turned back to the screens, shifting his gargantuan rump deeper into the chair's padding.
'Anything good on?' he joked to the empty room. 'I wouldn't say "no" to a decent Bond film; something with a decent car chase, y'know..?'
He began to scan each monitor in turn, starting from left to right.
'Nope... nope...nothing, noth-'
His eyes froze on a monitor to the right.
He leant closer.
'What the...?'
He swivelled backwards, shouting towards the locked water closet. 'Hey, Kieran! There's something coming up on screen 67! Something approaching the main safe!'
'Wha?' yelled the muffled reply. 'Just deal with it, Bry! I'm busy!'
The fatter man turned back to the suspected screen and zoomed in.
'Holy Mother of Christ! Kier! It's a little girl! There's a kid approaching the vault door!'
There was a grunt from the toilet and a muted oath. 'Wha'? Look, if the screens are playing up just give 'em a slap!'
The stricken man did as he was told, but even after a third blow to the casing, a figure was still stubbornly present on screen.
'Kieran!' he bellowed, his eyes the size of saucers. 'She's gonna to hit the sensors! She's gonna set all the alarms off!'
There was another hefty grunt. 'BRIAN, JUST GET OFF YOUR FAT ARSE AND DEAL WITH IT, AWRIGHT? I'M BUSY!'
Brian gave a frustrated yowl and lurched from his chair, crossing to a locked security panel on the opposite wall. He yanked a thin chain from beneath his shirt and rammed the Abloy key at the end of it into the lock at the top of the box. As soon as the panel was released he fingered in the access code and shut down all the sensors and alarms that the little girl was just about to trigger.
He let out a shaky sigh.
'Crisis averted,' he murmured, as the small girl on screen wandered idly up to the vault's door, an action which moments earlier would have sent out a city-wide police alert, costing the bank thousands of euros for a false alarm...
Striding back to his work desk he grabbed his pass and security baton from a hook above the screens, jamming them both into his belt.
'I'm going down!' he called. 'There's an unsupervised child just wandering about. I'm gonna go pick her up.'
Kieran didn't appear to have heard. 'Wah?'
'Oh, feck off,' muttered Brian, tapping in his code and leaving via the second, more reinforced door, not bothering to close it properly behind him.
There was a flushing noise from behind the plywood and the next moment Kieran emerged, still busy zipping his flies.
'Wha you say, Bry?' he asked, looking up from his crotch.
The he noticed the empty room.
He crossed huffily to the monitors and watched as his obese companion lugged himself up each of the bank's grey, camera-watched corridors, heading ever closer to the stray girl on camera 67.
A quiet voice spoke from behind him.
'Good evening, Mr Farrow.'
Kieran leapt backwards in shock, his plastic security pass swinging back over his shoulder.
There was a young boy stood just inside the office having entered via the recently unsecured door. He was small, dark haired, and couldn't have been more than nine years of age. His smile, however, could have belonged to a much older being; to a creature who had seen things children weren't meant to have seen.
'What are you doing in here?' demanded a shaken Kieran, his hand clutched to his chest. 'You could've given me a heart attack.'
The boy's head twitched to one side.
'You're going to have to excuse my rudeness,' he whispered, 'but I never have much time for civil introductions.'
Kieran got slowly up from the desk, taking a few deep breaths.
'You're not with that other kid are you?' he panted, squinting at the child. 'What are you doing, just wandering around a place like this? Where's your mam?'
The boy's eyes narrowed. 'That is quite enough talk from you.'
Kieran frowned. 'Wah?'
Then the child stabbed him.
Holly watched, horrified, as the guard's eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled heavily to the matted carpet.
The boy was onto him like a spider to a fly, quickly wrenching the now empty hypodermic from the man's thigh. He searched his pockets with quick, nimble fingers, pulling out a pass, a wallet and a half eaten Mars bar, tossing aside the latter with a repulsive sneer. Once he'd collected everything of worth his eyes flicked upwards to monitor 67, where the fat lump of Brian lay unconscious on the ground, over looked by a firmly conscious Annie Shinner. She turned her face to the camera, her own used hypodermic clenched in her fist.
