The Time Paradox

by Eoin Colfer

  But those plans could wait until she was empress. For now the lemur was her priority. Without its brain fluid, it could take years to accomplish her plans. Plus, magic was so much easier than science.

  Opal slotted Holly’s helmet onto her head. Pads inside the helmet automatically inflated to cradle her skull. There was some coded security, which she contemptuously hacked with a series of blinks and hand movements. These LEP helmets were not half as advanced as the models in her R&D department.

  Once the helmet’s functions were open to her, the visor’s display crystals fizzled and turned scarlet. Red alert! Something was closing in. A 3-D radar sweep revealed a small craft overhead, and recognition software quickly pegged it as a human-built Cessna.

  She quickly selected the command sequence for a thermal scan, and the helmet infrared detector analyzed the electromagnetic radiation coming from inside the aircraft. There was some waffle from the solar panels, but the scan isolated an orange blob in the pilot’s seat. One passenger only. The helmet’s biometric reader conveniently identified the pilot as Artemis Fowl, and dropped a 3-D icon over his fuzzy figure.

  “One passenger,” murmured Opal. “Are you trying to decoy me away from the house, Artemis Fowl? Is that why you fly so low?”

  But Artemis Fowl knew technology; he would anticipate thermal imaging.

  “What do you have up your sleeve?” wondered the pixie. “Or perhaps up your shirt.”

  She magnified Artemis’s heart and discovered a second heat source superimposed over the first, distinguishable only by a slightly cooler shade of red.

  Even at that desperate moment, Opal could not help but admire this young human, who had attempted to mask the lemur’s heat signature with his own.

  “Clever. But not ingenious.”

  And he would need to be ingenious to defeat Opal Koboi. Bringing back the second Artemis had been a neat trick, but she should have caught it.

  I was defeated by my own arrogance, she realized. That will not happen again.

  The helmet automatically tuned into the Cessna’s radio frequency, and so Opal sent Artemis a little message.

  “I am coming for the lemur, boy,” she said, a pulse of magic setting the suit’s wings aflutter. “And this time there will be no you to save you.”

  Artemis could not feel or see the various waves that probed the Cessna, but he guessed that Opal would use the helmet’s thermal imager to see how many hot bodies were on the plane. Perhaps she would try X-ray too. It would seem as though he was trying to hide Jayjay’s heat signature with his own, but that was a transparent ploy and should not fool Opal for more than a heartbeat. When the pixie was satisfied that her prize was escaping, then how could she not follow?

  Artemis banked starboard to keep Opal in the camera eye, and was satisfied to see a set of wings sliding from the slots in Holly’s suit.

  The chase is on.

  Time for the bait to pretend it is trying to escape.

  Artemis peeled away from the estate, heading for the deep purple sea, opening the throttle wide, satisfied by the plane’s smooth acceleration. The batteries were channeling a steady supply of power to the engines without releasing one gram of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

  He checked the tail camera view and was not totally surprised to find the flying pixie in his monitor.

  Her control over the magic is addled by the sedative, he guessed. Opal may have had barely enough power to jump-start the suit. But soon the dart’s aftereffects will peter out and then there may be lightning bolts flaring across my wing.

  Artemis turned south, following the jagged coast. The clamor and bustle of Dublin’s high-rise apartment blocks, belching chimneys, and swarm of buzzing helicopters gave way to long stretches of gray rock shadowed by the north-south rail track. The sea pushed against the shore, folding its million fingers over sand, scrub, and shale.

  Fishing boats chugged from buoy to buoy, trailing white sea-serpent wakes, sailors snagging lobster pots with long-handled gaffs. Fat clouds hung ponderously at twelve thousand feet, rain brewing in their bellies.

  A peaceful evening, so long as no one looks up.

  Though at this altitude, Opal’s blurred flying form could be mistaken for an eagle.

  Artemis’s plan went smoothly for longer than he had hoped. He made sixty miles without interference from Opal. He allowed himself a glimmer of hope.

  Soon, he thought. The LEP reinforcements will come soon.

  Then his radio crackled into life. “Artemis? Are you there, Artemis?”

