Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex

“Artemis could never shoot,” she snarled.

Orion squared his shoulders and extended his hands, supporting his right hand with his left. Both Artemis and Orion were ambidextrous, but, unlike Artemis, Orion favored his right hand. He remembered what Butler had said time and time again: Sight along your arm. Breathe out and squeeze.

The first pellet caught Holly on the cheek, the second on the forehead, and the third on the shoulder, which took a second to penetrate. Holly’s speed took her halfway up the curved wall before her body gave out, and she slid back down on her face.

Orion turned to Turnball, who was sneaking up on him.

“Be still, foul demon.”

“Hey,” said N o1, who was getting his breath back.

“Apologies, gentle mage,” said Orion. “I was referring to my piratical foe.”

“Four,” said Turnball, with some desperation. “Four four four.”

Orion laughed a haughty hero’s laugh. “No such luck, Turnball Root. Your evil plans have been thwarted. Accept your fate.”

Turnball’s face turned slowly purple, a family trait.

“I need the demon,” he bellowed, spittle spraying from his lips. “Turn him over, or we all die.”

“Too late for hollow threats, my friend. You have been outfoxed. Now, sit still while my compadre, the noble steed, binds your hands.”

Turnball took a whooping breath and stood erect. “No. I have one card left to play. The ambulance is rigged to explode. The autopilot is smashed and the generator has been exposed-there is no turning back. Give me the demon and I will pilot the shuttle deep into the trench, then escape in the belly of an amorphobot. There is room for one more besides Leonor. I can take you instead of N o1.”

Foaly sucked his lips. “Ah. Okay. Little problem with that plan. I dissolved the bots.”

“So that was your plot,” said Orion fiercely, brandishing the gun like a cutlass. “You would take what you wanted and then bury the evidence in the explosion.”

Turnball shrugged, suddenly calm. He had always known a day like this would come. “It has worked for me before.” He consulted a timer on his wrist computer. “In five minutes the shuttle explodes and we all die. If you will excuse me, I must go to my wife’s bedside.”

He turned to find his wife a little closer than expected. Leonor stood framed by the umbilical’s curtain, leaning heavily on her walking stick, face pale in the glow from the light orbs.

“Turnball, what’s happening?” she said, her breath labored, but both eyes were open and they were clear. Clearer than they had been since they’d first met.

Turnball rushed to her side, supporting her with one arm.

“Yes, my dear. You should lie down. Things will be better soon.”

Leonor snapped as she had not for a long time. “You just said the ship will explode.”

Turnball’s eyes were wide with surprise-his beloved wife had never snapped at him before-but he kept a gentle smile on his lips. “What does it matter, so long as we are together? Even death will not separate us.”

From somewhere, Leonor found the strength to stand straight. “I am ready for my long sleep, Turnball. But you are young, these people are young, and is that not a hospital ship we are moored to?”

“Yes, yes it is. But these people are my enemies. They have persecuted me.” Turnball licked the rune on his thumb, but Leonor was beyond his power now.

“I think that perhaps you were far from blameless, my dear, but I was blinded by love. I have always loved you, Turnball. I always will.”

Orion was getting anxious. The seconds were ticking away, and he had no wish to see his beloved Holly at the heart of an explosion.

“Step aside, madam,” he said to Leonor. “I must pilot this ship deep into the trench.”

Leonor raised her stick shakily. “No. I will take this journey alone. I have outstayed my welcome on this earth, and shut my eyes to what was happening around me. Now at last I will fly where I never thought possible.” She stroked Turnball’s wet cheek and kissed him. “At last I can finally fly again, Turnball.”

Turnball clasped his wife’s shoulders tenderly. “You can fly, you will. But not now. This flight is death, and I cannot be without you. Don’t you want what we had?”

“Those times are gone,” said Leonor simply. “Perhaps they should never have been. Now, you must let me go, or else you must try to stop me.”

This was an ultimatum that Turnball had been dreading since first applying the rune to Leonor’s neck. He was about to lose his wife, and there was nothing he could do about it. His emotions played across his face, and a network of lines appeared around his eyes as though drawn by an invisible pen.

“I must go, Turnball,” said Leonor softly.

“Fly, my love,” said Turnball, and he seemed in that moment as old as his wife.

“Let me do this for you, my love. Let me save you, as you saved me all those years ago.” Leonor kissed him again and withdrew through the curtain.

Turnball stood for a moment, shoulders shuddering, chin down, then he pulled himself together.

He faced Orion and jerked a thumb toward the ambulance. “I should go. Leonor will never make it back up the steps on her own.”

And with such an ordinary statement, he was gone, the hatch sealing behind him.

“Understated but graceful,” said Orion. “A nice exit.”

The Butlers were both unconscious, which would be a source of some ribbing and embarrassment later, so they did not see the stolen ambulance shuttle detach itself from the umbilical conduit and peel away from the Nostremius , Leonor and Turnball clearly visible at the cockpit controls. And they completely missed the shuttle diving deep into the Atlantis Trench in a long graceful arc.

“That woman is quite a pilot,” said Orion. “I imagine they are holding hands now and smiling bravely.”

Moments later a hellfire blossom grew from the depths of the trench, but the explosion was quickly extinguished by the millions of tons of water bearing down on it. The shock currents, however, raced along the raised ridge, dislodging centuries-old coral and rippling the untethered end of the umbilical conduit like a child would a skipping rope, sending the squid scurrying for safety.

The tube’s occupants were jumbled together, heroes and villains alike, and swept to the Nostremius ’s door, which moments later was opened from the inside by a confused technical officer, a hardened sea gnome, who, to his eternal shame, squealed like a baby sprite when he came face-to-face with a gigantic human covered in white dust.

“Zombie!” he shrieked, and, unfortunately for him, two of his shift buddies were in the air lock behind him, and it cost him three weeks’ pudding rations to buy their silence.

EPILOGUE

ARTEMIS woke to find Holly and Foaly leaning over him. Holly seemed concerned, whereas Foaly was scrutinizing him, as one would a lab experiment.

I am not in pain, thought Artemis. They must have given me something.

And then: I should lighten the mood.

“Ah, my princess. Noble steed. How does the morning find you both?”

“D’Arvit,” said Holly. “It’s the knight in shining armor.”

“Hmm,” said Foaly. “That’s how Atlantis goes. As it progresses, you can never predict what will set it off. I thought the cocktail of drugs would bring back Artemis, but at least Orion will tell us what Artemis is up to.” He leaned in closer. “Orion, you noble youth. Do you happen to know the password for Artemis’s firewall?”

“Of course I do,” said Artemis. “It’s D-O-N-K-E-Y space B-O-Y.”

Foaly was halfway through writing this down when the penny dropped.