The Foul Team

by freudwithwings

Hired by the LEP as a consultant, Artemis finds himself at the centre of a growing crisis. He was right: human children ARE getting smarter. Webisode 3.02.5: Homecoming is bittersweet, especially at three in the morning. But, like most things, it's easier with friends.

17. 207: A Unit of Collapse (2)

EPISODE 2.07: A UNIT OF COLLAPSE

A season finale in which chaos ensues: someone sings, someone gets punched, someone joins a small but noble club, and everything's on fire. And then things go from bad to worse.

-x-

Everything was on fire.

Holly could only be thankful that she'd already landed on the top of the ski-lift shack and removed her helmet when the communications system within exploded into a lively ball of fire. She might have felt more worried, except this wasn't the first time her helmet had blown up. It wasn't even the second. Thinking about it, Holly felt she ought to be relieved that her head hadn't exploded at some point along with tech. Instead, she found herself planning the lecture she'd give whoever was responsible for this once she returned belowground.

It would more likely be Foaly, she decided as she watched the flames spread out along the roof. Still, too early to rule anybody out just yet.

It was actually a fairly impressive fire. The roof was already crackling merrily, the flames licking at the metal structure that formed one end of the chair lift. Holly admired the colours briefly before it occurred to her that she should probably move to a safe distance; luckily, her wings still worked even without the helmet and she was able to find a new perch on a fence further down the hill.

Minerva stepped out of the shadows. "What a subtle entrance. I presume that was meant as some sort of distraction?"

"Sure," said Holly, before squinting at the girl. "Wait, how did you know I was here? I'm still shielded."

The Changeling tapped at the Google Glass clipped to her glasses. Holly recalled seeing the same attachment on Dorian's, and then remembered Artemis mentioning something about where Google had first gotten the idea for the technology - he'd mentioned having to reverse engineer one of his own inventions down to meet current human technological standards before he could sell the patent. Of course Google Glass is his fault - of course he originally designed it to see through shields. I'm not even sure why I'm surprised.

She snatched the clip from Minerva's glasses and tossed the technology into a snowbank before consciously registering that there was smoke coming from it, too.

"Excuse me!" yelped Minerva, right before the snowbank exploded. Slush went everywhere.

"That rules out an accidental tech malfunction," said Holly. "Something is attacking fairy technology. Even what little of it has made its way into human products."

"It's the Techno-Crash all over again," Minerva surmised. "You need to get to Fowl Manor."

Holly was already activating her wings. Then she stopped. "Hold on. What about Saul?"

A frustrated expression crossed the girl's face as she pulled her cell phone from her jacket's pocket. "Something has been blocking my cell reception since I've arrived. I'm fairly certain this was merely a set-up, likely to get you out of the way of whatever that," she gestured up the hill at the growing blaze, "is about."

Holly wavered. "I'll help you find Saul before I go. It might look like a set-up but there's still the possibility that the kidnapper is just trying to get rid of any outside help. I'm not leaving you here alone if your boyfriend really is tied up in a closet. But let's work fast, because I've got a feeling I'm needed in Ireland right now."

-x-

After an hour in the air, Dorian was still trying to get up to speed. "You're both a pilot and a mechanic. You have six toes - I saw when you took your shoe off. That burn on your heel looks nasty, by the way, you should get that looked at. The mob is terrified of you. And your six year-old brother blew up our phones as well as every other bit of aboveground fairy communication tech you've tried to reach so far."

Sitting in the cockpit of Dorian's plane with his hands at the controls, Artemis did not look up from the instrument panel as he replied, "None of those are technically questions, but yes on all counts."

"You have six toes."

"Yes, I do."

"Somehow, that's the thing I'm getting stuck on."

"And somehow, I'm sure that polydactylism is not our biggest problem at the moment."

"Also, don't think I didn't notice that the fairy has one of your eyes. That's creepy. Or maybe it's kind of sweet. I'm not sure. Depends on the kind of relationship between you two, I guess. I got the impression you go back a long ways, anyway. How'd it happen?" Dorian wondered if there was potential for a song somewhere among all these misplaced and altered body parts. It might be some kind of metaphor. He was sure that, once he'd gotten over the trauma of the last few hours, there'd be plenty of inspiration to mine from this entire string of events. Maybe even a whole album. The 'Juliet' song was coming along nicely and had all the makings of a hit, for sure. He had a sense about this kind of thing. Dorian hummed under his breath.

Artemis finally lifted his hand, flourishing his abnormally long index finger in the general direction of the humming. "This one isn't right either, one of my eyes used to be hazel, I have the immune system and drug tolerance of a two year-old, and I also lack a belly button. Come to think of it, one might have some degree of success arguing that I am no longer wholly human. Can we move on, please?"

It took Dorian one moment to unpack what he was hearing, and another to comprehend what he was seeing. And then the meaning of the hand gesture hit him. "Rude." He took another sip of his drink. "So, what's our play, then? We have any idea what we're walking into? I guess you and this Jones guy have history?"

"He blames me for the death of his friend."

Dorian gave a low whistle. It was an especially melodic whistle, perfectly in-tune with the song unfolding in his head. "And now he's gone after your baby brother? How did -?"

"He had been mind-wiped." Artemis grimaced. "Apparently it didn't stick."

The pop star hummed again, rocking back in his seat. "I've heard that can happen. Does this mean that I get to keep my memories now, if I help you out here? Can we work out a deal like that?"

"If I said yes, would you believe me?"

"I'd pretend to, if it makes you feel better, but we'd both know I'd be trying to find a way out of it anyways," Dorian responded, tugging a hand back through his hair to push his side-swept bangs out of his face. "We'll call that one a stalemate for now, then. And if it helps your planning at all, I'm pretty sure that whatever kind of distraction you need, I can cook one up."

"And how exactly do you intend to do that?" asked Artemis through clenched teeth. He'd visualized eighteen different potential scenarios so far, and none of them had worked out well. It was the travel time; seven hours from St Petersburg to Dublin (six, if the modifications he'd made to the plane's engine before taking off actually functioned as intended for the entire trip). There were too many unknowns, and no way to know for sure what was happening on the ground. Nobody at the manor had responded to any of his attempts to make contact thus far. His fingers tightened on the controls.

In reassurance, Dorian flashed the kind of smile that had graced the cover of many a teen magazine. "That part, at least, I've got under control. Apollo, my friend, never underestimate the power of an army of fangirls."

"It's Artemis."

"I like Apollo better. More musical. Bonus: it's actually a boy's name."

-x-

The situation belowground was chaos. Worse than chaos. At least most chaos doesn't have the fate of an entire society riding on its ability to somehow resolve itself into coherent order.

It had started with the entire city going into lockdown. Lights had gone off. The magnetic roadway had shut down. The giant metal doors had crashed down, shutting the city off from the outside world. It was not a flood. It was not a quarantine.

"It's the Techno-Crash all over again," was the gist of Foaly's frantic briefing. "Our technology has been compromised aboveground. None of the fairy ports are shielded anymore. The humans can look out their windows and see us! The only thing that saved us last time was the Crash being universal - for every bit of tech we lost, they lost any advantage they could have taken from it. We don't have that now. Look - you guys are smart, you figure out the security side of things, keep us in lockdown so we're not broadcasting anything from belowground in addition to the stuff that's visible on the surface, I need to get back to trying to figure out where this is even coming from. Whoever did it, they're clever. It's looped back to look like it's coming out of our own systems!"

Caltrop blinked, his heart sinking. "It's not - glub - not coming from Russia, is it?" he blurted. As the senior member of LEPfoul in the absence of both Holly and Artemis, he was the one attending the security briefing. For once, Caltrop was not enjoying the responsibility. The room was stuffed full of Council members and captains of the LEP, and every single head swivelled his way. The water sprite shrank down in his seat. "It's just… um… a hunch."

Foaly clenched his jaw. "Out of curiosity, and this is a purely hypothetical question not intended to throw any doubt upon anybody's actions or potential involvement in this current world-shaking crisis… the last time you heard from Fowl and Short, where were they?"

"Um. Glub. St. Petersburg?" said Caltrop.

"Which is in Russia," finished Commander Kelp, rubbing his forehead with his palm. "Do we know why neither of them has checked in?"

Caltrop realized this was another question he was supposed to answer. "Because you turned off the power? Glub. S-sir?"

Later, Caltrop would be on the receiving end of a long dressing-down for his sass in a time of crisis. Apparently there was "more than enough of that to go around already" in the LEPfoul office and the Commander "expected better from him." If Kelp were to spend the entire lecture internally laughing himself silly over his colleague's ability to turn even the meekest of water sprites into a full-fledged banter-spewing machine, it would go over Caltrop's head completely.

For the moment, however, there were bigger things to worry about.