  Butler. He sounded extremely calm, which he always did before he explained just how serious a situation was.

  “Butler, old friend. I’m here. Tell me the good news.”

  The bodyguard sighed into his microphone, a breaking wave of static.

  “They’re not coming after the Cessna. You are not the priority.”

  “No1 is,” said Artemis. “They need to get him below-ground. I understand.”

  “Yes. Him and . . .”

  “Say no more, old friend,” said Artemis sharply. “Opal is listening.”

  “The LEP are here, Artemis. I want you to turn around and fly back.”

  “No,” said Artemis firmly. “I will not put Mother at risk again.”

  Artemis heard a strange creaking sound and surmised that Butler was strangling the microphone stalk.

  “Very well. Another location, then. Someplace where we can dig ourselves in.”

  “Very well, I am on a southerly heading anyway, so why not—”

  Artemis didn’t complete his veiled suggestion, as his channel was blocked by a deafening burst of white noise. The squawk left a droning aftershock in his ears, and for a moment he allowed the Cessna to drift.

  No sooner had he regained control than a thudding blow to the fuselage caused him to lose it again.

  Several red lights flashed on the solar panel display-plane icon. At least ten panels had been shattered by the impact.

  Artemis spared half a second to check the rear camera. Opal was no longer trailing behind him. No surprise there.

  The pixie’s voice burst through the radio speakers, sharp with petulance and evil intent.

  “I am strong now, Mud Boy,” she said. “Your poison is gone, flushed from my system. My power grows, and I am hungry for more.”

  Artemis did not engage in conversation. All his skill and quick thinking would be needed to pilot the Cessna.

  Opal struck again on the port wing, smashing her forearms into the solar panels and breaking them as a child would break sheets of ice in a pool, windmilling her arms gleefully, wings buzzing to keep pace. The plane bucked and yawed, and Artemis fought the stick to pull the craft level.

  She’s insane, thought Artemis. Utterly insane.

  And then: Those panels are unique. And she calls herself a scientist.

  Opal scampered along the wing, punching an armored fist into the fuselage itself. More panels were obliterated, and tiny fist-size dents buckled the polymer over Artemis’s shoulder. Tiny cracks ran along the dents, slit by the wind.

  Opal’s voice was loud in the speaker. “Land, Fowl. Land and I may not return to the manor when I have finished with you. Land! Land!”

  Each order to land was emphasized by another blow on the cockpit. The windshield exploded inward, showering Artemis with jagged chunks of Plexiglas.

  “Land! Land!”

  You have the product, Artemis reminded himself. So you have the power. Opal cannot afford to kill Jayjay.

  The wind screamed in Artemis’s face, and the readings from his flight instruments made no sense, unless Opal was scrambling them with the LEP suit’s field. But Artemis still had a chance. There was fight left in this Fowl.

  He pointed the nose downward, banking sharply left. Opal kept pace easily, tearing strips from the fuselage. She was a destructive shadow in the dimming dusk light.

  Artemis could smell the sea.

  I am too low. Too soon.

  More r
ed lights on the instrument panel. The power supply had been cut. The batteries were breached. The altimeter whirred and beeped.

  Opal was at the side window. Artemis could see her tiny teeth grinning at him. She was saying something. Shouting. But the radio was not operational anymore. Just as well, probably.

  She is having the time of her life, he realized. Fun, fun, fun.

  Artemis struggled with the controls. The sticky flaps were the least of his worries now. If Opal decided to snip a few cables, then he would lose whatever say he had over the plane. Though it was too early, Artemis lowered the tricycle landing gear. If Opal sabotaged the mechanism now, the wheels should stay down.

  They plummeted earthward, locked together. A sparrow on an eagle’s back. Opal smashed her armored head through the door window’s Plexiglas, still shouting inside the helmet, spittle spraying the visor. Issuing orders that Artemis could not hear and could not spare enough time to lip-read. He could see that her eyes glowed red with magic, and it was clear from her manic expression that any threads connecting her to rationality had been severed.

  More shouting, muffled behind the visor. Artemis cast a sardonic gaze at the radio, which sat dead and dark in its cradle.

