Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex (17 page)

Turnball smiled easily, charming as a devil. “That’s it, lads. We step outside into the water.”

“I read something about there being pressure underwater.”

“I heard that too,” said Ching Mayle, licking an eyeball. “Won’t we be crushed?”

Turnball shrugged, milking his moment. “Trust me, lads. It’s all about trust. If you don’t trust me, stay here and rot. I need men with me I can rely on, especially with what I’ve got planned. Think of this as a test.”

There were several groans. Captain Root had always had a thing for tests. It wasn’t enough to be a murderous marauder—a person had to pass all these tests. Once he had made the entire group eat raw stink worms just to prove that they were prepared to obey any order, however ludicrous. The hideaway’s plumbing had taken quite a battering that weekend.

Ching Mayle scratched the bite marks on his crown. “Those are our choices? Stay here or step outside?”

“Succinctly put, Mr. Mayle. Sometimes a limited vocabulary can be an advantage.”

“Can we think about it?”

“Of course, take all the time you need,” said Turnball magnanimously. “So long as your cogitations do not take more than two minutes.”

Ching frowned. “My cogitations can take hours, especially if I have red meat.”

Most fairies found animal flesh disgusting, but every enclave had its omnivorous faction.

“Two minutes? Seriously, Captain?”

“No.”

Bobb Ragby would have wiped his brow if he could have reached it. “Thank goodness.”

“One hundred seconds now. Come on, gents. Ticktock.”

Unix rose from his search and stood wordlessly at Turnball’s side.

“That’s one. Who else is willing to place their lives in my hands?”

Ching nodded. “I reckon, yes. You did good by me,

Captain. I never even smelled fresh air till I cast my lot with you.”

“Count me in,” said Bobb Ragby, rattling his bar. “I’m scared, Captain. I won’t deny it, but I would rather die a pirate than go back to the Deeps.”

Turnball raised an eyebrow. “And?”

Ragby’s voice was guttural with fear. “And what, Captain? I said I’d step outside.”

“It’s your motivation, Mr. Ragby. I need more than a reluctance to go back to prison.”

Ragby banged his head on the restraining bar. “More? I want to go with you, Captain. Honest I do. I swear it. I never met a leader like you.”

“Really? I don’t know. You seem reluctant.”

Ragby was not the sharpest spine on the hedgehog, but his gut told him that going with the captain was a lot safer than staying here. Turnball Root was famous for dealing with evidence and witnesses in a severe fashion. There was a legend going around the fairy fugitive bars that the captain had once burned down an entire shopping complex just to get rid of a thumbprint that he may have left behind in a booth at Falafel Fabulosity.

“I ain’t reluctant, Captain. Take me, please. I’m your faithful Ragby. Who was it that shot that fairy on Tern Mór? It were me. Good old Bobb.”

Turnball wiped an imaginary tear from one eye. “Your pathetic pleadings move me, dear Bobby. Very well, Unix, release Misters Ragby and Ching.”

The mutilated sprite did so, then popped Vishby’s harness and hoisted him upright.

“The turncoat?” said Unix.

Turnball started at the sound of Unix’s reptilian voice. He realized that in all their time together he probably hadn’t heard the sprite speak more than a hundred words.

“No. Leave him. Rice wine turns my stomach.”

Other lieutenants might have requested an explanation on this point, but not Unix, who never wanted to know stuff he didn’t need to know and even that information was ejected from his brain as soon as it outlived its usefulness. The sprite simply nodded, then tossed Vishby aside like a sack of refuse.

Ragby and Ching stood quickly, as though repulsed by their seats.

“I feel funny,” said the goblin, worming his little finger into one of the tooth marks on his bald skull. “Good ’cos I’m free, but a little bad too ’cos I might be about to die.”

“You never did have much of a filter between your brain and mouth, Mr. Mayle,” moaned Turnball. “Never mind, I’m the one paid to think.” He faced the remaining prisoners. “Anybody else? Twenty seconds left.”

Four hands went up. Two belonging to the same person, who was desperate not to be left behind.

“Too late,” said Turnball, and gestured for his three chosen acolytes to stand by him. “Come closer; we need a group hug.”

Hugging was not a habit anyone who knew Turnball Root would ever associate with him. The captain had once shot an elf for suggesting a high five, and so it was an effort for Bobb and Ching to keep the shock from their faces. Even Unix raised a jagged eyebrow.

