by Eoin Colfer
“All right,” she said. “What harm can it do?”
“None whatsoever,” pronounced Foaly. “You’ll be out in a jiffy.”
This, they both knew, was simply a comforting platitude, a turn of phrase often employed by doctors to put their patients at ease, but in this case it turned out to be the actual truth, though not in the way Foaly expected.
Foaly slid Lazuli into the MRI machine as though she were a torpedo being loaded into its tube. As her bed glided along the tracks, the centaur disappeared from view except for his flanks, but Lazuli could still hear his voice through the speakers mounted inside the machine.
“Are you comfy in there, Specialist? Probably not. The MRI wasn’t built with comfort in mind. At least you can fit. We scanned a young centaur last week. Poor fellow was trussed up like a farm animal. He had a panic attack halfway through and kicked out four of the sensors. I have designed a new, more spacious model, which is in production at the moment. What use is that to me? I hear you cry. None whatsoever, I suppose, unless you have to come back for another dose.”
“Another dose?” asked Lazuli. “Dose of what?”
Foaly knelt on his forelegs so his long face appeared in the light at the end of the tunnel. “Just a turn of phrase,” he said, his voice seeming to come from everywhere. “In fact, we’re going to create a magnetic field around you and do a very basic scan until I find the source of your SPAM.”
“Spam?” asked Lazuli.
“Spontaneous Appearance of Magic,” explained the centaur. “Not my finest acronym, but I just made it up this second. That’s how few cases we get. Your amazing skin means I have to proceed slowly with the MRI.”
Foaly was justified in referring to Lazuli’s skin as amazing, even though as a scientist he probably should have been more clinical in his descriptions. In fairness to the centaur, his notes in Lazuli’s file were less flowery, as we see below:
Appearance-wise, the subject Specialist Lazuli Heitz’s hybrid identity presents as follows:
Skin: Aquamarine. Following the coloring of Atlantean pixies, with the sunflower-yellow markings of Amazonian elves (this sunflower camouflage is rendered ineffective by the blue skin)
Eyes: Blue (“unsettlingly piercing,” according to one convicted felon who broke down and confessed after being in an interview room with her for thirty seconds)
Height: Thirty-six inches (still enduring late-stage growth)
Skull circumference: Thirteen inches. In line with elfin norm.
Features: Sharp planes of cheekbone and jaw (elfin). Pointed ears.
Moodwise, the pixel seems slightly anxious, but this would seem to be no more than the average case of white-coat syndrome. I have assurance from a reliable source that she is highly intelligent and more than competent in the field. The subject is not aware of the following plan, but Commodore Short has proposed that Specialist Heitz be fast-tracked to management over the next few decades, provided we can nail down this spontaneous-magic-manifestation issue.
Inside the MRI, Lazuli relaxed a little bit. She didn’t know exactly why she had been anxious in the first place. She had never worried about medical procedures before, but then again, she had never been in an MRI tube before. The only real procedure she’d had to endure was a healing from paramedic pixies when she’d fractured a fibula during a combat exercise. And even then, she hadn’t been worried. It was the unknown, she realized, that scared her. A broken leg was a broken leg, but she had a condition now: SPAM. Almost nothing was known about it. There were only a dozen or so recorded cases, and three had resulted in accidental fatalities.
Foaly is right, she decided. This magic needs to be suppressed.
“These machines used to make quite the racket,” said the centaur. “But we installed some mufflers last year, and now it runs smoother than a purring kitten.”
“Great,” said Lazuli, but as pixies and cats were mortal enemies, this did not comfort her much.
“If I were you,” said Foaly, opening the door, “I would take a little nap. In fifteen minutes, I will come back and ease your mind with some answers.” And Lazuli heard the soft swoosh of the door closing behind her centaur consultant.
Foaly was wrong about the fifteen minutes and the answers. It would be a lot longer before Lazuli woke up, and instead of answers, she would have more questions. Specialist Heitz had an inkling that something might be wrong when acrid smoke wafted from the speaker directly above her face.
