The Infinity Vortex

Holly was horrified. She had fought trolls, but had never seen anything like this. The wind was blowing all around her living room, and a large blue box began to materialize behind the coffee table. There was a noise that sounded like an engine stalling. The box was about eight feet tall, and three feet wide. There was a glowing sign at the top reading “POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX.” What astounded her the most was the man who stepped out. He appeared to be human, but he had a strange, alien mystique to him.
“Right. What planet is this?” He said, not bothering to introducing himself.
“Are you… Crazy? Or an alien?” Holly asked him. It was a stupid question to ask. Of course it was earth.
“The latter. However, my dear…” He started, “Oh! How rude of me. What’s your name?”
“Holly Short. And this is… this is earth. What-Where do you come from?” She asked skeptically.
“Earth. As in Sol-3? Either I’ve grown a lot taller, or humans have evolved to be very… short.” The man pondered aloud. “Tell me, my dear Holly. What year it?”
“2006 A.D.” Holly stated. Even an alien should know the year.
“A.D.? Anno Domini? Can’t be. Unless the TARDIS’s dimensions are off.” Then he was hit with a sudden realization. “I’ve jumped universes again, haven’t I?”
Holly was slightly charmed by his English accent. “If you’re an alien-”
“Made that joke one too many times. Lots of planets have a north.” He interrupted. “My dilemma is that you are only as tall as a human child, but your figure clearly shows you aren’t.
“That’s easy. I’m not human.” Holly said, ignoring most of his comment. “I’ll tell you what I am if you tell me who you are.”
“The Doctor, at your service. Time lord. And you are-”
“A Fairy.” Holly said. How stupid must this look. A police box appears in the middle of her house, out comes a man demanding to know the planet, and year. “The Doctor? Doctor… Who?”
“Just ‘The Doctor.’ Don’t argue with me, I promise you it will get you nowhere.” The Doctor told her, having had this conversation too many times in the past. “Do you mind not pointing that at me?”
Holly was embarrassed to find that she had been pointing her gun at him the whole time.
“Listen. A few of my people survived the time war, and one of them is trying to ground the TARDIS. She’s hiding in Los Angeles.” The Doctor explained.
“I have a few questions. Who are your people, what was the time war, and what the hell is a TARDIS?” Holly asked impatiently.
“The time lords, a great war in time, and if you’ll come with me, you can see the TARDIS.” He opened the blue box, and stepped in. She drew her gun again and followed him hesitantly.
“D’Arvit!” she swore as soon as she stepped in. The room was easily the size of her house. There was a large, hexagonal control panel in the center with a clear blue-green cylinder stretching up to the top of the console. The room was blue and gray mostly. It reminded her of a spaceship she had seen in a movie once. There were machines everywhere.
“Welcome to the good ship TARDIS!” The Doctor said. It was hard to believe that this was all inside that blue box. “Or rather, the good ship TARDIS’s Console room. You look ill. Do you need to take a rest in the infirmary?”
“How the hell was she planning to bring this down?” Holly screamed. “If she fires at you, just pop into someone’s living room!” She was getting annoyed. This was simply impossible. In a minute she’d wake up, she was sure of it.
“It’s not a dream, Holly.” He said. “This woman is messing with the very fabric of time and space.”
“Time?!” she shouted instantly.
“Yes. If her plan works, she’ll destroy everything except the four other Time lords who still live.”
Holly was intrigued. “Continue…” she said after a few seconds.
“She’s using a machine called the Infinity Vortex. It creates a vacuum, and then uses two dimensional reflectors to recreate the space infinitely.” The Doctor saw the look of confusion on Holly’s face. “It’s like holding two mirrors against each other, only the reflections become real. She created an empty tunnel that goes on forever.”
“How does this mess with time and space?” Holly asked. “I’ve traveled through time before.”
“So you’ve met another time lord?” The Doctor asked.
“No, I just sort of… jumped into the tunnel.” Holly said. “Anyway, fate of the universe.”
“Well, she’s reprogramming the Eye of Harmony to lead into her infinity vortex instead of the time vortex. Theoretically, it would just ground any time travel, but-” The doctor tried to explain. “The eye of Harmony is a black hole that gives us the power for time travel. But she’s trying to use the infinity vortex to make all TARDISes useless.”
“You said she’s a time lord-lady? - Doesn’t she know how this eye thing works?” Holly asked.
“She’s very young. Still on her first body. She doesn’t know that she’s going to suck the whole universe in.”
Holly was about to ask her name, but she was interrupted by a horrible earthquake. At first, she thought it was a magma flare, but she knew the difference. This was an earthquake. She went outside to see if there was any damage, but instantly let out a blood-curdling scream. There were black-and-blue creatures that looked like worms flying up through her floor and walls and to the surface of the planet. They left trails of magma, filling the holes they had left. They were screaming louder than she was, and then just disappearing.
“Shalka!” The doctor exclaimed.
“Shalka indeed. What’s a Shalka?” Holly asked, getting tired of how cryptic the doctor was being.
“The Shalka are a race who tried to take over the world a few years back.” The doctor said. “I stopped them. But they aren’t back for domination. Get in the TARDIS.”
Holly didn’t take a second to argue. She ran into the police box, but still felt a slight prickle on the back of her neck when she saw how big it was on the inside.
The stalling engine noise started up again, and with that, the TARDIS was gone.

“Ferg?” said the man in the white lab coat. “We’ve got a 5D crossover.”
“The doctor? Or the Diva?” asked the woman with the blonde hair, also wearing a lab coat.
“How do you know it’s one of them?” Asked the man.
“Will, who else has a TARDIS besides the four of us?”
“Both of them are in another world. The diva is trying to destroy time travel, but she’s going to destroy the universe.” Will responded. “Or, in this situation, 2 universes.”
“Can the doctor fix it?”
“He can try.” Will said.

The TARDIS doors burst open. Holly let out a gasp as she saw who this new enemy was. More specifically, who she was working with.
“Opal!” Holly shouted to the Diva’s accomplice.
“Doctor!” The Diva shouted at the doctor.
“Short!” Opal said with hate in her voice.
“Diva. How nice to see you again.” The doctor said to the girl.
“I’m not the Diva on this planet.” She said smugly. “My name here is Hilary Duff.”
“Well, ‘Hilary,’ I don’t care what your name is or is not.” The doctor told her, “I’m here to stop you from tearing the universe to shreds.”
“Doctor, do you know where the other four time lords are?” the Diva asked. “They’re alive at the end of time. I plan on getting there myself. These earthlings annoy me to the point of insanity. If I destroy this universe, you and I will be launched there.”
Opal looked hurt. She thought that she would be accompanying the Diva to the end of time.
Holly felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as she felt the earthquake returning. The Shalka she had seen in her house had just emerged from the ground. One of them began to speak English.
“The black hole has been redirected, Diva.” The Diva’s neck snapped over to Opal.
“Koboi, you’ve been such a good servant. You summoned the Shalka for me, you used what was left of your magic to mesmerize anyone who stepped in my way, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to lock you out. With the doctor.”
The Shalka screamed as loud as they could, knocking the doctor, Holly, and Opal into the TARDIS. The only thing that escaped was a small, green gem that flew out of the doctor’s hands. The Diva took out a capsule about the size of an infant. She opened the capsule, and a large beam of light sucked the TARDIS in.

“This isn’t good, Ferg.” The man in the white coat said. “The doctor’s vanished. She’s sucked him into the infinity Vortex.”
“Is there a way out?” she asked, twirling her braided hair nervously.
“He’s got two fairies with him.” Said a second man, also wearing a lab coat. He stroked his soul patch pensively as if it were a larger beard. “I had no idea they even existed.”
“I’ve searched these particular fairies’ history.” A third man announced. “There’s a common denominator. A super-genius. He might be able to devise a way out.”
“Call him in.” the blonde woman demanded. “What’s his name?”
“Artemis Fowl… the Second.” The Hispanic man with the soul patch read off of his screen.
The first man, Will, walked to a temporal teleport, designed to summon people from another time. He entered the name and year into the coordinate interface, and in a gold-and-white flash, Artemis Fowl appeared out of thin air. From the point he disappeared from, he was being encouraged by his manservant’s sister to try a delicious Asian tea called chai. He was about to take the first sip, and he put the cut to his mouth quickly to take a gulp, but vanished into thin air and the tea flew onto Juliet.
Artemis was not a fan of rap, however, he was able to recognize the four scientists right away.
“You’re the Black Eyed Peas.” He said almost immediately.
“We know who we are.” Said apl, as if he had this planned in advance.
“Listen.” Fergie said to him. “You’ve been taken to a four-dimensional lab at the end of time. We are four of the six remaining time lords.” Artemis stopped listening after about three words. This damned puberty. He really wanted to listen to what she was saying, but come on. Fergie. His eyes drifted downward. “Hey! Eyes up here, you little perv! Seeing as I’m sure that you stopped listening, I’m going to let Taboo explain.”
“Holly’s in trouble.” Taboo said. “And we need you to save her, or the universe goes foom.”
“Foom?” Artemis asked. He felt stupid. Not only had he been abducted by the Black Eyed Peas, but he was fairly sure he had thrown tea in Juliet’s face when he teleported. Also, he was asking what foom meant rather than where Holly was.
“That’s the noise universes make when they kick that nasty existence habit.” apl shouted from across the lab.
“Where is she? Is she hurt?” Artemis finally asked.
“Right now, technically, she isn’t in the universe.” Will said. “apl, play the video?”
apl pressed a button showing Holly, Opal, and the Doctor being flung into the TARDIS. The video went on to show the TARDIS vanishing into the beam of light. “We need you to find out how the Doctor can save Holly and Opal, and keep the universe from… fooming.” apl told him. Artemis had to watch it three times before seeing the diamond escape the Doctor’s hand.
“What’s that?” he asked them.
“That’s a 4D anchoring gem.” Fergie said. “Look, I have one on my necklace.” She displayed her necklace proudly. “It’s linked to the TARDIS it came from. It can’t move through time, so we bound it to the eye of harmony. That way, even after Gallifrey was destroyed, we could keep using the eye.”
“Does his TARDIS have one of those summony teleports?” Artemis asked, suddenly having an epiphany.
“A very weak one. It couldn’t summon a person, so we can’t send you there.” Taboo told him.
“No, he needs to summon that gem.” Artemis said.
“He’s in another universe. That gem can’t travel four dimensionally, let alone five.” Fergie said skeptically.
“Exactly.” Artemis said. “Picture a high wall. You throw a grappling hook over, and pull. What happens?”
“You go up.” apl said. “But what does that have to do with-”
“The wall is the gem, and the teleport is your grappling hook.” Artemis said smugly. “they just have to reel themselves back to existence.”
All four Black Eyed Peas looked at each other. “Open a 5D Com link.” Will said. apl got the screen loading up.

“This is hopeless.” Opal shouted. “This vortex stretches on forever in both directions. You can’t fly out of here, doctor.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have helped them, Opal!” Holly screamed at Opal. “You got us into this mess!”
“Will you two stop bickering?” The Doctor shouted. “Someone’s opened a com link.”
“That’s impossible.” Opal said. “you would have to call across universes.”
“I know four people who can do that.” The Doctor said. He activated his com link, and four 3D holograms of the Black Eyed Peas appeared in the middle of the TARDIS.
“Doctor, we know how you can get out” Fergie said immediately.
“You’re the Black Eyed Peas.” Opal told them, just in case they had forgotten.
“They know who they are!” called Artemis’s disembodied voice.
“Artemis?” Holly shouted, searching for him.
“Yea, we didn’t have a hologram for him.” apl told her. “He came up with the plan.”
“Spit it out, then!” the Doctor snapped.
“Listen. The Diva used a prototype vortex on you.” Taboo explained. “She’s about to flush it in an antimatter pit.”
“That will annihilate the vortex.” Fergie said. “And everything in it.”
“Do you have your transdimensional teleport?” Will asked.
“It’s attached to my ship.” The Doctor said.
“Punch the coordinates of your anchor gem into it.” Fergie instructed.
“I can’t. It can’t move 5 dimensionally unless it’s inside the TARDIS.” The Doctor Argued.
“She’s about to use the antimatter!” Artemis called. There was a blue flash and the com link died.

