Prologo di The Opal Deception
Direttamente dal sito dell'autore, www.eoincolfer.com, ecco il prologo del quarto libro.
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ARTEMIS FOWL - THE OPAL DECEPTION
Prologue:
This article was posted on the fairy internet on the site www.horsesense.gnom. Though it has never been proven, it is believed that this site is maintained by the centaur Foaly, technical consultant to the Lower Elements Police. Almost every detail of the following account contradicts the official release from the LEP Press Office.
We’ve all heard the official explanation for the tragic events surrounding the Zito Probe investigation. LEP Internal Affairs would have us believe that one of their officers was almost singlehandedly responsible for the entire affair. I am posting this article to ensure that you do not rush to judgement without all the facts. The LEP may be able to silence their officers, but they cannot censor me.
I know for an absolute fact that the officer in question, Captain Holly Short, did not commit despicable crime she is accused of, and by the time you have finished reading this account, you will know it too.
Humans are at the centre of this particular case. Most humans aren’t smart enough to find the leg holes in their trousers, but there are certain Mud Men clever enough to make me nervous. If they discovered the existence of an underground fairy city, they would certainly do their best to exploit the residents. Most men would be no match for superior fairy technology. But there are some humans who are almost smart enough to pass as fairies. One human in particular. I think we all know who I’m talking about.
In fairy history only one human has bested us. And it really sticks in my hoof that this particular human is little more than a boy. Artemis Fowl, the Irish criminal mastermind. Little Arty led the LEP a merry dance across the continents, until finally they used fairy technology to wipe our existence from his mind. But even as the gifted centaur Foaly pressed the mind-wipe button, he wondered if the fairy People were being fooled again? Had the Irish boy left something behind to make himself remember? Of course he had, as we were all to find out later.
Artemis Fowl plays does play a significant role in the following events, but for once he was not trying to steal from the People as he had completely forgotten we existed. No, the mastermind behind this tragic episode is actually a fairy.
So who is involved in this tragic tale of two worlds? Who are the main fairy players? Obviously Foaly is the real hero of the piece. Without his innovations, the LEP would soon be beating the Mud Men back from our doors. He is the unsung hero who solves riddles of the ages, while the reconnaissance and retrieval teams swan about above ground taking all the glory.
Then there’s Captain Holly Short, the officer whose reputation is under fire. Holly is one of the LEP’s best and brightest. A natural born pilot with a gift for improvisation in the field. She’s not the best at taking orders, a trait that has landed her in trouble on more than one occasion. Holly was the fairy at the centre of all the Artemis Fowl incidents. The pair had almost become friends, when the Council ordered us to mind-wipe Artemis, and just when he was becoming a nice Mud Boy too.
As we all know, Commander Julius Root has a role in proceedings. The youngest ever full Commander in the LEP. An elf who has steered the People through many a crisis. Not the easiest fairy to get along with, but sometimes the best leaders do not make the best friends.
I suppose Mulch Diggums deserves a mention. Until recently Mulch was imprisoned, but as usual managed to wriggle his way out. This kleptomaniac, flatulent dwarf has played a reluctant part in many of the Fowl adventures. But Holly was glad to have his help on this mission. If not for Mulch and his bodily functions, things could have turned out a lot worse than they did. And they turned out badly enough.
At the very centre of this case lies Opal Koboi, the pixie who bankrolled the goblin gangs attempted takeover of Haven City. Opal was facing a lifetime behind laser bars. That is if she ever recovered from the coma that claimed the pixie when Holly Short foiled her plan.
For almost a year, Opal Koboi languished in the padded cell wing of the J Argon Clinic, showing no response to the medical warlocks who tried to revive her. In all that time, she spoke not a single word, ate not a mouthful of food and exhibited no response to stimuli. At first the authorities were suspicious. It is an act, they declared. Koboi is faking catatonia to avoid prosecution. But as the months rolled by, even the most sceptical were convinced. No-one could pretend to be in a coma for almost a year. Surely not. A fairy would have to be totally obsessed……
CHAPTER 1: TOTALLY OBSESSED
The J Argon Clinic. Haven City. The Lower Elements. Three Months Earlier.
The J Argon Clinic was not a state hospital. Nobody stayed there for free. Argon and his staff of psychologists only treated fairies who could afford it. Of all the clinic’s wealthy patients, Opal Koboi was unique. She had set up an emergency fund for herself more than a year previously, just in case she ever went insane and needed to pay for treatment. It was a smart move. If Opal hadn’t set up the fund, her family would undoubtedly have moved her to a cheaper facility. Not that the facility itself made much difference to Koboi, who had spent the past year drooling and having her reflexes tested. Doctor Argon doubted if Opal would have noticed a bull troll beating its chest before her.
