by Eoin Colfer
“I like it when things are not easy,” he said, and unleashed the cluster punch.
* * *
The cluster punch is considered a myth by most accomplished martial artists. But there are a dozen who claim to have seen it performed, and a few who profess to have actually landed one. The notorious, feared, and respected Fowl family bodyguard, Domovoi Butler, who was currently, and with some considerable reluctance, on his way to Mars, had managed to pull off a single cluster punch early in his career on a would-be assassin in Ghana, but he could never repeat it, though he’d certainly had scores of opportunities to try.
Simply put, the cluster punch was a nonlethal paralyzing blow based on an ancient African theory that the body’s twelve principal meridian lines all intersect in a cluster just above the right kneecap. If a person could strike that cluster at precisely the right angle, with exactly the correct amount of pressure per square inch, the entire system would go into spasm and the victim would be left paralyzed for a brief period. There were so many variables involved that it would take a humanoid robot with millimeter accuracy and X-ray capability to have any success with the strike, and only then if the target were standing completely still, which targets are usually reluctant to do.
Somehow, Beckett Fowl could toss out cluster punches at will. In the Fowl dojo, he had proven himself to be something of a cluster-punch savant, and, years earlier, he had infuriated his school principal by freezing a PE teacher whom Beckett perceived to be bullying his kindergarten classmates.
Beckett’s technique was to pogo six inches straight up, then strike with a hammer action on the way down, while emitting a high-pitched Hah!, which he swore was vital to the success of the move.
He did so now, thumping Oberon above the kneecap. There was no pain and Oberon was on the point of making a disparaging remark when his entire body seized up and he keeled over like a felled oak, his mouth frozen oddly in a whistling aspect.
Beckett bowed and said, “I respect you, Mr. Oberon.”
Which was not an accurate statement, as the man’s real name was Phil and Beckett didn’t actually respect him.
Myles Fowl found himself experiencing dangerous levels of happiness. The happiness was due to the fact that he was explaining his own genius to someone who found herself momentarily too stunned for interjection or interruption. The dangerous was because the endorphins or happy hormones released into his nervous system could flood his body and dull his thought process. Or, simply put: More happy, less snappy.
But in spite of this, Myles simply could not stop his Fowlsplaining.
“You are probably wondering, Sister, how someone could be opening the door right now from the outside. Someone who should not know the code.”
“It’s my man,” said Sister Jeronima. “An ACRONYM agent.”
“You are quite wrong, I assure you,” said Myles. “Your agent is no doubt utterly incapacitated. But to continue, how could this person know the code? The answer is simplicity itself to me, though possibly complicated to the average individual. You see, ninety percent of keypads are supplied at the top end by a surprisingly small number of companies. Five, in fact. Two of these companies are owned by Fowl Industries, including your keypad, which I immediately recognized as a Portunus Five Star.”
The door beeped and clanged open, and Jeronima whipped around to see an obviously hyped-up Beckett vibrating with excitement in the doorway.
“It worked, Myles,” he said. “Just like you said.”
“Naturally it worked, brother,” said Myles. “I was telling Sister Jeronima how Father’s company manufactures the Portunus Five Star, and I was about to explain how, in the Escape Plan module of our social studies class, we learned to memorize the distinct tones emitted by the keys of the most popular keypads and to match the tones to the numbers.”
“Beep boop,” said Beckett, robot-dancing toward Sister Jeronima. “Boop beep boop.”
Myles waited patiently for his brother to finish his routine. “Beckett struggled with this lesson, but as I myself have perfect pitch, it was simplicity itself to assign numbers to the notes, in this case, three-eight-six-two.”
“Three hundred and eighty-six point two seconds,” said Jeronima, the realization sinking in. “This is how long you estimated it would take you to escape from the handcuffs.”
“Exactly,” said Myles. “Now if you don’t mind, we shall take our leave of this establishment. If you wish to contact us again, please go through the proper channels.”
This patronizing farewell burst the nun’s bubble of surprise. “Oh no, chicos,” she said. “You may have tricked me once, but I am still having the upper hand. I am armed, and there are more agents in the building.”
