by Eoin Colfer
While it is one thing to hold oneself aloft, it is quite another to hoist oneself upward, but fortunately Madam Ko had put a few seminars into that too. That is not to say it was easy, and Juliet imagined her muscles screaming as she swung her other hand about for a better grip, then hauled herself onto the beam. On another day, she would have paused to allow her heart to slow down a little, but from the corner of her eye she saw her brother about to be engulfed by wrestling fans, and decided that this was not the day for leisurely recuperation.
Juliet popped to her feet and ran the length of the beam with the confidence of a gymnast. A good gymnast, that is, not one who slips painfully on the beam, which is exactly what happened to a mesmerized lighting technician who attempted to cut Juliet off before she could reach the screen.
Juliet winced. “Oooh. That looked sore, Arlene.”
Arlene did not comment, unless turning purple and tumbling flailing into space can be counted as commentary. Juliet knew that she shouldn’t have grinned when the technician’s fall was comically broken by a cluster of men lumbering toward her brother, but she couldn’t hold it in.
Her smile faded when she noticed the mass of bodies swarming along Butler’s frame, burying him. Another technician approached her, this one a little smarter than his predecessor; he straddled the beam with his ankles locked below him. As he inched forward, he banged a large spanner on the beam, raising concussive bongs and spark flurries.
Juliet timed the arc of his swing, then planted a foot on his head and stepped over him as though he were a rock in the middle of a stream. She did not bother to topple the man from his perch. By the time he turned around, it would be too late for him to stop her, but he should have a nice bruise on his forehead to wonder about when his senses returned.
The screen was ahead, bracketed by metal tubing, and the red eyes glared at her out of the black background, seeming to emanate pure hate.
Or maybe this guy was up late partying.
“Stop where you are, Juliet Butler!” said the voice, and to Juliet it seemed as though the tones were suddenly those of Christian Varley Penrose, her instructor at the Madam Ko Agency. The only person, besides her brother, whom she had ever considered her physical equal.
“Some students make me proud,” Christian would say in his BBC tones. “You just make me despair. What was that move?”
And Juliet would invariably answer, “It’s something I made up, master.”
“Made up? Made up? That is not good enough.”
Juliet would pout and think, It was good enough for Bruce Lee.
And now Christian Varley Penrose seemed to have a line directly into her brain.
“Stop where you are!” the voice told her. “And, having stopped, feel free to lose your balance and plummet to the earth below.”
The voice, Juliet felt, was taking hold of her determination and twisting it like a wet towel.
Don’t look. Don’t listen.
But she had looked and listened, if only for a second, and it was long enough for the insidious magic to snake a couple of tendrils into her brain. Her legs locked as though clamped with braces, and the paralysis spread upward.
“D’Arvit,” said Juliet, though she wasn’t quite sure why and, with her last spurt of self-control, pinwheeled her arms wildly, sending her entire body careening into the tubular frame supporting the screen and speakers.
The screen yielded elastically, and for a moment, the little bubble of Juliet’s mind that she still held on to believed that the screen would not break; then her elbow, which Butler had told her as a child was sharp enough to open a tin of field rations, punched through the material, sending a jagged rent running down its length.
The fairy’s red eyes rolled, and the last thing Juliet heard before her outstretched arm snagged the AV cables was an irritated snort, and then she was tumbling through a hole in the suddenly blank screen and falling toward the spasming mass of bodies below.
Juliet used the half-second before impact to curl herself into a ball.
Her very last thought before striking the crowd was: I hope zombies are soft.
They were not.
As soon as the fairy had flickered from the screen, the enthralled wrestling enthusiasts gradually regained their senses.
Geri Niebalm, a retired beauty therapist from Seattle, found that she had somehow made it all the way from the rear of the hall to the stage itself without the aid of her walker. What was more, she had a phantom memory of vaulting over several youngsters in her pursuit of that pretty young wrestler with the stone in her ponytail. Two months later, Geri would undergo regression therapy at her friend Dora Del Mar’s salon to bring that memory to the surface so that she could relish it at her leisure.