The fund was not the only reason why Opal was unique. Koboi was the Argon Clinic’s celebrity patient. Following the attempt of the B’wa Kell goblin triad to seize power, Opal Koboi’s name had become the most infamous four syllables under the world. After all, the pixie billionairess had formed an alliance with disgruntled LEP officer Briar Cudgeon, and funded the triad’s war on Haven. Koboi had betrayed her own kind, and now her own mind was betraying her.
For the first six months of Koboi’s incarceration, the Clinic had been besieged by media filming the pixie’s every twitch. The LEP guarded her cell door in shifts, every staff member in the facility was treated to background checks and stern glares. Nobody was exempt. Even Doctor Argon himself was subjected to random DNA swabs to ensure that he was who he said he was. The LEP weren’t taking any chances with Koboi. If she escaped from Argon’s Clinic, not they would be the laughing stock of the fairy world, but a highly dangerous criminal would be unleashed on Haven City.
But as time went by, fewer camera crews turned up at the gates each morning. After all, how many hours of drooling can an audience be expected to sit through? Gradually the LEP crews were downsized from a dozen to six and finally to a single officer per shift. Where could Opal Koboi go, the authorities reasoned? There were a dozen cameras focussed on her twenty four hours a day. There was a subcutaneous seeker-sleeper under the skin of her upper arm and she was DNA swabbed four times daily. And even if someone did get Opal out, what could they do with her? The pixie couldn’t even stand without help, and the sensors said her brain waves were little more than flat lines.
That said, Doctor Argon was very proud of his prize patient, and mentioned her name often at dinner parties. Since Opal Koboi had been admitted to the clinic, it had become almost fashionable to have a relative in therapy. Almost every family on the rich list had a crazy uncle in the attic. Now that crazy uncle could receive the best of care in the lap of luxury.
If only every fairy in the facility was as docile as Opal Koboi. All she needed was a few intravenous tubes and a monitor, which had been more than paid for by her first six months’ medical fees. Doctor Argon fervently hoped that little Opal never woke up. Because once she did, the LEP would haul her off to court. And when she had been convicted of treason her assets would be frozen, including the Clinic’s fund. No, the longer Opal’s nap lasted, the better for everyone, especially her. Because of their thin skulls and large brain volume, Pixie’s were susceptible to various maladies such as catatonia, amnesia and narcolepsy. So it was quite possible that her coma would last for several years. And even if Opal did wake up, it was quite possible that her memory would stay locked up in some drawer in her huge pixie brain.
Doctor J Argon did his rounds every night. He didn’t perform much hands-on therapy anymore, but he felt that it was good for the staff to feel his presence. If the other doctors knew that Jerbal Argon kept his finger on the pulse, then they were more likely to keep their own fingers on that pulse too.
Argon always saved Opal for last. It calmed him somehow to see the small pixie asleep in her harness. Often at the end of a stressful day, he even envied Opal her untroubled existence. When it had all become too much for the pixie, her brain had simply shut down, all except the most vital functions. She still breathed, and occasionally the monitors registered a dream spike in her brain- waves. But other than that, for all intents and purposes, Opal Koboi was no more.
On this fateful night, Jerbal Argon was feeling more stressed than usual. His wife was suing for divorce on the grounds that he hadn’t said more than six consecutive words her in over two years. The Council were threatening to pull his government grant because of all the money he was making from his new celebrity clients, and he had a pain in his hip which no amount of magic could seem to cure. The warlocks said it was probably all in his head. They seemed to think that was funny.
Argon limped down the Clinic’s eastern wing, checking the plasma chart of each patient as he passed their room. He winced each time his left foot touched the floor.
The two janitor pixies, Mervall and Descant Brill were outside Opal’s room, picking up dust with static brushes. Pixies made wonderful employees. They were methodical, patient and determined. When a pixie was instructed to do something, you could rest assured that thing would be done. Plus they were cute, with their baby faces and disproportionately large heads. Just looking at a pixie cheered most people up. They were walking therapy.
‘Evening, boys,’ said Argon. ‘How’s our favourite patient?’
Merv, the elder twin, glanced up from his brush. ‘Same old, same old, Jerry,’ he said. ‘I thought she moved a toe earlier, but it was just a trick of the light.’
Argon laughed, but it was forced. He did not like to be called Jerry. It was his clinic after all, he deserved some respect. But good janitors were gold dust, and the Brill brothers had been keeping the building spotless and ship shape for nearly two years now. The Brills were almost celebrities themselves. Twins were very rare among the People. Mervall and Descant were the only pixie pair currently residing in Haven. They had featured on several TV programmes, including Canto, PPTV’s highest rated chat show.
