Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl. The Opal Deception

Opal, oblivious to all the discontent in her camp, popped the video disk into the multi-drive. To watch one’s enemies die in glorious colour and surround-sound was surely one of the greatest assets of technology. Several video windows opened on the screen. Each one represented the view from one of the hemisphere’s cameras.

Opal watched delightedly as Holly and Artemis were driven into the river by a pack of slobbering trolls. She ‘Oohed’ and ‘Aahed’ as they took refuge on the tiny island of corpses. Her tiny heart beat faster as they scaled the Temple scaffolding. She was about to instruct Mervall to fetch her some chocolate truffles from the booty box to go with the movie, when the cameras blacked out.

‘Mervall,’ she squealed, wringing her delicate fingers. ‘Descant! Get in here.’

The Brill brothers rushed into the lounge, handguns drawn.

‘Yes, Miss Koboi?’ said Scant, laying the shaped charges down on a fur-covered lounger.

Opal covered her face. ‘Don’t look at me!’ she ordered.

Scant lowered his eyes. ‘Sorry. No eye contact. I forgot.’

‘And stop thinking that.’

‘Yes, Miss Koboi. Sorry, Miss Koboi.’ Scant had no idea what he was supposed to be thinking, so he tried to blank out everything.

Opal crossed her arms, tapping her fingers on her forearms, until both brothers were bowing before her.

‘Something has gone wrong,’ she said, her voice trembling slightly. ‘Our Temple of Artemis cameras seem to have malfunctioned.’

Merv rewound the footage up to the last image. In it, the trolls were advancing on Artemis and Holly across the Temple roof.

‘It looks like they were done for anyway, Miss Koboi.’

‘Yep,’ agreed Scant. ‘No way out of that one.’

Opal cleared her throat. ‘Firstly, yep is not a word, and I will not be spoken to in slang. New rule. Secondly, I assumed that Artemis Fowl was dead once before, and I spent a year in a coma as a result. We must proceed as though Fowl and Short have survived and are on our trail.’

‘With respect, Miss Koboi,’ said Merv, directing the words at his own toes, ‘this is a stealth shuttle. We didn’t leave a trail.’

‘Moron,’ said Opal casually. ‘Our trail is on every television screen above ground, and doubtless below it. Even if Artemis Fowl were not a genius, he would guess that I am behind the Zito probe. We need to plant the final charge now. How deep is the probe?’

Scant consulted a computer readout. ‘Eighty-eight point two miles. We have another ninety minutes to go to the optimum blast point.’

Opal paced the deck for a few moments. ‘We have not picked up any communication with Police Plaza, so if they are alive, they are alone. Best not to risk it.

We will plant the charge now and guard it. Descant, check the casings again. Mervall, run a systems check on the shuttle — I don’t want a single ion escaping through the hull.’

The pixie twins stepped backwards, bowing as they went. They would do as they were told, but surely the boss was being a bit paranoid.

‘I heard that thought,’ screeched Opal. ‘I am not paranoid!’

Merv stepped behind a steel partition to shield his brainwaves. Had Miss Koboi really intercepted the thought? Or was it just the paranoia again? After all, paranoid people usually believe that everyone thinks they are paranoid. Merv poked his head out from behind the partition and beamed a thought at Opal, just to be sure.

Holly Short is prettier than you, he thought, as loudly as he could. A treasonous thought to be sure, one Opal could hardly fail to pick up on if she could indeed read minds.

Opal stared at him. ‘Mervall?’

‘Yes, Miss Koboi?’

‘You’re looking directly at me. That’s very bad for my skin.’

‘Sorry, Miss Koboi,’ said Merv, averting his eyes, which happened to glance through the cockpit windscreen, towards the mouth of the chute. He was just in time to see an LEP shuttle rise through the holographic rock outcrop that covered the shuttle-bay door. ‘Erm, Miss Koboi, we have a problem.’ He pointed out through the windscreen.

The shuttle had risen to ten metres and was hovering above the Italian landscape, obviously searching for something.

‘They’ve found us,’ said Opal in a horrified whisper. Then she quelled her panic and quickly analysed the situation. ‘That is a transport shuttle, not a pursuit vehicle,’ she noted, walking quickly into the cockpit, closely followed by the twins. ‘We must assume that Artemis Fowl and Captain Short are aboard. They have no weapons and basic scanners. In this poor light, we are virtually invisible to the naked eye. They are blind.’

‘Should we blast them from the skies?’ asked the younger Brill brother eagerly. At last, some of the aggression he had been promised.

‘No,’ replied Opal. ‘A plasma burst would give away our position to human and fairy police satellites. We go silent. Turn off everything. Even life support. I don’t know how they got this close, but the only way they’re going to discover our exact location is to run into us. And if that happens, their sad little shuttle will crumple like cardboard.’

The Brills obeyed promptly, switching off all the shuttle’s systems.

‘Good,’ whispered Opal, placing a slim finger over her lips. They watched the shuttle for several minutes, until Opal decided to break the silence.

‘Whoever is passing wind, please stop it, or I will devise a fitting punishment.’

‘It wasn’t me,’ mouthed the Brill brothers simultaneously. Neither was anxious to find out what the fitting punishment for passing wind was.

E7, TEN MINUTES EARLIER

Holly eased the LEP shuttle through a particularly tricky secondary shaft and into E7. Almost immediately, two red lights began pulsing on the console.

‘The clock is ticking,’ she announced. ‘We just triggered two of Foaly’s sensors.

