Artemis Fowl_ The Arctic Incident - Eoin Colfer [74]
‘That wasn’t so hard,’ mimicked the commander, curling his fingers into fists.
Artemis’s concentration was failing him. There seemed to be more sparks now, and each shock disrupted his focus. He had lost count twice. He was at fifty-four now. Or fifty-six. The difference was life or death.
He trawled ahead, reaching out one arm and then the other, swimming through a turgid sea of gel. Vision was next to useless. Everything was orange. And the only confirmation he had that any progress was being made was when his knee sank into a recess, where the plasma diverted into a cannon.
Artemis punched one last time through the gel, filling his lungs with stale air – sixty-three. That was it. Soon the air purifiers in his helmet would be useless and he would be breathing carbon dioxide.
He placed his fingertips against the pipe’s inner curve, searching for a keyhole. Again his eyes were no help. He couldn’t even activate the helmet lamps for fear of igniting a river of plasma.
Nothing. No indent. He was going to die here alone. He would never be great. Artemis felt his brain going, spiralling off into a black tunnel. Concentrate, he told himself. Focus. There was a spark approaching. A silver star in the sunset. It coiled lazily along the tube, lighting each section it passed.
There! A hole. The hole. Revealed for a moment by the passing spark. Artemis reached into his pocket like a drunken swimmer, pulling out the dwarf hair. Would it work? There was no reason this access port should have a different locking mechanism.
Artemis slid the hair into the keyhole. Gently. He squinted through the gel. Was it going in? He thought so. Perhaps sixty per cent sure. It would have to be enough.
Artemis twisted. The flap dropped open. He imagined Mulch’s grin. That, my boy, is talent.
It was quite possible that every enemy he had in the underworld was waiting outside that hatch, big nasty guns pointed at his head. At that point, Artemis didn’t much care. He couldn’t bear one more of his own oxygen-depleted breaths or one more excruciating shock to his body.
So, Artemis Fowl poked his helmet through the plasma’s surface. He flipped the visor, savouring what could very well be his last breath. Lucky for him, the room’s occupants were looking at the view screen. Watching his friends fight for their lives. Not so lucky for his friends.
There are too many, thought Butler as he rounded the corner and saw almost an entire army of B’ wa Kell slotting fresh batteries into their weapons.
The goblins, when they noticed Butler, began to think things like, O gods, it’s a troll in clothes; or, why didn’t I listen to Mummy and stay out of the gangs?
Then Butler was above them and on the way down. He landed like the proverbial tonne of bricks, except with considerably more precision. Three goblins were out cold before they knew they’d been hit. One shot himself in the foot and several others lay down pretending to be unconscious.
Artemis watched it all on the control room’s plasma screen. Along with all the other occupants of the inner sanctum. It was entertainment to them. TV. The goblin generals chuckled and winced as Butler decimated their men. It was all immaterial. There were hundreds of goblins in the building and no way into this room.
Artemis had seconds to decide on a course of action. Seconds. And he had no idea how to use any of this technology. He scanned the walls below him for something he could use. Anything.
There. On a small picture-in-picture screen, away from the main console, was Foaly. Trapped in the Operations’ booth. The centaur would have a plan. He had certainly had time to come up with one. Artemis knew that as soon as he emerged from the conduit he was a target. They would kill him without hesitation.
He dragged himself from within the tube, falling to Earth with a thick slap. His saturated clothes slowed his progress to the monitor bank. Heads were turning, he could see them out the corner of his eye. Figures came his way. He didn