Chapter Sixteen: Discoveries
"All right, I know you've been slacking lately and I've been doing my best to ignore it since I know you're getting pretty old and it's to be expected, but this is the last straw. Now you're just being flat-out lazy and, d'arvit, that's not something I'm going to put up with. This is an important job you have and if you refuse to do it you I will have you replaced."
Foaly was in a bad mood. It wasn't without reason; in fact he had several things he could be upset about at that moment. An evil secret society was plotting to take over the world and had kidnapped the woman he lo— cared greatly about, and the one most capable of rescuing her had just insisted on leaving for the surface to take out her frustrations on an overly-pompous mud-boy.
"And don't think you can't be replaced either. You've been acting high and mighty for years and I think I wouldn't be the only one happy to see you go…"
However, Foaly had already worried himself sick over all these things separately and collectively, and having become frustrated with his inability to help, he was currently trying to get his mind off his worries. That was why, when the coffee machine had refused to work, he had snapped.
"Did you just laugh at me? Don't try and cover it with a gurgle, I heard you! You're not lazy at all, you're malicious! You're doing this on purpose, you enjoy tormenting me!"
Now it wasn't in Foaly's nature to do things like scream and break things, no matter how frustrated he got, so instead of finding something blunt to hit the machine with he had decided to rant at it.
"Okay, that's it, you've picked the wrong day to try and push my buttons. I've been trying to be nice but the truth is you're a piece of junk! Do you have any idea how obsolete you are? I've seen toothbrushes more technologically advanced than you! I bet I couldn't even sell you for scrap metal."
His co-workers had ignored his tirade for the first ten minutes; Foaly was, of course, the office eccentric. After half an hour however, even the most seasoned officers were finding themselves disturbed by the centaur's angry remarks.
"Don't you stare at me with that smug expression; the other appliances don't even like you. Just last week I heard—Oh, hello Commander."
Commander Sool had decided to deal with Foaly personally after twelve separate complaints had been lodged against him within fifteen minutes. Normally the commander would be thrilled at the opportunity to get the centaur in a bit of trouble, but he had heard from a gnome in reception that Foaly's sister had come in several weeks ago talking about a family emergency. Sool didn't really care what was happening in the technician's personal life, but if something serious had happened it would be bad for the commander's public image to deal with Foaly harshly right now.
Sool tried to smile sympathetically, which was really more scary than anything, and put his hand on Foaly's shoulder. "Foaly, I think it's time you stopped yelling at the coffee machine."
The centaur blushed as he realized how loud he must have been being and took a side step so the commander would stop touching him. He thought quickly to try to come up with a way to explain his actions without making himself seem crazy, but thankfully Sool saved him the trouble.
"I understand that you've been behaving very stressed lately, maybe it would best if you took a bit of a vacation." Sool let his smile drop. "Quite frankly I don't really trust you around dangerous tools regularly. There's no way I'm going to let you tinker with any weapon designs or whatever it is you do if you're wound tightly enough to explode at an appliance."
Foaly smiled nervously. "Right sir, sorry about that, I really don't need a vacation though. I just–"
Sool glared. "I don't want to hear it. Right now you're a danger to everyone here. I'm letting you off easy, just take a couple of weeks off and feel grateful I'm not forcing you into therapy."
Foaly groaned inwardly, he didn't like where this was going.
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Half an hour later the centaur found himself practically being shoved out the station's front door. He grumbled as he reached the bottom of the stairs, it seemed he now had another reason to be in a bad mood.
Still, even Foaly had to admit he was wound a little too tight if he was snapping at appliances. What he needed was someone to mock until he felt better. Foaly thought about it for a moment before the obvious occurred to him.
A smile formed on the centaur's face; after all, it had been far too long since he had been able to spend some quality time with his favorite dwarf.
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Estella was in a bad mood. Not only had she been kidnapped, she had been starved for days afterward, and even now, when she had a feeding tube in her arm, no one was willing to explain what was going on.
At first she had been going in and out of consciousness, possibly for a few days, but now she had finally regained enough strength to take in her surroundings. Not that there was much to see, just some standard medical equipment, some of it quite dated, and the occasional technician or nurse that would come to check on her.
It felt like it had been ages since Estella had heard a voice besides her own. Her visitors refused to say a word to her so she had no real idea where she was. On the rare occasion that more than one person came in at once they would only communicate through sign language; it was very frustrating.
Estella wasn't by nature an aggressive person and so she hesitated to try and escape; but eventually her frustration at having no idea what was going on overwhelmed her fears and she decided she'd have to jump the next person to walk through the door.
As if on cue she heard the door unlock and open behind her. Estella hurried to her hoofs and prepared to face whatever fairy the Jalingers might have sent. But when she turned around all thoughts flew out of her head. Before her stood the person she had begun to think she might never see again: her father, Mamilton Lunos.
