EPISODE 1.03: TAPS
Artemis sets out to retrieve his fairy coin with Mulch's help. The team gets their first intern.
-x-
One Year Ago, Approximately
The room hummed with the energy of the support system, the ebb and flow of life passing through wires lit only by the green-tinted monitor. The chrysalis was still, no sign of consciousness beneath its fogged glass cover, nothing but the pale, expressionless face that stared upward like the recently deceased.
Holly looked down on that face, her throat tight and her hands clenched. Behind her, Foaly was fiddling with the controls, adjusting atmospheric conditions inside the chrysalis required for the clone's current stage of growth. Holly had not asked for a technical explanation and for once, Foaly had not offered one. Instead, there was silence between them - silence save for the reassuring hum of the machine and their own steady breathing.
The clone twitched. It wasn't the first time this had happened and Holly was not surprised by it. She raised a hand, pressing it against the glass. Hesitated, and then lifted a finger to tap a pattern.
Something shifted, thudded against the walls of the chrysalis. A hand slid to meet her own, separated only by the thick glass plate. Thick, human fingers beat out a hesitant, uneven mimicry of the rhythm she provided.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Two, and then three. Or a set of five. Numbers that Artemis had always felt comfortable with. No fours, or multiples thereof. Just in case.
She lifted her hand to watch the clone's clumsy movements. Tap…tatap. Tap - tap… thud.
Behind her, Foaly dropped a wire and cursed to himself as he scrambled to find it. Holly made a fist, felt the tug of her nails against her skin. Stared down at sightless blue eyes. Lowered her hand to the glass again.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.
Tap…tap-tap. Tap. Tatap.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.
Tap-tap-tap…tap.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.
-x-
Present Day
"Is this some type of Mud Man prank? Because I really don't understand."
At the sound of Foaly's whining, Holly glanced up, her hand tightening reflexively. A quick glance around the shuttle bay revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Two gnomes were positioned near the doors, periodically glancing up from their clipboards to gawk at the human on the platform, but otherwise seemingly unthreatening. There was no one else in sight.
Artemis was just as confused. "What Mud Man prank?"
"Oh, for Frond's sake," Foaly moaned. "The tapping. You're doing that on purpose, right?"
Elf and human exchanged a frown. "I don't hear anything," Artemis responded.
One of the gnomes had dropped his stylus. The platform must have had a slight slope, as the writing instrument rolled several feet before he caught up with it. Again, harmless enough. Holly glared at him anyway. Hand hovering over her neutrino, she hissed, "Please tell me you're being paranoid, Foaly."
Foaly stamped his hoof against the floor in a pattern of five and then stared at the others expectantly. Nobody moved.
"Do you need some sleep, Foaly?" Holly asked, dropping her hand from the neutrino. She looked up at the electronic screen overhead, which announced that the shuttle had still not arrived. She drummed her fingers against her leg impatiently.
The centaur looked between the two of them, utterly baffled. "You weren't... doing that... on purpose?" He sounded lost.
"It might be easier to ascertain if you would actually explain the situation," Artemis put in. His hand twitched.
"You are doing that on purpose!" Foaly exclaimed and then, when he was still met with two blank stares, whinnied in frustration. "The tapping! You're tapping! Holly - oh, just - tap your fingers."
"Is now really the time for an improvisational musical number?" Artemis asked, but Holly had known Foaly long enough to know when it was better to simply humour him. She beat a distinct pattern against her neutrino. At once, Foaly switched his glare to Artemis, whose fingers were twitching against the handle of his briefcase - a perfect echo of Holly's pattern.
This realization was met with perfect silence as everyone stared at the genius's hand. Holly drummed another pattern, again matched perfectly by Artemis. Again, more complex this time - and again, an exact replica.
"Now I know you're not doing that on purpose," Foaly muttered. "Your sense of rhythm's nowhere near that good."
Artemis set his briefcase down at his feet and lifted his hand in front of his face to study it. "My sense of timing is fine," he said, "This, however, is not."
Foaly scratched at his chin. "Hmm."