Beckett wound up his fighting arm. “Cluster punch?”
“No need, brother,” said Myles, rising from his chair. “Sister Jeronima is secure enough for now.”
Mere seconds ago, Jeronima would have pooh-poohed the notion that she could be secured by an eleven-year-old, but a lot had happened in the past few minutes, and so she checked and found one of her wrists cuffed to the table, the junior manacles’ ratchets stretched to their last tooth.
“You should pay attention to where you pay attention,” said Myles, sealing his inoculation patch. “I stole your hatpin when you turned to see who was at the door. Hatpins make most excellent lock picks.”
And while the nun yanked on the cuffs, he nipped around the table and tugged a black smartphone from her pocket.
“I do hope you don’t keep too much information on this phone,” he said. “It would be such a shame if I were to uncover all of ACRONYM’s dirty secrets.”
Jeronima had one more ace up her sleeve—in this case, it was a throwing knife. With her free arm, she slipped it from her sleeve and pointed the tip at Myles.
“Be very still, Myles Fowl,” she said. “I have no wish to kill a child.”
“Just a moment,” said Myles. He retrieved his spectacles from his brother before returning his gaze to Jeronima, who had wound back her arm like a baseball pitcher.
“Now, Sister, you were saying?”
“I was saying, you odious child, that if you do not release me immediately, I will be forced to kill you.”
Beckett pointed his elbows at the nun.
“Nope, she’s lying,” he pronounced.
Myles was inclined to agree.
“You need us,” he said. “Both of us. We are your link to the Fairy People. Without us, you have no bait. A professional like you will play the odds, and the odds are that we will be recaptured before we get out of the building.”
It was true. There was no percentage in killing either boy, and Jeronima’s superiors might even frown upon it, so she threw the blade past Myles’s insufferably self-satisfied face and into the heavy wooden door, where it landed with a thunk.
“Very well, chicos, you may run, but I will see you muy pronto. And when I have you back in your chairs, the gloves will be off. No more Sister Nice Guy.”
Myles wasn’t even listening to the threats, as he was counting in his head.
“And there it is,” he said. “Three hundred and eighty-six point two seconds, and I am, as predicted, out of your handcuffs. It amuses me for the numbers to have a double significance, though, annoyingly, I was off by a few seconds.”
“Wrist bump?” asked Beckett brightly.
“Oh, absolutely, brother,” replied Myles.
And the twins wrist-bumped right there in front of Sister Jeronima Gonzalez-Ramos de Zárate of Bilbao, who was so frustrated that she actually screamed her way through the first verse of “La Donna è Mobile” from Rigoletto.
THERE was something Specialist Lazuli Heitz had forgotten about chromophoric camouflage, and that was the effect of steam on its filaments. Water and wind bounced right off, but steam wormed its way between the individual fibers and curled each one in on itself like a frightened slug. In all fairness to Lazuli, the Filabusters were outmoded pieces of equipment and had n
ot been deployed in the field for almost a quarter of a century, so hardly any time had been spent on their workings in the Academy.
Therefore, perhaps Lazuli can be forgiven for not noticing that her cloak of invisibility was wilting more with every minute she remained in the shower room. And even if she had noticed, what choice did she have other than the one she had been trained to make, i.e., save the fairy?
But imagine, if you will, the jolt of surprise that stimulated Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye’s brain as a small hand appeared seemingly from another dimension. And, as if that weren’t enough oddness for one day, a diminutive figure slowly materialized behind it.
“What the blazes?” said the duke.
But this was uttered under his breath, for the man was a born hunter and knew better than to make exclamations of any perceptible volume when a creature appeared unexpectedly. He also knew that some animals could prove to be exponentially more lethal than one might assume from their benign appearance. Teddy had learned this lesson as a child, when one of the estate swans had drowned his pet Dalmatian for disturbing her cygnets. The duke had never forgotten this harrowing experience, and so when the fairy—for that was what it must surely be—appeared, Lord Teddy hardly gave an impression of having seen it, and the creature in its turn gave no impression of being seen.
