Thank you samin90 for reviewing last chapter! I just finished chapter 3, so here it is!

3

After the press conference Holly seemed to grow even more distressed than before. Chief among her concerns was her inability to warn Foaly about the probe, since the LEP pursuit pods had blown out their communications before she and Artemis ever came aboard.

"I have no doubt he already know," said Artemis. "That centaur monitors all the human news channels." He knew this, of course, from the files on his disk, and at that moment he was very glad for this knowledge. It helped make him sound more convincing, and in the state Holly was in now, he couldn't afford for her to even suspect that he wasn't who he claimed to be.

"But he doesn't know that Opal Koboi is giving Zito the benefit of her fairy knowledge." Holly pointed at Giovanni's image on the screen. "Look at his eyes. The poor man has been mesmerized so many times that his pupils are actually ragged."

Artemis stroked his chin thoughtfully as he took in what Holly was talking about. It was one thing to read about a symptom, but a completely different thing to view it for himself. "If I know Foaly," he said (which he didn't, but pretending he did was better than the alternative), "he's been monitoring this project since its initiation. He probably already has a contingency plan."

"I'm sure he has," agreed Holly. "A contingency plan for a crackpot scheme in ten years' time that will probably never work."

"Of course," agreed Artemis. "As opposed to a scientifically viable scheme, right now, that has every chance of succeeding."

Holly headed for the cockpit. "I have to turn myself in, even if I am a murder suspect. There is more at stake here than my future."

"Steady on," objected Mulch. "I broke out of prison for you. I have no desire to be shoved back in again."

Artemis stepped in front of her. "Wait a minute, Holly," he said, and now knew that he was making the right decision about deceiving her. It didn't make him feel any better about his lies, but now he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were necessary. If Holly knew that she was putting her trust in the hands of an unscrupulous genius with no memories of her influences on him, she would act all the more irrational. "Think about what will happen if you do turn yourself in," he urged her.

"Artemis is right," added Butler. "You should think about this. If the LEP is anything like human police forces, fugitives are not exactly welcomed with open arms. Open cell doors, maybe."

That made Holly stop for a moment. She considered and then began to think out loud. "If I give myself up to Internal Affairs, I will be taken into custody. As an LEP officer, I can be held for 72 hours without counsel. As a murder suspect I can be held for up to a week. Even if someone did believe that I was completely innocent, and that Opal Koboi was behind all this, it would still take at least 8 hours to get clearance for an operation. But in all likelihood, my claims would be dismissed as the standard protests of the guilty. Especially with you three backing up my story. No offense."

"None taken," said Mulch.

Holly sat and put her head in her hands. "My world is utterly gone. I keep thinking that there will be a way back, but things just keep spinning farther and farther out of control."

Artemis put his hand on her shoulder without thinking. "Courage, Captain. Ask yourself, what would the commander do?"
Holly turned narrow eyes on him and Artemis felt a bead of sweat on his brow as he realized that he must have slipped up. He'd been too warm and sincere for her to believe that it was really him . . . though it actually had been all him, and not an act. Those words had come out unbidden, the words of someone who genuinely wanted to comfort their friend. And they were going to be his undoing.

"Don't you try to manipulate me, Artemis Fowl," snapped Holly.

Artemis couldn't suppress a flinch.

"I make my own decisions . . . Even so, Julius would take care of Opal Koboi himself. So that's what we're going to do?"

It is? You still don't see through me? You haven't figured out what a pathetic fake I am yet? Artemis forced a smile. "Excellent. In that case, we will need a strategy."

"Right. I'll fly the shuttle; you put that brain of yours to work and come up with a plan."

"Each to his own," said the boy, and sat down to scheme.

Artemis had no trouble mining the LEP ship's computers for the information that he needed, then giving a convincing interpretation of the facts to his companions. Computers were a language all their own, so even though he was relearning Gnommish on the fly, he was still able to navigate it with relative ease. And lecturing was something he'd always been comfortable with. Scheming and deducing too, so he had no problems maintain his charade while engaged in those acts.

