EPISODE 2.01: THE LUCIA CODE

In the aftermath of a tragedy, LEPfoul takes drastic measures and Kelp's open-door policy comes back to haunt him. Again.

-x-

It had been a long day, and Holly Short was itching for something to shoot. Perhaps this was why, when she rounded the corner in the hallway outside of Commander Kelp's office and nearly ran headlong into Artemis, her hand automatically drifted towards the Neutrino at her belt even as her feet skipped backwards to avoid a collision. The human raised one eyebrow; she lifted her hand, palm open. "It's a comfort thing. What are you doing up here?" A moment later, it clicked. "D'arvit, you already spoke with Kelp?"

"Breathe, Holly. It's all been settled, just like we discussed. Walk with me?" Artemis jerked his head to the side, gesturing to the hallway behind her as he stepped to the side and continued on his way.

"No, see, we discussed talking to Trouble together." Despite her reservations, the elf turned on her heel to keep pace with him. For every two steps of Artemis's, she had to take three; all the same, the human was the one who had to quicken pace to keep up.

Artemis shook his head. "I excluded you only because you and the Commander are close friends. As necessary as the Box is, he's probably not going to like what it does. This way, you can claim I devised it alone. It really doesn't matter if he's angry with me, since we were hardly going to be friends in the first place."

"What are you up to?" Pausing now to wait for the elevator to arrive, Holly pivoted to face him, alarm in her face. "You don't go out of your way to make my life easier. Ever. What aren't you telling me?"

"Don't look at me like that - you know the Lucia Code won't hurt anybody. Do the interns have the rest of the office under control?"

Holly nodded. "When I left, they were packing the last of the equipment. We're really getting away with this, then?"

Artemis stepped over the threshold into the lift, finally exhaling. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me, Captain Short."

Holly rolled her eyes as she followed him, jamming a thumb into the button for building's ground floor. "Listen, do you hear that? It's the story of my life."

-x-

Caltrop Chlorella couldn't stop looking over his shoulder.

For years, the canary named Lucia had terrorized the water sprite. He'd become accustomed to the stabs of terror that accompanied her battle cries, become expert at predicting her erratic movements, and developed excellent duck and cover response times at the faintest glimpse of yellow pinwheeling overhead. And now, just like that, she was gone.

He didn't trust the silence in the slightest.

It probably didn't help that one of his fellow interns, a young centaur with lime-coloured hair and a lifelong determination to prove that her nickname of "Sass" was an apt one, had recently discovered a knack for Lucia mimicry.

From two feet behind him, Sass screeched. Caltrop automatically hit the deck, lacing his hands behind the back of his head to protect his gill tubes. The centaur glanced at the computer terminal on the desk, reading the clock with a satisfied flick of her tail. "Zero point four seconds. New record, Shrimp!"

Dodo Feldspar, the newest addition to the team, crinkled her nose as her head popped up from behind the desk. There was a red shock blanket tied around her neck like a cape, and she straightened the knot smartly as she spoke. "That was a great bird impression, but I'm turning the computer off now." With that established, the dwarf vanished once more behind the desk to resume rummaging through wires, blanket billowing behind her. The room around them was already mostly bare; the intern terminal was the last piece of office equipment that needed to be transported to their new location. They were supposed to have an extra pair of hands to help with the move, but Mulch Diggums had made a show of having something important to attend the moment he was asked to pick up a roll of packing tape. As a result, the move was running a little behind schedule.

"She's no fun.," whined the centaur, nodding her head towards Dodo, "I think I liked this job better before she got transferred in." Caltrop snorted, causing a flare of bubbles to pulse through the tanks that encircled his gills.

"You - glub - never showed up before!"

Sass grinned. "Exactly. I bet Dodo's a real stickler for punctuality."

"I can still hear you!" grumbled the dwarf, wrestling with the nest of wires behind the computer. One last pull, and the screen on the desk went dark.

"So, that'd be a yes, then?"

-x-

Nobody's talking to me because they have no idea what to do with me, Becquerel Jones thought as he stared blankly at the wall ahead. Demia's parents will never know what happened to her, and I have no idea what's going to happen to me.

He had woken up alone in a sparsely furnished holding room, a pair of cuffs binding his wrists together. Becquerel privately considered that to be overkill. After all, he had seen enough police procedurals on television to identify the room around him. If he were in the middle of a police station, Bec knew better than to run blind. His memories of the trip back through the underground city were vague, flashbulbs and still images as opposed to a coherent flow. The inscrutable look on Fowl's face as the squad had led him from the shuttle - the push and pull of a crowd of people who looked nothing like humans - voices speaking in a language he did not understand. His head wound had been healed by a medic with sympathy in her eyes and a uniform the colour of the sky (so that's what magic looks like, he had thought as a cascade of blue sparks clouded his vision, spun haywire chaotic like a sandstorm through his mind), but Bec's knuckles were still scraped raw from where he had punched Fowl. Nobody had offered to heal those injuries, and he had not asked; as he interlaced his fingers against the surface of the table, Bec cringed. It hurt.

