by Eoin Colfer
ETD four minutes, he thought. At most.
It appeared Gveld had abandoned her rational self completely, as she was devoting quite a lot of energy to an extended rant as she worked.
“You are—grunt—not walking away from this—grunt—Fowl,” she said. “You are not walking—grunt—or crawling, or flying. You will be—grunt—carried out of here in—grunt—several containers. The last thing you see—grunt—will be my blade penetrating your—grunt—eyeball on its way to your brain. Now, what do you think of that?”
Myles was reluctantly impressed. “Good sentence structure. Clear statement of intent. I would have to say that, as unhinged rants go, yours was not too shabby, especially given the circumstances.”
Which enraged Gveld even further. She attacked the elevator wall with renewed vigor.
“I really don’t understand why compliments would make you angrier,” said Myles, who lacked the good sense to be terrified.
Gundred took Gveld by the shoulders. “He doesn’t understand, my general. He is a child.”
“I am not your general,” spat Gveld. “Your general is an ACRONYM agent who is either dead or escaping from one of the other elevators.”
“You are my general,” insisted Gundred. “My general and my life. I will die here with you to prove it.”
“That is your choice,” said Gveld, returning to her work. “The choice of a human who means less than nothing to me.”
Myles was of two minds about this statement. “Can there be ‘less than nothing’? I suppose, in mathematical terms, less than nothing would be a negative number, which is something. In the real world, it could be argued that dark matter, and indeed vacuums, are less than nothing….” Then Gveld’s blade poked through the cables between their elevators and cracked the silicon nitride pane in front of his nose and Myles thought that maybe this was not the time for a philosophical debate on nothingness.
Gveld’s strike not only cracked the silicon nitride but also shaved a few strands from one of the elevator cables. These elevators were the only traditionally operated cars in the building and not held in place by shaft turntables—meaning they could plummet to the earth. The earthquake protocol would protect Gveld and Gundred, but Myles’s car had no such dampeners.
“Ah,” said Myles.
“Yes!” spat Gveld, expressing the exclamation point with another strike. “We all fall, but only you die.”
Myles thought about this. It was true that he had thwarted Gveld’s plan and saved thousands of lives, but imagine how devastated the world in general would be if he himself died in the process.
I imagine they will rebuild this center and change the name to the Myles Fowl Memorial Hall.
Perhaps they will even initiate a humanitarian award and call it the Myles.
While both of these eventualities were pleasant to think about, Myles decided that on the whole he would prefer to live, and so he put his mind to the problem.
“You could very well die, too, General,” he pointed out to the hacking Gveld Horteknut. “You have breached your own elevator’s skin. Its integrity is no longer assured.”
Gveld did not respond verbally, but she did redouble her efforts in slicing strands from the cables and widening the hole in the silicon nitride panes.
Either Gveld will get me, thought Myles, or gravity will.
As if the universe could read his mind, one of the cables snapped entirely, and both cars dropped a sickening yard.
“Weep for a world without me!” blurted Myles. These had long been his last words of choice, and the fact that his subconscious threw them up now reconfirmed for him just how much danger he was in.
One car over, Gveld’s eyes shone in triumph, if such a physical manifestation of an emotion is possible. She picked herself up to begin again, only to be confronted by Gundred.
“Are we murdering children now, my general? Even though all is lost?”
“We are avenging our family’s shame,” said Gveld, her gold teeth glittering. “Or perhaps I should say my family.”
It seemed Gundred was not prepared to meekly swallow any more barbs, for she said, “You are not avenging anyone’s family. You are poisoned, my general. I beg you to come away with me. We can escape this place and regroup. Then I can leave forever, or I will accept your blade. Either way, you need never see me again.”
“I don’t see you now,” said Gveld. “You are invisible to me.”
Myles was grateful for their argument, as it served to both run down the clock till the authorities arrived and give him time to think.
