After settling in an old comfortable leather chair, Artemis Sr. leans over on the desk, and turns on a computer screen that has been angled towards the guest seat. "Come over here and take a look at these images."
Artemis feels a hint of trepidation as he views the screen.
"These are the images of some very interesting events that have apparently taken place at our manor while I was away…" He pauses for a second to let the images sink in.
"You might be curious as to how I have these. Small cameras which are sharing the power of the real security cameras can escape the most sophisticated detection devices. If they are set up to act like time capsules and have to actually be retrieved before viewing them, they still record when a security network is down, and cannot be altered unless you actually have the device in hand.
And since the Major had installed these before you were born, they were free to record everything without your knowledge. I had never needed to find out about my own families activities before, but thought it would be prudent given my long absence. Imagine my amazement when I found all of this," He gestures to the screen.
As his father is speaking, Artemis sees very grainy black and white images of Butler taking on the troll, the negotiations with Commander Root, and many more flashing past. His gut lurches as he realizes that he has been outsmarted and the Peoples existence revealed. Artemis briefly considers the possibility of denial, claiming that the outdated technology was faulty, or compromised with some movie footage. But he holds on to the hope that his father really has changed, and will resist the temptation to exploit this new-found knowledge.
Now what do I do? I can hardly lie to him, he deserves the truth. But would he believe me, a 'mere' youth only 15 years of age? The last part thought sarcastically, as he was hardly a 'mere' anything. I'll just have to hope that I can convince him of the need to keep this within the family.
Artemis steels his nerves as his father folds his hands together and waits patiently for the forthcoming explanation. It is annoying to see the tactics you favour, used against you, he reflects. He gathers his thoughts, makes a decision, and pauses just long enough to send a message with a quirked eyebrow, that he knows what his father is doing, and is speaking now not because of it, but because he chooses to.
Artemis begins to speak slowly, gaining more confidence as time passes, telling everything that had occurred since his father's disappearance. Some parts he wishes he could gloss over or even ignore since he is not proud of the actions which he has taken on many occasions. But it would be best not to hold anything back, lest it come back to haunt him later. No need for dramatic revelations at a later, critical time. Best to cut that possibility off at the knees.
He finishes by stating, "I acknowledge that this will be difficult to believe in its entirety, but if you require more proof I can provide more evidence to validate my story."
Minutes pass, as Artemis Sr. takes time to digest this flood of new information. "The video and your confessions are all the proof I need. Well, that and the remodeling bills, the sudden end to my Russian adventure, Butlers advanced aging, and so on. At least this explains a lot…"
After a short period of thinking, he appears to come to a decision about something.
"I will always support you in whatever you decide to do. You are my son and have always proven to be mature, responsible, and certainly more knowledgeable and intelligent than most people. I am glad to see that you also have a good heart now, and for that I will always thank the People. You should have come to me earlier, for no matter what, Fowls stick together. But I suppose you had a good reason to keep silent, given that I would have thought you had become chemically imbalanced." A warm smile follows his rueful laugh. Fowl Sr. always did have excellent people skills
"On another note, I would like to see you continue learning since you have such great potential. I do see that you would only be wasting your time in conventional schools, so I will speak to your mother and explain everything. It's the only way she will let you stop going. But since there are always government agencies watching to see if they can catch us breaking any laws, we shall have to do this properly. Besides, I think it would be interesting to see what the world does once it finds out there has been a genius sitting right under their noses all of this time. They will have a fit for sure!" He says this with a sly grin, and loud laugh, as they share conspiratory looks.
"Oh and in the future, when you wish to undertake business ventures where the sight of a teenager would be taken amiss, I'd be willing take care of any actual face to face meetings that are required. Just try to keep your future activities, if not legal, at least tasteful."
Artemis winced internally, but knew he deserved the unspoken rebuke regarding his past actions. That he is accepting all of this without hesitation is remarkable. I suppose I am more similar to him than I realized. At least this solves most of my problems in one fell swoop.
