by Eoin Colfer
Half a second later, Juliet and Foaly flopped to the floor, tears in their eyes, gel in their windpipes. Artemis lay unmoving, still unconscious from his electrocution.
Butler landed on his feet, spat, and attacked.
Poor Bobb Ragby never had a chance, not that Butler did much to him. All it took was one kick, then the dwarf’s terror took hold and jetted him straight into the lip of a metal bunk. He collapsed with a surprisingly childlike moan.
Butler turned quickly to Artemis and checked his pulse.
“How’s Artemis’s heart?” asked Juliet, bending to check on Mulch.
“It’s beating,” replied her brother. “That’s about all I can tell you. We need to get him over to that hospital ship. Mulch too.”
The dwarf coughed then muttered something about beer and cheese pies.
“Do you mean beer, and cheese pies? Or beer-and-cheese pies?” Juliet glanced at her brother. “Mulch may be delirious—it’s hard to tell.”
Butler took Bobb Ragby’s gun from his belt, then tossed him bodily onto Foaly’s broad back.
“Okay. Here’s the strategy. We take Artemis and Mulch across to the Nostremius’s sick bay, then I retrieve Holly if necessary.”
Juliet’s head snapped back. “But Foaly can do—”
“Get moving,” thundered Butler. “Go immediately. I do not want to talk about it.”
“Okay. But if you’re not with us in five minutes, I’m coming after you.”
“I would appreciate that,” said Butler, propping Mulch on Foaly’s back, then the unconscious Artemis. “And if you could bring any troops you find along the way, that would be great.”
“Troops on a hospital ship?” said Foaly, trying his best not to smell what was on his back. “You’ll be lucky.”
Mulch’s tongue lolled out, resting on the centaur’s neck. “Mmm,” he mumbled around his tongue. “Horse. Tasty.”
“Let’s go,” said Foaly nervously. “Let’s go right now.”
The ambulance was a small ship compared to the massive aquanaut that loomed over them. The little craft had two levels: a sick bay and cell downstairs and on top of the spiral staircase a bridge with a small trucker’s cabin, and apart from a couple of nooks for storage and recycling, and the room in which they’d been imprisoned, that was it. Luckily for Butler and the others, the umbilical across to the Nostremius was on the bottom level.
Ching Mayle was peering across through the umbilical, obviously waiting for Holly’s return with the demon warlock.
“Please,” whispered Juliet, when they saw the goblin at the hatch, “allow me.”
Butler was holding both Artemis and Mulch steady on Foaly’s back; Bobb Ragby he was not so worried about. “Knock yourself out,” he said. “Or, rather, knock the other guy out.”
Being a wrestler, Juliet could not simply run at Ching Mayle and knock him out—she had to add a little drama.
She ran down the corridor crying hysterically, “Help me, Mr. Goblin. Save me.”
Ching removed his fingers from the bite marks on his skull he was forever scratching, which of course meant that they never healed properly.
“Uh . . . save you from what?”
Juliet sniffled. “There’s a big ugly goblin trying to stop us from leaving the ship.”
Mayle reached for his gun. “There’s a what?”
“A big ugly guy, with all these septic dents in his head.”
Ching licked his eyeballs. “Septic dents? Hey, wait a minute. . . .”
“Finally,” said Juliet, and pirouetted like an ice skater, whacking Ching Mayle with her signature jade ring. He tumbled into the umbilical passage, sliding down to the low point. Juliet caught his weapon before it hit the deck.
“One more down,” she said.
“You couldn’t just punch him in the head,” grumbled Butler, leading Foaly past her. “Boo-hoo. Help me, I’m a girl. What kind of modern woman are you?”
“A smart one,” said Juliet. “He never even got a shot off.”
Butler was not impressed. “He should never have got a hand to his gun. Next time, just hit the goblin. You’re lucky he didn’t blast you with a fireball.”
“Oh no,” said Foaly, pushing through a rope curtain that seemed to be coated with disinfectant, and into the umbilical passage. “No flame near the umbilical. This is a pressurized tube with an oxygen-helium mix, heavy on the oxygen because of the pressure. One spark in here and first we explode, then the tube ruptures and the ocean squashes us flat.”
