[AF03] - The Eternity Code

by Colfer, Eoin

  ‘Is that him? Is that the man who shot you in Knightsbridge?’

  Butler nodded. It was him all right. The same indolent expression. The same hands that had pulled the trigger.

  ‘A positive ID is something, but it’s still your word against his and, to be honest, you don’t look too shot.’

  Butler laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I don’t suppose -

  Commons didn’t even let him finish. ‘No. You can not go in there. Absolutely not. I’d be out of a job, for sure; and anyway, even if you did prise a confession out of him, it would never hold up in court.’

  Butler nodded. ‘I understand. Do you mind if I stay? I want to see how this turns out.’

  Commons agreed eagerly, relieved that Butler hadn’t pressured him.

  ‘No problem. Stick around as long as you like. But I have to get you a visitor’s badge.’ He strode down the corridor, then turned.

  ‘Don’t go in there, Butler. If you do, we lose him forever. And anyway, there are cameras all over this place.’

  Butler smiled reassuringly. Something he didn’t do very often.

  ‘Don’t worry, Sid. You won’t see me in that room.’

  Commons sighed. ‘Good. Great. It’s just sometimes when you get that look in your eye . . .’

  ‘I’m a different man now. More mature.’

  Commons laughed. ‘That’ll be the day.’

  He rounded the corner, his chuckles lingering in the air. He was no sooner gone than Holly unshielded by Butler’s leg.

  ‘Cameras?’ hissed the bodyguard from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘I checked the ion beams. I’m clear right here.’ She pulled a sheet of camouflage foil from her backpack, laying it on the floor. She then twisted a video clip around a cable tacked to the cell’s outer wall.

  ‘OK,’ she said, listening to Foaly’s voice in her ear. ‘We’re in. Foaly has wiped our patterns from the video. We are camera and mike-proof now. Do you know what to do?’

  Butler nodded. They had been through this before, but Holly had a soldier’s need to double-check.

  ‘I’m going to shield again. Give me a second to move, then put the foil on and do your thing. I give you two minutes, tops, before your friend returns. After that you’re on your own.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Good luck,’ said Holly, shimmering out of the visible spectrum.

  Butler waited a beat, then took two steps to the left. He picked up the foil and draped it over his head and shoulders. To the casual passerby, he was now invisible. But if anyone paused on his or her way down the corridor, something of the manservant’s bulk was bound to be poking out from under the foil. Best to move quickly. He slid the latch on the cell door across and stepped inside.

  Arno Blunt was not unduly worried. This was a bum rap. How long could you be held for having novelty false teeth, for heaven’s sake? Not much longer, that was for sure. Maybe he would sue the British government for trauma, and retire home to New Zealand.

  The door swung open thirty centimetres, then closed again. Blunt sighed. It was an old interrogator’s trick. Let the prisoner sweat for a few hours, then open the door to make him think help was on the way. When no one entered the prisoner would be plunged into even deeper despair. Ever closer to breaking point.

  ‘Arno Blunt,’ sighed a voice from nowhere.

  Blunt stopped drumming his fingers and sat up straight.

  ‘What is this?’ he sneered. ‘Are there speakers in here? That’s lame, guys. Really lame.’

  ‘I’ve come for you,’ said the voice. ‘I’ve come to even the score.’

  Arno Blunt knew that voice. He’d been dreaming about it since Chicago, ever since the Irish kid had warned him Butler would return. OK, it was ridiculous; there were no such things as ghosts. But there was something about Artemis Fowl’s stare that made you believe everything he told you.

  ‘Butler? Is that you?’

  ‘Ah,’ said the voice. ‘You remember me.’

  Arno took a deep, shuddering breath. Composing himself.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m not falling for it. What? I’m supposed to cry like a baby now, because you found somebody who sounds like one of my . . . Somebody I knew?’

  ‘This is no trick, Arno. I’m right here.’

  ‘Sure. If you’re right there, why can’t I see you?’

  ‘Are you sure you can’t see me, Arno? Look closely.’