'Well come on then,' she mouthed, gesturing to him impatiently. 'Get a shift on!'
Artemis rose to his feet and clambered quickly into Brian's abandoned chair. With a quick yank of the under-seat lever he rose quickly to desk level and began to alter the CCTV. After a few seconds of tampering, every monitor showed a loop of how the bank had been an hour previous; empty and dull, without a mysterious adolescent in sight. Artemis grinned smugly.
Perfect.
A small walkie-talkie bleeped at his hip.
'Stop inner-gloating, and get down here!' squawked a voice. 'We haven't got all day!'
'I wasn't gloating!' protested Artemis, sliding down from his perch. 'I was merely basking in the glory of our mutual success...'
The boy slipped from the booth and sprinted down the corridor, with Holly close on his heels.
'And there are worse habits than gloating you know. For instance, I could compulsively crack my knuckles... or pick my nose and play with the mucus.'
Annie turned to him as he entered her stretch of the corridor, standing up from inspecting the sleeping Brian.
'Don't get me wrong,' she smirked, 'I'm really glad you don't flick boogers, but you do boast too much. Way too much...'
Artemis stopped neatly beside her, their heads at exactly the same height.
'I wiped the tapes and inserted a five hour minute loop,' he said, getting back to business. 'No-one will be able to gain anything from that avenue.'
'Right y'are,' nodded Annie, 'and I mixed an amnesiac in with the sedative, so your man and mine won't be telling anyone about us either.'
The boy's eyebrows twitched upwards.
'An amnesiac, really?'
She shrugged.
'I got it off ma' dad. God knows what the side effects will be. They probably won't be able to remember anything past Christmas but hey-hoo, not our problem...'
She dropped quickly to the floor, grabbing Brian's left arm and tugging.
'We need to get this one over to the vault panel,' she grunted, her skinny arms taught with the strain. 'There's a finger print scanner and it won't budge until it's met with his finger, probably a thumb by the looks of it.'
Artemis picked up Brian's other limb, giving it a weak tug.
'What other security precautions are there?' he panted.
'Just a number pass,' she answered, as between them they dragged the man hurriedly across the floor. 'It's a pretty weak system to be honest... I was disappointed.'
It took a lot of effort from the two nine year olds, both of them skinny, one of them undernourished, but they eventually managed to slide Brian's considerable bulk over to the vault door. Artemis dropped his share of the weight and stepped over the snoozing sentinel.
'I know the first code,' he breathed, reaching up and tapping in the numbers, his thin fingers gliding over the keypad. 'Mr Farrows had kindly left it in his pocket for me to find...'
There was a beep and a green light flashed below the pad.
'Stage one complete,' noted Artemis.
The girl frowned grimly. 'Now for stage two.'
The boy seized Brian's wrist, tugging it towards the security panel, and ultimately the scanner pad.
'His hand is about two feet too short for contact,' grumbled Artemis, stretching the limp limb as far as it would reach. 'Here, help me to put his back to the wall.'
They shifted the guard around until his backside was braced against the metal skirting and the boy swung Brian's arm backwards towards the pad again. The guard's wrist slapped uselessly against steel, fat fingers still a foot short of reaching their target.
'Damn it,' cursed Artemis. 'He can't reach.'
He glanced tensely at the girl beside him and Annie flipped both her palms up.
'Well don't look at me!' she protested. 'You're the one meant to be the genius here.'
The boy nodded putting a hand to his temples. 'I know, I know,' he grumbled. 'I'm thinking...'
He scowled deeply and closed his eyes
'Is there any way we can lift him?' he questioned, eyes snapping back to Annie, 'or perhaps cause him to regain temporary consciousness? If we could keep him on the bare edge of lucidity, conceivably he could be convinced to unlock the safe without needin to become fully aware...'