Stu “Cheeze” Toppin, a semiprofessional bowler from Las Vegas, woke up to find his mouth somehow stuffed with a foul-smelling nappy and the words KILL BEAR KILL written across his shirtfront in lipstick. This rather confused Stu, as his last memory was of the succulent hot dog he had been just about to bite into. Now, with the nappy aftertaste lingering on his tongue, Stu decided that he might just forget about the hot dog for the time being.
Though Stu had no way of knowing, the nappy in question belonged to little André Price, a baby from Portland who suddenly developed a speed and grace unheard of in eight-month-old limbs. Most victims of the mesmer move in a sluggish fashion, but André skipped over the heads of mob members and executed a perfect triple somersault from the ringside commentator’s table, managing to sink his only tooth into Butler’s thumb before the bodyguard was completely submerged. André Price began speaking a few months later—unfortunately it was in a language that his parents had no way of knowing was actually Gnommish. To their relief, he quickly picked up English too, though he never forgot his strange first language and found that he could sometimes make twigs burst into flame if he thought about it hard enough.
A huge cacophonous moan almost lifted the roof from the theater as thousands of people realized they were not where they were supposed to be. Though there were miraculously no fatalities, by the time the last cut had been swabbed with antiseptic, there was a final count of 348 broken bones, more than 11,000 lacerations, and 89 cases of hysteria that had to be treated with sedatives, which, luckily for the patients, were a lot cheaper in Mexico than they would have been in the U.S.
And even though this was the age of amateur video, where most of those attending the event were in possession of at least one camera, there was not a single frame of evidence to prove that the mass mesmerization had ever taken place. In fact, when police flicked through the files on the confiscated cameras and phones, they found that every single instrument had been reset to factory conditions. No photos. In time, the Cancún Event, as it came to be known, would be mentioned in the same breath as Area 51 or the Yeti Migration.
Butler did not suffer from hysteria, possibly because he did not have enough air in his lungs for screaming, but probably because he had been in tighter spots (Butler had once shared a chimney in a Hindu temple with a tiger for several hours), but he had suffered over a dozen lacerations of his own, though he did not wait around long enough to have them added to the count.
As for Juliet, she was relatively unmarked in spite of her tumble. The moment she had recovered her breath, she began rolling bodies away from the spot where she had seen her brother submerged.
“Butler!” she called. “Brother! Are you under here?”
The top of her brother’s head appeared, smooth as a lollipop. Juliet knew immediately that her brother was alive because of the vein pulsing at his temple.
There was a chubby seminaked infant wrapped around Butler’s face and chewing on his thumb. Juliet dislodged the boy gently, noticing that he seemed very sweaty for a baby.
Butler drew a deep breath. “Thank you, sister. Not only did that child bite my thumb, but it tried to get a fist up one of my nostrils.”
The baby gurgled happily, wiped its fingers in Juliet’s ponytail,
then crawled across the piles of humanity toward a crying lady who was waiting with open arms.
“I know you’re supposed to like babies,” said Juliet, huffing as she grabbed a banker type by his braces and sprung him from his perch on Butler’s shoulders, “but that guy stank and he was a biter.” She took a firm grip on a middle-aged lady whose blond hair had been sprayed till it shone like a buttercup. “Come on, missus. Get off my big brother.”
“Oh,” said the lady, eyelids fluttering as she tried to make sense of everything. “I was supposed to catch the bear. Or something like that. And I had popcorn, a large popcorn that I just paid for. Who’s going to compensate me for that?”
Juliet rolled the lady across the bellies of four identically dressed cowboys who all wore FLOYD’S STAG NIGHT T-shirts under their rhinestoned waistcoats.
“This is ridiculous,” she grunted. “I am a glamorous young lady. I can’t be dealing with all this body odor and squidginess.”
There was indeed a lot of body odor and squidginess about, much of it related to Floyd and his stag night, which smelled like it had been going on for about two weeks.