Curiouser and curiouser, thought the duke. It seems we are both after the same prey.
There would be only one winner in that contest, as far as Teddy was concerned, and that would be the person with a seat in the House of Lords.
The lay of the land vis-à-vis the shower room was as follows: three lemons, including Lord Teddy, who was the only one sporting hazmat headgear, as he was not one of the bad guys and had no wish to reveal himself. Strictly speaking, he was, of course, a bad guy, just not one of this particular group. The two remaining lemons were swabbing down the stalls, and Teddy was on the point of pocketing the troll—and perhaps the money clip as well, because a chap never knew. The fairy specialist, who was, unbeknownst to her, now almost completely visible, was on the verge of being the nexus of the lemon men’s attention.
“Who is that?” said Clippers, noticing the solidifying figure. “Is that one of those Fowl kids?”
Lance peeked up from the clips of Clippers’s clippers, which he was steam-lancing.
“Who?” he asked, though Lance knew the answer before the interrogative was fully formed. Who else could his partner be referring to besides the child-shaped patch of shimmering camouflage that was moving in a strange down-tempo plod toward the effects crate?
But then both Lance and Clippers had the simultaneous realization that this unusual creature, whatever it was, was no human child, and this gave both men something of a fright, despite the fact that they were entry-level hoods in an organization that hunted unusual creatures. This fright resulted in a momentary lapse of workplace best practices, i.e., when operating dangerous tools, keep your eyes on the business ends of those tools.
Both Lance and Clippers relaxed their concentration only momentarily and just barely, but it was enough for Clippers to nick Lance’s thumb, which caused Lance to shriek and lance Clippers’s neck, resulting in a howl from Clippers.
All this squealing and howling did not upset Lazuli, for she was a professional and believed herself invisible, but it was an intolerable irritant to Lord Teddy, who felt he had a situation here that needed resolving and the two yellow-clad buffoons were nothing but a distraction.
So Teddy drew a Myishi Snub gas pistol from his spring-loaded shoulder holster and summarily shot both men with cellophane slugs. The beauty of the holster was that it was set on a depress catch so that one little push on the grip sent the thing bounding up into his hand, and the beauty of the shrink-wrappers was that a chap didn’t have to take aim with great care, as any contact was good contact. Regardless, Lord Bleedham-Drye had been taking potshots at anything that walked, swam, or flew for so many decades now that he could hit a sparrow from a hundred yards with barely a squint, and had, in fact, once shrink-wrapped a hummingbird to impress Ishi Myishi when the duke visited his oldest friend’s factory on one of the more inhospitable Japanese islands.
Teddy remembered the visit fondly. He had stayed for dinner in Myishi’s subterranean residence, where the weapons manufacturer’s improvised shotgun from Burma was framed on the wall. The toast had been: To my first shotgun. Almost killing you, Bleedham-Drye-san, was the best thing I ever did.
Truer words were never spoken, in Teddy’s opinion.
The effect of the cellophane slug on Clippers was predictable in that the man was quickly trussed in cellophane like a supermarket turkey. But Lance’s binding was unusual, as the hot vapors interfered with the virus’s spread, causing the cellophane to billow and bubble as it filled with steam.
I say, thought Lord Teddy. Interesting variation. I must mention that to old Myishi.
In any case, the cellophane was virulent enough to contain Lance along with his steam, which soon fogged up the interior of the bubble.
Meanwhile, Lazuli considered her opponent sufficiently distracted for her to make an attempt on the troll, which might have worked had she not been decidedly non-invisible by this point. That is to say, visible.
Lazuli had just gripped the troll’s foot with two fingers when the yellow-clad human tucked a pistol under her chin and said, “I can see you, fairy.”
And Lazuli thought: Steam. D’Arvit.
