Caballine took her handbag from the back of a chair and slung it across her fringed blouse. “You are quite fond of opposites, Mr. Foaly. What is the opposite of having me killed?”
Foaly met her gaze for the first time. “Keeping you happy and alive forever.”
Caballine moved to leave, and Foaly thought, Stupid donkey. You blew it.
But she stopped at the threshold and threw Foaly a lifeline.
“I do have a parking ticket that I did pay, but your machines seem to have it in for me, and they swear I didn’t. You could have a look at that.”
“No problem,” said Foaly. “Consider it done and that machine compacted.”
“I’m going to tell all my friends about this,” said Caballine, already leaving the room, “when I see them at the Hoovre Gallery launch this weekend. Do you like art, Mr. Foaly?”
Foaly stood there for a full minute after she was gone, staring at the spot where Caballine’s head had been when she’d last spoke. Later on, he had to rewind the suite’s surveillance footage to make sure Caballine had kind of, sort of, asked him on a date.
And now they were married, and Foaly considered himself the luckiest dummy in the world and, even though the city was mired in a crisis the likes of which had never before been visited on the subterranean metropolis, he had no hesitation in taking a moment to check on his gorgeous wife, who would probably be at this moment at home worrying about him.
Caballine, he thought, I will be with you soon.
Since their wedding ritual, Foaly and his wife had shared a mental bond like the one often experienced by twins.
I know she is alive, he thought.
But that was all he knew. She could be hurt, trapped, distressed, or in danger. Foaly did not know. And he had to know.
The ARClight Foaly had dispatched to check on Caballine had been built especially for that purpose and knew exactly where to go. Foaly had months ago painted a corner of the kitchen ceiling with a laser that would attract the bug from hundreds of miles away if need be.
Foaly shunted the other ARClight feeds to the main situation room, where Mayne could monitor them, and then concentrated on Caballine’s bug.
Fly, my pretty. Fly.
The modified dragonfly zipped through Police Plaza’s vent system and out over the city, darting through the chaos that permeated the streets and buildings. Fires flared in the piazza and on the freeway. The billboards that lined every street had been reduced to carbonized frames, and floodwater filled the sunken open-air amphitheater as far as Row H.
Mayne can handle that for five minutes, thought Foaly. I am coming, Caballine.
The ARClight buzzed beyond the central plaza to the southern suburb, which had more of a rural feel. Genetically modified trees grew in small copses, and there were even controlled amounts of woodland creatures that were carefully monitored and released aboveground when they multiplied to nuisance levels. The dwellings here were modest, less modern in their architecture, and outside the evacuation zone. Foaly and Caballine lived in a small split-level with adobe walls and curved windows. The color scheme was autumnal throughout, and the décor had always been a little back to nature for Foaly’s taste, though he would never have dreamed of mentioning it.
Foaly pulled his V-board toward him and expertly controlled the little bug with numerical coordinates, though it would have been easier to use a joystick, or even voice control. It was ironic that someone who was responsible for so many technological breakthroughs still preferred to use an ancient virtual keyboard that he had made from a window frame when he was in college.
The top half of the door was ajar, and so Foaly had his ARClight dip inside the lobby, which was decorated with woven wall hangings depicting great moments in centaurian history, such as the discovery of fire by King Thurgood, and the accidental discovery of penicillin by the stable hand Shammy Sod, whose name had entered the popular vernacular to mean an extremely lucky person, for example: He’s won the lottery for the second time, the shammy sod.
The dragonfly whirred along the corridor to find Caballine sitting on her yoga blanket, staring at the cell phone in her hand. She looked shaken but unhurt, and was scrolling through the menus on her screen, looking for a network.
You will have no luck there, my love, thought Foaly, then sent a text to her phone directly from the ARClight.
There’s a little dragonfly watching over you, said the text. Caballine read it and raised her face, searching for the bug. Foaly set the eyes flashing green to help her. Foaly’s wife raised her hand, and the bug swooped down to land on her finger.
“My clever husband,” she said, smiling. “What is happening to our city?”
Foaly sent another message, and made a mental note to add a voice box to the next version of the ARClights.
You are safe at home. We have had some major explosions, but all is under control.
Caballine nodded. “Will you be home soon?” she asked the bug.
Not soon. It could be a long night.
“Don’t worry, honey. I know they need you. Is Holly okay?”
I don’t know. We’ve lost contact, but if anyone can look after herself, it’s Holly Short.
Caballine lifted her finger and the dragonfly hovered before her face. “You need to look after yourself, too, Mr. Technical Consultant.”
I will, texted Foaly.
Caballine took a ribboned box from the low table. “While I’m waiting for you, I will open this lovely gift that someone sent to me, you romantic centaur.”
Back in the lab, Foaly felt a stab of jealousy. A gift? Who would have sent a present? His jealousy was quickly trumped by anxiety. After all, this was the day of Opal Koboi’s great revenge, and there was no one the pixie hated more than him.
Don’t open it, he sent quickly. I did not send it, and bad things are happening.
But Caballine did not need to open the box, for it was both time- and DNA-coded, and as soon as she touched it, the omni-sensor on the side scanned her finger and set the opening mechanism whirring. The lid pinged away from the box, spinning away to slap the wall, and inside was…nothing. Literally nothing. A black absence that seemed to repel ambient light.
Caballine peered into the box. “What is this?” she asked. “One of your gizmos?”
r /> Which was as much as Foaly heard, because the blackness—or whatever it was—shorted out the ARClight, leaving Foaly ignorant as to his wife’s fate.
“No!” he blurted. “No. No.”
Something was happening. Something sinister. Opal had decided to target Caballine specifically to torture him. He was sure of it. The pixie’s accomplice, whoever it was, had mailed his wife this seemingly innocuous box, but it was far from harmless; Foaly would bet his two hundred plus patents on it.
What has she done?
The centaur agonized over the question for about five seconds, until Mayne stuck his head into the room.
“We have something from the ARClights. I think I should push it across to your screens.”
Foaly stamped a hoof. “Not now, stupid pony. Caballine is in danger.”
“You need to see this,” said Mayne, standing his ground.
Something in his nephew’s tone, a bite of steel that hinted at the centaur this boy would become, made Foaly look up. “Very well. Shunt it across.”
The screens immediately came to life with overhead shots of Haven from dozens of angles. Each shot was black and white except for clusters of red dots.
“The dots are the escaped goblin sleeper/seekers,” explained Mayne. “The ARClights can detect their radiation signatures but not activate them.”
“But this is good news,” said Foaly irritably. “Send the coordinates to the agents on the ground.”
“They were moving randomly, but seconds ago they all changed direction, at exactly the same time.”
Foaly knew then what Opal had done, how her weapon had gotten past the courier’s security scans. She had used a sonix bomb.
“And they’re headed for my house,” he said.
Mayne swallowed. “Exactly. Just as fast as they can run. The first group will arrive in less than five minutes.”
At this point Mayne was talking to thin air, as Foaly had already galloped out through the side door.
Fowl Manor
Myles Fowl sat behind Artemis’s desk in the mini office chair that his big brother had given to him as a birthday present. Artemis claimed it was custom-built, but actually the chair came from Elf Aralto, the famous design store that specialized in beautiful yet practical furniture for elves.