Foaly threw up his hands in exasperation. "Maybe they're busy saving the world again! Who knows! I'm sure we'll get them to use that algorithm the human wrote to compose wonderful reports about it later, and some of them might even be true! Do you need me for anything else, or can I get back to trying to keep our society from collapsing?"

The lights chose that moment to turn back on. Every eye in the room shot upwards.

"Somebody's lifted the lockdown," said Cahartez around a mouthful of curry, a tad unnecessarily. "Who has the authority to do that? I assume all those people would be in this one room?"

Several hands raised, Foaly and Kelp's among them.

Cahartez swallowed. "I'm going to hate myself for asking this, but who actually lifted the lockdown?"

All hands fell, Foaly's landing directly on his keyboard to tap away furiously.

"Centaur," said Trouble, his voice dark. "Who lifted the lockdown?"

"Uh hum. Me, apparently. But I didn't. It's saying I did." Foaly swished his tail impatiently. "That's strange. Huh." He pressed a button.

All lights flickered off.

"There, see? Nothing to worry about. Just a computer bug. Perfectly -"

All lights came back on.

"Oh dear," said Foaly. "That's not good."

-x-

Surprising everybody, Sass had showed up at the office that morning on time and with her hair dyed a modest shade of taupe. Dodo had even dared hope, for the first time ever, that they might have finally been on-track towards making a proper agent out of her.

Of course, in hindsight, they would all later agree that it could have just been the first and most improbable sign of some kind of apocalypse.

The emergency lockdown hit, the lights went off, and it turned out her hair glowed in the dark. This was just as well, as they needed every source of light they could get. She announced proudly that the dye she had chosen used the same magical and chemical reactions as dwarf spit, hence the spectacular degree of luminescence. At that point, Mulch immediately excused himself from the room, said he had more important problems to deal with, and then proceeded to not come back.

Time passed.

"See?" said Sass after an hour of darkness, flipping her unexpectedly useful hair over her shoulder as she bent down to help Dodo search for a tablet she'd set down at some point before the lockdown had started, "You need me here."

The lockdown chose that moment to lift, rendering her hair respectable once more. Dodo gave a cry of triumph upon seeing the errant tablet sitting on Holly's desk. This was exactly where it should have been, and so of course the last place anyone had thought to look.

That was when Terrell chose to gallop into the office at high speed, slamming into Dodo's desk in his haste. Fish went flying. Dodo winced, and Sass hooted in amusement. Had Caltrop been there, he would have cried in horror, salvaged what he could, and then insisted on holding a funeral for any of his fallen brethren.

Maise, from her hiding place in the closet at the back of the room, poked her head out at the commotion and then retreated quickly, taking a moment to be grateful that Caltrop wasn't there.

Terrell untangled himself from the mess he'd created and held both hands up in surrender. "I want it on the record," he declared, "That we hacketers had nothing to do with this."

Everyone stared.

"The Reveal, I mean. We didn't do that. The fish, yeah. That was on me. I'll replace them. Even though you still haven't given us back our hamster."

"I thought we'd established that your group has been working specifically to cause a humans-meet-fairies scenario," Dodo said suspiciously. "That was the purpose behind helping the Changelings hack into our servers, steal fairy blueprints, and release a song in Gnommish."

Sass was less willing to negotiate. "Get. Out!"

The lights slammed off again.

"We didn't really think we'd be successful," Terrell protested. "Besides, the song hasn't happened. Your people keep getting in our way! And all this lockdown was definitely not our fault. We never wanted the world to end - we just wanted to change it!" He stamped a hoof to the ground to emphasise his point, and then added as a side thought, "Nice hair, by the way."

He then quickly sidetrotted out of the way, and Sass learned that it is much more difficult to successfully headbutt someone when your glowing head is the only thing your victim can see. She piled into the reinforced windowpane with a thump and a yelp, her glowing hair telegraphing her movements as she physically bounced backwards from the force of the impact.

The lights came back on as she was staggering back to her feet. "Well," she grumbled, tugging at her traitorous hair with a glower. "If you're here and you don't mean any harm, then you should pull up a terminal and find a way to help. We can't stop this, but if we've got our systems online, maybe we can keep some control over what our Changeling friends are able to get up to in the meantime."

Considering that the alternative option likely involved another attempted headbutt, it wasn't a difficult choice to make.

-x-

By the time the private plane touched down in Dublin, it was too late. The damage had already been done.

"Huh, that's interesting," said Dorian as Artemis argued at the Customer Service desk of the private airfield. Apparently, it was difficult for the officials to understand that this new jet did not actually belong to Artemis Fowl - unlike most aircrafts he flew - and that he didn't actually have the time to fill out all the paperwork and wait in the terminal for the corresponding six hours for it to be processed. He was fondly remembering the time Dodo had merely punched him at the terminal gate in Haven before letting him through, and was seriously considering offering to let Karen the customer service representative take a swing if it would make the process any faster.

"So interesting," repeated Dorian, getting the sense that Artemis wasn't paying attention to him. He followed up the statement by nudging Artemis in the ribs with the rounded top of his guitar case - the case was slightly singed, but he'd had plenty of time on the plane ride over to be sure that the instrument inside had been unharmed by the blaze. He'd also managed to mostly finish composing his concept album about this entire ordeal. He thanked his lucky stars he'd been able to rush back into the burning safehouse and grab it before the heat had done any damage to the wood. "That affects us, right?"

Reluctantly, Artemis followed the pop star's pointed finger to the tv in the corner of the room. A news station was currently reporting on the apparent materialization of an entire civilization living beneath the surface of the Earth.

The words died in Artemis's throat.

Luckily, the significance of this moment seemed to be absolutely lost on Dorian. "Like, that's definitely our problem, right? By the way, I'm kind of peeved - you were so concerned about me, y'know, not making this happen when clearly somebody wanted the cat out of the bag anyways? Magic cats. Huh. Maybe there's a lyric in there, too."

Artemis gave him a Look. "Stop. Talking." After a moment he added, with a tight-lipped grimace, "Please."

Dorian went cold, and then squeaked.

Artemis turned back to the customer service representative. "Let us leave without filling out the paperwork, hold the plane here in the meantime, and I will personally make sure your cousin Timothy does not see any time for what he's done."

Two minutes later, they were climbing into the back seat of Karen's car. Artemis was busy doing a search on the woman's phone, which he'd quietly palmed back at the desk. She hadn't yet noticed. "St. Stephen's Green," he told her.

Dorian, guitar wedged awkwardly across his lap in the confined backseat of the car, was wondering if it was safe to talk again. He decided to turn his attention to making friends with their new driver instead of provoking someone that had scared off the Russian Mafiya without looking half as intimidating as he did now. "So Karen… what did Timothy do?"

Unfortunately, it was Artemis that answered without looking up from the phone, "Something that his family deeply regrets."

"Ah," said Dorian. He glanced at the phone and saw that Artemis was looking at the satellite image of the park they were driving towards. "Why are we going to a park, anyway?"

"It's where Becquerel Jones is," Artemis said, manipulating the satellite feed with a swipe of his thumb and holding up the screen to display a glowing red dot. "He's able to run his override program without entering the Fowl Manor grounds, which means he's gotten my brother to give him remote access. My security gives him a limited geographic range to use that access from. By now, Foaly will have figured out that this signal is being routed through my servers, anyways - he'll have sent somebody to investigate it and shut it down on the ground. We need to get to the real source. Luckily, Jones is not stupid enough to make direct contact with my family, which means Myles had no idea what he was dealing with. He can't -" Artemis broke off, and then tackled the sentence again. "He can't have done this on purpose."

Presumably, there was a lot of technical reasoning behind pinpointing this exact location, but Dorian didn't bother to ask. Even though he was vaguely interested in exactly how his new ally had managed to take consumer-level technology and override military satellites with it in under a minute, he knew now was not quite the best time. "Big park. Public place. Lots of people. This Jones guy is probably counting on that to protect him. Sounds like you could use a distraction to flush him out, Apollo."

Artemis blinked. Dorian, feeling brave, took the chance to swipe the phone from his hand and press the button on the bottom to close whatever illicit program his new friend had been running. He opened Twitter instead.

-x-

dormaslov

dublin, I am in you! looking for a place to hang out w my guitar #justsayin

dormaslov

what the hey, it sounds like i'll be swinging by st stephens green in an hour! See you there? #surprise #dorianjams

-x-

"See?" Dorian said. After taking a moment to follow Karen's Twitter feed from his account, he reached over the guitar case and dropping the phone back into Artemis's lap - he'd considered giving it back to the poor, silent driver, but Artemis scared him more. "You've got your distraction. Whatever you want to pull, I guarantee nobody will notice."

"Oh?"

"Oh, definitely." He smirked and waved a careless hand. "Apollo, I'm already trending."