“Oh, come now, gentlemen, am I as scary as all that?”

Yes
, Bobb wanted to scream.
You are scarier than a dwarf mom with a long-handled spoon.
But instead he twisted his mouth into something approximating a smile and stepped into Turnball’s embrace. Unix drew close too, as did Ching.

“Aren’t we the strange bunch?” said Turnball cheerily. “Honestly, Unix. It’s like hugging a plank. And you, Mr. Ragby, you really smell very bad. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Ragby mumbled an admittance. “A few. Me dad, all those who were my mates.”

“I’m not the first, then, thank goodness. I don’t mind confirming bad news, but I hate to break it.”

Bobb Ragby wanted to cry: for some reason this inane chatter was terrifying.

A rumble rolled through the metal skin of the shuttle. The noise grew rapidly louder until it filled the small space. From nothing to everything in five seconds.

“Two minutes are up,” shouted Turnball. “Time for the faithful to go outside.”

The hull above the small group’s heads glowed red suddenly, as something melted it from the outside. Several alarms pulsed into life on the view screen’s heads-up display.

“Wow,” shouted Turnball. “Total chaos all of a sudden. What could be going on?”

The section overhead was molten now, and it should have dripped down on the group, searing their flesh, but somehow it was siphoned off. Blob by white-hot blob, a large circle of the roof was sucked away until there was nothing holding the sea out except some kind of gel.

“Should we hold our breath?” asked Bobb Ragby, trying not to sob.

“Not much point, really,” answered Turnball, who loved toying with people.

It’s nice to know more than everybody else, he thought. Then four amorphobots, who had merged into one large gelatinous blob, dropped a fat tentacle into the shuttle’s interior and sucked up Captain Root and his gang, clean as a dwarf sucking a snail from its shell. One second they were there, and the next, nothing remained but a slight smear on the deck and the echo of slobbering slurp.

“I am so glad I stayed where I am,” said one of the remaining prisoners, who had never served with Turnball. He had, in fact, earned his six-year sentence for making clever copies of collectable cartoon-character spoons. “That blobby thing looked creepy.”

None of the others spoke, as they had immediately realized what catastrophe would result from the blobby thing breaking its seal around the large hole in the hull.

As it happened, the expected catastrophe never got a chance to occur, because as soon as the amorphobots vacated the space, the hole was filled by the rogue probe, which had deviated suddenly from its course to plow through the shuttle, burying it deep into the bedrock of the ocean floor, mashing it completely. As for the people inside the shuttle, they were mostly liquefied. It would be months before any remains were found, and even longer before those remains could be identified. The impact crater was more than fifty feet deep and at least the same across. The whiplash shock rippled across the seabed, decimating the local ecology and stacking half a dozen rescue crafts on top of each other like building blocks.

The giant amorpho-blob bore Turnball and his cohorts swiftly from the impact site, perfectly mimicking the motion of a giant squid, even sprouting gel-tacles, which funneled the water in a tight cone behind it. Inside the main body of gel, two fairies were perfectly calm: Turnball could fairly be called serene, and Unix was as unperturbed by this latest marvel as he was by anything that he had seen in his long life. Bobb Ragby, on the other hand, could in truth be called terrified out of his tiny mind. While Turnball had summoned the amorphobots and had a fair idea of what to expect, as far as Ragby was concerned, they had been swallowed by a jelly monster and were being carried off to its lair to be consumed during the long cold winter. All Ching Mayle could think was one sentence over and over again:
I’m sorry I stole the candy cane
, which more than likely referred to an incident that was significant to him and to whomever he’d stolen the candy cane from.

Turnball reached into the jumble of electronics in the amorphobots’ belly and pulled out a small cordless mask, which he slipped over his face. It was possible to speak through the gel, but the mask made it infinitely easier.

“Well, my brave lads,” he said. “We are now officially dead and free to take a shot at stealing the LEP’s most powerful natural resource. Something truly magical.”

Ching snapped out of his candy-cane loop. He opened his mouth to speak, but realized quickly that while the gel somehow fed oxygen to his lungs, it didn’t support speech so well without a mask.

He gargled for a moment, then decided to pose his question later.

“I can guess what you were about to say, Mr. Mayle,” said Turnball. “Why in heavens would we want to tangle with the LEP? Surely we should stay as far away from the police as possible.” An amber light in the belly of the bot cast sinister shadows across the captain’s face. “I say no. I say we attack now and steal what we need from right under their noses, and while we’re about it spread a little destruction and mayhem to cover our tracks. You have seen what I can do from a prison cell—imagine what might be possible from the freedom of the wide world.”