"Indeed," replied Artemis, still studying his hand. His eyes narrowed for a moment, and just as quickly relaxed. "That does make sense."
"Yes," agreed Foaly, catching on immediately.
"You're doing that on purpose," grumbled Holly. "I hate to be the one to ask, but could you explain for everyone with normal IQ's exactly what's going on?"
Artemis lowered his voice. "Well, I would not wish to explain it to the entire room." He cast a glance over at the hapless gnomes, who were now attempting to retrieve the errant stylus from a crack in the floor.
"Correction. Do I want to know what's going on?"
"It's because Artemis is a clone!" declared Foaly, only to be met with a hiss from Holly.
"Could you possibly announce that any louder? And what on earth does that have to do with -"
"The tapping," Artemis interrupted. "You tapped on the chrysalis." He did not need to look for confirmation, though her face slipped all the same.
"What does that have to do with - oh. Oh, no. Are you saying that I - I trained you?"
"Hardly. Trained implies some conscious shaping towards a predetermined response. What you did was inadvertently trigger a reflex. I'd imagine it'd have otherwise been latent, as I'm certainly not conscious of it," said Artemis, for a moment unsure if he should be intrigued or displeased. He settled for a mixture of both. "I admit that this would be a fascinating case study if it weren't my hand."
"Let me try?" suggested Foaly eagerly. The centaur did not wait for permission, knowing it would not be forthcoming. Instead, he rapped on his coffee mug several times, and peered up at his friends with gleeful anticipation.
Nobody moved.
Almost gingerly, Holly tapped once more. Artemis's finger twitched.
"Well, that got awkward fast."
They parted ways quickly, Artemis visibly relieved when the screen updated to show the arrival of his shuttle. Picking up his briefcase and saying goodbye with a single curt nod, Artemis departed, and Holly turned to leave.
"Oi, heads up!"
The gnome's stylus hit her square in the forehead, and she caught it without blinking. With a twitch of her fingers, the implement snapped clean in two.
-x-
The shuttle ride was quiet, as was the trip back to Police Plaza. It was almost as though each believed they had reached the end of the matter.
They were almost correct. For eighteen hours, it was.
-x-
"Artemis! What do you know about interns?" Holly sounded frantic on the other end of the line and Artemis set down his tea, trying to more accurately gauge the situation. "Holly Short" and "frantic" were, in general, two concepts that did not find themselves in proximity. If he did not know his friend so well, he would have been worried. Fortunately, Holly tended to remain level-headed in truly dangerous situations, and so it was unlikely that the fraught tone of her voice was the result of any impending catastrophe. He decided to proceed from that assumption and spoke quickly, yet calmly.
"Generally, an intern is an employee who has had no former job experience and thus requires on-the-job training. Why are you asking?" She was silent. "Your lack of response is not encouraging," he noted.
"Neither is the intern staring at me like I'm his mother," Holly said dryly. It was a slight mistruth: she had managed to take refuge behind a desk for long enough to make the phone call, and so was currently positioned out of the intern's line of sight. Not that she expected that to last for long, as the hapless gnome had already circled the floor several times in search of her. She was positive he had only bypassed the boiler room because he had not yet realized it served as an office space.
"Please tell me this is an intern in the department you transferred back into," he said, frowning.
"That's cute, pretending you don't know what's going on. Start talking, Mud Boy." Holly peered out from around the desk. The intern hadn't moved, and she ducked back down out of sight.
"I really have no idea what you mean."
"Then the fact that I still attached to LEPfoul is news to you? My transfer out got declined, an intern caught me in the lobby this morning and said he was now part of the department, and you had no idea this was coming? Why don't I believe that?"
"I may have suspected this could happen, but -"
"Fowl! We have an intern now! 'Suspected' isn't good enough - what do I do with him?" she hissed. Across the room, the intern lifted his head at the sound and began to make his way to the desk. Holly swore under her breath. "This conversation isn't over."
The line went dead before Artemis could offer any advice. It was just as well, he supposed, as in this particular situation he wasn't entirely sure what suggestions to make. Interns were new territory for them both and, despite himself, his mouth twisted in a half-smirk. "The LEP is placing us in charge of staff," he announced, picking up his tea once more as the plane began to descend.