Artemis was in shock. “Does this mean they’re-” Artemis asked frightfully.
“The Universe they were in was destroyed,” apl told him. “But TARDISes are made of some tough stuff. They’re probably in a nonuniverse.”
“A nonuniverse is one that was doesn’t exist on a six-dimensional level.” Fergie clarified.
“So it’s like they’ve been…” Artemis started, “Deleted?”
“Yes, but as long as that diamond still exists, we have a link to that nonuniverse.” Will reassured. “If the entire TARDIS had been inside, they would be lost. Alive, but lost forever.”
“Let’s just hope the Doctor figures out the rest of our plan.” Taboo said.

“Don’t open the door.” The Doctor told Opal, who was aching to see what was outside, just to make sure she was alive. “Nonuniverses have this habit of making everything inside them stop existing.”
“Then why are we alive?” Holly asked curiously. “If we’re inside one, I mean.”
“The anchoring gem is still in an existing universe.” The Doctor explained. He took out a fishbowl, filled it with water, and tied a piece of string around a quarter. “This quarter is the TARDIS, and the fishbowl is the universe we were in.”
He put the quarter in the bowl, and dropped it on the ground. The shattering made both Holly and Opal jump.
“What the hell?” Opal screamed.
“When the universe, or fishbowl if you fancy, was dropped, the little TARDIS coin went with it.” He took out his sonic screwdriver, waved it over the fishbowl, and it sprung back together. He refilled it with water, and put the quarter back in it. “Hold this string?”
Holly took it, and the Doctor began to explain again. “Your hand is the gem.” He dropped the bowl again, and the quarter stayed suspended from Holly’s hand.
“I get it.” Opal said. “The gem kept us from going with the universe!”
“Thank you for stating the obvious.” The Doctor said. “But we’re stuck in this nonuniverse.”
“Why don’t we try what Artemis and the Black Eyed peas told us?” Holly asked.
“So the TARDIS would just vanish?” the Doctor responded. “No, the gem can’t come to us. It would make the Eye of Harmony work if it could, but we’d be lost in this place.”
Opal began to cry softly. “So we’re gone forever.”
Holly had been playing with the quarter. She tried pulling the string, but not letting her hand move. She figured that if whatever it was that the Black Eyed peas suggested worked the way the doctor said it should, it should bring her hand to the quarter. As she pulled the string, the quarter came closer to her hand.
“Doctor, try Artemis’s idea.” Holly demanded.
“We’ve been over this.” The Doctor said. “We can’t get the gem here, because it will destroy us. Past, present, and future. Voip! We stop existing!”
“I figured it out.” Holly told him. “It’s like a grappling hook. We’ll reel ourselves in.”
“Oh, my god.” The Doctor said. “Oh my god, that’s brilliant! Fantastic!” Out of excitement, he kissed and Opal on each cheek. He started to enter the coordinates, and activated the teleport. With the familiar grinding sound, the gem began to materialize inside the glass pod.
“Open the door.” The doctor said cheerily. “If it worked, we’re home! If it didn’t, we sucked all of creation into a swirling vortex of chaotic nonexistence and deserve the same fate!”
Both fairies laughed uneasily. As Holly opened the door, a large blue bolt flew through and struck Opal square in the chest. Opal had surgery to become human, and her magic had long since faded. She was unable to heal. Holly rushed over to her, and began to remove Opal’s pink camisole in an attempt to heal her. The Doctor Activated the TARDIS’s force field, stopping any further bolts from coming through.
“You shouldn’t exist!” the Diva shouted, holding up a modified Cyberman arm, firing a deadly bolt every few seconds. These bolts were absorbed by the force field, but her insane and hysterical screams were still audible. “You bastard, how dare you come back. You’re dead, you hear me?”
Holly had removed Opal’s camisole. There was a large burn on her right breast. Holly placed her hands on the wound, and blue sparks began to fly from Holly’s hand to Opal’s bare breast. As the wound disappeared, Opal began to regain consciousness.
The Doctor began to time his attack. The Diva fired a bolt, and the doctor immediately rebooted the force field. The field shrunk about a foot, but was restarted so quickly that it grew back. The diva’s bolt collided with it, and the force of the force field blew it back at her. It blasted her directly in the chest, almost precisely where opal had been hit. She tried to regenerate, but simply turned to ash on the ground. Despite being on her first body, her regenerative cycle was over. She was somehow out of lives.
“Did you save my life?” Opal asked. “Or did you just cop a feel? Either way, feel free to continue.”
“If I knew you were going to make jokes, I would have healed your mouth shut.” Holly told her.

The Black Eyed Peas were watching the entire event on a holographic screen. Taboo and Fergie were ready with the Black Eyed Peas’ TARDIS. It was in the shape of their tour bus.
“What’s this?” Artemis asked apl, who had what appeared to be a television remote.
“It’s a four dimensional vortex reverse inducer,” apl told him. Sensing confusion, he explained, “It swirls time in the other direction, and stops it. It’s like… like a time tivo.” Just as he got the last word out, Will shouted at him to activate it. The hologram stopped just before the bolt hit the Diva.
Taboo started up their TARDIS. When they arrived in 2006, time was still stopped. Fergie placed a special helmet on the Diva’s head, and activated it. Fergie held up a red gemstone in her gloved hand, and twelve beams flew out of the helmet and hit the diamond. As each beam hit, the gem began to glow brighter. When the twelfth beam struck, she dropped the diamond into a bag.
“Extract two of the lives. Make them into coins.” Fergie told Taboo. They returned into the TARDIS and retrieved the remaining members of their band, and Artemis.

Opal, Holly, Artemis, and the Doctor were lined up outside the TARDIS. Will was holding a bag with two coins and a red jewel in a gloved hand.
“Opal Koboi, for your help in saving the universe, we present you with this.” He removed one of the small gold coins, and placed it in her hands. It vanished immediately. “One regeneration, taken from the Diva, and specially programmed. I’m going to activate it, so relax.” Will immediately snapped Opal’s neck. About a second later, she rose up, ears pointed again. Blue sparks flew about her neck.
“I’m…” Opal said, tears coming to her eyes. “I’m a fairy again.”
“We’ve returned your magic to you. Enjoy. Artemis Fowl, for your brilliance under pressure, we give you one regeneration, to be used upon mortal injury, illness, or aging. You’re going to want this.” As he placed the coin in Artemis’s hand, it vanished as with Opal’s. He flinched, expecting Will to snap his neck, but it did not come.
“Doctor, we have no gift for you but to extend our hand to you, allowing you passage to our extra temporal fortress at any time. Just reel yourself in.” Will continued, “Holly Short, for your bravery and brilliance, not to mention saving the life of Opal Koboi and returning the TARDIS to our universe, we give you ten regenerations to be used upon your immanent demise. Your healing powers will allow you to regain these regenerations as they are used up. You’re the first time lady who hasn’t come from Gallifrey.”
As the Black Eyed Peas walked back to their TARDIS, Fergie handed Holly a small cylinder. She pointed at a the knobs and said “From girl to girl, day, month, and year.” She explicitly labeled them on the cylinder, and explained, “Then say where you want to go, and press the white button.”
Holly had been given the world’s first handheld TARDIS. She first delivered Artemis back home.

She, Artemis, and Opal appeared back a few minutes after Artemis had left. Juliet was wiping tea off of her clothes and skin, and Butler was on the lookout for Artemis’s return.
“Where were you?” Butler asked, exasperated.
“I had to save the world. And your job just got a lot easier.” Artemis told him. “Killing me won’t kill me anymore.”
“What?” Butler asked.
“I’ll explain later.” Artemis said. “We have to see our friends off.”
“Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook.” Juliet said. “You’re in for an unexpected wrestling match. You have to sleep sometime.”
With that, Holly activated her portable TARDIS, and brought opal away. Opal had no property in Haven, and she was nearly cut off financially. Holly was kind enough to welcome Opal as her new roommate with open arms. She was willing to try anything. She was immortal now.

