Chapter 2:
A really long distance call
Captain Holly Short was in a foul mood. No less than half an hour ago, she had been sleeping soundly in her bed, when her ringing phone pulled her out of dreamland. It had been Foaly.
"What izzit?" she had slurred, still half asleep.
"Get down to Police Plaza now. Council meeting's been called, and all LEP members are to attend."
The word "meeting" was enough to jolt her out of her stupor. "A meeting?" she asked. Who the hell called a meeting at…" she checked her clock. Bad idea.
"Three in the morning!" she yelled, nearly blowing out the speaker on Foalys end. There was a long silence before the centaur answered.
"Uhhhh, I did." Twenty minutes later, she was changed into her LEP suit and heading down to the Plaza, silently vowing to wring Foalys neck when she got there.
When she finally arrived to Police Plaza, Chix Verbil was waiting walking up to the door. "Morning, Captain", he half said, half yawned. "Looking good today." Holly responded by shooting him a glare that could scare a troll. He said nothing after that.
Holly and Chix had to run to the Plazas conference room. "Look at this", Holly fumed to herself. "No one's even here. I bet even the convicts aren't awake yet." They arrived at the conference room to find every one else already there. They took their seats and waited for Foaly to start.
"I'm sorry for calling this meeting on such short notice…", he began.
"Damn right, you should be sorry,", Commander Kelp grumbled.
"…But I felt that the situation demanded immediate attention."
Chairman Cahartez leaned forward in his seat. "What kind of immediate attention, ?"
Foaly motioned to one of his techies, and a holo-screen appeared in the center of the room. "At exactly 2:30 am standard time, LEP space probe Olympus lost contact with the Special Ops Booth here at Police Plaza." A schematic of the probe flashed on the screen. "Last readings suggest it was completing a revolution around the moon before contact was lost." Chairman Fillin, a sprite, stood up. "I think we can all assume that even your technology can't completely avoid glitches, Foaly." The centaur ground his teeth. "Yes, Chairman, but as you can see, diagnostics show that nothing was wrong with Olympus. Nothing should have happened. And yet….
"…It did, right?" Holly finished.
Foaly looked solemn. "Right."
"So what?", Kelp snorted. "One of your gadgets goes down, and you call a Priority One meeting? It probably lost power, or got hit by a Mud Man satellite. Honestly, Foaly."
The screen changed as Foaly turned to ht commander. "The gadget going down is not why I called the meeting, Trouble. I called the meeting because of the information the probe sent prior to loss of contact." A read-out was shown on the screen. "Olympus had been, for the last few days, tracking an unknown object which I assumed to be a meteor. However, the energy signals coming off it were incredible, and for some reason, the communications array was picking up a strange frequency, almost as if…."
"..The object was hailing your probe, correct?" A strange voice had cut Foaly off, shocking every one in the room. To Chairman Fillins' shame, he had squealed like a girl and hidden under his desk. The voice however struck Holly in a different way. It seemed familiar…
The projector at the back of the room produced a second holographic beam, producing a 3-D form in the shape of a fairy. No, a human! The features on the face were disconcerted, and then re-arranged themselves to form…
"Artemis Fowl.", Holly smiled, a bit of happy and a bit of shock. The hologram returned the smile.
"Who else? Don't tell me you were surprised." Foaly whinnied and stomped his hooves.
"Hardly. Might I ask why you chose this moment to hack my systems? Are you still mad about that e-mail thing?"
Much to Artemis's charagin, Foaly had thought it funny to arrange him into poses while drugged at the Argon clinic, and take photos to e-mail to all LEP officers.
Artemis, or the hologram of Artemis, attempted a smile. "No, Foaly. I was going to hack the Plaza's financial database and slash your precious budget…" He paused to watch the centaur flinch, "…But this seemed more important. I understand that you've been tracking a so-called 'UFO'?"
"Yes, Foaly's been tracking it. What's it to you, Mud Boy?" This from Commander Kelp again. "Are we interfering with one of your top secret 'projects'?"
"I wish you were, Commander. No, it's not mine. I've been tracking it also, but I've worked out some calculations for its trajectory. By my estimate, it should reach Earth in approximately two days, at its given speed."
This shut Kelp up immediately. A silence fell over the room as everyone processed what they just heard. Finally, Holly worked up the nerve to ask the question. "Foaly, is this true?"
Foaly nodded, a solemn look on his face. "I was just going to tell you all that. But that's not what worries me the most." He motioned to the techies. "Olympus transmitted about twenty seconds of video footage before we lost her." He pressed a button on the V board that had appeared in front of him.
On the screen, an image of a room was being shown. It was dark, but shapes could be made out, things that looked like machinery. There was noise, too. A strange sound, like a mechanical heartbeat. Suddenly it was all blotted out by something very familiar looking…
"Oh, gods above…", Holly whispered. It was an eye. A wizened, yellow eye, with a bloodshot pupil and strange veins running through it. Then the voice came. A horrible, grating voice, like the buzzing of metallic wasp.
"DIS-CONNECT-ING ALL VIDEO CIRCUTS….
Then the image was lost. The lights came back on, and everyone in the room looked as though the Devil himself had appeared. "Foaly," Chairman Cahartez managed to choke out. "What in Frond's name was that?"
Foaly shook his head. "No idea, Chairman. All I know is that it'll be here in two days, and its landing location will be…" he consulted his laptop. "… about ten miles from Fowl Manor." This shook Artemis out of his stupor.
"Really? Are you sure about that?" The centaur shook his head again. Artemis closed his eyes for a second, then spoke.
"Well then. Given the objects current trajectory, perhaps it would be best that any research into the matter would be conducted here. It's only logical."
"True", Foaly admitted. He turned to face the Council. "I'd need a strike team for when it lands."
The members of the Council murmured amongst themselves for a minute, then; "Very well, Foaly. You'll get your strike team." Chairman Cahartez turned to the assembled police. "The strike force will deploy to Fowl Manor in one hour. The leaders will be Commander Kelp, Captain Short, and Major Luskar. Dismissed."
As everyone begin to get and leave to prepare for their assignment, Holly walked straight up to Foaly and the hologram of Artemis. "It seems like we need to save the world again, eh, Mud Boy?"
"Indeed", Artemis smiled. Then his face turned gloomy. "Holly, tell me honestly. What to you think this is?"
Holly thought about that for a long time. "I don't know", she said quietly. "But", she added, "They must not be the smartest buggers to mess with us."
"True. I just hope Butler gets home soon. He couldn't stand it if he missed an operation like this."