Foaly did not have much of a plan in his mind as he ran. All he knew was that he had to get to Caballine’s side no matter how he achieved it. No matter what the cost.
This is what love does, he realized, and in that moment he understood why Artemis had kidnapped a fairy to get the money to find his father.
Love makes everything else seem inconsequential.
Even with the world crumbling around his ears, all Foaly could think about was Caballine’s plight.
There are goblin criminals converging on our house.
Opal had known that, as an LEP consultant, Foaly would require that all deliveries to his house be scanned as a matter of routine. So she had sent an ornate gift box that would appear empty to the scanners. In actuality, though, no box is ever truly empty. This one would be packed with microorganisms that vibrated at a high frequency, producing an ultrasonic whine that would knock out surveillance and drive goblins absolutely crazy—so much so that they would do anything to stop it.
Goblins were not bright creatures at the best of times. There was only one example of a goblin ever winning a science prize, and he turned out to be a genetic experiment who had entered himself into the competition.
This sonix bomb would strip away any higher brain functions and turn the goblins into marauding fire-breathing lizards. Foaly knew all of this because he had pitched a mini-version of the sonix bomb to the LEP as a crime deterrent, but the Council had refused grant aid because his device gave the wearer nosebleeds.
Police Plaza was eighty percent rubble now, with only the top story left clinging to the rock ceiling like a flat barnacle. The lower floors had collapsed onto the reserved parking spaces below, forming a rough rubble pyramid that steamed and sparked. Luckily, the covered bridge that led to the adjoining parking structure was still relatively intact. Foaly hurried across the bridge, trying not to see the gaps in the floor where a hoof could slip through, trying not to hear the tortured screech of metal struts as they twisted under the weight of their overload.
Don’t look down. Visualize reaching the other side.
As Foaly ran, the bridge collapsed in sections behind him, until it felt like the plinking keys of a piano falling into the abyss. The automatic door on the other side was stuck on a kink in the rail, and it juddered back and forth, leaving barely enough room for Foaly to squeeze through and collapse, panting, on the fourth-story floor.
This is so melodramatic, he thought. Is this how things are for Holly every day?
Encouraged by the crash of masonry and the stink of burning cars, Foaly hurried across the lot to his van, which was parked in a prime spot near the walkway. The van was an ancient crock that could easily have been mistaken for a derelict vehicle instead of the chosen conveyance of the fairy responsible for most of the city’s technological advancements. If a person did happen to know who the van belonged to, then that person might suppose Foaly had disguised the exterior to discourage potential carjackers. But no, the van was simply a heap of rust mites and should have been replaced decades ago. In the same way that many decorators never painted their own houses, Foaly, an expert in automobile advancements, did not care what he himself drove. This was a daily disadvantage, as the centaurmobile emitted noise output several decibels above regulation and regularly set off sonic alarms all over the city. Today, though, the van’s antiquity was a definite advantage, as it was one of the few vehicles that could run independently of Haven’s automated magnetic rail system and was actually fully functional.
Foaly beeped open the front loading doors and backed up to the cab, waiting for the extendable harness to buzz out and cradle his equine torso. The harness cinched around him, beeping all the while, then lifted the centaur backward into the cab. Once the beetle-wing doors had folded down, the van’s sensors detected Foaly’s proximity and started its own engines. It took a few seconds to mount up and get going in this vehicle, but it would take a lot longer to try and climb into the automobile with six limbs and a tail, which some equinologists considered a seventh limb, or at least an appendage.
Foaly pulled a steering wheel out of its slot on the dash and put his hoof to the metal, screaming out of his parking spot.
“Home!” Foaly shouted into the nav system bot suspended on a gel string before his face. He had, in a moment of vanity, shaped the bot’s face in his own image.
“The usual route, handsome?” said the system bot, winking fondly at Foaly.
“Negative,” replied Foaly. “Ignore usual speed and safety parameters. Just get us there as quickly as possible. All normal behavioral restraints are lifted on my authority.”