by Eoin Colfer
“No. No, I sent him away. Juliet needed him.”
“Nothing too serious?”
“Not serious but necessary. Family business. He trusts you to look after me.”
Holly’s lips tightened as though she had tasted something sour.
“He trusts somebody else to shepherd his principal? Are you sure this is Butler we’re talking about?”
“Of course. And anyway, it’s better that he’s not here. Whenever my plans go awry, he’s close at hand. It’s vital, imperative, that this meeting go ahead and that nothing goes wrong.”
Holly’s jaw actually dropped in shock. It was almost comical to see. If she understood Artemis correctly, he was blaming Butler for the failure of previous schemes. Butler? His staunchest ally?
“Good idea. Let’s go ahead, then. The four of us should get this show on the road.”
This from Foaly, who had spoken the dreaded number with no thought for the consequences.
Four. Very bad number. The absolute worst. Chinese people hate the number four because it sounds like their word for death.
Almost worse than saying the number four was the fact that there were only four people in the room. Commander Trouble Kelp had apparently not been able to make it. In spite of their historic dislike for each other, Artemis wished the commander were here now.
“Where is Commander Kelp, Holly? I thought he was attending today. We could use the protection.”
Holly stood at the table, ramrod straight in her blue jumpsuit, acorn cluster glittering on her chest.
“Trouble . . . Commander Kelp has enough to deal with in Police Plaza, but don’t worry. There’s an entire squadron of LEPtactical hovering overhead in a shielded shuttle. Not even a snow fox could make it in here without a singed tail.”
Artemis shucked off his snow jacket and gloves. “Thank you, Captain. I am encouraged by your thoroughness. As a matter of interest, how many fairies are there in an LEP squadron? Exactly?”
“Fourteen,” replied Holly, one jagged eyebrow raised.
“Fourteen. Hmm. That is not so . . .” Then a lightbulb moment. “And a pilot, I presume?”
“Fourteen including the pilot. That’s enough to take on any human squadron you care to throw at them.”
For a moment it seemed as though Artemis Fowl would turn around and flee the meeting that he himself had requested. A tendon tugged at his neck, and one forefinger tapped the chair’s wooden headrest. Then Artemis swallowed and nodded with a nervousness that escaped from him like a canary from a cat’s mouth before being swallowed back down.
“Very well. Fourteen will have to do. Please, Holly, sit. Let me tell you about the project.”
Holly backed up slowly, searching Artemis’s face for the cockiness that usually dwelled in his smirk lines. It was not there.
Whatever this project is, she thought, it’s big.
Artemis placed his case on the table, popped it open, and spun the lid to reveal a screen inside. For a moment his delight in gadgetry surfaced, and he even managed a faint grin in Foaly’s direction. The grin stretched his lips no more than an inch.
“Look. You’ll like this little box.”
Foaly snickered. “Oh my stars! Is that . . . could that possibly be . . . a laptop? You have shamed us all with your brilliance, Arty.”
The centaur’s sarcasm drew groans from everyone.
“What?” he protested. “It’s a laptop. Even humans can’t expect anyone to be impressed by a laptop.”
“If I know Artemis,” said Holly, “something impressive is about to happen. Am I right?”
“You may judge for yourself,” said Artemis, pressing his thumb against a scanner on the case.
The scanner flickered, considering the proffered thumb, then flashed green, deciding to accept it. Nothing happened for a second or two, then a motor inside the case buzzed as though there were a small satisfied cat stretching in the case’s belly.
“Motor,” said Foaly. “Big deal.”
The lid’s reinforced metal corners suddenly detached, blasting away from the lid with a squirt of propellant, and suckered themselves to the ceiling. Simultaneously, the screen unfolded until it was more than three feet square with speaker bars along each edge.
“So it’s a big screen,” Foaly said. “This is just grandstanding. All we needed were a few sets of V-goggles.”