I know it's scary, but -

The urge to throw up had passed, though, so at least he could proceed under the assumption that he was no longer concussed. Out of habit, the teenager reached for the pocket where he kept his cell phone at all times. For just a moment, he'd forgotten - Demia had steadier hands, she'd been the one to hold the light in the caves. She'd claimed to know what she was doing, and so he'd allowed her to navigate. He could still hear the squeak of her rubber shoes against the dry earth, the quiet pulse of her breathing, the growls -

- in adventures and fairy tales, you have to be brave -

Part of him knew that he should be taking advantage of this quiet moment to plan. Planning, though, had never been a strong suit of his. He tinkered, he engineered, he worked with his hands. He had always been awful at following through. Besides, it didn't seem to matter much. Sooner or later, the LEP would make a decision. Would he be charged as a criminal? Or would they wipe all memory of Demia from his mind, the way they had erased him from hers? Bec leaned his head back against the wall, shutting his eyes.

When she had forgotten him, he'd been able to work his way backwards. It had been difficult work, laying a scaffolding upon the foundation of the past to rebuild a relationship with his best friend. Still, though, it had been possible. If he forgot her now, though, she would be gone forever. If he forgot her now -

- I'm smaller, so I'll go first.

If he forgot her now, she really would die.

Still, the tears did not come.

-x-

Honkard D. Tweedir was beginning to worry: usually Fowl was quite prompt about returning his messages, yet - despite having been sent, just that afternoon, the transcript of a delightful old text - it had been several hours since the human had checked in. So it was that, when the Haven Library Archives began the arduous process of locking up for the night, Tweedir excused himself and decided to check in at Police Plaza. He had a bad feeling about this. If anybody else had been ignoring his messages, he might not have been quite so concerned; the gnome understood completely that certain individuals were simply too busy to check their inbox on a regular basis and, if they found the time to read his messages, might not find themselves obligated to respond. It could not be denied, however, that his human contact had a particular knack for finding trouble.

As a result, when Tweedir entered Police Plaza and discovered it in a state that he would later refer to as "an exceptional tizzy," he was only moderately surprised to discover - after several moments of asking around - who was at the center of the disaster. He'd not yet experienced it firsthand, of course, but all the literature did state that Artemis Fowl II tended to have that effect on situations.

Of course, that was as far as his investigation went. It turned out that the secretary at the front desk was "exceptionally obtuse" (as he would later refer to her) and seemed almost chronically determined to prevent him from making any legitimate progress in tracking down the human.

"Which one?" she'd asked as she drummed her fingernails against the worn surface of the desk. "Because let me tell you, this whole situation is an absolute nightmare!"

Tweedir coughed delicately. "Pardon me, but am I to understand that there is another human belowground besides Artemis Fowl the Second?"

The sprite pursed her lips in a disapproving manner. "Yes, well. Unfortunately -"

"Hey, Betty!" called a loud voice from the door just behind the secretary's desk. When Tweedir raised his eyes, he was astonished to see a human girl hunched over in the doorway.

The secretary sighed heavily and spun around on her chair. "Botti," she corrected.

The human flushed. "Sorry," she said, apologizing in English.

Tweedir stepped around the front desk, raising a hand in welcome. "Pardon me, miss," he said, matching her language.

His plan was to entreat the human girl to speak with him on the events that had led her to Haven City. Yet, before he could say another word, she had reached out and pumped his hand quite vigorously. Tweedir was taken aback, having expected the girl to lay her palm atop his so he might bow and express how enchanted he was to meet her. That was, after all, the way such meetings were described in all the literature on humans he had ever studied.

"Oh, thank goodness, somebody who's actually willing to talk to me. You know, I think most of the people around here are half-hoping that if they ignore me, I'll go away." The girl shook her head sadly, drawing her hand back to her side. "I'm Juliet."

Tweedir straightened, puffing out his chest a little in pride. "And I would be Professor Honkard D. Tweedir, K.H., W.M.M."

Juliet tilted her head. "I see. Are you busy right now?"

"Pardon?"

"Oh, fantastic. See, I came down here with a retrieval team. Ran into them at the shuttleport and Foaly convinced them to take me belowground with them, but they scattered the moment we arrived." Juliet pursed her lips. "I need to track down where LEPfoul went - actually, I know where they went. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to leave the building without an escort. Something about not wanting another human wandering around the city. So, are you up for a walk?"

"You know where LEPfoul is? They've left the premises completely, I'm afraid."

Juliet shrugged. "I've had a tracker stuck to Artemis's shoe since we left the manor this morning. The centaur's bugs didn't seem to kill it, so yeah, I do."

