by Eoin Colfer
Amsterdam was winding down for the evening, but there were still a few clusters of bed-shy stragglers ambling along the dockside, though none had noticed his light aircraft slicing like a tailor’s scissors through the green silk of the canal’s surface. Lord Teddy found himself humming along with the strains of “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” which was being drunkenly mangled by a bunch of lurching soccer fans. The duke did consider wrapping the bunch in cellophane for a spot of target practice but quickly dismissed the idea.
Business before fun, Ted, he told himself. Keep your eyes on the prize, don’t you know.
He did know.
If there was one thing the Duke of Scilly had learned over the decades, it was focus.
Teddy did not have long to wait. As the Skyblade’s computer had predicted, the army helicopter landed in the Schiphol region—not quite in the regular airport, but in the adjacent industrial park. This slight deviation by the tracker bleep both infuriated Lord Bleedham-Drye and established that his adversaries had serious political clout. He himself had been forced, by pernickety international law, to sneak into the Netherlands literally under the radar, while this helicopter was given leave to land near the airport, where passport controls would not be exercised. Most convenient for them.
Having said that, Teddy could not fume for long, because the troll’s bleep required his full attention as it pulsed directly toward the city center. The duke lowered the Skyblade’s wings to pontoon position and prepared to discreetly tail his enemies wherever they might be going in the city of water. He was rewarded twenty minutes later by the sight of a mini convoy passing by onshore. Two custom-built SUVs, super-stealthy. They were, Teddy thought, reminiscent of panthers prowling near a watering hole.
Very nice, thought the duke, wondering briefly if Myishi was supplying governments these days.
Unlikely, he thought. Criminals pay more promptly than governments.
Lord Teddy shadowed the black automobiles, sticking to the far side of the canal, availing of the shelter provided by the hulking keels of barges and houseboats. By incredible good fortune, the duke’s landing spot was less than a mile from the convoy’s destination, which appeared to be a rowdy café on the corner of Prinsengracht.
A café, thought Teddy, allowing the Skyblade to drift behind the gunwales of a houseboat. Now, why would security types pick the only busy spot on the blasted street?
It occurred to Teddy that perhaps one of the Fowl urchins needed a bathroom break.
But no, the entire company dismounted and shuffled inside, grouped in an irregular cluster that might be mistaken for random by members of the general public but Lord Teddy recognized as a shielding formation.
The twins are inside that bunch. I’d bet my electric eels on it.
And where the twins went, the duke must follow—his foreseeable and unforeseeable future depended on it.
Teddy was reluctant to abandon the Skyblade in a public dock, but the craft’s antitheft systems were considerably more punitive than the legal versions. Any thief possessed of the temerity to lay a finger on the seaplane’s bio-coded handle would find himself with ten thousand extra volts of electricity coursing through his system, so the duke felt reasonably confident that the Skyblade would be safe from ne’er-do-wells and good-for-naughts.
He stepped smartly across the humpbacked bridge toward the café, rubber-soled boots squeaking on the cobblestones as though the duke were squashing a church mouse with each step.
Amsterdam never changes, he thought, as the familiar aromas of stale beer and dank sweat rode the raucous music through the open door. Still a town of sailors frittering away their wages.
Frittering was not in Lord Teddy’s nature, especially when it came to time, and so he compartmentalized any doubts he might have had about leaving his smashing flying machine out in the open and double-timed a quick reconnoiter around the building, which, like so many of Amsterdam’s stilted houses, was leaning heavily against its neighbor like a drunken companion.
The tracking contraption integrated into his wristwatch informed Teddy with a teardrop alert that his quarry were now below sea level.
They have descended into some kind of basement, the duke thought. That is an unwelcome development.
Unwelcome because subterranean strongholds were notoriously difficult to crack, which was why guerrilla fighters often used tunnels to hide themselves away from enemy forces. And Teddy had rather uncomfortable memories of tussling with a wiry South African Boer in a dusty catacomb under the veld.
The blighter had the nerve to tug on my beard, Teddy thought now, which is simply not done.
Teddy had almost resigned himself to yet another period of surveillance when he came upon a narrow stairwell that led down to a doorway daubed in shadow. The steps had been compressed by centuries of pressure from the adjacent building and were as irregularly pitched as the keys of a distressed piano.
Aha, thought Teddy. Perhaps some measure of force could be applied to that door and it could be breached.
As it turned out, there was no need for force—on the door, at any rate, for it simply and all of a sudden opened and a lanky fellow appeared, clad from head to toe in a yellow decontamination suit, and somewhat furtively composing a text message on his phone while he held the steel door open with his foot.
No cell service inside, I’d wager, thought Teddy. I would also wager that Johnny Texter is breaking security protocol.
Lord Teddy was right on both counts, and, as he had never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, the duke slipped one hand into his jacket pocket to retrieve the brass knuckles nestled there.
When life gives you a lemon, thought Teddy, slipping his fingers neatly into the weapon’s finger holes, you knock the lemon senseless.
One blow should do the trick, he told himself. And then it will be simplicity itself to disguise myself in that garish suit.
On this occasion the duke was wrong.