Part II

“This is why I hate time-travel.” The doctor said. He had crash-landed his TARDIS through a hole in time. He stepped out into a familiar living room. A little short, but the TARDIS fit. He was standing inside a familiar living room, looking down the barrel of a familiar gun, being held by a pair of familiar hands, held by a familiar, surprised looking fairy.
“Holly?” He shouted. “You caused the time break?”
“Doctor?” she replied. “You use words I don’t understand?”
“Holly, You broke my ship.” He said. “Did you do something with your handheld?”
“That thing vanished.” She said. “All evidence of it.” She looked puzzled. “In fact” even the holster disappeared.”
“You mean you lost them?”
“No, They just vanished. Out of my hands.”
“Where’s Opal?” The doctor said. Since the doctor had last met Holly, she and Opal had moved in together. They were now best friends, which surprised both of them. Every week Opal would bring Holly out shopping. She bought Holly tank tops, and other stuff she wouldn’t wear otherwise.
Opal had heard the doctor appear a few minutes earlier and had just processed this thought now.
“Is that the doctor?” She shouted from across Holly’s house. “Ask him what happened to you’re handheld kajigger!”
“We don’t know!” The Doctor Shouted. “But there is a temporal disturbance. A laser blast bent through time. And saved your life, Holly.”
“On Hybras?” Holly asked.
“Yes.” Said the doctor. “That Paradox is what ripped open the time vortex. Hybras was destroyed, and vanished from time. It fell through the Hole, into the void.”
“What?” Holly asked.
“Hybras was trapped at one point in time.” The doctor said. “When you destroyed it, the island fell into the hole the laser blast made.”
“And how did that get rid of my handheld kajigger?”
“I don’t know, but I think something I sent into the void might have found the island.”
“What?”
“An old enemy.”
“Well, if they’re on an island that doesn’t exist anymore, we’re safe, right?”
The doctor looked at her sternly.
“That island has been floating in time for a long time. I must have passed it a million times before. I even got stuck on it once.”
“Stuck? Didn’t the Demons notice you? How did you get off?” Opal said as she entered the room. She wanted to be included.
“There was a secret exit. A portal back to earth. There was a gem, The Hybras Shard, hidden under the island, that was stuck between earth and Hybras.”
Holly and Opal looked puzzled.
“It was both here and there. Anything touching the crystal could switch between places.”
Still puzzled.
“A backdoor out.”
“That makes more sense.” Said opal. “Why did you have to explain how it works?”
“It’s sort of what I do.” The doctor replied. “Anyway, if whatever’s on that island finds the stone, they can get out.”
“The island’s gone, though.” Holly said.
“No matter how nonexistent it may be, you can still get to it with the stone.” The Doctor told her. “I can stop it if I can find a mineral scanner.”
Holly and opal looked at each other. “We know someone who might have something like that.”
Foaly was working in his lab. He had invented a new battery he called Foalybat. It sent half its energy back in time and half its energy forward. That way, it was always full from what it was getting from ten seconds in the past and future. You could run the entire surface world and the Fairy Underground forever on just one of these batteries.
He grinned. The name “Foalybat” made him think of himself as a bat.
The door whooshed open. Holly, Opal, and the Doctor stepped in.
“Hey Holly. Opal. Strange new mudman.” Foaly said.
“Ponyboy here is pleasant. What’s a mudman?” The doctor said. “Is that your word for humans? Well, if so, I’m no human.”
“Explain later.” Foaly said. “Holly said you needed a mineral scanner?”
“I do need one of those.” The Doctor said. “One that can scan the whole planet.”
“Do you know what you’re scanning for?” Foaly asked.
“Scan for anything with Background Radiation.” The Doctor told him.
“Background radiation?” Foaly asked. “The radiation given off by the time tunnel?”
“Yes.”
“The tunnel is closed. We don’t have a sample.”
“Really, because I’m ripe with it!”
Foaly did a quick Radiation scan, and got the signature of the background radiation. He ran it through the mineral scanner.
A globe appeared in Foaly’s 3d Gas screen computer. A dot marking the Doctor appeared near the center, and another one marking holly lit up next to him. More dots lit up showing anyone who had ever been through time.
An extremely bright light lit up below the surface. It was somewhere across the core from them.
Opal, Holly, the Doctor, and Foaly got into the TARDIS. Foaly nearly broke into tears when he saw that it was bigger on the inside than the outside. He had just gotten into a teleporting time machine that was bigger on the inside than the outside. Foalybat and this were together completed his life.
The Doctor set the location of the landing to the coordinates of the bright light. With a familiar grinding noise, it materialized at exactly the right coordinates. They were in a cave that looked well hidden. There were no doors, no windows, and no way out. In the middle, a gem the size of a Human Head floated. It was Green and glowing. The Hybras shard looked like if you touched it, you’d fall in. Holly put her hand on the Doctor’s shoulder as he knelt down to examine it with his sonic screwdriver. Opal reached out to touch it.
“Stop!” Foaly shouted. He had brought along a minilab in a briefcase. He opened it up and handed everyone a bracelet. “These are communicators. They allow you to contact me.”
“You realize that we might get trapped on the other side, right?”
“What?” Opal said immediately. “No way. I’m not going.”
“Fine.” Holly said. “I’m going.”
“Be careful, Holly!” Opal said, and threw her arms around her friend.
The doctor and Holly touched the stone. In a green flash, Opal and Foaly were gone.
There was a door in this new cave. As they walked towards it, a voice crackled in their ears.
“Hello? Are you two Okay?” Foaly asked.
“We’re fine, Foaly.” Holly said.
They had nearly reached the end of the tunnel when the Doctor heard a noise he hoped never to hear again.
Stomp, hiss! Stomp, hiss! Stomp, hiss! Stomp, hiss! Stomp, hiss! Stomp, hiss!
“Oh, No.” The doctor muttered. “No no no no no!”
He continued grumbling no after no.
“Run” he said.
The doctor took off down the tunnel. Holly started, but was seized by a metal hand.
“Unknown Upgrade Detected.” A cold, metallic voice said. “You will come with us for study.”
“No!” Holly said.
“Holly, Don’t!” The Doctor said. “They’ll kill you!”
“You are a rogue element. We will take you for immediate upgrade.”
The hand pulled her away.
“What are you?” Holly shouted.
“We are Human.2. We are the Future.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“You will be upgraded.” It said. “You will become like us.”
“Foaly!” The doctor shouted. “They’ve taken her!”
“Who’s taken her?”
“Cybermen!”
Holly was taken into a small tent, where these robotic people removed her brain and put it into a body like hers.
They were shaped like people, but their faces were just a slit as a mouth and two holes as eyes. They had handlebars from their ears to the top of their heads.
Holly couldn’t be considered “Alive” at this point. She could see and hear. She had no emotions left. She had memories, but no opinions. Her brain was cold and robotic.
Her body lay behind the tent, lifeless.
The Doctor had snuck up and taken Holly’s body back to the cave. He and Foaly had been talking each other through ways to save her.
“Report.” The doctor said. “Ex-Captain Holly Short, Deceased.”
Tears were streaming down Foaly’s face.
“It’s the way they killed her.” Foaly said. “They took out her brain. She couldn’t trigger the healing reflex.”
“Healing reflex!” The doctor shouted. “That’s It!”
He took out his sonic screwdriver and used a sharp edge to cut her flesh a bit on the finger. The top of her head was missing entirely.
Holly saw an ocean of blue surround her. She opened her eyes and saw that the blue sparks were flying from her head. She was bald for a second, but her hair grew back rapidly.
“I was” One of them.” Holly said. “Was I one of them?”
“You still are, sort of.” The Doctor said. He was standing over her next to Foaly. There was a jumper cable on her finger.
“We used Foalybat to start the energy flow. Your leftover magic just sort of took over.”
“You jumpstarted me?”
“Yes.” Foaly replied. He extended the word as if he had been trying to figure out what that word was for hours. “But there’s still a problem.”
“That thing has been appointed cybercontroller.” The Doctor said. “It has the same brainwaves as you, so you can take it over. If it syncs to your mind, then it will regain emotions and destroy itself.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Holly said. “What’s the catch?”
“You might be taken over by the Cyberman program.”
The stomping and hissing came closer. The Cybermen were coming through the tunnel into the cave. Foaly projected a forcefield over the tunnel opening.
Electric bursts hit the field.
“I can’t hold them off much longer!” Foaly shouted. “It’s shutting down!”
“Which one?” Holly shouted. “Which one is me?”
“Black handlebars.” The doctor said. “The one in front.”
The field shut down. The black handled Cyberman came storming in.
“Hostile Elements will be deleted.” It said.
Holly ran up to it, jumped up in the air, and grabbed its handlebars. Her eyes literally lit up.
They stood there. The other cybermen did nothing.
Holly seemed to be able to give them a retreat command from inside the Cyberleader’s head. They all left the cave. Except the cyberleader. Holly held on for a few minutes. She let go just as the cyberleader started to leave.
It didn’t go insane and die. It just left. Holly lay on the ground, and righted herself to attention.
“Holly?”
Nothing.
“Hello?”
“I am not Holly.” She said. Her voice sounded robotic, like a Cyberman’s. “I am the Cyberleader of this Unit.”
“You aren’t!” The Doctor said. “You’re Holly Short. You are not a Cyberman.”
“Hostile Elements will be deleted.” She said. She reached for the Doctor’s shoulder.
Nothing happened.
“Weapons down?” He asked. “You don’t have them! You are flesh and blood!”
“It is a malfunction.” She droned. “I will file a malfunction report.”
She tried to do it wirelessly. Nothing happened.
“Not responding?” He said. “Maybe you aren’t a robot!”
He reached out with the Key to the TARDIS, and sliced her arm with it.
She wailed in pain. Blue sparks stitched the wound shut.
“You can’t feel pain without flesh!” The Doctor said. “You felt pain, therefore you have flesh! You’re not a Cyberman!”
“Another malfunction.” She said, and tried to send another wireless report that wouldn’t leave.
Holly’s emotions and personality were locked up by her own brain. She honestly believed she was a Cyberman, and so emotions were logically impossible. Anything her brain thought was impossible was just locked away.
But the Doctor could bring her out.
“I was hoping not to have to do this!” He took out a gadget and brandished it at her. “This machine will shut down all electronic systems for ten minutes.”
He pressed the button. Holly, believing that this device applied to her, collapsed. A second later, she stood up. With the Cyberman mind out of commission, the Holly mind returned to power.
“You’re alive. Therefore, you are not a Cyberman. Your mind will not return to this state in ten minutes.”
It was impossible for her to be awake if she was a Cyberman. The Cyberman mind erased itself quickly after realizing it couldn’t exist.
“That’s an electric razor.” Foaly said.
“I know.” Said the Doctor. “But it looks real, doesn’t it?”
Foaly adjusted his aluminum cap in confusion. That’s when holly had an idea. She snatched Foaly’s hat and ran down the tunnel.
She snuck past Cyberman troops that lined the beach of Hybras. She found the Cyberman with black handles, and jumped to its head as fast as she could. It began to wail out loud.
And then it fell to the ground, clearly dead.
Another Cyberman on the island screamed and died. And then another. Holly ran back after about five. Once a cyberleader was killed, its mind would be downloaded into another Cyberman. They all inherited holly’s emotions, and they all died from the pain of the transformation.
In the cave, she explained to the doctor and Foaly that the hat kept the Cyberleader’s brainwaves from reaching her. The doctor then took out a gem holly recognized from their last meeting.
They had used it to reel in the TARDIS during their last adventure.
Foaly jumped between worlds with the gem.
“Alright, Foaly. Press the yellow button.”
The TARDIS materialized in the cave. It couldn’t land there, because technically, this place didn’t exist. Foaly jumped worlds again, this time with the anchor gem.
The doctor took the Hybras Shard and brought it into the TARDIS. They reeled the TARDIS back to the real world. The island was sealed off forever. There was absolutely no way back.
“So where did my handheld kajigger go?” Holly said.
“It was on the island, before it got sealed away.” The Doctor said. “It got locked there along with your regenerations.”
“What?” Holly said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“The handheld TARDIS ripped holes in the Space-time continuum. The Black eyed peas had it self-destruct.”
“And the lives?”
“The hole in time created by the laser blast changed history.”
“How?”
“The Diva survived and got to keep her regenerations.” The Doctor said. “Although she mysteriously disappeared onto a nonexistent island right after they took one of her lives.”
“She was on the island too?”
“As were the infinity vortex canisters, a few Shalka, and the Diva’s TARDIS. Everything already happened this way, but we were all just too wrapped up in ourselves to see that Only Opal’s one regeneration worked.”
With both gems on one side, there was no way back to Hybras, and the Cybermen and a few Shalka disappeared into the void.
But the Diva and her TARDIS remained floating in an Infinity Vortex. A single anchor gem floated somewhere in space. As soon as it landed on a planet, she would make her comeback.