LEP Corporal Grub Kelp was on sentry duty. When Argon reached Opal’s room, the corporal was engrossed in a movie on his video goggles. Argon didn’t blame him. Guarding Opal Koboi was about as exciting as watching toenails grow.
‘Good film?’ inquired the doctor pleasantly.
Grub raised the lenses. ‘Not bad. It’s a human Western. Plenty of shooting and squinting.’
‘Maybe I’ll borrow it when you’re finished?’
‘No problem, Doctor. But handle it carefully. Human disks are very expensive. I’ll give you a special cloth.’
Argon nodded. He remembered Grub Kelp now. The LEP officer was very particular about his possessions. He had already written two letters of complaint to the clinic board about a protruding floor rivet that had scratched his boots.
Argon consulted Koboi’s chart. The plasma screen on the wall displayed a constantly updated feed from the sensors attached to her temples. There was no change, nor did he expect there to be. Her vitals were all normal, and her brain activity was minimal. She’d had a dream earlier in the evening but now her mind had settled. And finally, as if he needed telling, the seeker-sleeper implanted in her arm informed him that Opal Koboi was indeed where she was supposed to be. Generally the seeker-sleepers were implanted in the head, but pixie skulls were too fragile for any local surgery.
Jerbal punched in his personal code on the reinforced door’s keypad. The heavy door slid back to reveal a spacious room, with gently pulsing floor mood lights. The walls were soft plastic, and gentle sounds of nature spilled from recessed speakers. At the moment a brook was splashing over flat rocks.
In the middle of the room, Opal Koboi hung suspended in a full body harness. The straps were gel padded and adjusted automatically to any body movement. If Opal did happen to wake the harness could be remotely triggered to seal like a net, preventing her from harming herself.
Argon checked the monitor pads, making sure they had good contact on Koboi’s forehead. He lifted one of the pixie’s eyelids, shining a pencil light at the pupil. It pupil contracted slightly, but Opal did not avert her eyes.
Well, anything to tell me today, Opal?’ asked the doctor softly. ‘An opening chapter for my book?’
Argon liked to talk to Koboi, just in case she could hear. When she woke up, he reasoned, he would have already have established a rapport.
‘Nothing? Not a single insight?’
Opal did not react. As she hadn’t for almost a year.
‘Ah well,’ said Argon, swabbing the inside of Koboi’s mouth with the last cotton bud in his pocket. ‘Maybe tomorrow, eh?’
He rolled the cotton bud across a sponge pad on his clipboard. Seconds later, Opal’s name flashed up on a tiny screen.
‘DNA never lies,’ muttered Argon, tossing the bud into a recycling bin.
With one last look at his patient, Jerbal Argon turned towards the door.
‘Sleep well, Opal,’ he said almost fondly.
He felt calm again, the pain in his leg almost forgotten. Koboi was as far under as she had ever been. She wasn’t going to wake up any time soon. The Koboi fund was safe.
It’s amazing just how wrong one gnome can be.
Opal Koboi was not catatonic, but neither was she awake. She was somewhere in-between, floating in a liquid world of meditation where every memory was a bubble of multi-coloured light popping gently in her consciousness.
Since her early teens Opal had been a disciple of Gola Schweem, the cleansing coma guru. Schweem’s theory was that there was a deeper level of sleep than experienced by most fairies. The cleansing coma state could usually only be reached after decades of discipline and practice. Opal had reached her first cleansing coma at the age of fourteen.
The benefits of the cleansing coma were that a fairy awoke completely refreshed but also spent the sleep time thinking, or in this case, plotting. Opal’s coma was so complete, that her mind was almost completely separated from her body. She could fool the sensors and felt no embarrassment at the indignities of intravenous feeding and changing. The longest recorded consciously self-induced coma was forty seven days. Opal had been under for eleven months and counting, though she wasn’t planning to be counting much longer.
When Opal Koboi joined forces with Briar Cudgeon and his goblins, she realised that she needed a back-up plan. Their scheme to overthrow the LEP had been ingenious, but there was always a chance that something could go wrong. In the event that it did, Opal had no intention of spending the rest of her life in prison. The only way she could make a clean getaway was if everybody thought she was still locked up. So Opal had begun to make preparations.
The first was to set up the emergency fund for the Argon Clinic. This would ensure she was sent to the right place if she had to induce a cleansing coma. The second step was to get two of her most trusted personnel installed in the clinic, to help with her eventual escape. Then she began siphoning huge amounts of gold from her businesses. Opal did not wish to become an impoverished exile.
