CHAPTER 1: New Assignment

Diclaimer: Characters and location belong to Eoin Colfer. Plot belongs to me.

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The Captain stood in the Commander’s office, fuming, not quite silently. In fact, Captain Short not very silent at all after hearing the assignment.

“With all due respect I am not doing it, sir.”

“These are your orders, Captain!” the Commander barked.

“Commander, I’m a Reconnaissance officer, not a babysitter. I am a professional. You and I both know the Council just wants me put out of the way and that’s all there is to it.”

“Can you blame them on that, Short? Be happy you’re not behind a desk! Besides, I’m sure they think you’re the best man, er, woman for the job.”

“Sir, if they were looking for a Recon officer, then I was the only woman for the job.” Captain Holly Short tried to keep her voice level but was failing at it.

“Be that as it may, you are responsible for Ambassador’s son from the moment he steps off that shuttle until he leaves,” Root’s face was taking on a hue deeper than it’s usual ruddy color. As his face reddened it was obvious once again as to how he’d acquired the nickname Beetroot.

“Yessir,” she sighed. She took a chance. “Couldn’t you at least ask if they’d put that bimbo Corporal Frond on the case? She doesn’t do anything for the LEP except camera work anyway.”

It was Root’s turn to sigh. “Holly, I almost asked. I really did, but do you want her on the job? Holly, I know neither of the Artemis Fowl incidents were your fault but bear with the Council on this,” Commander Root told her.

Holly wanted to protest that Trouble Kelp or one of the other officers be put in charge of the ambassador’s son but she knew better than to argue further. She wouldn’t even mention that she was an awful babysitter. She really was no good with children. Holly instead gave a resigned “Yessir,” and left Commander Root’s office hoping that a bath in her steaming slime pool would be enough to relax her.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Artemis Fowl was finishing plotting how to topple some major corporation or other and his mobile phone rang. The line was of course secure. Only his bodyguard had the number.

“Yes, Butler?” he asked curtly, irritated at the distraction.

“Sir, there’s been a robbery and I think you should come check out the scene.”

Artemis knew that either he would be completed interested or uninterested depending on the next answer. However, Butler would not have called if it weren’t important. Chances were, he’d be very interested. “Where was the theft?”

“The Manor.”

“A security breach at the Manor? We shall have to remedy this immediately. Where are you?”

“Ten minutes from the school gates.”

“Good man.” Artemis folded the phone into its wallet and was soon standing outside the gates of Saint Bartleby’s School for Young Gentlemen. Butler pulled up in a red Bentley and Artemis climbed in.

“I assume the visitors were one of our old friends. Mulch Diggums is the most likely suspect if, as I believe is true, he entered from the wine cellar. He is the only fairy alive I know of who would break into a human dwelling.”

Master Artemis Fowl was extremely bright, in fact he was a genius with the highest tested IQ in Europe.

“Yes, he left this behind in the safe under the stairs.” Butler extracted a dark piece of hair crinkled like metal, like a key.

Artemis chuckled, a sound that would make some people recoil. “Excellent. I knew it was only a matter of time before we crossed paths again. Is my father still out of town?”

“Yes, settling something in Spain.”

“Good. What about Mother and Juliet?”

“They are attending a fashion show in Italy.”

“This is most advantageous.”

Butler used a right-handed turn as an excuse to glance at his employer. If it hadn’t been that it was Artemis he was looking at, he could have sworn no fourteen-year-old boy could have that much thought etched in that face or such a spark in his eye. He was plotting something and the odds were, it wouldn’t be legal.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Holly was in the Operations room at the Police Plaza and she was running out of patience. “Foaly, get serious!” Holly told the centaur, her hand strayed toward her buzz baton.

“Alright, Holly. Don’t get your ears in a knot.”

“What have you got for me for this mission? The shuttle is going to be here soon and I can’t be late. I don’t need the Council to have something else to throw at me.”

“I’m not exactly high on their list either, they just can’t get rid of me. I can’t give you much on a job like this. It’s got to look as if the Haven is safe and you’re only around because the kid can’t cross the street alone.” The centaur snickered. “All I can give you is the newest model Neutrino blaster, your good old buzz baton, and a locator for the kid.”

“A locator?”

“In case you lose the little tyke.”

“I’m not going to lose him, Foaly. Is this everything?”

“No, take this.” Foaly tossed Holly a book.

She looked at the cover. The title read A Babysitter’s Guide for Survival. “Very funny, Foaly.” There was no humor in her voice. She rattled off a few empty threats before leaving. She knew the threats were empty, just as Foaly knew they were empty.