Part III

The Diva was having trouble. She was a spoiled time lady; her father had pampered her on Gallifrey since birth. He had paid her way through the Time Lord academy.
She had no idea how to get out of this. Her TARDIS was down. In her tinkering with the Eye of Harmony, she had accidentally cut herself off from the power source.
She had four barriers to burst through. One: Her TARDIS was in an infinity vortex. Two: The Island it was on no longer existed. Three: The nonexistent island had been floating in the void between universes. Four: It would be very hard to get from the void into the real world since the Doctor had sealed the bridge between universes.
Artemis was tinkering with his time machine. He just couldn’t get it to work. He had tried everything, model tesseracts that had only been able to age things forward, Matter transfers that could send things forward or back five seconds in time, but liquefied the target, and vortex inducers that could open a small black hole. Nothing actually worked.
He was just about to give up when a great wind filled his lab. He could hear a loud grinding, like a key being dragged along a piano wire. The Doctor’s TARDIS appeared in the back of the room.
The Doctor stepped out, Followed by Holly. Since their encounter with the cybermen, she had decided to travel with him.
Artemis didn’t recognize him. When he had last seen the Doctor, he was different. He had short, dark hair, large ears and a roman nose. He used to wear a leather jacket. Now he had longish, messy brown hair, a five-o-clock shadow, and wore a blue suit.
“Right.” The Doctor said. “Fowl Manor. 2009. This is where the trail leads.”
He and Holly had been tracking a series of vortexes through which a criminal had been slipping.
“Fowl Manor?” Holly said. “That means—Artemis!” She threw her arms over her friend. He was confused.
“We haven’t long, Holly. The vortex will open any second.”
“Vortex?”
“Is that a vortex inducer?” The Doctor asked. “We can use that to divert them.”
“I doubt it,” Artemis said. “It only makes black holes. I was trying to make a time machine.”
“Like this one?” Holly said, and gestured at the TARDIS.
“It doesn’t only make black holes.” The doctor said. “You just don’t have any coordinates set.”
He took out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the vortex inducer. It lit up and made a whirling noise, and a series of numbers appeared. The inducer fired, and a metal creature slipped out. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t actually metal. It was covered in a metallic tuxedo, and it was wearing a metallic helmet over its head. It looked like a fancy robot that felt like wearing a motorcycle helmet.
It pressed a button on its sleeve. Another vortex appeared, but the doctor had it closed with the inducer before the creature could escape. Something flew through it, but it was very small and very likely nothing more that a rock.
“I’ve got you now.” The doctor said. “Fowl, is that a supermagnet?”
“Yes, why?”
“Activate it.” The Doctor said.
Artemis switched it on, and the creature stuck to it. The Doctor ran up to it and pulled off its mask. The head underneath was semi-transparent and white. It looked almost like a liquid. The Doctor thought he had seen this before.
“I’m offended, Doctor.” It said. “Don’t you recognize your old friend?”
“Master?” He said. “You’re dead.”
The master was clearly not dead.
“I’m Clearly Not Dead!” He said.
Shortly after the Doctor had regenerated into his Eighth body, the master had tried to steal his remaining five lives. Each time lord has thirteen lives, and the Master had come to the end of his. The master, along with the Human body he had stolen, had been sucked into the Eye of Harmony.
“What are you here for?”
“The Diva!” He said. “I escaped the Eye of Harmony through her TARDIS! Good thing she had this robosuit on hand to pull me out.”
“She’s gone.” The Doctor said. “I personally destroyed the island she was hiding on.”
“She found a little hidey-hole to avoid the destruction of Hybras.” Said the Master. “And she only had enough power left to send one thing into the universe. Her eye of harmony link is shutting down after all this time outside the universe. So she sent me to plant her anchor gem in a reasonable spot.”
“Does she even know how to operate a TARDIS? I mean, the normal way. If the Anchor gem leaves the TARDIS for too long, of course the Eye will shut down. It’s the link to when Gallifrey existed.”
The Master did not reply. Instead, he had an idea. The ghostly substance inside the robotic Tuxedo leapt from the suit. It flew down Artemis’s throat.
“There we go.” Artemis said. Only it wasn’t Artemis. His eyes were green and yellow. The Master had taken his body the way he had taken the Paramedic’s body ten years ago. “Get—Out—of—me!” Artemis shouted. He grabbed a jar, and jammed a finger down his throat. He vomited the substance out of his body and into the jar. He closed it, and handed the jar to the Doctor. The substance was all at one side of the jar. It tried to move in the direction of the TARDIS. The doctor began to grin.
Butler burst into the room. “What’s going on in here?” He saw the Doctor and Holly standing in the room. He knew Holly was no threat, but he had never seen the Doctor before. Butler grabbed him by the throat. The jar fell to the floor. The white snake that the fluid had formed climbed up to Butler’s throat and slid down. Butler’s eyes became green and yellow.
“I’m not giving this body up.” The Master said. “Not until it deteriorates.”
“Butler’s going to get you out.” Artemis shouted.
“What does he mean, ‘deteriorate?’” Holly whispered to the Doctor.
“A time lord can’t occupy a human body for long, or else it starts to break down.”
“Is there anything that can stop it?”
“That robosuit.” The Doctor said. “It’s a piece of timelord technology. It’s designed to keep a body’s condition in stasis, but allow them to continue moving and living. It’s so a dying person can appear in court even after their number is up. And, of course, people obsessed with staying young on their thirteenth body.”
“Why doesn’t everyone wear one, then?”
“Because a time lord’s body will stay alive anyway. Anything that could kill us or force us to regenerate would still kill someone in one of those suits.”
“So why don’t they just slap those on anyone who’s dying?”
“Everything has its time.” The Doctor said. “And everything dies.”
Holly felt like she should say something. She realized she didn’t have to when the Doctor interrupted. “Right. Master, you are going to lead us to the diva. We’re going to incarcerate her, and then I’m sending you back where you came from.”
“And just how do you plan to do that?” The master asked. “You can’t get me out of this body.”
“I have my ways.” He said.
John Smith was sitting in his living room. He was watching TV. He had been out of commission for years, and some things were still surprises to him. When he was sent into his Coma, Bill Clinton was president. Now, somehow, President Bush’s son had taken office.
That’s when a gem hit him in the head. He picked it up, and immediately saw something strange. He was having one of his visions.
He was standing in a very fancy study, where a large Eurasian man in a metal Tuxedo, a tiny woman, A brown-haired man in a pinstripe suit, and a rich teenager wearing a white button-down shirt and tie stood around a blue police box. They all ran in, which Johnny found weird, because it wasn’t nearly big enough, and it disappeared.
He was back in his living room. A filing cabinet sat in a corner. It wasn’t there before. The gem in his hand was gone.
“What the—” He began, but he was interrupted by a loud noise. It was like the sound of a car starting over and over. A man came into his house without knocking.
“Right then.” The Doctor said. “Where is it?”
“What?” Johnny said. “What? Wh—What?”
“You there.” The doctor said to Johnny. “My name’s detective John Smith. I’m with the local police, and I’m here—”
“Do you have a warrant?” Johnny said.
“What’s your name?” The Doctor asked.
“John Smith.” He said. “Where’s your warrant?”
The Doctor took out his Slightly Psychic paper and showed it to them. It was paper that read the holder’s mind and showed people whatever he wanted them to see.
“John Smith?” He said. “Would you believe Mr. Spock?”
“No. I want your real name. And this paper is blank.”
“How can you see it?” The Doctor said. “You’re supposed to see a search warrant.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Let’s not get into that.” He said. “Everyone just calls me ‘The Doctor.’ Some people call me ‘Thete,’ but that’s a nickname too.”
“What are you looking for?” Johnny asked. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
“Anything appeared here that wasn’t here before recently?”
“Yes.” Johnny said. “A blue police box just appeared outside my window. And a filing cabinet that I don’t remember buying is now sitting in my living room.”
“That’s what we need.” The Doctor said. “Thanks for your help. Can I just take a look at it?”
“You can have it.” Johnny said. “But I know you aren’t a police officer. Your warrant was a blank piece of paper. Besides, I’m a friend of sheriff Bannerman. I’ve never seen you at the station. You need to tell me what’s really going on or I’m turning you in to the authorities.”
“No!” The doctor shouted Johnny swung around to see what he was yelling at, and it became obvious what it was. A young blonde woman was climbing into the filing cabinet. The grinding noise started again, and the filing cabinet was gone.
“There’s no time!” The Doctor said. “Come with us. I’ll explain everything at the Hotel. On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“We need to find a hotel.”
They checked into a Holiday Inn nearby. The Doctor stayed in one room, where The Doctor materialized the TARDIS and locked the Master in. Johnny stayed in the room on one side, and Holly on the other with Artemis. If they just opened the doors between the rooms, they were all in one big suite.
“So”” Johnny began. “Not to be insensitive, but””
“No.” Holly said. “I know exactly where this is going. I’m supposed to be this height. All of my people are.”
“Your people?”
“Elves.” She said.
That night, the Doctor explained everything to Johnny. He even had a new revelation.
“The type of TARDIS the Diva has is pan temporal!” He said.
“Is—” Johnny started, “Is that good?”
“It’s fantastic!” The doctor shouted. “It means that if we send the master back into the Eye, any problems he caused snap back to normal.” The doctor realized he was being too loud for a hotel, and began to quietly ask the question he’d been waiting to ask.
“How’d you see past the Psychic paper?” He asked. “Have you had psychic training, like the blokes at torchwood?”
“No, but I am a psychic.” Johnny would normally think “He won’t believe me,” but he had just met a fairy after traveling in a police box that was bigger on the inside than on the outside.
“That’s it!” The Doctor said. “You were soaking in all the psychic energy from the paper! It won’t work on you!”
“Doctor!” He heard from behind the TARDIS door. “You’ll never guess what I found!”
“What is it, Master?”
“My android suit!” He said. “From when we traveled together!”
He opened the door. Butler lay in the corner of the console room, and the Master stood at the door, looking just like the doctor remembered him.
When the Doctor was still using his ninth body, after the Master was trapped in the Eye of Harmony, but before he had traveled with Rose Tyler, he had traveled with a girl named Alison Cheney and the Master, using an android body. However, due to the time war, His body was changed, Alison Cheney vanished from the TARDIS, and the Master’s mind was sucked back into the eye of Harmony.
“That shouldn’t exist.” The Doctor said. “With the time war, that body should have vanished.”
“It must have reappeared when the diva crossed the barriers.”
“We have to find the Diva and set things right.” The Doctor said. “Otherwise, we might fall into the void.”
“That’ll have to wait.” Holly said, bursting into the room in tears. “My brother’s been murdered.”