The girl shook her head sharply.
'He's not moving for at least eight hours, not after what I shot him with. You could put a fog horn in his ear and he wouldn't twitch, and as for lifting him!' She snorted derisively. 'Yer man's gotta be over nineteen stone, Art. We had enough of a job just dragging him over here, let alone trying to get him vertical...'
'But if we had some sort of leverage,' pressed Artemis. 'Just to get him braced-'
'Leverage? Nothing short of a fork-lift is ever going to shift this guy!'
The boy threw both his arms up.
'Well you think of something then!' he snapped, face red, 'If you're so clever, you think of something!'
Annie scowled. 'Will you just calm down, yeah? Jesus, you're always so dramatic. Count to ten or something!'
Artemis looked mutinous. 'I haven't got time to count to ten!' he hissed. 'In case you've forgotten, we were supposed to be inside the main chamber by now!'
'Then count to five!'
They both glared at each other.
'Oh, this is useless,' spat Artemis, breaking away from her and beginning to pace. 'We are stuck, in the bowels of some half-rate deposit facility, with absolutely no useful resources, scuppered by an obese, unconscious, half-wit! This cannot be allowed to continue!'
Annie looked at him sullenly. 'So what do we do?'
'I don't know! But we are swiftly running out of time, and thus, options.'
The girl dropped down to the floor, scrutinising Brian's stubby digits.
'But all we've got to do...' she said slowly, 'is get his thumb...' she looked up the wall, 'to that panel..?'
'Yes,' answered Artemis shortly. 'I am glad to see you're keeping up.'
Annie chose to ignore the sarcasm, instead reaching into a pocket of her tracksuit.
'Well it's obvious then.'
Artemis looked up venomously. 'What's obvious?'
'What we have to do.'
She pulled a stubby metal handle from her pockets, and held it out before him.
'A flick knife,' said Artemis blankly, looking from her hand to her face. 'How does that solve anything? Unless you plan to use it to cut invisible pulley ropes so we can winch up our fat friend here...'
Annie snapped the catch on the side of the knife and the three inch blade extended with a neat snick.
'No,' she said slowly, 'it's not for rope...'
Artemis watched the knife warily, like a stooge observing a hypnotist's pocket-watch.
'You know what they say...' murmured Annie, twisting the blade slowly in the air so the edge caught the light. 'If you can't take the panel to the thumb...'
Artemis' eyes suddenly snapped to hers, horror and understanding crashing through his brain like a bucket of iced water had been thrown against his scalp.
'You want to cut his thumb off?' he hissed, 'Are you insane?'
Annie's lips formed a grim slash.
'What other options do we have? You said yourself we don't have any resources.'
The boy was incredulous. 'That doesn't mean we move straight to mutilation!'
Annie snorted impatiently, grabbing her friend by the lapels and giving him a slight shake.
'Get over it,' she snapped, her eyes hard. 'If we don't get this job done we'll both be killed tonight. My dad'll lynch me, your dad'll bury you... a thumb here and there shouldn't make any difference to you!'
Artemis' stomach churned.
Annie took his hand and gently peeled apart his clenched fingers, slipping the switchblade into his palm.
'You'd better do it,' she said firmly, dropping to the floor and spreading Brian's hand flat to the floor. 'You've always had steadier hands than me.'
He shook his head, dropping the switchblade to the floor with a clatter.
'Think again, Ann,' he said. 'You cannot propose a course of action this preposterous then expect me to be the one to carry it out.'
She looked up at him, waiting patiently.
'Get down here and do it, Art.'
'I said "no".'
'You won't say it a third time.'
Artemis raised an eyebrow, the universal symbol for: You want to bet?
Annie got back to her feet, scooping up the knife up as she went.
'Listen to me,' she said seriously, putting her hands on his shoulders. 'I know you don't want to do this. There are probably gonna to be lots of things in our futures that you're not gonna want to do, but we're still gonna do them, you understand? It just comes with the territory of who we are.'