In order to finalize his plot there was more that he needed to know about shuttles and charges. Unfortunately, he couldn't remember if those were things that he already should have known. He solved that problem easily enough though, with a master stroke: redirection. He got Holly to explain what he needed to know while she navigated their shuttle through the tricky subterranean passages. She was too busy concentrating on what she was doing to be suspicious if he asked anything that he should have already known.

Before they resurfaced in Italy, he managed to awe her once again with his cranial prowess by finding the supposedly undetectable stealth shuttle using their own ship's extremely limited scanning technology. That was child's play, really. Ridiculous, how despite the millions of whatever currency units you chose to calculate it in, that went into developing the stealth technology in Opal's shuttle, it was so easily overcome. Finding the "hole in the air" as Holly put it, took less than a minute.

In celebration Holly punched him in the shoulder. The blow was probably rather light for her, as she was obviously trying to be friendly and congratulate him, but Artemis couldn't suppress a wince. He wondered how he'd managed to endure this sort of treatment when he and Holly really were friends. Unfortunately, he was in no position to complain. He didn't know what he had said to her on the subject of bruising him in the past, and he couldn't risk repeating an argument he already made as though it was the first time he'd voiced it.

They put his plan into motion and sent Mulch into enemy territory. Then they began their fake grid search, dropping explosives into each square, as though they were searching for Opal's shuttle, rather than merely diverting her attention.

When they arrived at the rendezvous sight, Mulch was already waiting for them, with a bulging bag.

"Did you get it?" Artemis asked anxiously as soon as Butler hauled the dwarf inside.

"Right here," Mulch said, handing over the bag. "And before you ask, I left the radio."

Phase One was a success then. Artemis couldn't keep a smile off his face as he hurried back into the cockpit. "Go!" he shouted, thumping Holly's headrest.

"We're gone," she said, and the next thing Artemis knew, his legs were flying up behind him as the shuttle throttled forward.

"How much time do we have?" Holly asked him as he pulled himself into the passenger sear.

"Minutes," he told her. "The orebody will hit a depth of 105 miles in precisely one quarter of an hour. Opal will be after us any second."

They were cutting it close, but then, that was the usual for Artemis, and hopefully for his alter ego as well. When Holly asked him if his plan was going to work, he hoped that it was her nerves speaking, and not some roundabout way of hinting that perhaps he wasn't who he was pretending to be. Not that it would matter soon anyway.

"I considered eight plans, and this was the best one. Even so, we have a sixty-four percent chance of success. The key is to keep Opal distracted so she doesn't discover the truth. That's up to you, Holly. Can you do it?"

Amazingly, she didn't realize that she was being distracted right there, just as much as Opal. Just as well though, since this was no time for her to start doubting his tactical abilities. After this was over she could doubt him all she wanted. In fact, she probably would, since he was planning on coming clean anyway. The deception was wearing down on him. It was even more exhausting than physical exertion and he knew that he wouldn't be able to keep it up much longer. Any way he looked at it, it was only a matter of time before he slipped up and asked something that he should have already known, or said something that he'd already said before.

Opal began chasing them, right on schedule. In fact, every move she made played right into Artemis' hands. Taunting her about the stolen truffles and watching her spaz out was even more enjoyable than stealing The Fairy Thief. Almost as enjoyable as watching Opal accidentally blow up her own ship.

The escape from her heat seeking missiles that followed was nerve wracking. Artemis had lost track of how many times he'd nearly thrown up that day, yet somehow he managed to avoid doing so yet again. He should have anticipated Opal trying to shoot them down. Perhaps the old him would have. He didn't know. It was becoming harder and harder to guess what kind of person he had been, especially since he was becoming less and less sure what kind of person he was now.