Part IV

“That’ll have to wait.” Holly said, bursting into the moon. “My brother’s been murdered.”
“Holly,” The Doctor began. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I have to go down to Haven right away.” Holly said, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Holly, you know I have to find the Diva.” The Doctor said. “I can’t help you through this.”
“Doctor,” The Master said. “I think I have the Solution.”
The Master volunteered to send a message to the Black Eyed Peas’ headquarters at the end of time while the Doctor brought Holly to Haven City. Artemis and Johnny accompanied them, and Artemis had this to ask.
“You have siblings?”
“Of course I have siblings.” Holly said. “When you can only reproduce once every twenty years, you do it as often as possible.”
“Do you have any others?” Artemis asked, “Brothers and sisters, I mean.”
“An older sister and a younger one. My brother was the oldest. He was forty when I was born.”
“That’s one hell of an age difference!” Johnny said. “Forty?”
“Not for a fairy.” Holly said. “Four human years is like one fairy year. “So biologically speaking, he was a preteen.”
“What was his name?” Artemis asked. One of Holly’s tears landed on Johnny’s hand.
“Sage.” Johnny said. “Sage Short.”
“How’d you—” Artemis asked. “Nevermind.”
Holly took out a phone and dialed her sister’s number.
“Rosie,” She said. “I’m on my way. I brought a few people who might be able to help. Yes, of course the Fowl kid. And the Doctor, yes.”
There was some chattering on the other end of the phone. “And someone who can help us find out who did it.”
Johnny knew when he had come with them to Haven that he would be helping them with this.
“He’s a psychic. All right. We’ll be there in a few seconds. Yes, tell Missy I love her.”
Holly’s sisters, Rosemary and Mistletoe, were twenty years older and younger than her, respectively. As they walked out of the TARDIS, Artemis immediately knew which ones they were. They both had the red hair and coffee-colored skin that Holly had. Missy looked about Artemis’s age, only fun-sized, and Rosie looked extremely business-like. She looked at Artemis for a second, and then dismissed him. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, and she wore a black jacket and skirt. Artemis could imagine her telling Missy that she wasn’t going to wear a dress. Missy, on the other hand, had curly, shoulder-length, highlighted hair, and wore a black dress. She smiled at Artemis. He immediately decided that he liked Missy more than Rosie.
Holly introduced them all. Of course, they had all heard about Artemis Fowl. When your sister is in the newspaper for preventing the biggest disasters in fairy history, you remember the names of the people involved. They also knew about the Doctor from Holly’s phone calls. They had never heard of John no-middle-initial Smith.
“You couldn’t have gotten a fairy psychic?” Rosie asked Holly discreetly after about fifteen minutes of pleasantries.
“The fairy psychics who aren’t frauds are perverts who use their gift to watch you shower.” Holly said. “I know. I’ve worked with them on cases before, and I had to buy a psychic energy jammer for my bathroom.”
“He’s a human.” Rosie said. “Holly, you know I love you, but if you bring any more human men down here without mind-wiping them, people will start to talk.”
“Talk about what?” Holly asked. “Will they say that I don’t think they’re dumb? I think that Artemis Fowl is proof that they can be smart.”
Holly walked away to join Artemis’s conversation with Missy.
“Holly’s told me all about you,” Missy said to Artemis. Since Holly had never said a word about her, he decided to change the subject. He complimented her hair. Damned puberty.
“Not interrupting anything, am I?” Holly said, grinning. Both Missy and Artemis blushed. Holly silently chuckled.
Johnny walked over to Rosie and took her hand comfortingly. He immediately flew into a vision. He was tied to a chair. There was a green light coming from his left. A very tall person stood over him with a knife. The person stabbed him in the hand, and he screamed. Blue light shone from his hand for a few minutes, and then stopped just after the knife was removed. Out of magic? Said the person. He couldn’t make out the face or the voice, but he could hear the words. They’ll all be fooled.
“Magic”” Johnny said. “Out of magic” All be fooled” Out of magic! OUT OF MAGIC!”
Rosie was trying to wrestle her hand away. His grip was too strong. “Let me go!”
Johnny was somewhere else. He was in a lab. He could see, but couldn’t move or speak. It was like he was a video camera. He wasn’t processing information. He was just recording it. He could see the person with the knife, and a man tied to a chair.
He let go of Rosie’s hand. There were white marks where his fingers were.
“What did you see?” Holly asked loudly. “Did you see the killer?”
“He was tied to a chair.” Johnny said. “The killer” stabbed him in the hand for a few minutes. He said” Out of magic?”
“He drained his magic from him so he couldn’t heal.” Rosie said.
“Then”” Johnny began. “I saw it again. I was in a tank” it was glowing and green. He said” They’ll all be fooled.”
“There’s one problem.” The Doctor said. “Why is there no wound on either hand?”
He had just walked out of the Funeral Home, after giving the hands a once-over with the sonic screwdriver. There had never been any healing energy running through this body. It was like he had never had magic to begin with.
“After discovering this,” The Doctor continued. “I examined his brain. No memory, no knowledge, no brain activity whatsoever prior to death.”
“Maybe he was knocked out.” Missy said.
“I mean no activity ever.” The Doctor said. “Besides. He wouldn’t have been able to heal from what killed him.” He paused dramatically. “Asphyxiation.”
“Why would he drain his magic?” Artemis asked. He turned to Missy, who was still sitting next to him. She realized she had been caught staring, and averted her eyes. “If he would have died even with it?”
“That’s easy.” Rosie said. “He didn’t. That mudman over there is a fraud.”
“Were you this pissy at your father’s funeral twenty years ago?” Johnny asked. Rosie immediately stopped questioning him.
The funeral service was beautiful. The Short family tradition dictated that rather than traditional recycling, the casket should be dropped down a magma shaft. It would be fried immediately. Artemis sat next to Holly, and The Doctor and Johnny stood in the back as not to attract too much attention. Rosie sat on the opposite side of Holly, and Missy sat on the other side of Artemis. Holly was beginning to see a pattern. The weirdest thing was that she really didn’t mind.
Artemis sat and hoped to high heaven that Missy needed a shoulder to cry on. Mainly because she was sitting at the end of the pew and his shoulder was the only one readily available. He highly doubted that she would get up in the middle of a funeral just to cry on someone else’s shoulder.
Artemis’s prayer was answered in a few seconds when Missy grabbed his arm and began to cry. She was crying on the closest available shoulder, but still. After the ceremony was over, people were invited up to the casket to leave things to be recycled with their loved one. People would leave flowers, or pictures, occasionally a lock of hair. Artemis walked up with Missy, still with tears running down her face. She left a small four-leaf clover next to his chest. Johnny’s hand brushed the casket as he walked by. He had a vision, but it was quick and quiet.
He was back where he was before. He stood over Sage Short with a knife. He jammed it into his hand until all of the blue sparks had escaped. He looked over to his right. There was a large green pod in which Sage floated, naked, with his eyes unblinking. He could see two Sage Shorts.
He was back in the funeral home. He whispered to the Doctor, “This isn’t Sage Short.”
Holly could hear this. “What do you mean?” she asked quietly but angrily, “I know my brother when I see him.”
“No.” The doctor said. “You know your brother when you see his clone.”
“It was in some sort of tank.” Johnny said. “How’d you know?”
“Gift of my people.”
“Holly, your brother is alive.” Johnny said.
“Listen.” Holly said. “If you’re right, if that is a clone in that bed, then we have to use the retimager on him. He might have seen something from the tank.”
Luckily, the one person on or in the earth with a retimager happened to be at the funeral. Holly asked Foaly if he could run a retimager test on the Clone in the casket.
“Sure.” He said. “In fact, I can do it after the ceremony. They won’t send him down the magma shaft until the next flare.”
“Foaly, won’t it be difficult to bring the retimager here?” Artemis asked. He still had Missy holding his arm. “It’s a big machine.”
“Not anymore.” Foaly said. He reached into his satchel and pulled out what looked like an electric shaver coming out of a digital camera. “Portable. Foalybat has really opened doors for me. I don’t have to worry about power anymore.”
The ceremony went on as planned, and after the million people saying, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” had left, Foaly, Holly, Rosie, Johnny, The Doctor, and Missy and Artemis approached the casket. Foaly held the retimager up to the clone’s eye, and started it up.
As it turns out, it saw more or less the same thing for the first year of its life. It was growing in a green tank. Just as it was ready to be released, Foaly saw exactly what Johnny had seen in his second vision. It went on to show a man removing the clone from its tank. It was smothered with a pillow, and then stabbed. It’s possible that the killer stabbed the clone to make it look like a murder.
There was a single frame that showed the killer’s face. Everyone who had been at the hotel gasped.
It was the Master.
The Doctor was furious. He ran into the TARDIS screaming and cursing. This murder had been staged to distract them.
The doctor came out quickly.
“If the android suit came through”” The Doctor began, “So did the remote Control.”
The Doctor pressed the off button, and he heard a yelp from the TARDIS cloister room.
The Master had used the TARDIS to go back in time and stage this murder, rather than going to the black eyed peas’ headquarters.
“I think I know where your brother is.” The Doctor said.
They all rushed to the Doctor’s link to the Eye of Harmony. Sage Short was still tied up. This time, he had a mask on. He looked like Hannibal Lecter. He stood on one side of the Eye of Harmony. The Master stood on the other side.
He had been waiting for the Doctor to arrive with Johnny. He was going to use his eye to open the eye of Harmony. Once the Eye of Harmony was open, the Master could steal a Time Lord’s regenerations or, in this case, a fairy’s magic.
What the Master didn’t know was that once the Eye of Harmony was open, he would be sucked right out of any organic body.
The Doctor flushed the Master out of the android suit, and threw him, the android suit, and the remote back into the Eye. That repaired most of the cracks between universes. All except one.
Sage was unspeakably happy to see his sisters again. They were even more overjoyed to see him alive. Rosie was crying with joy even when they arrived at the Black Eyed Peas’ headquarters.
When the Doctor landed, he found a note. It read:
Doctor:
If you are reading this, we’re on tour and you won’t see us this visit. If you’re not the Doctor, you are probably in the wrong place.
Keep it real,
B.E.P.
The doctor ran straight to the computer and ran a scan on the Diva. Rosie and Holly were still talking at top speed to their brother. Johnny quietly looked over The Doctor’s shoulder. Missy and Artemis disappeared on their own.
“This scan will take a while.” He called to everyone. “Make yourself at home. I’m sure these guys have a sofa or something. Great view on the observation deck. It’s over there, the soundproof room.”
“Soundproof room?” Butler asked. He had just woken up. “Where am I? Where’s Artemis?”
That’s when everyone remembered that Butler was passed out in the TARDIS.
There was a lot of talking between the two sisters and one brother. Butler had a compulsion to guard the door.
Holly could hear a noise coming from the broom closet. She walked over to the closet. It was muffled moaning.
She opened the door, and with a slight chuckle, found her sister locking lips with Artemis.
“Holly!” They both said at once.
“Word to the wise, Missy? Artemis?” She said. “The Observation Deck has a much more Romantic view. And it’s sound proof, little sister.” She winked and walked away.
Missy and Artemis slinked off to the observation deck. The doctor shouted.
“Ha HA!!” He shouted. “Fantastic! I have a lock on her. We can leave immediately!”
“And have her run away again?” Johnny asked. “Listen, she dropped this before she ran the first time, does that help?
He reached into his pocket and took out the Gem. He was swept into a vision.
He was himself in a few hours. The Diva’s TARDIS appeared around the gem and she stepped out. She shouted something and tried to run back.
“Just wait.” Johnny said. “Don’t go after her.”
Sure enough, a few hours later, the Diva’s power supply wore out. She reeled herself into the middle of the black eyed peas’ headquarters. She shouted an expletive and tried to run back into her TARDIS, but she couldn’t make it before the trained Bodyguard stopped her.
The Doctor knew exactly how to fix the final crack in the universe. He took an infinity Vortex capsule from the wall, shoved the diva into the TARDIS, and sucked it in. He used Artemis’s vortex inducer and the sonic screwdriver to open a black hole. The capsule was flushed away and the Doctor sensed the crack in the universe healing. There was still one last thing he needed to do.
He fired an antimatter cannon into the black hole to destroy the capsule. As soon as the black hole closed, he fired the cannon onto the gem. The Diva was trapped forever.
A few minutes later, Artemis and Missy emerged from the Observation deck.
“Where have you been?” Holly said, laughing. She had obviously told Rosie and Sage all about the little romance going on between their younger sister and Holly’s friend. They were all trying to hold back a laugh.
“Nothing.” Artemis said. “Nowhere,”
“We didn’t do anything,” Missy said.
“We just talked.” Artemis chimed in.
“Sure.” Holly said. “I knew you two would ‘talk’ sooner or later.”
“Holly!” Rosie said. She was always so serious. She found Holly’s innuendo hilarious.
“Well, if you are done busting chops, and” ‘Dancing”‘” The doctor began, but was interrupted by Holly.
“They called it ‘talking.’” She shouted, winking at her sister, who blushed.
“Fine, ‘talking,’ if you like. Anyway, we have to get going. Holly, you coming?”
“Actually, Doctor,” she said. “I think I’m going to spend a little more time with the family.”
“Right then. Let me drop you all off at your homes.”
“Better get checked.” Holly whispered to Missy. “You’re fertile this year.”
“What?” Artemis asked.
“She was actually fertile last year.” Sage said. “But now we know that you two really did have one hell of a conversation.”
The Doctor brought everyone back to their respective homes. Artemis and Missy said goodbye, and Missy gave Artemis her phone number, and Artemis wrote down his on her hand. With what was supposed to be a quick kiss, but ended up being a much longer kiss, they said goodbye. Everyone made their farewells. Foaly was a bit disgruntled about not mind-wiping Johnny, but he knew he would just regain all his memories afterwards from his visions.
The Doctor piloted the TARDIS away. He knew he would see Holly again. He just didn’t know when.

