Thirteen: Aftershock, part one

She was in a track suit, doing some preliminary stretches, when she realized she was being watched. As she continued her warm up, allowing her limbs to grow limber before she headed out into the cool morning for a run, she could feel the weight of that stare, like that of a hunter, weighing, assessing – or perhaps like that of a lover, yearning, admiring. Perhaps both.

"Are you going to stare at me all morning or do you have something to say?" she asked without turning.

"You're not really going out there are you?" It was grey and drizzling, much as it had been for the past several mornings.

Holly shrugged, turning to face Artemis. "I've got to keep in form even on vacation."

"And here I thought you'd had enough exertion last night."

"Hmm. That was lovely, Arty," she said with a quirked eyebrow, "but it's really not the same as a good run."

He glanced out the window into the grey gloom of the morning and grimaced, looking utterly unconvinced. "Come on," she said, crossing the room to snag him by the front of his shirt. "Get your jacket. You're coming with me."

"I beg your pardon?"

She rolled her eyes. "You haven't left the house in three days. Not once!"

"There was no need," he replied cooly.

"Need? Artemis, honestly you should be the one living underground. You probably wouldn't even noticed the recycled air."

"I have work to do."

"What work? We're on vacation."

"Very well," he replied with a sigh. As she watched him fetch his jacket and gloves, she was almost certain he had agreed just to avoid answering her question.

ooo

With Artemis tagging along, her run turned into something more akin to a leisurely walk, but she didn't mind all that much. Their two weeks together were drawing to a close. Soon she would have to return to Haven and gods only knew how long it would be until they would see each other again at all, let alone for an extended period of time.

For a long while they walked in silence beneath the drooping branches of willows and horse chestnuts, Artemis grimacing whenever a drop or two slid from the wet branches and caught him in the face. No, she supposed he really wouldn't miss living aboveground.

"Are you hiding something, Artemis?" she blurted all at once, for he was being quiet even by his standards.

He flashed an incisor. "Holly, after all these years you should know the answer to that."

She huffed. "And the answer is you're always hiding something."

He shrugged. "I always have projects in the works and I detest revealing my plans before they're ready. Must you always assume the worst?"

She cast him a sideways glance and caught him with a peculiar look on his face, as if he had an unpleasant taste on his tongue. It certainly didn't make him look more sincere. "Artemis..."

They had wandered again toward a section of the old fortifications. As they drew nearer, she hopped up onto the stones so that she could look him in the eye. She opened her mouth to speak but he placed a finger over her lips before she could utter a word. "Please, Holly. I assure you I'm not at present working on anything dastardly."

Her lips thinned to a line, and for a long moment she regarded his features in silence, hands on her hips. Finally, she sighed. "All right."

He smiled. "Good. In that case..." And there he leaned forward, arms wrapping around her waist and drawing her closer to press a heated kiss to her lips.

She closed her eyes and let herself relax against him – until something jarred her back to reality and she jerked away from him. "Artemis, what is that?" she demanded.

His lips quirked. "I'd think you'd be intimately acquainted with that by now."

She scowled at him. "I mean in your mouth."

"Ah," he said, straightening. "That. I suppose–"

But what he supposed she never found out as something struck her, sending a sharp pain through her arm, and then the world seemed to grow dim. The last thing she saw was Artemis's hand darting into his jacket pocket even as he slumped to his knees.

ooo

Foaly yawned and stretched out his hindquarters, glad that this long shift was finally coming to an end. Caballine hated it when he had to work late. He was just packing up his things when a signal came in from a very special line he kept open at all times – just in case.

"Mud Boy, do you know what time it is here?" he said as he opened the com line.

"Foaly," said a voice that was quite certainly not Artemis's, "this is Butler. I'm afraid we have a problem."

Foaly rubbed at his tired eyes. "What kind of problem?"

"Artemis and Holly are missing."

Foaly gave a horsey laugh. "Missing?" he scoffed. "They're probably off on the grounds somewhere having a good shag. No need to panic."

"Now listen to me," Butler said and the steel in his voice suddenly made Foaly recall just how large the Mud Man really was. "They are not on the grounds. I've had Artemis carrying a panic button ever since Opal Koboi got loose. He and Holly went out for a walk and didn't come back and he pressed that button. Our security system didn't register a thing. Which means there was fairy technology involved."

"D'Arvit," Foaly mumbled, fingers already racing over the keyboards.