For a moment Estella didn't believe her eyes, it didn't seem possible that he could really be there. But it was definitely him, he looked a bit more frazzled and much more tired than he had, but he still had the same scraggily gray hair, the same wrinkly face, and the same sad eyes. Estella hurried over to him and hugged him tightly.
She didn't even realize she was crying until she tried to speak and it came out as a mangled sob. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Where have you been Papa? I was so scared when you disappeared and I saw those tracks outside your window, I thought you'd been kidnapped! Why did you run away Papa? Why are you working with these Jalingers? Please, tell me what's going on!"
Mamilton smiled sadly at his daughter, it had been far too long since he had been able to speak with her, but he was glad that she had recovered her health at least. Only a week ago she had been starved and frail, kept isolated at Rognab's order. Thank goodness the cruel elf had finally decided to let her out.
Mamilton pushed the thought aside; he had other things to think about right now, and a lot of explaining to do. Still, he wasn't ready to start. Estella had always looked up to him so much growing up; he hated to reveal his dark history to her.
"I'm sorry Stelly," he said. "I never wanted for you to get involved in all this, but I understand that I owe you an explanation. All of this started, for me at least, eight hundred years ago, back when I was earning my graduate degree at my technology university.
"I was the top of my class by far and I specialized in the field of robotics. I was different then, more arrogant, more radical. I knew the inventions I was making were astounding my professors and I was ready to shake the world with them. I wanted my robots to change the world; I just needed to figure out how. That's when I was approached by Camilla and Evergreen."
Estella stiffened at the infamous names.
"Yes," her father continued, "they went on to become the leaders, or supposed leaders, of the Jalingers, but at that time they were just regular members and the Jalingers were just a bunch of radical collage students who wanted something to rebel against. No one saw them as any sort of threat.
"Unfortunately Evergreen wanted to change that. He truly believed that the People should reclaim the Earth's surface as their own and he wanted people to take the Jalingers' ideas seriously. He wanted me to build the Jalingers something that could cause some serious damage and bring attention and respect to their group.
"At first I didn't want to but then they converted me to their ideals. It sounded so unfair that the People were forced to hide like cowards underground from such an inferior race as the Mud Men. They told me what it was like to perform the ritual on the surface beneath a full moon. It sounded like a paradise and for all my intellect I never thought to question them. I'm sorry to say it but I joined them.
"Not long after we held a protest outside a local government building, trying to convince people to vote to eliminate shuttle travel restrictions. No one outside the group was taking our protest seriously though. Camilla decided it was time to use one of my inventions. I'd rather not tell you what I had built, I'm ashamed to even think about it, but it resulted in an explosion that destroyed the building we were outside. No one was killed, but there were a few close calls.
"After that almost all of the Jalingers were expelled, some of us even arrested, and our whole group had to go underground, no pun intended. Still, most of us continued to support our cause and we were able to proceed with our plans. It was Camilla who organized the infiltration of the government; she was a master strategist, while at the same time twisting our motives. Soon we were prepared to kill any enemies we had until we had enough support to conquer the Mud Men. I was in charge of designing our weaponry."
The old centaur covered his face in shame. "I wish I could tell you that I was against these ideas Estella, but there was a time when I was as ruthless as the rest of them. You don't understand what it was like though. The Jalingers logic all seemed so perfect then, so convincing. Camilla and Evergreen were beyond charismatic, when they spoke it was like there were gods in the room. It was impossible to think they could ever be wrong, I never felt any reason to doubt."
Estella was crying again, she had never known this part of her father and it scared her. The whole story was painful to listen to. "But if you were so certain that you were doing the right thing why did you change your mind? You seem so full of regret now."
Mamilton smiled sadly at her question, it brought back many bittersweet memories. "Shortly after the Jalingers revealed the power they had amassed to the People I was given an assistant. I had needed one to help me keep up with the sudden increase in demand for better technological weaponry and defense. We all had code-names in the Jalingers so I didn't know her real name, but I did know that she was a beautiful centaur that I was to call Naga. She eventually became your mother.
"I was so head over hooves for her that I started to get clumsy with my blue-prints. I kept putting them in odd places and leaving them disorganized. At least that's what I thought. After several months I caught Naga in my lab when she wasn't supposed to be. She was copying the designs we were working on to give to a rebellion group. She was a spy.
"When she saw me she was terrified. She started to tell me that she had infiltrated the Jalingers so she could get revenge, they had killed many friends of hers and she wanted to destroy them from within to make sure they never killed anyone else. She kept waiting for me to respond but I was too dumbstruck to do anything. My ideals were being twisted inside-out. I had always blindly supported everything the Jalingers told me, the bloodshed was far away, and it wasn't real. But here was this girl I loved in such pain because of what we had done.
