The Artemis Fowl Files (Artemis Fowl 0.50)

Holly brushed a few blobs of hydrogel from her suit. “Yes. It’s only gel. I’ve been on the job. The commander will understand.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. I can’t miss this meeting.”

The secretary’s smile was tinged with nastiness. “Well, all right then. Go on in.”

On any other day, Holly would have known that something was wrong, but on that day it slipped past. And so did she, right into Julius Root’s office.

There were two people in the office before her. Julius Root himself, a broad-chested elf with buzz-cut hair, and a fungus cigar screwed into the corner of his mouth. Holly also recognized Captain Trouble Kelp, one of Recon’s brightest stars. A legend in the police bars with more than a dozen successful recons under his belt in less than a year.

Root froze, staring at Holly. “Yes? What is it? Is there some kind of plumbing emergency?”

“N-No,” stammered Holly. “Corporal Holly Short, reporting as requested, sir.”

Root stood, red spots burning on his cheeks. The commander was not a happy elf.

“Short. You’re a girl?”

“Yessir. Guilty as charged.”

Root did not appreciate humor. “We’re not on a date, Short. Keep the witticisms to yourself.”

“Yessir. No jokes.”

“Good. I assumed you were male because of your pilot test scores. We’ve never had a female score that high before.”

“So I believe, sir.”

The commander sat on the edge of his desk. “You are the eightieth female to have made it as far as the initiation. So far none have passed. The equal-rights office is screaming sexism, so I’m going to handle your initiation personally.” Holly swallowed. “Personally?”

Root smiled. “That’s right, Corporal. Just you and me on a little adventure. How do you feel about that?”

“Great, sir. My privilege.”

“Good girl. That’s the spirit.” Root sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

“I was on traffic duty, sir. I had a tangle with a fish smuggler.”

Root sniffed the air again. “I guessed fish were involved. Your uniform appears to be orange.”

Holly picked at a blob of gel on her arm. “Hydrogel, sir. The smuggler was using it to transport the fish.”

Root rose from the desk. “You do know what Recon officers actually do, Short?”

“Yessir. A Recon officer tracks runaway fairies to the surface, sir.”

“The surface, Short. Where the humans live. We have to be inconspicuous, blend in. Do you think you can do that?”

“Yes, Commander. I think I can.”

Root spat his cigar into a recycler. “I wish I could believe that. And maybe I would, if it weren’t for that.” Root pointed a stiff finger at Holly’s chest.

Holly looked down. Surely the commander wasn’t upset about a few blobs of gel and the smell of fish.

He wasn’t.

The text bar on her chest displayed one word in block capitals. It was the same word that she had shouted just as the hydrogel had frozen the text display: “D’Arvit,” swore Holly under her breath, which coincidentally was the same word frozen on her chest.

E1

The trio proceeded directly to E1; a pressure chute that emerged in Tara, Ireland. The corporals were not given any personal time to prepare, because they would not have any if they managed to graduate to Recon. Rogue fairies did not escape to the surface at a time prearranged with the police. They took off whenever it suited them, and a Recon officer had to be ready to follow. They took an LEP shuttle up the chute to the surface. Holly had not been given any weaponry and her helmet had been confiscated. She had also been drained of magic by a pinprick to the thumb. The tack was left in until every drop of magic had been used to heal the wound.

Captain Trouble Kelp explained the logic to her as he used his own magic to seal the corporal’s tiny wound. “Sometimes you get stuck on the surface with nothing: no weapon, no communications, no magic. And you still have to track down a runner, who’s probably trying to track you down. If you can’t accomplish that, then you won’t make it in Recon.”

Holly had expected this. They had all heard the initiation stories from other veterans. She wondered what kind of hellhole they would be dropped in, and what they would have to hunt.

Through the shuttle portholes, she watched the chute flash by. The chutes were vast subterranean magma vents that spiraled from Earth’s core to the surface. The fairy People had excavated several of these tunnels worldwide and built shuttle ports at both ends. As human technology grew more sophisticated, many of these stations had to be destroyed or abandoned. If the Mud People ever found a fairy port, they would have a direct line to Haven.

In times of emergency, Recon officers rode the magma flares that scoured these tunnels in titanium eggs. This was the fastest way to cover the five thousand miles to the surface. Today they were traveling as a group in an LEP shuttle at the relatively slow speed of eight hundred miles an hour. Root set the autopilot and came back to brief Holly.

“We are headed for the Tern Islands,” Commander Root said, activating a holographic map above the conference table. “A small archipelago off the east coast of Ireland. To be more precise we are headed for Tern Mór, the main island. There is only one inhabitant: Kieran Ross, a conservationist. Ross travels to Dublin once a month to make his report to the Department of the Environment. He generally stays over in the Morrison Hotel, and takes in a show at the Abbey Theatre. Our technical people have confirmed that he is booked into the hotel, so we have a thirty-six-hour window.”

Holly nodded. The last thing they needed was humans butting into their exercise. Realistic exercises were one thing, but not at the expense of the entire fairy nation.

Root stepped into the hologram, pointing at a spot on the map. “We land here, at Seal Bay. The shuttle will drop you and Captain Kelp off on the beach. I will be deposited at another location. After that it’s simple: you hunt me and I hunt you. Captain Kelp will record your progress for review. Once the exercise has been completed, I will evaluate your disk and see if you have what it takes to make it into Recon. Initiates are generally tagged half a dozen times over the course of the exercise, so don’t worry about that. What’s important is how difficult you make it for me.”

Root took a paintball pistol from a rack on the wall and tossed it to Holly. “Of course, there is one way to get around the review and straight into the program. You tag me before I tag you, and you’re in. No questions asked. But don’t get your hopes up. I have centuries of aboveground experience, I’m running hot with magic, and I have a shuttle full of weapons at my disposal.”

Holly was glad that she was already sitting down. She had spent hundreds of hours on simulators, but had only actually visited the surface twice; once on a school tour of South American rain forests, and another time on a family holiday to Stonehenge. Her third visit was going to be a bit more exciting.

CHAPTER 3: THE ISLAND OF BROKEN DREAMS

Tern Mór

THE sun scorched away the morning mist and Tern Mór gradually appeared off the Irish coast like a ghost island. One minute there was nothing there but cloud banks, and the next the crags of Tern Mór cut through the haze.

Holly studied it through the porthole. “Cheery place,” she noted.

Root chewed on his cigar. “Sorry about that, Corporal. We keep asking the runaways to hide somewhere warm, but darned if they don’t keep suiting themselves.”

The commander returned to the cockpit: it was time to switch back over to manual for the landing.

The island looked like something from a horror film. Dark cliffs reared from the ocean, spumes of foam slapping at the waterline. A line of greenery hung on desperately, flopping untidily over the edge like an unruly fringe of hair.

Nothing good is going to happen here, thought Holly.

Trouble Kelp slapped her on the shoulder, breaking through the gloom. “Cheer u

p, Short. At least you got this far. A couple of days on the surface is worth any price. This place has air like you wouldn’t believe. Sweet as heaven.”

Holly tried to smile, but she was too nervous. “Does the commander usually handle initiations himself?”

“All the time. This is the first one-on-one though. Usually he tracks a half dozen or so, to keep himself amused. But you get him all to yourself, ’cause of the female thing. When you fail, Julius doesn’t want the equal-rights office to have any reason to complain.”

Holly bristled. “When I fail?” Trouble winked at her. “Did I say when? I meant if. Of course, if.”