The Opal Deception Read online

  Koboi chuckled, the volume distorting her laugh through the bomb’s microspeakers. “World domination? You make it sound so unattainable. The first step is simplicity itself. All I have to do is put humans in contact with the People.”

  Holly felt her own troubles instantly slip away. “Put humans in contact with the People? Why would you do that?”

  Opal’s features lost their merry cast. “Because the LEP imprisoned me. They studied me like an animal in a cage, and now we shall see how they like it. There will be a war, and I will supply the humans with the weapons to win. And after they have won, my chosen nation will be the most powerful on earth. And I, inevitably, will become the most powerful person in that nation.”

  Holly almost screamed. “All this for a childish pixie’s revenge.”

  Seeing Holly’s discomfort cheered Opal immediately. “Oh no, I’m not a pixie anymore.” Koboi slowly unwound the bandages circling her head to reveal two surgically rounded humanoid ears. “I’m one of the Mud People now. I intend to be on the winning side. And my new daddy has an engineering company. And that company is sending down a probe.”

  “What probe?” shouted Holly. “What company?”

  Opal wagged a finger. “Oh no, enough explaining. I want you to die desolate and ignorant.” For one moment her face lost its false merriment, and Holly could see the hatred in her huge eyes. “You cost me a year of my life, Short. A year of a brilliant life. My time is too special to be wasted, especially answering to pathetic organizations like the LEP. Soon I will never have to answer to anyone, ever again.”

  Opal raised one hand into view. It was clutching a small remote. She pressed the red button. And as everyone knows, the red button can only mean one thing: Holly had milliseconds to come up with a plan. The monitor fizzled out, and a green light on the missile’s console winked red. The signal had been received. Detonation was imminent.

  Holly jumped up, hooking her helmet over the spherical bomb. She put her weight on the helmet, bearing it down. It was like trying to submerge a football. LEP helmets were composed of a rigid polymer that could deflect solinium flares. Of course, the rest of Holly’s suit was not rigid and could not protect her from the biobomb, but maybe the helmet would be enough.

  The bomb exploded, spinning the helmet into the air. Pure blue light gushed from the underside of the helmet, dissipating across the concrete. Ants and spiders hopped once, then their tiny hearts froze. Holly could feel her own heart speed up, battling against the deadly solinium. She held on for as long as she could, then the concussion bucked her off. The helmet spun away, and the fatal light was free.

  Holly flipped her wing-control to rise, reaching for the skies. The blue light was after her like a wall of death. It was a race now. Had she gained enough time and distance to outrun the bio-bomb?

  Holly felt her lips drag back across her teeth. G-force rippled the skin on her cheeks. She was counting on the fact that the bio-bomb’s active agent was light. This meant that it could be focused to a certain diameter. Koboi would not want to draw attention to her device by wiping out a city block. Holly alone was her target.

  Holly felt the light swipe her toes. A dreadful feeling of nothingness crept up her leg before the magic banished it. She streamlined her body, arcing her head back, folding her arms across her chest, willing the mechanical wings to accelerate her to safety.

  Suddenly the light dissipated. Flashed out, leaving only a dozen squirrelly flares in its wake. Holly had outrun the deadly light, with only minor injuries. Her legs felt weakened, but the sensation would recede shortly. Time enough to worry about that later. Now she had to return to the Lower Elements and somehow warn her comrades what Opal was planning.

  Holly glanced down at the roof. Nothing remained now to suggest she’d ever been there, except the remains of her helmet, which spun like a battered top. Generally, inanimate objects were not affected by bio-bombs, but the helmet’s reflective layer had bounced the light around internally so much that it had overheated. And once the helmet had shorted out, so had all Holly’s bio-readings. As far as the LEP or Opal Koboi were concerned, Captain Short’s helmet was no longer broadcasting her heartbeat or respiratory rate. She was officially dead. And being dead had possibilities.

  Something caught Holly’s eye. Far below, in the center of a cluster of maintenance buildings, several humans were converging on one hut. With her bird’s-eye view, Holly could see that the hut’s roof had been blown out. There were two figures lying in the roof timbers. One was huge, a veritable giant. The other, closer to her own size. A boy. Artemis and Butler. Could they have survived?

  Holly threw her legs up behind her, diving steeply toward the crash site. She did not shield, conserving her magic. It looked as though every spark of healing power she possessed would be needed, so she would have to trust speed and her revolutionary suit to keep her hidden.

  The other humans were several feet away, picking their way through the debris. They looked curious rather than angry. Still, it was vital that Holly get Artemis away from here, if he were alive. Opal could have spies anywhere and a backup plan just waiting to spring into deadly operation. It was doubtful they could cheat death again.

