by Eoin Colfer
“They are teeny-tiny,” said Myles, not entirely comfortable using such a subjective unit of measurement as teeny-tiny, but Beckett had to be kept calm. He opened the Plexiglas door on top of the insect hotel and scooped out a handful of tiny jumping creatures. “I would even go so far as to say teeny-weeny.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to touch these guys,” said Beckett.
“We’re not,” said Myles, dividing the insects between them. “Except in an emergency. And this is most definitely an emergency.”
It took a mere two minutes for Myles to relate his story, which was, in fact, an escape plan, and an additional six minutes for him to repeat it three times so Beckett could absorb all the particulars.
Once Beckett had repeated the details back to him, Myles persuaded his twin to don some clothing, namely a white T-shirt printed with the word uh-oh!, a phrase often employed both by Beckett himself upon breaking something valuable, and also by people who knew Beckett when they saw him approach. Myles even had time to disable the villa’s more aggressive defenses, which might decide to blow the helicopter out of the sky with some surface-to-air missiles, before the knock came on the door.
Here comes the cavalry, thought Myles.
In this rare instance, Myles Fowl was incorrect. The woman at the door would never be mistaken for an officer of the cavalry.
She was, in fact, a nun.
“It’s a nun,” said Beckett, checking the intercom camera.
Myles confirmed this with a glance at the screen. It was indeed a nun who appeared to have been winched down in a basket from the hovering helicopter.
If we do nothing, she might go away, thought Myles. After all, perhaps this person doesn’t even know we’re here.
Myles should have voiced this thought instead of thinking it, for, quick as a flash, Beckett pressed the TALK button and said, “Hi, mysterious nun. This is Myles Fowl speaking, one of the Fowl Twins. My brother Beckett is here, too, and we’re home alone. We’ll be with you in a minute—we’re down in the safe room because of the sonic boom. I’m so glad the EMP didn’t kill your helicopter.”
Beckett’s statement contained basically every scrap of information that Myles had wanted to keep secret.
“Gracias,” said the unexpected nun. “I shall await your arrival.”
Beckett was hopping with excitement. “Myles, it’s a nun with a helicopter! You hardly ever see that. This is the start of our first real adventure. It has to be—I can feel it in my elbows.”
Beckett often felt things in his elbows, which he claimed were psychic. He sometimes pointed them at cookie jars to see if there were cookies inside, which Myles had never considered much of a challenge, as one of NANNI’s robot arms filled the kitchen containers as soon as their smart sensors informed the network they were empty.
“Beck, with no disrespect to your extrasensory elbows,” said Myles, “why don’t we stay calm and stick to the plan? If we can stay, we stay, but if we go, remember the story.”
Beckett tapped his forehead. “It’s all in here, brother. Angry Hamster in the Dimension of Fire.”
“No, Beck!” snapped Myles. “Not that story.”
“Ha!” said Beckett. “You snapped at me. I win.”
Myles counted up to ninety-seven in prime numbers to calm himself. One of Beckett’s pleasures in life was teasing his brother until he snapped. It was unfair, really, as it was very difficult to tell the difference between a Beckett who genuinely didn’t know something and a Beckett who was pretending not to know something.
“Ha-ha,” said Myles, without a shred of humor. “You got me. You’re the big comedian, and I’m just Myles the dunce. But, in my defense, I am trying to keep us alive and out of an army cell.”
Beckett relented and hugged his brother. “Okay, Myles. I’ll lay off this time, because you have no sense of humor when you’re stressed. Let’s go upstairs and you can lecture this nun.”
Myles had to admit that sounded wonderful.
A new person to lecture.
As eager as Myles Fowl was to debate, argue with, and deliver a monologue to the mysterious nun, he was determined to take his time reaching the front door. It is always a good idea to keep potential enemies waiting, he knew, as they are more likely to expose their real selves if they become impatient. Beckett was not aware of this tactic, and so Myles had to literally hold him back by hanging on to his belt loops. And thus Beckett dragged his brother along in his wake as a mule might drag a cart.