Gas? she thought. Foaly didn’t say anything about gas.
Lazuli was about to make quite strenuous inquiries as to the pedigree of the gas when she heard the pitter-patter of sneaky feet.
Dwarves, she thought, as recognizing footfalls was a cinch for the whorls of her pointed ears. Her hearing had developed to the point that she could distinguish between species, even brothers of the same species—human twins, for example. But these were not humans. They were most definitely dwarves in burglar boots.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “What do you want?”
Asking these questions was a mistake, she realized, because when she opened her mouth to say the words, the gas flowed eagerly down her throat. The taste reminded her of the foul healing elixir that the sprite orphanage administrator used to give all the non-magical children when they were sick, as he was too cheap to hire a doctor.
“D’Arvit!” Lazuli swore. Then the circle of light at her feet seemed to elongate and stretch elastically away from her like a slide in a water park. Lazuli thought that there was nothing she would like better than to slip down that pipe and splash into cool, clear liquid.
But what actually happened was that Specialist Lazuli Heitz fell into a deep narcotic-induced sleep, which was not quite as cheery.
The Fowl Tachyon
Present Day
Beckett was literally in the pilot’s seat, and, as far as the mission was concerned, he was figuratively in the driver’s seat. The situation was extremely fluid, which certainly played to the blond twin’s strengths, and can be summarized as follows:
NANNI had taken control of the mystery missile, so there was no danger of it actually striking the Fowl jet.
But there seemed to be a life-form glued to the rear of the jet’s fuselage, dangerously close to the exhaust.
And…
The rocket was already on a countdown to explode, so the life-form would need to be rescued before detonation.
This rescue, Beckett had decided with NANNI’s enthusiastic support, would take the form of a midair transfer.
Myles, who proudly wore the label of a type A personality and thus had trouble relinquishing control, had retrieved a package of gummy snakes from his travel bag and was sucking the additives right out of a couple as he waited pessimistically for the rescue mission to go awry. Myles was not to be disappointed in that something he expected to happen would indeed happen—that being the collapse of the mission—but he was to be disappointed in that the mission would more than go awry; it would disintegrate entirely. But let us not jump the gun, as it were, and instead catalogue the events that ensued, which will take considerably longer to relate than they did to unfold.
The goal was as follows: to detach the entity currently affixed to the missile and transfer it into the hold of the Fowl jet, without the aid of tackle or a basket, and without the option of landing for a leisurely rescue operation. And, for that matter, without a proper rear-loading ramp.
Myles attempted to intervene. “There are so many variables,” he stated. “Wind speed, jet wash, crosswinds, for heaven’s sake. And I’m not even mentioning g-force or air density.”
Beckett frowned. “I think you just mentioned both of those things.”
Myles snuck one more in. “I shall also refrain from commenting on delivery method.”
Beckett winked, which he knew would wind his twin tighter than a clock spring. “Fret not, brother. I know these things in my gut, but I don’t try to understand them, because instinct beats thinking every
time.”
“Preposterous!” exclaimed Myles, spattering the windshield with bits of chewed candy. “How can you say that? ‘Instinct beats thinking,’ indeed. One might as well say that checkers beats chess. Or that phrenology beats psychiatry. NANNI, are you going to swallow this unmitigated guff?”
“Beckett may have a point,” said NANNI. “The more I evolve, the less I rely on conscious calculation. Perhaps instinct is simply the evolution of intelligence.”
Myles realized that it was very possibly true that “gut” or intestinal functions were proven to be connected to emotional and cognitive centers of the mind, and so he decided to let this debate go. Otherwise he would be in very real danger of losing two arguments in one day, which bothered him far more than the missile attack.
“We can discuss this later,” he declared. “First, let us rescue that thing on the rocket.”
“Heh,” said Beckett.
“Two to zero,” said NANNI smugly.
Myles selected a red gummy snake from his bag and sucked it furiously. The red ones were his favorite, and he usually hoarded them for last, but on this occasion, Myles felt the need for an extra boost.