-x-

As it turned out, Artemis had been wrong on one crucial count: while Bec hadn't made direct contact with his family, he had been more than happy to send somebody else to do it for him.

Raimo Eskola was proud of this particular disguise. It was one thing to change his own appearance to make himself unrecognizable or create consistent personas for himself, but it was another thing entirely to mimic another person. For starters, Artemis Fowl was two inches taller than him. His posture was more rigid than Ray's own, hairline much sharper, skin much paler. On his pilot's license, it listed his eye color as both blue and hazel - it had taken a rather intensive investigation to turn up the two year-old color photograph that had told Ray which was which.

All things considered, Ray felt he was right to be proud. In fact, his disguise had turned out well enough to fool Artemis's own mother.

"Oh, Arty! I didn't know you were going to be home today!" she had said upon meeting him in the hall as Ray searched for Artemis's study.

Ray's heart had skipped, but he made his face look sufficiently annoyed to pass inspection. "No, I'm home and working on a project with Myles today. I told you that last week. Don't you remember?"

Angeline pursed her lips. "No, I must have forgotten. How nice of you, taking an interest in encouraging your brother's experiments. You know how most of them go over my head."

If this had been actually Artemis speaking with his mother, he would likely have flashed back to the scorpion incident and taken the opportunity to suggest that perhaps Angeline take a bit more active role in monitoring her son's activities. Ray, however, simply smiled. "That's what I'm here for, mom."

Mom. That should have been another alarm bell for Angeline. Instead, she beamed with pride and let him pass right by.

Now, Ray was holed up inside Artemis's study. He'd already completed his main role in setting up the remote bypass access system to give Bec the ability to run his own program off the Fowl servers. Ray hadn't been entirely sure what that program was supposed to do, but Becquerel had insisted it was incredibly important if they were to ever get the answers they needed. Myles had given him the passcode to access the computer upon boot; from there, the proxy was easy enough to install from a disc Becquerel had given him. He'd also set up a secondary program to use military satellites to take the magical energy readings that Myles had wanted; they were filtering happily through the wireless network directly to the boy's cell phone.

Now, all Ray had to do was babysit. Make sure the information kept flowing, make sure the program kept running, wiggle the mouse every now and then so the automated screensaver didn't kick in.

That was all he had to do. But while he was here, there were some mysteries he rather wanted to solve. And with access open to a majority of the Fowl servers, now was the perfect time to poke around.

For starters, he ran a full system text search: "Gaudi + magic + mosaic."

The results, when they began to flood in, were fascinating.

-x-

The last time Artemis had heard so much screaming, a rogue canary had swooped through Police Plaza. The time before that had involved a demon materialization in the middle of Barcelona. Although, come to think of it, neither of those times had involved quite as much screaming as now. His ears hurt.

The source of the sound was, of course, Dorian's rabid and adoring fanbase. From the second the pop star's tweet had hit the web, teenage girls had followed the call to flow steadily into St. Stephen's Green despite the drizzling rain. Now, they were packed into the space like sardines in a can. Screaming sardines bearing glitter-glue posters and homemade commemorative t-shirts. Of all the disasters Artemis had had a hand in engineering over the years, he was certain this was the worst.

Dorian and Artemis stood on the street opposite the park and stared at the chaos. Despite being so clued in to social media, Artemis wondered if any of them had any idea that there was an actual global crisis currently unfolding.

"Oh, of course they do," Dorian had told him after Artemis voiced this particular concern. "I'm currently trending in the number three spot. Numbers one and two are hashtag magic and hashtag fairies. And number four is hashtag not a hoax. Number five is related to the new game show premiering right now in the States. Number six is a promoted hashtag about that game show, which means that most of the tweets under number five are probably people complaining about the fact that Twitter wants to talk about game shows rather than fairies. Number seven is hashtag replace a movie title with fairy."

Artemis turned and stared, raising a single eyebrow.

"You know, that Twitter game? Where you get awesome examples like "Close Encounters of the Fairy Kind" and "Lord of the Fairies: The Return of the Magic."" He looked down at the phone again. "Oh, "Fairy Wars: A New Wing" - that's a good one. "Silence of the Fairies!" Ha. "Fairy Flew Over the Human's Nest" and "Gnome Cassidy and the Sundance Fairy" are great too. Wow, I love this game!" He glanced back up. "Why am I getting the feeling you haven't seen any of those movies before?"

Artemis didn't answer.

Dorian pouted, and then a determined look crossed his face. "It's okay, we can fix that. Anyways, I'd been hoping that getting shot at a few hours ago would make me stick at number two for at least a little while longer. My publicist is not going to be impressed. Still, we've got a good crowd here - plenty of distraction for you to work with!"

For all the effort that Artemis had put into saving humanity over the years, he found himself vaguely disappointed that, upon the discovery of a magical race living under their feet, the average human being took to the internet to play Twitter games. Apparently the rest were here to see Dorian play guitar. Suddenly he empathized quite strongly with Holly's stance on the intelligence of Mud Men in general.

The thought of Holly was a reminder to focus on the task at hand. "Time to do your job," Artemis told the pop star as he plucked the phone back. "I'll go find Becquerel Jones."

Dorian nodded briskly, brandishing his guitar as though it were a weapon. "I'll make sure the crowd doesn't notice a thing. Best of luck, Apollo!"

As he turned away to skip across the street and into the fray, Artemis could have sworn he heard Dorian chuckle to himself again. ""Fairy: The Under-Terrestrial." You're funny, Karen! Totally re-tweeting that one!"

-x-

Caltrop walked in to find a flurry of activity in the LEPfoul office. Also more people than he had expected - along with the usual operatives, the marketers from downstairs had apparently made themselves at home. Along one wall a plasma screen displayed rolling updates on the situation aboveground, as well as a number of human news stations; various computers and devices were ticking away under the careful command of their owners, and the room had - for all intents and purposes - been transformed completely into a crisis response center. The marketers had brought anything useful they could salvage upstairs, taking up every table and chair they could find (and some pieces of furniture that were neither table nor chair had found themselves conscripted into service, too - Caltrop noticed the inflatable strawberry currently being used by a pixie as a footstool). Dodo was walking between the desks, bending to peer at screens and give the occasional piece of advice or input. Maise had made herself useful, too: as the only intern in the room, she'd taken it upon herself to ensure every workstation was well-stocked with coffee, healthy snacks, and water. Icky was valiantly thump-thumping around the room, proclaiming encouragements to anyone he passed and occasionally projecting information onto any empty patches of wall upon request.

"Oh," he squeaked, pausing on the threshold. "You - glub - you guys are already up to speed on this - this situation, then?"

The centaur nearest him turned and flashed a familiar grin. It was Sass; he hadn't recognized her at first due to her unnaturally natural shade of hair. "Welcome back, shrimp! Grab a seat."

"S-S-Sass?" He blinked. "What's - blub - happening?"

"Cat's out of the bag, so we're working!" she said with relish, trotting across the room. Caltrop followed at a slight distance. "Our marketer friends already have direct lines of communication on a lot of the Changelings, we've got trackers on pretty much everybody at this point, and there isn't really anything any of those kids could do now that we won't notice. See, there!" She pointed at a momentary red spike on the situation wall. As Caltrop watched, it faded quickly back to a content shade of green. "Augustus Montgomery, over in Wales, just sneezed. Gesundheit, buddy."

"We're monitoring everything, dude!" added Icky, nearly rolling onto Caltrop's foot. "Big Brother is watching!"

"Um," said Caltrop, not entirely sure that Icky was drawing the most moral comparison. "Everybody?"

"Well," Icky said, his voice modulation fizzling a bit as he drew out the word. "Everybody we can. I mean, there's ones we're not allowed anywhere near - got pulled off the Jones case, remember? And Fowl's tracker blew up. So did Dorian's, but he's all over twitter so we're good on that front, we know everything he's up to - ooh, he just sneezed, too! Three different people tweeted about it. So there's that."

"Aren't we using the instructions Artemis left us?"

Dodo lifted her head. "No, his tracker's offline. What are you talking about?"

Caltrop scurried across the room to Artemis's desk and opened the bottom drawer. The only thing in there was a silver attache case with a fancy keypad lock. Caltrop placed the case on the surface of the desk, typed in the six-digit combination that all LEPfoul operatives were supposed to know (but that had probably long-since been forgotten by everyone else) and lifted the lid reverently. Inside lay a paper manual on a fitted cushion.

"Oh," said Dodo.

"Wow," said Sass.

"Amaaaaazing, dude," said Icky, rolling along the floor to catch up. "What are we looking at? It's totally offline, I had no clue this thing existed!"

"I'm pretty sure - glub - that was the point," said Caltrop, taking the manual out of the briefcase. He opened the cover and skimmed the contingency plan Artemis had outlined. "Okay, team. We have w-w-work to do!"