This was confirmed when the cowboy wearing a FLOYD badge awoke from his stupor with the words: “Dang. I stink worse than a dead skunk wearing a suit of bananer skins.”
Bananer? thought Juliet.
Butler rolled his head, clearing space to breathe.
“We’ve been set up,” he said. “Have you made any enemies down here?”
Juliet felt sudden tears plop over her bottom lids. She had been so worried. So worried. Big brothers can only be indestructible for so long.
“You big galoot,” she said, sounding very Floyd-like. “For your information, I am fine. I saved you and everyone else.”
Butler elbowed himself gently from between two luchadores dressed in garish Lycra and leather masks.
“Time for patting yourself on the back later, sister.” He climbed from the tangle of limbs and stood tall in the center of the stage. “Do you see all of this?”
Juliet clambered along her brother’s frame and stood lightly on his shoulders, and then to show off she stepped with easy balance onto his head. One foot only, the other tucked behind her knee.
Now that she had a second to appreciate the enormity of what had happened, it took her breath away. A sea of confusion spread out all around them, groaning and twisting. Blood ran, bones cracked, and tears flowed. It was a disaster area. People pawed at their mobile phones for comfort, and sprinklers sent down a fine mist that dusted Juliet’s face.
“All this to kill us,” she breathed.
Butler held out his massive palms, and, as she had done so many times in the Fowl dojo, Juliet stepped onto her brother’s hands.
“Not just to kill us,” he said. “Two bolts from a Neutrino could have done that. This was entertainment for someone.”
Juliet somersaulted to the stage. “Entertainment for who?”
At the rear of the conference hall, a section of the stand collapsed, sending up a fresh round of shrieks and misery.
“I don’t know,” said the bodyguard grimly. “But whoever tried to kill us wanted Artemis unguarded. First I change into my own clothes, and then we find out who Artemis has annoyed this time.”
The Deeps Maximum Security Prison, Atlantis; Now
Turnball Root took his entertainment wherever he could get it. Maximum security prisons didn’t tend to be brimming with fun and flighty distractions. The guards were gruff and unobliging. The beds were unyielding and not enjoyable to bounce on, and the color scheme was simply ghastly. Olive green throughout. Disgusting. In surroundings like this, one had to enjoy every modicum of light relief that came one’s way.
For months after his arrest by his brother, Commander Julius Root, and that naive, straight-arrow Holly Short, Turnball had simply fumed. He had actually spent weeks on end pacing his cell, bouncing his hatred off the walls. Sometimes he ranted, and occasionally he threw fits, smashing his furniture to smithereens. He realized eventually that the only person he was hurting with these displays was himself. This point had been driven home when he’d developed an ulcer, and because he had long since forfeited his magic through abuse and neglect, he had been forced to call in a medical warlock to put his organs right. The young whelp didn’t seem much older than Turnball’s prison uniform and had been extremely patronizing. Called him grandpa. Grandpa! Didn’t they remember, these whelps? Who he was? What he had accomplished?
I am Turnball Root, he would have thundered, had the healing not totally sapped his strength. Captain Turnball Root, nemesis of the LEP. I stripped every ingot of gold from the First Pixie Prudential Bank. I was the one who rigged the Centenary Crunchball Final. How dare you refer to me as grandpa!
“Youngsters today, Leonor,” muttered Turnball to his absent, beloved wife. “No respect.”
Then he shuddered as he considered this statement.
“Ye gods, darling. I do sound old.”
And using phrases like ye gods wasn’t helping any.
Once he’d had enough of self-pity, Turnball had decided to make the best of the situation.
My chance will come eventually to be with you again, Leonor. Until then, why not make myself as comfortable as possible?