"My thoughts exactly," said Butler.

ooo

Artemis's eyes fluttered open, but he did not move. Remain still, he told himself, though his instinct was to look around, to learn where he was and whether Holly was there with him, to call out to her. Familiarise yourself with your environs; analyse the situation. That was what Butler had taught him to do, though it took all of his steely will to still the frantic beating of his heart and simply open his eyes.

His world was crisscrossed by a silver mesh that stretched out as far as his eyes could see. He was in a cage, lying on his side. Across the room, he could see other cages, all empty. Above him, at the corner of his vision, he could make out a yellow cylinder with bold, red Gnommish characters on it: In case of emergency, pull tab, press button. A fire extinguisher. A fairy fire extinguisher. And yet the rest of what he glimpsed seemed to include items too primitive to be fairy technology: the cages had mechanical locks; wires snaked out of pieces of equipment.

Very slowly, he shifted so that he could get a better look around. There were two doors at opposite ends of the room. Perhaps five feet away was what appeared to be an operating pallet and he was reminded of the one he himself had lain on in Opal's facility beneath the Extinctionists' compound. He raised himself until he could see a slim, nut brown hand, shackled to the table at the wrist.

Holly!

He bit his lip and kept silent. The hand moved, straining against the bonds and he heard a long string of muttered curses, all in Gnommish. Like most officers, Holly could employ a colourful vocabulary when she was so inclined. She fell silent as the door across the room creaked open. He watched that hand ball into a fist, and then a moment later he, too, could see the figure that strode into the room.

Draped in a pristine lab coat was a woman, short for a human but too tall for a fairy. Her jet black hair hung limply around features that had become more angular these past few years, but there was no doubt that this was indeed Opal Koboi, the Opal Koboi who had had a human pituitary glad implanted in her brain.

She crossed the room, coming to stand near his cage. "Hello, Captain Short. So good to see you again."

"Koboi," Holly snarled.

"It has been a while, has it not?"

"What do you want?" Holly said, straining against her bonds until a ribbon of blood dribbled from her wrist and a blue spark leaped to heal the wound.

"No need to play the fool. I'm sure you can guess what I'm after."

"Oh yes," Holly said, sounding exasperated – he could just imagine her rolling her eyes. "Revenge. Of course. Silly me."

"Among other things," Opal said, in languid tones that sent a chill down his spine. Clearly she had something nefarious planned for Holly and himself and was relishing it, drawing things out to torment them as much as she could. But a good hunter knew better than to play with its prey, especially dangerous prey such as himself. "Captain, you're out of uniform," Opal tutted. "This means there's no way for your friends at the LEP to track you. Very careless."

Artemis stayed very still, watching through the slits of his eyes. He had been dealing with Opal for six years now, long enough to know that her schemes had a flair for melodrama. She would not proceed until she believed him to be conscious.

"As soon as your friend here is awake again we can proceed."

"With what?" Holly snapped.

Again, Opal paused near his cage. She reached into her pocket, muttering as first a ballpoint pen, a handkerchief, a then a shuttle starter chip emerged. She set all of these down on the counter top to her left and then reached into the pocket once more to finally pull out a small glass tube sealed with a stopper. Inside was what appeared to be a brown slug-like creature with a dozen spines. Revulsion rose up in Artemis as Opal's entire plan unfolded itself in his mind's eye. He had to act fast. Fast and quiet.

Opal moved to stand at the end of the operating pallet, back to Artemis, and held up the tube so that Holly could see its contents. "You, Captain Short will have the honour of being my first fairy test subject, the first to contribute your DNA to enhance my life expectancy."

And while Holly was telling Opal in the most colourful of terms what she could do with her "honour," Artemis set to work.

He reached a finger into his mouth to unhook the brace set against his upper teeth, the one Holly had, much to his dismay, noticed that morning when he'd kissed her, perhaps a little more fervently than had been wise given the circumstances. The brace required more fine-tuning as it did not yet fit as exactly as he would have liked and it had proven uncomfortable and awkward to keep in place. Even so, it had served its purpose.

Extracting it from his mouth, he then freed the tiny device it held, the ominitool he'd been working on so meticulously for weeks now, stripping it down to the barest of components so that it could be more easily concealed. Opal was still droning on about her plan rather than getting right down to it – toying with them, as always. She could always be counted on to waste time in order to satisfy her own vanity.

Artemis held the omnitool to the lock on his cage. The click was barely discernable over the sound of Holly's voice. And then, a plan– crude but effective, he hoped – already in place, he crawled out of the cage and snatched up what he would need.