  Opal caught the look and raised her visor, shouting over the wind, too impatient for the helmet PA.

  “Give me the lemur and I will save you,” she said, her voice mesmerizing. “You have my . . .”

  Artemis avoided her gaze and pulled the emergency flare gun from under the seat, sticking it in her face.

  “You leave me no choice but to shoot you,” he said, voice cold and certain. This was not a threat, it was a statement of fact.

  Opal knew the truth when she heard it, and for one second her resolve wavered. She pulled back, but not quickly enough to prevent Artemis from firing the flare into her helmet, then reaching up to flick down the visor.

  Opal spun away from the Cessna, trailing black smoke, red sparks swarming around her head like angry wasps. Her wing smashed into the Cessna’s, and neither survived intact. Solar cell splinters flashed like stardust, and Opal’s tail feathers helicoptered slowly earthward. The airplane yawed to starboard, moaning like a wounded animal.

  I need to land. Now.

  Artemis didn’t feel guilty about what he’d done. Flare burns would not hinder a being of Opal’s regenerative power for long. Already the magic would be repairing her skin damage. At best he had bought himself a few minutes’ reprieve.

  When Opal comes back, she will be beyond furious. A true maniac. Perhaps her judgment will be clouded.

  Artemis smiled grimly, and for a moment he felt like his old conniving self, before Holly and his mother had introduced him to their pesky moral codes.

  Good. Clouded judgment may give me the advantage I need.

  Artemis leveled the craft as much as he could, slowing his descent. Wind slapped his face, tugging his skin. Shielding his eyes with a forearm, Artemis peered downward through the blur of propeller spin.

  Hook Head peninsula jutted into the blackness of the sea below him like a slate-gray arrowhead. A cluster of lights winked on the eastern curve. This was the village of Duncade, where Butler had awaited his young charge’s return from Limbo. A magical inlet that had once sheltered the demon isle of Hybras. The entire area was a magical hotspot and would set LEP spectrometers buzzing.

  Dark blue night was falling quickly, and it was difficult to tell hard ground from soft. Artemis knew that a carpet of meadow ran from Duncade to the Hook Head lighthouse, but he could only see the grass strip once every five seconds when it flashed emerald in the tower’s beam.

  My runway, thought Artemis.

  He dragged the Cessna into the best possible approach line, descending in uneven, stomach-lurching swoops. Solar panels frittered away from the nose and wings, streaming behind the craft.

  Still no sign of Opal.

  She’s coming. Make no mistake about it.

  With each flash of green, the hard earth rushed up to meet him.

  Too fast, thought Artemis. I am coming in too fast. I will never get my legal pilot’s license flying like this.

  He clenched his jaws and held the stick tightly. Touchdown was going to be rough.

  And it was, though not bone-shatteringly so. Not the first time. It was on the second bounce that Artemis was shunted forward into the console and heard the left side of his collarbone snap. A horrible sound that brought bile to his throat.

  No pain yet. Just cold. I am going into shock.

  The Cessna’s wheels skidded on the long grass, which was coated with sea spray and slicker than ice. Artemis scowled, not because of his injuries but because his fate was in the hands of chance now; he had no control. Opal would be coming for Jayjay, and he must do his utmost to distract her.

  The outside world continued to intrude most violently on Artemis’s thoughts. The front wheel strut glanced off a sharp rock, shearing away completely. For several seconds the wheel continued to roll alongside the plane, until it veered off into the darkness.

  Another bump and the Cessna collapsed onto its nose, propeller plowing furrows in the earth. Sheaves of grass fanned the air, and clods of muck rained through the holes in the windshield.

  Artemis tasted earth and thought, I don’t see what Mulch makes all the fuss about. It’s not exactly lobster mousse.

  Then he was out of the plane and stumbling toward the rocky shoreline. Artemis did not call for help, and none would have come if he had. The rocks were black, treacherous, and deserted. The sea was loud and the wind blew high. Even if the lighthouse beam had pinned the falling plane’s image to the sky, it would be a long while before unarmed, unsuspecting villagers arrived to offer assistance. And by then it would be too late.