The final step was to donate some of her own DNA and green light the creation of a clone that would take her place in the padded cell. Cloning was completely illegal, and had been banned by fairy law for over five hundred years since the first experiments in Atlantis. It was by no means a perfect science. Doctors had never been able to create an exact fairy clone. The clones looked fine, but they were basically shells with only enough brain power to run the body’s basic functions. They were missing the spark of true life. A fully grown clone resembled nothing more than the original person in a coma. Perfect.
Opal had had a greenhouse lab constructed far from Koboi industries, and haddiverted enough funds to keep the project active for two years. The exact time it would take to grow a clone of herself to adulthood. Then when she wanted to escape from the Argon Clinic, a perfect replica of herself would be left in her place. The LEP would never know she was gone.
As things had turned out, she had been right to plan ahead. Briar had proved treacherous, and a small group of fairies and humans had ensured his betrayal led to her own downfall. Now Opal had a goal to bolster her willpower. She would maintain this coma for as long as it took, because there was a score to be settled. Foaly, Root, Holly Short and the human Artemis Fowl. They were the ones responsible for her defeat. Soon she would be free of this clinic, and then she would visit those who had caused her such despair, and give them a little despair of their own. Once her enemies were defeated she could proceed with the second phase of her plan; introducing the mud men to the People, in a way that could not be covered up by a few mind wipes. The secret life of fairies was almost at an end.
Opal Koboi’s brain released a few happy endorphins. The thought of revenge always gave her a warm fuzzy feeling.
The Brill brothers watched Doctor Argon limp up the corridor.
‘Moron,’ muttered Merv, using his telescopic vacuum pole to chase some dust out of a corner.
‘You said it,’ agreed Scant. ‘Old Jerry couldn’t analyse a bowl of vole curry. No wonder his wife is leaving him. If he was any good as a shrink, he would’ve seen that coming.’
Merv collapsed the vacuum. ‘How are we doing?’
Scant checked his moonometer. ‘Ten past eight.’
‘Good. How’s Corporal Kelp?’
‘Still watching the movie. This guy is perfect. We have to go tonight. The LEP could send someone smart for the next shift. And if we wait any longer the clone will grow another inch.’
‘You’re right. Let me check the spy cameras.’
Scant lifted the lid on what appeared to be a janitor’s trolley, festooned as it was with mops, rags and sprays. Hidden beneath a tray of vacuum nozzles, was a colour monitor split into several screens.
‘Well?’ hissed Merv.
Scant did not answer immediately, taking time to check all the screens. The video feed was from various micro-cameras that Opal had installed around the clinic before her incarceration. The spy cameras were actually genetically engineered organic material. So the pictures they sent were literally a live feed. The world’s first living machines. Totally undetectable by bug sweepers.
‘Night crew only,’ he said at last. ‘Nobody in this sector except Corporal Idiot over there.’
‘What about the parking lot?’
‘Clear.’
Merv held out his hand. ‘Okay, brother. This is it. No turning back. Are we in? Do we want Opal Koboi back?’
Scant blew a lock of black hair from one round pixie eye.
‘Yes, because if she comes back on her own, Opal will find a way to make us suffer,’ he said, shaking his brother’s hand. ‘So yes, we’re in.’
Merv took a remote control from his pocket. The device was tuned to a sonix receiver planted in the clinic’s gable wall. This in turn was connected to a balloon of acid which lay gently on the clinic’s main power cube in the parking lot junction box. A second balloon sat atop the back-up cube in the maintenance basement. As the clinic’s janitors, it had been a simple matter for Merv and Scant to plant the acid balloons the previous evening. Of course the Argon Clinic was also connected to the main grid, but if the cubes did go down, there would be a two minute interval before the main power kicked in. There was no need for more elaborate arrangements, after all this was a medical facility not a prison.
Merv took a deep breath, flicked the safety cover and pressed the red button. The remote control emitted a infra red command activating two sonix charges. The charges sent out sound waves bursting the balloons, and the balloons dumped their acidic contents on the clinic’s power cubes. Twenty seconds later the cubes were completely eaten away and the clinic was plunged into darkness. Merv and Scant quickly put on night vision goggles.
As soon as the power failed green strip lights began pulsing gently on the floor guiding the way to the exits. Merv and Scant moved quickly and purposefully. Scant steered the trolley, and Merv made straight for Corporal Kelp.
Grub was pulling the video glasses from over his eyes.
‘Hey,’ he said, disorientated by the sudden darkness. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘Power failure,’ said Merv, bumping into him with calculated clumsiness. ‘Those lines are a nightmare, I’ve been telling Doctor Argon, but nobody wants to spend money on maintenance when there are fancy company cars to be bought.’