"A terrifying idea." Butler finished the thought, his brow furrowed in concern. "Will Holly be alright?"
"Oh, I'm sure she'll manage." A pause. "That was a pun, by the way."
"You really do pick your moments."
-x-
"Interesting," muttered Artemis to himself, studying the security system console.
"Well, that's never a good sign," observed Mulch, although he was too busy plucking a beetle from his beard to act concerned.
Butler grunted his agreement through the line. "Usually that's an awful sign. What are we looking at?"
Artemis had pulled open a panel to inspect the box's innards. "It isn't often I come across a system this advanced," he explained. "Especially not since the Crash. It makes Chicago look like child's play."
"Does this mean I need to get into this house the old-fashioned way? Not that I mind, of course," said Mulch, crushing the beetle between his thumb and forefinger. "You know all you have to do is ask."
Artemis spared a moment to glower. "I can reroute it. I simply need a moment."
"I'll give you two," said the dwarf generously.
Butler wasn't satisfied. "The old fashioned way is probably safer."
"And more likely to run into sewage." Artemis prodded one last wire and closed the panel before motioning to the door. "Your turn."
The dwarf brushed his hands off on his trousers and ran up the steps to the door. As he worked, Artemis took the liberty of sending a quick email.
-x-
OUTBOX:
Foaly;
You would probably be interested to know that Becquerel Jones has a surprisingly advanced security system.
-x-
It didn't even take an entire minute for the reply to come, a hiss of static over their earpieces announcing Foaly's entry to the conversation.
"What do you mean you're in Denver again?!"
"Twenty-eight point seven seconds," Artemis noted. "I'm flattered."
"And in Denver. How - no, wait - why?! It hasn't even been a day, and you're back in Denver? Don't humans your age still need naps? You've got to be - what, twenty still, right?"
"Have I ever struck you as the type to need a nap? And for your information, most humans outgrow naptime by the time they're six years old."
By this time, Mulch had stepped back from the door. He studied his handiwork carefully, gave a nod of pride, and led Artemis around the corner of the house. They crouched in the foliage of the garden, Artemis brushing twigs off the arm of his suit while the dwarf peeked around the wall once more.
"All right," he declared, "let 'er rip!"
"Is that Mulch?" Foaly asked, aghast at the thought. And then, "Let what rip?!"
A second later, the lines crackled with the sound of the detonation as, two rooftops away, Butler activated the trigger.
"Was that an actual explosion?!"
-x-
INBOX:
Arty;
The intern is STILL HERE.
- Holly
-x-
"Relax, centaur," said Butler. "I had the detonator."
"How is that supposed to make me relax? You're not only in Denver, you're blowing things up in Denver!"
-x-
INBOX:
Arty;
For your information, the intern HASN'T LEFT YET.
- Holly
-x-
The smoke had barely begun to dissipate before a window on the second floor popped open. Butler watched through the binoculars as a gangly teen pulled himself out onto the roof. There was a tree close to the corner that Butler assumed the boy would make for but Becquerel had no intentions of going that far. Instead, he slid down the roof at an angle until his feet touched the eavestrough halfway along the house. He hooked his hands over the rim of the gutter and dropped down over the edge, swinging just enough to catch hold of the first floor's window ledge. A moment later, he was on the ground.
"He's heading towards the front," Butler relayed, and two figures appeared briefly at the other end of the house. They disappeared almost immediately into the smoke as they dashed inside.
"I don't know why you brought me along," Mulch was complaining. "This is way too easy. No fun at all."
"Why did you bring him along?" Foaly huffed belowground. "And why are you even there?"
-x-
INBOX:
Arty;
Coffee: 1
Intern: 0
WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE COFFEE?
-H
-x-
Artemis ignored yet another email notification as he led Mulch up the staircase.
"The security system is too advanced," he explained along the way. "After the Crash, technological advancements came to a stand-still as everyone focused on repairing the damage. Most systems were brought back online, but there's been relatively little innovation since. If I didn't know better, I'd theorize most people were concerned over triggering another collapse."