The child blinked angrily. He couldn't help thinking about how few steps there were between bodily mutilation and burying corpses in the ground. He was nine years old for God's sake. He didn't want to hurt anybody... but he was a nine year old Fowl, and Annie was right. Hurting people just came with the territory.
Annie crouched back to the floor.
Artemis gripped the knife tightly.
Holly watched on numbly.
'Alright,' whispered Annie, as he slowly crouched beside her, 'we'll do this on three.'
Artemis nodded grimly, positioning the blade between Brian's thumb knuckles; he wanted a clean cut if possible, with minimum sawing involved.
'One,' counted Annie, 'two... three... go.'
'That was four,' noted Artemis robotically, before forcing the blade sharply down.
Holly was woken by the sound of the tannoy.
'This Trans-Nymph shuttle service from Haven Central to E4 - Tara has now reached its final destination of E4 – Tara. All passengers without shielding capabilities must please report to check-in desk four to be issued with above-ground camouflage suits. For all those travellers wishing to visit La Tia Fail during their visit, overland shuttle transfers are available from docking bay seven situated directly opposite Spud's Spud Emporium –"the place to satisfy all your potato needs". Passengers are reminded that County Dublin is off limits to all those without LEP level five security clearance and severe fines will be issued to all those found trespassing within the district boundaries.'
Holly yawned and stretched, shaking her head free of any lingering images of knives.
The siege was six years ago guys. Artemis isn't about to snatch someone again anytime soon.
'The temperature outside is five degrees centigrade and the local time is 00:15am. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for travelling with Trans-Nymph Shuttles and to wish you a happy and safe visit here on The Golden Isle.'
The elf sighed with relief. It had been a long trip. Having been forced to take a public flight in order to avoid going through Trouble, she'd just hopped aboard the first shuttle available. Unfortunately, that had meant a ten hour journey instead of four and she'd had to endure service stops at every River bend Hick town under the crust.
'Have you got clearance for this equipment?' drawled the security gnome as Holly stuffed an LEP kit-bag into the customs scanner.
'Of course,' she snapped.
The gnome stared at her sceptically, his lower-jaw revolving slowly like a cow chewing a cud.
'Can I see it then?'
Holly scowled.
She pulled the plastic pass from her top pocket and the gnome snatched it, pressing it to a glowing omni-bar stuck to his belt. There was a small beep and a green light flashed near his buckle. He handed the pass back to her, along with the bag.
He gave a long snort, hawking back what sounded like a kilogram of phlegm.
'Have a nice day, now.'
Holly smiled tightly. 'Like wise,'
She grabbed her equipment and moved away.
Once firmly clear of customs, she started breathing again. The pass she'd given him was months out of date and should have set off clanging alarms all round. She guessed that the special security status she'd been granted to guard Artemis in Atlantis still hadn't been revoked on the system. She'd thought that it wouldn't be, but she had still taken a bit of a risk in humping her LEP gear all this way with no guarantee she was even going to get it past Tara.
Glad to know I can though, she thought happily, heading for the exit.
Once past the throngs of tourists, she lost no time in getting in the air, setting Fowl Manor into her helmet guidance system and letting the computer guide her course. She spread her arms out, rising quickly to five thousand feet, and closed her eyes.
Flying could usually wipe her mind of all thoughts and fears. It was in those sweet, sweet moments when she was trailing her finger tips through the under-bellies of clouds, or shadowing starlings across summer skylines that she felt completely at peace.
But not tonight; tonight her thoughts were in turmoil.
Tonight, she was flying to see if a man she had dived into nuclear arctic waters for was in fact nothing but a cold-blooded murderer.
Two days ago she would have dismissed even the slightest notion of it, but now...
There was also something else she couldn't get out of her head. It was a conversation she'd had on the same day that she'd saved him; a day that now felt like a life time away.
