The centaur placed his fingertips on the glass. No. We are not destroyed. We will rebuild.
Any new tech had exploded, but there was plenty of outdated stuff that had not been recycled due to budget cuts. Most of the fire department vehicles were operational, and none of the backup generators had been refitted in the past five years. Commander Kelp was overseeing a clean-up operation on a scale never before seen in Haven. Atlantis had been hit just as badly, if not worse.
At least the dome was shored up. If that had imploded, the death count would have been huge. Not human huge, but pretty big all the same.
All because one psychotic pixie wanted to rule the world.
A lot of families lost someone today. How many fairies are sick with worry right now?
Foaly’s thoughts turned to Holly, stranded on the surface, trying to deal with this situation without LEP support.
If she’s even alive. If any of them are alive.
Foaly had no way of knowing. All of their long-range communication was out, as most of it was piggybacked on human satellites that had by now been reduced to space garbage.
Foaly tried to comfort himself with the thought that Artemis and Butler were with his friends.
If anyone can thwart Opal, it’s Artemis.
And then he thought, Thwart? I’m using words like thwart now. Opal would love that. It makes her sound like a supervillain.
Mayne clopped up beside him.
“Mak dak jiball, Oncle. We’ve got something on your lab screens.”
Foaly’s nephew had no difficulty speaking Unicorn, but the boy had some difficulty getting to the point.
“They’re big screens, Mayne. Usually, there’s something on them.”
Mayne scraped his forehoof. “I know that, but this is something interesting.”
“Really. Lots of interesting stuff going on today, Mayne. Can you specificate?”
Mayne frowned. “Specificate means to identify the species of a creature. Is that what you mean?”
“No. I meant can you be more specific?”
“About what species?”
Foaly scraped a hoof, scoring the tiling. “Just tell me what’s so interesting on the screen. We’re all busy here today, Mayne.”
“Have you been drinking sim-coffee?” his nephew wondered. “Because Aunty Caballine said you get a little jittery after two cups.”
“What’s on the screen?” thundered Foaly, in what he thought of as his majestic tone, but which was actually a little shrill.
Mayne reared back a few paces, then gathered himself, wondering why people always reacted to him in this way.
“You remember those ARClights you sent to Fowl Manor?”
“Of course I remember. They’re all dead. I send them, Artemis finds them. It’s a little game we play.”
Mayne jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the screen, where the blank square used to be.
“Well, one of those suckers just came back to life. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Foaly aimed a kick at Mayne, but the youngster had already trotted out of range.
Fowl Manor
Artemis locked his office door behind him and gave the perimeter cams and sensors a cursory glance to make sure they were safe for the moment. It was as he expected. The only activity on the estate was over a mile away, where the Martello tower used to be and where the Berserker Gate now poked from Opal’s impact crater. As a precaution he set the alarm to the SIEGE setting, which featured deterrents not available on standard house systems, such as electrified windowpanes and flash bombs in the locks. Then again, Fowl Manor hadn’t been a standard house since Artemis had decided to keep his kidnapped fairy in the basement.
Once he was satisfied they were locked down, Artemis opened a coded drawer in his desk and pulled out a small lead box. He tapped the lid with a nail and was satisfied to hear a skittering inside.
Still alive, then.
Artemis slid the box open and inside, latched on to a three-volt battery, was a tiny bio-cam dragonfly. One of Foaly’s little toys, which were usually shorted out in Artemis’s regular bug sweeps; but he had decided to keep this one and feed it, in case he ever needed a private line through to Foaly. He had hoped to use this camera to announce the success of their assault on the Berserker Gate, but now the little bug would convey a more somber message.
Artemis shook the bug onto his desk, where it skittered around for a while before its face recognition software identified Artemis as the prime target and decided to focus in on him. The tiny lenses in its eyes buzzed almost inaudibly, and a couple of stemmed microphones extended like an ant’s antennae.