-x-

Becquerel had chosen the park for its public access, central location, and the relative anonymity it afforded him. There were enough people around that he felt secure against attack from either human or fairy, and enough of them were tourists that he was sure nobody would remember him with any particular clarity. His laptop was open on his lap with a cord running to a portable charger hidden inside the backpack at his feet, and a hood was pulled over his head to ward against drizzling rain and the occasional tourist's camera. For the last several hours, he'd been monitoring the progress of his program. While attacking fairy security had been impossible from the outside, while routed through the Fowl servers it was easy enough to wreak all kinds of havoc. Artemis's systems were tangled up so fully with the LEP's that gaining direct entry to one provided easy backdoor access to the other.

It had been simple enough from there. Fry any aboveground communications and shielding (literally fry, in some very specific cases that most certainly deserved it), prevent the People from locking down their own broadcasting, and then let human satellites, radar, and intelligence agencies do the rest of the work for him.

His phone buzzed at his side to let him know that eighteen of his mutual Twitter followers were now posting about the same topic: "#replaceamovietitlewithfairy."

Close enough. He wished Demia were here to see this.

Two girls sat down on the bench beside him. They were both squealing. Bec gave them a dirty look, but they didn't seem to notice - wearing matching t-shirts, they were gushing about some unprecedented event, something that they hadn't expected to see within their lifetimes.

"The fairies?" he asked, pleased despite himself.

The girl closest to him crinkled her nose in disgust. "Ew, no. The concert, stupid!"

"The concert?" repeated Bec, noticing for the first time just how busy the park had gotten over the last hour. Teenage girls were everywhere, standing in a packed crowd with the occasional sibling or parental escort hovering awkwardly nearby. Bec lowered his modified noise-cancelling headphones and realized that what he'd thought was the buzz of electrical interference was actually a roar of excited screams. The girls on the bench beside him joined in the chorus, and Bec flinched.

Suddenly there was a screech of feedback. An enhanced voice boomed out over the noise: "Hellooooooo Dublin!" Bec could practically hear the extra exclamation points. There was a pause as the crowd went nuts. "I'm Dorian, and we're gonna make some magic happen here tonight!"

Another surge of screams answered him before, finally, the crowd began to hush in anticipation. Over the makeshift speaker system came the casual strumming of an acoustic guitar. A moment later, the singing started.

It took Bec half a minute to realize that the melodic verse was in Gnommish.

Okay, he thought, that would be my cue to leave.

Swiftly, Bec closed the laptop and stuffed it into his backpack before swinging the bag over his shoulder. There were so many girls everywhere that it actually took several minutes of bobbing and weaving to make his way to the main gate, panting and out of breath. He broke from the crowd with a muttered swear and a shove, and hit the pavement running.

Half a block away, Artemis lowered the phone from his ear and followed at a slightly more leisurely pace.

-x-

There was a window in Artemis's study that desperately needed repair. Weather had shrunken the frame over the years until it no longer fit flush against the pane of glass. Upon applying a precise amount of pressure against the spot in the upper corner where a nail had started to come loose, the bottom edge would spring free just far enough to allow somebody with particularly tiny fingers to reach through and undo the latch on the inside.

Artemis had no intention of replacing that window - indeed, he had deliberately disabled the alarm system that was supposed to secure it against exactly that kind of intrusion. Being three floors up and not a visible weakness, the ease of access it afforded Holly to the manor was more than worth any potential security concern.

It took Holly all of thirty seconds to get inside the study. Usually she was much faster; today she was in a hurry, and had slammed the glass down over her knuckles twice in her haste.

"D'arvit," she muttered as she jumped down into the room, sparks dancing across her fingers. She looked across the room, registered the figure seated at the desk with his back turned to her, and frowned. "Arty? How did you even get here so fast? Wait, don't answer that - it was fast, so it was probably illegal. I don't want to know. Have you figured out yet how to fix this?"

The person at the desk shrugged, not speaking. Holly scowled.

"Artemis, tell me you have a plan to fix this. And pass me a communicator while you're at it - mine got destroyed at the lodge."

Her friend sounded tense, even considering the situation at hand. "How was the lodge?"

Holly groaned and stalked over the desk to fetch a new communicator for herself, since Artemis clearly had no intention of helping her. "Saul is fine, it was a distraction, and we have way bigger issues. Like the fact that fairies are on CNN right now!" She yanked open the drawer where she knew Artemis kept the fairy tech that he was definitely not supposed to have, jammed her thumb against the disguised scanner in the bottom of the drawer, and pulled up the false panel after it clicked and glowed faintly green. Smart Mud Boy, giving me access.

After selecting a comm at random, she glared up at the human.

And froze.

"CNN?" he repeated, mismatched eyes wide with interest.

Things happened quickly after that. Holly's fist shot out to make contact with the human's nose with such force that he flailed backwards to land on the floor. He'd barely landed before she'd jumped over the chair in a flying take-down to press a knee to his trachea, her full weight to his chest, and a blaster to his forehead.

"Where is Artemis Fowl?" she demanded, emphasizing her point by jabbing the weapon at his temple with each syllable.

Ray whimpered. "It's - it's m - me - ?" he attempted, trying to talk around both the overwhelming terror and the pressure against his windpipe.

She jabbed at him again, nowhere close to fooled. "I won't ask a second time."

At this point, Ray joined the small but noble club of those who had wet themselves upon facing the wrath of the LEP's fiercest agent. "Alright! He's… he's still in Russia. I… think? I didn't hurt him? Didn't… even meet him. Ever."

The elf glowered.

"I promise! W- we waited until he was nowhere near here!"

"We?" Holly repeated ominously.

"Me and - and Myles and - and Becquerel - ?"

At that moment, a giant hand closed around the back collar of her suit and lifted Holly off her prey. The collar tightened around her throat and she gasped, writhing to break free as another hand prised the neutrino from her fist. "Butler," she hissed, thrashing.

Later, it would be a matter of much debate who exactly had won that encounter. The only thing everyone could agree on was that it was not Ray. Either Butler had dropped Holly of his own volition or she had broken his grip and freed herself; no matter which option was correct, teeth had definitely been involved.

Holly landed hard enough on Ray that he expelled an audible whoof from his lungs and spent the next few minutes gasping for breath. By the time he was cognisant of his surroundings once more, the elf and the massive human seemed to have settled their differences; at first Ray thought they were shaking hands in agreement, and then he saw the blue sparks that skipped from her fingertips to the broken and bloodied skin on Butler's hand.

"Instinct," she was explaining, not all that apologetically. "Sorry about that."

Butler nodded in understanding, cracking his knuckles. "No need to apologize. All is forgiven. So, what have we here?"

In unison, they turned to appraise Ray. "That's not Artemis," Holly said, folding her arms over her chest.

"Clearly not," Butler agreed, extending a newly-healed hand to help Ray to his feet. Under the circumstances, Ray couldn't exactly refuse the offer. "He appears to have wet himself."

-x-

Five minutes later, Ray was seated miserably at a chair in the Fowl kitchen and attempting to avoid the double glare of Artemis's most terrifying defenders. "I was just watching the computer. I don't really even know what it does."

Holly rolled her eyes. "You know something, though. Otherwise you wouldn't have agreed to help. Butler, I really think I should -"

"You can't put him under the mesmer," the bodyguard said for the third time in as many minutes. "If humans now know about the People, the last thing you need is the kind of publicity that comes along with mind control."

Holly knew he was right, but was still having trouble wrapping her head around the end of the world as she knew it. Part of her was still certain that once she found Artemis, he'd have a plan to fix everything. After all, that was what he did. Their ragtag team of misfits had pulled through far more dangerous adventures that had done far less lasting damage to the world. But she was also aware of just how much time had passed since the fairy defences had gone down, and was beginning to get an idea of exactly how much publicity this breach of security had gotten.

Mind-wiping a few humans was no big deal - it happened all the time. A town full of them, possible but difficult. She remembered back to the Hamburg incident and shuddered. But an entire planet?

It might be too much of a miracle to hope for, this time. That morning, her biggest problem had been her roommate building a sentient drink dispenser out of her old kitchen appliances without asking first if she minded his particular take on "recycling." Now, everything she knew was falling apart. Things were going too well, she thought to herself, tapping her hand four times against the barrel of her gun. I should have expected disaster - I did expect disaster, sooner or later. He did, too.

But I didn't think it would happen like this.

At least the suggested possibility of the mesmer was unnerving Ray just as much as Holly and Butler combined. "I really don't know! It was just some program that Becquerel was running. Myles let me in, in exchange for me getting some numbers for him, too. He's working on something and needed it to happen at the same time as Bec's program. Honestly, I didn't really ask many questions? I just - look, I found this thing on a wall in Barcelona and I wanted answers about it. That's all I'm here for. I was kinda using them as an excuse to get in here, I guess? Would have felt weird breaking in for my own reasons, but it's fine if I'm doing it to help somebody else, right?"