'Tell me something, Fowl. Your Father. Is he like you?'
The mud-boy's step faltered for an instant.
'That's a strange question. Why do you ask?'
'Well, you're no friend to the People. What if the man we're trying to rescue is the man who will destroy us?'
There was a long silence.
Artemis' chin dropped onto his chest.
'You have no cause to be alarmed, Captain. My father, though some of his ventures were undoubtedly illegal, was...is... a noble man. The idea of harming another creature would be repugnant to him.'
Had he lied?
Trudging through an arctic snow storm, on his way to rescuing a father he apparently worshipped, had a thirteen year old Artemis Fowl lied to her?
She would find out soon enough.
Fowl Manor from above was just as she remembered. There was the same gentle curve to the landscape, the same gravel-snake drive scarring a path through the acres. The road wound its way through meadow and idyllic greenery to eventually end at the land's crowning stone behemoth; Artemis' ancestral home. The woods lay to the east, skulking in the shadow of the main building.
Something flashed in Holly's peripheral vision, causing her head to snap to the left.
Lights were progressing up the avenue; not the soft, mystical light that was already a-glow in the lantern-ladened Birch trees, but the brash, crude glare of a car's front headlamps.
Holly dropped into a meadow not far from the house and laid down flat in the grass. It was unlikely that anyone in the vehicle would be wearing those infamous anti-shield sunglasses, but you could never take chances with Artemis and Butler around.
She heard the Bentley pull up by the main stairs and the car doors open.
'Oh!' gasped a woman's voice, Angeline Fowl's by the sound of it. 'Isn't the night air just wonderful, darlings? So clear, so fresh! Beautiful!'
The doors slammed closed again.
'It is a pleasant evening,' agreed another voice, one that served to tighten Holly's chest, 'but it is time to go inside now, Angeline. It is too cold to remain out here.'
'Oh don't be such a spoil sport, Timmy!' she laughed, slapping a limp wrist against his lapel. 'Once upon a time, you would have revelled at this night! You would have swept me up and carried me to the bushes!'
She swung her arms around, trying to demonstrate her husband's past prowess and ended up nearly stumbling to the ground.
'Woops!' she giggled, clinging to a nearby figure Holly couldn't quite make out. 'Sorry, Dear, I didn't quite see you there.'
'Mother, you're drunk,' murmured her supporter, 'you need to go to bed.' Her son adjusted his grip, trying to loop an arm around her jutting waist.
'I am not drunk!' exclaimed the woman, lurching away from him. 'I am merely tipsy, a completely different concept altogether! You don't think your mum can't handle a few cock...cock...cocktails do you?'
She burst out laughing.
'That is quite enough.'
Artemis Senior stepped forward, grabbing his wife's arm.
Angeline Fowl frowned stupidly. 'Don't do that, Timmy,' she chastised, in something nearing a slur. 'Your fingers are too tight.'
'You are to go to bed, immediately,' ordered her husband. 'Angeline, you are indecent.'
She snatched her arm away.
'Indecent am I?' she hissed, staggering backwards, her face suddenly wraith-like, 'because you would know all about that wouldn't you? Indecency?'
Artemis Senior towered over her.
'Go. To. Bed.'
There was a still moment, in which all Holly could hear was Angeline's ragged breaths as husband and wife glared at each other.
Eventually, Angeline seemed to take warning from her husband's darkened eyes and she broke away, staggering unsteadily up the front steps.
Her husband turned back to face the car.
'Butler,' he barked. 'Take the Bentley round and park it in the West garage. I shall need it fully fuelled for tomorrow.'
'Yes, Sir.'
'Once you're done, lock everything up.'
'Yes, Sir.'
'Have a good evening.'
'Thank you, Sir.'
The mammoth Eurasian packed himself back into the driving seat and drove off.
Artemis Junior watched him go with an expression Holly couldn't quite see for shadow. Once his manservant was out of sight he turned to follow his mother into the house.