Please understand, Holly. You must understand...

ooo

Opal glowered down at Holly, holding the slug that would, apparently, be extracting her DNA. Now, sharing DNA with Artemis by swapping eyes in the time stream was one thing; becoming one on a molecular level with Opal Koboi was another entirely and Holly let her know in very clear terms what she thought of the proposal.

"It will be a fitting end to you and Fowl," Opal snarled.

"Careful, Koboi," Holly warned, "your face might stick that way."

"Enough of your insolence, elf!" Koboi snapped. "It's all your fault. All of it! Look at this!" she said, pointing to a spot just beneath her left cheekbone.

Holly peered at her for a long moment. "Look at what?" she said finally.

"A crease! Already my skin is becoming less elastic. I am withering away before your very eyes."

"What about Artemis?" she asked. If he was still free there was a chance of escape.

Opal dashed all her hopes. "Oh don't worry. He's in the cage over there," she said gesturing vaguely behind her. "I won't proceed until he wakes up. It wouldn't be nearly as satisfying if he didn't get to watch. First you. Then him."

Or so she thinks. Holly held still, freezing her expression so as not to betray the triumph that welled up in her as she glimpsed movement behind Opal. She had to suppress a groan as Artemis's manoeuverings caused a good deal of clattering and Opal spun on her heel, hand darting to the pocket of her lab coat.

Artemis's voice was like arctic wind. "Do not move."

Opal froze, hand in her pocket where Holly assumed she must have a weapon of some sort. It took a moment for Holly to truly grasp the absurdity of the scene. Artemis stood a few feet away from Opal, hand poised on the big yellow release button of a standard issue fire extinguisher. A typical extinguisher would emit a jet of expanding foam that would interrupt the chemical reaction of the fire. It would slow Opal down, that was certain, but it would not stop her.

"You've got nowhere to go," Opal said in a tone that, though her back was turned, suggested to Holly that she had a smirk on her face.

"So you think." And with one of his vampire smiles, Artemis raised his free hand, displaying a starter chip for a shuttle.

"You've never piloted a shuttle," Opal scoffed. "You wouldn't be able to get it off the ground."

But Artemis was still smiling. "I've spent enough time in fairy shuttles over the years to observe the basic procedures. And besides," he added with a shrug, "all modern fairy shuttles are programmed with an autopilot so one need not have great proficiency to perform basic manoeuvres."

Holly's eyes flicked to the hand that remained in Opal's pocket as her arm twitched. She must surely have a blaster. One wrong move and Artemis would wind up unconscious again and they'd be worse off than ever. But this was Artemis, she reminded herself, and he was not wont to make wrong moves.

"Please remove your hand from your pocket," Artemis said, eyes fixed on Opal. He never so much as glanced to where Holly lay on the operating pallet, but she watched him and the expression he wore was one she had not seen in years, one she had last seen on the face of a twelve-year-old boy who had sought to kidnap a fairy.

Opal slowly removed her hand, raising it, palm up, yet she remained oddly calm and that troubled Holly who, with her wrists and ankles still shackled could do little more than raise her head. "I have had enough of this. You may use that extinguisher, but you'll only buy yourself seconds, not enough time to release your friend." She backed up several paces as she spoke. Artemis matched her step for step until he was standing next to Holly.

"I realize that," Artemis said with equal calm. "Sadly, sometimes in life as in chess, a gambit is necessary to further the game."

Holly's heart dropped.

In chess, a gambit is when a player offers a piece to be sacrificed in the hope of gaining a tactical advantage later in the game.

She could remember him explaining it in that calm, dispassionate voice he used when playing professor. He had used that same voice now.

Opal laughed shrilly. "This is delightful. After all the times Captain Short has saved your life you would just leave her to me?"

Artemis shrugged. "It's the king who must not be taken, after all. Everything else is expendable." He glanced down at her on the pallet. "You understand, don't you, Holly?" She stared up at him, mouth hanging open, not believing what she was hearing. A gambit? What was he thinking in that devious mind of his?

His hand motioned with the extinguisher towards Opal again. "Did you ever wonder, Holly," he said, without looking at her, eyes still fixed on Opal, "if there could be something more?"

"More?" she repeated, brows creased.

And then, hand still clasping the extinguisher, still pointing it in Opal's direction, Artemis leaned down and kissed Holly.

ooo

When Artemis straightened a moment later, Holly was staring at him, eyes wide, mouth agape. Please understand, Holly.

Her jaw snapped shut. "Don't touch me, Fowl," she snarled between gritted teeth.

Artemis heaved a sigh. "Ah well. I suppose not."