Part V

Holly was worried. No one in her family had heard from Missy in almost a week. By fairy standards, she was only a teenager. She had to think. There were three people she knew could help her. One of them was the Doctor, of course. So many of her adventures revolved around him. She would only attempt to contact him if the other two fell through. The second was Artemis Fowl II, who had a now heated romance with her sister Missy. Holly had never seen such love between two people. The second their eyes met, there was a spark. Holly wouldn’t be surprised if they got married, someday. Of course, the main problem with that was Artemis’s lack of longevity, but Holly suspected that he had kept some of the magic he had stolen. The second person who could help her was the psychic Johnny Smith. He had helped her find her brother Sage after they believed he was dead.
She decided she had best call Artemis first. She quickly dialed his number.
Artemis had been working on a longevity formula. Now that he knew his regeneration had never worked, he had to find a way to avoid growing old with Missy. That was his problem. When he was on his deathbed, she would still look thirty years old. If he could ever love her, He would have to either lengthen his lifespan or shorten hers. He chose the former. He had toiled night and day. The only thing he needed now was background radiation and he had invented the Elixir of Life. He found that water was able to conduct background radiation so well that he could just mix one drop of elixir into a bathtub and he would have a tub full of elixir for a good few days.
However, a single drop into a small vial of plain water, and he would have just made more elixir that would last a year. Make that saltwater, and it would last forever. The tides in the ocean would wash out all the radiation, but a small vial would never lose its power.
The only problem was that you could only get background radiation from the time vortex.
He scanned for the last temporal activity in his house. The place where the TARDIS had dropped him off left a trail away leading nowhere. He was had just grabbed some time-resistant metal left over from the siege on Fowl Manor when he was twelve, when he heard the phone ring.
“Hello?” he said. It was Holly. “Hey Holly! No, I’m not doing anything I can’t take a break from, why?”
She told him her worries and he dropped the phone. He scooped it up. “We have to call Johnny.” He said. “We know he can help us. The Doctor, too. We have to find her.”
“I was calling you because I thought you would know where she is.” Holly said.
Holly caught the first shuttle up to the surface. She shielded and headed to Fowl Manor. Johnny gave his apologies, but he couldn’t help them right now. He was far too busy. In the middle of Fowl Manor, They heard a familiar grinding noise. The TARDIS was materializing.
“I really hope you don’t think that I don’t have other adventures between you guys.” The Doctor said. “I do other things besides just help you and find your sister.”
“You found her?” Holly shouted and hugged him.
“Calm down!” The Doctor said. “We still have to go get her.”
They all loaded into the TARDIS. Artemis made sure to grab a few vials of salt water before they left.
“Won’t work.” The Doctor said. “Background radiation won’t make you immortal.”
“How did you—” Artemis began.
The Doctor took out his psychic paper. “You’re very excited.” The Doctor said. “During moments of great emotion, or upon death, Humans release psychic energy. This psychic paper picks up psychic energy and displays it. Your plan just showed up, word for word, on the paper.”
Artemis grumpily put a bottle in his pocket. He walked into the TARDIS and sat down.
“No, a shot of compatible elf DNA and you’ll get some of their gifts. Not magic, but the gift of tongues and longevity.” The Doctor said.
“So, let’s say an eyeball.” Artemis said. “What if a human and an elf switched eyes?”
“Is that why you have one blue and one hazel eye?” The Doctor said. “Yea, that would work.”
The TARDIS door opened to show a very confused pirate. He had extremely shadowed eyes, golden teeth, and a beard with two braids in it. He wore a red bandana on his head.
He darted a look at Holly. “It’s bad luck to have a woman on board, mate.”
“You already have one.” The Doctor said. “Looks like her only younger, more hair, and not so serious looking.”
“Hey!”
“Is that not an accurate description?” The Doctor said. “You—Pirate guy. Have you seen her?”
“Who’s asking?” The pirate said.
“The Doctor.” He said. “And who might I be talking to?”
“Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service.”
“I used to know someone named Captain Jack.” The Doctor said. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Captain Jack Harkness, have you?”
“I have.” Artemis said. “He worked at Torchwood last time I checked.”
“Don’t tell me you believe in Torchwood, Artemis.” Holly said. “What next, the Men in Black?”
“Torchwood’s real, Holly.” The Doctor said. “They just don’t want you to know it.”
“What are you all on about?” Jack asked. There was a long pause as Jack waited for a response. “Well, if you’re all just going to stare at me, I might as well ask you the obvious question.” There was another pause. “Now, this might be the rum talking, but where did you all come from?”
“What do you mean, Captain Jack?” Holly asked with bass tones lacing her voice. “We just came out of our cabin.”
“That box came out of nowhere, savvy?” He said. “And I’ve never met any of you. Introduce yourselves or I shoot one of you.”
“This box has been here, Captain.” Holly tried the mesmer again.
“No.” Jack said. “No, it hasn’t.” He took out his gun. “This shot isn’t meant for you. Introduce yourselves.”
“Artemis Fowl II.”
“Captain Holly Short.”
“The Doctor.”
“Doctor?” Jack said. “Doctor who?”
“We don’t have time for this.” Holly said. “Where’s my sister?”
“I doubt your sister’s here.” Jack said. “It’s bad luck to have a woman aboard.”
Holly brandished a large knife. Jack retreated a little. Holly moved it towards her head. Artemis gasped. She cut off a lock of her red hair. The Doctor made a confused noise.
“Scan for elf DNA.” Holly said.
“You didn’t have to remove your hair to do that.” The Doctor said. “I could have scanned it from your body. You know, to save you the trouble of giving me two heart attacks.”
“I needed a little off the back.” Holly said.
The Doctor ran a scan on the hair.
“She’s not on board.” The Doctor said. “But there’s a way we can find her.”
They all looked at him expectantly.
“Psychic Paper.”
The Doctor’s paper had 5 words written on them: “Help Missy—Fountain of Pain.”
“Fountain of WHAT?” Artemis shouted.
“Pain.” Said Jack. He grinned and showed his golden teeth. Artemis was not amused. “The Fountain of pain is a cleansing fountain.”
Artemis sighed in relief.
“You dive in and suffer such bad pain that by the time you reach the surface, all your bad karma is paid back. And then some.” The Doctor said. “The Problem is that most people can’t handle that kind of pain. It’s not just physical pain. It can destroy you with one touch. It doesn’t only make you hurt, it makes all of your living friends and family suffer.”
The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to set course for the Fountain of Pain. When they arrived, it was a massive cave with a purple pool. There were no signs of life, and the DNA scan was negative.
There was, however, a new message on the Psychic Paper. “Find Johnny.”
Johnny Smith was at home, preparing lunch, when the doorbell rang. Missy Short stood in the doorway, holding a black tie in one hand and a blue crystal in the other. She wore a gray sweatshirt that came down to her ankles. She wore it like a dress. “Missy?” Johnny said. “What’s all this?”
Johnny invited her in, and offered her lunch. She politely declined. He politely insisted. Missy had a sandwich. She explained that she had been using the crystal to view psychic energy. If something conducted it into her, she could enter a vision. She had been using it on a gnommish Ouija Board, and had seen something disturbing. She watched Artemis diving down into a purple pool. Three words were carved into the cave walls. “Fountain of Pain.”
Johnny agreed to touch the tie and see if he could find a solution. He did, and instantly knew that Artemis had given it to her on her last visit to the surface. Missy occasionally stayed at Fowl Manor when she visited Artemis. Even though there would be no tension if she stayed in Artemis’s room, she stayed in the next room with Juliet. After having been with Missy for as long as he had, the other residents of Fowl Manor would be stupid if they thought their relationship had not yet become serious, but Artemis was smart enough to know not to anything dumb while his family was home. Artemis gave Missy a tie before she went home, and Juliet, knowing Artemis’s complete ineptitude towards a woman’s mind, stole a gray hoodie sweatshirt from his closet and snuck it into her suitcase. Enclosed was a note that read:
“He doesn’t understand girls. No one will give you trouble if they see how big your boyfriend is. He’s going to think of you on every mildly chilly day, now that you have his hoodie. XOXO Juliet.”
Johnny knew all this the second he touched the tie. After seeing this, he was somewhere else. Missy was with him inside the vision, and the change was so startling that she dropped the crystal that connected her to Johnny. They were in the cave that contained the fountain of Pain. Holly, The Doctor, Artemis and a Pirate stared down into a purple fountain. Johnny disappeared from the vision.
Artemis sat next to Holly on the edge of the fountain. The doctor paced, holding the psychic paper every now and then. The message to find Johnny had long since disappeared. There was no information as to where or when to find him. After about an hour, Holly fell asleep on Artemis’s shoulder.
Something appeared on the Doctor’s psychic paper. “Smith Residence 2009″
“Yes!” The doctor shouted. He called Artemis and Holly into the TARDIS and started it up. Holly jumped awake, and toppled over the edge into the Fountain.
“Holly!” Artemis shouted. He dove after her into the pool.
The TARDIS was grinding itself away into the future.
Johnny had tried everything. He put the crystal back in Missy’s hand, he had touched the tie and the crystal exactly the way they had before, but she was just not responding. He lay her down on a chaise lounge and put a cold rag on her head.
“Damn it!” He heard from the other room. “Damn it damn it damn it!”
“Doctor?” Johnny said.
“The TARDIS took off without them!”
“Without who?”
“Artemis and Holly.” The Doctor said. “We were looking for Missy at the Fountain of pain, when I got a message to find you.”
“Missy’s in the living room.” Johnny said. “And I think I might have sent you to the fountain.”
While trying to awaken Missy, Johnny had a vision of the Doctor’s conversation with Captain Jack.
“Help Missy!” he shouted. “Fountain of Pain!”
The doctor checked his psychic paper and changed course. Johnny was back in the real world.
After scanning missy with the psychic paper, the Doctor declared that all of her psychic energy was trapped in the cave that housed the fountain of pain. Unfortunately, the effects of the fountain had taken their toll on the TARDIS. It wouldn’t move unless Artemis and Holly escaped from the Fountain.
Artemis had never felt such pain. It felt like he was having a sunburn slapped on every inch of skin. Then he felt nothing. The purple water turned clear in a wave or blue sparks. He swam downward towards Holly and pulled her out of the water.
“You alright?” He asked.
“I think so.” Holly said. “The healing magic kicked in to kill the pain.”
“It killed all the pain.” Artemis said. “This is just plain water now.”
They walked out to where the TARDIS had been, but it was gone now.
“What’s that?” Holly said. She pointed towards Artemis’s coat pocket. There was something glowing inside. He took out a vial of water that was emitting a bright red light. He brought the bottle closer to where the TARDIS was. The entire area occupied by the TARDIS was glowing.
Artemis knew what he needed to do. Out of his other pocket came three sheets of time-resistant metal. He gave Holly a sheet and told her two words.
“Hang on.” He said. He put his metal in the area of the TARDIS, and disappeared in a bright red flash.
The Doctor had told Johnny where Missy was. Her psychic energy was still floating in the cave. Her consciousness was trapped in the vision. In order to reconnect her with her body, Johnny would have to take in all her psychic energy and let it flow.
“Let’s go back and do it.” Johnny said.
“We can’t, without Holly and Artemis.” The Doctor said. “The TARDIS won’t work.”
The TARDIS doors flew open, and a great wind flew into it. The blue crystal was sucked in. Artemis flew out of a red light. A few seconds later, Holly followed him.
“That is, by a wide margin, the least likely thing that has ever happened!” The Doctor said. “How?”
“Time resistant metal.” Artemis said. “We just put it in the trail you left, and just rode our way back here.”
That’s when they both noticed Missy.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Is she okay?”
“How did you find her?”
The Doctor explained about the psychic energy. He also explained how bad it was that they had lost the crystal.
“We can’t restore Missy without it.” He said. “It should be easy to retrieve the crystal, because the TARDIS will go wherever it landed. It traveled through the TARDIS’s personal timeline, so the Crystal is wherever we go next.”
“So let’s go to the Cave and let it be there.”
“The TARDIS will go where the crystal goes. We’ll know where we are when we get there.”
They all loaded in and started to leave.
“Philadelphia. 2119.” The Doctor said. “Or, apparently, as it’s called now, New Atlantis.”
“That’s not right.” Holly said. There was a stylized mural of Artemis. Holly thought at first that it was Artemis Sr., but it was definitely her Artemis. There was one hazel eye and one blue. The crystal was resting in the bricks, where the pupil and iris of his eye should be. He looked older, because his hair was longer and he had a goatee, but it was clear who it was.
In gnommish, the words “HAIL FOWL. AUREM EST POTESTAS.” Shone on the mural.
“Artemis?” Holly said. Two elves in robotic body armor grabbed each of them.
“NEPD Officer 58 reporting: One unregistered fairy, two unregistered Humans, and a man of indeterminate species. They appear to be traveling in a Type 40 Transport machine.”
Holly looked down towards her arresting officer’s badge. “Major Thyme Kelp.”
“Kelp?” She said. “Any relation to Trouble?”
“Trouble Kelp was my father.” He said.
“Was?” Holly asked.
“He was excectued.” Thyme said. “He rebelled against the Fowl Regime and was given the electric chair.”
“Fowl Regime?” Artemis said.
“Emperor Artemis Fowl.” He said.
“The Third?”
“The Second.”
Artemis was half worried that he would become a heartless dictator, and half excited that he lived this long.
“The only reason I work for him is so that I might one day meet him and give him the present I have in store for him.” He took out a collapsible neutrino 7200. “When he killed my father, my mother went crazy and had to be institutionalized. I had to raise my sister, Parsley.”
“Parsley and Thyme.” Holly said. “Funny, my brother’s name is Sage and one of my sisters is Rosemary.”
“That’s an old family tradition of ours.” Thyme said. “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. It’s funny; it’s almost like” No.”
“What was your mother’s name, Thyme?”
“Her name was Holly.” He said. “Captain Holly Kelp.”
“Was her maiden name ‘Short?’” Holly asked.
Thyme stopped moving and signaled his comrades to let go and leave. Everyone was cuffed, so no one could run.
“How do you know that?”
Thyme removed his helmet.
“It looks like breaking rules runs in the family.”
Thyme embraced Holly.
“Mom, I thought I’d never see you again. Not after—”
“After I was committed?” She said. “None of this has happened to me yet, so bear with me.”
“After you took your own life.” Thyme said. There was a long silence.
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Emperor Artemis led the Fairy Army to revolution. We took back the surface, mom.”
“But at what cost?” Artemis said. But it wasn’t Artemis. It was a future version of him. “The fairies wouldn’t live in Harmony with the Humans. They wouldn’t take the chance that another war might break out. The humans have been enslaved, Holly.”
“What?”
“The worst things happened. Some humans have their blood spilled into giant pools for the Demons to drink. Some have to do manual labor. Some are used as batteries.”
“Like in the Matrix?”
“Exactly.” Future Artemis said. Right then Holly had noticed that everyone had already been taken away. “The earth is considered a ‘Human Dwelling.’ I invited you here, and that’s why I have the power. After I saw the bloodshed, I banished the fairies back underground, but they wouldn’t go. Every fairy on earth lost their magic. But they found a way to bring it back. Human energy.”
Artemis stared off into the blackened sky. “This is a post-apocalyptic world you’ve arrived in, Holly.” He said. “Everyone thought the Zombie War would be the end, but it turns out that the mass release of magic destroyed the environment. The air is all manufactured, no one’s seen the sun in years, and the rain can skeletonize you in thirty seconds.”
“Why did you have to take over, Artemis?” Holly said. “What drove you to this?”
He shed a tear. “I prayed every second of every day to lengthen my life so that I could live with Missy.” He said. “I wish my prayer hadn’t been answered.”
“We didn’t find her, did we?” Holly said. “Missy. We never got her back.”
“I couldn’t take life without her. I told the fairies that I could give them back the surface if they could send me back in time, and save Missy. We couldn’t do it. And now I’m trapped with the curse of a long life.”
He shed another tear. “I wish for death every minute.”
“I’m sorry,” Holly said. “I’m so sorry.”
She turned to Thyme. “Help him,” He said. “You’re going to save her. I know it.”
“If I give you the crystal, would you save our world?”
“Only if you let my friends go.” She said. She turned to Thyme. “What if I change things? What if you never exist?”
“I’ll come with you.” Thyme said. “If I start fading away, you can just do something different.”
Holly was sent back with the crystal. She loaded into the TARDIS with everyone else, and introduced them to Thyme.
“Thought you’d be back soon, mate.” Jack Sparrow said to the Doctor when they got back. “That’s just a fountain of water now.”
Johnny lay Missy down on the ground and placed the crystal in her hand. He held her other hand and took a deep breath. Missy woke up, and immediately threw her arms around Artemis.
Holly looked at Thyme. His eyes looked much less weary. He looked happier.
“What’s changed?” She said.
“Aunt Missy’s alive. Fairies and Humans still live separately. There was no apocalypse, and””
“And?”
“You and Dad are alive. I’m getting all these new memories. Theme Parks, Parsley’s Sweet Sixty, and””
“And what?”
“Some things are better left surprises.” He said. “I have a better world to return to.” He kissed Holly on the Cheek. He looked for all his life like his father. “I’ll see you in a few years.”

