Holly concentrated on the road, though the magnastrip did the steering for her. If Grub did lodge a complaint, it wouldn’t be his first, or even his twentieth. Trouble’s little brother found fault with everything, except himself. In this instance he was completely wrong: there were no sharp edges on the perspex vacuum cuffs. If there had been, a goblin might think to poke a hole in the other mitt and allow oxygen to reach his hand, and nobody wanted goblins hurling fireballs in the back of their vehicles.
‘I know it sounds petty to lodge a complaint over hangnails, but no one could accuse me of being petty.’
‘You! Petty! Perish the thought.’
Grub puffed up his chest. ‘After all, I am the only member of LEPretrieval One to have faced down the human, Butler.’
Holly groaned loudly. This, she fervently hoped, would dissuade Grub from telling his Artemis Fowl war story yet again. It grew longer and more fantastical each time. In reality, Butler had let him go, as a fisherman would a minnow.
But Grub was not about to take a hint.
‘I remember it well,’ he began melodramatically. ‘It was a dark night.’
And, as though his very words carried immeasurable magic, every light in the city went out.
Not only that, but the magnastrip’s power failed, leaving them stranded in the middle lane of a frozen highway.
‘I didn’t do that, did I?’ whispered Grub.
Holly didn’t answer, already halfway out of the wagon door. Overhead, the sun strips that replicated surface light were fading to black. In the last moments of half-light Holly squinted towards the Northern Tunnel and, sure enough, the door was sliding down, emergency lights revolving along its lower edge. Sixty metres of solid steel separating Haven from the outside world. Similar doors were dropping at strategic arches all over the city. Lockdown. There were only three reasons why the Council would initiate a city-wide lockdown: flood, quarantine, or discovery by the humans.
Holly looked around her. Nobody was drowning; nobody was sick. So the Mud People were coming. Finally, every fairy’s worst nightmare was coming true.
Emergency lights flickered on overhead, the sun strips’ soft white glow replaced by an eerie orange. Official vehicles would receive a burst of power from the magnastrip, enough to get them to the nearest depot.
Ordinary citizens were not so lucky; they would have to walk. Hundreds stumbled from their automobiles, too scared to protest. That would come later.
‘Captain Short! Holly!’
It was Grub. No doubt he would be lodging a complaint with someone.
‘Corporal,’ she said, turning back to the vehicle. ‘This is no time for panic. We need to set an example…’
The lecture petered out in her throat when she saw what was happening to the wagon. All LEP vehicles would have by now received the regulation ten-minute burst of power from the magnastrip to get them and their cargo to safety. This power would also keep the perspex cuffs vacuumed. Of course, as they weren’t using an official LEP vehicle they hadn’t been cleared for emergency power – something the goblins obviously realized, because they were trying to burn their way out of the wagon.
Grub stumbled from the cab, his helmet blackened by soot.
‘The cuffs have popped open, so now they’ve started blasting the doors,’ he panted, retreating to a safe distance.
Goblins. Evolution’s little joke. Pick the dumbest creatures on the planet and give them the ability to conjure fire. If the goblins didn’t stop blasting the wagon’s reinforced interior they would soon be encased in molten metal. Not a nice way to go, even if you were fireproof.
Holly activated the amplifier in her LEP helmet.
‘You there, in the wagon. Cease fire. The vehicle will collapse and you will be trapped.’
For several moments, smoke billowed from the vents. Then the vehicle settled on its axles. A face appeared at the grille, forked tongue slithering through the mesh.
‘You think we’re stupid, elf? We’re gonna burn clean through this pile of junk.’
Holly stepped closer, turning up the speakers.
‘Listen to me, goblin. You are stupid, let’s just accept that and move on. If you continue to fireball that vehicle, the roof will melt and fall on you like shells from a human gun. You may be fireproof, but are you bulletproof?’
The goblin licked his lidless eyes, thinking it over.
‘You lie, elf! We will blow a hole right through this prison. You will be next.’
The wagon’s panels began to lurch and buckle as the goblins renewed their attack.
‘Not to worry,’ said Grub, from a safe distance. ‘The fire extinguishers will get them.’
‘They would,’ corrected Holly, ‘if the fire extinguishers weren’t connected to the main power grid, which is shut down.’
A mobile food-preparation wagon such as this one would have to adhere to the strictest fire regulations before setting one magna wheel on the strip. In this case, several foam-packed extinguishers, which could submerge the entire interior in flame-retardant foam in a matter of seconds. The nice thing about the flame foam was that it hardened on contact with air, but the not-so-nice thing about flame foam was that the trip switch was connected to the magna strip. No power. No foam.