'Not so fast,' whispered his Father.
The teenager froze.
'You're not getting away that easily, Artemis.'
The son turned to him, his expression neutral. 'I wasn't attempting to.'
Artemis Senior climbed the steps until he was stood level with his heir apparent.
'I want a word with you before we both retire. I feel as though we have something to discuss.'
His son met his gaze calmly but Holly's helmet readings told her his heart was pumping at 132 beats per minute.
He shouldn't be getting himself stressed like this, she thought, her mouth forming a stiff frown, the doctors all warned him it could increase his chances of relapse into the complex.
Then-
Why is his Father so furious with him? What has he done?
'Get inside,' ordered the elder man sharply and his son instantly obeyed.
A large part of Holly wanted to follow them. Both men were burning with tension; so much so, that her magical empathy was actually converting the energy to heat her exposed hands. She knew that if No.1 had been at her side he would have been able to see their strain.
It would be purple, she thought, like bruises.
She stood up.
She would head for the forest, and do her scans (A.N. - and remain Galadriel...). She had come here to investigate Artemis' past, not eaves-drop on his present. Besides, Foaly had warned her. There was no way she was getting in that house without setting off a thousand alarm bells.
With a few finger twitches she reactivated her wings, and soared off towards the east.
She remembered that the woods had been dark in her dreams, but that had been the mellow dark of a shadowed twilight. Now, at midnight, in the depths of an Irish winter, the trees melded together in blackness, their leaves becoming ink blots in the vast inkwell of a sky.
There was also no wind.
An outdoor silence was unnatural to Holly.
Thankfully, her helmet sorted out most of the vision problems, but the millimetre or so of visor not completely covered by the night-vision filter formed a ring of pitch around her face. This slight handicap to her peripheral vision pushed Holly's nerves to the edge.
'Get a grip,' she whispered, her mix-matched eyes stinging from the long minutes of not daring to blink. 'Just find the clearing and then you can get out of here.'
Deeper and deeper she flew, and the woods somehow managed to get darker. Her infrared sensors showed no signs of animal life; there were no badgers, no foxes, no rabbits, no warm-blooded beings of any kind that should have made this abandoned copse their haven. Spiders were the only creatures of any number, spiders and their unfortunate prey.
She was finding her way by instinct, flying as if she knew every twist in the path.
Of course you do, chided a voice in the back of her mind, because you've been here before.
Sickening hysteria suddenly reared up in her chest.
'Shut up!' she hissed. 'Just shut up! You're nearly ninety years old for Frond's sake! Stop frightening yourself-!'
She cut off.
The clearing lay out in front of her, silent, wide and impassive.
Like no man's land just after a cease fire, the dell retained that similar unnatural silence.
Her brain told her to move. She could feel the strap of her equipment bag cutting into her shoulder, she knew she should just slip it off and drop to the ground.
Then what are you waiting for?
An unexpected gust of wind burst through the trees and she was buffeted into the air above the clearing. Intense, primal fear ripped in her chest causing her eyes to bulge in their sockets. She clawed instinctively at the air, desperately trying to put as much distance between her and the glen as possible.
It was her desperation that shocked her back to reason.
'No!' she cried, stopping mid-twist. 'No! You came here to do a job and you're going to finish that job!'
She squared her shoulders and killed the engine, dropping the remaining six metres to the ground.
She landed cat-like in the dirt.
Steady now, she thought, the panic threatening to consume her again as her face hovered inches from the dust. Slow breaths now.
She quickly unloaded her pack from her back and made sure to make as must noise as possible.
It took her only twenty seconds to erect the scanning column. The sensor itself was just a telescopic tube, about the circumference of a firework and the height of an average door, with a large spike at the bottom which Holly hesitated with briefly before driving into the earth. It had a fold-out screen half way down its length which the elf consulted closely, her brow furrowing with swallowed tension. After ten seconds of tapping, a bar at the top of the column flashed orange.