Artemis pressed another button on the case, and the metal corners suckered to the ceiling revealed themselves to be projectors, spewing forth streams of digi-data that coalesced in the center of the room to form a rotating model of the planet Earth. The screen displayed the Fowl Industries company logo surrounded by a number of files.
“It’s a holographic case,” said Foaly, delighted to remain unimpressed. “We’ve had those for years.”
“It is not a holographic case—the case is completely real,” corrected Artemis. “But the images you will see are holographic. I have made a few upgrades to the LEP system. The case is synced with several satellites, and the onboard computers can construct real-time images of objects not inside the sensors’ range.”
“I’ve got one of those at home,” mumbled the centaur. “For my kids’ game console.”
“And the system has smart interactive intelligence so I can construct or alter models by hand, so long as I’m wearing V-gloves,” Artemis went on.
Foaly scowled. “Okay, Mud Boy. That is good.” But he couldn’t help adding the P.S.: “For a human.”
Vinyáya’s pupils contracted in the light from the projectors. “This is all very pretty, Fowl, but we still don’t know the point of this meeting.”
Artemis stepped into the hologram and inserted his hands into two V-gloves floating over Australia. The gloves were slightly transparent with thick tubular digits and an unsophisticated polystyrene-look render. Once again the briefcase’s sensor flickered thoughtfully before deciding to accept Artemis’s hands. The gloves beeped softly and shrank to form a second skin around his fingers, each knuckle highlighted by a digi-marker.
“Earth,” he began, ignoring the impulse to open his notes folder and count the words. He knew this lecture by heart.
“Our home. She feeds us, she shelters us. Her gravity prevents us from flying off into space and freezing, before thawing out again and being crisped by the sun, none of which really matters, as we would have long since asphyxiated.” Artemis paused for laughter and was surprised when it did not arrive. “That was a little joke. I read in a presentation manual that a joke often serves to break the ice. And I actually worked icebreaking into the joke, so there were layers to my humor.”
“That was a joke?” said Vinyáya. “I’ve had officers court-martialed for less.”
“If I had some rotten fruit, I would throw it,” added Foaly. “Why don’t you do the science and leave the jokes to people with experience?”
Artemis frowned, upset that he had ad-libbed, and now could not be certain how many words were in his presentation. If he finished on a multiple of four that was not also a multiple of five, that could be very bad. Perhaps he should start again? But that was cheating, and the number gods would simply add the two speeches together and he’d be no better off.
Complicated. So hard to keep track, even for me.
But he would continue because it was imperative that THE PROJECT be presented now, today, so that THE PRODUCT could go into fabrication immediately. So Artemis contained the uncertainty in his heart and launched into the presentation with gusto, barely stopping to draw breath, in case his courage deserted him.
“Man is the biggest threat to Earth. We gut the planet of its fossil fuels then turn those same fuels against the planet through global warming.” Artemis pointed a V-finger at the enlarged screen, opening one video file after another, each one illustrating a point. “The world’s glaciers are losing as much as six feet of ice cover per annum, that’s half a million square miles in the Arctic Ocean alone in the past thirty years.” Behind him the video files displayed som
e of the consequences of global warming.
“The world needs to be saved,” said Artemis. “I realize now, finally, that I must be the one to save it. This is why I am a genius. My very raison d’être.”
Vinyáya tapped the table with her index finger. “There is a lobby in Haven, which has quite a lot of support, that says roll on global warming. The humans will wipe themselves out and then we can take back the planet.”
Artemis was ready for that one. “An obvious argument, Commander, but it’s not just the humans, is it?” He opened a few more video windows and the fairies watched scenes of scrawny polar bears stranded on ice floes, moose in Michigan being eaten alive by an increased tick population, and bleached coral reefs devoid of all life.
“It’s every living thing on or underneath this planet.”
Foaly was actually quite annoyed by the presentation. “Do you think we haven’t thought about this, Mud Boy? Do you think that this particular problem has not been on the mind of every scientist in Haven and Atlantis? To be honest, I find this lecture patronizing.”
Artemis shrugged. “How you feel is unimportant. How I feel is unimportant. Earth needs to be saved.”