"At the time I knew I should turn her in. She was a threat to everything the Jalingers stood for, but I didn't do anything. She spent the next few days in terror, wondering if I was going to expose her. I couldn't at that point though; she had allowed my eyes to finally be opened to the obvious and painful truth. Eventually I became so torn up about it that I broke down and had to run away. I never really understood why but Naga decided to come with me.
"Shortly after we left the rebels made their famous final assault and Evergreen and Camilla were executed. Without them the Jalingers soon feel apart and it looked like the world could actually be free of them. People everywhere were becoming hopeful but Naga and I knew better than that. Many of the Jalingers were gone but there would be survivors, and they would be after us and anyone else who betrayed them.
"That's why Naga and I went into hiding under Africa. It was utter chaos there and no one was likely to find us. We underestimated just how angry they were with us though. Their anger gave them the motivation to hunt for us for years. Finally they found us.
"It was a few years after you had been born. We were heading to a near-by town but when the shuttle arrived at the station it exploded. You and I were lucky enough to avoid the blast but your mother wasn't. The remains of a bomb were later found in the station but we weren't surprised, we knew it had to be our pasts catching up with us.
"After Naga died I ran away again. I moved to Haven because I didn't think anyone would suspect me moving to someplace so densely populated. It worked for a while, I was able to continue our family's traditional business and raise you, but Rognab was still able to find me. After that I wanted to run away again, but I'm old now, I'm in my final years, I had to go back to the Jalingers and face what they had in store for me. And above all else I had to make sure you would be safe."
Estella was sitting on the floor with her head whirling as she tried to take all of this in. "But why did you go to all the trouble of making it look like you'd been kidnapped? Why didn't you tell me the truth before?"
"I didn't want to tell you Stelly, I couldn't bear to think about how much it would hurt you. Still, I knew I couldn't just let the Jalingers come back into power. I staged my kidnapping so you would send for help.
"I underestimated you though, you already had suspicions about my past and so you took the case to the two least credible detectives you could find in the hopes that they would put you on the right track to finding me without learning that I had been a Jalinger.
"How do you know all of that Papa?"
"Rognab's been watching you and your detectives for a while now. He's the one who had you kidnapped while you were with that dwarf."
Estella's eyes widened. "I think know who you mean! Wasn't he the elf who came into our shop? I remember you looked shocked to see him, like you had known him before."
"Oh, I did," said Mamilton darkly. "He's an elf almost as old as the Jalingers themselves and the only true leader they've ever had."
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Artemis was in a bad mood. Just when he had finally solved the troubling problem of Matt something far worse had come along. Now there was some tyrannical group of fairies about to attack humanity. It seemed clear to Artemis that he was never going to be able to enjoy a day without dramatic surprises or running across someone who wanted to kill him. It was times like this that he almost wished he wasn't quite such an amazing genius, life would be a great deal simpler.
Artemis had been sitting silently next to Butler for the past five minutes as they drove back to St. Bartleby's; however when he looked at his manservant he realized he should probably explain what was going on.
"So what do you want us to do?" Butler asked once he had heard Holly's story.
"I believe that this Jalinger group is manipulating Crane and Sparrow into stealing certain paintings at certain times to act as code for their group. If you'll recall Ms. Kagawa said that Crane and Sparrow had been working for an unknown third party that she had only seen the eyes of on a video phone. That was the technique Briar Cudgeon used to mesmerize that French detective during the goblin rebellion. It can't be a coincidence.
"I think we should go to Crane and Sparrow and cut off their trade once and for all. I'm going to need access to my computers at the manor though. If I'm going to plan this decently I'll need to know exactly what they've been up to. But drop me at St. Bartleby's first, there are some things I should pick up."
Butler nodded and a few minutes later they pulled up in front of the school. Artemis hastily got out of the car and started to hurry up the school's front steps. He was in such a rush that he barely even noticed when he bumped into someone on the way up. However, he was soon forced to acknowledge the encounter when the person grabbed his wrist and spun him around.
Despite his rather distracted state of mind Artemis still had several scathing comments on the tip of his tongue, he wasn't about to let anyone rough-house him like that, however they all died away when he saw that it was Artemis Fowl Senior standing before him.
"Father! This is a surprise. What made you decide to come visit me so suddenly?"
Mr. Fowl looked very serious, in fact he looked downright grim, and for a moment Artemis was worried that some family emergency had occurred.
"Artemis," his father said slowly, as if he were trying to restrain a great amount of anger, "I want you to come home with me right now. You have some serious explaining to do."
Artemis looked at his father strangely, just what was going on here? It was lucky that he had to go to Fowl Manor anyway, otherwise Artemis might have had to argue with his father until he could break away. Whatever Fowl Senior was angry about couldn't take precedence over the danger the People were in right now. Artemis would just have to lock himself in his room as soon as they got home.
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A/N: I'm very very sorry about the horrible delay for this update. I've had a lot going on and I had a long bout of writer's block. Fear not though! I've already started working on chapter seventeen so my next update should be much sooner. Thank you all for your patience and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.