They passed through the reinforced steel door and climbed the narrow stairwell of polished concrete to the main living area, an open-plan quadrangle marked on three sides with glass walls that were threaded with a conductive mesh, which served both to maintain the integrity of the Faraday cage and reinforce the windows. The reclaimed wooden floors were strewn with rugs, the placement of which might seem random to the untrained eye, but they were actually carefully laid out in accordance with the Ba Zhi school of feng shui. The space was dominated by a driftwood table and a rough stone fireplace that ran on recycled pellets. But the main feature of the villa was the panoramic view of Dublin Bay that it afforded the residents. Myles could remember visiting the island with his father before construction of the villa began.
“Criminal masterminds are always drawn to islands,” Artemis Fowl Senior had said. “All the greats have them. Colonel Hootencamp had Flint Island. Hans Hørteknut had Spider Island, which was more of a glacier, I suppose. Ishi Myishi, the malignant inventor, has an island in the Japanese archipelago. And now we have Dalkey Island.”
And Myles had asked, “Are we criminal masterminds, Father?”
His father did not answer for half a minute, and Myles got the feeling that he was choosing his words carefully.
“No, son,” he said eventually. “But sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.”
This, Myles knew, was a metaphor, and as a scientist he felt obliged to dissect it.
“Fire being analogous of crime,” he said. “So, if I take your meaning correctly, you are saying that on occasion the only way to defeat a criminal is to turn his own methods against him.”
Artemis Senior had laughed and tousled his son’s hair. “I’m just thinking out loud, son. The Fowls are out of that game. Now why don’t we forget I ever mentioned criminal masterminds and just enjoy the view?”
A view that was utterly ignored by Myles now, as he attempted to slow his energetic brother’s trip to their front door. He felt confident that once they reached the door he would be able to argue legal precedent through the intercom for hours with the waiting nun until the cows came home—or at least until he could fill in his parents on the situation. The problem would be how to contain Beckett.
As it happened, this problem never materialized. When they reached the front door, it was already open. The nun had stepped from the rescue basket and was closing her fingers over a hockey-puck-size device strapped to her palm.
“There you are, chicos,” said the nun. “The door simply opened of its own accord. Increíble, no?”
Incredible indeed, thought Myles. This nun may not be as virtuous as her clothing suggests.
The woman at Villa Éco’s front door was indeed a nun, but her habit was a little more stylish than one would usually associate with the various religious orders. She was dressed in a simple black linen smock that could have indicated that she liked Star Wars films or had just discovered an amazing young designer. The smock was cinched with a wide satin belt that nodded toward ancient Japanese culture. Her hair was too golden to be natural and was arranged in that bouffant style known in salons as 1980s News Anchor, on top of which perched a veil of black polyester secured with a jeweled hat pin.
“Buenas tardes, chicos,” she said. “I am Sister Jeronima Gonzalez-Ramos de Zárate of Bilbao.”
Beckett didn’t hear anything after the first name.
“Geronimo-o-o!” he cried enthusiastically, throwing up his arms.
“No, niño,” said
the nun patiently. “Jeronima, not Geronimo.”
Beckett altered his cry appropriately—“Jeronima-a-ah!”—and segued into a couple of blunt questions: “Sister, why are you red? And why do you smell funny?”
Jeronima smiled indulgently. These were the questions that most people wished to ask but would not. “You see, chico, my skin has the slight tinge because of my order: the Sisters of the Rose. We stain our flesh red with a nontoxic aniline dye solution to demonstrate our devotion to Mary, the rose without thorns. And the odor is from the dye. It is like the almonds, no?”
“It is like the almonds, yes!” said Beckett. “I love it. Can I stain my skin, Myles?”
“No, brother,” said Myles, smiling. “Not until you are eighteen.”
Myles was less smiley in his attitude toward the nun.
“Sister Jeronima,” he said, “it would seem that you have broken into our home.”
Jeronima joined her hands as though she might pray. “I am a nun. I would never do this. As I think I said, the door was open. Perhaps your EMP affected the locks, no?”