Holly sat up straight. “Don’t tell me you’ve found the answer.”
“I think so.”
Foaly snorted. “Really? Let me guess: wrap the icebergs, maybe? Or shoot refracting lenses into the atmosphere?
How about customized cloud cover? Am I getting warm?”
“We are all getting warm,” said Artemis. “That is the problem.” He picked up the Earth hologram with one hand and spun it like a basketball. “All of those solutions could work, with some modifications. But they require too much interstate cooperation, and, as we all know, human governments are not good at sharing their toys. Perhaps, in fifty years’ time, things might change, but by then it will be too late.”
Commander Vinyáya had always prided herself on an ability to read a situation, and her instincts were loud in her ears like the roar of Pacific surf. This was a historic moment: the very air seemed electric.
“Go on, human,” she said quietly, her words buoyed by authority. “Tell us.”
Artemis used the V-gloves to highlight Earth’s glaciated areas and rearranged the ice mass into a square. “Covering glaciers is an excellent idea, but even if the topography were this simple—a flat square—it would take several armies half a century to get the job done.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Foaly. “Human loggers seem to be getting through the rain forests a lot quicker than that.”
“Those on the fringes of the law move faster than those bound by it, which is where I come in.”
Foaly crossed his front legs, which is not easy for a centaur in a chair. “Do tell. I am all ears.”
“I shall,” said Artemis. “And I would be grateful if you would stifle the usual expressions of horror and disbelief until I conclude. Your cries of astonishment every time I present an idea are most tiresome and they make it difficult to keep track of the word count.”
“Oh my gods!” exclaimed Foaly. “Unbelievable.”
Raine Vinyáya threw the centaur a warning look. “Stop acting the bull troll, Foaly. I’ve come a long way for this and my ears are very cold.”
“Should I pinch one of the centaur’s nerve clusters to keep him quiet?” asked Holly with barely a grin. “I have studied centaur incapacitation, as well as human, if we happen to need it. I could knock out everybody here with one finger or a sturdy pencil.”
Foaly was eighty percent sure that Holly was bluffing, but all the same he covered the ganglia over his ears with cupped fingers.
“Very well. I’ll keep quiet.”
“Good. Proceed, Artemis.”
“Thank you. But keep your sturdy pencil at the ready, Captain Short. I have a feeling that there could be some disbelief on the way.”
Holly patted her pocket and winked. “2B hard graphite, nothing better for a quick organ rupture.”
Holly was joking, but her heart wasn’t in it. Artemis felt that her comments were camouflage for whatever anxiety she was feeling. He rubbed his brow with a thumb and forefinger, using the gesture as cover to sneak a peek at his friend. Holly’s own brow was drawn in and her eyes narrow with worry.
She knows, realized Artemis, but what Holly knew, he could not say exactly. She knows that something is different, that the even numbers have turned against me. Two twos are four fairies spitting bad luck on my plans.
Then Artemis reviewed this last sentence, and for a second its lunacy was clear to him and he felt a fat coiled snake of panic heavy in his stomach.
Could I have a brain tumor? he wondered. That would explain the obsessions, the hallucinations, and the paranoia. Or is it simply obsessive-compulsive disorder? The great Artemis Fowl felled by a common ailment.
Artemis spared a moment to try an old hypnotherapist’s trick.
Picture yourself in a good place. Somewhere you were happy and safe.
Happy and safe? It had been a while.
Artemis allowed his mind to fly, and he found himself sitting on a small stool in his grandfather’s workshop. His grandfather looked a little sneakier than Artemis remembered, and he winked at his five-year-old grandson and said, Do you know how many legs are on that stool, Arty? Three. Only three, and that’s not a good number for you. Not at all. Three is nearly as bad as four, and we all know what four sounds like in Chinese, don’t we?
Artemis shuddered. This sickness was even corrupting his memories. He pressed the forefinger and thumb of his left hand together until the pads turned white. A trigger he’d taught himself to elicit calm when the number panic grew too strong. But the trigger was working less and less recently, or in this case not at all.