The job actually required two blows.
AND what of our wayward pixel, Specialist Heitz?
What had she been up to while the Fowl Twins endured nunterrogation and the duke closed in on his quarry? Simply put, Lazuli had been doing very little while achieving quite a lot.
To explain: Doing Very Little, or Doveli (dough-vey-lii), as it had become known, was actually an ancient martial art developed by shielded fairies so they could move undetected among sensitive animals and even human Shaolin monks. It involved shallow breathing, agonizingly slow movements, and incredibly advanced organ control so that no gurgles or squeaks issued from the tummy. A master of Doveli could walk across a rice-paper floor without raising a single crackle. Lazuli was not quite a master of the art, but she had achieved the level known as Small Intestine, which was second only to Bowel Wall. Lazuli had slowly transferred surplus chromophoric camouflage filaments to her exposed ear so that she was fully coated throughout the journey across mainland Britain and the English Channel, and while in that invisible state, she had utilized her Doveli talents to move undetected from the helicopter to the SUV and through a crowded café into the ACRONYM black site.
It had all been going very well, and Lazuli was quietly most pleased with herself, until the interrogation room door was summarily slammed in her face, and Specialist Heitz had no choice but to flatten herself against a wall and do very little until something happened.
The somethings of interest to Lazuli that proceeded to happen were as follows:
Her pointed ears, which had evolved to efficiently gather sounds and perform localization on those sounds, i.e., to pinpoint within the inch from where those sounds originated, told her that beyond the door were at least two connected rooms, and in those rooms were the Fowl Twins and the nun who appeared to be questioning the boys. Though Lazuli could not hear exactly what was being said, the tone was unmistakable. This hectoring continued for some minutes until the nun’s register elevated sharply, and though it might be an exaggeration to say that all hell broke loose,
it was certainly true that a portion of Hades was unleashed.
This portion took the form of two burly humans in yellow containment suits who bustled past Lazuli close enough to ruffle her filaments. The lead human punched a code into the keypad and admitted both men into the inner sanctum. The men reappeared before the door could even swing shut on its soft-close arm, ushering the Fowl Twins before them at arm’s length as though their radioactivity was beyond the capabilities of even containment suits.
What is going on here? Lazuli wondered and was further confused by the nun who appeared in the doorway calling, “Lance-shave-lance, ¿entiendéis?”
Lazuli translated the words in her mind. Lance-shave-lance? Was it perhaps a code? Or a military call sign of some kind?
Whatever the strange command meant, Lazuli had no option but to follow the twins, for the toy troll was still lodged in the blond boy’s pocket. And where the troll went, she too must go until her equipment’s organic circuitry had a chance to regenerate and she could summon Retrieval.
And be ejected from the specialist program, she thought glumly, but also briefly, for it was to Lazuli’s credit that her main concern was the troll’s future and not her own.
Myles decided that he would name his captors after the satellites of Uranus, as they were bodies with some power, so to speak, but certainly not the main gravitational influencers.
“I shall call you Trinculo and Oberon,” he announced, “as you are, no doubt, under orders not to reveal your names.”
“Call us whatever you like, kid,” said the one designated Oberon through the gauze of his headgear. “Just keep out of arm’s reach. These suits ain’t been tested for lice.”
Myles confidently led the way to the showers, though he had not been shown where the showers were situated and the ACRONYM site could fairly be described as labyrinthine.
“The Catholics loved their tunnels, gentlemen,” he explained to the men. “Most faiths have been persecuted at one period or another. There were several tricky centuries for the Christians in general and for Catholics in particular, so they liked to hide their secret chapels inside underground mazes. One never knows when a wall of spikes is going to be released and impale a fellow.” He winked at Beckett then to show that he was most probably joking to freak out their escorts.
“Spikes,” said Beckett, catching on quickly because it suited him. “Right in the face. Blood and brains everywhere.”
Oberon faltered slightly, but Trinculo pooh-poohed the notion in a most upper-class English accent. “Spikes? The very idea. Honestly, you boys must think we were born yesterday. Let me tell you about Catholics. They never could put so much as two cogs together. Anything those monks built has long since disintegrated. I’m surprised their arches have held up this long. If you must worry about something, worry about the ceiling falling on our heads.”
Oberon regained his composure. “Yeah, okay, Chicken Licken. Less talk about the ceiling falling, or the sky, for that matter. Keep an eye on these two kids. They’re dangerous.”
“I do not doubt it,” said his comrade. “Each in his own way. I have heard that the bespectacled one could talk his way out of a shark’s mouth, and that innocent-looking blond chappie has mastered the cluster punch.”
Oberon missed a step. “You don’t say? The cluster punch? At his age?”
“I have it on reliable authority.”
Myles frowned, as this was a fact that he had not realized was in the public domain, and he wondered exactly where Trinculo had gotten his information. The problem now was that once Beckett heard the cluster punch mentioned, he would be dying to prove just how effective he was at it, and playing that card now would ruin Myles’s plan.