Part VI

Missy had been visiting Artemis on the Surface. She actually stayed with Juliet, but her room was close enough to Artemis’s that she could sneak over to his room. One of the nights, he wasn’t there. She was immediately worried. She ran downstairs, which was quick because she wore one of Artemis’s T-Shirts as a loose fitting nightgown. Something shuffled in the corner. Missy looked closely at it. There was a slight distortion all around the corner. A fully-grown human stepped out and lunged at her like an animal Artemis jumped out from underneath a sheet of cam-foil. He carried a gun, large by fairy standards, and fired it at the man. It was clearly silenced, because almost no sound came from it. No blood emerged from the wounds. He took out another device, like a remote control with a satellite dish on the end. He pressed it and the thing stopped. He held up his hand, wearing the communication ring Missy’s sister Holly had given him.
“Alright, Doctor. We have the specimen,” Artemis said. “And we’re lucky we do. I almost had to kill it.”
He paused. Missy noticed a small, golden ring on the floor. It shone beautifully. She picked it up, and it scorched her hand. Blue sparks healed the burn, and there were fiery letters burning on the inside and outside of the ring. Even with the fairy gift of tongues, She couldn’t read them. They faded away, leaving the ring smooth and cool.
“It almost attacked Missy.” He said. “I can’t stand here with a stasis generator forever, and we have to let it go to kill it.”
Pause. Missy knew she should give the ring to Artemis, but she just held it in her hand. She was reluctant to put it on. After all, it had burned her hand. She could swear she’d heard of this ring before, and remembered specifically not to put it on.
“I know that.” He said. “Come in for safe transport.”
Missy was confused and terrified. She reached her arms around Artemis’s neck, and he gave her a gentle kiss on the Mouth.
The TARDIS began to materialize. The Doctor stepped out with an LEP officer and a Human wearing a black suit. He recognized one of them as Thyme Kelp. The other wore a badge with the letter “T” made out of hexagons that Artemis immediately recognized as the insignia for the Torchwood Institute.
Torchwood was the organization that dealt with alien and other paranormal threats. The real men in black.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” Artemis said. Missy looked at the clock. It was, in fact, morning. “I have a zombified Solanum victim for you. A little off target, though.”
“Zombified?” Missy said.
“That’s classified information.” The Torchwood agent said. He took out something that looked like a pen. He put on a pair of sunglasses.
“No!” Artemis said. “She can know.”
Artemis made his first ever fatal mistake right then. He assumed that the Torchwood Agent and Thyme had set up a stasis bubble already. He let go of his device and the Zombie lurched towards her again.
“Aunt Missy!” Thyme shouted. He knew the world that would exist without her. She, unfortunately, was oblivious to the fact that he was her nephew. He tackled the Zombie and threw it away. It knocked down the Torchwood agent. Artemis put a bullet into its head, but he was two late. The Zombie’s teeth had punctured the skin of the Torchwood agent’s arm.
“We have to get him to the Hospital!” Artemis said.
“There’s no cure or treatment for Solanum, Artemis, You know that!” The Doctor said.
“AUNT Missy?” Missy shouted to Thyme.
“Not many people know about Solanum.” Artemis said. “If we put him down, we have Homicide on our hands.”
They all got into the TARDIS. The Doctor made sure to go to a Hospital where he wouldn’t be recognized. He didn’t have a good experience last time he was in a hospital. It killed him, literally.
They selected a hospital in New Jersey. Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital sounded promising.
They made sure not to touch the wound, even to dress it. There was no blood coming from the tooth marks. Missy asked Artemis how she and Thyme could walk through the Hospital unnoticed. She could shield, but she was still an amateur at magic.
“I have a chameleon circuit in my suit.” Thyme said. “I’ll look human to everyone around me.”
“Well, I don’t have a fancy suit.” Missy said.
“Relax.” Artemis said. He had brought along a little device he had invented. It was like a somebody-else’s-problem field. No one would notice her height as long as she wore a specific suit that Juliet had designed. The appearance of the clothing, combined with a slight psychic energy emitter would make her appear human to anyone who didn’t already know she was a fairy. Anyone who came close to noticing would have the thought wiped out of their mind, and it would be replaced with thoughts of “I love your outfit!” In layman’s terms, it did the same thing as psychic paper. It showed people whatever they were supposed to see.
Missy gladly put it on. She loved getting new clothes.
The Doctor brought the Torchwood Agent into the Emergency room with Artemis. Missy sat and talked to Thyme.
“Aunt?” Missy said. “You have to be at least 80. You’re too old to belong to any of my siblings.”
“I’m”” He said. “I’m from the future.”
“Great. Nephew from the future.” She said. “Are you here to keep Wyatt from turning evil?” She joked. That was one of the only Human shows she had seen.
“I’m your sister’s.” She said. “Not Aunt Rosie.”
“Holly?” She said. “Who’s the dad? I’ve got to know.”
“My name’s Thyme Kelp.” He said.
“No!” Missy said, “The cute major she ‘only likes as a friend?’”
A man came out of the door the Doctor had gone through a few minutes ago. He had short, wavy brown hair with gray streaks. His eyes were as blue as Artemis’s, and his face was unshaven. He walked with a cane.
“Who else here came with the man who was bitten by a ‘Rabid Dog?’” He asked loudly. “Because we need a consent form signed by a responsible adult, and the only one back here will only sign it with a scribble and a question mark.”
Thyme stood up and signed the form.
“Thyme Kelp?” He said. “There’s no way that name is real. I might as well believe ‘Squiggle?’ in there.” He noticed something. “What’s with you? You’re three feet tall.”
Missy and Thyme shared a glance. A dark-haired female doctor walked up to him.
“What the hell is wrong with you, House?” She said.
“If you must know, Cuddy, I was wondering why she’s the size of a child, but her figure suggests otherwise.”
“House!” Cuddy said. “She’s normal sized. Lay off the Vicodin.” She turned to Missy and Thyme. “What are your names?”
“Missy Short”
“Thyme Kelp”
“Oh, my god.” House said. “Those can’t be your real names.”
“Come with me.” Cuddy said. “If your friend has had his rabies shot, he should be fine.”
“I think you’ve got a case of African Rabies here.” The Doctor said to Cuddy and House.
“And who are you to tell us that our diagnosis is wrong?” House said.
“Doctor” Foreman.” The Doctor said. He held up his psychic paper.
“That card is blank.” House said.
“House, what are you talking about?” Cuddy asked. “It says right here, ‘Doctor I.M. Foreman.’”
“No, the card is definitely blank. Who’s on drugs now?” He popped several Vicodin. “He was bitten an hour ago. Is his wound discolored?”
“Purple and brown.” The Doctor said.
About an hour later, Dr. House approached Missy.
“How do you know this man?” House asked. “I mean, his ID is just a big old T.”
“I don’t know the man. My boyfriend’s friend knows him, but I don’t know him at all.”
“Your boyfriend is the little vampire, right?” House said. “No offense. I’m sure he gets that a lot.”
“You know, my sister knew him for years before I actually knew him.” Missy said. “But I just met him once and we hit it off right away.”
“That’s a touching story, but you must realize that it bores me.” House said. “How do you know that other guy?”
“Doctor Foreman?” Missy said, slightly fudging the Doctor’s real name.
“I don’t know what he did to make that ID look real to Cuddy, but Dr. Foreman is the black neurologist who checked your friend’s head.” House said. “What’s his real name?”
“I don’t know.” Missy said. “He was just ‘the Doctor’ when we first met. He hasn’t told anyone his name.”
Thyme stood next to the hospital bed while the Doctor examined him. He was actually wearing a dark green jumpsuit and carried a gun in his holster. He was really three feet tall. Anyone walking by would see an unarmed, human civilian who looked concerned for his sick friend.
It had been hours, so Missy had fallen asleep on Artemis’s shoulder.
The doctor went up to House to confront him. They met behind the Hospital.
“He’s going to get worse in a few minutes.” The Doctor said. “His fever’s going to increase, and dementia will set in.”
“It’s an infection at worst.” House said. “I’m not interested. Chase will take care of it.”
“If you don’t put him in a private room with a sealed door, everyone in this Hospital will be dead by Morning!” The Doctor said. “If you’re too arrogant to admit that he might just have African Rabies, then you really shouldn’t be a Doctor!”
“I shouldn’t be a doctor?” House shouted back. “You won’t even tell us your name! How can anyone trust you when you don’t even have a name?”
“I’m not addicted to painkillers!”
“Part of my leg was removed.” House shouted at him. “I need these! What do you know of pain? What happened in your life that made you such a douche bag?”
There was a long pause as the Doctor stared into House’s eyes. “My entire family.” He said. “Every single friend I ever had. My home. My childhood. Everything I ever knew was taken away from me forever. Anything that I loved burned to pieces. I’m sure that your leg hurts, but you don’t know what true pain is.”
The doctor walked back into the Hospital.
“You’ll die too, if you don’t put him in a private room.”
“I’ll give him some Phalanx.” House said.
“It doesn’t work.”
Holly was still staying with Opal. Opal liked to leave her magazines out on the table. Holly was shocked by the news.
“Solanum outbreak on the surface. All fairies are grounded until further notice. No surface travel will be allowed.”
She understood why. If a fairy was zombified, it would never decompose. It couldn’t get hurt. Invincible zombies, she thought. It made her shudder.
Unfortunately, that also meant that they were allowing any surfaced fairies emergency shuttles back to the center of the earth. Any fairies bitten would probably reanimate on the shuttle and they would just get a shuttle of Zombies.
She knew Artemis was using his vortex inducer to pull any zombies into his house to be captured by the Doctor and her future son, Thyme, to be brought back to torchwood institute for incineration.
What Holly didn’t know was that one of the major shuttles was in New Jersey, under Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. It would leave in seventy-two hours exactly, and in that time, the hospital would be swarming with zombies. And zombies can catch a fairy even when shielded.
