FOWL MANOR

 

THE return trip from Heathrow took over an hour, thanks to some particularly strong turbulence and an easterly wind over the Welsh hills. When Holly and Butler finally touched down in the grounds of Fowl Manor the LEP was busy humping their mind-wiping gear up the avenue, under cover of night.

Butler undipped himself from the Moonbelt, leaning against the trunk of a silver birch.

‘You OK?’ asked Holly.

‘Fine,’ replied the bodyguard, massaging his chest. ‘It’s this Kevlar tissue. Handy if you get shot with a small calibre, but it’s playing havoc with my breathing.’

Holly sheathed her mechanical wings. ‘It’s the quiet life for you from now on.’

Butler noticed an LEP pilot attempting to park his shuttle in the double garage, nudging the Bentley’s bumper.

‘Quiet life?’ he muttered, heading for the garage. ‘I wish.’

 

Once Butler had finished terrorizing the pixie pilot he made for the study. Artemis and Juliet were waiting for him. Juliet hugged her brother so tightly that the air was squeezed from his lungs.

‘I’m OK, little sister. The fairies have fixed it so that I will live to well over a hundred. I’ll still be around to keep an eye on you.’

Artemis was all business. ‘How did you fare, Butler?’

Butler opened a wall safe behind an air-conditioning vent.

‘Pretty well. I got everything on the list.’

‘What about the custom job?’

Butler laid out six small vials on the baize-covered desk.

‘My man in Limerick followed your instructions to the letter. In all his years in the trade, he’s never done anything like this. They’re in a special solution to stop corrosion. The layers are so fine that once they come into contact with the air they begin to oxidize right away, so I suggest we don’t insert them until the last possible moment.’

‘Excellent. In all probability, I am the only one who will need these, but, just in case, we should all put them in.’

Butler held the gold coin up by its leather thong. ‘I copied your diary and fairy files on to a laser minidisc, then brushed on a layer of gold leaf. It won’t stand up to close examination, I’m afraid, but molten gold would have destroyed the information on the disc.’

Artemis tied the thong round his neck. ‘It will have to do. Did you plant the false trails?’

‘Yes. I sent an e-mail that has yet to be picked up, and I hired a few megabytes on an Internet storage site. I also took the liberty of burying a time capsule in the maze.’

Artemis nodded. ‘Good. I hadn’t thought of that.’

Butler accepted the compliment, but he didn’t believe it. Artemis thought of everything.

Juliet spoke for the first time. ‘You know, Artemis. Maybe it would be better to let these memories go. Give the fairies some peace of mind.’

‘These memories are part of who I am,’ responded Artemis.

He examined the vials on the table, selecting two.

‘Now, everybody, it’s time to put these in. I’m sure the People are eager to wipe our minds.’

 

Foaly’s technical crew set up shop in the conference room, laying out a complex assembly of electrodes and fibre-optic cable. Each cable was connected to a plasma screen that converted brainwaves to actual binary information. In layman’s terms, Foaly would be able to read the humans’ memories like a book and edit out what shouldn’t be there. Possibly the most incredible part of the entire procedure was that the human brain itself would supply alternative memories to fill the blank spots.

‘We could do the mind wipes with a field kit,’ explained Foaly, once the patients were assembled. ‘But field kits are just for blanket wipes. It would erase everything that’s happened over the past sixteen months. That could have serious implications for your emotional development, not to mention your IQ. So, better we use the lab kit and simply erase the memories that pertain to the People. Obviously, we will have to erase the days you spent in fairy company completely. We can’t take any chances there.’

Artemis, Butler and Juliet were seated round the table. Technical gnomes swabbed their temples with disinfectant.

‘I’ve thought of something,’ said Butler.

‘Don’t tell me,’ interrupted the centaur. ‘The age thing, right?’

Butler nodded. ‘A lot of people know me as a forty-year-old man. You can’t wipe them all.’

‘Way ahead of you, Butler. We’re going to give your face a laser peel while you’re unconscious. Get rid of some of that dead skin. We even brought a cosmetic surgeon  to  give  your  forehead  a  Dewer injection to smooth out the wrinkles.’

‘Dewer?’

‘Fat,’ explained the centaur. ‘We take it from one area, and inject it into another.’

Butler was not enthused by the idea. ‘This fat. It doesn’t come from my behind, does it?’

Foaly shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Well, it doesn’t come from your behind.’

‘Explain.’

‘Research has shown that of all the fairy races, dwarfs have the greatest longevity. There’s a miner in Poll Dyne who is allegedly over two thousand years old. Haven’t you ever heard the expression “smooth as a dwarf’s bottom”?’

Butler slapped away a technician who was attempting to attach an electrode patch to his head.

‘Are you telling me that fat from a dwarf’s backside is going to be injected into my head?’

Foaly shrugged. ‘The price of youth. There are pixies on the west bank paying a fortune for Dewer treatments.’

Butler spoke through gritted teeth. ‘I am not a pixie.’

‘We’ve also brought some gel to colour any hair you may decide to grow in the future, and some pigment dye to cover the cell corruption on your chest,’ continued the centaur hurriedly. ‘By the time you wake up, your exterior will look young again, even if your interior is old.’

‘Clever,’ said Artemis. ‘I expected as much.’

Holly entered with Mulch in tow. The dwarf was wearing cuffs and looking extremely sorry for himself.

‘Is this really necessary,’ he whined, ‘after all we’ve been through?’

‘My badge is on the line,’ retorted Holly. ‘The commander said to come back with you, or not at all.’