"Excellent! Outstanding! Well done!" Tweedir extended his arm, beaming. "I do believe, Miss Juliet, that you have found yourself an escort!"

The girl took a small step backwards, not accepting the proffered limb as she turned towards the doorway. "Lucky me."

-x-

Skeptical as Holly had initially been when Artemis proposed that LEPfoul move their operations out of Police Plaza, she couldn't help but slug the Mud Boy on the arm in approval when she saw the new accommodations he'd managed to arrange for their department. For once, all of LEPfoul was in unanimous agreement about something: their new office was definitely better than a boiler room.

"You've had nearly five months to move out of my apartment and haven't been able to find a place, but it only took you two phone calls to put this together?" asked the elf, raising both eyebrows. Artemis, rubbing at his sleeve to try to restore blood flow to his lower arm, simply shrugged. It had taken him years to figure out, but somewhere along the line the human had learned that some questions were just not meant to be answered.

They were not far from Police Plaza, yet somehow the interns still managed to get lost on their way over. When they finally arrived (with the last boxes of office supplies in tow), Caltrop wasted no time in unboxing a thick-tipped felt marker and using it to scrawl the words "The Foul Team" over the front doorway.

The longest wall of the office looked down upon a busy street. One-way glass allowed the office's occupants to peer out at the bustling metropolis below and enjoy the lighting that illuminated the city streets while remaining shielded from invasive eyes. The opposite wall of the building was pressed directly against one of the many rock faces that ran through the city, providing structural integrity as well as a source of warmth that would prove quite useful in keeping heating costs down.

As for the office itself, a large and mostly rectangular open floor gave them plenty of room to set up desks and computers. The old boiler room had only provided them with space for a single intern terminal; in their new setting, Dodo and Sass immediately fell to bickering over who would be allowed to set up their workstation closest to the door. The dwarf thought it would be nice to set up a small aquarium or some kind of plant display upon her desk to welcome visitors, while the centaur figured that being closer to the entrance would make it easier to see new interns coming from a distance (allowing her to arrange to be elsewhere by the time they actually arrived).

Their argument was interrupted as Holly, rummaging through the boxes the interns had carried with them, made a horrifying discovery. "We stole the Plaza's coffee pot?"

Caltrop raised one hand. "W-won't we need it more than they will?" he suggested feebly, whisking the machine away to begin the process of setting it up.

This was the scene Juliet and Tweedir encountered by the time they finally made their way to the LEPfoul offices:

In the corner farthest from the door and window, Artemis sat at a computer terminal, guiding various systems as they crept their way towards functionality. Holly sat on the edge of his desk, her head bowed in to allow them to converse in quiet whispers. Caltrop had set up shop along the opposite wall, proudly watching his pilfered machine grind sim coffee beans to the perfect consistency. Occasionally he paused to check the coarseness of the grind against a chart he'd pulled up on a tablet, making minute adjustments to the machine. Dodo had won the fight to set up closest to the door, though Sass had arranged her desk opposite the dwarf's. As though in defiance against Dodo's meticulously neat workstation, Sass had already managed to make her desk appear as though a hurricane had bowled it over.

In short, LEPfoul was productive and at peace. There was no way it could last.

The moment Juliet and Tweedir stepped together over the threshold into the office, the coffee machine immediately began to hiss and yowl like a cat shoved unceremoniously into a burlap sack. Caltrop scurried backwards away from the table, sending coffee grounds scattering over the floor. Before Juliet could open her mouth to shout over the blare, she was cut off by several people at once.

"Chlorella, what did you do?" snapped Holly, reaching for her gun as she hopped fluidly down from the desk and pivoted to face the mechanical threat.

"We were fine thirty seconds ago! You jinxed it!" Dodo yelped, turning to Juliet with her hands clamped over her ears.

"I - I didn't do anything! Maybe it doesn't like being around humans?" suggested Caltrop. Irritated bubbles rose rapidly in his gill tanks as he took another step away from the machine. "Can we - glub! - just shut it up already?"

Juliet took a cautious step back over the threshold. "Artemis is human and he's been here all afternoon!" she protested. Behind her, Tweedir shuffled his feet a little. This was not an argument he wanted to get in the middle of.

"Nah, we're still not a hundred percent sure he isn't part vampire," quipped Sass, raising her voice to ensure it carried over the din.

Artemis lifted his head. "I heard that!"

Perhaps, given an extra moment, he would have sprouted a more witty comeback.

What happened instead was an explosion. With a magnificent screech and a plume of steam that held a cloud of coffee grinds aloft for a moment in a perfect mushroom cloud formation, the coffee machine decided to exit this mortal coil.

It was spectacular.

Caltrop wailed, Artemis and Dodo both ducked down beneath their respective desks for protection, Sass cheered, Juliet skipped to the side to avoid an errant piece of shrapnel, Tweedir retreated back behind the doorframe, and Holly shot the smoking crater in the table top.

And then shot it twice more for good measure.

