The Artemis Fowl Files - Eoin Colfer [13]
Turnball rose, towering above his helpless brother. “Who is the smart one?” he shouted at his stricken brother. “Who has always been the smart one?” Root could not answer. All he could do was try to marshal his thoughts. It was too late for his body: that had betrayed him.
“Jealousy,” proclaimed Turnball, spreading his arms. “This has always been about jealousy. I am better than you in every way, and you can’t handle it.” The madness was in his eyes now, and flecks of spittle spattered onto his chin and cheeks.
Root managed two words: “You’re insane.”
“No,” said Turnball. “What I am is fed up. I am fed up with running away from my own brother. The whole thing is too melodramatic. So, much as it pains me to do it, I am going to take your edge away from you. I am going to take your magic. Then you will be like me. I’ve already started, would you like to know how?”
Turnball took a tiny remote control from the pocket of his great coat. He pressed a button, and glass walls shimmered into view all round the brothers. They were no longer outside in the garden, they were inside a conservatory. Root had entered through open double doors. “Naughty, Commander,” admonished Turnball. “You entered a human dwelling without an invitation. That is against the rules of our religion. You do that a few more times, and your magic will be gone forever.”
Root’s head hung lower. He had waltzed into Turnball’s trap, like a raw recruit two days out of the Academy. His brother had rigged a few sheets of cam foil and some projectors to disguise the conservatory, and he had fallen for it. His only hope now was Holly Short. And if Turnball had outwitted Captain Kelp and himself, what chance did a girl have?
Turnball grabbed Root by the scruff of the neck, dragging him toward the house. “You don’t look so well,” he said, his voice loaded with false concern. “We’d better get you inside.”
CHAPTER 5: CAREER OR COMRADES?
HOLLY watched the commander’s capture from the ridge. When Root went down, she jumped to her feet and sprinted down the hillside, fully prepared to disobey her orders and go to the commander’s aid. Then the conservatory shimmered into view, stopping Holly in her tracks. She would be of no use inside the house boundaries, unless she could somehow save the commander by vomiting. There had to be another way.
Holly turned, crawling back uphill on all fours, digging her fingers into the earth, dragging herself toward the wood. Once under cover, she activated the locator in the shuttle’s starter chip. Her orders were to return to the craft and send a distress signal. Eventually it would penetrate the jammer’s waffle. Though by then, it would probably be too late.
She ran across the wild fields, rough grass grabbing at her boots. Birds circled overhead, their desperate cackling somehow echoing her own mood. The wind pushed in her face, slowing her pace. Even nature seemed to be against the LEP on this day.
The locator beep led her across a thigh-high stream. The freezing waters slashed through gaps in Holly’s suit, pouring over her legs. She ignored it, and a trout the size of her arm who seemed very interested in the material of her suit. She battled on, over a human-size stile and up a steep hill. Low-lying fog sat on the hilltop like whipped cream on a wedge of cake.
Holly could smell the fog before she reached it. It was chemical. Manufactured. The shuttle was obviously inside the cloud bank.
With the last vestiges of her strength, Holly batted aside sheets of clinging fake fog and remote-activated the shuttle door. She collapsed inside, lying prone on the bay doors for a brief moment, drawing in huge breaths. Then she clambered to her feet and slapped the emergency button on the dash, activating the emergency beam.
The beam icon winked on, followed by a huge anticlimax. All Holly could do was sit there watching failure messages flash onto the plasma screen. Here she was, sitting on millions of ingots’ worth of technology,