Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl - the time paradox

The kraken was hungry and there was room for only one thought in its tiny brain as it sped towards the holiday ferry above.

Kill… Kill… KILL …

‘That is such dwarf manure,’ said Lower Elements Police Captain Holly Short, muting the sound file in her helmet. ‘For one thing, the kraken doesn’t have tentacles, and as for kill… kill… kill … ’

‘I know,’ said Foaly, the voice of mission control in her communicator. ‘I thought you might enjoy that passage. You know, have a laugh. Remember laughing?’

Holly was not amused. ‘It’s so typical of humans, Foaly, to take something perfectly natural and demonize it. Krakens are gentle creatures, and the humans turn them into some kind of murderous giant squid. Kill… kill… kill. Give me a break.’

‘Come on, Holly, it’s just sensational fiction. You know those humans and their imaginations. Relax.’

Foaly was right. If she got worked up every time the human media misrepresented a mythical creature, she would spend half her life in a rage. Over the centuries Mud Men had caught glimpses of the fairy folk, and had twisted the truth of these glimpses almost beyond recognition.

Let it go. There are decent humans. Remember Artemis and Butler.

‘Did you see that human movie with the centaurs?’ she asked the centaur on the other end of her helmet communicator. ‘They were noble and sporty. My sword for thee, Majesty, then off for a spot of hunting. Fit centaurs, now that did make me laugh.’

Thousands of miles away, somewhere in the Earth’s mantle below Ireland, Foaly, the Lower Elements Police technical adviser, rubbed his paunch.

‘Holly, that hurts. Caballine likes my belly.’

Foaly had got married, or hitched as centaurs called the ceremony, while Holly had been away with Artemis Fowl rescuing demons in Limbo. A lot had changed in the three years she had been away, and sometimes Holly found it difficult to keep up. Foaly had a new bride to occupy his time. Her old friend Trouble Kelp had been promoted to LEP Commander, and she was back working at Recon with the Kraken Watch task force.

‘Apologies, friend. That was mean,’ said Holly. ‘I like your belly too. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to see a hitching sash round it.’

‘Me too. Next time.’

Holly smiled. ‘Sure. That’s going to happen.’

Traditionally, male centaurs were expected to take more than one bride, but Caballine was a modern fairy and Holly doubted if she would stand for a new filly in the household.

‘Don’t worry, I’m joking.’

‘You’d better be, because I’m meeting Caballine at the spa this weekend.’

‘How’s the new gear?’ said Foaly, hurriedly changing the subject.

Holly spread her arms wide, feeling the wind ripple her fingers, seeing the Baltic Sea flash past below in shards of blue and white.

‘It’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘Absolutely wonderful.’

Captain Holly Short of LEPrecon flew in wide, lazy circles above Helsinki, enjoying the brisk Scandinavian air filtering through her helmet. It was just after 5 a.m. local time and the rising sun had set the Uspenski Cathedral’s golden onion dome shimmering. Already the city’s famed marketplace was strobed with headlights as vendors arrived to open up for the morning trade, or eager politicians’ aides made their way towards the blue-grey façade of City Hall.

Holly’s target lay away from what would shortly be a bustling centre of commerce. She adjusted her fingers, and the sensors in her armoured gloves translated the movements to commands for the mechanical wings on her back, sending her spiralling down towards the small island of Uunisaari, half a mile from the port.

‘The body sensors are nice,’ she said. ‘Very intuitive.’

‘It’s as close as it gets to being a bird,’ said Foaly. ‘Unless you want to integrate?’

‘No thank you,’ said Holly vehemently. She loved flying, but not enough to have an LEP surgeon sew a few implants into her cerebellum.

‘Very well, Captain Short,’ said Foaly, switching to business mode. ‘Pre-op check. Three Ws please.’

The three Ws were every Reconnaissance officer’s checklist before approaching an operation’s zone. Wings, weapon and a way home.

Holly checked the transparent readouts on her helmet visor.

‘Power cell charged. Weapon on green. Wings and suit fully functional. No red lights.’

‘Excellent,’ said Foaly. ‘Check, check and check. Our screens agree.’

Holly heard keys clicking as Foaly recorded this information in the mission log. The centaur was known for his fondness for old-school keyboards, even though he himself had patented an extremely efficient virtual keyboard — the v-board.

‘Remember, Holly, this is just reconnaissance. Go down and check the sensor. Those things are two hundred years old, and the problem is more than likely a simple overheat. All you need to do is go where I tell you and fix what I tell you. No indiscriminate blasting involved. Understand?’

Holly snorted. ‘I can see why Caballine fell for you, Foaly. You’re such a charmer.’

Foaly snickered. ‘I don’t rise to jibes any more, Holly. Marriage has mellowed me.’

‘Mellow? I’ll believe that when you last ten minutes in a room with Mulch without throwing a hoof.’

The dwarf, Mulch Diggums, had been at various times enemy, partner and friend to Holly and Foaly. His greatest pleasure in life was stuffing his face, and not far behind that was irritating his various enemies, partners and friends.

‘Perhaps I need a few more years of marriage before I get that mellow. A few more centuries, in fact.’

The island was large in Holly’s visor now, surrounded by a monk’s fringe of foam. Time to stop the chit-chat and proceed with the mission, though Holly was tempted to circle in a holding pattern so she could talk some more with her friend. It seemed as though this was the first real conversation they’d had since her return from Limbo. Foaly had moved on with life in the past three years, but for Holly her absence had only lasted a few hours and, though she had not aged, Holly felt cheated of those years. The LEP psychiatrist would have told her she was suffering from Post-time-travel-displacement Depression, and offered to prescribe a nice shot to cheer her up. Holly trusted happy-shots just about as much as she trusted brain implants.

‘I’m going in,’ she said tersely. This was her first solo mission since debriefing and she did not want anything less than a perfect report, even if it was only Kraken Watch.

‘Copy,’ said Foaly. ‘You see the sensor?’

There were four bio-sensors on the island relaying information back to Police Plaza. Three pulsed a gentle green in Holly’s visor display unit. The fourth sensor was red. Red could mean many things. In this case every reading had risen above normal levels. Temperature, heartbeat, brain activity. All on the danger line.

‘It must be a malfunction,’ Foaly had explained. ‘If not, the other sensors would show something.’

‘I have it. Strong signal.’

‘OK. Shield and approach.’

Holly twisted her chin sharply left until her neck bone clicked, which was her way of summoning the magic. It wasn’t a necessary movement, since the magic was mostly a brain function, but fairies developed their own tics. She let a dribble of power into her limbs and vibrated out of the visible spectrum. Her shimmer suit picked up her frequency and amplified it so that a tiny spark of magic went a long way.

‘I’m out of sight and going in,’ she confirmed.

‘Understood,’ said the centaur. ‘Be careful, Holly. Commander Kelp will be reviewing this video, so stick to your orders.’