Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex

Holly was drawn into the psychosis and had to ask, “So if you’re not Artemis Fowl, then who are you?”

The boy extended a dripping hand straight up. “My name is Orion. I am so pleased to meet you at last. I am, of course, your servant.”

Holly shook the proffered hand, thinking that manners were lovely, but she really needed someone cunning and ruthless right now, and this kid didn’t appear to be very cunning.

“That’s great, em. . Orion. Really. We’re in a bind here, and I can use all the help I can get.”

“Excellent,” said the boy. “I have been taking stock of the situation from the rear seat, as it were, and I suggest that we retire to a safe distance and construct some form of bivouac.”

Holly groaned. Of all the times for Artemis to go AWOL inside his own head.

Foaly clambered from the morass of nano-wafers, using his fingers to draw aside curtains of gunk that obscured his vision.

“I see Artemis has woken up. Good. We could do with one of his trademark apparently-ridiculous-but-actually-ingenious plans.”

“Bivouac,” said the boy in Artemis Fowl’s head. “I suggest a bivouac, and perhaps we could gather kindling for a campfire, and some leaves to make a cushion for the lovely lady.”

“Kindling? Did Artemis Fowl just use the word kindling ? And who’s the lovely lady?”

The wind picked up suddenly, lifting loose surface snow and sending it skittering across the ice. Holly felt flakes settle on her exposed neck, sending a prickling chill trickling down her spine.

Things are bad now, she realized. And they’re about to get worse. Where are you, Butler? Why aren’t you here?

Cancún, Mexico; The Night Before

Butler had an excuse for not being in Iceland that would hold up in any court of law and possibly even on a note for teacher. In fact, he had a number of excuses.

One: his employer and friend had sent him away on a rescue mission that had turned out to be a trap. Two: his sister had been in fake trouble, whereas now she was in very real trouble. And three: he was being chased around a theater in Mexico by a few thousand wrestling fans, who at this moment looked very much like zombies, without the rotting limbs.

Butler had read in the entertainment section of his in-flight magazine that vampires had been all the rage, but this year zombies were in.

They’re certainly in here, thought Butler. Far too many of them.

Strictly speaking, zombies wasn’t an accurate description of the mass of mindless humans milling about in the theater. They were of course mesmerized , which is not the same thing at all. The generally accepted definition of a zombie is: a reanimated corpse with a taste for human brains. The mesmerized wrestling fans were not dead and had no desire to sniff anyone’s brains, never mind take a bite out of them. They were converging on the aisle from all sides, cutting off any possible escape routes, and Butler was forced to back up over the collapsed ring and onto the wrestling platform. This retreat would not have made the top one hundred on his list of preferred options, but at this stage, any action that granted a few more heartbeats was preferable to standing still and accepting one’s fate.

Butler slapped his sister’s thigh, which was easy, as she was still slung over his shoulder.

“Hey,” she complained. “What was that for?”

“Just checking your state of mind.”

“I’m me, okay? Something happened in my brain. I remember Holly and all the other fairies.”

Total recall, Butler surmised. Her encounter with the fairy mesmerist had watered the seed of memory in his sister’s mind, and it had sprawled in there, bringing everything back. It was possible, he supposed, that the strength of this mental chain reaction had obliterated the attempted mesmerization .

“Can you fight?” Juliet swung her legs high, then flipped into a fighting stance.

“I can fight better than you, old-timer.”

Butler winced. Sometimes having a sister two decades younger than oneself meant putting up with a lot of ageist comments.

“My insides are not as old as my outsides, if you must know. Those Fairy People you are just now remembering gave me an overhaul. They took fifteen years off, and I have a Kevlar chest. So I can look after myself, and you, if need be.”

As they bantered, the siblings automatically swiveled so they were back to back and covering each other. Butler talked to let his sister know that he was hopeful they could escape from this. Juliet responded to show her big brother that she was not afraid so long as they stood side by side. Neither of these unspoken messages was true, exactly, but they gave a modicum of comfort.

The mesmerized wrestling fans were having a little trouble negotiating the wrestling platform, and their packed bodies clogged the ringside like sticks in a dam. When one did manage to climb up, Butler tossed him or her back out as gently as possible. Juliet was not so gentle on her first toss, and Butler definitely heard something snap.

“Easy, sister. These are innocent people. Their brains have been hijacked.”

“Oops, sorry,” said Juliet, not sounding in the least penitent, and rammed the heel of her hand into the solar plexus of someone who was probably a soccer mom when not mesmerized .

Butler sighed. “Like this,” he said patiently. “Watch. You pick them up and just slide them out over the top of their friends. Minimum impact.” He performed the move a few times just to give Juliet the idea.

Juliet jettisoned a drooling teenager. “Better?”

“Much.” Butler jerked a thumb at the screen overhead. “That fairy has mesmerized everyone who looked into his eyes and heard his voice. It’s not their fault they’re attacking us.”

Juliet almost looked upward, but stopped herself in time. On screen, the red eyes still burned, and over the speaker system that soft hypnotic voice flowed through the crowd like warm honey, telling them everything would be all right if they could just kill the princess and the bear. If they could perform that one simple act, all their dreams would come true. The voice affected the Butlers, made their sense of purpose a little mushy, but without eye contact it could not control their actions.

More of the crowd was making it onto the stage now, and it was only a matter of seconds before the platform collapsed.

“We need to shut that guy up,” shouted Butler over the rising hubbub of mesmerized moaning. “Can you reach the screen?”

Juliet squinted, measuring the distance. “I can reach the gantry if you give me a little height.”

Butler patted one of his broad shoulders. “Climb aboard, little sister.”

“Just a sec,” said Juliet, dispatching a bearded cowboy with a roundhouse kick. She climbed up Butler’s frame with the agility of a monkey and stood on his shoulders. “Okay, boost me.”

Butler grunted a grunt that any family member could interpret as Hold on a moment , and with Juliet balanced overhead, he punched one of the support wrestlers in the windpipe, and swept another’s legs from under him.

Those two were twins, he realized. And dressed as Tasmanian devils. This is the strangest fight I have ever been in, and I’ve tangled with trolls.

“Here we go,” he said to Juliet, sidestepping a man in a hot-dog costume. Butler wiggled his fingers under her toes.

“Can you lift me?” asked his sister, keeping her balance with the ease of an Olympic gymnast, which Juliet might have been if she could have woken up in time for the early morning training sessions.