Thyme realized this after about fifteen hours since the original bite. He warned Artemis, who reached for the glock in his pocket.
“No!” Thyme said. “We have to wait until he dies.”
“We’ll cremate him.” Artemis said.
“It’ll be too late.” Thyme said. “They’ll want to do an autopsy for an African Rabies case.”
“Hold on.” Missy said. “Why did they need you here?”
“I lived through the Zombie War.” Thyme said.
Below the hospital, fairies were flooding in from all over the east coast. Everyone was standing in the hidden shuttleport. It wasn’t really a magma tube. It was just a very deep hole. It had heat-absorbing siding, so you could fly down to haven if you were wearing a set of wings.
Holly short was standing before the fairy council. She had gotten a call from Artemis, saying that that port needed to be shut down. If that zombie got even a single fairy, all of the lower elements would be doomed.
“He’s fallen into coma.” House said a little after 4 in the afternoon. It was the middle of the night when the Torchwood Agent had been bitten, and they had been there all night. They had been here over 15 hours.
“Right, then. We have four hours.” The Doctor said. “Four hours after the coma occurs, the victim’s heart and brain will stop.” There was a long pause. “Dr. House,” he said. He had never called him “Dr. House” before. “I suggest euthanasia in the most humane way possible.”
“If it is African rabies, the only form of euthanasia would be a blow to the head.” House said. “That’s hardly humane.”
“I didn’t mean humane for him.” The Doctor said. “He won’t be human for much longer.”
“Foreman.” House said. Both Dr. Foreman and the Doctor responded. “The REAL Foreman. Not the cryptic ass that’s put on a fake name.”
“Yea?” Foreman said.
“Scan his brain. Do all your neurological stuff and bring me the pictures.” House said. “And I’m going to figure out how you made Cuddy see those words, even though I couldn’t.” House said to the doctor. He walked up to Missy. “I’ll also figure out why everyone seems to think you’re normal height.”
Three and a half hours later, The Doctor sat down with Artemis while Missy pretended to be asleep under his suit jacket.
“I don’t understand.” The Doctor said. “We had it set up in a chain reaction. That zombie was supposed to set the DNA in the antimatter reactor.”
“I know.” Artemis said. “I had the antimatter reactor set up around the predicted entry point.”
“Why did it emerge ten feet away?” The Doctor asked.
“He’s crashing!” Chase shouted. House watched from the patient’s window. Orderlies brought in the Defibrillator pads. No matter what they did, the patient just failed.
“Take him to the morgue immediately.” House said. “I don’t want an autopsy. I want him locked up as soon as possible. Bury or cremate him immediately.”
The body was being transported to the morgue when it reanimated. The pathologist transporting him was bitten immediately. The elevator doors opened just in time to have the newly reanimated zombie off of him. Two orderlies were bitten in the process, and someone was smart enough to close the door. The zombie clawed at the walls while the three others reanimated. The energy of four crazed zombies snapped the cord of the elevator. The Solanum was faster acting in the people bitten by the Torchwood agent. Each generation of zombies in this strain would die and reanimate faster and faster until the effects would be instantaneous. After about twenty minutes, there were four zombies instead of one in the hospital. Something changed about this particular strain of the Zombie Virus that sped up the effects.
The elevator crashed down through the concrete floor of the basement, and punched through to the hidden fairy shuttleport. There were warlocks around to repair the damage almost instantly. The zombies forced their way through the now broken doors into the shuttleport. There were hundreds of fairies automatically strapped into their seats. Those who unbuckled before being bitten were the first to go. Within an hour, every fairy in the shuttleport had been bitten. When they arrived in the lower elements, they would be unleashed.
The Doctor was pacing. Four zombies, safely contained, gone. There was no crater under the elevator shaft. The cord was snapped, but the elevator and the zombies in it were just gone.
Missy felt the ring grow hot in her hoodie pocket.
The doctor felt it, too, from the other side of the waiting room. A large burst of psychic energy had just appeared.
He took out his psychic paper.
Lines of words were written in a language strange even to the doctor. He could read them, but he had never seen them before.
“Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.” He said. “I recognize these words.”
Missy looked confused. She could hear those words being chanted from the ring in her pocket.
The doctor began to speak the words in English. “One ring to rule them all,” he said. “One ring to find them. One ring to bring them all,” He paused dramatically. “And in the darkness bind them.”
“Someone’s sending you quotes from Tolkien?” Artemis asked.
“No.” The Doctor said. “I think something from Tolkien is sending me messages.”
“But it’s all fiction.” Artemis said. “Nothing from Tolkien exists in real life.”
“Every fictional story does exist spatially somewhere.” The Doctor explained. “Middle earth exists, oh, I’d say about six thousand years in the past, on a separate plane of existence. A great enough burst of energy could tear a wormhole open, sending it through time, and maybe even to another plane.”
“It must have come out in my foyer. The wormhole must have trapped the zombie on its way to the reactor.” Artemis said.
Thyme and Artemis went back to Fowl Manor in the TARDIS. After searching and searching, they found no trace of the ring. There was a knock at the door.
“Hello?” Artemis said. Three men, wearing hoods over their heads to the point where their faces could no longer be seen, stood in the doorway.
“The Ring.” One of them hissed. Artemis couldn’t tell which, because none of them moved. They all slid into the house and searched the entire lobby. One of them waved their hands over the spot the zombie had materialized. All three of them hissed again and they slid over to Artemis and Thyme.
“Where is it?” One of them shrieked. “Give it to us!”
They both backed into a corner as the two dark wraiths advanced on them. There was a very loud noise and one of them disappeared. Behind him stood Dr. House with a wet-dry vac that was clogged with a long black robe. A screeching came from nowhere, and House pulled off the other two robes. There was more screeching, and weightless footsteps charged for the door. It seemed to shut on its own.
“It’s a good thing I stowed away.” House said. “Now does someone want to tell me what the hell’s going on?”
Thyme made sure to pilot the TARDIS as carefully as he could. It came from an earlier point than him in the timeline; so one change could wipe him out.
The Doctor was making every attempt to scan the ground where the elevator should have fallen. He didn’t understand why there was rubble on the ground, but no elevator.
That’s it. Rubble. He could see a fine line all around the area. After some serious physics calculations, he could see that it was the exact shape of the crater that would be left by the elevator if it crashed through a 2-foot wall of concrete.
During the brief time when Holly was traveling with the doctor, he had been able to create a setting on his sonic screwdriver that matched fairy magic exactly. He couldn’t use the magic, but a fairy who was running on empty could use it like an AC adapter until they could complete the ritual. He could, however, reverse the polarity and undo a fairy spell.
He pointed it at the ground, and the hole reappeared.
There was a familiar grinding behind him. The TARDIS flickered back into existence.
“We had an unexpected passenger.” Artemis said. They pulled House out through the door.
“Yes, I saved your life, but the fact that I stowed away is what’s really important.” He said. “Before you furrow your brow and start yelling, tell me what the hell’s going on.”
The Doctor didn’t need to explain. The moaning coming from below spoke for itself. The eight gray arms that could reach up that high grabbed at air from the hole. One of them climbed up.
Holly had tried everything to get to the surface after she got the call from Thyme. He told her about the zombies and the infested shuttleport that would be shipping off zombies towards the Lower Elements soon. He told her about the wraiths that had attacked them.
She was grounded. There were no shuttles going to the surface.
Her only hope was to find the bit of time-resistant metal she had clung onto to escape the Fountain of pain and to ride it to where the doctor was now.
In case that didn’t work, she would have to consult the fairy council.
“If we don’t lock down the New Jersey shuttleport, the fairy people are doomed.” She said.
“These ‘zombies’ are no threat to us.” A Councilman said. “Those of us who have completed the ritual lately can simply heal our bites and hit them with a neutrino pistol.”
“A neutrino pistol won’t do it.” Said a tall figure in the corner, accompanied by a shorter, more feminine shape. “The blasts are simply concussive. You’ll knock the zombies down, but unless it’s strong enough to knock their heads off of their necks, you can’t take them out.”
“Artemis!” Holly shouted. “Missy! How did you two get down here?”
“The doctor swung us by in the TARDIS.” Missy said.
“That’s not the only thing he brought.” Artemis said. The double doors of the great hall burst open, and that’s when Thyme Kelp marched through, followed by one thousand other soldiers in heavy LEP troop body armor.
“What?” Holly said.
“I checked the History, mom.” Thyme said. “On this day, for this invasion, Captain Holly Short requested military backing for a zombie infestation. A mysterious army appeared, and—”
“And what?” Holly said.
“The history books stop there.” Thyme said. “History hasn’t decided yet.”
There was a long silence.
“We’d better get ready.”
Missy started to hear a burning chant coming from the ring in her pocket. It took her a minute to realize she was chanting along.
“That’s not good.” The Doctor said. “Where’s the ring, Missy?”
“How did he get in?” A Council member said. “Did anyone hear him come in?”
“I have that effect on people.” The Doctor said. “I brought the druggie. He wouldn’t shut up unless I brought him.”
“This is all a side effect of the Vicodin.” House said. “Has to be.”
“Vicodin?” The Doctor said. “That explains your immunity to the psychic paper, and Missy’s psychic energy emitter.” The doctor thought for a second. “Where’s the ring, Missy?”
Missy slowly brought it out.
“Missy, you should have shown me this.” Artemis said. “We have to destroy it.”
“Wait.” The Doctor said. “We can use it to destroy the zombies.”
“So, what?” Thyme asked. “I brought a thousand soldiers here for nothing?”
“Of course not.” The Doctor said. “I think you’ll need them for a greater battle.”
“What?” He said.