Myles was glad the rose-colored nun had lied. At least he knew where they stood now.
“You are, at the very least, trespassing on private property,” he countered.
Jeronima waved his point away as though it were a pesky mosquito. “I do not answer to your country’s estúpido laws.”
“I see,” said Myles. “You obey a higher power, I suppose.”
“Sí, absolutamente, if you like.”
“A higher power in the helicopter?” said Beckett.
Jeronima smiled tightly. “Not exactly, niño. Let us simply say that I am not bound by the rules of your government.”
“That’s very nice,” said Myles. “But we are not donating today. Can you please call again when my parents are home?”
“But I am not here for donations, Myles Fowl,” said Jeronima. “I am here to rescue you.”
Myles feigned surprise. “Rescue us, you say, Sister? But we are in the safest facility on Earth. In fact, I am disobeying my parents’ instructions by speaking with you. So, if you don’t mind…”
He attempted to close the aforementioned door but was thwarted by the nun’s left knee-high leather boot, which she had jammed between door and frame.
“But I do mind, niño,” she said, pushing the door open. “You are unsupervised minors under attack from an unknown assailant. It is my duty to escort you to a place of safety.”
“I would like to be escorted in a helicopter, Myles,” said Beckett. “Can we go? Can we, please?”
“Sí, Myles,” said Jeronima. “Can we go, please? Make your brother happy.”
Myles raised a stiff finger and cried, “Not so fast!”
It was undeniable that this was a touch melodramatic, but Myles felt justified in indulging his weakness, as there was a rappelling nun at the front door. “How would you know we are under attack, Sister Jeronima?”
“My organization has eyes everywhere,” said Jeronima with what Myles would come to know as her customary vagueness.
“That sounds suspiciously illegal, Sister,” said Myles, thinking he could stall her for several minutes while he winkled out more information about this mysterious “organization” they were supposed to simply hand themselves over to. “That sounds as though you are infringing on my rights, which is unusual for a woman of the cloth.”
Jeronima crossed her arms. “I am unusual for a woman of the cloth. Also, I am a trauma nurse, and I once threw knives in the circo—that is to say, circus. But I am not important now. You are important, and it is true what they say about you, chico. You are the smart one.”
“And I am the one who can climb!” said Beckett, blowing his brother’s stalling plan to smithereens by vaulting into the helicopter’s rescue basket and scrambling up the winch cable faster than a macaque scaling a fruit tree.
“And he is the one who can climb,” said Sister Jeronima. “And most quickly, too.” She stepped back and opened the basket’s gate. “Shall we follow, chico?”
Myles had little choice in the matter now that Beckett had taken the lead.
“I suppose we should,” he said, a bit miffed that his fact-finding mission had been cut short. “But only if you desist with the fake endearments. Chico, indeed. I am eleven years old now and hardly a child.”
“Very well, Myles Fowl,” said Sister Jeronima. “From now on you shall be tried as an adult.”
The gate was already closed behind Myles when this comment registered. “Tried? I am to be tried?”
Jeronima fake-laughed. “Oh, forgive me, that was—How do you say?—a slip of the tongue. I meant, of course, to say treated. You will be treated as an adult.”
“Hmmm,” said Myles, unconvinced. There was some form of trial ahead, he felt sure of it.
Jeronima made a circling motion with her index finger and the winch was activated. As the basket rose into the night sky, Myles glanced downward, appreciating the aerial view of Villa Éco, which, when seen from above, formed the shape of an uppercase F.
F for Fowl.
Still a little of the criminal mastermind in you, eh, Papa? he thought, and wondered how much of that particular characteristic there was in himself.
However much there needs to be in order to keep Beckett safe, he decided.
With a tap to the temple of his spectacles, Myles activated the infrared filter in his lenses and noticed that, across the bay, the sniper was packing up his gear.
We were not the target, he realized now. A sniper with even one functioning eyeball could have easily picked us off on the beach. So, what were you after, Mr. Beardy Man?
