Chapter 2: Oh, Great
I opened the plain cardboard box. Inside was a strange device. It was seemingly pieced together with a mishmash of wood, steel, rubber, plastic, and tape. It was flat, and had two clips on one side. It didn't look very stable, and leaked purple sparks. I poked it, prodded it, and inspected it on my microscope. Finally, I found, underneath and unassuming square of plastic, a scrap of paper. It read:
The Transporter.
I fiddled with the paper in every way possible, but to no avail. Finally, I threw the Transporter onto my bed, where it landed on my favorite book, Artemis Fowl. I began to walk out of my room, when a metallic click filled the air. Whirling around, I saw the Transporter had somehow latched onto my book.
"Hey, get off of that!" I snapped, trying to pry it off. The clips stuck, though, and as I tussled with the book, it almost seemed alive, jerking and shuddering and the Transporter whirring and things breaking and we fell onto the floor, tumbling, and suddenly everything dissolved into white. It was just Artemis Fowl smirking at me from the cover, half covered by the Transporter. I looked around, but there wasn't much to see. Just white, white, and more white. I tried to jerk the little device off, as if that would fix everything, but it held fast. Sighing, I settled down and opened my book to a random page. All of a sudden, a swirling purple vortex opened up in front of me. I pushed away, looking for something, anything I could hold onto, but the hole sucked me in, and closed as quickly as it opened. I floated for perhaps an instant, and then, as fast moving as my favorite roller coaster, it flipped. I was tumbling headfirst into a hole. Colorful images zipped by, and the air was filled with a chorus of voices. Like Alice in the rabbit hole, I thought disjointedly. Then, the images disappeared into a starry sky, and instead of inky blackness beneath me, there was a boat. I fell into a not-so-soft bed of crates. After about five minutes, I got up, my whole body aching. Where am I? I looked around. The boat rocked gently on the waves. It smelled horrible. Like… like whales. Whaling ship. Book. Transporter. Artemis Fowl. My brain connected the dots. Was I… in the book? A slight heat haze entering a corridor confirmed my suspicions. It was Commander Root! It was page 104, chapter 5: Missing in Action! AHHHHH!
Even though Root was shielded, he was easy enough to track. I followed him silently, dodging into nooks and crannies when he looked around. In the middle of the corridor, I stopped. I knew what happened next. Artemis had placed Holly's locator in the room at the end of the corridor, along with an explosive. It went boom, and Commander Root escaped by the skin of his wings. I knew it, I should run, but I snuck down the corridor farther. Suddenly, Artemis's cold voice issued from the room at the end of the hall.
"Zero... BOOM!"
All other thoughts were thrown from my head. I ran. So what if the Commander saw me. Could I die inside a book? I didn't want to find out. I ended out at the corridor and dove behind a crate. I watched through a knothole, scared out of my wits, as a red blossom of flame squeezed through the door. I heard a splash and shot up. Root had jumped into the water. The ship… In the book, it went down in flames! I ran out of the pile of crates, leaped over the railing, and landed none too gracefully on the opposite side of the ship then Root. After swimming a distance away, bobbing in the freezing water, I watched the ship go down. Then, as Root shot off into the night sky, I began the long, wet, cold swim to shore.