Holly's face twisted grimly.
The flash indicated that the column had completed its job, sending out an ion pulse into the surrounding hundred meter radius and thereby recording all details of the land. Holly could ask that pole about anything that was going on in that clearing right now, all the way down to a depth of fifteen hundred metres, and it would be able to tell her in a nanosecond.
Tapping a few buttons she called up the view that would show her any items that were buried beneath her.
The screen loaded instantly.
Oh God, she thought. I don't want to know. I don't want to know what's there.
For a moment Holly stopped breathing.
But then her eyes slowly began to narrow.
'What...?' she whispered.
The monitor was showing grey.
Pure grey.
That meant nothing.
That meant that all she was standing on was earth; ordinary earth, untainted by the presence of anything, let alone a corpse.
She put her finger to the screen, pulling the view across. Thin, dark shapes finally came into focus, right on the edge of the glade.
Holly felt sweat beading on her lower back.
'Enhance and analyse,' she said clearly and the column beeped softly in recognition.
'Complete,' it chirruped, sounding far too cheery for the situation.
Holly leaned forward to read the data.
Analysis - Soil contains unusually concentrated amounts of carbon, ammonia, lime and phosphorous.
Conclusion - Human remains circa 1570 AD – The remains of a peasants' graveyard
The elf stared at the screen. 1570 AD. Artemis Senior had buried a corpse here only thirteen years ago! And yet there was nothing here but a body that was over four hundred years old.
This wasn't what her dreams had told her.
Foaly's voice boomed in her mind's ears.
'Your dreams aren't telling you anything, Holly, because they're just that; dreams!'
She blinked stupidly.
Humiliation slowly burned its way through her veins, blazing from the pit of her stomach to the tips of her fingers and toes. She was sat there, crouched in the dirt at the back of Artemis's stately manor-house, having travelled ten hours to get there in order to prove a dream. She'd raved to Foaly, screamed at her Commander-
Oh Gods, Trouble.
She closed her eyes, dread draining her face of all colour.
If he found out she'd been top side without clearance (not to mention with specialised equipment) he'd flay her alive. He might even dismiss her. He'd be well within his rights to.
Holly felt like a fool; a damn fool.
'Well you've done it now, haven't you,' she spat bitterly, 'so you'll just have to deal with the consequences.'
She reached towards the base of the column, preparing to wrench it back out of the earth. However, just as her fingers grew close to the soil a chill passed over her heart and a cold pressure brushed up her arm as if someone was stroking their hand up the length of her skin.
She recoiled backwards, staring at the ground.
This place is bad, she decided, forcing herself back to the column and sharply uprooting the spike. Recent bodies or not, this place is bad.
She got the scanner packed up in record time, quickly fastening the last seal before slinging it onto her back again. As soon as her wings lifted her feet from the earth, she felt a weight lift from her chest. She flicked the throttle wide, shooting herself straight up into the air, every metre she put between herself and that Gods-forsaken plain; the lighter her heart began to feel.
Tara was in sight only thirty minutes later.
The noise of the E4 tourist traffic felt like a balm to her ears as she folded her wings back into her suit and unshielded. She shook herself roughly as she stepped into the departures lounge, earning a few wary glances from certain passengers but Holly was beyond caring.
'The next shuttle to depart is the 3:05 Trans-Nymph service to Haven-Central calling at: Pemblebrook, Magma-upon-Crust, Oz, Poland, Gondor, Secret Location:67849, Tir-Na-Nog, Measteg and... Haven-Central.'
'Good,' breathed Holly, 'a quick escape.'
She approached the ion turnstiles, ramming her already battered pass onto the sensor. It bleeped angrily, but didn't let her through. She tried it again, to the same effect.
A nearby pixie attendant looked up at the noise and strode over, trying to look taller than she was.
'Yes?' she squeaked.
Holly looked down. 'My ticket won't work,' she said dejectedly, holding up her defunct pass.