"So you broke into Jones' house," said Foaly. "You noticed the security system so you broke into his house. I'd be surprised if that didn't sound exactly like something you would do."
"Not exactly. My point is, I would like to know where he got those blueprints from. Based on what I saw of his lab, it's doubtful he came up with that particular wiring configuration by himself. It's much too organized - he's smart, but his work is chaotic."
"Can I be blamed for this? Is there any possible way I can be blamed for this?" Foaly was starting to panic. In fairness to him, it had been a long week - his budget had already been cut once, and this seemed to be rapidly snowballing towards another patented Fowl situation.
"Relax, Foaly," said Mulch. The dwarf sauntered along behind Artemis, hands in his pockets. "You're safe in your comm booth."
"Here," said the Irish genius, gesturing across the lab to the safe. "Jones keeps his laptop in here."
The dwarf immediately began to crack the mechanisms, leaving Artemis free to examine the rest of the room. A thin haze of smoke drifted up the stairs, already tainting the air. Artemis crossed to Becquerel's workbench, and opened a drawer.
"Why are you going after Jones' laptop? Fowl, the LEP already agreed to send a team to clean this mess up, what are you doing in Denver?"
"You keep asking that," mused Artemis.
"Because you are not answering me!"
-x-
INBOX:
Artemis;
Coffee update: I stand corrected. THE COFFEE WAS ALREADY BREWED.
WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO POUR A CUP OF COFFEE? EVEN YOU KNOW HOW TO POUR A CUP OF COFFEE!
-x-
"Now this is more like it," Mulch said blissfully, stroking the door of the safe once more before tugging on the handle. It swung open easily, and Mulch turned to beam at his partner in crime. "We should do this more often, you know. You, me, a complicated security system... what more could a criminal dwarf want?"
"I heard that," grumbled Foaly.
"You were supposed to," responded the dwarf. "So, Artemis, am I free to go exploring now? A house like this has gotta have at least one more - what are you doing with that?"
Foaly remembered to panic. "What is who doing with what?"
Artemis raised both hands in surrender, effectively pointing Becquerel's dart gun to the roof. "I only wanted to know the dosage. For scientific reasons."
"Please tell me you are nowhere near that tranquilizer," came Butler's voice on the other end.
"I'm nowhere near that tranquilizer," said Artemis. Mulch coughed.
-x-
INBOX:
Artemis;
If you're so smart, why don't you come up with a way to SCARE OFF THE INTERN?
-x-
The contents of the safe were few. Becquerel's laptop sat atop a pile of printouts, and several small gadgets lined the walls, set carefully on shelves. For all the chaos throughout the rest of the lab, the teenager did seem to know how to keep important things safe. Artemis shook his head. "That's not right. Why isn't it here?" he muttered. "He'd have to have kept it. There is no way he didn't keep it."
"He evacuated the house and took his laptop with him?" said an incredulous Butler. Artemis shook his head.
"No, I'm not looking for the laptop. The laptop is here."
"What do you mean you're not going for the laptop?" By now, 'panic' was becoming almost tiring.
"I mean -" hissed Artemis, only to stop at the sound of something shifting on the floor below them. Mulch set a finger to his lips, and turned to the stairs.
"I'll handle this," the dwarf whispered, his eyes aglow in the smoke. "You just sit tight."
-x-
INBOX:
Fowl;
I KNOW YOU ARE READING THESE. INTERN PROBLEM. FIX IT. NOW.
-x-
The fire alarm was still blaring overhead as Bec crept along the hall, squinting through the haze for any sign of intruders. His lab would be the target, he knew; while he was mildly caught off guard by how soon the break-in occurred after his house had been cased, he couldn't say that he was completely surprised. It had been an easy enough detour to route around the back of the house and avoid any potential surveillance of his movements - after all, this was his neighborhood, and he knew it like the back of his hand.
There was a figure near the steps to his lab. Bec took another careful step forward before realizing that the person was not sitting on the bottom step, but standing beside it and incredibly short.
Curiosity won out over caution. "Hey," he blurted.