  Artemis stumbled on, his left arm hanging low, his good hand cupped over the furry head poking from the front of his jacket.

  “Almost there,” he panted.

  A pair of sea stacks jutted from the water like the last teeth from the gums of a tobacco chewer. Hundred-foot-high hard-rock columns that had resisted the erosive power of wind and wave. The locals called them The Nuns because of their sisterly appearance. Head-to-toe habits.

  The Nuns were quite the local attraction, and sturdy rope bridges spanned the chasms from shore to Little Sister and on to Mother Superior. Butler once told Artemis that he had spent many lonely nights on the second sea stack with night-vision binoculars, glassing the ocean for a sign of Hybras.

  Artemis stepped onto the first span of the bridge. It rippled and creaked slightly under his feet, but held firm. He saw the sea far below through the slats, flat rocks pushing through the surface like mushrooms through clay. The body of an unlucky dog lay splayed on one of the lower rocks, a stark reminder of what could happen if you lost your footing on The Nuns.

  I am hurrying toward a dead end, he told himself. Once I reach the second stack, there is nowhere to go but down.

  But there was no choice. A quick glance over his shoulder told him that Opal was coming. He did not even need his shield-filtered sunglasses to see her. The pixie had no magic to spare for invisibility. She lurched zombielike across the meadow, a red haze of magic lighting her face inside the helmet, fists clenched at her side. Her wings were outstretched but tattered and battered. She would not be flying anywhere on those. Only the power of Jayjay could save Opal now. He was her last hope for victory: if she did not inject his brain fluid soon, then surely the LEP would arrive to protect the endangered lemur.

  Artemis walked across the bridge, careful not to bash his dangling arm against the railing. Miraculously he was in little constant pain, but every footstep sent a throb of white-hot agony flashing across his upper chest.

  Distract her a while longer. Then the cavalry will surely arrive. The winged, invisible cavalry. They wouldn’t abandon me, would they?

  “Fowl!” the shriek came from behind him. Closer than he expected. “Give me the monkey!”

  The voice was layered with wasted magi
c. No eye contact. No mesmer.

  Monkey, thought Artemis, smirking. Ha-ha.

  Farther across the chasm. Blackness above and below, starpoints in the sky and sea. Waves growling like tigers. Hungry.

  Artemis stumbled toward the first Nun, Little Sister. Stepping out onto a rock plateau worn treacherous. His foot slipped on the surface, and Artemis spun across the diameter of the summit like a ballroom dancer with an unseen partner.

  He heard Opal’s shriek. For Jayjay to die now would be disaster, as she would be stuck in this time with the entire LEP on her trail and no ultimate powers.

  Artemis did not look back, though he ached to. He could hear Opal clanking across the boards, swearing with each breath. The words sounded almost comical in her childlike pixie voice.

  Nowhere to go but forward. Artemis almost fell onto the second span of bridge, pulling himself along the rope rail until he arrived at Mother Superior. Locals said that if you stood at the right point on the coastline at sunrise, and squinted a little, then you could just make out stern features on the Mother Superior’s face.

  The rock felt stern now. Bleak and unforgiving. Even one false step would not be tolerated.

  Artemis dropped to his knees on the mushroom curve of the plateau, cupping his left elbow in his right palm.

  Soon, shock and pain will overcome me. Not yet, genius. Focus.

  Artemis glanced down to the V of his jacket. The furry head was gone.

  Dropped on the Little Sister. Waiting for Opal.

  This was confirmed by a sudden shriek of delight from behind. Artemis turned slowly—and with great effort to face his enemy. It seemed as though he had been fighting her forever.

  The pixie stood atop the sea stack, almost dancing with delight. Artemis could see a small furry figure splayed on the plateau.

  “I have him,”Opal cackled.“With all your genius! With your big bursting brain! You dropped him! You simply dropped him!”

  Artemis felt a throb build in his shoulder. In a minute, there would be worse coming, he was certain of it.

  Opal stretched two hands toward her prize. “He is mine,” she said reverentially, and Artemis swore he heard thunder in the distance. “The ultimate magic is mine. I have the lemur.”