-x-

Morning arrived much too early for the personnel of Police Plaza that Saturday. Kelp was on his third cup of sim-coffee by the time he arrived at the office, having slept no more than two hours. At least, he reflected, the worst of the crisis had been dealt with the previous night. Today would be slower and a good deal less chaotic.

Or so Kelp believed until he stepped through the double doors to see fairies literally running to and fro down the halls.

"Please tell me," Kelp sighed, pausing at the secretary's desk, "that Fowl did not crash another shuttle."

"No sir," the sprite dutifully replied. "The computer system crashed in the administration wing less than an hour ago. They're still trying to get everything back online."

Kelp stilled, a shiver of apprehension running down his back. In his mind's eye, he could still see it clearly: the box filled with papers that Fowl had dropped onto his desk less than twenty-four hours ago. "What's in the box?" he had asked. And what had Fowl replied?

"An incentive. I realize that authorizing the relocation of LEPfoul will be a controversial decision. Have administration enter these forms into the main system; within two days, the rest of the building will be begging you to make us move off-premises."

Kelp struggled to control himself. "And how long will it take for systems to run again?"

The secretary shrugged. "Depends on what caused the problem. So far, nobody knows."

Kelp sighed, took one last swig of his coffee, and slammed the empty cup down on the counter. "Botti, have someone refill this for me. I'll be in admin."

-x-

Foaly trotted over, wringing his hands desperately. "One moment," he brayed, pushing aside the techie hovering over the nearest computer.

Kelp raised his refilled mug and took a sip, grimacing at the lackluster taste. He turned back to the aide. "You got this from the basement break room?"

"Yessir."

He frowned and tasted the brew again. For one horrid instant, Kelp wondered if the sudden decline in the taste of the sim coffee could also be the fault of LEPfoul - and then he dismissed the idea. Clearly the stress of such a long night followed by the system failure this morning had made him paranoid.

"Almost got it," Foaly mumbled, plugging in one last wire before pausing to crack his knuckles. "Here goes nothing." With one finger, he delicately pressed the start-up key before pulling away and watching the screen intently.

The entire room held their breath. For half a minute, the computer did nothing; then, a soft whirring sounded from the terminal as the system began to turn itself on. A spinning disk appeared above a blue bar that gradually stretched the length of the screen.

Foaly beamed and turned to Kelp. "And once again, the true genius of the LEP saves the day."

The moment the bar touched the opposite end of the screen, a hair-raising screeeeeeeeech blasted from every speaker in the building. Simultaneously, every single member of the LEP engaged in evasive action to avoid the imminent canary attack.

To understand exactly how much chaos those two words - "evasive action" - entailed, it is necessary to fully comprehend the impact that Lucia's short reign of terror had left upon Police Plaza. In the five months since the holy terror of a bird had first opened her beak to screech through those corridors, the canary had made herself into something of a legend. Not one of those offbeat "alligators in the sewers" kind of urban legends, either. No, Lucia evoked the sort of tale that involved missing college students, horrific monster attacks, and well-intentioned police officers that never again saw the light of day.

And those were only the true stories. The myths were even worse.

Five months was not enough time to practice evasive Lucia actions. A lifetime would not have been long enough. As the speakers blared, the sound rang crystal-clear through every single hallway. It came from everywhere at once, and lingered. It echoed.

It was majestic.

In accounting, a group of gnomes barricaded themselves down one hallway, overturning desks and tables with all the precision of a military squad. Botti, having just settled once more in her seat at the front desk, squeaked and dove for cover. A pair of pixies dressed in matching fluorescent pink gave identical piercing screams as they both pivoted in opposite directions, colliding heads with enough force to concuss them both for several moments before their magic kicked in and healed each other. In the boiler room that had once belonged to LEPfoul, a technician in the middle of repairing the dismantled boilers yelped and dove for the nearest supply closet for cover. The lock stuck, and he spent the next four hours pounding on the door for help.

Somewhere, a fire alarm began to blare. Moments later, just as the last ringing tones of the bird's screech died out, the building's sprinklers came on. These sprinklers, it must be noted, used the exact same technology as fire-fighting blaster shells - half a gallon of water blasted upon the perceived flames, instead of poured.

The effect was dramatic, to say the least.

A sodden Kelp found himself squished in a corner between Foaly and a knot of anxious interns. "But the bird's dead!" he protested weakly.

Foaly shuddered, shedding a sheet of water. "I wouldn't be so sure of that," he said. "But this was Fowl's doing, rest assured."

The commander gave him a sour look, though the impact of it was much lessened by the fact that he currently looked more like a half-drowned cat than like a police commander. "You would say that."

Foaly huffed. "Sure, blame the centaur."