And now begins the grouping of our protagonists into a more streamlined narrative. Traditionally, there would be two groups: goodies and baddies, to use a vernacular that Myles Fowl would doubtless frown upon. But in this instance we have a baddie who think she’s a goodie, a goodie who is prepared to be bad on occasion, a sweet goodie who talks to crows, an ancient baddie who has no illusions about himself, a couple of moron baddies who are wrapped in plastic, a little feral neutral guy also wrapped in plastic, and an unarmed goodie trainee. But shortly we will be down to two bunches of assorted folks.
Currently, Myles and Beckett Fowl were retracing their steps so that they might reclaim their possessions. Myles had activated the AI in his spectacles, for he had a most important assignment for her.
“NANNI,” he said, “can you bypass this phone’s passcode?”
“Ha-ha-ha,” said NANNI. The Artificial Intelligence was not truly laughing, rather saying the words ha-ha-ha, as her awareness had not yet reached the level of spontaneity required for actual laughter, even though it very shortly would. But she was aware that Myles’s question was one that deserved derision. “Are you serious, Myles? I cracked that child’s toy like a hammer smashing a nut as soon as we got here.”
Myles winced. He did not appreciate attempts at humor or imagery. Perhaps he should remove a few circuits from NANNI’s mainframe.
“Very good, NANNI. Do a virus check. Download whatever you can retrieve, and when you reestablish an internet connection, e-mail malware to every contact you can find.”
NANNI’s avatar appeared on Myles’s lens, and it was frowning. “All of them? I see several coffee bars on the list. And a hat shop in Italy. Also, a chocolatier in Bern, which I believe serves yummy éclairs.”
Myles winced. “‘Yummy,’ NANNI? Really? I hardly think that fact is relevant.”
“It’s relevant if you’re hungry,” argued the AI.
“I would like to mail every contact,” said Myles, “whether or not they have a yummy tag.”
“You are the boss,” said the glowing orange face, then it disappeared to conserve battery while she worked.
The AI could not have known, but Myles had been waiting for a long time to hear those exact words.
I am the boss, he thought. And I will get us out of this.
And he would. But not alone.
Meanwhile, our LEP trainee was in the dark site’s wet room with the barrel of a pistol tucked under her cleft chin.
D’Arvit, Specialist Heitz was thinking.
You have probably deduced by
now the meaning of the Gnommish word D’Arvit. It is a term often employed in times of stress—for example, when one finds oneself with a gun muzzle underneath one’s jawbone. It is not a word often heard in job interviews or eulogies.
Specialist Heitz realized that since she was visible she might as well be audible, and so she repeated the word aloud.
“D’Arvit, indeed,” said Lord Teddy.
“Careful, human,” said Lazuli. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
And even though Brother Colman had explained in his serum-induced revelations how the fairies had mastered human languages, the duke was taken aback to hear such a clear command of the Queen’s English.
“Au contraire, mademoiselle,” Teddy riposted, his surprise concealed by his head covering. “I have, in fact, quite a good idea of what manner of creature I have at my mercy. You would be a fairy, though of what particular species I could not swear.”
Lazuli squared her jaw and willed her own eyes to glint. “Just hand me the troll and we’ll say no more about it. No one needs to get hurt today.”
But Lord Teddy was too long in the tooth for bluffing and was inclined to disagree.
“Oh, I think someone needs to get hurt,” he said, for at this range even a cellophane slug would leave quite a mark.
At which point Beckett Fowl saved the day by literally leaping into the room, a demand springing from his lips: “Where is Whistle Blower?”
Which was a question no one was expecting, including the second Fowl twin, who trailed his brother and was distinguishable only by his measured pace and magnified piercing gaze.
“Whistle Blower. I had forgotten,” he said, and then surveyed the room, taking in the shrink-wrapped lemons and the two individuals with a grip on Beckett’s salvaged action figure.
“My toy!” said Beckett, and, without any ado whatsoever, he unleashed a cluster punch on Lord Teddy.
“I say,” said Teddy, displaying zero signs of paralysis. “The little fellow has spirit.”
Myles was surprised that his brother would be off the mark. He immediately sent the AI a command. “NANNI,” he said, “partition off that ACRONYM business and run a scan on the man in yellow.”