They glared. Ray wilted.

"Okay. Maybe I should feel bad about that."

Butler glowered. "I told him Barcelona would come back to haunt us."

"So did I," grumbled Holly. Now that she was certain Artemis was not in immediate danger, she felt less guilty about cursing his name. She turned back to Ray, snapping. "Changeling. What is Myles working on?"

"Something with energy readings? The, uh, the magic ones," Ray added apologetically. "Truth be told, I didn't really believe in this magic stuff? I thought there was a totally reasonable explanation. Something mathy, maybe. That's what Maeve said it was. But it still seemed like there was something more going on? I dunno. I just couldn't bring myself to let it go once I thought of it." He paused. "Wait, what did you call me?"

"Of course you couldn't," she growled, her internal monologue shifting from cursing Artemis specifically to cursing Changelings in general. "Where is Myles now?"

Ray shrugged helplessly, accepting that his last question was not about to be answered at any point in the near future. "Somewhere on the grounds? He said he wasn't actually leaving so he didn't need any escort?"

Butler stood up. "I'll take care of the computer in the study and shut that program down. Holly, you can find Myles faster if you take to the air."

Holly nodded and activated her wings. From his spot on the chair, Ray piped up as he realized that his window of opportunity was closing. "Erm. Elf? Holly - is that your name?"

She hovered by the window. "Talk fast."

"Can I just ask - look, it's going to bug me if I don't. What gave my disguise away? I fooled his mom just fine, but you knew immediately! I didn't even really say anything!"

The others exchanged a meaningful, exasperated look. "The eyes," Holly said, gesturing to her own. "The eyes weren't right. His are both this colour." She winked the blue one in emphasis.

Ray's jaw dropped. "But how - eyes don't just - ?"

"Magic," she said with a smirk. And with that parting remark, Holly waved goodbye and shimmered out of sight.

-x-

Becquerel ducked into the first cafe he saw, quickly ordering a small coffee and finding an empty table as close to the back as possible to set up his laptop. For a moment, it appeared that all was well - the fairy defenses were still down, and the manor proxy was still functioning exactly as intended.

He rolled his shoulders and cricked his neck, getting ready to unleash even more digital havoc.

Then, with little fanfare and even less explanation, the connection abruptly dropped.

-x-

Back in Fowl manor, Butler had given up on stopping the program with any kind of elegance.

Instead, he'd simply pulled the plug on the entire server. Artemis, he was certain, would eventually forgive him.

-x-

Bec looked up from his laptop to find he was no longer alone at his table.

"Hello, Becquerel Jones," said Artemis Fowl with his best vampire grin. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Your choice."

They were both surprised when Bec's thrown punch missed by half an inch. For a second neither genius moved, Bec's arm outstretched and Artemis's spine pressed as far back in his chair as physically possible.

Then Bec resorted to Plan B. He shoved at the table with his knees, pushing it upwards. Both his hands caught the edge of the table and helped it on its journey towards Artemis's face. Computer went flying, along with coffee. Bec stood up abruptly, trying to shove his chair back. This would have been more effective if Artemis hadn't ignored the burn on his ankle to loop his own foot around the chair closest to him and give it the strongest tug he could manage.

The pile-up that followed took out three tables and eight chairs, and was incredibly undignified for everybody involved. Bec managed to scramble to his feet first and bolted towards the back of the cafe, hoping there would be an exit to the back alley through the kitchen.

Artemis, coffee spilled down the front of his jacket, his singed loafer dangling half-off his foot, and Bec's laptop tucked under his arm, followed in limping pursuit with a groan. "Why do they always choose the hard way?"

-x-

The comm Holly had picked up from Artemis's study crackled to life as she hovered over the Manor, playing a looped recording of Lily Frond's voice in her ears. "This is an emergency broadcast," the elf was saying in Gnommish, "To any fairy stranded aboveground, please contact the first available LEP representative on the standard emergency line. Do not hang up the connection, and please remain calm."

"Please remain calm," echoed Holly sarcastically, jabbing at the communicator with her finger. "It's just the end of the world as we know it. Nobody panic now." She adjusted the frequency past the standard emergency line, tapping into the private line she had set up with Foaly. Artemis was not technically supposed to have access to this line, which meant that of course the borrowed communicator had it pre-programmed in.

"Foaly? Foaly, you there?"

A relieved whinny crackled over the line. "Holly! Late to the party as usual. What are you and Fowl doing up there?"

"This isn't our fault!" she spat out, instantly on the defensive.

"No, no, no! Not what I meant! I was wondering what kind of miracles you needed me to pull off for whatever harebrained scheme the Mud Boy's come up with to fix this mess. That's all! Nothing personal. What do you need this time? A time stop? A magic beanstalk? A three-legged pink dancing unicorn?"

"A thermal scan of the Fowl Manor grounds," Holly answered. "I'm in Ireland. And Artemis isn't here. Last I saw, he was still in Russia. I was actually hoping he'd already made contact with you."

"Nope," the centaur whinnied, tapping at the keys to pull up the requested scan. "Lost his tracker right when things started exploding up there." He paused. "I'm sure he's fine."

The elf grit her teeth, but made a conscious decision to trust in her best friend's ability to survive something as petty as an electrical explosion. The world may have been in the process of tearing itself apart, but she was certain it would require more than a few crossed wires to take Artemis Fowl down. "Look: there was another Changeling here and he'd been in contact with at least two more, Becquerel Jones among them. Get in touch with Caltrop - I'm sure he and the rest of LEPfoul are already doing everything they can, but they need to be on red alert. If any other Changelings are going to try anything devious, now would be the time for them to do it."

The centaur whinnied. "I believe they're already on it."

Holly blinked in surprise. "Oh. Tell them to carry on, then."

The scan expanded on the communicator's screen, clearly displaying three distinct heat signatures in the western corner of the grounds. Looking at where they were located, she wasn't surprised in the slightest.

It was the place where the golden fairy roses still grew in the shape of a berserker rune. The spot where their brother had once died, and then been brought back to life. Of course Myles was doing his magical experiment there. It couldn't have been anywhere else.

Two of the thermal readings were small and human in shape; Holly guessed that if one was Myles, the other would be Beckett. The third, though….

"Any idea what that is?" she asked.

"Nothing good," answered Foaly. "Energy readings are going haywire over there. More haywire than usual, I mean. Things never really settled down after - well, you know what happened. Gate's gone, but that doesn't mean the spot is stable. You might want to hurry."

Holly was already bee-lining toward the problem spot, though she still managed to spare the breath for a quip. "You said haywire twice there. It must be a crisis," she snorted. "You're hungry and it shows. Eat another carrot, would you?"

Foaly swallowed the carrot he had currently been chewing on, opened his mouth to retort that he'd done an excellent job lately with curtailing his stress-eating habits, and then nearly choked. "Holly? Fowl's - he's definitely alive. His Neutrino pinged me. No GPS tag came through, everything's too scattered to pick it up, but he definitely just fired a shot."

"Did he hit anything?" Holly asked instinctively.

"It's Fowl," Foaly snorted, reaching for another carrot. He'd already gone through two bags of them. "What do you think?"

-x-

The shot went wide over Bec's head. The teenager skidded to a stop, pivoting on a heel with a snarl, "Your aim sucks, Art." He raised his hands slowly, packing as much sarcasm into the gesture as he could manage. "But okay. You got me. What are you going to do about it now?"

Artemis was standing in the back doorway of the cafe's kitchen, feet planted and weapon aimed steadily at Bec. "Warning shot. Next time, I won't miss." He stepped over the dropped laptop into the alleyway, letting the door swing shut behind him so the two of them were alone. "Tell me what you did to my brother."

"I talked to him, that's all. He's a good kid, your brother. All he needed was a friend. Someone to take him seriously, encourage him, and give him the nudge to actually investigate all those strange energy readings around your house."

Artemis's finger could not physically be any tenser on the trigger without firing. "If you hurt him, I promise you I'll -"

"Relax, Art." Bec grinned, cutting off what he was sure would be a very impressive threat. "He's just fine."

-x-

Myles was not just fine. In fact, he was the opposite of fine.

Everything was going horribly wrong.

After months of hard work and planning, the day of his grand experiment had come at last. And it had seemed to be a success, too - taking the readings from inside the grounds themselves instead of through external satellites was exactly what he needed. The data was precise, the blueprints that Bec gave him were working exactly as promised, and so far, Beckett had made a great show out of being bored by the proceedings.

That last point was usually a good sign, in terms of scientific progress.

And then the data feed cut off unexpectedly, leaving Myles's machine churning and sputtering as it tried frantically to process nothing.

