Artemis Fowl: the time paradox

up forever and a day.

The double doors led to a long, triple-height laboratory. It was a place of misery. Cages were stacked to the ceiling, each one filled with a trapped animal. They moaned and keened, rattling their bars, butting the doors. A robot food-pellet dispensing machine whirred along the network, spitting grey pellets into the appropriate cages.

The centre island was a series of operating pallets. Scores of animals lay sedated on the tables, secured, like Artemis, with rigid Octobonds. Artemis caught sight of a Siberian tiger, paws in the air and bald patches shaved into its skull. On each patch, there sat what looked like a tiny slice of liver. As they passed, one of the slices made a squelching sound and a tiny light-emitting diode on its ridge flashed red.

Merv stopped to peel it off and Artemis saw to his horror that the thing’s underside was spiked with a dozen dripping spines.

‘Full to the brim, Mister Super Genetically Modified Leech Mosquito thing. You are a disgusting abomination, yes you are. But you sure know how to siphon brain fluid. I’d say you’re due a squeezing.’

Merv pumped a foot pedal to open a nearby fridge and finger-tinkled the beakers inside until he found the right one.

‘Here we go. SibTig BF.’

He placed the beaker on a chrome work surface, then squeezed the leech like a sponge until it surrendered its bounty of brain fluid. Afterwards the leech was casually tossed into the trash.

‘Love you lots,’ said Mervall, returning to Artemis’s pallet. ‘Miss you loads.’

Artemis saw everything through the slit of a closed eye. This was a depraved, horrible place and he had to get out of here.

Holly will come for me, he thought, and then, No, she won’t. She’ll think I’m dead.

This realization chilled his blood.

I went into the flames.

He would have to save himself, then. It would not be the first time. Stay alert, a chance will come and you must be ready to take it.

Mervall found room on the operating section and parked Artemis neatly in it.

‘And he squeezes it into an impossible space. They said it couldn’t be done. They were wrong. Mervall Brill is the king of trolley parking.’ The pixie belched. ‘Which is not the future I had in mind for myself as a younger pixie.’

Then, somewhat moodily, he trawled a low-level aquarium with a perforated jug until it was full of convulsing super leeches.

Oh no, thought Artemis. Oh, please.

And then he was forced to close his eyes as Mervall turned to face him.

Surely he will see my chest heaving. He will sedate me, and it will all be over.

But Mervall apparently did not notice.

‘Ooh, I hate you guys. Disgusting. I tell you something, human, if your subconscious can hear me, be glad you’re asleep, because you do not want to go through this awake.’

Artemis almost cracked then. But he thought of his mother, with less than a day left to her, and he kept silent.

He felt his left hand being tugged, and heard Mervall grunt.

‘Stuck tight. Just a tick.’

The grip loosened and Artemis tracked Mervall’s movement with his ears and nose. A brush of soft belly on his elbow. Breath blowing past his ear. Mervall was at his left shoulder, reaching across.

Artemis opened his right eye just enough, and rolled his pupil into the slit. There was a theatre light directly overhead, craned in above the operating table on a thick, flat chrome arm.

Chrome. Reflective.

Artemis watched Mervall’s actions in the surface. The pixie tapped the Octobond’s touch-sensitive control pad, revealing a Gnommish keyboard. Then, singing a popular pixie pop song, he tapped in his password. One number with each beat of the chorus.

‘Pixies rock hard!’ he sang. ‘Extreme pixie hard rock, baby.’

Which seemed unlikely to Artemis, but he was glad of the song as it gave him time to file Mervall’s passcode.

Mervall released one of the bonds, allowing him to extend Artemis’s forearm. Even if the human did happen to wake up, all he could do was flail.

‘Now, my little leech, do your nasty work for Aunt Opal, and I will reward you by squeezing your innards into a bucket.’ He sighed. ‘Why are all my best lines wasted on annelids.’

Then he plucked a leech from the jug, pinched it to make the spines stick out and slapped it on to Artemis’s exposed wrist.

Artemis felt nothing but an immediate sense of well-being.

I’m being sedated, he realized. An old troll trick. Cheer you up before you die. It’s a good ploy and anyway, how bad can dying be? My life has been one trial after another.

Mervall was checking his chronometer. His brother had been in that recycling cage behind the galley for an awfully long time. That red river hog might decide to have himself a bite of pixie meat.

‘I’ll just check,’ he decided. ‘Be back before the leech is full. First blood, then brain. You should have complimented Miss Opal’s boots, brother.’

And off he toddled down the centre aisle, plucking the mesh of each cage as he passed, driving the animals wild.

‘Pixies rock hard!’ he sang. ‘Extreme pixie hard rock, baby.’

?

Artemis was finding it hard to motivate himself. It felt so easy lying on the pallet, just letting all his troubles run out of his arm.

When you decide to die, Artemis thought sluggishly, it doesn’t matter how many people want to kill you.

He did wish the animals would calm down. Their chattering and chirping were interfering with his mood.

There was even a parrot somewhere squawking a phrase.

‘Who’s your momma?’ it asked over and over again. ‘Who’s your momma?’

My momma is Angeline. She’s dying.

Artemis’s eyes opened.

Momma. Mother.

He lifted his free arm and bashed the unwelcome leech against one of the Octobonds. It exploded in a spatter of mucus and blood, leaving half a dozen spines jutting from Artemis’s arms like the spears of tiny soldiers.

That’s going to hurt eventually.

Artemis’s throat was dry, his neck was twisted and his vision was impaired, but, even so, it took him barely a minute to activate the keypad with Mervall’s code and retract the bonds.

If these are alarmed, I’m in trouble.

But there was no klaxon. No pixies came running.

I have time. But not much.

He picked the spines from his skin, wincing not from pain, but from the sight of the red-rimmed holes in his wrist. A rivulet of blood ran from each wound, but it was slow and watery. He would not bleed to death.

Coagulent in the spines. Of course.

Artemis zombie-walked across the lab, gradually straightening out the kinks. There were hundreds of eyes on him. The animals were silent now, noses, beaks or snouts pressed against the wire mesh, waiting to see what would develop. The only sound came from the food-pellet robot zipping through its routine.

All I need to do is escape. No need for confrontation or saving the world. Leave Opal be, and run away.

But, of course, in the world of Artemis Fowl things are rarely straightforward. Artemis donned network