A/N: So I realized that I'm technically not entirely TLG-compliant because of a minor detail about that clone-Artemis. Oh well. I don't tend to think about the last two books very much anyway... Also, we're moving into the second half of the story, so you can think of this part as the start of a "slow reveal" of what the heck has been going on.

A long time from now, I will be there when she needs me to be.

Nineteen years before the death of Artemis Fowl

"Let me see the simulation again."

"Very well," responded Clio, her figure flashing purple as she interfaced with the tachyon detection mainframe.

Artemis could have sworn she sounded a little annoyed. But there was no way that was true. He was just projecting his own emotions onto the AI's tone.

A world map appeared on the wall in front of him, and underneath it, a timeline showing the next two thousand years.

"I'm starting the particle swarm optimization," said Clio from his right.

Artemis nodded silently, as a snowstorm of pale white dots appeared over both the map and the timeline. The dots swirled and flowed for a few seconds, as if blown by an invisible storm. Most of them gradually disappeared, and the remainder converged on a single time and place.

The map showed a cluster of white dots now, just south of Vancouver, and the timeline had a sharp bell curve centered at seventy-two years in the future.

Artemis cradled his chin with one hand, and tapped on the table with the other. It didn't make sense. None of his jumps had been to that time. Either there was something wrong with the simulation, or there was something wrong with their way of pinpointing the temporal origin of the things he had brought back.

There was, of course, a piece of information he knew he was missing. While the simulations told him both the time and the place he was likely to go to, the items he brought back only had a temporal signature. He couldn't figure out where they came from with any degree of certainty.

Still, there might be something…

"Superimpose known Lower Elements settlements and chute exits."

Dozens of red and green dots appeared on the screen. The largest two dots appeared just south of Ireland, and in the middle of the Mediterranean sea.

"Shall I include the smaller fairy forts?" asked Clio.

"Sure, why not?" said Artemis, not seeing any pattern with the current map.

More red dots appeared on the map, with many being clustered together, and exclusively showing up on land.

Artemis thought about the pattern for a good fifteen minutes.

But still, nothing came to him. There was simply nothing he could match with the simulation.

He glanced over at a side monitor, which showed the biotemporal signature of his DNA. The mainframe was using that as the basis on which to calculate when and where in the future he would be attracted to on different jumps. So far, none of the time signatures of the things he had brought back matched any of the simulations.

'There has to be something to do with the personal entanglement issue… we still haven't figured out how it works,' he mused. 'But there must be some effect.'

Suddenly, he had a thought. He stepped over to the C Cube's omnisensor, which was currently pointed to a small vial of his blood. He picked up the sensor and pointed it roughly at his right eye - his hazel eye. Or more precisely, Holly's hazel eye.

"Clio, scan my biotemporal signature again."

"Sir?" asked the AI, confused.

"Just do it."

The omnisensor flashed once, before Artemis could blink.

Artemis set the device back down, as colors rippled over Clio's hologram, signifying that she was processing the scan. A moment after the rippling stopped, she spoke.

"The DNA composition and the signature are quite different from the scan of your blood," she said. "But you knew that already, didn't you? That was Captain Short's eye."

"Yes," Artemis smiled. "Now weigh the signature from my DNA taking into account the proportion that's comprised of Holly's DNA."

"One eye, sir?"

"Yes, one eye."

One eye's worth of personal entanglement.

He sat and waited.

The simulation took a few minutes to run, but once it did, the dots settled very differently.

The time settled on a spot eighty-seven years in the future. The location settled on a spot just south of Ireland.

"There we go…" Artemis smiled a smile of triumph. "Now zoom in and show me the map in three dimensions... and overlay a map of Haven City on it."

He was almost sure now.

The map shifted, tilting to show a third dimension, and indeed, the cluster of particles was well underground - a fact that was hidden by the previous projection. The simulation showed the highest landing probability in Haven itself. Specifically on Haven's east side. It was one of the lower levels, one that Artemis' maps showed was a mixed-use area, with various shops and pubs and the occasional tattoo parlor.

More importantly though, eighty-seven years matched the signature of one of the objects he brought back - a small piece of glass that looked like it might have once belonged to a bottle.

So he had appeared in Haven, it seems. And the jumps that he made were likely guided by an entanglement with a certain elf.

Artemis sat back and considered these facts.

None of the times that he had gone to so far matched up with the tachyon bursts he and Minerva had detected. That meant that he never actually made it to any of the disasters that he had meant to go to, which might explain why they were still detecting those bursts.

He had been jumping to something that he was already entangled with. That would explain why both Minerva and the probes couldn't get anywhere.

But that would mean that he was jumping forward to times and places associated with Holly Short. And the way the jumps were set up, it would mean that he was going to places where she was releasing a tachyon burst - one too small to be detectable from the current time, but a burst nonetheless. A quantum signature associated with the death of a living creature.

He had made more than one jump though, and to very different times.

Artemis had started this project with the idea of preventing massive disasters, and saving many lives. Could it be that - for now at least - that was impossible?

Could it be that he had instead been spending his time saving the life of Holly Short?

That wasn't quite what he had in mind.

But he was more than okay with that.

"Clio, prep for another jump."

A/N: You all saw that one coming, right? Don't worry, even if you did, there are plenty of fun twists coming along later. ;-)