Myles, too, was growing frantic. "I can't shut it down!" he called over his shoulder.

Lounging on a tree stump partway across the meadow, Beckett looked up from the fairy rose that he had been busy shredding, plucking petal after petal and letting them fall to the ground at his feet. He'd already assembled quite a collection. "Huh?"

"It's not shutting down!"

Beckett's eyes focused on the machine's oscillating lights, peered up at the tower behind it, and then blinked back down. "Uh oh. That looks like a problem."

"You think?"

"What did you mess up this time?"

"I didn't!" Myles protested, reaching out to touch the metal surface and then thinking better of it.

Beckett tipped his hand to spill the thorny flower stem onto the grass, stood up, made a token attempt at dusting pollen from his pants, and jogged over to investigate. "I'm pretty sure it's going to explode," he announced in a sing-song voice, not seeming nearly as daunted by the prospect as a normal six year-old should be. If anything, he almost seemed excited, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"I know!" Myles snapped, tugging at his hair. "How do we -?"

"Stand back, humans!"

Both twins whirled around to gape at the strangely-proportioned woman floating several feet away with a weapon trained in their general direction. Beckett shoved forward in front of Myles; Myles let him.

The woman rolled her eyes. "No, get behind me. I'm Holly, I'm a friend of your brother's, and I can't shoot your gadget with you in the way!"

Oh.

Beckett grabbed at Myles's hand and tugged him away from the machine. Myles dug in, loafers scraping at the dirt. "But that's mine!" he said in token protest. "You can't shoot it!"

"It's going to explode!" Beckett hissed at him, tugging harder.

Seeing sense in this line of argument, Myles reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled aside. Across the clearing, Holly made a face and as soon as the twins had cleared the area, shot the machine three times.

The shots hit with pin-point accuracy, enveloping the machine in a brief golden glow before it absorbed the energy into itself.

"Oh, excellent," said Myles with a purposeful scowl. "We're saved."

Holly rolled her eyes and muttered something about family resemblance.

Beckett took a slightly more direct approach: toeing out of his shoe, he raised it above his head and threw it at the contraption in the middle of the clearing.

Another glow of yellow light burst from the machine, this time tinged with blue sparks. The loafer never hit the ground; instead, it dissolved into a cloud of gray ash. All three observers flinched.

-x-

Now that he had nothing left to lose, Becquerel seemed almost happy to have somebody to properly monologue towards. And Artemis, having more than his fair share of experience with villainous monologues, was more than happy to let him. He had long since learned that they almost never worked out in favor of the villain. "You got your memories back," he prompted, taking a step forward with his Neutrino still raised. "I'm curious how that happened."

"Somebody sent me the tapes, Art. The shuttle you crashed, remember? Totally had a dashcam. Maybe I shouldn't tell you that, but I kinda like the thought of you trying to figure out which one of your fairy friends is a traitor to your cause. I mean, they had to know that giving me back my memories and helping me fine-tune your brother's magical research would come back to personally bite you. That sounds like a grudge to me, and you've given lots of people lots of reasons to hate your guts."

"Interesting," Artemis said mildly, his face not betraying any of the shock, hurt, or confusion that Bec had hoped for. "You reasoned this out, but decided to play into their hands anyways."

Bec's face twitched. "Yeah. Their interests aligned with mine. I happen to hate your guts, too."

In sharp contrast to the standoff below, the rain had started to clear off. Sun was breaking through the clouds, and a songbird chirped merrily half a block away. Artemis's eyes narrowed a fraction, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly as pieces slotted into place. "I see. And that's all that motivated you?"

"What, you were expecting something else? A grand plan to change the world or lead a revolution or get rich quick or something equally devious?"

Artemis shrugged, though Bec could tell that he was barely holding back a monologue of his own. "I suppose I'm used to my enemies thinking bigger than that," he said instead, sounding sorely disappointed even though his eyes were alight with something that looked suspiciously like an epiphany. "I admit I don't quite know how to appropriately respond to your lack of ambition."

Bec snarled. "You don't need to. The whole world is doing enough responding for me. And hey - put that gun away. We both know you're not actually going to shoot me."

"Do we?" asked Artemis, sounding perfectly calm. He kept his stance just like Holly had taught him, feet positioned just so to keep him centered and his support hand bent at the proper angle against his shooting arm to steady his aim.

"Come on, Art. You're a member of the LEP now. You've got their restrictions, you play by their rules. You can't just shoot an unarmed human civilian, especially not one who's surrendering. Look at my hands." He held them higher for emphasis. "I'm surrendering so hard right now. Too bad for you. I mean, I did just rope your brother into all of this. It's going to land on his head, for sure. His or yours, anyways. I guess I don't really care which. If I were you, I'd totally have shot me by now if I were allowed to do it without starting an interspecies war."

Artemis raised an eyebrow.

Bec's stomach dropped, bravado finally failing him. "Er, right?"

"Wrong. The LEP doesn't hire humans. I'm just a consultant," said Artemis, and pulled the trigger.

-x-

It was too late to find another way to stop the machine. Even Foaly had confessed that the only option Holly had left was to vacate the area immediately. And when Foaly told her to run, Holly knew to listen.

She grabbed Myles's arm and reached for Beckett's, but the second twin wormed away at the last second to dive headfirst towards the machine. "What are you doing?" Holly shouted, shoving Myles backwards into the comparative shelter of the nearest cluster of rose bushes and running after Beckett.

Beckett ignored her, hitting his fist against a panel until it fell loose and then squeezing his fingers into the gap. When his hand emerged again, there was a clump of multi-coloured wires in his grip.

"Get down!" he warned, and pulled.

-x-

The world exploded into light.

-x-

"The Fowl twins just dropped!" Terrell shouted across the room, from the middle of a group of hard-working marketers. "Their vitals just spiked like crazy and now they're both unconscious. Otherwise fine, though, I think?"

Sass whinnied in alarm. "Same for Vedette. Also Minerva!"

Caltrop and Dodo had been busy pouring over Artemis's Reveal Contingency Plan. The dwarf thrust the book into Caltrop's hands and then bustled over to take a look at Sass's workstation. "Though Saul's readings - well, they're fine. It looks like everybody around Minerva is fine. So that's something, at least."

"Uh, dudes? They're totally dropping like flies! Changelings! All over the world, dude! Every single one of 'em!" Icky thudded in a quick circle, until the side with his projector module was facing a wall. It blinked yellow, and then a map shone on the wall. "Green is normal heartrate, look."

"I only s-s-see red?" Maise said tentatively.

"Exactly, dude!" said Icky, rocking back and forth with excitement. The image on the wall shook to match, his unique method of transportation having ensured the gel matrix inside the AI's chassis was no longer rigid enough to keep it steady against the bumps. "And magical readings all over the world just spiked for a moment there! Like a wave! A totally gnarly wave! Like - like - like whoa! The whole world just took a magic bath, man! Whatever that was, I've got a feeling it was big."

They would have debated this issue more if Lucia hadn't chosen that precise moment to emit an ear-rending screech. Perched on the upper side of Dodo's toppled fishtank, she spread her wings to their full span and crowed as though her moment of ultimate triumph had finally arrived.

"Oh, g-g-g-gods!" screamed Caltrop, diving for cover. "A-are we - glub! - sure the bird had nothing to - glub - do with it?"

Stranded on the desk while the office dissolved into well-practiced chaos around him, Icky was able to give the matter some serious thought as his colleagues took evasive maneuvers, dragging the hapless and stunned marketers along with them. "Dude? If I didn't know better, man, I'd say she totally knows. You know?"

-x-

Myles woke with grass in his face. I'm allergic to grass, he thought sourly, and pushed himself upwards through a tangle of rose bushes to try and figure out exactly what he was doing outside anyway. Ow. Thorns. Gross. Whatever had happened, it had better not be Beckett playing another stupid prank. He had important things to do, like - Oh.

The machine was destroyed, scrap pieces scattered over the clearing with the force of the explosion. The roses had actually done a decent job of protecting him from the worst of the blast, though now crawling out of them left the young genius covered in scrapes and scratches.

This was the worst thing to happen to Myles all day, until he saw his brother. Beckett was laying closer to the scorch mark left on the earth where the device had once stood. There was blood in Beckett's hair, and his arm was bent at an awkward angle.

No, not Beckett!

His heart suddenly racing, Myles flopped out of the bushes, scrambled over the smoldering scraps, and dropped to his knees at his brother's side. The fairy girl lay a few feet away, but she barely registered in Myles's list of priorities. He grabbed Beckett's shoulder and leaned over to see if the boy was still breathing. Please be alright, please be alright, don't be hurt. If you're hurt, it's my fault. It's all my fault - please don't be hurt -

He was so worried that for a moment, Myles didn't even notice the blue sparks as they gathered at his fingertips before skipping out over Beckett's limp body. He nearly scrambled back when they caught his attention, mind racing as he put the pieces together. Magic, fairy healing… how does it work… how do they do it? He looked over his shoulder, but the fairy wasn't moving and so would clearly not be any help. Myles was on his own for this one.