It hadn’t been too difficult. After months of incarceration, Turnball had opened a dialogue with the warden, Tarpon Vinyáya, a malleable university graduate who had never washed blood from under his manicured nails, and had offered Tarpon tidbits of information to send to his sister Raine in the LEP in return for some harmless comforts. It hadn’t bothered Turnball a whit to sell out his old underworld contacts, and for his trouble he was allowed to wear whatever he liked. He chose his old LEP dress uniform, complete with ruffled shirt and three-corner hat, but without insignias. Betraying two visa forgers working out of Cuba got him a computer limited to the prison network. And the address of a rogue dwarf operating as a house breaker in Los Angeles got him a sim-down quilt for his plank of a bed. The warden would not be moved on the bed, however. Something for which his sister would one day pay the price.
Turnball had often passed many a happy hour thinking how he would one day kill the warden in revenge for this slight. But, truth be told, Turnball was not too concerned about the fate of Tarpon Vinyáya. He was far more interested in securing his own freedom, in looking deep into his wife’s eyes once more. And to achieve these goals, Turnball would have to play the soft, doddery reprobate for a while longer. He had been toadying up to the warden for more than six years now; what did a few more days matter?
Then I will be transformed into my true self, he thought, squeezing his fingers into tight fists. And this time, my baby brother won’t be around to apprehend me, unless that young rascal Artemis Fowl has come up with a way to bring the dead back to life.
The door to Turnball’s cell fizzled and dissolved as a nuclear-powered charge precipitated a phase change. In the doorway stood Mr. Vishby, Turnball’s regular guard for the past four years and the one that he had finally managed to turn. Turnball did not like Vishby, in fact he detested all Atlantean elves with their fishlike heads, slobbering gills, and thick tongues, but Vishby had the seeds of discontent in his heart, and so had unknowingly become Turnball’s slave. Turnball was prepared to tolerate anybody who could help him escape from this prison before it was too late.
Before I lose you, my darling.
“Ah, Mr. Vishby,” he gushed, rising from his nonregulation office chair (three mackerel-smuggling sprites). “You’re looking well. That gill rot is really clearing up.”
Vishby’s hand flew to the triple stripes below his tiny left ear.
“Do you think so, Turnball?” he gurgled, his voice thick and labored. “Leeta says she can’t stand to look at me.”
I know how Leeta feels, thought Turnball, and: There was a day when I would have had you flogged for addressing me by my first name. Captain Root, if you please.
Instead of voicing these less than complimen
tary thoughts, he took Vishby by his slick elbow with barely a flinch of revulsion. “Leeta does not know how lucky she is,” he said smoothly. “You, my friend, are a catch.”
Vishby did not try to conceal his flinch. “A c-catch?”
Turnball drew a sharp, guilty breath. “Ah yes, excuse me, Vishby. Atlantean water elves do not like to think of themselves as catches, or being caught, for that matter. What I meant to say was that you are a fine specimen of an elf and any female in her right mind would consider herself fortunate indeed to have you as a mate.”
“Thanks, Turnball,” muttered Vishby, mollified. “How’s it been going, then? The plan?”
Turnball squeezed the water elf’s elbow to remind him that there were eyes and ears everywhere.
“Oh, my plan to construct a model of the Nostremius aquanaut? That plan? It’s going rather well. Warden Tarpon Vinyáya is being most cooperative. We’re negotiating over glue.” He led Vishby to his computer screen. “Let me show you my latest blueprint, and can I say how much I appreciate your taking an interest? My rehabilitation depends on interaction with decent individuals like yourself.”
“Uh . . . okay,” said Vishby, uncertain whether or not he had just been complimented.
Turnball Root waved his hand in front of the screen, awakening a V-board on the desk (real wood: identity thieves, Nigeria).
“Here, look. I’ve solved the problem with the ballast tanks, see?”
Then with a smooth three-finger combination, he activated the scrambler that Vishby had smuggled in for him. The scrambler was an organic wafer, which had been grown in the Atlantis branch of the now defunct Koboi Labs. The scrambler was a reject lifted from the trash, which had merely needed a dab of silicon to get it operational.
There is so much waste in industry, Turnball had sighed to Vishby. Is it any wonder we’re in the middle of a resource crisis?