“NANNI,” he said, “how much power do we have in the laser pointer?”
“Enough to point a laser,” said NANNI. “Certainly not enough to do any damage to anything or anyone without two more lenses.”
And not just any lenses, Myles knew. One concave and one convex, which he didn’t happen to have on him.
Perhaps I might improvise.
“NANNI,” he said, “scan the silicon nitride pane. It has warped in several places. Is there perhaps a section we could use as ad hoc lenses?”
NANNI ran a quick scan. “Oh, I see a bubble. That might work.”
The AI marked the spot and Myles realized to his chagrin that he was not tall enough for his purposes. He turned to Beckett, for his twin always ran point on physical tasks, but of course Beckett was not present.
“Bother and damnation,” Myles swore, and then shuddered. “It seems one will be forced to climb.”
When it came to climbing, Myles was often undone by stepladders, and so perching on the handrail of an elevator was a daunting prospect.
“I suppose it must be done,” he muttered and set about the task of first clambering on top of and then balancing on the railing.
With Myles thus occupied, we return to the actual dwarf and the human little person, who are having their own crisis one car over.
“Stop your sulking,” snapped Gundred, angry now. “You are planning an act of mass murder. Nowhere in the dwarf charter is this called for. We know where the gold is. We can return to claim it. But this day is lost, and if you do not see that, then you are not the general I have followed these past few decades. The general I love as a sister.”
Gveld froze momentarily, as though she might allow some sense to filter through, but Gundred’s betrayal was simply too great for her to accommodate.
“I am not your general, and you are not my second-in-command. And since that is the case, I shall kill the Fowl boy and then I shall kill the spy.”
“Yes, I was once a spy, though I can barely remember it,” said Gundred. “I was a different person. A poorer person. You gave me purpose and worth.”
“I was wrong to give it,” said Gveld. “I take it back. You are worthless once more.”
“You cannot take it back, my general. I shall die with self-worth. The only person you cheapen here is yourself. Even the Horteknut hoard will remain in human hands. It is so close, almost within your grasp, but it seems you are more interested in murder.”
“You talk and talk,” said Gveld. “But it is only words in a language you have stolen. I see you for what you are. You are the worm in my ear. You are the slow knife between my ribs. You are the breaking of my heart.”
This one hit home, and Gundred cried openly. “Gveld, please! We can still escape.”
Gveld laughed bitterly. “How does one escape one’s heart, Gundred? There is no escape.”
By which point Myles had just about managed to perch on the corner of the railing and was feeling quite proud of himself. “Are you ready, NANNI?”
“Of course, Myles,” said his spectacles. “Congratulations on your climb. You have now achieved a level of agility comparable to that of a three-year-old human child or two-week-old chimpanzee.”
Better than expected, thought Myles, even though he was reasonably sure his own AI had just insulted him. “How many bursts do we have?”
“Five, or possibly four. I wouldn’t be surprised by thre
e, and there is a chance that two will be our limit.”
This is not science, thought Myles. But they were attempting to shoot a laser through a bubble at a dwarf who was in toxic overload, so allowances had to be made.
At that moment Gveld renewed her attack on the panes and cables. Her blades were fans of light and impossible for Myles to target manually, so, reluctantly, he had to relinquish control.
“Target the ulnar nerves in Gveld’s forearms,” he ordered NANNI. “They control the grip in humans, and that is most likely to cause her to—”
By which time NANNI had already refracted two bursts through the bubble, pinpointing exactly the correct points, and though Gveld felt little more than two pinpricks of pain, her nerves and reflexes gave her no choice but to release both weapons. The crystal sword and dagger plinked harmlessly through the shaft’s mechanisms, disappearing into the dust cloud.
Gveld’s power of speech momentarily devolved to an animalistic level, and she howled as the blades fell. The Horteknut general thrust her arm into the hole in the silicon nitride and stretched her fingers to the limit of their reach as though she could somehow reach her lost blades.