"Thank you father, I am grateful that you believe me. I will in the future do my best not to hide my activities from you unless absolutely necessary. I know you dislike illegal business deals now, so I will do my best to as least rob the ones who deserve it." Artemis gives a slight bow, and a smile covers his face as he leaves his fathers office. He was elated! He no longer had to try to hide his activities from his father's vast network of contacts, and had gained an ally whom he could (maybe) trust. This was turning out to be a very good day indeed…
(A Few Weeks Later...)
Artemis had been having a good time lately. He had scored perfect on every academic test he could get his hands on, at the insistence of his mother. (Then he had to prove that he hadn't cheated.) Afterwards he had gleefully refused offers from every prestigious College & University in the world. His mother was finally allowing him to stop schooling with no more fuss, and they had nothing to teach him. Artemis was not inclined to waste years of his time, just to get a piece of paper he could have with a few min of hacking.
Intelligence agencies from outside of Europe were frantic to know more about this mysterious prodigy who had appeared out of nowhere, and were dismayed by his family's background and his own suspected criminal activities. Governments secretly tried to offer Artemis high paying jobs, research money, grants, and even citizenship's. All of which were designed to get him in their country, working for them. Unfortunately for them, Artemis already was making more than he could spend, and had no interest in their bribes.
He was having fun confounding scientists with new papers in Computer Science which could now be published under his own name. (Although the usual stable of aliases were kept for the other areas of interest that he wished to publish in. No reason to let them know hes anything more than good with computers.)
The best part was that since only a few people actually paid attention to new things in science and technology, he was still relatively anonymous, and thus could still enjoy his favorite pastime of hacking large corporation's accounts and donating 90% to some charitable organization. (Keeping the 10% finders fee of course.)
A pity I hadn't tried this sooner, I seem to be making some quite large waves with the data security experts. Heh, heh, heh, and they still don't know what to do about my theory under an alias proving that magic exists. They try the experiment I published, and are surprised it works! Well to be fair, I did name it something a bit more respectable sounding than 'Magic'. They merely think it is an unusual quantum effect, but it should pave the way towards human technology finally being able to catch up to and eventually surpass that of the People.
Most of the ignorant fools refuse to admit that they have made no mistakes in their experiments, but within a decade I estimate it will be widely accepted as truth since I plan on funding research done by any of them who do accept the truth. After all, academia is all about Publish or Perish, and you always need money to be able to have anything to publish in the first place.
At least they aren't able to deny my research into the history of ancient civilizations. Pity that I don't dare tell them the truth about Stonehenge… They would have a fit! Artemis lets loose a small audible chuckle.
He was currently in a new wing of the Louvre Museum where some recently acquired works of art were displayed. He was admiring his collection and trying to decide what work of art would perhaps look best on display with them. He had donated plenty of money with instructions to build a new wing with it to house the mysteriously recovered oil painting "Fairy Thief", then had submitted some architectural designs under false names. Since then, he had managed to find 7 more paintings and was currently thinking about adding a statue or vase for the center of the room.
I'll see if there are any ancient Egyptian relics that would match the room's décor. Perhaps as a private joke, something with gnomish writing on it. Yes, that sounds perfect.
He eventually leaves, satisfied with his planning. Once in the car he turns to Butler, "Get your contacts looking for ancient Egyptian objects that have found their way into private hands and are being sold. Give out a piece of paper with some Gnomish script on it, the more common letters only, and tell them that I will pay extra if what they find contains any of these symbols. I'll begin an internet search with the same sort of message. Hopefully we will find something interesting and noteworthy."
Butler nods and files that away in his mind to be done later on.
After a few moments of consideration Artemis adds, "On second thought, it doesn't have to be strictly Egyptian. It would be preferable and more likely to find something Egyptian, but who knows what is out there…"
AN: Any mistakes you find, I will correct unless it is meant to be there. I usually don't have time to type out a full chapter in one sitting, but can easily find a few seconds to modify my story. Cheers!