One by one they stepped into the umbilical. It was an incredible construction. A double-skinned tube of transparent super-tough plastic, strengthened with a wrap of octagonal wire mesh. Air pumps hummed loudly along its length, and light orbs drew deep-sea creatures to it, including Artemis’s giant squid, which had wrapped itself around the umbilical’s central span and was gnawing the wire frame with its beak. Its chitin-lined suckers scraped the plastic, smearing long welts along the tube.
“Don’t worry,” said Foaly confidently. “That creature can’t get through. We’ve done a thousand stress tests.”
“With actual giant squid?” asked Juliet, understandably concerned.
“No,” admitted Foaly.
“So just computer tests, then?”
“Absolutely not,” said Foaly, offended. “We used a normal squid and a tiny umbilical model. It worked quite well until one of my dwarf lab assistants fancied some calamari.”
Juliet shuddered. “It’s just that I have a thing about giant squid.”
“Don’t we all?” said Foaly, and clopped past her down the umbilical.
The passage was fifty yards long with a slight incline at either end. The walkway beneath their feet was coated with a slightly tacky substance to prevent any accidental sparking, and there were fire-extinguishing scatter bombs at regular intervals that would automatically coat the tube with powder in the event of a fire breaking out.
Foaly pointed at one of the fire-extinguishing bombs. “In all honesty, those are for show. If so much as a spark gets loose in here, not even the squid is going to survive.”
They proceeded across to the aquanaut, feeling the cold of the ocean radiate through the walls, breathing the sharp oxygen-rich air. The Nostremius hospital ship loomed above, four stories high, curved green walls dotted by a thousand glowing portholes, anchored to the seabed by a dozen bus-sized anchors. Umbilicals stretched from several ports, and shadowy figures could be seen shuffling across from their ships to the Nostremius. It was a somber, surreal image.
Foaly led, carrying Artemis, Mulch, and a snoring Bobb Ragby, complaining every step of the way.
“Passengers. Centaurs don’t carry passengers. Just because we have a horse’s back doesn’t mean we have a horse’s temperament. This is demeaning, that’s what it is.”
Neither Juliet nor Butler took any notice. They were in a dangerous stretch right now, and any confrontation had to be quickly contained or it could mean a watery grave for them all.
On Foaly’s back, Artemis moaned and stirred. Butler patted his shoulder.
“You just stay asleep, young man. No need to wake up now.”
As much respect as Butler had for Artemis’s abilities, he couldn’t think how they could help in this situation, especially with that angry-looking rune burned into his neck.
They were two-thirds of the way across when the hatch on the Nostremius slid open, and Holly stepped through, followed by No1.
There was no emotion in Holly’s eyes, but she calmly assessed the situation and drew the Neutrino from her holster, taking a quick bead on Butler’s forehead. From the look on her face, she could have been about to shoot a dart at a fairground target.
“No, Captain Short,” said Turnball’s voice from behind Butler. “No guns in here.”
Turnball stood at the entrance to the ambulance with Unix, as ever, at one shoulder, and Ark Sool hovering at the other.
Juliet was on rear-guard duty. “It’s the jolly pirate,” she
called to her brother. “And his merry idiots. I think that without guns we’re in pretty good shape. Should I go over there and beat some respect for life into them?”
Butler held up two fingers. Wait.
This was a nightmare scenario for any bodyguard: stuck in the middle of a transparent tube, several miles underwater, with a murdering band of fugitives at one end and an enthralled but still highly skilled police officer at the other.
Poor No1 had no idea what kind of drama he had stepped into.
“Holly, what’s going on? Are we in the middle of one of your big adventures? Should I zap someone?”
Holly stood impassively waiting for instructions, but Butler heard what No1 had said. “No magic, No1. One spark could blow up this entire platform.”
No1 sighed. “Can’t you people ever just go on a picnic or something? Do there always have to be explosions?”
Artemis moaned again, then slid from behind Mulch off Foaly’s back onto the walkway.
