by Eoin Colfer
“A nano-wafer,” said Foaly, forgetting for once to hide how impressed he was. “An honest-to-gods nano-wafer. Smart?”
“Extremely,” confirmed Artemis. “Smart enough to know which way is up when it hits the surface and configure itself to insulate the ice and reflect the sun.”
“So we impregnate the cloud province?”
“Exactly, to its capacity.”
Foaly clopped into the holographic weather. “Then when it ruptures, we have coverage.”
“Incremental, true, but effective nonetheless.”
“Mud Boy, I salute you.”
Artemis smiled, his old self for a moment. “Well, it’s about time.”
Vinyáya interrupted the science lovefest. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight: you shoot these wafers into the clouds and then they come down with the snow?”
“Precisely. We could shoot them directly on to the surface in dire cases, but I think for security it would be best to have the seeders hovering and shielded above the cloud cover.”
“And you can do this?”
“We can do it. The Council would have to approve an entire fleet of modified shuttles, not to mention a monitoring station.”
Holly thought of something. “These wafers don’t look much like snowflakes. Sooner or later some human with a microscope is going to notice the difference.”
“Good point, Holly. Perhaps I shouldn’t lump you in with the rest of the LEP as regards intellect.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“When the wafers are discovered, as they inevitably will be, I will launch an Internet campaign that explains them away as a by-product from a chemical plant in Russia. I will also point out that for once our waste is actually helping the environment and volunteer to fund a program that will extend their coverage.”
“Is there a pollution factor?” asked Vinyáya.
“Hardly. The wafers are entirely biodegradable.”
Foaly was excited. He clip-clopped through the hologram, squinting at the enlarged wafer.
“It sounds good. But is it really? You hardly expect the People to stump up the massive and ongoing budget for such a project without proof, Artemis. For all we know, it’s one of your scams.”
Artemis opened a file on the screen. “Here are my financial records. I know they are accurate, Foaly, because I found them on your server.”
Foaly did not even bother blushing. “They look about right.”
“I am prepared to invest everything I have in this project. That should keep five shuttles in the air for a couple of years. There will be profit on the back end, naturally, when the wafers go into production. I should recoup my investment then, perhaps even turn a respectable profit.”
Foaly almost gagged. Artemis Fowl putting his own money into a project. Incredible.
“Of course, I hardly expect the People to take anything I say on face value. After all, I have been”—Artemis cleared his throat—“somewhat less than forthcoming with information in the past.”
Vinyáya laughed humorlessly. “Less than forthcoming? I think you’re being a little gentle on yourself, for a kidnapper and extortionist, Artemis. Less than forthcoming?
Please. I find myself buying your pitch, but not everybody on the Council is as charitable toward you.”
“I accept your criticism and your skepticism, which is why I have organized a demonstration.”
“Excellent,” said Foaly eagerly. “Of course there’s a demonstration. Why else would you have brought us here?”
“Why else indeed.”
“More extortion and kidnapping?” suggested Vinyáya archly.
“That was a long time ago,” blurted Holly, in a tone she would not usually take with a superior officer. “I mean . . . that was a long time ago . . . Commander. Artemis has been a good friend to the People.”
Holly Short thought specifically of a close call during the goblin rebellion when Artemis Fowl’s actions had saved her life and many more besides. Vinyáya apparently remembered the goblin rebellion too. “Okay. Benefit-of-the-doubt time, Fowl. You’ve got twenty minutes to convince us.”
Artemis patted his breast pocket five times to check on his phone.
“It shouldn’t take more than ten,” he said.
Holly Short was a trained hostage negotiator, and found that in spite of the importance of the topic, she was rapidly shifting focus away from nano-wafers and toward Artemis Fowl’s mannerisms. Though she commented occasionally as the demonstration progressed, it was all she could do not to cradle Artemis’s face in her hands and ask him what was the matter.
I would have to stand on a chair to reach his face, Holly realized. My friend is almost a grown man now. A fully fledged human. Perhaps he is fighting his natural-born bloodthirsty desires and the conflict is driving him crazy.