-x-

Had Sass shown up on time to the office on any other day, it would have been cause for celebration. As things were, no other member of LEPfoul had gotten around to leaving the night before, too busy with the set-up and organization of their new workspace. Even Juliet had stayed belowground, setting herself to the task of improving the office's security. She'd left the room about an hour ago to "negotiate" with the downstairs neighbours. Staffed primarily by a group of young elves who had met in business school and promptly decided they could revolutionize the advertising industry, the agency downstairs had (unfortunately for everybody involved) not kept the entrance to their office completely clear, electing instead to block it with a giant inflatable strawberry. Nobody quite knew what this was supposed to advertise; Juliet promptly declared that she didn't care, and set off to go make them take it down.

This was one of only several small dramas that had taken place that morning. As a result, no one had noticed Sass disappear. Yet, somehow, all were made aware of her triumphant return.

"I come bearing gifts!" Sass brayed loudly, holding aloft a rectangular metal box that looked similar to a human radio. She did a round of the office, pretending to admire the changes that had been made since she'd left while actually doing her best to arouse curiosity. As no one else had energy to spare, the attempt was less than successful.

Slumped in a wheely chair in the corner of the room, it was Caltrop who finally gave in. "What is it?"

"Aha!" Sass exclaimed. "I am so very glad you asked. I present Uncle Foaly 2.0!"

Holly had been attempting to nap with her head down on her new desk. At Sass's words, she sat up, back rod-straight. "Foaly what?"

"It's his Artificial Intelligence," continued Sass, setting to work fiddling with a set of wires that still dangled from an outlet on one of the walls. "Or one of them, anyway. He's got them everywhere now. I like the version in his house the best - his nav-bot system has been super smug ever since he got trapped in a time-stop with a group of goblins."

This remark was met by a horrified silence as everyone imagined multiple AIs all based on Foaly's personality, and contemplated the disaster that would occur should they ever collaborate. Oblivious, Sass hooked the last wire up, tapped the box twice, and twisted a knob that was only there for decoration.

The AI came to life. "Actually," it began with a voice eerily similar to Foaly's own, "There's totally only one of me. Portable, y'know. Foaly and I decided it was time I took a road trip, and I convinced dear Sass to give me a lift!"

Holly heaved a sigh of relief. "So there's only one of you?"

"Wait," interrupted Dodo. "You played prison warden for a bunch of goblins, yet Foaly feels you're needed here? What does that say about us?"

"Well, I've also babysat his kids. And they're almost worse than the goblins!" If the AI had possessed a spine, a shudder would have run down it. "But yup - here I am! All yours, mates!"

"That doesn't answer my question," objected the dwarf.

Caltrop nudged her in the side. "Maybe we don't wanna know the answer," he glubbed, downtrodden.

Sass cast an anxious glance around the room. "How come Fowl's not making faces at me? I'd have thought he'd be so not okay with me bringing an AI in here."

Caltrop jammed a thumb over his shoulder. Two hours ago, LEPfoul's human consultant had started to run a complete stress test on the department's new databases. In the ten minutes the program had taken to compile the results, the mental strain and physical exertion of the previous day and a half had caught up with him; the next time anybody looked over to check on Artemis, the human had fallen asleep on his desk. Given the situation, nobody was quite brave enough to wake him.

Until now.

Sass stamped a foot, thinking for a moment before cupping her hands around her mouth and unleashing her best Lucia screech. Even though Caltrop had seen it coming, he still dropped to his knees to seek cover behind his desk. The AI cringed, running the sound clip through the recent Police Plaza security footage. "Oh," it said. "That makes sense, now. That's where you got the bird call for the Lucia box!"

"No, clearly we cloned the bird and brought her back from the dead," snapped a now-awake Artemis in his most sarcastic tone, lifting his head from his desk. Holly winced.

"Oh, no worries - I won't tell anybody. Dudes, a confession: I am almost ashamed to admit this but I've totally been arrested before," confided the AI. "So your secret's safe with me. I'm cool like that!"

It was unclear which secret he was referring to - the box or the clone. Given present company, neither Holly nor Artemis intended to press.

"You're an AI," noted Artemis, changing the topic. "What kind of laws even govern -"

Dodo cut him off. "Wait a moment. Show of hands: who here doesn't have a criminal record?"

The only hand that raised belonged to the only human in the room. "Technically, I've never been arrested -" Artemis began, before catching the look on Holly's face and reluctantly drawing his arm back down to his side.

"Nobody?" asked Dodo, her gaze darting around the room. "Holly?"

The elf, her arms folded, shot another glare at Artemis. "Well, it wasn't my fault. And I don't see your hand up either, Feldspar."

Dodo had gone pink, clearly regretting even asking the question. "I was young," she said primly before sitting back down at her desk and returning swiftly to her work.

-x-

The individuals in charge of such matters had elected to wait the customary forty-eight hours before holding a memorial for Demia. This was long enough for there to be debate about the appropriateness of such a ceremony; given the situation surrounding the girl's death, the final verdict had been unanimous.