Standing in the doorway of the stolen shuttle ambulance, gazing down the umbilical toward Butler, Turnball realized he had a few marked cards in the deck. “Ah,” he said. “My little genius awakes. This should make our game interesting.”
Butler turned sideways to make himself a smaller target. There were to be no guns in this showdown, but there could be blades. “Go back inside,” he called to No1. “Go in and shut the hatch.”
The demon warlock tapped Holly’s shoulder. “Should I go in, Holly? Would that be the best thing to do?”
Holly did not answer, but with that touch, No1 felt the rune spell that squatted like a parasite on her mind. It seemed purple to him, and malignant, and somehow aware. In his imagination, the reptilian rune crouching on Holly’s brain snarled at him and nipped with venomous teeth.
“Oh,” said No1, withdrawing his finger sharply.
I could undo the spell, he thought. But it would be delicate work to avoid brain damage, and there would definitely be sparks.
He took a slow step backward, but Holly quickly walked around him and smashed the heel of her hand into the door mechanism, sealing it for as long as it took for maintenance to get a fairy down there. Which would be way too long.
“No running away, young Master Demon,” called Turnball. “I have need of your magic.”
My magic, thought No1. There must be something I can do. The mesmer doesn’t require any sparks.
“Listen to me, Holly,” said the demon warlock, his voice multilayered with magic. “Look into my eyes.”
Which was as far as he got before Holly brought the edge of her hand down in a chopping motion that hit No1 accurately in the gap between the armor plates on his chest and neck. Right in the windpipe. The demon collapsed to the ground, gasping. It would be minutes before he could do as much as squeak.
Turnball laughed cruelly. “Rune trumps mesmer, I would say.”
Butler tried to ignore the more extreme circumstances, such as the explosive gas they were breathing and the giant squid giving him the evil eye from outside the umbilical tube, and treat the situation as a common alley brawl.
I have been in this situation a dozen times. Admittedly, we are flanked, but Juliet and I could take these and a dozen more. Holly can fight, but she is mesmerized, and that will slow her down. Why is Turnball so confident with only a gnome and a sprite by his side?
“Ready, sister?” he said.
“Say the word.”
“I’ll take Turnball and his friends. You contain Holly without doing any damage if you can manage it.”
“Okay, brother.”
“What should I do?” asked Foaly, trying to keep the whinny out of his voice.
“Stand over Artemis and Mulch. Keep them safe.”
“Very well, Butler,” said the centaur, feeling utterly helpless, as he always did in violent situations. “You can count on me.”
Butler and Juliet switched sides, touching hands briefly on the way past.
“Be careful. Holly is quick.”
“You too. I don’t trust that Turnball guy.”
Both of these statements would shortly prove themselves true. Unfortunately, Butler had formulated their plan of action without two vital pieces of information. First of all, Holly was not mesmerized, she was enthralled by a rune, and where the mesmer slowed the enchanted person down, runes certainly did not. In fact, they gave the victim access to more life force than they would normally have, which is why long-term thralls must not be allowed to get too excited for too long or they will literally burn themselves out. The second piece of information Butler did not have was the fact that Turnball had anticipated he might have to fight his way through an umbilical, and so was armed accordingly.
The Butlers went down within seconds of each other. Juliet ran full tilt for Holly, no chatter or exaggerated wrestling moves—Holly was a serious opponent. The serious opponent stood listlessly, arms dangling until the last possible moment, then she ducked low, so quickly that it seemed a ghost image hung in the space where she had been, and swept Juliet’s legs from under her. Juliet banged her head hard on the walkway, and by the time her vision cleared, Holly was on her chest with her Neutrino leveled at Juliet’s head.
“No sparks,” panted Juliet. “No sparks.”
“No sparks,” repeated Holly dully, then stuffed the gun barrel down the front of Juliet’s Jade Princess leotard and pulled the trigger. Juliet spasmed once, then collapsed. There were no sparks.
At the other end of the conduit, Butler had not rushed forward with quite so much gusto. If things were as they seemed, he could easily defeat Turnball and his little henchfairies. Perhaps a menacing approach would be enough to scare them into running away.