It was difficult to argue with this point, especially when the fairy making the point controled the gel-robot thing that was keeping everyone alive and no one else knew if they could speak or not. Turnball Root always knew how to pick his moment.

The amorphobot dropped quickly behind a jagged reef, escaping the worst of the shock wave. Slivers of rock and lumps of coral tumbled down through the murky water but were rejected by the gel. A squid ventured too close and was treated to a lick with an electrified gel-tacle. And as the walls of a towering undersea cliff flashed by in stripes of gray and green, Turnball sighed into his mask, the sound amplified and distorted.

I am coming, my love, he thought. Soon we will be together.

He decided against saying this aloud, as even Unix might think it a little melodramatic.

Turnball realized with a jolt that he was completely happy, and the cost of that happiness bothered him not a jot.

Artemis Fowl’s Brain; Seconds Before Holly Short Shoots Him for the Second Time

Artemis observed and considered from the confines of his own brain, watching through the booby-trapped wall in his imagined office. The scenario was interesting, fascinating, in fact, and almost distracted him from his own problems. Someone had decided to hijack Foaly’s Mars probe and aim it directly at Atlantis. And it could not be coincidence that the probe had stopped off in Iceland to take care of Commander Vinyáya and her finest troops, not to mention the Fairy People’s wiliest, and only, human ally: Artemis Fowl.

There is an elaborate plan being played out in front of us, not just a series of coincidences.

It wasn’t that Artemis didn’t believe in coincidences— he just found a
series
of them hard to swallow.

There was one main question, as far as Artemis could see: Who benefits?

Who benefits if Vinyáya dies and Atlantis is threatened?

Vinyáya was well known for her zero-tolerance approach to crime—so many criminals would be delighted to have her out of the way—but why Atlantis?

Of course, the prison! It must be Opal Koboi: this was her bid for freedom. The probe triggers an evacuation that gets her outside the dome.

Opal Koboi, public enemy number one. The pixie who had incited the goblins to revolution and murdered Julius Root.

It must be Opal.

Artemis corrected himself:
It is probably Opal. Don’t leap to conclusions.

It was infuriating to be stuck inside his own brain when there was so much going on in the world. His nano-wafer prototype, the Ice Cube, had been destroyed, and, more urgently, there was a probe headed for Atlantis that could potentially destroy the city, or at the very least allow a homicidal pixie to effect her escape.

“Let me out, won’t you?” Artemis shouted at the mind-screen, and the shimmering fours marshaled themselves into squares and sent a lattice of glittering wire flashing across the screen.

Artemis had his answer.

I was put in here by electricity, and now it’s barring my way.

Artemis knew that there were many reputable institutes around the world that still used electroshock therapy to deal with various psychotic illnesses. He realized that when Holly had blasted him with her Neutrino, the charge had boosted the Orion personality, making it the dominant one.

It’s a pity Holly wouldn’t shoot me again.

Holly shot him again.

Artemis imagined two jagged forks of white lightning skittering through the air and turning the screen white.

I shouldn’t feel any pain, reasoned Artemis hopefully, as technically I am not conscious at the moment.

Conscious or not, Artemis felt just as much agony as Orion.

Typical of the way my day has been going, he thought as his virtual legs collapsed underneath him.

The North Atlantic Ocean; Now

Artemis woke some time later with the smell of singed flesh in his nostrils. He knew he was back in the real world because of the harness digging into his shoulders and the choppy motion of the sea, which was making him nauseated.

He opened his eyes and found himself looking at Foaly’s rump. The centaur’s back leg was kicking spasmodically as he battled sleep demons. There was music playing somewhere. Familiar music. Artemis closed his eyes and thought, That music is familiar because I composed it. “Siren Song” from my unfinished Third Symphony.

And why was it important?

It is important because I set it as my ring tone for Mother. She is calling me.

Artemis did not pat his pockets searching for his phone, because he always kept his phone in the same pocket. Indeed, he always had his tailors sew a leather-flapped zipper into his right breast pocket so that his phone could not be mislaid. For if Artemis Fowl mislaid his modified phone, it would be a little more serious than if Johnny Highschool happened to lose the latest touch-screen model, unless Johnny Highschool’s phone happened to have enough tech inside it to easily hack any government site, a nice little laser pointer that could be focused to burn through metal, and the first draft of Artemis Fowl’s memoirs, which did a little more than kiss and tell.