  She landed on the shed’s gable end and peered inside. It was Artemis, all right, and Butler. Both breathing. Artemis was even conscious, though clearly in pain. Suddenly a red rose of blood spread across his white shirt, his eyes rolled back, and he began to buck. The Mud Boy was going into shock, and it looked like a rib had punctured his skin. There could be another one in his lung. He needed healing. Now.

  Holly dropped to Artemis’s chest, placing a hand on the nubs of bone protruding under his heart.

  “Heal,” she said, and the last sparks of magic in her elfin frame sped down her arms, intuitively targeting Artemis’s injuries. The ribs shuddered, twisted elastically, then rejoined in a hiss of molten bone. Steam vented from Artemis’s shuddering body as the magic flushed impurities from his system.

  Even before Artemis had finished shaking, Holly had wrapped herself around the boy as much as possible. She had to get him away from here. Ideally, she could have taken Butler, too, but he was too bulky to be shielded by her slim frame. The bodyguard would have to look out for himself, but Artemis had to be protected. Firstly because he was undoubtedly the prime target, and secondly because she needed his devious brain to help her to defeat Opal Koboi. If Opal intended to join the world of men, then Artemis was the ideal foil for her genius.

  Holly locked her fingers behind Artemis’s back and hoisted his limp body into an upright position. His head lolled on her shoulder and she could feel his breath on her cheek. Regular. Good.

  Holly bent her legs until her knees cracked. She would need all the leverage she could get to mask their escape. Outside the voices grew closer, and she felt the walls shake as someone inserted a key in the door.

  “Good-bye, Butler, old friend,” she whispered. “I’ll be back for you.”

  The bodyguard groaned once, as though he had heard. Holly hated to leave him, though there was no choice. It was either Artemis alone or no one, and Butler himself would thank her for what she was doing.

  Holly gritted her teeth, tensed every muscle in her body, and opened the throttle wide on her wings. She took off out of that shed like a dart from a blowpipe, kicking up a fresh cloud of dust in her wake. Even if someone had been staring right at her, all they would have seen was dust and a sky-colored blur, with possibly one loafered shoe poking out. But that must have been their eyes playing tricks, because shoes couldn’t fly. Could they?

  CHAPTER 5

  MEET THE NEIGHBORS

  E37, The Lower Elements

  Foaly could not believe what was happening. His eyes were sending information to his brain, but his brain refused to accept it. Because if he were to accept this information, he would have to believe that his friend Holly Short had just shot her own commander and was now attempting to escape to the surface. This was completely impossible, thou
gh not everybody was so reluctant to accept this.

  The centaur’s mobile tech shuttle had been commandeered by Internal Affairs. This operation now fell under their jurisdiction because an LEP officer was suspected of a crime. All LEP personnel had been ejected from the shuttle, but Foaly was allowed to stay simply because he was the only one able to operate the surveillance equipment.

  Commander Ark Sool was an LEP gnome who went after suspect police fairies. Sool was unusually tall and thin for a gnome, like a giraffe in a baboon’s skin. His dark hair was slicked straight back in a no-nonsense style, and his fingers and ears boasted none of the golden adornments generally so beloved of the gnome families. Ark Sool was the highest-ranking gnome officer in Internal Affairs, and he believed that the LEP was basically a bunch of loose cannons who were presided over by a maverick. And now the maverick was dead, killed, apparently, by the biggest loose cannon in the bunch. Holly Short may have narrowly avoided criminal charges on two previous occasions. She would not escape this time.

  “Play the video again, centaur,” he instructed, tapping the worktop with his cane. Most annoying.

  “We’ve looked at this a dozen times,” protested Foaly. “I don’t see the point.”

  Sool silenced him with a glare from his red-rimmed eyes. “You don’t see the point? The centaur doesn’t see the point? I don’t see where that’s an important factor in the current equation. You, Mister Foaly, are here to press buttons, not to offer opinions. Commander Root placed far too much value on your opinions, and look where that got him, eh?”

  Foaly swallowed the dozen or so acidic responses that were queuing on his tongue. If he was excluded from this operation now, he could do nothing to help Holly.

  “Play the video. Yessir.”

  Foaly cued the video from E37. It was damning stuff. Julius and Holly hovered around General Scalene for several moments. They appeared to be quite agitated. Then for some reason, and incredible as it sounded, Holly shot the commander with some kind of incendiary bullet. At this point they lost all video feeds from both helmets.

  “Back up the tape twenty seconds,” ordered Sool, leaning in close to the monitor. He poked his cane into the plasma screen. “What’s that?”

