with considerably more precision. Three goblins were out cold before they knew they’d been hit. One shot himself in the foot and several others lay down pretending to be unconscious.
Artemis watched it all on the control room’s plasma screen. Along with all the other occupants of the inner sanctum. It was entertainment to them. TV.
The goblin generals chuckled and winced as Butler decimated their men. It was all immaterial. There were hundreds of goblins in the building and no way into this room.
Artemis had seconds to decide on a course of action. Seconds. And he had no idea how to use any of this technology. He scanned the walls below him for something he could use. Anything.
There. On a small picture-in-picture screen, away from the main console, was Foaly. Trapped in the Operations’ booth. The centaur would have a plan. He had certainly had time to come up with one. Artemis knew that as soon as he emerged from the conduit he was a target. They would kill him without hesitation.
He dragged himself from within the tube, falling to Earth with a thick slap. His saturated clothes slowed his progress to the monitor bank. Heads were turning, he could see them out the corner of his eye. Figures came his way. He didn’t know how many.
There was a reed mike below Foaly’s image. Artemis pressed the button.
‘Foaly!’ he rasped, globs of gel splatting on to the console.’Can you hear me?’
The centaur reacted instantly. ‘Fowl? What happened to you?’
‘Five seconds, Foaly. I need a plan or we’re all dead.’
Foaly nodded curtly. ‘I’ve got one ready. Put me on all screens.’
‘What? How?’
‘Press the conference button. Yellow. A circle with lines shooting out, like the sun. Do you see it?’
Artemis saw it. He pressed it. Then something pressed him. Very painfully.
General Scalene first noticed the creature flopping out of the plasma pipe. What was it? A pixie? No. No, by all the gods. It was human.
‘Look!’ he cackled. ‘A Mud Man.’
The others were oblivious, too interested in the spectacle on-screen.
But not Cudgeon. A human in the inner sanctum. How could this be? He seized Scalene by the shoulders. ‘Kill him!’
All the generals were listening now. There was killing to be done. With no danger to themselves.They would do this the old-fashioned way: with claws and fireballs.
The human stumbled to one of the consoles and they surrounded him, tongues dangling excitedly. Sputa spun the human around to face his fate.
One by one, the generals conjured fireballs around their fists, closing in for the kill. But then something made them completely forget the injured human. Cudgeon’s face had appeared on all the screens. And the B’wa Kell executive didn’t like what it was saying:
‘— Just when things are at their most desperate, I shall instruct Opal to return weapons control to the LEP. The B’wa Kell will be rendered unconscious, and you will be blamed for the entire affair, provided you survive, which I doubt — ’
Sputa whirled on his ally. ‘Cudgeon! What does this mean?’
The generals advanced, hissing and spitting. ‘Treachery, Cudgeon! Treachery!’
Cudgeon was not unduly worried. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Treachery.’
It took Cudgeon a moment to figure out what had happened. It was
Foaly. He must have recorded their conversation somehow. How tiresome.
Still, you had to hand it to the centaur. He was resourceful.
Cudgeon quickly crossed to the main console, shutting off the broadcast. It wouldn’t do for Opal to hear the rest of it. Particularly the part concerning her tragic accident. He really would have to cut out this grandstanding. Still, no matter. Everything was on track.
‘Treachery!’ hissed Scalene.
‘OK,’ admitted Cudgeon. ‘Treachery.’ And directly after that he said,
‘Computer, activate DNA cannons. Authorization Cudgeon B. Alpha alpha two two.’
On her hover chair, Opal spun with sheer joy, clapping her tiny hands in delight. Briar was sooo ugly, but he was sooo evil.
Throughout Koboi Labs, robot DNA cannons perked up in their cradles and ran swift self-diagnostics. Apart from a slight drain in the inner sanctum, everything was in order. And so, without further ado, they began to obey their program parameters and target anything with goblin DNA at a rate often blasts per second.
It was swift and, as with everything Koboi, efficient. In less than five seconds, the cannons settled back into their cradles. Mission accomplished: two hundred unconscious goblins throughout the facility.
‘Phew,’ said Holly, stepping over rows of snoring goblins. ‘Close one.’
‘Tell me about it,’ agreed Root.
Cudgeon kicked Sputa’s sleeping body.
‘You see, you haven’t accomplished anything, Artemis Fowl,’ he said, drawing his Redboy.
‘Your friends are out there. You’re in here. And the goblins are unconscious, soon to be mind-wiped with some particularly unstable chemicals. Just as I planned.’ He smiled at Opal hovering above them. ‘Just as we planned.’
Opal returned the smile.
At another time, Artemis would have been forced to pass a snide comment. But the possibility of imminent death was occupying his thoughts for the moment.
‘Now, I simply reprogram the cannons to target your friends, return power to the LEP cannons, and take over the world. And nobody can get in here to stop me.’
Of course, you should never say something like that, especially when you’re an arch-villain. It’s just asking for trouble.
Butler hurried down the corridor, catching up with the others outside the inner sanctum. He could see Artemis’s predicament through the door’s quartz pane. In spite of all his efforts, Master Artemis had still managed to place himself in mortal danger. How was a bodyguard supposed to do his job when his charge insisted on jumping into bear pits, so to speak?
Butler felt the testosterone building in his system. One door was all that separated him from Artemis. One little door, designed to withstand fairies with ray guns. He took several steps backwards.
Holly could tell what he was thinking. ‘Don’t bother. That door is reinforced.’
The manservant didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The real Butler was submerged beneath layers of adrenalin and brute force.
With a roar, Butler charged the entrance, concentrating all of his considerable might in the triangular point of his shoulder. It was a blow that would have felled a medium-sized hippopotamus. And while this door was tested for plasma dispersion and moderate physical resistance, it was certainly not Butler-proof. The metal portal crumpled like tin foil.
Butler’s momentum took him halfway across the inner sanctum’s rubber tiling. Holly and Root followed, pausing only to grab some Softnose lasers from the unconscious goblins.
Cudgeon moved fast, dragging Artemis upright. ‘Don’t move, any of you. Or I’ll kill the Mud Boy.’
Butler kept right on going. His last rational thought had been to disable Cudgeon. Now this was his sole aim in life. He raced forward, arms outstretched.
Holly dived desperately, latching on to Butler’s belt. He dragged her like a string of cans behind a wedding car.
‘Butler, stop,’ she grunted.
The bodyguard ignored her.
Holly hung on, digging in her heels. ‘Stop!’ she repeated, this time layering her voice with the mesmer.
Butler seemed to wake up. He shook the cave man from his system.
‘That’s right, Mud Man,’ said Cudgeon. ‘Listen to Captain Short. Surely we can work something out here.’
‘No deals, Briar,’ said Root. ‘It’s all over, so just put the Mud Boy down.’
Cudgeon cocked the Redboy. Til put him down all right.’
