Artemis Fowl_ The Opal Deception - Eoin Colfer [39]
Foaly felt the tears brimming on his eyelids. Not Holly too.
“Recall the Retrieval team? Are you insane, Sool? We have to find Holly. Find out what happened.”
Sool was unaffected by Foaly’s outburst. If anything, he appeared to enjoy it.
“Short was a traitor and she was obviously in collusion with the goblins. Somehow her nefarious plan backfired and she was killed. I want you to remote-activate the incinerator in her helmet immediately, and we’ll close the book on a rogue officer.”
Foaly was aghast. “Activate the remote incinerator! I can’t do that.”
Sool rolled his eyes. “Again with the opinions. You don’t have authority here; you just obey it.”
“But I’ll have a satellite picture in thirty minutes,” protested the centaur. “We can wait that long, surely.”
Sool elbowed past Foaly to the keyboard. “Negative. You know the regulations. No bodies are left exposed for the humans to find. It’s a tough rule, I know, but necessary.”
“The helmet could have malfunctioned,” said Foaly, grasping at straws.
“Is it likely that all the life-sign readings could have flatlined at the same moment through equipment failure?”
“No,” admitted Foaly.
“And just how unlikely is it?”
“About one chance in ten million,” said the technical adviser miserably.
Sool picked his way around the keyboard. “If you don’t have the stomach for it, centaur. I’ll do it myself.” He entered his password and detonated the incinerator in Holly’s helmet. On a rooftop in Munich, Holly’s helmet dissolved in a pool of acid. And in theory, so did Holly’s body.
“There,” said Sool, satisfied. “She’s gone, and now we can all sleep a little easier.”
Not me, thought Foaly, staring forlornly at the screen. It will be a very long time before I sleep easy again.
Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland
Artemis Fowl woke from a sleep haunted by nightmares. In his dreams, strange, red-eyed creatures had ripped open his chest with scimitar tusks and dined on his heart. He sat up in an undersized cot, both hands flying to his chest. His shirt was caked with dried blood, but there was no wound. Artemis took several deep shuddering breaths, pumping oxygen through his brain. Assess the situation, Butler always told him. If you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, become familiar with it before opening your mouth. Ten seconds of observation could save your life.
Artemis looked around, eyelids fluttering like camera shutters, absorbing every detail. He was in a small box room, about ten square feet. One wall was completely transparent and appeared to look out over the Dublin quays. From the position of the Millennium Bridge, the room was somewhere in the Temple Bar area. The chamber itself was constructed from a strange material. Some kind of silver-gray fabric. Rigid, but malleable, with several plasma screens on the opaque walls. It was all extremely hi-tech, but seemed years old, and almost abandoned.
In the corner, a girl sat hunched on folding chair. She cradled her head in both hands, her shoulders hitching gently with sobs.
Artemis cleared his throat. “Why are you crying, girl?”
The girl jerked upright, and it became immediately obvious that this was no normal girl. In fact, she appeared to belong to a totally different species.
“Pointed ears,” noted Artemis, with surprising composure. “Prosthetic or real?”
Holly almost smiled through her tears. “Typical Artemis Fowl. Always looking for options. My ears are very real, as you well know . . . knew.”
Artemis was silent for several moments, processing the wealth of information in those few sentences.
“Real pointed ears? Then you are of another species, not human. Possibly a fairy?”
Holly nodded. “I am a fairy. Actually, an elf. I’m what you would call a leprechaun too, but that’s just a job.”
“And fairies speak English, do they?”
“We speak all languages. The gift of tongues, it is part of our magic.”
Artemis knew that these revelations should