Turnball seemed a little irritated and not at all scared. “Mr. Butler, as a manservant to a great strategist, didn’t it occur to you that another great strategist such as myself might have anticipated this moment, or one like it?”
Butler’s stomach sank. Turnball is armed.
Butler’s only option was to cover the remaining distance before Turnball managed to aim his weapon. He almost made it, but then almost in a fight is about as useful as rubber needles in a knitting contest.
Turnball unclipped the stumpy weapon on a lanyard behind his back and shot Butler eight times in the chest and head. The bodyguard’s eyes rolled back in his head, but his momentum drove him forward, and Turnball had to skip smartly to one side to avoid being crushed. Ark Sool and Unix were not so lucky. Butler landed on them like a meteor, driving every last gasp of air from their bodies and breaking several ribs.
“Olé!” said Turnball, who had made a point of attending the bullfights whenever he was in Spain, not seeming too upset by the loss of his crew.
The vibrations set off one of the fire-extinguisher powder packs, which must have been on a hair trigger, and filled the umbilical with floating white powder.
“‘Oh, the weather outside is frightful,’” sang Turnball, pointing his gun at Foaly, who was trying to at least look brave. “Do you like my weapon? It was developed for crowd control during the first goblin riots. Purely chemical. Shoots Zolpidem tartrate knockout pellets. Gas powered, with dissolvable shells. No sparks. Sometimes low-tech is the way to go.”
Artemis suddenly drew a lungful of air, as though he had just breached the ocean’s surface.
“Ah, my genius surfaces. Stand up, Artemis. I command you.”
Artemis lurched to his feet, his head and clothes matted with white powder.
“Choke that centaur for me, would you?”
There followed an uncomfortable minute while Artemis tried to find some purchase on Foaly’s broad neck, then squeezed with all the power in his fingers, which was not very much. Foaly was more embarrassed than hurt.
Turnball wiped a tear from his eye. “Oh, this is too much. But I indulge myself—Leonor is waiting. Come here, Artemis, and you too, Captain Short. Bring the demon. We must be gone from here before the ambulance generator blows.”
Arte
mis and Holly did as they were told with the emotion of automatons. Holly yanked poor, gasping No1 along by the collar of his tunic, and Artemis stepped past Foaly without a glance. Outside the conduit, the fish and squid paid close attention to this fascinating diversion from the dreariness of everyday subaquatic life.
Suddenly, Turnball was impatient to be off.
“Come now, my thralls. Where is the speed you are famous for?”
Artemis did speed up, showing a nimbleness that anyone who knew the boy would not associate with him.
“That’s more like it,” said Turnball. “I may keep you, Artemis.”
“That’s nice,” said the human boy. “I’ll tell him when I see him.”
“Ehm,” said Turnball, puzzled; then the boy who looked like Artemis Fowl jabbed Turnball in the gut with stiffened fingers.
“Butler showed Artemis that one a thousand times,” said the boy. “He didn’t listen, but I did.”
Turnball wanted to say something, but he was winded, and even if he hadn’t been, he had no idea what he would have said.
“For I am not Artemis Fowl, villainous elf,” said Orion, twisting the gun from Turnball’s fingers. “I am the young romantic who always knew his day would come, so I listened to Butler and I am ready.”
Turnball got enough breath back for one word. “How?”
“Artemis knew he had to escape the power of the rune, which controlled his mind but not mine, so he goaded your cretinous minion into shocking him, which released me.”
Turnball clasped his stomach. Of course. Atlantis stage two. He rested both elbows on his knees and rasped at Holly. “Kill him. Kill the boy.”
Orion pivoted and aimed the gun at Holly. “Please, sweet maiden. Do not force my hand, for I will strike for the good of all.”
Holly threw No1 aside and ran full tilt, side to side.
“Artemis could never shoot,” she snarled.
Orion squared his shoulders and extended his hands, supporting his right hand with his left. Both Artemis and Orion were ambidextrous, but, unlike Artemis, Orion favored his right hand. He remembered what Butler had said time and time again: Sight along your arm. Breathe out and squeeze.