‘Of course,’ said Foaly.
Holly could imagine the childish pout on his lips. She unshielded and took an Omnitool from her belt. The Omnitool’s sensor would send an X-ray of the lock’s workings to the chip and select the right bit. It even did the turning. Of course, the Omnitool only worked on keyhole locks, which, in spite of their unreliability, the Mud People still used.
In less than five seconds the door lay open before her.
‘Five seconds,’ said Holly. ‘This thing needs a new battery.’
The red line in her visor ran to the office’s centre, and then took a right-angle turn downwards, through the floor.
‘Let me guess. Artemis is down there?’
‘Yes. Asleep, judging by the pictures coming in from his iris-cam.’
‘You said the cell was lined with reinforced steel.’
‘True. But no motion sensors in the walls or roof. So all you have to do is burn through.’
Holly drew her Neutrino 2000. ‘Oh, is that all?’
She chose a spot adjacent to a wall air conditioner and peeled back the carpet. Underneath, the floor was dull and metallic.
‘No trace, remember?’ said Foaly in her earpiece. ‘That’s vital.’
‘I’ll worry about that later,’ said Holly, adjusting the air con to extract. ‘For now, I need to get him out of there. We’re on a schedule.’
Holly adjusted the Neutrino’s output, concentrating the beam so it cut through the metal floor. Acrid smoke billowed from the molten gash, and was immediately siphoned off into the Chicago night by the air con.
‘Artemis isn’t the only one with brains around here,’ grunted Holly, sweat streaming down her face in spite of the helmet’s climate control.
‘The air con stops the fire alarm going off. Very good.’
‘Is he awake?’ asked Holly, leaving the last centimetre of a half-metre square uncut.
‘Wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, to use Centaurian imagery. A laser carving through the ceiling will do that to a person.’
‘Good,’ said Captain Short, cutting through the final section. The metal square twisted on a final strand of steel.
‘Won’t that make a lot of noise?’ asked Foaly.
Holly watched the section fall.
‘I doubt it,’ she said.
CHAPTER 10: FINGERS AND THUMBS
ARTEMIS FOWL’S CELL, THE SPIRO NEEDLE
ARTEMIS was meditating when the first laser-stroke cut through the ceiling. He rose from the lotus position, pulled his sweater back on and arranged some pillows on the floor. Moments later, a square of metal fell to the floor, its impact silenced by the cushions. Holly’s face appeared in the hole.
Artemis pointed at the pillows. ‘You anticipated me.’
The LEP captain nodded. ‘Only thirteen, and already predictable.’
‘I presume you used the air conditioner to vacuum the smoke?’
‘Exactly. I think we’re getting to know one another too well.’
Holly reeled a piton line from her belt, lowering it into the room.
‘Make a loop at the bottom with the clamp and hop aboard. I’ll reel you in.’
Artemis did as he was told and, in seconds, he was clambering through the hole.
‘Do we have Mister Foaly on our side?’ he asked.
Holly handed Artemis a small cylindrical earpiece. ‘Ask him yourself.’
Artemis inserted the miracle of nanotechnology.
‘Well, Foaly. Astound me.’
Below, in Haven City, the centaur rubbed his hands together. Artemis was the only one who actually understood his lectures.
‘You’re going to love this, Mud Boy. Not only have I wiped you from the video, not only did I erase the ceiling falling in, but I have created a simulated Artemis.’
Artemis was intrigued. ‘A sim? Really? How exactly did you do that?’
‘Simple really,’ said Foaly modestly. ‘I have hundreds of human movies on file. I borrowed Steve McQueen’s solitary confinement scene from The Great Escape and altered his clothes.’
‘What about the face?’
‘I had some digital interrogation footage from your last visit to Haven. I put the two together and voilà. Our simulated Artemis can do whatever I tell him, whenever I say. At the moment, the sim is asleep, but in half an hour I may just instruct him to go to the bathroom.’
Holly reeled in her piton cord. ‘The miracle of modern science. The LEP pours millions into your department, Foaly, and all you can do is send Mud Boys to the toilet.’
‘You should be nice to me, Holly. I’m doing you a big favour. If Julius knew I was helping you, he’d be extremely angry.’
‘Which is exactly why you are doing it.’
Holly moved quietly to the door, opening it a crack. The corridor was clear and silent, but for the drone of panning cameras and the hum of fluorescent lighting. One section of Holly’s visor displayed miniature transparent feeds from Spiro’s security cameras. There were six guards doing the rounds on the floor.
Holly closed the door.
‘OK. Let’s get going. We need to reach Spiro before the guards change.’