And then, just as Opal's hand, which had been creeping back towards her pocket, dived for her weapon, Artemis pressed the button on the extinguisher, releasing a jet of purple foam. The foam enveloped Opal, leaving her coughing and cursing but her hand was still in the vicinity of her pocket and as the jet of foam quickly sputtered and died, Artemis threw down the empty canister and bolted towards the exit.

He was banking on the facility being relatively small and having a simple layout. He was not disappointed. After following the main corridor for some minutes, he found himself at a shuttle port where a small transport shuttle was docked. Wasting no time, he took the starter chip he had snatched up from where Opal had left it on the counter, and unlocked the door to the pilot's compartment. Already he could hear the patter of footfalls in the corridor. Opal had followed, refusing to simply be satisfied with having captured one of them. She would have both of them. It was typical of her. Brilliant, methodical, but unable to control her own vanity, her emotions, whereas he had had to shunt his aside if his plan was to have any hope of success.

Artemis scanned the interior of the cabin, quickly taking note of the controls and comparing them to those Holly had piloted during their many adventures. Sitting down in the pilot's seat he took a deep breath and let his fingers fly over the controls. He could not have spent all that time watching Holly fly without picking up a thing or two...

ooo

Opal Koboi seethed as she felt the sting of the fire retardants on the bare skin of her face. The chemicals were completely non-toxic but would almost certainly contribute to the already evident degradation of her skin's natural smoothness and silky texture. Again and again Fowl had managed to outmanoeuver her due to the incompetence of her subordinates, but today would be different. There was no one else here to ruin her plans. She already had Captain Short, and Fowl would be next.

She moved at a steady trot down the corridor to the shuttle port. The look on Holly Short's face at the end had been priceless. Opal could not have planned it better herself. Not only would she have the elf's DNA to help rejuvenate her own molecular structure, but the captain was now completely demoralized, abandoned by the very human she had sought to protect all these years. It was perfect!

Blaster held out before her, she approached the entranceway to the shuttleport with caution. Already she could hear the low whirr of the shuttle's engines. This time he would have nothing to hide behind, while she had the butt of a blaster in her palm. And though normally she did prefer to leave such matters to her underlings, today she would take particular pleasure in shooting Artemis Fowl herself.

A smile of utter delight broke onto her face as she stepped into the shuttleport. The shuttle had taken off certainly, but was making lazy loops around the interior of the port, hovering near the ceiling while the hatch above remained closed. She'd known that that human, for all his boasting would never be able to understand the complexities of flying a shuttle in a matter of minutes. Those males were all alike. His own arrogance would be his undoing.

Gleeful, Opal upped the setting on her blaster and then took aim. A pair of blasts sank into the shuttle's engines, sending it plunging to the floor while Opal ducked back into the hallway for cover. After the attendant crash, she hurried back into the room, blaster held at the ready. Nothing moved, and with cautious steps she made her way towards the mangled shuttle, its front end crumpled, its engines smoking.

Blaster pointed forward, she approached the shuttle's cockpit, squeezing through the gap between the metal framework and the door. When she reached the interior, she shrieked.

The cockpit was empty.

ooo

"D'Arvit, Artemis! What took you so long?" Holly said as he dashed into the room, chest heaving.

"My... apologies... Holly," he panted in response as she used the omnitool he had slipped her to loosen the shackle around her left leg.

"Do you have an idea what sort of contortions I had to perform to get these things unlocked?" she asked as she finished with the last one.

"No, but please feel free to demonstrate once we've reached safety."

She rolled her eyes and hopped off the pallet. "Here," she said handing him back the omnitool. "That could have gone badly, you know – I almost swallowed it."

Before confronting Opal, he had replaced the omnitool in his mouth and slipped it to Holly when he had kissed her. That had been the real risk. He had wagered their future that she would figure out from there on what had to be done. And she had.

"I'm relieved. I'm afraid I hadn't time to come up with a plan B."

"What about the shuttle?"

He flashed a smile. "I told Opal herself what I intended to do. The autopilot. I simply programmed it to circle the room and allowed Opal to draw unwarranted conclusions about my piloting skills while I slipped past her in the confusion and returned here."

They had just reached the door on the far side of the room when they saw someone whom they'd expected to see there about as much as they'd expect to see a three-legged unicorn. Which was to say, not at all...


A/N: Yes, a plot snuck in there. Not sure how that happened. ;) Don't worry; it won't get dragged out very long. In fact I should have the last chapter posted before book seven hits shelves.