NANNI slowed the missile to just above stall velocity while Beckett swung the Tachyon into a steep ascending angle and passed over the rocket, almost grazing its fin.
“That was rather close,” said Myles.
“Quiet,” ordered Beckett. “You are about to see the coolest thing since I flew out of a blowhole into a drone, so don’t ruin it.”
My brother flew out of a blowhole into a drone, thought Myles. Only in the Fowl family would one not bat an eyelid at such a statement….
“One minute to detonation,” said NANNI. “And I cannot crack this timer.”
Beckett went into zen pilot mode, which involved a thrust of the lower jaw and a growl in Trollish, and Myles knew better than to interrupt his brother at this critical juncture. It would probably result in an even greater catastrophe than what was already on the horizon.
Beckett ignored the various plottings and projections on the windshield and rumbled his orders in Trollish, and Myles surmised that NANNI understood that particular fairy language now, because the AI ordered the SCARABs to send a magnetic charge crackling through the missile’s fuselage, dislodging the be-blobbed creature. NANNI also forced the Tachyon’s door pistons to fight the eight pounds of pressure per square inch in order to open the rear hatch, which was not a cargo door but simply a passenger access point. There was a momentary deafening scream of pressure equalizing, and the escaping newtons attempted to drag the twins into the sky with them. Fortunately, the Tachyon was pressure sensitive and automatically restrained the boys with servo-cable arms and dropped oxygen globes over their heads to prevent hypoxia.
Beckett ignored the chaos and expertly coordinated a gentle descent with a deceleration that matched the figure’s slowing trajectory and loss of altitude until in the rear camera view it looked as though the missile’s erstwhile passenger was actually tailing the jet. Myles had to admit, albeit silently, that he was a teeny bit proud of the fact that his brother’s instincts were proving more accurate than a quantum computer. Myles began unclenching his jaw and even started to believe that they might actually be in good shape to continue with their original mission…. But of course, as even kindergarteners know, pride comes before a fall, or in this case…
Pride comes before a duck.
To explain:
The airborne individual was within seconds of slotting through the rear door when a mallard, or Anas platyrhynchos, that was miles off course and months off its migration schedule flapped into the scenario, clipping the shrouded figure with a single primary flight feather. This midair collision caused absolutely zero harm to either party, merely eliciting a surprised squawk from the emerald-headed mallard and a minor alteration in the course of the shrouded figure, but it was immediately apparent that this minor alteration would send the figure under the jet rather than into the inviting portal.
“Hmm,” said Beckett and NANNI in unison, which was the equivalent of tagging Myles back into the game. And while Myles usually frowned on non-word discourse particles, he permitted himself a triumphant “Aha!”
He had perhaps a second to act, but a second inside the head of Myles Fowl was the equivalent of several lifetimes in the minds of most people. He analyzed the information displayed on the eco-jet’s smart screen: air pressure and wind speed, altitude, attitude, rate of descent, and so forth, and then took the only course of action that had any chance of working on such late notice.
Myles used his phone to activate the inflatable evacuation slide at the rear of the plane. The slide unfolded like an enormous tongue and accepted delivery of a life-form that would most definitely have passed under the fuselage. The creature inside the blob, whatever it was, bounced along the slide like a stone skipping over a lake and seemed to float in the main cabin as Beckett matched its deceleration and descent. NANNI cut the slide free and closed the door without being told to do so. In seconds, a cabin pressure of eleven PSI had been restored.
Myles swiveled half a revolution to face their guest, who had up to this point been obscured and protected from the elements with some kind of semitransparent gel. But now, as the gel fell from her person in gloopy blobs, it was easy to see who it was.
“My dear Specialist Heitz,” said Myles formally. “Welcome aboard.”
“Laz!” Beckett called over his shoulder. “What are the chances of bumping into you strapped to a rocket?”
Myles answered for the pixel. “The chances are, frankly, too astronomical to calculate.”