The customary candle had been lit, though the flame itself did not seem to be moving. Glowing at the tip, the only testament to the passage of time was the faint movement of the wick as it curled in against itself like a mimosa leaf reacting against the pressure of a fingertip, retreating slowly in the hopes of sustaining life for a moment or two longer.

It was a testament to the silence in the room that the flame did not waver. In a traditional recycling ceremony, words would be spoken. Loved ones would recite passages from the Book and deliver epitaphs, and friends would share memories to begin the healing process. There would be tears, but also laughter; above all else, there would be the start of closure. Public ceremonies were an occasion for more decorum: officials would show up in uniform and scripted verses would be delivered. Even then, it was often joked that a good life was one lived in such a way that somebody would accidentally knock the candle from the table before it had a chance to burn down.

Demia Carter had not quite been a friend to the People. Not quite an enemy, but not quite a friend. Her funeral was silent and still, and the flame never once threatened to go out.

-x-

Artemis only realized he'd caught Holly's hand in his own when he felt her fingers slip from his after the ceremony. He turned back and caught the direction of her gaze, which followed Becquerel Jones as his guards escorted the boy back to his holding cell.

"The closure will help," Artemis said softly.

"The mindwipe will help," Holly corrected, tearing her eyes away to look up to Artemis's face. Then she blinked and glanced down again.

He frowned. For once, the human found it impossible to read his best friend's face. "What are you thinking, Holly?"

The question was asked gently, and so the elf responded honestly. "The last time I was at one of these ceremonies, it was yours. After the Crash. We found out later that Mulch had rigged the candle ahead of time - when it hit the halfway point, it began blowing so much smoke that we had to evacuate two city blocks. Nothing dangerous to breathe, of course. Just impossible to see through." She exhaled, straightening her posture to come a little closer to being on eye-level with him. "He thought you'd have appreciated the gesture."

Artemis swallowed hard, bowing his head. "I'll have to tell him he was correct in that assessment."

Together they wandered a little bit further down the street, keeping pace with an ease that came from months of practice. For a while neither of them could find words, and so they walked in silence. It was only when they turned onto a quieter street away from the push and pull of the crowd that Artemis finally opened his mouth once more. "Do you remember one of the first things you ever said to me?"

Holly furrowed her brow. Now was not the time to go at picking old scars, and so her reprimand lacked real venom. "It's hazy from the tranquilizer, actually."

"You told me that I had no idea what I was dealing with. Nothing could have been further from the truth, yet you warned me all the same. Demia Carter entered into this situation blind, Holly. If we had been given the freedom to treat her differently when we first crossed paths, perhaps -" Artemis cut himself off, shaking his head sharply once. "It doesn't matter. This will not happen again. No more funerals."

"If you ever leave me in a position where I'm helpless to act in a crisis again, this will happen again," said the elf, extending her hand to tap four times against the inside of his wrist. "I'll strangle you myself if you get out of it in one piece. You don't ever leave me to man the rescue vehicle. Understood?"

He tapped twice in return against the palm of her hand. "Perfectly."

Their arms dropped once more. Another silent moment passed; they walked another few paces.

Artemis would later acknowledge that he probably should have let the subject go. With that same mild tone, however, he could not resist one last comment on the situation. "If our positions had been reversed, after everything we've been through together, you would be insulted if I doubted your ability to handle yourself in a crisis."

Holly immediately stopped walking, shaking her head in vigorous disagreement. Artemis heeled beside her, turning to wait for an answer. To Holly's credit, it only took her a couple of seconds to articulate why he was wrong.

"It's not about that," she said. "Not the same comparison at all. I know what you're capable of in a crisis, and it's not about that."

"Then, what is it about?"

She lifted her mismatched eyes, meeting his gaze. "When fairies are injured, we heal. When humans get hurt, you bruise."

Up until that moment, Artemis had nearly forgotten about the mark on his cheek. Overnight, the spot where Becquerel Jones punched him had turned a florid shade of purple, swollen green around the edges. He reached up to prod it, and winced. Holly shook her head in exasperation, gesturing to him; knowing better than to fight her, Artemis bowed his head enough to let her reach. This time, he held still and allowed her fingertips to brush against the wound.

"Heal," the elf whispered. Her magic immediately and effortlessly complied.

"Thank you," the human said quietly, straightening once more. He resisted the urge to touch the side of his face to verify that the bruise was gone, trusting her enough to know that she had taken care of it completely.

The rest of the walk back to the new LEPfoul office was silent.

-x-

"Have you any idea what your human did?"

The worst part of this conversation was the fact that this was not the first time, in recent months, that Holly had been asked that question. By now, her response was automatic: "He's not my human!" And then, a moment later, she remembered to add, "What did he do?"

