Artemis Fowl: the time paradox

though, just an envelope addressed to me. And inside a note asking me to come to this place and set you free.’

Artemis smiled. Satisfied. ‘I imagine there was an incentive offered for our rescue?’

Mulch’s beard hair crackled. ‘A large incentive. No… a stupendous incentive.’

‘Stupendous, eh? Very well, you shall have it.’

‘When?’ asked Mulch hungrily.

‘Soon. I just need you to do me one more favour.’

‘I knew it,’ said the dwarf, through grinding teeth. ‘Never do the job until you see the cash. Why should I trust you?’

Artemis took a step forward, eyes narrow behind a curtain of dark hair. ‘You don’t need to trust me, Mulch. You need to be afraid of me. I am a Mud Boy from your future and I could be in your past too, if you choose not to cooperate. I found you once, I could certainly do it again. The next time you break into a car boot, there could be a gun and a badge waiting for you.’

Mulch felt apprehension tingling in his beard hair, and his beard hair was rarely wrong. As his grandmother used to say: Trust the hair, Mulch. Trust the hair. This human was dangerous, and he had enough trouble in his life already.

‘OK, Mud Boy,’ he said grudgingly. ‘One more favour. And then you’d better have a stupendous amount of gold for me.’

‘I will. Fear not, my pungent friend.’

The dwarf was deeply offended. ‘Don’t call me friend. Just tell me. What. You. Want. Done.’

‘Simply follow your nature and dig us a tunnel. I need to steal a lemur.’

Mulch nodded as though lemur-napping was the most natural thing in the world.

‘And from whom are we stealing it?’

‘From me.’

Mulch frowned, then the penny dropped. ‘Ah… Time travel throws up all sorts of twists, doesn’t it?’

Holly slipped the Omnitool into her pocket. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said.

CHAPTER 7: TALK TO THE ANIMALS

RATHDOWN PARK

THE Fowl Bentley was protected by a fingerprint scanner and a keypad that required an eight-digit code. The code was changed every month, and so it took Artemis a few seconds to mentally rewind almost eight years and remember the right set of numbers.

He slid across the front seat’s tan leather upholstery and pressed his thumb to a second scanner tucked behind the steering wheel. A spring-loaded compartment slid smoothly from the dash. It was not a large compartment, but big enough to hold a clip of cash, platinum credit cards and a spare mobile phone in its cradle.

‘No gun?’ asked Holly when Artemis emerged from the car, though one of Butler’s guns would be clunky in her fingers.

‘No gun,’ confirmed Artemis.

‘I wouldn’t be able to hit an elephant with one of Butler’s pistols even if I had one.’

‘Elephants are not the quarry this evening,’ said Artemis, speaking in English, now that they were out of the boot. ‘Lemurs are. At any rate, as we could hardly shoot at our opponent on this particular adventure, perhaps it’s better that we are unarmed.’

‘Not really,’ said Holly. ‘I may not be able to shoot you or the lemur, but I bet that more opponents will turn up. You have a knack of making enemies.’

Artemis shrugged. ‘Genius inspires resentment. A sad fact of life.’

‘Genius and robbing stuff,’ Mulch chimed from his perch on the lip of the car boot. ‘Take it from one who knows: nobody likes a smart thief.’

Artemis drummed his fingers on the fender.

‘We have certain advantages. Elfin magic. Digging talents. I have almost eight years’ experience in the art of mischief making that the other Artemis does not have.’

‘Mischief making?’ scoffed Holly. ‘I think you’re being a little gentle on yourself. Grand larceny is closer to the mark.’

Artemis stopped drumming. ‘One of your fairy powers is speaking in tongues, correct?’

‘I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’ responded Holly.

‘Just how many tongues can you speak in?’

Holly smiled. She knew Artemis’s devious mind well enough to realize exactly where he was going with this.

‘As many as you want.’

‘Good,’ said Artemis. ‘We need to split up. You take the overground route into Rathdown Park, Mulch and I travel underground. If we need a distraction, use your gift.’

‘It would be a pleasure,’ said Holly, and immediately turned translucent as though she were a creature of purest water. The last thing to go was her smile. Just like the Cheshire Cat.

He remembered a few lines from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat. ‘We’re all mad here.’

Artemis glanced at the pungent dwarf searching his living beard for stored insects.

We’re all mad here too, he thought.

Holly approached the main door of Rathdown Park with care even though she was shielded. The People had thought themselves invisible to Butler once before and had paid with trauma and bruises. She would not underestimate the bodyguard, and the fact that he was once again her enemy set her stomach churning with nervous acid.

The human clothes jumped and scratched along her frame. They were not built for shielding and in a matter of minutes they would shake to pieces.

I miss my Neutrino, she thought, looking at the reinforced-steel door, with the dark unknown beyond it. And I miss Foaly and his satellite link-ups.

But at heart Holly was an adventurer, so the idea of quitting never even occurred to her.

It was difficult to operate mechanisms while shielded, so Holly powered down for the few seconds necessary to jimmy the door with her Omnitool. It was an old model, but Holly’s mother had paid an extra few ingots for upgrades. The standard Omnitool would open any door operating on a simple mechanical lock-and-key system. This one could short electronic locks too, and even deactivate simple alarms.

But that shouldn’t be necessary, she thought. As far as Artemis remembers, he turned off all the alarms.

The thought didn’t give her much comfort. Artemis had been wrong about this trip already.

In less than five seconds, the Omnitool had done its job and vibrated gently like a cat purring at its own cleverness. The heavy door swung open silently under the lightest touch and Holly buzzed up her shield again.

Stepping into Rathdown Park, Holly felt more mission anxiety than she had in years.

I’m a rookie again. Some kid straight out of the Academy, she realized. My mind is experienced, but my body is overruling it.

And then: I better get this monkey quick before adolescence kicks in.

Young Artemis had turned off the security on his way into the institute. It had been an easy thing to bypass