They’re going to put the shuttle together with the probe and come running.’

‘How long?’ asked Artemis.

Holly calculated in her head. ‘If they come supersonic in the attack shuttle, less than half an hour.’

‘Perfect,’ said Artemis, pleased.

‘I’m glad you think so,’ moaned Mulch. ‘Supersonic LEP officers are never a welcome sight among burglars. As a general rule, we prefer our police officers subsonic.’

Holly clamped the shuttle to a rocky outcrop on the chute wall. ‘Are you backing out, Mulch? Or is this just the usual moaning?’

The dwarf rotated his jaws, warming them up for the work ahead. ‘I think I’m entitled to a little moan. Why do these plans always involve me putting myself in harm’s way while you three get to wait it out in the shuttle?’

Artemis handed him a cooler sack from the galley. ‘Because you are the only one who can do this, Mulch. You alone can foil Koboi’s plan.’

Mulch was not impressed. ‘I’m not impressed,’ he said.

‘I better get a medal for this. Real gold too. No more gold-plated computer disks.’

Holly hustled him to the starboard hatch. ‘Mulch, if they don’t lock me in prison for the rest of my life, I will start the campaign to give you the biggest medal in the LEP cabinet.’

‘And amnesty for any past and future crimes?’

Holly opened the hatch. ‘Past, maybe. Future, not a chance. But no guarantees.

I’m not exactly flavour of the month at Police Plaza.’

Mulch tucked the sack inside his shirt. ‘OK. Possible big medal and probable amnesty. I’ll take it.’ He put one foot outside on to the flat surface of the rock. Tunnel wind sucked at his leg, threatening to tumble him into the abyss. ‘We meet back here in twenty minutes.’

Artemis handed the dwarf a small walkie-talkie from the LEP locker. ‘Remember the plan,’ Artemis shouted over the roar of the wind. ‘Don’t forget to leave the communicator. Only steal what you are supposed to. Nothing else.’

‘Nothing else,’ echoed Mulch, looking none too pleased. After all, who knew what valuables Opal might have lying about up there. ‘Unless something really jumps out at me.’

‘Nothing,’ insisted Artemis. ‘Now, are you sure you can get in?’

Mulch’s grin revealed rows of rectangular teeth. ‘I can get in. You just make sure their power is off and they’re looking the other way.’

Butler hefted the bag of tricks he had brought with him from Fowl Manor. ‘Don’t worry, Mulch. They’ll be looking the other way. I guarantee it.’

POLICE PLAZA, THE LOWER ELEMENTS

All the brass were in the operations room, watching live television updates on the probe’s progress when Foaly burst in.

‘We need to talk,’ blurted the centaur to the general assembly.

‘Quiet,’ hissed Council Chairman Cahartez. ‘Have a bowl of curry.’

Chairman Cahartez ran a fleet of curry vans in Haven City. Vole curry was his speciality. Obviously, he was doing the catering for this little viewing session.

Foaly ignored the buffet table. He snatched a remote control from a chair armrest, muting the master volume.

‘We have big trouble, ladies and gentlemen. Opal Koboi is loose and I think she’s behind the Zito probe.’

A high-backed swivel chair swung round. Ark Sool was lounging in it.

‘Opal Koboi? Amazing. And she’s doing all this psychically, I suppose.’

‘No. What are you doing in that chair? That’s the commander’s chair. The real commander, not Internal Affairs.’

Sool tapped the golden acorns on his lapel. ‘I’ve been promoted.’

Foaly blanched. ‘You’re the new Recon commander.’

Sool’s smile could have illuminated a dark room. ‘Yes. The Council felt that Recon has been getting a bit out of hand lately. They felt — and I must say I agree — that Recon needs a firm hand. Of course, I will stay on at Internal Affairs until a suitable replacement can be found.’

Foaly scowled. There was no time for this. Not now. He had to get clearance for a supersonic launch immediately.

‘OK, Sool, Commander. I can lodge my objection later. Right now we have an emergency on our hands.’

Everyone was listening now. But none with much enthusiasm except Wing Commander Vinyaya, who had always been a staunch supporter of Julius Root and would certainly have not voted for Sool. Vinyaya was all ears. ‘What’s the emergency, Foaly?’ she asked.

Foaly slipped a computer disk into the room’s multi-drive. ‘That thing in the

Argon Clinic is not Opal Koboi, it’s a clone.’

‘Evidence?’ demanded Sool.

Foaly highlighted a window on the screen. ‘I scanned her retinas and found that the last image the clone saw was Opal Koboi herself. Obviously during her escape.’

Sool was not convinced. ‘I’ve never trusted your gadgets, Foaly. Your Retimager is not accepted as actual evidence in a courtroom.’

‘We’re not in a courtroom, Sool,’ said Foaly through clenched teeth. ‘If we accept that Opal could be loose, then the events of the past twenty-four hours take on a whole new significance. A pattern begins to emerge. Scalene is dead, pixies are missing from the clinic, Julius is murdered and Holly blamed. Then, within hours of this, a probe is sent down, decades ahead of schedule. Koboi is behind all of this. That probe is on its way here and we’re sitting around watching it on PPTV… Eating stinking vole curry!’

‘I object to the disparaging curry remark,’ said Cahartez, wounded. ‘But otherwise I take your point.’

Sool jumped from his chair. ‘What point? Foaly is joining dots that don’t exist. All he is trying to do is exonerate his late friend, Captain Short,’