Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex

“Excuse me?”

“Very well. I will wear the jeans and T-shirt. . Mum.”

“I am so happy. Tell Butler to put by two days a week. Jeans and Mums. Get used to it.”

What’s next? Artemis wondered. Baseball hats worn back to front?

“Butler is taking good care of you, I trust?”

Artemis colored. More lies. “Yes. You should see his face at this meeting. He is bored out of his mind with all the science.”

Angeline’s voice changed, became warmer, more emotional.

“I know it’s important, Arty, what you’re doing. Important for the planet, I mean. And I believe in you, son. Which is why I am keeping your secret and letting you gallivant across the globe with fairy folk, but you have to promise me that you’re safe.”

Artemis had heard the expression to feel like a real heel , but now he actually understood it.

“I am the safest human in the world,” he said jauntily. “I have more protection than a president. I’m better armed too.”

Yet another hmmm. “This is the last solo mission, Arty. You promised me. ‘I just have to save the world,’ you said. ‘Then I can spend more time with the twins.’”

“I remember,” said Artemis, which wasn’t really agreeing.

“See you tomorrow morning, then. The dawn of a new day.”

“See you tomorrow morning, Mum.”

Angeline hung up, and her picture disappeared from Artemis’s screen. He was sorry to see it go.

On the deck, Foaly suddenly flipped onto his back.

“Not the stripy ones,” he blurted. “They’re just little babies.” Then he opened his eyes and saw Artemis watching him.

“Did I say that out loud?”

Artemis nodded. “Yes. Something about the stripy ones being babies.”

“Childhood memory. I’m pretty much over it now.”

Artemis stretched out a hand to help the centaur to his hooves.

“No help from you,” Foaly moaned, slapping at the hand as though it were a wasp. “I have had enough of you.

If you even think the phrase goodly beast , I am going to kick you straight in the teeth.”

Artemis slapped the buckle on his chest, opening the harness, stretching his hand out farther.

“I am sorry about all of that, Foaly. But I’m fine now. It’s me, Artemis.”

Now Foaly accepted the steadying hand. “Oh, thank the gods. That other guy was really getting on my nerves.”

“Not so fast,” said Holly, appearing fully conscious between the two.

“Whoa,” said Foaly, rearing. “Don’t you moan and groan a bit when you regain consciousness?”

“Nope,” said Holly. “LEP ninja training. And this guy isn’t Artemis. He said Mum. I heard him. Artemis Fowl doesn’t say Mum, Mummy, Mom, or Momsy. This is Orion trying to pull a fast one.”

“I realize how it sounded,” said Artemis. “But you have to believe me. My mother extorted that term of endearment from me.”

Foaly tapped his long chin. “ Extorted? Endearment ? It’s Artemis, all right.”

“Thanks for shooting me the second time,” said Artemis, touching the burn marks on his neck. “The charge set me free from the fours, for the time being. And I’m sorry about all that rubbish Orion was spouting. I have no idea where that came from.”

“We need to talk about that at great length,” said Holly, brushing past him to the dashboard. “But later. First, let’s see if I can raise Haven.”

Foaly tapped a button on his phone’s screen. “Already on it, Captain.”

After all the drama of the previous few hours, it seemed impossible that they could simply phone Haven and get a connection just like that, but that’s exactly what happened.

Commander Trouble Kelp picked up on the first ring, and Foaly put the video call on speaker.

“Holly? Is that you?”

“Yes, Commander. I have Foaly with me, and Artemis Fowl.”

Trouble grunted. “Artemis Fowl. Why am I not surprised? We should have sucked that Mud Whelp’s brain out through his ear when we had the chance.”

Trouble Kelp was famous for his gung-ho attitude- that and the fact that he had chosen Trouble as his graduation name. There was an honest-to-gods true story going around the Academy that, as a lowly street cop, young Officer Kelp drove his riot scooter down an alley in Boolatown during the solstice and PAed to a dozen or so scrapping goblins the immortal line: If you’re looking for trouble, you’ve come to the right place. After the goblins had finished laughing, they gave Trouble a hiding he did not soon forget. The scars made him a little more cautious, but not much.

Trouble sat at his desk in Police Plaza, ramrod straight in his blue commander’s jumpsuit, acorn cluster glittering on his chest. His dark hair was close-cropped over impressive pointed ears, and deep purple eyes glared out from under brows that jinked like lightning bolts as he spoke.

“Hello, Commander,” said Artemis. “Nice to be appreciated.”

“I appreciate armpit lice more than I’m ever likely to appreciate you, Fowl. Get over it.”

Artemis could think of half a dozen withering responses to this comment off the top of his head, but he kept these put-downs to himself for the greater good.

I am fifteen now; time to behave maturely.

Holly cut through the male posturing. “Commander, is Atlantis safe?”

“Most of it,” said Trouble. “Half a dozen evac ships took a pasting. One shuttle suffered a direct hit, buried deeper than hell itself. It’s going to take months to put the pieces together.”

Holly’s shoulders drooped. “Casualties?”

“Definitely. We don’t know how many yet, but dozens.” Trouble’s brow was heavy with the weight of command. “It’s a dark day for the People, Captain. First Vinyáya and her troops, now this.”

“What happened?”

Trouble’s gaze shifted to a point off screen as his fingers tapped a V-board. “One of Foaly’s brainers did a simulation. I’m sending it to you now.”

Seconds later, a message icon pulsed on the screen of Foaly’s phone. Holly selected it, and a simple 2-D video played, depicting an outlined probe entering the Earth’s atmosphere over Iceland.

“Can you see that, Captain?”

“Yes, it’s up.”

“Good. Let me talk you through it. So, Foaly’s Martian probe shows up just below the Arctic Circle. We’re taking your word for this since we didn’t detect it, thanks to our own cloaking technology. Shields, stealth ore, all turned against us. I don’t have to tell you what happened next.”

On screen the probe sent a laser burst into a small target on the surface, then jettisoned a few bots to deal with survivors. The craft barely slowed down before plowing through the ice, taking a southwesterly course toward the Atlantic.

“Again, this part of the simulation was done without computer data. We took what you told us and also extrapolated backward from our own readings.”

Artemis interrupted. “You had readings? At what point did you start to get readings?”

“It was the strangest thing,” said Trouble, frowning. “We heeded Captain Short’s warning and ran a scan. Nothing. Then, five minutes later, up the probe pops on our screens. No shields, nothing. In fact, she was blowing heat out the vents, so we couldn’t miss her. She even blew her engine plates off. The thing was shining brighter than the North Star. And just in case we missed it, we got a tip-off from a bar in Miami, of all places. We had time enough to evacuate.”

“But not enough to reach her,” mused Artemis.

“Exactly,” said Trouble Kelp, who wouldn’t have agreed if it had occurred to him that he was agreeing with arch-criminal Artemis Fowl. “All we could do was pump up the water cannons, empty the city, and wait until the probe came into range.”