Artemis’s fingers were cold and numb, but after a few attempts he managed to paw the zipper open and fumble out his phone. On screen the phone was playing a photo slideshow of his mother while the opening bars of “Siren Song” soared through the tiny speakers.

“Phone,” he said clearly, holding in a button on the casing to activate voice control.

“Yes, Artemis,” said the phone in Lily Frond’s voice, a voice that Artemis had picked simply to annoy Holly.

“Accept the call.”

“Of course, Artemis.”

A moment later the connection was made. The signal was weak, but that did not matter as Artemis’s phone had speech auto-fill software that was ninety-five percent accurate.

“Hello, Mother. How are you?”

“Arty, can you hear me? I’ve got an echo.”

“No. No echo on this end. I can hear you perfectly.”

“I can’t get the video to work, Artemis. You promised we would be able to see each other.”

The video-call option was available, but Artemis rejected it, as he did not think his mother would be heartened by the view of her disheveled son hanging from a harness in a crippled escape pod.

Disheveled? Who am I kidding? I must look like a refugee from a war zone, which is what I am.

“There’s no video network in Iceland. I should have checked.”

“Hmm,” said his mother, and Artemis knew that syllable well. It meant that she suspected him of something, but didn’t know what, exactly.

“So you
are
in Iceland?”

Artemis was glad there was no video feed, as it was more difficult to lie face-to-face.

“Of course I am. Why do you ask?”

“I ask because the GPS puts you in the North Atlantic Ocean.”

Artemis frowned. His mother had insisted on a GPS function on the phone if she were to allow him to go off alone.

“That’s probably just a bug in the program,” said Artemis as he quickly tapped into the GPS application and manually set his location to Reykjavík. “Sometimes the locater is a little off. Give it another try.”

Silence for moment, but for the tapping of keys, then another
hmmm.

“I suppose it’s redundant to ask whether or not you’re up to something? Artemis Fowl is always up to something.”

“That’s not fair, Mother,” protested Artemis. “You know what I’m trying to achieve.”

“I do know. My goodness, Arty, it’s all you can talk about.
THE PROJECT
.”

“It is important.”

“I know that, but people are important too. How’s Holly?”

Artemis glanced at Holly, who was curled around the leg of a bench, snoring quietly. Her uniform looked very battered, and there was blood leaking from one ear.

“She’s . . . em . . . fine. A little tired from the journey, but totally in control of the situation. I admire her, Mother, really I do. The way she handles whatever life throws at her and never gives up.”

Angeline Fowl drew a surprised breath. “Well, Artemis Fowl the Second, that is about the longest nonscientific speech I have ever heard you make. Holly Short is lucky to have a friend like you.”

“No she isn’t,” said Artemis miserably. “No one is lucky to know me. I can’t help anyone. I can’t even help myself.”

“That’s not true, Arty,” said Angeline strictly. “Who saved Haven from the goblins?”

“A few people. I suppose I had a part in it.”

“And who found his father in the Arctic when everyone else had given him up for dead?”

“That was me.”

“Well, then, never say you can’t help anyone. You’ve spent most of your life helping. Yes, you’ve made a few mistakes, but your heart is in the right place.”

“Thank you, Mother. I feel better now.”

Angeline cleared her throat—a little nervously, Artemis thought.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Yes, of course. There’s just something I need to tell you.”

Artemis felt suddenly nervous. “What is it, Mother?”

A dozen possible revelations ran through his head. Had his mother found out about some of his shadier operations?

She knew all about his various fairy-related schemes, but there was plenty of human stuff he hadn’t confessed to.

That’s the problem with being a semi-reformed criminal: you are never free from guilt. Exposure is always just a phone call away.

“It’s about your birthday.”

Artemis’s shoulders drooped with relief. “My birthday. Is that all?”

“I got you something . . . different, but I want you to have them. It would make me happy.”

“If they make you happy, I am sure they will make me happy.”

“So, Arty, you have to promise me you’ll use them.”

Artemis’s nature made it hard for him to promise anything. “What are they?”

“Promise me, honey.”

Artemis glanced out of the porthole. He was stuck in a burned-out escape pod in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Either they would sink, or some Scandinavian navy would mistake them for aliens and blow their tub out of the water.

“Very well, I promise. So, what did you get for me?”