The squat figure turned his head. "Whoa," he said, "Nothing to see here."
"I know what you are," Bec said, and took another step closer. "You're a dwarf."
"Give the mud boy a prize," was the muttered response, followed with, "No, you shut up. And I am."
He was clearly communicating with someone, which meant taking anyone else by surprise was now out of the question. The hallway was mostly empty with no useful architecture, and he'd left his dart gun in his lab. No help there, either. Bec did have a height advantage, though, and he knew that had to count for something. Time to act, and quickly - the dwarf was already turning around, probably to dash back up the stairs.
"Your trousers are hanging open," Bec observed, his smirk evident from his tone of voice.
Safe in his comm booth, Foaly cringed.
-x-
INBOX:
DO YOU THINK I AM KIDDING?
-x-
Artemis looked up at the sound of the blast.
-x-
INBOX:
THAT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION. YOU HAVE KNOWN ME LONG ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT I AM NOT KIDDING. FOWL - FIX IT!
-x-
He and Mulch stood over the groaning teenager, just far enough to be out of reach should he be faking. The dwarf was buttoning up his trousers, head tipped as he studied his victim.
"He's not faking," reassured Artemis with a wrinkled nose. His expression quickly shifted. "Oh, there is is."
"Let me get this straight - we did all of this so you could get a piece of jewellery back?" The dwarf was incredulous, and Artemis merely shrugged as he crouched beside the other genius.
"He was wearing it," said Artemis with a mild expression of distaste. The gold coin, a hole shot through the center, hung on a metal chain around Becquerel's neck. Artemis quickly pried open a link in the chain to free the pendant, cradling it in his hand. It felt good to have it back.
"Jewelry?" questioned Foaly. "I didn't know you wore - oh. Oh no. I knew that coin would come back to haunt me. I told Holly as much, years back, and she didn't listen. Oh, no."
"Artemis, you told me this was about the laptop." Butler sounded displeased.
"Don't worry, big man, we got that too!" piped up Mulch, shoving his hands back in his pockets.
Butler held back a growl. "Then if you've got both, I suggest you get out before the fire trucks pull up. I can hear them already."
Artemis was about to comply when he saw Bec's eyes flicker. "Friendly warning," he said, still crouched beside Becquerel, "Stay back. You don't know what you're dealing with. Information does go both ways, so allow me to be honest with you now - what you've found is dangerous. It won't save your family, only get you killed. Believe that, if you believe nothing else. We would not harm you over this, but the next time you cross paths with me, circumstances may not be so kind. Understood?"
"We're . . . not . . . friends," groaned Becquerel Jones into the carpet.
Foaly pulled a face at his computer screen. In the handbook given to LEP recruits upon their first day with the force, it was written to always resist the urge to give that speech. Telling a human they did not know what they were dealing with inevitably led to that human becoming even more driven to find out.
Holly had never read that handbook, and now apparently Artemis had decided to ignore it.
Come to think of it, the centaur mused, they might have been the reason that segment was in the handbook in the first place.
-x-
OUTBOX:
Holly;
Apologies, I was busy. Are you still dealing with the intern?
-Artemis
INBOX:
YES. CALL ME.
-H
-x-
"You know, Fowl, I think you may have a point about Jones's security system," said Foaly. "The circuit casings are unusually advanced for humans."
"Of course I have a point," remarked the human, looking up from his inbox. The entire group had relocated to a safe point, several blocks away. In the distance, they could still hear the sirens. "Have you found anything useful yet?"
"Possibly. I'm looking at these now, and if I didn't know better, I'd almost suspect they were fairy in origin. Too delicate, given how humans have been lately. Far too advanced. You're sure you didn't -"
"They're not mine. You've seen the inside of Fowl manor's security often enough to know how my systems look," confirmed Artemis.
"Right. Which means..."
"Didn't the LEP just have Artemis fix a security breach?" said Butler, carefully studying his young charge. "If satellite numbers got through to Jones, isn't it possible that other information was passed along?"
Back in his communications booth, the centaur blanched. "D'Arvit! I thought you said there was no way I could be blamed for this!"