The pixie snatched the card from her, slapping it purposefully onto the scanner as if somehow that hadn't already been tried.
'Hmm,' she grumbled, looking closely at the ticket. 'It won't work.'
Holly scowled.
The pixie grumbled again, extending a thoroughly low tech omni-key from a plastic spring on her belt and pressing it to the side of ticket machine. It gave a much more promising bleep than the one Holly had received.
'Okay?' growled the elf, eager to just get aboard the shuttle. 'Can I get through now?'
The attendant's face had turned a strange shade of cream, she looked up at Holly as if she were a waiting land mine.
'Are you Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon?'
The elf felt apprehension grow in the pit of her stomach.
'Who wants to know?' she asked warily.
The pixie stared at her for a few seconds more before pulling a tiny microphone-bud down to her mouth, and beginning to speak into it in hurried whispers.
'Hey!' barked Holly. 'What's going on? Who are you talking to?'
The attendant stopped speaking and looked up at her cautiously.
'I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come with me, Captain short.'
'Excuse me?'
'I said you're going to have to come with me.'
'Why?' demanded the elf. 'I've paid my fare; you've got my ticket in your hand.'
The pixie pursed her lips, speaking the next words loudly.
'I would ask you not to make a scene, Miss Short.' She announced, and the masses of commuting fairies began to look up from what they were doing, and stare in her direction. 'You'll only make this more painful than it needs to be.'
Holly glared.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw security gnomes with glowing buzz-batons sizing her up from their various posts.
Just do as she says, she told herself, if you draw any more attention to yourself the Commander will be on your tail quicker than Mulch on his way to a buffalo barbeque...
'Alright,' growled Holly. 'Alright, I'll come. Just keep your voice down.'
The pixie smiled, satisfied and gestured for her to follow.
So much for the 3:15 shuttle, thought Holly angrily, it'll be another half a day before I'm home.
She was led back through the parting crowds and through a staff door marked PERSONNEL ONLY which branched into a corridor stinking of sim-coffee and old coins. Other terminal staff passed by her in the corridor, each giving her a quick glance before moving hurriedly on.
'You're in there,' said the attendant after a few minutes walk; stopping and holding open a grubby door to her left. 'Good luck.'
'Thanks,' grunted Holly, wondering why she'd be needing luck.
As soon as she saw who else was in the room she understood exactly why. In fact, she knew why she was probably going to need the combined luck of everyone else under the Earth... and possibly over it too.
Because Commander Kelp was seated at the interview room's only table, triple acorns glinting on his chest and stormy purple irises fixed on her dumbstruck face.
Oh fuck, thought Holly numbly.
Her senior officer smirked as if he'd somehow read her mind.
'My, my, Holly,' he said softly. 'Aren't we in trouble?'
Right. Next chap I'll be going over what happened 'Back at the Barons!', so the scene before, up to and following the exchange Holly saw outside the Manor, so please don't think I've just randomly skipped it all, I will make sure I've covered all the events of that night from Artemis POV too.
On the other hand, if you're confused about the dream sequence (I have a worrying suspicion that some people will be...), please tell me and I'll PM you if you'd like. That is the conclusion of that bit of Arty's life though. We shall be moving onto age ten (I think) next time :)
Big thank you to my esteemed pa who (bless him) actually got up from the couch in the middle of watching 'Coast' to sit against the wall of the living room just so I could judge what height Brian would need to be in conjunction with the finger panel... awww. My dad didn't even ask me why, he just accepted it. Is that a reflection on me do you think? Is he that used to my random whimsical requests? Gotta say though, he was a little bit more disturbed when I asked him how a flick knife worked...
Love you Dad :D
PS. Is there a single person reading this fic who isn't thinking - 'Where the heck is this going?'/ 'What's going on?'/'IT HURTS MY MIND!'
?
*laughs at the apparent universal confusion, and then smirks at you evilly over steepled fingertips*