He committed this puzzle to his subconscious, to be worked on in the background while he dealt with Sister Jeronima and the other mysterious player in their drama. A player who was now emerging from the seaweed silo—not that anyone but Myles would notice, for the creature, whatever it proved to be exactly, was more or less invisible.
Invisible, thought the Fowl twin. How mysterious.
And as his father often said: A mystery is simply an advanced puzzle. Thunder was once a mystery. A wise man learns from the unknown by making it known.
And the wise boy, Father, thought Myles now. He magnified his view of the silo creature and saw that a single body part was visible even without the infrared. Its right ear, which was pointed. Somewhere in Myles’s brain, a lightbulb flashed.
A pointed ear.
And then the pointy-eared creature began to pedal, and it lifted off after the ascending rescue basket.
Beck was right, thought Myles, glancing upward at his brother, who was already boarding the helicopter.
It was indeed a fairy on an invisible bicycle.
“D’Arvit,” he blurted, shocked that Artemis’s stories had been, in fact, historical rather than fictional.
Sister Jeronima mistook the blurt for a sneeze. “Bless you, chico,” she said. “The night air is cool.”
Myles did not bother to correct her, because an explanation would be difficult, considering that the word D’Arvit was a fairy swearword, according to Artemis’s fairy tales.
Myles silently vowed not to use it again, at least not until he knew what it meant exactly.
Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye was surprised to find his mood brightening somewhat. This would have been a bombshell to anyone who knew him, as the duke was notorious for throwing royal tantrums when things did not go his way. He’d had an emotional hair trigger since childhood, when he would heave his toys from the stroller if refused a treat. At family gatherings, his father often embarrassed him with the story of how five-year-old Teddy had hurled his wooden horse over the St. George cliffs when the nanny served him lukewarm lemonade. And how Teddy had been so antisocial that it had become necessary to send him to Charterhouse boarding school at age five instead of seven, which was more traditional among those of the upper class. Now, one and a half centuries later, the duke’s general mood had not improved much, though he tended to
take out his frustrations on other people’s property rather than his own and let his irritation fester in his stomach acid. Good form at all times.
And so Lord Teddy was surprised to find himself whistling as he packed his gear.
Whistling, Teddy old boy? Surely you ought to be sinking into your usual vengeful funk.
But no, he was verging on the exuberant.
And why would that be?
It would be, Teddy old fellow, because there is something afoot here.
I take a single shot and suddenly the army is swooping in for an extraction? The Fowls were an important family, but not that important.
The island was obviously under the surveillance of some agency or other.
This confirms my growing certainty that Brother Colman’s lead was sound.
Now Teddy had a choice: He could continue to stake out the island and wait for another troll, or he could follow the Fowl children and find the one he had wrapped earlier.
Lord Bleedham-Drye knew that, logically, he should maintain his surveillance on the soon-to-be-unguarded Dalkey Island, but his instinct said Follow the Fowls.
The duke trusted his instinct; it had kept him alive this long.
After all, it would be child’s play to follow the troll, for each Myishi CV round was radioactively coded, and Teddy had programmed the individual codes into his marvelous Myishi Drye wristwatch, which had over a thousand functions, including geo-pinned news alerts and actually telling the time. The Drye series was the gold standard in criminal appliances. It included watches, exercise machines, a gorgeous porcelain handgun, a line of lightweight bulletproof apparel, a light aircraft, and a range of communication devices. Each item was embossed with a copy of the famous Modigliani line portrait of the duke from 1915. In return for his sponsorship, Teddy had a yearly credit of five million US dollars with the company, and a fifty percent discount on anything above that amount. The slogan for the Drye range was Stay Drye in any situation with Myishi. It had been a most successful arrangement for both parties. And, in truth, Lord Teddy would have long since declared bankruptcy without the Myishi Corp sponsorship deal. For his part, Ishi Myishi had the seal of approval from one of the most respected criminal masterminds/mad scientists in the community, which shifted enough units to easily pay the duke’s tab.