Spiro clipped the Cube onto his belt. “You know something? I’m starting to like this guy.”
Artemis made one last sincere-sounding attempt to contain the situation. “Mr. Spiro, I really don’t think that this is a good idea.”
“Of course you don’t,” laughed Jon Spiro, jangling toward the door. “That’s why I’m bringing you along.”
Phonetix research and development laboratories, Chicago’s industrial sector
Spiro selected a Lincoln Town Car from his extensive garage. It was a nineties model with fake registration. He often used it as a getaway vehicle. It was old enough to be unremarkable, and even if the police did get a shot of the plates, it wouldn’t lead them anywhere.
Blunt parked opposite the Phonetix R & D lab’s main entrance. A security guard was visible at his desk behind the glass revolving door. Arno pulled a pair of fold-up binoculars from the glove compartment. He focused on the guard.
“Sleeping like a baby,” he announced.
Spiro clapped him on the shoulder.
“Good. We have less than two hours. Can we do it?”
“If this Cube is as good as he says he is, then we can be in and out in fifteen minutes.”
“It’s a machine,” said Artemis coldly. “Not one of your steroid-munching associates.”
Blunt glanced over his shoulder. Artemis sat in the backseat, squashed between Pex and Chips.
“You’re very brave all of a sudden.”
Artemis shrugged. “What have I got to lose? After all, things can hardly get worse.”
There was a regular door beside the revolving one. The Cube remote activated the buzzer, admitting the band of intruders to the lobby. No alarms sounded, and no platoon of security guards came rushing to detain them.
Spiro strode down the corridor, emboldened by his newfound technological friend and the thought of finally putting Phonetix out of business. The security elevator put up no more resistance to the Cube than a picket fence would to a tank, and soon Spiro and Co. were riding the eight floors down to the sunken laboratory.
“We’re going underground,” chortled Pex. “Down where the dinosaur bones are. Did you know that after a million billion years, dinosaur dung turns into diamonds?”
Usually a comment like that would have been a shooting offense, but Spiro was in a good mood.
“No, I didn’t know that, Pex. Maybe I should pay your wages in dung.”
Pex decided that it would be better for his finances if he just kept his mouth shut from then on.
The lab itself was protected by a thumbprint scanner. Not even gel. It was a simple matter for the Cube to scan the fingerprint on the plate, then project it back onto the sensor. There wasn’t even a key-code backup.
“Easy,” crowed Spiro. “I should have done this years ago.”
“A little credit would be nice,” said Foaly, unable to hide his pique. “After all, I did get us in here and disable the guards.”
Spiro held the box before him. “Not crushing you into scrap metal, Cube, is my way of saying thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” grumbled Foaly.
Arno Blunt checked the security-monitor bank. Throughout the facility, guards lay unconscious, one with half a ham sandwich stuffed in his mouth.
“I gotta admit it, Mr. Spiro. This is beautiful. Phonetix is even gonna have to foot the bill for the sleeping gas.”
Spiro glanced toward the ceiling. Several camera lights winked red in the shadows.
“Cube. Are we gonna have to raid the video room on our way out?”
“It ain’t gonna happen,” said Foaly, the method actor. “I wiped your patterns from the video.”
Artemis was suspended by the armpits between Pex and Chips.
“Traitor,” he muttered. “I gave you life, Cube. I am your creator.”
“Yeah, well maybe you made me too much like you, Fowl. Aurum Est Potestas. Gold Is Power. I’m just doing what you taught me.”
Spiro patted the cube fondly. “I love this guy. He’s like the brother I never had.”
“I thought you had a brother,” said Chips, puzzled, which was not unusual for him.
“Okay,” said Spiro. “He’s like a brother I actually like.”
The Phonetix server was located in the center of the lab, a monolithic hard drive with pythonlike cables rippling out to various workstations.
Spiro unclipped his new best friend from his belt. “Where do you need to be, Cube?” “Just pop me down on the lid of the server, and my mni-sensor will do the rest.” Spiro complied, and in seconds schematics were flickering across the C Cube’s tiny screen.
“I have them,” crowed Spiro, his hands two fists of triumph. “That’s the last snide e-mail with stock prices I get from these guys.”