‘What do I have to do? I donated the fat, didn’t I?’

Butler rolled his eyes. ‘Please, no.’

Juliet giggled. ‘Don’t worry, Dom. You won’t remember a thing about it.’

‘Knock me out,’ said Butler. ‘Quickly.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ grumbled Mulch, attempting to rub his behind.

Holly uncuffed the dwarf, but stayed within grabbing distance.

‘He wanted to say goodbye, so here we are.’ She nudged Mulch with her shoulder. ‘So, say goodbye.’

Juliet winked. ‘Bye, Smelly.’

‘So long, Stinker.’

‘Don’t go chewing through any concrete walls.’

‘I don’t find that kind of thing funny,’ said Mulch, with a pained expression.

‘Who knows. Maybe we’ll see each other again.’

Mulch nodded at the technicians, busy firing up their hard drives.

‘If we do, thanks to these people, it’ll be the first time.’

Butler knelt to the dwarf’s level.

‘You look after yourself, little friend. Stay clear of goblins.’

Mulch shuddered. ‘You don’t have to tell me that.’

Commander Root’s face appeared on a roll-down screen erected by an LEP officer.

‘Maybe you two would like to get married?’ he barked. ‘I don’t know what all the emotion is about. In ten minutes you people won’t even remember this convict’s name!’

‘We have the commander online,’ said a technician, a tad unnecessarily.

Mulch stared at the button camera mounted on the screen. ‘Julius, please. Do you realize that all of these humans owe me their lives? This is an emotional moment for them.’

Root’s rosy complexion was exaggerated by poor reception.

‘I couldn’t care less about your touchy feely moment. I’m here to make sure this wipe goes smoothly. If I know our friend Fowl, he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve.’

‘Really, Commander,’ said Artemis. ‘Such suspicion is wounding.’

But the Irish teenager couldn’t suppress a grin. Everybody knew that he would have hidden items to spark residual memories; it was up to the LEP to find them. Their final contest.

Artemis stood and approached Mulch Diggums.

‘Mulch. Of all the fairy People, I will miss your services the most. We could have had such a future together.’

Mulch looked a touch teary. ‘True. With your brains and my special talents.’

‘Not to mention your mutual lack of morals,’ interjected Holly.

‘No bank on the planet would have been safe,’ completed the dwarf. ‘A missed opportunity.’

Artemis tried his best to look sincere. It was vital for the next step in the plan.

‘Mulch, I know you risked your life betraying the Antonelli family, so I’d like to give you something.’

Mulch’s imagination churned with visions of trust funds and offshore accounts.

‘There’s no need. Really. Although it was incredibly brave, and I was in mortal danger.’

‘Exactly,’ said Artemis, untying the gold medallion from round his neck. ‘I know this isn’t much, but it means a lot to me. I was going to keep it, but I realized that in a few minutes it will mean absolutely nothing. I would like you to have it; I think Holly would too. A little memento of our adventures.’

‘Gee,’ said Mulch, hefting the medallion. ‘Half an ounce of gold. Great. You really broke the bank there, Artemis.’

Artemis gripped the dwarf’s hand. ‘It’s not always about money, Mulch.’

Root was craning his neck, trying to see more. ‘What’s that? What has he given to die convict?’

Holly snatched the medallion, holding it up for the camera.

‘Just a gold coin, Commander. I gave it to Artemis myself.’

Foaly glanced at the small medal. ‘Actually this kills two stink worms with one skewer. The medallion could have triggered some residual memories. Highly unlikely, but possible.’

‘And the other stink worm?’

‘Mulch gets something to look at in prison.’

Root mulled it over for several moments.

‘OK. He can keep it. Now get that convict into the shuttle and let’s get on with this. I’ve got a Council meeting in ten minutes.’

Holly led Mulch out, and Artemis realized that he really was sorry to see the dwarf go. But more than that, he was sorry that the memory of their friendship could be gone forever.

The technicians descended like flies on a carcass. In seconds every human in the room had electrodes attached to temples and wrists. Each set of electrodes ran through a neural transformer and on to a plasma screen. Memories flickered on the screens.

Foaly studied the images. ‘Way too early,’ he announced. ‘Calibrate them to sixteen months ago. Actually, make that about three years. I don’t want Artemis planning his initial kidnap all over again.’

‘Bravo, Foaly,’ said Artemis bitterly. ‘I was hoping you might miss that.’

The centaur winked. ‘That’s not all I didn’t miss.’

On the pull-down screen, Root’s pixelated mouth stretched into a smile.

‘Tell him, Foaly. I can’t wait to see the human’s face.’

Foaly consulted a file on his hand-held computer.

‘We checked your e-mail and guess what?’

‘Do tell.’

‘We found a fairy file, just waiting to be delivered. We also ran a search on the Internet in general. And lo and behold, someone with your e-mail address had rented some storage megabytes. More fairy files.’

Artemis was unrepentant. ‘I had to try. I’m sure you understand.’

‘Nothing else you want to tell us about?’

Artemis opened his eyes wide, the epitome of innocence. ‘Nothing. You’re too clever for me.’

Foaly took a laserdisc from a toolbox, sliding it into the drive of a networked computer on the table. ‘Well, just in case, I’m going to detonate a data charge in your computer system. The virus will leave your files unharmed, unless they pertain to the People. Not only that but the virus will monitor your system for a further six months, just in case you have outwitted us somehow.’

‘And you’re telling me all this because I won’t remember it anyway.’

Foaly did a ............