“I would say that our antagonist is not happy,” said NANNI.
Myles nodded. Even he could read a social cue like howling. “I concur,” he said.
Now, he thought, surely the general will surrender. Her howling will downgrade to sobbing, and then she will accept her fate. To continue with this struggle is not logical.
But it seemed as though Gveld Horteknut was not ready to give up her ghosts just yet. She charged the elevator’s wall, ramming it with her shoulder, causing the entire capsule to shudder. This was dramatic, certainly, but hardly effective, unless the goal was to give herself motion sickness.
“Really, General,” said Myles. “This is not becoming. Think of your legacy—one might even say, your legend.”
Gveld’s power of speech returned(ish). “Fowl,” she grunted with each shoulder charge. “Fowl! Fowl!”
The Fowl name itself is an expletive, thought Myles. And probably not for the first time.
While Gveld persisted with her attack, it was clear to Gundred that all avenues were closed to them but one: retreat. To this end she drew a tiny vial from her Dragonella tunic and twisted off the top, which had a dropper attached. The Horteknut Number Two oh-so-carefully dripped a single drop onto the elevator door seal, which began to dissolve immediately and with startling rapidity. The toxic fumes would possibly cause severe lung damage over time and were impossible to ignore. Even Gveld was distracted from her murderous mission.
She sniffed the air. “What do I smell? Could that be rock polish?”
It was, and her second-in-command was applying it to the door seal in an attempt to get them both out of this predicament.
“Are you a deserter as well as a spy?” asked Gveld.
Gundred kept her hand steady and applied another drop. “No, my general. I am ever your soldier. A prudent retreat is simply a delayed attack. You taught me that. Do you even remember that word, prudent?”
Gveld was not interested in hearing her own maxims turned against her. “All this time you had rock polish?”
“Yes,” said Gundred. “Which I was not in a mind to volunteer so you could murder a human and kill yourself.”
“With rock polish we could finish this job and be gone.”
Gundred was unrepentant. “Rock polish can spread if not handled carefully. The crystal bottle can barely contain it. This is not an environment in which to splash the most corrosive organic compound known to fairies.”
“I’ll be the judge of that!” said Gveld, lunging for the bottle.
From atop his perch, Myles flattened himself against the elevator wall, as he had read all about the destructive power of dwarf rock polish in Artemis’s files. Only master dwarf polishers were licensed to wield it, as they could gauge how many milliliters were needed in any situation. It was not simply the amount that had to be considered but the direction of pour and method of application.
With her reckless lunge for the vial, Gveld Horteknut was disregarding one of the most basic rules of dwarf society, that being to always and without exception take the utmost care with dwarf rock polish. And she was to pay the price for her impulsive action, as this single move would put a different and tragic complexion on this entire affair, for, as Gundred had warned: Rock polish can spread if not handled carefully.
Certainly, no one could ever classify Gveld’s current handling of the crystal vial as careful, but she was a desperate individual in the throes of heavy-metal poisoning, and a combination of desperate and poisoned do not careful fairies make.
Before Myles’s horrified gaze the drama in the adjacent elevator car unfolded as follows:
Gveld made a lunge for the rock polish and managed to get two fingers wrapped around the vial, which was a decent grip considering that Gundred also had two digits in play, those being forefinger and thumb. But while Gundred’s handling of the vial was considered, Gveld squeezed as though she might shatter the bottle as she prepared for a heave. Gundred’s initial response was to tug the vial toward her own chest, a tug that was met with only token resistance.
So far so good. One might think that Gveld had come to her senses, but no. Gveld was not relinquishing her hold but rather allowing Gundred some leeway to facilitate a run-up for her own uncontrolled yank.
She’s going to try and tear the bottle from my grasp! the dismayed Gundred realized. The polish will go everywhere.