The pilot of the LEP ship that drew off the heat seeking missiles seemed to be a friend of Holly's. When Artemis protested his comment about every occupant of the shuttle being under arrest, on the grounds that the LEP had no jurisdiction over humans (more information gleaned from the files on his disk) the pilot seemed to know who he was right away.

"Let me guess," he said with a sigh. "Artemis Fowl, right? I should have known. You people are becoming quite the team."

It bothered him that this stranger knew who he was, when he didn't even know if he knew this stranger or not. It was a warning that his lies were going to start unraveling faster and faster. Artemis thought about coming clean to his companions right then and there, but from the look on Holly's face, he deduced that that might not be the safest course of action. She had really wanted Opal Koboi. Having to return to Haven without her must have stung, probably even more than Artemis' arm when Holly had punched him while she was happy. He didn't want to know how hard she would hit when she was mad.

They were taken back to Haven and housed/confined in the shuttleport's executive lounge. Even though they were under guard, it was all very civil. They were given good food and clean clothes, though nothing fit Butler. There were even entertainment centers, though Artemis paid little attention to those. He needed time to think and figure out what to say to his friends. Or rather, his alter ego's friends. It hurt worse and worse to realize that the people he'd bonded with over the course of the last twenty-four hours weren't really his friends. Except for Butler, of course. He did not relish losing the illusion, even though he'd known all along that this wasn't real.

Try as he might though, Artemis could not figure out how to break the truth to Mulch and Holly. He was still dwelling on it half an hour after their arrival, when the door flew open and in galloped the strangest creature he could ever remember laying eyes on. He knew what it was immediately though. He'd read mythology texts after all.

"Holly!" the centaur cried, enveloping the elf in a hug. "I am so happy that you're alive."

"Me too, Foaly," said Holly with a grin, confirming Artemis's theory that this particular centaur was the famous Foaly. The one who'd wiped his memories.

"A little hello wouldn't hurt," said Mulch sulkily. "'How are you, Mulch? Long time no see, Mulch. Here's your medal, Mulch.'"

"Oh, all right," said Foaly, and he wrapped one arm around the dwarf, while keeping one around Holly. Artemis couldn't help but glower as the centaur stood with one arm wrapped around each of the fairies who were once his friends. Somehow, it was like losing them all over again, even if he couldn't remember the first time he'd lost them.

"Nice to see you too, Mulch, even if you did sink one of my subs," said Foaly, oblivious to Artemis's glare. "And no, no medal."

"Because of the sub," argued Mulch. "If I hadn't done it, your bones would be buried under a hundred million tons of molten iron right now."

"Good point," noted the centaur. "I'll mention it at your hearing." And then he turned to Artemis. He looked at the young teen and smiled. Like they were friends. Which of course they weren't. Artemis somehow doubted that they could have been friends before the mindwipe, but if they had been, Foaly was out of luck. He'd effectively killed the person Artemis had been before, for without those memories, he was hardly the same person.

"I see you managed to cheat the mindwipe, Artemis," said the centaur.

Artemis tried to return the strange creature's smile, but his facial muscles wouldn't cooperate. The best that he could seem to manage was a grimace and his stomach turned uncomfortably with the effort. It's time to end the lie, he realized. I can't do this anymore.

He held up his hand, palm facing Foaly in a halting motion, as the centaur reached his own hand out toward Artemis for a handshake.

"Actually," said Artemis uncomfortably, taking a step back, "I didn't."

It took his companions a few moments to process what he'd said, but as they realized, all gazes were drawn toward him.

Artemis forced himself to look at Mulch, then at Holly, taking care to meet their eyes. "Sorry," he whispered, miserably. "I really am. But I lied to you. I . . . I don't remember anything."

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In the next chapter Artemis must explain himself to his friends then realizes that there's something else he should be worrying about too, as all the stress that's been put on his body since the previous day starts to catch up to him. Please review and let me know what you think or if you have ideas about what you want to happen!