“I sent myself an e-mail. But I expect Foaly to find that. It’s to throw him off guard.”
“Very clever. Is there anything you don’t expect him to find?”
Artemis smiled craftily. “Butler buried a capsule in the grounds, and I hid a file on an Internet storage site. Foaly’s data charge won’t affect it. The provider will mail me a reminder in six months. When I retrieve the data, it should trigger residual memories and possibly total recall.”
“Anything else?”
“No. The storage site is our last hope. If the centaur finds that, then the fairy world is lost to me forever.”
Root’s image crackled on the screen. “Okay. The uplink is breaking up. Knock them out and wipe them. Tape the whole process. I won’t believe Artemis is out of the game until I see the footage.”
“Commander. Maybe I should ask the others a few questions.”
“Negative, Captain. Fowl said it himself. The storage site was their last hope. Hook them up and run the program.”
The Commander’s image disappeared in waves of static.
“Yes, sir.” Holly turned to the technical crew. “You heard the fairy. Let’s go. Sunup is in a couple of hours. I want us belowground before that.”
The tecchies checked that the electrodes had strong contacts, then unwrapped three sets of sleep goggles.
“I’ll do that,” said Holly, taking the masks.
She hooked the elastic over Juliet’s ponytail. “You know something?” she said. “Personal protection is a cold business. You have too much heart for it.”
Juliet nodded slowly. “I’ll try to hold on to that thought.”
Holly settled the eyepieces gently.
“I’ll keep an eye on you.”
Juliet smiled. “See you in my dreams.”
Holly pressed a small button on the sleep mask, and a combination of hypno-lights in the eyepieces and a sedative administered through the seals knocked Juliet out in less than five seconds.
Butler was next. The technical crew had added a length of elastic to the mask’s strap, so that it could encircle his shaven crown.
“Make sure Foaly doesn’t go crazy with that mind wiper,” said the bodyguard. “I don’t want to wake up with four decades of nothing in my head.”
“Don’t worry,” said Holly reassuringly. “Foaly generally knows what he’s doing.”
“Good. Remember, if the People ever do need help. I’m available.”
Holly pressed the button.
“I’ll remember that,” she whispered.
Artemis was last in the line. In his mesmerized state, he seemed almost peaceful. For once there were no thought lines wrinkling his brow, and if Holly hadn’t known him, he could almost seem like a normal thirteen-year-old human.
Holly turned to Foaly. “Are you sure about this?”
The centaur shrugged. “What choice do we have? Orders are orders.”
Holly placed the mask over Artemis’s eyes and pushed the button. Seconds later the teenager slumped in his chair. Immediately, lines of Gnommish text began to flash across the screen behind him. In the days of Frond, Gnommish had been written in spirals. But reading in spirals gave most fairies migraine.
“Commence deleting,” ordered Foaly. “But keep a copy. Sometime when I have a few weeks off I’m going to find out what makes this guy tick.”
Holly watched Artemis’s life being written in green symbols on the screen.
“This doesn’t feel right,” she commented. “If he found us once, he could find us again. Especially if he goes back to being the monster he was.”
Foaly tapped commands into an ergodynamic keyboard. “Maybe. But next time we’ll be ready.”
Holly sighed. “It’s a pity, because we were almost friends.”
The centaur snorted. “Sure. Like you can be friends with a viper.”
Holly suddenly shut her helmet visor, hiding her eyes.
“You’re right, of course. We could never have been friends. It was circumstance that pushed us together, nothing more.”
Foaly patted her shoulder. “That’s the girl. Keep your ears up. Where are you going?”
“Tara,” replied Holly. “I’m going to fly. I need the fresh air.”
“You don’t have clearance for a flight,” objected Foaly. “Root will have your badge.”
“For what?” said Holly, firing up her wings. “I’m not supposed to be here, remember?”
And she was gone, flying in a lazy loop through the entrance hall. She cleared the main door with inches to spare, climbing quickly into the night sky. For a second her slim frame was backlit by the full moon, and then she disappeared, vibrating out of the visible spectrum.
Foaly watched her go. Emotional creatures, elves. In some respects they made the worst Recon operatives. All decisions were made from the heart. But Root would never fire Holly, because policing was what she was born to do. And anyway, who else would save the People if Artemis Fowl ever found them again?