  “Careful with the cane,” said Foaly. “These screens are expensive. I get them from Atlantis.”

  “Answer the question, centaur. What is that?” Sool prodded the screen twice, just to show how little he cared about Foaly’s gizmos.

  The Internal Affairs Commander was pointing to a slight shimmer on Root’s chest.

  “I’m not sure,” admitted Foaly. “It could be heat distortion, or maybe equipment failure. Or perhaps just a glitch. I’ll have to run some tests.”

  Sool nodded. “Run your tests, though I don’t expect you’ll find anything. Short is a burnout, simple as that. She always was. I nearly had her before, but this time it’s cut-and-dried.”

  Foaly knew he should bite his tongue, but he had to defend his friend. “Isn’t this all a bit convenient. First we lose sound, so we don’t know what was said. Then there’s this fuzzy patch that could be anything; and now we’re expected to believe that a decorated officer just up and shot her commander, an elf who was like a father to her.”

  “Yes, I see your point, Foaly,” said Sool silkily. “Very good. Nice to know you’re thinking on some level. But let’s stick to our respective jobs, eh? You build the machinery, and I operate it. For example, these new Neutrinos that our field personnel are armed with?”

  “Yes, what about them?” said Foaly suspiciously.

  “They are personalized to each officer, am I right? Nobody else can fire them. And each shot is registered?”

  “That is correct,” admitted Foaly, all too aware where this was leading.

  Sool waved his cane like a symphony conductor. “Well then, surely all we have to do is check Captain Short’s weapon’s log to see if she fired a shot at the precise time indicated on the video. If she did, then the film is authentic, and Holly Short did indeed murder her commander, regardless of what we can or cannot hear.”

  Foaly ground his horsey teeth. Of course it made perfect sense. He had thought of it half an hour ago, and already knew what the cross-referencing would reveal. He pulled up Holly’s weapon’s log and read the relevant passage.

  “Weapon registered at zero nine forty, HMT. Six pulses at zero nine fifty-six, and then one level two pulse fired at zero nine fifty-eight.”

  Sool slapped the cane into his palm in triumph. “One level two pulse fired at zero nine fifty-eight. Exactly right. Whatever else happened in that chute, Short fired on her commander.”

  Foaly leaped out of his specially tailored office chair. “But a level two pulse couldn’t cause such a big explosion. It practically caved in the entire access tunnel.”

  “Which is why Short isn’t in custody right now,” said Sool. “It will take weeks to clean out that tunnel. I’ve had to send a Retrieval team through E1, in Tara. They will have to travel over ground to Paris and pick up her trail from there.”

  “But what about the explosion itself?”

  Sool grimaced, as though Foaly’s questions were a bitter nugget in an otherwise delicious meal. “Oh, I’m sure there’s an explanation, centaur. Combustible gas, or a malfunction, or just bad luck. We’ll figure that out. For now my priority, and yours, is to bring Captain Short back here for trial. I want you to liaise with the Retrieval team. Feed them constant updates on Short’s position.”

  Foaly nodded without enthusiasm. Holly was still wearing her helmet. And the LEP helmet could verify her identity and relay a constant stream of diagnostic information back to Foaly’s computers. They had no sound or video but there was plenty of information to track Holly wherever she might go in the world, or under it. At the moment, Holly was in Germany. Her heart rate was elevated but otherwise she was okay.

  Why did you run, Holly? Foaly asked his absent friend silently. If you’re innocent, why did you run?

  “Tell me where Captain Short is now,” demanded Sool.

  The centaur maximized the live feed from Holly’s helmet on the plasma screen.

  “She’s still in Germany, Munich, to be precise. She’s stopped moving now. Maybe she will decide to come home.”

  Sool frowned. “I seriously doubt it, centaur. She’s a bad egg, through and through.”

  Foaly fumed. Manners dictated that only a friend refer to another fairy by species, and Sool was no friend of his. Or anyone’s.

  “We can’t say that for sure,” said Foaly, through his clenched teeth.

  Sool leaned even closer to the plasma screen, a slow smile stretching his tight skin. “Actually, centaur, you’re wrong there. I think we can safely say for sure that Captain Short won’t be coming back. Recall the Retrieval team immediately.”

  Foaly checked Holly’s screen. The life signs from her helmet were all flatlining. One second she was stressed but alive, and the next she was gone. No heartbeat, no brain activity, no temperature reading. She couldn’t have simply taken off the helmet, as there was an infrared connection between each LEP officer and their helmet. No, Holly was dead, and it hadn’t been by natural causes.

  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, s
urely.”

  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.