Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl - The Eternity Code

‘True. But no motion sensors in the walls or roof. So all you have to do is burn through.’

Holly drew her Neutrino 2000. ‘Oh, is that all?’

She chose a spot adjacent to a wall air conditioner and peeled back the carpet. Underneath, the floor was dull and metallic.

‘No trace, remember?’ said Foaly in her earpiece. ‘That’s vital.’

‘I’ll worry about that later,’ said Holly, adjusting the air con to extract. ‘For now, I need to get him out of there. We’re on a schedule.’

Holly adjusted the Neutrino’s output, concentrating the beam so it cut through the metal floor. Acrid smoke billowed from the molten gash, and was immediately siphoned off into the Chicago night by the air con.

‘Artemis isn’t the only one with brains around here,’ grunted Holly, sweat streaming down her face in spite of the helmet’s climate control.

‘The air con stops the fire alarm going off. Very good.’

‘Is he awake?’ asked Holly, leaving the last centimetre of a half-metre square uncut.

‘Wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, to use Centaurian imagery. A laser carving through the ceiling will do that to a person.’

‘Good,’ said Captain Short, cutting through the final section. The metal square twisted on a final strand of steel.

‘Won’t that make a lot of noise?’ asked Foaly.

Holly watched the section fall.

‘I doubt it,’ she said.

ARTEMIS FOWL’S CELL, THE SPIRO HEEDLE

Artemis was meditating when the first laser-stroke cut through the ceiling. He rose from the lotus position, pulled his sweater back on and arranged some pillows on the floor. Moments later, a square of metal fell to the floor, its impact silenced by the cushions. Holly’s face appeared in the hole.

Artemis pointed at the pillows. ‘You anticipated me.’

The LEP captain nodded. ‘Only thirteen, and already predictable.’

‘I presume you used the air conditioner to vacuum the smoke?’

‘Exactly. I think we’re getting to know one another too well.’

Holly reeled a piton line from her belt, lowering it into the room.

‘Make a loop at the bottom with the clamp and hop aboard. I’ll reel you in.’

Artemis did as he was told and, in seconds, he was clambering through the hole.

‘Do we have Mister Foaly on our side?’ he asked.

Holly handed Artemis a small cylindrical earpiece. ‘Ask him yourself.’

Artemis inserted the miracle of nanotechnology.

‘Well, Foaly. Astound me.’

Below, in Haven City, the centaur rubbed his hands together.

Artemis was the only one who actually understood his lectures.

‘You’re going to love this, Mud Boy. Not only have I wiped you from the video, not only did I erase the ceiling falling in, but I have created a simulated Artemis.’

Artemis was intrigued. ‘A sim? Really? How exactly did you do that?’

‘Simple really,’ said Foaly modestly. ‘I have hundreds of human movies on file. I borrowed Steve McQueen’s solitary confinement scene from The Great Escape and altered his clothes.’

‘What about the face?’

‘I had some digital interrogation footage from your last visit to

Haven. I put the two together and voilа. Our simulated Artemis can do whatever I tell him, whenever I say. At the moment, the sim is asleep, but in half an hour I may just instruct him to go to the bathroom.’

Holly reeled in her piton cord. ‘The miracle of modern science. The LEP pours millions into your department, Foaly, and all you can do is send Mud Boys to the toilet.’

‘You should be nice to me, Holly. I’m doing you a big favour. If Julius knew I was helping you, he’d be extremely angry.’

‘Which is exactly why you are doing it.’

Holly moved quietly to the door, opening it a crack. The corridor was clear and silent, but for the drone of panning cameras and the hum of fluorescent lighting. One section of Holly’s visor displayed miniature transparent feeds from Spiro’s security cameras. There were six guards doing the rounds on the floor.

Holly closed the door.

‘OK. Let’s get going. We need to reach Spiro before the guards change.’

Artemis arranged the carpet over the hole in the floor. ‘Have you located his apartment?’

‘Directly above us. We need to get up there and scan his retina and thumb.’

An expression flashed across Artemis’s face. Just for a second.

‘The scans. Yes. The sooner the better.’

Holly had never seen that look on the human boy’s features before.

Was it guilt? Could it be?

‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ she demanded.

The expression vanished, to be replaced by the customary lack of emotion.

‘No, Captain Short. Nothing. And do you really think that now is the time for an interrogation?’

Holly wagged a threatening finger. ‘Artemis. If you mess with me now, in the middle of an operation, I won’t forget it.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Artemis wryly. ‘I will.’

Spiro’s apartment was two floors directly above Artemis’s cell. It made sense to reinforce the same block. Unfortunately, Jon Spiro did not like the idea of anyone spying on him, so there were no cameras in his section of the building.

‘Typical,’ muttered Foaly. ‘Power-crazed megalomaniacs never like anyone to see their own dirty secrets.’

‘I think someone’s in denial,’ said Holly, focusing a tight beam from her Neutrino at the ceiling.

A section of floating ceiling melted like ice in a kettle, revealing the steel above. Molten beads of metal ate into the carpet as the laser sliced through the flooring. When the hole was of sufficient diameter Holly shut down the beam and popped her helmet camera into the space.

Nothing appeared on the screen.

‘Switching to infrared.’

A rack of suits sprang into focus. They might have been white.

‘The wardrobe. We’re in the wardrobe.’

‘Perfect,’ said Foaly. ‘Put him to sleep.’

‘He is asleep. It’s ten to five in the morning.’

‘Well, make sure he doesn’t wake up then.’

Holly replaced the camera in its groove. She plucked a silver capsule from her belt and inserted it into the hole.

Foaly supplied the commentary for Artemis.

‘The capsule is a Sleeper Deeper, in case you’re wondering.’

‘Gaseous?’

‘No. Brainwaves.’

Artemis was intrigued. ‘Go on.’

‘Basically it scans for brainwave patterns, then replicates them.

Anyone in the vicinity stays in the state they’re in until the capsule dissolves.

‘No trace?’

‘None. And no after-effects. Whatever they’re paying me, it isn’t enough.’

Holly counted off a minute on her visor clock.

‘OK. He’s out, providing he wasn’t awake when the Sleeper Deeper went in. Let’s go.’

Spiro’s bedroom was as white as his suits, except for the charred hole in the wardrobe. Holly and Artemis climbed through on to a white shag-pile carpet with whitewood slide wardrobes. They stepped through the doors into a room that glowed in the dark. Futuristic furniture — white, of course. White spotlights and white drapes.

Holly took a moment to study a painting that dominated one wall.

‘Oh, give me a break,’ she said.

The picture was in oils. Completely white. There was a brass plaque beneath. It read ‘Snow Ghost’.

Spiro lay in the centre of a huge futon, lost in the dunes of its silk sheets. Holly pulled back the covers, rolling him over on to his back. Even in sleep the man’s face was malevolent, as though his dreams were every bit as despicable as his waking thoughts.

‘Nice guy,’ said Holly, using her thumb to raise Spiro’s left eyelid.