The Last Guardian

In the moonlight he saw a cricket clamped to his nose, and he reached up to crush it with his fingers. The body crunched in his fist, and for the first time Artemis felt the adrenaline rush of combat. He felt like squashing all of these crickets.

 

Of course it was Butler who had rescued him, and as he dangled from the bodyguard’s grip, he saw Holly hanging from Butler’s other hand.

 

“Deep breath,” said Butler, and he tossed them both into the lake.

 

Five minutes later, Artemis arrived gasping at the other side minus one flak jacket, about which he felt sure Butler would have something to say—but it had been either ditch the jacket or drown, and there wasn’t much point in being bulletproof at the bottom of a lake.

 

He was relieved to find that he was flanked by Holly and Butler, who seemed considerably less out of breath than he himself was.

 

“We lost the crickets,” said Butler, causing Holly to break down in a splutter of hysterical giggles, which she stifled in her sopping sleeve.

 

“We lost the crickets,” she said. “Even you can’t make that sound tough.”

 

Butler rubbed water from his close-cropped hair. “I am Butler,” he said, straight-faced. “Everything I say sounds tough. Now, get out of the lake, fairy.”

 

It seemed to Artemis that his clothes and boots must have absorbed half the lake, judging by their weight as he dragged himself painfully from the water. He often noticed actors on TV ads exiting pools gracefully, surging from the water to land poolside, but Artemis himself had always been forced to climb out at the shallow end or to execute a sort of double flop that left him on his belly beside the pool. His exit from the lake was even less graceful, a combined shimmy-wiggle that would remind onlookers of the movements of a clumsy seal. Eventually Butler put him out of his misery with a helping hand beneath one elbow.

 

“Up we come, Artemis. Time is wasting.”

 

Artemis rose gratefully, sheets of night-cold water sliding from his combat pants.

 

“Nearly there,” said Butler. “Three hundred yards.”

 

Artemis had long since given up being amazed at his bodyguard’s ability to compartmentalize his emotions. By rights the three of them should have been in shock after what they’d been through, but Butler had always been able to fold all that trauma into a drawer to be dealt with later, when the world was not in imminent danger of ending. Just standing at his shoulder gave Artemis strength.

 

“What are we waiting for?” Artemis asked, and he set off up the hill.

 

The chitter of the crickets receded behind them until it merged with the wind in the tall pines, and no other animal adversaries were encountered on the brief hunched jog up the runway. They crested the hill to find the barn unguarded. And why wouldn’t it be? After all, what kind of strategist deserts a stronghold to hide out in a highly combustible barn?

 

Finally a touch of luck, Artemis thought. Sometimes being devious pays off.

 

They got lucky again inside the barn, where Butler recovered a Sig Sauer handgun from a coded lockbox bolted to the blind side of a rafter.

 

“You’re not the only one with barn secrets,” he said to Artemis, smiling as he checked the weapon’s load and action.

 

“That’s great,” said Holly dryly. “Now we can shoot a dozen grasshoppers.”

 

“Crickets,” corrected Artemis. “But let’s get this plane in the sky and shoot a big hole in Opal’s plans instead.”

 

The light aircraft’s body and wings were coated with solar foil that powered the engine for liftoff. Once airborne, the plane switched between powered flight and gliding, depending on the directions from the computer. If a pilot were content to take the long way around and ride the thermals, then it was possible to engage the engine for takeoff only, and some trips could actually create a zero carbon footprint.

 

“That plane over there,” said Butler. “Beyond the unused punch bag and the gleaming weights with their unworn handles.”

 

Artemis groaned. “Yes, that plane. Now, can you forget about the weights and pull out the wheel blocks while I get her started?” he said, giving Butler something to do. “Let’s leave the door closed until we are ready for takeoff.”

 

“Good plan,” said Holly. “Let me check inside.”

 

She jogged across the barn, leaving muddy footprints in her wake, and pulled open the plane’s rear door.

 

The plane, which Artemis had named the Khufu after the pharaoh for whom a solar barge was built by the ancient Egyptians, was a light sports aircraft that had been radically modified by Artemis in his quest to design a practical green passenger vehicle. The wings were fifty percent longer than they had been, with micro-fine struts webbed above and below. Every surface, including the hubcaps, was coated in solar foil, which would recharge the battery in the air. A power cable ran from the Khufu’s tail socket to the south-facing slope of the barn roof, so that the craft would have enough charge to take off whenever Artemis needed to make a test flight.

 

Holly’s head emerged from the darkness of the interior.