Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex

No one argued. They knew what he meant.

*

On the other side of the divider, Artemis was having a few misgivings of his own. He had just noticed the mercenaries’ name for the ship, which was painted on the inside of the ocean door in what was supposed to look like blood but could not be or it would have long since washed off.

Probably some rubber-based solution, thought Artemis, but the base of the mercenaries’ paint was not what bothered him-it was the name itself, which was Plunderer , in Gnommish of course. The verb plunder was pronounced ffurfor , and the er suffix that changes the verb to a noun has, in Gnommish, the sound fer , which would imply that one is derived from the other. Grammar lesson aside, the pronunciation of the word plunderer was more or less fourfourfour .

Four four four, thought Artemis, pale inside his helmet.

Death death death.

At which point the hull door slid up with more ball-bearing noises, and the ocean sucked him into its deep dark depths.

Take a moment, thought Artemis as the suit’s outer skin vibrated and activated the glow orbs at his temples, fingertips, and knees. Don’t count, don’t organize, just do as Butler advized and focus.

He did not feel underwater , though he knew he was. His body did not experience the expected resistance from the ocean, there was no dulling of the motor skills, and he felt as though he could move with the same fluency as he always did, though Butler would argue whether his movements were ever fluid.

Which would have been great, had not the giant squid, whose territory he had just invaded, wrapped this glowing intruder in ten fat limbs and whisked him off toward his lair.

Ah, the mythical giant squid. Genus Architeuthis , thought Artemis, strangely calm now that he was faced with a catastrophe worthy of all the worrying he’d been doing. Not so mythical anymore.

TURNBALL Root had met Leonor Carsby on the remote Hawaiian island of Lehua in the summer of 1938. Leonor was there because she had crash-landed her Lockheed Electra into the northern slope of the island’s volcanic ridge and freewheeled into the oddly shaped natural canal known as The Keyhole, which cut through the island. Turnball had been there because he’d maintained a winter residence on the otherwise uninhabited island, where he liked to drink wine and listen to jazz recordings while he planned his next heist.

They were an unlikely couple, but their first meeting took place in the kind of extreme circumstances that often cause hearts to beat faster and believe themselves in love.

Leonor Carsby was a human Manhattan heiress, but also a founding member of the Ninety-Nines, an organization of women in aviation first presided over by Amelia Earhart. When Earhart was lost in the Pacific, Leonor Carsby vowed that she herself would complete the journey that her friend and hero Amelia had begun.

In April 1938 she took off from California with a navigator and extra-large fuel tanks. Six weeks later, Leonor Carsby arrived in The Keyhole with neither, having lost both to Lehua’s cruel crescent-shaped ridge. It was a miracle she herself survived, improbably protected only by the Lockheed’s bubble cockpit.

On his daily patrol, Unix had come across the heiress spread-eagled on a flat rock at the water’s edge. She was not in good shape: dehydrated, one leg badly broken, delirious, and on the edge of death.

The sprite called it in, expecting to be given the execution order, but something about the human woman’s face on his screen interested Turnball. He instructed Unix not to do anything, but to wait for his arrival.

Turnball took the trouble to shave, draw his hair back into a ponytail, and put on a fresh ruffled shirt before taking the lift from the subterranean cave to the surface. There he found Unix squatting over the most gorgeous creature he had ever seen. Even twisted unnaturally and covered with blood and bruises, it was clear to Turnball that she was an exquisite beauty.

As he stood over Leonor, with the sun behind him, casting long shadows across his face, the aviatrix opened her eyes, took Turnball in, and said two words: “My God.” And then she was lost to delirium once more.

Turnball was intrigued. He felt a thaw around a heart, which had been frozen for decades. Who was this woman who had fallen from the skies?

“Bring her inside,” he told Unix. “Use whatever magic we have to make her well.”

Unix did as he was told without comment, as was his way. Many other lieutenants might have questioned the wisdom of using the gang’s dwindling supply of magic on a human. There was a newbie in the group who still had half a tank in him. When that was gone, who knew how long it would be before they had power again?

But Unix did not complain, and neither did the others, as they were all aware that Turnball Root did not handle moaning well, and moaners tended to find themselves stranded somewhere uncomfortable, waiting for something extremely painful to happen to them.

So Leonor Carsby was taken into the subterranean cave and nursed back to health. Turnball did not involve himself too much during the early stages, preferring to show up when Leonor was on the point of waking up so he could pretend he had been there the whole time. Initially, Leonor did nothing but heal and sleep, but after some weeks she began to speak, hesitantly at first, but then questions tumbled out of her so quickly that Turnball could hardly keep up.

“Who are you?”

“What are you?”

“How did you find me?”

“Is Pierre, my navigator, alive?”

“When will I be fit to travel?”

Generally, Turnball handled questions about as well as he handled moaning, but from Leonor Carsby, every question caused him to smile indulgently and answer in detail.

Why is this? he wondered. Why do I tolerate this human instead of simply tossing her to the sharks in the normal fashion? I am spending time and magic on her in extravagant amounts.

Turnball began thinking about Leonor’s face when he wasn’t looking at it. Water chimes reminded him of her laugh. Sometimes he was sure he could hear her call to him, though he was on the far side of the island.

Grow up, you fool, he told himself. Yours is not the heart of a romantic.

But the heart cannot lie, and Turnball Root found himself in love with Leonor Carsby. He canceled two raids on federal bullion sites to be by her side, and moved his office to her room so he could work while she slept.

And, for her part, Leonor loved him too. She knew he was not human, but still she loved him. He told her about everything but the violence. Turnball styled himself as a revolutionary on the run from an unjust state, and she believed it. Why wouldn’t she? He was the dashing hero who had saved her, and Turnball made sure none of his cronies shattered this illusion.

When Leonor was well enough, Turnball took her to Mount Everest in his shuttle, and she cried tears of amazement. As they hovered there, shrouded by the cold white mist, Turnball asked the question he had been wanting to ask for two months.

“That first moment, my dear, when your eyes met mine, you said, ‘My God.’ Why did you say that?”

Leonor dried her eyes. “I was half dead, Turnball. You’ll laugh and think me silly.”

Root took her hand. “I could never think that. Never.”

“Very well. I shall tell you. I said those words, Turnball, because I thought I had died and you were a fierce, handsome angel come to take me to heaven.”

Turnball did not laugh, and he did not think it was silly. He knew at that moment that this gorgeous petite woman was the love of his life and he had to have her.