The polish would not in fact go everywhere, as the aperture was barely wider than a pinhole, but should even a dribble escape, it would be enough to melt them both to the bone, and Gveld did not seem in the right frame of mind for careful application even if she had been licensed, which she was not.
Gundred now had a choice: Should she wrestle with her general for the vial, which would certainly lead to an uncontrolled spillage, or should she relinquish her hold and hope that if the vial traveled in a smooth arc and remained unshaken then the anti-spill nozzle would fulfil its purpose?
In any such situation there is a third and indeed a fourth choice.
The third choice is to do nothing.
The fourth is to hesitate before choosing.
Gundred could not decide, so she opted for a combination of all four choices, which made for the worst possible outcome. To explain:
First, Gundred did nothing while hesitating. Then she instinctively held on, before belatedly realizing she really should let go.
This meant that initially Gveld’s big tug had no effect, leading her to pull harder at exactly the same moment that Gundred released the vial, resulting in Gveld suddenly staggering backward, the vial bobbing overhead erratically. And, as any container expert knows, an erratic bob is precisely how to override a drip nozzle.
Dwarf rock polish was sprayed on the ceiling, wall, and floor, and immediately began to hiss on contact.
“My general,” said Gundred, “you have disastrously over-applied.”
Gveld was momentarily snapped out of her paranoia by the ramifications of what she had done. “I have indeed over-applied,” she whispered.
Around them the elevator car began to melt like ice in direct sunlight. The polish’s contact points went first, followed by chomp-sized sections that widened across the silicon nitride. Soon Gveld and Gundred were forced to lift their feet in a macabre dance as they avoided the spread.
There was no time to do anything. The floor was disappearing too fast.
Gundred and Gveld looked into each other’s faces and cried tears of anguish. Not only would they die today, but they would part on bad terms, which both now realized was unacceptable.
“I am sorry, my general,” said Gundred. “Believe that now as we die.”
Gveld’s only reply was to hold out her arms for a final embrace. Gundred stepped into that embrace with all her heart, preferring a death with her commanding officer to a life without her respect.
“I never betrayed you,” whispered Gundred.
“I know,” said Gveld, clasping her colleague’s shoulders. Then something glinted in the dwarf general’s eyes, distracting her. For a moment it seemed as though sunlight was falling across Gveld’s face, dappling her features, softening the anger that lived in the creases.
It was not sunlight. It was ambient light reflected by bars of gold. The gold that Gveld had hunted for so long was in a huge banded slab, right over her head.
Myles understood immediately what had happened. Gundred’s polish had splashed on the overhead panel, burning through to the treasure above, which was now so very nearly within Gveld’s reach. The ceiling shriveled and disappeared, and for a moment the gold formed a new ceiling that shone in the low light. Gveld smiled wistfully for what had so very nearly come to pass, then whispered in her comrade’s ear:
“Tell the families what happened here.”
“What?” said Gundred, puzzled.
Without another word, Gveld used the last stable plates of the floor beneath her feet to brace herself, and with a mighty push sent Gundred flying backward, crashing through the weakened door and onto a drooping girder beyond.
Gundred was initially stunned but quickly realized what was happening. “My general!” she said. “Gveld, jump. Please come to me.”
But there was no jumping. Nothing to brace against, and no space to jump through, for the gold fell in a clanking mass, the slab holding its integrity for a twinkle then blossoming into a shower of ingots, each one the weight of a concrete block.
Gveld barely had time to make a cylinder from the fingers and thumb and look through the makeshift hole….
The Horteknut salute, thought Myles. Tunnel safely, friend.
And then Gveld was gone, borne into the bowels of the building by a torrential downpour of irradiated dwarf gold. Myles followed her descent into the dust cloud and heard the earthshaking crash as the bullion drove the general’s body through the dust and flames and deep into the foundations. The crash was so loud that for a moment Myles thought Gveld might take the entire building with her. But the Convention Centre Dublin held on through this one last trauma, although the whining from stressed supports was constant now.