"I've been known to lie," said Artemis with a casual shrug. "And if you'll excuse me, I need to make a phone call."
-x-
"That took you long enough."
Had Artemis been in the same room as Holly, he would have lifted his hands in self-defense. As it was, he could only pretend to hide the amusement from his voice as he asked, "Still babysitting?"
"It isn't funny! Hang on - give me a moment." Static crackled over the lines and through it, he heard Holly tell someone - presumably the intern - to stay where they were and not move. A door creaked in the background and something mechanical pinged really loudly and then she was back. "All right, we can talk freely now. And by the way, you are the last person who can make jokes about babysitting around me. Copy that?"
The ping sounded again and Artemis winced. "Understood. And tell me why you are in Foaly's operations booth right now?"
"Because Foaly isn't here and I needed someplace to hide."
Artemis frowned. "He isn't? I was talking to him only a minute ago."
"No, he rushed past me in the hall, muttering something about Denver and explosions." And then the rest of Artemis's words hit her. "Oh no. You were talking to - was that you in Denver?"
"'Is that you in Denver?'" Artemis corrected, "Present tense. I'm still here."
"I'm not even going to ask about that, Fowl. Just - tell me. How do I go about getting rid of this intern?"
"That bad?"
"Worse. Worse than you, even. And by that I mean because he's better than you and I don't know what to do with that. You've ruined me, Fowl. I have no idea how to handle someone who isn't about to rob a bank or dismantle a sim-coffee machine."
Artemis considered denying the bank robbery as there was no way she could have physical proof that it had happened, then decided that maybe it was safer to move on. After all, it did sound like something he would do. A safe guess. "I would have thought that would be easier on you."
Her voice dropped. "He just looks at me. Just - waits. And I don't know what to do."
"You could always try teaching him how to pour a cup of sim-coffee."
"Who doesn't know how to -"
Artemis cut her off. "The intern isn't the actual problem, is he? You're tense. You've been on edge ever since Denver."
"Fine. You know what, then? You're right, I'm tense, and it's not about the intern. It's about you!"
"Pardon?"
"Fowl, this is how things always start out with you. They start out with something small, but before we know it we're looking at an absolute disaster! Sure, yesterday we were wrestling with a canary, but you know what? I've been chasing this intern around the office all day and d'arvit, I can't help but feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"Holly, your paranoia may be justified, but please just take a breath and -"
"And you know what?" the elf continued as though he had not spoken. Clearly the pause in her speech had been exactly for that reason - to take a breath. "Last time this happened, things escalated, half the world blew up, and we lost you. Selfless action under fire is all well and good, Arty, but you know what's better? Not losing friends over situations that could be avoided! And now here you are, or were, or are over in Denver removing your wire and putting yourself in danger like you've got no idea -"
Even if the fact that he had made it through this particular escapade with his earpiece intact would likely count in his favor, the fact that he had returned to Denver at all would immediately nullify that advantage. He wisely chose to not speak.
"- like you've got no idea what you put us through!" Holly abruptly stopped talking. Silence, save for the sound of her breathing on the other end of the line.
It was a rare occasion that saw Artemis Fowl at a loss for words. Now, it took him several moments to arrange his thoughts. He found there was only one adequate response. "I am sorry for that, you know."
"I know."
More silence. Holly was the one who finally broke it. It took Artemis a moment to sort out exactly what she was doing, and another moment to determine why.
Tap - tap - tap - tap.
He peered down at his own hand, curious. It didn't move. A pattern of four, he inferred. She must not have conditioned me to respond to fours. Or, more accurately (as she was unaware she was conditioning me), Holly must have avoided patterns of four on principle. The realization was oddly comforting, and he waited a moment before responding.
Tap - tap.
Slow, deliberate movements. So she would know he replied on purpose to what he was certain had been a question.
Are we okay?
We are.
They hung up without another word.
-x-
If Foaly was surprised to see Holly still in the operations booth when he returned, he didn't show it. He was probably still fretting over the Denver situation, she decided. The centaur made a beeline for his customized swivel chair, dropped into it with a heavy sigh, and immediately began typing. Holly could have left him to work in peace, but there was an intern waiting for instruction back in the boiler room.
