The new guy, Orion Fowl, was checking his hosiery. “No compression socks,” he declared. “I have been on several plane journeys over the past few weeks, yet Artemis never wears compression socks. And I know he is aware of deep-vein thrombosis; he simply chooses to ignore the risks.”
This was Orion's second rant in as many minutes, the last one detailing Artemis's use of nonhypoallergenic deodorant, and Holly was growing tired of listening. “I could sedate you,” she said brightly, as if this were the most reasonable course of action. “We slap a pad on your neck and leave you at the restaurant for the humans. End of hosiery discussion.”
Orion smiled kindly. “You wouldn't do that, Captain Short. I could freeze to death before help arrived. I am an innocent. Also, you have feelings for me.”
“An innocent!” spluttered Holly, and it took an especially outlandish statement to make her splutter. “You are Artemis Fowl! For years, you were public enemy number one.”
“I am not Artemis Fowl,” protested Orion. “I share his body and his knowledge of the Gnommish tongue, among other things, but I have a completely different personality. I am what is known as an alter ego.”
Holly snorted. “I don't think that defense will stand up in front of a tribunal.”
“Oh, it does,” said Orion happily. “All the time.”
Holly wormed up the slide of wafer slop to the lip of the crater in which the small band sheltered. “No signs of hostiles. They appear to have descended into the underground craters.”
“Appear?” said Foaly. “Can't you be a little more specific?”
Holly shook her head. “No. I'm on eyes only. All our instruments are out. We have no link outside our own local network. I would guess that the probe is blocking communications.”
Foaly was busy grooming himself, peeling long strings of gluey nano-wafers from his flank. “It's designed to emit a broad-spectrum jammer if it's under attack, knocking out communications and weapons. I'm surprised Artemis's cannon fired, and I would imagine your guns have been isolated by now, and shut down.”
Holly checked her Neutrino. Dead as a doornail. There was nothing on her helmet readout either except a slowly revolving red skull icon, which signaled catastrophic systems failure. “D'Arvit,” she hissed. “No weapons, no communications. How are we supposed to stop this thing?”
The centaur shrugged. “It's a probe, not a battleship. It should be easy enough to destroy once radar picks it up. If this is some mastermind's plot to destroy the fairy world, then he's not much of a mastermind.”
Orion raised a finger. “I feel I should point out, correct me if Artemis is misremembering, but didn't
your instruments dismally fail to pick up this probe in the first place?”
Foaly scowled. “I was just starting to like you a little better than the other one.”
Holly stood erect. “We need to follow the probe. Work out where it's going and somehow get word through to Haven.”
Orion smiled. “You know, Miss Holly, you look very dramatic like that, backlit by the fire. Very attractive, if I may say so. I know you shared a moment passionné with Artemis, which he subsequently fouled up with his
typical boorish behavior. Let me just throw something out there for you to consider while we're chasing the probe: I share Artemis's passion but not his boorishness. No pressure; just think about it.”
This was enough to elicit a deafening moment of silence even in the middle of a crisis, which Orion
seemed to be blissfully unaffected by.
Foaly was the first to speak. “What's that look you have on your face there, Commander Short? What's going through your head right now? Don't think about it, just tell me.” Holly ignored him, but that didn't stop the centaur talking. “You had a moment of passion with Artemis Fowl?” he said. “I don't remember reading that in your report.”
Holly may have been blushing, or it may have been the aforementioned dramatic backlighting. “It wasn't in my report, okay? Because there was no moment of passion.”
Foaly didn't give up so easily. “So nothing happened, Holly?”
“Nothing worth talking about. When we went back in time, my emotions got a little jumbled. It was temporary, okay? Can we please focus? We are supposed to be professionals.”
“Not me,” said Orion cheerily. “I'm just a teenager with hormones running wild. And may I say, young fairy lady, they're running wild in your direction.”
Holly lifted her visor and looked the hormonal teenager in the eye. “This had better not be a game, Artemis. If you do not have some serious psychosis, you will be sorry.”
“Oh, I'm crazy, all right. I do have plenty of psychoses,” said Orion cheerily. “Multiple personality, delusional dementia, OCD. I've got them all, but most of all, I'm crazy about you.”
“That's not a bad line,” muttered Foaly. “He is definitely not Artemis.”
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