I am losing my composure, he thought with quiet desperation. This disease is winning.
Foaly cleared his throat, puncturing Artemis’s dream bubble. “Hello? Mud Boy? Important people waiting, get a move on.”
And from Holly. “Are you okay, Artemis? Do you need to take a break?”
Artemis almost laughed. Take a break during a presentation? If I did that, I might as well go and stand beside someone wearing an i’m with crazy T-shirt.
“No. I’m fine. This is a big project, the biggest. I want to be sure that my presentation is perfect.”
Foaly leaned forward until his already unsteady chair teetered dangerously. “You don’t look fine, Mud Boy. You look . . .” The centaur sucked his bottom lip, searching for the right word. “Beaten. Artemis, you look beaten.”
Which was the best thing he could have possibly said.
Artemis drew himself up. “I think, Foaly, that perhaps you do not read human expressions well. Perhaps our faces are too short. I am not beaten by any manner or means. I am considering my every word.”
“Maybe you should consider a little faster,” advised Holly gently. “We are quite exposed here.”
Artemis closed his eyes, collecting himself.
Vinyáya drummed the table with her fingers. “No more delays, human. I am beginning to suspect that you have involved us in one of your notorious plans.”
“No. This is a genuine proposal. Please, hear me out.”
“I’m trying to. I want to. I came a long way for that exact purpose, but all you do is show off with your suitcase.”
Artemis raised his hands to shoulder level, the movement activating his V-gloves, and tapped the glacier.
“What we need to do is cover a significant area of the world’s glaciers with a reflective coating to slow down the melt. The coating would have to be thicker around the edges, where the ice is thawing more rapidly. Also it would be nice if we could plug the larger sinkholes.”
“A lot of things would be nice in a perfect world,” said Foaly, once again making smithereens of his promise to keep quiet. “Don’t you think your people would get a tad upset if little creatures popped out of the ground in spaceships and started carpeting Santa’s grotto with reflective foil?�
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“They . . . we . . . would. And that is why this operation has to be carried out in secret.”
“Secretly coat the world’s glaciers? You should have said.”
“I just did say, and I thought we agreed that you would hold your peace. This constant haranguing is tiresome.”
Holly winked at Foaly, twirling a pencil between her fingers.
“The problem with coating the icebergs has always been how to deploy the reflective blanket,” continued Artemis. “It would seem that the only way to do it would be to roll the stuff out like carpet, either manually or from the rear of some kind of customized snow crawlers.”
“Which is hardly a stealth operation,” said Foaly.
“Exactly. But what if there were another way to lay down a reflective covering, a seemingly natural way.”
“Work with nature?”
“Yes, Foaly. Nature is our model; it should always be.”
The room seemed to be heating up as Artemis drew closer to his big reveal.
“Human scientists have been struggling to make their reflective foil thin enough to work with, yet strong enough to withstand the elements.”
“Stupid.”
“Misguided, centaur. Not stupid, surely. Your own files—”
“I considered the foil idea briefly. And how did you see my files?”
This was not a real question. Foaly had long since resigned himself to the fact that Artemis Fowl was at least as talented a hacker as he himself was.
“The basic idea is sound. Fabricate a reflective polymer.”
Foaly chewed his knuckles. “Nature. Use nature.”
“What is the most natural thing up here?” said Artemis, giving a little hint.
“Ice,” said Holly. “Ice and . . .”
“Snow,” whispered the centaur almost reverentially. “Of course. D’Arvit, why didn’t I . . . Snow, isn’t it?”
Artemis raised his V-gloved hands, and holographic snow rained upon them.
“Snow,” he said, the blizzard swirling around him. “No one would be surprised by snow.”
Foaly was on his feet. “Magnify,” he ordered. “Magnify and enhance.”
Artemis tapped a holographic flake, freezing it in midair. With a couple of pinches he enlarged the ersatz flake until its irregularity became clear. It was irregularly regular, a perfect circle.