Artemis Fowl: the time paradox

Four men sat in the sauna’s outer room, feeling very smug that they had once again outwitted island authorities and managed to sneak a free sauna before work. It did help that one of the men was Uunisaari’s security guard and had access to the keys and a little five-horsepower punt that accommodated the four friends and a bucket of Karjala beer.

‘Good temperature in the sauna today,’ said one.

A second wiped the steam from his glasses. ‘A little hot, I thought. In fact, even here it feels hot underfoot.’

‘Go jump in the Baltic, then,’ said the guard, miffed at this lack of appreciation for his efforts. ‘That will cool down your poor pinkies.’

‘Don’t pay any attention to him,’ said the fourth man, fastening his watch. ‘He has sensitive feet. Always some temperature problem.’

The men, friends since childhood, laughed and swigged their beers. The laughing and swigging ceased abruptly when a section of the roof suddenly caught fire and disintegrated.

The guard coughed out a mouthful of beer. ‘Was someone smoking? I said no smoking!’

Even if one of his sauna buddies had answered, the guard would not have heard, as he had somehow managed to fly through the hole in the roof.

‘My toes are really hot,’ said the bespectacled man, as if hanging on to old topics of conversation might make new ones go away.

The others ignored him, busy doing what men generally do in dangerous times — putting on their trousers.

There was no time for introductions or doors, so Holly drew her Neutrino sidearm, carved a two-metre hole in the roof and was treated to the sight of four pale, semi-dressed Mud Men quivering in sudden fright.

I’m not surprised they’re quivering, she thought. And that’s only the beginning.

As she flew, she worked on her problem: how to get four humans out of the blast zone in as many minutes.

Until recently she would have had a second problem: the building itself. According to the fairy Book, fairies were forbidden to enter human buildings without an invitation. This was a ten-thousand-year-old hex that still had a little sting, causing nausea and loss of power to anyone who defied it. The law was an anachronism and a serious impediment to LEP operations, so after a series of public debates and a referendum the hex had been lifted by demon warlock N^o1. It had taken the little demon five minutes to unravel a hex that had stumped elfin warlocks for centuries.

Back to the original problem. Four large humans. Big explosion imminent.

The first one was easy enough and the obvious choice. He was blocking the others and wore nothing but a towel and a tiny security guard’s cap, which perched on top of his skull like a nut shell on the head of a bear.

Holly grimaced. I have to get him out of my sight as soon as possible, or I may never forget this image. That Mud Man has more muscles than a troll.

Troll! Of course.

There had been several additions to the Recon kit while Holly had been in Limbo, most invented and patented by Foaly, naturally. One such addition was a new clip of darts for her Neutrino. The centaur called them anti-gravity darts, but the officers called them Floaters.

The darts were based on Foaly’s own Moonbelt, which generated a field around whatever was attached to it, reducing the Earth’s gravitational pull to one-fifth of normal. The Moonbelt was useful for transporting heavy equipment. Field officers quickly adapted the belt to their own specialized needs, attaching their prisoners to the pitons, which made them much easier to handle.

Foaly had then developed a dart that had the same effect as his Moonbelt. The dart used the fugitive’s own flesh to conduct the charge that rendered him almost weightless. Even a troll seems less threatening when it is bobbing in the breeze like a balloon.

Holly slipped the clip from her belt, using the heel of one hand to ram it into the Neutrino.

Darts, she thought. Back to the Stone Age.

The big security guard was square in her sights, his lip wobbling petulantly.

No need for laser sights with this Mud Man, she thought. I could hardly miss.

And she didn’t. The tiny dart pricked the man’s shoulder and he quivered for a moment until the anti-gravity field encircled him.

‘Ooh,’ he said. ‘That’s a little-’

Then Holly had landed beside him, grasped his pale thigh and hurled him into the sky. He went, faster than a popped balloon, leaving a trail of surprised o’s in his wake.

The remaining men hurriedly finished pulling on their trousers. Two tripped in their haste, banging heads before crashing to the ground. Plates of tomato-and-mozzarella rolls were batted aside; bottles of beer went spinning across the tiles.

‘My sandwiches,’ said one man, even as he struggled with his purple jeans.

No time for panic, thought Holly, silent and invisible among them. She ducked low, avoiding pale swinging limbs, and quickly loosed off three more darts.

A strange calm descended on the sauna as three grown men found themselves floating towards a hole in the roof.

‘My feet are-’ began the bespectacled man.

‘Shut up about your feet!’ shouted sandwich man, swiping at him with a fist. The motion sent him spinning and bouncing like a pinball.

Foaly overrode Holly’s mute.

‘D’Arvit, Holly. You have seconds. Seconds! Get out of there now! Even your suit armour will not stop an explosion of this magnitude.’

Holly’s face was red and sweating in spite of her helmet’s climate control.

Seconds left. How many times have I heard that?

No time for subtleties. She lay flat on her back, tapping the readout on her Neutrino to select concussion beams, and fired a wide pattern blast straight up.

The beam bore the men aloft, as a fast-flowing river would bear bubbles, bouncing them off the walls and each other before finally popping them through the still-sparking circle in the roof.

?

The last man out looked down as he left, wondering absently why he was not gibbering in panic. Surely flying was grounds for hysteria?

That will probably come later, he decided. If there is a later for me.

In the steam of the sauna, it seemed to him that there was a small humanoid shape lying on the floor. A diminutive figure with wings that leaped to its feet, then sped towards the flying men.

It’s all true, thought the man. Just like Lord of the Rings. Fantasy creatures. All true.

Then the island exploded, and the man stopped worrying about fantasy creatures and began worrying about his trousers, which had just caught fire.

With all four men in the air, Holly decided that it was time to get herself as far from the supposed island as possible. She jumped from a squatting position, engaged her wings in the air and shot into the morning sky.

‘Very nice,’ said Foaly. ‘You know they’re calling that move the Hollycopter, don’t you?’

Holly drew her weapon, urging the weightless men further away from the island with short bursts.

‘Busy staying alive, Foaly. Talk later.’

Foaly said, ‘Sorry, friend. I’m worried. I talk when I’m worried. Caballine thinks it’s a defence mechanism.