"Tell me," she said resignedly, "How big of a mess did he make?"
There was no need to clarify just who she meant. Foaly whinnied unhappily. "Yes, it's his fault. His, not mine. You'll explain that to Kelp for me?"
Holly blinked. "What did you do, Foaly?"
"It wasn't my fault," he protested again, and the elf sighed.
"Are you going to make me call Fowl back to get to the bottom of this? Because I will do it," she threatened, and Foaly shook his head.
"No, don't - actually, wait a moment. A group call may be a good idea." Several keystrokes later, the centaur had opened a server window.
-x-
Artemis answered his phone at once. "Holly?" He had assumed that the conclusion to their prior conversation had been clear enough in meaning, but supposed he could be mistaken. After all, this was a matter concerning Holly Short. Even at the best of times, she was something of an enigma. But instead, he was greeted by Foaly's tired face, a tinfoil hat perched haphazardly upon his hair. Evidently it had been a difficult week for everybody, if the centaur was falling back upon old comforts.
"I'm here too," Holly piped up in the background, and Foaly leaned back from his monitor to allow the human a wider view of his comms booth. In response, Artemis set his phone down on the table, pulling up a video screen. Naturally, Mulch chose that moment to wander into the frame, and Holly groaned. "Gods - when you said there were explosions in Denver, you meant it?! He's there too?"
"Hey, now," said the dwarf, jovially. "That's not fair. Butler wouldn't let us near the detonator. Said something about how one of us had a bad track record with explosives, and the other one was a walking bomb." He winked. "No prizes for guessing who's who."
"You know, you could have just told me Butler was in Denver with you. I would have felt a lot better about the whole thing if I'd known that," said Holly. Foaly grimaced.
"Can we get back on topic, please? I've finished picking through Jones' laptop, and got results. It turns out that the system blueprints trace back to a stray file -"
"As expected," Artemis interrupted. Mulch elbowed the slender human in the ribs.
"- And it turns out that this file wasn't ripped from the same source as the satellite data. So I took the liberty of tracing that back, and found that they passed through an IP in Sackville, New Brunswick. I did some background checks on the town, and sure enough -"
"Isn't that in Canada?" interrupted Mulch. "I thought Canadians didn't ever actually do anything illegal. Like, they just sit there and eat maple syrup all day."
"- And it turns out," said the centaur with an irritated tail flick at the interruptions, "That I've got nothing on them. They've wiped themselves off the map. They have a really nice tourism website and that's about it. We'll need somebody on the ground to sort out this mess from there, and hey, you three are in that part of the world to begin with, so you may as well go check it out for me!" He beamed. "After all, you do work for the LEP now, Fowl!"
"It hasn't even been forty-eight hours and I'm already regretting that decision," said Artemis sullenly. "And to think all I wanted was an excuse to pick through Foaly's systems."
"I heard that!"
"You were meant to."
-x-
Next Time:
EPISODE 1.04: CHANGELINGS - In which there is maple syrup and plot twists.
-x-
Author's Note:
First off, huge thank you once again to everyone for reading along! And to those of you who review, you make our world go round. Seriously, biggest thank you. :)
Second, you may have missed the one-shot that Freud posted to our account in November. "And Every Map Is Blank" is her take on a conversation we had over the possibility that Holly wrote the AF series for Artemis (and explains such things as the changing of names and the ridiculously numerous reappearances of Opal Koboi). I strongly suggest you go check it out because it is awesome.
And if you read the A/N of that piece, you may have noted that Freud said I'd be posting my own take on that conversation "in a few days." You'll also have noticed that I haven't done it yet. I won't offer up excuses but I will say that now that exam week is coming to a close, I should have plenty of time to finish it up. Fingers crossed, and hopefully I haven't jinxed myself again by saying so! - Winged
Two inside jokes for this episode. Firstly, Winged and I are both twenty and still religiously observe naptime. Secondly, we're both Canadian. And, spoiler alert, Artemis and Holly definitely were the reason that segment was in the handbook. - Freud