dense even to spill from the hatch, and hung on to its cylindrical shape.
Mulch squinted through the wobbling gel. ‘Deactivated all right. If that stuff were live, our faces would be getting a nice tan about now.’
‘What about those sparks?’
‘Residual charge. They’d give you a bit of a tingle, but nothing serious.’
Artemis nodded. ‘Right,’ he said, strapping on the helmet.
Mulch blanched. ‘You are not serious, MudWhelp? Do you have any idea what will happen if those cannons are activated?’
‘I’m trying not to think about it.’
‘It’s probably just as well.’ The dwarf shook his head, bewildered. ‘OK.
You’ve got thirty metres to go, and no more than ten minutes of air in that helmet. Keep the filters closed. The air may get a bit stale after a while, but it’s better than sucking plasma. And here, take this.’ He plucked the stiffened hair from the keyhole.
‘What for?’
‘I presume you will want to get out again at the other end. Or hadn’t you thought of that, genius boy?’
Artemis swallowed. He hadn’t. There was more to this heroism thing than rushing in blindly.
‘Just feed it in gently. Remember, it’s hair not metal.’
‘Feed it in gently. Got it.’
‘And don’t use any lights. Halogen could reactivate the plasma.’
Artemis felt his head beginning to spin.
‘And make sure you get foamed as soon as you can.The anti-rad canisters are blue. They’re everywhere in this facility.’
‘Blue canisters. Anything else, Mister Diggums?’
‘Well, there are the plasma snakes
Artemis’s knees almost collapsed. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘No,’ Mulch conceded. ‘I’m not. Now, your reach is about half a metre.
So calculate for sixty pulls and then get out of there.’
‘Slightly under half a metre I’d say. Perhaps sixty-three pulls.’ He placed the dwarf hair inside his breast pocket.
Mulch shrugged. ‘Whatever, kid. It’s your skin. Now in you go.’
The dwarf interlaced his fingers and Artemis stepped into the makeshift stirrup. He was considering changing his mind when Mister Diggums heaved him into the pipe. The orange gel sucked him in, enveloping his body in a second.
The plasma coiled around him like a living being, popping bubbles of air trapped in his clothing. A residual spark brushed his leg, sending sharp pain spasming through his body. A bit of a tingle?
Artemis gazed out through the orange gel. Mulch was there giving him the thumbs up. Grinning like a loon. Artemis decided that if he made it through this, then he would have to place the dwarf on the payroll.
He began to crawl blindly. One pull, two pulls. .
Sixty-three seemed a long way off.
Butler cocked the Sig Sauer. The footsteps were ear-splitting now, bouncing off the metal walls. Shadows stretched around the corner, ahead of their owners. The manservant took approximate aim.
A head appeared. Froglike. Licking its own eyeballs. Butler pulled the trigger. The slug punched a melon- sized hole in the wall above the goblin’s head. The head was hurriedly withdrawn. Of course, Butler had missed on purpose. Scared was always better than dead. But it couldn’t last forever.
Twelve more shots to be precise.
The goblins grew braver, sneaking out further and further. Eventually, Butler knew he would be forced to shoot one.
The manservant decided that it was time to go close-quarters. He rose from his hunkers, making slightly less noise than a panther, and hurtled down the corridor towards the enemy.
There were only two men on the planet better educated in the various martial arts than Butler, and he was related to one of them. The other lived on an island in the South China Seas and spent his days meditating and beating up palm trees. You really had to feel sorry for those goblins.
The B’wa Kell had two guards on the sanctum door. Both armed to the teeth and both as thick as several short planks. In spite of repeated warnings,
they were both falling asleep inside their helmets when the elves came running around the corner.
‘Look,’ mumbled one. ‘Elves.’
‘Huh?’ said the other, the denser of the two.
‘Don’t matter,’ said number one. ‘LEP don’t got no guns.’
Number two gave his eyeballs a lick. ‘Yeah, but they sure are irritable.’
And that was when Holly’s boot impacted with his chest, slamming him into the wall.
‘Hey,’ complained number one, bringing up his own gun. ‘Not fair.’
Root didn’t bother with fancy spinning kicks, preferring instead to body-slam the sentry against the titanium door.
‘There,’ panted Holly. ‘Two down. That wasn’t so hard.’ A premature statement as it happened. Because that was when the rest of the two-hundred-strong B’wa Kell squadron thundered down the perpendicular corridor.
‘That wasn’t so hard,’ mimicked the commander, curling his fingers into fists.
Artemis’s concentration was failing him. There seemed to be more sparks now, and each shock disrupted his focus. He had lost count twice. He was at fifty-four now. Or fifty-six. The difference was life or death.
He trawled ahead, reaching out one arm and then the other, swimming through a turgid sea of gel. Vision was next to useless. Everything was orange. And the only confirmation he had that any progress was being made was when his knee sank into a recess, where the plasma diverted into a cannon.
Artemis punched one last time through the gel, filling his lungs with stale air — sixty-three. That was it. Soon the air purifiers in his helmet would be useless and he would be breathing carbon dioxide.
He placed his fingertips against the pipe’s inner curve, searching for a keyhole. Again his eyes were no help. He couldn’t even activate the helmet lamps for fear of igniting a river of plasma.
Nothing. No indent. He was going to die here alone. He would never be great. Artemis felt his brain going, spiralling off into a black tunnel.
Concentrate, he told himself. Focus. There was a spark approaching. A silver star in the sunset. It coiled lazily along the tube, lighting each section it passed.
There! A hole. The hole. Revealed for a moment by the passing spark.
Artemis reached into his pocket like a drunken swimmer, pulling out the dwarf hair. Would it work? There was no reason this access port should have a different locking mechanism.
Artemis slid the hair into the keyhole. Gently. He squinted through the gel. Was it going in? He thought so. Perhaps sixty per cent sure. It would have to be enough.
Artemis twisted. The flap dropped open. He imagined Mulch’s grin.
That, my boy, is talent.
It was quite possible that every enemy he had in the underworld was waiting outside that hatch, big nasty guns pointed at his head. At that point,
Artemis didn’t much care. He couldn’t bear one more of his own oxygen-depleted breaths or one more excruciating shock to his body.
So, Artemis Fowl poked his helmet through the plasma’s surface. He flipped the visor, savouring what could very well be his last breath. Lucky for him, the room’s occupants were looking at the view screen.
Watching his friends fight for their lives. Not so lucky for his friends.
There are too many, thought Butler as he rounded the corner and saw almost an entire army of B’wa Kell slotting fresh batteries into their weapons.
The goblins, when they noticed Butler, began to think things like, O gods, it’s a troll in clothes; or, why didn’t I listen to Mummy and stay out of the gangs?
Then Butler was above them and on the way down. He landed like the proverbial tonne of bricks, except
