Artemis Fowl: the time paradox

all the alarms with the director’s key card. Earlier in the day, when he had been given the guided tour, he had posed several complicated questions on the validity of the theory of evolution. The director, a committed evolutionist, had allowed his arguments to distract him long enough to have his pocket picked by Butler. Once the key card was in the bodyguard’s possession, he simply slotted it into a battery-powered Card Cloner in his breast pocket, and whistled a few bars of Mozart to cover the whirr of the machine.

Two minutes later all the information they needed was stored in the Cloner’s memory, the director’s card was back in his pocket and Artemis suddenly decided that maybe evolution wasn’t a bad theory after all.

‘Though there are more holes in it than a Dutch dam made of Swiss cheese,’ he’d confided to Butler on the way home from Rathdown Park. Butler had been encouraged by this statement. It was almost a straightforward joke.

Later that evening young Artemis had popped a button camera into the air-con duct at the rear of the Bentley.

All the better to keep an eye on our guests.

The female was interesting. Fascinating, actually. The darts would wear off soon and it would be intriguing to watch her reaction, much more so than that of the hirsute teenager, even though his broad forehead suggested intelligence and his general features had a lot in common with the Fowl family’s own. In fact, he reminded Artemis of an old photo he had once seen of his father as a boy, working on an archaeological dig in South America. Perhaps the male captive was a distant cousin hoping to claim some kind of birthright now that Father was missing. There was much to be investigated here.

The button camera was broadcasting to his mobile phone and ten-year-old Artemis checked the screen occasionally as Butler guided him through Rathdown Park towards the lemur’s cage.

‘Focus, Artemis,’ chided the bodyguard. ‘One dastardly crime at a time.’

Artemis glanced up from his phone. ‘Dastardly, Butler? Dastardly? Honestly, we are not cartoon characters. I do not have a villainous laugh or an eyepatch.’

‘Not yet. Though you’ll have an eyepatch soon enough if you don’t concentrate on the job at hand.’

They were passing underneath Rathdown Park’s aquarium through a perspex tunnel that allowed scientists and the occasional visitor to observe the species housed in the million-gallon tank. The tank mimicked the inhabitants’ natural environment as far as possible. Different compartments had different temperatures and different vegetation. Some were saltwater, others were fresh, but all housed endangered or rare creatures.

Tiny bulbs dotted the ceiling above, simulating stars, and the only other light came from the bioluminescence of a lantern shark, which shadowed Artemis and Butler along the tunnel until its snout bumped perspex.

Artemis was more interested in his mobile phone than the shark’s eerily glowing photophores.

Events were unfolding on his screen that were close to incredible. Artemis stopped in his tracks to fully absorb what he was seeing.

The Fowl Manor intruders had escaped the Bentley’s boot with the help of an accomplice. Another non- human.

I am entering a new world here. These creatures are potentially more lucrative than a lemur. Should I abandon this venture and concentrate on the non-humans?

Artemis maximized the volume on his handset but the tiny microphone attached to the button camera could only pick up snatches of the conversation.

It was mostly in some alien tongue, but some of the talk was in English and he heard the word lemur more than once.

Perhaps this lemur is more valuable than I realized. The animal is the bait that lures these creatures in.

A minute passed with only the small, revolting dwarflike thing in the screen, perching its disproportionately large backside on the rim of the boot, then the female appeared, only to promptly disappear — Rathdown Park’s famous pylons filling the screen where she had been.

Artemis tightened his grip on the phone.

Invisibility? The energy involved in creating a reflective field, or to generate high-speed vibration, must be incredible.

He quickly navigated the phone’s menu and activated the digital thermal imager, a decidedly non-standard option, and was relieved to see the female creature’s form blossom on screen in warm tones.

Good. Not gone, just hard to see.

Keeping one eye on his phone, Artemis called to his bodyguard.

‘Butler, old friend. Slight change of plan.’

The bodyguard knew better than to hope the lemur hunt was off. ‘We’re still on the trail of a little creature, though, I’ll bet.’

‘Creatures,’ said ten-year-old Artemis. ‘Plural.’

Fourteen-year-old Artemis was not enjoying the view. To distract himself he composed a haiku describing the sight before him.

Pale, shuddering globes

Churn their poisonous cargo

Bald heads in a bag

Mulch Diggums was not feeling quite so poetic. He stopped digging and rehinged his jaw.

‘Could you please stop shining the torch on my backside? I blister easily. We dwarves are extremely photosensitive, even to artificial light.’

Artemis had taken the torch from the Bentley’s breakdown kit, and was following Mulch through a fresh tunnel to the lemur’s cage. The dwarf had assured him that the tunnel was sufficiently short for him to hold in the dirt and air until they reached the other end, making it safe for Artemis to be directly behind him.

Artemis averted the torch for a few seconds, thinking that a bum blister was the last thing he wanted to see, but after a while the beam strayed back to the pale, wobbling flesh once more.

‘Just a quick question. If you can hold in all the diggings, then why does your bum-flap need to be open?’

Mulch was spitting large wads of dwarf phlegm on to the wall to shore up the tunnel.

‘In case of emergency,’ he explained. ‘I could swallow a buried lug of metal, or strip of old tyre. Now, those I would have to evacuate on the spot, annoying Mud Boy to the rear or not. No sense in ruining my trousers too, now is there, dopey?’

‘I suppose not,’ said Artemis, thinking that with such a wide-bore loaded weapon pointed at him he could bear being called dopey.

‘Anyway,’ continued the dwarf, hawking another wad at the wall, ‘you should consider yourself privileged. Not many humans have seen a dwarf working with spit. This is what you might call an ancient art. First you-’

‘I know, I know,’ interrupted Artemis impatiently. ‘First you excavate, then you strengthen the walls with your spittle, which hardens on contact with the air, provided it’s out of your mouth, obviously. And it’s luminous too — amazing material.’

Mulch’s behind wobbled in surprise. ‘How do you know these secrets?’

‘You told me, or rather you will tell me. Time travel, remember?’

The dwarf peered over his shoulders, eyes red in the glow of his spittle. ‘Just how close do we become?’

‘Very close. We get an apartment together and after a whirlwind courtship you marry my sister and honeymoon in Vegas.’

‘I love Vegas,’ said Mulch wistfully. Then: ‘Such snide wit. I can see how we might be friends. All the same, keep your comments to yourself or we might have to see how funny you are covered in tunnel waste.’

Artemis swallowed hard and moved the torch beam away from Mulch’s behind.

The plan was a simple one. They would tunnel beneath the compound and wait below the lemur’s cage for Holly to contact them on the short-range LEP adhesive communicator stuck to Artemis’s cheek — part of Mulch’s stash. From that point forward, the plan became fluid. Either they would pop up and grab the lemur while Holly caused consternation among the animals, or, if young Artemis had already secured the lemur, Mulch would dig a hole under Butler, making it easier for Holly to relieve the boy of his prize.