Angeline paused for a beat. “Jeans.”

“What?” croaked Artemis.

“And a T-shirt.”

Artemis knew that he shouldn’t really be upset, in the circumstances, but he couldn’t help himself. “Mother, you tricked me.”

“Now, I know you don’t really do casual.”

“That’s hardly fair. Last month at that cake sale I rolled up both sleeves.”

“People are afraid of you, Arty. Girls are terrified of you. You’re a fifteen-year-old in a bespoke suit, and nobody died.”

Artemis took several breaths. “Does the T-shirt have any writing on it?”

A rustling of paper crackled through the phone’s speakers. “Yes. It’s so cool. There’s a picture of a boy who for some reason has no neck and only three fingers on each hand, and behind him in a sort of graffiti style is the word
RANDOMOSITY
. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds really current.”

Randomosity
, thought Artemis, and he felt like weeping. “Mother, I . . .”

“You promised, Arty. That’s what you did.”

“Yes. I did promise, Mother.”

“And I want you to call me Mum.”

“Mother! You’re being unreasonable. I am who I am. T-shirts and jeans are not me.”

Angeline Fowl played her trump card. “Well, you know, Arty dear, sometimes people are not who they think they are.”

This was a none-too-subtle dig at Artemis for
mesmerizing
his own parents, something Angeline had only become aware of when Opal Koboi had occupied her body and all the secrets of the fairy world had become known to her.

“That’s hardly fair.”

“Fair? Wait, let me call the gentlemen of the press. Artemis Fowl just used the word
fair
.”

Artemis realized that his mother was not quite over the
mesmerizing
thing yet.

“Very well. I consent to wearing the jeans and T-shirt.”

“Excuse me?”

“Very well. I will wear the jeans and T-shirt . . . Mum.”

“I am so happy. Tell Butler to put by two days a week. Jeans and Mums. Get used to it.”

What’s next? Artemis wondered. Baseball hats worn back to front?

“Butler is taking good care of you, I trust?”

Artemis colored. More lies. “Yes. You should see his face at this meeting. He is bored out of his mind with all the science.”

Angeline’s voice changed, became warmer, more emotional.

“I know it’s important, Arty, what you’re doing. Important for the planet, I mean. And I believe in you, son. Which is why I am keeping your secret and letting you gallivant across the globe with fairy folk, but you have to promise me that you’re safe.”

Artemis had heard the expression
to feel like a real heel
, but now he actually understood it.

“I am the safest human in the world,” he said jauntily. “I have more protection than a president. I’m better armed too.”

Yet another
hmmm.
“This is the last solo mission, Arty. You promised me. ‘I just have to save the world,’ you said. ‘Then I can spend more time with the twins.’”

“I remember,” said Artemis, which wasn’t really agreeing.

“See you tomorrow morning, then. The dawn of a new day.”

“See you tomorrow morning, Mum.”

Angeline hung up, and her picture disappeared from Artemis’s screen. He was sorry to see it go.

On the deck, Foaly suddenly flipped onto his back.

“Not the stripy ones,” he blurted. “They’re just little babies.” Then he opened his eyes and saw Artemis watching him.

“Did I say that out loud?”

Artemis nodded. “Yes. Something about the stripy ones being babies.”

“Childhood memory. I’m pretty much over it now.”

Artemis stretched out a hand to help the centaur to his hooves.

“No help from you,” Foaly moaned, slapping at the hand as though it were a wasp. “I have had enough of you.

If you even think the phrase
goodly beast
, I am going to kick you straight in the teeth.”

Artemis slapped the buckle on his chest, opening the harness, stretching his hand out farther.

“I am sorry about all of that, Foaly. But I’m fine now. It’s me, Artemis.”

Now Foaly accepted the steadying hand. “Oh, thank the gods. That other guy was really getting on my nerves.”

“Not so fast,” said Holly, appearing fully conscious between the two.

“Whoa,” said Foaly, rearing. “Don’t you moan and groan a bit when you regain consciousness?”

“Nope,” said Holly. “LEP ninja training. And this guy isn’t Artemis. He said
Mum.
I heard him. Artemis Fowl doesn’t say Mum, Mummy, Mom, or Momsy. This is Orion trying to pull a fast one.”

“I realize how it sounded,” said Artemis. “But you have to believe me. My mother extorted that term of endearment from me.”

Foaly tapped his long chin. “
Extorted
?
Endearment
? It’s Artemis, all right.”