Artemis shook his head. “No. That would deliver no payoff other than momentary horror on our part. Opal has planned this so that she wins whatever the eventuality. If you free her, then she’s free. If the younger Opal dies, then…Then what?”
Butler weighed in. “You can do all sorts of things with special effects these days. What if they computer-graphic her head to explode?”
Artemis was disappointed in this theory, which he felt he had already discounted. “No, Butler. Think. Again, there’s nothing to gain.”
Foaly snorted. “At any rate, if they do kill her, we will know very soon whether this whole thing is real or not.”
Artemis half laughed. “True. We will certainly know.”
Butler groaned. This was one of those times when Artemis and Foaly were aware of something sciencey and assumed that everyone else in the room also had all the facts. Moments like this were guaranteed to drive Holly crazy.
“What are you talking about?” shouted Holly. “What will we know? How will we know whatever it is?”
Artemis stared down at her as though waking from a dream. “Really, Holly? You have two versions of the same individual occupying a time stream, and you are unaware of the ramifications?”
Onscreen, the gnomes stood like statues behind the shivering pixie. The armed one, Pip, occasionally checked a wristwatch by tugging his sleeve with his gun barrel, but otherwise they waited patiently. Opal pleaded with her eyes, staring at the camera lens, fat tears streaming down her cheeks, sparkling in the sunlight. Her hair seemed thinner than usual and unwashed. Her Juicy Couture tracksuit, purchased no doubt from the children’s section of some exclusive store, was torn in several places, the rips caked in blood. The picture was super-high-def and so clear that it was like looking through a window. If this was a spurious threat, then young Opal did not know it.
Trouble pounded the desk, an affectation of Julius Root’s that he had adopted.
“What are the ramifications? Tell me?”
“Just to be clear,” said Artemis, “do you wish to be told what the word ramifications means? Or to know what the ramifications are?”
Holly elbowed Artemis in the hip, speeding him along. “Artemis, we’re on a clock here.”
“Very well, Holly. Here is the problem …”
“Come on,” pleaded Foaly. “Let me explain. This is my kingdom, and I will be simple and to the point, I promise.”
“Go on, then,” said Trouble, who was known for his love of simple and to the point.
Holly laughed, a single harsh bark. She could not believe everyone continued to act like their everyday selves even though a life was at stake.
We have become desensitized, like the humans.
Whatever Opal had done, she was still a person. There had been dark days when Holly had dreamed of hunting the pixie down and issuing a little Mud Man justice, but those days were gone.
Foaly tugged at his outrageously coiffed forelock.
“All beings are made of energy,” he began in the typical pompous imparting important info voice that he used at times like this. “When these beings die, their energy slowly dissipates and returns to the earth.” He paused dramatically. “But what if a being’s entire existence is suddenly negated by a quantum anomaly?”
Trouble raised his arms. “Whoa! Simple and to the point, remember?”
Foaly rephrased. “Okay. If young Opal dies, then old Opal cannot continue to exist.”
It took Trouble a second, but he got it. “So, will it be like the movies? She will fizzle out of existence, and we will all look a bit puzzled for a moment, then forget about her?”
Foaly snickered. “That’s one theory.”
“What’s the other theory?”
The centaur paled suddenly, and uncharacteristically yielded the floor to Artemis.
“Why don’t you explain this bit?” Foaly said. “I just flashed on what could actually happen, and I need to start making calls.”
Artemis nodded curtly. “The other theory was first postulated by your own Professor Bahjee over five centuries ago. Bahjee believes that if the time stream is polluted by the arrival of the younger version of a being and that younger version subsequently dies, then the present-tense version of the being will release all its energy spontaneously and violently. Not only that, but anything that exists because of the younger Opal will also combust.”
Violently and combust were words that Commander Kelp understood well.
“Release its energy? How violently?”
Artemis shrugged. “That depends on the object or being. Matter is changed instantaneously into energy. A huge explosive force will be released. We could even be talking about nuclear fission.”
Holly felt her heart speed up. “Fission? Nuclear fission?”
“Basically,” said Artemis. “For living beings. The objects should cause less damage.”
“Anything Opal made or contributed to will explode?”
“No. Just the things she influenced in the past five years of our time line, between her two ages, though there will probably be some temporal ripples on either side.”