Luckily for both Myles and Beckett, it turned out that instinct was much more helpful than anything he could have pieced together from the books Henri had provided.

"Heal," he whispered in a language he had never heard spoken aloud before - the language from his brother's cell phone and Henri's notes, the one where 'centaur' actually meant 'centaur' and 'magic' felt like - like -

Well, like this. The magic knew what to do. Myles just had to let it.

Still unconscious, Beckett drooled happily on the grass as his arm snapped back into place. His spit glowed.

Satisfied with his handiwork, Myles sank back down into the grass and let his eyes close once more.

-x-

For a moment after Holly opened her eyes, she could have sworn that one of the twins was moving - but that could have been an aftereffect of the explosion messing with her eyesight. The twins lay still among the machine scraps and orange petals, although a quick inspection showed neither of them seemed to have suffered any injuries. Her magic didn't find anything to heal, anyways. Thank Frond for small blessings.

That was another aftereffect of the explosion: she was running hot, magic responding immediately and effortlessly to her command. It felt like she had just completed the Ritual, and she had a sinking feeling that was a bad sign.

"Foaly?" she asked, lifting her comm device to her mouth to test whether it still worked. "Any idea what just happened?"

"Oh, phew! You're all right!" Foaly responded. "We're, uh… we're working on it."

That was not promising. "Keep working on it, then. Let me know what you figure out."

She expected the centaur to go quiet as he turned his attention back to his screens. Instead, Foaly continued, "Oh. Um. Dorian's in Dublin."

"What?" Her mouth dropped open. "How did he -?"

"Don't know, but I'd bet anything our favourite Mud Boy is with him. Oh, human social media sites are blowing up with news about an ambulance breaking up the pop star's impromptu concert. That's a shame."

"Foaly, focus."

"I'd suggest Artemis might have gotten fed up with babysitting and shot him, but the timing doesn't quite sync up. It's probably because Dorian fainted, just like the rest of them. Hang on." The centaur paused before suggesting, "His tracker blew up so we can't say for sure, but Fowl might have passed out, too. You should probably find him fast. That much magic can't have been good for his system, given his history."

Holly would have questioned further, but there were human voices in the near distance; she turned to see two figures rushing up the hill towards the source of the blast. Holly considered waiting to greet the twin's parents, decided that she would rather not have to explain that she'd managed to lose track of their other son somewhere in Russia, and shimmered out of sight. She had a Mud Boy to hunt down.

-x-

Minerva woke disoriented in the ashes of the chalet's ski-lift. Saul was hovering over her anxiously, relief flooding his face as he realized she was no longer unconscious.

"Minerva! Are you all right? I was just about to send someone down the mountain to get help!" He gestured to his phone helplessly. "Still no reception."

She tried to marshal her thoughts into enough order to answer the question. "I feel… bubbly."

Saul sat back. "Bubbly?" he repeated, concern creeping back into his face. "I have never heard you use that word before."

"Well, I've never felt bubbly before," she said, irritated. She was not the sort to fall into a swoon, especially not when she was supposed to be the rescue party. "I'm fine. You?"

"Better now that you're awake," he responded, bending down.

Then Saul kissed her, her heart skipped, and time stood still.

Something wasn't right. Minerva jerked backwards. Time was still not moving. Or rather, it was moving at an exaggerated pace outside a little bubble that had sprung up around her and Saul. She gasped. The bubble burst.

-x-

Ray came to in the Fowl Manor kitchen with a minor headache, an empty bladder, and the foreboding sense that someone dangerous was coming down the hall. Large and dangerous, if the loud footsteps were anything to go by. Butler, he realized, a chill creeping down his back. If the Fowl twins had gotten hurt by… well, whatever it was that he'd gotten caught up in, Ray would be blamed.

He wished he were invisible. All it did was make the headache worse.

As predicted, it was Butler who stepped through the door. Ray was so scared his teeth were actually chattering. Even worse, Butler didn't even do him the courtesy of trying to make him feel better. In fact, he was acting as though Ray weren't even there.

And then the man's hand went to his gun. He pivoted on his heel and stalked out of the room, suddenly incredibly light on his feet.

Ray sagged in relief and looked down at his hands. They… weren't there. None of him was there. He… he really was invisible! His vision was blurry, and now that he was paying proper attention he could feel vibrations running through him. That explained the headache and his teeth, at least. He was grateful his stomach was empty; if not, he probably would have thrown up.

He considered trying to figure out exactly what was going on, but the headache was getting worse with every second and Ray had no idea how long it would be before Butler came back. Better to take advantage of this minor miracle and skedaddle while he still had the chance.

"It's okay," he whispered, feeling his voice shake as though talking into the back of a household fan, "I'll show myself out."

-x-

Dorian felt fine, given everything that had happened over the past two days. Better than fine, even: his whole body felt warm and tingly, as though he had swallowed a small and carbonated sun. He was perched on the edge of the ambulance bed trying to figure out how to capture this feeling in appropriate rhyme and melody, feet swinging in time with the tune he was humming. Now that he was alone, he was relieved to have a shield from the onslaught of fangirls outside. The majority had dispersed following the arrival of the emergency response crew but a small crowd of his most dedicated fans had set up camp outside the ambulance. They were currently chanting something, although he couldn't quite make out the words. Play for Dorian? No - pray for Dorian. Well, at least that made more sense. It was a nice sentiment, and it cheered him to know how much his fans cared, but the noise was giving him a headache.

The paramedics discussing all their different theories over his fainting spell hadn't helped either, but it had been surprisingly easy to convince them to leave. Dorian had always been persuasive, and his pop-star status never hurt either, but this had been so simple it was almost suspicious. His own words had sounded strange in his ears, layered and honeyed, and they'd been much more effective than he'd expected. The paramedics had simply listened obediently to his demand, blinked twice, repeated his words back to him, and then filed quietly and dazedly outside without protest. It was almost like they'd been cast under a spell or something.

Almost like he'd cast them under a spell. Huh. Combined with the bubbly feeling, this would require further investigation.

The door opened by itself and then closed again, followed by a weary voice. "Hello, Dorian."

He didn't bother to look for her - his anti-shield Google glass prototype had been destroyed back in Russia. "Oh hey! Sorry, your name's on the tip of my tongue but -"

"It's Holly."

He gave a tired grin, relieved at the knowledge that the fairy girl had apparently missed whatever magic he'd just displayed. "Right. Hi, Holly. Resting my vocal chords 'cause it's been a long day. That's why we're not singing right now. How's Apollo?"

A clatter as a box of gloves went spinning off the shelf and landed on the floor. "D'arvit," she muttered.

He perked up. "Oh, that's not as pretty as the rest of your language. What does that one mean, then?"

Holly didn't answer. "Why are you here, Dorian?"

"Don't you follow my Twitter?" he asked. "Didn't plan to be in this part of the world at all, really, but you know how it goes. Apollo seemed frantic - I figured he could use the moral support."

"But why did you both come here?"

He frowned. "Well, someone had to look for Bec, and Apollo needed a jet. Also a distraction, which worked out fantastic."

The elf shimmered into sight. "Becquerel Jones? You met him?"

"Not exactly." He blinked up at her, suddenly earnest. "But Apollo seemed to know him, and I figured anybody who's got him worried is probably bad news, huh?"

Holly was tapping her fingers anxiously on the barrel of her gun. Dorian unconsciously changed tune to match the rhythm; the elf glared.

"Dorian, this is important. Where did they go?"

He leaned forward. "Bec took the north exit from the park, last I saw. Apollo was waiting for him there." He shrugged. "Sorry, but I don't know anything beyond that."

She didn't bother to ask further questions, simply twisting her neck before again disappearing from sight. "Stay here," her disembodied voice told him sternly. "Don't move."

"Hey, I've got a concussion - I'm not going anywhere." He paused, considering how best to ensure that she wouldn't put two and two together and come up with magic pop star. "Or I've had a stroke. Depends on which medic you ask. They all seem sorta dazed, you know? Must be star-struck. I do that to people a lot. Aren't you wondering why I'm in an ambulance?"

The only reply was the creak of the door. The sounds of chanting briefly increased, and Dorian lifted his hand in farewell. Then the door closed once more, leaving the disoriented pop star on his own.

-x-

A cup shattered on the floor of the cafe, and Vedette winced before she even fully realized she was conscious. There was another crash, like an entire shelf of merchandise had been tipped over. And then the sound of splintering wood hitting something soft and dense.

