Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl. The Opal Deception

‘Heal,’ he whispered, and blue sparks of fairy magic ran rings round his fingers, sinking into the wound. In seconds, the folds of skin had zipped themselves together, with only a pale pink scar to show that a cut had been made. A scar almost identical to that which had already existed. Opal’s own magic had dried up months ago, as she was in no position to complete a power-restoring ritual.

‘Miss Koboi,’ said Merv briskly. ‘Time to get up. Wakey wakey.’

He unstrapped Opal completely from the harness. The unconscious pixie collapsed on to the lid of the cleaning trolley. Merv slapped her across the cheek, bringing a blush to her face. Opal’s breathing rate increased slightly, but her eyes remained closed.

‘Jolt her,’ said Scant.

Merv pulled an LEP-issue buzz baton from inside his jacket. He powered it up and touched Opal on the elbow. The pixie’s body jerked spasmodically, and Opal Koboi shot into consciousness, a sleeper waking from a nightmare.

‘Cudgeon,’ she screamed, ‘you betrayed me!’

Merv grabbed her shoulders. ‘Miss Koboi. It’s us, Mervall and Descant. It’s time.’

Opal glared at him, wild-eyed.

‘Brill?’ she said, after several deep breaths.

‘That’s right. Merv and Scant. We need to go.’

‘Go? What do you mean?’

‘Leave,’ said Merv urgently. ‘We have about a minute.’

Opal shook her head, dislodging the after-trance daze. ‘Merv and Scant. We need to go.’

Merv helped her from the trolley’s lid. ‘That’s right. The clone is ready.’

Scant peeled back a sealed-foil false bottom in the trolley. Inside lay a cloned replica of Opal Koboi, wearing an Argon Clinic coma suit. The clone was identical, down to the last follicle. Scant removed an oxygen mask from the clone’s face, hauled it from its resting place and began cinching it into the harness.

‘Remarkable,’ said Opal, brushing the clone’s skin with her knuckle. ‘Am I that beautiful?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Merv. ‘That and more.’

Suddenly Opal screeched. ‘Idiots. Its eyes are open. It can see me!’

Scant closed the clone’s lids hurriedly. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Koboi, it can’t tell anyone, even if its brain could decipher what it sees.’

Opal climbed groggily into the trolley. ‘But its eyes can register images. Foaly may think to check. That infernal centaur.’

‘Don’t fret, miss,’ said Scant, folding the trolley’s false bottom over his mistress.

‘Very soon now, that will be the least of Foaly’s worries.’

Opal strapped the oxygen mask across her face. ‘Later,’ she said, her voice muffled by the plastic. ‘Talk, later.’

Koboi drifted into a natural sleep, exhausted by even this small exertion. It could be hours before the pixie regained sustained consciousness. After a coma of that length, there was even the risk that Opal would never be quite as smart as she once was.

‘Time?’ said Merv.

Scant glanced at his moonometer. ‘Thirty seconds left.’

Merv finished cinching the straps exactly how they had been. Pausing only to dab sweat from his brow, he made a second incision with his scalpel, this time in the clone’s arm, and inserted the seeker-sleeper. While Scant sealed the cut with a blast of magical sparks, Merv rearranged the cleaning paraphernalia over the trolley’s false section.

Scant bobbed impatiently. ‘Eight seconds, seven. By the gods, this is the last time I break the boss out of a clinic and replace her with a clone.’

Merv spun the trolley on its castors, pushing it through the open doorway.

‘Five… four…’

Scant did one last check around, running his eyeballs across everything they had touched.

‘Three… two…’

They were out, pulling the door behind them.

‘One…’

Corporal Grub slumped slightly, then jerked to attention.

‘Hey… what the —? I’m really thirsty! Is anyone else thirsty?’

Merv stuffed the night-vision goggles into the trolley, blinking a bead of sweat from his eyelid. ‘It’s the air in here. I get dehydrated all the time. Terrible headaches.’

Grub pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Me too. I’m going to write a letter, as soon as the lights come back.’

Just then the lights did come back, flickering on, one after another, down the length of the corridor.

‘There we go,’ grinned Scant. ‘Panic over. Maybe now they’ll buy us some new circuits, eh, brother?’

Doctor Argon came barrelling down the passageway, almost keeping pace with the flickering lights.

‘Your leg is better then, Jerry?’ said Merv.

Argon ignored the pixies, his eyes wide, his breath ragged.

‘Corporal Kelp,’ he panted. ‘Koboi, is she? Has she…“

Grub rolled his eyes. ‘Calm yourself, Doctor. Miss Koboi is still suspended where you left her. Take a look.’

Argon flattened his palms against the wall, first checking the vitals.

‘OK, no change. No change. A two-minute lapse, but that’s OK.’

‘I told you,’ said Grub. ‘And while you’re here, I need to talk to you about these headaches I’ve been having.’

Argon brushed him aside. ‘I need a cotton bud. Scant, do you have any?’

Scant slapped his pockets. ‘Sorry, Jerry. Not on me.’

‘Don’t call me Jerry!’ howled Jerbal Argon, ripping the lid from the cleaning trolley. ‘There must be cotton buds in here somewhere,’ he said, sweat pasting thin hair across a wide gnome’s forehead. ‘It’s a janitor’s box, for heaven’s sake.’ His blunt finger scrabbled through the trolley’s contents, scraping across the false bottom.

Merv elbowed him out of the way before he could discover the secret compartment or spy screens. ‘Here we are, Doctor,’ he said, grabbing a tub of buds. ‘A month’s supply. Knock yourself out.’

Argon fumbled a single bud from the pack, discarding the rest.

‘DNA never lies,’ he muttered, punching his code into the keypad. ‘DNA never lies.’

He rushed into the room, roughly swabbing the inside of the clone’s mouth. The Brill brothers held their breath. They had expected to be out of the clinic before this happened. Argon rolled the cotton bud’s tip across the sponge pad on his clipboard. A moment later, Opal Koboi’s name flashed on to the board’s mini-plasma screen.

Argon heaved a massive sigh, resting his hands on both knees. He threw the observers a shamefaced grin. ‘Sorry. I panicked. If we lost Koboi, the clinic would never live it down. I’m just a little paranoid, I suppose. Faces can be altered, but…“

‘DNA never lies,’ said Merv and Scant simultaneously.

Grub reset his video goggles. ‘I think Doctor Argon needs a little vacation.’

‘You’re telling me,’ sniggered Merv, rolling the trolley towards the maintenance lift. ‘Anyway, we better get going, brother. We need to isolate the cause of the power failure.’

Scant followed him down the corridor. ‘Any idea where the problem could be?’

‘I have a hunch. Let’s try the parking lot, or maybe the basement.’

‘Whatever you say. After all, you are the older brother.’

‘And wiser,’ added Merv. ‘Don’t forget that.’

The pixies continued down the corridor, their brisk banter masking the fact that their knees were shaking and their hearts were battering their ribcages. It wasn’t until they had removed the evidence of their acid bombs and were well on their way home in the van that they began to breathe normally again.

Merv unzipped Koboi from her sealed hiding place back in the apartment he shared with Scant. Any worries they’d had about Opal’s IQ taking a dip were immediately banished. Their employer’s eyes were bright and aware.

‘Bring me up to speed,’ she said, climbing shakily from the trolley. Even though her mind was fully functioning, it would take a couple of days in an electro-massager to get her muscles back to normal.