Holly studied Artemis closely. He was pale, more so than usual, like a creature of the night. A snow wolf maybe. The sharp cheekbones and triangular length of his face added to this impression. And perhaps it was frost, but Holly thought she could see a streak of gray at his temples.
He seems old. Foaly was right: Artemis looks beaten.
Then there was the number thing. And the touching. Artemis’s fingers were never still. At first it seemed random, but on a hunch, Holly counted, and soon the pattern was clear. Fives or multiples of five.
D’Arvit, she thought. Atlantis Complex.
She ran a quick search on Wicca-pedia and came across a brief summary:
Atlantis Complex (at-lan-tis kom-pleks) is a psychosis common among guilt-ridden criminals, first diagnosed by Dr. E. Dypess of the Atlantis Brainology Clinic. Other symptoms include obsessive behavior, paranoia, delusions, and in extreme cases multiple personality disorder. Dr. E. Dypess is also known for his hit song, “I’m in Two Minds About You.”
Holly thought that this last bit was possibly Wiccahumor.
Foaly had reached the same conclusion about Artemis, and said as much in a text message he buzzed over to Holly’s helmet, which sat on the table before her. Holly tapped her visor to reverse the readout then read the words.
Our boy is obsessing. Atlantis?
Holly called up a Gnommish keyboard on the visor and typed, slowly, so as not to attract attention.
Maybe. Fives? She sent the message. Yes, fives. Classic symptom.
Then seconds later.
A demonstration! Fab. I ♥ demonstrations.
Holly managed to keep a straight face in case Artemis happened to stop counting long enough to glance her way. Foaly could never concentrate on anything for very long, unless it was one of his beloved projects.
Must be a genius thing.
It seemed as though the Icelandic elements held their breath for Artemis’s demonstration. The dull air was cut with a haze that hung in sheets like rows of laundered gauze.
The fairy folk felt their suit thermocoils vibrate a little as they followed Artemis outside to the rear of the restaurant. The back of the Adam Adamsson establishment was even less impressive than the front. Whatever lackadaisical effort had been applied to making the Great Skua hospitable obviously did not extend to the back of the building. A whale mural, which looked like Adamsson had painted it himself using a live Arctic fox for a brush, stopped abruptly over the service entrance, decapitating an unfortunate humpback. And in several spots, large sections of plaster had split from the wall and been tramped into the mud and snow.
Artemis led the small group to a tarpaulin, which had been pegged over a large cube.
Foaly snorted. “Let me guess. Looks like a common garden tarpaulin, but is actually cam foil with rear projection set to look like tarp?”
Artemis took two more steps before answering, then nodded toward everyone to fix them in their places. A bead of sweat ran down his back, generated by the stress of losing his battle to obsessive behavior.
“No, Foaly. It looks like a tarpaulin because it is a tarpaulin,” he said, then added, “Yes, a tarpaulin.”
Foaly blinked. “Yes, a tarpaulin? Are we in one of your Gilbert and Sullivan operettas now?” He threw his head back and sang, “‘I am a centaur, yes, a centaur is what I am.’ It’s not like you to wax, Artemis.”
“Foaly is singing,” said Holly. “Surely that’s illegal?”
Vinyáya snapped her fingers. “Quiet, children. Contain your natural disruptive urges. I am most eager to see these nano-wafers in action before taking a shuttle closer to the warm core of our planet.”
Artemis bowed slightly. “Thank you, Commander, most kind.”
Five again, thought Holly. The evidence mounts.
Artemis Fowl twirled a hand at Holly Short as though introducing himself to a theater audience. “Captain, perhaps you would remove the cloth. You have an aptitude for taking things apart.”
Holly was almost thrilled to have something to do. She would have preferred to have a serious talk with Artemis, but at least tackling a crate did not involve ingesting more scientific facts.