Merv was not waffling for the fun of it, he was waiting for the soluble pad of sedative he had pressed onto Grub’s wrist to take effect.
‘Tell me about it,’ said Grub, suddenly blinking a lot more than he generally did. ‘I’ve been lobbying for new lockers at Police Plaza. I’m really thirsty. Is anyone else thirsty?’ Grub stiffened, frozen by the serum that was spreading through his system. The LEP officer would snap out of it in under two minutes, and be instantly alert. He would have no memory of his unconsciousness, and hopefully he would not notice the time lapse.
‘Go,’ said Scant tersely.
Merv was already gone. With practised ease, he punched Doctor Argon’s code into Opal’s door. He completed this action faster than Argon ever could, due to hours spent practising on a stolen pad in his apartment. Argon’s code changed every week, but the Brill brothers made certain that they were cleaning outside the room when Argon was on his rounds. The pixies generally had the complete code by mid week.
The pad light winked green, and the door slid back. Opal Koboi swung gently before him, suspended in her harness like a bug in an exotic cocoon.
Merv winched her down onto the trolley. Moving briskly, and with practised precision, he rolled up Opal’s sleeve and located the scar in her upper arm where the seeker-sleeper had been inserted. He gripped the hard lump between his thumb and forefinger.
‘Scalpel,’ he said, holding out his free hand. Scant passed him the instrument. Merv took a breath, held it, and made a two centimetre incision in Opal’s flesh. He wiggled his index finger into the hole and rolled out the electronic capsule. It was the encased in silicone and roughly the size of a painkiller.
‘Seal it up,’ he ordered.
Scant bent close to the wound, placing a thumb at each end.
‘Heal,’ he whispered, and blue sparks of fairy magic ran rings around his fingers, sinking into the wound. In seconds the folds of skin had zipped themselves together, with only a pale pink scar to show that a cut had been made. A pink scar almost identical to the scar that had already existed. Opal’s own magic had dried up months ago, as she was in no position to complete a power restoring ritual.
‘Miss Koboi,’ said Merv briskly. ‘Time to get up. Wakey wakey.’
He unstrapped Opal completely from the harness. The unconscious pixie collapsed onto the lid of the cleaning trolley. Merv slapped her across the cheek, bringing a blush to her face. Opal’s breathing rate increased slightly, but her eyes remained closed.
‘Jolt her,’ said Scant.
Merv pulled an LEP issue buzz baton from inside his jacket. He powered it up and touched Opal on the elbow. The pixie’s body jerked spasmodically, and Opal Koboi shot into consciousness, a sleeper waking from a nightmare.
‘Cudgeon,’ she screamed. ‘You betrayed me!’
Merv grabbed her shoulders. ‘Miss Koboi. It’s us, Mervall and Descant. It’s time.’
Opal glared at him wild eyed.
‘Brill?’ she said, after several deep breaths.
‘That’s right. Merv and Scant. We need to go.’
‘Go? What do you mean?’
‘Leave,’ said Merv urgently. ‘We have about a minute.’
Opal shook her head, dislodging the after-trance daze. ‘Merv and Scant. We need to go.’
Merv helped her from the trolley’s lid. ‘That’s right. The clone is ready.’
Scant peeled back a sealed foil false bottom in the trolley. Inside lay a cloned replica of Opal Koboi wearing an Argon Clinic coma suit. The clone was identical down to the last follicle. Scant removed an oxygen mask from the clone’s face, hauled it from its resting place and began cinching her into the harness.
‘Remarkable,’ said Opal, brushing the clone’s skin with her knuckle. ‘Am I that beautiful?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Merv. ‘That and more.’
Suddenly Opal screeched. ‘Idiots. It’s eyes are open. It can see me!’
Scant closed the clone’s lids hurriedly. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Koboi, it can’t tell anyone, even if its brain could decipher what it sees.’
Opal climbed groggily into the trolley. ‘But its eyes can register images. Foaly may think to check. That infernal centaur.’
‘Don’t fret, Miss,’ said Scant, folding the trolley’s false bottom over his mistress. ‘Very soon now, that will be the least of Foaly’s worries.’
Opal strapped the oxygen mask across her face. ‘Later,’ she said, her voice muffled by the plastic. ‘Talk, later.’
Koboi drifted into a natural sleep, exhausted by even this small exertion. It could be hours before the pixie regained total consciousness. After a coma of that length, there was even the risk that Opal would never be quite as smart as she once was.
‘Time?’ said Merv.
Scant glanced at his moonometer. ‘Thirty seconds left.’