Artemis Fowl: the time paradox

another.

Stupid tall elf, she thought furiously, righting herself. When I am queen — no — when I am empress, all tall fairies will have their legs modified. Or, better still, I will have a human pituitary gland grafted to my brain so that I shall be the tall one. A giant among fairies, physically and mentally.

She had other plans too: an Opalesque cosmetic face mould that could give any of her adoring fans the Koboi look in seconds. A homeopathic hoverchair covered in massage bars and mood sensors that would read her humour and spray whatever scents were needed to cheer her up.

But those plans could wait until she was empress. For now the lemur was her priority. Without its brain fluid, it could take years to accomplish her plans. Plus magic was so much easier than science.

Opal slotted Holly’s helmet on to her head. Pads inside the helmet automatically inflated to cradle her skull. There was some coded security, which she contemptuously hacked with a series of blinks and hand movements. These LEP helmets were not half as advanced as the models in her R amp;D department.

Once the hemet’s functions were open to her, the visor’s display crystals fizzled and turned scarlet. Red alert! Something was closing in. A 3D radar sweep revealed a small craft overhead, and recogniton software quickly pegged it as a human-built Cessna.

She quickly selected the command sequence for a thermal scan and the helmet infra-red detector analysed the electromagnetic radiation coming from inside the aircraft. There was some waffle from the solar panels but the scan isolated an orange blob in the pilot’s seat. One passenger only. The helmet’s biometric reader conveniently identified the pilot as Artemis Fowl, and dropped a 3D icon over his fuzzy figure.

‘One passenger,’ murmured Opal. ‘Are you trying to decoy me away from the house, Artemis Fowl? Is that why you fly so low?’

But Artemis Fowl knew technology, he would anticipate thermal-imaging.

‘What do you have up your sleeve?’ wondered the pixie. ‘Or perhaps up your shirt.’

She magnified Artemis’s heart and discovered a second heat source superimposed over the first, distinguishable only by a slightly cooler shade of red.

Even at that desperate moment, Opal could not help but admire this young human, who had attempted to mask the lemur’s heat signature with his own.

‘Clever. But not ingenious.’

And he would need to be ingenious to defeat Opal Koboi. Bringing back the second Artemis had been a neat trick, but she should have caught it.

I was defeated by my own arrogance, she realized. That will not happen again.

The helmet automatically tuned into the Cessna’s radio frequency and so Opal sent Artemis a little message.

‘I am coming for the lemur, boy,’ she said, a pulse of magic setting the suit’s wings a flutter. ‘And this time there will be no you to save you.’

Artemis could not feel or see the various waves that probed the Cessna, but he guessed that Opal would use the helmet’s thermal imager to see how many hot bodies were on the plane. Perhaps she would try X-ray too. It would seem as though he was trying to hide Jayjay’s heat signature with his own, but that was a transparent ploy and should not fool Opal for more than a heartbeat. When the pixie was satisified that her prize was escaping, then how could she not follow?

Artemis banked starboard, to keep Opal in the camera eye, and was satisfied to see a set of wings sliding from the slots in Holly’s suit.

The chase was on.

Time for the bait to pretend it was trying to escape.

Artemis peeled away from the estate, heading for the deep purple sea, opening the throttle wide, satisfied by the plane’s smooth acceleration. The batteries were channelling a steady supply of power to the engines without releasing one gram of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

He checked the tail camera view and was not totally surprised to find the flying pixie in his monitor.

Her control over the magic is addled by sedative, he guessed. Opal may have had barely enough power to jump-start the suit. But soon the dart’s after-effects will peter out and then there may be lightning bolts flaring across my wing.

Artemis turned south, following the jagged coast. The clamour and bustle of Dublin’s high-rise apartment blocks, belching chimneys and swarm of buzzing helicopters gave way to long stretches of grey rock shadowed by the north-south railtrack. The sea pushed against the shore, folding its million fingers over sand, scrub and shale.

Fishing boats chugged from buoy to buoy, trailing white sea-serpent wakes, sailors snagging lobster pots with long-handled gaffes. Fat clouds hung ponderously at four thousand metres, rain brewing in their bellies.

A peaceful evening, so long as no one looks up.

Though at this altitude, Opal’s blurred flying form could be mistaken for an eagle.

Artemis’s plan went smoothly for longer than he’d hoped. He made sixty miles without interference from Opal. Artemis allowed himself a glimmer of hope.

Soon, he thought. The LEP reinforcements will come soon.

Then his radio crackled into life.

‘Artemis? Are you there, Artemis?’

Butler. He sounded extremely calm, which he always did before he explained just how serious a situation was.

‘Butler, old friend, I’m here. Tell me the good news.’

The bodyguard sighed into his microphone, a breaking wave of static.

‘They’re not coming after the Cessna. You are not the priority.’

‘Number One is,’ said Artemis. ‘They need to get him below ground. I understand.’

‘Yes. Him and-’

‘Say no more, old friend,’ said Artemis sharply. ‘Opal is listening.’

‘The LEP are here, Artemis. I want you to turn round and fly back.’

‘No,’ said Artemis firmly. ‘I will not put Mother at risk again.’

Artemis heard a strange creaking sound and surmised that Butler was strangling the microphone stalk.

‘OK. Another location then. Somewhere we can dig ourselves in.’

‘Very well, I am on a southerly heading anyway, so why not-’

Artemis never completed his veiled suggestion as his channel was blocked by a deafening burst of white noise. The squawk left a droning aftershock in his ears, and for a moment he allowed the Cessna to drift.

No sooner had he regained control than a thudding blow to the fuselage caused him to lose it again.

Several red lights flashed on the display-plane solar-panel icon. At least ten panels had been shattered by the impact.

Artemis spared half a second to check the rear camera. Opal was no longer trailing behind. No surprise there.

The pixie’s voice burst through the radio speakers, sharp with petulance and evil intent.

‘I am strong now, Mud Boy,’ she said. ‘Your poison is gone, flushed from my system. My power grows and I am hungry for more.’

Artemis did not engage in conversation. All his skill and quick thinking would be needed to pilot the Cessna.

Opal struck again on the port wing, smashing her forearms into the solar panels, breaking them as a child would break sheets of ice in a pool, windmilling her arms gleefully, wings buzzing to keep pace. The plane bucked and yawed and Artemis fought the stick to pull the craft level.

She’s insane, thought Artemis. Utterly insane.

And.

Those panels are unique. And she calls herself a scientist.