“Happy to,” she said, and attacked the tarp as though it had insulted her grandmother. Suddenly there was a knuckle knife adorning the fingers of her right hand, and three judicious slices later, the tarp fluttered to the ground.
“You might as well do the crate while you are about it, Captain Short,” said Artemis, wishing he could sneak in an extra word to bolster the sentence.
Immediately, Holly mounted the crate and apparently punched it into sections.
“Wow,” exhaled Foaly. “That seemed excessively violent, even for you.”
Holly descended to earth, barely making a footprint in the snow. “Nope. It’s more of a science. Cos tapa. The quick foot. An ancient martial art based on the movements of predatory animals.”
“Look!” said Foaly, pointing with some urgency into the vast steel-gray gloom. “Someone who cares!”
Artemis was glad of the banter, as it distracted from his loosening grasp on the logical world. While the fairies enjoyed their customary back-and-forth, he allowed his spine to curve for a moment, let his shoulders dip, but someone noticed.
“Artemis?”
Holly, of course.
“Yes, Captain Short.”
“‘Captain’? Are we strangers, Artemis?”
Artemis coughed into his hand. She was probing. He needed to ward off her attentions. Nothing to do but say the number aloud.
“Strangers? No. We’ve known each other for more than five years.”
Holly took a step toward him, her eyes wide with concern behind the orange curve of visor.
“This five thing, Arty. I’m worried about that. You’re not yourself.”
Artemis swept past her to the container that rested on the floor of the crate.
“Who else would I be?” he said brusquely, cutting short any possible discussion on the state of his mental health. He waved impatiently at the ice haze as though it were deliberately obstructing him, then pointed his mobile phone at the container, zapping the computerized locks. The container looked and sounded like a regular household refrigerator, squat, pearlescent, and humming.
“Just what they need in Iceland,” muttered Foaly. “More ice makers.”
“Ah, but a very special ice maker,” said Artemis, opening the fridge door. “One that can save the glaciers.”
“Does it make Popsicles too?” asked the centaur innocently, wishing his old buddy Mulch Diggums was there so they could high-five, a practice so puerile and outmoded that it would be sure to drive Artemis crazy, if he weren’t already crazy.
“You said this was a demonstration,” snapped Vinyáya. “So demonstrate.”
Artemis shot Foaly a poisonous look. “With great pleasure, Commander. Observe.”
Inside the container sat a squat chrome contraption, which resembled a cross between a top-loader washing machine and a stubby cannon, apart from the jumble of wires and chips nestled under the bowl.
“The Ice Cube is not pretty, I grant you,” said Artemis, priming the equipment with an infrared signal shot from the sensor on his phone. “But I thought better to get production moving along than spend another month tidying the chassis.” They formed a ragged ring around the device, and Artemis could not help thinking that had a satellite been observing the group, they would have looked like children playing a game.
Vinyáya’s face was pale and her teeth chattered, though the temperature was barely below freezing. Chilly in human terms, a lot more uncomfortable for a fairy.
“Come on, human. Switch this Ice Cube thing on. Let’s get the dwarf on the mudslide.”
A fairy expression that Artemis was not familiar with, but he could guess what it meant. He glanced at his phone.
“Surely, Commander. I will certainly launch the first pouch of nano-wafers just as soon as whatever unidentified craft is passing through the airspace moves on.”
Holly consulted her visor readout communicator. “Nothing in the airspace, Mud Boy. Nothing but a shielded shuttle full of hurt for you, if you’re trying to pull some kind of trick.”
Artemis could not stifle a groan. “No need for the rhetoric. I assure you, Captain, there is a ship descending through the atmosphere. My sensors are picking it up quite clearly.”
Holly thrust her jaw forward. “Well, my sensors aren’t picking up a thing.”
“Funny, because my sensors are your sensors,” countered Artemis.
Foaly clopped a hoof, chipping the ice. “I knew it. Is nothing sacred?”
Artemis squared his shoulders. “Let’s stop pretending that we don’t spend half our time spying on each other. I read your files and you read the files I allow you to steal. There is a craft that seems to be heading straight for us, and maybe your sensors would spot it if you used some of the same filters I do.”