  Blunt’s stare hopped wildly around the room. There was no one else in there. No one. He was certain of it. But there was a patch of air in the corner of the room that seemed to be bending light, like a floating mirror.

  ‘Ah, you’ve spotted me.’

  ‘I’ve spotted nothing,’ said Blunt shakily. ‘All I see is a heat blur. Maybe from a vent or something.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said Butler, throwing off the cam foil. To Blunt it seemed as though he had stepped from the air. The bodyguard stood abruptly, catapulting his chair against the wall.

  ‘Oh, God! What are you?’

  Butler bent his knees slightly. Ready for action. He was older now, true. And slower. But the fairy magic had bolstered his reaction time, and he had so much more experience than Blunt. Juliet would have liked to handle this job for him, but there were some things you had to finish personally.

  ‘I am your guide, Arno. I’ve come to take you home. There are a lot of people waiting to see you.’

  ‘H-h-home?’ stammered Blunt. ‘What do you mean home?’

  Butler took a step forward. ‘You know what I mean, Arno. Home. The place you’ve always been headed. The place you’ve sent so many others. Including me.’

  Blunt pointed a shaky finger. ‘You stay away from me. I killed you once, I can do it again.’

  Butler laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Arno. I can’t be killed again. Anyway, death is no big deal, not compared to what comes after.’

  ‘What comes after . . .’

  ‘There is a hell, Arno,’ said Butler. ‘I’ve seen it and, believe me, so will you.’

  Blunt was utterly convinced; after all, Butler had appeared from nowhere.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he sobbed. ‘I didn’t believe it. I never would have shot you, Butler. I was just following Spiro’s orders. You heard him give the order. I was just the metal man; that’s all I’ve ever been.’

  Butler laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I believe you, Arno. You were just following orders.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But that’s not enough. You need to clear your conscience. If you don’t, I have to take you with me.’

  Blunt’s eyes were red with tears. ‘How?’ he pleaded. ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘Confess your sins to the authorities. Leave nothing out, or I will be back.’

  Blunt nodded eagerly. Prison was better than the alternative.

  ‘Remember, I will be watching. This is your one chance to save yourself. If you don’t take it, I will be back.’

  Blunt’s teeth popped from his open mouth, rolling across the floor.

  ‘Don’ worry. I’ll confesh. I promish.’

  Butler lifted the cam foil, concealing himself completely.

  ‘See that you do, or there’ll be hell to pay.’

  Butler stepped into the corridor, stuffing the foil inside his jacket. Seconds later, Sid Commons reappeared with a security badge.

  He caught sight of Arno Blunt standing stunned in his cell.

  ‘What did you do, Butler?’ he said.

  ‘Hey, it wasn’t me. Check your tapes. He just went crazy, talking to thin air. Yelling how he wanted to confess.’

  ‘He wants to confess? Just like that?’

  ‘I know how it sounds, but that’s what happened. If I were you, I’d give Justin Barre a call over at Scotland Yard. I have a feeling that Blunt’s statement could clear up a lot of outstanding cases.’

  Commons squinted at him suspiciously. ‘Why do I h
ave a feeling that you know more than you’re telling?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Butler. ‘But feelings aren’t evidence, and your own surveillance tapes will prove that I never set foot in that room.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s what they’ll show?’

  Butler glanced at the patch of air shimmering above Sid Commons’s shoulder.

  ‘I am positive,’ he said.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 12: MIND WIPE

  FOWL MANOR

  THE return trip from Heathrow took over an hour, thanks to some particularly strong turbulence and an easterly wind over the Welsh hills. When Holly and Butler finally touched down in the grounds of Fowl Manor the LEP was busy humping their mind-wiping gear up the avenue, under cover of night.

  Butler undipped himself from the Moonbelt, leaning against the trunk of a silver birch.

  ‘You OK?’ asked Holly.

  ‘Fine,’ replied the bodyguard, massaging his chest. ‘It’s this Kevlar tissue. Handy if you get shot with a small calibre, but it’s playing havoc with my breathing.’

  Holly sheathed her mechanical wings. ‘It’s the quiet life for you from now on.’