“No punching, brother,” he warned under his breath. He did not use those precise words but rather spoke in what the brothers called Fowl Argot, a secret cryptophasic language developed by the twins over the past decade and spoken by them alone. Though, like most twin-talk, it was not just spoken but also included gestures and onomatopoeic sounds, so what Myles actually said was: “Mab-mab, B.”
Mab-mab being bam-bam backward. Bam-bam being Argot for punching, and the reversal signifying a negative, i.e., no punching. B for Beckett, obviously. Simple enough provided you had the key. Which only two people did.
Beckett replied by making the shape of a seagull’s wing with his hand, which was an affirmative, as Beckett considered seagulls the most positive of birds. This sign was the Argot version of a thumbs-up.
“You’re probably wondering how I know where the showers are, my dear satellites,” said Myles, to distract from the brief exchange in Argot. “It’s quite simple, really. There is a slant to the floor, slight but perceptible, and only an idiot architect would not take advantage of natural drainage. And if one studies the intra-slab mold buildup, it becomes noticeably thicker as we approach the washroom area.”
“Smart, kid,” said Oberon. “It must be great to always know where the bathroom is.”
Trinculo was thinking the same thing, but not in a sarcastic way.
Six turns later, the slightly-larger-than-it-appeared group arrived at the modified medieval baths, which were starkly lit by halogen lights and had rubber-grip mats laid over the flagstones. Sister Jeronima had obviously sent word ahead, for there were two additional lemon men waiting, one with a set of clippers that would not have seemed out of place at a sheep-shearing competition, and the second shooting practice jets from his steam lance and crying “Yeehaw!” with each burst, as though he had accomplished something rugged and wonderful by pressing a plastic trigger.
Myles immediately assigned names to these men: Clippers and Lance.
“Okay, boys,” said Lance, brandishing his dripping steam tool. “Who’s first?”
Beckett was already halfway out of his clothes. “Me. Please, me.”
“No,” said Myles. “We are twins. We go together.”
Which is what they did.
* * *
Specialist Heitz watched the whole bizarre procedure and thought: I shall never ever understand humans if I live to be a thousand.
The Fowl Twins exchanged their clothes for triangular plastic underpants and were ushered into a tiled stall and blasted with steaming water, which seemed to amuse Beckett no end as he alternated between dodging the spray and trying to drink as much of it as possible. Myles, on the other hand, made some attempt to preserve his dignity by assuming the lotus position and elevating his consciousness to another plane. The yellow-suited man may as well have been washing a marble statue for all the attention Myles paid to him.
The twins’ clothing was incinerated, and their belongings tossed into a metal crate.
The crate interested Lazuli greatly.
As it did one of the men in yellow, who edged closer to it, and Lazuli could swear that she saw his eyes glitter behind the helmet mesh.
Eyes behind gauze do not glitter, Specialist, she told herself. Your imagination is running away with you.
But it was undeniable that the human did seem more interested in the metal crate than he was in his supposedly dangerous charges, who were being steam-cleaned in their shower stall. It was a curious thing to watch a man trying to be sneaky, especially when that man did not realize he was being observed. His frame seemed to be at war with itself as he tried to look as though his mind were on the job while also moving backward in minuscule degrees. Lazuli was reminded of a 1982 dance craze from her human studies media module. The man looked for all the world like he as performing a slow, tense moonwalk toward the perforated metal crate. A crate that contained, as far as Lazuli could make out:
A necktie in the shape of a goldfish.
A pair of thick-rimmed spectacles.
A dust bunny the approximate size of a goose egg.
A stress ball.
Several tangled gummy worms.
And…
One toy troll wrapped in transparent plastic.
Whether it was alive or dead, Specialist Heitz could n
ot tell. But she would find out.
Yesterday, she could have simply blinked in the troll’s direction and her visor would have provided any vital statistics she requested, but that was yesterday. Today, her visor’s circuitry was fried, and the only tools she had left were the ones she’d been found with in Lazuli Heights—those being her senses.
And one more tool.
Her invisibility, which she would exploit to maximum effect starting just as soon as that unsettling human took his eyes off the crate for one second. Then she would stuff the troll inside her uniform jacket and spirit them both far away from this place, which was creepy and oppressive even for someone who lived underground.
The air is fat, she thought, and the adjective seemed correct if not terribly scientific.
Her plans were thwarted somewhat by the arrival of the nun at the door to Specialist Heitz’s six o’clock. Lazuli was invisible to the nun, but the human woman would certainly notice a toy troll levitating from the metal crate. In fact, the nun crossed directly to the crate and absently processed the contents while calling orders to the four lemon men.
“Steam every inch, muchachos,” she said. “I am wearing a new veil; I do not wish to burn it.”
Once the first round of steaming was complete, the shearing began.
“Give them a numero cero,” ordered the nun. “No lice must escape your blade, ¿entiendéis?”
“I understand, Sister,” said Clippers. “Don’t worry. By the time I’m finished, these heads will be as barren as the surface of the moon.”
The dark-haired Fowl piped up. “For your information, sir, my brother Artemis has discovered water on the dark side of the moon as well as microorganisms that may have been transported from Earth on meteorites. So, are these organisms aliens, or merely migrants? Science shall decide. But either way, the surface of the moon is most certainly not barren.”