Holly thought of something. “Remember Opal Koboi’s ship? The one completely built from stealth ore? Our pet geeks couldn’t detect that, but Artemis did.”
Artemis arched his eyebrows as if to say Even the police officer gets it. “I simply looked for what should be there but wasn’t. Ambient gases, trace pollution, and such. Wherever I found an apparent vacuum I also found Opal. I have since applied the same technique to my general scans. I am surprised you haven’t learned that little trick, Consultant Foaly.”
“It will take about two seconds to sync with our shuttle and run an ambience test.”
Vinyáya scowled, and her annoyance seemed to ripple the air like a heatwave.
“Run it then, centaur.”
Foaly activated the sensors in his gloves and screwed a yellow monocle over one eye. Thus wired, he performed a complicated series of blinks, winks, and gestures as he interfaced with a V-system invisible to all but him. To the casual observer it would seem as though the centaur had inhaled pepper while conducting an imaginary orchestra. It was not attractive, which was why most people tended to stick with hardwired hardware.
Twenty seconds more than two seconds later, Foaly’s exertions ceased suddenly and he rested palms on knees.
“Okay,” he panted. “Firstly, I am nobody’s pet geek. And secondly, there may be a large unidentified space vehicle headed our way at high speed.”
Holly instantly drew her weapon, as though she could gun down a spaceship that was already falling on them.
Artemis rushed toward his Ice Cube, arms outstretched maternally, then literally stopped in his tracks as suspicion filled his heart with heat.
“This is your ship, Foaly. Admit it.”
“It’s not my ship,” protested Foaly. “I don’t even have a ship. I come to work on a quadricycle.”
Artemis fought the paranoia until his hands shook, but there seemed to be no other explanation for the arrival of a strange ship at this precise time.
“You’re trying to steal my invention. This is just like the time in London when you interfered in the C-Cube deal.”
Holly kept her eyes on the skies, but spoke to her human friend.
“I saved Butler in London.”
Artemis�
��s whole frame was shaking now. “Did you? Or did you turn him against me?” The words he spoke disgusted him, but they seemed to push through his lips like scarab beetles from the mouth of a mummy. “That’s when you made your alliance against me, wasn’t it? How much did you offer him?”
For a long foggy breath, Holly was speechless; then, “Offer him? Butler would never betray you. Never! How can you think that, Artemis?”
Artemis glared at his fingers as if he half hoped they would reach up and strangle him. “I know you’re behind this, Holly Short. You have never forgiven me for the kidnapping.”
“You need help, Artemis,” said Holly, tired of talking around the problem. “I think you may have a condition. It might be something called the Atlantis Complex.”
Artemis stumbled backward, knocking against Foaly’s hindquarters. “I know,” he said slowly, watching his breath take form before him. “Lately, nothing is clear. I see things, suspect everyone. Five. Five is everywhere.”
“As if we would ever do anything to hurt you, Artemis,” said Foaly, patting the hair Artemis had ruffled.
“I don’t know. Would you? Why wouldn’t you? I have the most important job on Earth, more important than yours.”
Holly was calling in the cavalry.
“There’s a UC in the atmo,” she called into her communicator, using that soldier shorthand that seemed more confusing than plain speaking. “Descend to my seven for evac. Stat.”
A fairy shuttle fizzled into visibility twenty feet overhead. It appeared plate by plate from nose to stern, the soldiers inside visible for a brief moment before the hull solidified. The sight seemed to confuse Artemis even further.
“Is that how you’re going to take me? Scare me into voluntarily coming aboard, then steal my Ice Cube?”
“It’s always cubes with you,” noted Foaly somewhat randomly. “What’s wrong with a nice sphere?”
“And you, centaur!” said Artemis, pointing an accusing finger. “Always in my system. Are you in my head too?”
Vinyáya had forgotten the cold. She shrugged off her heavy coat to gain some ease of movement.