Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex

“And then?” prompted Artemis.

“Then I authorized a few practice shots along the trajectory before the probe was really in range. There shouldn’t have been enough power in them to cause any damage-the water shells dissipate over distance-but one must have held on to a bit of punch, because the probe spun off course and nose-dived straight into the seabed, taking a shuttle down with it.”

“Opal Koboi was on that shuttle, wasn’t she?” said Artemis urgently. “This is all her doing. This reeks of Opal.”

“No, Fowl, if it reeks of anyone, it reeks of you. This all started with your conference in Iceland, and now some of our best people are dead, and we have an underwater rescue mission on our hands.”

Artemis’s face was red. “Forget how you feel about me. Was Opal on the shuttle?”

“She was not,” thundered Trouble, and the pod’s speakers vibrated. “But you were in Iceland, and now you’re here.”

Holly stepped in to defend her friend. “Artemis had nothing to do with this, Commander.”

“That may be, but there are too many coincidences here, Holly. I need you to detain the Mud Boy until I can get a rescue bird up to you. It could be a few hours, so take on some ballast in the tanks and drop your buoyancy a little. You shouldn’t be spotted below the surface.”

Holly was not happy with this course of action. “Sir, Commander, we know what happened. But Artemis is right-we need to think about who made it happen.”

“We can talk about that in Police Plaza. For now, my priority is to keep people alive, simple as that. There are fairies still trapped in Atlantis. Everything watertight we have is headed there right now. We can discuss the Mud Boy’s theories tomorrow.”

“Maybe we can construct a bivouac while we’re at it,” muttered Holly.

Trouble Kelp was not one to swallow insubordination. He leaned close to the camera, his forehead stretching wide in the pinhole lens.

“Did you say something, Captain?”

“Whoever did this is not finished,” said Holly, doing a little leaning in herself. “This is part of a bigger plan, and detaining Artemis is the worst possible thing you could do.”

“Oh, really,” said Trouble, chuckling unexpectedly. “Odd you should say that, because in the message you sent earlier, you commented that Artemis Fowl had lost it. Your exact words were-”

Holly glanced guiltily at Artemis. “No need for the exact words, sir.”

“ Sir now, is it? Your exact words were, and I quote- obviously since they are your exact words-you said that Artemis Fowl was ‘crazier than a salt-water-drinking troll with ringworm.’”

Artemis shot Holly a recriminating look that said:

Ringworm? Really?

Holly brushed the comment aside with a hand. “That was earlier. I have shot Artemis twice since then, and he’s fine now.”

Trouble grinned. “You shot him twice. That’s more like it.”

“The point is,” Holly persisted, “we need Artemis to help figure this out.”

“Like he figured out Julius Root and Commander Raine Vinyáya.”

“That is not fair, Trouble.”

Kelp was unrepentant. “You can call me Trouble in the officers’ club on the weekend. Until then it’s Commander. And I order you, no, I command you to detain the human Artemis Fowl. We’re not arresting him-I just want him down here for a little chat. What I certainly do not want is for us to act on any of his notions. Understood?”

Holly’s face was wooden and her voice dull. “Understood, Commander.”

“Your pod has enough juice to power the locator, no more, so don’t even think about making for the shore. You look a shade paler than death, Captain, so I’m guessing you don’t have any spare magic for shielding.”

“Paler than death? Thanks, Trubs.”

“Trubs, Captain? Trubs?”

“I meant Trouble.”

“That’s better. So all I want you to do is sit on the Mud Boy. Got it?”

Holly’s words were so honeyed that they could have charmed a bear. “I’ve got it good, Trouble. Captain Holly Short, babysitter extraordinaire, at your service.”

“Hmmm,” said Trouble, in a tone that Angeline Fowl’s son understood very well.

“Hmmm, indeed,” said Holly.

“I’m glad we understand each other,” said Trouble, with a flicker of one eyelid that could be interpreted as a wink. “I, as your superior, am telling you to stay put and not make any attempt to get to the bottom of what’s really going on here, especially not with the help of a human, especially especially not that particular human. Do you read me?”

“I read you loud and clear, Trouble,” said Holly, and Artemis understood that Trouble Kelp was not forbidding Holly to investigate further-he was actually covering himself on video in case Holly’s actions resulted in a tribunal, which they often did.

“I read you loud and clear too, Commander,” said Artemis. “If that makes any difference.”

Trouble snorted. “Remember those armpit lice, Fowl? Their opinions make more difference to me than yours.”

And he was gone before Artemis could trot out one of his pre-prepared retorts. And in years to come, when Professor J. Argon published the best-selling Artemis Fowl biography, Fowl and Fairy , this particular exchange would be deemed significant as one of the few times anyone got the last word over Artemis Fowl II.

Holly made a sound that was a little like a shriek, but not as girly and with more frustration.

“What’s the matter?” asked Foaly. “I thought that went pretty well. It seemed to me that Commander Trouble Kelp, a.k.a. your boyfriend, gave us the green light to investigate.”

Holly turned her mismatched eyes on him. “First of all, he’s not my boyfriend-we went on one date, and I told you that in confidence because I thought you were a friend who wouldn’t trot it out at the first opportunity.”

“It’s not the first opportunity. I held it back the time when we had that lovely tea.”

“Irrelevant!” shouted Holly, through funneled hands.

“Don’t worry, Holly, it stays in this room,” said Foaly, thinking it would be a bad time to mention that he had posted the gossip on his Web site www.horsesense.gnom.

“And secondly,” continued Holly, “maybe Trouble did give me the backhanded go-ahead, but what good is that to us in the middle of the Atlantic in a dead lump of metal?”

Artemis glanced skyward. “Ah, you see, I might be able to help you there. Any second now.”

Several seconds passed by without any significant change in their situation.

Holly raised her palms. “Any second? Really?” Artemis couldn’t help being a little peeved. “Not literally. It might take a minute or so. Perhaps I should call him.”

Fifty-nine seconds later, something bonged against the pod’s hatch.

“Aha,” said Artemis, in a way that made Holly feel like punching him.

Over the Atlantic; Two Hours Earlier

“This is not a bad ship, as it happens,” said Mulch Diggums, pushing a couple of buttons on the stolen mercenaries’ ship just to see what they did. When one caused the contents of the sewage recycler to be dumped on an innocent Scottish deep-sea trawler below, the dwarf decided to stop pushing.

(One of the fishermen happened to be making a video of gulls for his university media course and caught the entire descending blob of waste matter on film. It seemed to anyone who saw the tape as though the ponging mass just appeared in the sky then dropped rapidly onto the unfortunate sailors. Sky News ran the video with the headline: Panic on the Poop Deck. The segment was largely dismissed as a student prank.)