She was playing dumb. While Artemis had taken the liberty of delivering the Lucia box to Kelp on his own, Holly had actually contributed to the plan: the system crash may have been of Artemis's design, but the Lucia screech had been entirely her idea. She'd seen firsthand the havoc that bird could wreak upon unprepared interns. This was not going to stop her from letting him take all the credit, so long as it prevented Kelp from learning the extent of her involvement.

And so far, it seemed that he had no idea. "The entire admin system, Holly. The entire system. Nothing critical went down but everything and anything involving paperwork -" He paused to take a deep breath.

"Well, you did originally hire him to do the paperwork," Holly cut in mildly.

"This isn't funny," Kelp growled. "I had to yell at people about paperwork. Me. Yelling at people about paperwork!"

Holly shook her head, an amused smile tugging at her lips. "Never thought we'd see the day."

"And that isn't even the worst of it. Holly, that screeching won't stop. If it were on a regular cycle, we could at least be prepared but it's completely random. I have never seen more fairies walking around with nervous twitches." He paused. "We're supposed to be a police force, d'arvit!"

Holly hummed in sympathy, doing her best not to laugh at the memory of the interns lined up to audition for the role of Lucia. They'd expected to have to pitch-shift the loudest one to make it match the bird's tones; instead, Sass had opened her mouth and blown them all away. "How's Jones?" she asked, changing the topic before Kelp blew a gasket.

Kelp sighed, rubbing his face. "We've administered the mindwipe on Jones and his family. I have a team at the residence cleaning up any loose ends as we speak. When the boy wakes up, the last few month's escapades will have been replaced by an extended trip to Stanford."

"Stanford?" Holly repeated.

"Human university," he clarified. "Even had the centaur hack into their systems and give the kid a doctorate. Should keep him busy for a while. LEPfoul's officially hands-off the entire situation, by the way. We're taking it from here." A screech sounded in the background of the call. Kelp jerked and then scowled. "You hear that?"

Holly tried to keep a straight face. "Loud and clear, Commander."

And then it happened again. Louder, this time. Closer. Kelp paled. "That's not coming from the speakers. Where is that sound coming from?" Another moment passed, and another screech rang out. "Where is - Why is it louder?"

"Trouble?" asked Holly, finally showing genuine concern.

Kelp's voice dropped. "D'arvit. D'arvit. She's back. She can't be back! That's impossible!" And then again, his voice rising in pitch with panic, "She's back!"

Perhaps if Kelp had not been so committed to his open-door office policy, the imminent attack could have been avoided. As it was, the bird faced no resistance. A streak of yellow shot across the screen of the camera. The last thing Holly saw before the connection cut was a sideways still of Kelp, arms held defensively in front of his face. Another garbled screech cut across the line. And then the feed went dark.

-x-

"You didn't actually smuggle the bird back out of the tunnel somehow, did you?"

Artemis raised both eyebrows in surprise. Holly sighed.

"I felt the need to check."

"Fowl protocol. Understood."

-x-

Ten minutes later the entire team - with the addition of Juliet, who was perched proudly atop a confiscated inflatable giant strawberry - had gathered in a rough semicircle in the middle of the office around a projector screen. Artemis had removed a simple USB drive from the heel of his loafer and plugged it into the LEPfoul mainframe, ignoring Juliet's slightly sheepish apologies for using said flashdrive as the host for a tracker.

"I need to confess that I've lied to you all," Artemis began, tapping the screen to open a spreadsheet document.

Holly snapped. "You lied to me about the bird?"

"No, I lied to you about something else." He seemed moderately offended that she'd even asked.

"I'm absolutely floored by this turn of events," muttered Sass under her breath, swishing her tail across the tile floor. Rather than taking a seat, she had simply folded her legs beneath her and lay down. Caltrop, leaning uneasily against her side, elbowed the centaur in the ribs and received a prod to the gill tubes for his trouble. Without missing a beat, Dodo reached over and smoothly readjusted the devices before the water sprite could begin to choke; flushing blue, Caltrop mumbled his thanks.

Artemis made a point of ignoring the interns as he prodded the screen again. A list appeared suspended in the air before him - names, addresses, ages, and other assorted information spread out in neat columns and rows. He began to scroll through, just slowly enough to allow the others to skim the information: equal numbers male and female, locations scattered all over the globe and names from all cultures, no age over twenty, and no IQ listed below 160. With a flick of his finger, he returned to the top of the list. "When I said I needed to identify Changelings on a case by case basis, I lied. I've actually kept tabs on close to two hundred individuals for years now." He glanced across the table to Holly, furrowing his brow. "Upon our encounter with Minerva Paradizo and the subsequent return from Hybras, I compiled this list and have kept it relatively up to date ever since. The Crash did damage my systems, but fortunately I did not have this list entered into any computer." He paused. "I'd simply memorized it. As relevant situations came up, I pretended to be hearing about each individual Changeling for the first time."

He did not need to say that this had been a risky enough maneuver - the information had, at one point, come extremely close to being lost altogether. Across the room Holly opened her mouth as though to protest, and then reconsidered. When she spoke, it was cautiously. "And you didn't mention this earlier because...?"

