Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl - the time paradox

When fourteen-year-old Artemis had had a moment to consider things, sometime in between scaling pylons and outwitting murderous Extinctionists, he realized that there were a lot of unanswered questions about his mother’s illness. He had supposedly given her Spelltropy, but who had passed it to him? Holly’s magic had permeated his body in the past, but she herself was hale and hearty. Why wasn’t she sick? Or, for that matter, how did Butler escape infection? He had been healed so many times that he must be half fairy by now.

And, of all the thousands of humans healed, mesmerized or wiped every year, his mother was the one to fall ill. The mother of the only human on Earth who could do something about it. Very coincidental. Too coincidental by far.

So. Either someone had deliberately infected his mother, or the symptoms were being magically duplicated. Either way, the result was the same: Artemis would travel back in time to find the antidote. The lemur, Jayjay.

And who would want Jayjay found as much as Artemis did? The answer to that question lay in the past. Opal Koboi, of course. The little primate was the last ingredient in her magical cocktail. With his brain fluid in her bloodstream she would be literally the most powerful person on the planet. And if Opal couldn’t nab Jayjay in her own time, she would get him in the future. Whatever it took. She must have followed them back through the time stream, jumped out early and organized this whole affair. Presumably, once she had Jayjay’s brain fluid, navigating her way back would not be a problem.

It was confusing even for Artemis. Opal wouldn’t even be in his present if he hadn’t gone back in time. And he only went back in time because of a situation she created. It was Artemis’s own attempts to cure his mother which had led Opal to infect her.

But one thing he now felt sure of was that Opal was behind this. She was behind them and in front of them. Chasing their group into her own clutches. A time paradox.

There are two Opals in this equation, thought Artemis. I think there should continue to be two Artemis Fowls.

And so a plan had taken shape in his mind.

Once the young Artemis had been apprised of all the details and convinced of their accuracy, he at once agreed to accompany them to the future, in spite of Butler’s vocal objection.

‘It’s my mother, Butler,’ he said simply. ‘I must save her. Now I charge you to stay by her side until I return. Anyway, how could they hope to succeed without me?’

‘How indeed,’ Holly Short had wondered, then taken more pleasure than was necessary in watching that arrogance drain from the boy’s features when the time stream opened in front of them, like the maw of some great computer-generated serpent.

‘Chin up, Mud Boy,’ she’d said as Artemis the younger watched his arm dissolve. ‘And watch out for quantum zombies.’

The time stream had been difficult for Artemis the elder. Any other human would have been torn apart by such repeated exposure to its particular radiation, but Artemis held himself together by sheer willpower. He focused on the high end of his intellect, solving unprovable theorems with large cardinals and composing an ending for Schubert’s unfinished Symphony N o8.

As he worked, Artemis sensed the odd derisive comment from his younger self.

More B minor? Do you really think so?

Had he always been this obnoxious? How tiresome. Little wonder people in general did not like him.

Back in his own time, in his own house, Artemis the elder paused only to grab some clothes from the wardrobe before quickly exiting his study, warning Foaly and N o1 to keep silent with a simple shhh. He moved quickly along the corridor towards the dumb-waiter shaft adjacent to the second-floor tea room. This was not the most direct route to the security centre, in fact the route was circuitous and awkward, but it was the only way to pass through the house undetected.

Butler believed he had every square inch of the manor, apart from the Fowl’s private chambers, under surveillance, but Artemis had long since worked how to travel through the house without being picked up on camera. This route involved hiding in corners, walking on furniture, travelling in dumb waiters and tilting a full-length mirror to just the right angle.

It was possible, of course, that a hostile could figure out the same pathways, co-ordinates and trajectories, and also move about the house undetected. Possible, but highly improbable, not without an intimate knowledge of nooks and crannies that did not exist on any plans.

Artemis followed a zigzag pattern down the hallway, a second behind a security camera’s sweep, then ducked quickly inside the dumb-waiter shaft. Luckily, the box was on this floor, or he would have been forced to shin down the cable and shinning was not one of his strong suits. Artemis reached outside and pressed the ground-floor button, whipping his hand back in before the descending box caught his wrist. While it was true that security would register the dumb waiter descending, it would not set off any red lights.

Once at kitchen level, Artemis rolled on to the floor, opening the fridge door to shield his movement into the pantry. Deep shadows concealed him until the camera swung away from the doorway allowing him climb on top of the table and jump outside.

All the time thinking. Plotting.

Assume the worst. Little Artemis is helpless and Holly and Number One are already incapacitated. Quite possible if someone like Butler were mesmerized and doing the incapacitating. Opal is somewhere near the command centre, manipulating my mother. It was Opal who could see the magic inside me. Not Mother. She peeled away the spell I had cast over my parents.

And: Of course B minor. If one starts in B minor, one finishes in B minor. Any fool knows that.

A suit of medieval armour stood in the main lobby. The same armour that Butler had put on to do battle with a troll during the Fowl Manor seige five years earlier. Artemis approached it slowly, his back flat against an abstract grey-black tapestry that camouflaged him almost perfectly. Once concealed behind the suit of armour, he nudged the base of an adjacent mirror until it reflected a spotlight’s beam directly into the lens of the lobby camera.

Now his path to the security centre was clear. Artemis strode purposefully towards the booth. This was where Opal would be, he was certain of it. From there she could monitor the entire house and it was directly below Angeline’s bedroom. If Opal was indeed controlling his mother, closer was better.

It was clear from several metres away that he was right. Artemis could hear Opal ranting from a distance.

‘There is another one. Here somewhere, another Artemis Fowl.’

Either the penny had dropped, or young Artemis had been forced to reveal their plan. ‘Find him,’ shrieked Opal. ‘Find him immediately. At once.’

Artemis stepped quietly into the security control booth — a boxroom off the main lobby that had served in its time as a cloakroom, weapons lock-up and holding cell for prisoners. Now, it housed a computer desk, similar to those found in editing suites, and stacks of monitors displaying live feeds of the manor and grounds.

Huddled before the monitor bank was Opal, dressed in Holly’s LEP gear. She had wasted no time in stealing the fairy suit. It was mere minutes since Artemis had locked it in the safe.

The little pixie was multi-tasking furiously, scanning the monitors while maintaining remote control over Artemis’s mother. Her dark hair was sweat-slicked and her childlike limbs shook with the effort.