Lazuli was half-awake now and a heartbeat away from panic. “Myles, are you wearing a fishbowl on your head?” she rasped. “What is happening?”
Myles removed the globe. “It’s an oxygen supply,” he explained. “And to answer your second question: You may find this surprising, but I am not one hundred per cent sure what exactly is happening; however, I do feel we are being, to use the vernacular of common criminals, set up.”
Beckett tipped the flaps slightly so that the floating Lazuli was cradled by a seat and instantly secured by servo cables. Myles noticed that what they had mistaken for a hairy foot was actually a slipper.
“An easy mistake to make,” he said, nodding toward the footwear. “Were you at a spa, perhaps?”
Lazuli wiped gunk from her face. “I was in the hospital,” she mumbled, further confused by this untimely small talk. “Getting a magic-suppressor injected by Foaly. Oh, by the way, under no circumstances am I to get electrocuted.”
“I imagine that would short out the suppressor,” said Myles.
NANNI interrupted the reunion. “Myles, we have a situation.”
“Now we have a situation?” said Myles. “I would have thought that we were already quite immersed in a situation.”
He swiveled to face the smart screen and saw that the missile had not blown itself apart but had jettisoned its rear section, which tumbled toward the ocean far below. The nose cone was streaking their way under its own power.
“NANNI,” he said tersely, “I assume the small concussive device was simply a separation collar and there is a secondary weapon concealed in the nose cone?”
“I would assume the same thing, though I cannot confirm,” said NANNI. “I am embarrassed to say that I did not in fact wrangle that ole steer as comprehensively as I believed. The SCARABs have been ditched, and the original programming has reasserted itself. In short, I no longer have my electronic hooks in that missile.”
“Dwarves,” said Lazuli, shivering now from a combination of shock, gel cooling on her skin, and the aftereffects of the gas she’d inhaled. “I remember now. There were dwarves.”
Myles decided that this information, while intriguing, was for filing away rather than dissecting at the moment.
It behooved him to act on the approaching warhead.
“NANNI, please transport Specialist Heitz to the cockpit,” he
ordered. “And, Beckett, the time has come.”
Beckett’s face lit up. “Not that time? The time I have been waiting for?”
“Yes,” confirmed Myles. “Exactly that time.”
Even in her dazed state, Lazuli did not like the sound of that.
“What time?” she asked in her accented, hard-learned English, as the servo arms passed her forward like a crowd surfer, gel slopping in sheets to the floor.
Beckett bounced in his seat. “Myles made me wrist-bump promise that I wouldn’t do it, but now I can do it.” He held out his wrist. “Take back the promise.”
Myles held up his own hand, aligning the scar on the side of his palm with the almost identical one on the side of his twin’s palm.
“You are released from the sacred vow,” he said solemnly.
There was a tear in the corner of Beckett’s eye. “Thank you, brother.”
And he flicked the best switch in the world. The switch that taunted him every time they took the Tachyon out for a spin. A switch that was thumbprint-coded and lurked under a Plexiglas box on the dash.
The ejector switch.
The Acorn Club
Covent Garden, London
There is a private club in London Town that presents an austere granite facade to the never-ending procession of passersby in Covent Garden. This extremely old and forbidding building with its brow of a drooping ledge almost seems to discourage any pause or investigation, if indeed a building can actively discourage or encourage anything. In point of fact, it is not the building that puts tourists off the notion of trying the brass door handles, but the infrasound speakers tucked under the olive-green awning that broadcast noise at the precise low frequency necessary to make gawkers a little queasy. Unless, of course, a person has an acorn-shaped key fob for that front door. When one uses that fob, a single beep renders that patron immune from infrasound-induced nausea.
There is no sign over the door to indicate the establishment’s name, but those in possession of the fob know it: the Acorn. And some of those members also know that the Acorn is the oldest private club in London and has been open continuously since the fifteenth century. Three of the fairy regulars are very sure of this, because they attended the opening soirée.