  Butler noticed an LEP pilot attempting to park his shuttle in the double garage, nudging the Bentley’s bumper.

  ‘Quiet life?’ he muttered, heading for the garage. ‘I wish.’

  Once Butler had finished terrorizing the pixie pilot he made for the study. Artemis and Juliet were waiting for him. Juliet hugged her brother so tightly that the air was squeezed from his lungs.

  ‘I’m OK, little sister. The fairies have fixed it so that I will live to well over a hundred. I’ll still be around to keep an eye on you.’

  Artemis was all business. ‘How did you fare, Butler?’

  Butler opened a wall safe behind an air-conditioning vent.

  ‘Pretty well. I got everything on the list.’

  ‘What about the custom job?’

  Butler laid out six small vials on the baize-covered desk.

  ‘My man in Limerick followed your instructions to the letter. In all his years in the trade, he’s never done anything like this. They’re in a special solution to stop corrosion. The layers are so fine that once they come into contact with the air they begin to oxidize right away, so I suggest we don’t insert them until the last possible moment.’

  ‘Excellent. In all probability, I am the only one who will need these, but, just in case, we should all put them in.’

  Butler held the gold coin up by its leather thong. ‘I copied your diary and fairy files on to a laser minidisc, then brushed on a layer of gold leaf. It won’t stand up to close examination, I’m afraid, but molten gold would have destroyed the information on the disc.’

  Artemis tied the thong round his neck. ‘It will have to do. Did you plant the false trails?’

  ‘Yes. I sent an e-mail that has yet to be picked up, and I hired a few megabytes on an Internet storage site. I also took the liberty of burying a time capsule in the maze.’

  Artemis nodded. ‘Good. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  Butler accepted the compliment, but he didn’t believe it. Artemis thought of everything.

  Juliet spoke for the first time. ‘You know, Artemis. Maybe it would be better to let these memories go. Give the fairies some peace of mind.’

  ‘These memories are part of who I am,’ responded Artemis.

  He examined the vials on the table, selecting two.

  ‘Now, everybody, it’s time to put these in. I’m sure the People are eager to wipe our minds.’

  Foaly’s technical crew set up shop in the conference room, laying out a complex assembly of electrodes and fibre-optic cable. Each cable was connected to a plasma screen that converted brainwaves to actual binary information. In layman’s terms, Foaly would be able to read the humans’ memories like a book and edit out what shouldn’t be there. Possibly the most incredible part of the entire procedure was that the human brain itself would supply alternative memories to fill the blank spots.

  ‘We could do the mind wipes with a field kit,’ explained Foaly, once the patients were assembled. ‘But field kits are just for blanket wipes. It would erase everything that’s happened over the past sixteen months. That could have serious implications for your emotional development, not to mention your IQ. So, better we use the lab kit and simply erase the memories that pertain to the People. Obviously, we will have to erase the days you spent in fairy company completely. We can’t take any chances there.’

  Artemis, Butler and Juliet were seated round the table. Technical gnomes swabbed their temples with disinfectant.

  ‘I’ve thought of something,’ said Butler.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ interrupted the centaur. ‘The age thing, right?’

  Butler nodded. ‘A lot of people know me as a forty-year-old man. You can’t wipe them all.’

  ‘Way ahead of you, Butler. We’re going to give your face a laser peel while you’re unconscious. Get rid of some of that dead skin. We even brought a cosmetic surgeon to give your forehead a Dewer injection to smooth out the wrinkles.’

  ‘Dewer?’

  ‘Fat,’ explained the centaur. ‘We take it from one area, and inject it into another.’

  Butler was not enthused by the idea. ‘This fat. It doesn’t come from my behind, does it?’

  Foaly shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Well, it doesn’t come from your behind.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘Research has shown that of all the fairy races, dwarfs have the greatest longevity. There’s a miner in Poll Dyne who is allegedly over two thousand years old. Haven’t you ever heard the expression “smooth as a dwarf’s bottom”?’

  Butler slapped away a technician who was attempting to attach an electrode patch to his head.