"Because I know how the LEP responds to threats. I've taken care to keep this data offline for exactly that reason: Foaly and I have built systems that are impervious to outside intrusion, but we have access to so many of each other's files that it would only be a matter of time until he found this. And if the centaur became aware of this information, he'd have to report it to his superiors. In that scenario, they would be bound to act upon it. Unfortunately, the worst thing we could possibly do at this point in time is make one hundred and eighty-one very intelligent potential enemies." Artemis frowned. "I've believed for years that human children are becoming smarter. What we've experienced over the last several months, however, should have been statistically impossible. After my initial meeting with Demia Carter, I asked Minerva Paradizo for her input on the matter. She returned to me several days later with a list similar to mine - in fact, approximately 86% of the names overlapped. Even if children are becoming more intelligent, we should not have found this many anomalies. Independently, we verified each other's conclusions: the Changeling phenomenon, as we've been referring to it, is not an isolated series of events. We're looking at a situation on a global scale."

"Wait. I knew you'd contacted her, but I wasn't aware that you and Minerva are actually on friendly terms," interrupted Holly. The interns may have been sitting in rapt attention, but she'd been present at a few too many Fowl explanations to be awed. "When did this happen, and does this mean we're allowed to talk about her again?"

Artemis quirked an eyebrow. "Holly, you know exactly what happened: I had a very long six months and gained a sense of perspective." Brushing the question aside, he continued, "The point I'm trying to make is that we need to be here. I'm coming forward with this list now because we are no longer attached to Police Plaza's mainframe. It's risky to bring this information online, but after what happened to Demia Carter, we have no choice. Simply knowing these individuals exist is not enough. They all need to be monitored in case they become aware of the existence of the People and, if they do attain that information, action needs to be taken to prevent them from instigating a crisis." He lifted his head to address the rest of the department. "Holly and I have seen firsthand - it only takes one mishandled situation to change everything."

"That's why we left Police Plaza?" asked Caltrop, rocking forward a little bit as though it would help him hear with more accuracy. "It had nothing to do with the boilers after all?"

Artemis nodded. "Exactly. We can no longer afford to deal with the Changeling situation on a case-by-case basis - we need to be more coordinated. We have the people and the resources to make this the priority for our department. Any objections?"

Holly swore under her breath. "If even one of these kids steps over a line, the consequences -" she began, but could not bring herself to finish the sentence. Artemis nodded.

"That's why we're here," he reassured her, for a moment ignoring the rest of the room completely. He spoke earnestly and studied her face intently, finally lowering his hand from the screen; behind him, the names still hung suspended in the air. "It won't happen. We won't let it."

-x-

The last remnants of a patchwork dream were fading when Becquerel woke. He was stretched out on his stomach, one hand curled beneath the pillow while the other arm hung loosely over the edge of the mattress. Caught between waking and sleeping, there was one disorienting moment when Bec could not remember where he was - then his eyes flickered open and he saw the dark green pillowcase. Of course, my bed. Where else would I be?

It wasn't until he lifted his head that Bec realized the pillow beneath him was wet. He reached his arm up to touch his cheek and realized, groggily, that he must have been crying in his sleep. The teenager closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember what on earth he'd been dreaming of. It was impossible to recall, and he rubbed at his eyes furiously with the side of his hand, blinking hard. The glow of the alarm clock on his bedside table was reassuring, familiar, as it always was. Shuddering, Bec exhaled and sank back into his pillow.

Makes sense that I can't remember. Just a dream. Must've been some dream, though it's probably for the best that I've got no idea what it was about.

He shifted, trying to burrow once more into the cocoon of his blankets. It was no good - he couldn't get comfortable. Grumbling a little to himself, Bec reached to flip his pillow over, hitting it a few times for good measure. Finally laying back down, the teenager shut his eyes once again.

Within moments, he had fallen back asleep. This time, he did not wake until morning.

-x-

Author's Note:

Like the majestic bird, we're back! After a stressful few weeks of final papers, presentations, and exams, the semester has come to an end and the two of us are back to Foul Team. Hurrah! - Winged

If you're curious, S2 of Foul Team is going to look a lot like S1 in format: seven episodes and various webisodes, telling a story that plays into a larger three-season arc. There's a lot of exposition in this episode, but we tried to lay out the foundations for how LEPfoul is going to function through the next season. Whee, changes! Also, I know we promised we'd be posting other things on this account, but unfortunately that other project ballooned into something entirely unrelated that'll take us a lot longer than a couple of weeks to finish - and so, we're back on LEPfoul duty! - Freud

No, seriously, that other project's scenes multiplied like interns. - Winged

And, as I was saying before Winged interrupted me, thank you so much for reading and staying with us! We hope you'll enjoy where this story is going to go! - Freud