The Eternity Code (Artemis Fowl 3)

“Negatory. A neutrino blast would certainly knock out one camera, and possibly chain-react along the entire net-work. You may as well dance a jig for Arno Blunt.”

Juliet kicked the skirting board in frustration. She was stumbling at the first hurdle. Her brother would know what to do, but he was on the other side of the Atlantic. A mere twenty feet of corridor separated them from the camera, but it might as well have been a mile of broken glass.

She noticed that Mulch was unbuttoning his bum flap.

“Oh, great. Now the little man needs a potty break. This is hardly the time.”

“I’m going to ignore your sarcasm,” said Mulch, lying flat on the floor. “Because I know what Spiro can do to people he doesn’t like.”

Juliet knelt beside him. Not too close.

“I hope your next sentence is going to begin with, ‘I have a plan.’”

The dwarf appeared to be aiming his rear end.

“Actually . . .”

“You’re not serious.”

“Deadly. I have quite a considerable force at my disposal here.”

Juliet couldn’t help smiling. The little guy was a dwarf after her own heart. Metaphorically. He was adapting to the situation, just as she would.

“All we have to do is swing the camera about twenty degrees on its stand, and we have a clear run to the cable.”

“And you’re going to do that with . . . wind power?”

“Precisely.”

“What about the noise?”

Mulch winked. “Silent but deadly. I’m a professional.

All you have to do is squeeze my little toe, when I give you the word.”

In spite of arduous training in some of the world’s toughest terrain, Juliet was not quite prepared to be involved in a wind offensive.

“Do I have to participate? It seems like a one-man operation to me.”

Mulch squinted at the target, adjusting his posterior accordingly.

“This is a precision burst. I need a gunner to pull the trigger, so I can concentrate on aiming. Reflexology is a proven science with dwarfs. Every part of the foot is connected to a part of the body. And it just so happens that the left little toe is connected to my—”

“Okay,” said Juliet hurriedly. “I get the picture.”

“Let’s get on with it, then.”

Juliet pulled Mulch’s boot off. The socks were open-toed, and five hairy digits wiggled with a dexterity no human toes possessed.

“This is the only way?”

“Unless you have a better idea.”

Juliet gingerly grasped the toe, its black curly hairs obligingly parting to allow her access to the joint.

“Now?”

“Wait.” The dwarf licked his forefinger, testing the air. “No wind.”

“Not yet,” muttered Juliet.

Mulch fine tuned his aim. “Okay. Squeeze.”

Juliet held her breath, and closed her fingers around the joint. The pressure sped up Mulch’s leg in a series of jolts. The dwarf fought to keep his aim true in spite of his thrashings. Pressure built in his abdomen and exploded through his bum flap with a dull thump. Juliet could only relate the experience to crouching beside a mortar. A missile of compressed air shot across the room, heat blur surrounding it like waves of water.

“Too much topspin,” groaned Mulch. “I loaded it.”

The air ball spiraled toward the ceiling, shedding layers like an onion.

“Go right,” urged Mulch. “Right, a bit.”

The unlikely missile impacted against the wall a meter ahead of its target. Luckily, the ricochet clipped the camera box, sending it spinning like a plate on a stick. The intruders waited with bated breath for it to settle. The camera finally creaked to a halt after a dozen revolutions.

“Well?” asked Juliet.

Mulch sat up, checking the camera’s ion stream through his visor.

“Lucky,” he breathed. “Very lucky. We have a path straight through.” He slapped his smoking bum flap. “It’s been a while since I launched a torpedo.”

Juliet took the video clip from her pocket, waving it in front of her visor, so Foaly could see it.

“So, I just wind this around any old cable? Is that it?”

“No, Mud Maid,” sighed Foaly, comfortable in his familiar role as unappreciated genius. “That is a complex piece of nanotechnology, complete with micro filaments that act as receivers, broadcasters, and clamps. Naturally, it leeches its power from the Mud Men’s own system.”

“Naturally,” said Mulch, trying to keep his eyes open.

“You need to ensure that it is firmly clamped to one of the video cables. Luckily its multi-sensor does not have to be in contact with all the wires, just one.”

“And which ones are the video wires?”

“Well . . . all of them.”

Juliet groaned. “So

I just wind it around any old cable?”

“I suppose so,” admitted the centaur. “But wind it tightly. All the filaments have to penetrate.”

Juliet reached up, selected a wire at random, and wound the clip around it.

“Okay?”

There was a moment’s pause while Foaly waited for reception. Below the earth, picture-in-picture screens began popping up on the centaur’s plasma screen.

“Perfect. We have eyes and ears.”

“Let’s go then,” said Juliet impatiently. “Start the loop.”

Foaly wasted a minute delivering another lecture. “This is much more than a loop, young lady. I am about to completely wipe moving patterns from the surveillance footage. In other words, the pictures they see in the surveillance booth will be exactly as they should be, except you won’t be in them. Just be careful never to stand still or you’ll become visible. Keep something moving, even if it’s only your little finger.”

Juliet checked the digital clock on the computer face. “Four-thirty. We need to hurry.”

“Okay. The security center is one corridor over. We take the shortest route.”

Juliet projected the schematic into the air. “Down this corridor here, two rights, and there we are.”

Mulch strode past her to the wall.

“I said the shortest route, Mud Girl. Think laterally.”

The office was an executive suite, with a skyline view and floor-to-ceiling pine shelving. Mulch hauled back a section of the pine and knocked on the wall behind it.

“Plaster board,” he said. “No problem.”

Juliet closed the door behind them. “No debris, dwarf. Artemis said we weren’t to leave any trace.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not a messy eater.”

Mulch unhinged his jaw, expanding his oral cavity to basketball proportions. He opened his mouth to an incredible one hundred and seventy degrees, and took a whopping bite out of the wall. A ring of tombstone teeth soon reduced the Sheetrock to dust.

“A bi’ dry,” he commented. “Har’ to swallow.”

Three bites later, they were through. Mulch climbed into the next office without a crumb dropping from his lips. Juliet followed, pulling the pine shelving across to cover the hole.