  ‘Are you telling me that fat from a dwarf’s backside is going to be injected into my head?’

  Foaly shrugged. ‘The price of youth. There are pixies on the west bank paying a fortune for Dewer treatments.’

  Butler spoke through gritted teeth. ‘I am not a pixie.’

  ‘We’ve also brought some gel to colour any hair you may decide to grow in the future, and some pigment dye to cover the cell corruption on your chest,’ continued the centaur hurriedly. ‘By the time you wake up, your exterior will look young again, even if your interior is old.’

  ‘Clever,’ said Artemis. ‘I expected as much.’

  Holly entered with Mulch in tow. The dwarf was wearing cuffs and looking extremely sorry for himself.

  ‘Is this really necessary,’ he whined, ‘after all we’ve been through?’

  ‘My badge is on the line,’ retorted Holly. ‘The commander said to come back with you, or not at all.’

  ‘What do I have to do? I donated the fat, didn’t I?’

  Butler rolled his eyes. ‘Please, no.’

  Juliet giggled. ‘Don’t worry, Dom. You won’t remember a thing about it.’

  ‘Knock me out,’ said Butler. ‘Quickly.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ grumbled Mulch, attempting to rub his behind.

  Holly uncuffed the dwarf, but stayed within grabbing distance.

  ‘He wanted to say goodbye, so here we are.’ She nudged Mulch with her shoulder. ‘So, say goodbye.’

  Juliet winked. ‘Bye, Smelly.’

  ‘So long, Stinker.’

  ‘Don’t go chewing through any concrete walls.’

  ‘I don’t find that kind of thing funny,’ said Mulch, with a pained expression.

  ‘Who knows. Maybe we’ll see each other again.’

  Mulch nodded at the technicians, busy firing up their hard drives.

  ‘If we do, thanks to these people, it’ll be the first time.’

  Butler knelt to the dwarf’s level.

  ‘You look after yourself, little friend. Stay clear of goblins.’

  Mulch shuddered. ‘You don’t have to tell me that.’

  Commander Root’s face appeared on a roll-down screen erected by an LEP
officer.

  ‘Maybe you two would like to get married?’ he barked. ‘I don’t know what all the emotion is about. In ten minutes you people won’t even remember this convict’s name!’

  ‘We have the commander online,’ said a technician, a tad unnecessarily.

  Mulch stared at the button camera mounted on the screen. ‘Julius, please. Do you realize that all of these humans owe me their lives? This is an emotional moment for them.’

  Root’s rosy complexion was exaggerated by poor reception.

  ‘I couldn’t care less about your touchy feely moment. I’m here to make sure this wipe goes smoothly. If I know our friend Fowl, he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve.’

  ‘Really, Commander,’ said Artemis. ‘Such suspicion is wounding.’

  But the Irish teenager couldn’t suppress a grin. Everybody knew that he would have hidden items to spark residual memories; it was up to the LEP to find them. Their final contest.

  Artemis stood and approached Mulch Diggums.

  ‘Mulch. Of all the fairy People, I will miss your services the most. We could have had such a future together.’

  Mulch looked a touch teary. ‘True. With your brains and my special talents.’

  ‘Not to mention your mutual lack of morals,’ interjected Holly.

  ‘No bank on the planet would have been safe,’ completed the dwarf. ‘A missed opportunity.’

  Artemis tried his best to look sincere. It was vital for the next step in the plan.

  ‘Mulch, I know you risked your life betraying the Antonelli family, so I’d like to give you something.’

  Mulch’s imagination churned with visions of trust funds and offshore accounts.

  ‘There’s no need. Really. Although it was incredibly brave, and I was in mortal danger.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Artemis, untying the gold medallion from round his neck. ‘I know this isn’t much, but it means a lot to me. I was going to keep it, but I realized that in a few minutes it will mean absolutely nothing. I would like you to have it; I think Holly would too. A little memento of our adventures.’

  ‘Gee,’ said Mulch, hefting the medallion. ‘Half an ounce of gold. Great. You really broke the bank there, Artemis.’