Foaly snorted as Holly left. He knew the LEP couldn’t replace him and they knew it. All the new technology he had rigged was too valuable. He had also rid the LEP of the bugs placed in the systems and equipment by Opal Koboi. He not only shouldn’t and couldn’t be replaced; he wouldn’t be replaced. If anyone else tried to boot up the system, a virus would destroy everything. Sure it meant he didn’t get much time off, but hey, small price to pay for job security.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At seven o’clock Holly was at the docking bay when the Ambassador’s new shuttle arrived. The Ambassador wasn’t particularly happy with Commander Root. He and Holly had borrowed his previous shuttle to take it on a little trip to the Artic the year before and it hadn’t been returned; even if they had returned it would have been in less than mint condition. It now sat beneath Koboi Labs and it was going to stay there.

The Ambassador stepped off the shuttle with his son and his escort fairies. Holly approached the Ambassador.

“Sir, I am Captain Short. I will be responsible for the well-being of your son during your stay here.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“Sir, where would you like your son escorted?”

The Ambassador turned to his son. The boy couldn’t have been more than ten or so, that’s young, especially for a fairy; Holly herself was only in her eighties. “Where do you want to go?”

“I wanna see da crazy centaur.”

“Sir, is it alright if I take him to the Police Plaza as he requests?”

“Just bring him to the restaurant at 8 o’clock.”

Holly sighed. Aquarius didn’t seem like a bad little chap, but he did talk an awful lot.

“When do I get to see da crazy centaur?”

“Soon.”

“Does he still wear a metal hat?”

For as long as Holly could remember, Foaly had worn a tinfoil cap to keep the Mud Men satellites from reading his mind. He had discarded the hat in disgust when Opal Koboi and Briar Cudgeon had outsmarted him and used his own paranoid security standards to lock him in his own operations booth the year before. Obviously his tin bonnet hadn’t done much good. “No, he doesn’t wear it anymore.”

“Is Commander’s face still purple?”

“Most of the time.”

So the questions went on. At one point Holly put her hand on Aquarius’s shoulder to keep him from crossing the street and she slipped the tracking device inside the collar of his jacket. She wasn’t taking any chances.

Foaly grinned at Holly as she entered the Ops room in the Police Plaza. She frowned. Aquarius on the other hand had a wonderful time wandering around the Ops room and saying things to Foaly and Holly. When it was time to leave Foaly made a snide parting comment and Holly smacked her old friend once with the buzz baton, she used a low setting, but not so low as that it didn’t smart.

When they had left headquarters and were crossing the street, Holly lost sight of her charge. “Aquarius? Aquarius, where’d you go?” She searched frantically. He was gone. “Oh no!” How could he disappear so quickly and so completely? She searched for another ten minutes, shoving her way through the crowd. She then made her way back to the Police Plaza. She entered the Ops room.

Foaly looked up from where he was typing and asked good-naturedly, “Where is he? Did you lose him already?”

“Not exactly. I just don’t know where he is.”

Foaly allowed himself a smug grin as he ran the scan on the computer for the tracking device inside the collar. “He is heading north on the main street.”

Holly stared at the dot moving across the screen. “I’m on it.”

Foaly tossed Holly’s helmet to her, “Keep in touch this time, turn on the com-link and the camera.”

“Got it.” Soon Holly was back on the streets moving as quickly as possible. “Where is he headed now?”

“He seems to have stopped moving.”

“Great, where is he?”

“Outside Spud’s Spud Emporium.”

Spud’s Spud Emporium had food that usually made you nauseous, why anyone would ever go there was beyond reasoning. When she reached Spud’s she still couldn’t find him. “Where is he?” muttered Holly.

Suddenly she heard a sharp voice her ear. “Captain Short!”

“Yessir, Commander?”

“Have you retrieved the boy?”

“Not yet, sir. The computer showed he was here but I don’t see him anywhere.”

“The computer still says he’s there so keep looking!”

“Yes, Commander.” She scanned the place again. “I still don’t see him,” she muttered.

“What was that, Holly? The computer says he just left. I’m going to transfer the locator’s progress on the map of the city to your helmet.” came Foaly’s voice.

“Affirmative. How long to upload it to the helmet?”

“Two minutes.”

She approached the sprite at the counter. “Excuse me. Have you seen an Antlantean boy in here? It would have been a couple minutes ago. He’s only 10. This tall,” she lifted one hand to the appropriate height. “And he was wearing a blue hydro-circulating coil jacket.”

“Hey good lookin’.”

“Look, you conceited sprite, I haven’t got time for this. Have you seen him or not?”

“I seen ‘im. He left with a couple chaps not a long while back.”

“Where did they go?”

“I dunno. But what do you say to you an’ me goin’ somewhere when I get off my shift?”

“No. Which way did they go?”

“Down that street,” he said sullenly.

Holly left abruptly. “Now what?” she muttered.

“What was that, Holly?” asked Foaly.

“Nothing, where’s that map you promised?”

“Another ten seconds should do it.”

As Holly moved further down the crowded street passing elves, dwarves, and wide bottomed gnomes, Holly got the sensation that there was trouble somewhere else.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, Aquarius chattered happily to the two fairies escorting him to one of the chutes. He didn’t notice the large guns they were wearing.