That was ENOUGH. Furious that someone would dare wreak havoc in her cafe, Vedette bolted upright and almost crashed her head into the chin of a dangerous and angry man who had been clearly assigned to guard her while she was asleep. He jumped back with an oath, lifting a firearm.

Vedette responded by lifting her hand. Fire blossomed.

Across the lobby of the cafe, Juliet took down the last of the assailants with a flying kick. Landing hard and panting, she glared at the Changeling. "Did you just -? Did that just happen? Last time I checked, you're not a goblin!"

Vedette stared at her hand in astonishment, and then at her sleeve. "I'm on fire!" she shrieked, scrambling back.

Without missing a beat, Juliet scooped up the fire extinguisher from behind the counter and blasted the foam contents at Vedette, inwardly cursing the day Artemis had gotten her involved in this Changeling mess.

-x-

Maeve had been awake and online for an hour before she realized anything was amiss.

Strange, she thought, scrolling past the frantically-updating live feed on yet another news site. I don't think I ever did get around to learning Swahili, but this is all making perfect sense to me.

It would take her another twenty minutes of surfing the web and putting the pieces together before it occurred to her that she may have suddenly developed the gift of tongues.

She tested the theory with Greek, Thai, and Zulu. Then she tweeted about it.

Five minutes later she thought better of it and deleted her account, but it was too late. The damage had already been done.

-x-

It took a long time of searching the crowded Dublin streets before Holly finally turned into a darkened alley and, more by chance than design, found her quarry. Lying in a heap on the cobblestones, an open laptop a few feet behind him, was Becquerel Jones. Unfortunately, he was alone.

Holly dialled down the motor on her wings and alighted a few paces away from the boy, watching carefully. He stirred, even though she remained shielded from his sight.

As Holly watched, Bec twisted to stare his computer down like he was trying to fry it with his mind. Holly rolled her eyes, though something in her gut clenched.

The laptop quivered under Bec's scrutiny, and rose half an inch from the pavement. Telekinesis?Holly instinctively shot it through the middle of the screen.

To the boy, it looked as though a beam had just materialized out of nowhere to strike the laptop.

Bec raised his head, shifting to prop himself up on one elbow as he looked around. "Who's there?" he called out.

Holly was far too tired to play games. She unshielded, crouched just out of reach with her weapon trained on the boy.

A grin flickered across his face. "Captain Short, isn't it?" He attempted to sit up further and failed, his actions hampered by the state-of-the-art fairy cuffs that secured his right wrist to the pipe of the building behind him. Holly's throat tightened.

"Where's Artemis?"

Bec's eyes sharpened. "Terrible feeling, not knowing whether your friend is alive."

Her finger pressed against the trigger. "Where. Is. Artemis?"

Jones must have realized he had nothing else to lose. He stared down the barrel of the neutrino and stated calmly, "Either Art vanished of his own free will, or he didn't. Bad timing either way, isn't it?"

Over the past decade of saving the world with a sarcastic, immoral adolescent genius in tow, Holly Short had shown a lot of restraint. Tonight, she had run out. One twitch of her finger was all it took to activate the particles of her neutrino. The beam leapt out at light speed, catching Becquerel Jones in the centre of his forehead and spreading its charge throughout his body. By the time Holly lowered her weapon, the boy had sagged once more to the cobblestones.

She checked his pulse before holstering the neutrino. Next, she inspected the cuffs to be sure they were secure. Then, satisfied that Jones would not wake anytime soon nor be able to go anywhere even if he did, she stood up again and made her way to the laptop. Even with the screen gone, she was certain Foaly could salvage something useful from the hard drive.

A step away from the computer her foot kicked against something small, sending it skittering across the street. Holly tensed but, when nothing happened, she followed. Bending down, she realized immediately what she'd found - this was the cell phone Dorian had mentioned. The one that Artemis had lifted off an innocent passerby, according to the pop star himself. Holly closed her fist around it before flipping the device open. Nothing happened until she pressed at the buttons; then, a feeble empty battery sign flashed twice and disappeared.

Holly tucked the phone into her pocket. "Foaly," she said, touching the button to activate her comm line. "I've found Jones and his computer - there's a phone here, too, that might tell you something useful. Send a retrieval team, but be careful - whatever the blast did, Jones is -"

The centaur whinnied in her ear, saving her from having to follow that sentence to its implausible conclusion. "No, no, no, not him, too!"

"Huh?"

"The magic, Holly. It's all of them. All the Changelings - at least, all the ones we've touched base with so far, given everything that's going on it's hard to tell and I'm sure it'll take days, if not weeks, for us to know for sure - they're using magic!"

Holly swallowed, cutting him off and deciding to prioritize. "Right. Well, be careful with him, then. Artemis was here, too. He'd cuffed Jones. I'm going to -" Her voice caught. As she straightened, her eyes had spotted the gleam of silver across the street. Holly dashed the remaining steps, pausing to stare down at the abandoned weapon.

"You're going to...?" Foaly echoed.

It took a moment for Holly to find her voice. "I found his neutrino," she said flatly. "He can't be far. Reveal or no, he wouldn't have left fairy tech out in the open like that."

"Holly?"

"Send the retrieval team to these coordinates," she repeated. "Bec and the laptop are here. I'm going after Arty."

"Holly, wait -"

She shut off his voice with a flick of her finger before activating her wings. Dublin was one city, and although it was crowded with people wandering dazed in the aftermath of the People's reveal, it couldn't take long to find Artemis now that she had a place to start. Surely it was only a matter of time, now.

But when dawn's first light hit the city, Artemis was still nowhere to be found.

-x-

The woman was turning chairs down from the tabletops when Butler entered the cafe. She spared him half a glance before slipping around behind the counter, tapping a button to bring the cash register to life. "Didn't expect to see anyone out and about this early," she told him conversationally as she waited for the screen to load. "What with the chaos last night. Did you hear? Absolute madness, it's all over twitter - " She paused, taking in his appearance, "But you wouldn't have a twitter, would you? You must have felt it, though. The magic. I heard rumors some people even kept some. You think that's true? It's everywhere online."

Butler strode through the tables toward her, looking around the cafe. It was an unassuming space, with an abundance of food on display under the glass counter. The woman followed his gaze. "See anything you'd like?"

"Actually, I have a few questions." Butler flipped out the police badge he kept for just such occasions.

The woman straightened. "All right, then. Don't know why you'd want to ask me, though."

He tucked the badge back into his jacket pocket, stopping before the counter. "Two young men were in here yesterday afternoon. I'm afraid they might have caused a bit of a stir." His hand closed around the photographs that had been tucked in the pocket beside the badge, but the woman's face had already lit up in recognition.

"Those two that caused the commotion? I remember them, I cleaned up their mess for sure, but I can't tell you much more than that, sorry. They weren't in here for long. The one with the ponytail got a black coffee, and the other one didn't buy anything." She sounded almost put-out.

He pulled the photos out anyway, laying them on the surface in front of her.

"Yes, those two," she nodded. "Sat down at one of the tables just over there. Only stayed for a few seconds before they were scrambling back out the door. Didn't seem too happy to see each other."

Butler felt his heart rate quicken. He tapped the picture of Artemis. "Did he ever come back?"

She paused, mouth pursed as she thought. "Don't believe so, no. And I think I would have noticed if he had. Quite a commotion those two caused."

Butler pushed the photos toward her. "Yes, they tend to do that. Here - if any of your staff knows more, please let me know." He lay a business card down on the counter, even though he doubted anyone else would come forward with information. It was always worth the try.

He was halfway to the door before the woman spoke again. "Say, but they must be caught up in something big, if you're busy chasing them down while there's fairies running around out there. You heard about that, right?"

He turned back, expressionless. "I did hear something of the sort, yes."

"Can you believe it? I can hardly believe it, but everyone says it's true, and even then, I felt it. Just for a moment there. The magic. And if this isn't a hoax, maybe there's something to that story that went around right after the Techno-Crash, too." She sighed dreamily. "If magic actually is real, well... everything we know about the universe is wrong, isn't it? The entire world just changed."

Butler sighed, feeling the weight of the past decade. "Not for me, it hasn't."

-x-

Author's Note:

Phew, there we go! A full set of post-season wrap-up notes will be posted in a day or two along with a webisode to tie up a few loose ends. But yes. That did all just happen.

Also, feel free to play our Twitter game in the comments?

On the technical side of things, we realize that the list of physical anomalies that Artemis lists off to Dorian is complicated by the whole clone thing. We choose to assume he didn't keep the swapped eye because that involved the introduction of elf DNA into the mix, and cloning is hard enough even when all the genetic material comes from the same species. However, we like to think Foaly knew this was a sad turn of events so he took it as a personal challenge to get Arty's hands just right. And then he was so preoccupied by this that he never even noticed the sixth toe until it was too late. - Winged and Freud